Scientists have reported that an experimental vaccine targeting one of the most common genetic drivers of pancreatic cancer, called mutant KRAS, is safe and generated a durable immune responses aimed at preventing the cancer.
An anthropological wave has taken place, first in Asia that has now spread worldwide - humans, the most social species on the planet, have begun to gather in groups and ignore each other while communicating wirelessly with people doing the same ignoring of real people elsewhere.The trend of sitting inches away on a train from other people and routinely ignoring each other while using social media is a social paradox. Why can such social agents be so antisocial?
Orlando Bloom is feeling stressed. Justin Bieber insulted him in Ibiza (why are they in the same club, much less the same city or even country?) or he insulted Bloom's ex-wife, the model Miranda Kerr, and he lashed out at Justin Bieber. Or tried, the wall of bodyguards that makes Justin Bieber brave made that difficult.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and by restricted and repetitive behaviors. Diagnosis is solely based on behavioral analysis, biological markers and neurological underpinnings remain unknown, but the search goes on. A lack of a biological underpinning makes the development of therapeutic strategies extremely difficult.
The insular cortex is an integral "hub", combining sensory, emotional and cognitive content. Not surprisingly, alterations in insular structure and function have been reported in many psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety disorders, depression, addiction and autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
Hibiscus flowers are an iconic symbol of tropical resorts worldwide but some are rather rare. Hawaii's State Flower, Hibiscus brackenridgei, is an endangered species.
Everyone knows of the Hawaiian hibiscus but few are aware of an equally beautiful and intriguing related group of plants known as Hibiscadelphus- literally "brother of Hibiscus".
Brother of Hibiscus is highly endangered. Until recently only one of the seven previously known species remained in its natural habitat, the other having gone extinct. These trees are only known, or were known, from five of the eight main Hawaiian Islands. Two are still alive in cultivation, saved in part because of their beautiful showy blossoms. Several were only known from a single wild tree.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a BP project in the Gulf of Mexico, began in April of 2010. The oil rig collapsed and it took some three months to cap the gusher. During that, concern was also on how to clean up the over four million barrels of oil in the environment
Among other approaches, the government used the Corexit oil dispersant, which emulsifies oil into balls and microbes, such as the genetically modified marine bacterium Alcanivorax borkumensis and the Colwellia species of bacteria, to consume it. And it worked, but a new paper says some of the more toxic components still remain.
Resistance to artemisinin, the main drug to treat malaria, has become widespread throughout Southeast Asia.
Resistance among the Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum) parasites that cause the disease is likely caused by a genetic mutation in the parasites, but a six-day course of artemisinin-based combination therapy, as opposed to a standard three-day course, has proved highly effective in treating drug-resistant malaria cases, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. DDT has also been effective for the last 70 years.
Electronic cigarettes have gained considerable popularity over the past few years - for most they are another form of the nicotine patch, and a way to curb harmful cigarette smoking but critics contend they make smoking cool.
No one thinks they are cool, they are in Google Glass territory among the public, just a moment away from leading to insults, so research instead focuses on the well-documented health benefits of smoking less versus any possible risks.
Governments want to regulate them to generate revenue so the onus is on the industry to try and prove they are safe, an impossible task. Yet if they show they are not harmful, it will be harder to convince the public they should regulate those when alternative medicine is unchecked.
Bumblebees can glean differences in pollen quality based on floral features like petal color and that informs their decision on where to land.
Bees do not sample pollen so it has been unclear how they determined quality. The new study in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that they are able to form associative relationships between appearance and pollen quality. Bumblebees can individually assess pollen samples and discriminate between them during collection, quickly forming preferences for a particular type of pollen.
Pollen foraging behavior involves learning and individual decision-making, which may allow bees to quickly learn which flowers provide the most nutritious pollen rewards for rearing their young, the authors write.
Diverticulitis was once the refrain of a Saturday Night Live skit but it isn't funny to people who have it.
A paper in Quality of Life Research has interviews with diverticulitis patients and it confirms that many suffer psychological and physical symptoms long after their acute illness has passed.
Schrödinger's cat is one of the famous examples of the weirdness of quantum mechanics
The thought puzzle is that you put a cat inside a box and make its life dependent on a random event, when does the cat die? When the random event occurs, or when you open the box?
Millennials are redefining adulthood by living at home and getting supported by their parents longer than ever - and in the future it may turn into outright exploitation.
It used to be that family watched out for shysters out to bilk their parents but now the nearly 5 percent elderly American adults being financially exploited are often exploited by family members - poor and black people the most.
Dr. Janey Peterson of Weill Cornell Medical College led one of the largest American studies ever done on elder abuse and the results appeared in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Toddlers who did not frolic and smile and laugh were once called pensive or shy or quiet but now a Preschool Feelings Checklist
can label kids as depressed at 3 years of age.
Using that as a factual basis, a paper in the American Journal of Psychiatry has found that depressed preschoolers were 2.5 times more likely to suffer from the condition in elementary and middle school than kids who were not diagnosed as depressed at very young ages.
Doctors and scientists maintain that children as young as 3 or 4 can not be clinically depressed.
