The 2018 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC), has been a very different kind of outbreak than the massive West African outbreak that occurred in 2014 and 2015. For starters, it is much smaller, with just over 2,000 cases compared to the more than 28,000 cases of the West African outbreak. Because of...
Wandering through the grocery store, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the numerous brands and health claims on the dozens of sugar substitutes. It can be particularly confusing for those with diabetes or pre-diabetes who must keep their blood sugar in check and control their weight. With the growing diabetes and obesity epidemic, there...
Everything is a toxin, or has the potential to be, in the field of toxicology. In the 1500s, Swiss physician Paracelsus, the father of toxicology, coined his famous dictum: “What is there that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a...
Livestock farming is destroying our planet. It is a major cause of land and water degradation, biodiversity loss, acid rain, coral reef degeneration, deforestation – and of course, climate change. Plant-based diets, insect farming, lab-grown meat and genetically modified animals have all been proposed as potential solutions. Which is best? All of these combined, say...
More than 1 in 10 people with a range of non-cancerous lung diseases may be sick as a result of inhaling vapors, gas, dust or fumes at work, according to a joint American Thoracic Society and the European Respiratory Society statement published in the ATS’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. In “The Occupational...
A recent study of the forensic evidence in 563 sexual assault cases in Massachusetts found “striking similarities” in the types of injuries and violence experienced by adult and adolescent victims. The similarities suggest that teens are at greater risk of violence and injury during sexual assaults than previously thought, according to the study’s authors, University...
A University of Colorado Cancer Center study presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting 2019 shows that while 73 percent of surveyed oncology providers believe that medical marijuana provides benefits for cancer patients, only 46 percent are comfortable recommending it. Major concerns included uncertain dosing, limited knowledge of available products and...
Societies and people have reshaped the world many times over. From building cities and communities that live within them, to the smaller changes in a person’s home or place of worship, people influence their space. Benjamin Meagher, a social psychologist at Hope College, argues that the space people shape, also shapes the individual, and that...
Do we see a pear or an apple? The occipital cortex in our brain will activate itself to recognize it. A piece of bread or a nice plate of pasta with sauce? Another region will come into play, called middle temporal gyrus. Different regions are implicated in recognition of different foods, raw in one case...
A desire for a simpler, cheaper way to do common laboratory tests for medical diagnoses and to avoid “washing the dishes” led University of Connecticut researchers to develop a new technology that reduces cost and time. Their pipette-based technology could also help make certain medical testing available in rural or remote areas where traditional methods...
