|  Simple dot test may help gauge progression of dopamine loss in Parkinson's disease  | Could figuring out how much dopamine a patient with Parkinson's disease has lost be as simple as completing a dot test? Researchers hope the easy task might lead to ways of improving clinical treatment of Parkinson's patients. | Read More » Peripheral prism glasses are cheap, effective vision rehab tool  | A multi-center study determined that real peripheral prism glasses are more helpful than sham peripheral prism glasses for patients with hemianopia during every day walking. | Read More » Pregnant woman with limited english speaking skills find comfort in prenatal support groups  | Women who do not speak English well who met with others with the same language challenges for prenatal group visits felt less anxious and better prepared for childbirth and motherhood. | Read More » Allergic to insect stings: Allergy shots decrease anxiety, depression  | According to a study, allergy shots, also known as immunotherapy, can improve quality of life for insect sting allergy sufferers. | Read More » You can have a food allergy, and eat it too  | Have food allergies? If you answered yes, you know the best way to prevent a severe allergic reaction is to totally avoid the offending food. But according to new research, you may no longer have to avoid the food entirely. | Read More » Holiday health: Asthma with a side of allergies  | People with asthma traveling to pet friendly homes for the holidays may want to pack allergy medication along with their inhaler. A study reveals the number of people with asthma that are also allergic to cats has more than doubled over an 18 year period. | Read More » Oral allergy syndrome, high blood pressure medications can create lethal cocktail  | Oral allergy syndrome sufferers that take high blood pressure medications may experience extreme facial swelling and difficulty breathing the next time they bite into a juicy apple. When patients with oral allergy syndrome take angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors for hypertension and congestive heart failure, they are at an increased risk for a life-threatening allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis, according to new research. | Read More » Allergy shots during pregnancy may decrease allergies in children  | Expecting mothers who suffer from allergies may want to consider another vaccination. A study found pregnant women who receive allergy shots, also known as immunotherapy, during pregnancy may decrease their baby's chance of developing allergies. | Read More » The great disappearing act: Bone marrow receiver cured of allergy  | Not only can bone marrow transplants be life-saving for children with acute lymphocytic leukemia, they may also cure peanut allergies. According to research, a 10-year-old boy no longer had a peanut allergy after undergoing a bone marrow transplant. | Read More » High clot risk for women admitted to hospital during pregnancy  | Admission to hospital during pregnancy for reasons other than delivery carries a substantially increased risk of serious blood clots (known as venous thromboembolism or VTE), finds a study. | Read More » Tiny self-assembling transport networks, powered by nano-scale motors and controlled by DNA created  | Tiny self-assembling transport networks, powered by nano-scale motors and controlled by DNA, have been developed by scientists. | Read More » Un-junking junk DNA  | A new study shines new light on molecular tools our cells use to govern regulated gene expression. | Read More » Microbes swim to hydrogen gas  | Researchers have discovered details on a speedy microorganism that needs hydrogen to produce methane. | Read More » Levitating foam liquid under the spell of magnetic fields  | No better solution to studying ever-draining foams than applying a strong magnetic field to keep the liquid in the foam at a standstill by levitating its water molecules. Foams fascinate, partly due to their short lifespan. Foams change as fluid drains out of their structure over time. It is precisely their ephemeral nature which has, until now, prevented scientists from experimentally probing their characteristic dynamics further. Instead, foams have often been studied theoretically. Now scientists have devised a method of keeping foams in shape using a magnet, which allows their dynamics to be investigated experimentally. | Read More » Waste could help fuel low carbon energy and transport  | In a time when society – and nature itself – are threatened by climate change, it seems fair to ask: Does recycling still matter? Two Swedish scientists say it does. | Read More » Gun use in PG-13 movies has more than tripled since 1985  | The amount of gun violence shown in PG-13 films has more than tripled since 1985, the year the rating was introduced. | Read More » You want fries with that? Don't go there  | A new neuroimaging study suggests chronic dieters overeat when the regions of their brain that balance impulsive behavior and self-control become disrupted, decreasing their capacity to resist temptation. | Read More » Warning system for all crisis situations  | Natural disasters do not respect political boundaries. To deal effectively with this kind of crisis situation, alerts need to reach the affected areas in a seamless, cross–border way. This is exactly what Alert4All does. The system allows new alert channels to be added at any time and can send out fully automated, multilingual notifications to the general public. | Read More » Fast-mutating DNA sequences shape early development; guided evolution of uniquely human traits  | What does it mean to be human? According to scientists the key lies, ultimately, in the billions of lines of genetic code that comprise the human genome. The problem, however, has been deciphering that code. But now, researchers have discovered how the activation of specific stretches of DNA control the development of uniquely human characteristics -- and tell an intriguing story about the evolution of our species. | Read More » Teens with late bedtimes have lower grades  | Late bedtimes during the school year, especially in younger teens, predicted lower cumulative grade point average and more emotional distress by college age. | Read More » Green poison-dart frog varies mating call to suit situation  | In the eyes of a female poison-dart frog, a red male isn't much brighter than a green one. This does not however mean that the mating behavior of the green and red variants of the same species of frog is exactly the same. | Read More » Geeks, jocks and shocks: Student perceptions of high-achieving classmates  | Imagine a new student is to join your class. The only thing you know about them is that they were the best in their previous class for the following subject… | Read More » New FDA proposal