During mating season in the summer, little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) females huddle their small, furry bodies together to save thermal energy. These "maternity colonies" are important but with population losses across North America, summer access to an attic or other permanent sheltered structure, as opposed to just trees or rock crevices, could be a huge benefit.

In a new Ecosphere paper, researchers investigate and describe the conservation importance of buildings relative to natural, alternative roosts for little brown bats  in Yellowstone National Park.

For two-thirds of parents it can be hard to know the line between recognizing youth depression and making something special of teen moods, and perhaps enabling more problems.

But there is no question America is the most over-medicated in the world, and one the most anti-depressants, and therefore it is little surprising that 25 percent of parents say their child knows a teen with clinical depression while 1 in 10 believe a peer of their child has committed suicide. Obviously that can’t be true, even if the age is pushed out to 24 there are only 6,000 suicides per year, while there are 60,000,000 kids in school from ages 6-22.

Myopia (nearsightedness) is the most frequent cause of correctable visual impairment worldwide.  It occurs when the eye grows too long from front to back (axial length). Instead of focusing images on the retina, images are focused at a point in front of the retina. As a result, people with myopia have good near vision, but poor distance vision that can be corrected with glasses or contact lenses. 

Now kids 8-12 have a new option that has been show to slow the progression of myopia at the initiation of treatment.

Communist dictatorships lack transparency, so if they don't want to be bound by the same ethical rules as everyone else, they won't be. Some in western countries gush about claims they make regarding solar power, for example, but only their CO2 emissions - highest in the world - can be verified from outside. 

It turns out their voluntary organ donation claims may be just as made up, and that is because the Chinese government is systematically misreporting data, according to new research.

A history of fraud and unethical behavior

By Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News.

Promoting her much-discussed plan to create a single-payer “Medicare for All” health system, Sen. Elizabeth Warren emphasized a striking figure.

“If we make no changes over the next 10 years, Americans will reach into their pockets and pay out about $11 trillion on insurance premiums, copays, deductibles and uncovered medical expenses,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in an Instagram video posted Monday.

Though activists oppose Golden Rice, essentially a vitamin-fortified food staple, on ideological and economic grounds, Vitamin A deficiency affects hundreds of thousands of kids each year, and a progressive tool that feeds people and prevents disease is welcome.