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At low doses, such as those considered safe for humans, mice exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) in utero showed sex-specific changes in their brains that could have affected social behaviors such as grooming and aggression, according to a study published yesterday (May 27) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Specifically, Frances Champagne from Columbia University in New York City and colleagues found changes in estrogen receptor expression in the cortex of male mice and in the hypothalamus of females whose mothers’ had been exposed to BPA. These expression changes were associated with epigenetic modifications to the genes coding for that receptor, which could have affected the animals’ social behavior.

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A new drug that could help reduce damage to the body after a heart attack, stroke or major surgery has been developed by UK scientists.

Tests in mice suggest the compound protects the heart when blood flow is restored suddenly after a period when tissue has been starved of oxygen. MitoSNO has yet to be tested on humans, but could lead to a whole new class of medicines.

With the strokes from three gubernatorial pens, Vermont on Monday became the fourth state in the country to allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients.

Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the measure in a state House ceremony in Montpelier, capping a decade-long effort on the issue in Vermont.

Vermont is the first state to pass such a law through the legislative process. Oregon and Washington enacted their laws by referendum; in Montana, it was legalized by the courts.

Major international oil companies are buying off governments, according to the world's most prominent climate scientist, Prof James Hansen. During a visit to London, he accused the Canadian government of acting as the industry's tar sands salesman and "holding a club" over the UK and European nations to accept its "dirty" oil.

"Oil from tar sands makes sense only for a small number of people who are making a lot of money from that product," he said in an interview with the Guardian. "It doesn't make sense for the rest of the people on the planet. We are getting close to the dangerous level of carbon in the atmosphere and if we add on to that unconventional fossil fuels, which have a tremendous amount of carbon, then the climate problem becomes unsolvable."

Do your kids love chocolate milk? It may have more calories on average than you thought. Same goes for soda.

Until now, the only way to find out what people in the United States eat and how many calories they consume has been government data, which can lag behind the rapidly expanding and changing food marketplace.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are trying to change that by creating a gargantuan map of what foods Americans are buying and eating.

For almost a decade, the United States has been standing in the way of an idea that could lead to cures for some of the world's most devastating illnesses. The class of maladies is known as neglected diseases, and they almost exclusively affect those in the developing world.

The same idea, if realized, might also be used in more affluent nations to goad the pharmaceutical industry into producing critical innovations that the free market has yet to produce - things like new antibiotics, which are likely to be used judiciously, and are unlikely to be wildly profitable.