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A new study conducted by researchers from UC Davis and the John Innes Center in Norwich, England, suggests that it is harder than previously thought to predict when sudden shifts in Earth's natural systems will occur. The finding is troubling for scientists who are trying to identify the tipping points that could push climate change into an irreparable global disaster. The study was published recently in Ecology Letters.

Despite the over-promotion of nicotine replacement therapies by drug companies and anti-tobacco activists, the most successful method used by ex-smokers is unassisted cessation, according to a new policy forum in PLoS Medicine. In the article, researchers from the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, Australia take a critical look at most tobacco control campaigns, which emphasize that serious attempts at quitting smoking must be pharmacologically or professionally mediated.

A collaborative study involving scientists from 12 UK research institutions, universities and conservation organizations suggests that the trend towards earlier UK springs and summers has been accelerating. The study, published recently in Global Change Biology, is the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment so far of long-term changes in the seasonal timing (phenology) of biological events across marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments in the UK, the authors say.

Vesicular stomatitis virus, or VSV, has shown the potential to serve as an anti-cancer agent, exercising high selectivity in killing cancer cells while sparing healthy cells, and as a potent vaccine against HIV. But in order for the necessary genetic modifications to occur, scientists must have an accurate picture of the virus's structure. While three-dimensional structural information of VSV's characteristic bullet shape and its assembly process has been sought for decades, efforts have been hampered by technological and methodological limitations.

According to a study of 1025 13-17 year-olds, gaming, texting, or staring at the TV for hours on end are unlikely to cause headaches in adolescents, but listening to one or two hours of music every day may do the trick. The study appears this week in BMC Neurology.The researchers interviewed 489 teenagers who claimed to suffer from headaches and 536 who said they did not. When the two groups were compared, no associations were found for television viewing, electronic gaming, mobile phone usage or computer usage.

If you have overweight children, don't take responsibility for what they eat--just blame their expanding waistlines on McDonald's and Hershey's for advertising their products on TV. Not only is it easier to scapegoat restaurants and food manufacturers than to take personal responsibility for your children, but there's also scientific research that justifies the scapegoating, so it's probably alright

University of Miami geologists have analyzed images based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) observations taken before and after Haiti's devastating  January 12 earthquake. The images reveal surprising new details that may help the island better mitigate future earthquakes.According to the new data, the earthquake rupture did not reach the surface--unusual for an earthquake this size. More importantly, the images confirm that only the western half of the fault segment that last ruptured in 1751 actually ruptured in the current earthquake."We're still waiting for the other shoe to drop," said Tim Dixon, professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine&Atmospheric Science.

In some places around the world, reptiles are becoming a delicacy, but researchers writing in the International Journal of Food Microbiology say there are dangerous side effects that come with eating the animals. Experts warn that eating crocodiles, turtles, lizards or snakes may result in exposure to dangerous parasites, bacteria, viruses, and to a lesser extent, contamination from heavy metals and residues of veterinary drugs. According to the study,  people can also catch certain diseases (trichinosis, pentastomiasis, gnathostomiasis and sparganosis) by eating reptile meat.

LONDON, February 8 /PRNewswire/ -- It's a fact that men have sex on the brain more than women. Yet, encouraging men and women to think about sex in a different way is important for the public's health and wellbeing according to the Sexual Advice Association*. Launching its Thinking About Sex Day (TASD), an awareness campaign, on Valentine's Day, the Sexual Advice Association takes its commitment to raise awareness of physical and psychological issues around sexual activity to new heights.

Previously blamed for cognitive deficits in children, so called third hand smoke, the nicotine residue from tobacco smoke that clings to virtually all surfaces long after a cigarette has been extinguished, also reacts with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to produce cancer causing carcinogenic tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), according to a new study appearing in PNAS.

A new study published in Current Alzheimer Research claims that marijuana doesn't temper or reverse the effects of Alzheimer's disease and may even cause harm. The findings could lower expectations about the benefits of medical marijuana in combating various cognitive diseases and help redirect future research to more promising therapeutics.Previous studies using animal models showed that HU210, a synthetic form of the compounds found in marijuana, reduced the toxicity of plaques and promoted the growth of new neurons. Those studies used rats carrying amyloid protein, the toxin that forms plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's victims.

Family meals, adequate sleep, and limited TV time may reduce obesity prevelance among preschoolers by almost 40 percent, according to a study in the March Issue of Pediatrics. The new research is the first to assess the combination of all three routines with obesity prevalence in a national sample of preschoolers.Each routine on its own was associated with lower obesity, and more routines translated to lower obesity prevalence among 4-year-olds, according to the analysis. The link between the routines and lower obesity prevalence was also seen in children with and without other risk factors for obesity.