Massachusetts General Hospital researchers have made important progress in their ongoing effort to regenerate the inner ear’s hair cells, which convert sound vibrations to nerve impulses. In the Proceedings of…
The discovery that bone-marrow derived stem cells can regenerate damaged renal cells in an animal model of Alport syndrome provides a potential new strategy for managing this inherited kidney disease…
Researchers at Harvard Medical School report in the April 23, 2006 issue of Nature that they have identified neurons that encode the values that subjects assign to different items. The…
One of the most common agents in the cytoplasm of the cell, the proteasome, also plays a widespread and critical role in transcription from inside the cell nucleus. Pam Silver,…
For all the tender joints and headaches they relieve and colon cancer they may prevent, the older nonsteroidal anti- inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) raise another serious health risk. The highly publicized…
Recent advances in chemotherapy have significantly reduced the risk of disease recurrence and death in breast cancer patients whose tumors are not hormone sensitive, according to a study by researchers…
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and collaborators have identified four distinct genetic subtypes of multiple myeloma, a deadly blood cancer, that have different prognoses and might be treated most effectively…
When Kimberly Stegmaier was a pediatric oncology fellow at Dana-Farber and Children’s Hospital Boston six years ago, she says,”I was struck by how poorly our young patients with AML (acute…
Three boys and four girls treated at Children’s Hospital Boston are the first people in the world to receive laboratory-grown organs. The children, aged 4 to 19, received bladders grown…
Many – if not most people – believe that prayer will help you through a medical crisis such as heart bypass surgery. If a large group of people outside yourself,…
At an early stage in a female embryo’s development, one of the two X chromosomes in each of its cells becomes inactivated. In two recent papers, the lab of Jeannie…
It’s the brilliant colors and otherworldly shapes of the Dominican insects that catch the eye and draw a viewer in. It’s the alien forms magnified for all to see clearly…
Orthopedic surgeon Martha Murray reports that a collagen gel enriched with blood platelets can stimulate natural healing of a partial anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear. Murray and colleagues at Harvard-affiliated…
A new discovery has found that Pin1, an enzyme previously shown to prevent the formation of the tangle-like lesions found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients, also plays a…
A survey of air pollution levels in “Irish pubs” around the world has found that indoor air pollution in authentic Irish pubs in Ireland, where a smoke-free law has been…
One short sequence of RNA protected mice from deadly brain inflammation caused by West Nile virus and Japanese encephalitis virus, report Priti Kumar, Manjunath Swamy, and Premlata Shankar. The findings,…
Recent research has shifted the understanding of a group of specialized molecules in the extracellular matrix, recasting them from scaffolding only to key cue-providers that help guide the formation of…
Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital have reported that binge eating disorder runs in families, raising the possibility that this condition may have a genetic basis. In the study, published in…
For people with type 2 diabetes, the death rate from a first heart attack is two to three times the death rate of patients without the disease. Similarly, patients with…
Gold compounds have been used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases for more than 75 years, but until now, how the metals work has been a…
In findings that highlight how health effects can reverberate through a social network, a researcher at HMS and his colleague report that the serious illness of an elderly spouse increases…
A study in the Feb. 2, 2006 Nature by Antoine van Oijen’s lab sheds light on a longstanding puzzle in DNA replication: how do the enzymes that copy the two…
Experience helps shape the brain, but how that happens – how synapses are remodeled in response to activity – is one of neurobiology’s biggest mysteries. Though axons and dendrites can…
Sandra Fallman avoided mirrors. Walking down sidewalks during dates, she would avoid bright storefront lights, walking near the curb to stay in the shadows. She put 25-watt bulbs in her apartment lights, not to set the mood, but to provide cover. Fallman suffers from a little-known mental condition called body dysmorphic disorder (BDD).
The popular belief that excessive computer use causes painful carpal tunnel syndrome has been contradicted by experts at Harvard Medical School. According to them, even as much as seven hours a day of tapping on a computer keyboard won’t increase your risk of this disabling disorder.
People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don’t. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.
While researchers usually use placebos in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of a new treatment, a trial reported in the Feb. 1, 2006 British Medical Journal pitted one placebo against another.
Steffie Woolhandler, Harvard Medical School associate professor of medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance, and colleagues at the University of California Los Angeles analyzed data from the 2000 National Health Interview…
Even for a fruit fly, learning and memory are important adaptive tools that facilitate survival in the environment. A fly can learn to avoid what may do it harm, such…
In the right hands, a swab of vinegar and a flashlight may detect more cervical cancer around the world than the recommended cytological screening known as a Pap smear. At the right time, a single DNA test for the virus that causes cervical cancer may also outperform repeated Pap smears.
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