MADISON, Wis. – Marital stress may make people more vulnerable to depression, according to a recent study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers and their colleagues.

The long-term study, published in the April 2014 Journal of Psychophysiology, shows that people who experience chronic marital stress are less able to savor positive experiences, a hallmark of depression. They are also more likely to report other depressive symptoms.

The findings are important, says study leader Richard Davidson, UW-Madison William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, because they could help researchers understand what makes some people more vulnerable to mental and emotional health challenges.

April is in the middle of the dry season, which runs from January through May in this region, and naturally coincides with fire season. Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil and to clear the ground of unwanted plants. Fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture. Some of the fires in this image may be wildfires, with natural (lightning) or accidental (human) sources. As the dry season progresses, the number of fires tend to grow, as does the blanket of smoke which settles over the land, and although the fire may help the farmers get their lands ready for planting season, unfortunately, the fires also produce smoke that degrades air quality.

OTTAWA, April 24, 2014 - A new study from researchers at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI), published today in Cell Reports, sheds light on a mysterious gene that likely influences cardiovascular health. After five years, UOHI researchers now know how one genetic variant works and suspect that it contributes to the development of heart disease through processes that promote chronic inflammation and cell division.

Researchers at the Ruddy Canadian Cardiovascular Genetics Centre had initially identified a variant in a gene called SPG7 as a potential contributor to coronary artery disease several years ago, but its role in multiple health processes made it difficult to tease out how it affects heart disease.

It's believed that cheats are always a step ahead of testing. But if blood samples were stored longer - 10 years - the 'biological' profiles of athletes would be around long enough for testing to catch up.

And much wider use should be made of  the athlete's biological passport - biological profiling - which will show up tiny changes made to the individual's unique genetic blueprint by doping substances and methods, without the need to identify the presence of the substance itself, when regularly monitored.

New research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) shows that increasing coffee consumption by on average one and half cups per day (approx 360ml) over a four-year period reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes by 11%. The research is led by Dr Frank Hu and Dr Shilpa Bhupathiraju, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA, and colleagues.

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have found genetic evidence that one of Britain's native tree species, the dwarf birch found in the Scottish Highlands, was once common in England.

Genes from dwarf birch were found in birch tree populations across Britain, which reflects a much wider distribution occupied by the "wee tree" when the British climate was colder.

"We seem to have found genetic footprints of the retreat of dwarf birch into its current refuges in the Scottish Highlands," said Dr Richard Buggs, Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, who led the research.