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Where you live — in a city versus a rural area — could make a difference in how old you tend to be when you first have sex, what type of birth control you use and how many children you have. These are the findings from federal data collected using the National Survey of Family Growth, which analyzed responses from in-person interviews with more than 10,000 U.S. women, ages 18 to 44, between 2011 and 2015. (Neighmond, 1/9)

The reporting of clinical trial results to a public database — mandated by a 10-year-old federal law — has improved sharply in the last two years, with universities and other nonprofit research centers leading the way, according to a new STAT analysis of government data. Overall, trial sponsors had disclosed 72 percent of required results to the federal ClinicalTrials.gov database as of September 2017. That compares with 58 percent just two years earlier. (Bronshtein, 1/9)

For years, China’s drug industry concentrated on replicating Western medicines. ...The country is now pushing to play a bigger role in the global drug industry. Millions of people in China have cancer or diabetes, and the government has made pharmaceutical innovation a national priority. (Wee, 1/9)

The new head of a genome editing company whose main research lab is in Cambridge on Tuesday brushed aside an unpublished paper that raised concerns about preexisting immune responses to the biotech’s gene-editing technology, known as CRISPR. ...[Samarth] Kulkarni said the research paper will not delay CRISPR Therapeutics, which has almost all of its 120 employees in Cambridge, from beginning tests of a gene-editing therapy in clinical trials this year. (Saltzman, 1/9)

If HIV/AIDS patients wanted a life expectancy equal to uninfected people, all they had to do was take their medicine — on schedule, every single day, no exceptions. ...In the paper, researchers describe how they developed and tested what they call a "mini-pillbox," swallowed once a week as a capsule that remains in the stomach for seven days while it releases daily doses of medications to combat HIV. (Brink, 1/9)

Kaiser Health News: A Poor Neighborhood In Chicago Looks To Cuba To Fight Infant Mortality

Over the past few months, medical professionals on Chicago’s South Side have been trying a new tactic to bring down the area’s infant mortality rate: find women of childbearing age and ask them about everything.Really, everything. “In the last 12 months, have you had any problems with any bug infestations, rodents or mold?” Dr. Kathy Tossas-Milligan, an epidemiologist, asked Yolanda Flowers during a recent visit to her home, in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. “Have you ever had teeth removed or crowned because of a cavity?” (Bryan, 1/10)

Scientific research, mostly in animals, supports the idea that cannabis can effectively treat the nausea of cancer therapy, in addition to some types of cancer-related pain, according to the National Cancer Institute's cannabis information page. ...But here in Massachusetts, although medical marijuana has been legal for six years, it’s still a challenge for cancer patients to get a state-issued medical marijuana ID card, or then figure out what kind of cannabis to use. (Weintraub, 1/10)  

Facial exercises may significantly reduce some of the signs of aging, according to an interesting new study of the effects of repeating specific, expressive movements on people’s appearance. The study, published in JAMA Dermatology, found that middle-aged women looked about three years younger after a few months of exercising, perhaps providing a reasonable, new rationale for making faces behind our spouses’ backs. (Reynolds, 1/10)

Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai told a tall tale. He said Monday on Twitter that he grew 3½ inches since arriving at the International Space Station on Dec. 19. Weightlessness has that effect ... But skepticism from a Russian colleague on board led Kanai to remeasure himself, and he found the more accurate spurt: two centimeters, or less than an inch. In his retraction later posted on Twitter, he called his inaccurate announcement “fake news,” The Japan Times reported. (Horton, 1/9)