When a jogger sets out on his evening run, the active movements of his arms and legs are accompanied by involuntary changes in the position of the head relative to the rest of the body. Yet the jogger does not experience feelings of dizziness like those induced in the passive riders of a rollercoaster, who have no control over the abrupt dips and swoops to which they are exposed.

The reason for the difference lies in the vestibular organ (VO) located in the inner ear, which controls balance and posture. The VO senses ongoing self-motion and ensures that, while running, the jogger unconsciously compensates for the accompanying changes in the orientation of the head.

With all of the recent controversy about claims that Monsanto funding a plant biologist skewed discussion by scientists in their favor, and claims that organic PR companies strategically used anti-science activists at Mother Jones and the New York Times to keep those readers against GMOs, a public relations study couldn't be more timely.

Americans lead the world in adult science literacy, just like America leads the world in science output, but there are substantial differences among Americans when it comes to knowledge and understanding of science topics.

The details beyond the averages are important and while numerous pundits will lament that everyone does not know everything, that is not realistic. What is important is that as many people as possible have access to knowledge.

Patients with spinal stenosis (SS) experienced good short term benefit, lasting from weeks to months, after receiving epidural steroid injections (ESI).

These findings, which appear in a letter in the journal Pain Medicine, contradict a previously published New England Journal Medicine (NEJM) study that found epidural steroid injections were not helpful in spinal stenosis cases.

New research has uncovered why a particular strain of Staphylococcus aureus -- known as HA-MRSA -- becomes more deadly than other variations. These new findings open up possible new pathways to vaccine development against this bacterium, which the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions says accounts for over 10,000 deaths annually, mostly among hospital patients.

In a series of experiments in mice and in human immune cells in the lab, a team found that the presence or absence of dueling toxins, or bacterial poisons, appears to explain the major difference between HA-MRSA, and its less virulent and more common, community based-based cousin, CA-MRSA, the two main types of MRSA infection.

As you all know, the ecosystem is like a giant human anti-lung - it breathes in the CO2 we exhale and helps produce oxygen.

It turns out that the Southern Ocean seasonally absorbs significantly more CO2 than they release, higher than previous estimates. Most importantly, these seas remove a large part of the CO2 that human activities emit into the atmosphere, thereby slowing down the growth of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which has been lessening the rate of climate change.