Hair News and Research

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Bed bugs deterred by body hair: Study

According to Sheffield, UK researchers hairy skin may be the key to avoiding being bitten by bed bugs. The study was reported in the journal Biology Letters. Researchers say the hair slows down the bed bugs and warns the victim.

18 Dec 2011

Hydrogel regenerates healthy, scar-free tissue on skin damaged by severe burns

Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a jelly-like material and wound treatment method that, in early experiments on skin damaged by severe burns, appeared to regenerate healthy, scar-free tissue.

14 Dec 2011

Increased sensitivity to low frequency vibration found in people with inherited hearing loss

People with a certain form of inherited hearing loss have increased sensitivity to low frequency vibration, according to a study by Professor Thomas Jentsch of the Leibniz-Institut f-r Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP)/Max Delbr-ck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch and Professor Gary Lewin (MDC), conducted in cooperation with clinicians from Madrid, Spain and Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

9 Dec 2011

Breast cancer risks and management updates

A new report that looks at the environmental factors that affect risk of breast cancer is out. It suggests that women can reduce their risk by avoiding unnecessary medical radiation, forgoing hormone treatments for menopause that combine estrogen and progestin, limiting alcohol intake and minimizing weight gain.

8 Dec 2011

Longer lives of US Presidents contrary to popular belief

According to Dr. Michael Roizen U.S. Presidents may be aging twice as fast as the rest of us while they occupy the Oval Office. Roizen, chairman of the Wellness Institute at the esteemed Cleveland Clinic, is the developer of RealAge, whose premise is that one’s calendar age isn’t necessarily in sync with the actual wear and tear on the body.

7 Dec 2011

Relaxin improves poor blood flow and kidney function in a rat model of PKD

After a four-week course of the vasodilator hormone relaxin, kidney function and blood flow immediately improved in lab rats genetically altered to model polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a life-threatening genetic disorder, according to research presented on Dec. 6 at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting in Denver.

7 Dec 2011

New insight into why aminoglycoside antibiotics cause deafness

Peter Steyger's research on hearing is very personal. That's because Steyger - a research scientist with the Oregon Hearing Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University - is deaf. Now Steyger has published groundbreaking research that is as personal as it gets. The study gives scientists new insight into why a specific class of antibiotics causes deafness - the same class of antibiotics that caused Steyger's deafness as a child in England 48 years ago. The study was published this month in Scientific Reports, part of the Nature Publishing Group.

2 Dec 2011

Researchers create bone-like material and structure for orthopedic procedures

It looks like bone. It feels like bone. For the most part, it acts like bone. And it came off an inkjet printer. Washington State University researchers have used a 3D printer to create a bone-like material and structure that can be used in orthopedic procedures, dental work, and to deliver medicine for treating osteoporosis. Paired with actual bone, it acts as a scaffold for new bone to grow on and ultimately dissolves with no apparent ill effects.

30 Nov 2011

Scientists regenerate functional muscle tissue in mice

A team of scientists from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and CellThera, a private company located in WPI's Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center, have regenerated functional muscle tissue in mice, opening the door for a new clinical therapy to treat people who suffer major muscle trauma.

30 Nov 2011

Peninsula Foundation secures funding for PCOS and diabetes research

The Peninsula Foundation, the charitable arm of the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, has secured funding of -15,000 from The Duchy Health Charity for research into Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and diabetes. The research led, by Professor Jonathan Pinkney at the Knowledge Spa campus in Truro, will be the first non commercial medical research to be carried out at the site.

29 Nov 2011

Study evaluates safety and effectiveness of Diamondback device for heart attacks

Drilling through concrete to create an opening may sound more like construction than medicine, but the approach is similar to what researchers at Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC) are doing in a clinical trial to evaluate a device that breaks through hardened coronary arteries, in an effort to prevent heart attacks and relieve chest pain.

23 Nov 2011

Study reveals specific functional deficit in inner ear mechanotransduction channels

National Institutes of Health-funded researchers have identified two proteins that may be the key components of the long-sought after mechanotransduction channel in the inner ear-the place where the mechanical stimulation of sound waves is transformed into electrical signals that the brain recognizes as sound.

22 Nov 2011

Gene-therapy trial to restore hearing in deaf mice

Researchers have found long-sought genes in the sensory hair cells of the inner ear that, when mutated, prevent sound waves from being converted to electric signals - a fundamental first step in hearing. The team, co-led by Jeffrey Holt, PhD, in the department of otolaryngology at Children-s Hospital Boston, and Andrew Griffith, MD, PhD, of the NIH-s National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), then restored these electrical signals in the sensory cells of deaf mice by introducing normal genes.

22 Nov 2011

Researchers use baker's yeast to gain insight into chromosome separation process

Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research used, ironically enough, the single-celled organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae -- commonly known as baker's yeast -- to gain new insight into the process by which chromosomes are physically segregated during cell division.

18 Nov 2011

Nanomedicine neither a cure-all nor a potential danger

Is the emerging field of nanomedicine a breathtaking technological revolution that promises remarkable new ways of diagnosing and treating diseases? Or does it portend the release of dangerous nanoparticles, nanorobots or nanoelectronic devices that will wreak havoc in the body? A new review of more than 500 studies on the topic concludes that neither scenario is likely. It appears in ACS' journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

17 Nov 2011

Mannosides show promise against urinary tract infections

An experimental treatment for urinary tract infections has easily passed its first test in animals, alleviating weeks-long infections in mice in as little as six hours.

17 Nov 2011

Breakthrough in loading gold nanorods into cells could lead to new cancer treatment

Rice University chemists have found a way to load more than 2 million tiny gold particles called nanorods into a single cancer cell. The breakthrough could speed development of cancer treatments that would use nanorods like tiny heating elements to cook tumors from the inside.

17 Nov 2011

Flexible brain implant could treat epileptic seizures

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a flexible brain implant that could one day be used to treat epileptic seizures. In animal studies, the researchers used the device - a type of electrode array that conforms to the brain's surface - to take an unprecedented look at the brain activity underlying seizures.

14 Nov 2011

Novel gene mutation may increase risk of inherited and sporadic cases of MM

A major international study has identified a novel gene mutation that appears to increase the risk of both inherited and sporadic cases of malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.

14 Nov 2011

Vegetative patients could be contacted using simple, cheap and portable technique – EEG

Scientists from the UK and Belgium have found a way to communicate with brain damaged patients who appear to be in a vegetative state. Writing in The Lancet medical journal they describe how they measured electrical activity in the brain to detect consciousness. The technique, known as EEG or electroencephalogram, is painless and involves attaching electrodes to the head.

10 Nov 2011