Some doctors may recommend that patients with the flu take acetaminophen, or paracetemol, to relieve their symptoms; however, a new randomized clinical trial found no benefits to the over-the-counter medication in terms of fighting the influenza virus or reducing patients' temperature or other symptoms.

The trial included adults between 18 and 65 years of age with confirmed influenza infections who were treated with the maximum recommended dose of paracetamol or placebo for five days. Participants were monitored for up to 14 days.

Carbon dioxide emissions have always been something of a guess because they rely on self-reported figures. The developed world has been transparent but it was only a few years ago that China admitted to under-counting its own emissions, telling a different tale than the pollution clouds that wafted into other countries did.

LAWRENCE -- As delegates from 195 nations meet in Paris to debate mankind's response to global climate change, scientists from the University of Kansas and Rothamsted Research in England today issue a study of a major crop pest that underlines how "climate is changing in more ways than just warming."

Their paper, appearing in Nature Climate Change, shows how large-scale climatic changes drive a coordinated rise and fall of numbers of aphids across Great Britain, even when individual aphid populations in that nation are separated by great distance.

HANOVER, N.H. - Two studies by Dartmouth researchers and their colleagues shed new light on mercury pollution in the waters of the northeastern United States.

The studies -- here and here -- appear in the journal Marine Chemistry. PDFs are available on request.

Designers of Christmas cards used fine art on their products to divert attention away from concerns that that the festival was becoming too commercialised, a University of Exeter academic has found.

While heart-warming pictures of animals or festive decorations on Christmas cards may bring joy throughout December, few would consider these greetings to have great aesthetic merit. But Victorians were able to send each other Christmas cards created by respected artists, made to counter anxiety that growing consumerism was destroying sentiment.

If you think you really made a difference by overlaying your Facebook profile with a French flag, take 10 seconds to sign an online petitition or retweet a celebrity who matches your beliefs about science, you are a "slacktivist" - an activist who doesn't really care enough to do anything worthwhile.

Policymakers dismiss you smf friends don't take you seriously as you flit from cause célèbre to  cause célèbre, but you might be making a difference after all.