Homeopathy 'eases cancer therapy'
By (BBC)
00:45 GMT, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 01:45 UK
Some homeopathic medicines may ease the side-effects of cancer treatments without interfering in how they work, a scientific review has concluded.
The Cochrane Collaboration said, while there were few studies, it did appear that some effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy could be alleviated.
It highlighted in particular calendula to prevent dermatitis, and what is known as Traummel S for mouth sores.
But it said further work was needed to confirm these findings. |
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Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do at Home, But Probably Shouldn't (Book)
By Xeni Jardin
April 14, 2009 10:20 AM
The short version: This is an awesome book.
I've been a fan of Theodore Gray's work in odd science for some time now -- his amazing Periodic Table of Elements posters and puzzles are the subject of previous Boing Boing blog posts, and he contributes a monthly column about "chemistry, elements, and blowing things up" for Popular Science. . .
This thing is like an anarchist cookbook for happy mutants -- page after page of recipes, hazard warnings, beautiful photographs, and quirky personal observations. Want to know how to turn ore into homemade titanium in a flowerpot? Copper-plate your iPod? Craft a "hillbilly hot tub"? Brew ethanol in your bathtub? All here. |
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Rare dolphin spits to catch its prey, scientists find
By Toni O'Loughlin
Tuesday 14 April 2009 15.16 BST
A rare species of Australian dolphin has been found to catch its fish prey by spitting water, according to research by WWF. The small snubfin dolphins hunt in groups and use their spitting technique to round up fish they have chased to the surface by firing jets of water from their mouths.
The unusual behaviour has only been observed in one other dolphin species, the Irrawaddy dolphin, which lives throughout south and south-east Asia. |
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Home births 'as safe as hospital'
By (BBC)
01:13 GMT, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 02:13 UK
he largest study yet on the safety of home births suggests that, in most cases, the risk to babies is no higher than if they are born in a hospital.
Research from the Netherlands - which has a high rate of home births - found no difference in death rates of either mothers or babies in 530,000 births.
However, only women who were deemed to be at low risk of complications were included in the Dutch study. |
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Ancient medicines were alcoholic
By Victoria Gill
17:22 GMT, Tuesday, 14 April 2009 18:22 UK
A team of researchers in the US has discovered traces of a medicinal alcoholic drink in bottles that are more than 5,000 years old.
The scientists extracted wine compounds and plant-derived ingredients from a jar taken from the tomb of one of the first pharaohs of Egypt, Scorpion I.
This is the earliest sample of a human-made medicine. |
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Born To Be Caught: Largemouth Bass Vulnerability To Being Caught By Anglers Is A Heritable Trait
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
In an experiment spanning over 20 years, researchers at the University of Illinois have found that vulnerability to being caught by anglers is a heritable trait in largemouth bass. |
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'Pleasant Touch' Decoded: Signals From Stroking Skin Have Direct Route To Brain
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
Nerve signals that tell the brain that we are being slowly stroked on the skin have their own specialised nerve fibres in the skin. This is shown by a new study from the Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden. The discovery may explain why touching the skin can relieve pain.
The specialised nerve fibres in the skin are called CT nerves (C-tactile) and they travel directly to the areas in the brain that are important in the emergence of feelings. |
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Vaccine Developed For E. Coli Diarrheal Diseases That Kill Millions Of Children
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
A Michigan State University researcher has developed a working vaccine for a strain of E. coli that kills 2 million to 3 million children each year in the developing world.
. . .
ETEC affects millions of adults and children across the globe, mainly in southern hemisphere countries throughout Africa and South America. It also poses a risk to U.S. troops serving in southern Asia and the Middle East.
Saeed’s breakthrough was discovering a way to overcome the miniscule molecular size of one of the illness-inducing toxins produced by the E. coli bug. Since the toxin was so small, it did not prompt the body’s defense system to develop immunity, allowing the same individual to repeatedly get sick, often with more severe health implications. |
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Brain's Cognitive System Processes Vowels And Consonants At Different Speeds
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
Through a study carried out at the Universities of La Laguna and Valencia, it has been verified that the brain distinguishes between vowels and consonants differently. Neuronal mechanisms change when they are processed and, when it comes to lexical access; both have a different status in our mind, thus contributing differently to this basic process of visual word recognition. |
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Test Quickly Assesses Whether Alzheimer's Drugs Are Hitting Their Target
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
A test developed by physician-scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may help assess more quickly the ability of Alzheimer's drugs to affect one of the possible underlying causes of Alzheimer's disease in humans, accelerating the development of new treatments.
Scientists used the test to show that an Alzheimer's drug given to healthy volunteers reduced production of a substance known as amyloid beta (A-beta), a normal byproduct of human metabolism that builds to unhealthy levels forming brain plaques in Alzheimer's patients. |
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Alzheimer Cell Death In Zebrafish: Demise Of Neurons Observed Live For The First Time
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
Alzheimer’s disease has reached epidemic proportions in western society. Researchers at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) Meunchen have now developed the first animal model that directly traces the demise of neurons in the brain, and thereby allows better testing of the action of potential drugs.
