Why can booze or food tempt us? How can AI help betting and medicine? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of June 18-24 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

I'm fascinated by the question of why, when we know we shouldn't consume something, we so often do. Are there different parts of our selves that disagree? Or are there chemical processes overwhelming us? This is just one of many topics touched on by ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

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  My brain made me eat it - but if my brain is a part of me,
  is that a good excuse? Credit: Valerie Bennett
  used via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0 licence

  Your brain absolutely cannot resist doughnuts – here’s why by Alison George at New Scientist
• Scientists Pinpoint Brain Region That May Be Center of Alcohol Addiction by Bret Stetka at Scientific American
• Spectacular Strawberry Science! by Kat Day at The Chronicle Flask
• NASA’s Kepler K2 Mission Discovers 78 New Exoplanet Candidates at Sci-News.com
• The Surprising Reason Why Neutron Stars Don’t All Collapse To Form Black Holes by Ethan Siegel at Starts With a Bang
• A Geological Review Of 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' by David Bressan at Forbes
• To beat Vegas bookies at the World Cup, these statisticians turned to artificial intelligence by Amanda Grennell at PBS News Hour
• Could Artificial Intelligence Take the Art out of Medicine? by Pamela E. Hepp at Scientific American
• New therapy helps your own immune system kill cancer cells by Emma Pettengale at The Biochemist
• When Do Children Become Right- or Left-Handed? by Richard Berks at The Geekfather
• Global Insect Extinction – a never ending story by Simon Leather at Don't Forget the Roundabouts
• Bees get stressed at work too (and it might be causing colony collapse) by Amélie Cabirol and Andrew Barron at The Conversation
• Think Your Body Is Infested With Insects? You're Not Alone. by Erika Engelhaupt at Gory Details
• Putting a Weapon in Reverse by Karen Bonuck at The Doctor's Tablet
• Trump’s new oceans policy washes away Obama’s emphasis on conservation and climate by David Malakoff at Science
• Animals are becoming night owls to avoid humans by Shreya Dasgupta at Mongabay
• How to recognize and stop your need for magic: the cautionary tale of vaccines and autism by Gaia Cantelli at Science Blog
• As I predicted, the exploitation of desperate patients using right-to-try begins by Orac at Respectful Insolence
• Why Does Exploding Dots Work? by James Propp at monthly writings in and around mathematics 
• Science Rendezvous by Cat Lau at Art the Science
• Is globalization causing inequality? by José Luis Ferreira at Mapping Ignorance

Check back next week for more great picks!

What is the surprising way football can help with health? How can we reach our climate goals? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of June 11-17 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Did you know that if the World Cup trophy was solid gold it would be too heavy to lift? Maybe you don't like football - if so we've got some interesting articles for you about how the universe works. These subjects and many other topics are among ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

Image credit: Compound Interest

• The chemistry of the World Cup by Andy Brunning at Compound Interest
• World Cup Ban on Radioactive Chemicals Frustrates Russian Biochemistry Labs by Quirin Schiermeier at Nature
• Football is a winning treatment for elderly people with prediabeties by Magni Mohr at ScienceNordic
• Does Depression Accelerate Aging? by Viatcheslav Wlassoff at Brain Blogger
• Raw is risky: Meghan Markle had to give up eating favourite food after marrying Harry by Doug Powell at Barfblog
• After a decade, new Gardasil ad campaign gets it (mostly) right by Ashley Andreou at STAT
• ASCO endorses the integration of quackery into breast cancer care by David Gorski at Science-Based Medicine
• Gene therapy makes inroads to help patients - and clear its name by Jovana Drinjakovic at Signals
• This Is Why Physicists Think String Theory Might Be Our ‘Theory Of Everything’ by Ethan Siegel at Starts with a Bang
• The Standard Model (of Physics) at 50 by Yvette Cendes at Scientific American
• In her short life, mathematician Emmy Noether changed the face of physics by Emily McConover at Science News 
• Artificial intelligence can predict how you’ll look decades from now by Matthew Hutson at Science
• Species recognition shifts into auto with neural networks by Sue Palminteri at Mongabay
• Crop pollination depends on wild AND managed pollinators by Manu Saunders at Ecology is not a dirty word
• Climate change could be killing Africa’s giant baobabs by John Cannon at Mongabay
• Cities Look to "Virtual Power" to Reach Climate Goals by Benjamin Storrow at Scientific American
• Alien Anthropocene: How Would Other Worlds Battle Climate Change? by Lee Billings at Scientific American
• Could cyanobacteria terraform Mars? by Andrew Masterson at Cosmos Magazine
• Review needs a revision by Thomas Wagenknecht at Elephant in the Lab
• Sparking Interest in STEM Careers in Middle School by Amy Cowen at Science Buddies

Check back next week for more great picks!

