All Stories by Nathan Seppa
- Health & Medicine
Sideways Glance: Training helps people circumvent failing sight
Researchers have developed a rehabilitation regime that may enable many elderly people with age-related macular degeneration to improve their vision.
- Health & Medicine
Coagulation factor XI boosts clot risk
People who have had a major blood clot in a vein are roughly twice as likely to harbor high concentrations of blood coagulation factor XI as people who haven't.
- Health & Medicine
Myopia link to night lights doubted
Two studies cast doubt on the apparent link between night lights in a baby's nursery and an increased risk of being nearsighted later in childhood.
- Health & Medicine
Pig-cell grafts ease symptoms of Parkinson’s
Pig brain cells transplanted into the brains of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease help some of the patients regain mobility and the ability to do basic tasks.
- Health & Medicine
Acetaminophen in Action: Effect on an enzyme may stop pain, lower fever
The discovery of an enzyme scientists are calling cyclooxygenase-3, which is disabled by acetaminophen, might explain why this drug can stop pain and fever but not inflammation.
- Health & Medicine
Herbal cancer remedy is chock full of drugs
An herbal remedy that had been popular among prostate cancer patients was tainted with three synthetic drugs.
- Health & Medicine
Olfactory cells aid spine healing in rats
Injections of olfactory ensheathing glial cells from the brain help severed spinal cords heal in rats.
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Alcohol can induce fainting spells
Alcohol imbibed in modest quantities can disrupt the reflex that maintains blood pressure when a person stands up quickly, which may account for why some people faint when they down a few drinks and then stand up.
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Progestin adds to breast cancer risk
Women taking estrogen are more prone to get breast cancer if they are also taking the hormone progestin.
- Health & Medicine
Cell transplants combat diabetes in mice
Scientists have successfully reversed diabetes in mice by harvesting immature pancreatic cells that make insulin from one mouse, growing them in culture, and transplanting them into a mouse with the disease, which then recedes.
- Health & Medicine
Smoking Gun? Mouse tests link nicotine to crib death
Nicotine may impair a molecule that's necessary for arousing people and other animals from sleep, an effect that could account for the heightened risk of sudden infant death syndrome in babies born to women who smoked during pregnancy.
- Health & Medicine
Protein flags colon, prostate cancers
A compound first identified as a possible culprit in Huntington's disease may be an indicator of cancers of the prostate gland and colon.
