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consume alcohol to self-medicate, a behavior that greatly increases their survival rate

believe our results are the first to show that alcohol consumption can have a protective effect against infectious disease, and in particular against blood-borne parasites

the common fruit fly that swirls around browning bananas in your kitchen

The amount of alcohol in their natural habitat can range from 5 to 15 percent

fruit flies are really good at detoxifying alcohol."

participants were then asked to rate their cravings for cigarettes, food and alcohol based on the vividness, intrusiveness and strength of those cravings.

Tetris group showed a 24 percent reduction in cravings following their activity with the game

the other group who did not get to play Tetris did not experience any craving reductions.

"Ultimately, we are constantly looking for ways to stimulate cravings for healthy activities - such as exercise - but this a neutral activity that we have shown can have a positive impact."

"Feeling in control is an important part of staying motivated, and playing Tetris can potentially help the individual to stay in control when cravings strike

It is something a person can quickly access, for the most part whether they are at work or at home, and replaces the feeling of stress caused by the craving itself,"

admitted to falsifying data in some of his papers

, 35 of his papers have been retracted in 2012.

Peer review is a process in which scientific peers in the same field judge the merit of a submitted journal paper

editors at the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry grew suspicious when four of his glowing reviews came back within 24 hours. Anyone who has ever submitted a paper for peer review knows that reviewers take weeks or months to reply

Math paper a big, fat zero

"In this study, a computer application was used to solve a mathematical problem"

Neither the one-sentence abstract

nor the co-author's e-mail address, ohm@budweiser.com

publishing this one-page gem entitled "A computer application in mathematics"

published in January 2010 but not retracted until April 2012, despite silly sentences such as "Computer magnification is a Universal computer phenomenon" and "This is a problematic problem."

retracted the paper because it "contains no scientific content." The editors chalked it up to "an administrative error

Maybe his failure doesn't feel better than success

The Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel

has found that,

failure sometimes feels better than success

The only problem is that his research appears to be either mostly or completely fabricated

work has appeared in top journals

his good looks and clever research topics made him a media darling

So far, 31 papers have been retracted

meat eaters are absolved: One of Stapel's studies, now suspected to be fabricated, found that meat eaters are more selfish and less social than vegetarians

Studies proposing a link between cellphone use and cancer often rely on weak statistics. This one just used fudged data

in 2008, scientists published a paper

stating that cellphones in standby mode lowered the sperm count and caused other adverse changes in the testicles of rabbits

although small and published in a rather obscure journal, made the news rounds.

In March 2012, the authors retracted the paper

the lead author didn't get permission from his two co-authors and, according to the retraction notice, there was a "lack of evidence to justify the accuracy of the data presented in the article."

Stem-cell cure for heart disease likely faked

biologist Shinya Yamanaka had just won the 2012 Nobel Prize for his discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which are adult cells that can be reprogrammed to their "embryonic" stage

claimed at a New York Stem Cell Foundation meeting in early October to have advanced this technology to cure a person with terminal heart failure

Two institutions listed as collaborating on Moriguchi's related papers

denied that any of Moriguchi's procedures took place there

origuchi has admitted only to making some "procedural" mistakes

He is sticking to his story, however, that one patient was cured … at a Boston hospital not yet named

is a sweet, pungent zing in your nostrils

fresh aroma of ozone

Petrichor

occurs when airborne molecules from decomposing plant or animal matter become attached to mineral or clay surfaces

when the rains came, the redolent combination of fatty acids, alcohols and hydrocarbons is released

Petrichor potpourri

Falling water disturbs and displaces odoriferous molecules on surfaces, particularly on dry ones, and carry them into the

happen to be near vegetation, these molecules may come from plants and trees

rise up from concrete and asphalt

Damp earth

After a storm has moved through

aroma of geosmin, a metabolic by-product of bacteria or blue-green algae

Microbiologist Keith Chater at the John Innes Center in England has proposed that geosmin's fragrance may be a beacon, helping camels find their way to desert oases

narrows downwards and causes a circulation pattern that drives both fluid and bubbles downwards at the wall of the glass

not just the bubbles themselves that are sinking (in fact, they're still trying to rise), but the entire fluid is sinking and pulling the bubbles down with it.

stout beers such as Guinness foam due to a combination of carbon dioxide and nitrogen bubbles, while other beers foam due only to carbon dioxide bubbles

nitrogen results in a less bitter taste, a creamy long-lasting head, and smaller bubbles that sink while the beer is settling.

researchers noted that they are still uncertain of the specific mechanism responsible for reducing the bubble density near the wall for the pint geometry and increasing it for the anti-pint one.

the same flow pattern occurs with other types of beers, but the larger carbon dioxide bubbles are less subject to the downward drag than the smaller nitrogen bubbles in stout beers.

a simple experiment can confirm the proposed explanation. If Guinness is poured into a tall cylindrical glass and the glass is tilted, bubbles move upwards near its upper surface and downwards near its lower surface. In this case, the upper surface acts like an anti-pint glass and the lower surface acts like a pint glass.