Young gay and bisexual men under the age of 26 are six times more likely to attempt suicide or self-harm compared to men in that group aged over 45, and twice as likely to be depressed or anxious, according to a paper in the Journal of Public Health.

New research from Denmark, Canada and the US involving more than 300,000 individuals suggests that patients do not need to check their cholesterol levels on an empty stomach. So far fasting has been required before cholesterol and triglyceride measurement in all countries except Denmark, where non-fasting blood sampling has been used since 2009.

A new Cochrane Review, published in the Cochrane Library today, suggests that yoga may have a beneficial effect on symptoms and quality of life in people with asthma, but effects on lung function and medication use are uncertain.

Asthma is a common chronic disease affecting about 300 million people worldwide. The many typical symptoms of asthma include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and shortness of breath.

Yoga has gained global popularity as a form of exercise with general life-style benefits, and recent studies have investigated the potential of yoga to relieve asthma-related problems.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Whites with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in California receive more state funding than Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and others, new research from UC Davis Health System has found. The study also showed that state spending on ASD increases dramatically with age.

Previous evaluations of the state's investment in ASD services have not included adults, a major oversight, according to lead author Paul Leigh, professor of public health sciences and researcher with the Center for Healthcare Policy and Research at UC Davis.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Why does one person who tries cocaine get addicted, while another might use it and then leave it alone? Why do some people who kick a drug habit manage to stay clean, while others relapse? And why do some families seem more prone to addiction than others?

The road to answering these questions may have a lot to do with specific genetic factors that vary from individual to individual, a new study in rats suggests.

Of course, an animal study can't explain all the factors that contribute to differences in addiction among humans. But the findings reveal new information about the roles played by both inherited traits and addiction-related changes in the brain.

Each year, norovirus causes over 200,000 deaths and a global economic burden of $60 billion. A highly contagious virus that most people will contract 5 times in their lifetime, the most serious outcomes of the disease - hospitalization and death - are far more common among children and the elderly, and in low and middle income countries. In a new PLOS Collection - "The Global Burden of Norovirus & Prospects for Vaccine Development" - global norovirus experts fill critical knowledge gaps and provide key information to further development of a much-needed vaccine.

Insights from the collection

TORONTO, April 26, 2016 - In 1442, Shinto priests in Japan began keeping records of the freeze dates of a nearby lake, while in 1693 Finnish merchants started recording breakup dates on a local river. Together they create the oldest inland water ice records in human history and mark the first inklings of climate change, says a new report published today out of York University and the University of Wisconsin.

The researchers say the meticulous recordkeeping of these historical "citizen scientists" reveals increasing trends towards later ice-cover formation and earlier spring thaw since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

A study led by researchers at Lund University in Sweden shows that ravens are as clever as chimpanzees, despite having much smaller brains, indicating that rather than the size of the brain, the neuronal density and the structure of the birds' brains play an important role in terms of their intelligence.

"Absolute brain size is not the whole story. We found that corvid birds performed as well as great apes, despite having much smaller brains", says Can Kabadayi, doctoral student in Cognitive Science.