Health & Medicine
- Life
Half-asleep rats look wide awake
In a discovery with ominous implications for sleep deprivation, researchers find that some brain regions can doze off while an animal remains active.
- Humans
Because some foods carry organophosphate residues
Three new papers link prenatal exposures to organophosphate (OP) pesticides with diminished IQs in children. Fruits and veggies are one continuing source of exposure to these bug killers. As to what we’re supposed to do with that knowledge — well, the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization, offers some guidance.
- Chemistry
Pesticides tied to lower IQ in children
Chemicals once sprayed in homes — and still used on farms — were found to have significant effects in three studies.
- Health & Medicine
Flies on meth burn through sugar
Cellular effects may explain why addicts often have a sweet tooth.
- Health & Medicine
Mucus-related gene tied to lung disease
People with pulmonary fibrosis are much more likely to make excess amounts of a normally beneficial protein, a study finds.
- Health & Medicine
Experimental Biology 2011 conference
Even larvae can love the blues, plus distemper’s roots, fat-busting blueberries and more meeting news.
- Life
Gut bacteria come in three flavors
Everybody has one of a trio of types — and which one seems to be less important than how the bugs behave.
- Health & Medicine
Body & Brain
A hidden herpes risk, the rapid effects of a high-fat diet, explaining seniors' early rising and more in this week's news.
- Health & Medicine
Body’s immune protein fights breast cancer
A new study clarifies the role of interleukin-25 in stalling malignancy, possibly clearing the way for new drug development.
- Health & Medicine
Simple-sugar effects aren’t necessarily simple, animal study suggests
New mouse data suggest that even among seemingly identical sugars, how they are delivered can exert subtle metabolic differences with long-term impacts on vitality -- and lifespan.
- Humans
Obesity compromises ability to fend off H1N1 flu
Think you’ll easily survive a bout of H1N1 swine flu? Fat chance – if you’re really fat. New research points to a likely explanation for this weighty vulnerability: a failure of the immune system to rev up as strongly as it should.
- Tech
Fishy fat from soy is headed for U.S. dinner tables
Most people have heard about omega-3 fatty acids, the primary constituents of fish oil. Stearidonic acid, one of those omega-3s, is hardly a household term. But it should become one, researchers argued this week at the 2011 Experimental Biology meeting.
