When people start to put on weight do they drink diet soda more often, or does diet soda lead to weight increases?

A new observational study says San Antonio men and women ages 65 and older got fat because of diet soda. The San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA), led by Helen P. Hazuda, Ph.D., professor of medicine in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, gathered data on health status and lifestyles of 749 Mexican-American and European-American elders, then tracked the health outcomes in 466 survivors for more than nine years. 

Therapeutic anti-cancer vaccines developed to treat metastatic disease such as advanced prostate cancer or melanoma don'thave a noticeable effect on the tumor but are linked to a statistically significant increase in patient survival.

For that reason, "overall survival" rather than "progression-free survival" should be the gold standard for evaluating the efficacy of cancer vaccines in clinical trials, according to a new editorial in Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals.

Physical activity, and that means enough to generate some sweat and breathe hard, is key to avoiding an early death, according to an analysis of 204,542 people followed for more than six years.

A new nanotechnology lubricant will be suitable for extreme conditions.

Shuttles and equipment used in space consist of numerous elements that have several friction-prone components so the surfaces must be greased to ensure smooth operation. Conventional oils and greases cannot be used in space due to extreme temperature, pressure and radiation conditions so solid substances such as molybdenum disulfide and graphite are preferred for space usage.


PhD student Triinu Taaber working in the laboratory of physics of nanostructures. Credit: Andres Tennus

Psychology papers often make make sweeping generalizations based on weak observational studies and that has led to an alarming overuse of the term 'narcissist'. 

Some people are self-centered, to be sure, but colloquial over-diagnosis of narcissism has led to poor distinction between actual narcissism and people who like to talk about themselves. All cows are animals but not all animals are cows, etc. but ever since a small paper came out of U.C. Berkeley in 1988, the psychology field has been over-using the diagnosis. An examination of 48 participants found that excessive use of first-person singular pronouns such as "I" and "me" indicated a narcissistic tendency.

The suicide rate among active duty U.S. military members has increased in the last decade and one party of politicians has contended that their opponents were pushing soldiers to suicide. 

Is there any truth to it?

Deployment dates for all services members (October 2001 through December 2007) and suicide data (October 2001 through December 2009) to estimate rates of suicide death to compare deployed service members with those who did not deploy, including suicides that occurred after separation from the military.