Making a splash on the blogs these last two weeks…

The results of the massive ENCODE project exploring the human genome are out! Ed Yong explains more about the project (for the non-scientist) and along with the flood of new data there has been online debate over how the project has been covered in the media. Over at The Finch and Pea, Mike White provides an overview of how major media stories have erred. Michael Eisen provides another critique. These discussions point to a gap between the public’s perception of DNA in particular – and science in general – and the difficult job of accurately communicating and reporting complex new discoveries. If you’d rather dive into the data yourself though, here is a link to the ENCODE explorer on Nature, which is also available as a free iPad app.

Eating well and maintaining a healthy weight are important but, as Rob Dunn’s guest post at the Scientific American Blog network pointed out, there is a lot we don’t understand about digestion and our bodies. Read The Hidden Truths About Calories for a better sense of what is and isn’t understood about food’s journey through our bodies  and why the nutrition facts give only a sketch of the whole picture.

In related news, a 25-year study found that restricting the calories in the diets of rhesus monkeys did not not extend their lives, according to coverage in Nature news, it appears that the quality of food and genetics also play a role in aging.

Twitter has announced that their API will no longer support RSS and Atom in March, more in this post from Mashable .