Bottom Line: Stiffening of the arteries appears to be associated with the progressive buildup of β-amyloid (Αβ) plaque in the brains of elderly patients without dementia, suggesting a relationship between the severity of vascular disease and the plaque that is a hallmark of Alzheimer disease.

Author: Timothy M. Hughes, Ph.D., M.P.H., of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C., and colleagues.

Background: Evidence suggested arterial stiffness is related to brain aging, cerebrovascular disease, impaired cognitive function and dementia in the elderly.

Fast food giants are happy to promote healthy menus - they are in the revenue generation business, they will sell what people want to buy.

Yet food activists and government officials seem to lack basic insight into what kids want, whereas marketing will make whatever campaigns companies want - even if they know they won't work. But they are trying to make healthier food sound appealing, thus coming up with names like Fresh Apple Fries.

Even kids ages 3 to 7 have little interest in attempts at depicting healthier kids' meals, according to a new study by Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center in JAMA Pediatrics.  Or they are just confused at efforts to make apples equivalent to the food kids want when they go out.

There are recurring calls to make scientists more social. Scientists have already accepted government control of academic research and now fellow academics and some in the bureaucracy want to task them with communications and outreach also. A few even want to make their science outreach rather than their science output a factor in promotion and tenure.

Increasing heat is estimated to extend dry conditions to far more farmland and cities by the end of the century, according to a new paper.

Much of the concern about future drought under a global warming scenario has focused on rainfall projections but higher evaporation rates may also play an important role as warmer temperatures wring more moisture from the soil, even in some places where rainfall is forecasted to increase, say the authors, who use the latest computer simulations to model the effects of both changing rainfall and evaporation rates on future drought in the journal Climate Dynamics.

Do you live where your job is or do you move to be near people who match your personality as far as being agreeable or conscientious? 

California has three Democratic state senators under indictment, all being paid while due process makes its way. That seems very conscientious, though there is no chance that would be the case if the politicians facing jail time were Republicans. According to a new paper in Political Research Quarterly, state policies mirror the personalities of the public. If so, the personalities of Californians may veer toward being gun runners while they endorse bans on guns, and having $500 billion in debt while declaring their budget balanced.

It might seem that when lives are at stake, a little bit of pressure comes with the territory. Doctors who can't take pressure should be doing something besides medicine, like teaching at medical schools. 

A paper in Academic Medicine says there is a happy medium and that removing pressure from medical school while teaching students skills to manage stress and bounce back from adversity improves their mental health and boosts their academic achievement.

Stuart Slavin, M.D., M.Ed., associate dean for curriculum at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, is lead author of the paper which says depression among medical school students is significant, affecting between 20 and 30 percent of medical students in the U.S.