Venom from a West Indian tarantula has been shown to cause pain by exciting the same nerve cells in mice that sense high temperatures and the hot, spicy ingredient in chili peppers, UCSF scientists have discovered.
Even if climate records from Greenland and Antarctic ice cores look different, climate of Artic and Antarctic are directly linked. Investigations of an Antarctic ice core indicate a principle connection between both hemispheres by a “bipolar seesaw.”
Over the last half century, researchers have found that mineral surfaces may have played critical roles organizing, or activating, molecules that would become essential ingredients to all life–such as amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and nucleic acids (the essence of DNA). But which of the countless possible combinations of biomolecules and mineral surfaces were key to this evolution? This vexing question has stumped scientists for years because of the sheer volume of possibilities.
In a recent experiment, to be published in Nature on Nov. 9, Dr. Matthias Meschke and professor Jukka Pekola, together with Dr. Wiebke Guichard, a coworker from French CNRS, investigated heat exchange between two small pieces of normal metal, connected to each other only via superconducting leads. The results demonstrate that at very low temperatures heat is transferred by electromagnetic radiation.
Evidence suggests that the stress of heating and cooling costs may adversely impact the health and nutritional status of children and other vulnerable individuals.
University of Utah biologists invented a chemical-free, hairdryer-like device — the LouseBuster — and conducted a study showing it eradicates head lice infestations on children by exterminating the eggs or “nits” and killing enough lice to prevent them from reproducing.
Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have found that reducing the core body temperature of mice extends their median lifespan by up to 20 percent. This is the first time that changes in body temperature have been shown to affect lifespan in warm-blooded animals.
Pass on the salt. Cut back on the sugar. Some easy recipe adjustments may be in order for healthier cooking. The November issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource answers questions about healthier cooking.
Lower back pain is one of the most common causes of job-related disability and why some people miss work. It is also the second most common neurological ailment in the United States, second only to headache. In fact, approximately 80% of adults in Western countries have, at some point, experienced lower back pain.
New autopsy data provide the strongest evidence yet that sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is not a “mystery” disease but has a concrete biological basis. In the November 1 issue of JAMA, researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston document abnormalities in the brainstem — a part of the brain that regulates breathing, blood pressure, body heat, and arousal — in babies who died from SIDS. The term cot death is often used in the United Kingdom, and crib death in North America.