An analysis of deaths in the United States between 1969 and 2013 finds an overall decreasing trend in the age-standardized death rate for all causes combined and for heart disease, cancer, stroke, unintentional injuries, and diabetes, although the rate of decrease appears to have slowed for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Scientists have predicted a new phase of superionic ice, a special form of ice that could exist on Uranus and Neptune, thanks to a computer solution performed by a team of researchers at Princeton University. 

A team of scientists recently developed a new strategy to determine monocyte subsets involved in diseases. The results could help facilitating the diagnosis of sarcoidosis and may improve the respective patient management.

Monocytes are white blood cells that are crucial to human immune defense. They are precursor cells of macrophages and dendritic cells and are circulating in the blood until they invade their respective target tissue where they defend the body against exogenous structures. So far, scientist categorized subtypes of monocytes only with regards to the surface markers CD14 and CD16 - however, this might change in the future.

Nature reserves and national parks play a crucial role in sheltering wildlife, such as African elephants, from hunting and habitat destruction, but they have no problem at all exhausting the wildlife around them.

Researchers have examined the effect elephants have on the woody plant life in Kruger National Park, the largest protected area in South Africa, and found that elephants are the preserve's leading causes of fallen trees.

Scientists call them toxins but these bacterial proteins don't poison us, at least not directly. Instead, they restrain the growth of the bacteria that make them, establishing a dormant "persister cell" state that is tolerant to antibiotics.

Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have obtained precise pictures showing how a toxin protein, called HigB, recognizes and rips up RNA as part of its growth-inhibition function. Their findings could lead to a better understanding of the formation of persister cells and how they maintain themselves.

Citations are a time-honored measure now used to assess scholarly standing and evaluate academic productivity by funding committees that control government research.

For that reason, citations that are critical in nature, and point out limitations, inconsistencies or flaws in previous work, can be detrimental. A new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that negative citations were more likely to criticize highly-read papers, they tended to originate from scholars who were close to the authors of the original articles in academic discipline and social distance - but at least 150 miles away geographically.