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Children's Drawings Could be a Clue to Their Intelligence, Research Finds

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Scientists have found that children who can accurately depict the human form at the age of four are more likely to be brighter in their teenage years. Psychologists at iKing's College London /iexamined pictures drawn by more than 15,000 four-year-olds. Those who drew with the most skill were likely to perform better in intelligence tests a decade later. The study carried out on 7,750 pairs of identical and non-identical twins, also ...

Risky Behavior In Teens May Result From Imbalances In Brains

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In a recent study from the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas showed that connections between certain brain regions are amplified in teens who take more risks. This study that included 36 adolescents in the age group of 12-17, matched 18 risk-taking teens to a group of 18 non-risk-taking teens according to age and sex. All the participants' brains underwent functional MRI (fMRI) scans to examine communication between brain regions associated ...

Proteins Crucial for Wound Healing Process Discovered

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Proteins that play an important role in the wound healing process have been identified by scientists. The paper's senior author, David M. Ornitz, MD, PhD, the Alumni Endowed Professor of Developmental Biology, studies a group of proteins known as fibroblast growth factors, or the FGF family of proteins. FGF proteins are signaling molecules that play broad roles in embryonic development, tissue maintenance, and wound healing. They interact with specific receptor ...

Intussusception in Children

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Intussusception is condition where one segment of the intestine infolds into the adjacent segment causing intestinal blockage and leading to severe abdominal distension and pain.

Africa: Elephant Death Toll Rises

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In Africa, more elephants are being killed than are being born in a year, finds study. Researchers said in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that almost 35,000 elephants have been killed since 2010 in the African continent, reported the BBC. They also warned that if the killing continues at this rate, the entire population will be wiped out in the next 100 years. A kilogram of ivory is worth thousands of dollars ...

British Mom Drowns Herself After Diagnosing Herself With Stomach Cancer

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A young British mother who thought she had stomach cancer committed suicide by drowning herself in a local river. Seemberjeet Kaur, 35, reportedly was obsessed with her health condition and that of her 4-year-old daughter, who had severe eczema and pneumonia. Because her daughter was ill and she herself was beginning to lose weight quickly, Kaur gave up her job at a nursery months before committing suicide. According to the sources, the mother from West ...

Scientists Explore Link Between Violent Video Games and Depression

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Children who play violent video games are at an increased risk for depression, suggests study. The study conducted at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School recorded significantly more depressive symptoms over the course of a year among fifth-graders from three U.S. cities who reported playing high-violence video games for 2 or more hours a day, compared to those who reported playing low-violence video games for less than 2 hours a day. ...

New Cholesterol Guidelines for Reducing Strokes and Heart Attacks

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Recently introduced cholesterol guidelines can significantly reduce new cardiovascular events, compared to treatment based on previous cholesterol guidelines, found a study by UT Southwestern researchers. The research identified Dallas Heart Study participants in the 30 to 65 age range who would have newly qualified for statin use under the new cholesterol guidelines introduced in 2013 by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association ...

Review Article on Resistant Hypertension For Physicians

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Resistant hypertension affects about 1 in 10 people with high blood pressure and a new review article is aimed at helping physicians assess and manage patients with the condition. The review, published in emCMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)/em includes information on emerging therapies for the condition. The authors note that high-quality evidence is lacking. "We found few randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and no systematic reviews to guide decision-making. ...

Mimicking Nature for Long Lasting Joint Lubrication

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Johns Hopkins researchers have found a way to bind a slippery molecule naturally found in the fluid that surrounds healthy joints. The researchers have thus engineered surfaces that have the potential to deliver long-lasting lubrication at specific spots throughout the body. The finding, described in the Aug. 3 online edition of iNature Materials/i, could eventually offer a new way to ease the pain of arthritic joints, keep artificial joints working smoothly or even make ...

Top Five Negative Calorie Foods - Slide Show

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Negative calorie foods widely advertised in diet plans are foods that supposedly use more energy to digest than they provide in calories, thereby resulting in a calorie deficit.

Baboon Hosts Transplanted With Pigs' Hearts Remain Viable More Than a Year

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Hearts transplanted from genetically engineered piglets into baboons' abdomens have successfully survived for more than one year, twice as long as previously reported. Investigators from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were on this procedure. This was achieved by using genetically engineered porcine donors and a more focused immunosuppression regimen in the baboon recipients, according to a study published in ...

Therapy for Liver Disease Shown in New Mouse Model

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Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, is a non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) that can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer, and affects almost 30 percent of Americans. A significant number of Americans suffer from its most severe form. In recent years, NASH has become the leading cause of liver transplantation. Development of effective new therapies for preventing or treating NASH has been stymied by limited small animal models for the disease. In a paper ...

