The health benefits of walking and cycling outweigh the negative effects on health of air pollution, even in cities with high levels of air pollution, according to a study led by researchers from the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) and Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge. This new evidence strengthens the case for supporting cycling even in polluted cities -- an effort that in turn can help reduce vehicle emissions.

The NHS is far safer inside the European Union, argues Professor Martin McKee at the London School of Hygiene&Tropical Medicine in The BMJ today. He says the EU's international trade agreements now protect public services and that any threat to the NHS instead "comes from our own politicians and not from the EU."

Professor McKee was one of many academics concerned about free trade, specifically the much-politicized Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the United States, because socialized public services like the NHS could be opened up to competition under TTIP.

Brooklyn, NY - A study led by SUNY Downstate Medical Center's School of Public Health presents evidence linking personal care products used during pregnancy to adverse reproductive effects in newborns.

"The study found a link between women with higher levels of butyl paraben, which is commonly used as a preservative in cosmetics, and the following birth outcomes: shorter gestational age at birth, decreased birth weight, and increased odds of preterm birth," says Laura Geer, PhD, MHS, associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate.

Aedes mosquitoes carrying the bacterium Wolbachia--found inside the cells of 60 percent of all insect species--are drastically less able to transmit Zika virus, say researchers at Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) in a study published May 4 in Cell Host & Microbe.

ITHACA, N.Y. - The survival of the fittest might just be the survival of the steadfast instead. Having a positive attitude could be evolutionarily advantageous, according to Cornell researchers who simulated generations of evolution in a computational model.

The findings offer scientific support to the ancient philosophical insights from China, Greece and India, which encourage cultivating long-term contentment or life satisfaction rather than grasping at the fleeting joy of instant gratification, the researchers said.

"In an evolutionary sense, you have to evaluate your life on the basis of more than what happened just now," said Shimon Edelman, professor of psychology and a co-author of the study. advantageous in a computational model that simulates evolution.

MAYWOOD, IL - Loyola University Chicago researchers are among the co-authors of a groundbreaking study that found humans have a higher metabolism rate than closely related primates, which enabled humans to evolve larger brains.

The study, published in the journal Nature, found that humans also have a higher percentage of body fat, providing the energy reserves to fuel their faster metabolism. The findings may point toward strategies for combating obesity, researchers said.

The study found that, adjusted for body size, on a daily basis humans consume 400 more calories than chimpanzees and bonobos (closely related to chimps), 635 more calories than gorillas and 820 more calories than orangutans.

A star like the Sun has an internal driving in the form of a magnetic field that can be seen on the surface as sunspots. Now astrophysicists from the Niels Bohr Institute have observed a distant star in the constellation Andromeda with a different positioning of sunspots and this indicates a magnetic field that is driven by completely different internal dynamics. The results are published in the scientific journal, Nature.

Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have grown and catalogued more than 130 bacteria from the human intestine according to a study published in Nature today (Wednesday May 4, 2016).

The researchers have developed a process to grow the majority of bacteria from the gut, which will enable scientists to understand how our bacterial 'microbiome' helps keep us healthy. Imbalances in our gut microbiome can contribute to complex conditions and diseases such as obesity, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and allergies. This research will allow scientists to start to create tailor-made treatments with specific beneficial bacteria.

A new study suggests there may be an overlap between rare genetic variations linked to bipolar disorder (BD) and those implicated in schizophrenia and autism.

The study, by researchers at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and published recently in JAMA Psychiatry, adds to the growing understanding that many psychiatric diseases share genetic roots, but is among the first to suggest a genetic overlap between bipolar disorder and autism.

Montreal, May 4th 2016 -- A new study led by a team from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and Cystic Fibrosis Canada reinforces the benefits of newborn screening for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Despite the fact that newborn screening has been implemented across North America and in several European countries as a way to improve overall survival rate and health outcomes of people living with CF, it is still not available in Quebec. The findings, recently published online in the Journal of Cystic Fibrosis, add to the increasingly overwhelming evidence in favour of newborn screening as a way to improve the quality of life for patients living with this chronic disease that is still incurable.