Health and Medicine

Harmful bugs may lurk within leaves.

Healthy salad greens could be contaminated with bacteria that cause food poisoning, despite thorough rinsing. New research shows that harmful bugs can enter lettuce plants through its roots and end up in the edible leaves 1 .

Although uncommon, food poisoning caused by eating plants can occur. Vegetables that are fertilized with animal manure, which can contain pathogens, pose the biggest threat. Raw salad vegetables are n

Scientists have recognized for some time that people suffering from depression often experience a substantial reduction in symptoms when given a placebo. In fact, this observation has led some researchers to propose that up to 75 percent of the apparent efficacy of antidepressant medicine may actually be attributable to the placebo effect. Determining the cause of a patient’s improvement under such circumstances is no easy task. But the results of a new study may shed light on the matter. According

A fast, sensitive laboratory test that measures the molecular components involved during the critical moment when HIV infects a normal cell has been developed.
The advance was made by researchers in the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and VA San Diego Healthcare System.

Described in the December 2001 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), the test makes it possible to study and design new compounds to block the action of these molecular componen

A vaccine against one of the world’s leading killers could one day be manufactured by livestock, researchers report. According to a study released today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have developed mice that secrete malaria vaccine proteins into their milk. The purified experimental vaccine protected 80 percent of monkeys subsequently exposed to a lethal dose of the malarial parasite.

Anthony Stowers and Louis Miller of the National Institute of All

Taking up regular drinking in middle age might cut the risk of heart disease, finds research in Heart. But the catch is, it increases the risk of dying from something else.

The researchers studied 7735 men from general practices in 24 British towns. The men were screened for heart disease between 1978 and 1980 when they were aged between 40 and 59. And they were asked about lifestyle, including smoking and drinking, and their medical history. Five years later, 7157 of them completed question

New techniques that might allow magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to be used to give doctors subtle information about a tumour’s physiology and how it reacts to drug therapy are being developed.

The work is being carried out by doctors and medical physicists at the University of Aberdeen, with funding from the Swindon based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Doctors treating cancerous tumours with drugs need to know quickly if the drug is having the desired effect t