News Articles

As the search continues for Earth-size planets orbiting at just the right distance from their star, a region termed the habitable zone, the number of potentially life-supporting planets grows. In two decades we have progressed from having no extrasolar planets to having too many to search. Narrowing the list of hopefuls requires looking at extrasolar planets in a new way.
But Tau Ceti already doesn't make the cut.

A new study provides a possible explanation of reports that mothers of twins are more likely to have smoked, despite evidence that nicotine reduces fertility.
Nicotine has an effect on hormone production, and while smoking may have deleterious effects on fertility, the study found that it may raise the likelihood of producing twins in women with certain genetic backgrounds. The researchers discovered significant interactions between smoking and variants in several genes, especially one in the TP53 gene.

Health food stores often regard science and evidence-based medicine as the tools of profiteering and greed so it is ironic that they continue to sell dietary supplements to children. Some even recommend them, despite clear warning labels that read "for adult use only."
Though supplements are an unregulated wild frontier at the US Food&Drug Administration level, body-shaping supplements are banned for sale to minors in 49 U.S. states. Nonetheless, 15-year-olds were able to buy them in health food stores across the country and the staff even recommended certain products that were illegal for sale to minors.

After performing thousands of unsuccessful experiments in his attempt to perfect the light bulb, Thomas Edison famously remarked: "I have not failed, not once. I've discovered ten thousand ways that don't work."
Australian leaders of an ongoing pancreatic cancer clinical trial known as the Individualised Molecular Pancreatic Cancer Therapy or 'IMPaCT' trial, can say exactly the same thing as Edison. In conventional terms, the trial has been a failure, because it has been unable to recruit eligible patients to-date, but that may lead to a new paradigm of personalized cancer care for pancreatic cancer and other aggressive cancer types. 

The discovery of a gene involved in determining the melting point of cocoa butter should lead to new varieties of the cocoa plant that could extend the climate and soil-nutrient range for growing the crop

Those "Diary Of A Wimpy Kid" books are not "The Good Earth", they are not going to win Pulitzer Prizes, but they are a lot better for kids in the summer than staying glued to YouTube videos. And for most kids, that is going to be the choice. Rather than sending home a reading list (poor schools) or stacks of books (rich schools) in the hopes of combating the the literacy loss experienced during the summer break, a new study finds that letting kids choose the books is better.

A Phase IIa placebo-controlled clinical trial of TOPOFEN, a topical anti-migraine therapy for moderate and severe migraine sufferers, showed that the application of a well-known non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) over the trigeminal nerve branches can be a safe and effective alternative treatment for patients suffering from acute migraine.

It's time to bust the myth that anyone, and that includes athletes, can outrun a bad diet, say experts in an editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Excess carbohydrates, not physical inactivity, are behind the surge in obesity.
Regular exercise is key to staving off serious disease, such as diabetes, heart disease, and dementia, write the authors, but our calorie-laden diets now generate more ill health than physical inactivity, alcohol, and smoking - combined. The evidence they cite suggests that up to 40% of those within a normal weight (BMI) range will nonetheless harbor harmful metabolic abnormalities typically associated with obesity.

A Boston College expert in educational measurement is taking a look at the controversial college and university rankings lists that are promoted by schools hoping to lure full-fare students from out of state and parents and students who want validation for their choices.

Loss of muscle volume is a common debilitating outcome of traumatic orthopedic injury, resulting in muscle weakness and loss of limb function.  The current best solution is muscle graft but a new therapeutic approach uses small pieces of autologous muscle which can be expanded in a collagen hydrogel and used to regenerate functional muscle at the sight of injury.
A study demonstrating the feasibility of using autologous minced tissue grafts for muscle regeneration shows it would be better for repairing large areas of muscle loss.  

Some studies find that the immune system, which protects our bodies from foreign invaders, plays a part in Alzheimer's disease, though the actual role of immunity in the disease is a mystery.
A new Duke University study in mice suggests that in Alzheimer's disease, certain immune cells that normally protect the brain begin to abnormally consume an important nutrient: arginine. Blocking this process with a small-molecule drug prevented the characteristic brain plaques and memory loss in a mouse model of the disease.

Many newborns are exposed in their earliest days to bisphenol A (BPA) and lots of other chemicals, the world is all chemical, but BPA has been the subject of more scrutiny than most because it is ubiquitous. Due to that, environmental advocacy studies have claimed there is probably risk to adults and newborns, while more neutral science says that it is detectable but not harmful.