As Christmas approaches thousands of young adult carers will once again face the emotional turmoil of juggling their commitments at home with going out and sharing in the festive celebrations.

Lawyers representing online gambling interests told the Kentucky Court of Appeals on Friday that Gov. Steve Beshear's effort to seize domain names is blatantly unconstitutional.

Scientists have discovered more than 1,000 species in Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong region in the past decade, including a spider as big as a dinner plate, the World Wildlife Fund said Monday.

Once again, Florida finds itself haggling with Big Sugar for the future of the Everglades. The state faces a Tuesday deadline to approve a $1.34 billion deal to buy 180,000 acres from U.S. Sugar Corp., Florida's largest sugar producer.

A new study uncovers 11 gene variants associated with three blood lipids measured to determine cardiovascular disease risk: low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and triglycerides. The discovery opens up new opportunities for nutrigenomics researchers looking for links between diet and genetics that will optimize health and lower chronic disease risk.

Researchers at the University of Warwick's Department of Statistics and Centre for Complexity Science have devised a new research tool that could help unpick the complex cell interactions that lead to cancer and also allow social scientists to mine social networking sites such as Facebook for useful insights.

Researchers have created a new family of fluorescent probes called hydrocyanines that can be used to detect and measure the presence of reactive oxygen species. Reactive oxygen species are highly reactive metabolites of oxygen that have been implicated in a variety of inflammatory diseases, including cancer and atherosclerosis.

By magnetically levitating water droplets, and using a “liquid electric motor” technique to spin them, researchers can investigate how the droplets change shape. Rather than being just a curious experiment, the results could provide insights into systems that cannot be controlled in the laboratory, such as black holes and atomic nuclei.

While radiation treatments deliver precise doses of high-energy X-rays to stop cancer cells from spreading or to shrink tumors, oncologists have become increasingly concerned about inadvertent exposures during head and neck cancer treatments to nerves responsible for upper body mobility. To reduce the possibility of permanent nerve damage, UC Davis Cancer Center researchers have taken the lead in...

A global energy supply based on biomass grown to generate electricity and produce fuel is a real possibility. According to Prof. Jürgen O. Metzger from Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany and Prof. Aloys Huettermann from the University of Goettingen in Germany, it is both a sustainable and economical scenario, contrary to current thinking which suggests it is unrealistic. Their...

Just under five per cent of the men who took part in the prostate cancer element of the USA's largest ever cancer screening trial were diagnosed with the disease and the majority of those were picked up by screening programmes, according to research published in the December issue of the urology journal BJU International.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Wind and wave data from ESA's Envisat satellite radar are being used to observe meteorological conditions in the track of the Vendee Globe solo round-the-world yacht race.

Doctors have expressed considerable concerns about the growing trend for heavy wooden and ornamental toilet seats after a number of male toddlers were admitted with crush injuries to their penises.

Is obesity all in your head? New research suggests that genes that predispose people to obesity act in the brain and that perhaps some people are simply hardwired to overeat. A genetic study of more than 90,000 people has identified six new genetic variants that are associated with increased Body Mass Index. Five of the genes are known to be active in the brain, suggesting that many genetic...

A fruit fly's immune system can tell time, researchers have found, and how hard it punches back against infections depends on whether the fly is snoozing or cruising. The discovery could have implications for human health, too.

A new study shows that when dieters eliminate carbohydrates from their meals, they performed more poorly on memory-based tasks than when they reduce calories, but maintain carbohydrates. When carbohydrates were reintroduced, cognition skills returned to normal.

Researchers have found that an experimental drug successfully blocks an enzyme that causes some bone marrow cancers. The oral drug, called CYT387, was tested in mice as well as in human cells. In both cases, it blocked the growth of certain bone marrow cancers called myeloproliferative disorders, also referred to as...

At MIT, planning for bad weather involves far more than remembering an umbrella. Researchers in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics are trying to improve weather forecasting using robotic aircraft and advanced flight plans that consider millions of variables.

As ice melts away from Antarctica, parts of the continental bedrock are rising in response -- and other parts are sinking, scientists have discovered. The finding will give much needed perspective to satellite instruments that measure ice loss on the continent, and help improve estimates of future sea level...

Fads have been a staple of American pop culture for decades, from spandex in the 1980s to skinny jeans today. But while going from fad to flop may seem like the result of fickle consumers, a new study suggests that this is exactly what should be expected for a highly efficient, rationally evolved...

Treating patients who have chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease with long-term pegylated interferon significantly decreased their liver enzymes, viral levels and liver inflammation, but the treatment did not slow or prevent the progression of serious liver disease, a study...

A fundamental process in the transmission of genes from mother to child has been identified. The new study identifies a mechanism that plays a key role in how mutations are transmitted from one generation to the next, providing unprecedented insight into metabolic diseases.

Geneticists have been debating if meiosis requires only external or internal signals. Although earlier work revealed that an external cue from retinoic acid is needed, new research shows that embryonic germ cells must first express the Dazl gene in order to process the retinoic acid...

The world has gone digital in just about everything we do. Almost every iota of information we access these days is stored in some kind of digital form and accessed electronically -- text, charts, images, video, music, you name it. The key questions are: Will your data be there when you need it? And who's going to preserve...