Health News

When it comes to vision, the brain can perform more than one function without sacrificing time or accuracy

Date: Jan-17-2014
Many studies suggest that pushing your brain to multitask - writing emails, for instance, while watching the day's latest news and eating breakfast - leads to poorer performance and lower productivity. But for at least one everyday task - visual sampling (the act of picking up bits of visual information through short glances) - multitasking is not a problem for the brain. A collaboration between researchers at the UC Santa Barbara and the University of Bristol in the UK has shown that during visual sampling, the brain can handle various visual functions simultaneously.

Guidance on drug holidays from popular osteoporosis treatments

Date: Jan-17-2014
Doctors commonly recommend drug holidays, or breaks, from certain osteoporosis drugs due to the risks associated with these treatments. Yet little has been known about the ideal duration of the holidays and how best to manage patients during this time.This popular class of medications, known as bisphosphonates, has been shown to cause fractures in the thigh bones and tissue decay in the jaw bone.

High risk of poor Pap tests for female-to-male transgender patients

Date: Jan-17-2014
Before the introduction of cervical cancer screenings, the disease used to be the leading cause of cancer death for women in the US. Though it is now the 14th cause of death, new research suggests that compared with female patients, female-to-male transgender patients are much more likely to have inadequate cell samples taken during screening.The research team, led by Dr. Jennifer Potter, director of women's health at Fenway Health in Boston, MA, published their findings in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Copycats pave the way to problem-solving success

Date: Jan-17-2014
It is often better to be surrounded by copycats than innovators, according to a new Indiana University study.By creating a virtual problem landscape, IU cognitive scientists explored the dynamics, advantages and disadvantages of "social learning" -- the act of learning about the world by observing or imitating others. Social learning pervades the way human beings learn about many phenomena -- restaurants, schools and political candidates, for example. Social learning also helps many other species choose mates, forage for food and avoid predators.

Metabolomics study examines factors that may lead to diabetic kidney failure

Date: Jan-17-2014
About 33 percent of people with type 2 diabetes suffer kidney damage that progresses to end stage renal disease (ESRD), at which point they require either dialysis or kidney transplantation. Scientists have thought that this kidney disease is driven by damage to the glomeruli, blood vessels in the kidney, which spill the protein albumin into the urine. Current treatments targeting the resulting "albuminuria" do not prevent kidney failure.

New method developed for tracking viruses

Date: Jan-17-2014
Researchers at the Nanoscience Center (NSC) of University of Jyvaskyla in Finland have developed a novel method to study enterovirus structures and their functions. The method will help to obtain new information on trafficking of viruses in cells and tissues as well as on the mechanisms of virus opening inside cells. This new information is important for example for developing new antiviral drugs and vaccines. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Patients with untreatable tuberculosis 'are spreading infection'

Date: Jan-17-2014
A new study published in The Lancet has found that patients in South Africa with untreatable tuberculosis are being discharged into the community, which, according to researchers, is contributing to the spread of the disease.Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacteria can easily spread from person to person through airborne particles.The disease primarily affects the lungs, but it can also affect other organs.

Studying moral dilemmas in virtual reality

Date: Jan-17-2014
The brakes of your car fail suddenly and on your path are five people who will certainly be hit and killed. You can steer, but if you do another pedestrian will find himself on your course. Just one. What do you do: do you take action and kill one person or do you do nothing and cause five people to die? This is an example of a "moral dilemma", the type of problem cognitive psychologists use for studying the cerebral foundations of moral behaviour.

Preventing cell death from infection: Scripps Research Institute scientists demonstrate powerful method to find new therapies

Date: Jan-17-2014
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have demonstrated the power of a new drug discovery technique, which allows them to find - relatively quickly and cheaply - antibodies that have a desired effect on cells. The TSRI scientists used the technique to discover two antibodies that protect human cells from a cold virus.The finding includes the useful insight that the cold virus can be stopped by targeting a key viral enzyme in just the right way.

Could a memory-rewriting drug help treat PTSD?

Date: Jan-17-2014
A study conducted by neuroscientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has looked at a new kind of drug that may be beneficial for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.Nearly 8 million Americans are currently suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder that some people who have been through distressing events suffer from. Examples of the kind of traumatic events people with PTSD might have experienced include military combat, sexual assault, natural disasters (such as earthquakes or floods) or serious road accidents.