President Barack Obama has used an executive order to bypass Congress and tighten control and enforcement over firearms in the United States, in response to concerns about gun violence and gun safety.

If it survives the inevitable court challenges, it will mean more background checks, expanded registration and $500 million for mental health initiatives. President Obama believes these measures will keep firearms from criminals - and they should - but he also claims that it will reduce suicides. That is not so simple to believe. As is well-known, 60 percent of deaths due to firearms are suicides and the lack of gun ownership in Japan did not prevent any of those, they simply use rope.

Urban elites tend to think being fat and dumb is a rural problem but studies show just the opposite; that is why so many health planners want to add more parks and places for people to walk, it emulates country life more.

Genetics are somewhat important, it impacts how many calories someone can eat given their metabolism, but social environment is a big factor. Since agricultural science has made it possible for poor people be fat, that is exactly what has happened, and not just in America. Obesity has risen dramatically in Europe as well. 

Scientists from the Mechanobiology Institute, Singapore (MBI) at the National University of Singapore have discovered the universal building blocks that cells use to form initial connections with the surrounding environment. These early adhesions have a consistent size of 100 nanometres, are made up of a cluster of around 50 integrin proteins and are the same even when the surrounding surface is hard or soft. Deciphering the universal nature of adhesion formation may reveal how tumour cells sense and migrate on surfaces of different rigidity, which is a hallmark of metastasis, the devastating ability of cancer to spread throughout the body. This study was published in the 7 December 2015 issue of Developmental Cell.

Building blocks for cell adhesion

Even before they can read, children as young as 3 years of age are beginning to understand how a written word is different than a simple drawing -- a nuance that could provide an important early indicator for children who may need extra help with reading lessons, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

"Our results show that children have some knowledge about the fundamental properties of writing from a surprisingly early age," said study co-author Rebecca Treiman, PhD, the Burke & Elizabeth High Baker Professor of Child Developmental Psychology in Arts & Sciences.

Why do the distinctive piebald patches seen in black and white cats and some horses occur? The predominant hypothesis has been that piebald patterns form on animals' coats because pigment cells move too slowly to reach all parts of the embryo before it is fully formed but a new study found otherwise.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- By combining sophisticated RNA sequencing technology with a new device that isolates single cells and their progeny, MIT researchers can now trace detailed family histories for several generations of cells descended from one "ancestor."

This technique, which can track changes in gene expression as cells differentiate, could be particularly useful for studying how stem cells or immune cells mature. It could also shed light on how cancer develops.

Claims that sitting is bad for your health were all the rage last year - epidemiological curve matching claimed that you were in real peril if you didn't get up once an hour, while waitresses without epidemiologists surveying them disagreed that a desk job was more harmful.

It may be that emails get all of the mainstream media Scare Journalism in 2016. A new presentatin at the British Psychological Society's Division of Occupational Psychology annual conference in Nottingham by Dr Richard MacKinnon from the Future Work Centre suggests that it's not just the volume of emails that causes stress; it's our well-intentioned habits and our need to feel in control that backfires on us.

You may not think of men over 60 when you think of sex, but it happens. A lot. And when it can't happen the usual way, they are willing to pay for it - and they pay more and use less protection if they are a regular client.

Obviously the assumption, or documented medical fact, is that both parties are disease-free, but it still involves a certain amount of trust - and a certain amount more money.

The new survey in the American Journal of Men's Health asked about the habits of American men between the ages of 60 and 84 who pay for sex and found that the older they were, the more frequently they paid for sex and the more likely they were to have experienced unprotected sexual intercourse multiple times with their favorite commercial sex providers. 

Men in typically female-dominated occupations tend to value the social aspects of their career over financial rewards.

These are the findings of a study by Dr Kazia Solowiej, Dr Catharine Ross, and Professor Jan Francis-Smythe of the University of Worcester and Dr Catherine Steele of the University of Leicester. The study is presented today, Wednesday 6 January 2016, at the British Psychological Society's Division of Occupational Psychology annual conference in East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham.

Our skin is covered in millions of bacteria and most of them help keep us healthy. However, for patients with lymphoma, it may be a rather different story, as new research from the University of Copenhagen shows that toxins in the staphylococcus bacteria help cancer cells gain control over healthy cells. The Danish Cancer Society's Break Cancer Collection contributed DKK 3 million (US$0.5 million) to the research project.