Treating Catheter Infections With Free Fatty Acids

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Free fatty acids, made up of compounds similar to those naturally made in the body could be as effective at fighting certain infections as antibiotics, find researchers at Rhode Island Hospital, Veterans Affair Medical Center in Providence and University of Rhode Island. The study is published online in advance of print in the emJournal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy/em. "More and more bacteria are developing resistance to commonly used antibiotics," said Leonard ...

Study Says Love Thy Neighbour, Its Good for the Heart

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New study reports a link between having good neighbours and a healthier heart. "Having good neighbours and feeling connected to others in the local community may help to curb an individual's heart attack risk," said a statement that accompanied a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Heart and blood vessel diseases are the number one cause of death globally, claiming some 15 million lives in 2010, according to the ...

Antibiotics at Early Age Could Alter Long-term Immunity

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Taking antibiotics at an early age can boost human body's long-term defense against specific diseases, says study. According to the research by New University of British Columbia, most bacteria living in the gut play a positive role in promoting a healthy immune system, but antibiotic treatments often do not discriminate between good and bad bacteria. The study helped scientists understand how different antibiotics affect good bacteria. The researchers ...

Brain Function Improved by Hatha Yoga in Older Adults

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Performance on cognitive tasks that are relevant to everyday life, improved for sedentary older adults after practicing hatha yoga three times a week, for eight weeks, researchers report. The findings involved 108 adults between the ages of 55 and 79 years of age, 61 of whom attended hatha yoga classes. The others met for the same number and length of sessions and engaged in stretching and toning exercises instead of yoga. At the end of the eight weeks, ...

Liberia Desperately Searching for Missing Ebola Patients

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Liberian officials organized a desperate search for 17 Ebola patients who fled an attack on a quarantine centre in the capital Monrovia, raising fears that they could spread the deadly and highly contagious disease. "We have not yet found them," Information Minister Lewis Brown said, adding that "those who looted the place took away mattresses and bedding that were soaked with fluids from the patients." On Saturday youths wielding clubs and knives raided ...

Preventing Suicide Attempts and Deaths With Research

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Useful recommendations for research to inform effective suicide prevention is provided in a new supplement to the September issue of emAmerican Journal of Preventive Medicine/em, addressing the state of the science on suicide prevention. Suicide has been a challenging and perplexing public health issue to study as it has many dimensions and underlying factors. Although much is known about the patterns and potential risk factors of suicide, the national suicide rate does ...

Benefits of Vaccine Communicated Determine Parents' Vaccine Intentions

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The framing of the parent-targeted messages about benefits of vaccination for their children seems to influence their intentions to immunize their children. In a study designed to formally look at the content of parent-targeted communications about the benefits of vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella, Indiana University School of Medicine investigators report this. The investigators report that parents who viewed informational material highlighting direct ...

Club Cells - The 'Bad Guys' During Flu Infection

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An inflammatory gene signature that wreaks havoc in the lung stamps the specialized subset of lung cells that can shake flu infection, as suggested in a study published in iThe Journal of Experimental Medicine/i. Seasonal flu is caused by influenza virus, which can infect a variety of cell types in the lung. Infected cells are typically destroyed by the virus itself or by immune cells that attack infected cells. The resulting inflammation can linger on long ...

Myc Inhibition: Effective Therapeutic Strategy Against Brain Tumors

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Myc inhibition could be used as a therapeutic strategy in glioma - a highly aggressive tumor type that notoriously outsmarts current anti-cancer therapies. Research led by the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) has shown the evidence of the most conclusive preclinical results to-date validating Myc inhibition. The study led by Laura Soucek, Principal Investigator of VHIO's Mouse Models of Cancer Therapies Group, published today in iNature Communications/i, ...

Study Shows High-Dose Flu Vaccine More Effective in Elderly

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High-dose influenza vaccine is 24 percent more effective than the standard-dose vaccine in protecting persons aged 65 and over against influenza illness and its complications. This is according to a Vanderbilt-led study published in the iNew England Journal of Medicine/i (iNEJM/i). The multi-center study enrolled 31,989 participants from 126 research centers in the U.S. and Canada during the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 influenza seasons in the Northern Hemisphere ...

Two German Artists Claim Brooklyn Bridge Flag Stunt

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Two German artists claim that they were responsible for a pair of big white flags that appeared overnight last month atop the Brooklyn Bridge in New York in place of the US stars and stripes. The sudden appearance of the flags in a city highly sensitive to security risks sparked an investigation in which police ruled out any terrorist link but stepped up security around the city's key bridges. On their website, Mischa Leinkauf and Matthias Wermke said ...

