WASHINGTON - A teenage girl with no hint of prior asthma or respiratory illness began to feel hoarseness in her throat and a feeling that she needed to clear her throat frequently. Within a few weeks, her hoarseness and throat-clearing worsened with early morning voice loss and feeling as if food were lodged in her throat. She started having trouble swallowing and began to avoid food all together.

USC scientists have developed a new tool to peer more deeply and clearly into living things, a visual advantage that saves time and helps advance medical cures.

Before the United States 1970 Clean Air Act, rainfall all over the country was acidic. As precipitation would fall from the sky, it would mix with gases from industrial plants, emissions from cars, and especially coal and fossil fuel consumption. That caused the water to become acidic - also called "acid rain."

Bees are an important factor for our environment and our sustenance. Without insect pollination, many plant species - including various crops - cannot reproduce. "Bee mortality therefore affects food supply for human beings," stated Professor Sara Leonhardt, who specializes in plant-insect interactions. All of the worldwide more than 20,000 bee species need to be considered. Among these, bumble bees are of particular importance besides the famous honey bee.

Since the 1980s, the all-cause mortality rate in the U.S for rural residents has exceeded that of urban dwellers. In a recently completed study, researchers from the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) sought to determine why this disparity exists in general, and why specifically this imbalance varies so much between states.

Microbiological communities, which include bacteria, single-celled organisms and nematodes, reveal a great deal of information about the state of soils. All around the world, a lot of research is being performed on this biodiversity at a genetic level but third parties are not always able to put these research results to the best possible use. The reason for this: The information recorded in databases varies in terms of quality.

Some of the first biological evidence of the incongruence transgender individuals experience, because their brain indicates they are one sex and their body another, may have been found in estrogen receptor pathways in the brain of 30 transgender individuals.

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner, have spotted a peculiar gas cloud that resulted from a confrontation between two stars. One star grew so large it engulfed the other which, in turn, spiralled towards its partner provoking it into shedding its outer layers.

A nuclear war that cooled Earth could worsen the impact of ocean acidification on corals, clams, oysters and other marine life with shells or skeletons, according to the first study of its kind.

About 29 million Americans use over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to treat pain. Every year in the United States, NSAID use is attributed to approximately 100,000 hospitalizations and 17,000 deaths. In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently strengthened its warning about risks of non-aspirin NSAIDs on heart attacks and strokes. While each over-the-counter and prescription pain reliever has benefits and risks, deciding which one to use is complicated for health care providers and their patients.