In civilized war, as oxymoronic as it sounds, hospitals have a cultural bubble around them, neutral territory and off limits. 

But in Syria, that bubble has burst dozens of times, according to a new report from the group Physicians for Human Rights. The hospitals in just the eastern half of Aleppo city have suffered 45 attacks in three years, and two-thirds have closed.

And that may put medical facilities and workers in other conflict zones in danger too, according to a new opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine. 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - If a baseball player waits until he sees the ball arrive in front of him to swing his bat, he will miss miserably. By the time the batter sees the ball's position, plans his swing and moves the bat, the ball will be firmly in the catcher's mitt.

This time lag is known as sensorimotor delay. University of Louisville researcher Bart Borghuis, Ph.D., has increased our understanding of how people and animals deal with this delay in day-to-day interactions by analyzing the hunting skills of salamanders. His article, 'The Role of Motion Extrapolation in Amphibian Prey Capture,' is published in today's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Dark matter is "dark" because no one knows what it is and a blanket term for whatever outnumbers particles of regular matter by more than a factor of 10 is necessary.

Because it can't be detected, dark matter is inferred by gravitational influence in galaxies, and by measuring the mass of a nearby dwarf galaxy called Triangulum II, Assistant Professor of Astronomy Evan Kirby says they may have found the highest concentration of dark matter in any known galaxy. 

What happens to your body in space? NASA's Human Research Program has been trying to provide answers for a decade.

Nature is out to kill us all on earth and space is no different. On top of that, we are isolated from family and friends, exposed to more radiation that could increase lifetime risk for cancer, eat a diet high in freeze-dried food, and work hard all while confined with three co-workers picked by your boss.

Scott Kelly will be the first American to spend nearly one year in space aboard the International Space Station, twice the normal time. One year is a stepping stone to a three-year journey to Mars, should that ever happen, so researchers are eager to learn if existing solutions will be suitable for long, onerous journeys.

Research published today details the first-ever successful elimination of a fatal chytrid fungus in a wild amphibian, marking a major breakthrough in the fight against the disease responsible for devastating amphibian populations worldwide. The highly-infectious chytrid pathogen has severely affected over 700 amphibian species worldwide; driving population declines, extirpations and species extinctions across five continents.

When I was an elementary school student, schools in my hometown administered IQ tests every couple of years. I felt very scared of the psychologist who came in to give those tests.

I also performed terribly. As a result, at one point, I was moved to a lower-grade classroom so I could take a test more suitable to my IQ level.

Consequently, I believed that my teachers considered me stupid. I, of course, thought I was stupid. In addition, I also thought my teachers expected low-quality work from a child of such low IQ. So, I gave them what they expected.

Researchers have discovered several new species of marine fungi inhabiting previously undescribed branches of the tree of life. Though there is always talk about what little we do know going extinct, little is known about species on land, now or in the past, much less about the fungi flourishing in the world's oceans.

It turns out that many marine fungi are very different from those found on land.

The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, used large-scale DNA sequencing to describe the diversity of fungal microbes in a wide range of marine environments.

Highlights

• An increase in serum phosphorus levels in African Americans with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with faster progression to kidney failure, known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD).
• The study confirmed in African Americans what previous studies in Caucasians demonstrated, that an increase in the biomarker predicted ESRD risk.
• The research, from the Indiana University School of Medicine, was presented at ASN Kidney Week 2015 November 3-8 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA.

Athens, Ga. - A University of Georgia researcher has found that low levels of vitamin D may limit the effectiveness of HIV treatment in adults.

Those with human immunodeficiency virus--commonly known as HIV--often struggle with declining health because their immune systems can't effectively respond to common pathogens. Their immune statuses, usually measured by CD4+T cells, normally improve when given HIV treatment.

Jülich, 17 November 2015 - The overheating of computer chips is a major obstacle to the development of faster and more efficient computers and mobile phones. One promising remedy for this problem could be a class of materials first discovered just a few years ago: topological insulators, which conduct electricity with less resistance and heat generation than conventional materials. Research on these materials is still in its early stages. A team from Jülich and Aachen has now found a way to control the desired conducting properties of this type of material more precisely and reliably than ever before. The results have been published in the current edition of the journal Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9816).