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Dark Green Leafy Veggies

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All green foods contain an abundance of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll can actually help restore health and vitality.

Healthy Lifestyle may Help Stave Off Dementia

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Good diet and exercise may not only protect against heart disease and stroke, but also helps keep Alzheimer's disease at bay, says research. Swedish scientists have found that the risk of dementia has declined over the past 20 years, in contrast to what had been assumed. And they put it down to lower rates of heart disease, which results from people living more healthily and keeping fit and active. A balanced diet, being careful about ...

Fossils That Uncover Origins of Antarctic Ecosystem Identified

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Organic fossil remains that uncover origins of Antarctic ecosystems has been identified by scientists. The study, published this month in the journal Science, used the organic fossil remains of a type of single-celled marine plankton called dinoflagellates to identify when Antarctic plankton communities shifted to the present day makeup. Before the ice sheets formed, Antarctica was sub-tropical and ice-free, and the seas were inhabited by a diverse ...

Report Says Social Networks Act as Political Rallying Sites

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In the United States, online social networks have become political hotspots, finds report. Approximately 39 percent of US adults engaged in political activity in Internet communities during the 2012 US presidential campaign, according to a Pew report titled Civic Engagement in the Digital Age released late Wednesday. By comparison, only 26 percent of people in the United States used online social networks in any form or fashion during the prior ...

First Vaccine to Help Control Autism Symptoms Developed

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Scientists for the first time have developed a vaccine for gut bacteria common in autistic children that may help control some autism symptoms. Brittany Pequegnat and Guelph chemistry professor Mario Monteiro developed a carbohydrate-based vaccine against the gut bug Clostridium bolteae. C. bolteae is known to play a role in gastrointestinal disorders, and it often shows up in higher numbers in the GI tracts of autistic children than in those of healthy ...

Sugary Soft Drinks Increase Diabetes Risk

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Drinking one sugar-sweetened soft drink a day raises the risk of type 2 diabetes by 22 percent, suggests study. The research was conducted by Dr Dora Romaguera, Dr Petra Wark and Dr Teresa Norat, Imperial College London, UK, and colleagues and comes from data in the InterAct consortium. The researchers used data on consumption of juices and nectars, sugar-sweetened soft drinks and artificially sweetened soft drinks collected across eight European ...

Arsenic Poisoning /Arsenicosis

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Arsenic poisoning occurs when a person''s body contains greater than normal levels of arsenic, a semi-metallic element.

Physicians Less Likely to 'Bond' With Overweight Patients, Says Study

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Physicians build less of an emotional rapport with their overweight and obese patients than with their patients of normal weight, states research. Bonding and empathy are essential to the patient-physician relationship. When physicians express more empathy, studies have shown that patients are more likely to adhere to medical recommendations and respond to behavior-change counseling - all vital elements in helping overweight and obese patients lose weight ...

Mushrooms as Effective as Vitamin D Supplements: New Study

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Eating mushrooms containing vitamin D2 can be as effective at increasing and maintaining vitamin D levels in the body as taking vitamin D supplements, according to a study from Boston University School of Medicine. The findings will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology being held in conjunction with the Experimental Biology 2013 meeting in Boston. Vitamin ...

Malaria Remains a Major Threat, Say Experts

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Health experts say that malaria continues to pose a grave threat to millions in the country. An estimated one million fresh cases of the disease - which causes body ache and fever - are reported in India each year. About 95 percent of the country's population resides in malaria endemic areas. According to the World Malaria Report 2011, over 70 percent of the country's 1.2 billion population faces the risk of malaria infection, with an estimated ...

Cancer Drug Helps Reduce Fat

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Sunitinib - a cancer drug provides the key to a new way for people to lose weight, say researchers. When researchers Jian-Wei Gu, Kristina L. Makey, Edmund Chinchar, Carissa Howie, and Lucio Miele, all from the University of Mississippi Medical Center, gave obese mice the cancer drug, known as Sunitinib, these mice lost about 70 percent of their fat mass. More than a decade ago, Judah Folkman of Harvard Medical School, whose primary research focus was ...

Placenta Helps Predict Autism Risk

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An infant's risk of developing autism can be measured by looking for abnormalities in his/her placenta at birth, say researchers. One out of 50 children are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but the diagnosis is usually made when these children are 3 to 4 years of age or older. By then the best opportunities for intervention have been lost because ...

