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Sexual orientation has a real effect on how we perform mental tasks

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that sexual orientation has a real effect on how we perform mental tasks such as navigating with a map in a car but that old age does not discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation and withers all men's minds alike just ahead of women's.

24 May 2007

New adult brain cells may be central to lifelong learning

The steady formation of new brain cells in adults may represent more than merely a patching up of aging brains, a new study has shown.

24 May 2007

New weapons in the fight against food poisoning

University of Nottingham experts have joined forces with Canadian biotech company GangaGen Life Sciences Inc to develop new weapons in the fight against food poisoning.

24 May 2007

New findings on jet lag

Circadian clocks regulate the timing of biological functions in almost all higher organisms.

24 May 2007

Gene therapy used to reverse heart failure in animals

Heart researchers at the Center for Translational Medicine at Jefferson Medical College have used gene therapy to reverse heart failure in animals.

24 May 2007

Researchers look at benefits of aspirin for colon cancer prevention

A colon cancer researcher at the Ireland Cancer Center of University Hospitals Case Medical Center (UHCMC) has laid out the roadmap for how medical science should employ aspirin and new aspirin-like drugs for use in preventing colon cancer in certain high-risk individuals.

24 May 2007

Immune antibodies penetrate neurons to clear Alzheimer's-linked amyloid

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have gotten much closer to understanding how immune-based therapies can treat Alzheimer's disease -- by studying how antibodies go inside brain cells to reduce levels of Alzheimer's-linked amyloid peptides that form plaques between neurons.

24 May 2007

Neuronal pathology of Fragile X syndrome studied

Fragile X syndrome is the most common form of inherited mental retardation, occurring in 1 in 3600 males and 1 in 4000 to 6000 females.

24 May 2007

Visual short-term memory capacity drops following sleep deprivation

When an air traffic controller at the end of a double shift forgets the location of an aircraft that had recently appeared on his screen, it may be that he did not properly take in the visual information.

24 May 2007

Check and balance for neuron activity provides insight into schizophrenia, seizures

Two genes important for human development and implicated in cancer and schizophrenia also help keep a healthy balance between excitation and inhibition of brain cells, researchers say.

24 May 2007

Tool will revolutionise functional genomic studies in clostridia

The genome of the organism that produces the world's most lethal toxin has been revealed.

24 May 2007

New adult nerves have a deeper role than simply replacing dead ones

You may not be able to relive your youth, but part of your brain can. Johns Hopkins researchers have found that newly made nerves in an adult brain's learning center experience a one-month period when they are just as active as the nerves in a developing child.

24 May 2007

Breakthrough in understanding how cancers spread

The University of Manchester study used embryonic stem (ES) cells to investigate how some tumours are able to migrate to other parts of the body, which makes the treatment of cancer much more difficult.

From The University of Manchester 24 May 2007

More evidence found indicating potassium channels play a critical role in sleep

A gene that controls the flow of potassium into cells is required to maintain normal sleep in fruit flies, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH).

24 May 2007

Diets high in salt may increase stomach ulcers

Scientists from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) have discovered that diets high in salt may increase the virulence of the pathogen Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), which is the most common cause of ulcers in the stomach and duodenum.

24 May 2007

High salt intake increases gene activity in the ulcer-causing bacterium Helicobacter pylori

Scientists have identified yet another risk from a high-salt diet. High concentrations of salt in the stomach appear to induce gene activity in the ulcer-causing bacterium Helicobacter pylori, making it more virulent and increasing the likelihood of an infected person developing a severe gastric disease.

24 May 2007