In proof-of-concept experiments, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine demonstrate the ability to tune medically relevant cell behaviors by manipulating a key hub in cell communication networks. The manipulation of this communication node, reported in this week's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, makes it possible to reprogram large parts of a cell's signaling network instead of targeting only a single receptor or cell signaling pathway.

A statistical analysis of data from 20 industrial countries covering the period 1970 to 2012 suggests housing market pricing cycles -- normal, boom and bust phases -- have become longer over the last four decades.

The study also found that longer down phases can have dire consequences on national and international economies. While relatively short-lived housing booms tend to deflate, more prolonged booms are likely to spiral out of control. Similarly, compared to short housing busts, longer housing busts are more likely to turn into chronic slumps and, ultimately, lead to severe recessions.

Contrary to popular belief, more healthy kids' meals were ordered after a regional restaurant chain added more healthy options to its kids' menu and removed soda and fries, researchers from ChildObesity180 at Tufts University Friedman School reported today in the journal Obesity. Including more healthy options on the menu didn't hurt overall restaurant revenue, and may have even supported growth.

Dispersal and adaptation are two fundamental evolutionary strategies available to species given an environment. Generalists, like dandelions, send their offspring far and wide. Specialists, like alpine flowers, adapt to the conditions of a particular place.

Ecologists have typically modeled these two strategies, and the selective pressures that trigger them, by holding one strategy fixed and watching how the other evolves. New research published in the journal Evolution illustrates the dramatic interplay during the co-evolution of dispersal and adaptation strategies.

We have all seen "fat bloom", that unwelcome white layer that occasionally forms on chocolate. It is harmless but Europe once banned ugly fruit so cosmetics are clearly important to them and for that reason Nestlé and the Hamburg University of Technology got the DESY synchrotron's high brilliance X-ray source PETRA III on the case.

Common DNA modifications occur through methylation, a chemical process that can dramatically change gene expression, which regulates the eventual production of proteins that carry out the functions of an organism. 

DNA encodes genetic information in its chemical bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Methylated cytosine is the dominant DNA modification found in eukaryotes, a taxonomical classification that includes mammals, insects, worms, plants, and algae, but new papers have identified an adenine DNA methylation that also epigenetically regulates cellular function in green algae, worms, and flies.