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A daily collection of health tidbits from the staff of The Los Angeles Times' Health section.
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The high-pitched coos and soothing tones that make up the language best known as baby talk aren't just uttered by Westerners. Turns out that kind of speech is universal, understood among American moms and indigenous people thousands of miles away.
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Mother to boy: "Johnny, you've been working in the garden a lot this summer."
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Mother to boy: "Johnny, you've been working in the garden a lot this summer."
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For anyone ever accused of thinking that members of another racial or ethnic group "all look alike," psychologists are here to offer a little exculpatory comfort. We're all lousy, it turns out, at distinguishing one individual from another when both are from a different group than oneself. But it's not always a race thing.
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Some cavemen were just too sexy for their shirt. Or pelt.
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Attention aspiring film producer and directors: The field of psychology has distilled the formula for cinematic success.
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By age 60, you're not over the hill, but you may have trouble climbing one.
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Talk about a head of hair! This photo was sent to us by Robert Speed of San Diego, who challenges anyone to come up with tresses as long and luxuriant as his own.
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Cookbooks such as "The Complete Idiot's Guide to 20 Minute Meals" and "Desperation Dinners!" cater to those of us who say we don't have a lot of time to cook. A new study of L.A. families suggests what we really don't have time for is -- cookbooks. In a recent study of regular family dining habits, hardly anybody consulted them. And those convenience foods that come pre-washed, pre-diced and pre-sliced? Turns out they don't save any time on meal preparation at all.
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Reality television shows such as "Plastic Surgery: Before and After" and "Dr. 90210" seem as if they'd be the perfect, free product-placement venues for plastic surgeons: They highlight the most successful, dramatic surgery and compress weeks of recovery time to fit the final minutes of an hour or half-hour show.
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If you've ever had food poisoning, you know that the offending food is generally more than ready to escape back out of your stomach. But a new study shows that sometimes food makes us sick because it just won't let go of our gut.
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"Potato chip flavoring boosts longevity of concrete" reads a headline coming across the Booster Shot desk this morning.
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Why do people have sex? Ask an evolutionary biologist and you'll get a lot of answers: After all, bacteria and yeast and many plants can just spit off new versions of themselves, so biologists have been debating for years why sex and sexes evolved. Now it turns out that if you ask a bunch of men and women why they, personally, like to have sex you'll also get a slew of reasons: 237, to be precise.
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Do Italian kids learn faster than -- um, whatever ethnicity doesn't wave its hands much while talking? (Danes, maybe.) We don't know if anyone's ever tested that, but gesticulation seems to have its pluses, according to a new study in the journal Cognition. Conducted by University of Rochester scientists, it found that 3rd- and 4th-graders who were coached to wave at key pieces of information while learning algebraic concepts learned them significantly better than kids who just expressed the concepts verbally.
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We get a lot of press releases here, mostly with grabby titles like: "Uninsured adults increase Medicare costs." So it's a treat, really, to read one from Harvard with the snappy start "Dietary supplement can turn the skin permanently blue." Permanently! That's the tabloid stuff we need to be doing to keep our business vital. And it even turns out to be true.
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Sometimes, scientists publish bombshells that turn the world as we knew it upside-down. Other times, they publish items that crueler folks might file in a folder labeled "Duh!"
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Those whose hands curl into painful seizures when they scribble for too long or too fast could once tell themselves, "I scribbled for too long or too fast," and let it go at that. Now, for the syndrome-inclined, comes thrilling news: Writer's cramp, we learn, is associated with its very own brain abnormality. Read on. This could be you.
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As Harry Potter hysteria peaks, so, too, does the number of news releases and articles linking the lad -- by even a gossamer thread -- to a health issue. (Time, after all, is running out to mine this lode.) A week or so back, headache specialists announced they'd diagnosed young Harry with migraines. Read on for more.
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We recently wrote about the high rate of human bite wounds in Dublin, Ireland, and noted that 82% of the injuries happened between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., a time period when pub-goers stagger home after lord knows how many pints. What's more, 86% of these bite incidents involved the consumption of alcohol. But it need not be this way!
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There's something about twins that fascinates us— and, of course, we've all heard the stories about twins separated at birth who both marry people named Marvin, wear all-pink clothes, choose the same perfume, select tarantulas as pets and name their pet dogs Fido. (Or something along those lines.)
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There are plenty of places to find beautifully photographed food on the Internet — on Web pages for restaurants, recipes or candy companies. But food photography can be more than just gustatory Glamour Shots. Here's a collection of some of the most creative, informative photos of food we've found online.
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We're not exactly sure when it happened, but somewhere between "Ren and Stimpy" and the "Ugly Doll" craze, someone decided that gross is cute. Stuffed versions of microscopic creatures that make us sick are one part of this "Blech Is Beautiful" movement.
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We recently reported that children ages 5 to 7 have trouble separating facts from reality when reading fictional stories. After perusing some recent research journals, we're struck that certain scientists may have the same problem. Two of them, writing in the June issue of the journal Headache, have just diagnosed Harry Potter as a migraine sufferer.
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A steady supply of product pitches find their way to the Health
section in-tray. Among the many items we heretofore had no idea we
needed are ayurvedic clothing, brown seaweed, a "revolutionary"
toothpick and water that is truly wet.
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Hot off the psychology presses: Men work out at gyms because women are sexually attracted to muscular men. That's the conclusion, after a careful four-year study, of two UCLA researchers.
