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Walking one-third of a mile longer from home to the nearest tobacco shop to buy cigarettes was associated with increased odds that smokers would quit the habit in an analysis of data in Finnish studies, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

Smoking is a global health risk. Retail outlets in residential neighborhoods have gotten attention as potential targets for policies to reduce smoking.

BOSTON (Aug. 15, 2016) -- Harvard Medical School scientists have identified a new family of proteins that virtually all bacteria use to build and maintain their cell walls.

The discovery of a second set of cell wall synthesizers can help pave the way for much-needed therapies that target the cell wall as a way to kill harmful bacteria, said study leaders David Rudner and Thomas Bernhardt.

Findings of the research are published Aug. 15 in Nature.

Boston, MA - A 20-year rise in cardiovascular disease (CVD) in China appears to have been spurred largely by increases in high blood pressure, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Increasing body mass index (BMI), decreasing physical activity, a high prevalence of smoking, and unhealthy diet have also contributed to the growing burden of CVD--now the leading cause of death in China.

The evolution of the first land plants including mosses may explain a long-standing mystery of how Earth's atmosphere became enriched with oxygen, according to an international study led by the University of Exeter.

Light affects sleep. A study in mice published in Open Access journal PLOS Biology shows that the actual color of light matters; blue light keeps mice awake longer while green light puts them to sleep easily. An accompanying Primer provides accessible context information and discusses open questions and potential implications for "designing the lighting of the future".

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was a part of human civilization before history was recorded. It is essential for making bread, beer and wine, and it is ubiquitous. It is not, however, typical of the more than 1,500 yeast species found around the world. Yeasts are physically hard to distinguish, and it is easy to think they are all the same. Metabolically, genetically and biochemically, however, yeasts are highly diverse.

Weapons production first, research later. During wartime, governments follow these priorities, and so does the immune system.

When fighting a bacterial or viral infection, an otherwise healthy person will make lots of antibodies, blood-borne proteins that grab onto the invaders. The immune system also channels some of its resources into research: storing some antibody-making cells as insurance for a future encounter, and tinkering with the antibodies to improve them.

TORONTO -- When a person suffers cardiac arrest, there is a one in five chance a potentially life-saving Automated External Defibrillator (AED) is nearby. But up to 30 per cent of the time, the device is locked inside a closed building, according to a study led by U of T Engineering researchers, published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Most young adult women who regularly visit indoor tanning salons support the introduction of policies to make it safer, but are against a total ban. This is according to a study¹ led by Darren Mays of Georgetown University Medical Center in the US, in the journal Translational Behavioral Medicine: Practice, Policy, Research², published by Springer. The findings are good news for regulators who are finalizing stricter regulations aimed at highlighting the skin cancer risks associated with artificial tanning.

Scientists have found a variation of the miR-182 gene in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma that results in this overexpression, said Dr. Yutao Liu, vision scientist and human geneticist in the Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

DALLAS - Aug. 15, 2016 - Using technology they developed, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a previously unknown role of a certain class of proteins: as regulators of gene activity and RNA processing.

Though mortality from heart disease is decreasing, some groups are at increased risk for developing heart disease, including African Americans in the southeastern U.S. Nearly 44 percent of all African American men, and 48 percent of African American women have some form of cardiovascular disease, including heart disease or stroke.

To encourage heart disease prevention for all Americans, the American Heart Association developed metrics for "ideal cardiovascular health," to guide the public on healthy behaviors to adopt, and health markers to target.

Research has pointed to a 'weekend effect' in which patients admitted to the hospital on Saturdays or Sundays are more likely to die than those admitted on week days. A new study has now assessed whether a weekend effect exists in a specified population: patients admitted for emergency general surgery.

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- A Kansas State University-led international team has sequenced the genome of the tobacco hornworm - a caterpillar species used in many research laboratories for studies of insect biology.

Michael Kanost, Kansas State University distinguished professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, led the team of 114 researchers from 50 institutions and 11 countries. Gary Blissard of the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University is the co-senior author.

Numerous challenges face providers who are administering developmental screenings for refugee children, including differences in cultural and religious beliefs, language barriers, and disparate education levels, according to new research from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) published in the journal Pediatrics.