Health

A tree that is native to China, the Hovenia dulcis, or Asian raisin tree, has been described to contain a hangover remedy since 659 AD.  If you can fathom how long it's been in use, you may wonder why it's taken so long for modern research to study its potential as a treatment for alcohol addiction.  Well, now a multi-disciplinary team from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) are actively studying its impact; first on rats....

Eyes don't tear as much as we age.  Add to that the dry weather, not enough sleep, a few too many cocktails, or dust and pollen allergies... and you've got dry eyes.  Now, there's a pair of ophthalmologist-recommended goggles that stimulate natural tear production again....

Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, is in its early experimental stages; this study, for example, had only 17 subjects. But when you cut into a person's skull and implant electrodes on either side of the brain while people are awake, it's probably not that easy to attract willing subjects. Nevertheless...

Whether you are instructed to put the strings in the front or the back of the faded, wrinkled, rag of a gown, if there's one thing you won't have once you've donned the thing, it's your dignity....

Many persons give up their hobbies or even aspects of their work or chores as they age.  While arthritis in their fingers and hands may be one reason they don't build model cars or quilt any more, for most boomers and seniors, it's because of vision changes.  As we age, we tend to need more light and more magnification to see clearly and sometimes even our prescription lenses don't quite measure up to what we need for hobby work. 

In the future, maybe not too distant, diabetics may be able to monitor their glucose levels continuously, rather than at one point in time, thanks to the researchers from North Carolina State University, Sandia National Laboratories, and the University of California, San Diego.  These researchers have incorporated sensors into multiple microneedles, each less than a millimeter long, that may make today's glucose analyzers, the annoying skin prick tests, obsolete.