Pancreatic cancer is a particularly devastating disease. At least 94 percent of patients will die within five years, and in 2013 it was ranked as one of the top 10 deadliest cancers. (more…)
People living in northern latitudes have more gut bacteria linked to obesity compared with people living in southern latitudes, a new study has found.
People living in cold, northern latitudes have bacteria in their guts that may predispose them to obesity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Arizona and the University of California, Berkeley. (more…)
Health interventions can contribute to academic achievement
There is a strong relationship between a student’s personal health and their academic achievement in school, new research by Yale University suggests. The study found that school, home and community environments that promote good personal health contribute to higher levels of achievement.
The study examines the relationship between a variety of health factors and students’ standardized test scores. The most important predictors of academic achievement were having no television in the bedroom, maintaining a healthy weight, being physically fit, having a secure source of healthy food, and rarely eating at fast-food restaurants. Other significant factors were not drinking soda or other sweetened drinks and getting enough sleep. (more…)
Scientists from UCLA, UC San Francisco, Costa Rica and Colombia take steps to identify genetic component to mental illness
Scientists know there is a strong genetic component to bipolar disorder, but they have had an extremely difficult time identifying the genes that cause it. So, in an effort to better understand the illness’s genetic causes, researchers at UCLA tried a new approach. (more…)
Stroke hospitalization rates appear to rise and fall with sharp changes in outdoor temperature and dew point, a pilot study led by the Yale School of Public Health has found. The research, presented this week at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2014, shows an association of stroke hospitalizations with exposure to extreme daily temperature and dew point fluctuations.
The study examined Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance data from hospitals across the United States. The researchers looked at 157,130 hospital discharges in 2010-2011 for ischemic stroke (caused by a blood clot that blocks blood flow in or leading to the brain). The researchers also obtained temperature and dew point data during the same period and localized it to the county level. (more…)
Poets and physicians know that a scarred heart cannot beat the way it used to, but the science of reprogramming cells offers hope—for the physical heart, at least.
A team of University of Michigan biomedical engineers has turned cells common in scar tissue into colonies of beating heart cells. Their findings could advance the path toward regenerating tissue that’s been damaged in a heart attack. (more…)
Samsung Österreich und die Fakultät für Lebenswissenschaften der Universität Wien haben heute den Startschuss für eine großangelegte nationale Initiative gegeben: Unter dem Namen “Power Sleep” wollen die beiden Partner Smartphone- und Tablet-User in ganz Österreich dazu anregen, die Forschung im Kampf gegen Krankheiten wie Alzheimer oder Krebs voranzutreiben. Erreicht werden soll dies über eine eigens entwickelte Android-App: Sie erlaubt die nicht benötigte Prozessorleistung der mobilen Endgeräte der wissenschaftlichen Forschung zu spenden – etwa während man schläft.
“Technologie kann nur in den Händen der Menschen Großes vollbringen. Was Thomas Rattei und sein Team an der Universität Wien in der Proteinforschung mit IT-Unterstützung und wissenschaftlichem Know-how leisten, hat uns inspiriert. Unsere Anerkennung dafür – und gleichzeitig unser Beitrag für den Kampf gegen Alzheimer oder Krebs – heißt Power Sleep”, erklärt Martin Wallner, Senior Director IT & Mobile bei Samsung Electronics Austria. (more…)
A region deep inside the brain controls how quickly people make decisions about love, according to new research at the University of Chicago.
The finding, made in an examination of a 48-year-old man who suffered a stroke, provides the first causal clinical evidence that an area of the brain called the anterior insula “plays an instrumental role in love,” said UChicago neuroscientist Stephanie Cacioppo, lead author of the study. (more…)
