The probability of having one’s child receive an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis involves a mother’s own medical conditions and her use of health services prior to having the child, a new study finds. 

Using records from a Northern California Kaiser Permanente database, the researchers identified three groups: mothers of children with ADHD, mother of children without ADHD and mothers of children with asthma. Authors then compared the mothers’ diagnoses, health care use and costs among the groups.

Human and veterinary medicine could receive a big boost through use of larger animals, especially pigs and dogs, in research, with Europe at the forefront, according to a recent workshop organized by the European Science Foundation (ESF), which called for a European pig clinic to facilitate generation and characterization of models of human disease that would be funded within the EU's Seventh Framework program, the main source of EU funding for research projects.

They say this will improve the prospects of bringing drugs to the market more quickly at less cost, as well as accelerating progress in other forms of therapy, notably the use of stem cells in regenerative medicine.

Scientists say they have discovered the trigger that pulls together X chromosomes in female cells at a crucial stage of embryo development. Their discovery could also provide new insights into how other similar chromosomes spontaneously recognize each other and are bound together at key parts of analogous cell processes. This is an important mechanism as the binding togetgher of too many of too few of a particular chromosome can cause a number of medical conditions such as Down's Syndrome or Turner's Syndrome.

2008 will be a little longer than you might have assumed at the beginning of the year. But not so much that you’ll be early for that New Year’s Eve party.

The spin of the Earth is slowing down. Not by much, only about 0.002 seconds a day (it actually varies), relative to our modern definition of the second. The varying rotation of the Earth is due to the cumulative effect of friction from the ocean's tides, the Moon’s orbital momentum, snow at the polar ice caps, the 23-degree tilt of the Earth, the atmosphere, solar wind, space dust and magnetic storms. In any case, the Earth does not rotate exactly once every 24 hours (or 86,400 seconds).

Researchers using a powerful instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found a long sought-after mineral on the Martian surface and, with it, unexpected clues to the Red Planet's watery past. 

Does Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket sound like science fiction to you?  

NASA and Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas, have signed a Space Act Agreement that could lead to the testing of their new plasma-based space propulsion technology, the VASIMR engine, on the International Space Station. The engine initially was studied by NASA and is being commercially developed by Ad Astra. 

This is the first such agreement for a payload on the station’s exterior and represents an expansion of NASA’s plans to operate the U.S. portion of the space station as a national laboratory. This effort follows the success achieved by the agency last year in reaching multiple agreements to utilize internal station sites for this endeavor.