A team of Swedish scientists have used national register information in more than one million Swedish children to study the association of early life contact with dogs and subsequent development of asthma. This question has been studied extensively previously, but conclusive findings have been lacking. The new study showed that children who grew up with dogs had about 15 percent less asthma than children without dogs.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- When cancer cells compete with immune cells for glucose, the cancer wins. As a result, the immune T cells are not healthy and don't have the weapons to kill the cancer.

"If we have a way to manipulate the metabolic pathway, the T cells may be healthier," says senior author Weiping Zou, M.D., Ph.D., Charles B. de Nancrede Professor of Surgery, Immunology and Biology at the University of Michigan Medical School.

The finding, published in Nature Immunology, suggests a potential metabolic pathway against cancer.

"We know that if we provide glucose, the tumor uses it. One question we have is, can we make T cells resistant to glucose restriction? In our study, we define a mechanism that we can use as a model to test this," Zou says.

It's not a bad guess to assume if your husband is sexting it isn't with you, but some married couples do report it. It's just much less common than in young relationships and consists more of intimate talk than sending nude or nearly nude photos via mobile phones, according to new survey results published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

DARIEN, IL - A new study of sleepwalkers found an intriguing paradox: Although sleepwalkers have an increased risk for headaches and migraines while awake, during sleepwalking episodes they are unlikely to feel pain even while suffering an injury.

Results show that sleepwalkers were nearly 4 times more likely than controls to report a history of headaches (odds ratio = 3.80) and 10 times more likely to report experiencing migraines (OR = 10.04), after adjusting for potential confounders such as insomnia and depression. Among sleepwalkers with at least one previous sleepwalking episode that involved an injury, 79 percent perceived no pain during the episode, allowing them to remain asleep despite hurting themselves.

Bats in northeast China are infected with the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome, a deadly disease that has decimated bat populations in North America since it first appeared in upstate New York in 2006. A team of American and Chinese researchers found the fungus in caves where bats hibernate and found bats infected with the fungus.

Although infected bats had lesions characteristic of the disease and similar to lesions seen in North American bats, the researchers do not know the extent to which Chinese bat species are affected by the disease.

Between 1999-2012, overall prescription drug use increased among U.S. adults, with this increase seen for the majority of but not all drug classes, according to a study in the November 3 issue of JAMA.

Use of prescription drugs represents a major expenditure in the United States, and research suggests that use of prescription drugs is increasing. Yet much of the information about prescription use is derived from pharmacy databases or expenditure data, neither of which directly captures use at the population level. It is important to document patterns of prescription drug use to inform both clinical practice and research, according to background information in the article.

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 3 - When a male Asian Citrus Psyllid is looking for a mate, he situates himself on a twig, buzzes his wings to send vibrations along adjacent leaves and branches, and listens for a female's response call. If the call comes, he travels in her direction, the abbreviated insect version of courtship ensues, and two to seven weeks later, scores of psyllids nymphs emerge from their eggs, feed on phloem sap, and mature into adults who head out into the world, ravaging untold numbers of citrus trees in the process.

Athens, Ga. - Evidence has been mounting that female monarch butterflies are better at flying and more successful at migration than males, and researchers from the University of Georgia have now come up with an explanation--but not one they expected.

In the study comparing physical traits of female and male monarchs, they found that although female monarchs have smaller wings and smaller flight muscles than males, their wings are thicker and also bear less weight per square inch, making them both sturdier and more efficient in flight.

Betcha that got your attention. I hope so.

Because, even though the title may sound like the essence of juvenile stupidity, if you read this—if only to see what the hell I'm talking about—it could save your life. And, no— I'm NOT kidding about this.

I'm talking about colonoscopies—one of the most feared words in the English language. 

The reality is that something that is so feared is actually rather enjoyable. Nope—I'm not kidding. And I know what I'm talking about. I've had enough of these done that I'm considering adding it to my CV under "hobbies." 

If you're feeling a little blue during the transition to menopause, there's good reason, according to a new study being reported online today in Menopause. The study suggests that the estradiol (a form of estrogen) fluctuation that is common during the menopausal transition may enhance emotional sensitivity to psychosocial stress.

When combined with a very stressful life event, this sensitivity is likely to contribute to the development of a depressed mood.