A study that is first in its kind and published in Nature Medicine today has looked at how far genetic factors control the immune cell response to pathogens in healthy individuals. A team investigated the response of immune cells from 200 healthy volunteers when stimulated with a comprehensive list of pathogens ex vivo (outside the human body), and has correlated these responses with 4 million genetic variants (SNPs). The study was performed by scientists from University Medical Centre Groningen, Radboud University Medical Centre (both in the Netherlands) and Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA). The paper appeared on 4th of July 2016.

In recent years pasta gained a bad reputation: it will fatten you. This led lots of people to limit its consumption, often as part of some aggressive "do it yourself" diets. Now a study conducted by the Department of Epidemiology, I.R.C.C.S. Neuromed in Pozzilli, Italy, does justice to this fundamental element of the Mediterranean diet, showing how pasta consumption is actually associated with a reduced likelihood of both general and abdominal obesity.

Final results of searches for particles decaying to photon pairs in 2015 data keep hopes alive for imminent ground-breaking discovery

On December 15^th last year, as the physics coordinators of the ATLAS and CMS collaborations showcased the results of their new searches, particle physicists around the world held their breath. Both experiments showed preliminary results from the analysis of LHC data acquired during 2015 at 13 TeV. That unprecedented energy made the potential for new discoveries high.

Helsinki, 4 July 2016: Despite the claims and counter-claims for new embryo assessment techniques introduced over the past two decades, the search for the holy grail of assisted reproduction - the key to the embryo destined to implant - continues. Genetic screening techniques so far have relied largely on the assessment of one component of the embryo's genetic constitution, the number of chromosomes in its cells. Studies dating back 20 years have shown beyond doubt that chromosomal abnormality is common in preimplantation embryos, and becomes even more common with increasing age. Chromosomal anomalies - or aneuploidy - are universally accepted as the main reason for miscarriage and the main cause of implantation failure

Declining Antarctic sea ice extents were a cornerstone of climate models - unless they began increasing. It may be that both are just natural fluctuation according to a new paper which shows that the negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), which is characterized by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific, has created favorable conditions for additional Antarctic sea ice growth since 2000.

Obviously that could mean that sea ice may begin to shrink as the IPO switches to a positive phase. Climate models have done a poor job of accounting for nature, they have tended to take a trend and made it linear into the future. Nature is not that predictable. 

On June 15 the EU Commission (EC) issued its highly anticipated “scientific criteria” for identifying Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs). Now that the dust has settled, and stakeholders around the globe have had a chance to offer their thoughts, the time is ripe to explore to the heart of the criteria – what the EC selected (and what it didn’t select), and the potential impact their choices will have on consumers, industry and the global regulatory arena. 

A simple nine-question tool could help emergency physicians uncover the dangerous hidden conditions that make some people faint, according to a study published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Fainting is fairly common - 35 to 40 percent of people faint at least once in their lives. But for about ten percent of people who visit the emergency room for fainting it can be a symptom of a potentially life-threatening condition like arrhythmia, or heart rhythm disturbance.

In the modern schism between religion and science promoted by militants, it may not seem like theology is a friend to ecology. But, like in all other areas of science, that is just modern spin created by people who need to promote that culture war for their own ends. Including in environmentalism, where religion is portrayed as a conservative trait.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is useful in detecting breast tumors and in cancer evaluation but its current pre-operative use in breast conserving surgery isn't helping patients as it should. 

Traditionally, patients who are scheduled to undergo breast-conserving lumpectomy for breast cancer undergo a breast MRI prior to surgery to help inform the surgeon about the size, shape, and location of the tumor. The issue is that MRIs are performed with the patient lying face down, but then the surgery is performed with the patient lying face up. 

From protecting our most valuable works of art to enabling smartphone displays, glass has become one of our most important materials. Making it even more versatile is the next challenge. Developing new glass compositions is largely a time-consuming, trial-and-error exercise. But now scientists have developed a way to decode the glass "genome" and design different compositions of the material without making and melting every possibility. Their report appears in ACS' journal Chemistry of Materials.