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  • February 2, 2012
  • 07:00 PM
  • 27 views

Herpes Gladiatorum: Full Contact Infectious Diseases

by rbca in BODY HORRORS

In honor of one of the most lucrative American holidays happening this very weekend, I thought I’d explore sports and infectious diseases. Specifically, contact sports and skin infections! What could be better than watching the Super Bowl and knowing just exactly what kind of diseases could possibly be smeared between the players of the Patriots and Giants?... Read more »

Adams, B. (2010) Skin infections in athletes. Expert Review of Dermatology, 5(5), 567-577. DOI: 10.1586/edm.10.50  

  • February 2, 2012
  • 02:30 PM
  • 43 views

A Case for Oral Diagnostics with Microfluidics

by Hector Munoz in Microfluidic Future

What’s So Great About Oral Diagnostics?

Well, a lot of things, but let’s start with the basics. In order to use a microfluidic device, you need some type of fluid right? Sure if you had some powder or fine material you could suspend it in a fluid, but for simplicity sake, let’s look at fluids as our test material. If you wanted to run a health-related diagnostic, you only have so many bodily fluids available before you have to get creative and very invasive:

Blood
........ Read more »

Giannobile, W., McDevitt, J., Niedbala, R., & Malamud, D. (2011) Translational and Clinical Applications of Salivary Diagnostics. Advances in Dental Research, 23(4), 375-380. DOI: 10.1177/0022034511420434  

Hart, R., Mauk, M., Liu, C., Qiu, X., Thompson, J., Chen, D., Malamud, D., Abrams, W., & Bau, H. (2011) Point-of-care oral-based diagnostics. Oral Diseases, 17(8), 745-752. DOI: 10.1111/j.1601-0825.2011.01808.x  

  • February 2, 2012
  • 12:32 PM
  • 35 views

Improving healthy food & beverage choices through choice architecture

by pennydeck in Feedback Solutions for Obesity

In my previous blog post, I discussed a study by Thorndike et al that looked at how both labeling healthy and unhealthy food choices with colour codes affected the purchase of healthy foods and beverages (1). The previous post focused … Continue reading →... Read more »

  • February 2, 2012
  • 06:30 AM
  • 70 views

This is the Way to Bad Medicine - II

by Rogue Medic in Rogue Medic

Their categorization of only 3 (out of 32) serious adverse events as "Probably related to treatment" and none as "Definitely related to treatment" suggests that they are not being objective. How do they explain this in the discussion? They don’t. Maybe they aren’t referring to the serious adverse events, but are referring to deaths. I don’t know and since they do not explain, I can only speculate.... Read more »

  • February 1, 2012
  • 12:08 AM
  • 51 views

Water, Water Everywhere…but How Much Should You Drink?

by Jeffrey Driban in Sports Medicine Research (SMR): In the Lab & In the Field

Williams and colleagues utilized a questionnaire to assess runners’ hydration plans for before, during, and after the London Marathon, and evaluated how closely these plans followed the current recommendations.... Read more »

Williams J, Tzortzioubrown V, Malliaras P, Perry M, & Kipps C. (2012) Hydration Strategies of Runners in the London Marathon. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine. PMID: 22246343  

  • January 31, 2012
  • 07:00 PM
  • 58 views

Drinking Milk Might Be Good for your Brain, Study Says

by Jaime Menchen in United Academics

New research at the University of Maine, US, provides a novel field of study: drinking milk, among consuming other dairy products, may benefit our brain health, its authors say.... Read more »

  • January 31, 2012
  • 11:20 AM
  • 65 views

Reward and Punish: Say Hello to Dopamine’s Leetle Friend

by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox


  Dopamine recruits a helper to track drug rewards.
Ah, dopamine. Whenever it seems like researchers have finally gotten a bead on how that tricky molecule modulates pleasure and reward, and the role in plays in the process of drug and alcohol addiction, along come new findings that rearrange its role, deepening and complicating our understanding of brain function.
We know that the ultimate site of dopamine activity caused by drugs is the ventral tegmental area, or VTA, and an associated ........ Read more »

  • January 31, 2012
  • 12:08 AM
  • 37 views

Social Interactions may Influence Inflammation

by Jeffrey Driban in Sports Medicine Research (SMR): In the Lab & In the Field

Chiang et al evaluated if daily social interactions among 122 healthy young adults to determine if these interactions relate to systematic concentrations of proinflammatory mediators (measured via oral collection) at rest and after acute stress. Social interactions were classified into 3 categories: negative (e.g., conflict with another person), competitive (e.g., competing for attention, academic competition, games) and positive (e.g., time with friends, support from partner) daily interactions........ Read more »

  • January 30, 2012
  • 07:45 PM
  • 55 views

Avian flu: not so deadly as advertised?

by Mutant Dragon in Puff the Mutant Dragon

You've probably heard many times that avian flu is extremely lethal, with "a mortality rate of about 60 percent", in the words of one mainstream media article from December of last year. The 50 - 60 percent figure has been widely quoted by reporters, and if true it would indeed make avian flu an extremely dangerous virus. But is this an accurate number?... Read more »

Palese, P., & Wang, T. (2012) H5N1 influenza viruses: Facts, not fear. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1121297109  

  • January 30, 2012
  • 07:44 AM
  • 76 views

Teen Brain Prone to Addiction

by Carian Thus in United Academics

Researchers of the University of Pittsburgh studied the brains of adolescent and adult rats during a task in which they taught the rats to respond to a tone in a certain way, resulting in a tasty treat. According to the researchers, the brain region traditionally associated with reward and motivation – the nucleus accumbens – was activated similarly in adult and adolescent rats.... Read more »

  • January 30, 2012
  • 07:33 AM
  • 68 views

Absence of evidence is, er, well, absence of evidence — even for agrobiodiversity and health

by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

It has been a bit of a rough week for people who prefer their grand policy pronouncements backed with a teeny bit of evidence. Like us. Two big papers, in important journals, have concluded that there is very little evidence that agriculturally improving dietary diversity feeds into better nutrition and health. In the British Medical [...]... Read more »

  • January 30, 2012
  • 05:33 AM
  • 51 views

Do we really need a new measles vaccine?

by Connor Bamford in The Rule of 6ix




Measles, that deadly childhood infectious disease is almost a distant memory to most people nowadays, that is except for a few isolated outbreaks across the US and Europe. This is all because of a really amazing preventative therapy: the vaccine.



