HEALTH & MEDICINE

The Cancer Society is against the planned increase of New Zealand export of tobacco products to Australia. While the hiked production of cigarettes would lead to the creation of 50 new jobs in the next 24 months, it would also cause the loss of 20,000 lives yearly in Australia, Cancer Society Health Promotion Manager Jan Pearson said.

Scientists gave mice a high fat diet, after which, the mice showed growth of new brain cells and less weight gain. "We really don't understand the function of these neurons in the normal brain," study researcher Seth Blackshaw, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told LiveScience.

The overuse of antibiotics could lead to a time when it would be so ineffective that a normal infection could kill, according to the World Health Organization.

Junk food, lack of exercise and now even the air you breathe could contribute to you gaining weight. Danish researchers have proposed a theory that steadily rising levels of carbon dioxide in the air maybe increasing appetite and could explain the rising obesity rate.

Health campaign groups in Australia launched on Friday the independent Alcohol Advertising Review Board. The main task of the new board would be to name and shame alcohol firms with advertising campaigns that violate international alcohol advertising regulations.

While the most advanced computers today can perform the most complicated tasks and calculations than average humans but computers still fall short in learning ability. However scientists are looking to remedy this by learning from "the greatest learning machines in the universe": human babies.

A new study released on Wednesday warned of the growing menace of diabetes among young Australians. The report by Diabetes Australia said one in three of young Aussies will likely acquire the chronic ailment, which has no known cure.

Out of the $60 billion annual cost of workplace injuries across Australia, about half are due to overwork and stress.

Hospitals face a perennial lack of organ donors that many patients die waiting for kidneys, hearts and livers but an international group of researchers may have found a way to solve this by proposing that doctors could grow fully-functioning organs for their patients.Growing New Organs Could Solve Donor Shortage, Doctors Says

Despite advances in robotics that produced such realistic robo-pets like Paro, the robo-seal, many robo-pets are still hindered because they don't look or act like real pets. However a team from the University of British Columbia is set to make robo-pets more realistic with a smart fur that can allow robo-pets to sense their owners' emotional state.

Does weight lifting have negative psychological effect? In a new study, more than 10 per cent of the participants showed symptoms of a psychological disorder that led them to think that their body is “too small” or “insufficiently muscular”.

Medical professionals have always warned people about the negative effects of marijuana on memory but haven't been able to explain why until now. An international team of scientists believe they are closer to finding out why taking cannabis impairs short-term memory.

Researchers from the University of Zurich have found a cellular brake that protects cancer cells from chemotherapy - and they demonstrate which medication can be used to render it inoperative.

Teens exposed to alcohol use in films are at risk for binge drinking and other risky behaviors, Cancer Center study shows.

Upon fertilisation, a single cell is formed when egg and sperm fuse.

A 42-year-old obese woman, Marie Eaton, in Britain managed to lose 196 kg to prepare for her wedding day.With her size and weight, she cannot go up the stairs and sleep in the bedroom.

Do you want to live forever in a robotic body? If Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov is to be believed he already has plans that will allow humans to inhabit robots in the next ten years.

Desk-confined employees would be able to ward off considerable health risks if they take a break every 20 minutes and flex some muscles.

A new technique that could provide a prosthetic limb that moves and responds like an actual flesh and blood limb has been a major goal for researchers and physicians for years. Now a joint project by researchers from Sandia National Laboratories, the University of New Mexico and the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston has found a way for amputees to gain better control over their prosthetics with help from their own nervous systems.

A new study jointly conducted by researchers at the University of California Berkeley (UCB) and the University of Toronto showed that those who have more were most likely to take advantage of their better status while those who have just enough seemed more content and willing to give way, and even share when necessary.

Bats have been hosting flu virus for many years, according to a new research findings published on Monday by scientists working for the U.S.-based Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Influenza, commonly known as flu, affects as many as one in five Americans each year, while more than 200,000 get hospitalized due to seasonal flu-related complications, yet many still do not get vaccinated, reports said.

Did you know that vaccinating your cat with the typical, recommended feline vaccination schedule may lead to your furry friend developing cancer?

What if it was possible to eliminate much of the world's otherwise very-slowly-biodegrading plastic waste using a natural Amazonian fungus?

Before, to be diagnosed with the big C seemed to be an implied death sentence. Patients even go through a stage of self-denial. Who can blame them? Conventional medicine paints a rather bleak future for cancer patients and the remedy it offers does nothing to improve their quality of life, nausea and falling hair not to mention.

The expression "he/she died of a broken heart" is often used to describe someone who has died after having been depressed for a long time. Usually that person drinks or drugs himself/herself to death after a desperate period of loss, bitter disappointment, or environmentally induced depression.

After thousands of years Western medicine is finally recognising the benefits of meditation to treat diseases including mental illness. Under the disguise of MBCT, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, meditation is being accepted as a way to treat various conditions in the field of mental illnesses.

Simultaneous targeting of two different molecules in cancer is an effective way to shrink tumors, block invasion, and stop metastasis, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have found - work that may improve the effectiveness of combination treatments that include drugs like Avastin.

Mitochondria, tiny structures within each cell that regulate metabolism and energy use, may be a promising new target for cancer therapy, according to a new study.