News Articles

Young girls with an intense, red, itchy rash on their outer genital organs - vulvitis - may be at increased risk of developing urinary tract infections, according to new research from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. 
Vulvitis is not a disease, but rather inflammation of the the vulva. It is the most common gynecological condition in pre-menstrual girls and is the greatest reason for referral to a pediatric gynecological specialist. 
The treatment may be as simple as better hygiene and avoiding potential irritants such as bubble baths and swimming pools.

Most new species come about in geographic isolation, or at due to least large-scale geographic distance, but a controversial hypothesis known as sympatric speciation, which occurs when a new species develops while sharing the same geographic area with its parent species, may 
have gotten a boost in South America.

It’s possible to assess dietary compliance from a blood sample - that is useful in controlled dietary intervention studies investigating the health benefits of specific diets, since such studies have mainly relied on the participants’ self-reported dietary intake, which is often biased, making it more difficult to assess the real health benefits.

Due to increased regulations, a culture war against pharmaceutical corporations, and the high costs of trials, companies have increasingly allowed early taxpayer-funded biomedical research to spread the risk among hundreds of millions of people. The pace of invention has slowed considerably and it may be because of academic culture, according to a new study.
An analysis of patented university inventions has revealed early bottlenecks on the path to commercialization and the authors suggest that better communication of basic research results during the discovery stage could lead to faster commercialization down the road.

Tropical Storm Karina was weakening on August 20 when NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard Terra snapped a visible image of Tropical Storm Karina on August 20 at 19:40 UTC (3:40 p.m. EDT). The MODIS image showed that a thick band of strong thunderstorms spiraled into Karina's center from the southeast. The band of thunderstorms wrapped around Karina's eastern and northern quadrants, spiraling into the center from the west, making the tropical cyclone look like the number nine.

A team of researchers  is a step closer to solving the mystery of how lizards regenerate their tails. They have found the genetic "recipe", which involves genetic ingredients in just the right mixture and amounts.
The scientists used molecular and computer analysis tools to examine the genes turned on in tail regeneration. The team studied the regenerating tail of the green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis), which when caught by a predator, can lose its tail and then grow it back. 

When salmon encounter turbulent, fast-moving water, such as rapids or areas downstream of dams, they must move upstream using a behavior known as "burst swimming" that is similar to sprinting for humans.

A common orb-weaving spider may grow larger and have an increased ability to reproduce when living in urban areas, according to ecologists from the University of Sydney.

The Paleolithic inhabitants of modern-day Spain may have eaten snails 30,000 years ago - 10,000 years earlier than their Mediterranean neighbors, according to a recent paper.

Biofuels production has never lived up to the hype. It does something, so it is less hype than quantum computers have been for 15 years, but biofuels suffer from inefficiencies that have kept it from improving due to time and experience, some of which is that subsidies and mandates lead to less innovation rather than more, and then there is a chemistry problem.
There may be hope for the chemistry problem. A new paper
the Journal of the American Chemical Society finds that water in the conversion process helps form an impurity which slows down key chemical reactions.

Silent strokes are a loss of blood flow to parts of the brain. Such strokes do not cause immediate symptoms and typically go undiagnosed, but they cause damage. In kids, they can even lower IQ.

One form of drug counseling to help young people with drinking problems makes people in a 'we must do something' culture feel better may be of limited benefit, a new systematic review suggests. Each year, around 320,000 people worldwide between the ages of 15 and 29 die as a result of alcohol misuse. Most of those deaths are due to car accidents, murders, suicides or drowning. Motivational interviewing is a counseling technique developed in the 1980s that is sometimes offered to people with alcohol problems. It aims to help them overcome ambivalence and change behavior. Counselors listen, adopt a non-judgmental, non-confrontational stance and then highlight the negative consequences of drinking.