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Duckweed Science May Lead To Food That Farms Itself

Duckweed split into different species 59 million years ago, when the climate was more extreme than...

Sticky Pesticides Reduce Chemicals Needed To Protect Plants

It's easy for Greenpeace employees in cities to talk about farming but in the real world, without...

Genetic Engineering Could Solve Spider Mite Infestations With Fewer Pesticides

The world is producing more food using fewer pesticides than ever, thanks to modern science. The...

Cheminformatics: NIH Funds A More Scientific Mosquito Repellent

Today, the best way to prevent malaria remains DDT. Though banned in the US by a politician over...

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It's hard to hide from a bat: The camouflage and mimicry techniques that animals use to avoid becoming a meal aren't much use against a predator using echolocation. But a new study shows that moths can outsmart sonar with a flick of their long tails.

The study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows luna moths spin their trailing hindtails as they fly, confusing the sonar cries bats use to detect prey and other objects.

What started as an evolutionary protection against starvation has become a biological "bad joke" for people who need to lose weight. The human body doesn't distinguish between dieting and possible starvation, so when there is a decrease in calories consumed, human metabolism increases its energy efficiency and weight loss is resisted.

Adolescent binge drinking has been linked to a host of problems, including worse school performance, risky sexual behaviors, illicit drugs, and a greater risk of suicide. Binge drinking may also be linked to problematic eating behavior, yet little research exists. A study of the relationship between binge drinking and eating problems among Russian adolescents has found that problematic eating behaviors and attitudes are commonplace, and that binge drinking is associated with more eating problems in girls than boys.

Results will be published in the March 2015 online-only issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

Oats are often touted for lowering bad cholesterol,  improving the immune system, lowering blood pressure and, more recently, being gluten-free, but a new study finds that some oat-based breakfast cereals in the U.S. contain a mold-related toxin called ochratoxin A (OTA) that's been linked to kidney cancer in animal studies. 

Natural or not, they may need closer monitoring for potential mold contamination, warns a paper in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

A new genetic therapeutic technique that has the potential to treat more than half of the patients suffering from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), according to a new study. 

Faced with an increased senior population and a dwindling working age one, government accountants have spread the word that elderly people need to be encouraged to work longer.

And they are being encouraged, by changes in pension policies that force them to do so. As a result, a social safety net that was designed to reduce retirement inequality nearly a century ago is once again increasing it - some groups are more likely to be disadvantaged by a rise in the state retirement age than others, because some people are more able to work as senior citizens than others.