Schizophrenia can cause hallucinations, delusions, trouble with thinking and other behaviors that impact daily functioning. Though it affects less than 1% of the public, 60% of schizophrenic smoke cigarettes, a known carcinogen and risk factor for numerous diseases; a 500 percent increase over the general population, where smoking has plummeted thanks to greater awareness of its harms plus smoking cessation tools like nicotine gums, patches, and vaping.

Beta-blockers are a class of medications that reduce the heart rate, the heart's workload and the heart's output of blood, which, together, lower blood pressure.

Blood pressure is only a risk factor for heart disease, it is not a disease in itself, yet when people hear about a medical issue with a vital organ it can have profound psychological impacts. Some people report feeling depressed or having fitful sleep after taking beta blockers. Plus anxiety, drowsiness, hallucinations and nightmares. When one medicine has so many diverse correlations without any biological plausibility, it is probably not the medicine, it is more likely the implications of the medicine.

For as much talk as there is about bullying and drama in schools, for most teens the experience of interacting with peers is not only positive, it is essential training for dealing with others later in life.

And if a new national poll is an indication, government lockdowns and societal pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic may have lasting impacts on the mental health of young people.

In Mongolia, plants preserved in a volcanic ash fall deposit as part of a so-called "vegetational Pompeii," may have resolved the mystery of the Noeggerathiales.

What are Noeggerathiales? Paleontologists have wanted to really know since they first learned of them.

Scientists know they were peat-forming plants that lived approximately 325-251 million years ago but their relationships with other plant groups was unknown. Were they an evolutionary dead end? Now it has been established that Noeggerathiales had the spore propagation mode of ferns and the vascular tissue of seed plants. They belonged to a sister group of seed plants, the former gymnosperm.

COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 variant, B.1.1.7 was first discovered in Kent last year and statistics suggest it is 30 and 100 percent more deadly than previous strains.

This is epidemiology, so an exploratory finding using correlation, that is why the range is so large. Scientists would have to confirm the validity of the statistical correlation before figuring out how to tackle it.

In lab tests, solar often seems to work great, yet in actual use its efficiency drops sharply. A phenomenon known as singlet fission can help but it is hindered by unexplained energy losses during the reaction.

Basic research is needed because solar energy could grow to be one of the most important fossil-free and eco-friendly sources of electricity. Unless it doesn't work as advertised for taxpayers who fund it.