Research led by investigators in veterinary and human medicine has identified genetic pathways that exacerbate severity of canine compulsive disorder in Doberman pinschers, a discovery that could lead to better therapies for obsessive compulsive disorder in people. The discovery appears online in advance of print on Feb. 29, 2016 in the International Journal of Applied Research in Veterinary Medicine.

Women who prefer physically formidable and dominant mates (PPFDM) tend to feel more at risk of crime regardless of the situation or risk factors present, according to research from the University of Leicester.

Previous research suggests that women who grow up in high-crime areas and perceive they are at risk of criminal victimisation find dominant men more appealing, perhaps because of the protection they can offer.

However, the University of Leicester team suggests that women who are attracted to dominant men generally feel more at risk of victimisation, even when their risk of victimisation is actually low.

Stanford, CA -- During the daytime, plants convert the Sun's energy into sugars using photosynthesis, a complex, multi-stage biochemical process. New work from a team including Carnegie's Mark Heinnickel, Wenqiang Yang, and Arthur Grossman identified a protein needed for assembling the photosynthetic apparatus that may help us understand the history of photosynthesis back in the early days of life on Earth, a time when oxygen was not abundant in the atmosphere. Their work is published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

February 26, 2016 - Uncorrected refractive error (URE)--nearsightedness, farsightedness, and other focusing problems correctable by prescription lenses--is responsible for moderate to severe vision impairment in 101 million people and blindness in seven million people worldwide, reports a study in the March issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

In the article "Police Violence: A Two Way Street"," retired police officer and psychologist Matthew Logan, PhD, explores the "untold story" behind accounts of police violence in the media. He provides insights into why a small percentage of violent incidents involving the police dominate the headlines, encourages greater public airing of the police perspective, and predicts how policing might change in the new climate of hatred and distrust. The article appears in the Journal Violence and Gender.

A decade ago, the media perception was that the only "advocacy" research (science-y sounding stuff out to achieve a cultural goal) was small groups getting a little bit of money to deny things like global warming. In reality, the public knew better, and that scientization of politics had been going on ever since government started to take over science funding.

How many phenomenological papers discussing the 750 GeV diphoton resonance have you read since December 15th 2015 ? I believe that having read none of them, or ten, does not make a big difference - you missed most of them anyways. In fact, I think the count has gone past 200 by now. 

Dispositional, or “everyday” mindfulness, is being aware of one’s present thoughts and feelings and a new paper measured health indicators of 399 people, including dispositional mindfulness and blood glucose, and found those with higher scores for mindfulness were significantly more likely than people with low scores to have healthy glucose levels.

By Marsha Lewis, Inside Science – What do the movies: "Frozen," "Thor," and "Iron Man" all have in common? They’re all examples of when science and science fiction collide.

From the "final frontier" to a frozen fantasy world, scientists and storytellers are working together to bring facts into fiction films. 

“Hollywood reaches more people than any other group in the world and I think it has the opportunity to inspire more people than any other group in the world,” said Rick Loverd, program director for The Science and Entertainment Exchange in Los Angeles, California.

New Haven, Conn. -- A pregnant Brazilian woman infected with the Zika virus had a stillborn baby in January who had signs of severe tissue swelling as well as central nervous system defects that caused the cerebral hemispheres of the brain to be absent. It is the first report to indicate a possible association of congenital Zika virus and damage to tissues outside the central nervous system.

Researchers led by Albert Ko, M.D. of the Yale School of Public Health and Dr. Antônio Raimundo de Almeida at the Hospital Geral Roberto Santos in Salvador, Brazil, describe the case in the current issue of the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.