In the world of American football, players have gotten big. Really big. It's one of the few sports where players actually lose a lot of weight after they retire. Wide receivers today are commonly the size of linebackers 30 years ago.

The perception is this obesity escalation filters down to college and high school as well, because of a size arms race, but new research suggests that being bigger doesn't mean being better -- and certainly not healthier.

Black Death, mid-fourteenth century plague, is undoubtedly the most famous historical pandemic. Within only five years it killed 30-50% of the European population. Unfortunately it didn't stop there. Plague resurged throughout Europe leading to continued high mortality and social unrest over the next three centuries.

With its nearly worldwide distribution today, it's surprising that the once omnipresent threat of plague is all but absent in Western Europe. Plague's abrupt disappearance from Europe leaves us with many unanswered questions about the disease's history. Where did the outbreaks begin? Where was plague hiding between outbreaks? What would cause a resurgence of the dreaded plague?

HOUSTON - (Jan. 22, 2016) - Amid all the fancy equipment found in a typical nanomaterials lab, one of the most useful may turn out to be the humble microwave oven.

A standard kitchen microwave proved effective as part of a two-step process invented at Rice and Swansea universities to clean carbon nanotubes.

Basic nanotubes are good for many things, like forming into microelectronic components or electrically conductive fibers and composites; for more sensitive uses like drug delivery and solar panels, they need to be as pristine as possible.

Philadelphia, PA, January 22, 2016 - The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a multi-national trade agreement now being considered by 12 countries. In an insightful commentary in Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy (RSAP), the ramifications of major components of the agreement are discussed, especially those potentially impacting the worldwide pharmaceutical industry.

New findings expose how mitochondria might instigate lupus-like inflammation.

Mitochondria are the power stations in living cells, but they also have many other sidelines. The byproducts of their respiration and energy conversion, for instance, include molecules eager to participate in chemical changes. These reactive oxygen species are two-edged swords that can harm the body or protect it.

For reasons yet unknown, certain white blood cells in lupus and in other chronic inflammatory diseases produce elevated amounts of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species.

Washington, DC (January 21, 2016) -- The health of blood cells' energy-producing mitochondria may predict a person's risk of developing chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The findings could lead to improvements in the prevention and treatment of CKD.

In the United States, approximately 26 million people, or 13% of US adults, have CKD. While there are a variety of causes of CKD, many cases involve dysfunction of kidney cells' mitochondria, or the cellular components that produce energy that's critical for cells to survive.