At a time when medicine tends to focus on patients as a "collection of visceral organs and a nervous system," systems medicine provides a new approach to medical practice that is "anticipated to result in more comprehensive and systematic patient care." In a recent commentary, two researchers ask, "Is there a future for systems medicine" particularly as the country considers a health care overhaul?

For years, health conscious people have been taking antioxidants to reduce the levels of reactive oxygen in their blood and prevent the DNA damage done by free radicals, which are the result of oxidative stress. But could excessive use of antioxidants deplete our immune systems?

Brain implants that can more clearly record signals from surrounding neurons in rats have been created. The findings could eventually lead to more effective treatment of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease and paralysis.

A new study reports that transplanted pigment-containing visual cells derived from human embryonic stem cells successfully preserved structure and function of the specialized light-sensitive lining of the eye (known as the retina) in an animal model of retinal degeneration.

Europe's Herschel space telescope has delivered spectacular vistas of cold gas clouds lying near the plane of the Milky Way, revealing intense, unexpected activity. The dark, cool region is dotted with stellar factories, like pearls on a cosmic string.

By 2050, the world will host nine billion people --and that's if population growth slows in much of the developing world. Today, at least one billion people are chronically malnourished or starving. Simply to maintain that sad state of affairs would require the clearing (read: deforestation) of 900 million additional hectares of land, according to Pedro Sanchez, director of the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program at The Earth Institute at Columbia University. [More]

Can the way stock information is presented lead investors to make the wrong decisions? A new study shows that when investors use charts, they are likely to make a baseless decision about the riskiness of a stock based on its run-length.

Kidneys recovered from deceased donors with acute renal failure -- once deemed unusable for transplant -- appear to work just as well as kidneys transplanted from deceased donors who do not develop kidney problems prior to organ donation, according to a new study.

A new study provides details of a causal relationship between diet and mitochondrial function. It also provides the first genome-wide study of how proteins are translated under dietary restriction in any organism. Flied fed a low protein diet live longer because their mitochondria function better. The molecular mechanisms involved are conserved among many species -- making the research relevant for human aging and diseases such as obesity, cancer and diabetes.

Both household food insecurity and childhood overweight are significant problems in the United States. Paradoxically, being food-insecure may be an underlying contributor to being overweight. A study of almost 8,500 low-income children ages 1 month to 5 years suggests an association between household food insecurity and overweight prevalence in this low-income population. However, sex and age appear to modify both the magnitude and direction of the association.