Memory-Erasing Drugs

Memory-Erasing Drugs Worries Are Overblown, Some Ethicists Say

Are ethicists' fears of memory manipulation drugs overblown? One researcher believes so and states his case praising memory altering research in this week's Nature commentary. CREDIT: Kreefax | Dreamstime View full size image

Memory-erasing drugs could do more than erase a bad memory; they could help treat mental ailments such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and one neuroethicist argues that these drugs should be developed and used, regardless of ethical concerns.

Though a magic bullet, erase-any-or-all-memory drug has yet to hit the market and is still decades away, scientists have made great strides in that direction, with one human trial under way for a drug called propranolol that can dampen post-traumatic-stress related negative memories. Other newly discovered brain pathways can be manipulated to ratchet memory up and down.

Why we're so fat

8 Reasons Our Waistlines Are Expanding

The government

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In 1998, 29 million people suddenly became overweight without gaining an ounce. That summer, the U.S. government announced new guidelines lowering the threshold of what classifies a person as overweight. Previously, if your body mass index (BMI) was less than 28 for men, or 27 for women, you were considered "normal." Now only BMIs of 25 or below are considered healthy. (BMI is a ratio of weight to height, and is considered an indicator of how much body fat a person has.)

Sources of Vitamin D

9 Good Sources of Disease-Fighter Vitamin D

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Sunlight: A whopping 80 percent or more of the vitamin D we need could come from the sun — if we let it. Sunscreen blocks about 97 percent of our body's vitamin D production, according to Dr. Mark Hyman, founder and medical director of the UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Mass. But we needn't endanger ourselves to take advantage of the sun's benefits: Fair-skinned people need less than 30 minutes of casual exposure on bright days to meet their daily requirement, while darker-skinned individuals need about two hours, Hyman said.

Exercise Routine

How to Stick to an Exercise Routine

Many people struggle to adhere to an exercise routine. Researchers are beginning to unravel what makes us more likely to stick to a workout regime and what strategies we can employ to boost our willpower.

A key is having the confidence that you can do it, a new study shows. The researchers call this type of focused confidence "self-efficacy."

"You can apply the concept of self-efficacy to every single health behavior you can think of, because in many ways that really is what gets us through the day, gets us through the tough times," said Edward McAuley, a University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor who led the research. "People who are more efficacious tend to approach more challenging tasks, work harder and stick with it even in the face of early failures."

Radiation Exposure

Human Body Might Adapt to Radiation Exposure

Doctors who are regularly exposed to X-ray radiation may undergo changes in their cells that protect them from the radiation they encounter, a new study suggests.

These physicians have higher levels of a particular antioxidant called glutathione inside their red blood cells than physicians who don't use X-rays regularly, the study showed. In addition, some of these cells may be better able to self-destruct, which would be protective if they turned cancerous.

However, it's still not clear whether these changes will be beneficial in the long run, or reduce the physicians' cancer risk, said study researcher Dr. Gian Luigi Russo, a senior research scientist at the National Research Council (CNR) in Pisa, Italy. Instead, these alterations might be early indicators of a disease, Russo said.

Fighting Aging?

Fighting Aging? Skip the Botox and Go for the Face Cream

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People might like you more if you don't have surgery or get injections to look younger, a new study suggests.

The results show that study participants felt more warmth toward a woman, and said she was less vain, if they were told she fought the signs of aging by staying out of the sun or using face cream than if they were told she had used the cosmetic drug Botox or had a face-lift.

"This is important because it shows that despite the emphasis on looking younger in society, there are possible negative social consequences to fighting the signs of aging," using more extreme methods, said study researcher Alison Chasteen, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto.

Vitamin D

D for Vitamin D

First of all, vitamin D is very important for bone health. Vitamin D enhances calcium absorption. Together they keep bones strong and prevent breakdown of bone. Vitamin D decreases our risk for osteoporosis. Low blood values of vitamin D have been associated with hip fractures, vertebral fractures, and wrist fractures. With adequate calcium and vitamin D in all ages of people, bone loss would be prevented as well as tooth loss.

5 Ways To Avoid Rain Diseases

Avoid Rain Diseases

Rain diseases are a common seasonal inconvenience. Just as the first showers hit the earth, everybody starts saying 'now we are going to get sick!' However, there are ways to avoid these diseases. The rains are unpredictable and it is only human to forget your rain apparel once in a while. That does not mean that you will have to become a victim of rain diseases. You can actually prevent sickness if you take a few simple measures.

 

Ordinary vegetables with extraordinary benefits

Ordinary vegetables with extraordinary benefits

We absolutely love veggies here and we do have our reasons. And once you read this list of veggies and why you must have them, we are sure you'll agree.

Here are 10 anytime vegetables that are easy to cook, delicious, add colour to any meal and most importantly - provide you with the best of nutrition required in our daily lives. Here they are: 10 vegetables with extraordinary benefits.

Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth

Huge 'Ocean' Discovered

 

Scientists scanning the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean.

The discovery marks the first time such a large body of water has found in the planet’s deep mantle.

The finding, made by Michael Wysession, a seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and his former graduate student Jesse Lawrence, now at the University of California, San Diego, will be detailed in a forthcoming monograph to be published by the American Geophysical Union.

Gravity: You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

Gravity

It's all in your head

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Gravity may be pretty consistent on Earth, but our perception of it isn't. According to research published in April 2011 in the journal PLoS ONE, people are better at judging how objects fall when they're sitting upright versus lying on their sides.

