Fast testing for bacterial infections may help to reduce excessive antibiotic use, finds a systematic review. When doctors tested for the presence of bacterial infections, they prescribed fewer antibiotics.

By 2030, nearly 10 percent of colon cancers and nearly 25 percent of rectal cancers will be diagnosed in patients younger than the traditional screening age. This growing public health problem is underscored by data trends among 20- to 34-year-olds in the U.S., among whom the incidence of colon and rectal cancer (CRC) is expected to increase by 90% and 124.2%, respectively, by 2030.

Nearly 137,000 people will be diagnosed with
colon and rectal cancer
in the U.S. this year, and more than 50,000 will die of the disease.
colon and rectal cancer
is the third most common cancer among men and women, and the third leading cause of cancer death.

Addiction recovery has numerous pitfalls and the inability to sleep only compounds the risk of relapse, so persistent insomnia is a concern, write researchers in the Journal of Addiction Medicine.

The authors believe that the incidence of insomnia in early recovery may be five times higher than the general population and may persist for months or even years. They say insomnia may be linked with a higher risk of alcohol-related problems and relapse. The association may run in the other direction as well—population studies report people with sleep disturbance are more likely to be at risk of developing addiction..

Do stores that carry cigarettes create new smokers or do they carry cigarettes because their customers smoke? Would a nexus of comic book stores create more comic book readers? Will that work with broccoli?

A new geography paper matches smoking to store locations that carry cigarettes and correlates the two, suggesting that teenagers are much more likely to take up smoking if they live in neighborhoods with a large number of shops that sell tobacco products.

Words are so 20th century. The 21st century could belong to brains communicating directly with each other.

Researchers have successfully replicated a direct brain-to-brain connection between pairs of people. In the newly published paper, which involved six people, researchers were able to transmit the signals from one person's brain over the Internet and use these signals to control the hand motions of another person within a split second of sending that signal.

By Natalie Starkey, The Open University

Online gambling has exploded in the last decades and several states, hungry for more revenue without direct taxes, have approved measures to legalize various types of gambling.

Critics contend that will lead to more crime and more broken homes due to gambling problems.

A new University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) survey says that isn't the case. They interviewed 2,613 people in 1999-2000, and the second survey interviewed 2,963 people in 2011-13. Individuals were asked about their participation in a broad range of gambling activities, including raffles, office pools, pulltabs, bingo, cards, pool, gambling machines, casinos, lottery, Internet gambling, and sports, horse or dog track betting.

When it comes to our senses, there is a lot of diversity in people. One person might have 10X the taste buds on their tongue as another person, for example, so they are more sensitive to bitters and sweets. But is there a quantifiable gender difference in the ability to hear or taste?

A new paper says women smell better than men - not as in their odor, but in their ability to detect and evaluate odors. If so, they postulate that sex differences in olfactory detection may play a role in differentiated social behaviors and may be connected to one's perception of smell, which is naturally linked to associated experiences and emotions.

The big question is whether or not any olfactory superiority is cognitive or emotional rather than perceptual.  

Each year nearly 2,000,000 Americans suffer osteoporosis-related fractures but after it happens, 53 percent of women received Dual X-ray Absorptiometry, the preferred technique for measuring bone mineral density and therefore osteoporosis, compared with only 18 percent of men. 

As the population ages, fractures are expected to increase dramatically, placing a major burden on the health care system and a new study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) suggests that bias against men in favor of post-menopausal women will lead to lower quality of care and higher costs.

Nature enjoys variety, that is why it seems like evolution must have been drinking during the creation of some of the crazier things in biology. 

There is no intelligent reason why snakes and lizards have two genitalia while birds and people have one - or why the former group's paired structures are located somewhat at the level of the limbs while with humans and birds it appears a bit further down. In fact, snake and lizard genitalia are derived from tissue that gives rise to hind legs, while mammalian genitalia are derived from the tail bud. But despite such noteworthy contrasts, these structures are functionally analogous and express similar genes. 

How do these equivalent structures arise from different starting tissues?