ScienceDaily: Top Health News

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• Judging adolescents' actions: Teens mature intellectually before they mature emotionally
• New generation of virtual humans helping to train psychologists
• Unexpected variation in immune genes poses difficulties for transplantation
• Fragile X and Down syndromes share signalling pathway for intellectual disability
• New approach to treat acute liver failure
• Irony seen through the eye of MRI
• Research may lead to new approach to detect prostate cancer
• Students with strong hearts and lungs may make better grades
• Dangerous experiment in fetal engineering
• New drug shows promise for kidney disease
• People with Allergies May Have Lower Risk of Brain Tumors
• Bilingualism 'can increase mental agility'
• Strawberry extract protects against UVA rays, study suggests

Judging adolescents' actions: Teens mature intellectually before they mature emotionally Posted: 03 Aug 2012 12:31 PM PDT Determining when a teenage brain becomes an adult brain is not an exact science but it's getting closer, according to an expert.

New generation of virtual humans helping to train psychologists Posted: 03 Aug 2012 11:06 AM PDT New technology has led to the creation of virtual humans who can interact with therapists via a computer screen and realistically mimic the symptoms of a patient with clinical psychological disorders, according to new research.

Unexpected variation in immune genes poses difficulties for transplantation Posted: 03 Aug 2012 09:11 AM PDT Human HLA genes -- the genes that allow our immune system to tell the difference between our own cells and foreign invaders -- are evolving much more rapidly than previously thought, according to a new article. The resulting degree of variation improves our ability to fight off disease, but could also present challenges to current worldwide efforts aimed at identifying potential donors for patients undergoing stem cell transplantation.

Fragile X and Down syndromes share signalling pathway for intellectual disability Posted: 03 Aug 2012 09:10 AM PDT Intellectual disability due to Fragile X and Down syndromes involves similar molecular pathways, researchers report. The two disorders share disturbances in the molecular events that regulate the way nerve cells develop dendritic spines, the small extensions found on the surface of nerve cells that are crucial for communication in the brain.

New approach to treat acute liver failure Posted: 03 Aug 2012 08:11 AM PDT Acute liver failure is a life-threatening disease. Unfortunately, few treatment options exist. Now researchers have developed a new treatment approach based on a mouse model. In a recent study, the liver failure was reversed and the mice recovered completely.

Irony seen through the eye of MRI Posted: 03 Aug 2012 07:30 AM PDT In the cognitive sciences, the capacity to interpret the intentions of others is called "Theory of Mind" (ToM). This faculty is involved in the understanding of language, in particular by bridging the gap between the meaning of the words that make up a statement and the meaning of the statement as a whole. In recent years, researchers have identified the neural network dedicated to ToM, but no one had yet demonstrated that this set of neurons is specifically activated by the process of understanding of an utterance. This has now been accomplished: researchers have shown that the activation of the ToM neural network increases when an individual is reacting to ironic statements. The findings represent an important breakthrough in the study of Theory of Mind and linguistics, shedding light on the mechanisms involved in interpersonal communication.

Research may lead to new approach to detect prostate cancer Posted: 03 Aug 2012 07:29 AM PDT An undergraduate student's technique for detecting certain metabolites in urine samples could lead to a simpler and more accurate way to test for prostate cancer.

Students with strong hearts and lungs may make better grades Posted: 03 Aug 2012 07:29 AM PDT Having a healthy heart and lungs may be one of the most important factors for middle school students to make good grades in math and reading, according to new findings.

Dangerous experiment in fetal engineering Posted: 03 Aug 2012 06:45 AM PDT A new paper uses extensive Freedom of Information Act findings to detail a risky and extremely troubling off-label medical intervention employed in the U.S. on pregnant women to intentionally engineer the development of their fetuses for sex normalization purposes. Mothers are told the drug is safe but there is no such evidence.

New drug shows promise for kidney disease Posted: 03 Aug 2012 06:45 AM PDT Scientists have demonstrated in the laboratory that a new drug is effective in treating a very common kidney disease -- although it will be a few years before it becomes available for clinical testing.

People with Allergies May Have Lower Risk of Brain Tumors Posted: 03 Aug 2012 06:44 AM PDT New research adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting that there's a link between allergies and reduced risk of a serious type of cancer that starts in the brain.

Bilingualism 'can increase mental agility' Posted: 03 Aug 2012 05:29 AM PDT Bilingual children outperform children who speak only one language in problem-solving skills and creative thinking, according to new research.

Strawberry extract protects against UVA rays, study suggests Posted: 03 Aug 2012 05:29 AM PDT An experiment has shown that strawberry extract added to skin cell cultures acts as a protector against ultraviolet radiation as well as increasing its viability and reducing damage to DNA. The study opens the door to the creation of photoprotective cream made from strawberries.

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