Wearing protective helmets during sports can affect performance, according to a new study from Northumbria University.

Tests were carried out on a group of young male cricketers and researchers investigated the physical and mental demands during an intense batting practice over eight overs when wearing a standard non-vented safety helmet and when not wearing a helmet at all.

The research revealed that wearing helmets led to significant attentional impairments and slower re

Humans can affect marine life in unexpected ways, as when large numbers of seals succumbed to canine distemper virus in 2000, presumably contracted from domestic dogs. Such human incursions cause even more damage by exacerbating the effects of naturally occurring parasitic and pathogenic diseases. While all indicators point to a real increase in disease in marine organisms, scientists have no baseline data to measure these increases against and so cannot directly test whether marine diseases are gen

At a time when growing numbers of Europeans are suffering from eating disorders that risk both their physical and mental health, the conclusion of the Salut! project has opened up a new world of solutions to these serious medical conditions.

The IST programme-funded initiative has developed online tools for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of eating disorders, including a self-help guide to treat sufferers of Bulimia, which affects up to 4 per cent of European women.

Althoug

12 month quality of life study with Parkinson’s patients shows surprising results

Patients with Parkinson’s disease who thought they had received a transplant of human neurons into their brains–but who really hadn’t–reported an improved quality of life one year later.

In the April issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, research reported by Dr. Cynthia McRae of the University of Denver’s College of Education provides strong evidence for a significan

Sexually active teenage girls who viewed an interactive sex education DVD created by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University were more likely to become abstinent than girls who did not see the DVD, according to a study of 300 adolescent girls in the Pittsburgh area. The study will be published this fall in the journal “Social Science and Medicine.”

The DVD, “What Could You Do?” portrays teenage girls in situations that typically lead to sex and allows the viewer to choose what actions the

Women who receive the results of their screening mammograms immediately after their examination have less stress and anxiety compared with women who have to wait several days for their test results, according to a study in the April 7 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Surprisingly, however, an educational intervention that taught skills to cope with anxiety was not associated with decreased anxiety among a similar group of women.

In the United States, 5% to 11% of all s

Rochester expert warns of toxicity in new wave of science

Nanotechnology, a science devoted to engineering things that are unimaginably small, may pose a health hazard and should be investigated further, warns a University of Rochester scientist and worldwide expert in the field, who received a $5.5 million grant to conduct such research.

Günter Oberdörster, Ph.D., professor of Toxicology in Environmental Medicine and director of the university’s EPA Particulate Matter

The simple act of requesting to sit in a nonsmoking section may have profound benefits beyond avoiding second-hand smoke, according to new findings by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Parents who routinely engage in such anti-smoking behaviors in front of their adolescent children – particularly parents who themselves smoke – appear to significantly reduce their offspring’s chances of becoming a smoker by their senior year in high school, report M. Robyn Andersen,

Many cultures view body and soul as inseparable

Requests for organ donors must be tempered by a better understanding of cultural differences, says a U of T researcher.

“We’re seeing different cultural perceptions of life and death and that affects end-of-life decisions,” says Kerry Bowman, a U of T professor with the Joint Centre for Bioethics and the clinical ethicist at Mount Sinai Hospital. Health care workers need to be aware that not all cultures consider organ donatio

Over the next two years, researchers at Binghamton University and partnered institutions will be helping to protect life as we know it. While the claim might sound extreme, keep in mind that they will be working to improve the design and energy efficiency of data centers.

Data centers. Thousands of them. All processing vital information, critically important to much that drives our daily lives– from world financial markets, government and military operations, business and industry, worldwi

Infant feeding experiences help shape flavor preferences later in life

Ever wonder why your child loves to eat macaroni and cheese while her best friend likes nothing better than a steaming bowl of cauliflower curry? The answer may lie in part with what they were fed as young infants. Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia report that feeding experiences during the first seven months of life may contribute to food likes and dislikes.

“This research

Study’s findings contradict long-held belief that penicillin is best for the job

Pediatricians treating a child who has strep throat should reconsider the role of penicillin given that a newer class of antibiotics called cephalosporins are three times more effective, according to a study being published in the April issue of Pediatrics. The findings will spark widespread debate, because they contradict long-established guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Heart

Risk of complications of pregnancy in women with type 1 diabetes: nationwide prospective study in the Netherlands – BMJ Online First Publication

Women with diabetes are at an increased risk of pregnancy complications, even if their diabetes is well controlled, according to new research. These findings suggest that the current criteria for strict blood sugar (glycaemic) control before and during pregnancy are not good enough.

This study will be available on bmj.com on Monday 5 April

Consumer trust in food is high in the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Norway, but low in Italy and Portugal and relatively low in Germany. Research also shows that consumers in these countries are most sceptical about meat products, fast-food outlets and food processors. These findings are revealed in the recently published study “Trust in Food in Europe, A Comparative Analysis”. The research presents data from surveys completed in the above mentioned six countries. The study was conducted as part of th

How molecules are linked together to form liquid water is the subject of a groundbreaking study due to appear Thursday, Apr. 1 in Science magazine’s advance publication web site Science Express. The investigation entitled The Structure of the First Coordination Shell in Liquid Water summarizes the results of an international collaboration headed by researchers at Stockholm University and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California. The international team of researchers, which also inv

New studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers at The Rockefeller University show that the appetite-regulating hormone leptin causes rewiring of neurons in areas of the brain that regulate feeding behavior.

The discovery is another important clue about how leptin exerts its effects on the brain to cause decreased food intake and increased energy expenditure, said the researchers. The research also suggests that natural variability in the “wiring diagrams” of the neural feeding ci