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Alcohol consumption in Australia has declined steadily during the past decade, with per capita consumption in 2013-14 reaching its lowest level since the early 1960s. A new study published today by the scientific journal Addiction shows that the overall decline in drinking is due mainly to less drinking among people in their teens and early twenties.

New animal research has shown that measuring copper concentrations and isotope ratios in blood and other tissue may allow early diagnosis of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). At present, there is no test for this disease, meaning that the illness needs to develop before care can begin. The work is being presented at the Goldschmidt conference in Yokohama, Japan.

The persistence of heritable disease raises an evolutionary paradox. When DNA goes awry, and a harmful mutation sprouts up that affects survival, why aren't these simply purged from a population over generations?

Scientists have speculated that there are evolutionary trade-offs at work, that perhaps, carrying a harmful disease mutation may be counterbalanced by other, favorable effects, eventually promoting the long-term survival of a species.

Dolphins, lizards and hyenas may not be on Facebook or Twitter, but, as social species, their social networks influence every pivotal aspect of their lives: finding a mate, reproducing, becoming ill or surviving.

A period of controversy over the risks and benefits of statins, covered widely in the UK media, was followed by a temporary increase in the number of people stopping their statin treatment, finds a study in The BMJ today.

The increase in stopping was seen among patients taking statins for existing heart disease (known as secondary prevention) as well as patients at high risk of developing disease in the next 10 years (known as primary prevention).

Human use of artificial light is causing Spring to come at least a week early in the UK, researchers at the University of Exeter in Cornwall have found.

New research led by a team of biologists based at the University's Penryn campus highlights for the first time and at a national scale the relationship between the amount of artificial night-time light and the date of budburst in woodland trees.

Our ancestors evolved three times faster in the 10 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs than in the previous 80 million years, according to UCL researchers.

The team found the speed of evolution of placental mammals -- a group that today includes nearly 5000 species including humans -- was constant before the extinction event but exploded after, resulting in the varied groups of mammals we see today.

BOSTON - The rapid development of a safe and effective vaccine to prevent the Zika virus (ZIKV) is a global priority, as infection in pregnant women has been shown to lead to fetal microcephaly and other major birth defects. The World Health Organization declared the Zika virus epidemic a global public health emergency on February 1, 2016.

SILVER SPRING, Md. - The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) and collaborators at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School have completed a promising preclinical study of two Zika vaccine candidates that suggests that an effective human vaccine will be achievable. Findings from the study were published today in the journal Nature.

A single dose of either of two experimental Zika vaccines fully protected mice challenged with Zika virus four or eight weeks after receiving the inoculations. The research, conducted by investigators supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, suggests that similar vaccines for people could be similarly protective.

Species across the world are rapidly going extinct due to human activities, but humans are also causing rapid evolution and the emergence of new species. A new study published today summarises the causes of manmade speciation, and discusses why newly evolved species cannot simply replace extinct wild species. The study was led by the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen.

A common close partnership which sees baby fish sheltering from predators among the poisonous tentacles of jellyfish will be harmed under predicted ocean acidification, a new University of Adelaide study has found.

A period of intense debate about statins, covered widely in the mainstream media, was followed by a substantial rise in the proportion of people in the UK stopping taking the drug, according to a new study by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

BETHESDA, MD. -- June 28, 2016 -- The College of American Pathologists (CAP), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) announced today the open comment period for the revised evidence-based guideline, "Molecular Testing Guideline for Selection of Lung Cancer Patients for EGFR and ALK Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors."

BOSTON - A research team led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Seoul National University has developed a new electric mesh device that can be wrapped around the heart to deliver electrical impulses and thereby improve cardiac function in experimental models of heart failure, a major public health concern and leading cause of mortality and disability.