Health & Medicine
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Health & MedicineLess Crying in the Kitchen: Tasty, tearfree onions on the horizon
The discovery of a new enzyme responsible for creating the tear-inducing chemicals found in onions may herald the arrival of genetically modified tearfree onions.
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Health & MedicineWest Nile Worries Are No Reason to Give Up Breast-feeding
West Nile virus infections are spreading like wildfire–and not just through bug bites. Although the vast majority of the nearly 2,800 U.S. cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) so far this year were picked up from mosquitoes, at least 3 people–and possibly 15–appear to have acquired the virus from infected […]
By Janet Raloff -
Health & MedicineFinal Word? Breast surgeries yield same survival rate
Women with breast cancer who undergo partial-breast removal are just as likely to survive for at least 20 years as are women who have their entire breast removed.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicineMaking Bone: Novel form of vitamin D builds up rat skeleton
A newly synthesized form of Vitamin D induces bone-making cells to capture calcium and fortify bone mass in rats, suggesting it might work against osteoporosis in people.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & Medicine‘Bubble’ babies thrive on gene therapy
Gene therapy to repair mutations that thwart development of essential immune cells has helped three babies to overcome severe combined immunodeficiency, in which a child is born without a functional immune system.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicineCalcium may become a dieter’s best friend
Enriching the diet with calcium, especially from dairy products, can switch the body's fat cells from storing calories to burning them.
By Janet Raloff -
Health & MedicineAttention Loss: ADHD may lower volume of brain
Brain-scan data show that the brains of children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are slightly smaller than those of their peers who are free of psychiatric disorders.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & MedicineInducing eye-tumor cells to self-destruct
By restarting the subdued self-destruct signal in cancer cells, researchers studying eye cancers have found a way to stop these cancers in cell cultures and in a rabbit model.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicineMove your head, hurt your golf game
Right-handed golfers using a conventional grip move their head and eyes more during putts than they do when using a cross-handed or one-handed grip, suggesting these alternative grips might work better.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicineMaking the optic nerve sprout anew
A compound made during inflammation, a natural reaction to injury, can induce optic nerve regeneration in a lab-dish concoction including rat retinal ganglion cells.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicineFDA Launches Acrylamide Investigations
You knew french fries and potato chips werent health foods. Sure, theyre veggies, but their deep-fat frying adds scads of fat. Depending on whos doing the cooking, that fat can be the saturated type, which can lead to clogged arteries. But until April, who could have suspected that these oh-so-yummy golden-brown spuds were also laced […]
By Janet Raloff -
Health & MedicineCatching macular degeneration early
Scientists have developed a test that uses the eye's ability to adapt to darkness as a test for age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in elderly people.
By Nathan Seppa