Scientists Identify Link Between Immune System and Mental Illness

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Children with high everyday levels of a protein released into the blood in response to infection are at greater risk of developing depression and psychosis in adulthood. This is according to new research which suggests a role for the immune system in mental illness. The study, published in iJAMA Psychiatry/i, indicates that mental illness and chronic physical illness such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes may share common biological mechanisms. ...

Stimuli-Responsive Drug Delivery System Stops Transplant Rejection

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Following a tissue graft transplant -such as that of the hand, face, arm or leg- it is standard for doctors to immediately give transplant recipients immunosuppressant drugs to prevent their body's immune system from attacking and rejecting the new body part. However, there are toxicities associated with delivering these drugs systemically, as well as side effects since suppressing the immune system can make a patient vulnerable to infection. A global ...

Scientists Identify Tests to Diagnose Invasive Aspergillosis

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The fungal infection invasive aspergillosis (IA) can be life threatening, especially in patients whose immune systems are weakened by immunosuppressive drugs or chemotherapy. Despite the critical need for early detection, IA remains difficult to diagnose. A study in iThe Journal of Molecular Diagnostics /icompared three diagnostic tests and found that the combination of nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA) and real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) ...

Surgeon Sacked After Performing Unnecessary Vasectomy

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A surgeon in a Liverpool hospital in Britain has been sacked after mistakenly carrying out a vasectomy surgery on a patient. Liverpool's Broadgreen Hospital admitted that attempts to reverse the vasectomy have failed and while the man can still have children through IVF, he will not be able to have them naturally. The hospital admitted that the mistaken vasectomy was just one in five botched up surgeries that were performed over the last 12 months, including ...

Scientists Boost Potential of Passive Immunization Against HIV

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WHAT:As a strategy for preventing HIV infection, scientists are pursuing injections or intravenous infusions of broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies (bNAbs). This technique, called passive immunization, has been shown to protect monkeys from a monkey form of HIV called simian human immunodeficiency virus, or SHIV. To make passive immunization a widely feasible HIV prevention option for people, scientists want to modify bNAbs such that a modest amount of them ...

Kolkata Sex Workers Advised to Avoid African Customers

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A sex worker forum in Kolkata has asked all sex workers in the city to avoid entertaining customers from Africa following the recent outbreak of Ebola virus on the continent. A member of the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, with which more than 1,30,000 sex workers in West Bengal are affiliated, confirmed that the organization has issued a warning saying that their members could get into contact with customers who are infected. The committee is also providing classes ...

Chinese Businessman Arrested for Selling "Viagra Liquor"

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Chinese authorities have confirmed that they have arrested a businessman who was selling 'Viagra liquor', which supposedly helped people to cure erectile dysfunction. The man, identified as Huang, reportedly owns a liquor factory in Central China's Hubei Province and was caught mixing sildenafil citrate, or Viagra, with Chinese white liquor. Huang brought the sildenafil citrate from an online store for (Dollar) 390 per kilogram. Around 2,000 bottles of the liquor ...

Cell Discovery Brings Blood Disorder Cure Closer: Scientists

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A cure for a range of blood disorders and immune diseases is in sight, suggest scientists who have unravelled the mystery of stem cell generation. The Australian study, led by researchers at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, is published in iNature/i. It identifies for the first time mechanisms in the body that trigger hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) production. Found ...

Scientific Discovery Offers Hope for HIV Vaccine Development

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In a scientific discovery that has significant implications for HIV vaccine development, collaborators have uncovered novel properties of special HIV antibodies. The research took place at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Duke University School of Medicine. The paper, published in iCell Host and Microbe/i, describes how some HIV antibodies experience an unusual type of mutation, a phenomenon that allows them to neutralize many different strains ...

Here is the App That Prevents Kids from Ignoring Parents' Calls

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In some welcome news for parents, a woman from Texas has created an app for her kids that will not allow them to ignore her calls. The app known as 'Ignore No More' locks the phone if someone tends to ignore the call, CNet reported. Sharon Standifird's website states that kids won't be able to ignore the call from their parents and when the phone gets locked with 'Ignore No More' the child will have only two options i.e. to call back, or call for an ...

Babies are More Smart Than Generally Expected

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Infants can actually remember much more than we expect them to, a new research has claimed. The study from Concordia University found that babies as young as 10-months old could tell the difference between the kinds of paths naturally taken by a walking animal, compared to a moving car or piece of furniture. That's important information because the ability to categorize things as animate beings or inanimate objects is a fundamental cognitive ability ...

