In civilized war, as oxymoronic as it sounds, hospitals have a cultural bubble around them, neutral territory and off limits. 

But in Syria, that bubble has burst dozens of times, according to a new report from the group Physicians for Human Rights. The hospitals in just the eastern half of Aleppo city have suffered 45 attacks in three years, and two-thirds have closed.

And that may put medical facilities and workers in other conflict zones in danger too, according to a new opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine. 

What happens to your body in space? NASA's Human Research Program has been trying to provide answers for a decade.

Nature is out to kill us all on earth and space is no different. On top of that, we are isolated from family and friends, exposed to more radiation that could increase lifetime risk for cancer, eat a diet high in freeze-dried food, and work hard all while confined with three co-workers picked by your boss.

Scott Kelly will be the first American to spend nearly one year in space aboard the International Space Station, twice the normal time. One year is a stepping stone to a three-year journey to Mars, should that ever happen, so researchers are eager to learn if existing solutions will be suitable for long, onerous journeys.

When I was an elementary school student, schools in my hometown administered IQ tests every couple of years. I felt very scared of the psychologist who came in to give those tests.

I also performed terribly. As a result, at one point, I was moved to a lower-grade classroom so I could take a test more suitable to my IQ level.

Consequently, I believed that my teachers considered me stupid. I, of course, thought I was stupid. In addition, I also thought my teachers expected low-quality work from a child of such low IQ. So, I gave them what they expected.

Highlights

• An increase in serum phosphorus levels in African Americans with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with faster progression to kidney failure, known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD).
• The study confirmed in African Americans what previous studies in Caucasians demonstrated, that an increase in the biomarker predicted ESRD risk.
• The research, from the Indiana University School of Medicine, was presented at ASN Kidney Week 2015 November 3-8 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA.

Jülich, 17 November 2015 - The overheating of computer chips is a major obstacle to the development of faster and more efficient computers and mobile phones. One promising remedy for this problem could be a class of materials first discovered just a few years ago: topological insulators, which conduct electricity with less resistance and heat generation than conventional materials. Research on these materials is still in its early stages. A team from Jülich and Aachen has now found a way to control the desired conducting properties of this type of material more precisely and reliably than ever before. The results have been published in the current edition of the journal Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9816).

Smokeless tobacco is used far less than cigarettes, primarily among men and young people, but it has become a cause for concern due to links with adverse health effects and identification as a cause of cancer.

Survey results and biomarkers published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers&Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, find that U.S. adults who used only smokeless tobacco products had higher levels of biomarkers of exposure to nicotine and a cancer-causing toxicant -- the tobacco-specific nitrosamine NNK -- compared with those who only used cigarettes.

 Brian Rostron, PhD, an epidemiologist in the Center for Tobacco Products at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Tasers, created to save lives by subduing criminals and others without shooting them, are now the target of health papers. They are used by over 16,000 police forces in 107 countries and use compressed nitrogen to fire two barbed electrical probes that deliver a pulsed 50,000 volt shock, causing intense skeletal muscle contractions and pain.

Writing in BMJ, journalist Owen Dyer says the health risks are greater than previously thought. Of recent concern is the police use of Tasers against mentally ill patients, which has prompted the UK home secretary, Theresa May, to order a review of police use of force against mentally distressed people.

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 17, 2015) -- When it comes to needles and drawing blood, most patients agree that bigger is not better. But in the first study of its kind, Rice University bioengineers have found results from a single drop of blood are highly variable, and as many as six to nine drops must be combined to achieve consistent results.

The study, which appears online this week in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology, examines the variation between blood drops drawn from a single fingerprick. The results suggest that health care professionals must take care to avoid skewed results as they design new protocols and technologies that rely on fingerprick blood.