sciencetolife | February 6, 2007 A cup of coffee or a nap? Which would you prefer to get you through the hump of a tiring workday?
While the cup of coffee may seem more practical, taking a midday nap is becoming more convenient in New York City.
The New York Times recently wrote about a spa in New York City (called Yelo) that has started selling 20-40 minute naps for stressed out professionals and executives from $12 a session.
While the idea of paying for a nap (which can be had for free) may be absurd, it begs the question:
Is there any health value to taking midday naps?
Some scientists agree, as I discovered in…
sciencetolife | February 2, 2007A professional acquaintance of mine recently died of a heart attack. While the death was difficult for me and my colleagues, it was far more difficult to understand WHY it happened. She was a Chinese woman in her early 40's with no known history of heart disease. She was fine all weekend and by Sunday she was dead.
Coincidently, an article entitled "Heart disease often misdiagnosed in women" has just been published by Elizabeth Cohen at CNN Health.
In the article Elizabeth explains how heart attacks in women are often not taken seriously by health professionals, are often misdiagnosed and…
sciencetolife | January 30, 2007 The development of hydrogen fuel cells for cars has been described as the "ultimate green dream" in transportation.
But the high expense of producing an efficient cell has waned efforts to transform this technology into a common source of energy for vehicles.
Now, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory have put a new spin on some old technology and are making important strides towards building a more efficient and less expensive hydrogen fuel cell.
Hydrogen fuel cells work by converting chemical energy into…
sciencetolife | January 28, 2007 HPV (Human Papillomavirus) is widely known as the virus that causes cervical cancer in women.
However, researchers have found links between HPV infection and the development of certain head and neck cancers.
I wasn't aware of the connection between HPV and head and neck cancer until a co-worker, who had just attended the 2007 multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in California, informed me of it.
Head and neck cancers are the 6th most common type of cancer in the world, caused mostly by smoking. But researchers are finding that infection with a type called HPV-16 is also…
sciencetolife | January 26, 2007The BBC One television series Secrets of the Sexes scientifically explores the idea that men and women's brains are wired differently. Do you have a woman's brain or a man's brain? To find out what your brain sex is, take their Sex ID test.
The test is interesting and gives brief scientific explanations based on your score.
Not surprisingly, my brain sex is female.
sciencetolife | January 23, 2007 The World Health Organization (WHO) has released its predictions for global mortality in the future. In an article published in the November 2006 issue of PLoS Medicine WHO researchers predict the things people will be dying of by 2030. The researchers used 3 different models-optimistic, pessimistic and baseline (middle-ground) scenarios-combined with things like income, human capital, tobacco smoking and body mass index to predict the global disease burdens of the future.
Some interesting things they predict are:
1.In general, global life expectancy will increase.2.Death in children under…
sciencetolife | January 21, 2007 What drives people to do good things?
Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have discovered an area of the brain that determines whether people tend to be selfish or altruistic.
The researchers used a brain scanning technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in conjunction with a computer game that engaged participants' altruistic behavior. In the computer game participants' success earned them money for a charity.
The study showed that increased activity in a region of the brain called the posterior superior temporal sulcus strongly predicted a person's…
sciencetolife | January 18, 2007 Nanotechnology is all the rage, it seems. The word 'nanotechnology' has been popping up in news articles and research papers more frequently. So I want to know...
What exactly is nanotechnology and how can it impact your health?
The basic definition of nanotechnology is anything related to the building of materials on a nanometer scale-a scale smaller than one millionth of a meter.
Nanotechnology is a highly interdisciplinary field encompassing elements of colloidal science, physics, chemistry and biology.
While its research has wide reaching implications the specific health benefits of…
sciencetolife | January 15, 2007 The health benefits of tea have been well documented. Tea has a protective effect against cardiovascular disease and contains antioxidants which carry a cancer-protective ability.
A recent study in the January 9 online edition of the European Heart Journal explains that many people from tea-drinking countries enjoy a lower incidence of cardiac disease.
There is one tea-drinking country, however, that does not reap the cardiovascular or antioxidant benefits of tea...Can you guess which country and why? Read here for more details.
sciencetolife | January 11, 2007Got heartburn? New research shows that long-term intake of medications like Nexium, Prilosec and Zantac increase the risk of suffering a hip fracture in men and women who are 50 years or older. Christine Gorman of The Daily Rx Blog explains.
sciencetolife | January 5, 2007
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (UWM) researcher Fred Helmstetter Ph.D. is trying to understand why human memory is so selective. Why, he asks, is it that amnesia patients can't remember their names or addresses, but can remember how to hold a fork?
Dr. Helmstetter, a professor of psychology at UWM who researches the brain's regulation of memories, emotions and learning, explains that remembering 'what' is not the same as remembering 'how.'
In a recent press release he explains that "different circuits in the brain are activated when you remember what you had for breakfast this morning…
sciencetolife | January 3, 2007New guidelines by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists published in the January issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology now recommend that every pregnant woman, regardless of age, should be offered a choice of tests for Down syndrome.
Down syndrome is a condition that occurs in one out of every 733 live births, according to the National Down Syndrome Society, and affects more than 350,000 people in the U.S. The condition is characterized by the presence of an extra chromosome which causes mental retardation, a characteristic broad, flat face and small head and,…