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We all know how important it is to keep our teeth clean and healthy (or maybe that's just me, married to a dentist).  They affect our whole body, not just our mouth, because gum disease can lead to all kinds of infections, problems in pregnancy and even heart disease. But researchers have found a new use for our teeth that, let's face it, we all pretty much take for granted. What if stem cells taken from teeth can grow to resemble brain cells, suggesting they could one day be used in the brain as a therapy for stroke? That's what science is looking at right now, according to newswise.com.  " Stem cells are unprogrammed cells in the human  body  that can be described as "shape shifters." These  cells  have the ability to change into other types of cells," science.howstuffworks.com reports. " Because stem cells can become bone, muscle, cartilage and other specialized types of cells, they have the potential to treat many diseases, including Parki...

It may not have helped Adam Lanza to know this about himself, but a new study has shown that patients with schizophrenia cannot imitate or mimic others. So?  Believe it or not, that's how we learn social interaction. Lanza is the person who killed 20 first graders and six educators, along with his mother, in December 2012, in a small Connecticut town. According to psychologists, "Iimitation is something that we all do whenever we learn a new skill, whether it is dancing or how to behave in specific social situations," newswise.com reports. In the study,  when patients with schizophrenia were asked to imitate simple hand movements, "their brains exhibited abnormal brain activity in areas associated with the ability to imitate," the Web site notes. “The ability to imitate is present early in life and is crucial for learning how to navigate the social world,"  newswise quotes first author Katharine Thakkar, who conducted much of the research while ...

Someday soon computers will out-think us. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/science/scientists-see-advances-in-deep-learning-a-part-of-artificial-intelligence.html