By Genevra Pittman People can safely add a few nuts to their diet — or replace other foods with the high-unsaturated fat, high-fibre snacks — without gaining weight, a new review of past studies suggests. Researchers combined data from 31 trials conducted across the globe and found that on average, there was very little difference in changes in weight or waist measureme

LOS ANGELES: Every dog has its day, and for Afghan pooch Aiden, today is for dancing lessons while cats Lucky and Missy are legally guaranteed their nightly shrimp dinners according to their owner’s last testament. These are just a few of the “Spoiled Rotten Pets,” a new television series that dives into the world of fawning pet owners who outfit rats in formal wear and pa

By Reed Stevenson Techies are trumpeting a so-called virtual currency called Bitcoin that behaves in some ways like traditional currencies. Financial experts are debating its regulatory pitfalls and volatility, highlighted by a tumble in valuation this month that brought the digital money to the world’s attention. Meanwhile, many of us still don’t understand what Bitcoi

Shuttlecocks on a badminton court in Indonesia.  JAKARTA: Badminton-crazy Indonesia is concerned a deadly bird flu outbreak could claim an unlikely victim — the shuttlecock — officials said yesterday after the government banned imports of Chinese duck feathers. Jakarta is to halt the import of all Chinese poultry products, including dried duck feathers used to make s

Her eyes see nothing, but when Barbara Appel runs her fingers over the face of a Picasso sculpture in New York’s Museum of Modern Art (moMA), she sighs with pleasure. Most people go to museums to look at exhibits, but for some at MoMA, love of art is literally blind. Each month, a small group with various levels of impaired vision accompanies an expert guide to the famed Manhatta

By Azera Parveen Rahman From asking dieticians to draw up cafeteria menus to conducting counselling sessions to keep them fit, multinational companies and others are becoming mindful about their employees’ health, given the steady rise in lifestyle diseases affecting their workforce. “It’s no longer just my prerogative to shed the tyre around my belly. My boss is

Washington: Only about 30 percent of people in the US know how to perform CPR. And that statistic makes the story of one Georgia woman even more remarkable after a 9-year-old boy showed her how to perform CPR on her newborn baby. Susanna Rohm said she experienced a parent’s worst nightmare: Her 2-month-old son, Isiah, was not breathing. “I noticed he looked pale, and so

Biomedical engineer Mark Kendall demonstrates the nanopatch to nurses at Port Moresby hospital. By Kate Kelland When it comes to protecting millions of people from deadly infectious diseases, Mark Kendall thinks a fingertip-sized patch covered in thousands of vaccine-coated microscopic spikes is the future. A biomedical engineer with a fascination for problem solving, he has deve

SYDNEY: Breakthrough X-ray research mapping how insulin works at a molecular level could lead to new diabetes treatments and end daily needle jabs for hundreds of millions of sufferers, scientists said yesterday. A US-Australian team said it had revealed in atomic detail for the first time how the hormone insulin binds to the surface of cells, triggering the passage of glucose from the bloo

By Genevra Pittman One-third of people getting a CT scan didn’t know the test exposed their body to radiation, in a new study from a single US medical centre. Researchers found the majority of patients also underestimated the amount of radiation delivered by a CT scan, and just one in 20 believed the scan would increase their chance of ever getting cancer. The study&rsquo

By Kathleen Raven Adults with excessively dry hands were four times more likely than healthy counterparts to fail computerised fingerprint verification tests in a small new study from Malaysia. “Because of the emerging use of biometrics in daily living, I think hand dermatitis is an upcoming problem,” said lead author Dr Lee Chew Kek, a dermatologist at UCSI University

by Alyssa Rosenberg To celebrate its 110th anniversary, the magazine Popular Mechanics has published a fascinating list of 110 predictions for the next 110 years, divided up by the decades in which they will occur. For instance, within the next 10 years, PM believes that translation technology will become so sophisticated and cheap that smart phones will turn into universal transla

by Ian Sample A woman who is paralysed from the neck down has stunned doctors with her extraordinary skill at using a robotic arm that is controlled by her thoughts alone. The 52-year-old patient, called Jan, lost the use of her limbs more than 10 years ago to a degenerative disease that damaged her spinal cord. The disruption to her nervous system was the equivalent to having a broken

by Maria Cheng Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats. The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death

A child affected by Down Syndrome takes part in a dolphin therapy session at the cultural and health centre Nemo in the Belarus capital Minsk, yesterday.

by Ben Hirschler An experimental vaccine based on a molecule related to DNA protects animals against influenza and may one day offer an ultra-rapid way to develop new shots for humans, German scientists reported. Assuming it also works in people, the new approach could allow commercial flu vaccines to be designed and manufactured in weeks rather than months. Making vaccines qui

by Julie Steenhuysen Two international teams of scientists have identified a rare mutation in a gene linked with inflammation that significantly increases the risk for the most common form of Alzheimer’s disease, the first such discovery in at least a decade. The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, offer new insights into the underpinnings of Alzheimer

Children build a snowman in a public garden following an overnight snow storm in Grenoble, France, yesterday. 

By Casey Seidenberg Despite an obesity epidemic in the US and other Western states, many toddlers and children are underweight. Parents repeatedly ask me how to help a child gain weight in a healthful way. This is an important question because the age-old advice of milkshakes and ice cream (or in my opinion even the sugar-laden Pediasure) just doesn’t cut it, and can spark a cycl

  By Vicky Hallett My new office habit: When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I get as floppy as possible in my chair. With my chest resting on my thighs, my hair brushing the tops of my feet and my knuckles touching the ground, I take a few deep breaths. I enjoy the stretch along the backs of my legs. A sense of calm overtakes me. And when I sit back up, I’m greeted by an awesome head rush — a