Last week, a proposal representing the first use of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) in humans passed a key federal review. The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which a federal safety and ethics panel, unanimously approved the experiment. CRISPR is a genome-editing tool that allows researchers to […]
The FDA along with several international regulatory and law enforcement agencies took action this week against over 4,000 websites that were illegally selling dangerous and unapproved prescription drugs to U.S. consumers. This effort was part of an Operation called Pangea IX which was a global cooperative effort that included INTERPOL to stop the unlawful sale and distribution of illegal and potentially counterfeit medical […]
Migraine headaches, or migraines, are defined as an intense throbbing or a pulsing sensation in one area of the head, usually with nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound. Migraines are prevalent globally, as 30% or more people worldwide who struggle with headaches report suffering from migraines. Although migraines themselves are not lethal (if […]
It’s been known for more than a century that acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol and marketed as Tylenol and Panadol) is an effective painkiller, but according to a new Canadian study it could also be impeding error-detection in the brain. The research appears in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. “Past research tells us physical […]
Using MRI to study the brains of cocaine and meth users, researchers found that while the women demonstrated widespread brain differences when compared to their healthy control counterparts, the men demonstrated no significant brain differences. The findings from the study appear in the journalRadiology. “We found that after an average of 13.5 months of abstinence, […]
Studies of human diseases such as cancer rely on the use of laboratory-grown cell cultures that have often been grown for decades. Now, new research indicates that these cell cultures may not be a reliable copy of real tissue; a finding that casts doubt on the interpretation of many past studies. The researchers, from the […]
University of Rochester computer scientists have developed innovative software that turns smartphones into mental health monitoring devices. Describing the project at this week’s American Association for Artificial Intelligence conference in Austin, Texas, researcher Jiebo Luo said the program analyzes “selfie” images and videos taken as the user engages with social media. Rather than direct interaction […]
Medical researchers in Finland hope that their discovery of a significant variation in the gut microbiota of Parkinson’s sufferers could be used to improve diagnostics for the disease and perhaps even prevent it. The new research was made possible by funding from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Finnish Parkinson Foundation. […]
A four-year international study of 2,060 cardiac arrest cases in 15 hospitals in the United Kingdom, United States, and Austria has concluded that in some cases of cardiac arrest, so called out-of-body experiences may correspond with actual events. The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study, published in the journalResuscitation, also tested the validity of conscious experiences […]
A new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, lends weight to the notion that male pattern baldness and prostate cancer may be linked. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among men. Emerging evidence suggests that prostate cancer and male pattern baldness – progressive scalp hair-loss in a distinct pattern – are […]
