My picks from ScienceDaily

Protect Your Vote: Avoid Election Machine Errors:

Of all the conceivable problems that could lead to a miscount Election Day, there's one possibility that voters can do something about - avoid making election machine-related errors, says a University of Maryland researcher who led a comprehensive study of voter problems using touch screen and paper-based machines.

Seasonal Affective Disorder May Be Linked To Genetic Mutation, Study Suggests:

With the days shortening toward winter, many people will begin to experience the winter blahs. For some, the effect can be devastating. About 6 percent of the U.S. population suffers from seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, a sometimes-debilitating depression that begins in the fall and continues through winter. Sufferers may even find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning.

Weight Does Not Affect Women's Sexual Behavior, Study Finds:

Oregon and Hawaiian researchers have found that a woman's weight does not seem to affect sexual behavior. In fact, overweight women are more likely to report having sex with men than women considered to be of "normal weight."

Media Coverage Affects How People Perceive Threat Of Disease:

Popular media coverage of infectious diseases greatly influences how people perceive those diseases, making them seem more dangerous, according to a new study from McMaster University.

Pairs Of Cleaner Fish Co-operate And Give Better Service On The Coral Reef:

Co-operation in nature often works as an exchange of goods or services between two different parties. In an article in the recent issue of the scientific magazine Nature researchers from Stockholm University have studied how certain fish on coral reef keep other species of fish clean.

Women Have More Diverse Hand Bacteria Than Men:

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study indicates that not only do human hands harbor far higher numbers of bacteria species than previously believed, women have a significantly greater diversity of microbes on their palms than men.

DNA Fingerprinting Method May Thwart False Labeling Of Shark Meat:

Researchers in Spain are reporting that a new DNA identification method could thwart false labeling of shark species used in various seafood products, including the expensive Chinese delicacy known as shark fin soup.

Snakebites: At Least 421,000 Poisonings And 20,000 Deaths Occur Each Year, Study Finds:

Snakebites cause considerable death and injury worldwide and pose an important yet neglected threat to public health, says new research published in this week's PLoS Medicine. The study used the most comprehensive methods yet to estimate that at least 421,000 envenomings (poisonous bites) and 20,000 deaths from snakebites occur each year, especially in South and South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Roads Bring Death And Fear To Forest Elephants:

Why did the elephant cross the road? It didn't according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Save the Elephants that says endangered forest elephants are avoiding roadways at all costs. The authors of the study believe that these highly intelligent animals now associate roads with danger - in this case poaching, which is rampant in Central Africa's Congo Basin.

Saving The Endangered Tasmanian Devil In Australia:

University of Adelaide zoologist Dr Jeremy Austin will lead a national project to help save the endangered Tasmanian devil from extinction.

Tiny Fungi May Have Sex While Infecting Humans:

A fungus called microsporidia that causes chronic diarrhea in AIDS patients, organ transplant recipients and travelers has been identified as a member of the family of fungi that have been discovered to reproduce sexually. A team at Duke University Medical Center has proven that microsporidia are true fungi and that this species most likely undergoes a form of sexual reproduction during infection of humans and other host animals.

Parasites And Global Change: Past Patterns, Future Projections:

Throughout history, environmental disturbances and global climate change have strongly influenced how humans are affected by parasites, according to parasitologist Eric P. Hoberg. He works at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory in Beltsville, Md.

Coral Reefs Found Growing In Cold, Deep Ocean:

Imagine descending in a submarine to the ice-cold, ink-black depths of the ocean, 800 metres under the surface of the Atlantic. Here the tops of the hills are covered in large coral reefs. NIOZ-researcher Furu Mienis studied the formation of these unknown cold-water relatives of the better-known tropical corals.

Consumer Not Ready For Tailor-made Nutrition:

In the near future it will be possible to customise the food we eat to individual needs, based on the genetic profile of the individual. Dutch researcher Amber Ronteltap suggests that the consumer market is not yet ready for this so-called nutrigenomics. Ronteltap concludes that many obstacles must be overcome before products based on nutrigenomics become a reality.

Human Genes: Alternative Splicing Far More Common Than Thought:

Scientists have long known that it's possible for one gene to produce slightly different forms of the same protein by skipping or including certain sequences from the messenger RNA. Now, an MIT team has shown that this phenomenon, known as alternative splicing, is both far more prevalent and varies more between tissues than was previously believed.

Personalized Learning Puts Students In A Class Of Their Own:

A new learning platform is giving the traditional classroom a radical makeover. Using innovative ICT technology, iClass is putting pupils at the centre of the learning experience and providing them with more control over what they learn.

Parents' Wartime Deployment Associated With Children's Behavior Problems:

Children ages 3 to 5 with a parent deployed to a war zone appear to exhibit more behavior problems than their peers whose parents are not deployed, according to a new report.