Health & Medicine
Through the study and use of genetics, we can identify measures that could lead to the improvement of human health and wellness. These methods and procedures aim to prevent years of chronic disease and thousands of dollars in health care costs, and provide families and communities with knowledge of how to live healthier.
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Why the body’s response to pregnancy may help us better understand cancer
Cancer cells and placental cells regulate the immune system in remarkably similar ways. We can learn a great deal by ...
How to avert an ‘antibiotic apocalypse’
The “Antibiotic Apocalypse” scenario, where drug-resistant bacteria end humanity, often seems to be somewhat inevitable, a process driven so strongly ...
Staying ‘highly physically fit’ could stave off dementia by nearly 90%
The intricacies behind what can cause dementia are still largely a mystery and highly debated. But a new study published [March ...
Thousand-year mind preservation with a twist: Startup Nectome’s procedure is ‘100 percent fatal’
The startup accelerator Y Combinator is known for supporting audacious companies in its popular three-month boot camp. There’s never been ...
Why don’t we yet have a universal flu vaccine?
By all accounts, the 2017–18 influenza season has been a bad one. It feels like everyone’s family has been hit, ...
Unexplained ailments? Genetic mutations may be responsible
Gregor Mendel discovered fundamental rules of genetics by raising pea plants. He realized that hidden factors — we now know ...
Strange case of the man with a ‘large black hole’ in part of his brain
When an 84-year-old man in Ireland showed up at the doctor with complaints about being unsteady, the team found a ...
Delving into the minds of psychopaths
It’s a rare person who goes out of their way to spend time with psychopaths, and a rarer one still ...
Fertility quest: How technology has fueled quantum leaps
Nanotech, artificial intelligence, wearables and biological engineering are among the new high tech ways to knock you up, stop your ...
Can Halo’s brain-zapping headsets improve athletic performance?
Equinox jumped at the chance to offer Halo Neuroscience’s brain-zapping, supposedly performance-enhancing headsets as part of its advanced personal training ...
Heart muscle patches: Reprogrammed blood cells might extend life of heart attack victims
Those who survive [a heart attack] are often left with permanent heart failure – a group which includes approximately 450,000 ...
Scientists question brain’s ‘regenerative’ capacity to boost cognition or treat injury
The observation that the human brain churns out new neurons throughout life is one of the biggest neuroscience discoveries of ...
Viewpoint: Exercise can be as effective as antidepressants for mild to moderate depression. So why do US doctors push pills?
Here’s the most important thing I learned while writing a book on running and mental health: In clinical studies, regular ...
Lead authors of controversial homeopathic cancer paper arrested, work retracted
A journal paper claiming to show the success of a homeopathic treatment for cancer has been withdrawn by the publishers ...
Glyphosate traces found in wine: Should we be concerned?
Scarcely a day goes by without some scary story about glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide. ... Because of ...
Clinically questionable consumer DNA tests challenging for genetic counselors to interpret
Home genetic tests like AncestryDNA and 23andMe are more popular than ever, with sales topping $99 million in 2017. But ...
Waaa! How do babies experience pain?
Researchers continue to look for ways to assess the pain experienced by babies. One recent study suggests that babies are ...
Saving critically ill babies through lightning-fast genome sequencing
Usually it takes weeks for scientists to sequence an entire genome. But [neurologist Jennifer] Friedman and her colleagues at Rady [Children’s ...
CRISPR-edited mosquitoes could dramatically reduce more than 200 million annual cases of malaria
Swatting at mosquitoes is a great start, but if we really want to cut down on the hundreds of millions ...
Viewpoint: Devastating flu season reminds us about the danger of vaccine skepticism
The 2017-2018 flu season is being called the worst since 2009 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and ...
Is cancer the evolutionary ‘price’ complex animals pay for living in an oxygen rich environment?
Like many biologists, [Emma] Hammarlund wondered why it took so long for complex animals to emerge — and why, when ...
Human testing on beta thalassemia patients: CRISPR readied for next milestone as early as this year
[R]esearchers demonstrated how a gene editing technique, known as Crispr-Cas9, could be used to edit living human cells, raising the ...
Are brains of transgender people wired differently?
In recent years, US society has seen a sea change in the perception of transgender people, with celebrities such as ...
What the humble fruit fly has taught us about human genetics
I came to First in Fly, a new book about fruit-fly research, with perhaps some special interest. In fact, a popular ...
Brain inflammation–encephalitis–in children linked to single gene mutation
For most children, an infection with a virus like herpes simplex or influenza (the flu) will cause the typical symptoms and run ...
Oral cancer epidemic in men caused by HPV, immune system gone ‘awry’
[S]cientists have made headway in figuring out why HPV, the human papillomavirus, has this glaring gender bias. Men are four ...
Obese millennials and cancer: Controversy over straight talk and ‘fat shaming’
When Cancer Research ... revealed that millennials are set to become the most overweight generation since records began, there was ...
