Rainfall over the Hawaiian Islands has been declining since 1978.

Is the drying trend due to global warming? Yes, says a team of researchers who found that climate models don't have enough resolution to capture the diverse rainfall pattern over Hawaii, where dry and wet areas often lie only a mile or even less apart, and so devised a method called 'statistical downscaling.'

 They first got a take on the effects of the general drying trend on local heavy-rain days by reanalyzing observations from 1978 to 2010 at 12 rain-gauge stations spread throughout the islands. Studying hundreds of weather patterns during such days, they identified the typical atmospheric circulation patterns in the North Pacific that favor heavy rains over Hawaii. 

Bacterial vaginosis is a condition that occurs when the typical mix of microbes in the vagina is knocked off-kilter, sometimes resulting in a change in the consistency of vaginal fluids and an unpleasant odor. Bacterial vaginosis is diagnosed through examination of the vagina and tests of the vaginal fluids and then typically treated with antibiotics. 

The condition affects as many as one in every three women, making it more common than yeast infections. But bacterial vaginosis often does not cause significant symptoms, leaving many women unaware they have it, but it has been linked to preterm birth and increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases. New research points to a common species of bacteria as an important contributor to bacterial vaginosis.

Results from "Aviator," AbbVie's phase IIb clinical trial of its investigational direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, continue to demonstrate high sustained viral response (SVR) rates against genotype 1 HCV, across patient types.

Data show greater than 90 percent SVR were achieved in patients new to treatment and in patients who had previously failed treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin (null responders).

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Statistics show that 38 percent of suicidal adults and 90 percent of youths had visited their primary care physicians in the 12 months prior to committing suicide.  

An evidence review finds that while there are screening tools to help physicians identify adults at risk for suicide, there's no evidence that using these screening tools in primary care will actually prevent suicides. In adolescents, there are no proven primary care-relevant screening tools to identify suicide risk.  

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reviewed evidence for upcoming recommendations on suicide screening and treatment for adults and adolescents and issued a paper. 

Blanket stereotypes are bad but they often come into existence for a reason; the problem becomes when everyone is labeled with the same brush. There is a common belief that some schools, high school and college, are giving athletes an easier time because they have physical skills but not academic ones, for example, and so all athletes become considered "dumb jocks".

Are college athletes victims of stereotype threat the way sociologists contend women and minorities in science classes are?

A coronal mass ejection (CME) is when our sun sends billions of tons of solar particles into space. A CME can affect electronic systems in satellites and NASA recently saw three.

How do we often find something tiny in a large area? 

When our brains begin a targeted search, various visual and non-visual regions of the brain mobilize to track down that person, animal or thing. That means that if we're looking for a youngster lost in a crowd, the brain areas usually dedicated to recognizing other objects, or even the areas attuned to abstract thought, shift their focus and join the search party. The brain rapidly becomes highly focused child-finder, and redirects resources it uses for other mental tasks.