1 to 1.5 percent of the global population has epilepsy, about 50 million people, but various epidemiological data indicate that between 20 to 35 percent of children with autism have epilepsy. If there are neurobiological causes of this comorbidity, they are unknown. 

Researchers at the University of Veracruz in Mexico have been searching for neurobiological reasons why a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is 20-30 percent more susceptible to seizures that a child without ASD. Angel Alberto Puig Lagunes, a doctoral student in Brain Research, works with two experimental models, one with autism and another of epilepsy, to understand the differences in the amount of neurotransmitters and receptors that may determine susceptibility to seizures.

Commercial weight loss plans come and go. It is hard to have a week go by without some new weight loss gimmick being listed on the New York Times bestseller list, and a diet plan and pre-packaged meals are sure to follow.

Many people will ask doctors for recommendations when it comes to a weight loss plan but that can be hard to do. A new review analyzed 4,200 studies for solid evidence of the effectiveness of weight loss plans but concluded only a few studies met the scientific gold standard of reliability.

A new study notes that many breastfeeding mothers in the Philippines want more sex right after giving birth than they did before they became pregnant.

The Philippines culture has a low divorce rate so is it a relationship survival strategy? Or an increased sex drive?

Though girls at a young age enjoy Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), by the time they graduate from college their interests have changed. Women still prefer the life sciences and dominate the social sciences, but in other areas like physics the representation is not the same as the broad population. Engineering, which has the highest equality in pay between genders, still lags in women despite their efforts to recruit more females.

A team of psychologists report on an intervention for college undergraduates which found that female first-year students participate more actively and feel less anxious when they are able to work in small groups or "microenvironments" that are mostly female. 

It may be sexist but when more women are on ballots, political parties do better, according to a new paper.

Whether or not that is because women will vote for gender over the best candidate is unclear, but it does mean that the belief that people will not vote for women is  not true. The authors analyzed changes on municipal election laws in Spain which instituted a quota for female candidates. With other factors being equal, the scholars found that parties that increased their share of female candidates by 10 percentage points more than their opponents enjoyed a 4.2 percentage-point gain at the ballot box, or an outright switch of about 20 votes per 1,000 cast. 

Rubber is natural and the main ingredient for many everyday products, from boots to condoms to surgical gloves. Roughly 70 percent of the global supply of rubber is used in tires.