trying to eliminate trans fat  | Experts support the recent FDA proposal to eliminate trans fat from the food supply. | Read More » Changing the conversation: Polymers disrupt bacterial communication  | Artificial materials based on simple synthetic polymers can disrupt the way in which bacteria communicate with each other, a new study has shown. | Read More » Molecular interplay explains many immunodeficiencies  | Scientists have described an exquisitely balanced interplay of four molecules that trigger and govern antibody production in immune cells. As well as being an important basic science discovery, it helps explain why people with mutations in any one of the associated genes cannot fight infection effectively, and develop rare and crippling immunodeficiency disorders. | Read More » Research reveals roles for exercise, diet in aging, depression  | New studies underscore the potential impact of healthy lifestyle choices in treating depression, the effects of aging, and learning. The research focused on the effects of mind/body awareness, exercise, and diet. | Read More » How sleep aids visual task learning  | Scientists have discovered what happens in the brain during sleep to lock in learning of a visually oriented "Where's Waldo"-like task. | Read More » Methane-munching microorganisms meddle with metals  | A pair of microbes on the ocean floor "eats" methane in a unique way, and a new study provides insights into their surprising nutritional requirements. Learning how these methane-munching organisms make a living in these extreme environments could provide clues about how the deep-sea environment might change in a warming world. | Read More » Nail gun injuries on the rise  | Young males in the work environment are at greatest risk of sustaining a nail gun injury to their non-dominant hand, a new study has found. | Read More » Nanotech drug smugglers  | Tiny capsules of carbon are invisible to the chemical gatekeeper that flushes potentially harmful substances out of our bodies' cells, according to new research. The finding might allow a pharmaceutical to be smuggled into cells even when multidrug resistance has evolved. | Read More » Military children, families remain an invisible subculture  | With the changes military personnel have experienced since the 9/11 conflicts began, our knowledge of military children and their families -- one of the largest American subcultures, affecting 2 million children -- has become outdated. To that end, the Future of Children has released the first comprehensive report since 9/11 to uncover what we know (and don't know) about such families. | Read More » Hospitals Vary in Monitoring, Treatment of Children with Brain Injury  | Hospitals vary in management of children with traumatic brain injury, particularly in monitoring and preventing the harmful effects of increased intracranial pressure (ICP), according to a study. | Read More » Discovery may lead to new treatments for allergic diseases  | A collaboration among researchers in Israel and the United States has resulted in the discovery of a new pathway with broad implications for treating allergic diseases -- particularly eosinophil-associated disorders. Researchers have discovered how this pathway kills eosinophils before they can cause havoc. Eosinophils are normal cellular blood components, but when the body produces too many eosinophils they can cause a variety of eosinophilic disorders. | Read More » When your body needs calories, you are more inclined to help the poor  | New research shows that hunger affects our attitudes towards the welfare state. And when hungry people state their support of the welfare system, it is not so much a reflection of their concern for the poor; rather it is a strategy for securing further resources for themselves. | Read More » Understanding immune system memory -- in a roundabout way  | While the principle of immune memory has been known for decades, the exact molecular mechanisms underpinning it have remained a mystery. Scientists have now unraveled part of that mystery, identifying the role of a gene called STAT3, which acts as a kind of roundabout, directing chemical messenger molecules to various destinations. | Read More » Brainstem abnormalities found in SIDS infants, in all sleep environments  | Investigators report that infants dying suddenly and unexpectedly, in both safe and unsafe sleep environments, have underlying brainstem abnormalities and are not all normal prior to death. | Read More » Spitzer and ALMA reveal a star's bubbly birth  | Combined observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the newly completed Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile have revealed the throes of stellar birth as never before in the well-studied object known as HH 46/47. | Read More » Gene speeds kidney disease progression, failure in blacks, regardless of diabetes status  | A large study found that African Americans with the APOL1 gene variant experience faster progression of chronic kidney disease and have a significantly increased risk of kidney failure, regardless of their diabetes status. | Read More » Some 'healthy' vegetable oils may actually increase risk of heart disease  | Some vegetable oils that claim to be healthy may actually increase the risk of heart disease, and health officials should reconsider cholesterol-lowering claims on food labelling, states an analysis. | Read More » Visualizing the past: Nondestructive imaging of ancient fossils  | Well-preserved plant fossils are rare, and traditional techniques to study their internal structure, by necessity, damage the sample. A new study integrates high-resolution X-ray imaging, 3-D image segmentation, and computer animation to visualize fossil conifer seed cones without destroying the material. The technique captures X-ray images that provide virtual cross-sections of the specimen and then combines the images to produce a 3-D reconstruction. | Read More » Racial difference in blood clotting warrants closer look at heart attack medications  | Blood clot formation follows a different molecular route in African-Americans versus European-Americans, providing a new understanding of the effects of race on heart disease. The finding could one day help doctors provide more individualized treatment of heart disease and other blood-clot-related illnesses. | Read More » Single-cell genome sequencing gets better  | Researchers have generated the most complete genome sequences from single E. coli cells and individual neurons from the human brain. Preliminary data suggest that individual neurons from the same brain have different genetic compositions. The breakthrough comes from a new single-cell genome sequencing technique that confines genome amplification to fluid-filled wells with a volume of just 12 nanoliters. | Read More » | |
