News

Personal listening devices like iPods have become increasingly popular among young -- and not-so-young -- people in recent years. But music played through headphones too loud or too long might pose a significant risk to hearing, according to a 24-year study of adolescent girls.

While preterm birth is a known risk factor for cerebral palsy, an examination of data for infants born at term or later finds that compared with delivery at 40 weeks, birth at 37 or 38 weeks or at 42 weeks or later was associated with an increased risk of cerebral palsy, according to a new study.

NIH working with DOJ to arrange a stay to keep hESC research alive ASAP. Any other abbreviations I can use? #bioethics HT @bachinsky

Hank Greely's take on the stem cell decision: "disappointingly bad." Not to put too fine of a point on it or anything.... #bioethics

Watch out US. Korea's poised to make a comeback in the stem cell business. HT @hsbioethics #bioethics

Girls are hitting puberty earlier and earlier. One recent study found that more than 10 percent of American girls have some breast development by age 7. This news has upset many people, but it may make evolutionary sense in some cases for girls to develop faster, according to new research.

The grass might not be greener on the other side of the border, a new study has found. Economic migrants traveling to different shores for greater income could be set for disappointment -- because the pursuit of wealth does not equate with happiness, according to the research.

Seven-year-old children only need to interact with a person once to learn who to trust and seek information from, according to a new study.

Older adults with diabetes who have high blood pressure, walk slowly or lose their balance, or believe they're in bad health, are significantly more likely to have weaker memory and slower, more rigid cognitive processing than those without these problems, according to a new study.

Hispanic middle school students may be more likely to smoke, drink or use marijuana than their peers of other races and ethnicities, whereas Asian students seem to have the lowest risk, according to new research.

By mining data from the 2000 Census, a sociologist figured out the rates at which kids raised by gay and straight couples repeated a grade during elementary or middle school. He found that children of same-sex parents have essentially the same educational achievement as their peers growing up in heterosexual households.

The brain's right hemisphere is not involved in the initial processes of reading in Arabic, due to the graphic complexity of Arabic script. Therefore reading acquisition in Arabic is much harder in comparison to English, according to a recent series of studies.

There's something beyond plain old ignorance that motivates Americans to believe President Obama is a Muslim, according to a first-of-its-kind study of smear campaigns. The research suggests people are most likely to accept such falsehoods, both consciously and unconsciously, when subtle clues remind them of ways in which Obama is different from them, whether because of race, social class or other ideological differences.

New research shows that multiple sclerosis activity can increase during spring and summer months.

I'm sure I told you that already! Older adults are more likely to have destination memory failures -- forgetting who they've shared or not shared information with, according to a new study.

I'll have the GMO lox and bagel, please.

Gamblers who think they have a "hot hand," only to end up walking away with a loss, may nonetheless be making "rational" decisions, according to new research.

Much like snowflakes, no two neurons are exactly alike. But it's not the size or shape that sets one neuron apart from another, it's the way it responds to incoming stimuli. Researchers have discovered that this diversity is critical to overall brain function and essential in how neurons process complex stimuli and code information.

Scientists have discovered a compound that restores the capacity to form new memories in aging rats, likely by improving the survival of newborn neurons in the brain's memory hub. The research, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, has turned up clues to a neuroprotective mechanism that could lead to a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

NIMH Radio: Dr. Andrew Pieper of the UT Southwestern Medical Center explains how his team discovered a memory enhancing compound in living mice.