Today as I was riding home from campus on the bus, I was talking on the phone, and my interlocutor yawned. Almost immediately, I yawned as well. She made a joke about it, and I said that it wasn't my fault, because yawning is contagious -- when you see or hear someone yawn, you tend to yawn as well. I thought that was a well-known fact, but apparently she had never heard it, or noticed it before, so my first instinct was to prove that it was true by explaining to her why it happened. Then I realized that I had no idea why it happened. So I decided that when I got home, I would look it up. Let it never be said that I am not a geek.
Dr. Joseph Mercola
Mercola.comFri, 24 Aug 2007 12:24 UTC
Four years ago, the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) decided to add fluoride to the tap water of millions of Californians as of October 2007.
Since then, the American Dental Association (ADA), scientists at Harvard University, and the prestigious National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences have all raised serious concerns about the safety of fluoridated water for infants and young children.
Oil, fish and vegetables are known to keep the heart healthy, but a new study has found that the Mediterranean diet may help people with Alzheimer's disease live longer as well.
An American study revealed a Mediterranean diet may help people with Alzheimer's disease live longer than patients who eat traditional Western foods, known for being high in saturated fats and hydrogenated oils and lower in fruits and vegetables.
UPITue, 11 Sep 2007 12:03 UTC
U.S. medical scientists said they might have discovered the mechanism responsible for memory loss observed in Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers at the University of California-San Francisco's Gladstone Institute and the Baylor College of Medicine discovered a mechanism by which the protein Amyloid-beta might impair neurological functions in Alzheimer's disease.
DPAMon, 10 Sep 2007 23:54 UTC
Dutch scientists have found that frequent use of mobile phones leads to slower brain activity but that their capability to focus on specific issues increases, it was reported on Monday.
The study on the long-term effects of mobile phone usage was published in the September edition of International Journal of Neuroscience.
Lab results have confirmed a deadly illness outbreak in southeastern Congo as Ebola fever, officials said Monday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and another lab in Gabon confirmed the disease as a hemorrhagic fever, and specifically as Ebola, Health Minister Makwenge Kaput said on national television. More than 100 people have died of illness in the affected region since late August.
Medical authorities are mystified and concerned at figures suggesting antidepressant drugs are being prescribed for children, some less than a year old.
Records of the national drug buying agency Pharmac suggest thousands of prescriptions a year are being written for children under 10.
Antidepressants are powerful psychiatric drugs with potentially severe side-effects.
Laboratory tests have confirmed that a dead swan found in the Krasnodar Territory was infected with H5 bird flu virus, but not with the N1 strain, a source in the local administration said Monday.
This is the only case of bird flu detected in the territory since 410 chickens died from the virus and 22,000 birds were culled at a local poultry farm in southern Russia.
Rebecca Morelle
BBCSun, 09 Sep 2007 21:50 UTC
3D face scans are set to speed up the diagnosis of rare genetic conditions in children, UK scientists say.
More than 700 genetic syndromes affect facial traits, but some are difficult to spot because few cases exist.
When athletes at this year's U.S. national swimming championships found themselves gasping for breath while competing at the indoor pool at Indianapolis University, event organizers said the culprit most likely was the disinfection byproducts (DBPs) from the chlorine meant to keep the pool clean. Swimmers' lung troubles - and other possible long-term health effects - generally have been attributed to breathing chloroform, trihalomethanes, and trichloramines, which form in such settings and volatilize at the water's surface. But new research published in
ES&T (DOI:
10.1021/es070871+) indicates that other byproducts hidden in the watery mix also might be to blame.
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©Courtesy of Water Technology, Inc.
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At the water's surface, swimmers breathe in a mix of volatilized disinfection byproducts, including some recently discovered to form in chlorinated swimming pools.
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