Religious people say their belief in a personal god functions as a moral compass, helping them form opinions about controversial issues and distinguish right from wrong. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, suggests that it's just the opposite; people attribute whatever they happen to believe to god.

 According to a new study soon to appear in NeuroImage, active cocaine abusers were, on average, able to suppress activity in brain regions linked to drug cravings when asked to inhibit their response to a "cocaine-cues" video.

The findings suggest that clinical interventions designed to strengthen these inhibitory responses could help cocaine abusers stop using drugs and avoid relapse.

Scientists used a brain-scanning technique called positron emission tomography (PET) and a radioactively "tagged" form of glucose — the brain's main fuel — to measure brain activity in 24 active cocaine abusers during three different conditions: 1) while subjects simply lay

Men could soon have the same control over their fertility that women have had since the 1960s, according to a new paper published in the December 2009 issue of The FASEB Journal. The authors of the paper say they have found how and where androgenic hormones work in the testis to control normal sperm production and male fertility.

The discovery was the result of studies performed in two groups of mice. The first group of mice was normal, but the second was missing a gene from the peritubular myoid cells in the testis. This missing gene codes for the androgen hormone receptor, and when missing, sperm production was significantly decreased when compared to the normal group. The result was infertility.

If you think the stress you experience during the holidays is doing you harm, you're right. Scientists from the University of Connecticut and Yale University say that entertaining your in-laws or traveling long distances this time of year can make you sick, and they they know why.

According to their study published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, the same part of our nervous system that is responsible for the fight-or-flight response (called the sympathetic nervous system) also controls regulatory T cells, which are used by the body to end an immune response once a foreign invader has been removed or destroyed.

Just because a vaccine is available doesn't mean people will choose to be inoculated, according to new research published amid widespread public confusion about the merit of H1N1 flu shots.

The research, appearing in the December issue of Health Services Research, looked at acceptability of potential future HIV vaccinations among high-risk adults in Los Angeles and demonstrated that many factors come into play when a person decides whether or not to be vaccinated.

Before you eat that next slice of pecan pie or second serving of mashed potatoes at Christmas dinner this year, you may want to think twice; those extra helpings could be even worse for your waistline than previously thought.

 A new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal suggests that a diet high in fat and sugar actually switches on genes that ultimately cause our bodies to store too much fat. This means these foods hit you with a double-whammy as the already difficult task of converting high-fat and high-sugar foods to energy is made even harder because these foods also turn our bodies into "supersized fat-storing" machines.