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Evidence from a quiet MRI: Breastfeeding benefits babies’ brains

By Guest PostJuly 1, 2013Healthbreastfeeding, breastmilk only group, douglas dean, formula, irene piryatinsky, magnetic resonance imaging, mri, mri machines, non breastfed kids, sean deoni

A study using brain images from “quiet” MRI machines adds to the growing body of evidence that breastfeeding improves brain development in infants. Breastfeeding alone produced better brain development than a combination of breastfeeding and formula, which produced better development than formula alone.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study by researchers from Brown University finds more evidence that breastfeeding is good for babies’ brains.

The study made use of specialized, baby-friendly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the brain growth in a sample of children under the age of 4. The research found that by age 2, babies who had been breastfed exclusively for at least three months had enhanced development in key parts of the brain compared to children who were fed formula exclusively or who were fed a combination of formula and breastmilk. The extra growth was most pronounced in parts of the brain associated with language, emotional function, and cognition, the research showed. (more…)

Innovative intervention program improves life for rural women in India living with HIV/AIDS

By Guest PostJune 30, 2013General, Healthadey nyamathi, ahsa life, aids, aids in india, al, andra pradesh, asha, black gram, cd4 tcell, control group, epidemic, good nutrition, high protein foods, India, kalyan ganguly, living with hiv, pigeon pea, rural women, sanjeev sinha, school of nursing, ucla

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from UCLA and India has found that a new type of intervention program, in which lay women in the rural Indian province of Andra Pradesh were trained as social health activists to assist women who have HIV/AIDS, significantly improved patients’ adherence to antiretroviral therapy and boosted their immune-cell counts and nutrition levels.

The lay women were trained by the research team to serve as accredited social health activists, or ASHA, and their work was overseen by rural nurses and physicians. These ASHA then provided counseling and support to the women with HIV/AIDS, as well as assistance aimed at removing the barriers they face in accessing health care and treatment. (more…)

Breaking Dengue Fever

By Guest PostJune 30, 2013Healthasia-pacific, China, dengue fever, florida, guangzhou, hawaii, infectious disease, malaria, michigan state university, mosquito species, mosquitoes, sun yat sen, united states, university, vaccine, wolbachia bacteria, zhiyong xi

Like malaria, dengue fever is an infectious disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Unlike malaria, there is no vaccine for it. As many as 100 million people contract dengue each year, but MSU researcher Zhiyong Xi is working to change that.

Among the estimated 2.5 billion people at risk for dengue, more than 70 percent live in Asia Pacific countries, which spurred Xi to establish a collaborative research institute at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. (more…)

NASA’s Voyager 1 Explores Final Frontier of Our ‘Solar Bubble’

By Guest PostJune 29, 2013Sciencecharged particles, cosmic ray, depletion region, ed stone, energetic particle data, final frontier, heliosphere, interstellar arrival, interstellar space, johns hopkins university, jupiter, leonard burlaga, magnetic field, magnetosphere, Milky Way, NASA, solar bubble, solar originating particles, stamatios krimigis, twin spacecraft, voyager 1, voyager project scientist

PASADENA, Calif. — Data from Voyager 1, now more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, suggest the spacecraft is closer to becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space.

Research using Voyager 1 data and published in the journal Science today provides new detail on the last region the spacecraft will cross before it leaves the heliosphere, or the bubble around our sun, and enters interstellar space. Three papers describe how Voyager 1’s entry into a region called the magnetic highway resulted in simultaneous observations of the highest rate so far of charged particles from outside heliosphere and the disappearance of charged particles from inside the heliosphere. (more…)

Health in conflict: A public health student undertakes a challenging internship in Lebanon

By Guest PostJune 29, 2013General, Healthamelia reese masterson, analysis, arabic, bashar al assad, bireh, civil war, damascus, data collection, health in conflict, homeland, homs, internship in lebanon, killed in syria, military checkpoints, northern lebanese town, ob gyn services, rafik hariri foundation, reproductive health issues, syria, syrian women, syrians, unfpa, united nations, ysph

“In Syria it is a fast death; here it is a slow death,” a woman lamented as she described her situation as a refugee in Lebanon escaping an escalating civil war in her homeland.

Each woman’s story was different, but they were all sad, grim. Another refugee had five children and a husband who is detained somewhere back home. “When a father is present you might be able to afford some of the children’s needs, but if he’s not, from whom do you seek help?” she asked. (more…)

New Explanation for Slow Earthquakes on San Andreas

By Guest PostJune 28, 2013Environmentcalifornia, continental plate, creep events, fault, fault creep, fault movement, fraction, frictional behavior, geologic hazards, jeff mcguire, matt wei, new explanation, new model, new zealand, per year, post seismic deformation, san andreas, shallower source, short seconds, silent earthquake, slow earthquake, slow slip events, solar powered creepmeter, stable zone, strike slip faults, subduction zone faults, superstition hills, total slip

New Zealand’s geologic hazards agency reported this week an ongoing, “silent” earthquake that began in January is still going strong. Though it is releasing the energy equivalent of a 7.0 earthquake, New Zealanders can’t feel it because its energy is being released over a long period of time, therefore slow, rather than a few short seconds.

These so-called “slow slip events” are common at subduction zone faults – where an oceanic plate meets a continental plate and dives beneath it. They also occur on continents along strike-slip faults like California’s San Andreas, where two plates move horizontally in opposite directions. Occurring close to the surface, in the upper 3-5 kilometers (km) of the fault, this slow, silent movement is referred to as “creep events.” (more…)

Spiral galaxies like Milky Way bigger than thought, says CU-Boulder study

By Guest PostJune 28, 2013Scienceboulder, brian keeney, casa, charles danforth, circumgalactic gas, cos, cos on hubble, cosmic origins spectrograph, diameter, galaxy evolution, higgs centre, Hubble Space Telescope, intergalactic interactions, james green, john stocke, light year, michael shull, Milky Way, missing link, scotland, spiral galaxy, supermassive black holes, theoretical physics, university of colorado, university of edinburgh

Let’s all fist bump: Spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way appear to be much larger and more massive than previously believed, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope.

CU-Boulder Professor John Stocke, study leader, said new observations with Hubble’s $70 million Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, or COS, designed by CU-Boulder show that normal spiral galaxies are surrounded by halos of gas that can extend to over 1 million light-years in diameter. The current estimated diameter of the Milky Way, for example, is about 100,000 light-years. One light-year is roughly 6 trillion miles. (more…)

More Fresh Air in Classrooms Means Fewer Absences

By Guest PostJune 28, 2013Healthclassroom ventilation rates, classrooms in california, poor ventilation, ventilation rates, ventilation standards

Berkeley Lab study finds correlation between higher illness absences and lower ventilation rates in California elementary schools.

If you suspect that opening windows to let in fresh air might be good for you, a new study by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has confirmed your hunch. Analyzing extensive data on ventilation rates collected from more than 150 classrooms in California over two years, the researchers found that bringing classroom ventilation rates up to the state-mandated standard may reduce student absences due to illness by approximately 3.4 percent. (more…)

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