Health News

Autism symptoms not explained by impaired attention

Date: Aug-04-2013
Autism is marked by several core features - impairments in social functioning, difficulty communicating, and a restriction of interests. Though researchers have attempted to pinpoint factors that might account for all three of these characteristics, the underlying causes are still unclear. Now, a new study suggests that two key attentional abilities - moving attention fluidly and orienting to social information - can be checked off the list, as neither seems to account for the diversity of symptoms we find in people with autism...

Exercise is good for you, but it won't cut hot flashes

Date: Aug-04-2013
Exercise has proven health benefits, but easing hot flashes isn't one of them. After participating in a 12-week aerobic exercise program, sedentary women with frequent hot flashes had no fewer or less bothersome hot flashes than a control group. This randomized, controlled study from the MsFLASH Research Network was published in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society...

Revealing the gene network for producing the toxin in green potatoes may help improve crops

Date: Aug-04-2013
In 1924, Science magazine reported on a fatal case of potato poisoning: James B. Matheney of Vandalia, Illinois, had gathered about one and a half bushels of tubers, which had turned green due to sunlight exposure. Two days after eating the potatoes, most of his family - wife, two daughters and four sons - showed symptoms of poisoning; the only exceptions were James himself, who didn't eat the potatoes, and a breast-fed baby boy. His wife, aged 45, died a week later, followed by their 16-year-old daughter. The other five members of the family recovered...

Our eyes originated half a billion years ago

Date: Aug-04-2013
Eyes are amazing and technical organs, precious to each individual. But how did the human eye develop? According to a review of the evidence, it stems back to fish more than 500 million years ago. Professor Trevor Lamb of The Vision Centre and Australian National University conducted a major scientific review of the origin of the eye, in which he analyzes findings of hundreds of scientists worldwide. From this review, published in the journal Progress in Retinal and Eye Research, the most significant finding is how the eye has evolved to become the organs we have today...

Camping could help reset your internal body clock

Date: Aug-03-2013
Camping in the wilderness can do more than just give us an appreciation for nature. According to a study published in Current Biology, it can also synchronize our internal clocks to the solar day, allowing us to normalize melatonin levels. The study comes from researchers at Colorado University-Boulder, in a state renowned for scenic camping sites. Taking advantage of their locale, the team from the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory monitored eight participants (six men, two women aged an average of 30 years) for a week as they went about their normal activities...

Keeping a proper distance between "vehicles" along a gene "track" results in more efficient production of small RNA molecules

Date: Aug-03-2013
One of life's most basic processes - transcription of the genetic code - resembles road traffic, including traffic jams, accidents and a police force that controls the flow of vehicles. This surprising finding, reported recently by Weizmann Institute researchers in Nature Communications, might facilitate the development of a new generation of drugs for a variety of disorders...

Promising compound could offer new treatment for heart failure

Date: Aug-03-2013
Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. It's a very common condition, affecting about six million people in the United States, but current therapies are not adequately effective at improving health and preventing deaths. A study published by Cell Press August 1st in the journal Cell reveals the key role of a family of molecules known as bromodomain and extraterminal domain (BET) proteins in activating genes that contribute to heart failure...

Southerners are less trusting, but people who trust are more likely to cooperate to save the environment, baylor study shows

Date: Aug-03-2013
Southerners are generally not as trusting as people who live in other parts of the country, but trusting people are more likely to cooperate in recycling, buying green products and conserving water, a new Baylor University study on environmental protection shows. "A lot of researchers have reported trust as kind of a cure-all for protecting the environment through cooperation. Southerners are just as willing, but less trusting," said lead author Kyle Irwin, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences...

One size doesn't fit all: Ethnic birth weight chart better for infant care

Date: Aug-03-2013
One size chart doesn't fit all when it comes to evaluating birth weight and health outcomes of newborns. A new study, recently published online by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, shows ethnicity-specific birth weight charts are better at identifying newborns who are small for gestational age (SGA), a classification associated with hypothermia, hypoglycemia, infection and admission to the neonatal intensive care unit...

Invasive bladder cancer: new finding raises treatment hope

Date: Aug-03-2013
Researchers from Plymouth University in the UK have discovered a trigger that spurs bladder cancer to become invasive and spread to other parts of the body. Invasive bladder cancer is much more difficult to treat, and the discovery raises hope of new treatments that target this trigger. A scientific paper on the findings has just been published in American Journal of Physiology - Renal Physiology. National Cancer Institute statistics on estimated new cases and deaths from bladder cancer predict that over 70,000 people in the US will receive a diagnosis this year...