Deep Brain Stimulation Reduces Binge Eating Behavior

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In mice, stimulating a region of the brain involved in reward was found to decrease binge eating behavior, states study published in The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings add to a growing body of evidence supporting the role of the brain's reward system in driving the consumption of palatable food. It could one day pave the way for more effective and lasting treatments for obesity. The numbers of people worldwide living with obesity continues to climb. ...

Link Between Air Pollution and Hardening of the Arteries Identified

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Long term exposure to air pollution speeds up atherosclerosis, or "hardening of the arteries", finds study. Sara Adar, the John Searle Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health, and Joel Kaufman, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and medicine at the University of Washington, led the study that found that higher concentrations of fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) were linked to a faster thickening ...

Facebook Interests Could Help Map Obesity

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Areas with a higher percentage of Facebook users with active lifestyle interests tend to have lower rates of obesity, at the same time higher the percentage of people in a city with Facebook interests suggesting television-related interests tend to have increased rates of obesity, finds survey. Together, the conclusions suggest that knowledge of people's online interests within geographic areas may help public health researchers predict, track and map obesity ...

Food Channels Sparking an Unhealthy Trend

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Food channels with celebrity chefs are a big hit these days and a fallout of this trend is, while they cook up a delicious spread, the viewers' appetite for fatty and unhealthy stuff is whetted. A new study has claimed that such programs have sparked an obesity crisis, as they seem to egg people to eat fatty food. This was revealed during a study which tested close to 900 recipes from 26 famous cooks and found that 87 per cent did not meet the health ...

How to Take the Right Decisions While Betting or Gambling in Sports ?

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A recent study has shown that predicting sport outcomes is better if people are not biased with their earlier knowledge and views on the matter. This is an important advice for those who gamble on sports games and now they can employ a new method of predicting outcomes in a foolproof manner. Researchers from the University College London (UCL) and the University of Montreal said that it is better if people did not use their previous knowledge and memory ...

Role of Mathematics in Cancer Prediction to be Explored

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Mathematics has risen to the occasion again, and this time to the aid of oncologists in cancer prediction, especially while assessing the outcome of patients in a two-year time frame. Mathematical formula can actually help specialists make predictions using computers and this can prove to be a road map to better treatment of cancer patients. During the study, specialists found that forecast of future symptoms experienced by a set of patients undergoing ...

Eclipse Soft Tissue Anchor from MedShape Receives FDA Nod

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Eclipse Soft Tissue Anchor from MedShape (Atlanta, GA) has received FDA approval. It is a device that helps secure tendon, ligament or soft tissue to bone. This device is more evolved as it helps surmount some of the disadvantages of using traditional screws and other devices meant to secure softer tissue to bone. A disposable gun that can be used for both arthroscopic and mini-open procedures is the USP of this device. Eclipse enables more ...

Potential Salmonella Contamination Causes Natura Pet Products to Expand Recall Of Dry Pet Food

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Pet products had issued a recall on some dry dog, cat and ferret foods due to possible salmonella contamination. The list of recalled products has been expanded to include all dry pet food products and treats with expiration dates prior to and including March 24, 2014. Officials of Michigan Department of Agriculture and the Georgia Department of Agriculture had found the presence of salmonella on samples taken from additional dry pet food and cat food ...

Study Identifies Hundreds of Potential Drug Targets to Starve Tumors

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Multiple metabolic expression changes associated with cancer were identified by a massive study analyzing gene expression data from 22 tumor types. The analysis, conducted by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center, also identified hundreds of potential drug targets that could cut off a tumor's fuel supply or interfere with its ability to synthesize essential building blocks. The study was published today in the online edition of iNature Biotechnology/i. The ...

Age Matters to Antarctic Clams: Study

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Age matters when it comes to adapting to the effects of climate change, according to a new study of Antarctic clams. The research provides new insight and understanding of the likely impact of predicted environmental change on future ocean biodiversity. Reporting this week in the journal iGlobal Change Biology/i scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and from Germany's University of Kiel and the Alfred Wegener Institute reveal that when it comes to ...

