Health, features and articles | Educational Science

May 31, 2006

The Most Dangerous Sports in America

Many moms might worry about their kids getting hurt playing football, but a new study shows that playing basketball and riding bicycles sent more Americans to the emergency room in 2005. More than half a million people suffered basketball-related injuries last year, compared to 485,000 hurt on bikes and 418,000...

May 31, 2006

Genetic Mutations Help Date Old Books

The fundamentals of genetic science may help date centuries-old works by Shakespeare and Rembrandt. It could be a new benchmark for the science world's oddest crossover research. The newly-announced technique, which proposes to assign years to a slew of previously undated books and art, applies the same thinking behind genetic...

May 31, 2006

Smoking and Obesity Curb Sex

For a man addicted to cigarettes and plagued by obesity, which together raise the risk of cancer and diabetes, life might seem a bit grim. At least there's sex. Well, maybe not. In a new study, scientists examined a survey database of 22,086 healthy subjects between the ages of 40...

May 31, 2006

The Secret to Living Past 80: Make it to 65

In aging, as with many things in life, it's best to take things one step at a time. Doctors conclude in the July issue of Harvard Health Letter that one of the best ways to help ensure you'll live past 80 is to first set your sights on making it...

May 31, 2006

One Drink Can Make You Blind Drunk

You don't have to be blitzed to be blind drunk, a new study shows. One stiff drink is all it takes to cause inattentional blindness, a condition where people fail to detect unexpected objects in their field of vision while focusing on another task. The study reveals that people who...

Apr 30, 2006

Lesbians' Brains React Differently

UPDATED MAY 12, 2006 AT 5:20 P.M. ET Clarification: WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a story below, The Associated Press reported on the perceptions of lesbian women and heterosexual men and women when sniffing chemicals derived from human hormones. The report was based on a chart in a research study which...

Apr 30, 2006

Portable Dipstick to Measure Caffeine

While it might seem strange scientists would think to develop dipsticks to measure caffeine, how they're making them is even weirder. How about three llamas and two camels. The animals, both called camelids by scientists, are among the few whose immune systems produce antibodies that are not destroyed by hot...

Apr 30, 2006

Some Americans May Get Too Many Nutrients

Amid concern that some people take too many dietary supplements, the National Institutes of Health today released preliminary recommendations that generally urge caution. The statement from the agency, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, concerns multivitamin and mineral supplements, collectively called MVMs. Conclusions were reached by...

Apr 30, 2006

Dairy Products Might Cause More Human Twins

Women who consume animal products, specifically dairy, are five times more likely to have twins than those who do not, a new study finds. The reason may involve growth hormones fed to cows. A growth protein called IGF is released from the liver of animals and humans in response to...

Apr 30, 2006

Wham! Wham! Wham! Now Get Some Sleep, Ma'am

NEW YORK—The sound echoed throughout Montefiore Medical Center, like somebody pounding dozens of nails around the clock. Wham! Wham! Wham! The source was actually a pill banger, used to crush medications for geriatric patients who can't swallow whole pills. The process occurred repeatedly each shift, disrupting sleeping patients and annoying...

Apr 30, 2006

Machine Offers Sight to Some Blind People

With her good eye, Elizabeth Goldring can distinguish between light and dark and see hand movement, but not individual fingers. She cannot recognize faces or read. Goldring is an artist, a poet, and a senior fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Advanced Visual Studies. Her vision loss...

Apr 30, 2006

The Psychological Strain of Living Forever

In Oscar Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the main character barters his soul for eternal youth but becomes wicked and immoral in the process. Leon Kass believes humanity risks striking a similar Faustian bargain if it pursues technology that extends life spans beyond what is natural. If our...

Apr 30, 2006

Mystery Disease Makes Peoples' Skin Crawl

Reports of a mysterious medical condition are cropping up across the country but doctors are divided on whether it is a real disease or all in their patients' heads. Called Morgellons Disease, patients who report having it describe sensations of creepy-crawlers beneath the skin and fibrous filaments oozing out of...

Apr 30, 2006

Study: Sexual Desire is in Your Genes

Your sexual desire or lack thereof could be in your genes, scientists announced today. The discovery might change how psychologists view sexuality. The researchers found that individual differences in human sexual desire can be attributed to genetic variations. The study is the first to provide data to show that common...

Apr 30, 2006

The ABCs of IPOs: Easy-to-Pronounce Stocks Do Best

There are myriad strategies for making a company's first day of stock trading a good one. Add a pronounceable ticker symbol to the list. A new study of initial public offerings (IPOs) found that stocks with ticker symbols you can actually say, such as ELY or MUF, did vastly better...