A Major Mediterranean Diet Study Was Retracted. But Do Docs Still Recommend It?
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 921 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
A landmark study on the benefits of the Mediterranean diet for heart health had serious problems with its methods, the study's authors announced this week.
The problems were so critical that the researchers retracted their original paper — a rigorously designed study first published in 2013 in The New England Journal of Medicine that found that following a Mediterranean diet reduced the risk of heart attacks and strokes. In its place, the authors have published a reanalysis of their data in the same journal on June 13, which they say accounts for the methodology problems and comes to the same conclusion as the original.
[Read More]After Lung Cancer Surgery, Nearly Half of Patients Resume Smoking
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 302 words
| Fernande Dalal
More than a third of smokers who had surgery to remove early stage lung cancer were smoking again within a year, a new study finds.
The study involved patients who were forced to quit smoking for surgery. Many were puffing away within two months of the surgery, and nearly half eventually resumed the habit.
"These patients are all addicted, so you cannot assume they will easily change their behavior simply because they have dodged this particular bullet,"
[Read More]Drone Pilots Suffer PTSD Just Like Those in Combat
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 459 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Although drone operators may be far from the battlefield, they can still develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study shows.
About 1,000 United States Air Force drone operators took part in the study, and researchers found that 4.3 percent of them experienced moderate to severe PTSD. In comparison, between 10 and 18 percent of military personnel returning from deployment typically are diagnosed with PTSD, the researchers wrote.
[Read More]IVF Method Linked to Size of Babies
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 563 words
| Trudie Dory
The way in which embryos are prepared during in vitro fertilization may influence the size of the baby that's born, a new study from Finland suggests.
Embryos that spend long periods growing in culture (around five to six days) before being transferred to the mother’s womb are more likely to be born heavier than normal for their gestational age, compared to embryos that spend a shorter period in culture (two to three days), the study found.
[Read More]Obese Men at Greater Risk for Infertility
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 445 words
| Trudie Dory
Men who are overweight or obese are at a greater risk for infertility, a new analysis says.
Compared with men of normal weight, overweight and obese men were more likely to have low sperm count, or not have any viable sperm, researchers in France found.
"These data strongly suggest that excess body weight affects sperm production," the researchers wrote in their conclusion.
The findings may help explain why the global obesity epidemic has run parallel with a decrease in male fertility, said study researcher Dr.
[Read More]Octopuses May Go Blind As Climate Change Sucks Oxygen Out of the Ocean
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 5 minutes
| 1034 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 11:20 a.m. E.D.T. on Friday, May 17
Turning light particles into visual information is hard work, and your body relies on oxygen to get the job done. This is true whether you walk the land on two limbs or swim through the sea with eight.
In fact, according to a recent study in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the amount of oxygen available to marine invertebrates like squids, crabs and octopuses may be far more important to their vision than previously thought.
[Read More]Photos: Oldest Iron Objects Came from Outer Space
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 778 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Out of this worldA new study of many of the oldest iron objects ever found has discovered that they are all made with metal from meteorites.
Archaeologists think that the technology of smelting iron from terrestrial iron ores was invented in the Near East around 1200 B.C.
But some ancient iron objects are much older than that — including the oldest iron objects known, a handful of iron beads found in a tomb at Gerzeh in northern Egypt that are dated to 3500 B.
[Read More]Ritual bath unearthed at site where Judas betrayed Jesus
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 442 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Archaeologists have discovered the remains of an ancient ritual bath church at Gethsemane, a place near Jerusalem where the Bible says that Jesus was betrayed by Judas and arrested.
The 2,000-year-old ritual bath, called a "mikveh," is the only known archaeological find at Gethsemane that dates to the time when Jesus lived, archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, who jointly excavated the site, said in a statement.
[Read More]Same Sex Couples Common in the Wild
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 455 words
| Trudie Dory
As gay couples celebrate their newfound right to marry in California and opposition groups rally to fight the ruling, many struggle with this question: Is homosexuality natural?
On this issue, Nature has spoken: Same-sex lovin' is common in hundreds of species, scientists say.
Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo, were a couple for about six years, during which they nurtured a fertilized egg together (given to them by a zookeeper) and raised the young chick that hatched.
[Read More]Smartphone-Connected Contact Lenses Give New Meaning to 'Eye Phone'
Posted on April 20, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 477 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
Apps allow you to link your smartphone to anything from your shoes, to your jewelry, to your doorbell — and soon, you may be able to add your contact lenses to that list.
Engineers at the University of Washington have developed an innovative way of communicating that would allow medical aids such as contact lenses and brain implants to send signals to smartphones.
The new tech, called "interscatter communication," works by converting Bluetooth signals into Wi-Fi signals, the engineers wrote in a paper that will be presented Aug.
[Read More]