March 15, 2017
(Nature) – Like a zombie that keeps on kicking, legal battles over mutant mice used for Alzheimer’s research are haunting the field once again — four years after the last round of lawsuits. In the latest case, the University of … Read More
March 15, 2017
(NPR) – Should the Irish Giant be allowed to rest in peace? That’s the question swirling around the bones of Charles Byrne, a literal giant from Ireland who was an 18th century celebrity. His enormous skeleton is on public display … Read More
March 15, 2017
(CNBC) – The recently discovered, hotly contested gene-editing enzyme CRISPR is poised to change the way we treat, even cure, many diseases. But treatment will come years before talk of any “cure” is reasonable, and researchers know where they’d put … Read More
March 14, 2017
(Vox) – A new bill is quietly making its way through Congress that could bring the US a little closer to a Gattaca-like future in which employers could discriminate against their employees based on their genes and risk of disease. … Read More
March 14, 2017
(SciDevNet) – The placenta — an organ responsible for carrying oxygen and nutrients from the mother to the foetus — is much more vulnerable to Zika infection in the first trimester of pregnancy, and this explains why the congenital damage … Read More
March 14, 2017
(Medical Xpress) – About 700 people have died from malaria in Burundi so far this year, the health minister said, with the authorities having registered 1.8 million infections in a rising epidemic. “Burundi faces a malaria epidemic,” Josiane Nijimbere said … Read More
March 14, 2017
(Medical Xpress) – Immune responses to Ebola vaccines at one year after vaccination are examined in a new study appearing in the March 14 issue of JAMA. The Ebola virus vaccine strategies evaluated by the World Health Organization in response … Read More
March 14, 2017
(ABC News) – Thousands of doctors at Kenya’s public hospitals have agreed to end a 100-day strike that saw people dying from lack of care, an official with the doctors’ union said Tuesday. The strike was blamed for dozens of … Read More
March 14, 2017
(PhysOrg) – Some heritable but unstable genetic mutations that are passed from parent to affected offspring may not be easy to investigate using current human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) modeling techniques, according to research conducted at The Icahn School of … Read More
March 14, 2017
(Deutsche Welle) – Medical tourism has grown into a healthy travel sector as people shop beyond their borders for everything from dental work to plastic surgery. Thanks to the internet, a growing middle class, often from countries without high-quality healthcare, … Read More
March 14, 2017
(Medical News Today) – Fertility therapy failure may raise the risk of poor heart health for women, according to the results of a new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Researchers found that women who did not become … Read More
March 14, 2017
(NPR) – Chemotherapy remains one of the mainstays of cancer treatment, but these harsh drugs are slowly being edged aside in medical research, as new treatments, like immunotherapy, grab the spotlight. Still, this is not the end of the road … Read More
March 13, 2017
(Managed Care Magazine) – Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, have taken a significant step toward defeating antibiotic-resistant infections by combining two antibiotics that each block a different kind of drug-destroying enzyme secreted by … Read More
March 13, 2017
(Daily Mail) – Pharmacists will no longer be able to refuse to dispense contraception or certain drugs because of a moral objection. The so-called ‘conscience clause’ that allows them to refer a patient to a colleague has now been ruled … Read More
March 13, 2017
(Australian Broadcasting Co) – Lakshmi Rajput does not see herself as exploited, but driving her willingness to bear someone else’s children is the desperate desire to save her own. “I need money because my son has a hole in his … Read More
March 13, 2017
(The Guardian) – AI raises the prospect of making affordable healthcare accessible to all. According to the World Health Organisation, 400 million people do not have access to even the most basic medical services. Hundreds of millions more, including many … Read More
March 13, 2017
(ProPublica) – Just outside Portland, Maine, there’s a 15,000-square-foot warehouse that’s packed with reasons the U.S. health care system costs so much: Shelves climb floor to ceiling, stacked with tubs overflowing with unopened packages of syringes, diabetes supplies and shiny … Read More
March 13, 2017
(Mescape) – Trying to lend our brains a little more power is as societally entrenched as a morning cup of coffee. Yet in recent years, the quest for new ways of achieving this has become considerably more intense. Led by … Read More
March 13, 2017
(New Scientist) – A team in China has corrected genetic mutations in at least some of the cells in three normal human embryos using the CRISPR genome editing technique. The latest study is the first to describe the results of … Read More
March 10, 2017
(Quartz) – For centuries the San, also controversially called the Bushmen, have been studied, measured, photographed and exploited. The traditional knowledge and culture of the world’s oldest population of humans has fascinated scientists, with little benefit to San themselves. They’ve … Read More
March 10, 2017
(STAT News) – Mittler is determined to change that. He’s a prominent voice in Dementia Alliance International, a global organization run by and for people with dementia. Its leaders travel the world to promote its signature issue: human rights for people with cognitive … Read More
March 10, 2017
(Scientific American) – Can you recognise when someone is unwell just by studying their face? Understanding expressions can help doctors improve their diagnoses, but it’s a difficult skill to practise. So a group of engineers have made a tool for … Read More
March 10, 2017
(Wired) – Bio-Response, based in Danville, Indiana, specializes in building machines for liquid cremation, a fast, environmentally-friendly, and controversial method for disposing of the deceased. Only a handful of states have legalized the practice. The latest battle is taking place … Read More
March 10, 2017
(The Atlantic) – The stakes are impossibly high. Self-driving cars are arguably the great technological promise of the 21st century. They are in that rare class of technology that might actually change the world. And not just in the way … Read More
March 10, 2017
(Scientific American) – Many serious diseases that can be screened for at birth are not included in standard newborn genetic tests. Full genome sequencing of newborns for existing and potential disorders is now technologically possible and might soon be economically … Read More
