What’s it like traveling in the time of coronavirus? It depends where you’re going. Epidemic prevention and control measures for international arrivals vary greatly around the world, as New York Times journalists found while traveling in recent months. The severity of outbreaks is similarly varied, but stricter quarantine policies tend to correspond with lower case…
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Long-term exposure to noise may be linked to an increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Researchers did periodic interviews with 5,227 people 65 and older participating in a study on aging. They assessed them with standard tests of orientation, memory and language, and tracked average daytime noise levels in their neighborhoods…
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The plants are trying to tell us something — if only we’d learn their official language, botanical Latin. “I am the Allium with just one leaf,” says Allium unifolium. (Get it?) “I am the juniper that carpets the ground,” says Juniperus horizontalis (whose alternate name, Juniperus prostrata, nails its appearance, too). And Aster alpinus chimes…
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The 61-year-old woman put on her reading glasses to try to decipher the tiny black squiggles on the back of the package of instant pudding. Was it two cups of milk? Or three? The glasses didn’t seem to help. The fuzzy, faded marks refused to become letters. The right side of her head throbbed —…
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MINNEAPOLIS – Studies have suggested that taking part in leisure activities such as playing cards or gardening may be associated with a lower risk of developing dementia. But a new study found no association between taking part in leisure activities at age 56 and the risk of dementia over the next 18 years. The researchers…
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MINNEAPOLIS – Women with epilepsy who take the antiseizure drug valproic acid while pregnant are at more than double the risk of having children with autism spectrum disorder and nearly double the risk of having children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a study in the October 28, 2020, online issue of Neurology®,…
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DURHAM, N.C. — Fall is here, and we see the leaves turning yellow, orange or red thanks to a trick of our vision: our brains categorize colors. Scientists have learned that birds with colorful markings do this too. But what about drab birds that don’t rely on color? According to a new Duke University study,…
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In the nearly two centuries since German physician Carl Wunderlich established 98.6°F as the standard “normal” body temperature, it has been used by parents and doctors alike as the measure by which fevers — and often the severity of illness — have been assessed. Over time, however, and in more recent years, lower body temperatures…
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Irvine, Calif., Oct. 28, 2020 — Testing a representative sample of Orange County residents for a wide range of coronavirus antibodies, University of California, Irvine researchers found that 11.5 percent of them have antibodies for COVID-19, in contrast to previous estimates of less than 2 percent. Latino and low-income residents had the highest prevalence of…
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A team of scientists including two physicists at the University of Sussex has found a way to circumvent a 178-year old theory which means they can effectively cancel magnetic fields at a distance. They are the first to be able to do so in a way which has practical benefits. The work is hoped to…
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