Body

New research out today concludes that there is insufficient evidence for the use of taking an Omega 3 fatty acid supplement in treating major depressive disorder.

Omega 3 fatty acids are widely thought to be essential for good health and are naturally found in fatty fish, such as tuna, seafood and some nuts and seeds.

Eliminating malaria in the Asia-Pacific could prove more challenging than previously thought, with new research showing that most childhood malaria infections in endemic areas are the result of relapsed, not new, infections.

A higher use of resources by US physicians is associated with a reduced risk of malpractice claims, finds a study published by The BMJ this week.

However, the researchers say it is uncertain whether higher spending is defensively motivated.

Defensive medicine is defined as medical care provided to patients solely to reduce the threat of malpractice liability rather than to further diagnosis or treatment.

Adding ultrasound to standard mammography tests in breast screening could result in improved rates of detection for breast cancer in women in Japan, according to a new study, published in The Lancet.

Ever since the agricultural revolution, humans have lived cheek by jowl with cows, enjoying their meat, milk and cream. However, there is one unfortunate by-product from this relationship: methane. Dairy cows can each produce up to 200 l of methane per day and, with an estimated world population of 1.4 billion animals, that quickly adds up to a serious greenhouse gas problem. However, one family of foregut fermenters seemed to buck the flatulence trend: measurements in the 1970s and '80s of kangaroo and wallaby methane production suggested that they produced much less gas than ruminants.

Gulls have learned to follow diving ducks and take the bottom-dwelling mussels that the ducks bring to the surface, a food source that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. Gulls are one of the most adaptable groups of birds, able to exploit a wide variety of food resources and respond to new opportunities, and a study forthcoming in The Auk: Ornithological Advances documents this previously unrecognized behavior in Herring Gulls (Larus argentatus) and Mew Gulls (Larus canus) on a brackish lagoon on the Germany-Poland border.

The Forty-spotted Pardalote (Pardalotus quadragintus), an endangered Tasmanian songbird, has been experiencing unexplained declines in its remaining habitat, and a new study in The Condor: Ornithological Applications describes how competition with a related species for nest cavities may be putting extra pressure on these vulnerable birds.

Animals produce methane during the digestion process - some more than others. Currently, around 20 percent of the world's methane emissions stem from ruminants. If this gas is released into the atmosphere, it aggravates the greenhouse effect and aids global warming. Previous studies revealed that ruminants, which include cows and sheep, release more methane into the environment than kangaroos, for instance - even though the latter also possess a foregut, where bacteria break down the plant fibers and produce methane (much like in a cow's rumen).

WASHINGTON, DC (November 4, 2015)--Will U.S. medical students have trouble securing residency positions in the future as they have been warned by media and groups representing organized medicine? Not likely, according to a new analysis by researchers at the George Washington (GW) University Health Workforce Institute.

Any expectant mother will tell you that she wants her baby's organs to develop properly in the womb.

What she may not realize, however, is that a child's internal organs continue to develop for months and years after birth. This critical period is full of cellular changes that transform the organization and function of most tissues. But the exact mechanisms underlying postnatal organ maturation are still a mystery.

Time and again we've been told: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This refrain has proven particularly truthful for people who are trying to lose weight. To gain insight into what breakfast eating habits would be beneficial to those seeking to lose weight, a Cornell Food & Brand Lab research team sought to find out what healthy weight people eat for breakfast.

FRESNO, Calif. -- The relatively rare, forest-dwelling fisher is increasingly becoming the innocent victim of illegal marijuana farms in forested lands in California. According to a recently published study in the journal PLOS One, researchers found that the annual rate of poisoning deaths of fishers (Pekania pennant) rose 233 percent compared to a study in 2012. The toxicants were discovered to be associated with illegal marijuana farms on public and tribal lands in Northern and Southern California.

Most products on the market today that are used to treat skin problems target the effects of the disease or wound such as inflammation, which can prolong the healing process and result in scarring. However, LSU Assistant Professor Wei Xu and collaborators at Northwestern University discovered a new way to prevent inflammation and to speed up the skin's healing process. After five years of research, they identified the gene regulation pathway, which involves the body's sodium sensor called Nax (scn7a) that triggers inflammation.

Early Chinese proto-porcelain was likely made from materials gathered locally, according to a study published November 4, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Yu Li from the Fudan University, Shanghai, China, and colleagues.

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 4 - Utah Valley University physicists are literally applying rocket science to the field of medical diagnostics. With a few key changes, the researchers used a noninvasive ultrasonic technique originally developed to detect microscopic flaws in solid fuel rockets, such as space shuttle boosters, to successfully detect cell stiffness changes associated with certain cancers and other diseases.