Medicine articles

Body movements can influence problem solving
Swinging their arms helped participants in a new study solve a problem whose solution involved swinging strings, researchers report, demonstrating that the brain can use bodily cues to help understand and solve complex problems.

Skin color clue to nicotine dependence
Higher concentrations of melanin -- the color pigment in skin and hair -- may be placing darker pigmented smokers at increased susceptibility to nicotine dependence and tobacco-related carcinogens than lighter skinned smokers, according to scientists.

In retinal disease, sight may depend on second sites
If two people have the same genetic disease, why would one person go blind in childhood but the other later in life or not at all? For a group of genetic diseases - so-called ciliary diseases that include Bardet-Biedl syndrome, Meckel-Gruber syndrome, and Joubert syndrome - the answer lies in one gene that is already linked to two of these diseases and also seems to increase the risk of progressive blindness in patients with other ciliary diseases. The findings are published online at Nature Genetics.

Vocal mimicking, sense of rhythm tied
Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren't the only ones who can groove to a beat - some other species can dance, too. The capability was previously believed to be specific to humans. The research team found that only species that can mimic sound seem to be able to keep a beat, implying an evolutionary link between the two capacities.

Lack of sleep is easier on older adults than others
In a recent sleep study testing alertness and performance in sleep-deprived adults, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) determined that healthy older adults handle sleep deprivation better than younger adults. The findings appeared online on May 3, in an advance online edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Researchers uncover genetic clues to blood pressure
An international research team has identified a number of unsuspected genetic variants associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and hypertension (high blood pressure), suggesting potential avenues of investigation for the prevention or treatment of hypertension. The research was funded in part by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health and by several other NIH institutes and centers.

Ginseng, Nature's anti-inflammatory?
Laboratory experiments have demonstrated the immunological effects of ginseng. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access Journal of Translational Medicine have shown that the herb, much used in traditional Chinese and other Asian medicine, does have anti-inflammatory effects.

Can you see the emotions I hear? Study says yes
By observing the pattern of activity in the brain, scientists have discovered they can "read" whether a person just heard words spoken in anger, joy, relief, or sadness. The discovery, reported online on May 14th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, is the first to show that emotional information is represented by distinct spatial signatures in the brain that can be generalized across speakers.

Brains come before beauty in boosting ones career earnings
Nice guys may finish last, but it's the smart ones that come in first with the lookers close behind, according to a University of Florida study that finds people with intelligence earn more in their lifetime than those who are attractive or self-confident.

Sleep may be factor in weight control
Could sleep be a critical component to maintaining a healthy body weight? According to new research, body mass index (BMI) is linked to length and quality of sleep in a surprisingly consistent fashion.

Tone language is key to perfect pitch
Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Sinatra and Hendrix - these and many other of the world's most famous musicians have had "perfect" or "absolute" pitch. The ability, defined as recognizing the pitch of a musical note without having to compare it to any reference note, is quite rare in the U.S. and Europe, where only about one person in 10,000 is thought to have it. Often lumped into the mysterious realm of Talent, perfect pitch is - according to Diana Deutsch of the University of California, San Diego - probably more the result of nurture than nature, more environment than genes.

Psychologists find that head movement is more important than gender in nonverbal communication
It is well known that people use head motion during conversation to convey a range of meanings and emotions, and that women use more active head motion when conversing with each other than men use when they talk with each other.

Study indicates people by nature are universally optimistic
Despite calamities from economic recessions, wars and famine to a flu epidemic afflicting the Earth, a new study from the University of Kansas and Gallup indicates that humans are by nature optimistic.

Male or female? Coloring provides gender cues
Our brain is wired to identify gender based on facial cues and coloring, according to a new study published in the Journal of Vision. Psychology Professor Frédéric Gosselin and his Université de Montréal team found the luminescence of the eyebrow and mouth region is vital in rapid gender discrimination.

Study finds unexpected bacterial diversity on human skin
The health of our skin - one of the body's first lines of defense against illness and injury - depends upon the delicate balance between our own cells and the millions of bacteria and other one-celled microbes that live on its surface. To better understand this balance, National Institutes of Health researchers have set out to explore the skin's microbiome, which is all of the DNA, or genomes, of all of the microbes that inhabit human skin. Their initial analysis, published in the journal Science, reveals that our skin is home to a much wider array of bacteria than previously thought.

Is cherry juice a new 'sports drink?'
Drinking cherry juice could help ease the pain for people who run, according to new research from Oregon Health & Science University presented at the American College of Sports Medicine Conference in Seattle, Wash. The study showed people who drank tart cherry juice while training for a long distance run reported significantly less pain after exercise than those who didn't. Post-exercise pain can often indicate muscle damage or debilitating injuries.

Pressure to look attractive linked to fear of rejection in men and women
People who feel pressure to look attractive are more fearful of being rejected because of their appearance than are their peers, according to a new study by researchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of Kent.

Super-recognizers are the ones who really will never forget a face
Some people say they never forget a face, a claim now bolstered by psychologists at Harvard University who've discovered a group they call "super-recognizers": those who can easily recognize someone they met in passing, even many years later.

Brain activation can predict the strategies people use to make risky decisions
A team of researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton has broken new ground in outer space by pinpointing the impact epicentre of an Earthbound space storm as it crashes into the atmosphere and giving an advance warning that it's on the way.

First live 'cloning' of faces challenges assumptions about human behavior
Computer scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have developed a new way of cloning facial expressions during live conversations to help us better understand what influences our behaviour when we communicate with others.