A new paper describes the perfect combination of genetic alterations that tumors use to promote explosive growth and prevent their own demise, a development that could change the way oncologists understand and treat melanoma.

Telomeres, protective caps at the of the end of the chromosome, are required to prevent DNA from degrading. In healthy cells, telomeres become shorter with each cycle of replication until they become so short that the cell can no longer divide. Disruptions in maintenance of the length of the telomeres can lead to severe disease. Short telomere syndromes lead to premature aging and death, but extra-long telomeres are associated with cancer.

If you have ever visited or Florida or any place with rainfall extremes at sub-hourly timescales - short storms - residents joke that if you don't like their weather, wait five minutes and it will change.

A new analysis says those changes may be happening quickly, and are intensifying much faster than those on longer hourly or daily timescales. Which means greater chance for damaging environmental hazards like flash flooding. If these intense short-duration precipitation events are being affected by our changing climate. understanding them is crucial for effective climate adaptation and mitigation. 

Heart inflammation after a COVID-19 vaccine is very rare but epidemiology exists to vreate exploratory between products and outcomes and a recent analysis showed incidence of myocarditis, pericarditis or myopericarditis is two- to threefold higher after a second dose of the Moderna Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine compared to the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

That's not a reason to avoid a vaccine, any more than you should stop eating salad if it has a regular pesticide rather than an organic one, but it may mean that it's beneficial to choose specific vaccines for certain populations.

A faint white dwarf star as well as the remains of its orbiting planetary system are over ten billion years old, according to a new estimate.

WDJ2147-4035 is the oldest dead star with an evolved planetary system found to-date.

A white dwarf is a star that has burnt up all of its fuel and shed its outer layers and is now undergoing a process of shrinking and cooling. During this process, any orbiting planets will be disrupted and in some cases destroyed, with their debris left to accrete onto the surface of the white dwarf.

Virtual Reality devices are advertised everywhere but have as much uptake as USDA nutrition guidelines or 3-D televisions. One reason is that it's a lot of money for something you can use for 20 minutes without fatigue. Another is VR sickness, a type of motion sickness which comes from users seeing “motion” through their headsets without actually moving. The symptoms include headaches, nausea, and sometimes vomiting. 

A metabolite that converts white fat cells (sometimes called “bad” fat) to brown fat (“good” fat) cells could lead to treatment metabolic conditions like cardiovascular disease plus lifestyle-preventable things like type 2 diabetes.

Obesity is best treated by caloric reduction and energy intake but it wouldn't exist at all if everyone could maintain energy homeostasis that easily, and obesity is fast closing on smoking as the top lifestyle disease killer in the world. Regardless of why diseases happen, with health care controlled by government a leaky bucket has become a leaky water tower, so more ways to prevent disease will keep people out of emergency rooms - and that is where everyone goes because a doctor visit can't happen for a month.