Climate change models could have a thing or two to learn from termites and fungi, according to a new study released this week.

For a long time scientists have believed that temperature is the dominant factor in determining the rate of wood decomposition worldwide. Decomposition matters because the speed at which woody material are broken down strongly influences the retention of carbon in forest ecosystems and can help to offset the loss of carbon to the atmosphere from other sources. That makes the decomposition rate a key factor in detecting potential changes to the climate.

Compassion can produce counterintuitive results, challenging prevailing views of empathy's effects on moral judgment, say philosophers in a new paper

To understand how humans make moral choices, the philosophers asked subjects to respond to a variety of moral dilemmas, such as whether to stay and defend a mortally wounded soldier until he dies or shoot him to protect him from enemy torture and enable you and five other soldiers to escape unharmed.

Ethicists say people make choices based on a struggle within their brains between thoughtful reason and automatic passion.

Diagnoses of allergies in humans and animals have risen as understanding and awareness have become more common. An allergic reaction may cause unpleasant symptoms like hay fever, food intolerance or skin rashes.

In more severe cases, allergic reactions may also cause acute and life-threatening symptoms, such as asthma or anaphylactic shock.  On the other extreme, modern awareness of allergies has led some to claim them where none exist. Studies have shown that 75 percent of people who claim a gluten sensitivity, for example, have no noticeable adverse reaction to gluten, but they think they do.

We know solar cycles impact the weather and the climate but figuring how much, and how much of recent warming has been due to human-controllable variables, has been difficult.

A recent paper found the existence of significant resonance cycles and high correlations between solar activity and the Earth's averaged surface temperature during centuries.

It adopts the wavelet analysis technique and cross correlation method to investigate the periodicities of solar activity and the Earth's temperature as well as their correlations during the past centuries.

Active pharmaceutical ingredient is the term used to refer to the biologically active component of a drug product, such as a tablet or capsule. 

Drug products are usually composed of several components and the active pharmaceutical ingredient is the primary ingredient. Other, inactive ingredients are commonly known as excipients and they are things like preservatives, dyes or flavoring. These inert substances are always required to be biologically safe. That doesn't mean they can't have an effect. An inert ingredient like lactose can cause an adverse reaction in some.

A sense of entitlement appears to be linked to sexism, say psychologists who believe entitled men are more likely to endorse hostile views of women while entitled women are more likely to think women are frail and need extra care.  

Entitled men were found to be more likely to endorse views of women as manipulative, deceptive, and untrustworthy — attitudes, which past psychology papers
say are predictors of violence toward women.

ROSEMONT, Ill.─The number of total knee replacement (TKR) surgeries more than tripled between 1993 and 2009, while the number of total hip replacements (THR) doubled during the same time period. A study appearing in the June Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) found that an increase in the prevalence of ovrweight and obesity in the U.S. accounted for 95 percent of the higher demand for knee replacements, with younger patients affected to a greater degree.

"We observed that growth of knee replacement volumes was far outpacing that of hip replacements and were curious as to the origins of this trend," said lead study author Peter B. Derman, MD, MBA, an orthopaedic surgery resident at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, N.Y.

A 14-year-old boy's turnaround and quick recovery after mysteriously being stricken by brain-inflaming encephalitis -- which led to him being hospitalized for six weeks and put into a medically induced coma after falling critically ill -- shows that the newest generation of DNA analysis tools can be harnessed to reveal the cause of a life-threatening infection even when physicians have no suspects.

Starting in July of 2012, smart people called the election of November for President Barack Obama, barring some nasty "October Surprise." Instead, the October Surprise was for the challenger, Mitt Romney. A hurricane hit the eastern coast of the US and by the time it reached the American media center of New York City, it was no longer a hurricane so they created a new category, a "superstorm" and proceeded to blame it on global warming.

Young men who use cannabis may be putting their fertility at risk by inadvertently affecting the size and shape of their sperm according to research published today (Thursday 5 June 2014).

In the world's largest study to investigate how common lifestyle factors influence the size and shape of sperm (referred to as sperm morphology), a research team from the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester also found that sperm size and shape was worse in samples ejaculated in the summer months but was better in men who had abstained from sexual activity for more than six days.

However, other common lifestyle factors reported by men, including smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, appeared to have little effect.