The finding means that our perception of gravity may be less based on visual cues of gravity's real direction and more rooted in the orientation of the body. The findings may lead to new strategies to help astronauts deal with microgravity in space.

Missing 'Island' Floating In Earth's Atmosphere

Missing 'Island'

Illustration of the floating island of Laputa, a strange land in Jonathan Swift's 'Guliver's Travels.' CREDIT: Public domain image

A floating "island" is at large somewhere in the Earth's atmosphere.

The 23-foot-wide, helium-filled model of a desert island was constructed by two artists for a festival in Cambridgeshire, England. Tethered by ropes, it hovered above a lake on the grounds of the Secret Garden Party festival until the wee hours of July 24, when vandals let it loose. Reminiscent of the airborne island of Laputa in "Gulliver's Travels," it floated away.

Based on meteorological data, the inflatable's creators say "Is Land," as they call their art piece, may be hovering in the troposphere above the Czech Republic by now. They've asked for help retrieving it via their website.

Earth's Surface 'Recycled' Surprisingly Quickly

Earth's Surface 'Recycled'

The volcanic islands of Hawaii are thought to be fueled by a plume of hot rock that moves upward from the lower portions of the Earth's mantle. CREDIT: NASA

The ground we stand on seems permanent and unchanging, but the rocks that make up Earth's crust are actually subject to a cycle of birth and death that changes our planet's surface over eons. Now scientists have found evidence that this cycle is quicker than thought: 500 million years instead of 2 billion.

The tectonic plates that make up Earth's crust are constantly jostling against each other: brushing past one another in some places, moving apart in other areas, and butting head-on in still other places.

Coffee's Mysterious Benefits Mount

Coffee's Mysterious

Scientists have yet to determine what compounds are responsible for coffee's weird -but wonderful- health benefits. Credit: sxc.hu

From lowered cancer risks to a sharper memory, more studies are showing that coffee is good for you – but why?

Regular coffee drinkers have a 39 percent decreased risk of head and neck cancer, according to a new study published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Those who drank an estimated four or more cups a day had significantly fewer cancers of the mouth and throat than non coffee drinkers, the study found.

Vitamin D Levels Don't Decline During Progression of Parkinson's Disease: Study

Parkinson's Disease: Study

People recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease are more likely than healthy people to have vitamin D insufficiency, but their vitamin D levels don't appear to decline during the progression of the disease as was previously thought, according to a new study.

At the beginning of the study, 69.4 percent of people with recently diagnosed Parkinson's disease had vitamin D insufficiency and 26.1 percent of people had vitamin D deficiency. (Vitamin D insufficiency was defined as having less than 30 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood, and vitamin D deficiency was defined as having less than 20 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood.)

For Smokers, Vitamins Don't Cancel Out Harmful Habit

Vitamins Don't Cancel Out Harmful Habit

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Taking vitamins gives smokers a false sense of safety when it comes to their health, a new study shows.

Smokers who took multivitamins believed they were reducing their risk of cancer, and therefore allowed themselves to smoke more, the study said.

"Smokers who take dietary supplements can fool themselves into thinking they are protected against cancer and other diseases," lead author Wen-Bin Chiou, of the National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan, said in a statement.

A Hair-Raising Discovery: New Compound Regrows Hair

Hair-Raising Discovery

If you stress out so much  that your hair falls out, there could be hope for you — researchers have developed a compound that induces hair growth in mice by blocking a stress hormone, a new study has found.

Researchers found that mice engineered to overproduce a certain stress hormone were born bald, but grew back their hair when they were given a shot of the chemical compound astressin-B. When researchers gave the mice one shot a day for five days, their hair regrowth lasted four months, according to the study.

4 Common Skin Woes, and How to Fix Them

4 Common Skin Woes

To trim extra fat from the body, experts say exercise and a healthy, balanced diet is the best solution. But for cosmetic imperfections, like cellulite, spider veins and skin discoloration, the solution is less obvious.

Creams that claim to have a quick fix aren't always effective, and many times they just cover up the appearance of things like cellulite, said Dr. Shasa Hu, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Miami in Florida.

Hu explains why we get these common imperfections, and the best ways to be rid of them (or at least disguise them) in time for beach season.

The 5 Smartest Non-Primates on the Planet

Smartest Non-Primates on the Planet

 

A mother pig with piglet. Credit: Agricultural Research Service

Pigs

As it turns out, being piggy is actually a pretty smart tactic — pigs are probably the most intelligent domesticated animal on the planet. Although their raw intelligence is most likely commensurate with a dog or cat, their problem-solving abilities top those of felines and canine pals.

One study showed that domestic pigs can quickly learn how mirrors work and will use their understanding of reflected images to scope out their surroundings for food. The researchers cannot yet say whether the animals realize that the eyes in the mirror are their own, or whether pigs might rank with apes, dolphins and other species that have passed the famed “mirror self-recognition test” thought to be a marker of self-awareness and advanced intelligence.

Why is Quartz Used in Watches?

Why is Quartz Used in Watches?

 

Quartz, made up of silica and oxygen, is one of the most common minerals on Earth. Billions of people use quartz every day, but few realize it because the tiny crystals they use are hidden in their watches and clocks. But what do the clear or whitish crystal rocks found all over the world have to do with timekeeping?