When scientists study male infertility, they usually focus on how DNA in sperm becomes damaged with age. This has helped explain why fertility declines and why some harmful genetic mutations may be passed on to children.
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Our children are surrounded by screens and mobile devices, and many parents worry about what this does to their health. We often hear warnings that screen time disturbs sleep and harms children's mental and emotional development. A new study shows that the kind of programmes children watch plays an important role. Researchers from the University […]
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Many countries have stopped switching between summer and winter time and kept one of the two. Researchers at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in Canada assessed the health effects of both options: standard time (the usual winter time) and summer time, which puts the clock forward a full hour. The team […]
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We notice that older people find it hard to climb stairs or carry heavy shopping, and we may assume that muscle weakness is only a problem of old age. But what we blame on daily stress and family life may be a silent ageing inside our cells. So when does muscle weakness really begin? An […]
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Scientists keep warning about how much we pollute the environment. Besides chemicals and heavy metals, they warn about plastic, which does not break down or decompose. Plastic may seem to fall apart and disappear after a while, but in fact it turns into tiny microscopic particles that enter our bodies in worrying amounts through drinking […]
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One of the world's major clinical journals, the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, published an astonishing study claiming that a mother's kisses do not reduce a child's pain. That goes against everything mothers do to comfort their children. The study involved 943 children, who were exposed to two kinds of pain. In the first, […]
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In the Middle East, a cold licorice root drink is a favourite way to quench thirst after a long day of fasting in Ramadan, yet few people know the plant's medical properties. Licorice, whose name comes from the Greek for "sweet root", is a perennial shrub up to two metres tall with dark leaves and […]
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A light-emitting diode, or LED, is a light source made of semiconductor materials that gives off light when an electric current passes through it. The first blue LEDs were invented in the early 1990s. Japanese scientists Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano and Japanese-American Shuji Nakamura created a new, efficient and environmentally friendly light source, the […]
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The earliest evidence of humans using plants or other natural substances as medicine goes back to the Neanderthals, 50,000 years ago. In northern Iraq, archaeologists found human remains buried with herbs now known to kill bacteria, and some of these herbs are still used by people in the region today. Honey The first written recipe […]
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During the 2014 epidemic we spoke to Dr Mohammad Maher Kutlan, a specialist in preventive medicine and epidemiology, to learn more about Ebola. What is Ebola, and why is there so much concern about it? It is a sudden, acute and severe viral infection of the whole body, endemic in Africa, especially tropical Central and […]
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Wasted medicine is a fundamental problem for the health sector, and patients suffer from it too. The problem has many sides. One is waste at home. For many patients, the dose they need does not match the amount in the pack, so they have to buy a whole pack, sometimes an expensive one, without needing […]
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Patients have lately been asking a lot about laser teeth whitening. We asked dentist and oral surgeon Dr Zeinallah Talal al-Qari to explain. Laser whitening uses high-energy light, from a halogen or plasma arc lamp, to release hydrogen peroxide molecules without irritating the tooth's nerve, she says. First a wax-like layer is applied to protect […]
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