A new strain of disease-causing bacteria has been identified which may explain a rise in more serious Strep A infections in England and Wales, according to results from cases published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. 

If you live in a city, your chances of being involved victim of a criminal act go up, and as cities grow in size, crime grows even faster.

But not all crimes go up at the same rate.  Rape grows only linearly, at roughly the same pace as a city's population, while car theft and robbery compound and outpace the population.

A new mathematical model says the same underlying mechanism that boosts urban innovation and startup businesses can also explain why certain types of crimes thrive in a larger population. 

Anthropologists have long speculated about why neanderthals while Homo sapiens thrived? Was it some sort of plague specific only to Neanderthals? A cataclysmic event in their homelands?

A new paper in Anatomical Record posits that it was not some exotic pathogen, but chronic ear infections and plain old evolution. Ear infections are common in kids but how serious they are is a matter of debate. In parts of culture worried about both modern medicine antibiotic resistance, some parents believe an ear infection should just rest while a lot of older people with poor hearing believe kids should get them fixed. But killing off a species?

Though there is far less economic inequality in America than at any point in history - poor people in America live in more square footage per person than the middle class in France, not to mention the low cost of food, TVs, and cell phones - there is a longing in some quarters to reduce it at the fringes. There are complaints, for example, that the .00001 running companies make high multiples of what the average employee gets.

An alarming number of young, white, poor men who abuse recreational opioids are developing infections of either the heart's inner lining or valves, known as infective endocarditis This new trend predominantly affects men who also have higher rates of HIV, hepatitis C and alcohol abuse, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Infective endocarditis occurs when bacteria or fungi in the blood stream enter the heart's inner lining or valves. Nearly 34,000 people receive treatment for this condition each year, of which approximately 20% die. One of the major risk factors for infective endocarditis is drug abuse.

Beta blockers are drugs primarily for treating high blood pressure and arrhythmias. They work blocking a hormone known as epinephrine, better known as adrenaline - the same hormone that floods our bodies during times of anxiety and stress.

That’s why beta blockers are becoming popular off-label for anxiety.

Anxiety is not what it used to be. You are not worried about being eaten by a tiger or sacked by Mongol hordes, you are maybe unhappy in your marriage or don't feel appreciated at work. Pills to the rescue, if you are in a wealthy country like America.

So some doctors are recommending them for patients to take in specific instances, rather than general use like antidepressants or benzodiazepines.