Life, Health and Enjoyment

 A well-preserved set of 2-million-year-old fossils shows a part-human, part-ape species had hands similar to man, sophisticated ankles that helped in movement and a surprisingly tiny but advanced brain, a report released Thursday said. The fossils, discovered in a sunken cave north of Johannesburg, may change views of the origins of humans. They show a combination of anatomical features never seen before, demonstrating close links to the species and humans. "The many very advanced features found in the brain and body, and the earlier date make it possibly the best candidate ancestor for our genus, the genus Homo, more so than previous discoveries," said Lee Berger, at the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Berger and a team of experts examined fossils from the site, and in findings to be published in the prestigious periodical Science said they found the most complete hand on the species called hominins, the most comp...

A new cell phone-sized implant can keep blood pressure in check from within the chest, just like a pacemaker controls heartbeats. When the device detects a rise in pressure, it sends electrical signals to the brain via the carotid arteries in the neck. The brain then signals the body's own natural system to reduce blood pressure. High blood pressure is a problem for millions of people. Previously, medication and diet were all doctors had to control it. Now a new device can help lower blood pressure and keep people alive and active longer. Baby Jamier is Annette Lawrence's pride and joy, but until now she didn't have enough energy to enjoy her new grandson. "Before I couldn't even get out of bed. I couldn't really do anything." At just 37, she lived every day with life-threatening high blood pressure. Karl Illig, a vascular surgeon at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y., says, "She constantly had blood pressure u...

The potato's stereotype as a fattening food for health-conscious folks to avoid is getting another revision as scientists report that just a couple servings of spuds a day reduces blood pressure almost as much as oatmeal without causing weight gain. Scientists reported on the research, done on a group of overweight people with high blood pressure, at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), being held in Denver the week of August 29. But don't reach for the catsup, vinegar or mayonnaise. The research was not done with French fries, America's favorite potato, but with potatoes cooked without oil in a microwave oven. Although researchers used purple potatoes, they believe that red-skin potatoes and white potatoes may have similar effects. "The potato, more than perhaps any other vegetable, has an undeserved bad reputation that has led many health-conscious people to ban them from their diet," said Joe Vinson, Ph.D., ...

Two of three patients dying of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) appear cured and a third is in partial remission after infusions of genetically engineered T cells. The treatment success came in a pilot study that was only meant to find out whether the treatment was safe, and to determine the right dose to use in later studies. But the therapy worked vastly better than University of Pennsylvania researchers David L. Porter, MD, Carl H. June, MD, and colleagues had dared to hope. "Our results were absolutely dramatic. It is tremendously exciting," Porter tells WebMD. "These kinds of outcomes don't come around very often. We are really hopeful that we can now translate this into treatment for much larger numbers of patients and apply this technique to other diseases and to many more patients." Excitement is spreading as oncologists learn about the findings. "I think it is a big deal," says Jacque Galipeau, MD, professor of hematology and medical onco...

Once again, mom was right: Don't eat too close to bedtime.  A new study suggests that waiting at least an hour after dinner before going to sleep reduces your risk of stroke by about two-thirds. And for every 20 minutes more that you wait, stroke risk drops another 10%, says researcher Cristina-Maria Kastorini, MSc, a nutritionist at the University of Ioannina Medical School in Greece. The study does not prove cause and effect -- only that there seems to be an association between waiting an hour or more between dinner and bedtime and reduced stroke risk. Results of the 1,000-patient study were presented here at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2011. Waiting an Hour After Dinner to Sleep Linked to Lower Stroke Risk The study included 500 healthy people: 250 people who had had a stroke and 250 with acute coronary syndrome. Acute coronary syndrome is a common type of heart disease where typically there is reduced blood flow to the heart because of clogged arteries...

The wiring diagram of the cellular computer:             Researchers led by ETH professor Yaakov Benenson and MIT professor Ron Weiss have successfully incorporated a diagnostic biological "computer" network in human cells. This network recognizes certain cancer cells using logic combinations of five cancer-specific molecular factors, triggering cancer cells destruction. Yaakov (Kobi) Benenson, Professor of Synthetic Biology at ETH Zurich, has spent a large part of his career developing biological computers that operate in living cells. His goal is to construct biocomputers that detect molecules carrying important information about cell wellbeing and process this information to direct appropriate therapeutic response if the cell is found to be abnormal. Now, together with MIT professor Ron Weiss and a team of scientists including post-doctoral scholars Zhen Xie and Liliana Wroblewska, and a doctoral student Laura Prochazka, they made a major step tow...

Yale researchers have discovered the source of signals that trigger hair growth, an insight that may lead to new treatments for baldness. Researchers have discovered the source of signals that trigger hair growth, an insight that may lead to new treatments for baldness. (Credit: © Tasosk / Fotolia) The researchers identified stem cells within the skin's fatty layer and showed that molecular signals from these cells were necessary to spur hair growth in mice, according to research published in the Sept. 2 issue of the journal Cell. "If we can get these fat cells in the skin to talk to the dormant stem cells at the base of hair follicles, we might be able to get hair to grow again," said Valerie Horsley, assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and senior author of the paper. Men with male pattern baldness still have stem cells in follicle roots but these stem cells lose the ability to jump-start hair regeneration. Scientists have know...