Health News

The More People Rely On Their Intuitions, The More Cooperative They Become, Putting "We" Ahead Of "Me"

Date: Sep-21-2012
It's an age old question: Why do we do good? What makes people sometimes willing to put "We" ahead of "Me?" Perhaps our first impulse is to be selfish, and cooperation is all about reining in greed. Or maybe cooperation happens spontaneously, and too much thinking gets in the way. Harvard scientists are getting closer to an answer, showing that people's first response is to cooperate and that stopping to think encourages selfishness...

Each Time You Recall An Event, Your Brain Distorts It, Like The Telephone Game

Date: Sep-21-2012
Remember the telephone game where people take turns whispering a message into the ear of the next person in line? By the time the last person speaks it out loud, the message has radically changed. It's been altered with each retelling. Turns out your memory is a lot like the telephone game, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. Every time you remember an event from the past, your brain networks change in ways that can alter the later recall of the event. Thus, the next time you remember it, you might recall not the original event but what you remembered the previous time...

Olfaction Satisfaction Likely Due To Odorant Shape And Vibration

Date: Sep-21-2012
A new study of the sense of smell lends support to a controversial theory of olfaction: Our noses can distinguish both the shape and the vibrational characteristics of odorant molecules. The study, in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, demonstrates the feasibility of the theory - first proposed decades ago - that the vibration of an odorant molecule's chemical bonds - the wagging, stretching and rocking of the links between atoms - contributes to our ability to distinguish one smelly thing from another...

'Video' Game Enables Blind People To Develop Accurate Mental Map

Date: Sep-21-2012
Researchers have developed a new "video" game for blind people that can help them learn about a new space using only audio cues, as reported in the open access journal PLOS ONE. The system, developed by a team led by Lotfi Merabet of Harvard Medical School and Jaime Sánchez of the University of Chile, is called the Audiobased Environment Simulator and uses only audio-based cues to allow blind users to learn about the layout of a previously unfamiliar building...

Possible Evidence Of Early Human Dentistry In Ancient Tooth

Date: Sep-21-2012
Researchers may have uncovered new evidence of ancient dentistry in the form of a 6,500-year-old human jaw bone with a tooth showing traces of beeswax filling, as reported in the open access journal PLOS ONE. The researchers, led by Federico Bernardini and Claudio Tuniz of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Italy in cooperation with Sincrotrone Trieste and other institutions, write that the beeswax was applied around the time of the individual's death, but cannot confirm whether it was shortly before or after...

How Cancer Is Portrayed In The Movies Needs To Change - It Isn't Always A Death Sentence

Date: Sep-21-2012
Films that feature characters with cancer have become a familiar sight for movie-goers in recent years, but they rarely portray the patient's chances of survival accurately, Italian reserachers will report at the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna, Austria...

Association Between Sudden Cardiac Death And A Thin Placenta At Birth

Date: Sep-21-2012
Researchers studying the origins of sudden cardiac death have found that in both men and women a thin placenta at birth was associated with sudden cardiac death. A thin placenta may result in a reduced flow of nutrients from the mother to the foetus. The authors suggest that sudden cardiac death may be initiated by impaired development of the autonomic nervous system in the womb, as a result of foetal malnutrition. The new study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, also found that sudden death was associated independently with poor educational attainment...

Disclosure May Hurt The Translation Of Research

Date: Sep-21-2012
All major clinical trials now include disclosures detailing who funded the study to ensure transparency. However, is it possible that this transparency is actually hurting research? One might assume that the methodological rigor of the study matters to physicians more than the disclosure. However, in a new study, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have found that pharmaceutical industry sponsorship of a research study negatively influences physicians' perceptions of the study and their willingness to believe and act on the research findings...

Study Of Spinal Injury Data May Help Surgeons Treat Injured Soldiers And Civilians

Date: Sep-21-2012
Spinal injuries are among the most disabling conditions affecting wounded members of the U.S. military. Yet until recently, the nature of those injuries had not been adequately explored. In a new study recently published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), a team of orthopaedic surgeons reviewed more than eight years of data on back, spinal column, and spinal cord injuries sustained by American military personnel while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan...

Study Sheds New Light On The Nature Of Dyslexia

Date: Sep-21-2012
Because dyslexia affects so many people around the world, countless studies have attempted to pinpoint the source of the learning disorder. Even though dyslexia is defined as a reading disorder, it also affects how a person perceives spoken language. It is widely known that individuals with dyslexia exhibit subtle difficulties in speech perception. In fact, these problems are even seen among infants from dyslexic families, well before reading is acquired. A new study by Northeastern University professor Iris Berent has uncovered a vital clue to the origin of this disorder...