A new study shows that the microbial communities we carry in and on our bodies, the human microbiome, contain the potential to uniquely identify individuals, much like fingerprints.

Researchers and demonstrated that personal microbiomes contain enough distinguishing features to identify an individual over time from among a research study population of hundreds of people. The study, the first to rigorously show that identifying people from microbiome data is feasible, suggests that we have surprisingly unique microbial inhabitants, but could raise potential privacy concerns for subjects enrolled in human microbiome research projects.

The new 9-valent human papillomavirus vaccine, can potentially prevent 80 percent of cervical cancers in the United States if given to all 11- or 12-year-old children before they are exposed to the virus, according to a seven-center study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 

A survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults has found misperceptions about miscarriage and its causes are widespread. Results of the survey show that feelings of guilt and shame are common after a miscarriage and that most people erroneously believe that miscarriages are rare.

Nearly one million miscarriages occur in the U.S. each year. Miscarriages end one in every four pregnancies and are by far the most common of all pregnancy complications. Yet 55 percent of respondents to the Einstein/Montefiore survey believed that miscarriages are "uncommon" (defined in the survey as less than six percent of all pregnancies).

Researchers  have demonstrated the functionality of a simple artificial neural circuit - a circuit of about 100 artificial synapses was proved to perform a simple version of a typical human task: image classification.

The brain has 10¹⁵ (one quadrillion) synaptic connections so this will need some time to come close, but it is a step.

For all its errors and potential for faultiness, the human brain remains a model of computational power and efficiency. That's because the brain can accomplish certain functions in a fraction of a second what computers would require far more time and energy to perform.

Women's magazines influence decisions to have a more 'natural' childbirth or not, with most stories in favor of epidural or potentially a Cesarean section.

Scholars writing in Women&Health decided to assess the effect of communicating the benefits of more natural birth. Kate Young, lead author from Monash University's School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, said popular media was biased towards things like epidurals even in low risk births, though the authors say it leads to preventable maternal and infant morbidity.

"We wanted to look at how women's decisions might be influenced by communicating the alternative benefits of non-medicalized birth," Young said.

Male job applicants are perceived to have high levels of leadership potential and are rated as a better employment prospect than a female applicant with proven leadership track record, according to a presentation at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference in Liverpool which discussed how 98 participants (39 women) participated in an online hiring simulation.

Each participant was shown four potential applicants for a managerial role with roughly the same age. The applications differed by varying the applicant's gender and assessments of leadership potential and leadership achievement. Participants evaluated each applicant for how successful they thought each would be in their career and which had the most impressive CV.

A growing body of advice suggests doing small amounts of moderate exercise can make a significant difference to your health.

A previously unknown dual mechanism slows peat decay and may help reduce carbon dioxide emissions from peatlands during times of drought, according to a new study. The naturally occurring mechanism was discovered in 5,000-year-old pocosin bogs in coastal North Carolina. Preliminary field experiments suggest it may occur in, or be exportable to, peatlands in other regions as well. 

It took human culture millennia to arrive at a mathematical formulation of non-Euclidean spaces - but that was not because of a limitation of our brains. 

Instead, it's likely that even the brains of rodents get there very naturally every day.

A new study examined the relationship between mandatory nap times in daycare and children's night-time sleep duration concurrently and then 12 months later and found children who were exposed to more than 60 minutes mandatory sleep at childcare slept worse at night which continued when they started school.

A sample of 168 children, aged between 50-72 months of which 55 percent were male, was observed during the study. A year later the children were observed in their first year of school.