Standing for at least one-quarter of the day has been linked to lower odds of obesity, finds a new survey in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. But don't tell all those waitresses with sore backs and varicose veins.

Inflammatory processes sound bad, but they actually occur to promote healing after injury. However, when too active, these inflammatory processes can damage the body and perhaps contribute to heart disease.

Stress is a contributor to inflammation in the body. So is sleep disturbance, according to some, and insomnia, one of the most common sleep disorders, is correlated with increased risk for depression, medical comorbidities, and mortality. A new study in Biological Psychiatry reports that treatment for insomnia, either by cognitive behavioral therapy or the movement meditation tai chi, reduces inflammation levels in older adults over 55 years of age.

Pregnant women and new mothers are inundated with messages regarding the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for babies in the first year of life and if you don't do that, shame on you for giving your child asthma, food allergies and eczema.

Astronomers have discovered an adolescent protostar that is undergoing a rapid-fire succession of growth spurts. Evidence for this fitful youth is seen in a pair of intermittent jets streaming away from the star's poles.

Known as CARMA-7, the protostar is one of dozens of similar objects in the Serpens South star cluster, which is located approximately 1,400 light-years from Earth. This clutch of nascent stellar objects was first detected by and named for the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) telescope.

For centuries, cod were the backbone of New England's fisheries and a key species in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem.  Cod is a cold-water species, and the Gulf of Maine is at the edge of its geographic range. As the ocean warms, the capacity of the Gulf of Maine to support cod will decline, leading to a smaller population and a smaller fishery, according to hypotheses. 

Today, cod stocks are on the verge of collapse, hovering at 3-4 percent of sustainable levels. Even painful cuts to the fishery have failed to slow this rapid decline, surprising both fishers and fisheries managers. A new report in Science links the cod collapse directly to rapid warming of ocean waters.

Higher-spending physicians face fewer malpractice claims, and it is believed the reason is because they run a lot of tests to cover every possibility - all to keep lawyers at bay in case anything at all goes wrong for the patient.

Nearly three-quarters of physicians report practicing this "defensive medicine", which is broadly defined as the ordering of tests, procedures, physician consultations and other medical services solely to reduce risk of malpractice claims. Defensive medicine is estimated to cost the U.S. as much as $50 billion annually and that number is only going to go higher in an Obamacare world, where health care can now bring the full force of federal prosecution down on any mistake.