BOSTON - A new risk calculator can predict an individual's risk of developing psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, according to a new study published today in The American Journal of Psychiatry. The research involved collaborators from nine sites, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), and may help researchers test treatments to prevent onset of full psychosis.

Psychosis is characterized by hallucinations and delusions. The new calculator assesses an individual's risk of developing psychosis after experiencing early warning signs of schizophrenia, such as hearing voices.

A new paper in the Journal of Adolescence finds that adolescents attending religious services has a positive affect on reducing pornography viewing.

Baltimore, MD-- As we age, the function and regenerative abilities of skeletal muscles deteriorate, which means it is difficult for the elderly to recover from injury or surgery. New work from Carnegie's Michelle Rozo, Liangji Li, and Chen-Ming Fan demonstrates that a protein called b1-integrin is crucial for muscle regeneration. Their findings, published by Nature Medicine, provide a promising target for therapeutic intervention to combat muscle aging or disease.

Octopuses, squid and other cephalopods are colorblind - their eyes see only black and white - but their weirdly shaped pupils may allow them to detect color and mimic the colors of their background, according to a father/son team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University.

For decades, biologists have puzzled over the paradox that, despite their brilliantly colored skin and ability to rapidly change color to blend into the background, cephalopods have eyes containing only one type of light receptor, which basically means they see only black and white.

If conditions had been just a little different an eon ago, there might be plentiful life on Venus and none on Earth.

In Astrobiology, researchers note that minor evolutionary changes could have altered the fates of both Earth and Venus in ways that scientists may soon be able to model through observation of other solar systems, particularly ones in the process of forming, according to Rice Earth scientist Adrian Lenardic.

The authors suggest that habitable planets may lie outside the "Goldilocks zone" in extra-solar systems, and that planets farther from or closer to their suns than Earth may harbor the conditions necessary for life.

Obese children aged two to five years old are 2-3 times more likely to be admitted to hospital and have 60 per cent higher healthcare costs than healthy weight children, a study by the University of Sydney's School of Public Health has found.

Published today in Obesity journal, this is the first study to reveal the higher direct health care costs of obesity in preschool aged children compared with those of normal weight.

The study examined the health care use of 350 children including all doctor and specialist visits, medical tests, diagnostics, medicines, hospital admissions and emergency presentations.