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One in ten adults in England have had a piercing somewhere other than their ear lobe, with a quarter experiencing complications, and one in 100 piercings resulting in a hospital admission.

A new study suggests people of Mexican-American descent who have genetic variants of fat gene FTO and Arachidonate 5-Lipoxygenase (5-LO) had higher triglyceride and lower HDL levels.

Salmonella is serving up a surprise not only for tomato lovers around the country but also for scientists who study the rod-shaped bacterium that causes misery for millions of people. Researchers have identified a molecular trick that may explain part of the bacteria's fierceness: A protein allows the bacteria to maintain a low profile in the body, giving Salmonella crucial time to gain a foothold before the immune system is roused to fight the invader.

Inspired by a chance discovery during another experiment, researchers have created a small molecule that stimulates nerve stem cells to begin maturing into nerve cells in culture.

When bioengineers tweaked how adult stem cells reacted to biochemical signals regulating cell division, they gave muscle in old mice a shot of youthful vigor. The research sets the path for research on new treatments for age-related degenerative conditions, including muscle atrophy and Alzheimer's disease.

Obese children, who are at increased risk for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, may not be getting the most appropriate test to screen for these conditions, a newstudy found.

Researchers have updated charts that show an American's risk of dying from a given cause over the next ten years, based on age, sex and smoking status. At all ages, men have a higher risk of death from all causes combined, relative to women. For both men and women, smoking increases the risk of death by nearly the same magnitude as adding approximately 5 years to a person's age.

Children with a migraine headache are more likely to have sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea and lack of sleep, than children without a migraine.

Scientists have detected subtle changes that may make the bowel more vulnerable to tumor development. One of the mechanisms controlling gene activity is the "epigenetic code," a set of chemical tags attached to the DNA molecule. Changes in the epigenetic code may begin to occur in apparently normal tissues, and the scientists are investigating whether diet could control these changes and delay or reverse the onset of cancer.