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Pilot Study: Fibromyalgia Fatigue Improved By TENS Therapy

Fibromyalgia is the term for a poorly-understood condition where people experience pain and fatigue...

High Meat Consumption Linked To Lower Dementia Risk

Older people who eat large amounts of meat have a lower risk of dementia and cognitive decline...

Long Before The Inca Colonized Peru, Natives Had A Thriving Trade Network

A new DNA analysis reveals that long before the Incan Empire took over Peru, animals were...

Mesolithic People Had Meals With More Tradition Than You Thought

The common imagery of prehistoric people is either rooting through dirt for grubs and picking berries...

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Binge Drinking And The Biology Of Blackouts

Binge Drinking And The Biology Of Blackouts

Jul 08 2011 | comment(s)

Sometimes a person who gets drunk can perform functions their friends might regard as ordinary, like carrying on a conversation or driving a car - but the drunkard might have no memory of those things and those periods of amnesia, commonly known as "blackouts", can last from a few minutes to several hours.

Endocannabinoids - Why You Can't Eat Just One Potato Chip

Endocannabinoids - Why You Can't Eat Just One Potato Chip

Jul 05 2011 | comment(s)

The image of a stoner always having the munchies is a stereotype because it's true - and it's true, say researchers, because it has a basis in biology.

Daniele Piomelli, Nicholas DiPatrizio and colleagues found that fats in foods like potato chips and french fries trigger a biological mechanism - and that is driven by natural marijuana-like chemicals in the body called endocannabinoids.

In their study, they discovered that when rats tasted something fatty, cells in their upper gut started producing endocannabinoids but sugars and proteins did not have this effect.
15 Years Before

15 Years Before "Star Wars", Take A Look At The Pedipulator The Army Tested

Jul 02 2011 | comment(s)

Long before "Star Wars", science-fiction had talked of robot walkers.  In "War of the Worlds", even aliens from Mars had giant, mechanized tripeds and they got killed by a few germs.  

But the real world worked on them also.   Now on display at the US Army Transportation Musem at Fort Eustis is GE’s Pedipulator, or “Walking Truck", which was developed for the U.S. Army in the mid-‘60s.  This quadroped first lumbered through testing paces  Pittsfield, Massachusetts, circa 1962.
Xenotransplantation - Growing Pig Organs To Use In Humans

Xenotransplantation - Growing Pig Organs To Use In Humans

Jul 01 2011 | comment(s)

Growing human, perfectly matching organs inside a pig and then transplanting them into humans is not a new idea - it may revolutionize medicine - but a new discovery may also allow pig tissue to be transplanted directly into humans. The research in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology may lead to filling the short term lack of organs for human transplantation. 

Altering or overexpressing the human programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) molecule in the endothelial cells of pig arteries reduced the conditions that lead to rejection, it says. This strongly suggests that successful Xenotransplantation means humans could receive altered porcine organs with fewer complications.
Other Race Effect - Biological Clues To Why They All Look Alike

Other Race Effect - Biological Clues To Why They All Look Alike

Jul 01 2011 | comment(s)

We've all had an Asian person say, 'All you Americans look alike' - but they aren't being racist, there may be some biology at work.

The brain works differently when memorizing the face of a person from one's own race, according to a study which used EEG recordings to measure brain activity and which may shed light on one of the most replicated psychology findings - that people are less likely to remember a face from a racial group different from their own.
Who Trusts In Government? People With A Lot To Lose

Who Trusts In Government? People With A Lot To Lose

Jul 01 2011 | comment(s)

If you pay a lot of taxes and get little to show for it, you don't have much trust in government, but if you are in a disaster-prone area, you have more confidence in government than most, say researchers in the International Journal of Wildland Fire.