Although diseases of the heart and blood vessels (cardiovascular disease, CVD) kill more people worldwide than anything else, with 17.3 million deaths globally, cancer has now overtaken CVD as the main cause of death in 12 European countries.

New data on the burden of CVD in Europe for 2016, which are published today (Monday) in the European Heart Journal [1], show that in the European region (defined as the 53 member states of the World Health Organisation) CVD caused more than four million deaths each year, 45% of all deaths. However, success in preventing and treating the disease has led to large decreases in CVD in a number of countries.

Prostate and lung cancer have been the No. 1 and 2 cancers among men. Stomach cancer, the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, has been on a steady decline among Koreans and Japanese. Black men had the highest overall rates of cancer. Thyroid cancer -- which is relatively treatable -- has been on the rise, and women are about three times more likely to contract it than men.

Researchers have discovered that secondary infection with the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacterium (or "superbug") often kills influenza patients because the flu virus alters the antibacterial response of white blood cells, causing them to damage the patients' lungs instead of destroying the bacterium. The study, which will be published online August 15 ahead of issue in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, suggests that inhibiting this response may help treat patients infected with both the flu virus and MRSA.

As a long-time meteor observer, I never lose an occasion to watch the peak of good showers. The problem is that similar occasions have become less frequent in the recent times, due to a busier agenda. 
In the past few days, however, I was at CERN and could afford going out to observe the night sky, so it made sense to spend at least a couple of hours to check on the peak activity of the Perseids, which this year was predicted to be stronger than usual.

Too much cholesterol used to be bad for you. Then some cholesterol was good for you. Now too little cholesterol is bad for you.

A giant chunk of the public no longer trusts science, because scientists have not yet put epidemiology over with the social sciences and the humanities on the credibility scale. Using epidemiology, everything can both cause and prevent cancer.

There is no question that in recent decades academics have veered sharply left, and none more so than the humanities fields - but linking government spending to male body image may have set a new standard. Whereas the academic left used to attack the right, now they attack the left that won't continue to raise taxes - neoliberals.

Lie on the beach this summer and your body will be bombarded by about sextillion photons of light per second.

Most of these photons, or small packets of energy, originate from the Sun but a very small fraction have travelled across the Universe for billions of years before ending their existence when they collide with your skin.

In a new study to be published in the Astrophysical Journal on August 12th, astronomers have accurately measured the light hitting the Earth from outside our galaxy over a very broad wavelength range.

Female domestic cats adjust their response to kitten calls depending on how urgent they sound, according to a study published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. Independent of their own experience of raising kittens, female cats distinguish between kitten calls that convey different levels of urgency and react accordingly, researchers at Hannover Medical School and the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany have found. Male cats do not adjust their response in similar ways.

Black children and young adults are about half as likely as their white counterparts to get mental health care despite having similar rates of mental health problems, according to a study published today [Friday, Aug. 12] in the International Journal of Health Services. Hispanic youth also get only half as much mental health care as whites.

The study used data on children under 18 and young adults 18-34 from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey covering all 50 states for the years 2006-2012. It found that minorities received much less of virtually all types of mental health care, including visits to psychiatrists, social workers and psychologists, as well as substance abuse counseling and mental health counseling by pediatricians and other doctors.

In Canada, health care is paid for by taxpayers, but it doesn't reduce expensive emergency room visits by people with disabilities - a key argument the Obama administration claimed in passing the Affordable Care Act.

But it's a small study published in the journal Canadian Family Physician - the larger study is being done in the U.S., where Obamacare premiums are going up another 18-23 percent. None of the savings have been realized yet, nor are insurers making more money from premiums. Instead, people who had insurance kept it if they could, and now pay higher premiums so that people who didn't want insurance could get it in case they need it 20 years from now.