News Articles

The human papilloma virus (HPV) is common in humans but it can lead to infection and even cancer so there have been calls to get people vaccinated. 4,000 women will die each year from cervical cancer, which is linked to HPV, and HPV can also cause genital warts and more rare forms of cancer. The two vaccines in use, made by GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, prevent about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases and the CDC estimates that 7,000 HPV-associated cancers might be prevented each year with HPV vaccines but uptake has been limited because medical professionals don't like that there have been tens of thousands of adverse reaction reports.
A new study finds that the HPV test alone may be valuable. A study

They say money can't buy happiness. Can genetics?
Some people seem to be happy no matter what. If you visit many places in Africa, even when the existence may seem hard to Europeans or Americans, a lot of people are quite happy.
The key could be genetics say....economists.
Why not economists? We let sociologists and anthropologists make all kinds of claims and they don't understand statistics anywhere near as well as the economists from the University of Warwick Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy.

Have physicists conquered the scaling behavior of exotic giant molecules?When a two-body relation becomes a three-body relation, the behavior of the system changes. The basic physics of two interacting particles is well understood but the mathematical description of a three- or many-body system becomes so difficult that calculating the dynamics can blast the capacities of even modern super computers. Under certain conditions, the quantum mechanical three-body problem may have a universal scaling solution and  physicists from Heidelberg University say they have experimentally confirmed such a model. The scientists under Prof. Dr. Matthias Weidemüller investigated three-particle molecules, known as trimers, under exotic conditions. 

Volcanic hazards aren't limited to eruptions, debris landslides can also cause a great deal of damage and loss of life. 
Stratovolcanoes, with their steep, conical shapes made up of lava and unconsolidated mixed materials, can reach a critical point of instability when they overgrow their flanks. This leads to partial collapse, and the product of this slope failure is a large-scale, rapid mass movement known as a catastrophic landslide or debris avalanche. 

Results from a clinical trial show that high doses of the corticosteroid fluticasone propionate safely and effectively induce remission in many people with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a chronic inflammatory disease of the esophagus characterized by high levels of white blood cells called eosinophils. However, some trial participants did not respond to fluticasone even after six months of high-dose treatments, providing evidence that certain people with EoE are steroid-resistant.

In the last few months, pop star Selena Gomez and actress Kristen Johnston have said they struggle with lupus, bringing new attention to the autoimmune disease.They join a list of celebrities such as R&B singer Toni Braxton, Nick Cannon, host of “America’s Got Talent” and Seal, who has a form of the disease that caused the infamous scars on his face. Even Lady Gaga claimed she tested “borderline positive” for lupus.But while people may be familiar with who has it, many do not know what it actually is.Selena Gomez. Credit: North Shore LIJ

A new image-based strategy helps identify and measure placebo effects in randomized clinical trials for brain disorders. 

The U.S. Department of Energy has given the green light to the LUX-Zeplin (LZ) experiment, which wants to help figure out dark matter, an invisible substance that must make up a lot more of the universe than visible matter does. It is essentially a scientific placeholder because whatever it is should explain a number of important behaviors of the universe, including the structural integrity of galaxies. 

A study out today says has confirmed a link between antipsychotic medication and a measurable, decrease in brain volume in patients with schizophrenia.
The research say this is the first time research has been able to examine whether this decrease is harmful for patients' cognitive function and symptoms, and noted that over a nine year follow-up, this decrease did not appear to have any effect.
As we age, our brains naturally lose some of their volume – in other words, brain cells and connections. This process, known as atrophy, typically begins in our thirties and continues into old age. Researchers have known for some time that patients with schizophrenia lose brain volume at a faster rate than healthy individuals, though the reason why is unclear.

Spanish scientists did an experiment using obese rats and found that the consumption of probiotics over 30 days (equivalent to almost four years in human terms) helped diminish the accumulation of fat in the liver.

It's uncommon to identify a new species of mammal these days, but four new species of Ctenomys, a genus of gopher-like mammal commonly called tuco-tucos and found throughout much of South America, have been identified.
Tuco-tucos are burrowing rodents ranging from 7 to 12 inches long and weighing less than a pound. They demonstrate the broad range of biological diversity in the lowlands and central valleys of Bolivia, where all four new species were found.

It's a common trope among Hollywood celebrities; media is alarmed at weight gain, celebrity says they are proud of their body, they feel better than ever, people clap, celebrity appears two months later and lost 25 lbs. and is on magazine covers with diet tips and talking about how much better they feel.
Celebrities are externally driven and they add external motivations to boost their willpower, what about people who can't afford personal chefs and trainers? What about regular people who are already demoralized? An intervention program aimed at helping obese women maintain their weight also had the benefit of significantly reducing depression in nearly half the participants, according to a new study.