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Going the farthest distance might sound like a foot race. But this past weekend, it meant stretching the boundaries of fuel efficiency as student teams competed in the fifth annual Shell Eco-marathon Americas, a challenge for students to design, build and test fuel-efficient vehicles that travel the farthest distance using the least amount of energy. High school and university students from Canada and the United States competed in the two-day street course challenge in downtown Houston.

Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and their colleagues have discovered that massive, swirling ocean eddies -- known to be up to 500 kilometers across at the surface -- can reach all the way to the ocean bottom at mid-ocean ridges, some 2,500 meters deep, transporting tiny sea creatures, chemicals, and heat from hydrothermal vents over large distances.

While most people know that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, this concept is proving even truer in the world of stock trading. In a world where buying low and selling high means all the difference, racing the speed of light between to different financial markets can mean greater profit.

Macro health news breaks when there is a natural disaster, a scientific breakthrough, or a new twist in a policy debate (see: "ACOs"). I read up on the facts and try to make sense of the latest turn of events, but usually from a comfortable distance. Micro health news breaks when a loved one gets a serious diagnosis. Then I follow the unfolding health care story with intensity and I care more about the outcome.

The gamitana fish, a close relative of the flesh-eating piranha, mostly eats fruit and can carry seeds down the Amazon River as far as 3 miles (5 kilometers), reports a new Cornell study, making it one of the longest seed dispersals ever reported. The researchers report that these fish (Colossoma macropomum, known as gamitana in Peru, and tambaqui in Brazil) may play an important role in the structure of the Amazon forest as fruit seeds remain viable in their gut for many days and are widely spread.