Melanin — and specifically, the form called eumelanin — is the primary pigment that gives humans the coloring of their skin, hair, and eyes. It protects the body from the hazards of ultraviolet and other radiation that can damage cells and lead to skin cancer, but the exact reason why the compound is so effective at blocking such a broad spectrum of sunlight has remained something of a mystery.

A new review
in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians
summarizes what is known about economic factors tied to the obesity epidemic in the United States.

It includes what most people knew; despite claims of 40 years ago that a population bomb was going to cause mass starvation, agricultural science instead caused the food curve to rise sharply. For the first time in the history of the world, the poorest people can afford to be fat, a privilege only available to the wealthy in past years.

The therapeutic potential of marijuana and pure cannabidiol (CBD), an active substance in the cannabis plant, for neurologic conditions is debatable - though so far the debate has mostly been anecdotes against science.

A series of articles published in Epilepsia examine the potential use of medical marijuana and CBD in treating severe forms of epilepsy such as Dravet syndrome.

Most schools in the United States provide simple vision tests to their students; not to prescribe glasses, but to identify potential problems and recommend a trip to the optometrist.

Researchers
at Duke University
are now on the cusp of providing the same kind of service for autism. They have developed software that tracks and records infants' activity during videotaped autism screening tests. 

Their results show that the program is as good at spotting behavioral markers of autism as experts giving the test themselves, and better than non-expert medical clinicians and students in training.

People exercise quite a lot, society has access to diverse fresh fruits and vegetables and yet most economic, educational, and racial or ethnic groups have seen their obesity levels rise at similar rates since the mid-1980s, so there is no demographic correlation to obesity. Yet the social sciences draw maps to city parks and farmer's markets and claim more of those would keep people from getting fat, or tout that economic redistribution would lead to less fast food.

Cars, fast food, iPads, city living, even women in the work force - if it is something in culture, someone has implicated it. 

Mu Delta Kappa is a key
brain receptor targets for opiates
because the mu opioid receptor is the primary target for morphine and endogenous opioids like endorphin. The delta opioid receptor shows the highest affinity for endogenous enkephalins. The kappa opioid receptor (KOR) is very interesting, but the least understood of the opiate receptor family.