Medindia Health News

Pizza-scented Perfume Launched
Study Reveals Why Autistic Kids Tend to Keep to Themselves
Men are also Victims of Violent Sexual Assaults
Scientists Create First Mouse Model for Rare Respiratory Disease
An Extra 350,000 Attempts to Quit Smoking Observed During Stoptober 2012
Study Highlights Trends in Antipsychotic Prescription for Children and Adolescents
Precise Gene Editing in Monkeys may Help Create Valuable Human Disease Models
How DNA Damage Affects Golgi Decoded by Researchers
Some Lung Diseases Reversed in Mice by Coaxing Production of Healthy Cells
UHRF1 is the Oncogene Driving Liver Cancer, Say Mount Sinai Researchers
World's First Butterfly Bacteria Sequenced by CU-Boulder Researchers
Brachytherapy Offers Lower Rate of Breast Preservation Compared to Standard Radiation
Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells may be Eradicated by Engineered Virus
Collapsing Ice Shelves of Antarctica to Disappear in Next Two Centuries
Performance in Maths can be Boosted by Games
Replacing Fructose With Glucose Not So Fruitful After All
US Woman Addicted to Ingesting Eye Shadow
Zebra Fish Study Gives Insight into Bone Regeneration
Working Middle-Class Moms Quit Jobs, Raise Kids Themselves
Gastric Bypass Cures Type 2 Diabetes in a Majority of Patients
Scent Similarity may Reflect Lemur Couple's Bond Strength
NIST Cell Membrane Model may Help Detect Protein Associated With Bacterial Vaginosis
Disease Diagnosis Now Made Easier With a New Laser That Analyses Breath
New Genetic Forms of Neurodegeneration Discovered
Stress-Induced Anxiety: How It Occurs
Genes Play the Role of Hierarchy in Ants
After Menopause, One Third of Women Have Hot Flashes for 10 Years

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Do you love pizza? Now you can carry the smell of the cheesy pizzas with you all day long. Makers of fragrances like 'Gin and Tonic' and 'Dirt', Demeter Fragrance Library have launched a new scent, called the Pizza Perfume, that supposedly smells like "the inside of a pizza box", ABC News reported. While admitting that their new scent is a little weird, Mark Crames, CEO of the company, asserted that they design fragrances inspired by real objects ...

Study Reveals Why Autistic Kids Tend to Keep to Themselves

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The brains of autistic kids generate more information at rest - a 42 per cent increase on average, says study. Roberto Fernandez Galan, PhD, senior author and associate professor of neurosciences at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, said that their results suggest that autistic kids are not interested in social interactions because their brains generate more information at rest, which they interpret as more introspection in line with early descriptions of ...

Men are also Victims of Violent Sexual Assaults

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Official data reveals that the number of men who claim to be the victims of sexual assault is increasing steeply. According to the police reports, during the past five years the number of male victims of sex assault has jumped from about 480 to 710, Stuff.co.nz reported. The reports also said that although the number of female victims has also increased by about one-third, the number of male victims have increased by 50 per cent. Organisations ...

Scientists Create First Mouse Model for Rare Respiratory Disease

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First mouse model of coronavirus which could enable faster testing of drugs and vaccines has been developed. The method used to make mice susceptible to MERS might also provide a quick way to study future pandemic viruses in mice. The coronavirus infects humans by binding to a protein, called DPP4, that sits on the surface of cells in the lungs. But the structure of the mouse version of DPP4 is different and the virus does not bind to it. ...

An Extra 350,000 Attempts to Quit Smoking Observed During Stoptober 2012

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New research by UCL researchers published in the journal iDrug and Alcohol Dependence/i reveals that more than a third of a million people in England took part in Stoptober 2012, a national campaign to encourage people to give up smoking. Stoptober, which is now run by Public Health England, aims to support a positive social movement that encourages smokers to kick the habit by setting them a realistic and achievable goal (quitting for 28 days). Using ...

Study Highlights Trends in Antipsychotic Prescription for Children and Adolescents

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Christian Bachmann and colleagues found out in a study published in the current issue of iDeutsches Arzteblatt International/i that increasing numbers of children and adolescents are being given antipsychotic drugs in Germany. The authors used routine insurance data of the Barmer GEK statutory health insurance company to analyze antipsychotic prescriptions for this age group from 2005 to 2012. The percentage of children and adolescents receiving a prescription ...

