Health & Medicine

Chemistry

Study reports hints of phthalate threat to boys’ IQs

You may have a hard time spelling phthalates, but there’s no avoiding them. They’re in the air you breathe, water you drink and foods you eat. And this ubiquity may carry a price, particularly for young boys, emerging data suggest. Including a drop in their IQ.

Health & Medicine

Languages use different parts of brain

Different areas are active depending how the grammar of a sentence conveys meaning.

Life

Insulin-producing cells can regenerate in diabetic mice

Animal study finds that the pancreas can spontaneously regenerate beta cells.

Chemistry

Skin as a source of drug pollution

Traces of over-the-counter and prescription meds taint the environment. The presumption Ì and it's a good one Ì has been that most of these residues come from the urine and solid wastes excreted by treated patients. But in some instances, a leading source of a drug may be skin Ì either because the medicine was applied there or because people sweat it out.

Health & Medicine

Bees forage with their guts

Researchers show that a gene helps honeybees choose between nectar and pollen.

Health & Medicine

Putting African sleeping sickness to bed

Experiments in mice find a protein that could lead to a safer and more effective treatment for parasitic disease.

Health & Medicine

Junk food junkies, round two

Laura Sanders follows up on a story first reported from the Society for Neuroscience’s 2009 meeting.

Health & Medicine

Identical twins may not be so identical when it comes to gut bacteria

A new study suggests that intestinal microbe populations vary widely from one person to another.

Health & Medicine

Cap or cork, it’s the wine that matters most

Comparative study finds that screw tops can perform just as well in regulating the aging process.

Health & Medicine

Walnuts slow prostate cancer growth

A new study suggests that mice with prostate tumors should say “nuts to cancer.” Paul Davis of the University of California, Davis, hopes follow-up data by his team and others will one day justify men saying the same.

Tech

Smokin’ entrees: Charcoal grilling tops the list

At the American Chemical Society meeting, earlier this week, I stayed at a hotel that fronted onto the kitchen door of a Burger King. This explained the source of the beefy scent that perfumed the air from mid-morning on – the restaurant’s exhaust of smoke and meat-derived aerosols. A study presented at the meeting confirmed what my nose observed: that commercial grilling can release relatively huge amounts of pollutants.

Health & Medicine

One of H1N1’s mysteries explained

The current H1N1 influenza shares many similarities with the 1918 pandemic influenza.