In an attempt to bring better diagnostic tools to health care workers and rural patients in developing countries, researchers with STAR Analytical Services are working to develop a mobile phone application that can recognize—and distinguish between—different types of coughs. The goal is to create a simple, portable method to help determine which coughs are the [...]
Giving Tamiflu to patients who may have been exposed to swine flu—such as family members of confirmed cases—as a preventive measure, may result in their developing drug-resistant strains of the virus, according to an account published in this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. In a letter to the editor, a team [...]
Have you ever gotten half-way into a story only to realize that you’ve told this exact tale before, to precisely the person you’re boring with it now? (In fact, you may have already told it to them several times?) According to research published in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science, losing track of [...]
As my colleague Laura Fitzpatrick reported last year, the “designer vagina” trend is on the upswing, with a growing number of young women seeking out surgery to trim, sculpt and perfect their private areas. Yet while more women may be going under the knife in hopes of improving their intimate aesthetics, according to research published [...]
Ever since he appeared at the Latin Grammy Awards in Las Vegas last week, photos of former baseball slugger Sammy Sosa’s markedly lighter visage have been bouncing around the internet, as everyone from baseball fans and sports commentators to dermatologists and cultural analysts scratched their heads about what might have caused the dramatic dip in [...]
There is a long-standing love affair between sports and alcohol, and the mementos of this relationship abound at football stadiums, baseball parks, and of course, in TV advertising. (As of 2003, some 60% of the advertising budget for the American alcohol industry was dedicated to commercials during televised games, according to data from the Center [...]
Google recently teamed up with the Department of Health and Human Services to create a map function that will let you find out where you can get both H1N1 and seasonal flu shots by simply entering in your zip code or home town. The recently launched “flu shot locator” is still in initial phases, and [...]
Being crabby may not be a good way to earn new friends, but when it comes to decision-making and critical thinking, grumps may have a leg up on those with a sunnier outlook, according to research published in the current issue of Australasian Science. As the BBC reports, Australian psychologist Joseph Forgas conducted experiments designed [...]
A growing body of research suggests that early life experience changes the way genes respond to the world—and this can influence everything from the way people respond to stress to their risks for various diseases. A new study–published in Nature Neuroscience and led by Chris Murgatroyd of the Max Planck Institute in Germany–illustrates how early [...]
To any dieter who has ever sworn off bread and pasta, the next sentence may come as no surprise. A new study, published in the Nov.9th issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, shows that after dieting for one year, people following strict, low-carb diets had more bad moods than dieters eating a high-carb (albeit low-fat) [...]
