“[W]hen rats were allowed to choose mutually-exclusively between water sweetened with saccharin-an intense calorie-free sweetener-and intravenous cocaine-a highly addictive and harmful substance-the large majority of animals (94%) preferred the sweet taste of saccharin. The preference for saccharin was not attributable to its unnatural ability to induce sweetness without calories because the same preference was also observed with sucrose, a natural sugar. Finally, the preference for saccharin was not surmountable by increasing doses of cocaine and was observed despite either cocaine intoxication, sensitization or intake escalation-the latter being a hallmark of drug addiction.”, wrote the researchers.

“Our findings clearly demonstrate that intense sweetness can surpass cocaine reward, even in drug-sensitized and -addicted individuals.” they concluded. Still, some researchers point out that these conclusions could not be applied directly to humans. Humans are generally aware that something they’re ingesting could get them “hooked” and that the effects could harm them. Rats, on the other hand, lack this awareness and are driven only by the sensations produced by a chemical.

Another issue: sugar, with all its potential cavity-inducing and obesity havoc, is still a nutrient, whereas cocaine’s benefits for the body are non existent. Still, refined sugars (like, sucrose, fructose) did not enter in the human diet until very recently in our history. The overconsumption of diets rich in refined sugars, combined with other factors, is the main cause that determines the current obesity epidemic. Overconsumption of refined sugar rich foods or beverages is initially determined by the pleasure of feeling that sweet taste, and which acts like a drug addiction.

If the genome of an extinct species can be reconstructed, biologists can work out the exact DNA differences with the genome of its nearest living relative. There are talks on how to modify the DNA in an elephant’s egg so that after each round of changes it would progressively resemble the DNA in a mammoth egg. The final-stage egg could then be brought to term in an elephant mother, and mammoths might once again roam the Siberian steppes.

The student volunteers didn’t realize when the experiment started. They showed up at Yale University’s psychology building and met their contact near the elevators. She was holding some textbooks and a cup of coffee. The woman with the coffee was [part of the experiment]. She knew what she was supposed to do, but she didn’t know why. One by one, she took the students up to the fourth floor in an elevator. As they rode up, the woman asked students, “in a pretty innocuous way, if they wouldn’t mind holding her coffee cup while she wrote down some information,” Williams explained.

Half the students got to hold hot coffee; half got iced coffee. They held the cup for only a few seconds. But that short experience must have changed something in their brains. When they arrived at the fourth floor, they filled out questionnaires. They read a short description of a hypothetical person — Person A — and they had to evaluate this stranger’s personality.

Here’s where the coffee’s influence became apparent. “Participants who held the hot coffee cup rated this Person A as more generous, more social, happier, better natured” than participants who held the iced coffee cup, Williams said. Williams thinks it’s no coincidence that we use the same word — warmth — to describe both a physical and an emotional experience. Somewhere in the brain, those two sensations are linked, he says. And you can imagine why: Think of a baby held in its mother’s arms. The child is experiencing love, affection, comfort.

“But you also have, at the same time, an experience with a warm object, in that case a warm human being,” Williams said.

Fighting rumors by publicizing them in vivid, high-profile locations is, to say the least, a surprising tactic. It’s hard to imagine someone victimized by workplace rumors summarizing them and posting them on the lunchroom wall. The conventional wisdom about rumors is to take the high road and not respond. When John McCain, during the 2000 Republican primaries, was plagued with rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate child, for the most part he opted not to engage with them at all. Why would anyone want to broadcast negative claims about themselves?

And yet new research into the science of rumors suggests Obama’s approach may be a sounder strategy - and the reasons why it makes sense suggest that we misunderstand both how rumors work and why they exist.

…

People are rather specific about which rumors they share, and with whom, researchers have found: They tend to spread rumors to warn friends of potential trouble, or otherwise help them, while remaining mum if it would be harmful to spread a given rumor in a certain context or to a certain person.

It’s not just altruism: Rumors can build status for the person who spreads them. The psychologists John L. Shelton and Raymond S. Sanders, in documenting the impact of a murder of an undergraduate on the Ohio State University campus in 1972 on the student body, found that those with access to “inside information” about the crime and the administration’s response were instantly granted higher social status. So simply possessing - or being seen as possessing - potentially useful information can serve in and of itself as a motivation to spread rumors.

…

Other than denying a rumor that’s true, perhaps the biggest mistake one can make, DiFonzo and other researchers say, is to adopt a “no comment” policy: Numerous studies have shown that rumors thrive in environments of uncertainty. Considering that rumors often represent a real attempt to get at the truth, the best way to fight them is to address them in as comprehensive a manner as possible.

Anthony Pratkanis, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies persuasion and propaganda, says that an effective rebuttal will be more than a denial - it will create a new truth, including an explanation of why the rumor exists and who is benefiting from it.

Lead is rarely found in source water, but can enter it through corroded plumbing. The Environmental Protection Agency says that older homes are more likely to have lead pipes and fixtures, but that even newer plumbing advertised as “lead-free†can still contain as much as 8 percent lead. A study published in The Journal of Environmental Health in 2002 found that tap water represented 14 to 20 percent of total lead exposure. Scientists emphasize that the risk is small. But to minimize it, the E.P.A. says cold tap water should always be used for preparing baby formula, cooking and drinking. It also warns that boiling water does not remove lead but can actually increase its concentration. More information is at www.epa.gov/lead or (800) 424-5323 (LEAD).

