Last month, a U.S. District Court judge ordered the FDA to make the contraceptive widely available for girls across the U.S.

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Researchers from McGill University used special goggles which improved vision by forcing the patients’ eyes to work together while playing Tetris.

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Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston created a functioning rat kidney.

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The study found men who had children when they were 50 or older have a much higher chance of having grandchildren with autism.

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A Yale University study claims drinking eight or more alcoholic beverages a week can increase levels of a brain chemical that converts to energy.

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A New York City youth soccer league is asking players to stop high-fiving and fist-bumping during games to help curb the spread of influenza. Jen Markham has the story of the league’s healthier celebration alternative during flu season.

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THE GIST

-A total of 693 cases of West Nile virus infections have been reported this year to the CDC.

-So far 10 people have died from the disease and it seems to be concentrated in Texas

Discovery News – In the wake of 10 deaths due to West Nile virus, and hundreds of infections, authorities in Texas are spraying insecticide in the Dallas region, hoping to curb the spread of the disease, which can spread by mosquitoes.

A total of 693 cases of West Nile virus infections, including 26 deaths, were reported as of Aug. 14 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The number of cases reported by this second week in August is the highest since 1999, when the disease was first seen in the U.S., according to the CDC.

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The dream of true cybernetics — merging man with machine — just got a bit closer. Scientists at Northwestern University built a device that can send signals from the brain directly to paralyzed muscles, causing them to move by thought. This technology could help patients who have suffered spinal cord injuries regain the use of their limbs.

The work was done in rhesus monkeys, who were given a local anesthetic to block nerve activity at the elbow, which caused temporary paralysis of the hand. Before they were given the anesthetic, though, the monkeys were trained to grasp a ball, lift it and release it into a tube. The signals from their brains to their hands and arms during these activities were recorded via an electrode implanted painlessly into their brains. After many repetitions, the researchers were able to see what kinds of signals were necessary to cause the the limbs to move. It turned out that the information was encoded in only about 100 neurons.

Knowing that, the scientists designed a device, called a multi-electrode array, that was able to pick up the tell-tale signals from the 100 or so neurons, decipher them and send them to the muscles — bypassing the anesthetized nerves.             More

This is 16-year-old Lori Brownell. As you can see in the video, Lori is very sick. Her symptoms started last August. Nobody could diagnose her at the time, and since then 17 more kids have developed the same symptoms in the same geographical area.

On Christmas Eve, doctors told Lori she may have Tourette syndrome, a sickness that causes involuntary physical and vocal tics and, in a minority of cases, swearing. What nobody knows yet is why this syndrome is spreading so quickly, and in such a small community.

The rest of the kids are showing the same symptoms as Lori. 15 of the 17 teenagers affected by this syndrome—all girls except one boy—go to LeRoy High School, in Genesee County, New York. The other two girls are from Corinth, in Saratoga County, about 50 miles away. It’s unclear yet if there is any connection between these two groups.

Some doctors believe that all of the teens have conversion disorder, a neurosis that affects motor functions. People used to call this hysteria. Conversion disorder’s symptoms may include fits, numbness, blindness and paralysis. Psychiatrists believe this disorder happens because of difficulties in the patient’s life, not because of any external pathogen or chemical substance.

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It’s Disparaged as Dangerous, but Healthy Levels of Stress Can Pump Up Both Mind and Body

Stress: It can propel you into “the zone,” spurring peak performance and well-being. Too much of it, though, strains your heart, robs you of memory and mental clarity and raises your risk of chronic disease.

How do you get the benefits—and avoid the harmful effects?

By learning to identify and manage individual reactions to stress, people can develop healthier outlooks as well as improve performance on cognitive tests, at work and in athletics, researchers and psychologists say.

The body has a standard reaction when it faces a task where performance really matters to goals or well-being: The sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands pump stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, into the bloodstream. Heartbeat and breathing speed up, and muscles tense.

What happens next is what divides healthy stress from harmful stress. People experiencing beneficial or “adaptive” stress feel pumped. The blood vessels dilate, increasing blood flow to help the brain, muscles and limbs meet a challenge, similar to the effects of aerobic exercise, according to research by Wendy Mendes, an associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and others.

The body tends to respond differently under harmful or threatening stress. The blood vessels constrict, and “you may feel a little dizzy as your blood pressure rises,” says Christopher Edwards, director of the behavioral chronic pain management program at Duke University Medical Center. Symptoms are often like those you feel in a fit of anger. You may speak more loudly or experience lapses in judgment or logic, he says. Hands and feet may grow cold as blood rushes to the body’s core. Research shows the heart often beats erratically, spiking again and again like a seismograph during an earthquake.                     More