Daniel Drucker's unofficial laboratory slogan is "I'd rather be third and right, than first and wrong." After 30 years, he has seen high-profile journal article after article proclaim the beginning of the end for diseases he studies like diabetes, gastrointestinal disease, and obesity, only for the findings to never be discussed again.

If Canadian parents are going to get their kids to exercise more, they need more than just public awareness campaigns.

Parents exposed to one such national campaign were actually less confident they could increase their children's activity levels, according to a recent UBC study.

"With statistics outside this study showing 88 per cent of parents believe their children exercise enough and only seven per cent of kids meet recommended guidelines, it is clear more needs to be done," says Heather Gainforth, an assistant professor of health and exercise sciences at UBC's Okanagan campus. "While mass media campaigns appear to increase awareness, parents need the support of public policies and programs to help them successfully encourage behaviour change.

A new study increases and strengthens the links that have led some to propose the "transposon theory of aging" centering on the rogue elements of DNA that break free in aging cells and rewrite themselves elsewhere in the genome.

They believe this is potentially creating lifespan-shortening chaos in the genetic makeups of tissues.

There are various hypotheses for the origin of the Moon but a chemistry analysis says it has disproved the leading one - that a low-energy impact left the proto-Earth and Moon shrouded in a silicate atmosphere. Instead, they say, a much more violent impact vaporized the impactor and most of the proto-Earth, expanding to form an enormous superfluid disk out of which the Moon eventually crystallized.

From a very young age, we're warned against shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. The possibility of inciting mass panic presents an obvious moral problem. But for researchers, the situation also presents an interesting mathematical problem: How do large crowds of people behave in emergency situations? While many have turned to classical physics and calculus for the answer, a recent study shows that a branch of mathematics called fractional calculus may offer a more realistic picture of crowd dynamics.

Researchers conducted risk calculation on the influence of the temporary suspension of cervical cancer vaccination based on vaccination rates for female Japanese born between 1993 and 2008. They clarified that the risk of HPV infection varies considerably depending on the birth year. The findings suggest that infection risk may be reduced if vaccination encouragement is resumed and target groups are extended to include those females that were at target vaccination age during the suspension period.