Health & Medicine
Worries about artificial human enhancement persist among Americans
[According to] an extensive survey conducted by the Pew Research Center...[s]ixty-eight percent [of over 4,000 Americans] were somewhat or very ...
Synthetic biologists developing cells programmed to target, destroy cancer
Synthetic biology might be ready to graduate from cells engineered to perform only one task to multiple cells in a ...
Gene fix for muscle wasting may help improve gene treatments, save lives
The breakdown of muscle often accompanies chronic or long-term disease, making disease worse and sometimes hastening death, and doctors have ...
Precision medicine revolution moves to developing world
Colon cancer is less common in India than in the U.S., but it tends to affect younger people and to ...
Scientists gradually identifying genes linked to depression
In a key advance for the study of depression, a comprehensive scan of human DNA has turned up the apparent ...
While no gene โcausesโ mental illness, some genes make people more sensitive to environment
The same genes could make a person feel happy or depressed, depending on their environment. Combining research on genetics and ...
Is Alzheimer’s blood test too good to be true?
Anyone who has ever visited a doctorโs office is familiar with the use of blood tests for the diagnosis of ...
Humans who can’t feel pain pointing way to non-addictive painkillers
Genes linked to pain detection and perception may be physiological targets for new, non-addictive painkillers ...
Developing world eclipsing Europe as biotech incubator, crops with consumer-focused traits poised for market
Acrylamide is . . . .ย proven to increase the risk of cancer. . . .ย in 2002 when Swedish scientists found ...
Oregon winemaker say organic vineyards not sustainable
โOrganic practices have bred a class 11 resistant powderyย mildew (PM) critter. OSU sent out a bulletin saying if you ...
Short bursts of brain activity during sleep may be key for memory consolidation
Sleep is essential for memory. Mounting evidence continues to support the notion that the nocturnal brain replays, stabilizes, reorganizes, and ...
Baby making moves from bedroom to the laboratory
The future of baby-making is not in a bed, or in the back seat of a car. It's in a ...
Neuroscientists revisit horrific 1966 Texas tower massacre
Smart, strong, talented and popular, the young Charles Whitman seemed, outwardly, like a poster child for the โall-American boyโ stereotype ...
Craig Venter’s goal is to sequence 100 million genomes
[Craig]ย Venterโs goal is to sequence at least one million genomes, something that seems likely to take the better part of ...
Genes major influence on academic achievement–and that makes leftists uncomfortable
Aย massive and fast growing field in scienceโbehavioral geneticsโhas a huge body of conclusive evidence that, at first reading, seems at ...
Business booming for stem cell therapy clinics despite dearth of evidence of effectiveness
Out of nowhere, over the past two to three years, the clinics have sprung up โ 570 in the United ...
Are Olympic athletes using ‘gene doping’ to improve performance?
The World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA, which advises the Olympics and other sports organizations on illicit performance-enhancement, has accused Russia of ...
Future of regenerative medicine may be making human tissue from fruits
In the high-ceilinged basement lab, the ear lies flat, encapsulated in a dish on a sheet-metal cabinet. Itโs actually a ...
GMOs in fight against Zika more than just about eliminating mosquitos
The shadow of the Zika virus hangs over the Rio Olympic Games, with visitors and even high-profile athletes citing worries ...
Patients under hypnosis exhibit distinct patterns of brain activity
Psychiatrists have been using hypnosis on patients for decades โ to help them reduce their pain or kick a smoking ...
Belgian lab tapping genetics of yeast to brew better beer
Kevin Verstrepenโs lab meetings can be pretty boozy affairs. Twice a week, several members of his group at Belgiumโs University ...
Bacteria that resides in our nose produces MRSA killing antibiotic
A new antibiotic that has, quite literally, emerged from the human nose. The compound is produced by one species of ...
Is egg freezing too expensive to help women who could benefit most from procedure?
In the US, the marketing of egg freezing as a kind of insurance policy for millennials is already in full ...
Tale of two sites: Science communication pitfalls covering Alzheimer’s drug
The same drug trial has been covered in completely different ways by various news outlets. It serves as a lesson ...
Severe genetic birth defects not as lethal as doctors once thought
Parents of newborns with rare genetic conditions used to hear the grim words that the severe birthย defects were โincompatible with ...
Gene common among Samoans is strongest genetic predictor of obesity
It could be in your DNA. A gene variant that increases a personโs obesity risk by 30 to 40 per ...
Transgender identity not mental health disorder study says, despite WHO designation
People who identify as transgender should not be considered to have a mental health disorder, according to a new study ...