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A new paper says the way to lower your risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes is not losing weight and exercising more, but sleeping 7 hours and 18 minutes every night.You can't multiply that by seven days and catch up by sleeping more on the weekend and it also means if you just sleep less, you are out of luck. That is why like all epidemiological correlation, this is only EXPLORATORY. Science has not confirmed this and the correlation arrows could easily go the other way; insulin misfires may make you sleep less.

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial tested a four-day oral supplement, “FoTv,” which is made from the mycelium — the root-like network — of two types of mushrooms: Fomitopsis officinalis and Trametes versicolor (FoTv). Participants began taking the supplement on the same day they received their vaccine and the authors reported that the supplement acted as a natural immune regulator and decreased vaccine side effects while preserving or increasing antibody levels and helping vaccine protection last longer. They say it could replace synthetic immune adjuncts which help the body produce a stronger antibody response - but have been linked to side effects such as fever, chills, fatigue and muscle aches.

A new study examining regional snow cover trends across the Northern Hemisphere found seasonal shifts in snow - and a lot less of it.The authors used the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab Northern Hemisphere Weekly Snow Cover Extent Data Record to determine whether snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere is increasing or decreasing. Then their two-state Markov chain model with periodic dynamics was used to analyze snow cover and found that significantly more areas are losing snow cover than gaining it. And the seasons were changing.Central Park in New York City. Credit: Mary Pollitz

A bad liver today currently means a replacement, but having enough transplant organs is challenging when families worry their loved ones' skeletons could be sold to middle schools and end up immortalized in prank photos. The future will involve replacements made with a patient's own stem cells, no immunosuppressive drugs or waiting lists needed.

Once the weather got political, more attention became focused on the cyclical climate phenomenon El Niño. Critics charged that too many early models were shaped by understating its effects while proponents insisted its efforts were worse due to CO2 emissions.There is something for everyone. It is cyclical, but not predictable, because it might bring wetter conditions to some areas and drier to others every two years. Or every seven. Experts can't agree on when it begins or ends, only that it's impacted by changes in what ancient sailors called the trade winds - the air currents that moved cargo ships from from east to west along the equator.

Glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer, is treated with surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible and then radiation and chemotherapy.Like all cancer, that may not be the end of it. Sometimes, the aggressive cancer returns. A recent study sought to find out if high doses of vitamin B3 or niacin could help, by rejuvenating compromised immune cells to kill tumor cells, the way it had with mice. The researchers found that while glioblastoma suppresses the immune system, niacin in mice gave immune cells a boost so they could continue to attack and destroy cancer cells.

At two months of age, infants lack language and fine motor control but their minds may be understanding how things look and figuring out to which category they belong, which would push back earlier beliefs about the foundations of visual cognition.A new study recruited 130 two-month-old infants who were placed on a beanbag chair wearing sound-canceling headphones, while shown bright, colorful images which kept them engaged for 15-20 minutes. The team used functional MRI (fMRI) to measure changes in brain activity in response to pictures representing 12 common visual categories such as cat, bird, rubber duck, shopping cart and tree.

Opportunistic salpingectomy, proactively removing a person’s fallopian tubes when they are already undergoing a gyecological surgery such as hysterectomy or tubal ligation, may be a way to reduce ovarian cancer risk. Most ovarian cancers originate in the fallopian tubes rather than the ovaries and ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological cancer.

Existing treatments control HIV but the immune system does not revert to normal. They is why people living with HIV remain susceptible to infections and it underscores the need for immunotherapies.That requires modern tools like CRISPR-Cas9 and others. Tools that environmentalists oppose, insisting all science is a corporate conspiracy. As they have historically done with natural gas and GMOs and vaccines. Antiretroviral therapy is highly effective at suppressing HIV, so the virus is no longer the direct death sentence it once was, but the immune system remains in an inflammatory state of overactivation and impaired functionality.

In older countries it has become common for young people to live with their parents until, and sometimes well after, they get married. A new study finds that some parts of the animal kingdom don't even stop growing until what it middle age for humans. An analysis of 17 tyrannosaurus rex specimens, from early juveniles to older adults, concludes they took 40 years to reach their full size of around eight tons.

Colorectal cancer, cancer of the colon and rectum, is the third most common form of cancer in the world and has the second highest mortality rate. When caught early enough, it is usually treated with surgery, radiation or chemotherapy, methods that can have significant side effects.A new study highlights a fourth way, one the researchers hope could have fewer side effects. They found that a purified toxin secreted by cholera bacteria can slow the growth of colorectal cancer and has not shown any side effects. It worked by  changing the immune microenvironment in tumors.

Diabetic foot infections are a serious complications of diabetes and a leading cause of lower-limb amputation but little is known about the specific pathogens involved in these chronic foot infections, particularly E. coli, despite its frequent detection in clinical samples.A new genomic characterization of E. coli strains isolated directly from diabetic foot ulcers across multiple continents may help explain why some infections become difficult to treat and lead to severe, even life-threatening, outcomes. The team analyzed whole-genome sequences from 42 E. coli strains isolated from infected diabetic foot ulcers in patients from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas and sequenced the complete DNA of each bacterial strain.