Vaccines are great. They are by far the most effective means that we have to control - and hopefully eradicate - infectious diseases from a range of species. Measles is one of these diseases that, over the last half a decade or so, we have backed........ Read more »

  • January 30, 2012
  • 02:05 AM
  • 59 views

Mutations linked to aggressive childhood brain tumours

by Suzanne Elvidge in Genome Engineering

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a rare and lethal childhood brain cancer, and researchers taking part in the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) have found a link with a gene not previously connected with cancer, in a paper published in Nature Genetics.... Read more »

  • January 29, 2012
  • 03:31 PM
  • 55 views

8 Tips for Developing Preventive Interventions for Children Exposed to Acute Medical Events

by Eva Alisic in Trauma Recovery

As a field, we have made significant progress in developing models and identifying key risk factors associated with the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children who experience acute medical traumatic events. Additionally, we have given much attention to the evaluation of preventive interventions. However, a standard process for the development of preventive interventions is less clear.
... Read more »

Kazak AE, Kassam-Adams N, Schneider S, Zelikovsky N, Alderfer MA, & Rourke M. (2006) An integrative model of pediatric medical traumatic stress. Journal of pediatric psychology, 31(4), 343-55. PMID: 16093522  

  • January 29, 2012
  • 03:28 AM
  • 117 views

2011 Orwellian Prize for Journalistic Misrepresentation

by Dorothy Bishop in bishopblog

The Orwellian Prize was set up to identify bad science journalism. The winner for 2011 contains a spectacular number of errors in reporting on a paper about cannabinoid receptors in rats.... Read more »

  • January 29, 2012
  • 01:56 AM
  • 74 views

Drunken Escape Fuels Much Male Suicide

by ultimo167 in Strong Silent Types

Many men who commit suicide could be described as impulsive and in terms of what they seemingly, actually responded to, over the top. Shniedman (1993)called it 'psychache'. Here, Coleman et al. (2011) draw from Baumeister's 'escape theory' to jam together impulsivity, alcohol misuse and lots and lots of anger to conclude that many suicidal men get stuck on a thought, that is, the thought that they must die. Supposedly, this painted into a bad corner montage was inspired ........ Read more »

Coleman, D., Kaplan, M., & Casey, J. (2011) The Social Nature of Male Suicide: A New Analytic Model. International Journal of Men's Health, 10(3), 240-252. DOI: 10.3149/jmh.1003.240  

  • January 29, 2012
  • 12:00 AM
  • 43 views

Playing the Didgeridoo against Snoring

by Theresa Patzchke in United Academics

Snoring is more dangerous than what one might think. It can be reduced to collapsibility of the upper airways during sleep. In case of a related sleep disorder, the obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome, the affected person regularly looses the ability to breathe for 10 seconds or more. Both of the disorders can lead to a higher risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.... Read more »

  • January 27, 2012
  • 07:00 PM
  • 40 views

Magic Mushrooms Found to Be Therapeutic

by Mark Fonseca in United Academics

As it turns out, magic mushrooms don’t actually expand your brain, they contract it. But that’s not a bad thing. In fact, two new studies from the UK have revealed that psilocybin, the active ingredient found in magic mushrooms, could actually help treat depression... Read more »

Carhart-Harris, R., Erritzoe, D., Williams, T., Stone, J., Reed, L., Colasanti, A., Tyacke, R., Leech, R., Malizia, A., Murphy, K.... (2012) Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1119598109  

  • January 27, 2012
  • 12:43 PM
  • 58 views

Bird-Flu Bioterror

by E Markham in Genetic Cuckoo

Recent controversy about publishing research which might lead to terrorism has taken the media by story in relation to avian influenza. Scientists need to openly share their research but the US government has asked for it to be censored in case of terrorism, but with censorship comes limitation, which would hamper exchange of ideas and new developments. This article is a discussion of the issues raised and its potential impacts. ... Read more »

E Markham. (2012) Bird-Flu Bioterror. Blogspot. info:/

  • January 27, 2012
  • 10:10 AM
  • 107 views

Oxford University Censor First Broadcast of Lecture That Resulted in Censuring of Prof. Nutt, Former UK Government Drugs Advisor

by Neurobonkers in Neurobonkers

Watch the full video of the lecture and uncover what was in the slides censored for "copyright reasons"... Read more »

Nutt, D. (2009) Estimating drug harms: a risky business?. Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. info:/

Halpern JH, Sherwood AR, Hudson JI, Gruber S, Kozin D, & Pope HG Jr. (2011) Residual neurocognitive features of long-term ecstasy users with minimal exposure to other drugs. Addiction (Abingdon, England), 106(4), 777-86. PMID: 21205042  

Carhart-Harris, R., Erritzoe, D., Williams, T., Stone, J., Reed, L., Colasanti, A., Tyacke, R., Leech, R., Malizia, A., Murphy, K.... (2012) Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1119598109  

Editorial team. (2010) The EMCDDA annual report 2010: the state of the drugs problem in Europe. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, also published in Euro surveillance :European communicable disease bulletin, 15(46). PMID: 21144426  

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