Today's Health/Science: ocean changes, eating cues, winning body language, air man

William Balch shoots a sensor into the water from the CAT ferry to Nova Scotia.
(Dina Rudick/Globe Staff)

The front line of climate change research in New England is sandwiched between a camper and a Saturn on the high speed CAT ferry to Nova Scotia. If the researchers can better understand some of the basic processes in the vast swath of sea in the Gulf of Maine, they might be able to figure out whether global warming is taking a toll here.

Next time you sit down to dinner, dim the lights - but not too much. Both bright light and dim light may make you eat more. Watch the background music, too. If it's too fast, you'll eat fast, and therefore more; too slow and you'll keep eating. And think small for plates - a portion that looks skimpy on a dinner plate looks ample on a salad plate.

Throwing their heads back, thrusting their arms in the air, puffing out their chests, and flashing big grins, Olympic athletes from across the world follow the same triumphant choreography each night. They aren't just gold medal-clad copycats; a study released last week says that such displays of pride seem to have biological underpinnings, shared with chest-beating mountain gorillas and strutting monkeys.

After 40 years studying bats, Thomas Kunz of Boston University has come to see the air as a separate habitat for flying organisms - birds, bats, and insects.

Also in Health/Science, does coenzyme Q10 help combat problems like hypertension or cancer and is it true that one can get drunk on water?

Also in today's Globe:

Researchers gathering in Boston for the American Psychological Association convention detailed studies suggesting video games can be powerful learning tools - from increasing the problem-solving potential of younger students to improving the suturing skills of laparoscopic surgeons.

Mary Louise Diehl Jacques, a Winchendon native and longtime nurse who cared for soldiers during the Korean War, died of lung cancer June 6 in her Vero Beach, Fla., home. She was 79.