Health on ZME Science

Sex without condoms makes people happier

Well, it seems all we’ve been writing about lately is sex and jelly fish (there’s a connection somewhere, I just can’t put my finger on it, so to speak). A recent controversial study conducted by Scottish psychologist Stuart Brody concluded that sex without condoms significantly boosts both men and women’s mental state, making them happier […]

Obesity responsible for $147 billion in US health care costs

A recent study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that obesity related disorders account for ~10% of the total medical spending in the U.S. or, money-wise, approximately a whooping $147 billion. The study continues on stipulating that obese individuals spend 40% more on medical treatment than those of normal weight, […]

Haiti needs water

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with it’s dazzling 70% unemployment rate and more than 3 quarters of the people living in extreme poverty. To top it off, water, what you need the most for survival, is polluted. The World Bank pretty much summed it up in a few words: Haiti has […]

Girl that doesn't age baffles scientists: a 16 year old is an infant

Physiologically speaking, Brooke Greenberg is an infant with the mind of toddler. Only thing is that she turned 16 just this Janary. It’s hard to estimate the parents opinion, especially as I wasn’t able to find almost any constructive data. “Why doesn’t she age?” Howard Greenberg, 52, asked of his daughter. “Is she the fountain […]

The swine flu - now a pademic

The swine influenza is now, officially, the 4th flu pandemic in the last 100 years. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization made an official move and declared the first global influenza pandemic in the last 40 years, for the A(H1N1) virus. However, it’s still unknown if this decision will actually change something […]

Tiny frozen microbe could shine light on extraterrestrial life

A new bacteria that has been named Herminiimonas glaciei, found in the heart of Greenland, trapped under more than 3 km beneath the ice, probably holds significant clues regarding what life forms may exist on other planets, according to Dr Jennifer Loveland-Curtze and a team of scientists from Pennsylvania State University. They published this finding […]

Is it possible to inherit happiness?

So here it is: a new study comes to show that the way we feel throughout our lives may determine our children’s development. It’s all a problem of chemistry: the “chemistry” of happiness or sadness. However, don’t think that the fact that one’s parents had a bad day at work turned him or her into […]

Brain solves problems when we daydream

As an old saying goes, time spent wishing is time wasted. I’m guessing day dreaming goes into the same category, right?? Wrong. According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences activity in numerous brain regions actually increases when our mind wanders off to a different place. The study led […]

World's first genome transplant - a step forward towards creating synthetic life forms

Once the first transplant was conducted the entire history stated to change and since then science has broken a lot of barriers. Now scientists are preparing to create synthetic life forms (don’t think about badass creatures half robots half reptiles, it’s all about bacteria) in order to stop our dependence on fuels (so in a […]

Chronic ankle pain may be more than a sprain

If I were to guess, I'd say each and every one of us suffered at least an ankle sprain and we all know how much they suck, basically. They're very common at all ages, in every environment. Also, approximately 40 percent of those who suffer ankle sprains experience chronic pain even after being treated for the condition.

5 pandemics that plagued mankind before COVID-19

In late 2019, weird reports of a virus started emerging from a city most people have never even heard of (Wuhan). It didn’t cause a wave at first. Most people were just going about their lives, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen: a pandemic that would take the whole world by storm, causing […]

Researchers find out why swine flu is harder on some than others

Despite the fact that some researchers claim the swine flu is already declining, we are still on the verge of a pandemic that threatens to spiral out of control if we don’t take action. However, the major problem was to understand the virus, because there are still many things we have yet to find out […]

Current flu vaccines inactive against the Swine flu

For some reason, many people believed the current flu vaccine will be effective against this swine flu that’s already expanding and very difficult to control. Still, even some researchers claimed that it will be at least somewhat effective. Guess what – it won’t. Or at least the vast majority of scientists claim it won’t. The […]

US and Brazil scientists team up to show we're all pot heads deep down

It seems you can blame everything on drugs, as researchers show that the human brain manufactures proteins that act on specific receptors in the same way that marijuana does; those receptors are actually situated in the brain itself. This discovery was published online in the FASEB journal, and Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the journal […]

Cleaning products give birth to deadly antibiotics-resistant bugs

Disinfectants, all kinds of shampoos, fabric softeners…we love them , we use them and then they go down the drain. Nothing bad about cleanliness, isn’t it? Unfortunately, our foamy friends can prove to be a timebomb as they can create invisible monsters: bugs that are not affected by antibiotics. Researchers from England have discovered this […]

Bioengineered proteins: Trial confirms new way to tackle cancer

The war on cancer is more intense than ever, and it’s taking place on many, many fronts. We’ve seen the anticancer minisubmarine, the anticancer trojan horse, and even the anticancer beer. In a study published in the first issue of EMBO Molecular Medicine, Canadian researchers showed there is yet another way to tackle cancer: re-engineering […]

