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STORRS, CT - Grown around the world, willows are cultivated for their exceptional technical and ornamental characteristics. Willows are commonly used as stock for basket and cricket bat manufacturing, as sources of chemical compounds (such as tannin and salicin), as forage for livestock, as ornamentals, and as amenity plantings. Recently, willow being recognized as an important source for bioenergy production and for various ecosystem services. Willows are members of the genus Salix L.

Widespread failure to reproduce research results has triggered a crisis of confidence in research findings, eroding public trust in scientific methodology. In response, PLOS Biology is launching on January 4th, 2016, a new Meta-Research Section devoted to research on research.

Reported research across the biomedical sciences rarely provides full protocol, data, and necessary level of transparency to verify or replicate the study, according to two articles publishing in PLOS Biology as part of a new Meta-Research Section, on January 4th, 2016. The authors argue that the information publicly available on reported research is in dire need of improvement.

The Physician Payments Sunshine Act, passed under the Affordable Care Act, requires all pharmaceutical and medical device companies to report payments to physicians, including consulting fees, gifts, speaking fees, meals, travel and research grants. This information is searchable to the public on a database called Open Payments, managed by the Centers for Medicare & Medical Services (CMS).

New research looks at the status of the 16 currently recognized freshwater mussel species in Europe, finding that information is unevenly distributed with considerable differences in data quality and quantity among countries and species.

In order to suggest future management actions, investigators from 26 countries comprehensively revised the status of the most threatened mussels in Europe, including their life-history traits, distribution, conservation status, habitat preferences, and main threats.

A new review provides intriguing insights on parthenogenesis, or virgin birth, in snakes.

Interestingly, facultative parthenogenesis, or asexual reproduction in an otherwise sexually reproducing species, appears to be quite common among snakes and may represent a potentially important feature of vertebrate evolution. On the other hand, obligate parthogenesis--when organisms exclusively reproduce through asexual means--is extremely rare in snakes.

Patients who have undergone radical prostatectomy often have largely unrealistic expectations with regard to their postoperative sexual function, new research shows.

Within 3 months of their surgery, 336 patients were questioned regarding the sexual function information that they had received pre-operatively as well as their erectile function and penile changes following the operation. Among the patients, 216 underwent open surgery and 120 underwent robotic surgery.

Investigators estimate that during 2012, there were more than 3.1 million emergency department visits for infectious diseases among elderly US adults.

This accounted for 13.5% of all emergency department visits of elderly adults, which was higher than visits for heart attacks and congestive heart failure combined. The rate of infectious disease-related emergency department visits was 7,231 per 100,000 elderly adults. The most common diagnoses were lower respiratory infections, urinary tract infections, and septicemia.

Hamilton, ON (Jan. 4, 2016) - People from around the world can use a physically active lifestyle to blunt the effect of inherited obesity genes, McMaster University researchers have found.

In a paper published today by the journal Scientific Reports, David Meyre and his team have shown that a physically active lifestyle can substantially decrease the genetic effect of the major obesity gene FTO on body weight in a multiethnic population.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Scientists at Indiana University have created a highly efficient biomaterial that catalyzes the formation of hydrogen -- one half of the "holy grail" of splitting H2O to make hydrogen and oxygen for fueling cheap and efficient cars that run on water.

A modified enzyme that gains strength from being protected within the protein shell -- or "capsid" -- of a bacterial virus, this new material is 150 times more efficient than the unaltered form of the enzyme.

New York, NY, January 4, 2015 - A new study published in The Journal of Urology® revealed that African American men with Gleason score 3+3=6 prostate cancer (PCa) produce less prostate specific antigen (PSA) and have significantly lower PSA density (PSAD) than Caucasian men. These findings could have important implications when selecting patients for inclusion in active PCa surveillance programs.

CHICAGO: Responding to the needs of the country's growing older adult population, a new collaborative best practices guideline was released today for optimal care of older adults immediately before, during, and after surgical operations (a timeframe known as the "perioperative" period). The new consensus-based guideline was developed by the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) and the American Geriatrics Society's (AGS) Geriatrics-for- Specialists Initiative (GSI), with support from The John A. Hartford Foundation.

ROSEMONT, Ill.--According to a new literature review in the January issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, it's becoming more common for children and adolescents to seek medical care for back pain. Even with expensive, advanced tests like MRI scans, doctors may not be able to find the exact cause for the pain.

Children conceived via infertility treatments are no more likely to have a developmental delay than children conceived without such treatments, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the New York State Department of Health and other institutions. The findings, published online in JAMA Pediatrics, may help to allay longstanding concerns that conception after infertility treatment could affect the embryo at a sensitive stage and result in lifelong disability.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disorder associated with repetitive head impacts and can be diagnosed only by autopsy after death. In an article published online by JAMA Neurology, Ann C. McKee, M.D., and Jesse Mez, M.D., M.S., of the Boston University School of Medicine, and coauthors write an observation letter about CTE pathology in a 25-year-old former college football player who experienced more than 10 concussions while playing football, the first occurring when he was 8 years old.