Science News 

. Colourful vegetables and fruits are good for health
. Ants and their colonies
. Calcium builds strong bones 
. Honey can help when you have a cold
. The science of Ice Cream
. Chandrayaan-1 has mapped many parts of the Moon's surface
. Monkeys behave differently in public: just like humans do
. How do young eels float?

Some of these are discussed in more detail below.

Colourful vegetables and fruits are good for health
Nature is full of color, from rainbows and roses to butterfly wings and peacock tails. Even the fruits and vegetables you eat often have distinctive colors: red strawberries, purple brinjals and orange carrots, yellow pumpkin. Red, green, yellow, orange, all the colours are there.
Plants and animals often use color to attract attention. Deep, rich colors also provide another, important benefit for plants. Scientists have shown that the substances responsible for these colors actually help protect plants from chemical damage.
When we eat colorful fruits and vegetables, the pigments (or colourings) protect us, too.
The pigments responsible for plant colour belong to a class of chemicals known as antioxidants. Plants make antioxidants to protect themselves from the sun's ultraviolet (UV) light.
Ultraviolet light causes chemicals called free radicals to form within plant cells. If free radicals move through plant cells without being neutralized or eliminated, they can begin to destroy parts of the plant. Antioxidants stop free radicals in their tracks, shielding cells from harm.
Typically, a highly coloured plant has more of these protective chemicals than a paler one does.
Carrots contain antioxidants that help protect cells from chemical damage. Tomatoes contain a powerful antioxidant.
Our bodies have natural defenses for fighting off free radicals. The body makes certain molecules, known as antioxidants or repair enzymes, that stop free radicals before they can harm us.
Green vegetables like spinach, red/orange/yellow tomatoes, carrots, oranges, pumpkins, and purple brinjals contain hundreds of healthful chemicals not found anywhere else.
In fact, it is not easy to make a pill with the right amount of anti-oxidants. Here is one place that Nature is best. So make sure you get to eat all those colourful fruits and vegetables! They are good for you.
Ants and their colonies
Have you ever watched a line of ants? Do they ever remind you of a gaggle of school-children, with the teacher calling to them to stay in line? Or do they remind you of battalions, marching soldiers with serious concerns?
Without ants, the world would be a mess. Soil would be unable to sustain much life. Dead leaves, insects and small animals would litter the Earth's surface. Pests would kill many of the food plants we need to survive. Thousands of species of flowering plants would disappear into extinction, robbed of a vehicle for their pollen.
Ants are one of the most successful forms of life on Earth. There are 14,000 species of ants whose combined weight is equal to that of the world's entire population of humans.
They have developed architecture and built farms millions of years before our primate ancestors had even considered walking on two legs. A lot of research has been done on ants, their life, and how they communicate.
Most important is the question of how the thousands (sometimes millions) of individuals make collective decisions without any central leadership. This is an attempt to understand how groups of individuals can behave as a single "super-organism".
Their work rate is astonishing. A nest of Atta leafcutter ants can defoliate an entire citrus tree in a day and, in the South American rainforest, the ants typically harvest around a fifth of the annual growth - more vegetation than any other animal. In a single lifetime, a leaf-cutter colony turns over and aerates 40 tonnes of soil.
In 2007, it was found that certain species of army ants use their bodies to plug potholes in the forest floor. This helps other ants to move more easily. Different ants fill holes of different sizes and two or more ants band together if there is a particularly big hole.
This complex group behaviour is organised using chemicals called pheremones. Around two dozen different chemicals guide the instincts of each insect, telling them which way to turn out of the nest to find food, which of their nest mates is dying and needs to be removed from the colony, which ants need feeding, which are the soldiers, which is the queen and which ones process the colony's rubbish.
The chemicals also help the ants make decisions, for instance, if they need to find a new nest.
Ants decide what to do individually and also on the basis of pheremones. Initially a few ants make a particular decision; when the number of ants who have made this decision reaches a tipping point (which is flexible), the entire colony is then committed to that decision.
This is very similar to how nerve cells cooperate to make decisions in humans. Perhaps modelling ants' behaviour will help to model the human brain.
Calcium builds strong bones 
Bones are amazing. They're hard but flexible, and they're lightweight but tough. Without bones, we'd be just puddles of skin and guts.
An adult person has 206 bones in his or her body. The outer layer of a typical bone is made of a hard material honeycombed with tunnels. This web of hollow pipes allows a bone to be strong and light. It also allows the passage of nutrients and waste. A protein called collagen gives a bone its elasticity. Chemicals known as calcium salts make a bone hard.
But, even though our bones support us, they're easy to ignore. Unlike a cut or bruise, a weak bone isn't visible or painful.
Once you get to be about 35 years old, bone tissue gets broken down more quickly than it's replaced. This means that bones tend to lose tissue, and the bone density goes down. That's when osteoporosis usually becomes a concern. And it's a bigger risk for women than for men. Osteoporosis is a disease that causes older people to shrink in height and break bones easily.
Getting the right kind of bone-building nutrition and exercise as a teenager is like putting money in the bank. Your bones can stay strong as you get older.
Doctors urge kids to get plenty of calcium, the mineral that makes bones strong. Calcium is also essential for keeping nerves, blood, and muscles healthy. When you don't take in enough calcium, your body takes calcium out of your bones, which weakens your bones even more.
