Forests of various kinds worldwide are showing signs of severe distress and decline because of rising planet temperature and a lack of water. Millions of acres of forests in Texas burned this summer. The great euphorbia trees of southern Africa are also dying from heat and water stress. These forests and scores of others absorb [...]

People who believe they can learn from their mistakes have a different biological and chemical brain reaction to mistakes than people who think that intelligence is fixed. This is the finding of a new study soon to be published in the upcoming issue of the Association for Psychological Science. Jason Moser of Michigan State, [...]

Here is a story, heralded in the Wall Street Journal . Wellpoint a major healthcare organization has hired IBM’s super computer Watson to assist doctors in diagnoses and treatment. see the vide appended here.

Dr. Rachel Berger of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh just completed a study of 422 abused children from mostly lower income families which confirmed what pediatricians have been reporting, that there has been an increase of shaken babies and other forms of abuse causing brain damage. The study was released on line this week in Pediatrics. [...]

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet [...]

With any treatment of chronic disease, speed and precision are both essential. Danish scientists have created a new integrated data mining tool that extracts information from clinician’s notes and genetic info that can reveal links between health problems in a patient that would otherwise seem unrelated. The research report was published on August 25 in [...]

Knowing how to deal with stress in the classroom and elsewhere can make a significant difference in performance, according to new research from the University of Chicago. Researchers found the cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress can enhance performance depending on the frame of mind of a student. Students can shange theor ourlooks [...]

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA, detective Sherlock Holmes instructs Watson on the difference between seeing and observing: “When I hear you give your reasons, ” I remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your [...]

Memantine, one of the drugs presently used to treat Alzheimer’s disease is re-purposed, originally developed as an anti-influenza drug. It is a different kind of  Alzheimer’s treatment, used to protect the neurons from damage through its affect on Glutamate, a major neurotransmitter critical to communication between nerve cells in the brain. Researchers think that when [...]

Celebrex, a commonly used anti-inflmmatory drug causes liver cancer cells to die by reacting with a protein setting off a self destruction chain reaction within the cancer cells according to a new study. A unique data mining/ preditive model was employed before the researchers considered Celebrex, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. It is a Cox-2 inhibitor [...]