Sulfates are a class of chemicals that manufacturers use as cleansing or foaming agents. Many household products, such as foaming cleansers, toothpaste, and shampoos, contain sulfates. Sulfates provide the foamy texture that occurs when a person mixes a product, such as a shampoo, with water. Some people have concerns about the inclusion of sulfates in...
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Allergies and dizziness: What’s the link?
An allergy is the immune system’s reaction to a foreign substance, or allergen, in the body. Typical symptoms of seasonal and environmental allergies include a runny nose, sneezing, sinus congestion, and itchy eyes. A less common symptom of allergies is vertigo, which is a severe form of dizziness. A person may experience this symptom during the...
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Do fish yawn? And what is yawning in the first place?
Everybody yawns once in a while. In fact, there is a huge chance that you are going to yawn while reading this article. Just seeing the word “yawn” may make you yawn. People yawn, dogs yawn, snakes yawn, but do fishes yawn? And why do we yawn in the first place? Yawning in the painting...
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To Understand Facebook, Study Capgras Syndrome
This mental disorder gives us a unique insight into the digital age. Nautilus|Robert Sapolsky Illustration by Dadu Shin We start with the case of a woman who experienced unbearable tragedy. In 1899, this Parisian bride, Madame M., had her first child. Shockingly, the child was abducted and substituted with a different infant, who soon died. She...
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Too little sleep can be bad for women’s bone density
POSTED BY DAVID HILL-BUFFALO (Credit: Getty Images) Getting five or fewer hours of sleep a night is associated with low bone mineral density and higher odds of osteoporosis, researchers report. “Our study suggests that sleep may negatively impact bone health, adding to the list of the negative health impacts of poor sleep,” says lead author Heather...
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Unraveling the connectome
Mammalian brains, with their unmatched number of nerve cells and density of communication between them, are the most complex networks known. While methods to analyze neuronal networks sparsely, accessing about one in every ten thousandth nerve cell have been available for decades, the dense mapping of neuronal circuits by imaging each and every synapse and...
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‘EATER CELLS’ MAY PREVENT EVEN WORSE DAMAGE AFTER HEART ATTACK
POSTED BY JULIA EVANGELOU STRAIT-WUSTL Boosting the activity of specific immune cells in the heart after a heart attack can protect against developing heart failure, according to research with mice. Patients with heart failure, an invariably fatal condition, tire easily and become breathless from everyday activities because the heart muscle has lost the ability to pump...
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How a virus might protect against skin cancer
Previously, scientists have linked the presence of human papillomavirus to an increased risk of certain cancers. In a surprising twist, the latest research finds that the virus might help defend against skin cancer. Scientists find that immunity to certain strains of HPV may protect against skin cancer. There are more than 100Trusted Source strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), only...
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Research on hemophagocytic syndrome uncovers new gene regulating the human immune system
VIB (the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) Researchers from the VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research and the Ghent University hospital, together with research teams from the Helmholtz Zentrum in München and the National University of Australia in Canberra, identified a new genetic cause of the hemophagocytic syndrome, a rare immune disease characterized by a dangerous and...
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Study sheds new light on how epigenetic events might spur disease
by C. David Allis, Rockefeller University Scientists are increasingly tracing a variety of diseases back to the so-called epigenome, a type of indexing system imposed on DNA that dictates how genes should be read by the cells. Now, a new study finds that changes in two epigenetics mechanisms—DNA and histone methylation—may interact to spur disease. The...