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Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a chronic condition, and if left untreated, it can set a child up for a lifetime of difficulties in learning and forming relationships. At least that is the assumption that has guided the popular approach to treating ADHD for decades. But new research suggests that ADHD might be much less persistent than previously thought. A team led by Prudence Fisher and J. Blake Turner, both at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, reviewed the records of nearly 1,500 children from four studies that had used a standard diagnostic interview to screen for ADHD....

By Declan ButlerIndia has rejected applications from two US companies for patents on two key AIDS drugs in a move that could mean more people in poor countries will have access to life-saving medicines.The decisions are the latest in a string of legal victories for Cipla, India’s largest generic drug maker. The move could also signal that patent offices in emerging economies are set to take a tougher line than industrialized countries on which drugs deserve patents....

By Joshua Schneyer and M.B. Pell Dozens of California communities have experienced recent rates of childhood lead poisoning that surpass those of Flint, Michigan, with one Fresno locale showing rates nearly three times higher, blood testing data obtained by Reuters shows. The data shows how lead poisoning affects even a state known for its environmental advocacy, with high rates of childhood exposure found in a swath of the Bay Area and downtown Los Angeles....

The European and Japanese BepiColombo mission has made its first fly-by of Mercury, passing just 199 kilometres above the planet’s surface at 23:34 UTC on 1 October. It captured black-and-white pictures of Mercury’s crater-filled surface from a distance of about 1,000 kilometres; BepiColombo flew around Mercury’s nightside, so it was not able to take photographs at its closest approach. The shots were taken by auxiliary cameras at relatively low resolution, because the mission’s main cameras are tucked away during interplanetary travel....

Mind over Mind: The Surprising Power of Expectationsby Chris Berdik .Current/Penguin, 2012 ($26.95)Wearing all black can make you a more aggressive competitor, and striking a pose can make you act authoritative. According to journalist Berdik, fulfilling expectations—such as perceiving a commanding, “I am the law” persona—is what our brain does best. In Mind over Mind, Berdik explains how anticipation can inform, even dictate, our future experiences. Building on theories from medicine, neuroscience and psychology, Berdik reveals how our “forward-thinking brain” shapes our actions, personality and health....

By Will Boggs MD NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Most adults in the U.S. who screen positive for depression are not being treated for depression, according to results from Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys (MEPS). “With the recent increase in prescribing of antidepressant medications, many physicians might assume that undertreatment of depression is no longer a widespread problem,” Dr. Mark Olfson from College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City told Reuters Health by email....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. North Korea has conducted its sixth nuclear device test, and based on what we know so far it looks like by far the biggest yet. Pyongyang’s own news agency, KCNA, described the test as a “perfect success”, and claimed the device was an advanced hydrogen bomb small enough to fit atop a long-range missile....

ALL-DAY RELIEF FROM ADHD: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is now considering whether to approve the marketing of Vyvanse (lisdexamfetamine dimesylate, made by Shire) to adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Shire filed for that application in June, following up on the FDA’s approval of Vyvanse last February as a treatment for ADHD in children. Like many ADHD medications, Vyvanse acts as a stimulant. (Paradoxically, stimulants can help offset such hyperactivity problems, possibly by leveling out inconsistencies in how fast different parts of patients’ brains process information....

A huge alien world orbits 600 billion miles (1 trillion kilometers) from its host star, making its solar system the largest one known, a new study reports. Astronomers have found the parent star for a gas-giant exoplanet named 2MASS J2126, which was previously thought to be a “rogue” world flying freely through space. The planet and its star are separated by about 7,000 astronomical units (AU), meaning the alien world completes one orbit every 900,000 years or so, researchers said....

By Chloe McIvor of Nature magazine A global effort has finally cracked the complex genome of the potato, which is published today in Nature. The not-so-humble potato (Solanum tuberosum) is the world’s fourth most important food crop and is vital for global food security. It has proved surprisingly economically stable compared with major grain crops such as rice, wheat and maize (corn): when wheat prices more than doubled on the international markets in 2008, and peaked again in 2010, potato markets stayed the same....

