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Electronic toys for infants that produce lights, words and songs were associated with decreased quantity and quality of language compared to playing with books or traditional toys such as a wooden puzzle, a shape-sorter and a set of rubber blocks, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.

The reality for many families of young children is that opportunities for direct parent-child play time is limited because of financial, work, and other familial factors. Optimizing the quality of limited parent-child play time is important.

The rise of wearable activity trackers, such as Fitbit, Fuelband, and Jawbone, has generated a lot of public excitement as well as interest from researchers who are enthused about the opportunities these devices may provide to monitor activity and help people lead healthier lives.

Surgical castration to remove the testicles (orchiectomy) of men with metastatic prostate cancer was associated with lower risks for adverse effects compared with men who underwent medical castration with gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRHa) therapy, according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology.

International survey data suggest an assortment of mental disorders were associated with increased risk of the onset of a wide array of chronic physical conditions. The study by Kate M. Scott, M.A. (ClinPsych), Ph.D., of the University of Otage, Dunedin, New Zealand, and coauthors used World Mental Health Surveys from 17 countries.

Both acute kidney injury and chronic kidney disease were common in patients undergoing major vascular surgical procedures and were associated with an increase in long-term cardiovascular-specific death compared with patients with no kidney disease, according to a study published online by JAMA Surgery.

Onychomycosis - a fungal infection of the toenails - is the most common nail disease in adults. The American Board of Internal Medicine's Choosing Wisely campaign recommends confirmatory testing before treatment begins, but this recommendation is based on data from 1999. Brigham and Women's Hospital researchers led by Arash Mostaghimi, MD, MPA, MPH, of BWH's Dermatology Department, set out to test whether such recommendations still make medical and economic sense.

Many animals change sex at some point in their lives, often after reaching a certain size. Snails called slipper limpets begin life as males, and become female as they grow. A new Smithsonian study shows that when two males are kept together and can touch one another, the larger one changes to female sooner, and the smaller one later. Contact, rather than chemicals released into the water, is necessary for the effect.

(Edmonton) Discovery science led by the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry is opening a window on cell biology rarely seen before. New research featured in the Journal of Cell Biology has revealed a real-time look at how genetic information travels within a living cell.

The discovery, observed through a specially designed high-powered microscope, significantly alters current understanding of how RNA is transported from a cell's nucleus--findings that researchers believe will lead to medical advances.

A five-center national study led by Neal Meropol, MD, and a team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Case Medical Center demonstrated that a little information goes a long way in encouraging cancer patients to enroll in clinical trials, a decision that could be potentially lifesaving.

Permanent marine protected areas and wilderness--places where fish can grow old--are critical to the effective conservation of marine ecosystems according to a new study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society, James Cook University, and Lancaster University.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- As China continues to battle epidemics of many sexually transmitted infections including HIV, results of a study newly published in The Lancet Global Health highlight the importance of training doctors to confront it head on.

Living on beachfront property on a tropical island is an idyllic life goal for many people. Those people may be envious of a number of native Philippine plant species that restrict their population distribution to coastal zones. But that idyllic life comes with a price, as revealed in an article that appears in issue 2 of the 2015 volume of the Journal of Geography & Natural Disasters.

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has uncovered the mystery behind the potent parasite-killing effect of artemisinin, a drug that is considered to be the last line of defence against malaria. Given the emergence of artemisinin resistance, these findings could potentially lead to the design of new treatments against drug-resistant parasites.

The discovery of hydrothermal fields at ocean floor opens a new chapter for marine sciences. Fluids in hydrothermal fields are hot and acidic, where at least 400 different biological organisms have been detected, including shrimp, crab and bacteria. Such biological organisms are resistant to high temperature, acidic fluids, and high pressure, and they are dependent on energy and materials (hydrogen gas, methane, ethane and propane, and organic acids) provided by the interaction between basement rocks and seawater (i.e. serpentinization).

Some reptiles such as crocodilians and some turtles are known to display temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), where the ambient temperature of the developing eggs determines the individual's sex. For example in the American alligator's eggs, incubation at 33 ºC produces mostly males, while incubation at 30 ºC produces mostly females. An international joint research team between Japan and the US have determined that the thermosensor protein TRPV4 is associated with TSD in the American alligator. The research has been published in Scientific Reports.