An analysis of e-cigarette uptake across 27 European countries published in Tobacco Control finds that they are mostly used by current smokers or would-be quitters - approximately 29 million people.

Some basic biology may need revising. It's broadly assumed that cells degrade and recycle their own old or damaged organelles, but researchers writing in PNAS say that some neurons transfer unwanted mitochondria, the tiny power plants inside cells, to supporting glial cells called astrocytes for disposal.  

The researchers looked specifically at the axons of retinal ganglion cells in mice, a type of neuron that transmits visual information from the eye to the brain. The investigation was prompted by observations while studying a mouse model of glaucoma that protein products from the retina were accumulating in the optic nerve head (ONH) just behind the eye. 

A new poll by The Boston Globe and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) finds, eight years into the state's universal health insurance legislation enacted in 2006, 63% of Massachusetts residents support the law and 18% oppose it, while 7% are not sure, and 12% have not heard or read about the law. The percentage of residents supporting the law remains unchanged since a 2011 Boston Globe/HSPH poll. Support for the law varies by party affiliation, with 77% of Democrats, 60% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans saying they support the legislation. The poll was conducted May 27-June 2, 2014.

Marketing academics, the group who brought us the notion that hurricanes with female names are more dangerous because the patriarchy just assumes the little ladies are being hysterical and won't knock down houses, are back with the conjecture that your gambling style is genetic.

It's not as crazy as the stuff years ago that claimed liberals and conservatives were born that way, or that your grandfather's diet changed your genes enough to make you fat, but it isn't good science either. Thus, look for it on the Dr. Oz show by next week.

Investors and gamblers take note: your betting decisions and strategy are determined, in part, by your genes.

The kidney, unlike its neighbor the liver, was once understood to be a static organ once it had fully developed, but doctors have observed patients with kidney disease experiencing renal regeneration.  

A new study conducted by researchers at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv University and Stanford University have pinpointed the precise cellular signaling responsible for renal regeneration and exposing the multi-layered nature of kidney growth. The research was conducted by principal investigators Dr. Benjamin Dekel of TAU's Sackler School of Medicine and Sheba Medical Center and Dr. Irving L. Weissman of Stanford University's School of Medicine, working with teams of researchers from both universities.

What do you get when you mix theorists in computer science with evolutionary biologists? You get an algorithm to explain sex.

A fascinating mystery of evolution is how sexual recombination and natural selection produced the teeming diversity of life that exists today. The answer could lie in the game that genes play during sexual recombination, so computer scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, created an algorithm to describe the strategy used by these genes in this game.