Milk or fortified juice provides calcium to build strong bones, unlike a soft drink. 
Although calcium is abundant in milk, yogurt, cheese, fortified juices, soy milk, and some nuts and vegetables, few people get enough of it. The Institute of Medicine recommends that kids between the ages of 9 and 18 get 1,300 milligrams of calcium every day. That's roughly the amount of calcium in a litre of milk.
And that's not all you need. To absorb the calcium you eat, you have to take in a variety of other vitamins and minerals, including lots of vitamin D, which you can get from sunlight.
Getting enough exercise is also crucial. This strengthens bones as well.
The science of Ice Cream
It's cold. It's sweet. It's creamy. And that burst of fruit-filled, nutty, or chocolate-chunky flavor can be incredibly refreshing when it's hot. Ice cream is summer's most delightful treat.
Not all ice cream, however, is perfect ice cream. Texture matters as much as flavor. Nothing's worse than an icy scoop, or one that tastes grainy, syrupy, or artificial.
So, what's the secret to ice cream that tastes like a dream and feels like a silky cloud melting in your mouth? High-quality ingredients, for one, are essential, plus fine-tuned techniques that combine ingredients in just the right proportions with a perfect amount of air whipped in.
For ice-cream manufacturers, the science of ice cream matters a lot. To satisfy the population's unceasing demand for the sweet stuff, companies are constantly on the lookout for ways to make better-tasting ice cream that lasts longer, costs less, and is more nutritious than current varieties.
Besides cream, ice cream has just a few essential ingredients: mainly sugar, milk solids, ice crystals, air, and flavourings. Sugar makes the dessert sweet, but it also serves another important purpose. In the freezer, plain cream turns into a solid that's hard as a rock. Sugar lowers the mixture's freezing temperature, making it much softer.
The highest quality ice creams have the fewest ingredients.
The best ice cream varieties also tend to have the least air in them, which makes them denser. A cheap brand may be half air. Gourmet brands are more like 15 to 20 percent air. In other words, the better the ice cream, the more of it you actually get in each bite.
Air is pumped into ice cream near the end of the manufacturing process, after the basic ingredients have been mixed together and cooled down, but before fillings go in.
As the concoction freezes in a huge container, large blades spin the cream around and scrape ice crystals off the sides of the container. For high-end brands with lots of butterfat, the process is enough to prevent iciness. Some companies churn their ice cream slowly and for a long time. This process helps fat globules stick together and produces a creamy, somewhat greasy texture.
Economy brands that skimp on richness and are churned more quickly, however, have to add extra ingredients. Emulsifiers, for example, keep fat suspended throughout the final product. And stabilizers control the growth of ice crystals.
Some companies don't use stabilizers. Left in the freezer for too long, a carton of this sort of ice cream ends up with an icy beard on top. Ice cream that melts and refreezes often has the same problem.
In the battle against ice crystals, one recent avenue of research has focused on molecules called antifreeze proteins. Found in certain types of fish and plants that live in extremely cold environments, these proteins prevent ice crystals from forming, which keeps the organisms from freezing to death. Perhaps they could do the same for ice cream.
The technique isn't yet practical, however. Until then, tasty ice-cream just has to be made the traditional way.
Monkeys behave differently in public: just like humans do
Rhesus macaque mothers are about twice as likely to let a howling infant have its way during very public tantrums than during more private moments, it has been found.
A baby rhesus monkey makes a high-pitched, grating shriek. Female rhesus macaques and their babies usually live amiably together. When a baby monkey throws a tantrum, it can be very disruptive, especially if it is not allowed by its mother to nurse. The shrieks of the baby can drive nearby monkeys to violence. So the mother often gives in rather than endure a public tantrum.
This tantrum study adds a new dimension of complexity to our understanding of mother-infant communication and conflict in primates.
Research has found that nonhuman primates pay attention to eavesdropping bystanders, but this is the first demonstration that communication between mother and infant is affected by an audience.
Onlookers seemed bothered by the screams;occasionally they made threatening gestures, or even chased, grabbed or bit the mother or the infant.
Most of the aggression came from monkeys that weren't close relatives. Her relatives proved more tolerant.
Other baby primates besides humans and macaques also throw tantrums, although their behaviour depends on how close the group is.
How do young eels float?
Young eels consist mostly of a jellylike matrix covered by a thin sheath of muscle, making them completely transparent. In fact, for centuries scientists thought that the young eels -- called leptocephali -- were a separate species of fish from the more solid-bodied adults.
Now scientists are reporting the specifics of how this gelatinous goo of the larval eels keeps them afloat. They surveyed the specific gravity of 25 marine creatures that typically dwell in the upper layer of the oceans -- where floating particles of food are plentiful. Japanese eel larvae had one of the lowest specific gravities (the ratio of a material's density, in this case the eel's body, to the density of water). Among the surveyed taxa, which included baby jellyfish, specific gravities ranged from 1.020 to 1.425. But the young eels ranged from 1.019 to 1.043, lower than seawater's specific gravity (1.024) in some cases.
Such a low specific gravity helps the animals float high in the water column. The eels probably maintain this superb buoyancy through the chloride cells that cover their young bodies, allowing them to control the flow of ions. The researchers found that specific gravity increased in the older larvae, which were beginning to grow the muscle and bone that will weigh the eels down as they grow up.
Compiled from many sources