Category: Science and Health

Human sex has long been decided by the X and Y chromosomes – females are born with two X chromosomes, whereas males are born with one X and one Y chromosome. That future might be at risk as Y chromosomes continue to gradually disappear across different mammal species, a new study found. The study, which […]

With a week of upcoming family gatherings for Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s the combination of a cold and rainy winter, the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and the flu, the Health Ministry urges the public to take measures to protect themselves and those around them. Prof. Salman Zarka, the coronavirus project manager, said in an […]

I have an ongoing debate with some friends: If someone brings a box of flavored donuts into work and you want to try them all but you don’t want to eat seven whole donuts, it seems reasonable to start dividing the donuts and serving yourself fractional portions. But what’s the smallest fraction you can take […]

The fifth chapter of Nedarim begins on page 45b with the following mishnah: Partners who vowed not to derive benefit from one another are prohibited from entering a courtyard (that they jointly own). Rabbi Eliezer ben Ya’akov says: It is permitted, as this one enters into his own portion and that one enters into his […]

Nerves in the human nervous system can stretch only up to 30 percent without tearing or being permanently damaged. But the female locust, which digs deep into the ground to lay her eggs in a safe place is able to extend her abdomen, including the nervous system, to two to three times its size – […]

Today’s daf continues the Talmud’s discussion of how declaring things ownerless works. We learned yesterday that the rabbis thought one could declare something ownerless and have it legally become ownerless, while Rabbi Yosei insisted that something cannot actually be ownerless. In his view, objects remain legally in the possession of their original owner until claimed […]

What is a child who comes to a hospital afraid of? Everything, according to Dr. Noa Rosenfeld-Yehoshua, head of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital. “We do all we can to reduce the pain and fear with all the tools available to us,” she added. Assuta Ashdod’s pediatric department aims […]

These were the words of the loving parents of a bright seven-year-old boy who is my patient. Their story, which they shared with me, appears in my book Who is Afraid of the Darkness Monster? Eleven parents, four teenagers and I disclosed the “behind the scenes” of coping with childhood mental illness for years. It […]

“Fine-tuning one’s inner monologue” on body image can minimize the distress caused by negative body perceptions in young women between the ages of 20-30 who often develop eating disorders, according to Prof. Guy Doron of Reichman University in Herzliya and colleagues at the University of Padua in Italy. The adjustment of this “inner monologue” is […]

Reduced access to infertility treatments early in the pandemic may have contributed to a drop in twin births, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest. The number of twin births fell 7% between 2019 and 2020 – from 120,291 to 112,437 – compared to an average 2%-per-year decline from 2014 to […]