Adelaide scientists will lead a $2 million five-year project to develop new vaccines and explore better treatment options for hepatitis C sufferers.
University of Adelaide virologists Dr Michael Beard and Dr Karla Helbig will work with colleagues from the University of NSW to develop new strategies to treat and prevent hepatitis C, which infects more than 170 million people around the world.
The Healthy Communities Research Centre at UQ Ipswich is calling for a national focus on "health literacy" following the release of findings which reveal that most Australians don't have the basic knowledge to keep themselves healthy.
The recently-released findings are based on the 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) scientists have found another important clue to why nerve cells die in neurodegenerative diseases, based on studies of the developing brain.
Neuroscientists at The University of Queensland have just published findings, which add more weight to the "use it or lose it" model for brain function.
QBI's Dr Elizabeth Coulson said a baby's brain generates roughly double the number of nerve cells it needs to function; with those cells that receive both chemical and electrical stimuli surviving, and the remaining cells dying.
Beneficial bacteria found in healthy women help to reduce the amount of vaginal HIV among HIV-infected women and might make it more difficult for the virus to spread, boosting the possibility that good bacteria might someday be tapped in the fight against HIV.
A team approach to treating depression in older adults, already shown to improve health, can also cut total health-care costs, according to a new study led by the University of Washington. The study appears in the February issue of the American Journal of Managed Care.
A new study on monkeys has found that moderate exposure to alcohol and stress during pregnancy can lead to sensitivity to touch in the monkeys babies. In human children, sensitivity to touch is one of a number of characteristics of the approximately 5 percent of children who over-respond to sensory information. Since these characteristics can lead to behavioral or emotional problems, early identification and treatment are important. Children who are sensitive to touch have unpleasant and sometimes painful reactions to otherwise pleasant or neutral forms of touching.
Having close ties with parents is obviously good for preschoolers, but what does that really mean? It means that the preschoolers are better able to control their own behavior by showing patience, deliberation, restraint, and even maturity.
Thats the finding of a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Iowa and published in the January/February 2008 issue of the journal Child Development.
Children who live in poor neighborhoods may be at increased risk of verbal and behavioral problems. A new study suggests that for some of their parents, living in poor neighborhoods is associated with poorer mental health, poorer family relations, and less consistent and more punitive parenting. The study aimed to determine the relationships between neighborhood characteristics and parenting, and between parenting and childrens preschool performance.
Girls in high school take as many math courses as boys, influenced by close friends and peers who are doing well in school. More than boys, girls look to their close friends when they make important decisions, such as whether to take math and what math classes to take, confirming how significant peers are during adolescence.
Physical aggression in children comes from their genes and the environment in which they grow up. Social aggression, such as spreading rumors or ignoring other children, has less to do with genetic factors and more with environmental factors.
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