Intermittent fasting, and fasting in general, has been a popular fad health gimmick, but the science isn't on its side. Instead, proponents believe mice are little people so if mice weaned on starvation diets lived longer, people would also.
Dispositional, or “everyday” mindfulness, is being aware of one’s present thoughts and feelings and a new paper measured health indicators of 399 people, including dispositional mindfulness and blood glucose, and found those with higher scores for mindfulness were significantly more likely than people with low scores to have healthy glucose levels.
New Haven, Conn. -- A pregnant Brazilian woman infected with the Zika virus had a stillborn baby in January who had signs of severe tissue swelling as well as central nervous system defects that caused the cerebral hemispheres of the brain to be absent. It is the first report to indicate a possible association of congenital Zika virus and damage to tissues outside the central nervous system.
Researchers led by Albert Ko, M.D. of the Yale School of Public Health and Dr. Antônio Raimundo de Almeida at the Hospital Geral Roberto Santos in Salvador, Brazil, describe the case in the current issue of the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
New insights suggest that the source of human cells used to generate new tissues and organs may be an important consideration in personalized medicine. The Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD) today released the results of a study highlighting molecular differences in cells that are gaining traction in the field of personalized medicine. The study, titled "Strong Components of Epigenetic Memory in Cultured Human Fibroblasts Related to Site of Origin and Donor Age," was led by Andrew E. Jaffe, Ph.D., and its relevant findings published in PLOS Genetics.
Researchers have turned skin cells into cancer-hunting stem cells that destroy the brain tumors known as glioblastoma – a discovery that may offer a new and more effective treatment for the disease.
The survival rate beyond two years for a patient with a glioblastoma is 30 percent because it is so difficult to treat. Even if a surgeon removes most of the tumor, it’s nearly impossible to get the invasive, cancerous tendrils that spread deeper into the brain and inevitably the remnants grow back. Most patients die within a year and a half of their diagnosis.
People searching for something can find it faster if they know what to look for. But new research suggests knowing what not to look for can be just as helpful.
Although previous studies concluded that attempting to ignore irrelevant information slows people down, Johns Hopkins University researchers found that when people are given time to learn what's possible to ignore, they're able to search faster and more efficiently.
The results, which offer new insight into how the mind processes difficult information, are forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science and now available online.
NEW YORK, NY (February 25, 2016)--When hearing loss becomes so severe that hearing aids no longer help, a cochlear implant not only amplifies sounds but also lets people hear speech clearly.
Music is a different story.
"I've pretty much given up listening to music and being able to enjoy it," says Prudence Garcia-Renart, a musician who gave up playing the piano a few years ago.
"I've had the implant for 15 years now and it has done so much for me. Before I got the implant, I was working but I could not use a phone, I needed somebody to take notes for me at meetings, and I couldn't have conversations with more than one person. I can now use a phone, I recognize people's voices, I go to films, but music is awful."
A new study provides one of the first quantitative estimates of the methane leak rate from the blowout of a well in California in 2015, suggesting that methane emissions from this event temporarily doubled those from all other sources in the entire Los Angeles Basin combined. Globally, underground natural gas storage facilities hold reserves representing 10% of the world's annual gas consumption. On October 23, 2015, the blowout of a well connected to the Aliso Canyon underground storage facility outside Los Angeles - the fourth largest facility of its kind in the U.S. - resulted in a substantial release of natural gas, prompting major evacuations.
A difference has emerged between some Western European countries and the U.S. regarding the use of residual disinfectants to offer safe drinking water. But who is right? In this Perspective, Fernando Rosario-Ortiz et al. compare the different approaches. To avoid microbial contamination, numerous countries including the U.S. and U.K. require the presence of residual disinfectant in drinking water. Yet the presence of a disinfectant can lead to the formation of carcinogenic byproducts, issues with corrosion, and an unappealing taste, the authors note. As well, there is little direct evidence that residual disinfectants have prevented drinking water-related disease outbreaks.
Scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues have discovered that a single monoclonal antibody--a protein that attacks viruses--isolated from a human Ebola virus disease survivor protected non-human primates when given as late as five days after lethal Ebola infection. The antibody can now advance to testing in humans as a potential treatment for Ebola virus disease. There are currently no licensed treatments for Ebola infection, which caused more than 11,000 deaths in the 2014-2015 outbreak in West Africa. The findings are described in two articles to be published online by Science on February 25.
A study published online ahead of print in the journal Medical Care shows that over a recent 10-year period, the rate of metastatic colorectal cancer patients older than age 75 receiving three or more treatments increased from 2 percent to 53 percent. During this period, 1-year treatment cost increased 32 percent to reach an estimated $2.2 billion annually. However, median survival for these patients increased by only one month.
Chimpanzees have an ancient common ancestor - or genetic 'Adam' - that lived over one million years ago, according to a new paper paper in the journal Genome Research.
The research team led by Professor Mark Jobling from the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics determined the DNA sequences of a large part of the Y chromosome, passed exclusively from fathers to sons, in a set of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans. The study also looked at mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), passed from mothers to offspring, in the same set of animals, which allowed the construction of genealogical trees that could be compared between species and subspecies - and helped the researchers to discover that the genetic 'Adam' for chimpanzees lived so far back.
A new report describes how researchers analyzed a major 2011 Texas wildfire using a scientifically based post-fire data collection approach, a system they believe will lead to improved defensive measures and strategies for significantly reducing structural damage and property loss.
