News Articles

When most people think of Vikings, they think of rape and pillaging and longships full of fierce warriors - history was clearly written by the Normans who conquered England.

The existence of wage gaps between genders in some occupations, from environmentalism to the White House to science academia, continues to be a hot-button topic. Medium- and lower-wage positions get the most attention but a new paper in The American Journal of Medicine says directors of internal medicine residency programs are also paid different based on gender. And that is despite the increased percentage of women faculty in U.S. academic medicine, and that is regardless of region, program type, academic rank, general internal medicine specialty, age, or years of experience. The gap has not narrowed in the last five years

Young people are just as likely to try electronic cigarettes - vaping - as cigarette smoking, according to a new report  in Tobacco Use in Canada: Patterns and Trends.

Bats are masters of flight, even at night. The best pilots in World War II would have to be envious of their steep nosedives and sharp turns.
But when we think about bats and flying, most people think of echolocation and their built-in radar. But that doesn't help while banking hard left. Instead, it is the sensation of touch - bats have a unique array of sensory receptors in their wings and provide feedback to during flight. A new study in Cell Reports suggests neurons in the bat brain respond to incoming airflow over the wings, noted by touch signals, and they make rapid adjustments to wing position to optimize flight control. 

Few doctors are prescribing a low-cost drug that has been proven effective in preventing the onset of diabetes, according to a study in Annals of Internal Medicine which found that only 3.7 percent of U.S. adults with pre-diabetes were prescribed metformin during a recent three-year period.
Metformin and lifestyle changes both can prevent the onset of diabetes, but people often struggle to adopt healthier habits, according to Dr. Tannaz Moin, the study's lead author and an assistant professor of medicine in the division of endocrinology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and at VA Greater Los Angeles.

"The word, virus, connotes morbidity and mortality, but that bad reputation is not universally deserved," said Marilyn Roossinck, PhD, Professor of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology and Biology at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park. "Viruses, like bacteria, can be important beneficial microbes in human health and in agriculture," she said. Her review of the current literature on beneficial viruses appeared ahead of print April 24 in the Journal of Virology, which is published by the American Society for Microbiology.

More than 1,000 dams have been removed across the United States because of safety concerns, sediment buildup, inefficiency or having otherwise outlived usefulness. A paper published today in Science finds that rivers are resilient and respond relatively quickly after a dam is removed.
"The apparent success of dam removal as a means of river restoration is reflected in the increasing number of dams coming down, more than 1,000 in the last 40 years," said lead author of the study Jim O'Connor, geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "Rivers quickly erode sediment accumulated in former reservoirs and redistribute it downstream, commonly returning the river to conditions similar to those prior to impoundment."

Clinics are advertising stem cell treatments using exceptions in FDA regulations, according to a new paper. 

In proof-of-concept experiments, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine demonstrate the ability to tune medically relevant cell behaviors by manipulating a key hub in cell communication networks. The manipulation of this communication node, reported in this week's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, makes it possible to reprogram large parts of a cell's signaling network instead of targeting only a single receptor or cell signaling pathway.

A statistical analysis of data from 20 industrial countries covering the period 1970 to 2012 suggests housing market pricing cycles -- normal, boom and bust phases -- have become longer over the last four decades.
The study also found that longer down phases can have dire consequences on national and international economies. While relatively short-lived housing booms tend to deflate, more prolonged booms are likely to spiral out of control. Similarly, compared to short housing busts, longer housing busts are more likely to turn into chronic slumps and, ultimately, lead to severe recessions.

Contrary to popular belief, more healthy kids' meals were ordered after a regional restaurant chain added more healthy options to its kids' menu and removed soda and fries, researchers from ChildObesity180 at Tufts University Friedman School reported today in the journal Obesity. Including more healthy options on the menu didn't hurt overall restaurant revenue, and may have even supported growth.

Dispersal and adaptation are two fundamental evolutionary strategies available to species given an environment. Generalists, like dandelions, send their offspring far and wide. Specialists, like alpine flowers, adapt to the conditions of a particular place.
Ecologists have typically modeled these two strategies, and the selective pressures that trigger them, by holding one strategy fixed and watching how the other evolves. New research published in the journal Evolution illustrates the dramatic interplay during the co-evolution of dispersal and adaptation strategies.