Month: April 2013

Clenching your fist could be enough to help boost your memory, a new study has claimed.

Clenching your right hand may help form a stronger memory of an event or action, and clenching the left may help you recollect the memory later, according to researcher Ruth Propper and colleagues from Montclair State University in US.

Participants in the research study published in the journal PLOS ONE were split into groups and asked to first memorise, and later recall words from a list of 72 words.

A synthetic form of vitamin D, calcipotriol (a drug already approved by the FDA for the treatment of psoriasis), could be a potential new therapy for liver fibrosis, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have suggested.

Liver fibrosis results from an excessive accumulation of tough, fibrous scar tissue and occurs in most types of chronic liver diseases.

In industrialized countries, the main causes of liver injury leading to fibrosis include chronic hepatitis virus infection, excess alcohol consumption and, increasingly, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

Prisoners who are psychopaths lack the basic neurophysiological “hardwiring” that enables them to care for others, a new study has found.

“A marked lack of empathy is a hallmark characteristic of individuals with psychopathy,” lead author of the study, Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry at University of Chicago said.

Psychopathy affects approximately 1 percent of the United States general population and 20 percent to 30 percent of the male and female US prison population.

International experts probing China`s deadly H7N9 bird flu virus said Wednesday it was “one of the most lethal influenza viruses” seen so far as Taiwan reported the first case outside the mainland.

China has confirmed 108 cases and 22 deaths since the first infections were announced on March 31 and Taiwan Wednesday confirmed its first infection in a man who had recently returned from working in eastern China where most cases have been reported.

Researchers, led by an Indian-origin scientist, have identified genes which help female mice and some other mammals delay the onset of pregnancy.

Unlike in humans, the remarkable ability, known as embryonic diapause, is a temporary state of suspended animation that occurs when environmental conditions are not favourable to the survival of the mother and the newborn.

A new study, published in the journal Open Biology, reveals the molecular mechanism responsible for pausing and resuming a pregnancy.

Scientists from the Manchester Collaborative Centre for Inflammation Research (MCCIR) have made a breakthrough that could be used to aid the design of future cancer treatments.

They have discovered why a particular cancer drug is so effective at killing cells.

Professor Daniel Davis and his team used high quality video imaging to investigate why the drug rituximab is so effective at killing cancerous B cells.

It is widely used in the treatment of B cell malignancies, such as lymphoma and leukaemia – as well as in autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.

University of Guelph researchers have created the first-ever vaccine for gut bacteria common in autistic children that may help control some autism symptoms.

Brittany Pequegnat and Guelph chemistry professor Mario Monteiro developed a carbohydrate-based vaccine against the gut bug Clostridium bolteae.

C. bolteae is known to play a role in gastrointestinal disorders, and it often shows up in higher numbers in the GI tracts of autistic children than in those of healthy kids.