Hormonal changes early in pregnancy cause maternal postpartum anxiety and behavior changes that can lead to a delayed onset of puberty in both birth and adoptive daughters, according to a new study conducted in mice.

A new study finds colorectal cancer incidence rates for both males and females increased in 27 of 51 countries worldwide between 1983 and 2002, and points to increasing Westernization as being a likely culprit.

Countless hours are lost in traffic jams every year. Most frustrating of all are those jams with no apparent cause -- no accident, no stalled vehicle, no lanes closed for construction. Such phantom jams can form when there is a heavy volume of cars on the road. In that high density of traffic, small disturbances (a driver hitting the brake too hard, or getting too close to another car) can quickly become amplified into a full-blown, self-sustaining traffic jam. A team of mathematicians has developed a model that describes how and under what conditions such jams form, which could help road designers minimize the odds of their formation.

A new cognitive test for detecting Alzheimer's disease is quicker and more accurate than many current tests, and could help diagnose early dementia.

A new analysis of the current swine-origin H1N1 influenza A virus suggests that transmission to humans occurred several months before recognition of the existing outbreak.

Engineering students have taken advantage of the accelerometers in emerging cell phones to create an application that permits users to write short notes in the air with their phone, and have that message automatically sent to an e-mail address.

Retirement from some occupations may not provide relief from the potentially devastating health effects of work-related hypertension, according to a new study.

A new image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a supernova remnant with a different look. This object, known as SNR 0104-72.3 (SNR 0104 for short), is in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small neighboring galaxy to the Milky Way. Astronomers think that SNR 0104 is the remains of a so-called Type Ia supernova caused by the thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf.

The zebra mussels that have wreaked ecological havoc on the Great Lakes are harder to find these days -- not because they are dying off, but because they are being replaced by a cousin, the quagga mussel. But zebra mussels still dominate in fast-moving streams and rivers.

At times in the distant past, an abrupt change in climate has been associated with a shift of seasonal monsoons to the south, a new study concludes, causing more rain to fall over the oceans than in the Earth's tropical regions, and leading to a dramatic drop in global vegetation growth.