Research

In the state's first decision involving juries and social media, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has called on judges to better police jurors' use of the Internet to make sure they do not discuss cases online, and thus risk a mistrial. The court said judges need to do more to explain to jurors that refraining from conversations about a case also means not posting anything about it on Facebook or Twitter, common practice in today's technology-driven world. "Jurors must separate and insulate their jury service from their digital lives," the court said in a ruling involving a Plymouth Superior Court...

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sought Wednesday to raise the profile of agricultural research at universities like Penn State as Congress begins the arduous task of renewing the farm bill. Penn State leads more than 65 federal research grants totaling more than $30 million, according to the USDA. Vilsack visited one project Wednesday after touring a greenhouse lab that is taking part in research for biofuels. Later, Vilsack said at a news conference that he hoped to underscore during his visit as "Congress begins its conversation and discussion about the (farm bill)

Consumers who purchased Skechers Shape-ups or other toning shoes made by the company will be eligible for a partial refund from a $40 million settlement that the company made with the Federal Trade Commission and 42 states with class action lawsuits. The settlement is being finalized Wednesday in a federal court in the Northern District of Ohio, according to the FTC. "Skechers put its foot in its mouth by making unwarranted claims," said David Vladeck, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection.

No one's talking about giving intelligence tests, but researchers say they've shown that plants have smarts — the sort needed to help them survive dry times. Years from now the findings could lead to crops that are better able to withstand drought conditions. Already, studies on two crops have shown they too have short-term memory for surviving dry times, University of Nebraska-Lincoln researcher Michael Fromm's said. He contends his team's findings are the first of their kind in life forms above yeasts.

On a recent Friday morning, a classroom of teenagers at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School broke up into small groups and spent an hour not answering questions about Albert Camus's "The Plague. " It wasn't that the students were shy, or bored, or that they hadn't done the reading. They were following instructions: Ask as many questions as they could, and answer none of them. The kids wrote in rapid fire on sheets of butcher paper. "Why is everyone acting normal when people are dropping dead?"

For decades, those with high cholesterol have been given a list of don'ts when it comes to their diet: Don't eat cholesterol-rich eggs; don't eat butter; don't eat red meat or regular ice cream. Well, now researchers have identified a list of do's for the diet that may work to lower cholesterol levels better than avoiding those don'ts. In a study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that eating cholesterol-lowering foods like nuts, soy protein, and certain fiber-rich items result in bigger drops in "bad" LDL cholesterol than...

After years of suffering from chronically inflamed and infected sinuses, I finally decided I'd had enough. I chose to do what 500,000 other Americans do every year - have sinus surgery. It wasn't an easy decision. I had to balance my need for a fix against my fear of surgery and research that raised questions about the procedure. I was miserable. My sinuses, those supposedly hollow spaces around the nose, had become clogged by scar tissue and the build-up of thickened mucus from decades of infections and inflammation.

Is fiction good for us? We spend huge chunks of our lives immersed in novels, films, TV shows, and other forms of fiction. Some see this as a positive thing, arguing that made-up stories cultivate our mental and moral development. But others have argued that fiction is mentally and ethically corrosive. It's an ancient question: Does fiction build the morality of individuals and societies, or does it break it down? This controversy has been flaring up — sometimes literally, in the form of book burnings — ever since Plato tried to ban fiction from his ideal republic.

Facebook was supposed to soar. Instead, it plunged. After the social network's stock fizzled on Friday in its long-awaited debut, its stock fell 11 percent on Monday, even as the rest of the stock market rallied. The downward spiral has left some people sitting on big losses, and others scratching their heads. After all, nothing fundamental has changed at Facebook in the days since the much-hyped company came to the stock market — Facebook still has more than 900 million users, its 28-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg controls the company, and it is...

Days after state environmental officials found unacceptable noise levels from wind turbines in Falmouth, they are considering new regulations that would require the state to review potential noise issues before wind turbines are built in Massachusetts. The state might also conduct sound studies in other communities, such as Fairhaven and Kingston, where residents, as in Falmouth, have complained about newly installed turbines, officials said. A panel of independent scientists and doctors, convened by the state to look at the effects of wind...