Debut Made By New Dietary Analysis Tool for Athletes

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Dietary Analysis Tool for Athletes (D.A.T.A.), a new website application for athletes, has been validated as accurately recording dietary intake based on the 24-hour recall method. "This tool offers sports dietitians and health professionals a new, quick alternative to analyze athletes' dietary intake," said Lindsay Baker, PhD, Principal Scientist, Gatorade Sports Science Institute. To confirm the accuracy of the tool, Baker and colleagues compared D.A.T.A. with ...

The Brain's 'Slow Waves' Show A Fascinating Rhythm

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New findings clarify where and how the brain's "slow waves" originate. These rhythmic signal pulses, which sweep through the brain during deep sleep at the rate of about one cycle per second, are assumed to play a role in processes such as consolidation of memory. For the first time, researchers have shown conclusively that slow waves start in the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain responsible for cognitive functions. They also found that such a wave can be ...

Austrian Literature Prize Won By Ireland's John Banville

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The government said that the Irish author John Banville is to be awarded the Austrian state prize for European literature in July while praising the novelist's "unconventional" style. Banville "is an unconventional author who always surprises us with his themes and his complex characters," fitting into the "tradition of great European authors, tackling profound questions about life," Culture Minister Claudia Schmied said. Banville, 67, who in 2005 won ...

European Cheese Firms Attempt To Popularize Cheese Amongst The Chinese

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China has already become Bordeaux's largest export client after a recent wine boom. European cheese producers are now hoping Chinese consumers will indulge in a slice of fromage with their glass of red. Leading cheese makers from Europe gathered in Hong Kong from Thursday for the city's International Cheese Festival, with 120 high-quality products on show and masterclasses from experts, including how to match cheese and wine. While dairy is not a traditional ...

An Enviable Resume of Thirty-three Jobs in 33 Countries

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Jan Lachner has an interesting resume and possibly quite an enviable one too. He might just be one of the top contenders for the variety of jobs handled and to think he is just 25 years old. Lachner is a qualified engineer from Paris. In November 2011, he set out to make his dream of doing 33 jobs in 33 countries come true, so he quit his aeronautical job in Paris and began his journey. On his website, Euro-Jobs Project, he speaks of his main objective, ...

Innovations from IIT-Delhi Includes Nutrient from Urine And Anti-bacterial Clothes

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Some of the innovative solutions offered to the industry by students of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) for the benefit of common people are a process to recover nutrients from human urine and an antibacterial shirt to keep the body fresh in sweltering heat. These are part of around 500 research-based projects showcased at the annual exhibition of the premier institution. Students of the Centre for Rural Development and Technology have ...

In Paraguay-Brazil No-man's-land Drugs Spur Violence

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Paraguay, which elects a new president Sunday, may be small and unassuming. Despite this it is the world number-two marijuana producer and a transit point for cocaine headed to Brazil and Europe, so organized crime casts a long shadow. In this mostly rural, sparsely-populated nation of 6.5 million sandwiched between Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia, small planes wing in from hidden airfields in Bolivia and Colombia to touch down at sprawling ranches in Paraguay's ...

Bird-flu Research Forces China and Taiwan To Cooperate

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Taiwan has received specimens of the H7N9 avian flu virus from China to help research the new strain. An official has described this as a landmark move in health cooperation. The virus samples were taken from China's eastern Anhui province and transported to Taiwan on Saturday, according to the Taiwanese Centers for Disease Control (CDC). "The virus could be used in producing vaccines and diagnosis," Liu Shih-hao of CDC, told AFP. "This will ...

World Bank: Economic Losses Due to Lack of Sanitation Amount to (Dollar) 260 Bln a Year Globally

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The World Bank said that one out of every three people in the world today have no toilet. Economic losses from lack of access to sanitation, amount to an estimated 260 billion dollars annually, more than the entire gross domestic product of Chile. Without proper toilets or sewage systems, many people in developing countries go to the bathroom in rivers or fields, unknowingly spreading germs that cause diarrheal disease - the second leading cause of death in children ...

Fat-forming Cell Helps Repair Muscles After Injury: Researchers

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Muscle repair requires the action of two types of cells better known for causing inflammation and forming fat discovers researchers at UC San Francisco. The finding in mice showed that a well-known immune cell called the eosinophil [ee-oh-SIN-oh-fil] carries out the beneficial role in two ways - by clearing out cellular debris from damaged tissue and teaming up with a type of cell that can make fat to instead trigger muscle regrowth. The study, led ...

