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| DOES SHAMPOO POSE RISK TO PREGNANT WOMEN? |
| A preservative commonly found in cosmetics such as shampoo and moisturizers harms developing nerve cells, according to a controversial study. |
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| BIOLOGICAL CLOCK MAY CARRY ON TICKING |
| Female mice are can produce new eggs into adulthood and are not born with a limited number as previously thought, say U.S. scientists. |
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| NEW DEVICE TO HELP PREMATURE BABIES |
| Australian scientists have invented a simple device that is ready to help thousands of premature babies in third-world countries who suffer from respiratory difficulties - problems that can cause brain damage and blindness. |
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| CAESAREAN PUTS NEXT PREGNANCY AT RISK |
| Having a caesarean delivery may increase the risk of a stillbirth in a second pregnancy, researchers said today. |
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| STONED SPERM TOO SPEEDY TO FERTILISE |
| Heavy marijuana users have sperm that move too fast, too soon, and become burnt out, reducing the chance of fertilisation, according to new U.S. research. |
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| MALE CONTRACEPTIVE SUCCESS: NOW IT'S OVER TO INDUSTRY |
| A long-acting but reversible male contraceptive has been fully proven to protect against pregnancies, paving the way for its commercial development. |
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| DISPUTE OVER TOXIC SHOCK SYNDROME |
| A TAMPON maker says it may try to develop a test for genetic susceptibility to toxic shock syndrome, based on the results of a study announced last week. But critics dispute the study's conclusions, and warn that the work might be used to help companies fight lawsuits from women who contract the illness after using tampons. |
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| BAD TEETH RAISES PRE-TERM BIRTH RISK |
| Pregnant women with periodontal disease have a much higher chance of having a pre-term baby, but a new American study has found that a simple clean can reverse that statistic. |
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| BORN LAZY? BLAME YOUR MOTHER. |
| Couch potatoes may be programmed to be lazy before they are even born by the poor diet of their mothers during pregnancy, startling new research has found. |
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| MUTANT SPERM MORE SELFISH WITH AGE |
| Sperm mutate more often as men get older - not because it helps their resulting offspring, but because it appears to help sperm survive in the testes, researchers have found. |
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| WHAT WOMEN NEED: SWEATY MALE ARMPITS |
| Being exposed to the smell of a sweaty male armpit can make a woman feel calmer, according to a new study by a U.S. research team. |
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| GENE THAT HALTS OVARIAN CANCER DISCOVERED |
| A gene that stops the development of ovarian cancer and which could pave the way for the development of new drugs against the deadly disease has been discovered. |
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| SMALL BABIES RISK KIDNEY DISEASE LATER IN LIFE |
| Low birthweight babies are born with less efficient kidneys which is bad news for them later in life, according to new research by Australian and U.S researchers. |
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| MULE CLONING SHEDS LIGHT ON CANCER, AGEING. |
| The first successful cloning of a mule has unexpectedly shed light on human cancers and other age-related diseases, as well as making possible the cloning of champion horses. |
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| NEW STUDY: PERCENTAGE OF BABIES BORN WITH INTESTINAL BIRTH DEFECT GROWING IN U.S., N.C. |
| Gastroschisis, an uncommon but life-threatening birth defect in which babies are born with their intestines outside their abdomens, increased markedly in North Carolina and the rest of the United States in the late 1990s, according to a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study. |
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| STRESS DURING PREGNANCY CAN AFFECT FETAL HEART RATE |
| Stress-related changes in a pregnant woman's heart rate and blood pressure, along with chronic anxiety, can affect the heart rate of her developing fetus, a new study concludes. |
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| RESEARCH REVEALS A CELLULAR BASIS FOR A MALE BIOLOGICAL CLOCK |
| Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered a cellular basis for what many have long suspected: Men, as well as women, have a reproductive clock that ticks down with age. |
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| FOLIC ACID CAN HELP PREVENT HEART DISEASE, STROKE - UU RESEARCH. |
| Folic acid is not only a safeguard against spina bifida and other birth defects in babies - it may also prevent heart disease and strokes, two of Northern Ireland’s biggest killers. |
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| BRAIN DAMAGE IN INFANTS NOT ALWAYS TIED TO DELIVERY |
| Neurological problems in newborns, including seizures, do not necessarily stem from delivery, a Johns Hopkins study demonstrates. |
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| CHEMICALS AFFECT HAIRDRESSERS' BABIES |
| Hairdressers are slightly more likely to have babies born small or with major defects, according to a Swedish study. |
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| CAFFEINE MAY AFFECT FERTILITY |
| Men and women undergoing infertility treatment should re-think their coffee habit, recent evidence suggests. |
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| BREAKTHROUGH IN CREATING BIO-ARTIFICIAL ORGANS AT HEBREW UNIVERSITY-HADASSAH DENTAL SCHOOL |
| Today people often must wait for months when they need an organ transplant. In the future, they may be able to simply give a tissue sample and then wait a week or two as the sample is used to custom-build the necessary organ, thanks to research conducted by Hebrew University Ph.D. candidate Gadi Pelled, DMD. He received the prestigious Kaye Award this year for his work. |
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| SMOKING DECREASES MEN'S CHANCES OF FATHERHOOD BY IVF AND ICSI |
| Men who smoke reduce their chances of successfully fathering a child by either standard IVF techniques or by ICSI, according to research carried out in Germany.
Dr Michael Zitzmann told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual conference in Vienna that smoking altered the DNA of sperm and he believed this hampered the development of the embryo. |
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| SEMEN MAKES YOU HAPPY |
| Semen makes you happy. That's the remarkable conclusion of a study comparing women whose partners wear condoms with those whose partners don't.
