By:  Karin Heineman, Inside Science TV – Viruses: they’re too tiny for us to see, yet they’re lurking everywhere.  And guess what? They spread really fast through an office environment.

“Most people don’t realize they easily spread by your hands,” said University of Arizona microbiologist Charles Gerba. Most people think that viruses spread by inhaling sick people’s coughs or sneezes, but “it’s really when those droplets settle out and you touch that surface” that tiny viruses spread, he said. People unknowingly bring their virus-covered fingers to their noses, mouths, or eyes, kicking off infection.

Wolves and foxes are closely related and share many of the same characteristics.

But look at their eyes – where wolves have rounded pupils like humans, foxes instead have a thin vertical line.

But it isn’t just canines –across the animal kingdom, pupils come in all shapes and sizes. So why the differences?

It’s a question that has long interested scientists working on vision and optics. In a new study published in the journal Science Advances, colleagues from Durham, Berkeley and I explain why these pupil shapes have developed.

So, I get in a pissy mood once in a while. Before you judge, you try taking the Times Square-Grand Central Station shuttle every day. See what kind of mood you end up in:

Then I read something so infuriatingly stupid in the Huffington Post — which is of questionable value even on a good day — that my already-sour disposition headed even further south.

Democrats (myself included) enjoy ridiculing Republicans who deny the scientific consensus behind climate change. But we then deny the inconvenient truth behind our own preferred climate policies: they will have regressive impacts on the poor and middle class.

The Energy Information Agency (EIA) projected in May that President Obama’s new Clean Power Plan (CPP) will lead to retail electricity prices 3%-7% higher for the nation as a whole in 2020-25, before falling to “near-baseline” levels in 2030. Yet speaking in the White House on August 3, the president denied the CPP would “cost you more money.”

Scientists on the NuMI Off-Axis Electron Neutrino Appearance (NOvA) experiment saw their first evidence of oscillating neutrinos, confirming that the extraordinary detector built for the project not only functions as planned but is also making great progress toward its goal of a major leap in our understanding of these ghostly particles.

The New York City subway system is notorious for its filth and grime, something that was captured well in Jonath Hertzberg’s 2013 video essay, titled Dirty Old New York Subway, which cataloged the trains’ cinematic history.

Cancer survival in England remains lower than countries with similar healthcare systems, according to a new study. Cancer survival in England has steadily improved but the gap in survival remains.

The research, from the London School of Hygiene&Tropical Medicine, compared survival for colon, breast, lung, ovarian, rectal and stomach cancers in England, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden between 1995 and 2009, and survival trends in England up to 2012. It included more than 1.9 million cancer patients in England and another 1.9 million cancer patients from the other five countries. The report analyzed data from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden between 1995 and 2009 and data from England between 1995 and 2012.

Patients with low testosterone levels who have then gone on to have testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) could be at lower risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack or stroke, according to research published today (Thursday) in the European Heart Journal.

In the study, researchers from Kansas City VA Medical Centre in Kansas City, USA, examined the effect of TRT on cardiovascular outcomes by comparing incidences of heart attack, stroke, and all-cause mortality among different sub-populations of treated and untreated patients. The study used the largest cohort of patients and the longest follow-up for TRT to date.

The non-medical use of prescription opioids (POs) has become an area of increasing public health concern in the United States and rates of use are particularly high among young adults. In the past decade, an emerging "epidemic" of non-medical PO use has been reported.

Among young adults, self-reported use is 11% and overdose deaths involving POs now exceed deaths involving heroin and cocaine combined. Sexual violence is also a serious problem in the United States receiving increased national attention, and the relationship between substance use and sexual violence is well supported in the literature.

Researchers have identified a protein produced by white blood cells that puts the brakes on muscle repair after injury.

By removing the protein CD163 from mice, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine could boost muscle repair and recovery of blood flow after ischemic injury (damage caused by restriction of blood flow).

The findings point to a target for potential treatments aimed at enhancing muscle regeneration. Muscle breakdown occurs in response to injury or inactivity -- during immobilization in a cast, for example -- and in several diseases such as diabetes and cancer.

The results are scheduled for publication online by Nature Communications on August 5.