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Quiz on Antibiotics

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Think you know your medicines too well? Test your antibiotic knowledge with this quiz. Get whizzing...

Government-protected Research Site to Beat GM Crop Controversy

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GM crops have been facing great controversies since the scientific and ecological impacts of these crops are not yet fully known. A Swiss government-protected field site dedicated for use in GM crop studies could serve as an example to other European countries interested in pursuing crop biotechnology, according to an article published in iTrends in Biotechnology/i, a Cell Press publication, on February 28. The protected field site will now enable research ...

Urban Youth Involved in Sexting

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Around 30 percent of youth today may be involved in sexting, study. In fact, sexting is relatively common among ethnic minority youth, according to Melissa Fleschler Peskin, PhD and coauthors, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health. They calculated the prevalence of sexting based on data collected from more than 1,000 tenth graders from a large urban school district. They reported that 20 percent of students ...

Link Between Smoking and Tooth Loss

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Postmenopausal women who smoke are at an increased risk of losing their teeth, says recent study. The study involved 1,106 women who participated in the Buffalo OsteoPerio Study, an offshoot of the Women's Health Initiative, (WHI), the largest clinical trial and observational study ever undertaken in the U.S., involving more than 162,000 women across the nation, including nearly 4,000 in Buffalo. Smoking has long been associated with tooth loss, but postmenopausal ...

Gut Microbes Help Regulate Blood Pressure, Say Researchers

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Bacteria present in the gut help maintain a stable blood pressure, states new study. Using mice models, researchers at The Johns Hopkins University and Yale University have discovered that a specialized receptor, normally found in the nose, is also in blood vessels throughout the body, sensing small molecules created by microbes that line mammalian intestines, and responding to these molecules by increasing blood pressure. "The contribution that ...

Japan Unaffected by WHO's Cancer Warning

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WHO's cancer warning for people in Fukushima were overblown by Japan, claiming that the agency was creating unnecessary fears. The UN's health agency said the 2011 nuclear disaster had raised the cancer threat for people living near the crippled plant, which spewed radiation when reactors went into meltdown after a huge tsunami struck. But Japan's environment ministry said the WHO had overstated the risks and called on people living in the area to respond ...

Head Lice Genes may Offer Clues Regarding Human Migration

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Genes of head lice may lend information of human migration, says study. The analysis also suggests that efforts to eradicate the blood-sucking parasites may need to focus on local populations, rather than trying to tackle the creatures globally, CBS News reported. The findings could help scientists understand how lice evolve resistance to insecticides. Lice have fed off primates for more than 25 million years, although they may have first ...

Human Speech and Bird Song - The Dopamine Link

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Many species of birds share with humans a capacity for vocal learning, according to a review published in the journal Brain (and) Language. There is a remarkable genetic and neural parallel between birdsong and human voice production, and the study suggested that this may have important consequences for understanding the evolution of auditory-vocal learning and its neural mechanisms. Production of learned vocal expressions is confined ...

New System Allows Patient to Connect With Doctors Online

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Internet, as we all know is a powerful tool and is one of the most hyped fastest growing technology ever. The possibilities of things you can do online are endless. You could shop online, pay bills, look for jobs, download songs, publish a novel, write a business plan and do much, much more. It is one of the most powerful communication tool and many companies now use their website as a main marketing tool. Now, how about an innovative service that integrates technology ...

Give Needles, Condoms to Inmates to Curb HIV

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Statistics show that 15 to 25 percent of Europe's inmates were convicted of drug-related offences and one prisoner in six is a drug user. Giving inmates drug substitution treatment, needles and condoms are key ways to help curb addiction and HIV infection in European jails, experts say, calling on authorities to change their approach to prison health care. "We support opioid substitution treatment and harm reduction measures, including needle exchange ...

Researchers Find a Way to Help the Visually Impaired

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To help the visually impaired in everyday tasks such as navigation, route-planning and object finding, images have been transformed into pixels and projected onto a headset. Developed using a video camera and mathematical algorithm, the researchers from the University of Southern California hope the pixels can provide more information and enhance the vision of patients already fitted with retinal implants. Lead author of the paper, James Weiland, said: ...

