Technology & Society
From Science Daily: A yet unidentified component of coffee interacts with the beverage’s caffeine, which could be a surprising reason why daily coffee intake protects against Alzheimer’s disease. A new Alzheimer’s mouse study by researchers at the University of South
This is a fantastic article. At a time when Congress is debating a bloated $850 billion health care bill, doctors in India have come up with ways to make heart surgery cheaper, with potentially better recovery rates. According to the
“I could make a mouse that has your liver. That’s incredibly valuable,” said stem cell researcher Stephen A. Duncan (at the Medical College of Wisconsin). That’s an impressive claim, and it’s based on newly released data from his lab that
From the NYT: “A team at the Broad Institute, a Harvard-M.I.T. collaborative for genomics research, has devised a way of screening for drugs that attack cancer stem cells but leave ordinary cells unharmed. The Broad team, lead by Piyush B.
Here’s the paper everyone has been buzzing about for the last few days (press release). Monkeys who ate a lower calorie, yet nutritious diet, lived longer than those who ate more. These results were expected, and it will be interesting
There are two stories in the headlines today that both look poised to cut health costs. First, is the announcement of a technique to see if someone has cancer just by testing his or her blood. This new research comes
The NYT reports today that “A new DNA test for the virus that causes cervical cancer does so much better than current methods that some gynecologists hope it will eventually replace the Pap smear in wealthy countries and cruder tests
This is a great article by Joe Nocera of the New York Times on the effectiveness of bringing a business mindset to disease research. He interviews Michael J. Fox and Andy Grove on how the best ways to run a
A study by Dr. Dean Ornish and his team showed that lifestyle changes including diet, exercise, and stress management techniques made a difference in telomerase levels. “Telomerase repairs and lengthens telomeres, which are DNA-protein complexes at the end of chromosomes
Here’s the story from Wired. “With the help of gene therapy, two people who once were blind now can see.[…] Cideciyan’s study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is one of three simultaneous trials of
Finally, a scientific excuse for academics: A Université Laval research team has demonstrated that intellectual work induces a substantial increase in calorie intake. The details of this discovery, which could go some way to explaining the current obesity epidemic, are
From the Associated Press: “Alabama, pushed to second in national obesity rankings by deep-fried Southern favorites, is cracking down on state workers who are too fat. The state has given its 37,527 employees a year to start getting fit —
This article says it could happen. I doubt it (for a variety of reasons: technology being one of them), but it’s definitely a wake up call. So, stop surfing the Internet and GO WORK OUT NOW!
Dr. Dean Ornish, head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, CA, and his team showed that changing diet and exercise led to changes in what genes were switched on or off. Reuters reports that “the activity of disease-preventing
Here’s an interesting article in the SF Chronicle about medical tourism. According to the article, ” No official statistics are kept on how many Americans travel overseas for medical care, but one estimate places the number at 150,000 in 2006.”
A study by Steven Zeisel, M.D., Ph.D. Nutritionist of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has apparently shown that “Pregnant women who get sufficient levels of the nutrient choline in their diet may have offspring with a higher