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Duckweed is a tiny floating plant  that often becomes a hard-to-control weed in ponds and small lakes.
Yet these ecological lemons might become energy lemonade.
It's not all bad, duckweed has been used to clean contaminated water and to produce pharmaceuticals, and now the genome of Greater Duckweed (Spirodela polyrhiza) has given this miniscule plant's potential as a biofuel source a big boost. 

If China wants to save .009 of its population by 2050, they need to implement UN tobacco control policies, including surveillance and monitoring of tobacco use prevalence, creation of smoke-free environments, treatment of tobacco dependence, tobacco consumption taxation and other price controls, enforcement of heath warnings on tobacco packages and marketing bans. 

It used to be that only rich people could afford to be fat. Now only rich people can afford to be thin.
And there's even a growing income gap when it comes to suicide.
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland but that doesn't make it equal, and the authors of a paper in the International Journal of Epidemiology have found that assisted suicide is more common in wealthier areas.

Would avant-garde musician be offended that scientists named a zit-causing bacterium P. acnes type Zappae.
No, he would probably laugh. 

Scientific institutions and organizations can improve their communication and outreach with the public by addressing people's strongly held beliefs about science and its role in society - and using less demagoguery. Or at least hiding it.
Lead author of a new paper and American University professor Matthew C. Nisbet made his name claiming that Republicans engaged in deception about science and that communicators needed to master "framing" to show how they were wrong, so a paper advocating less partisanship is important, in a sort of 'only Nixon could go to China' way.

Researchers have made a discovery regarding the behavior of a synthetic molecular oscillator, which could serve as a timekeeping device to control artificial cells.

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone 15S as it formed in the Mozambique Channel on Feb. 18
at 10:53 a.m. EST
and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
(AIRS) instrument aboard gathered infrared data on its cloud top temperatures and potential.
The data on the tropical system showed the highest cloud tops and strongest thunderstorms were in a band that stretched from the east to the south of the center. Cloud top temperatures were near -63F/-52C, indicating high, powerful thunderstorms with potential for heavy rainfall. The eastern-most edge was over western Madagascar and the southwestern extent reached Mozambique on the African mainland.

Drinking water with a relatively high concentration of magnesium protects against hip fractures, according to results of a study by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.  They found that magnesium protects against hip fracture for both men and women. They found no independent protective effect of calcium.  
The study notes that there are considerable variations in the quality of drinking water in Norway. The researchers studied variations in magnesium and calcium levels in drinking water between different areas, as these are assumed to have a role in the development of bone strength.
They wanted to examine whether there was a correlation between magnesium and calcium concentrations in drinking water and the incidence of hip fracture. 

If we see or read about a child on a life-sustaining medical device, such as a ventilators or breathing or feeding tube,  we naturally think about the child
And when it comes to parents, we use platitudes like 'strong' but the physical and psychological distress of juggling treatments, appointments, therapies and daily family pressures doesn't get much consideration.

In soccer, a team is most vulnerable to being scored on right after they score. Pundits and psychologists attribute that to overconfidence. Yet in the 2014 Super Bowl, the Seattle Seahawks dominated early and the Denver Broncos looked increasingly disorganized. Pundits and psychologists attribute that to momentum.
Momentum or overconfidence are often applied in hindsight to individual games but what about during winning streaks? Is what analysts term momentum a kind of competitive inertia, where a team in a state of winning tends to keep winning? 
No, say economists writing in Economics Letters, after examining varsity college hockey teams winning and losing records. Momentum advantages don't exist.

How smart do you have to be to convince Albert Einstein to change his mind?
Pretty smart. He never invoked 'the science is settled' or ridiculed the political party of physicists who insisted the universe was expanding. It was static until someone proved otherwise.
Eventually they did, but it was not the urban legend that claimed in 1931 American astronomer Edwin Hubble showed Einstein his observations of redshift in the light emitted by far away nebulae - what we call galaxies now. The tipping point was instead a tortuous thought process following many encounters with some of the most influential astrophysicists of his generation.

Ecstasy, marijuana (including synthetic cannabinoids sold as ‘Spice’ and ‘Incense’) and various psychoactive ‘legal highs’ have surged in popularity and Canada has become a major criminal hub for ecstasy. 
Recent deaths have been linked to paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA) in ecstasy pills and with Canadian producing most of the ecstasy in the North American market, a timely paper in Drug Science Policy and Law looks at trends in ecstasy adulteration and the facts around PMA/PMMA-linked deaths. 
In America, social authoritarians are ban-happy but the Canadian authors also argue for an alternative to a new ban.
The review finds: