Health & Fitness

A new study is causing fresh doubts about the safety of genetically modified crops. The research found Bt toxin, which is present in many GM crops, in human blood.

Bt toxin makes crops toxic to pests, but it has been claimed that the toxin poses no danger to the environment and human health; the argument was that the protein breaks down in the human gut. But the presence of the toxin in human blood shows that this does not happen.

India Today reports:

“Scientists ... have detected the insecticidal protein ...  circulating in the blood of pregnant as well as non-pregnant women. They have also detected the toxin in fetal blood, implying it could pass on to the next generation.”

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As we move through the world, what we see is seamlessly integrated with our memory of the broader spatial environment. How does the brain accomplish this feat? A new study reveals that three regions of the brain in the posterior cerebral cortex, which the researchers call 'place-memory areas,' form a link between the brain's perceptual and memory systems.

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A new study suggests that heart disease and obesity-associated cancer mortality rates have continued to improve, but at a slowing pace.

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The latest analysis looked at data from more than 200,000 women aged 50-74 at recruitment who were followed up for an average of 16 years. The women were randomly allocated to one of three groups: no screening, annual screening using an ultrasound scan, and annual multimodal screening involving a blood test followed by an ultrasound scan as a second line test.

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A new study with zebrafish shows that a deadly form of skin cancer -- melanoma -- alters the metabolism of healthy tissues elsewhere in the body. The research suggests that these other tissues could potentially be targeted to help treat cancer.

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Epidemic. Pandemic. These terms have become second nature to us, popping up in everyday conversation, and for good reason -- COVID-19 is the latest pandemic to pose a threat to humanity. But in recent months, far less attention has been paid to another widely spread problem that has been proliferating since the late 1970s: Lyme disease.

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Cooperation plays a crucial role in evolution. A team of scientists has now created a new model that shows how different kinds of cooperative strategies among humans develop. Using their unified framework, they show how an individual's experience and the reputation of others influence the emergence of successful cooperation.

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New research has found that adolescents and older adults pay less attention to social cues in real-world interactions than young adults.

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Neuroscientists examining genetically identified neurons in a songbird's forebrain discovered a remarkable landscape of physiology, auditory coding and network roles that mirrored those in the brains of mammals.

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A new strategy for capturing the 3D shape of the human face draws on data from sibling pairs and leads to identification of novel links between facial shape traits and specific locations within the human genome.

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Researchers have discovered a new brain circuit underlying curiosity and novelty seeking behavior. Using several innovative techniques, the scientists uncovered a whole path of multiple brain regions that converts curiosity into action in mice.

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People who work nontraditional work hours, such as 11 p.m.-7 a.m., or the 'graveyard' shift, are more likely than people with traditional daytime work schedules to develop a chronic medical condition -- shift work sleep disorder -- that disrupts their sleep. According to researchers, people who develop this condition are also three times more likely to be involved in a vehicle accident.

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A small drug molecule that appears to protect normal tissue from the damaging effects of radiation, may simultaneously be able to boost the cancer-killing effect of radiation therapy, according to a new study.

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When a researcher heard from a former colleague at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that a 7-year-old girl had died from Rocky Mountain spotted fever as the result of a tick bite, he thought of his own daughter, also 7 years old at the time, and the potentially fatal danger posed to vulnerable populations by tick-borne diseases.

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A new, noninvasive method for measuring brain blood flow with light has been developed by biomedical engineers and neurologists and used to detect brain activation. The new method, functional interferometric diffusing wave spectroscopy, or fiDWS, promises to be cheaper than existing technology and could be used for assessing brain injuries, or in neuroscience research.

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A study of the 2020 influenza figures from Canada, the United States, Australia and Brazil shows that there is a clear relationship between COVID-mitigation measures such as hand-washing, masking and social distancing and the spread of the annual flu, researchers report. They write that these preventive measures all but eliminated the flu in countries where it can kill tens of thousands of people a year, even as cases of COVID-19 soared.

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Immense research efforts are invested in figuring out how the virus manages to mount an effective invasion while throwing the immune system off course. A new study reveals a multipronged strategy that the virus employs to ensure its quick and efficient replication, while avoiding detection by the immune system.

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Work-related factors impact the high rates of stress, risky drinking, and attrition in lawyers differently depending on gender, according to a new study.

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Parks played an important role for people seeking respite from the toll of social isolation during the pandemic, and according to new research, they did so without increasing the spread of COVID-19. The study looked at how people used 22 parks in Philadelphia and New York during the height of the pandemic and it found no strong correlation between park use and the number of confirmed cases in surrounding neighborhoods.

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Scientists have found dramatic differences between gut microbiomes from ancient North American peoples and modern microbiomes, offering new evidence on how these microbes may evolve with different diets.

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A low-cost, rapid diagnostic test provides COVID-19 results within four minutes with 90 percent accuracy, researchers report. A paper details the fast and inexpensive diagnostic test, called RAPID 1.0. Compared to existing methods for COVID-19 detection, RAPID is inexpensive and highly scalable, allowing the production of millions of units per week.

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Scientists have determined the mechanisms involved in the loss of smell in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 at different stages of the disease. They discovered that SARS-CoV-2 infects sensory neurons and causes persistent epithelial and olfactory nervous system inflammation.

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Kindergartners from low-income families spent more than six hours a day in front of screens during two early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a small Ohio study suggests. That is nearly double the screen time found before the pandemic in similar children, according to other research.

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Patients diagnosed with post-COVID-19 syndrome, also known as 'PCS,' 'COVID-19 long-haul syndrome' and 'Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS COV-2,' experience symptoms such as mood disorders, fatigue and perceived cognitive impairment that can negatively affect returning to work and resuming normal activities, according to a new study.

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The 'ideal student' - valued by both learners and university staff - is a punctual, organized, hard worker and enthusiastic learner - rather than someone with excellent academic results, high intelligence and good employability.

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Researchers found that senescent immune cells are the most dangerous type of senescent cell.

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Everyone has at some point been charmed by the sound of a person's voice: but can we believe our ears? What can a voice really reveal about our character? Now an international research team has shown that people seem to express at least some aspects of their personality with their voice.

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The 'missing link' that helped our ancestors to begin communicating with each other through language may have been iconic sounds, rather than charades-like gestures -- giving rise to the unique human power to coin new words describing the world around us, a new study reveals.

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Trained to see patterns by analyzing thousands of chest X-rays, a computer program predicted with up to 80 percent accuracy which COVID-19 patients would develop life-threatening complications.

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COVID-19 patients who receive oxygen therapy or experience fever show reduced gray matter volume in the frontal-temporal network of the brain, according to a new study. The study's findings demonstrate changes to the frontal-temporal network could be used as a biomarker to determine the likely prognosis of COVID-19 or evaluate treatment options for the disease.

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