Everyone has a hypothesis about the 'birthplace of life' and a new paper adds clay to that list.

In simulated ancient seawater, clay forms a hydrogel, a mass of microscopic spaces capable of soaking up liquids like a sponge. Over billions of years, chemicals confined in those spaces could have carried out the complex reactions that formed proteins, DNA and eventually all the machinery that makes a living cell work.

Clay hydrogels could have confined and protected those chemical processes until the membrane that surrounds living cells developed, according to the computer model.

Researchers in a new paper say that one way to gauge the extent of prescription opioid pain reliever abuse is to count the number of health care providers.

If one were to overturn a tortoise, would it be more likely to right itself (i.e. get back on its feet) to the right or to the left?

To find out, a joint research team from the Comparative Psychology Research Group, University of Padova, Italy and the B.R.A.I.N. Centre for Neuroscience, University of Trieste, Italy, performed a unique set of experiments with 34 overturned tortoises.

If you have wondered why a disease like anorexia seems to impact primarily middle class white girls, a new paper in JAMA Pediatrics will shed some new light on the issue.

A new paper analyzed survey responses of 5,527 teenage males from across the U.S.and found that 17.9% of these young men are suffering under the yoke of female body expectations and are extremely concerned about their weight and physique. These boys were found to be more likely to start engaging in risky behaviors, including drug use and frequent binge drinking.

Every organism needs nitrogen to survive and grow and many organisms do not have the ability to obtain nitrogen from molecular nitrogen (N2), the major component in the atmosphere because they lack the nitrogen fixation pathway and have to rely on supply of nitrogen that has been fixed by others.

The availability of fixed nitrogen, in the form of ammonium, nitrite and nitrate, consequently often limits primary production in the environment. That's one of the reasons why many fertilizers are rich in fixed nitrogen.

A new computer model says it can predict, by census block group, where burglaries are likely to occur.

Using the model developed by a University of California Riverside sociologist Prof. Robert Nash Parker, the Indio police department in souther California has developed interventions to address the problem, and can better anticipate hot spots of criminal activity and deploy officers accordingly. They say they have had an 8 percent decline in thefts in the first nine months of 2013 - too small a variation to attribute to just the model but it certainly hasn't hurt.

A research study headed by Victoria Leavitt, Ph.D. and James Sumowski, Ph.D., of Kessler Foundation, provides the first evidence for beneficial effects of aerobic exercise.

Hippocampal atrophy seen in MS is linked to the memory deficits that affect approximately 50% of individuals with MS. Despite the prevalence of this disabling symptom, there are no effective pharmacological or behavioral treatments.