Today's Health/Science: organic or not, altruism, finch mystery, neuroscience of color

There really is no proof that organic food, which costs about a third more, is better for us than the conventionally grown stuff.

Edward O. Wilson, the renowned Harvard evolutionist, has changed his mind, startling colleagues by arguing that kin selection does not lead to altruism.

It's a surprise to learn that the white-winged Diuca finch nests directly on glacial ice in the high Andes, according to research published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology. An even bigger surprise is the academic affiliation of one of the two authors of the scientific paper: the Marion W. Cross Elementary School in Norwich, Vt.

Neuroscientist Bevil Conway, an assistant professor at Wellesley College and a visiting scientist at Harvard Medical School, started out as a visual artist. It is this dual approach that, his champions in neuroscience say, has allowed him to breathe some new ways of thinking into the field.

Also, does exercise increase or decrease your appetite and what makes the microwaves in a microwave oven?

Plus, cell 'backpacks' on the horizon and monsoons in dynasties' fate (second item)