In work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team led by a Brown University neuroscientist describes groundbreaking recordings of activity in two brain regions during deep sleep.
The "dialogue" they captured occurred between the hippocampus and the neocortex, areas of the brain where scientists believe memories are made and stored. The findings were startling.
A new study casts doubt on the potential of lung cancer screenings to save lives.
Patients screened with spiral CT scans are three times more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer. But they're no less likely to die from the disease than if they were never tested, according to an analysis in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Julie Steenhuysen
ReutersTue, 06 Mar 2007 18:23 UTC
Chicago - Bausch & Lomb said on Tuesday it has started a limited recall of its ReNu MultiPlus contact lens solution, just 10 months after its global recall of another popular contact lens solution linked to a serious eye infection.
Bausch said the MultiPlus solution contained traces of iron, which could discolor the solution and shorten its shelf life. It has not had any reports of health problems associated with use of the solution.
The number of U.S. children having obesity surgery has tripled in recent years, surging at a pace that could mean more than 1,000 such operations this year, new research suggests. While the procedure is still far more common in adults, it appears to be slightly less risky in teens, according to an analysis of data on 12- to 19-year-olds who had obesity surgery from 1996 through 2003.
NBCTue, 06 Mar 2007 08:21 UTC
Tipping the scale at 360 pounds, Kayla Hilton is seriously obese and has major health issues, but the Oklahoma woman's long-term prognosis is encouraging now that doctors have removed the 93-pound ovarian cyst that grew undetected inside her for years.
"I feel lighter and happy to heal, to get better and be able to get around," Hilton, 32, said during an appearance Monday on TODAY.
Hilton, who lives in a Tulsa suburb, has been overweight since childhood. But when she was about 16, she began gaining weight at a faster rate.
A test recently used by the UK government's Independent Depleted Uranium Oversight Board to detect exposure to UK troops by depleted uranium (DU) during the 1991 Gulf Conflict was developed by a team led by a University of Leicester geologist.
Randall Parrish, Professor of Isotope Geology, developed the test with Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Axel Gerdes, who now works at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and his colleague Matt Horstwood at the British Geological Survey, using advanced mass spectrometry.
Prof Parrish's team has tested more than 350 individuals as part of the programme, with the result that none so far tested had any demonstrable DU exposure resulting from their participation in the 1991 Gulf Conflict, though the extent of actual initial exposure of tested individuals to DU is unknown.
Ventria Bioscience wants to grow rice modified to produce human proteins on more than 3,000 acres (1,215 hectares) of farmland. The pharmaceutical rice would be harvested and refined for use in medicines to fight diarrhoea, dehydration and other illnesses that kill millions of infants and toddlers each year.
Safety concerns
While Kansas officials have embraced the project as a boon to the state's emerging biosciences industry, environmentalists and some food groups warn the proteins could find their way into the food chain, causing medical reactions or allergies.
"We're opposed to the production of pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals in food crops grown outdoors because we think there are too many ways contamination of the food supply could occur," said Karen Perry Stillerman, senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy group.
Drinking a small amount of wine appears to extend men's life expectancy by a few years, Dutch researchers said in the latest study to find benefits in moderate drinking. Dutch researchers sought to gauge the impact on health and life expectancy of long-term alcohol consumption, tracking 1,373 men born between 1900 and 1920 who lived in Zutphen, an industrial town in the Netherlands.
The researchers followed alcohol intake in seven surveys carried out over four decades starting in 1960, tracking some men until they died and the rest until 2000. The men were asked about drinking, eating and smoking habits, weight, and prevalence of heart attack, stroke, diabetes and cancer.
Drinking a small amount of alcohol - less than a glass per day - was associated with lower rates of death from cardiovascular causes and overall causes, the study found. Drinking wine appeared to be more protective than spirits and beer. Drinking an average of about half a glass of wine per day was associated with lowest mortality levels, it found.
BBCTue, 06 Mar 2007 04:34 UTC
Girls who are overweight at the age of three risk reaching puberty as early as nine years old, a US study suggests.
The research, published in the journal Pediatrics, adds to mounting evidence suggesting childhood obesity is causing the trend of earlier puberty in girls.
Studies suggest girls who reach puberty earlier than the "normal" age of 10 and above also start drinking alcohol and begin having sexual intercourse sooner. UK experts said early puberty could cause girls significant distress.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to approve a powerful antibiotic for cattle despite warnings it would be dangerous for people, U.S. media reported on Monday.
The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals.
