Health News – Page 4

Signs and Symptoms of Cervical Cancer

Written on March 20, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News.

Women with early cervical cancers and pre-cancers usually have no symptoms. Symptoms often do not begin until a pre-cancer becomes a true invasive cancer and grows into nearby tissue. When this happens, the most common symptoms are: Abnormal vaginal bleeding, such as bleeding after sex (vaginal intercourse), bleeding after menopause, bleeding and spotting between periods, and having longer or heavier (menstrual) periods than usual. Bleeding after...

11 Odd Facts about Marijuana that You Probably Didn’t Know

Written on March 14, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Opinion News.

Marijuana, the most commonly used illegal drug in America, is going mainstream. Now legal for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, pot seems poised for wider use, too: 21 states allow the possession and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And legalization campaigns are underway in Oregon, California and even Alaska. But just how much do you know about the wacky weed and its odd effects?...

Measles Cases Predicted to Almost Double in Ebola Epidemic Countries

Written on March 13, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, World News.

An international study involving the University of Southampton suggests there could be a rise in measles cases of 100,000 across the three countries most affected by the Ebola epidemic in West Africa due to health system disruptions. The research in the journal Science, led by Princeton and Johns Hopkins University in the USA, predicts that the size of a measles outbreak will increase from 127,000 at the start of the Ebola epidemic in early 2014,...

Ebola-Infected Sewage May Require Longer Holding Period

Written on March 12, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Personal Safety.

Storing Ebola-infected sewage for a week at 86° Fahrenheit or higher should allow enough time for more than 99.99 percent of the virus to die, though lower ambient temperatures may require a longer holding period, according to a new study by researchers at Georgia State University’s School of Public Health. The study co-authored by Lisa M. Casanova, assistant professor of environmental health, and Scott R. Weaver, research assistant professor in...

Long Term Effects of Marijuana On The Brain

Written on March 10, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News.

With a drug war against marijuana still raging in more countries than not, the question of the long-term effects of marijuana on the brain is a pivotal question in its legalization. Although alcohol remains legal despite heaps of evidence to the dangers of long-term use, the fight to make marijuana available both with regard to its medical properties (especially in selectively killing cancer cells) and non-medical uses has frequently hinged on...

Threat to Stopping Ebola Virus Is Believing That It’s Finished

Written on March 9, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News.

The last Ebola patient in all of Liberia was discharged from a treatment center on Thursday, March 5th. And with that, the country was without a single confirmed case of the dreaded disease. This is amazing. A few months ago, Ebola threatened to overwhelm the nation. Now, even though Ebola still exists in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, Liberia is counting the days until it can be considered Ebola-free. That officially comes on April 4th....

New Ebola Vaccine Trials Will Be Tested in Guinea by WHO

Written on March 6, 2015. Posted in Breaking News, Featured, Health News, World News.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that it will begin conducting Ebola vaccination trials in Guinea this week, which if found effective, could be the “game-changer to finally end the epidemic” that has affected nearly 24,000 people, mostly in West Africa. “We have worked hard to reach this point,” WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, said in Geneva. “There has been massive mobilization on the part of the affected countries...

Why Is Influenza Worse Than Ebola

Written on March 5, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, World News.

Despite the heavy media coverage and widespread concern surrounding the Ebola virus, Americans face a more serious health threat — influenza or as what we like to call it the Flu. “It’s complicated. It’s exotic. It’s something you hear about on the news every day,” said Dr. Edward Waltz, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at the University at Albany, of the Ebola virus. “Objectively, the flu...

App for Simulating the Potential Spread of the Measles Virus

Written on March 4, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Personal Safety, USA News.

To help the public better understand how measles can spread, a team of infectious disease computer modelers at the University of Pittsburgh has launched a free, mobile-friendly tool that lets users simulate measles outbreaks in cities across the country. The tool is part of the Pitt team’s Framework for Reconstructing Epidemiological Dynamics, or FRED, that it previously developed to simulate flu epidemics. FRED is based on anonymized U.S. census...

Lab-on-Paper Invention: Fast & Low Cost Pathogen Diagnostics

Written on March 3, 2015. Posted in Featured, Health News, Science News.

A team of University of Rhode Island engineers led by Professor Mohammad Faghri has created a new paper-based platform for conducting a wide range of complex medical diagnostics. The key development was the invention of fluid actuated valves embedded in the paper that allow for sequential manipulation of sample fluids and multiple reagents in a controlled manner to perform complex multi-step immune-detection tests without human intervention. Faghri...