News Articles

Due in large part to the popularity of energy drinks and chain coffee shops, caffeine intake by children and adolescents has risen substantially - some drinks are marketed to children as young as four.
Unlike nicotine, caffeine has slipped under the cultural radar as a harmless drug, even for kids, but some research is happening. A new paper about a small study says that after puberty, boys and girls experience different heart rate and blood pressure changes after consuming caffeine. Girls also experience some differences in caffeine effect during their menstrual cycles. 

Though mainstream journalism likes to link every bit of weather, even a deep freeze last winter, to global warming, the "Arctic amplification phenomenon" is unlikely to lead to more days of extreme cold, new research has shown.
The Arctic amplification phenomenon refers to the faster rate of warming in the Arctic compared to places further south. It is this phenomenon that has been linked to a spike in the number of severe cold spells experienced in recent years over Europe and North America.
New research by University of Exeter expert Dr James Screen has shown that Arctic amplification has actually reduced the risk of cold extremes across large swathes of the Northern Hemisphere.

The gluten-specific enzyme ALV003 reduces a patient's exposure to gluten and its potential harm, according to a new phase 2 study appearing in Gastroenterology. It's the first time a non-dietary intervention has been shown to potentially benefit celiac disease patients.  

Throughout Earth's geological history, there have been numerous warming and cooling phases. The last Ice Age only ended 11-12,000 years ago
The Antarctic Peninsula, the northern most region of Antarctica, is experiencing some dramatic changes, including population declines of some penguin species, but this is not the first time that region has felt the effects of climate warming.
How did penguins respond to the melting of snow and ice cover 11,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age?

Researchers have found that Mediterranean Sea warming and acidification is happening  at unprecedented rates – the main reason, they believe, is emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which causes warming of the atmosphere and the ocean as well as acidification of its waters due to uptake of CO2 by surface waters.
300 million inhabitants and tourists of Mediterranean coastal societies rely on this ecosystem.

Measuring variability of heart rate may identify premature infants at risk of developing necrotizing enterocolitis, a serious inflammatory condition that can lead to death, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.
Necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, may lead to destruction of the intestinal wall and vital organ failure. It affects 6 to 10 percent of premature infants within the first two weeks of life.

A new study has found that 12 minutes of exercise can improve attention and reading comprehension in adolescents.
In the paper, all kids saw improvement in selective visual attention up to 45 minutes after exercising. Selective visual attention is the ability to remain visually focused on something despite distractions. The Lower income students also improved on tests of reading comprehension following the physical activity, though high-income students did not.

The hive mind is alive and well on Twitter.
Rather than being a participatory forum, an analysis of 290,119,348 tweets from 193,522 "politically engaged" Twitter users during the 2012 presidential campaign conventions and debates found little creative thinking. Instead, it was just retweeting "elites" like Bill Maher and Sean Hannity.

By boosting a protein called oligoadenylate synthetases-like (OASL) that naturally exists in our cells, researchers may have found a way to enhance our ability to inhibit viral infections like the flu. 
OASL appears in increased quantities in people with liver cancer caused by the hepatitis C virus. 
Hepatitis C, influenza, the childhood respiratory illness RSV, and many other viruses are known as ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, which use RNA as their genetic material when they replicate. The OASL protein enhances cells' ability to detect virus RNA, activating the immune system to sense the virus and inhibit replication.

It doesn't happen often but there are times when its unclear if a football crosses the goal line for a touchdown. If a quarterback attempts a sneak, for example, and the line pushes forward, he may be under too many players to be seen.
All the referees can do is pull people off and look at where the ball is, though there is no idea if that's where it was when his knee touched the ground. A Disney Research team, in collaboration from NC State and Carnegie-Mellon, developed a system that can track a football in three-dimensional space using low-frequency magnetic fields. 

An imbalance of female sex hormones caused by vegetarian foods like soy may be contributing to high levels of male obesity, according to a recent paper.

In US states that strongly embrace myriad anti-science beliefs, like California, Washington and New York, dangerous preventable diseases like Whooping Cough have come roaring back after a long hiatus, due to a belief by cultural elites that as long as uneducated poor people get vaccines, things will be fine.
It is going to take a lot to combat the entrenched mentality that causes some to distrust science and medicine, because groups have spent a lot of money promoting conspiracy stories about pharmaceutical companies and doctors and selling their 'alternative' medicine. It will take education, awareness and nurses can help, write Emily Peake, APRN, MSN, FNP-C, CLC, and Lisa K. McGuire, MSN, MBA-HCM, RN.