Why do we use facial expressions to convey emotions?
Just as a picture is worth a thousand words, our faces can express a wealth of information. The ability to communicate subtle emotions with a simple raised eyebrow or curl of the lip may be innate.
Painkillers 'risky in pregnancy'
Prolonged use of paracetamol and other painkillers during pregnancy may pose a health risk to baby boys, warn experts.
Humans' Big Brains Tied To Chimps' Immunity?
It's a provocative - even astonishing - hypothesis: Could the same set of genes that explains why chimpanzees are protected from some diseases also explain why humans have big brains?
Margaret Mead's war theory kicks butt of neo-Darwinian and Malthusian models
Why war? Darwinian explanations, such as the popular "demonic males" theory of Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham, are clearly insufficient. They can't explain why war emerged relatively recently in human prehistory - less than 15,000 years ago, according to the archaeological record - or why since then it has erupted only in certain times and places. The best answer I've found comes from Margaret Mead
Cannabis compounds make females more masculine
When newborn female rats are given a substance mimicking cannabis, their brains become more masculine – as does their behaviour.
Discovery could reveal secrets of ancient Martian and terrestrial atmospheres
Chemists at UC San Diego have uncovered a new chemical reaction on tiny particulates in the atmosphere that could allow scientists to gain a glimpse from ancient rocks of what the atmospheres of the Earth and Mars were like hundreds of millions years ago.
Human, Neanderthal Brains the Same Until Birth
The first year of life sparked dramatic differences in development that may have given humans an edge.
Early Cities Spurred Evolution of Immune System?
"Amazing" DNA results show benefits of ancient urbanization, study says.
Aggressive use of statins further cuts cardio risk: study
Higher doses of statins cut the risk of heart attacks and stroke by one-seventh compared with regular statin treatment, according to a review published online on Tuesday by The Lancet.
Improvements within 1 hour of stroke treatment associated with better outcomes
Patients with stroke who experience improvement within one hour of receiving the clot-dissolving medication tissue plasminogen activator appear more likely to do well three months later, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Neurology.
Very few eligible young women opt to take HPV vaccine
Despite strong evidence of its effectiveness, few of the young women who are eligible for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine take it, according to research presented at the Ninth Annual AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, held Nov. 7-10. What's more, many of the teens who begin treatment do not complete the recommended three-dose regimen.
Rogue gene hijacks stem cells to jumpstart human cancer
A gene thought to be responsible for initiating human cancer has been identified by researchers at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. The study - published online today (9 November) in the journal Cancer Research - paves the way for developing early cancer diagnostic tests, and finding new treatments that prevent or stop the spread of cancer cells at an early stage.
Recommendation letters may be costing women jobs, promotions
Women described in social terms that hurt likelihood of being hired
New research shows genetic test for lung cancer risk prompts smokers to quit
New research shows a gene-based test for lung cancer risk assessment motivates smokers to quit or cut down, according to results of a clinical study presented today at the American Association of Cancer Research's Ninth Annual Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research.
Cooling may benefit children after cardiac arrest
When the heart is stopped and restarted, the brain is often permanently damaged. Therapeutic hypothermia has been shown to mitigate these harmful effects and improve survival in adults. In the first large-scale study of its kind, physicians are evaluating the effectiveness of the technique in infants and children.
Scottish rocks reveal key point in evolution occurred 400 million years earlier
Evidence found in Scottish rocks has revealed that a critical point in evolution took place 1.2 billion years ago - several hundred million years earlier than scientists had previously understood.
Brain gym helps elderly drivers avoid crashes
Elderly people who did 10 sessions of brain training had half as many crashes on the road as untrained counterparts – even though the training didn't directly relate to driving itself.
Calcium causes brain cell loss in Parkinson's
Calcium activity in the brain plays an important role in the onset of Parkinson's disease, according to a study in mice. The finding helps explain why common calcium-blocking drugs, such as those used to control blood pressure, appear to protect against the disease.
Stem cell jab 'may boost muscle'
Muscle wasting linked to old age might one day be treated using stem cells, claim US scientists.
A long history of pain: Study finds pain gene common to flies, mice and humans
By using a sophisticated method to silence genes in fly neurons one by one, researchers reporting in the Nov. 12 issue of Cell, a Cell Press publication, have many new leads on the genes that are important to the experience of pain.
Arsenic early in treatment improves survival for leukemia patients
Arsenic, a toxic compound with a reputation as a good tool for committing homicide, has a significant positive effect on the survival of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), when administered after standard initial treatment, according to a new, multi-center study led by a researcher at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Modeling autism in a dish
A collaborative effort successfully used human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells derived from patients with Rett syndrome to replicate autism in the lab and study the molecular pathogenesis of the disease.
Don't clamp umbilical cords straight after birth, urges expert
Obstetricians and midwives should wait a few minutes before clamping the umbilical cords of newborn infants so that babies are not harmed by the procedure, argues Dr David Hutchon in an article published in the British Medical Journal today.
Yoga's ability to improve mood and lessen anxiety is linked to increased levels of a critical brain chemical
Yoga has a greater positive effect on a person's mood and anxiety level than walking and other forms of exercise, which may be due to higher levels of the brain chemical GABA according to an article in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
High hopes for arthritis drugs
Race is on to develop treatments that inhibit signalling proteins.
Blood bubbles promise new treatments for brain disease
Bubbles in the blood can deliver drugs, make cells express certain genes and open up the blood-brain barrier, leading to new treatments for brain disease
Supercomputers 'will fit in a sugar cube', IBM says
A pioneering research effort could shrink the world's most powerful supercomputer processors to the size of a sugar cube, IBM scientists say.
'BacillaFilla' for concrete cracks
A bacteria that can knit together cracks in concrete structures by producing a special 'glue' has been developed by a team of students at Newcastle University.
Tolerating foreign materials in food
An international team of molecular biologists led by RIKEN researchers (Japan) has unraveled key details of the molecular mechanism whereby the body’s immune system determines what to attack among the organisms and food taken into the mouth, and what to leave alone or tolerate
Liquorice root may protect brain cells
A neuroscientist at the University of South Carolina is conducting research on a compound found in liquorice root that could prevent or slow down the cell death associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Myocarditis can attack hearts without warning
While not always life-threatening, in many cases it can lead to heart failure or sudden cardiac death. Physicians believe it is caused by either a viral, bacterial, or fungal infection; drug or chemical poisoning; or connective tissue diseases, such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.
'One in four cancers' detected at emergency stage
Nearly one in four cancer patients in England is diagnosed only when they arrive at hospital in an emergency, a national study suggests.
Study suggests physicians wait longer for brain recovery after hypothermia Rx in cardiac arrest
Heart experts at Johns Hopkins say that physicians might be drawing conclusions too soon about irreversible brain damage in patients surviving cardiac arrest whose bodies were for a day initially chilled into a calming coma.
Red light forces cancer cells to suck up drugs
CELLS absorb chemotherapy drugs more readily if they are zapped with red light. The finding could help produce more effective cancer treatments.

to the science archives

to links