Taking vitamin D supplements during pregnancy, as recommended for all women under UK guidelines, has no significant effect on the bone density of babies, according to the first randomised controlled trial of its kind, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal. However, the findings suggest vitamin D supplements may be beneficial for babies born in winter months, potentially counteracting the seasonal drop in vitamin D levels caused by a lack of sunlight.

WOMEN from ethnic minorities in the UK are more likely to believe that cancer is incurable and is down to fate than their white counterparts, according to a Cancer Research UK study published in the British Journal of Cancer today (Tuesday)*.

The researchers - from the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, based at University College London (UCL) - believe that this may explain why women from ethnic minority backgrounds are less likely to attend cancer screening or see their doctor about cancer symptoms.

They surveyed 720 White British, Caribbean, African, Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi women.

Nearly a quarter of Caribbean women (23 per cent), and at least half of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women (50 per cent, 52 per cent, and 63 per cent res

Most aquatic species sense sound via particle motion, yet few studies on underwater acoustic ecology have included measurements of particle motion.

In response, researchers from the Universities of Exeter, Bristol and Leiden and CEFAS have developed a user-friendly introduction to particle motion, explaining how and when it ought to be measured, and provide open-access analytical tools to maximise its uptake.

A growing number of studies on the behaviour of aquatic animals are revealing the importance of underwater sound, yet these studies typically overlook the component of sound sensed by most species: particle motion.

Large areas of medically important genes fall within troublesome regions of the human genome, where it is currently difficult to obtain accurate sequence information, according to research published in the open access journal Genome Medicine. On average, one fifth of each of these medically important genes is challenging for today's gene sequencing methods to decipher, and the information in these gene regions may be key to a patient's diagnosis or treatment plan.

To optimize medical care, an accurate account of each patient's genetic code is needed to predict risk for disease and to select appropriate medication. The study by researchers from Stanford University highlights the medical consequences of sequencing errors.

Many people including Stephen Hawkings and Elon Musk are worried about the possibility of an artificial program that might become intelligent and take over the world. The idea is that at some point in the future we may be able to develop artificial intelligences through programming that are equal in intelligence to humans but capable of living much faster, and able to rewrite their own programs to become even more intelligent.

Yes, a thousand of them indeed. The asteroid belt, and Near Earth Asteroids. I don't mean living on them like the little prince:

The Little Prince

That's not very practical without an atmosphere.

Nor living inside them as some suggest.

But rather, using materials from the asteroid belt and first, from the close Near Earth Asteroids, to build large habitats following the Stanford Torus design and others.

Researchers from University College London estimate that use of e-cigarettes produced 16K-22K additional long-term quitters in England in 2014.1 A long-term quitter is someone who has not smoked for at least one year.

The UCL team has been tracking the rapid rise in use of e-cigarettes using monthly national surveys and estimates that in 2014 almost 900,000 smokers used one of these products to try to quit (see "Electronic cigarettes in England - latest trends" (ref STS140122) at http://www.smokinginengland.info/latest-statistics/).

HAMILTON, March 1, 2016 - As scientists step up their search for other life in the universe, two astrophysicists are proposing a way to make sure we don't miss the signal if extraterrestrial observers try to contact us first.

René Heller and Ralph Pudritz say the best chance for us finding a signal from beyond is to presume that extraterrestrial observers are using the same methods to search for us that we are using to search for life beyond Earth.

Here on Earth, space researchers are focusing most of their search efforts on planets and moons that are too far away to see directly. Instead, they study them by tracking their shadows as they pass in front of their own host stars.

Researchers have discovered one reason why adolescents are more prone to drug addiction than adults, with findings that could lead to new treatments for addictive disorders.

In two studies with mice and humans to be published together in the journal eLife, the investigators from Baylor College of Medicine, US, have found that the ability to produce (or synthesize) new proteins, regulated by the molecule eIF2, accounts for adolescents' hypersensitivity to both cocaine and nicotine.