you in Biological News

The way you eat may affect your risk for breast cancer

PHILADELPHIA How you eat may be just as important as how much you eat, if mice studies are any clue. Cancer researchers have long studied the role of diet on breast cancer risk, but results to date have been mixed. New findings published in Cancer Prevention Research , a journal of the Ameri...

Are you okay to kiss?

A quick breath check in the palm of your hand can never give accurate results. Whether you're about to lean in for a smooch or start a job interview, you're better off asking a trusted friend if your breath is sweet. But what if a friend isn't around when you need one? Tel Aviv University rese...

MIT: How you feel the world impacts how you see it

In the classic waterfall illusion, if you stare at the downward motion of a waterfall for some period of time, stationary objects like rocks appear to drift upward. MIT neuroscientists have found that this phenomenon, called motion aftereffect, occurs not only in our visual perception but also i...

You don't call, you don't write: Connectivity in marine fish populations

Children of baby boomers aren't the only ones who have taken to setting up home far from where their parents live. A new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences documents how larval dispersal connects marine fish populations in a network of marine protect...

Healthy food availability could depend on where you live -- so does the quality of your diet

The availability of healthy food choices and your quality of diet is associated with where you live, according to two studies conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers examined healthy food availability and diet quality among Baltimore City and Ba...

Why you can't hurry love

Scientists have developed a mathematical model of the mating game to help explain why courtship is often protracted. The study, by researchers at UCL (University College London), University of Warwick and LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science), shows that extended courtship enables...

Who are you kidding?

The research was carried out by a team of researchers led by Sharon Herring, MD, MPH, an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Temple University. She said, "Compared to normal weight women who accurately assessed their pre-pregnancy weight status, the odds of gaining excessively dur...

Worker ants of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your fertility

This release is available in French . The highly specialized worker castes in ants represent the pinnacle of social organization in the insect world. As in any society, however, ant colonies are filled with internal strife and conflict. So what binds them together? More than 150 years ago...

Are you phonagnosic?

The first known case of someone born without the ability to recognise voices has been reported in a paper by UCL (University College London) researchers, in a study of a rare condition known as phonagnosia. The UCL team are calling for other people to come forward if they think they have also grow...

Stress may make you itch

Berlin, Germany Current research suggests that stress may activate immune cells in your skin, resulting in inflammatory skin disease. The related report by Joachim et al., "Stress-induced Neurogenic Inflammation in Murine Skin Skews Dendritic Cells towards Maturation and Migration: Key role of I...

Circadian clock may be critical for remembering what you learn, Stanford researchers say

The circadian rhythm that quietly pulses inside us all, guiding our daily cycle from sleep to wakefulness and back to sleep again, may be doing much more than just that simple metronomic task, according to Stanford researchers. Working with Siberian hamsters, biologist Norman Ruby has shown tha...

At risk for peripheral arterial disease? Simple quiz provides key so you can circulate better

FAIRFAX, Va.Ten million Americans have peripheral arterial disease (PAD), and research shows that the highest risk populations include African-Americans (twice as likely to develop clogged leg arteries), seniors (12-20 percent develop PAD) and diabetics (one in three who are over the age of 50 dev...

If your first cigarette gave you a buzz and you now smoke, a gene may be to blame

ANN ARBOR, Mich. Anyone who has ever tried smoking probably remembers that first cigarette vividly. For some, it brought a wave of nausea or a nasty coughing fit. For others, those first puffs also came with a rush of pleasure or "buzz." Now, a new study links those first experiences with smok...

Sorry, Charlie, you and Nemo aren't the only fish that talk

Talking fish are no strangers to Americans. From the comedic portrayal of "Mr. Limpet" by Don Knotts, to the children's Disney favorite, "Nemo," fish can talk, laugh and tell jokes--at least on television and the silver screen. But can real fish verbally communicate? Researchers say, "Yes," in a p...

Can you be born a couch potato?

The key to good health is to be physically active. The key to being active is to be born that way? The well-documented importance of exercise in maintaining fitness has created the idea that individuals can manage their health by increasing their activity. But what if the inclination to engage ...

Get smart about what you eat and you might actually improve your intelligence

New research findings published online in The FASEB Journal provide more evidence that if we get smart about what we eat, our intelligence can improve. According to MIT scientists, dietary nutrients found in a wide range of foods from infant formula to eggs increase brain synapses and improve co...

Fat: Its not what you think!

As heart disease and obesity continue to plague the US, many people believe that the recent proliferation of high-fat diets is the major culprit. As a consequence, many people aim to significantly reduce the amount of saturated fats they consume with the hope that they will be slimmer, healthier, ...

Advertisements saying dairy products help you lose weight are misleading

Asheville, N.C. May 1, 2008 There have been recent claims that dairy products can help people lose weight, and the dairy industry has hyped the assertion by investing millions of dollars in commercial advertising. However, a new review of the evidence published in the journal Nutrition Reviews r...

Are you looking at me?

In humans, the eyes are said to be the window to the soul, conveying much about a persons emotions and intentions. New research demonstrates for the first time that birds also respond to a humans gaze. Predators tend to look at their prey when they attack, so direct eye-gaze can predict imminen...

In Today's Economy, You Can Strengthen Your Company by Building Your Brand

Ion Design Marketing Communications' branding workshop helps business owners clearly communicate their competitive advantage and genuine value ... giving businesses the resilience they need WASHINGTON, April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- A powerful brand yields confidence, credibility and ...

