Hot MedFax

Did you know that, if you're trying to get pregnant, don't let let your husband wear sunscreen? That's because some sunscreen ingredients may disrupt sperm cell function, according to newswise.com. Many ultraviolet (UV)-filtering chemicals commonly used in sunscreens interfere with the function of human sperm cells, and some mimic the effect of the female hormone progesterone, a new study finds.  “These results are of concern and might explain in part why unexplained infertility is so prevalent,” says the study’s senior investigator, Niels Skakkebaek, MD, DMSc, a professor at the University of Copenhagen and a researcher at the Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet. Although the purpose of the chemical UV filters is to reduce the amount of the sun’s UV rays getting through the skin by absorbing UV, some UV filters are rapidly absorbed through the skin, Skakkebaek says. UV filter chemicals reportedly have been found in human blood samples and in 95 ...

Remember how Mom always nagged you to get your sleep?  She may have been right. At least, if you're a fruit fly. A new study says that " lack of sleep in young fruit flies profoundly diminishes their ability to do one thing they do really, really well – make more flies," according to newswise.com. Research   links sleep disruption in newborn fruit flies with a critical adult behavior: courtship and mating. Scientists, who investigated  the link between sleep disruption and human neuropsychiatric diseases, used the fly – which is far more genetically pliant than mammals -- to ask two basic questions: Why do young animals sleep so much? And, what is the implication of altering those patterns? What is the consequence of sleep loss? Increased dopamine in young flies (who sleep a lot) not only causes sleep loss, but also affects their ability to court when they’re older. “The flies spend less time courting, and those that do usually don’t make it all the way to the ...

Well, not really.  It's not the tweeting that does it, but the distraction -- and disruption -- it brings to your day.  And the Instagraming, Facebooking, iTubing, Pinteresting, etc. According to Bob Sullivan at The New York Times, each time our cell phone rings, or a text tings, or an email pops up on the screen, it interrupts the task we're working on. He noted that Gloria Mark, of the University of California, Irvine,  found  that "it takes an average of 25 minutes to return to the original task after an interruption." But worse, no one really knows the quality of work "done during these periods of rapid toggling." And what's been found to have an even bigger effect on disruption is the anticipation that a call or email or text might come in. Sullivan and his staff conducted three tests on volunteers sitting in labs to perform a cognitive skills test.  One group simply completed the test but the second group was interrupted while the third was ...