Tag Archives: medicine

Daylight Saving Time can be (mildly) hazardous to your health [Daylight Saving Time]

Today, clocks throughout the United States jump forward an hour to mark the beginning of Daylight Saving Time. The economic and energy benefits of DST have been hotly debated for nearly a century, but does it pose a health risk?

All our American reade… Continue reading

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To defeat ticks, we must first defeat the lizards [Mad Science]

The Western fence lizard was once believed to be our best defense against lyme disease. That’s because ticks carry lyme disease, but lizards carry a lot of ticks. In fact, ticks are so enamored of lizard blood that they basically act as a buffer zone … Continue reading

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Oxford University Tests Universal Flu Vaccine

dbune writes “A universal flu vaccine has been tested by scientists at Oxford University. ‘… the vaccine targets proteins inside the flu virus that are common across all strains, instead of those that sit on the virus’s external coat, which are liabl… Continue reading

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Documenting the evolution of fair tests

"The James Lind Library has been created to help people understand fair tests of treatments in health care. The principles of fair tests are explained in essays containing many examples." Continue reading

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Computer Game Makes You a Genetic Scientist

A new online game harnesses the computational power of idle brains to help decipher the origins of genetic diseases.
The game, called Phylo, stands on the shoulders of crowdsourced science giants like the protein-folding game Foldit and the celestial … Continue reading

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Breakthrough Portends Cure For the Common Cold

breadboy21 writes with this excerpt from the Independent: “Scientists have been able to show for the first time that the body’s immune defenses can destroy the common cold virus after it has actually invaded the inner sanctum of a human cell, a feat th… Continue reading

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The explosive that became a heart medicine [Mad Science]

Nitroglycerin destroys lives by exploding, and saves them by stopping heart problems. How can it do both?
Most moviegoers have watched a scene or two where nitroglycerin has been used to blow the doors off of a bank vault. They’ve also seen scenes when… Continue reading

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You have taste receptors in your lungs [Biology]

It sounds like the plot of a Troma flick, but yes, your lungs contain taste receptors. When these receptors encounter bitter compounds, they open up your airways — this discovery could radically improve the treatment of lung conditions like asthma.
T… Continue reading

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University of Calgary succeeds in building a neurochip out of silicon, human brain cells

Scientists at the University of Calgary have teamed up with the National Research Council Canada to put a network of human brain cells on a microchip — in effect creating a (tiny) brain on a chip. Until now, when scientists wanted to monitor brain ce… Continue reading

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Spinal-Fluid Test Confirmed To Predict Alzheimer’s

omnibit writes “The New York Times reports that researchers have found a spinal-fluid test can be 100 percent accurate in identifying patients with significant memory loss who are on their way to developing Alzheimer’s disease. The new study included m… Continue reading

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Arsenic is unlikely warrior against cancer [Medical Breakthroughs]

The deadly poison made famous in countless Agatha Christie mysteries isn’t known for its health benefits. But an arsenic compound has helped treat leukemia sufferers for over a decade, and we’ve just discovered it can fight other cancers as well.The sp… Continue reading

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A new facility is being built to harvest rare atoms [Mad Science]

Find out how a particle accelerator will be used to make rare isotopes used for nuclear medicine.
Technetium 99m sounds like something in a bad fifties science fiction film that would be injected into someone to give them psychic powers, or twelve hour… Continue reading

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Cancer caused by DNA repair gone haywire [Medical Science]

We don’t know how to cure it, but now we’ve got a better idea what causes cancer. The disease starts when cells mess up their attempts to repair damage to their DNA.There’s a certain tragic irony to this, as these terrible diseases seem to begin with c… Continue reading

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The man who grew a finger

Quite an incredible story about a powder being developed that can regrow body parts. “I put my finger in,” Mr Spievak says, pointing towards the propeller of a model airplane, “and that’s when I sliced my finger off.” It took … Continue reading

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