The number of microbes in, on, and around the planet - on the order of a nonillion, or 10^30 - is estimated to outnumber the stars in the Milky Way. Microbes are known to play crucial roles in…

Few things are as interesting to a male mouse as the scent of a female. Pheromones released by females draw the attention of male mice and trigger courtship and mating behavior. Now, researchers at…

One year into the National Institutes of Health's Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), the massive project could still benefit from incorporating experimental studies of animal models of human…

A new study in Neurology associates calcium supplements with an increased risk of dementia in older women who have had a stroke or other signs of cerebrovascular disease.  Calcium from food…

CRISPR-Cas9 is the go-to technique for knocking out genes in human cell lines to discover what the genes do, but the efficiency with which it disables genes can vary immensely. University of…

In 2012, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was criticized for speaking an uncomfortable truth; 47 percent of voters are voting for the same party regardless of the actual policies. In…

Pavlov's famous behavioral experiment involved a dog. Dogs want food. Maybe not so clear, according to a paper in Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Given the choice, many dogs prefer…

In the United States, there used to be a belief that the next generation would always have it better. No more. A lingering economic malaise and non-stop apocalyptic jingo-ism about chemicals, food,…

Does free health care or terrific medical treatment make citizens unwilling to change their lifestyle? There is a valid argument it is true. HIV has plummeted among every demographic except gay men,…

In December 2006, the USA regulated sodium permanganate, a chemical essential to the manufacture of cocaine. In March 2007, Mexico, the USA's primary source for methamphetamine, closed a chemical…

AURORA, Colo. (Aug. 16, 2016) - Researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine have published a new study showing that sleep apnea worsens non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in obese…

The Venus Table of the Dresden Codex, an ancient Mayan book containing astronomical data, has been studied for 120 years, with some confusion and accuracy. If you can recall the Mayan calendar…

 Bisphenol A (BPA) is a component of some plastics and is found in food containers, plastic water bottles, dental sealants, and thermal receipt paper. In the body, BPA is a mild synthetic…

The duration of overweight and obesity in women's adult lives is correlated with cancer risk in a PLOS Medicine longitudinal study. Yet its finding are not going to be taken seriously because…

Move over glass windows, something even more old school than you could be back in fashion. A new paper in Advanced Energy Materials finds that windows made of transparent wood could provide better…

Like other claims about binge diets, if this becomes a thing, someone out there will try to claim there is a biological mechanism. But unless it is a gene only in middle class white women it probably…

Indoor trampoline park injuries are an "emerging public health concern," warn doctors in Injury Prevention - because over 6 months, 40 children needed medical treatment at just one trauma center…

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (August 11, 2016) - By identifying new compounds that selectively block mitochondrial respiration in pathogenic fungi, Whitehead Institute scientists have identified a potential…

Researchers at the University of Rochester have, for the first time, decoded and predicted the brain activity patterns of word meanings within sentences, and successfully predicted what the brain…

Although diseases of the heart and blood vessels (cardiovascular disease, CVD) kill more people worldwide than anything else, with 17.3 million deaths globally, cancer has now overtaken CVD as the…