A group including a consultant, a sustainability advocate and an environmental scientist argued today at the Geological Society of America meeting in Denver that while the use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling for "tight oil" is an important contributor to U.S. energy supply, it is not going to result in long-term sustainable production or allow the U.S. to become a net oil exporter.

Having children early and in rapid succession lead to high infant mortality rates in the South Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, according to a paper in
the International Journal of Gynecology&Obstetrics.

1 in 14 births to young mothers in those countries ends with the death of the child within the first year, say researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. 

Experiments on individual photons conducted by physicists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw (FUW) and the Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics at the Gdansk University of Technology (PG), have revealed yet another bizarre feature of the quantum world.

When a quantum object is transmitted, its quantum property, whether it behaves as a wave or as a particle, appears to depend on other properties that at first glance have nothing to do with the transmission, they argue.

You might think that health care professionals would become jaded to the plights of people over time - especially in an intensive care ward for burn patients.

Not so, according to a paper which catalogs the emotional and psychological anguish, known as "moral distress," experienced by nurses in an intensive care unit for burn patients.
A burn ICU can be an intense work environment. Many patients suffer significant pain and disfigurement. They may be in the ICU for weeks, and require numerous procedures and surgeries.

Think gender is determined by patriarchal biological concepts like a chromosome? You'll never make it in sociology thinking that way.

Instead, the social sciences are slowly overturning concepts like genital and chromosomes and other science, and it is being replaced by self-identity. The criteria for determining gender now, say Laurel Westbrook, assistant professor of sociology at Grand Valley State, and Kristen Schilt, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, have changed and self-identity is paramount. Only sex-segregated spaces believe that biology determines gender, they conclude.

Even brief usage of anabolic steroids may have long lasting, perhaps even permanent performance-enhancing effects, according to a new study.

It was previously believed that re-acquisition of muscle mass after periods of inactivity was due to motor learning. The new data from an investigation of  the effects of steroids on muscle re-acquisition in mice suggests that there is a cellular 'memory mechanism' within muscle of brief steroid users.

The team investigated the effects of steroids on muscle re-acquisition in mice and discovered greater muscle mass and more myonuclei, which are essential components for muscle fiber function, were apparent after returning to exercise.