News Articles

A mother's shorter height is associated with a reduced growth rate and a higher death rate for her children, among 54 low- to middle-income countries, according to a study in the April 21 issue of JAMA.Researchers say the association suggests the presence of "an intergenerational transmission from mother's own nutrition, disease, and socioeconomic circumstances during her childhood to her offspring's health and mortality in their infancy and childhood."

Listening to your iPod or mp3 player for several hours at a time could put your hearing at risk, according to the least fun science article ever written. The editorial, published today in the British Medical Journal, points out that personal music devices such as MP3 players can generate levels of sound at the ear in excess of 120 decibels, similar in intensity to a jet engine, especially when used with earphones that insert into the ear canal.More than 90%  of teenagers from Europe and the United States surveyed use the newfangled  contraptions. Overall, their use "has grown faster than our ability to assess their potential health consequences," says Peter Rabinowitz from Yale University School of Medicine.

In the last two decades there has been a dramatic rise in the use of psychotropic medications to treat children. One in every fifty Americans is now considered permanently disabled by mental illness, and up to eight million children take one or more psychotropic drugs.But there is little evidence available to warrant the widespread use of psychotropic drugs for children, and little long term data regarding its long term impact on development. The authors of a new study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy say the mental health field is currently designed to treat adults with psychotropic medications, but they are often misused in the case of children and adolescents.

The reduced risk of cardiovascular disease seen in people who eat a Mediterranean diet may be attributable to the phenolic components of virgin olive oil, which repress several pro-inflammatory genes. Phenols are micronutrients of olive oil; the extra-virgin varieties have a particularly large phenol fraction.Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Genomics studied the effects of eating a breakfast rich in phenol compounds on gene expression in 20 patients with metabolic syndrome, a common condition associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

The authors of a new study in Nature Methods say they have discovered 2,363 new DNA sequences corresponding to 730 regions on the human genome not charted in the reference map of the human genome."A large portion of those sequences are either missing, fragmented or misaligned when compared to results from next-generation sequencing genome assemblies on the same samples," said Dr. Evan Eichler, senior author of the study. "These findings suggest that new genome assemblies based solely on next-generation sequencing might miss many of these sites."

Modest weight loss appears to reverse many of the damaging changes often seen in the immune cells of obese people, particularly those with Type 2 diabetes, according to a new research.The recent study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology Metabolism looked at 13 obese people with Type 2 diabetes or prediabetes who were limited to a diet of between 1000 and 1600 calories a day for 24 weeks. Gastric banding was performed at 12 weeks to help restrict food intake further. The results showed an 80% reduction of pro-inflammatory T-helper cells, as well as reduced activation of other circulating immune cells (T cells, monocytes and neutrophils) and decreased activation of macrophages in fat.

It's well known that serious air pollution can cause of all kinds of nasty health problems - headaches, nausea, allergic reactions, chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer and heart disease counted among them. But according to new statistical correlation, it can also make unborn children stupid at small levels. 

Research conducted at the University of Alberta confirms that fat people are often labeled lazy simply because of their size. The new study found that when a thin person was seen laying down watching television, people assumed they were resting. But when an overweight person was relaxing, the same group assumed that the husky individual was lazy and unmotivated.Study participants viewed a number of pictures that would flash on a computer screen. After each photo a sedentary word such as "lazy" would appear. After the participants looked at each picture they were asked to say the color of each word.

In a study study likely to increase travelers' trust in the TSA, Duke university researchers say identifying a prohibited item such as a water bottle may keep airport security from detecting harder-to-spot items in the same scan.In the new study, published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, researchers asked college students to identify specific targets on a computer display – in this case, two perpendicular lines that form the letter "T" amid distracters, such as Ls and non-Ts. In some cases, Ts were easy to spot, and in other cases more difficult because they blended in with the background.

Moral behavior may increase our capacity for willpower and physical endurance, according to new research from Harvard University. Participants in the new study who did good deeds -- or even just imagined themselves helping others -- were better able to perform a subsequent task of physical endurance. The research shows a similar or even greater boost in physical strength following dastardly deeds.Results of the study are published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

A common treatment for patients with type 2 diabetes could one day help smokers avoid lung cancer, say scientists at the National Cancer Institute.Metformin decreases levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and circulating insulin, which is important in patients with type 2 diabetes. Early laboratory research presented at the American Association For Cancer Research's annual meeting shows that the drug may also inhibit tumor growth as well."This well tolerated, FDA-approved diabetes drug was able to prevent tobacco-carcinogen induced lung tumors," said Phillip A. Dennis, M.D., Ph.D., senior investigator in the medical oncology branch of the National Cancer Institute.

Many Americans go to foreign news sources for coverage of the war in Iraq and Palestinian-Israeli conflict because western media outlets censor gruesome war-time images, according to a study in Media, War and Conflict.Researchers conducted two online surveys of Al-Jazeera Web users during November and December 2004. They found that most of those who use the Al-Jazeera English-language website are from the U.S., Canada, the U.K and Australia. Respondents indicated that they appreciate the graphic pictures of war they find on the site that they don't see in mainstream media. As one user explained: