Category Health/Medical

Strong memories are encoded by teams of neurons working together in synchrony. Why is it that you can remember the name of your childhood best friend that you haven’t seen in years yet easily forget the name of a person you just met a moment ago? In other words, why are some memories stable over decades, while others fade within minutes

Using mouse models, Caltech researchers have now determined that strong, stable memories are encoded by “teams” of neurons all fi...

Researchers have uncovered a crucial link between dietary zinc intake and protection against Streptococcus pneumoniae, the primary bacterial cause of pneumonia. Globally, it is estimated that nearly two billion people suffer from zinc deficiency, but why this increases susceptibility to bacterial infection has not been well understood – until now.

University of Melbourne Associate Professor Christopher McDevitt, a laboratory head at the Doherty Institute, led an interdisciplinary team using state-of-the-...

Researchers at UC San Francisco and the University of Queensland have discovered a scorpion toxin that targets the “wasabi receptor,” a chemical-sensing protein found in nerve cells that’s responsible for the sinus-jolting sting of wasabi and the flood of tears associated with chopping onions. Because the toxin triggers a pain response through a previously unknown mechanism, scientists think it can be used as a tool for studying chronic pain and inflammation, and may eventually lead to the development of new kinds of non-opioid pain relievers.

The scientists isolated the toxin, a short protein (or peptide) that they dubbed the “wasabi receptor toxin” (W...

Australian men are now living longer than any other group of males in the world, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU). The study introduces a new way of measuring life expectancy, accounting for the historical mortality conditions that today’s older generations lived through. By this measure, Australian men, on average, live to 74.1.

The news is good for Australian women too; the study shows they’re ranked second, behind their Swiss counterparts.

Dr Collin Payne co-led the study, which used data from 15 countries across Europe, North America and Asia with high life...