C Carbon

Attractive Therapy: Magnetic Brain Stimulation Gaining Favor as Treatment for Depression

Scientific American Topic - Depression — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:38:00 +0000

Treatment of severe depression with magnetic stimulation is moving beyond large mental health centers and into private practices nationwide, following more than two decades of research on the treatment. Yet even as concern about its efficacy fades, one potential side effect--seizures--continues to shadow the technology. [More]

Mental health - Depression - Major depressive disorder - Health - Disorders

Cancer-Zapping Precision Radiation Beams Could Soon Target Other Diseases

Scientific American Topic - Cancer — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:05:00 +0000

Targeted beams of high-intensity radiation can shrink early-stage tumors with limited collateral damage to surrounding healthy tissue. The addition of robotics and image guidance systems in recent years has made these stereotactic, or directed beam, radiosurgery systems an even more versatile weapon against cancer, attacking not only brain tumors (for which they were originally designed) but also other diseases virtually anywhere in the body. [More]

Cancer - Health - Brain tumor - Radiosurgery - Medicine

Polyamory chic, gay jealousy and the evolution of a broken heart

Scientific American Topic - Depression — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:00:00 +0000

There’s a strange whiff in the media air, a sort of polyamory chic in which liberally minded journalists, an aggregate mass of antireligious pundits and even scientists themselves have begun encouraging readers and viewers to use evolutionary theory to revisit and revise their sexual attitudes and, more importantly, their behaviors in ways that fit their animal libidos more happily .

[More]

Polyamory - Relationships - Alternative Lifestyles - Evolution - Mass media

Four-Legged Biosensors Sniff Out Bird Flu

Scientific American Topic - Influenza — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 05:05:08 +0000

You’ve probably seen dogs working security at airports, sniffing for drugs, bombs and contraband food. Now our best-friend biosensors might have a new task: ferretting out the scent of bird flu.

And they may not be alone on the job. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Monell Chemical Senses Center trained mice to identify duck droppings from animals infected with bird flu. The work was presented at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. [Bruce Kimball et al.]

[More]

Avian influenza - United States - United States Department of Agriculture - Infectious disease - Health

Best Defenses against Cyber Bullies

Scientific American Topic - Depression — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Imagine being twelve years old. Imagine coming home after school and finding your big sister’s lifeless body hanging from a rafter in your home’s stairwell. Phoebe Prince’s little sister did not have to imagine this scenario, because she lived it. She arrived home after school in South Hadley, Mass., last January 14 and discovered that her sister had committed suicide by hanging herself, a result of enduring extreme and relentless bullying at the hands of her peers. [More]

Suicide - Bullying - South Hadley Massachusetts - South Hadley High School - South Hadley

New research linking chronic fatigue syndrome to retrovirus is released after being held by a journal

Scientific American Topic - Cancer — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:10:00 +0000

The perplexing condition known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) might be linked to infection with a retrovirus, report the authors of a new paper published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS ). The association is not new, but the researchers reportedly asked the journal to delay publication of their study, which had been accepted in May, after the online publication of conflicting conclusions July 1 in Retrovirology . [More]

Chronic fatigue syndrome - Research - Retrovirus - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - Health

New research linking chronic fatigue syndrome to retrovirus is released after being held by journal

Scientific American Topic - Cancer — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:10:00 +0000

Psychedelic Drugs Show Promise as Antidepressants

Scientific American Topic - Depression — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:01:00 +0000

Ketamine --a powerful anesthetic for humans and animals that lists hallucinations among its side effects and therefore is often abused under the name Special K--delivers rapid relief to chronically depressed patients, and researchers may now have discovered why. In fact, the latest evidence reinforces the idea that the psychedelic drug could be the first new drug in decades to lift the fog of depression. [More]

Mental health - Major depressive disorder - Psychedelic drug - Health - Disorders

Psychedelic Drugs Show Promise as Anti-Depressants

Scientific American Topic - Depression — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:01:00 +0000

Arresting Development: Blood Biomarker Patterns May Aid Early Diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer

Scientific American Topic - Cancer — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Ovarian cancer is relatively rare, ranking as the eighth-most frequent cancer, but it is the fifth-leading cause of cancer deaths among U.S. women. It is disproportionately deadly because ovarian tumors tend to flourish while producing few obvious symptoms. And no reliable methods exist to detect the cancer at early stages, when treatments are most effective. But this situation may soon change if researchers can extend the promise of a recent study, in which scientists detected ovarian cancer from blood samples with near 100 percent accuracy. [More]

Cancer - Ovarian cancer - Health - Conditions and Diseases - Gynecologic