Maggie Fox
ReutersMon, 07 Apr 2008 23:52 UTC
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| ©REUTERS/Handout/ J.D. de Bruijn University of London
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| Undated file photo shows adult stem cells grown on a 3D biomaterial scaffold.
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Skin cells re-programmed to act like embryonic stem cells eased symptoms of Parkinson's disease in rats, researchers reported on Monday in a first step toward tailored treatments for people that bypass concerns about using human embryos.
Washington - Dyslexia affects different parts of children's brains depending on whether they are raised reading English or Chinese. That finding, reported in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, means that therapists may need to seek different methods of assisting dyslexic children from different cultures.
Vanessa Allen and Dean Herbert
Daily MailMon, 07 Apr 2008 22:15 UTC
Children surfing the internet are being targeted by thousands of websites encouraging them to develop potentially fatal eating disorders. They display pictures of ultra-slim women along with tips on how to starve for days while convincing your parents that you are still eating.
The number of British children being given controversial anti-psychotic drugs has increased sharply, according to research.
As many as 3,000 children were administered the unlicensed drugs between 1996 and 2005, despite concerns from experts that they could cause long-term harm and even death.
Two people in Spain have died of the human variant of mad cow disease, in the first such fatalities since 2005, officials said Monday.
The victims were aged 40 and 51 and lived in the central Castilla-Leon region. One died in December and the other in February, said Jose Javier Castrodeza, director of public health at the regional government. Until now Spain's only fatality from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease came in 2005 with the death of a 26-year-old woman in Madrid.
In 2006 researchers investigating the interaction between the brain, behavior, and the immune system found that simply anticipating a mirthful laughter experience boosted health-protecting hormones. Now, two years later, the same researchers have found that the anticipation of a positive humorous laughter experience also reduces potentially detrimental stress hormones. According to Dr. Lee Berk, the study team's lead researcher of Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, "Our findings lead us to believe that by seeking out positive experiences that make us laugh we can do a lot with our physiology to stay well."
Scientists have taken skin cells from patients with eight different diseases and turned them into stem cells.
The advance means scientists are moving closer to using stem cells from the patient themselves to treat disease.
Binge drinking teenagers are still at risk of absent-mindedness and forgetfulness days later, a study says. A team from Northumbria and Keele universities compared 26 binge drinkers with 34 non-bingers in memory tests, and found the drinkers fared worse.
They told the British Psychological Society conference that binge drinking could be harming developing brains. A spokesman for the charity Addaction said drinking at dangerous levels was putting some young people at risk.
Medicine mix-ups, accidental overdoses and bad drug reactions harm roughly one out of 15 hospitalized children, according to the first scientific test of a new detection method.
University of Minnesota School of Public Health researchers have found that older adolescents who have a bedroom television are less likely to engage in healthy activities such as exercising, eating fruits or vegetables, and enjoying family meals. They also consumed larger quantities of sweetened beverages and fast food, were categorized as heavy TV watchers, and read or studied less than teens without TVs in their bedrooms.