When Jeffrey Berns first began practice as a nephrologist in the late 1980s, kidney disease in the U.S. was in the early stages of a stratospheric rise. In 1972, Congress had passed legislation that made anyone with end-stage renal disease, or ESRD — the current formal medical diagnosis for kidney failure — eligible for Medicare. Unlike private insurance, which rarely covered dialysis at the time, Medicare did, and the nation was at the dawn of a dialysis demand boom....

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Fully automated cars are still many years away. Amid the government activity and potential for social benefits, it’s important not to lose sight of smaller improvements that could more immediately save lives and reduce injuries and economic costs of highway crashes. Research one of us conducted found that elements of self-driving car systems, such as adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warnings and head-on collision-avoidance systems, could reduce road deaths by up to one-third if these were available on every car in the U....

As the Trump administration rolls back Obama-era environmental regulations and continues to swipe at the Affordable Care Act, climate change and health care activists are focusing on state ballot initiatives around the country this Election Day. These measures are on the ballot as a result of citizen petitions, and some appear to have better chances of success than others do. Voters in at least nine states on Tuesday will determine ambitious environmental measures, including an initiative to rein in greenhouse gas pollution in Washington that could be repeated in other states if successful as well as proposals to increase renewable energy standards in Arizona and Nevada....

The first time molecular biologist Greg Hannon flew through a tumour, he was astonished—and inspired. Using a virtual-reality model, Hannon and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge, UK, flew in and out of blood vessels, took stock of infiltrating immune cells and hatched an idea for an unprecedented tumour atlas. “Holy crap!” he recalls thinking. “This is going to be just amazing.” On 10 February, the London-based charity Cancer Research UK announced that Hannon’s team of molecular biologists, astronomers and game designers would receive up to £20 million (US$25 million) over the next five years to develop its interactive virtual-reality map of breast cancers....

COVID-19 surged across the U.S. South in July and August, becoming the newest epicenter of the pandemic. During the summer of 2020, more than 20 percent of the entire world’s new COVID-19 cases occurred in the southern states led by Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Arizona. Reasons for the summer rise in cases have been debated, but for me it was relatively straightforward: the White House Coronavirus Task Force insisted that the individual states lead and chart their own COVID-19 destiny, while the federal government would back them up with manufacturing support....

By Ivan Semeniuk , Jeff Tollefson & Meredith Wadman The US budget battle of 2011 has barely begun, but the opening salvos are echoing loudly across the capitol – in some cases, signalling the potential for major cuts to labs and regulatory agencies. With a partial list of spending measures released yesterday by the House Appropriations Committee, Republican leaders have revealed how they hope to trim US$58 billion of non-military spending from the 2011 budget, a target that was announced last week by Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee....

In a major step toward controlling the spread of tree-destroying gypsy moths, China has agreed to allow scientists to inspect forests near shipping ports to gauge the risk of the pests there hitching rides on ships to the U.S. View Gypsy Moth Slide Show In exchange, the U.S. agreed to share its expertise on exterminating other invasive bugs, such as fire ants. Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) say the move could help prevent the international transport of a faster-spreading and particularly destructive Asian gypsy moth variety....

On Thursday, July 17, four science experts served as witnesses at the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing, “The Federal Research Portfolio: Capitalizing on Investments in R&D.” The hearing considered the federal government’s role in research and development (R&D), and the nation’s STEM education and outreach initiatives. Attendees in the Capitol hearing room were Mariette DiChristina, editor in chief and senior vice president of Scientific American; Vinton G....

Choosing between colleges or job offers is challenging: one job may offer more prestige—seemingly the logical choice—but our gut seems to be pulling us in another direction. So which do we trust? In Feeling Smart: Why Our Emotions Are More Rational Than We Think (PublicAffairs, 2014), economics professor Eyal Winter proposes that the best choices often come when we combine logic and emotion. Combining research on decision making, human behavior and evolution, Winter explores how our emotions interact with rational thinking....

Genetic mutations that enhance disease resistance or boost fitness in a particular climate have been positively selected over the course of human evolution. But current statistical methods to find these beneficial mutations, or variants, have only been able to home in on areas spanning several genes, which may cover a variety of other functions, as well. And within these broad swaths of the human genome, there are a number of nonselected, or neutral, variants that also get preferentially inherited because they are on the same chromosome as the selected variant....