When people take the psychedelic drug LSD, they sometimes feel as though the boundary that separates them from the rest of the world has dissolved. Now, the first functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) of people's brains while on LSD help to explain this phenomenon known as "ego dissolution."

As researchers report in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 13, these images suggest that ego dissolution occurs as regions of the brain involved in higher cognition become heavily over-connected. The findings suggest that studies of LSD and other psychedelic drugs can produce important insights into the brain. They can also provide intriguing biological insight into philosophical questions about the very nature of reality, the researchers say.

An analysis comparing the individual differences between over 40 strains of Zika virus (30 isolated from humans, 10 from mosquitoes, and 1 from monkeys) has identified significant changes in both amino acid and nucleotide sequences during the past half-century. The data, published April 15 in Cell Host & Microbe, support a strong divergence between the Asian and African lineages as well as human and mosquito isolates of the virus, and will likely be helpful as researchers flush out how a relatively unknown pathogen led to the current outbreak.

When we published a paper in 2013 finding 97% scientific consensus on human-caused global warming, what surprised me was how surprised everyone was.

Ours wasn’t the first study to find such a scientific consensus. Nor was it the second. Nor were we the last.

Athens, Greece - 15 April 2016: Patients have poor knowledge of warfarin which may increase their risk of serious side effects, according to research presented today at EuroHeartCare 2016 by Dr Kjersti Oterhals, a nurse researcher at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway.1

"The stroke and bleeding complications from warfarin can be fatal," said Dr Oterhals. "Worldwide warfarin causes the most deaths from drug-related side effects. Patients need to know what foods and drugs have an impact on how warfarin works, and what to do if they have symptoms of an overdose or underdose."

In a new study, environmental pollutants found in fish were shown to obstruct the human body's natural defense system to expel harmful toxins. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego-led research team suggests that this information should be used to better assess the human health risks from eating contaminated seafood. The study was published in the April 15 issue of the journal Science Advances.

A protein found in cells of nearly all plants and animals, called P-gp, acts as the cell's bouncer by expelling foreign chemicals from the body. P-gp is well known for its ability to transport therapeutic drugs out of cancer cells and, in some cases, rendering these cells resistant to multiple drugs at once.

Disastrous floods in the Balkans two years ago are likely linked to the temporary slowdown of giant airstreams, scientists found. These wind patterns, circling the globe in the form of huge waves between the Equator and the North Pole, normally move eastwards, but practically stopped for several days then -- at the same time, a weather system got stuck over Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia that poured out record amounts of rain. The study adds evidence that so-called planetary wave resonance is a key mechanism for causing extreme weather events in summer. Further, the scientists showed that extreme rainfall events are strongly increasing in the Balkans, even more than the globally observed rise.

EAST LANSING, Mich. - The ubiquitous nutrition facts panel has graced food packages for many years. But can it be improved?

Results from a study led by Michigan State University and featured in a recent issue of the journal Food Policy indicates the answer is, "Yes."

Obesity is a serious and growing global health crisis. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 40 percent of the world's adults are overweight - a number that's doubled since 1980. While many factors contribute to this epidemic, improving food labeling could be one tool to fight it.

Nipa oil, unknown in the chemistry handbooks, had been characterized in the Philippines and Indonesia.  These studies however, do not agree with each other as shown on their results in Table 1. 

      Table 1 Discrepancies on the characteristic studies on Nipa oil 

April 16, 2016, Barcelona, Spain: Data presented today demonstrate that choosing a different combination of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment for Hepatitis C can eradicate the virus at four weeks in patients who had already failed on previous medication regimens.

The results were presented at The International Liver CongressTM in Barcelona, Spain and suggest that with the amount of DAAs available, the right combinations must be chosen for the right patients in order to eradicate the virus from the body.

A new study presented today demonstrates the potential challenge posed to public health systems across Europe as a result of the prevalence of Hepatitis B among new refugee populations. 

With nearly 1,000,000 asylum applications lodged in Germany alone last year, the European Union (EU) is experiencing an unprecedented wave of immigration by refugees and asylum seekers. With many coming from the mid-east, health authorities in the EU face serious challenges in responding to the spread of communicable diseases among both refugee and native populations.