Breast cancer patients with low vitamin D were three times more likely to report moderate pain in the first 24 hours after a radical mastectomy, an Egyptian hospital study found, and they self-administered 112mg more tramadol on average. Neither group hit "severe" pain, but nausea was more common among the deficient patients.
— via ScienceDaily
Ancient teeth from Siberian hunter-gatherers show plague killed nearly 40 percent of those tested 5,500 years ago, long before crowded cities existed. A hidden toxin gene may explain why the disease was already lethal without fleas or rats to spread it.
— via ScienceDaily
Younger generations may be biologically aging faster than their parents did, and that gap is showing up as higher cancer risk, a new study finds. Older-looking immune systems tracked with early lung cancer; aged fat tissue tracked with early colorectal cancer.
— via ScienceDaily
Alzheimer's research has focused on amyloid plaques and tau tangles for decades. A new study finds the genome itself folds differently in brain cells of people with the disease, adding a third biological layer researchers say deserves attention.
— via ScienceDaily
A small UK trial injected volunteers with dead E. coli, then tested a drug that boosts the body's own inflammation-braking molecules. It cut harmful immune cells and sped pain relief, even when swelling and redness stayed the same.
— via ScienceDaily
A newly named frog, Adenomera varcena, turns up in Amazon floodplain forest, a habitat its dryland-loving genus was never known to use. Researchers had to compare DNA, calls and body shape to tell it apart from near-identical relatives, and warn shifting flood patterns could threaten it before its biology is even understood.
— via ScienceDaily
A kimchi bacterium held onto 57% of its nanoplastic binding power in gut-like conditions, versus just 3% for a comparison strain. Mice fed the microbe excreted more than double the nanoplastics in their feces, hinting at a new way to flush the particles out.
— via ScienceDaily
Self-control is a serious survival skill. The post Dog brains act surprisingly human when told ‘no’ appeared first on Popular Science.
— via Popular Science, Laura Baisas