Health and Medicine - New Discoveries, Studies, Research, and Breakthroughs

There is nothing more discouraging in human discourse than someone yawning in your face while you're speaking to him.  "Oh, excuse me," he might say, "I guess I'm just very tired."  (Yeah, sure!)

But now, scientists have evidence that your listener may not be bored at all; but just chilling... his brain.  

Arthritis is a joint disease that results in a progressive loss of cartilage, just as osteoporosis results in progressive loss of bone.  Though osteoporosis drugs are intended to regenerate bone growth, to date, arthritis drugs can only reduce inflammation and, thereby, reduce pain.  But observation of patients taking a certain osteoporosis drug, by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), led to the recent finding that this drug not only restored bone but cartilage as well.

Learning to walk again after breaking a leg or hip, having a stroke, prosthetic, or partial paralysis depends on a lot of persistence and an excellent rehabilitation program that can guide you through gait training.  Movement scientist Dr. Melvyn Roerdink from The Netherlands has developed a super smart, oversized treadmill that helps rehab patients gain confidence in their new gaits, with bells, whistles, and even light shows.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) revamped its healthy eating recommendations a few months ago with a new visual - an icon called 'MyPlate,' replacing the former healthy foods pyramid icon.  The Nutrition Source at the Harvard School of Public Health thinks the government's plate lacks a good bit of guidance as to which specific foods should be eaten - after all MyPlate offers no guidance.

For many of the 13 million Americans currently at risk for non-melanoma skin cancers, the VivoSight® Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) scanner will be a blessing in their dermatologists' tool closet.  The device, just approved for clinical use by the FDA, offers real-time laser imaging of a patient's skin, enabling better, and sometimes immediate, treatment of basal or squamous cell cancers.

Scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) and the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine just achieved a scientific breakthrough that has the potential to revolutionize the design of neurological drugs: they captured the first high resolution images of the acetylcholine receptor (AChR), the α7 molecule responsible for transmitting signals between neurons, particularly those associated with learning and memory.

For the third year in a row, the Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit organication that promotes the study and imitation of designs found in nature, is sponsoring the Biomimicry Student Design Challenge.  This year the Challenge, which is open to college students world-wide, is to use biomimicry to design a solution that results in more efficient use of energy and ultimately reduces greenhouse gases.  No small feat, but the Institute provides students with plenty of resources on biomimicry....