Researchers and clinicians from hospitals and universities from many countries have collaborated to better understand diseases of platelets -- the little cells that help blood to clot. They have developed a more effective, comprehensive and cheaper panel of genetic tests that are already being used to benefit both patients and the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.

Development of the test is described in the journal Blood, published in print on Thursday June 09, 2016.

How many medals will each country win in Rio at this Summer's Olympic Games? Researchers who derived predictions from two different models anticipate that the USA, China, Russia, and the UK will retain their top positions in the medals ranking, but Brazil and Japan are expected to make the biggest gains.

As described in a new Significance article, the first model primarily describes a country's medals as a function of the number of medals won at the previous Olympic Games, and the second model includes additional socio-economic variables.

The move from life on land to life in the sea has led to the evolution of a new sense for sea snakes, a University of Adelaide-led study suggests.

The international team, led by researchers in the University's School of Biological Sciences, studied tiny and poorly understood structures on the heads of snakes called 'scale sensilla'. The research has been published in the Royal Society journal Open Biology.

"Land snakes and many lizards have small raised structures on the scales on their heads -- called scale sensilla -- that they use to sense objects by direct touch," says lead author Jenna Crowe-Riddell, University of Adelaide PhD student.

A new study reports on the results of a randomized clinical trial that looked at whether the antidepressant citalopram would enhance complicated grief treatment psychotherapy, and if citalopram would be efficacious without it in an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry.

Complicated grief occurs in about 7 percent of bereaved individuals and it is characterized by persistent maladaptive thoughts, dysfunctional behaviors and poorly regulated emotions that interfere with the ability to adapt to loss. Co-occurring depressive symptoms are common but complicated grief is clearly differentiated from major depression.

While American news media speculates about how much of Omar Mateen's motivation for his attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando was due to Muslim beliefs and how much was due to anti-gay sentiment, the ease with which someone can enter soft targets has renewed concern about the Euro 2016 soccer tournament in France, especially after the lack of domestic intelligence made it relatively easy for November’s terrorist attacks on the Stade de France and the January 2015 shootings at Charlie Hebdo.

When anti-science activists set out to drive astronomy from the state of Arizona by trumping up an environmental hazard, they were failing to prevent a problem that would creep across many places that don't want space science in their neighborhood - light pollution.

Scientists have shown how the brain anticipates all of the new situations that it may encounter in a lifetime by creating a special kind of neural network that is "pre-adapted" to face any eventuality. This emerges from a new neuroscience study published in PLOS Computational Biology.

Enel et al at the INSERM in France investigate one of the most noteworthy properties of primate behavior, its diversity and adaptability. Human and non-human primates can learn an astonishing variety of novel behaviors that could not have been directly anticipated by evolution -- we now understand that this ability to cope with new situations is due to the "pre-adapted" nature of the primate brain.

The Basque Institute of Agricultural Research and Development Neiker-Tecnalia is currently exploring a strategy to remedy soils contaminated by organic compounds containing chlorine (organochlorine compounds). The innovative process consists of combining the application of zero-iron nanoparticles with bioremediation techniques. The companies Ekotek and Dinam, the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country and Gaiker-IK4 are also participating in this project known as NANOBIOR.

Coronary or peripheral bypasses are the most frequently performed vascular operations. Although one million patients per year and around the world, undergo this intervention, its failure rate reaches 50%, because of poor vessel healing, leading to vessel graft occlusion. To improve the outcome of bypasses, researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) work together with medical doctors from the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV). They developed a gel containing microparticles -'GeM', enabling the controlled release of a drug inhibiting cellular over-proliferation. Administered locally, directly on the bypass graft during surgery, this preventive treatment will reduce the risk of obstruction reoccurrence. This research can be read in The Journal of Controlled Release.

In a randomized Phase III study of the drug inotuzumab ozogamicin, a statistically significant percentage of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) whose disease had relapsed following standard therapies, qualified for stem cell transplants.

Inotuzumab ozogamicin, also known as CMC-544, links an antibody that targets CD22, a protein found on the surface of more than 90 percent of ALL cells. Once the drug connects to CD22, the ALL cell draws it inside and dies.