ScienceDaily: Living Well News

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• Memories of near death experiences: More real than reality?
• Cancer biologists find DNA-damaging toxins in common plant-based foods
• Just 'weight' until menopause: How estrogen deficiency affects women's fat absorption
• New way to lose weight? Changing microbes in guts of mice resulted in rapid weight loss
• How hard is it to 'de-anonymize' cellphone data?
• Telling tales can be a good thing: Personal stories help children develop emotional skills
• Better-educated parents feed children fewer fats and less sugar
• Study finds strong genetic component to childhood obesity

Memories of near death experiences: More real than reality? Posted: 27 Mar 2013 04:03 PM PDT Researchers have demonstrated that the physiological mechanisms triggered during near death experiences (NDE) lead to a more vivid perception not only of imagined events in the history of an individual but also of real events which have taken place in their lives. These surprising results – obtained using an original method -- now require further investigation.

Cancer biologists find DNA-damaging toxins in common plant-based foods Posted: 27 Mar 2013 01:33 PM PDT In a laboratory study pairing food chemistry and cancer biology, scientists tested the potentially harmful effect of foods and flavorings on the DNA of cells. They found that liquid smoke flavoring, black and green teas and coffee activated the highest levels of a well-known, cancer-linked gene called p53.

Just 'weight' until menopause: How estrogen deficiency affects women's fat absorption Posted: 27 Mar 2013 11:41 AM PDT Women tend to carry excess fat in their hips and thighs, while men tend to carry it on their stomachs. But after menopause, things start to change: many women's fat storage patterns start to resemble those of men. This indicates that there's a link between estrogen and body fat storage. This connection is well documented, but the underlying mechanisms remained poorly understood until now.

New way to lose weight? Changing microbes in guts of mice resulted in rapid weight loss Posted: 27 Mar 2013 11:41 AM PDT New research has found that the gut microbes of mice underwent drastic changes following gastric bypass surgery. The transfer of these microbes into sterile mice resulted in rapid weight loss.

How hard is it to 'de-anonymize' cellphone data? Posted: 27 Mar 2013 10:25 AM PDT Scientists analyzed data on 1.5 million cellphone users in a small European country over a span of 15 months and found that just four points of reference, with fairly low spatial and temporal resolution, was enough to uniquely identify 95 percent of them. This means that to extract the complete location information for a single person from an "anonymized" data set of more than a million people, all you would need to do is place him or her within a couple of hundred yards of a cellphone transmitter, sometime over the course of an hour, four times in one year. A few Twitter posts would probably provide all the information you needed, if they contained specific information about the person's whereabouts.

Telling tales can be a good thing: Personal stories help children develop emotional skills Posted: 27 Mar 2013 07:30 AM PDT A new study finds mothers tell better, more emotional stories about past experiences which help children develop their emotional skills. The act of talking is not an area where ability is usually considered along gender lines. However, a new study has found subtle differences between the sexes in their story-relating ability and specifically the act of reminiscing.

Better-educated parents feed children fewer fats and less sugar Posted: 27 Mar 2013 06:27 AM PDT Almost 15,000 children aged between two and nine years old took part in the study. The level of education of parents has an influence on the frequency with which their children eat foods linked to obesity. The children of parents with low and medium levels of education eat fewer vegetables and fruit and more processed products and sweet drinks.

Study finds strong genetic component to childhood obesity Posted: 26 Mar 2013 08:22 AM PDT Childhood body weight is strongly influenced by genes, scientists say. This study underlines the importance of genetic effects in childhood obesity, supporting the current thinking that children of obese parents are most at risk of becoming obese.

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