Precise Gene Editing in Monkeys may Help Create Valuable Human Disease Models

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While monkeys are known to be important for modeling diseases because of their close similarities to humans, past efforts to precisely modify genes in primates have failed. In a study published by Cell Press January 30th in the journal emCell/em, researchers achieved precise gene modification in monkeys for the first time using an efficient and reliable approach known as the CRISPR/Cas9 system. The study opens promising new avenues for the development of more ...

How DNA Damage Affects Golgi Decoded by Researchers

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A novel pathway activated by DNA damage has been discovered while studying the impact of DNA damage on the Golgi by a research team from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. The finding has important consequences for the body's cellular response to chemotherapy. Standard cancer treatments, including many chemotherapy drugs and radiation therapy, act on cells by causing DNA damage. In many cancer ...

Some Lung Diseases Reversed in Mice by Coaxing Production of Healthy Cells

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New research at Boston Children's Hospital suggests that it may be possible in the future to treat several lung diseases by introducing proteins that direct lung stem cells to grow the specific cell types needed to repair the lung injuries. Reporting in the January 30th issue of iCell/i, researchers led by Carla Kim, PhD, and Joo-Hyeon Lee, PhD, of the Stem Cell Research Program at Boston Children's, describe a new pathway in the lung, activated by injury, that ...

UHRF1 is the Oncogene Driving Liver Cancer, Say Mount Sinai Researchers

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Research has indicated that patients with advanced hepatocellular (or liver) cancer have high mortality rates as existing drugs confer only a small, but significant survival advantage. By combining a zebrafish model of liver cancer with data from human tumors, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai hope to identify potential genes of interest that can be targeted for new treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common form of liver ...

World's First Butterfly Bacteria Sequenced by CU-Boulder Researchers

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The internal bacterial makeup of the three major life stages of a butterfly species has been sequenced for the first time ever by a team led by the University of Colorado Boulder. The team, led by CU-Boulder doctoral student Tobin Hammer, used powerful DNA sequencing methods to characterize bacterial communities inhabiting caterpillars, pupae and adults of iHeliconius erato/i, commonly known as the red postman butterfly. The red postman is an abundant tropical ...

Brachytherapy Offers Lower Rate of Breast Preservation Compared to Standard Radiation

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Among older women with invasive breast cancer, those treated with brachytherapy were at higher risk for a later mastectomy, compared to women treated with standard radiation therapy, researchers led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have found. The findings, published in the iInternational Journal of Radiation Oncology/i, are the first to provide a direct comparison of breast brachytherapy against a lumpectomy alone control group and an external ...

Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells may be Eradicated by Engineered Virus

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A potential cure for one of the most aggressive and least treatable forms of breast cancer called "triple negative breast cancer" has been discovered by scientists. In laboratory experiments involving human cancer cells, scientists used a virus similar to the one that helped eradicate smallpox to coax cancer cells to produce a protein which makes them susceptible to radioactive iodine. This discovery was published in the February 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal/em/a. ...

Collapsing Ice Shelves of Antarctica to Disappear in Next Two Centuries

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A number of floating ice shelves in Antarctica are at risk of disappearing entirely in the next two centuries due to global warming, a new report has said. Their collapse would enhance the discharge of ice into the oceans and increase the rate at which sea-level rises. A rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could save a number of these ice shelves, researchers at Utrecht University and the British Antarctic Survey said. Back in 1995 ...

Performance in Maths can be Boosted by Games

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New research finds that certain games can enhance calculating skills in children. Researchers say that practising instinctive numerical exercises can improve children's ability to solve maths problems. "We wanted to know how basic intuitions about numbers relate to mathematics development," said psychology professor Daniel Hyde at University of Illinois, who conducted the study with Saeeda Khanum of Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, and Elizabeth ...

Replacing Fructose With Glucose Not So Fruitful After All

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There is actually no benefit in replacing fructose, which is commonly blamed for obesity, by glucose, a new study found. The findings, published in the February edition of iCurrent Opinion in Lipidology/i, show that when portion sizes and calories are the same, fructose does not cause any more harm than glucose. "Despite concerns about fructose's link to obesity, there is no justification to replace fructose with glucose because there is no evidence ...

