Body

Is ADHD over-diagnosed? Claims vary, with some people stating that ADHD prescriptions are substituting for parenting and teaching. No matter your opinion, ADHD medication is in greater use than ever and not just for children.

A recent study shows that treatment rates have been increasing in all age groups, and improved identification has contributed to rapidly growing treatment rates for adults. Female patients show the greatest increase of all.

The Nursing Institute of West Central Ohio today unveiled a new addition to the regional nursing education community—a robot.

Researchers at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute of the University of Pennsylvania have found that deleting a gene important in embryo development leads to premature aging and loss of stem cell reservoirs in adult mice.

An Italian-Swiss research team, including Dr. Frank Rühli of the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Zurich in Switzerland proved the cause of death of the Iceman (“Ötzi,” 3300 BC) by modern X-ray-based technology. A lesion of a close-to-the-shoulder artery has been found thanks to a CT scan or multislice computed tomography, finally clarifying the world-famous glacier mummy’s cause of death.The cause of death was ascertained without an autopsy (Zurich University)

Size matters. At least, it does to an alpine ibex.

According to a team of international researchers, mature, male alpine ibex demonstrate a correlation between horn growth and genetic diversity. Past research studies have shown that greater genetic diversity correlates with a greater chance of survival.

"The size of the horns reliably advertises the genetic quality of the ibex—and the bigger, the better," said Dr. David Coltman, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Alberta.

Researchers at UCLA have successfully manipulated nanomaterials to create a new drug-delivery system that promises to solve the challenge of the poor water solubility of today’s most promising anticancer drugs and thereby increase their effectiveness.

The poor solubility of anticancer drugs is one of the major problems in cancer therapy because the drugs require the addition of solvents in order to be easily absorbed into cancer cells. Unfortunately, these solvents not only dilute the potency of the drugs but create toxicity as well.

Stem cell biology takes another exciting leap forward as scientists report that normal tissue cells can be reprogrammed to exhibit many of the properties that are characteristic of embryonic stem cells, including the ability to give rise to multiple cell types and contribute to the germline.

These findings provide strong support for the rationale that it may be possible to generate stem cells with nearly unlimited potential directly from a patient’s own cells, an idea that has significant implications for regenerative therapeutics.

Nearly all of the 162 land-breeding frog species on Caribbean islands, including the coqui frogs of Puerto Rico, originated from a single frog species that rafted on a sea voyage from South America about 30-to-50-million years ago, according to DNA-sequence analyses led by a research group at Penn State.

Similarly, the scientists found that the Central American relatives of these Caribbean amphibians also arose from a single species that arrived by raft from South America.

Talcum powder has been used for generations to soothe babies’ diaper rash and freshen women’s faces. But University of Florida researchers report the household product has an additional healing power: The ability to stunt cancer growth by cutting the flow of blood to metastatic lung tumors.

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center say they are moving closer to understanding why the most lethal form of human malaria has become resistant to drug treatment in the past three decades. They have been able to artificially construct, and then express in yeast, a protozoan gene that contributes to such resistance. And it was no small feat.

According to years of research both in the test tube and, now, with real plants, a team of scientists reports that artificial chemicals in pesticides – through application or exposure to crops through runoff – disrupt natural nitrogen-fixing communications between crops and soil bacteria. The disruption results in lower yields or significantly delayed growth.Alfalfa roots secrete chemical signals into soil to attract and recruit bacteria. These bacteria live in a plant's roots and provide a natural fertilizer source.

Low levels of testosterone may increase the long-term risk of death in men over 50 years old, according to researchers with the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

"The new study is only the second report linking deficiency of this sex hormone with increased death from all causes, over time, and the first to do so in relatively healthy men who are living in the community," said Gail Laughlin, Ph.D., assistant professor and study author.

In the cover story of this month’s BioScience journal, leading tiger experts warn that if tigers are to survive, governments must stop all trade in tiger products from wild and captive-bred sources, as well as ramp up efforts to conserve the species and their habitats.

The most comprehensive study of its kind has found that violence costs the United States $70 billion annually, a figure that rivals federal education spending and the damage caused by hurricane Katrina.

It might be time to change some history books.

Prehistoric Polynesians, not European voyagers, may have brought chickens to the Americas, according to new research from The University of Auckland’s Department of Anthropology.Fancy artwork courtesy of University of Auckland