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You may not think you need another reason to watch your cholesterol — but here's one anyway: If you don't watch your blood fats, you may be more susceptible to attack by hungry cholesterol vampires when you go out tramping through the forest. High blood cholesterol, according to new research, is deemed especially scrumptious by certain bacteria spread by ticks.
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Everyone, it seems, is trying to figure out why people are getting so fat these days — and some aren't buying the notion that it's about eating too much and sitting on one's duff all day. They suggest we're getting fat because of an obesity-causing virus — or due to stress, lack of sleep, or some special, fat-promoting property of corn syrup. Now comes theory No. 300: We eat too much ice!
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When life gives you jellyfish, make ... artificial spit and contact lens cleaner?
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Parents, beware: Beloved childhood classics such as Winnie the Pooh may be teaching kids false facts about the world — like tigers are bouncy and donkeys are chronically depressed.
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All new parents know that their baby is special and unique, from the top of its bald head to the tips of its tiny toes. Now Stanford scientists have shown that this individuality extends even to the bacteria that colonize the baby's insides.
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Maybe it's not as impressive as a 25-foot giant squid, but a new "morbidly obese" fish developed by Oregon scientists will likely make a splash in the field of obesity research.
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When it comes to getting bitten, men are way ahead of women — at least in Ireland. In a survey of all the people afflicted with "human bites" admitted to a Dublin plastic surgery department, a stunning 92% were male. It's also interesting to note that 70% of these accidents happened on a weekend or holiday, and 82% of the injuries happened between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m.
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If you've ever felt bad for the ducks and geese that go into your foie gras, you possibly, just possibly, might want to save some of that sympathy for yourself.
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Fresh-squeezed orange juice, anyone? Customers may love it, but what a hassle, squeezing oranges on demand. Now a company, International Flavors & Fragrances, says it's discovered the key chemicals imparting that elusive, je ne sais quoi of fresh-squeezedness.
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How well did you get on with your father? Very well? Now — does your spouse bear an uncanny resemblance to him?
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Don't try this at home: According to New Scientist magazine, a researcher has determined that oven cleaner could be just great for treating ... glaucoma.
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News alert: Catastrophic events such as hurricanes can affect the quality of your sleep! So reports a team from a New Orleans sleep center, drawing on its experience in the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina.
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Medical reports (especially of Aunt Milly or Uncle Milton's digestive tract issues) are often dull. But there's something alluring about one published this week in the Lancet: It describes a patient who began oozing green blood.
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Nothing unravels male shoppers like a trip down the aisles.
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Theory No. 299 on why children are getting so plump these days: They go to bed too late. So suggests a team led by Jim Dollman of the University of South Australia.
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In an exciting vegetable crop breakthrough, researchers have unearthed the genetic secret behind the bright orange cauliflower. Yes, it's a gene called "Orange." By deftly manipulating "Orange," the Cornell scientists hope to soon offer us a cornucopia of more-nutritious orange foods: potatoes, maize, wheat, more.
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Everyone has their passions, and there can be something quite charming about the attempts to share them with others. You've watched Food TV. Court TV. History TV. But have you ever watched "Indoor Air Quality TV"? Now you can.
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Here's a Thursday newsflash that we're considering squirreling away into our "duh" files: Husbands and wives who do nice things for each other because they want to have happier marriages than those who do them to get the nags the heck off their backs. Yes. Science has found this to be so.
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The dairy industry has been all agog this week with news of a cow named Marge (and others like her) who produces naturally skim milk. What that means: With a herd of cows like Marge, the industry wouldn't have to remove all the fat after milking. They wouldn't have to throw out all that fat. And you and I could eat butter that spreads easily — right from the fridge.
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Are you sniffling and sneezing? Coughing up black bile? Move over CDC: If there's a plague in the offing, we, the people can spread the word as well as the germs. This morning we read an article about Who Is Sick, a website launched in March that allows you to tell the world about every last headache.
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It has come to our attention that there is a new health craze sweeping the nation. It's hot, it's happening — it's nasal washing! "Last year, it was on 'The Office.' Last month, it was on 'Oprah' AND 'Grey's Anatomy.' This week, it was on 'Oprah' AGAIN," writes an excited rep from the "SinuCleanse PR Team," which promotes little teapots and squeeze-bottles that you fill with salt water and squirt up your nose, the more to improve the health of your sinuses.
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Melding art and medicine is getting more and more common: These days, you can buy all kinds of medical tchotchkes — earrings in the shape of brain molecules, boxer shorts decorated with images of bacteria (even gonorrhea bacteria, which doesn't seem to send an especially desirable message). And what biomedical department these days doesn't have some artsy rendition of DNA, the helix of life, gracing its foyer? The trend is now moving toward dance, it appears. We've been notified of two biomedical dances in the last few weeks alone.
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Health facts come and go: One minute fiber wards off cancer, the next minute it's ... well, fiber. Now one of the most famous health rules we live by is hanging by a thread: The 5-second rule, which states that you can eat a cookie that fell on the floor if it touched the ground for 5 seconds or less. Turns out this is wrong! The correct time is more like 30 seconds.
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Move over smiley face: If there's a modern symbol for happiness, in this molecular age it's the brain chemical serotonin, says the sales blurb on "Made With Molecules," an online jewelry store with a somewhat nerdy bent.
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We did it again — nearly let one of those awareness events pass by unnoticed. It's day five of Drinking Water Week!
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Medical craft madness: We admire people who devote hours of effort to quirky endeavors. One of our favorite creations along these lines is a knitted digestive system lovingly crafted by by Matie Trewe, a biology graduate who lives in Eugene, Ore. Tongue, esophagus, gall bladder: it's all there in its anatomically-correct glory.