Why do so many criminals convicted of misdemeanors then get involved in violent crime?

It turns out that in many cases it's because they weren't misdemeanors at all, they were felony crimes that were reduced during plea bargaining. And that policy, according to an article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, leads to more violent crimes that could be prevented.

The small, preliminary study re-analyzed data on 787 individuals under age 35 who had violent misdemeanor convictions and purchased handguns in California in 1989 or 1990. The goal was to assess the impact of reduced criminal charges on gun purchases and subsequent crime. 

Combat is correlated in some to depression and substance abuse - post-traumatic stress disorder is part of the lexicon today, real and claimed by clerks who never heard a gunshot while in the military and then a general malaise for people who had any kind of stress.

But soldiers who endure the highest stress - those who kill in the heat of combat - are least likely to self-medicate, according to analysis of data by researchers with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and American University.

In "Changes in Alcohol Use after Traumatic Experiences: The Impact of Combat on Army National Guardsmen" in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, they contradict common sociological wisdom.

Advocates for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens often claim that they are doing jobs legal residents won't. That isn't really true, they just do some jobs for less, because their illegal status makes them unable to compete.

The most dangerous jobs actually pay quite well - and they don't hire people who are not allowed to be in America legally. But jobs that are hazardous and can be done without concern for legal status can be done by illegal aliens - it just doesn't pay well.

Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and McGill University have found here is new permafrost forming around Twelvemile Lake in the interior of Alaska. 

Twelvemile Lake, and many others like it, have been shrinking over the past thirty years, now being 15 feet shallower than three decades ago. 

As the lake recedes, bands of willow shrubs have grown up on the newly exposed lake shores over the past twenty years. What Martin Briggs from the U.S. Geological Survey and Prof. Jeffrey McKenzie from McGill's Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science have just discovered is that the extra shade provided by these willow shrubs has both cooled and dried the surrounding soil, allowing new permafrost to expand beneath them.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a burdensome conditions, known for its dramatic highs of extreme euphoria, racing thoughts and decreased need for sleep, as well as its profound lows of sadness and despair.

Because it is also associated with a heightened risk of suicide, substance abuse, hypersexuality, familial discord and aggressive behavior, bipolar disorder affects not just those suffering from it, but also those around them — especially their children.

While previous research has shown that children of parents with
bipolar disorder are at a greater risk of developing psychiatric disorders, the psychosocial implications of being raised by parents with bipolar disorder has been ignored — until now.

How were the earth and the moon formed? A giant impact between Earth's ancestor and a planet-sized body occurred

At the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Sacramento, researchers from the University of Lorraine say that occurred 40 million years after the start of solar system formation, which makes the earth around 60 million years older than previously thought. 

Take a quick guess; what law addressed a problem everyone in America knew we had, was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, it had Republican John Boehner and Democrat Ted Kennedy hugging on the dais, met all of its targets and was still vilified in a political marathon?

It was No Child Left Behind. Under the program, minority scores went up across the board and girls achieved math parity with boys for the first time in history - and we were told teachers hated it. Educators union threatened to withhold millions of dollars in political contributions and a whole lot of votes from Democrats, so after President Barack Obama saw he might lose control of the House in the 2010 election, he began gutting the program.

In April, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the most detailed data in its history about $77 billion worth of physician billings to Medicare.

In analysis of the data, sites like Science 2.0 and The New York Times showed that only a small percentage of healthcare providers slurp up nearly 25 percent of all federal payments - and unsurprisingly most of them are friends with the politicians who like getting more money from taxpayers and spending it. In 2012, more than $600 million went to just 100 doctors.

Can you imagine how difficult it is to juggle peer review for 10,000 published studies per year? That's 40 every single working day, without the time it took to look at the ones that got rejected.

What did USC biomedical engineering assistant professor Megan McCain think when she first saw a real human heart, with all of those thin valves that have to open and close every second of our lives?

“Wow, there’s a lot of plaques of fat. I need to stop eating French fries.”

Nine years later, the “cardiac tissue engineer,” is trying to re-create the human heart on a chip.