Responding to chemical changes is a crucial function of biological cells. For example, cells can respond to chemicals by creating certain proteins, boosting energy production, or self-destructing. Chemicals are also used by cells to communicate with each other and coordinate a response or send a signal, such as a pain impulse.

In the early part of the 19th century, volcanoes had such a dramatic impact people worried the climate was irrevocably changed. The "year without a summer" saw cooler temperatures and there was concern Tambora in Indonesia and four other large eruptions were going to be the norm.

They caused longer droughts in Africa and contributed to the last advance of Alpine glaciers during the Little Ice Age. A new study used computer models to analyze the effects of the series of eruptions on the oceans and thus on atmospheric circulation. But some caution is warranted. It is still a computer model and tens of thousands of variables can resolve differently in the real world.

Symptoms of physician burnout appear to be associated with greater bias toward black people in this study of nearly 3,400 second-year resident physicians in the United States who identified as nonblack.

However, since this is simply an observational study it cannot determine if the suggested association between symptoms of burnout and bias toward black people is causal and the magnitude of the observed association was small to medium.

A new position statement suggests resistance training should be considered vital to improving the health and longevity of senior citizens.

The statement makes recommendations for successful resistance training, or exercise focused on building muscle endurance, programs for older adults. 

When you poll people about living past 100 years old, few respond positively. It could be loss of friends and family, physical and cognitive decline, loss of independence and poor quality of life. If physical decline were mitigated, people may not be able to live longer, but they might live better.

Compensatory strategies for kids with autism spectrum disorders, an adaptive process whereby new behaviors are generated in order to avoid negative outcomes, do have positive outcomes, like increased social integration, but can result in a barrier to diagnosis.

In a warming climate change scenario, higher mean temperatures may have an impact on plants and animals by disrupting their mutually beneficial relationship: The pasque flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris), for example, is sensitive to rising temperatures and will flower earlier, whereas one of its major pollinators, a solitary bee species, hatches at the same time. 

Seed production will likely find a different route, this is two bee species out of about 25,000 after all, and the bee will switch to other plants to forage on.

None of that is devastating unless it doesn't happen the way evolution has happened so far.