THE BOTTOM LINE

Hot water from the tap should never be used for cooking or drinking.

Romesberg notes that DNA and RNA are now being used for hundreds of purposes: for example, to build complex shapes, build complex nanostructures, silence disease genes, or even perform calculations. A new, unnatural, base pair could multiply and diversify these applications. The most challenging goal, says Romesberg, will be to incorporate unnatural base pairs into the genetic code of organisms. “We want to import these into a cell, study RNA trafficking, and in the longest term, expand the genetic code and ‘evolvability’ of an organism.”

Stanford University chemist Eric Kool, has studied the fundamental chemistry of base-pair bonding. He foresees challenges, but great potential in the unnatural bases. “It requires a long effort by multiple laboratories, but I think ultimately it will lead to some important tools,” he says. “The ability to encode amino acids with unnatural base pairs will be quite powerful when it comes.”

The idea that the moral sense is an innate part of human nature is not far-fetched. A list of human universals collected by the anthropologist Donald E. Brown includes many moral concepts and emotions, including a distinction between right and wrong; empathy; fairness; admiration of generosity; rights and obligations; proscription of murder, rape and other forms of violence; redress of wrongs; sanctions for wrongs against the community; shame; and taboos.

The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress. And according to the psychologists Elliot Turiel and Judith Smetana, preschoolers have an inkling of the difference between societal conventions and moral principles. Four-year-olds say that it is not O.K. to wear pajamas to school (a convention) and also not O.K. to hit a little girl for no reason (a moral principle). But when asked whether these actions would be O.K. if the teacher allowed them, most of the children said that wearing pajamas would now be fine but that hitting a little girl would still not be.

Though no one has identified genes for morality, there is circumstantial evidence they exist. The character traits called “conscientiousness†and “agreeableness†are far more correlated in identical twins separated at birth (who share their genes but not their environment) than in adoptive siblings raised together (who share their environment but not their genes). People given diagnoses of “antisocial personality disorder†or “psychopathy†show signs of morality blindness from the time they are children.

Two anthropologists watched in mixed amazement and horror as several female chimpanzees crafted spears and used them to somewhat brutally hunt smaller mammals. Following a troop of the primates in a Senegalese savanna, Jill Pruetz of Iowa State University and Paco Bertolani of Cambridge observed them breaking the branches off of trees, picking leaves from the sides, and sharpening the tips to deadly points. In the March edition of Current Biology, the scientists explained that such sophisticated animal behavior could reveal a great deal about how early humans used primitive tools.

no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination services, which stresses the colonies.

Most of us beekeepers are fighting with the Varroa mites. I’m happy to say my biggest problems are things like trying to get nucs through the winter and coming up with hives that won’t hurt my back from lifting or better ways to feed the bees.

This change from fighting the mites is mostly because I’ve gone to natural sized cells. In case you weren’t aware, and I wasn’t for a long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would find in a natural hive. I’ve measured sections of natural worker brood comb that are 4.6mm in diameter. What most people use for worker brood is foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. If you translate that into three dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large again as is natural. By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause of this is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, and less Varroa reproduce in the cells.

My prescription for Ambien has come with a handful of warnings from my doctor: It can be addictive; it can lose effect over time; it’s recommended for short-term use only. I figure if it loses efficacy, I’ll be no worse off than when I started. What I’ve seen of drug addiction didn’t really look like a whole bucket of awesome, though, so as a safeguard, I’ve resolved to take Ambien only twice per week.

Somewhere around a half-hour after taking the drug for the first time, I learn something the doctor forgot to mention: This stuff is SpongeBob freaking SquarePants in a pill. As I lie there, skeptically waiting for sleep, an absurd, goofy-happy feeling seeps into me, and suddenly I want to put on a bunny costume and bounce around the house on a pogo stick.

The dopey feeling gets stronger … and without warning, I find myself experiencing the mind-blowingly bizarre reality of being wide-awake while, with shut eyes, I watch what I would be dreaming if I were asleep.

I’m not making this up: The face of Emmanuel Lewis, cuddly child star of the ’80s sitcom Webster, appears out of nowhere, surrounded by several brightly colored concentric rings. Smiling, he pulls back a rubber band, using it to shoot a burning Satanic pentagram at me.

The pentagram expands several times in size as it travels toward me—by the time it reaches me, it’s larger than I am. There is no pain, only awe, as the flames envelop me, scorching my everyday consciousness and taking me fully into Ambien Land. All this happens within the space of a few seconds.

Now the flames melt away, giving way to an aerial view of an absolutely gigantic birthday cake. This thing is at least the size of a swimming pool, and it’s bubbling and warping like a slab of cheese on a hot stove burner.

And then … a miracle happens: I fall asleep. Just as the doctor told me I would, I sleep exactly six hours. Eight would’ve been better, but when you’ve got insomnia like mine, that’s like Danny DeVito complaining that he placed only fifth in People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People list.

research has discovered that girls who are given very feminine names, such as Anna, Emma or Elizabeth, are less likely to study maths or physics after the age of 16, a remarkable study has found.

The effect is so strong that parents can set twin daughters off on completely different career paths simply by calling them Isabella and Alex, names at either end of the spectrum. A study of 1,000 pairs of sisters in the US found that Alex was twice as likely as her twin to take maths or science at a higher level.