Scientists have discovered a way to prevent the development of multiple sclerosis in mice. Using a drug that blocks the production of a certain type of immune cell linked to inflammation and autoimmunity, the researchers successfully protected against the onset of MS in an animal model of the disease. 

In the immune system, two kinds of T cells strike a delicate balance--T helper cells (Th17) activate the immune system, protecting against infections and cancers, while regulatory T cells (Tregs) suppress the system, keeping it in check. A disparity between these cell types, where there are too many Th17 and not enough Tregs, can lead to a hyperactive immune system, resulting in inflammation, tissue damage, and autoimmune disease. 

I really need to quit starting all of these things with "just when you think..." because I'm starting to sound like a cliche. 
But sometimes, there are just no alternatives. My apologies.

Because just when you think things can't get any (stranger, dumber, crazier...) something like this comes around. I seriously doubt I will need to use the cliche again. This cannot be topped. It's impossible. Just like the "science" that is behind it.

At least there some good news: The vegans in Britain are sure gonna be happy, since the country won't be eating much meat. Thanks to a bunch of fine minds on the European Commission, sick cattle will no longer be treated with medicine. Nope—just homeopathy. I don't think the cows are gonna as happy.

Global incomes continue to rise, more people are living more comfortably, globalization has been a huge win for many developing nations and that means more people than ever can afford air conditioning.

While some policy makers live in an idealized developed world where more wind and solar power at ever higher costs will solve the emissions problem, that lacks fairness for people who are only now able to afford to live well. More people are going to need electricity and that means we need to embrace true green energy and not fudge numbers to where political winners look like viable solutions for the future. Without viable clean energy the stress on energy prices and infrastructure will mean poorer people stay shackled to the past.

The famous sunspots on the surface of the Earth's star result from strong magnetic fields. Their numbers are an important indicator of the state of activity on the Sun.

At the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków, Poland, researchers have been conducting multifractal analysis into the changes in the numbers of sunspots and found that the graphs were asymmetrical in shape, suggesting that sunspots may be involved in unknown physical processes.

The original NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the famous Pillars of Creation - in the Eagle Nebula, Messier 16 - was taken two decades ago and immediately became its most famous picture. Since then, these billowing clouds, which extend over a few light-years, have awed the public. 

One of the concerns about the switch from incandescent to fluorescent lighting was that while the ballasts are higher frequency now - humans do not have to hear that annoying hum - they were right in the range that pets still hear.

Interventional treatments such as surgery provide good functional outcomes and a high cure rate for patients with lower-grade arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) of the brain, according to a new study. These findings contrast with a recent trial reporting better outcomes without surgery or other interventions for AVMs.

To many practitioners of yoga in the United States, its original form would be unrecognizable in everything but the name. What was once about spirituality is now about health and physical fitness. 

If you are going to be a guru in the US, one tenet of yoga remains from the past - go with the flow. As the medical claims of yoga became more prevalent and yoga catapulted into a $10-billion-a-year enterprise, practitioners embraced new marketing success or fell by the wayside. Sanskrit names for postures and religious "om"-ing are out, 'feeling the burn' is in. 

More than two decades have passed, but Erika Archer Lewis clearly recalls the fear, uncertainty and struggle required to bring her 42-year-old mother back from the edge of stage 4 breast cancer. Lewis, a senior studying at the University of Texas when her mother was diagnosed, shuttled between Austin and Houston, supporting her through surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and, later, reconstructive procedures.

“It was a four-year ordeal,” Lewis recounts, sitting beside her husband one autumn morning in a sandwich shop north of Houston.

A study in Science has tied the aging process to the deterioration of tightly packaged bundles of cellular DNA known as heterochromatinand say that the genetic mutations underlying Werner syndrome, a disorder that leads to premature aging and death, results in the deterioration of these bundles.

The discovery used stem cell and gene-editing technologies and could lead to ways of countering age-related physiological declines by preventing or reversing damage to heterochromatin.