Can we resurrect dinosaurs? How can we use ocean plastic waste? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of June 4-10 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

As Jurassic World explores the return of dinosaurs that had no problems in killing their prey, could humans in modern society face killing for food too? These subjects and many other topics are among ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

Resurrecting dinosaurs might not be so easy.

Credit: pixabay/azdude, CC BY-SA

• Jurassic World: Can We Really Resurrect a Dinosaur? by Darren Griffin and Rebecca O'Connor at The Conversation
• “Life finds a way”: What Jurassic World teaches us about modern wildlife by Roisin Conn at Seeking Science
• Tardigrade mysteries by Jon Farrow at The Thoughtful Pharoah
• ‘I’m only going to eat animals I kill myself’: Q&A with Louise Gray, author of ‘The Ethical Carnivore’ by Joshua Parfitt at Mongabay
• Did Han Solo Use A Trick Of Einstein’s Relativity To Make The Kessel Run? by Ethan Siegel at Starts With A Bang
• Evidence Builds for a New Kind of Neutrino by Clara Moskowitz at Scientific American
• Gravitational Waves Were Used To Look Inside Neutron Stars by Alfredo Carpineti at The Astroholic
• Finally, scientists have found intriguing organic molecules on Mars by Eric Berger at Ars Technica
• Nanodiamonds are forever by Sue Vorenberg at Argonne National Laboratory 
• Political Emotions. The Role of Affect in Social Movements by Katja May at Imperfect Cognitions
• "The Love of Neuroscience" and the Neuroscience of Love by Neuroskeptic at Discover
• California legislation will require polyester clothing to have a microfiber pollution label at Microfiber Pollution Project
• Reminder: Plastic Doesn’t Go in the Compost Bin by Michael Allen at Hakai Magazine
• The Island Paradise Where the Roads Are Made of Plastic by Monica Pelliccia at Oceans Deeply 
• The cancer cell next door by Maya Emmons-Bell at Equilibria
• Cancer: a many headed beast by Emily Harrison at OncoBites
• Cancer Vaccines: Educating Your Immune System since the 1800s by Sara Musetti at OncoBites
• Singapore could become the second country to legalize mitochondrial replacement therapy  by Sandy Ong at Science
• Intestinal bacteria can work better than antibiotics by Nancy Bazilchuk and Ingrid Spilde at ScienceNordic
• From the duh files: Human behavior and corporate culture impact on hygiene, food safety by Doug Powell at Barfblog
• Here are the data and code for that study of Puerto Rico deaths by Andrew Gelman at - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

Check back next week for more great picks!

Can penguins love? What could transform our view of physics? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of May 28-June 3 2018 #sciseekpicks #scicomm

Space is amazing - but getting off Earth is a big challenge, while staying on a warming planet is no picnic either. These subjects and many other topics are among ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise for the past seven days. Here is the full round-up of the ScienceSeeker Editors’ Selections:

Love among penguins?
Image copyright cotaro70s
used via Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0 licence

• The Penguin That Loved Too Much by Alex Ronan at Topic
• We Have Unrealistic Beauty Standards for Coral, Too by Gemma Conroy at Hakai Magazine
• Oil Spill Recorded By Microscopic Seafloor Organisms by Patrick T. Schwing at Science Trends
• A Glioblastoma Vaccine? Not Yet. by Derek Lowe at In The Pipeline
• The Rise and Fall and Rise of Genetic Memory by James Howe at NeuWrite San Diego
• Monkey study bolsters case for brain hormone's role in autism by Nicholette Zeliadt at Spectrum
• The Psychological Challenges of Just Getting to Mars by Brian Gallagher at Nautilus  
• Scientists unlock the secrets of Pluto’s methane dunes by Phil Dooley at Cosmos
• ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope Captures Tarantula Nebula at Sci-News.com
• Life returned to crater of Cretaceous asteroid in the blink of an eye by Scott K. Johnson at Ars Technica
• Dig in to the Physics of Donuts for National Donut Day! by Amanda Babcock at Physics Buzz!
• MiniBooNE by John Baez at Azimuth
• Podcast of the week: Can We Predict Earthquakes At All? by Sabrina Stierwalt at Scientific American/Quick and Dirty Tips
• Does global warming make tropical cyclones stronger? by Stefan Rahmstorf, Kerry Emanuel, Mike Mann and Jim Kossin at RealClimate
• What Has Changed—and What Has Not—Since Paris Withdrawal Announcement by Zack Colman at Scientific American
• Missing Paris Climate Goals Could Cost Trillions by Prachi Patel at Anthropocene
• The science of science careers: never too late to consider options by Gaia Cantelli at ACSB Post
• "Smart people problems." This is NOT how we should be talking about PhD mental health by Raffi Parker at Medium
• Anion Exchange Membrane Crosslinked In The Easiest Way Exhibits High Alkaline Stability by Md. Masem Hossain, Zhengjin Yang, and Tongwen Xu at Science Trends 
• Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible at Microsoft

Check back next week for more great picks!