news

Medicine/Pharmacology - 22.02
Augmented play helps autism
Augmented play helps autism Playing with interactive toys could help children with autism to improve their social interaction with other children, say University of Sussex psychologists. William Farr and Nicola Yuill, from the Children and Technology Lab at Sussex, have investigated with Steve Hinske from Zurich in Switzerland how toys might be adapted to be more beneficial to autistic children and perhaps even act as a therapeutic tool.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 22.02
Malaria immunity in the spotlight
Mothers who are treated for malaria may pass on lower levels of natural immunity to their young, animal studies show. University scientists investigated the impact of anti-malarial drugs on the levels of antibodies passed from female mice to their offspring.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 22.02
Researchers solve puzzle of proteins linked to heart failure
Sudden cardiac death is a risk for patients with heart failure because the calcium inside their heart cells is not properly controlled and this can lead to an irregular heartbeat. New findings published in PLoS ONE , which reveal mechanisms that underlie this life-threatening risk, provide new possibilities for fighting it.

Medicine/Pharmacology - 21.02
‘Stealth’ properties of cancer-causing genetic mutations identified
Scientists have discovered that cancer-causing genetic mutations have better-disguised electronic signatures than other mutations - a trait which could help them fly under the radar of the body's defence mechanisms.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 20.02
Proving Turing’s tiger stripe theory
Researchers from King's College London have provided the first experimental evidence confirming a great British mathematician's theory of how biological patterns such as tiger stripes or leopard spots are formed.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 16.02
Down’s syndrome stem cells used to model Alzheimer’s
One of the biggest challenges facing dementia researchers at the moment is a lack of good ways to track the disease over time.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 14.02
Critical stage of embryonic development now observable
Not only is this approach uncovering events previously hidden from view, but it has other important potential applications.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Agronomy/Food Science - 13.02
Sri Lanka diabetes warning
Scientists at King's College London and the National Diabetes Centre (Sri Lanka) have found evidence of a high number of risk factors for type 2 diabetes among the young urban population in Sri Lanka.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 9.02
Cell find aids quest for cancer drugs
Fresh insights into how our cells multiply could help scientists develop drugs to treat cancer. Researchers at the University have led a study that enables better understanding of the workings of two key proteins that control cell division.

Social Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 9.02
Gap between Scottish and English suicide rates widens
A new study has revealed the widening gap in suicide rates between Scotland and England & Wales due to a large extent to the number of young Scottish men taking their lives. The research, carried out by the Universities of Manchester and Edinburgh and the Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, examined suicide rates north and south of the border between 1960 and 2008.

Medicine/Pharmacology - 8.02
Most hospital C. difficile cases have not spread from other patients
Source: Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust The vast majority of C. difficile cases in hospital are isolated cases and have not been spread from other patients, researchers in Oxford and Leeds have found.

Life Sciences - Medicine/Pharmacology - 7.02
Gene linked to risk of common type of stroke
A genetic variant that increases the risk of a common type of stroke has been identified by an international group of scientists. The study, led jointly by researchers at the University of Oxford and St George's, University of London, discovered one of the few genetic variants to be associated with risk of stroke so far.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Agronomy/Food Science - 7.02
Baby-led weaning promotes healthy food preferences
A new study by psychologists at The University of Nottingham has shown that babies who are weaned using solid finger food are more likely to develop healthier food preferences and are less likely to become overweight as children than those who are spoon-fed pureed food.

Medicine/Pharmacology - 3.02
Looking healthy is more attractive than manliness
Having a healthy skin colour is more important in determining how attractive a man is to women than how manly they look. These are the findings of a study carried out by researchers in the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.

Medicine/Pharmacology - Life Sciences - 3.02
Siblings’ brain scans could hold the key to drug addiction
Research provides insight into why some individuals with a family history of drug abuse are at higher risk of addiction.