Before gluten sensitivity was a running joke in popular culture, medical marijuana held the preeminent position as easy humor fodder. The reason was simple: It did nothing for glaucoma, beyond the placebo range, and though the vast majority of clinical pain patients were women, 75 percent of the "medical marijuana" cardholders were men.

Parents go to great lengths to ensure the health and well-being of their developing offspring. The favor, however, may not always be returned.

Dramatic research has shown that during pregnancy, cells of the fetus often migrate through the placenta, taking up residence in many areas of the mother's body, where their influence may benefit or undermine maternal health.

The presence of fetal cells in maternal tissue is known as fetal microchimerism. The term alludes to the chimeras of ancient Greek myth--composite creatures built from different animal parts, like the goat-lion-serpent depicted in an Etruscan bronze sculpture.

If you are a hunter and accidentally shoot an endangered eagle, you could go to jail and you will certainly have a criminal record. If you are a wind turbine company, you kill 100 eagles a year and pay a token fine.  An estimated 75 to 110 golden eagles die at a wind-power generation operation in Altamont, California each year. That is about one eagle for every 8 megawatts of energy produced yet no one is in Federal prison. 

We can be concerned about erosion due to man-made causes but it is nothing like what nature will randomly do in a single year, without ever once consulting Natural Resources Defense Council or other industry-funded groups.

The historic September 2013 storm that triggered widespread flooding across Colorado's Front Range eroded the equivalent of hundreds, or even as much as 1,000 years worth of accumulated sediment from the foothills west of Boulder, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered. The findings in Geology suggest that erosion may not always be a slow and steady process, like due to housing or shifts in vegetation, but rather can occur in sudden, rapid bursts due to extreme weather events such as hundred- and thousand-year storms.

While past research on the question has found otherwise, a new study by Defense and Veterans Affairs researchers suggests that women in the military are at no greater risk than men for developing posttraumatic stress disorder, given similar experiences--including combat.

The study involved active-duty troops and veterans who are part of the Millennium Cohort Study. That effort has more than 200,000 participants in all and the new PTSD study included more than 2,300 pairs of men and women who were matched based on an array of variables--including combat exposure--and followed about seven years, on average.

Toronto researchers have discovered that a single molecular event in our cells could hold the key to how we evolved to become the smartest animal on the planet.

Benjamin Blencowe, a professor in the University of Toronto's Donnelly Centre and Banbury Chair in Medical Research, and his team have uncovered how a small change in a protein called PTBP1 can spur the creation of neurons - cells that make the brain - that could have fuelled the evolution of mammalian brains to become the largest and most complex among vertebrates.