News Articles

Anthropologists have long speculated about why neanderthals while Homo sapiens thrived? Was it some sort of plague specific only to Neanderthals? A cataclysmic event in their homelands?A new paper in Anatomical Record posits that it was not some exotic pathogen, but chronic ear infections and plain old evolution. Ear infections are common in kids but how serious they are is a matter of debate. In parts of culture worried about both modern medicine antibiotic resistance, some parents believe an ear infection should just rest while a lot of older people with poor hearing believe kids should get them fixed. But killing off a species?

Though there is far less economic inequality in America than at any point in history - poor people in America live in more square footage per person than the middle class in France, not to mention the low cost of food, TVs, and cell phones - there is a longing in some quarters to reduce it at the fringes. There are complaints, for example, that the .00001 running companies make high multiples of what the average employee gets.

An alarming number of young, white, poor men who abuse recreational opioids are developing infections of either the heart's inner lining or valves, known as infective endocarditis This new trend predominantly affects men who also have higher rates of HIV, hepatitis C and alcohol abuse, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.Infective endocarditis occurs when bacteria or fungi in the blood stream enter the heart's inner lining or valves. Nearly 34,000 people receive treatment for this condition each year, of which approximately 20% die. One of the major risk factors for infective endocarditis is drug abuse.

Beta blockers are drugs primarily for treating high blood pressure and arrhythmias. They work blocking a hormone known as epinephrine, better known as adrenaline - the same hormone that floods our bodies during times of anxiety and stress.That’s why beta blockers are becoming popular off-label for anxiety.Anxiety is not what it used to be. You are not worried about being eaten by a tiger or sacked by Mongol hordes, you are maybe unhappy in your marriage or don't feel appreciated at work. Pills to the rescue, if you are in a wealthy country like America.So some doctors are recommending them for patients to take in specific instances, rather than general use like antidepressants or benzodiazepines.

Biogenic volatile organic compounds produced by the cannabis plants during growth and reproduction, the same chemicals responsible for the pungent smell of a cannabis plant, also contribute to air pollution on a much larger scale, according to new research.

This fall we will get a new "Teminator" movie, marking 35 years that a dystopian nightmare about robots taking over and killing us all has been front and center in pop culture awareness. The dystopian nightmare may happen to fish first. Swimming terminators could be ready to fight against one of the world's most problematic invasive species, the mosquitofish.Found in freshwater lakes and rivers worldwide, soaring mosquitofish populations have decimated native fish and amphibian populations, and attempts to control the species through toxicants or trapping often fail or cause harm to local wildlife.

When it comes to getting treatment for cancer treatment, your marital status could be making a significant difference in the level of medical care you get, finds a new analysis.The stakes are high, given that 45 percent (111 million) U.S. adults are unmarried and given the demographic trend among young people that number is likely to rise.

After Friedrich Wohler accidentally synthesized urea in 1828, chemical synthesis - and organic synthesis for that - has been a driving force in pharmaceutical innovation. We live longer and better than ever and we can thank the continuous advancement of synthetic chemistry, which allows scientists to design and build new molecules.

When we think of marsupials (carrying young in a pouch) they are small and cute (opossum, wombat) to a little more menacing (kangaroos in boxing gloves) but nothing like Palorchestid marsupials, an extinct group of Australian megafauna, who were large, had strange tapir-like skulls, and large claws.Over the course of their evolution, palorchestids grew even larger and stranger. Using limb proportions as a proxy for body size, these authors estimated that the latest and largest of the palorchestids weighed over 2,000 lbs. Furthermore, their forelimbs were extremely muscular and were likely adapted for grabbing or scraping at leaves and branches.

No matter how far back in recorded time you go, you were once an intruder. Native Americans of 1800 were genetically different from the natives who lived in North America of 1600, who had little in common with those 1400. Yet none of them were original settlers.And when we think of Vikings, we think of ancient people hundreds of years before that, but they were once intruders too, and they caused a unique population of Icelandic walrus to disappear 1,100 years ago as they expanded. 

The final results of of the latest annual Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program found that samples are again below the tolerance levels set by the EPA. The FDA evaluates foods annually for pesticide residues. Final results from the surveys are released after they have undergone a thorough quality assurance review.But organic pesticides are not separated out. However, there is no reason to believe organic farmers are under any less cost pressure than regular farmers. Both have to maximize yields while minimizing costs and for farmers that often means real-time data on soil conditions and problems in order to use as few costly chemicals as possible. 

At the Ubicomp 2019 conference,University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate students Ali Kiaghadi and S. Zohreh Homayounfar debuted health-monitoring sleepwear they call "phyjamas."The electronically active garments contain unobtrusive, portable devices for monitoring heart rate and respiratory rhythm during sleep.The inventors designed a new fabric-based pressure sensor and combined that with a triboelectric sensor - one activated by a change in physical contact - to develop a distributed sensor suite that could be integrated into loose-fitting clothing like pajamas. They also developed data analytics to fuse signals from many points that took into account the quality of the signal coming in from each location.