Can you rescue a rainforest? The answer may be yes

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Half a century after most of Costa Rica's rainforests were cut down, researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute took on a project that many thought was impossible - restoring a tropical rainforest ecosystem. When the researchers planted worn-out cattle fields in Costa Rica wi...

Like sweets? You're more like a fruit fly than you think...

PHILADELPHIA (March 17, 2008) -- According to researchers at the Monell Center, fruit flies are more like humans in their responses to many sweet tastes than are almost any other species. The diverse range of molecules that humans experience as sweet do not necessarily taste sweet to other sp...

How do you know whether you are male or female?

New research published online this week in the open-access journal PLoS Biology investigates this basic and much-studied question in the fruit fly, and comes to a surprising new conclusion. In mammals, male or female development depends on the presence of the Y chromosome, which is only found i...

If you don't want to fall ill this Christmas, then share a festive kiss but don't shake hands

We've all heard people say 'I won't kiss you, I've got a cold'. But a report just published warns that we may be far more at risk of passing on an infection by shaking someone's hand than in sharing a kiss. A group of hygiene experts from the United States and the UK have published the first de...

Could vitamin D, a key milk nutrient, affect how you age?

WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 8, 2007)- There is a new reason for the 76 million baby boomers to grab a glass of milk. Vitamin D, a key nutrient in milk, could have aging benefits linked to reduced inflammation, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In a...

Biological warfare: What do you need to know?

HOUSTON, Nov. 5, 2007 Highly infectious biological agents have been used to spread death and despair for centuries. A speaker coming to the University of Houston will address what we might confront if these agents were used today. Manuel Guerrero, a medical analyst with the Civil Support Re...

If you want more babies, find a man with a deep voice

Hamilton, ON. Sept. 24, 2007 Men who have lower-pitched voices have more children than do men with high-pitched voices, researchers have found. And their study suggests that for reproductive-minded women, mate selection favours men with low-pitched voices. The study, published in Biology Lett...

Bad mitochondria may actually be good for you

Mice with a defective mitochondrial protein called MCLK1 produce elevated amounts of reactive oxygen when young; that should spell disaster, yet according to a study in this week's JBC these mice actually age at a slower rate and live longer than normal mice. Mitochondrial oxidative stress is a...

Cranberry sauce: good for what ails you

WORCESTER, Mass. Cranberry sauce is not the star of the traditional Thanksgiving Day meal, but when it comes to health benefits, the lowly condiment takes center stage. In fact, researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have found that compounds in cranberries are able to alter E. coli...

Trusting your instincts leads you to the right answer

A UCL (University College London) study has found that you are more likely to perform well if you do not think too hard and instead trust your instincts. The research, published online today in the journal Current Biology, shows that, in some cases, instinctive snap decisions are more reliable than...

Like salty food? Chances are you had low blood sodium when you were born

A new study concludes that low birthweight babies born with low sodium (salt) in their blood serum will likely consume large quantities of dietary sodium later in life. In the study, researchers also found that newborns with the most severe cases of low sodium blood serum consumed ~1700 mg more so...

Do you hear what i see?

New research pinpoints specific areas in sound processing centers in the brains of macaque monkeys that shows enhanced activity when the animals watch a video. This study confirms a number of recent findings but contradicts classical thinking, in which hearing, taste, touch, sight, and smell are ...

UCLA: How does your brain respond when you think about gambling or taking risks?

Should you leave your comfortable job for one that pays better but is less secure? Should you have a surgery that is likely to extend your life but poses some risk that you will not survive the operation? Should you invest in a risky startup company whose stock may soar even though you could lose y...

It's in your head: The brain's own globin defends you from shock and stroke

The next generation of treatments for shock or stroke could be based on a protein that is already in our heads ?neuroglobin. In a review article to be published in the November issue of The FASEB Journal, scientists from University of Rome describe this protein, which may be the key to unlocking ne...

Designer babies - what would you do for a 'healthy' baby?

The well-educated are significantly more open to the idea of "designing" babies than the poorly educated, according to a new study by psychologists at the University of East Anglia. The findings will be presented by Dr. Simon Hampton at the BA Festival of Science on Setpember 5. Dr. Hampton ...

Sex and the heart: It's not what you think

A surprising new study finds that women in their 60s have as many risk factors for heart disease as men, and by their 70s have more, according to research led by demographers at the University of Southern California. The findings, published in the current issue of the Journal of Women's Health, r...

Psst! Coffee drinkers: Fruit flies have something to tell you about caffeine

In their hunt for genes and proteins that explain how animals discern bitter from sweet, a team of Johns Hopkins researchers began by testing whether mutant fruit flies prefer eating sugar over sugar laced with caffeine. Using a simple behavioral test, the researchers discovered that a single prot...

Can you hear me now? Scientists find previously unknown receptors on adult stem cells

For many years, researchers believed that stem cells in the bone marrow spent most of their existence in a slumber-like state, unaware of -- and unaffected by -- the daily battles fought by the body's immune system. Not so. Scientists at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation have discovered...

How low can you go? Ants learn to limbo

Have you ever tried to do the limbo? For ants it's a way of life! Scientists at the University of Zurich have discovered that ants are able to learn how to visually judge the height of horizontal barriers so that they can successfully crawl under it without slowing down. Tobias Seidl will be presen...

Lactic acid not athlete's poison, but an energy source - if you know how to use it

In the lore of marathoners and extreme athletes, lactic acid is poison, a waste product that builds up in the muscles and leads to muscle fatigue, reduced performance and pain. Some 30 years of research at the University of California, Berkeley, however, tells a different story: Lactic acid can b...