All Stories by Damaris Christensen
- Health & Medicine
Sex, smell and appetite
A study of sexual dysfunction in mutated mice may help explain the connection between smell and appetite.
- Health & Medicine
Hunger hormone gone awry?
People with an inherited form of obesity caused by constant hunger pangs have higher-than-normal blood concentrations of ghrelin, a hormone believed to boost appetite.
- Health & Medicine
Diabetes problems aren’t just old news
Children who developed a type of diabetes that normally occurs only in adults suffer kidney failure, miscarriages, and death in their 20s.
- Health & Medicine
Autopsies suggest insulin is underused
Autopsy studies indicate that the insulin-producing cells of people with type II diabetes are damaged.
- Health & Medicine
Chemical stops allergic reaction in tests
Researchers have developed a protein that short-circuits allergic reactions in mice and in tissue cultures of human cells.
- Health & Medicine
Shuttling medicines via blood cells
Researchers have developed a way of encapsulating drugs in red blood cells, which can be used to deliver low doses of anti-inflammatory drugs to cystic fibrosis patients.
- Health & Medicine
Standing Up to Gravity
Studies in space can help physicians better understand a disorder in which patients get faint or dizzy while standing.
- Health & Medicine
Learning from leprosy’s nerve damage
The bacterium that causes leprosy directly damages a protective sheathing around many nerve cells.
- Health & Medicine
What Activates AIDS?
New studies suggest that a natural process called immune activation—the signaling that alerts immune cells of foreign invaders—plays a key role in explaining why infection with the human immunodeficiency virus progresses to AIDS more quickly in some people than in others.
- Chemistry
The World of Wine
Improved analytical instruments and powerful computers are now enabling scientists to better determine a chemical fingerprint for products from different wine-producing regions.
- Health & Medicine
No benefit from screening
Two large studies confirm that a urine test for a common childhood cancer—neuroblastoma—offers no benefit.
- Health & Medicine
Virus gives cancer the cold treatment
A genetically engineered version of a common cold virus appears to kill cancer cells without harming healthy tissue.
