While most farmers are actively trying to kill weeds, researchers in Ohio are trying to grow them - fast. Taraxacum kok-saghyz, a special variety of dandelion from Kazakhstan -- nicknamed "Buckeye Gold" by the researchers studying it -- may be the answer to sustainable and U.S.-based rubber-making. An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, examines the plants' potential for revolutionizing the rubber industry.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - You don't have to get married to settle down and leave behind your wild ways - you just have to expect to get married soon.

Researchers found that teenagers and young adults who expected to get married within the next five years reported committing fewer delinquent acts in the next year than those who weren't thinking about wedding bells.

While other studies have shown that people commit fewer crimes when they get married, this is the first to show that people straighten up their act even before they tie the knot.

"You may start to act married even before the wedding," said Rachel Arocho, lead author of the study and a research fellow in human development and family science at The Ohio State University.

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, along with other telescopes on the ground and in space, have discovered a new type of exotic binary star: in the system AR Scorpii a rapidly spinning white dwarf star is powering electrons up to almost the speed of light. These high energy particles release blasts of radiation that lash the companion red dwarf star, and cause the entire system to pulse dramatically every 1.97 minutes with radiation ranging from the ultraviolet to radio.

For more than a century, neuroscientists have known that nerve cells talk to one another across the small gaps between them, a process known as synaptic transmission (synapses are the connections between neurons). Information is carried from one cell to the other by neurotransmitters such as glutamate, dopamine, and serotonin, which activate receptors on the receiving neuron to convey excitatory or inhibitory messages.

But beyond this basic outline, the details of how this crucial aspect of brain function occurs have remained elusive. Now, new research by scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) has for the first time elucidated details about the architecture of this process. The paper was published today in the journal Nature.

Given the anticipated increase in cancer imaging over the next decade [1, 2], radiologists need to solidify their position as central members of the cancer team by identifying toxicity early and understanding the implications of their findings.

A team of radiologists and researchers led by Stephanie A. Holler Howard, of the Department of Radiology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, write in the American Journal of Roentgenology that they want to broaden the radiologist's understanding of imaging-evident toxicity. 

Cardiovascular disease affects around 46 percent of men and 48 percent of women but scholars in Florida are concerned that Apollo astronauts have died from related diseases 43 percent of the time. Why be worried, when it is lower? Because they have exceptional government health care, not the kind people under the Affordable Care Act get, and that means in a spacefaring environment, there could be unforeseen issues.

It is well-documented that age is the biggest risk factor for all diseases, and cardiovascular disease is the big killer of Americans. The Apollo program began 50 years ago so it is no surprise elderly astronauts have heart issues.