Scientists at the University of Exeter have found the most robust evidence yet that simply being a shorter man or a more overweight woman leads to lower chances in life, including a lower income.

Modifying gut bacteria could be a treatment option for some of the symptoms associated with the widespread disease polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), according to a recent study by San Diego State University researchers in collaboration with investigators from the University of California, San Diego. The study found that changes in gut bacteria are strongly associated with obesity and signs of diabetes in a mouse model that mimics PCOS.

The best time to identify signs of obstructive sleep apnea may not be at night while snoozing in bed but, instead, while sitting in the dentist's chair.

Gun deaths is a disingenuous term in the modern American political climate, because it includes suicides and assumes a lack of access to guns would eliminate the 60 percent of handgun deaths that are suicides, or guns used by criminals.

Gun ownership does not seem to lead to more murders, and murders are the real concern. There, we have a Handgun Paradox, where even in states like California, which make it more difficult to get a concealed weapons permit, gun ownership has boomed but murders have plummeted. 

Yet if a trickle down effect is acceptable economics, it might also work in guns. 

Avalanches are the primary hazard for winter back country recreational trekkers and cause numerous deaths and injuries annually. 

These snowy adventures have grown in popularity, leading people to forget that just because you paid a professional guide does not mean there is no risk. A new study in Wilderness and Environmental Medicine explored the risk of avalanche accidents and found a strong correlation with great risk of avalanches; group size. Traveling in groups of four or more people carried a higher relative avalanche risk than for individuals or groups of two.

Antidepressants, commonly used to treat anxiety, pain and other disorders, may play a role in dental implant failure, according to a new pilot study which found that the use of antidepressants increased the odds of implant failure by four times. 

While these drugs are often used to manage mood and emotions, a side effect decreases the regulation of bone metabolism, which is crucial to the healing process.

Each year of antidepressant use doubled the odds of failure.

Green tea is touted for its many health benefits as a powerful antioxidant, but experiments in a laboratory mouse model of inflammatory bowel disease suggest that consuming green tea along with dietary iron may actually lessen green tea's benefits.

"If you drink green tea after an iron-rich meal, the main compound in the tea will bind to the iron," said Matam Vijay-Kumar, assistant professor of nutritional sciences, Penn State. "When that occurs, the green tea loses its potential as an antioxidant. In order to get the benefits of green tea, it may be best to not consume it with iron-rich foods." Iron-rich foods include red meat and dark leafy greens, such as kale and spinach. According to Vijay-Kumar, the same results also apply to iron supplements.

Hydra is a genus of tiny freshwater animals that catch and sting prey using a ring of tentacles. But before a hydra can eat, it has to rip its own skin apart just to open its mouth. Scientists reporting March 8 in Biophysical Journal now illustrate the biomechanics of this process for the first time and find that a hydra's cells stretch to split apart in a dramatic deformation.

Researchers have revealed the global spread of an ancient group of retroviruses that affected about 28 of 50 modern mammals' ancestors between 15 and 30 million years ago.

Retroviruses are abundant in nature and include human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV-1 and -2) and human T-cell leukemia viruses. The scientists' findings on a specific group of these viruses called ERV-Fc, to be published in the journal eLife, show that they affected a wide range of hosts, including species as diverse as carnivores, rodents, and primates.

The distribution of ERV-Fc among these ancient mammals suggests the viruses spread to every continent except Antarctica and Australia, and that they jumped from one species to another more than 20 times.

Anyone that has eaten chicken knows what a drumstick is - it's the lower leg of a long, spine-like bone, more specifically the fibula, one of the two long bones of the lower leg (the outer one).

In dinosaurs, the ancestors of birds, this bone is tube-shaped and reaches all the way down to the ankle, but in evolution birds lost the lower end, and no longer connects to the ankle, being shorter than the other bone in the lower leg, the tibia. In the 19th century, scientists had noted that bird embryos first develop a tubular, dinosaur-like fibula. Only afterwards, it becomes shorter than the tibia and acquires its adult, splinter-like shape.