Year: 2014

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) – Research unveiled on Thursday identifies the brain neurons that cause every behavior fruit fly larvae execute, raising the tantalizing possibility that neuroscientists will be able to construct a similar “atlas” in people. Such a human brain atlas is one goal of the $100 million BRAIN Initiative that President Barack Obama announced a year ago, and the fly research raises hopes that it will be possible to deal with the data deluge that project will generate. For the study, which was published online by the journal Science, scientists led by biologist Marta Zlatic of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm research center in Virginia first activated a few neurons at a time in the larvae of the fruit fly drosophila, using a technique called optogenetics, in which light causes particular neurons to fire. She and her team then compiled thousands of hours of video recordings of how 37,780 fly larvae behaved in response to each neuronal activation.

Grandmother says they accused 8-year-old Sunnie of being a lesbian or transgender.

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Keywords related to self-injury were searched more than 42 million times in the past year, according to a new study, but what those searches turned up was mostly myths and misinformation. Researchers cataloged and analyzed websites related to nonsuicidal self-injury – which is physically injuring oneself intentionally without attempting suicide – and found less than 10 percent of the sites were endorsed by health or academic institutions. “For many people it’s a first step and if what they’re getting is poor quality that’s a bit worrisome,” said lead author Stephen Lewis, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Guelph in Canada. He and his colleagues write in JAMA Pediatrics that between 14 and 21 percent of teens and young adults engage in nonsuicidal self-injury.

Young cancer patient wins over heart of MSU player during March Madness.

By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – Texas is set to put to death convicted murderer Anthony Doyle on Thursday as it keeps its pace of executions steady while other states have had to postpone capital punishments because they cannot obtain drugs used in lethal injections. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville at 6 p.m. CDT (2300 GMT). Texas, which has executed more people than any other state since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, has obtained a fresh batch of its execution drug pentobarbital, the Department of Criminal Justice said this month, without revealing the source. On Thursday, a state judge ordered Texas to release the name of its new drug supplier.

A congressional candidate in Alabama is taking aim – literally – at the federal statute known as Obamacare in a new campaign advertisement in which he fires rounds from several weapons into a paper copy of the healthcare reform law. Will Brooke, a Birmingham businessman, is one of seven Republican candidates seeking to replace U.S. Representative Spencer Bachus, who is retiring. None of the bullets manage to destroy the copy of the Affordable Care Act, Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. Brooke hopes to get some attention by having fun with a serious subject, he said in a statement, vowing to fight the law that he said has caused insurance premiums in Alabama to rise and resulted in thousands of residents losing their health coverage.

(Reuters) – Mercedes-Benz has the lowest recall rate for its vehicles and BMW was the quickest to commence a recall campaign, a long-term study of safety recalls in the United States showed. General Motors Co , which is undergoing a recall crisis related to a dozen deaths, had the third-lowest recall rate in the 30-year study, done by industry research firm iSeeCars.com.

Q: Does the Affordable Care Act require Medicare beneficiaries over age 75 to be admitted to the hospital by their primary care physician? A. No. There is no such requirement […]

The bridge in San Francisco has been the site of at least 1,600 suicides since its 1937 opening