Is that really Bob? You've seen him hundreds of mornings for the last 10 years at local coffee shops. Since he started dating Sara, he looks you in the eye -- and smiles. Sara takes every opportunity to let coffee shop cronies know that Bob is her guy and to gush about how funny he is. And he is. Who knew? Think of Sara like Michelangelo chipping away at a block of marble to release the ideal figure slumbering within. To the degree that the sculpting process has gone well, that she has helped mold Bob toward his ideal self, the relationship functions better and both partners are happier, according to new research. Conversely, a relationship can run into trouble when an individual emphasizes attributes that are peripheral to the core elements of what a partner ideally wishes to become.

Using sheep to control leafy spurge works best if it's done in the spring every year, according to a new study.

Treatment for alcohol use disorders and tuberculosis (TB) is rarely integrated, even though the two diseases have a high co-occurrence. American and Russian researchers have jointly designed and are monitoring an innovative program that will deliver alcohol treatment as part of routine TB care. The trial study is continuing.

Research from the UK suggests that two glasses of champagne a day may be good for your heart and circulation. The researchers have found that drinking champagne wine daily in moderate amounts causes improvements in the way blood vessels function.

Scientists have developed a straightforward technique to determine the ethnic origin of stem cells. The team's analysis of a variety of human embryonic stem cell lines currently in use in research laboratories around the world found that these cells originated largely from Caucasian and East Asian populations, with little representation from populations originating in Africa.

Closing schools for less than two weeks during a flu pandemic may increase infection rates and prolong an epidemic. The findings, developed from a series of computer simulations based on U.S. census data, indicate that schools may need to be closed for at least eight weeks in order to significantly decrease the spread of infection.

As the Arctic warms, permafrost will degrade, potentially resulting in increased groundwater runoff as frozen ground that had blocked the flow of water melts. To investigate how groundwater systems will evolve as surface temperatures rise, researchers have developed a model to simulate an idealized aquifer covered by a layer of permafrost.

Researchers have found that weakened Plasmodium elicits a protective immune response.

Some land formations on Mars suggest the presence of water ice. These features could have been created by viscous creep of ice below the surface in Martian permafrost. To determine how much ice would be needed to form the observed topography on Mars, researchers conducted laboratory experiments to simulate the frozen Martian sand.

Earlier this year, researchers showed that they could cut the lives of disease-carrying mosquitoes in half by infecting them with a bacterium they took from fruit flies. Now, a new report suggests that their strategy might do one better: The Wolbachia bacteria also makes the mosquitoes more resistant to infection by viruses that are a growing threat to humans, including those responsible for dengue fever and Chikungunya.