What helps can sometimes hurt.     ERBB4, a gene known to be important in cardiac development, has been associated with congenital heart malformations that result in obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract. 

Left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) malformations, including aortic valve stenosis, coarctation of the aorta, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, Shone complex and interrupted aortic arch type A, are responsible for a major portion of childhood death from congenital heart malformations. Yet it is often unclear how these defects develop.

In 2003, Rollin McCraty, the Director of Research at the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, California, published an e-book called The Energetic Heart: Bioelectromagnetic Interactions Within and Between People. In it he explains his research on an electromagnetic field created by the heart that he believes communicates with the brain and the body simultaneously, and affects those around us. In one study, McCraty monitored six longtime married couples’ heartbeats while they slept alongside each other. Both heartbeats fell into harmony, beating in sync. Electrocardiogram printouts of each person were laid on top of one another, revealing practically identical heartbeats and rates converging in nearly perfect synchronization—two hearts, as it were, beating as one. 

Case study: Patient Ashley has Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder characterized by albinism, vision impairment, and bleeding disorders such as chronic hemorrhages. H-PS is particularly damaging to the lungs.

Location: "Children's Gala" auction for the Children's Inn at National Institute for Health (NIH)

Situation: Subject is singing.

Analysis: Measuring the baseline and improvement in the subject's singing is a valid diagnostic tool for tracking improvement of lung capacity.

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Despite the culture war on smokers, the idea that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer or lung disease is largely a myth.   Anti-smoking groups are a multi-billion dollar industry on their own and continued marketing is a key part of maintaining the revenue stream but only 10% of smokers get lung cancer and 50% of lung cancer victims never smoked.

However, cigarette smoking is obviously not good for you so you shouldn't do it, and work continues to determine how smoking impacts risk factors for diseases.

I don't get excited about the singularity the way some on Science 2.0 do (and certainly elsewhere) though I admire the optimism.    So when I got an email from a publicity person at PBS about NewsHour Science Correspondent Miles O’Brien’s report on the upcoming match between Jeopardy masters Brad Runner, Ken Jennings and the super computer Watson I had to wonder if this would lead to more claims about an upcoming singularity and exponential leaps in artificial intelligence.

In every study done over the last 70 years, since weight loss research began, the one solution guaranteed to work was ingesting fewer calories than you burn.   Nevertheless, any number of gimmicks have come into fashion.

One claim is that eating a big breakfast will lead to weight loss.   It can be confusing for laypeople because almost anything can begin with 'clinical tests show' and sound authoritative.

I think I can safely assume that when it comes to feeding newborns, people have heard that if possible breastfeeding is best - immune system, bonding, etc etc. But when do you wean? Ten years ago, the World Health Organization recommended that mothers "exclusively breastfeed for the first six months of their infants' lives," and this recommendation was picked up by governments around the world.

Now, a study in the British Medical Journal says perhaps that can be adjusted down to four months, based on information including more recent research. Naturally, there are caveats and controversies.

Pros and Cons

Why haven't antioxidant therapies yielded more positive results?   The answer may be that Nrf2, a protein that plays an important role in some antioxidant therapies, may not be as effective due to additional mechanisms that cause it to promote atherosclerosis - clogging of the arteries.

Nrf2 has been thought to be an important drug-therapy target for diseases such as cancer because it can induce chemopreventive activity by attaching to specific sequences of DNA, leading to the release of numerous antioxidant and anti-inflammatory genes and enzymes that can decrease or inhibit the effects of carcinogens.