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Many factors feed into food consumption choices. The bigger the plate, for example, the greater the amount eaten. A new study examines whether or not giving people feedback on the number of bites they take can effectively alter eating behavior.

If shark fin trade is banned, would you miss it? It's illegal to engage in sharkfinning in the United States but not illegal to buy fins. But a new bill being considered would change that. The bipartisan group wants to reduce sharkfinning by banning imports.

Is nothing sacred anymore? We are constantly bombarded by chemical scares, so much so that even labels of our childhood icons aren't able to avoid ridiculous scrutiny. Since Mr. Potato Head's arrived back in 1952, he clearly needs a new label to reflect the toxicological wisdom and sensitivity of modern times.

The Toxic Substances Control Act has been amended for the first time in 20 years. It includes parameters that prioritize chemicals for risk assessment while focusing on particular-use scenarios, rather than lazily analyzing epidemiology papers and declaring "hazards." The measure appears to be a win for everyone.

Old science could be a new way to kill salmonella in meat. Research shows that treating meat products infected with four types of salmonella using Myoviridae bacteriophages during mixing led to the bacteriophages invading the cells of the bacteria and destroying them.

Rory McIlroy's decision Wednesday to skip the Olympics in Brazil due to concerns over possibly contracting the Zika virus is equivalent to him having carded a horrific, sextuple bogey from a series of fearful half-swings on the easiest of par-3's. There are many ways for the world's No. 4 golfer to nearly eliminate all risk, but instead he chose to ignore them.

There's a yellow fever outbreak taking place in West Africa, and disturbingly it has all of the markings of the next global health emergency. We have the tools to stop this one, but it's spreading quickly and it may soon be out of control. That is, unless essential measures are taken immediately.

Researchers have genetically engineered human T cells to produce a CAR protein that recognizes a glycopeptide found on various cancer cells but not normal cells, and then demonstrated its effectiveness in mice with leukemia and pancreatic cancer.

Internet billionaire Sean Parker, of Facebook and Napster fame, is behind a clinical trial of CRISPR that may have jumped ahead of competitors. He has agreed to give $250 million in funding to six centers.

Time for a colonoscopy? Many want to shun this screening for colorectal cancer, but according to the US Preventive Services Task Force, having the procedure is the best way to go. This and other modalities were evaluated in their latest recommendations on CRC screening.

If you couldn't tell from all of the joyous children running around, the summer has begun. Unfortunately, this also means that it's the start of West Nile Virus season. How much should we worry? To answer that let's examine three outcomes from a West Nile Virus infection, and someone's likelihood of getting each.

Everyone gets hiccups. Fetuses as young as eight weeks experience them, and newborns often do, too. And while some drink water awkwardly to treat hiccups — which can last up to an hour — in rare occurrences, they can be chronic, lasting days, weeks or months. So what's with this involuntary muscle reaction? And how can you address it quickly and effectively?

Dogs love peanut butter— but just because they go nuts over that delicious goodness does not mean every type of peanut is safe for your furry friend. We chatted with Dr. Tim Hunt about which common peanuts are safe to feed your pooch!

Can old-time music lower your blood pressure? Probably not over the long term, but the paper is worth a "listen." It's not the most rigorous study, and there are too many confounders, but any excuse to take in some Mozart or Strauss is welcome. They can keep the ABBA.

Recently, we chatted with Science Blogger Dan Broadbent, founder of the blog-site A Science Enthusiast, and his corresponding Facebook page, which has more than 147,000 followers. Dan tells us he created the page to "increase science literacy and promote critical thinking." Hey, that's what we're all about, too!

Emissions from pizza ovens may be a big problem.

Are you more clever than your fridge? Yes you are -- right now. But if you build a network of algorithms that can listen to feedback, it can update its network to get the right answers. This is deep learning -- and it’s learning from you.

For those with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, the unfamiliar can be paralyzing and they need more ritual and routine to offset the chaos of the outside world. A new study examined how endocannabinoids -- natural messengers in the body chemically similar to the active compound in marijuana, and known to generally reduce the activity of neurons -- play a role in how the brain controls this fundamental process.

People who already believe in the benefits of "brain training" may be more likely to participate in a study that is explicitly about the benefits ... of brain training. Obviously, such self-selection will bias the results, and the placebo effect can magnify them.

Twice a year, when I visit my in-laws in Poland, I get to dabble in the soft science of linguistics in my futile attempt to learn the Polish language. Few people outside my immediate family can understand me because what I think of as “speaking” others perceive as caveman-like grunts with a Yankee accent.

There sure are a lot of toxicology "experts" out there on the web, and they really don't like anything that is sweet (except maybe when they sell it). We recently wrote about sucralose (Splenda), which is trashed by these "Internut" know-nothings despite the fact that its safety profile is about as good as you'll ever see. But, these I-nuts are even more verbal about aspartame -- and the more verbal they are, the more they get it wrong.

Injuries are part and parcel of soccer. Sure enough, they do not seem to be decreasing, even though most top-level teams have embedded sports medicine into their operations. But if teams applied the same approach to the act of kicking a ball, as it does to overall skill development, rates of injury could decline significantly.

As people tend to get older, decisions about topics such as health and retirement can be a bit more challenging. The difficult decisions we make later in life are often important and can impact our lives substantially, meaning there may be fewer opportunities to recover from any bad decisions we make.

1. An unknown environmental group got a gaggle of activists together and tried to get us banned in Google as a spam site. Google is terrific about responding, of course, but they are also good about checking on those things to see, so we were back up and running soon enough.
They also paid someone to do a Distributed Denial of Service (DD0S) attack, which knocked off our site for a little bit. We are still tracking the location of the attack but our server company kicked into gear to stop them.

Vitamin D is one of a list of nutrients thought to be valuable in preventing, or treating, a long list of conditions. But according to researchers from the University of Alberta, for most conditions linked to vitamin D the evidence is weak, if not completely non-existent.