The gas boom brought about primarily by hydraulic fracturing has lowered the domestic price of natural gas so that the United States now has among the lowest prices in the world, and it has shifted the U.S. from a significant importer to a potential exporter of liquefied natural gas. This benefits consumers and led to gains in competitiveness for U.S. manufacturers, something desperately needed for the moribund U.S. economy.

But there is a conflict in the Obama administration. He signed an agreement to allow exports while simultaneously instructing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to restrict fossil fuels so that his subsidies for solar power companies don't fare even worse than they have.

MINNEAPOLIS - Taking a high dose of vitamin D3 is safe for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and may correct the body's hyperactive immune response, according to a study published in the Dece. 30, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Low levels of vitamin D in the blood are tied to an increased risk of developing MS. People who have MS and low levels of vitamin D are more likely to have greater disability and more disease activity.

Recurrence of HER2-positive breast cancer after treatment may be due to a specific and possibly cancer-induced weakness in the patient's immune system -- a weakness that in principle could be corrected with a HER2-targeted vaccine -- according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

While hospitals have made strides in reducing the time it takes to treat heart attack patients once they arrive at the hospital, patient delays recognizing symptoms and seeking treatment are associated with increased damage to the heart, according to a study published online today in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions.

Nearly 25 percent of all teens reported being involved in a physical fight in the past year, with higher rates of violent altercations among African-American and Latin-American adolescents than European-American ones.

To find out why, scholars writing in the Journal of Child and Family Studies conducted focus groups with African American and Latino parents regarding teen violence. Result: addressing the parents' attitudes about fighting, involving them in violence prevention programs and tailoring programs to different racial/ethnic groups may improve the effectiveness of prevention programs.

A majority of Americans, 54 percent, say it can be necessary for the government to sacrifice freedoms to fight terrorism.

About 50 percent of Americans think it is acceptable to allow warrantless government analysis of Internet activities and communications--even of American citizens--in order to keep an eye out for suspicious activity, only about 30 percent are against this type of government investigation.

About 18,000 people are severely injured every year in Germany, as determined by Florian Debus and coauthors in a new study published in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2015; 112: 823-9). Earlier investigations, in 2000 and 2006, estimated that more than 32,000 people sustain multiple trauma each year. The newly calculated lower number likely reflects a reduction of severe injuries caused by road traffic and occupational accidents.

In my previous article, Subscription Box Chemistry Set, I tested the Google Cardboard headset from the starter kit as a stereograph viewer with stereographs I found online. Unfortunately, the screen widths for my iPod and Android phone were too small to use with the Google goggles. So I decided to build my own stereograph viewer with parts from my Lego optics lab.

The build was very simple (see picture above). I used the following parts from my Lego optics lab:

Recreational marijuana use is now legal in four states and "medical" marijuana in 23 states. Research on legalization policies has focused largely on direct impact - how they impact marijuana access and use. What is little discussed is that marijuana increases alcohol use.

Alcohol is the world's  most popular drug, the majority of adults in the U.S. imbibe to varying degrees and drinking accounts for almost one-third of driving fatalities annually. If you like pretend money estimates, it is claimed that alcohol use cost $223.5 billion in 2006 alone.

Palbociclib, a new oral drug with efficacy in combating breast cancer both alone and in combination with endocrine therapy, also has potential to combat other types of cancer, according to a literature review and additional research in JAMA Oncology.

Palbociclib targets the rapid division of tumor cells by inhibiting the activity of the enzymes CDK4 and CDK6, which propel cell division and increase in number in most cancers. It is the first CDK4/6 inhibitor to be approved for the treatment of breast cancer.