Category: Science and Health

With Purim in the rearview mirror, Jews who observe the annual cycle of holidays may now be setting their sights on Passover. That’s especially true for those who clean, kosher and otherwise transmogrify their homes in observance of the leaven-free holiday. Oy, time to start using up the Girl Scout Cookies … Passover and Purim […]

It doesn’t matter if you’re planning a pregnancy, already pregnant, or postpartum and breastfeeding, some small changes to your diet, sleep quantity and exercise habits can help you get through it all. These eight tips will help you be healthier in general, make pregnancy easier or ensure that the quality of your breast milk is […]

A peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature last month found that genetic variations in the fatty acid desaturase (FADS) gene cluster increased the risk of bipolar disorder. What is bipolar disorder? Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition categorized by a manic swing of emotions, according to the National Health Service. While the exact […]

Differences in medical conditions and health are increasingly being discovered between males and females. There is growing evidence that women of all ethnic backgrounds and ages are more sensitive to salt than men and that this tendency to hold onto more salt – which drives up blood pressure – increases after menopause. Another important emerging […]

From Ancient Greece comes a story of rival artists, Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who competed to create the most realistic painting. Zeuxis drew grapes so realistic birds flew down to peck at them. Parrhasius brought his picture covered in cloth. Reaching out to lift the cloth, Zeuxis was stunned to discover he had lost the contest — the cloth […]

Bruce Willis’ heartbreaking situation brought awareness to the complex struggle of many families who see a loved one disappearing before their eyes. Family members of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients face a terrible reality, one in which they find themselves at the center of intensive therapeutic activity 24 hours a day.  Caring for a relative suffering […]

A new study has found that using a smartphone picture of a child’s inside lower eyelid to diagnose anemia is about 72% accurate. The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, could make anemia screening more widely available, particularly for children in low-income countries (including in Ghana, where the research was conducted in collaboration […]

Earphones have become a part of our daily routine, whether you use them to listen to music or podcasts or to talk on the phone, but do they harm us? Studies prove that there is a higher percentage of hearing impairment among people who use earphones often, as a result of prolonged exposure to noise, […]

A new study by researchers at Reichman University’s Brain Cognition and Technology Institute has shown that visual navigation areas in the brain can be activated with sound. By traversing mazes using sound information instead of visual information after training, visual navigation areas were activated. This finding has numerous exciting implications. Among them is that the […]

The prostate-specific antigen blood test for prostate cancer has become controversial in recent years due to its questionable reliability. It also isn’t clear that the benefits of PSA screening outweigh the risks of follow-up diagnostic tests and cancer treatments. False-positive test results – when a man has an abnormal PSA test but does not have […]