News by Subject Biology

Scientists from the University of Surrey have developed a rapid and highly sensitive fingerprint test that can take just seconds to confirm whether someone has used cocaine.

A study led by environmental health researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine finds that children in East Liverpool, Ohio with higher levels of Manganese (Mn) had lower IQ scores. The research appears online in the journal NeuroToxicology.

Washington State University researchers have found that a rat exposed to a popular herbicide while in the womb showed few apparent health effects, but the grand-offspring of that rat did have more disease, as did a great-grand offspring third generation.

Researchers at Houston Methodist have solved a 100-year-old mystery, providing them a possible key to unlock a pathway for treating diseases caused by flesh-eating bacteria. Muthiah Kumaraswami and his team at Houston Methodist Research Institute found a critical target on which to focus for developing a potential Group A Streptococcus vaccine or antibiotic to fight it. By manipulating this target, they hope to either reduce the severity of these infections or clear them up faster.

Just under 60 percent of the German population view undesirable substances in food as a high or very high health risk. The most well-known of these substances, which are scientifically denoted as contaminants, are mercury compounds and dioxins. In contrast, only around 13 percent of respondents have heard of the natural contaminants pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) in honey or tea - and only roughly one in three of those who have heard of PAs believe these substances pose a significant health risk.

Researchers conducting a study of newborns experiencing symptoms of drug withdrawal knew the infants' mothers would test positive for substance use. But in the course of their study they had another, surprising finding: They discovered that 1 in 4 women enrolled in the 'drug-free' comparison group, whose infants were not diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome, also tested positive for illicit drug use.

New research to be presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2017 National Conference and Exhibition in Chicago suggests an urgent need for safer children's pain medications, with the number of hospitalized infants, children and teens who experienced adverse reactions to opioid painkillers increasing by more than half between 2003 and 2012.

Use of MDMA or 'Molly' is common in the electronic dance music scene, but research is showing that many Molly users are using other drugs unknowingly.