Researchers Develop Robot Hands That Could be Sensitive Enough to Detect Gentle Touch

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Researchers have developed a very inexpensive tactile sensor for robotic hands that is sensitive enough to turn a brute machine into a dextrous manipulator. The researchers are from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Designed by researchers in the Harvard Biorobotics Laboratory at SEAS, the sensor, called TakkTile, is intended to put what would normally be a high-end technology within the grasp of commercial inventors, teachers, and robotics ...

Grapes and Its Protective Benefits

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Consuming grapes may have a host of protective benefits in preventing organ damage due to metabolic syndrome, a new study has revealed. This protective benefit from grapes is due to the presence of natural components found in grapes, known as polyphenols, researchers said. The new study evaluated the effects of a high fat, American-style diet which included grapes as well as a diet which did not include grapes. They studied its effects on the heart, liver, ...

Scientific Basis for Cognitive Complaints of Breast Cancer Patients Found

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Breast cancer patients have reported experiencing difficulties with memory, concentration and other cognitive functions following cancer treatment for many years. Whether this mental "fogginess" is psychosomatic or reflects underlying changes in brain function has been a bone of contention among scientists and physicians. Now, a new study led by Dr. Patricia Ganz, director of cancer prevention and control research at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer ...

2 Venous Punctures Not Needed For Inferior Vena Cava Filter Placement

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A new study shows that one venous puncture, rather than two, is a safe and effective approach to intravascular ultrasound-guided inferior vena cava filter placement in critically-ill patients. Inferior vena cava filter placement is done to prevent or treat pulmonary emboli or deep venous thrombosis. "The majority of institutions use a dual venous puncture technique, while we use a single venous puncture technique," said Dr. Andrew Gunn, of Massachusetts General Hospital ...

Specialized Training Linked to Serious Injuries In Young Athletes

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When compared with other injured athletes, young athletes who specialize in one sport and train intensively have a significantly higher risk of stress fractures and other severe overuse injuries. This is according to the largest clinical study of its kind. For example, young athletes who spent more hours per week than their age playing one sport - such as a 12-year-old who plays tennis 13 or more hours a week - were 70 percent more likely to experience serious ...

Menu Labels Displaying Amount of Exercise Needed to Burn Calories Benefit Consumers

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More restaurants are displaying calorie information on their menus than ever before. This is mandatory because by law, retail food establishments that are part of a chain with twenty or more locations nationwide must disclose the calorie content of each menu item. The goal is to encourage consumers to make healthier, informed food choices. The majority of studies, however, show that providing information on calorie content does not lead to fewer calories ordered ...

Accuracy and Reliability of ECG Interpretation by Physicians is Limited: Research

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For athletes, incorporating an electrocardiogram (ECG) during pre-participation screening has demonstrated a reduction in incidence of sudden cardiac death (SCD). However, it remains controversial in the United States due to minimal usage and high false-positive readings. New research presented this week suggests this is due to the challenges in the accuracy and reliability of physicians' ability to read ECGs. Francis G. O'Connor MD, MPH, Medical Director, ...

Research Reveals How Three-dimensional Space is Perceived in Mammalian Brains

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In order to survive - to find food and shelter or avoid predators, animals navigate and orient themselves. Research conducted by Dr. Nachum Ulanovsky and research student Michael Yartsev of the Weizmann Institute's Neurobiology Department, published in iScience/i, reveals for the first time how three-dimensional, volumetric, space is perceived in mammalian brains. The research was conducted using a unique, miniaturized neural-telemetry system developed especially ...

Researchers Capture First Steps of Synapse Building in Live Zebra Fish

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On barely day-old zebra fish embryos, University of Oregon scientists have gained a new window using spinning disk microscopy, on how synapse-building components move to worksites in the central nervous system. What researchers captured in these see-through embryos -- in what may be one of the first views of early glutamate-driven synapse formation in a living vertebrate -- were orderly movements of protein-carrying packets along axons to a specific site where a ...

White Potatoes Increase Intake of Potassium That Helps Control Blood Pressure

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Consumption of white potatoes is associated with increased intake of potassium, in a study released today at the Experimental Biology 2013 Annual Meeting. For each additional kilocalorie of white potatoes consumed, there was a 1.6 mg increase in potassium intake among adults 19-years-old and older, and a 1.7 mg increase among children and teens from 2 to 18 years of age. Gender, age, race/ethnicity and educational attainment, but not income or body mass index, were also highly ...

