New research predicts that Earth has more than 1,500 undiscovered minerals and that the exact mineral diversity of our planet is unique and could not be duplicated anywhere in the cosmos. Minerals form from novel combinations of elements. These combinations can be facilitated by both geological activity, including volcanoes, plate tectonics, and water-rock interactions, and biological activity, such as chemical reactions with oxygen and organic material.

One in five older people who drink alcohol are consuming it at unsafe levels - over 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 units for women each week - according to a study by King's College London. The research in inner-city London, published in BMJ Open, found these unsafe older drinkers are more likely to be of higher socioeconomic status.

The researchers used anonymised electronic GP health records for 27,991 people aged 65 and over in the Borough of Lambeth in London. From these records, they identified 9,248 older people who had reported consuming alcohol and of these 1,980 people drank at unsafe levels.

African women in polygamous marriages or with alcoholic husbands have a significantly higher risk of being physically abused by their husbands than women in monogamous marriages or women whose husbands don't abuse alcohol, according to survey results presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. 

5 percent of the world's population accounted for a disproportionate 31 percent of public mass shooters globally from 1966-2012, according to new research presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

An analysis examined the years 1966-2012 using data from the New York City Police Department's 2012 active shooter report, the FBI's 2014 active shooter report, and multiple international sources. The author says it is the first quantitative analysis of all reported public mass shootings around the world that resulted in the deaths of four or more people. By definition, these shootings do not include incidents that occurred solely in domestic settings or were primarily gang-related, drive-by shootings, hostage taking incidents, or robberies. 

Domestic homicide is one of the most common and frequent types of murder in the U.S. but murderers who kill intimate partners and family members have a significantly different psychological and forensic profile from murderers who kill people they don't know.

One-third of all women murdered in the U.S. are killed by their male partners including husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends and ex-boyfriends. An estimated 25 percent of women will be victims of severe domestic violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes, according to a new paper which which examined the demographics, psychiatric history and neuropsychology of these individuals.

Individuals who received the flu vaccine were protected for up to 6 months post-vaccination, the duration of most flu seasons, according to a study presented at the 2015 International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Each flu season, researchers work to find out how effective the flu vaccine was in order to measure its value as a health intervention. Factors such as age and health of an individual, as well the level of similarity between the flu virus and the flu vaccine can play a role in how well an influenza vaccine works.

"Few studies have assessed how quickly protection against influenza declines within a year following vaccination, specifically among US populations," said Dr. Jennifer Radin, at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, CA.