Teens who repeatedly cut themselves are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, increasing their chances of possibly contracting HIV, according to a study in the June issue of the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.
Researchers from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center in Providence, R.I. report that frequent self-cutters - teens who have cut themselves more than three times - used condoms less consistently, were more likely to share cutting instruments, and had less self-restraint. The study is the first to examine whether these teens engage in the same level of risk behaviors as those who've only experimented with cutting once or twice.
"This study sheds some much-needed light on the relationship between frequency of self-cutting and sexual risk, which could prove critical, given the rising rates of self-injury among adolescents," says lead author Larry K. Brown, M.D., of the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center (BHCRC). "Basically, we found that greater frequency seems to imply greater HIV risk, as these teens were more likely to share cutting instruments and participate in other risky activities that can expose them to HIV and other diseases."
After a stroke, waves of electrical discharge in the human brain cause more nerve cells to die / Researchers from Heidelberg an Cologne publish a study in the "Annals of Neurology".
After a stroke, even unaffected areas of the brain are at risk - depolarization waves arise at the edges of the dead tissue and spread through the adjacent areas of the brain. If these waves are repeated, more cells die. This has previously been observed only in animal studies.
A clinical study at the university hospitals of Heidelberg and Cologne along with the Max Planck Institute of Neurological Research in Cologne has shown for the first time that this phenomenon occurs after a stroke in humans and is a warning sign that more nerve cells will die. The study, published in June 2008 in the renowned journal "Annals of Neurology," may allow to translate more than 60 years of experimental research for the diagnosis and therapy of stroke patients.
New evidence shows that the brains of adults with autism are "wired" differently from people without the disorder, and this abnormal pattern of connectivity may be responsible for the social impairments that are characteristic of autism.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a team of researchers affiliated with the University of Washington's Autism Center also found that the most severely socially impaired subjects in the study exhibited the most abnormal pattern of connectivity among a network of brain regions involved in face processing.
"This study shows that these brain regions are failing to work together efficiently," said Natalia Kleinhans, a research assistant professor of radiology and lead author of the paper published in the journal Brain. "Our work seems to indicate that the brain pathways of people with autism are not completely disconnected, but they are not as strong as in people without autism."
The study is the first to look at brain connectivity and social impairment, and focused on how the brain processes information about faces. Deficits in face processing are one of the earliest characteristics to emerge in people with autism.
Scientists have found that bacteria that existed in the soil in 1960s and 70s have developed resistance to an antibiotic they 'have never seen before'.
The team looked at three strains of bacteria that showed extreme resistance to six common antibiotics, including ciprofloxacin, which was first sold in 1989.
"You can pretty safely say that there is no way these bacteria have seen them before," New Scientist quoted Cristiane San Miguel, a microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, US, as saying.
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
AllAfrica.comWed, 11 Jun 2008 13:31 UTC
Nairobi - Four people have died in an outbreak of visceral leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease also known as kalazar or black fever, in Isiolo and Wajir in northeastern Kenya, according to a senior health official.
Shahnaaz Sharif, the senior deputy director of medical services in Kenya's health ministry, said 66 people had been infected in the outbreak that was first reported in Wajir in April 2008.
The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has reported that two young women died shortly after receiving Merck's Gardasil, a vaccine against several varieties of human papillomavirus (HPV).
NEW YORK - The percentage of underweight babies born in the U.S. has increased to its highest rate in 40 years, according to a new report that also documents a recent rise in the number of children living in poverty.
An unprecedented review of recreational injuries found that most injuries occur during snowboarding than any other outdoor activity.
Broken bones and sprains accounted for half of all cases studied. About 7 percent of ER visits were for concussions or other brain injuries.
Sledding and hiking were the second and third most dangerous activities, researchers said.
"We want people to participate in outdoor recreational activities. But we want people to recognize that there's cause for concern and people can and do get injured," study co-author Arlene Greenspan said Tuesday.
Kyunghee Park and Nipa Piboontanasawat
BloombergThu, 12 Jun 2008 06:10 UTC
Hong Kong ordered the slaughter of all chickens in the city's markets and retail outlets after the H5N1 bird flu virus was detected in three more markets.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus has been found in four markets since the first outbreak last week, the government said at a press briefing today. Hong Kong banned poultry imports from mainland China and suspended exports from local farms for as long as 21 days on June 7.
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