(Boston)--With opioid addiction and prescription drug abuse considered one of the biggest public health threats of our time in the U.S., many are asking why so many Americans are struggling with addiction to illegal drugs and prescription medications. New research suggests that chronic pain may be part of the answer.

In a study that appears in the May issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center have found that the majority of patients misusing drugs and alcohol have chronic pain and many are using these substances to "self-medicate" their pain.

More than half of the streamflow in the Upper Colorado River Basin originates as groundwater, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study published today in the journal Water Resources Research.

With the move from burning coal to natural gas and low-sulfur coal and an increase in the use of scrubbers, only about 25 percent as much atmospheric sulfur is available today, compared to 40 years ago.

Sulfur balances in agricultural fields are now negative, with more removed each year in crop harvests and leaching than is added from fertilizers and deposition.

Bethesda, MD (May 9, 2016) -- About 1.8 million Americans have celiac disease, an immune-based condition brought on by the consumption of gluten in genetically susceptible patients. Among patients diagnosed with celiac disease by small intestinal biopsy in the U.S., those from the Punjab region of India have the highest rates of disease, according to new research published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology,1 the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.

By now we are all used to seeing its more or less successful results on Italian and international celebrities, but in fact the market of Botox-based procedures (cosmetic treatments that exploit the effects of type A botulin toxin) involves a large number of individuals. Just to give an idea, about 250,ooo procedures were done in Italy in 2014. It is therefore natural to wonder about the possible side effects of this practice. One fairly unpredictable consequence concerns the emotional domain, and in particular the perception of emotional information and facial expressions.

Researchers from the University of Chicago have shown that inhibiting autophagy, a self-devouring process used by cells to degrade large intra-cellular cargo, effectively blocks tumor cell migration and breast cancer metastasis in tumor models. In a study, published May 12, 2016, in the journal Cell Reports, they demonstrate that the process is essential for tumor metastasis and describe the mechanisms that connect autophagy to cell migration.