News Articles

5 billion to be short-sighted (myopic) by the year 2050

One in ten at risk of blindness
Myopia to become a leading cause of permanent blindness worldwide
U.S. and Canada - 260 million myopes by 2050, up from 90 million in 2000; 66 million high myopes by 2050, up from 11 million in 2000
Parents advised to have children's eyes checked regularly, improve time outdoors and moderate time on near based activities including electronic devices

Adults who use marijuana are five times more likely to develop alcohol abuse or dependence compared with adults who do not use the drug. Adults who already have an alcohol use disorder and use marijuana are more likely to see the problem persist, finds a paper in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Collaborating with spiritual organizations may help health professionals reach Black women who have heart disease and stroke risk factors and little health knowledge, according to research presented at the Nursing Symposium of the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2016.
Compared with other women, Black women have higher rates of illness or death related to stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, overweight and obesity. To assess factors related to the ability of women to reduce their risk factors and utilize healthcare effectively, a researcher surveyed 132 black women, average age 45, living in midtown Manhattan in New York City.
The researcher discovered that:

Chinese cultural values underlie the willingness of family members to care for stroke survivors at home, so interventions to support caregivers should consider incorporating these values, according to research presented at the Nursing Symposium of the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2016.
Each year, an estimated 22.5 million people in China survive a stroke and 78 percent of them require home care. This study probed stroke caregivers' perceptions of this responsibility within the Chinese culture.
Researchers interviewed 14 stroke caregivers, average age 58, seven tending a spouse and seven a parent. Eleven were women. All were first-time caregivers who provided an average of 14 hours of care each day.

The evolution of the menopause was 'kick-started' by a fluke of nature, but then boosted by the tendency for sons and grandsons to remain living close to home, a new study by Liverpool scientists suggests.
Menopause is an evolutionary puzzle, as an early end to reproduction seems contrary to the laws of natural selection, where passing on genes to the next generation is the main purpose of life. Yet female humans, and some other mammals, spend up to a third of their lives unable to reproduce.
Now, for the first time, researchers from the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University have used a phylogenetic approach to evaluate the most common evolutionary hypotheses for why females outlive their fertility.

'Grandmother hypothesis'

In a study of patients entering the hospital for acute stroke, researchers have increased their understanding of an association between certain types of stroke and the presence of the oral bacteria (cnm-positive Streptococcus mutans). 
Strokes are characterized as either ischemic strokes, which involve a blockage of one or more blood vessels supplying the brain, or hemorrhagic strokes, in which blood vessels in the brain rupture, causing bleeding.

A small peptide dubbed TAxI is living up to its name. Recent studies show it to be an effective vehicle for shuttling functional proteins, such as active enzymes, into the spinal cord after a muscle injection.
The findings suggest TAxI holds promise for carrying biologic drugs into this pharmaceutically hard-to-reach location.
Peptides - short chains of amino acid building blocks - can be useful in specific biological jobs. TAxI stands for the work of this particular peptide, Targeted Axonal Import.

Uncloaking the flying saucer movement in the United States could offer historians a snapshot of Cold War attitudes at work in society, as well as insights into how science communication may be tied to current denialism and conspiracy theory movements, according to a Penn State historian.
Scientists, military officials and amateur unidentified flying object investigators -- often called ufologists -- have clashed almost since the start of the modern flying saucer era, which began in 1947 when aviator Kenneth Arnold spotted what he claimed were nine silver flying discs in the Cascade Mountains of Washington, said Greg Eghigian, associate professor of modern history, Penn State.

PHILADELPHIA - Researchers are getting closer to learning how to turn white fat cells into brown fat cells, in a process called "beiging," to bring down blood sugar levels and fight diabetes. The team, led by Joseph Baur, PhD, an assistant professor of Physiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania published their findings this month in the journal Diabetes.

For the first time astronomers were able to analyse the atmosphere of an exoplanet in the class known as super-Earths. Using data gathered with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and new analysis techniques, the exoplanet 55 Cancri e is revealed to have a dry atmosphere without any indications of water vapour. The results, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, indicate that the atmosphere consists mainly of hydrogen and helium.
The international team, led by scientists from University College London (UCL) in the UK, took observations of the nearby exoplanet 55 Cancri e, a super-Earth with a mass of eight Earth-masses [1]. It is located in the planetary system of 55 Cancri, a star about 40 light-years from Earth.

Western elites may embrace a vegetarian lifestyle but impoverished countries would happily trade places with them. Despite claims like it takes a gallon of gas to create a pound of beef being long debunked, activists continue to promote the notion that a vegetarian lifestyle is better for people and the environment.
Residents of Zambia know the organic, vegetarian lifestyle better than anyone in San Francisco environmental groups, and they have had quite enough. Now economists are catching on as well. A cow, a pair of oxen, or a herd of goats for a poor household dramatically improves their quality of life, finds a recent analysis. 

Cloud top temperatures in storms within Tropical Cyclone Uriah grew colder over the last couple of days, according to infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite. That's an indication of stronger uplift in a tropical cyclone and a stronger storm. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite saw the storm when it was struggling against wind shear, and two days later NASA's Aqua satellite saw Uriah reach hurricane-strength after the shear weakened.