US Woman Addicted to Ingesting Eye Shadow

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Consuming eye shadows seems to be an addiction of a young woman from Toledo, Ohio, who has been into this habit since she was a toddler, and has now decided to quit this bad habit. When Brittoni made an appearance on TLC's 'My Strange Addiction' she told viewers that she can imagine the make-up coating her insides, while comparing her addiction to the craving of a candy bar, Metro.co.uk reported. Brittoni, 22, had asserted at the time that she enjoys ...

Zebra Fish Study Gives Insight into Bone Regeneration

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Bone regrowth can now be enhanced in humans by manipulating activities of opposing molecular pathways. Biologists at the University of Oregon have opened the window on the natural process of bone regeneration in zebra fish and the insights they gained could be used to advance therapies for bone fractures and disease. The team has shown that two molecular pathways work in concert to allow adult zebra fish to perfectly replace bones lost upon fin amputation. ...

Working Middle-Class Moms Quit Jobs, Raise Kids Themselves

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Thousands of wealthy mothers are quitting their jobs to care for their child themselves, instead of handing them over to nurseries or childminders, a new study revealed. The research, which is commissioned by the Department for Education, has revealed that that the percentage of families in the top 20 per cent income bracket using formal childcare has fallen from 67 per cent to 60 per cent in just a year, the Independent reported. According to the study, ...

Gastric Bypass Cures Type 2 Diabetes in a Majority of Patients

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Even before any weight loss has taken place, a majority of gastric bypass patients mysteriously recover from their type 2 diabetes. A study at Lund University Diabetes Centre in Sweden has now shown that the insulin-producing beta cells increase in number and performance after the surgery. "We have suspected this for a while, but there have not previously been any models to prove it", says Dr Nils Wierup, who led the research. The small study involved ...

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The similarity of their scents may reflect the strength of a lemur couple's bond, a new study found. "It's like singing a duet, but with smells instead of sounds," said Christine Drea, a Duke University professor who supervised the study. Duke researchers sampled and analyzed scent secretions produced by lemurs known as Coquerel's sifakas living at the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, NC. The researchers also monitored the animals' scent-marking and sniffing ...

NIST Cell Membrane Model may Help Detect Protein Associated With Bacterial Vaginosis

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A NIST-developed model of a simplified cell membrane has been discovered by researchers, which may now accurately detect and measure protein associated with bacterial vaginosis. The work illustrates how the artificial membrane could be used to improve disease diagnosis. Caused by the bacteria emGardnerella vaginalis/em, BV is a very common health problem in women and has been linked to infertility, adverse pregnancy outcomes, post-surgery infections and increased ...

Disease Diagnosis Now Made Easier With a New Laser That Analyses Breath

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A new type of laser has now been developed by researchers that may make disease diagnosis and remote sensing of greenhouse gases easier by analyzing the 'breath'.. The team from University's Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing and the School of Chemistry and Physics said that they have been able to produce 25 times more light emission than other lasers operating at a similar wavelength which has opened the way for detection of very low concentrations of ...

New Genetic Forms of Neurodegeneration Discovered

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A doubling of the number of known cases of hereditary spastic paraplegia- a neurodegenerative disorder, has been revealed by a team of scientists. HSP is characterized by progressive stiffness and contraction of the lower limbs and is associated with epilepsy, cognitive impairment, blindness and other neurological features. Over several years, working with scientific colleagues in parts of the world with relatively high rates of consanguinity or common ancestry, ...

Stress-Induced Anxiety: How It Occurs

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A neural circuit that connects the lateral septum to the other brain structures in a manner that directly influences anxiety has now been discovered by a team of researchers. David Anderson, the Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and corresponding author of the study and his team used optogenetics-a technique that uses light to control neural activity-to artificially activate a set of specific, genetically identified ...

Genes Play the Role of Hierarchy in Ants

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Has it ever happened to you as to what decides the division of labour and roles in an ant colony, known to be highly organised? The genes play this role, reveals research. Evolutionary biologists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany came to this conclusion in a recent gene expression study. An ant colony generally consists of a queen and the workers. The workers can differ depending on the task they perform, such as brood care, foraging ...

After Menopause, One Third of Women Have Hot Flashes for 10 Years

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Researchers have found that moderate to severe hot flashes continue, on average, for nearly 5 years after menopause, and more than a third of women experience moderate/severe hot flashes for 10 years or more after menopause. The research took place at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Current guidelines recommend that hormone therapy, the primary medical treatment for hot flashes, not continue for more than 5 years. However, ...