By examining the distinct wave patterns formed from complex biochemical reactions within the human body, diseased organs may be more effectively identified, says Zhengdong Cheng, associate professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, who has developed a model that simulates how these wave patterns are generated.

Do fish feel pain? Victoria Braithwaite, Penn State professor of fisheries and biology, has spent decades studying that question. In her recently published book, "Do Fish Feel Pain?" she examines whether fish are capable of experiencing pain, whether humans cause them to suffer and whether it even matters.

New research indicates that the integration of senses and functions in the brain is common. About two percent of the population has a condition called synesthesia, in which two different sensations, like color and sound, are experienced at once. Although this condition is rare, the new findings suggest the brain is wired in complex and sometimes overlapping ways to help people interpret and understand their environments. The research was presented at Neuroscience 2010, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news on brain science and health.

Haiti is on the brink of an era of mass extinctions similar to the time when dinosaurs and many other species suddenly disappeared from the Earth, reports a biologist at Penn State University, who is announcing today the establishment of a species-rescue program for Haiti's threatened frogs and other species, including captive-breeding and gene-preservation efforts. "During the next few decades, many Haitian species of plants and animals will become extinct because the forests where they live, which originally covered the entire country, are nearly gone," reports Blair Hedges, a professor of biology at Penn State and leader of the rescue missions in Haiti and other countries in the Caribbean. "The decline of frogs in particular, because they are especially vulnerable, is a biological early-warning signal of a dangerously deteriorating environment, just as a dying canary is an early-warning sign of dangerously deteriorating air in a coal mine," said Hedges, who is also one of the world's foremost authorities on amphibians and reptiles. "When frogs start disappearing, other species will follow and the Haitian people will suffer, as well, from this environmental catastrophe."