The study, which is bound to provoke controversy, showed that the women who were directly exposed to semen were less depressed. The researchers think this is because mood-altering hormones in semen are absorbed through the vagina. They say they have ruled out other explanations. |
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| VANISHING TWIN THEORY DEBUNKED |
| Contrary to the standard dogma, Australian researchers have found that twins have no less chance of survival as embryos than single babies. |
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| MEN HAPPY TO TAKE CONTRACEPTION |
| The first survey of Australian men's attitudes to hormonal contraception has found that an overwhelming majority would be prepared to shoulder the responsibility.
The researchers, from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Monash Medical Centre, asked the male partners of women who had recently given birth what contraceptives they used and how they felt about a male contraceptive hormone. |
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| STUDY BOOSTS SUSPECTED LINK BETWEEN MOTHERS’ GUM DISEASE AND BOTH PREMATURE BIRTH, LOW BIRTH WEIGHT |
| Mothers who suffer from gum disease are significantly more likely to deliver their babies prematurely than women without that illness, which also is known as periodontal disease, a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study shows. Such women also are more likely than others to deliver babies whose weight is less than normal. |
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| GENETIC LINK TO ENDOMETRIOSIS – UNIQUE ICELANDIC STUDY PROVIDES FURTHER PROOF |
| A woman has more than five times the normal risk of developing endometriosis if her sister has the disease, according to research published today (Thursday 28 February) in Europe’s leading reproductive medicine journal, Human Reproduction* (full-text article). |
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| DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS SHOW LESS THAN THREE WEEKS INTO PREGNANCY |
| Female embryos exert a greater influence than male embryos over the hormone that nurtures early pregnancy, and the difference can be detected as little as 16 days after conception, according to new research published (Wednesday 30 January) in Europe’s leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction. |
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| IS THIS THE CELL THAT COULD REVOLUTIONISE MEDICINE? |
| IT MIGHT turn out to be the most important cell ever discovered. It's a stem cell found in adults that can turn into every single tissue in the body.
Until now, only stem cells from early embryos were thought to be able to do this. If the finding is confirmed, it will mean cells from your own body could one day be turned into all sorts of perfectly matched replacement tissues and even organs. |
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| DO ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES INCREASE THE RISK OF MISCARRIAGE? |
| The strong magnetic fields produced by some electric appliances and vehicles increase the risk of miscarriage, claim researchers in California. Their findings also suggest that most previous investigations into the health effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) have been measuring the wrong thing. |
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| MAJOR STRESS DURING PREGNANCY LINKED TO AUTISM |
| Women who have had a major stressful event - death of a spouse, job loss, or a long-distance move - midway through their pregnancy may have a greater chance of having an autistic child than do their unstressed counterparts say researchers at The Ohio State University Medical Center. |
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| WEAK SPERM COUNT DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN INFERTILITY, STUDY SAYS |
| The nation's most in-depth study of the quality of sperm in nearly 1,500 men shows that sperm counts previously thought to be abnormal do not always mean infertility. The University of Rochester Medical Center research is published in the November 8, 2001 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. |
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| SEX, SMELL AND THE CONTRACEPTIVE PILL |
| Italian scientists have found that the contraceptive pill makes a woman less sensitive to smell at ovulation time - and they're wondering whether this in turn may affect her libido. |
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| MOTHERS TRANSMIT DNA THROUGH DAUGHTERS ONLY |
| Scientists have argued whether or not the often-studied mitochondrial DNA molecule is clonally inherited. It is with assuming clonal inheritance this type of DNA has been used to track the origin of modern human as well as to draw pictures of genetic relationships among other animals and plants. |
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| FROM SILKWORM SILK, CORNELL RESEARCHERS PRODUCED HYBRID MATERIALS THAT ONE DAY COULD HEAL WOUNDS AND MAKE BULLETPROOF VESTS |
| Imagine a material that could expand by three to six times in size while remaining strong and stiff, and also could be biodegradable and biocompatible. Such a material would be invaluable as a wound-healing bandage or possibly a drug-delivery mechanism. |
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| BREASTFEEDING FOR LESS THAN 3 MONTHS MAY AFFECT A CHILD'S INTELLIGENCE |
| Breastfeeding for less than 3 months may affect a child's intellectual development, finds research in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. |
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| ARE BIGGER BABIES BRIGHTER? |
| Smaller babies tend to have lower IQs, even if the children are in the normal weight range, a new study shows. While the differences are too small to have any practical significance for individuals, they might be important at a population level. |
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| KINSEY STUDY FINDS ADVERSE SEXUAL, EMOTIONAL SIDE EFFECTS OF BIRTH CONTROL PILLS RELATED TO DISCONTINUATION |
| The birth control pill can have significant adverse effects on sexuality and mood in some women, increasing the likelihood of early discontinuation, according to a study by the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University. Results of the study will be reported in the July issue of the journal Contraception. |
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| SCIENTISTS REPORT THE FIRST LIVE BIRTHS IN LARGE MAMMALS AFTER USING FROZEN OVARIAN TISSUE |
| French scientists have succeeded in using previously frozen ovarian tissue to produce live offspring in large mammals for the first time. The team, led by Professor Bruno Salle and Dr Jacqueline Lornage of the Departement de Medecine de la Reproduction at the Hopital Edouard Herriot in Lyon, reported that from six ewes there had been four pregnancies which had produced three live lambs, one lamb that died shortly after birth and two twins that died after a premature delivery. |
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| PREGNANT WOMEN UNDERESTIMATE A LACK OF IODINE IN ORGANISM |
| Gynecologists point out that pregnant women and mothers who have just born a child consume few iodine-containing products and vitamins. Newly-completed researches have shown that only 60% of pregnant women and only 21% of just-born mothers additionally eat iodine-containing drugs and products to cover an increased organism's requirement for this chemical element. |
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