News by Subject Medicine & Health

A team of zoologists and microbiologists from NUI Galway have published a new study showing that common house spiders carry bacteria susceptible to infect people, with the Noble False Widow spiders also carrying harmful strains resistant to common antibiotic treatments.

New research shows from the Lambert Initiative at the University of Sydney shows that cannabidiol is safe for driving and the intoxicating effects of THC in cannabis fade in hours. The results have big implications for regulation of medical cannabis and for drug-driving laws regarding cannabis.

Up to one-third of adult women who sustain a non-displaced fracture to the ulna bone of the forearm may be victims of intimate partner violence, according to a study being presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The findings underscore the need to screen for intimate partner violence in women with these types of injuries, researchers said.

As people age, joints become less flexible, causing balance problems that lower quality of life. Dr. Kosuke Hirata, Mr. Ryosuke Yamadera, and Prof. Ryota Akagi from the Shibaura Institute of Technology revealed that among younger adults, muscle but not nerve stiffness is associated with the ankle's range of motion (ROM), whereas only nerve stiffness is linked to ankle ROM among older adults. In other words, non-muscle tissue becomes more important for joint flexibility with age.

Researchers have identified a unique population of astrocytes in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord of mice that produces pain hypersensitivity when activated by neurons carrying signals down from the brain. The findings indicate that the role of descending neurons in controlling spinal pain transmission is not limited to suppression and point to this group of astrocytes as a new target for enhancing the effect of chronic pain treatments.