Thiamine - vitamin B1 - can potentially cause a fatal brain disorder called Wernicke encephalopathy.

Wernicke encephalopathy typically occurs in people who have disorders such as alcoholism and anorexia that lead to malnourishment and is an example of the wide range of brain diseases called encephalopathies that are caused by metabolic disorders and toxic substances

Symptoms can include confusion, hallucinations, coma, loss of muscle coordination and vision problems such as double vision and involuntary eye movements. Untreated, the condition can lead to irreversible brain damage and death.

Acute encephalopathy has a rapid onset of between hours and days. It is commonly due to toxic and metabolic factors.

Though perception is that academia is harder on women when it comes to career and families, and they need to adopt a more corporate approach to penalize mothers less, it isn't just women; one third of men in academic science scale back their careers to focus on family life, according to surveys.

The genetic mutation BRAFV600E secretes a protein that promotes the growth of melanoma tumor cells and modify the network of normal cells around the tumor to support the disease's progression, according to a new paper.

Targeting this mutation with Vemurafenib reduces this interaction, and suggests possible new treatment options for melanoma therapy. BRAFV600E is common present in metastatic melanoma. 

Endometriosis often takes a long time to be diagnosed and affects all areas of a woman's life, from sex to emotional wellbeing, from personal relationships to work. 

Endometriosis is a chronic, recurring disease that is experienced by approximately 10 per cent of women worldwide. Common symptoms include painful menstruation, heavy menstrual bleeding, painful sex and infertility.

The first truly semi-aquatic dinosaur, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, has been announced.

New fossils of the massive Cretaceous-era predator reveal it adapted to life in the water some 95 million years ago, providing the most compelling evidence to date of a dinosaur able to live and hunt in an aquatic environment.

The fossils also indicate that Spinosaurus was the largest known predatory dinosaur to roam the Earth, measuring more than 9 feet longer than the world's largest Tyrannosaurus rex specimen. 

Modern genetic modification, where biologists cause a plant to express a natural protein taken from another plant that wards off pests, is protested by environmental groups and organic farmers. Organic farmers will spray Bt on their plants, while calling them organic food, yet the same food that expresses Bt naturally, like many plants do, is a Frankenfood.

It's the protein expression, they insist. There may be a compromise between the world of science - and not letting poor people die - and activism. If protein expression is the problem, don't code for proteins. Non-coding RNA (ncRNA) still sounds like scary science to environmentalists, but transcripts that do not code for proteins exclude the possibility of producing exogenous protein products.