Influenza experts have borrowed a page from economists, creating a futures market for influenza activity that predicted outbreaks two to four weeks in advance. The influenza prediction market is presented in the January issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
New research shows that unbelted backseat passengers risk injury or death to themselves and the driver seated in front of them in the event of a head-on crash.
A new study co-authored by Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute senior scientist, Elizabeth Theil, Ph.D., is the first to show that partial copies of DNA called mRNA (or messenger RNA) morph into specific three dimensional shapes when it combines with a protein regulator called IRP1. This discovery is incredibly important to researchers who design medications based on the specific characteristics of a disease.
Mice with neuroblastoma tumors have been successfully treated with genetically modified cells that sought out the cancer cells and activated a chemotherapy drug directly at those sites, according to investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and their colleagues at City of Hope National Medical Center (Duarte, Calif.) and the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). Neuroblastoma is a solid tumor that arises in the part of the nervous system outside the brain.
It’s long been known that experiencing control over a stressor immunizes a rat from developing a depression-like syndrome when it later encounters stressors that it can’t control.
Two small, semi aquatic mammals can use their sense of smell even when underwater, according to a new study conducted by Kenneth Catania, a biologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Study shows our brains are meant to handle variable tasks, not repetitive ones. The study of Stanford University is published in Neuron.
You don’t need to sign up for pricey wine appreciation classes to parse the subtle difference between the black cherry bouquet of a pinot noir and the black currant scent of a cabernet sauvignon. Just pour yourself a couple glasses and sniff. Your brain will quickly help you become a modest oenophile. It’s up to you if you want to drink the lesson plan.
A new imaging molecule that can detect and map plaques and tangles in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease could eventually lead to earlier diagnosis of the devastating disease, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles report in the Dec. 21, 2006, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Research by the Human Pain Research Group at the University of Manchester suggests that people’s responses to placebo or “dummy” pain relief varies according to their way of thinking.