What You Eat Could Affect Your Sleep

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The mechanism of sleep has been well researched. Many studies have been published on tryptophan, the normal sleep inducer for an individual. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid, which means that it cannot be produced by the body and has to be obtained from the diet. And why tryptophan is important for sleep is because the body uses this amino acid to make serotonin that is so necessary for healthy sleep and stable mood. Here's how it works. Eating carbohydrate-rich ...

Physical Activity Does Not Protect Against Non-invasive Breast Cancer

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A European study published in the 'iCancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers (and) Prevention/i' journal has analysed the association between in situ or non-invasive breast cancer and physical activities. In other words, cancer that has not yet invaded cells within or outside of the breast. Headed by researchers from ten European countries including Spain, the work carried out under the framework of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition ...

Japan Cosmetics Giant Shiseido Drops Animal Testing

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As the European Union gets set to finalise a sweeping ban on the sale of such products later this month, Japan's Shiseido said it was mostly dropping animal-tested cosmetics. But the company said exceptions to the policy meant it would still allow animal testing when that was the only way of proving the safety of products already being sold in the market, and in some countries where animal testing is legally required. The policy, which starts from April, ...

Uncovering How Deadly Bacteria Trick the Immune System

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In the skid row area of downtown Los Angeles, an outbreak of tuberculosis may have exposed up to 4,500 individuals to the bacterium that causes the deadly disease. The outbreak has left federal officials scrambling to intervene. The outbreak is occurring during winter, when homeless individuals are driven to crowded shelters, when influenza is peaking and when people's vitamin D levels, typically boosted by sunlight exposure, are low. A new UCLA study offers critical ...

Network Analysis of Brain may Explain Features of Autism Spectrum Disorders

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By looking at how the brain processes information, researchers finds a distinct pattern in children with autism spectrum disorders. Using EEGs to track the brain's electrical cross-talk, researchers from Boston Children's Hospital have found a structural difference in brain connections. Compared with neurotypical children, those with autism have multiple redundant connections between neighboring brain areas at the expense of long-distance links. The ...

VIVO Healthcare Launches a Book to Help People Facing Medical Emergencies

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A new book launched by VIVO healthcare would help people facing medical exigencies to get emergency response. Launched by VIVO healthcare, the book will be a complete emergency response book with tips on how to tackle sudden medical conditions. While medical emergencies are fairly possible in day-to-day life, there are hardly any people who have the scientific knowledge on how to respond to such medical emergencies immediately before a doctor can be ...

New Cocktail may Help Improve Diagnosis and Treatment

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A cocktail of a drop of blood, water, a dose of DNA powder and gold particles could help better diagnose your condition and aid treatment. The cocktail diagnostic is a homegrown brew being developed by University of Toronto's Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) PhD student Kyryl Zagorovsky and Professor Warren Chan that could change the way infectious diseases, from HPV and HIV to malaria, are diagnosed. And it involves the ...

Your Smartphone App may Save Your Life

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Healthcare applications for smartphones and tablets could prove to be lifesavers in Africa and Asia. Mobile phones could save up to a million lives over the next five years in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a report by mobile industry association GSMA and global consultants PwC released at the February 25-28 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Africa's population of one billion is among the world's least "connected" yet more than a third already own ...

Clogged Arteries Could Spike Up Your Chances of Having a Stroke

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Clogged arteries can increase your risk of a stroke, according to the American Heart Association journal. "This study demonstrates that stroke risk is tightly aligned with coronary atherosclerosis, showing the closely related nature of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease," said Dirk M. Hermann, M.D., the study's lead investigator and professor of vascular neurology and dementia at the University Hospital Essen in Germany. "This raises the need ...

Test of Your Breath Could Tell That You are Stressed or Not

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Scientists say that what you breathe out could also be used to understand whether or not you are under stress. Deep breathing is recommended for stress busting. Paul Thomas, professor at Imperial College London, who led the study, said: "If we can measure stress objectively in a non-invasive way, then it may benefit patients and vulnerable people in long-term care who find it difficult to disclose stress responses to their carers, such as those suffering from Alzheimer's." ...

Promising Breakthrough for Kidney Transplant Patients

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At the University of Montreal Hospital* Research Centre (CRCHUM), a team led by Dr. Marie-Josee Hebert has discovered a new cause of organ rejection in some kidney transplant patients. Her team has identified a new class of antibodies - anti-LG3 - which when activated lead to severe rejection episodes associated with a high rate of organ loss. This discovery, which holds promise for organ recipients, was published in the online version of the iAmerican Journal ...