Development of Neural Circuits in the Brain

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Our brains develop in the context of experience. Related to the experience of feeling or emotion, social experiences may be particularly relevant for developing neural circuits. Factors such as negative life events and the quality of relationships may be especially influential. Adolescence is a key time to investigate how early social experiences contribute to brain development because it's a period of dramatic changes in brain function, brain structure, ...

Study Links Childhood Meningitis to Lower Levels of Educational Achievement

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A diagnosis of meningococcal, pneumococcal, or iHaemophilus influenzae/i meningitis in childhood was associated with lower educational achievement and economic self-sufficiency in adult life, in a study that included nearly 3,000 adults from Denmark. The study is published in the April 24 issue of iJAMA/i. Bacterial meningitis may lead to brain damage due to several factors, and survivors of childhood bacterial meningitis are at particular risk of hearing ...

Researchers Design New Method to Test Evolutionary Adaption

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A new method is being designed by researchers that can universally test for evolutionary adaption, or positive (Darwinian) selection, in any chosen set of genes, using re-sequencing data such as that generated by the 1000 Genomes Project. The method identifies gene sets that show evidence for positive selection in comparison with matched controls, and thus highlights genes for further functional studies. The method was employed to test whether any of ...

Treatment for Coronavirus In Early Lab Tests Shows Promise

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Scientists studying an emerging coronavirus have found that a combination of two licensed antiviral drugs, ribavirin and interferon-alpha 2b, can stop the virus from replicating in laboratory-grown cells. The study took place in National Institutes of Health (NIH). These results suggest that the drug combination could be used to treat patients infected with the new coronavirus, but more research is needed to confirm this preliminary finding. The study appears in ...

Peers can Heighten Teens' Risky Behaviours

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Some teens' risky behavior reflects the unique effect of peer influence on the still-developing teenage brain, argues psychological scientists. Teens spend an increasing amount of time with their peers, and the feedback they get from their friends and classmates may tune the brain's reward system to be more sensitive to the reward value of risky behavior. This sensitivity leads teens to focus on the short-term benefits of risky choices over the long-term value of ...

Vitamin E Can Fight Obesity

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A potential new way to fight obesity-related illness with vitamin E has been uncovered in a research led by investigators at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The collaborators, from Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Cornell University, discovered the essential nutrient vitamin E can alleviate symptoms of liver disease brought on by obesity. "The implications of our findings could have a direct impact on the ...

Scientists Design Super-grip Plaster to Help Heal Surgical Wounds

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In the US, scientists have designed a super-grip plaster, which is covered with microscopic needles, to heal surgical wounds. The "bed-of-needles" patch, which has been inspired by a parasitic worm that lives in the guts of fish and clings on them using its cactus-like spikes, fixes skin grafts firmly in place without any need of staples, the BBC reported. The creators have said that the patch is thrice as strong as the materials currently used for burns ...

In Breast Cancer Patients, Screening Breast Ultrasound Detects Cancers Missed on Mammography

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Per thousand women screened for breast cancer, screening mammography detects 4-5 cancers. A new study shows that screening breast ultrasound performed after mammography on women with greater than 50% breast density detects an additional 3.4 cancers or high risk lesions per one thousand woman screened, a detection rate just under that of screening mammography alone for women with less dense breasts. The study, conducted in conjunction with seven Connecticut ...

Battling With Bugs to Prevent Antibiotic Resistance Gets Tougher

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Bacteria can evolve resistance more quickly when stronger antibiotics are used, reveal findings from new scientific research published today in the journal iPLoS Biology/i. Researchers from the University of Exeter and Kiel University in Germany treated iE. coli/i with different combinations of antibiotics in laboratory experiments. Unexpectedly they found that the rate of evolution of antibiotic resistance speeds up when potent treatments are ...

Study Links Skin Cancer to Future Risk of Other Cancers

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A new study by US researchers published in this week's iPLOS Medicine/i finds white people who have types of skin cancer other than melanoma (non-melanoma skin cancer) may be at increased risk of having other forms of cancer in the future. The analysis, led by Dr. Jiali Han, an Associate Professor from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School in the US, found that men and women with a history of non-melanoma skin cancers-the most common form of cancer ...