Life Changes
Healing Through Storytelling: Lessons from The Odyssey
The journey of Odysseus in Homer's 'The Odyssey' offers profound insights into healing...
- Details
- Written by: Susan Manko, University of Pittsburgh
They have identified the neural networks that connect the cerebral cortex to the adrenal medulla, which is responsible for the body’s rapid response in stressful situations.
- Details
- Written by: Beata Ujvari, Deakin University
Essential organs tasked with keeping us alive and reproducing – such as the heart, brain or uterus – may have evolved better protection against cancer than larger and paired organs, we have proposed.
- Details
- Written by: Rebecca Sims, Cardiff University
The most common question I get asked is “Will my child get Alzheimer’s disease?” In my experience, this concern is one of the biggest worries for sufferers, and given the devastating effects of the disease, it is not hard to see why it is a difficult thought to contemplate.
- Details
- Written by: University of Arizona
Specific aspects of the Amish environment are associated with changes to immune cells that appear to protect children from developing asthma, report researchers.
- Details
- Written by: Ya-Ling Liou, D.C.
Most Eastern styles of medicine pay just as much attention to the patient’s state of mind as to the state of his or her tissues and organs. This insight and acknowledgment of the whole person rather than reducing us to our individual body parts is based on healing methods centuries old that survive because they work.
- Details
- Written by: Richard Gunderman, Indiana University
In late July, an international team of researchers announced that they had identified evidence of cancer in the fossilized remains of a biological relative of human beings who lived about 1.7 million years ago.
- Details
- Written by: James Thie, Cardiff Metropolitan University
The sight of the determined, lycra-clad jogger has become a familiar feature of urban parks around the world. Jogging – defined as “the activity of running at a steady, gentle pace”
- Details
- Written by: Derk-Jan Dijk, University of Surrey and Pierre Maquet, Université de Liège
Ever wondered what happens inside your brain when you stay awake for a day, a night and another day, before you finally go to sleep? Well, we just found out.
- Details
- Written by: Allison Hydzik, University of Pittsburgh
At least 15 percent of people with depression don’t get relief from conventional treatments such as antidepressant medications and psychotherapy.
- Details
- Written by: Sergio Diez Alvarez, University of Newcastle
Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 and revolutionised the treatment of bacterial infections. Ever since then we have been searching for new antibiotics to address the myriad of infections humans encounter and the growing risk of resistance to them.
- Details
- Written by: Voster Muchenje, University of Fort Hare and Carlos Nantapo, University of Fort Hare
Food, nutrition and human health institutes around the world have been fighting to reduce the risks associated with consuming detrimental fatty acids that are linked to cardiovascular diseases.
- Details
- Written by: Michael S. Jaffee, University of Florida
The demands of being a presidential candidate take a toll on sleep. And the demands are not likely to lessen for whomever is elected.
- Details
- Written by: Richard Gunderman, Indiana University
A report published in May from researchers at Johns Hopkins claims that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S., behind only heart disease and cancer.
- Details
- Written by: Julia Evangelou Strait, Washington University in St. Louis
A new breast cancer study shows that tumors can mutate in response to treatments that reduce estrogen levels in the body.
- Details
- Written by: Peter Sivey, RMIT University
While Australia’s health system compares well internationally, costs are rising. So are chronic diseases related to unhealthy lifestyles, such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.
- Details
- Written by: Emma Thorne, University of Nottingham
New research finds that sperm quality in a population of stud dogs studied over a 26-year period had fallen significantly.
- Details
- Written by: Andrew Pollard, University of Oxford
Recent calls for the introduction of a vaccine against chickenpox (varicella-zoster virus infection) following a severe case of the disease in Cambridge, England may surprise many parents who consider the disease to be a mild illness that “everyone gets”.
- Details
- Written by: Amir Zarrabi, Stellenbosch University
A new method of male contraception that is as effective as a vasectomy but entirely reversible with little to no side-effects is being tested and is showing promising results in animal trials.
- Details
- Written by: Arch Mainous, University of Florida
Type 2 diabetes has reached epidemic proportions, with an estimated 29 million people in the U.S. having the disease and another 86 million considered prediabetic. With an estimated cost of US$245 billion, prevention becomes critically important to stem the tide of increasing diabetes prevalence.
- Details
- Written by: Stan Steindl, The University of Queensland and James Kirby, The University of Queensland
Anger can be very quick, powerful, reactive, and can make us do things we typically wouldn’t do. There is nothing inherently wrong with anger as an emotion, but nowhere is anger less helpful, more common, and potentially more dangerous than when we are behind the wheel of a car.
- Details
- Written by: Caroline Wright, Nottingham Trent University
We’ve all been there, you buy some potatoes, pop them in the cupboard, and then promptly forget about them. Then the next time you open up the cupboard, you discover said potatoes have started sprouting and now resemble an alien lifeform.