Therapists still claim they "treat" homosexuality

Even though we claim to be living in the third millenium and we’ve “evolved” significantly from say, 50 years ago, there’s quite a number of people that think homosexuality is some sort of disease and should be taken care of. This lack of understanding and, most of all, tolerance leads to a whole number of […]

Surgical solution for out-of-control-blushing

Let’s play a little imagination game: you are a renown professor of psychiatry at an important university and you are offered the presidency of the national society of neurology. However, you’re not quite enthusiastic about all these as the simple sight of one of your students or patients would be enough to make you blush […]

Of Trojan Horses and miracle drugs

When Oscar was diagnosed with a very aggresive form of cancer called anal sac adenocarcinoma, his days seemed numbered – literally. Doctors gave him very little to no chance of living 100 days when they noticed he was unresponsive to chemotherapy and radiation. But things took an unexpected turn, and in two weeks, Oscar was […]

Is traffic exposure causing heart atacks?

The simple thought of being caught in a horn-honking traffic jam for a couple of hours is definitely a scary one, which would definitely increase the rate of your heartbeat. But, unfortunately, traffic can have much more serious effects on one’s heart, especially now, when a simple drive around the town has become an endurance […]

Picturing yourself aging well may change your life

As you probably know (but may very well choose to ignore), ageism is going rampant throughout virtually every civilized country in the world, and this is by no means a casual thing, but it’s quite systematic, regardless of sex. What’s even worse, even old people think the least about themselves in terms of intelligence, competence […]

Dead gene is resurrected in humans

This is what researchers believe to be the first true comeback of a gene in the human/great ape lineage; the study was led by Evan Eichler’s genome science laboratory at the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and they pointed out that the infection-fighting human IRGM is (as far as we know) […]

Don't smoke, it's bad for your pet!

If you are a smoker you’ve definitely heard more arguments than you can count against keeping such a habit. However, you continued to smoke, no matter what scary studies did scientists come up with. But apparently, this is not a decision to affect only you: your canary, dog, cat or why not turtle, might be […]

Malaria to be defeated by starving parasite to death

It claims the life of a child every 30 seconds and about 40% of the entire world population is at risk because of it. About 500 million people become very ill with malaria every year and about 2 million of them don’t make it. The situation seems really grim especially as in some parts of […]

Are party animals born this way?

Tired of sitting in a corner at parties and spending most of your spare time conceiving evil plans to destroy the world? I am sure you would want to buy whatever it is that makes some Mr. or Miss Congeniality, but unfortunately, as researchers at Harvard University have discovered, it may all be in the […]

Head banging can hammer the brain

If you’ve ever been to a rock concert, you know that unique feeling when you leave the arena, and the whole world is in your pocket; that feeling appears whether you’re a headbanger or not, no difference there. But the difference, it seems, appears in your head. When I first heard what inspired Associate Professor […]

Not enough reasons to give up fatty food? Well, it disrupts your biological clock too!

Eating too much fatty food does not only lead to being overweight and related diseases, but it can also disturb the balance of one’s circadian rhythms, which means your 24-hour biological clock will stop working thee way it should. Dr. Oren Froy and his colleagues of the Institute of Biochemistry, Food Science and Nutrition at […]

Dr. Russell Blaylock about "The Rockefellers & Social engineering"

The term “social engineering” is often misunderstood; what it refers to is the act of manipulating people (or masses of people) into doing whatever it is that you want. The term is not quite similar to a people trick or a people fraud, and it’s often about making people divulge information. Russell Blaylock, M.D is […]

Young people and Old people store information differently

The latest study conducted by researchers from the Duke University Medical Center was performed on two groups of (old and young) adults. The first group had an average age of about 70 while the younger ones were about 24 years old. Neuroscientists found out that the mechanism behind the part of the brain responsable for […]

Obama's first green move

It’s obvious that one of the biggest challenges the president elect has to face is rejuvenating the infrastructure; let’s talk about traffic jams for a bit. Everybody hates them, we all want to avoid them, but they exist. They are an unintended consequence of personal driving. Some transportation planners often speak about the fact that […]

Having a lousy boss may be lethal

We all know how unpleasant it is to have an incapable, grumpy and never-satisfied boss. It’s annoying, nerve-wrecking and even …lethal. According to some new research having an awful boss may have more implications than initially thought. If your boss has no consideration for your ideas, is not communicative enough or is simply incapable of […]

In sickness and in ... green

The city administration of Balikpapan (in East Kalimantan) has issued a new rule which will definitely please those interested in our planet’s “health”. Each couple has to plant a tree before they can marry. Basically, if don’t plant a tree, you don’t get the marriage license. “We have made it mandatory for those wanting to […]

No health care revolution in sight

Though we have to admit there are some small steps toward an improving in general health care, we’ve expressed our opinion about how bad things are on numerous occasions. Only the fact that major pharmaceutical companies spend more on advertising than research is a huge problem, that (along with others) leads to a domino-like effect […]