Yoga - The New Workout for Men

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More men are enrolling themselves for yoga classes, ditching their girlfriend's flowery yoga mats. Thankfully for them, some savvy retailers have heard the complaint and are starting to step up their offerings for male yogis. YogaJack Inc., a fledgling company based in San Francisco and Boston, last week announced its introductory line of yoga gear just for guys, the New York Daily News reported. Among the offerings are longer, thicker yoga ...

Scientists Explore Link Between Pre-natal Infection and Schizophrenia

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Infection in a pregnant mother and stress during puberty play an important role in the development of schizophrenia, states study. The interplay between an infection during pregnancy and stress in puberty plays a key role in the development of schizophrenia, behaviourists from ETH Zurich demonstrated in a mouse model. Around one percent of the population suffers from schizophrenia, a serious mental disorder that usually does not develop until ...

Double-jointed Adolescents at Risk for Musculoskeletal Pain

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A prospective study by U.K. researchers found that adolescents who are double-jointed-medically termed joint hypermobility-are at greater risk for developing musculoskeletal pain. They develop the pain as they get older, particularly in the shoulders, knees, ankles and feet. Findings published in iArthritis (and) Rheumatism/i, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), indicate that children with joint hypermobility are approximately twice as likely ...

Mental Health-substance Use Services in Hospitals Up After Parity Law

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In hospitals, the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 ("Parity Act") increased access to mental health and substance use services. Yet consumers continued to pay more out-of-pocket for substance use admissions than for other types of hospital admissions, finds a new Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) report. The report is one of the first of its kind to look at hospital spending, utilization, prices, ...

New Device to Eliminate Food Wastage

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New device developed by researchers tests whether the food is safe for consumption, this could greatly reduce food waste worldwide, say researchers. Millions of tons of food are thrown away each year because the 'best before' date has passed. But the listed date is always a cautious estimate, which means a lot of edible food is thrown away. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology, Universita di Catania, CEA-Liten and STMicroelectronics ...

Insulin Helps in Learning and Memory: Research

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How the signaling pathway of insulin and insulinlike peptides plays a critical role in helping to regulate learning and memory is being demonstrated by a new research. People think of insulin and diabetes, but many metabolic syndromes are associated with some types of cognitive defects and behavioral disorders, like depression or dementia, said Yun Zhang, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, who led the research. "That suggests ...

Gel Manicures can Damage Your Nails

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Gel manicures can cause nail problems such as nail thinning, peeling and cracking, warn dermatologists. AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY EXPERT: Information provided by Chris Adigun, MD, FAAD, a board-certified dermatologist and assistant professor of dermatology at The Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at New York University School of Medicine in New York, N.Y. HOW GEL MANICURES WORK: Gel nail polish is more durable than other nail ...

Botulinum Toxin for Common Skin Diseases

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Researchers are now looking into the use of botulinum toxin type A in the treatment of inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis and eczema. AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY EXPERT Information provided by Erin Gilbert, MD, PhD, FAAD, a board-certified dermatologist and assistant professor of dermatology at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, N.Y. SEEKING AN ALTERNATIVE TO STEROIDS Dr. Gilbert explained that a quandary in dermatology ...

Recipe Change in New Chocolate Digestive Recipe Not Taken Well

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The favorite tea time biscuit, the chocolate digestive biscuits by McVitie's, has gone down the popularity chart after the recipe was changed by its manufacturer. Majority of the shoppers preferred the original recipe. They miss the crunchiness of the earlier biscuits. Further, new biscuits have more calories than the old ones. A Which? Survey conducted earlier among 1000 people in May 2012, found the popularity of the chocolate digestive still high and ...

Cambodia: Action to Stop Deadly Bird Flu

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Hun Sen - Prime Minister of Cambodia has ordered urgent action to stop the increasing number of bird flu deaths in Cambodia. "Although there have been preventive measures taken by specialist institutions, the spread and the rate of human deaths from bird flu is at a worrying level," the order said. The latest fatality was a 35-year-old man who died this week after eating infected duck. Friday's directive ordered a mass disinfection of ...