ScienceDaily: Top Health News

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• Why don’t the highly educated smoke? Families kids grow up in play important role
• Intertwined evolution of human brain and brawn
• Making research findings freely available is an essential aid to medical progress, experts say
• Barriers to HIV testing in older children
• Supertasters do not have particularly high density of taste buds on tongue, crowdsourcing shows
• Learning early in life may help keep brain cells alive: Brain cells survive in young who master a task
• Spontaneous thoughts are perceived to reveal meaningful self-insight
• Physical activity helps maintain mobility in older adults
• Google Glass adaptation opens the universe to deaf students
• Rules to cut carbon emissions also reduce air pollution harmful to people, environment
• Using thoughts to control airplanes
• Intermediaries increase corruption
• Sperm cells are extremely efficient at swimming against a current: How sperm travel long distances, through difficult terrain, to reach an egg
• People attribute free will to mind, not soul
• 'Virtual human' shows that stiff arteries can explain cause of high blood pressure
• Heavily decorated classrooms disrupt attention and learning in young children
• An area's level of poverty or wealth may affect the distribution of cancer types
• Novel home cleaning method to reduce asthma
• Clinical trial reaffirms diet beverages play positive role in weight loss

Why don’t the highly educated smoke? Families kids grow up in play important role Posted: 27 May 2014 07:17 PM PDT It's well established that adults with college degrees are much less likely to smoke than adults with less education, but the reasons for this inequality are unclear. Families in which kids grow up and children's non-cognitive skills may matter far more than realized in explaining the robust association between education and smoking in adulthood.

Intertwined evolution of human brain and brawn Posted: 27 May 2014 03:53 PM PDT The cognitive differences between humans and our closest living cousins, chimpanzees, are staggeringly obvious; however a new study suggests that human muscle may be just as unique.

Making research findings freely available is an essential aid to medical progress, experts say Posted: 27 May 2014 03:53 PM PDT Medical researchers explore how open access publications could help moderate and reduce the vast waste of global medical research. Subscription-based academic journals make money by through copyrights assigned by authors to publishers who lock the articles behind paywalls. Open access models, in which journals charge a publication fee and then make research and related content fully and immediately available to all, stand to aid the dissemination of knowledge and to improve its quality, experts say.

Barriers to HIV testing in older children Posted: 27 May 2014 03:53 PM PDT Concerns about guardianship and privacy can discourage clinics from testing children for HIV, according to new research from Zimbabwe. The results of the study provide much-needed information on how to improve care of this vulnerable population.

Supertasters do not have particularly high density of taste buds on tongue, crowdsourcing shows Posted: 27 May 2014 01:18 PM PDT Science crowdsourcing was used to disprove a widely held theory that 'supertasters' owe their special sensitivity to bitter tastes to an usually high density of taste buds on their tongue, according to a new study.

Learning early in life may help keep brain cells alive: Brain cells survive in young who master a task Posted: 27 May 2014 12:47 PM PDT Using your brain -- particularly during adolescence -- may help brain cells survive and could impact how the brain functions after puberty. Scientists have found that the newborn brain cells in young rats that were successful at learning survived while the same brain cells in animals that didn't master the task died quickly.

Spontaneous thoughts are perceived to reveal meaningful self-insight Posted: 27 May 2014 12:47 PM PDT Scientists set out to determine how people perceive their own spontaneous thoughts and if those thoughts or intuitions have any influence over judgment. They found that spontaneous thoughts are perceived to provide potent self-insight and can influence judgment and decisions more than similar, more deliberate kinds of thinking -- even on important topics such as commitment to current romantic partners.

Physical activity helps maintain mobility in older adults Posted: 27 May 2014 10:32 AM PDT It's something we've all heard for years: Exercise can help keep older adults healthy. But now a study, the first of its kind, proves that physical activity can help older adults maintain their mobility and dodge physical disability.

Google Glass adaptation opens the universe to deaf students Posted: 27 May 2014 09:41 AM PDT A group of deaf university students and their professor developed a system to display video narrating planetarium shows onto glasses worn by deaf students.

Rules to cut carbon emissions also reduce air pollution harmful to people, environment Posted: 27 May 2014 08:49 AM PDT Setting strong standards for climate-changing carbon emissions from power plants would provide an added bonus -- reductions in other air pollutants that can make people sick; damage forests, crops, and lakes; and harm fish and wildlife. This, according to a first-of-its-kind study released today by scientists who mapped the potential environmental and human health benefits of power plant carbon standards.

Using thoughts to control airplanes Posted: 27 May 2014 07:14 AM PDT Pilots of the future could be able to control their aircraft by merely thinking commands. Scientists have now demonstrated the feasibility of flying via brain control -- with astonishing accuracy.

Intermediaries increase corruption Posted: 27 May 2014 07:13 AM PDT An experimental study took part analyzed the interaction between public officials and citizens and found that the presence of intermediaries significantly increases corruption. In reality, an intermediary participates in many, if not most, cases of corruption. However there has been very scarce empirical evidence that illuminates their role in these situations.

Sperm cells are extremely efficient at swimming against a current: How sperm travel long distances, through difficult terrain, to reach an egg Posted: 27 May 2014 07:13 AM PDT Like salmon traveling upstream to spawn, sperm cells are extremely efficient at swimming against the current, according to new research. The discovery may help us to understand how some sperm travel such long distances, through difficult terrain, to reach and fertilize an egg. Of the hundreds of millions of sperm cells that begin the journey up the oviducts, only a few hardy travelers will ever reach their destination. Not only do the cells have to swim in the right direction over distances that are around 1,000 times their own length, but they are exposed to different chemicals and currents along the way.

People attribute free will to mind, not soul Posted: 27 May 2014 07:12 AM PDT A new study tested whether people believe free will arises from a metaphysical basis or mental capacity. Even though most respondents said they believed humans to have souls, they judged free will and assigned blame for transgressions based on pragmatic considerations -- such as whether the actor in question had the capacity to make an intentional and independent choice.

'Virtual human' shows that stiff arteries can explain cause of high blood pressure Posted: 27 May 2014 07:12 AM PDT High blood pressure is highly age-related and affects more than one billion people worldwide. But doctors can't fully explain the cause of 90 per cent of all cases. A computer model of a 'virtual human' suggests that stiff arteries alone are enough to cause high blood pressure.

Heavily decorated classrooms disrupt attention and learning in young children Posted: 27 May 2014 07:06 AM PDT Maps, number lines, shapes, artwork and other materials tend to cover elementary classroom walls. However, new research shows that too much of a good thing may end up disrupting attention and learning in young children.

An area's level of poverty or wealth may affect the distribution of cancer types Posted: 27 May 2014 07:06 AM PDT A new analysis has found that certain cancers are more concentrated in areas with high poverty, while other cancers arise more often in wealthy regions.

Novel home cleaning method to reduce asthma Posted: 27 May 2014 05:51 AM PDT Researchers received two patents for a new method to rid carpets, mattresses and other furniture of harmful allergens and pests that cause asthma. The method uses carbon dioxide to "freeze clean" home fabrics. The process deactivates proteins found in pet dander and can remove smoke residue and other allergy-causing substances.

Clinical trial reaffirms diet beverages play positive role in weight loss Posted: 27 May 2014 05:51 AM PDT A new study confirms that drinking diet beverages can help people lose weight. "This study clearly demonstrates that diet beverages can in fact help people lose weight, directly countering myths in recent years that suggest the opposite effect -- weight gain," said a study co-author.

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