The 2015 growing season was tough on tomato plants at the Boyce Thompson Institute, as bacterial speck disease (Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato) descended on their field.

But it was all done on purpose. Don't go crazy and start calling up donors for more money, Natural Resources Defense Council, scientists are not creating World War Z. It was done on purpose and the bacteria is completely organic - and those infected plants may help science save others from a similar, spotted fate.

One organization and one law, the federal government's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (formerly the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine) and the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), are why a govenment that won't let you get a haircut without a certification and hygiene standards won't do anything about supplements until dead bodies show up.

Have you ever used Airbnb or other hotel replacement services when traveling? If yes, you are likely to travel more than you used to, you choose your destination from among a wider set of alternatives, and you are more active in your destination, according to a recent paper from the University of Eastern Finland and Washington State University. 

The authors found that tourists are interested in peer-to-peer accommodation services like Airbnb due to social and financial reasons. Users of peer-to-peer accommodation services are often in social interaction with their hosts, and peer-to-peer accommodation services are a cost-effective alternative to hotels.
 

DNA represents a dynamic form of information, balancing efficient storage and access requirements. Packaging approximately 1.8m of DNA into something as small as a cell nucleus is no mean feat, but unpacking it again to access the required sections and genes? That requires organization.

In a nutshell, this is achieved through DNA condensed and packaged as chromatin, a complex of DNA and proteins called histones, which is constantly modified as the DNA is accessed. The histone proteins need constant replacement to maintain the correct chromatin structure required for all DNA related processes in the cell.

Thiazide is a popular diuretic for lowering high blood pressure but may not excrete salt as expected in patients with congestive heart failure and or dehydration and should be taken with caution, according to a study in mouse models presented at a meeting of the American Society of Nephrology's Kidney Week activities in San Diego.

Scientists have nearly completed the first map of the mantle under the tectonic plate that is colliding with the Pacific Northwest and putting Seattle, Portland and Vancouver at risk of the largest earthquakes and tsunamis in the world.

The new report describes how the movement of the ocean-bottom Juan de Fuca plate is connected to the flow of the mantle 150 kilometers (100 miles) underground, which could help seismologists understand the forces generating quakes as large as the destructive Tohoku quake that struck Japan in 2011 and led to the tsunami that caused the issues at the Fukushima nuclear plant.