New research from King’s College London sheds light on why premature birth is linked to a greater risk of neurodevelopmental problems, including autistic spectrum disorders and attention deficit disorders. The new work, published in the journal PNAS, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to establish that premature birth can alter connectivity between key areas of the […]
Software that scans and analyzes family snapshots could help doctors diagnose which rare genetic disorder a child is suffering from, say Oxford University researchers. Reporting on their work in the journal eLife, the developers say the program recognizes facial features in photographs; looks for similarities with facial structures for various conditions, such as Down’s syndrome, […]
For many sufferers, the standard treatment regime for chlamydia fails to eradicate the disease, and researchers think the culprit may be the gastrointestinal tract. Chlamydia trachomatis is the most common cause of sexually transmitted disease in the world. In the U.S., 7 percent of sexually active females aged between 14 and 19 become infected annually. […]
A new study involving women with early onset menopause found no detrimental effects from testosterone supplementation, but there were no significant improvements either; in quality of life, self esteem, or mood. “Bringing testosterone back up to normal may not bring them [menopausal women] the boost they hoped for,” the researchers report in the journal Menopause. […]
A startling new study from McGill University suggests that a father’s diet before conception plays a major role in fetus development and the offspring’s future predisposition to disease. The researchers say that significant alterations to the sperm epigenome triggered by diet and lifestyle choices should raise serious concerns about the long-term effects of current Western […]
The rise in casual sex that marked the swinging ’60s actually began a decade earlier, according to a new analysis of the period when penicillin was introduced to treat syphilis. The new work directly challenges the notion that it was the contraceptive pill that ushered in the decade of free love. “It’s a common assumption […]
Removing the foreskin causes significant changes in the bacterial community of the penis, according to a study that also suggests how these changes offer protection from HIV infection. The new study was led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute and appears in the journal mBio. Past studies have shown that circumcision reduces female-to-male HIV transmission, […]
Healthy young men who watch television for more than 20 hours a week have around half the sperm count of men who watch very little TV, say Harvard researchers in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Previous fertility studies suggest that semen quality has deteriorated over the past few decades, but no specific cause has […]
Dutch researchers have found that natural responses to disgusting stimuli were lessened significantly when female subjects were sexually aroused. The researchers, from the University of Groningen, believe the findings may provide new insights into female sexual dysfunction. The results, in the journal PLoS ONE, also shed light on the paradoxical nature of the evolutionary relevant […]
Duke University scientists have discovered how breast milk, but not infant formula, fosters colonies of microbiotic flora in a newborn’s intestinal tract that aid nutrient absorption and immune system development. The new findings add to existing evidence showing how mother’s milk protects infants from infections and illnesses. In the new study, appearing in Current Nutrition […]
