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The presence of tattoos on forensic psychiatric inpatients should alert clinicians to a possible diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder, and also about the potential for histories of suicide attempt, substance abuse and sexual abuse, according to research published in Personality and Mental Health.

The activity level of a large group of American children dropped sharply between age 9 and age 15, when most failed to reach the daily recommended activity level, according to the latest findings from a long-term study by the National Institutes of Health.

A study in mice suggests the drug SAHA, a new antitumor drug, is also able to reduce the effects of graft-versus-host disease, a common, sometimes fatal complication of bone marrow transplants. SAHA and other HDAC inhibitors also may provide a new way to treat autoimmune diseases. Plans are under way for a U-M trial of the drug in people to prevent graft vs. host disease.

When it comes to allergies, both the problem and the solution are found within us. Our immune systems respond to foreign substances with an arsenal of cells. Some are programmed to "remember" invaders they've encountered in the past. Normally, anything previously identified as harmless is allowed to pass. Sometimes, however, the immune response goes awry, triggering an allergic reaction.

Overweight mothers give birth to offspring who become even heavier, resulting in amplification of obesity across generations, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers who found that chemical changes in the ways genes are expressed -- a phenomenon called epigenetics -- could affect successive generations of mice.

Biologists have identified a molecular alarm system in which intracellular pathogens send out signals that kick the immune response into gear. The findings shed light on how host cells recognize and destroy the pathogenic bugs living within their walls, and may even provide new targets for the research and development of new vaccines and drugs.

Long DNA sequences, or palindromes, change the shape of the molecule from double helix to hairpin-like formation, which causes replication to stall. Altered or stalled replication causes chromosomal breaking, resulting in cancers and diseases. In the context of everyday life, palindromes are quite common. They are words, phrases, numbers or other sequences of units that read the same way in either direction, such as 'A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama!'

The causes of schizophrenia are not yet clear. But now, researchers have discovered that a disturbed cleavage of the Nrg-1 protein lies at the basis of the development of the disease. Greater understanding of this molecular process is a first step toward improved diagnosis and more effective treatment of schizophrenia and other related disorders.

Women exposed to high levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls -- a group of banned environmental pollutants) are less likely to give birth to male children. A new study found that among women from the San Francisco Bay Area, those exposed to higher levels of PCBs during the 50s and 60s, were significantly more likely to give birth to female children.

New research explains how chronic emotional stress ages the immune system. Immune cells end in protective caps called telomeres that are shorter in the elderly -- and in persons suffering chronic stress. A new study suggests that the hormone cortisol is the culprit behind telomeres' early aging in stressed-out people and offers a potential drug target for protecting the immune system against the damage caused by long-term stress.