In work that aims to protect soldiers from biological and chemical threats, a team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists has created a material that is highly breathable yet protective from biological agents.

This material is the first key component of futuristic smart uniforms that also will respond to and protect from environmental chemical hazards. The research appears in the July 27 edition of the journal, Advanced Materials.

Coral Gables, FL (August 3, 2016) - The alert is out and South Floridians are taking heed. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issuing a warning for visitors and locals to avoid a neighborhood in Miami after more than a dozen individuals contracted Zika, a team of University of Miami researchers have presented a new study that shows how the flow of visitors through a popular place, such as the affected Wynwood area of Miami, determines the eventual severity and duration of such an outbreak.

The study entitled, "Anomalous contagion and renormalization in networks with nodal mobility," was published in the journal Europhysics Letters on August 1 while a related paper by the same team will appear shortly in Physical Review E.

August 2, 2016 -- Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health with collaborators at the Federal University of Sao Paulo studied the relationship between psychiatric symptoms and patterns of substance use among high school students in Brazil and found that respondents with clinically significant scores on a behavioral screening questionnaire were more likely to use alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana in the past month compared to those without symptoms. The study is among the first to highlight the link between psychiatric symptoms and substance use among teenagers in a middle-income country with high levels of social inequalities. The paper is published online in The American Journal on Addictions.

Men diagnosed with prostate cancer can be provided with a more accurate estimate of their risk of death from the disease, and treatment planned accordingly, according to a Research Article published by Vincent J. Gnanapragasam, of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK and colleagues in PLOS Medicine.

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers affecting men, and the risk of disease progression and death is very variable when the disease is diagnosed while it is localized to the prostate gland. Providing as accurate an estimate as possible of the individual risk is important in planning appropriate treatment, which could range from surgery to management by regular observation, as well as in providing advice and support to patients.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A genetic mutation may have helped modern humans adapt to smoke exposure from fires and perhaps sparked an evolutionary advantage over their archaic competitors, including Neandertals, according to a team of researchers.

Modern humans are the only primates that carry this genetic mutation that potentially increased tolerance to toxic materials produced by fires for cooking, protection and heating, said Gary Perdew, the John T. and Paige S. Smith Professor in Agricultural Sciences, Penn State. At high concentrations, smoke-derived toxins can increase the risk of respiratory infections. For expectant mothers, exposure to these toxins can increase the chance of low birth weight and infant mortality.

Science-fiction is filled with technologically advanced species that could easily overwhelm us - but it may be that we are going to be that first interstellar traveler, and we may discover other life before it even knows it is being discovered.

The universe is 13.8 billion years old, while our planet formed just 4.5 billion years ago. That large time gap may mean that life on other planets, should it already exist, could be billions of years older than ours. Or it could be that present-day life is actually premature from a cosmic perspective and we have the huge head start by even being able to ask those questions.