Washington, DC--When a pregnant woman has gestational diabetes, her unborn child tends to react more slowly to sounds after the mother consumes sugary foods or drinks compared to the offspring of a woman who does not have the condition, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology&Metabolism.

A pair of neurons that cause males to remember and seek sex even at the expense of food. These neurons, which are male-specific, are required for sex-based differences in learning, suggesting that sex differences in cognitive abilities can be genetically hardwired. 

The study by UCL (UK) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine (USA), published today in Nature and funded by the Wellcome Trust, NIH, Marie Curie, and the G. Harold&Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation, shows a direct link between contrasting behavior of male and female worms and differences in brain development and structure in areas involved in higher order processing.  

Warming ocean temperatures a third of a mile below the surface, in a dark ocean in areas with little marine life, might attract scant attention. But this is precisely the depth where frozen pockets of methane 'ice' transition from a dormant solid to a powerful greenhouse gas.

New University of Washington research suggests that subsurface warming could be causing more methane gas to bubble up off the Washington and Oregon coast.

The study, to appear in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, shows that of 168 bubble plumes observed within the past decade, a disproportionate number were seen at a critical depth for the stability of methane hydrates.

Researchers at the Tulane National Primate Research Center (TNPRC) are leading efforts to find a new vaccine for tuberculosis, one of the world's deadliest diseases. Tuberculosis, a contagious infection of the lungs, affected more than nine million people in 2013, killing more than one million.

A team of researchers led by the TNPRC used a modified strain of TB to show that monkeys could generate better protective immunity than when vaccinated with BCG, a common TB vaccine.

Psychologists writing in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience claim that both belief in God and prejudice towards immigrants can be reduced by directing magnetic energy into the brain.

The team used transcranial magnetic stimulation, a way of temporarily shutting down specific regions of the brain, and targeted the posterior medial frontal cortex, a part of the brain located near the surface and roughly a few inches up from the forehead that is associated with detecting problems and triggering responses that address them.

When the United States Environmental Protection Agency wrecked the ecosystem in Colorado, CEOs across the America likely had a private sentiment - if a corporation not being paid by the EPA had done it, they'd be in jail.

Sure enough, when the EPA caused toxic sludge to spill into a river, their bureaucrats assured us nature would fix itself.

As smoking continues its inexorable southward journey toward single-digit percentages of populations being smokers, it’s common to hear people say the smokers who remain are all “hard core”, heavily dependent smokers, impervious to policies and campaigns.

The argument runs that the ripe fruit of less addicted smokers have long fallen from the tree, and that today anyone still smoking will be unresponsive to the traditional suite of policies and motivational appeals. This argument is known as the “hardening hypothesis”.

New Haven, Conn.--The most effective prescription drug used to quit smoking initially helps women more than men, according to a Yale School of Medicine study.
The study, published Oct. 7 by the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, found that varenicline, marketed as Chantix, was more effective earlier in women, and equally effective in women and men after one year.

Back in February, General Mills announced that five varieties of gluten-free Cheerios (Apple Cinnamon, Frosted, Honey Nut, Multi Grain, and Original) would be available nationwide for purchase later in the year. With the launch of gluten-free Cheerios in recent months, General Mills embarked on one of the company's largest marketing offensives for cereal in many years.

It was great marketing, food is all about chasing the latest fads. But it was not without missteps. On October 5th they recalled 1.8 million boxes of original and Honey Nut Cheerios labeled gluten-free because they contained wheat and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had received 125 complaints from consumers who ate gluten-free Cheerios and experienced gastrointestinal problems.

Fresh research at Sahlgrenska Academy has found that antioxidants can double the rate of melanoma metastasis in mice. The results reinforce previous findings that antioxidants hasten the progression of lung cancer. According to Professor Martin Bergö, people with cancer or an elevated risk of developing the disease should avoid nutritional supplements that contain antioxidants.

Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, demonstrated in January 2014 that antioxidants hastened and aggravated the progression of lung cancer. Mice that were given antioxidants developed additional and more aggressive tumors. Experiments on human lung cancer cells confirmed the results.