Brain neurons can remodel connections, MIT shows

Contrary to almost a half of century of research, Elly Nedivi, associate professor of neurobiology at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and colleagues found that a certain type of neuron that plays a crucial part in autism spectrum disorders is able in fact to remodel itself. It can do this in a strip […]

Mute man can now speak thanks to brain implant

Frank Guenther of Boston University in Massachusetts and his colleagues worked with a man who was unable to move or communicate; they implanted an electrode into his brain which allowed him to use a speech synthesizer that produces vowel sounds as he thinks them. This work shows promise of going even further and not far […]

Gender - highly important in heart transplants

The gender of the person one receives the heart from may in fact prove highly important for their future evolution. As reported on November the 12th at the American Heart Association’s annual Scientific Sessions meeting, the number of patients whose gender matched their donors’ proved to be less likely to reject the organ or to […]

Smart amoebas reveal origins of primitive intelligence

Intelligence is very hard to define as a trait, as it’s usually a simplified term used to describe a quantum of related abilities, such as the ability to solve problems, to understand abstract issues, to learn and to plan. But the notion of intelligence should (by any means) be understood at a whole new level, […]

Why Women Get More Cavities

It’s not because they deserve it, if that’s what you’re thinking – you mysoginistic bastard; and it’s not because they’re just much sweeter than man. Actually, the old tale that a woman loses a tooth every time she delivers is not as far from the truth as you’d think. A study published in this month’s […]

Glowing jellyfish earns Nobel Prize

This year’s Nobel Prize for chemistry has been earned by three scientists who researched into the mysterious green glow of a jellyfish. They will split the prize which has been given to them for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein GFP. Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; […]

Feeling amuck makes people see inexistant patterns

It’s natural that when you are stressed out, you tend to search for an explanation for your current situation and to search for answers; too many people have felt this and this is a global issue even without the economy crisis that struck us. But in such times when you feel that your finances are […]

World could head for a global pandemic caused by antibiotic resistance

Antibiotics are agents that act against microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi or protozoa. It’s obvious that since the development of antibiotics, the world has changed significantly. Basically, in developed countries people take pills for anything, which could have a damaging long term effect, creating newer types of damaging microorganisms, which are more resistant to antibiotics. […]

'Cutting By Color'; new technique for cancer surgery

One of humanity’s fiercest enemies in the modern world is without a doubt this terrible malady, which has caused an endless number of deaths and suffering; while news and developments in treatment appear every day, there is still no safe receipe for curing it. However, if things get bad, there is now a new technique […]

Ear infections make fat foods sound better

It may seem weird, but ear infections don’t attack only your ears, but your weight too. If you get them during your childhood, there’s a big chance you will develop a taste for fat foods, and thus this affinity will probably lead to obesity. Scientists that made this study suggest that this appears because middle […]

Suicidal bacteria illustrates evolution of co-operation

Bacteria have sometimes behaviour that can amaze scientists, by its complexity and efficiency. Salmonella can commit suicide and help their “brothers” to establish infections that are more damaging, thus helping their species. But scientists believe they have found the answer to this surprising kamikaze behavior. This phenomenon which is called self-destructive cooperation often helps Salmonella […]

Potential Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Cure Found In Century-old Drug

Every once in a while, you hear about the hardest of problems that have really easy solutions. In numerous cases, cures have been found in most common of substances, or even foods. This time, a study led by researchers at Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland showed that in small concentrations, something as common as […]

Genetic map of Europe

If you ever visited a neighboring country and found that the people there had little or no connection to your own country’s culture, language or even physical appearance, it’s only natural that you wonder how this can be; after all, if the countries share a border, they have to resemble many traits?? Not really. It […]

First Neanderthal genome sequenced

The Neanderthal has spakled controversies around scientists for many years, and most questions remain unanswered even today; they had many adaptations to a hard life, such as hort, robust builds, and rather large noses, which show they lived mostly in cold climates. They were almost exclusively carnivorous and top predators and their brains were probably […]

Aging, a simple error of evolution??

Everybody pondered at least once in their lives the possibility of being immortal, and this idea sparkled in the immagination of many people throughout history. Now, Stuart Kim, a PhD at Stanford and professor of developmental biology and genetics conducted a study that led to results that shocked pretty much everybody involved, contradicting the […]

High-fructose corn syrup - the mastermind behind obesity?

Whether you want to admit it or now, the world (and most of all America) has a problem with obesity. The fact that people are eating less healthy and working out less is something that can’t be denied even by the most optimistic of us. However, even taking into consideration all those aspects, the numbers […]

Healthy lifestyle triggers genetic changes

We all know (or really should know) the benefic impact a healthy lifestyle has on your body and mind. But according to a study led by U.S. researchers, exercising and having a balanced diet can not just keep you fit, but it can also lead to some swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level.In […]

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