COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Even though American consumers throw away about 80 billion pounds of food a year, only about half are aware that food waste is a problem. Even more, researchers have identified that most people perceive benefits to throwing food away, some of which have limited basis in fact.

A study published today in PLOS ONE is just the second peer-reviewed large-scale consumer survey about food waste and is the first in the U.S. to identify patterns regarding how Americans form attitudes on food waste.

Soft robots do a lot of things well but they're not exactly known for their speed. The artificial muscles that move soft robots, called actuators, tend to rely on hydraulics or pneumatics, which are slow to respond and difficult to store.

Dielectric elastomers, soft materials that have good insulating properties, could offer an alternative to pneumatic actuators but they currently require complex and inefficient circuitry to deliver high voltage as well as rigid components to maintain their form -- both of which defeat the purpose of a soft robot.

In football, player-vs.-player hits will likely cause more severe head impacts than other impacts, according to a new study by a University of Georgia researcher.

The research also points to potential rule changes to further protect players.

The study, which is published in the most recent issue of the journal Pediatrics, analyzed nearly 7,000 head impacts during 13 games in a high school football team's season and post-season. Julianne Schmidt, assistant professor in the UGA College of Education and author of the article, said the analysis of game videos found players sustained more serious head impacts when hitting another player than players who hit their heads on another object, such as the ground.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- High-ranking people don't always turn out to be selfish jerks. It all depends on whether they feel worthy of their prominent social position, new research indicates.

A series of six scientific studies led by Michigan State University scholar Nicholas Hays found that people with high social status who didn't believe they earned that status were much more generous than high-status people who felt they deserved the respect and admiration of others.

Prominent people who don't feel their status is fair and equitable become more generous with others to alleviate that sense of inequity, he explained.

Scientists at the University of Southampton have discovered a potential and novel way of preventing asthma at the origin of the disease, a finding that could challenge the current understanding of the condition.

The research, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI) Insight, analysed the impact of the gene ADAM33, which is associated with the development of asthma.

ADAM33 makes an enzyme, which is attached to cells in the airway muscles. When the enzyme loses its anchor to the cell surface, it is prone to going rogue around the lung causing poorer lung function in people who have asthma.

For the first time Japanese researchers discovered that the extracellular domain of taste receptor proteins undergoes a change in structure by binding together taste substances. This structure change is thought to transmit the extracellular binding of taste substances to taste cells. The findings will contribute to our basic understanding of taste mechanisms and the development of a new taste evaluation system that makes use of the screening and detection of taste receptor structure changes.