A simple blood test that can accurately diagnose active tuberculosis could make it easier and cheaper to control a disease that kills 1.5 million people every year.

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a gene expression "signature" that distinguishes patients with active tuberculosis from those with either latent tuberculosis or other diseases.

The technology fills a need identified by the World Health Organization, which in 2014 challenged researchers to develop better diagnostic tests for active TB.

A paper describing the work will be published online in Lancet Respiratory Medicine on Feb. 19.

Less than 40% of the results of clinical trials conducted at leading academic medical centers were shared within two years of completion, finds a study in the British Medical Journal.

New research published in Scientific Reports in February indicates that a warm ocean surface water prevailed during the last ice age, sandwiched between two major ice sheets just south of Greenland.

Extreme climate changes in the past
Ice core records show that Greenland went through 25 extreme and abrupt climate changes during the last ice age some 20.000 to 70.000 years ago. In less than 50 years the air temperatures over Greenland could increase by 10 to 15 °C. However the warm periods were short; within a few centuries the frigid temperatures of the ice age returned. That kind of climate change would have been catastrophic for us today. (link)

Rutgers scientists have taken a step toward understanding how sexual aggression alters the female brain.

In a recent study in Scientific Reports, lead author Tracey Shors, professor in the Department of Psychology and Center for Collaborative Neuroscience in the School of Arts and Sciences, discovered that prepubescent female rodents paired with sexually experienced males had elevated levels of stress hormones, could not learn as well, and expressed reduced maternal behaviors needed to care for offspring.

It's a well-known fact that aging can lead to losing one's senses: vision, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. In previous studies, researchers have learned about the consequences of experiencing a decline in a single sense. For example, losing senses of smell, vision, and hearing have all been linked to cognitive decline, poor mental health, and increased mortality. Losing the sense of taste can lead to poor nutrition and even death in certain instances. However, until now little has been known about losing multiple senses. In a new study, researchers examined how often multisensory losses occur and what their impact on older adults might be.

Synthetic cathinones which produce effects similar to amphetamines and have been associated with numerous fatalities are derived from cathinone, which is present in the khat plant.

Only supplement makers and buyers think if it happens in nature it must be okay, but the U.S.  Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)  has a hard time keeping up. They can only ban specific  synthetic cathinones, and did in 2011, but change a molecule and new designer drugs continue to appear, and they aren't banned because they are different.