It would have been remarkable news if the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the breast cancer mutations test of 23andMe. The test includes three BRCA mutations that are a common cause of familial breast and ovarian cancer exclusively in Ashkenazi Jewish women. But according to numerous media reports, the FDA did just that earlier...
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Low-Cost 3D-Printed Stethoscope for Low-Resource Areas
Scientists at the University of Western Ontario, aka Western University, have developed a 3D-printed stethoscope. The device costs just $3 to produce and takes less than three hours to print, but maintains the acoustic quality of more expensive stethoscopes. The researchers hope that the device could be useful in low-resource settings, where medical equipment is...
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This bulging lump on a 27-year-old man’s handwas triggered by a trip to the dentist and is a sign of a deadly infection (but can you guess the illness?)
The 27-year-old, from Vancouver, Canada, was diagnosed with endocarditis The killer infection can trigger heart failure and strikes one in 30,000 people Doctors believe that the infection actually triggered the bulging blood vessel A man was left with a bulging lump on his hand and a deadly heart infection after a simple trip to the...
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Worn Like a Helmet, a New Brain Scanner Aims to Make It Easier to Treat Kids with Epilepsy
New, wearable brain scanner. Credit: Wellcome A brain scanner now used to guide treatment of patients with epilepsy and other neurological disorders is bulky and challenging to use on fidgety young children—but researchers hope it might soon be replaced by a new machine that’s not much bigger than a bike helmet. Scientists at University College...
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Diamond device paves way for first practical microwave lasers
Before lasers, there were masers — the microwave siblings of optical lasers. But whereas lasers are used in many applications from telescopes to medicine, masers have long languished in the shadows, because they work only in super-cool temperatures or in a vacuum. Now, physicists have created a maser that works in regular conditions — using...
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Can Osteoarthritis Knee Pain Lead to Symptoms of Depression?
A new Japanese study finds that among non-depressed older adults with osteoarthritis knee pain, nearly 12 percent will go on to develop symptoms of depression within two years. Participants at greatest risk for depression include those who experience knee pain while lying in bed at night, while putting on socks, or while getting in or out of a car....
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In a severe childhood neurodegeneration, novel mechanism found
Ingo Helbig, MD, is a pediatric neurologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Neurology researchers investigating a rare but devastating neurological regression in infants have discovered the cause: gene mutations that severely disrupt crucial functions in mitochondria, the energy-producing structures within cells. The specific disease mechanism, in which mutations disrupt a critical mitochondrial enzyme, has...
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Mitochondrial mutations and disease
Mitochondria are cellular organelles with their own DNA. Their role in power generation makes them susceptible to oxidative damage, including the formation of DNA-damaging chemical complexes called adducts. While one such adduct, M1dG, is normally excised by cells from the genomic DNA, mitochondria apparently lack this repair mechanism. This month in the journal Nucleic Acids Research,...
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How incurable mitochondrial diseases strike previously unaffected families
Mitochondrial DNA. Researchers have shown for the first time how children can inherit a severe – potentially fatal – mitochondrial disease from a healthy mother. The study, led by researchers from the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge, reveals that healthy people harbour mutations in their mitochondrial DNA and explains how cases...
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New paths to cure cancer emerge from immunotherapy trials
Sue Scott’s life was saved by an experimental cancer treatement trial, and she has celebrated five years cancer-free In the winter of 2013, Sue Scott, then 36, had already planned her own funeral. Her cervical cancer was spreading fast. Multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery had all failed. Tumors were invading her liver and colon,...