Biosingularity

Although most people in developed countries get plenty of calories each day, their diets are often lacking in key nutrients that their bodies have evolved to expect. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as those found in fish and walnuts, are one category of crucial ingredients that the body cannot make on its own. Although these [...]

Advanced melanoma patients taking an experimental drug aimed at a particular mutation in their tumors lived longer than patients who did not receive the drug in a decisive clinical trial, the drug’s manufacturer, Roche, said Wednesday. via Melanoma Drug Prolonged Patients’ Lives in Clinical Trial – NYTimes.com.

  Anders Ynnerman: Visualizing the medical data explosion | Video on TED.com.

Eating just 1 cup of strawberries or blueberries each week can reduce your risk of developing high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. The new findings appear in the February issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The new study included 87,242 women who took part in the Nurses’ [...]

MIT scientists have discovered that cells lining the blood vessels secrete molecules that suppress tumor growth and keep cancer cells from invading other tissues, a finding that could lead to a new way to treat cancer. Elazer Edelman, professor in the MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), says that implanting such cells adjacent [...]

A woman in the US is able to speak for the first time in 11 years after a pioneering voicebox transplant.Brenda Jensen said the operation, which took place in California, was a miracle which had restored her life.Thirteen days after the surgery she said her first words: “Good morning, I want to go home.”It is [...]

The herpes zoster vaccine, better known as the shingles vaccine and recommended for adults 60 and older, cuts the risk of getting the painful disease by 55%, new research finds. “Compared to childhood vaccines, people would [probably] think 55% is not too impressive, because many childhood vaccines are in the range of 80% to 90% [...]

Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have shown that they can deliver the cancer drug cisplatin much more effectively and safely in a form that has been encapsulated in a nanoparticle targeted to prostate tumor cells and is activated once it reaches its target. Using the new particles, the researchers were able to [...]

Two specific eating patterns increase the risk of death for older adults, a 10-year study finds. Compared to people who ate healthy foods, men and women in their 70s had a 40% higher risk of death if they got most of their calories from high-fat dairy foods or from sweets and desserts. University of Maryland [...]