Richard A. Lawhern, Ph.D. is a long-time advocate, and online research analyst, for chronic pain patients, their families and their doctors. He spoke with the American Council about the fundamental flaws in opioid restrictions that U.S. residents are increasingly falling victim to.

Data from emergency room visits shows that over a four-year period roughly 30,000 of them, each year, were for sports-related eye injuries. And that a majority -- two-thirds of females and 60 percent of males -- involved patients under age 18. Injuries were also categorized by sport or activity, to better understand how they occurred, providing information that can help parents.

Gene drives are the hottest new technology in molecular biology. Although they are opening up boundless possibilities in the world of genetic manipulation, real concerns lie in the unknown consequences of using them. We will bring you the latest information, to close the gap between the lab bench and your living room. 

Anyone remotely familiar with the scientific method understands that just like a ruler or a telescope, statistics is a tool. Scientists use the tool primarily for one purpose: To answer the question, "Is my data meaningful?" Properly used, statistics is one of science's most powerful tools. But used improperly, statistics can be highly misleading.

Is there really a wrong way to eat Nutella? Spread it on bread, eat it by the spoonful.... but depending on the way you consume it, the nutrition content may differ. And because of how the Ferrero-made product has evolved over the years, now the FDA is taking a second look at its calorie content per serving.

How do we get people to make better food choices — to decrease the amounts of calories, fat and sugar in their diets? A new study examined the potential of restricting "unhealthy" food choices vs. incentivizing "healthier" choices, to influence purchasing practices of low-income Americans. The upshot: Both can work, especially in combination.

Classifying species is a notoriously sticky problem in biology. As a very broad rule, organisms can be classified as belonging to a distinct species if they can successfully mate with each other to produce offspring that can also successfully mate. But this rule completely falls apart for microbes.

A new study published in the journal Pediatrics concludes that an early, scheduled delivery is linked to poor childhood development at school age. When and how a baby is born requires assessing a multitude of influencing factors. Educating the masses on the risks and benefits of planned birth for non-medical reasons is very important in making a truly informed decision.

We are seeing a sharp increase in suicide among children aged 10 to 14. Since 1999, the incidence rate for this group has nearly doubled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2014 it was just as likely that a child took his or her own life than it was that he/she died in a traffic accident. What explains this shocking surge?