Archive | Medicine

genome editing

First human CRISPR trial passes safety and ethics review

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 […]

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Operation Pangea targets unlawful internet sales of illegal prescription drugs

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 […]

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Maybe some green can help alleviate the migraine?

Green light reduces migraine headaches

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 […]

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Tylenol and other paracetamol painkillers may hinder the brain’s error-correction mechanisms

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 […]

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Stimulant drug abuse appears to reduce brain volume in women but not men

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, […]

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Selfie shots used to monitor mental health

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 […]

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parkinsons

Gut flora link to Parkinson’s disease

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. […]

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Near-death experiences: new study finds evidence to back anecdotal claims

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 […]

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