Fast-moving wildfires are devastating parts of Northern California, including Sonoma and Napa Counties, just north of the Bay Area. Victims — and their animals — displaced by evacuation orders and property loss need your help.

While the policy debate surrounding crude oil transportation costs has emphasized accidents and spills, a new study by Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh researchers indicates the debate is overlooking a far more serious external cost—air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. 

Robert Reinhart calls the medial frontal cortex the “alarm bell of the brain.”

“If you make an error, this brain area fires,” says Reinhart, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University. “If I tell you that you make an error, it also fires. If something surprises you, it fires.” Hit a sour note on the piano and the medial frontal cortex lights up, helping you correct your mistake as fast as possible. In healthy people, this region of the brain works hand in hand (or perhaps lobe in lobe) with a nearby region, the lateral prefrontal cortex, an area that stores rules and goals and also plays an important role in changing our decisions and actions.

Exposure to environmental chemicals, especially early in life, is an important contributing factor in the development of breast cancer, according to the most comprehensive review of human studies to date. The findings could help inform prevention strategies aimed at reducing the incidence of the disease, as rates continue to increase worldwide.

Birds who live next door to family members or to other birds they know well are physically healthier and age more slowly, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

An interdisciplinary team of scientists from the Universities of Leicester and other institutions has played a pivotal role in research investigating a possible link between air pollution and the rise in type 2 diabetes.

New research, published in the journal Environment International, examined data from 10,443 participants from diabetes screening studies in Leicestershire, UK.

The exposure to air pollution, the number of cases of type 2 diabetes and the impact of demographic and lifestyle factors were all considered.

New research from Michigan State University has shown for the first time that activated carbon – a substance widely used in water purification – can help eliminate the health risks associated with soils, sediments and surface water polluted by highly toxic dioxins.

Stephen Boyd, a University Distinguished Professor in the MSU Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, led the study, which is published online in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. The research looked specifically at soil and freshwater ecosystems that had been contaminated mainly through the industrial manufacture of pesticides and other chemicals.

Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP), in Brazil, are testing a technique in mice that combines low-intensity electric current with a formulation containing nanoencapsulated chemotherapy to treat skin cancer. 

Primary care medicine is currently not able to meet the health care needs of cancer survivors, despite a decade-long effort by the medical establishment to move long-term survivorship care out of the specialists’ realm, according to a new Rutgers study.

An international team of scientists, led by SFU health sciences professor Scott Lear, has found that physical activity of any kind—from gym workouts to housecleaning —can help prevent heart disease and even death.