Health & WellnessS


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Your Face Reveals Sleep Disorder Risk


PhysOrg
Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:28 UTC
A team of researchers from the University of Sydney has developed an innovative method to analyse digital photographs of faces in order to determine an individual's risk of developing Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA).

In conjunction with the Royal North Shore Hospital and the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, Professor Peter Cistulli and Dr Richard Lee have found that analysis of detailed measurements of the face from digital photographs can help doctors identify those most in danger of developing OSA.

"The novelty and potential clinical application of our work are very exciting and should hopefully lead to improved recognition and diagnosis of OSA in the community," Professor Cistulli said.
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Heart

Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss

John Tierney
The New York Times
Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:46 UTC
In the new issue of Nature, the neuroscientist Larry Young offers a grand unified theory of love. After analyzing the brain chemistry of mammalian pair bonding - and, not incidentally, explaining humans' peculiar erotic fascination with breasts - Dr. Young predicts that it won't be long before an unscrupulous suitor could sneak a pharmaceutical love potion into your drink.

That's the bad news. The not-so-bad news is that you may enjoy this potion if you took it knowingly with the right person. But the really good news, as I see it, is that we might reverse-engineer an anti-love potion, a vaccine preventing you from making an infatuated ass of yourself. Although this love vaccine isn't mentioned in Dr. Young's essay, when I raised the prospect he agreed it could also be in the offing.
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Pills

Hormone Replacement Therapy leads to female brain shrinkage


Press TV
Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:36 UTC
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can cause slight brain shrinkage in post-menopausal women, leading to memory loss and dementia.

According to a study published in Neurology, the use of postmenopausal hormone therapy accelerates atrophy and brain tissue loss in women aged 65 and older.

The shrinkage was more pronounced in women with underlying memory problems prior to the initiation of the treatment, indicating that treatment accelerates the process of existing neurodegenerative diseases in these women.
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Switchboard In The Brain Helps Us Learn And Remember At The Same Time


PhysOrg
Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:00 UTC
The healthy brain is in a constant struggle between learning new experiences and remembering old experiences, a new study in this week's PLoS Biology reports. Virtually all social interactions require the rapid exchange of new and old information. For instance, normal conversation requires that while listening to the new information another person is providing, we are already retrieving information in preparation of an appropriate reply. Yet, some memory theories assume that these different modes of memory cannot happen at the same time and compete for priority within our brain.

Brain researchers now provide the first clear evidence supporting a competition between learning and remembering. Their findings also suggest that one brain region can resolve the conflict by improving the rapid switch between learning and remembering. The researchers included Willem Huijbers, Cyriel Pennartz, and Sander Daselaar of the Netherlands' University of Amsterdam, and Roberto Cabeza of Duke University.

The researchers used a novel memory task that forced learning and remembering to occur within a brief period of time. In the study, a group of adults in their 20's looked at a set of regular words presented in the middle of a screen. Participants rapidly tried to remember whether the words had previously been studied or not. Simultaneously, a set of colorful pictures were presented in the background. Meanwhile, the participants' brains were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). After brain scanning, participants were surprised with another memory test including the colorful background pictures instead of the words.
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Info

Flashback Could you make a genetically targeted weapon?

David Adam
The Guardian
Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:07 UTC
You could try, but probably wouldn't want to be around when you released it. The prospect that rogue scientists could develop bioweapons designed to target certain ethnic groups based on their genetic differences was raised this week in a report by the British Medical Association (BMA).
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People

Old and Happy? It's a Matter of Attitude

Lee Drutman
Miller-McCune
Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:52 UTC
Image
Researchers find that as people age, declining health and declining mental function don't make people any less happy. But having the right attitude seems to matter a lot.

It's not easy getting old. The body starts to break down, and the mind begins to fade. These things, it is often thought, will leave us depressed and unhappy. As researchers are finding out, however, they actually don't.

These ravages of time, as it turns out, have very little to do with one's happiness. Actually, older people report being just as happy, if not happier, than their younger compatriots. Researchers who study aging and happiness have dubbed this the "paradox of well-being."

But why? What's going on?
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Alarm Clock

UK: Are these the connections that expose fluoride dangers?


Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:27 UTC
Has anyone on the Examiner or Kirklees Council considered the possibility that there could be a connection between the 2008/9 resurgence of the "push" for fluoridation, the article in the Examiner, December 16 featuring Dr Peter Clemenson of Huddersfield University and the brief UK Press announcement stating that Britain has sold off its stake in the Aldermaston Weapons Establishment, relinquishing control of nuclear war head production in the UK?

Do any of the Kirklees councillors realise that the fluoride tank washings from several major industries including the nuclear industry and the hazards of their disposal could be at the root of the Government's persistence in attempting to delude populations throughout the country into accepting the totally false propaganda, that fluoride is essential to the prevention of tooth decay.
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People

How the City Hurts Your Brain - and Nature Heals It

Jonah Lehrer
The Boston Globe
Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:00 UTC
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© Yuko Shimizu / The Boston Globe
The city has always been an engine of intellectual life, from the 18th-century coffeehouses of London, where citizens gathered to discuss chemistry and radical politics, to the Left Bank bars of modern Paris, where Pablo Picasso held forth on modern art. Without the metropolis, we might not have had the great art of Shakespeare or James Joyce; even Einstein was inspired by commuter trains.

And yet, city life isn't easy. The same London cafes that stimulated Ben Franklin also helped spread cholera; Picasso eventually bought an estate in quiet Provence. While the modern city might be a haven for playwrights, poets, and physicists, it's also a deeply unnatural and overwhelming place.
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Researchers Discover Structure of Key Ebola Protein


PhysOrg
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:57 UTC
Research led by Iowa State University scientists has them a step closer to finding a way to counter the Ebola virus.

A team led by Gaya Amarasinghe, an assistant professor in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, has recently solved the structure from a key part of the Ebola protein known as VP35.

VP35 interferes with the natural resistance of host cells against viral infections.

"Usually when viruses infect cells, the host immune system can fight to eventually clear the virus. But with Ebola infections, the ability of the host to mount a defense against the invading virus is lost," said Amarasinghe.
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Health

Top 11 compounds in US drinking water

Rowan Hooper
New Scientist
Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:22 UTC
Tap water
© Victor Watts/RexTap water is not as pure as it looks.
A comprehensive survey of the drinking water for more than 28 million Americans has detected the widespread but low-level presence of pharmaceuticals and hormonally active chemicals.

Little was known about people's exposure to such compounds from drinking water, so Shane Snyder and colleagues at the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas screened tap water from 19 US water utilities for 51 different compounds. The surveys were carried out between 2006 and 2007.

The 11 most frequently detected compounds - all found at extremely low concentrations - were:

- Atenolol, a beta-blocker used to treat cardiovascular disease

- Atrazine, an organic herbicide banned in the European Union, but still used in the US, which has been implicated in the decline of fish stocks and in changes in animal behaviour

- Carbamazepine, a mood-stabilising drug used to treat bipolar disorder, amongst other things

- Estrone, an oestrogen hormone secreted by the ovaries and blamed for causing gender-bending changes in fish
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