May 20, 2013
In 1979 China instituted the one-child policy, which limited every family to just one offspring in a controversial attempt to reduce the country’s burgeoning population. The strictly enforced law had the desired effects: in 2011 researchers estimated that the policy … Read More
May 20, 2013
A pioneering programme to test cancer patients for nearly 100 risk genes is to start in London and could represent the future of treatment in the NHS. (BBC)
May 20, 2013
Upcoming paper in ‘Science’ pushes back against recent recommendations from the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics. (News-medical)
May 20, 2013
The poorest countries in the world are lagging behind higher-income developing countries in meeting the demand for modern contraception, U.S. researchers say. (UPI)
May 20, 2013
Australian research has created a molecular roadmap that shows how any cell in the human body can be turned into artificial stem cells. The roadmap, produced in collaboration with Harvard University, is a major advance in cellular reprogramming technology, which … Read More
May 20, 2013
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked enforcement of one of the country’s most stringent abortion laws, an Arkansas ban on the procedure at the 12th week of pregnancy, saying the law was likely to be declared unconstitutional. (New York … Read More
May 20, 2013
A coolie in Kanyakumari district has sought permission for euthanasia of his infant son, who has been suffering from an unknown disorder since his birth. (Times of India)
May 20, 2013
Since the heart is such a delicate and critical organ, clinicians usually opt not to intervene with the dead cells that remain after a heart attack or cardiac disease. (Phys.org)
May 20, 2013
Some of the UK’s leading neuroscientists, stem cell biologists, psychologists and psychiatrists are uniting to break down scientific barriers in a bid to solve the mystery of mental illness and neurological conditions. (Wellcome Trust)
May 17, 2013
In the old days, sales representatives from drug companies would chat up local pharmacists to learn what drugs doctors were prescribing. Now such shoulder-rubbing is becoming a quaint memory — thanks to vast databases of patient and doctor information being … Read More
May 17, 2013
Applying high-frequency electrical noise to the brain can boost maths skills up to six months later, say Oxford University researchers. (BBC)
May 17, 2013
People and policymakers may eventually wake up to the fact that we are not a bunch of sick individuals, each of us having a bunch of psychiatric diagnoses, cumulatively constituting a sick society. This is a myth generated by an … Read More
May 17, 2013
The People’s Republic of China’s new system for acquiring organs—and the man behind it, former Vice Minister of Health Huang Jiefu—has been lauded in some circles as a decisive break from the use of executed prisoners as organ sources. But … Read More
May 17, 2013
IF A new and deadly strain of influenza were to arise, putting together a vaccine against it in the least possible time would be a priority. To test how quickly that could be done a group of researchers have just … Read More
May 17, 2013
Google and NASA are forming a laboratory to study artificial intelligence by means of computers that use the unusual properties of quantum physics. Their quantum computer, which performs complex calculations thousands of times faster than existing supercomputers, is expected to … Read More
May 17, 2013
Women aged up to 42 will now get a free cycle, rather than the previous maximum age limit of 40, after undergoing a test to see how many eggs they have left. This is known as their ovarian reserve. (The … Read More
May 17, 2013
Fertility specialists have developed a radical technique that can boost the chances of IVF couples having a healthy baby. Doctors in Nottingham who devised the procedure say it could raise live birthrates at their clinic to 78%, around three times … Read More
May 17, 2013
Public funding of assisted reproductive technology, including in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, broadens the range of couples who seek treatment for infertility by attracting a more diverse population, according to new research from Canada. (Medical Xpress)
May 17, 2013
Injectable nanoparticles developed at MIT may someday eliminate the need for patients with Type 1 diabetes to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels and inject themselves with insulin. (Phys.org)
May 16, 2013
It was hailed some 15 years ago as the great hope for a biomedical revolution: the use of cloning techniques to create perfectly matched tissues that would someday cure ailments ranging from diabetes to Parkinson’s disease. Since then, the approach … Read More
May 16, 2013
Scientists have used cloning technology to transform human skin cells into embryonic stem cells, an experiment that may revive the controversy over human cloning. The researchers stopped well short of creating a human clone. But they showed, for the first … Read More
May 16, 2013
Bereaved parents agonising over whether to subject their dead child or stillborn baby to a full post-mortem now have an alternative that is potentially far less traumatic. For fetuses and infants under the age of one, MRI scans combined with … Read More
May 16, 2013
Admissions to U.S. hospital intensive care units jumped 50 percent from 2002 to 2009, but researchers are not sure why. (UPI)
May 16, 2013
The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, found U.S. cancer patients were 2.65 times more likely to file for bankruptcy than people without cancer. (UPI)
May 16, 2013
The study, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank, found that retirement results in a “drastic decline in health” in the medium and long term. (BBC)
