Lifestyle

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has announced it will continue to fund breast cancer screening and educational programming on breast health run by fellow US-charity Planned Parenthood and its affiliates. This news comes shortly after Komen announced it would cut funding to Planned Parenthood due to an ongoing investigation. Komen has changed its internal criteria for grant funding. Previously, it would not support any organization under investigation of any kind; now it says it will only cut support if the investigation involved is "criminal and c

A 27-year-old law graduate who set himself on fire to protest graduate unemployment has died, according to his wife, the state news agency, and a hospital. Abdelouahab Zaidoun and a second protestor set themselves on fire at an Education Ministry building in Morocco's capital, Rabat. Zaidoun had been receiving treatment in Casablanca after carrying out his threat to set himself on fire when police allegedly denied food to protestors demanding public sector employment. Around 9% of Morrocans are jobless, but 15–16% of university graduates are a

In Mexico, gunmen opened fire on the occupants of an ambulance Wednesday, resulting in the deaths of the ambulance driver, two kidney patients, and a female fourth individual travelling in the vehicle. The incident occurred in Ciudad Juárez, close to the Mexico–United States border. Witnesses recalled sighting a pick up truck carrying the gunmen deliberately colliding with the ambulance and forcing it to stop, then the gunmen getting out of the truck and shooting the victims. The ambulance driver, who was impacted in the head by a bullet, seem

Plans to add fluoride to drinking water in Southampton, Hampshire, England, have been voted against by the city council, but may go ahead anyway. The council's vote follows heavy lobbying by 'Hampshire Against Fluoridation' including a petition signed by 6,000 people. The decision as to whether to fluoridate water in Southampton is up to the South Central Strategic Health Authority who decided in a unanimous vote that "the health benefits outweigh all of the arguments against water fluoridation". A Southampton resident, Geraldine Milner, had

In a recently published article in the journal PLoS One, researchers at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory claim to have developed a new drug that has the potential to cure nearly all types of viral infections ranging from the common cold to highly deadly hemorrhagic fevers. The new drug, known as DRACO (double-stranded RNA activated caspase oligomerizer), is able to discriminate between healthy cells and those infected by viruses. It essentially signals the infected cells to die, preventing the virus from replicating and moving into other cells, all w

A 40-year-old man from the United Kingdom has survived an operation in which he was given a wholly artificial heart. It is believed that this is the first time in the UK that a patient has been able to return home with such an implant. Matthew Green, a father of one, experienced the operation in Papworth Hospital, located in Cambridgeshire, England. His health has declined over the last few years, and he has suffered a substantial heart disorder, identified as arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD). He is waiting to have a human hea

A tropical tree-dwelling lizard has succeeded in a problem-solving test by learning to associate the color of a cap with a food reward, contesting the stereotype that reptiles are extremely limited cognitively compared to birds and mammals. The cognitive abilities of reptiles have rarely been studied. In a color discriminating task, the lizards learned to flip over the correctly colored cap to reveal a worm hidden underneath. The experiment was conducted at Duke University and the results, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Lett

The US government has released a report with mixed news on the health of American children, ranging from a fall in the rates of teen births, premature births, deaths from injury, and binge drinking, to a rise in the rates of drug abuse, poverty, and obesity. The report, named America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2011, was prepared by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, with participants from 22 federal government agencies and their private partners. This year's report — the group's fifteenth —

A report issued Wednesday by the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University finds the top public health problem in the United States is teen drug abuse, including the use of alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs, marijuana and other controlled substances. According to the study's authors, "The study looks at how American culture increases the risk that teens will use addictive substances and how the messages sent by adults, and glamorized by the tobacco and alcohol industries and the media, normalize substance use

Televison star Ryan Dunn was twice over the legal drink-drive limit at the time of last Monday's car accident that killed him and a friend. The pair died when Dunn's Porsche left the road and crashed into a tree causing the car to burst into flames. Police have determined that the vehicle was travelling at speeds between 132 and 140 mph. The accident occurred in West Chester, Pennsylvania where the legal drink drive limit is a blood alcohol reading of 0.08. Toxicology results show that Dunn had a blood alcohol level of 0.196. The star had prev

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed new regulations, set to come into effect next year, to clarify sunscreen labels regarding the product's effectiveness against ultraviolet (UV) rays. The regulations, which the FDA has been considering since 1978, would prohibit claims that a sunscreen is "waterproof" or "sweatproof", since the FDA believes these terms are misleading. Instead, the word "water-resistant" must be used, and the label must specify how long the product lasts in water. Sunscreens that are not water-resistant mus

Smoke from eastern Arizona's Wallow Fire has drifted into New Mexico and Colorado, where officials have issued a health advisory. The wildfire in Arizona continued to burn Tuesday night when weather conditions settled down, although conditions will likely become worse Wednesday. Covering 365 square miles, the fire has created hazy conditions as far away as Iowa. Residents of small communities including Greer and Alpine have been warned to evacuate. The Wallow Fire is currently the nation's largest wildfire; another fire is burning in southern A