My Picks From ScienceDaily

Young People Are Intentionally Drinking And Taking Drugs For Better Sex, European Survey Finds:

Teenagers and young adults across Europe drink and take drugs as part of deliberate sexual strategies. New findings reveal that a third of 16-35 year old males and a quarter of females surveyed are drinking alcohol to increase their chances of sex, while cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis are intentionally used to enhance sexual arousal or prolong sex.

How 'Horse Tranquilizer' Stops Depression:

Researchers have shown exactly how the anaesthetic ketamine helps depression with images that show the orbitofrontal cortex - the part of the brain that is overactive in depression - being 'switched off'. Ketamine, an anaesthetic that is popular with doctors on the battlefield and also with vets because it allows a degree of awareness without pain, is a new hope for the treatment of depression - but the minute-by-minute images produced by Professor Bill Deakin and his team show how the drug achieves this in an unexpected way.

Surprising Discovery: Multicellular Response Is 'All For One':

Real or perceived threats can trigger the well-known "fight or flight response" in humans and other animals. Adrenaline flows, and the stressed individual's heart pumps faster, the muscles work harder, the brain sharpens and non-essential systems shut down. The whole organism responds in concert in order to survive. At the molecular level, it has been widely assumed that, in single-celled organisms, each cell perceives its environment -- and responds to stress conditions -- individually, each on its own to protect itself. Likewise, it had been thought that cells in multicellular organisms respond the same way, but a new study by scientists at Northwestern University reports otherwise.

Federal Polar Bear Research Critically Flawed, Forecasting Expert Asserts:

Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

What's Bugging Locusts? It Could Be They're Hungry -- For Each Other:

Since ancient times, locust plagues have been viewed as one of the most spectacular events in nature. In seemingly spontaneous fashion, as many as 10 billion critters can suddenly swarm the air and carpet the ground, blazing destructive paths that bring starvation and economic ruin. What makes them do it? A team of scientists led by Iain Couzin of Princeton University and including colleagues at the University of Oxford and the University of Sydney believes it may finally have an answer to this enduring mystery.

Koalas Under Threat From Climate Change:

New research shows increased temperatures and carbon dioxide levels are a threat to the Australian national icon, the koala.