Science and Health News

Consuming moderate amounts of chocolate was associated with significantly lower risk of being diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF)—a common and dangerous type of irregular heartbeat—in a large study of men and women in Denmark led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and in Denmark.

Rice, Ben-Gurion universities find laser-induced graphene kills bacteria, resists biofouling

Researchers at Université Laval’s Faculty of Science and Engineering and its Center for Optics, Photonics, and Lasers have created a smart T-shirt that monitors the wearer’s respiratory rate in real time. This innovation, the details of which are published in the latest edition of Sensors, paves the way for manufacturing clothing that could be used to diagnose respiratory illnesses or monitor people suffering from asthma, sleep apnea, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Intelligence is one of the most investigated traits in humans and higher intelligence is associated with important economic and health-related life outcomes. Despite high heritability estimates of 45% in childhood and 80% in adulthood, only a handful of genes had previously been associated with intelligence and for most of these genes the findings were not reliable. The study, published in the journal Nature Genetics, uncovered 52 genes for intelligence, of which 40 were completely new discoveries. Most of these genes are predominantly expressed in brain tissue.

An international clinical trial, led by Emory Heart & Vascular Center researchers, reports excellent outcomes for the world’s smallest, minimally invasive cardiac pacemaker, the Micra Transcatheter Pacing System (TPS).

Researchers from Princeton University’s Department of Molecular Biology have identified a small RNA molecule that helps maintain the activity of stem cells in both healthy and cancerous breast tissue. The study, which will be published in the June issue of Nature Cell Biology, suggests that this “microRNA” promotes particularly deadly forms of breast cancer and that inhibiting the effects of this molecule could improve the efficacy of existing breast cancer therapies.

A new study shows that so-called “light” cigarettes have no health benefits to smokers and have likely contributed to the rise of a certain form of lung cancer that occurs deep in the lungs.

A small, thin square of an organic plastic that can detect disease markers in breath or toxins in a building’s air could soon be the basis of portable, disposable sensor devices. By riddling the thin plastic films with pores, University of Illinois researchers made the devices sensitive enough to detect at levels that are far too low to smell, yet are important to human health.