A new bio-inspired algorithm seems to use the social behavior of bee colonies, which allows them to attack in an optimal way, could help dismantle social networks linked to organized crime, jihadist terrorism, or facilitate the design of vaccination strategies capable of containing the spread of a pandemic.

The tool automatically detects and identifies the most dangerous actors or nodes within a given social network and the density of the interconnected relationships between them, which may help law enforcement authorities make their decisions and act in the most efficient way possible.

Starburst galaxies are where stars are forming at such a breakneck rate that the galaxy is eating up its gas supply faster than it can be replenished. There are several different factors that can lead to such an ideal environment in which stars can form at such a rapid rate. Crucially, there has to be a sufficiently massive supply of gas. This might be acquired in a number of ways -- for example by passing very close to another galaxy, in a full-blown galactic collision, or as a result of some event that forces lots of gas into a relatively small space.

Since cancer tumors are thought to depend on  large amounts of glutamine to achieve rapid growth, some have speculated that glutamine deprivation is a therapeutic approach.

A new study casts doubt on that. 

Numerous studies have indicated that tumore cannot survive without glutamine, and this has fueld the idea that preventing “glutamine addiction” could be a potential therapeutic strategy. A study now concludes that while glutamine deprivation will halt the proliferation of certain tumor cells, most of them will not be killed, raising questions of whether such a therapeutic intervention will lead to remission in cancers. 

The umbrella term for the 68 percent of the universe that we can't detect and know nothing about has been given the umbrella term "dark energy." Like wormholes 30 years ago, it is more MacGuffin than science. You could call it aether or magic or any deity name and be just as valid.

But inference says something, or a variety of somethings, must be causing the universe to expand when gravity says it should contract. So dark energy it is.

Except maybe it isn't. 

The opioid epidemic has exploded into the national consciousness in the last two years. While anti-medicine groups seek to lay blame on pharmaceutical companies and doctors who give out prescriptions too easily, other groups wonder why the crack epidemic, which was far worse, got less attention, and suggest it is because addiction is exculpatory when the victims are white.

Health care expansion in Massachusetts, which became a model for the controversial Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) caused a surge in surgeries for thyroid cancer.

What that means depends on who is doing the framing. One side can argue that surgeons now had the state government paying for everything, so more were done, while another can argue that people were more likely to go to the doctor.

Thyroid cancer diagnoses have gone up about 5 percent per year over the last decade. Some is over-diganosis, some may be that the effects of lifestyles in previous generations are catching up to people, but few argued it was due to health care expansion.