Health & Medicine
- Health & Medicine
Pernicious influences on dietary choices
Because humanity developed during eons of cyclical feasts and famines, we survived by chowing down on energy-dense foods whenever they became available. Today that's all the time. But a number of recent studies point to additional, less obvious influences on what and how much we choose to eat.
- Health & Medicine
Few Americans eat right
The Institute of Medicine periodically issues recommendations on what people should eat to be healthy and maintain a reasonable weight. Americans have largely ignored this well-intentioned advice, a new study shows. It reports that “nearly the entire U.S. population consumes a diet that is not on par with recommendations.”
- Life
A thousand points of height
A study finds heaps of genetic variants that influence a person’s stature, but even added together they don’t stack up to much.
- Life
A salty tail
Just adding sodium can stimulate limb regrowth in tadpoles, a study finds, raising the possibility that human tissue might respond to relatively simple treatment.
- Health & Medicine
How the brain chooses sides
A new study reveals where and how people decide which hand to use for a simple task.
- Health & Medicine
Disease donations
Sometimes organ donors share more than a functioning body part. They can unwittingly bestow quickly lethal infections. That’s what happened, beginning last November, according to a new case report.
- Health & Medicine
Main malaria parasite came to humans from gorillas, not chimps
Using DNA from fecal samples, researchers show that the infection was not passed to Homo sapiens by its closest primate relative.
- Health & Medicine
Vital flaw
Liver cells that inherit the wrong number of chromosomes often do just fine, and may even have some advantages.
- Health & Medicine
Enzyme might underlie some stroke damage
Inhibiting NOX4 in mice limits brain injury, tests show.
- Health & Medicine
Obesity in children linked to common cold virus
Exposure to adenovirus-36 may partly explain why kids are getting heavier, a new study suggests.
- Health & Medicine
Scottish kids’ asthma declined after smoking ban
Hospitals report a drop in asthma emergencies among children since a law prohibiting lighting up in public buildings went into effect in 2006.
- Life
Environmental DNA modifications tied to obesity
Chemical changes that affect gene activity could underlie many common conditions, a new study suggests.
