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The origin of curious ring-like structures that formed half a billion years ago on a seabed in Wisconsin is an ancient unsolved riddle and academics would like you to help them figure it out.It makes sense, since it was citizen scientist paleontologists that discovered the almost perfectly circular rings some 30 years ago. Nigel Hughes, a professor of paleobiology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of California, Riverside, wants to know if they are the result of a physical process or the activity of an ancient organism - and a cool $500 is in it if you do what the pros cannot.

A team of archaeologists and other researchers hope that an ancient graveyard in Italy can yield clues about the deadly bacterium that causes cholera.
The researchers are excavating the graveyard surrounding the abandoned Badia Pozzeveri church in the Tuscany region of Italy. The site contains victims of the cholera epidemic that swept the world in the 1850s, said Clark Spencer Larsen, professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University and one of the leaders of the excavation team. Archaeologists and their students have spent the past four summers painstakingly excavating remains in a special section of the cemetery used for cholera victims.

Using Twitter can help physicians be better prepared to answer questions from their patients, according to researchers from the University of British Columbia. This challenges common opinion that physicians are reluctant to jump on the social media bandwagon.

Make way for a new color under the sea. The orange tint in Leafy Seadragons and the yellow and purple hues of Common Seadragons is now getting some red: Scientists have discovered a new species named Phyllopteryx dewysea, which means Ruby Seadragon.The discovery was made while researching the two known species of seadragons as part of an effort to understand and protect the exotic and delicate fish. Using DNA and anatomical research tools, University of California - San Diego graduate student Josefin Stiller and marine biologists Nerida Wilson of the Western Australia Museum (WAM) and Greg Rouse of Scripps Oceanography found evidence for the new species while analyzing tissue samples.

If you are not a person who handles stress well, you are unlikely to enter a high-risk, high-reward field like sales, instead something calmer will be more suitable, even if the pay is much lower. Making less money did not cause your stress level, stress caused you to make less money, according to a new paper by scholars at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.On a biological level, they associated the effects of stress with the release of the hormone cortisol in the Psychoneuroendocrinology paper. 

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) infect epithelial cells in the skin and mucosal tissue and can cause tumor-like growth. Some of these viruses also develop malignant tumors, especially cervical cancer in women, which kills around 4,000 women each year.

It's about sustenance, not pleasure. Penguins can't enjoy or even detect the savory taste of the fish they eat or the sweet taste of fruit. A new analysis of the genetic evidence reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on February 16 suggests that the flightless, waddling birds have lost three of the five basic tastes over evolutionary time. For them, it appears, food comes in only two flavors: salty and sour.
Many other birds, such as chickens and finches, can't taste sweet things either. But they do have receptors for detecting bitter and umami (or meaty) flavors.

Gentoo penguin. Credit: Jianzhi 'George' Zhang

Napping beyond the age of 2 is linked to poorer sleep quality in young children, although the impact on behavior and development is less clear-cut, according to a review in Archives of Disease in Childhood. The total length and quality of sleep over a 24 hour period is linked to child health and development, and parents and carers have been encouraged to let toddlers take a daytime nap as a way of promoting good health. By the time a child is 2, s/he is generally getting most of his/her sleep at night.
The researchers wanted to find out what impact napping has on young children's night-time sleep quality, behavior, cognition and physical health.

About 8 million tons of plastic waste wound up in the world's oceans in 2010, and researchers warn that the cumulative amount could increase more than tenfold in the next decade unless the international community improves its waste management practices.
Jenna Jambeck from the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, along with colleagues from the United States and Australia, studied the sources of ocean-bound plastic around the world and developed models to estimate their annual contributions. They suggest that coastal countries generated close to 275 million tons of plastic waste in 2010--and that 4.8 to 12.7 million tons of that plastic made its way to the oceans.

A new study has found that giving acetate supplements sped up the growth and metastasis of tumors in mice.Acetate is a major compound produced in the gut by host bacteria, which can have beneficial and also potentially harmful effects on human health. Further studies are needed to determine whether restricting acetate production by gut bacteria will affect growth of tumors.

Recent studies have shown that added sugars, particularly those containing fructose, are a principal driver of diabetes and pre-diabetes, even more so than other carbohydrates. Clinical experts writing in Mayo Clinic Proceedings challenge current dietary guidelines that allow up to 25% of total daily calories as added sugars, and propose drastic reductions in the amount of added sugar, and especially added fructose, people consume.
Worldwide, approximately one in ten adults has type 2 diabetes, with the number of individuals afflicted by the disease across the globe more than doubling from 153 million in 1980 to 347 million in 2008. In the United States, 29 million adults (one in eleven) have type 2 diabetes and another 86 million (more than one in three) have pre-diabetes.

Scientists are teaming up to use satellite data to target deadly parasites to help predict patterns of parasitic diseases such as malaria, worms and hydatids. Project leader Professor Archie Clements, from The Australian National University, said the research could help authorities in developing countries fight parasitic diseases.
"Some diseases are highly sensitive to their environment, especially parasitic diseases. With remote sensing you can identify places where disease flourishes," said Professor Clements, Director of the ANU Research School of Population Health. "This information is useful for decision makers to help them ensure scarce resources are targeted to where they are most needed."