My picks from ScienceDaily

Really cool stuff today:

Pheromone From Mother's Milk May Rapidly Promote Learning In Newborn Mammals:

By studying the ability of newborn rabbit pups to learn the significance of new odors, researchers have found that a mammary pheromone secreted in mother's milk may act as a chemical booster that facilitates the ability of pups to quickly associate environmental odors with the opportunity to nurse.

Vegetables, Like People, Urged To Live Up To Potential:

A major stress in a carrot's life -- like the slash of a kitchen knife -- and the tapered tuber kicks in the juice and pumps up its phytochemicals. That's the finding of Dr. Luis Cisneros, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station food scientist. He calls it abiotic stress -- pushing the button, so to speak, on a crop after it has been harvested.

Seals Protect Brain, Conserve Oxygen By Turning Off Shivering Response On Icy Dives:

Seals shiver when exposed to cold air but not when diving in chilly water, a finding that researchers believe allows the diving seal to conserve oxygen and minimize brain damage that could result from long dives. This research into hypothermia and hypoxia is important to treating people who are hypothermic or who have suffered hypoxia following cardiac arrest, stroke, etc. Research was presented at the American Physiological Society conference, " Comparative Physiology 2006: Integrating Diversity."

Evolutionary Harmony For Stinkbugs And Their Gut Bacteria: A Perfect Match:

Evidence of host-symbiont cospeciation in an insect gut symbiont suggests that long-term vertical transmission and population structure are central forces driving the genomic changes characteristic of insect nutritional symbionts, according to a study published in PLoS Biology.

Evolutionary First: Parasite Reaches Beyond Host To Play Havoc With Others' Sex Lives:

Scientists revealed today that a prolific parasite is helping shape the destiny of a species it does not even infect. The complex relationship between the parasite, its host and the unconnected species is the first known example of evolutionary pressure from such a remote source.

Stroke Symptoms Common Among General Population:

As many as 18 percent of adults who have no history of stroke report having had at least one symptom of stroke, according to results of a large national study published in the October 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.