Extensive death of nerve cells leads to severe dementia in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Until now, it has only been possible to investigate the neuronal devastation in post mortem animal models, and by using complicated methods. Researchers at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease at LMU Munich, headed by Professor Christian Haass, have now successfully observed this demise of nerve cells by life imaging. |
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Depression After Heart Disease Ups Risk Of Heart Failure
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
Patients with heart disease who are subsequently diagnosed with depression are at greater risk for heart failure (HF), a condition in which the heart can't pump enough blood throughout the body, according to a new study published in the April 21, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
This study—the first to investigate the influence of depression after heart disease on the likelihood of developing HF—also found that taking antidepressant medications to ease depressive symptoms did not appear to mitigate this risk. |
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Snacking On High GI Foods During Late Pregnancy May Lead To The Birth Of A Heavier Baby With An Increased Risk Of Childhood Obesity
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
Mothers who snack on high GI (Glycaemic Index) foods like chocolate and white bread during later pregnancy may give birth to heavier babies with a greater risk of childhood obesity, according to new research published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
The research by scientists from the UCD Conway Institute at University College Dublin, Ireland, and the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) in Dublin, Ireland, into sheep models of pregnancy discovered that high GI snack diets among ewes during the third trimester of pregnancy resulted in a heavier birth weight and postnatal growth rate of newborn lambs. |
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Low Glycemic Breakfast May Increase Benefits Of Working Out
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
The benefits of physical activity and a balanced diet are well documented and form the basis of many public health recommendations. This is because each of these factors can independently influence risks for many chronic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer. |
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Family Ties Provide Protection Against Young Adult Suicidal Behavior
By (ScienceDaily)
Apr. 15, 2009
Adolescents and young adults typically consider peer relationships to be all important. However, it appears that strong family support, not peer support, is protective in reducing future suicidal behavior among young adults when they have experienced depression or have attempted suicide.
New research that will be presented here April 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Suicidology shows that high school depression and a previous suicide attempt were significant predictors of thinking about suicide one or two years later. But, those individuals who had high levels of depression or had attempted suicide in high school were less likely to engage in suicidal thinking if they had strong family support and bonds. In addition, having a current romantic partner also reduced suicidal thoughts. |
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Neuroscience of Envy and Schadenfreude
By Jake Young
April 14, 2009 5:00 PM
I don't think I am alone in saying that I often feel a little envy and schadenfreude towards my peers. Science is a particularly competitive business with few remunerative rewards, so a lot of my self-worth is tied to comparisons with my peer's successes and failures. I won't deny being envious when someone gets a Science paper. And while seeing the abject failure of my peers isn't high on my list of priorities, I won't deny the small satisfaction that I get when someone who breezed through their PhD gets taken down a peg.
These aren't happy-joy-joy emotions. They don't make me swell with pride for the future of humanity. They aren't pleasant, but they are nonetheless humane in that -- except for saints -- they are general to the human species. |
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The waterfall illusion can be transferred between vision and touch
By Mo
April 14, 2009 5:30 AM
If you look at a waterfall for about 30 seconds, and then shift your gaze to a nearby stationary object, such as a rock or a tree, that object will seem to drift slowly upwards. This well known optical illusion demonstrates a phenomenon called the motion after-effect, which is thought to occur as a result of adaptation - the brain compensates for movement in one direction, causing us to momentarily perceive a stationary objects to be moving in the other.
Although illusory motion can also be induced in the sense of touch, the brain is thought to process visual and tactile motion separately. But now researchers from MIT have found that not only can moving visual stimuli induce a tactile motion after-effect, but also that moving tactile stimuli can induce a visual motion after-effect. The findings, which are published in Current Biology, show that the senses of vision and touch are closely linked, and that each can influence the other. |
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Fruit and veg allergies soaring
By Sue Emmett
00:29 GMT, Wednesday, 15 April 2009 01:29 UK
Cases of oral allergies to fruit and vegetables are rapidly increasing, according to a British specialist.
Dr Pamela Ewan, an allergy consultant at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, said the rise in cases appears to be outstripping even peanut allergies.
Dr Ewan, who sees more than 8,000 people with allergies a year, said most patients with reactions to fruit and vegetables were youngsters.
Symptoms include swelling in the mouth and throat, and breathing difficulties. |
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Immune Overhaul for Diabetes
By Courtney Humphries
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Patients who underwent a procedure to wipe out the immune system and reconstitute it with their own stem cells remained insulin injection-free for up to three to four years after the procedure, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The research provides further evidence that a stem-cell transplant can reverse type 1 diabetes in some patients. Although a stem-cell transplant is a drastic procedure with a risk of serious side effects, this represents the most successful treatment to reverse the disease in humans without the need for ongoing medication. |
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Nasa to name new International Space Station node on comedy show tonight
By Ian Sample
Tuesday 14 April 2009 10.58 BST
They said it had all gone wrong for Nasa when nearly a quarter of a million people voted to name the Space Station's new node "Colbert", following an appeal to viewers on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report.
But has it? Nasa officials received more than a million votes in total, and the contest to name the module has surely raised awareness of the orbiting outpost. |
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US bed bug outbreak difficult to cure, health and pest control experts warn
By Suzanne Goldenberg
Tuesday 14 April 2009 22.37 BST
America is facing a bed bug outbreak of explosive proportions - and the resistance of the blood suckers to commonly used pesticides means there is no magical cure, public health and pest control experts warned today.
Bed bug outbreaks in the US have tripled since 2005, a conference put on by the Environmental Protection Agency was told.
"It's become a trajectory. We are at the point similar to the Aids virus where everyone knows someone who has had bed bugs or have had it themselves," said Dini Miller, the urban pest management specialist for the state of Virginia.
"Right now we are kind of at a loss at what the best answer is," she said. "We didn't realise how tough they would be." |
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Where does your food come from? New labels tell you
By Carol Reiter
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
There are new labels showing up on some food items in grocery stores -- and they're pretty cool.
Literally.
Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) laws took effect in March, and the new labels will help consumers discover exactly where their food is coming from. |
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