A little-known piece of Kodak's history has emerged as the company struggles for survival: It used to operate a small nuclear research reactor at its Rochester, N.Y., home. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports ( http://on.rocne.ws/JUUy84) the reactor fueled by 3 ½ pounds of highly enriched uranium operated for 30 years before it was dismantled in 2007. The fuel was moved under secrecy and high security to a federal facility. Researchers say Kodak used the refrigerator-sized device to produce neutrons for testing materials and imaging.

As more women veterans return home, the Department of Veterans Affairs has had to rethink and reshape its health care. So says Kristin Mattocks, the associate chief of staff for research for VA Central Western Massachusetts Health Care System, and an assistant professor of quantitative health sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. The number of returning women veterans seeking care in the VA has doubled in the last decade from 159,000 in 2000 to almost 300,000 in 2009, according to a 2010 VA Sourcebook.

A scientist who does research on HIV has been appointed the interim director of Harvard Medical School's primate research center. In a letter sent to the staff of the New England Primate Research Center Monday afternoon, Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of the medical school, announced that Dr. R. Paul Johnson, an associate professor of medicine, would take over leadership of the troubled Southborough animal research facility, where four primate deaths...

LEXINGTON — Drug developer Synageva BioPharma Corp. reported a bigger first-quarter loss Wednesday as it continued to study its main drug candidate. Synageva is researching treatments for rare enzyme disorders. It does not have any products on the market, and its only product in clinical trials is designed to treat a disorder called lysosomal acid lipase deficiency. The disease causes the buildup of fatty material in the liver, spleen, and blood vessels walls, and it can cause serious health problems or death.

A pair of Harvard University researchers have begun to pry open one of the most basic questions about everyday existence: Why do we talk about ourselves so much? We spend more than a third of our conversations disclosing our views, our feelings, our experiences, to others. Online, our collective self-centeredness reaches new heights, with some surveys suggesting that more than 80 percent of the dialogue on social media websites follows this simple formula: me talking about me. For years, psychologists have known that sharing aspects of oneself with other people is a...

Another over-the-counter fitness and weight-loss supplement has come under the scrutiny of the US Food and Drug Administration, with some experts calling for an all-out ban on the compound called DMAA. Last month, the FDA issued warning letters to 10 manufacturers of dietary supplements containing the amphetamine-like substance "for marketing products for which evidence of the safety of the product had not been submitted" to the agency. On Monday, a Harvard Medical School researcher published a research letter in the ...

As a child, Steve Thompson displayed outsized reactions to ordinary events and intense mood swings. By age 12, doctors diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. The idea that he had a chronic mental illness - one typically marked in adulthood by manic periods followed by depression - frightened him. "It's something you think you'll have your entire life," said Thompson, a 23-year-old student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton. But over the past year, with the help of his longtime psychiatrist, he has weaned himself off mood-altering medication.

When the head of JPMorgan Chase met with shareholders to answer for a trading loss of more than $2 billion Tuesday, it was against an evolving political backdrop: Donors from big banks are betting on Mitt Romney to defeat President Obama and repeal new restraints on risky, large-scale investments. "There's no doubt that there's been a big diminution of support for the president," said William M. Daley, Obama's former chief of staff and a former top JPMorgan Chase executive. "People in the financial services sector are saying, ‘The president has been too tough on...

Boston Micromachines Corp. , a Cambridge company specializing in adaptive optics systems, said it has been awarded a $750,000 contract from NASA to support the space agency's Exoplanet Exploration program. NASA is searching for planets outside of the solar system, but that search is hindered by the constraints of space-based imaging technology. Boston Micromachines' specialty is MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) deformable mirrors, which are used in adaptive optics systems.

SAN DIEGO - Junior Seau's brain will be donated by his family for research into football-related head injuries, according to Chargers chaplain Shawn Mitchell, although he didn't know where the brain will be sent. "The Seau family really has, almost like Junior, a philanthropic approach, where they always desire to help others," Mitchell said in a phone interview Friday. Seau, 43, was found dead in his Oceanside, Calif., home Wednesday morning of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.