Understanding Why Autism Potentially Occurs

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An analysis of autism research covering genetics, brain imaging, and cognition has overhauled our understanding of why autism potentially occurs, develops and results in a diversity of symptoms. The analysis was led by Laurent Mottron of the University of Montreal. The team of senior academics involved in the project calls it the "Trigger-Threshold-Target' model. Brain plasticity refers to the brain's ability to respond and remodel itself, and this model is based ...

Expert Highlights Reasons for PMS

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Premenstrual tension is nature's way for women to get rid of their infertile male partners, says a medical expert. According to the controversial new claim, PMS is nature's way of making women unbearable to live with, thereby ridding themselves of an infertile male to clear the way for new partner to increase their chances of passing on their DNA, News.com.au reported. Explaining the depressing ten days before a period that most women abhor, Professor ...

Decline in Daily Functioning Linked With Decreased Brain Activity in Alzheimer's Disease

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Decline in daily functioning associated with Alzheimer's disease is related to alterations in activity in certain regions of the brain. This is according to a study published in the August 2014 issue of the emJournal of Alzheimer's Disease/em. Impairment in instrumental activities of daily living-or an inability to perform high-level daily activities such as calculating finances, remembering appointments and medications, and driving-is first seen when a person ...

Interfaith Couples in Pakistan Brave Threats for Forbidden Love

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A Muslim woman fell in love with a Christian co-worker some thirteen years ago among the whirring looms of a garment factory in an eastern Pakistani city. Now married with three children, Kalsoom Bibi and her husband Yousuf Bhatti have been shunned by their communities, endured death threats and an abduction, all in the name of religious honour in this conservative Islamic country. Marriage out of choice remains a taboo in Pakistan, particularly when ...

Patients With Pacemaker and Defibrillator at Risk Due to Poor Health Literacy

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Inadequate knowledge of how the devices work may prove fatal for patients who rely on pacemakers and defibrillators to maintain a normal heart rhythm. But a study from Columbia University School of Nursing published this month in the emJournal of Cardiovascular Nursing/em found that 40 percent of patients with these devices had little to no ability to understand information about their cardiac health. "As a nurse practitioner, I use every patient ...

Regional Anesthesia for Pediatric Knee Surgery Reduces Pain: Study

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"It's a safe procedure that's markedly improved our ability to perform outpatient surgical services and in fact, it's become very rare for us to have any overnight stays for knee reconstruction," said Kevin E. Klingele. Klingele, MD, is the chief of Orthopedics at Nationwide Children's and a co-author of the study. While this study looked specifically at arthroscopic knee surgery, regional anesthesia is also becoming more widely used in orthopedic procedures in ...

HPV Vaccine Administration Influenced by Provider and Parental Assumptions on Teen Sex

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Parents and providers appreciated the importance of the HPV vaccine, but their personal assumptions surrounding timing of administration relative to onset of sexual activity resulted in decreased vaccination rates, say researchers. Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) conducted hundreds of interviews to offer new insights into this frequent-and often controversial-clinic room conversation. Their findings and recommendations will appear in ...

Work-Life Balance Situations Tend to Favor Men More Than Women

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A new study finds that flexible work arrangements may exacerbate discrimination based on parental status and gender. Study author Christin Munsch, an assistant professor of sociology at Furman University, analyzed the reactions both men and women received when making flexible work requests - meaning that they either asked to work from home or to work non-traditional hours. Among those who made flexible work requests, men who asked to work from home ...

New Moms and Dads at Risk of Developing Mental Health Conditions Due to 'Super-Parent' Cultural Pressures

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Expanding awareness of several perinatal mental health conditions is important for all new parents, including fathers, says a University of Kansas researcher. This awareness has become even more critical as "super mom" and "super dad" pressures continue to grow, said Carrie Wendel-Hummell, a KU doctoral candidate in sociology, who will present her study on perinatal mental health disorders at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Perinatal ...

Financial Strain Did Not Affect Surprising Number of Older Adults During 'Great Recession'

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More than 40 percent of older adults reported a decrease in "financial strain" between 2006 and 2010, a new study reveals. The study will be presented at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Researcher Lindsay R. Wilkinson, an assistant professor of sociology in Baylor University's College of Arts (and) Sciences, drew on 5,205 respondents from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine the effect of financial strain on the mental ...

