The opioid addiction for more than half of female methadone clinic patients began with painkillers prescribed by doctors, according to a paper in Biology of Sex Differences.

More than half (52%) of women and a third (38%) of men reported doctor-prescribed painkillers as their first contact with opioid drugs, a family of drugs which include prescription medicines such OxyContin and codeine, as well as illicit drugs such as heroin.

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 5 - Before eating your next meal, pause for a moment to thank the humble honeybee. Farmers of almonds, broccoli, cantaloupe and many other nuts, vegetables and fruits rely heavily on managed honeybees to pollinate their crops each year.

Recently honeybees have been under stress from a mysterious threat called colony collapse disorder, which causes the majority of worker bees to abandon the hive. While scientists are still investigating the causes of the phenomenon, beekeepers could benefit from technologies that help them keep tabs on the health of their hives.

Could a solar eclipse over Europe during the day affect the power generated by Germany's photovoltaic systems or solar panels, thereby challenging the reliability of the electrical supply across the country?

A new analysis based on simulations and data from the partial solar eclipse that occurred over Europe on the morning of March 20th indicates that such shadowing causes a sudden drop in the power gradient, followed by a steep rise. However, during the shadowing on March 20th, the amount of imported power rose and the amount of exported power fell accordingly.

The 2015 growing season was tough on tomato plants at the Boyce Thompson Institute, as bacterial speck disease (Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato) descended on their field.

But it was all done on purpose. Don't go crazy and start calling up donors for more money, Natural Resources Defense Council, scientists are not creating World War Z. It was done on purpose and the bacteria is completely organic - and those infected plants may help science save others from a similar, spotted fate.

DNA represents a dynamic form of information, balancing efficient storage and access requirements. Packaging approximately 1.8m of DNA into something as small as a cell nucleus is no mean feat, but unpacking it again to access the required sections and genes? That requires organization.

In a nutshell, this is achieved through DNA condensed and packaged as chromatin, a complex of DNA and proteins called histones, which is constantly modified as the DNA is accessed. The histone proteins need constant replacement to maintain the correct chromatin structure required for all DNA related processes in the cell.

Thiazide is a popular diuretic for lowering high blood pressure but may not excrete salt as expected in patients with congestive heart failure and or dehydration and should be taken with caution, according to a study in mouse models presented at a meeting of the American Society of Nephrology's Kidney Week activities in San Diego.

Scientists have nearly completed the first map of the mantle under the tectonic plate that is colliding with the Pacific Northwest and putting Seattle, Portland and Vancouver at risk of the largest earthquakes and tsunamis in the world.

The new report describes how the movement of the ocean-bottom Juan de Fuca plate is connected to the flow of the mantle 150 kilometers (100 miles) underground, which could help seismologists understand the forces generating quakes as large as the destructive Tohoku quake that struck Japan in 2011 and led to the tsunami that caused the issues at the Fukushima nuclear plant.