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Syria no longer has the capacity to produce new chemical weapons en masse, but arms control experts caution that what remains is the more difficult job of destroying the existing stockpile in the midst of the country's brutal civil war. An article in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, details the challenges involved.

The caffeine in a cup of coffee might help your small blood vessels work better, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2013.

Cigarette smokers who are over 65 years of age may be able to lower their risk of cardiovascular disease-related deaths to the level of never-smokers when they quit faster than previously reported, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2013.

Researchers from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth have found that epigenetic changes to DNA are associated with aging in disease-free breast tissues and are further altered in breast tumors. Epigenetic changes describe heritable alterations caused by mechanisms other than by changes in DNA sequence. The discovery, published in the February 2014 issue of Epigenetics, illustrates how cancer and aging are tightly interconnected processes by identifying epigenetic alterations present in the normal aging breast that may increase disease risk in cancer-free individuals.

TAMPA, Fla. (Nov. 20, 2013) - When invasive species move into new areas, they often lose their natural enemies, including the microbes that make them sick. But new research from evolutionary biologists at the University of South Florida has found that adjustments in the immune system may help house sparrows, one of the world's most common bird species, thrive in new areas.

Want to make bread taste pleasantly salty without adding more salt? Change the bread's texture so it is less dense, say scientists. They report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that simply making the pores, or holes, larger can make people perceive bread as having saltier taste. The process could become a new strategy for reducing salt intake, which is a risk factor for high blood pressure and heart disease.

Scientists discover three new gorgeous species of the wafer trapdoor genus Fufius – F. minusculus, F. jalapensis, and F. candango. The discovery of the three new species, published in the open access journal ZooKeys, paves the road to understanding the morphological variability of the species in this little known mygalomorph genus.

Predicting adult body height from genetic data is helpful in several areas such as pediatric endocrinology and forensic investigations. However, despite large international efforts to catalogue the genes that influence the stature of humans, knowledge on genetic determinants of adult body height is still incomplete. Now DNA-based prediction of taller-than-average body height is feasible, as reported by researchers from the Netherlands and Sweden in an article published in Springer's journal Human Genetics.

For many decades, researchers thought the closest relatives of papaya were certain trees from the Andes, the so-called highland papayas. A study employing DNA sequences from all species of the papaya family instead revealed that the closest relatives of papaya are three herbaceous species and a small tree with stinging hairs occurring from Mexico to Guatemala and El Salvador. The stingy-haired tree in fact is only known from cloud forests in the Sierra de Juarez in Oaxaca, southern Mexico.

Every day, the human body produces new cells to regenerate tissues and repair those that have suffered injury. Each time this happens, the cells make copies of their DNA that they will pass on to the resulting daughter cells. This process of copying the DNA, also called replication, is very delicate, given that it can generate severe alterations in the DNA that are associated with malignant transformation or ageing.

It is possible to affect how someone will think or act simply by priming that person with just a single word, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research that examines the use of homophones in written advertising.

"We show that mentally distracted people will think of purchasing, or 'buy' when reading 'bye.' When the concept of purchasing is primed by reading 'bye,' consumers may be willing to pay more for a product or service," write authors Derick F. Davis (University of Miami) and Paul M. Herr (Virginia Tech).

In a testament to the pervasiveness of consumerism, studies have shown that consumers form subcultures, communities, and tribes around the brands they truly love. While much research has gone into understanding how these consumption collectives are formed, a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research examines consumer behavior around the death of a brand.

Almost two-thirds of women who attempt a natural delivery after having a caesarean section for their first birth are successful, according to a new study published today (20 November) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The study, conducted by the Office for Research and Clinical Audit (ORCA) at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, aimed to investigate the factors that determine the uptake and success rate of vaginal birth after caesarean.

Women who have worked in temporary jobs are less likely to have had their first child by the age of 35, according to research published online today (Wednesday) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction [1]. The study shows that the longer women spent in casual employment, the more likely they were to be childless when they were 35.

The researchers from the University of Adelaide, Australia, found that this association between precarious employment and childlessness at 35 was irrespective of the socioeconomic status of the women.

Migration patterns into and out of cities are the result of millions of individual decisions, which in turn are affected by thousands of factors like economics, location, politics, security, aesthetics, sentiments and others. However, it is becoming more and more critical for urban planners to be able to predict the rate of growth of a given city in order to better address future issues that arise from increasing urbanization.