Transgender Relationships Face High Risks of Discrimination

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In the United States, it is difficult to be a transgender woman. Researchers who looked at the impact of discrimination, poverty and stigma on the mental health and relationship quality of transgender women and their male romantic partners found that social and economic marginalization not only takes a psychological toll on each person individually but also appears to undermine them as a couple. Prior research has shown that they generally face high ...

Long-Term Heart Transplant Recipients can Safely Undertake High-Intensity Exercise

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A new study published in the emAmerican Journal of Transplantation/em suggests that high-intensity exercise can help stable heart transplant patients reach higher levels of exercise capacity, and gain better control of their blood pressure as compared to moderate intensity exercise. Recent research shows that high-intensity interval exercise-training for a few minutes at close to the maximum heart rate-is safe and more efficient than moderate exercise for improving ...

How Genes, Gender and Environment Influence Substance Abuse

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Previous research has shown that social integration, including strong family ties, can protect one's well-being and even reduce the impact high-risk genes have on health. Scientists call this phenomenon a gene-environment interaction. An Indiana University study focusing on substance abuse, however, found that a three-way interplay of gender, genetics and social integration produced the different outcomes for men and women. The study looked at men and ...

Sexual Confusion After Wedding in Men Who Pledge to Remain Virgin

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Young men who pledge to remain virgin until their marriage leads to sexual confusion in them even after the wedding day, demonstrated in a new study. The study showed that sexual one-upmanship can all be a part of demonstrating one's manhood, especially for young men eager to exert their masculinity. Sarah Diefendorf, a sociology graduate student at the University of Washington, said that sexual purity and pledging abstinence were most commonly thought ...

Children Treated With Growth Hormone Likely To Risk Stroke

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Children who have been prescribed the growth hormone may be at greater risk of a stroke in early adulthood suggests a new study led by Dr. Amelie Poidvin of Paris Descartes University. Strokes are largely caused by the bursting open of blood cells and the hormone might put children who receive it at a greater risk. Lead Researcher, Dr. Amelie Poidvin of Paris Descartes University said, "This information should also be made available to those who misuse (growth ...

China Seeks Brides for Richer from the Poorer

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Although their marriages were arranged for cash, some Vietnamese women who have found their Prince Charmings in remote Chinese villages say they are living happily ever after. "Economically, life is better here in China," said Nguyen Thi Hang, one of around two dozen women from Vietnam who have married men in Linqi. The township is a patchwork of hamlets spaced among cornfields deep in the mountains of Henan, one of China's poorer provinces. It ...

Surfing in South Africa's Shacklands

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While many teenagers would feel unsafe in a shark-infested sea that in their own neighbourhood, Luxolo Ponco feels this is safe. His home is in the violent Khayelitsha township in Cape Town, but he has found refuge a short walk down a dusty road and over the dunes, at Monwabisi beach. "When the gangs fight I come here to surf and I feel safe," he says. Safety is relative. A week before Luxolo spoke to AFP a surfer was attacked by a Great ...

Survivors in Sierra Leone's Ebola Battle

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Hawa Idrisa was at her father-in-law's bedside on an Ebola ward, in eastern Sierra Leone. His drip snapped out and his atrophying veins spurted thin, uncoagulated blood into her eyes and mouth. Hawa had been carrying her infant daughter Helen but luckily she had laid the child down, otherwise the baby would almost certainly be dead by now. A single droplet of blood smaller than a full stop can carry up to 100 million particles of the deadly Ebola virus, ...

Alzheimer's Disease Involves DNA Methylation

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The early changes in brain DNA methylation are found to be involved in Alzheimer's disease, in a new study led by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Rush University Medical Center. DNA methylation is a biochemical alteration of the building blocks of DNA and is one of the markers that indicate whether the DNA is open and biologically active in a given region of the human genome. The study is published online August 17, 2014 in iNature Neuroscience/i. ...

What People Do for That Perfect Selfie

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Christa Hendershot, a 33-year-old bride-to-be from Mount Sinai, New York, decided it was worth going under the knife to make sure her hands looked their selfie-best in pictures she took wearing her engagement ring. As told to ABC News, the newly engaged Hendershot, "thought that her hands were "veiny" and her knuckles were "very red". She didn't like the way her hand looked in the "selfie" she had taken to be posted on social media. Christa ...

Bioengineers Create Functional 3D Brain-like Tissue

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Bioengineers have created three-dimensional brain-like tissue that functions like and has structural features similar to tissue in the rat brain and that can be kept alive in the lab for more than two months. According to them, it could help scientists find new treatments for brain injuries and diseases and improve knowledge about normal brain function. In early experiments with the tissue, researchers used it to examine chemical and ...