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DNA from a type of “chewing gum” used by teenagers in Sweden 10,000 years ago is shedding new light on the Stone Age diet and oral health, researchers said Tuesday. The wads of gum are made of pieces of birch bark pitch, a tar-like black resin, and are combined with saliva, with teethmarks clearly visible. They were found 30 years ago next to bones at the 9,700-year-old Huseby Klev archaeological site north of Sweden’s western […]
His father’s voice, the sounds of passing cars and scissors clipping his hair: An 11-year-old boy is hearing for the first time in his life after receiving a breakthrough gene therapy. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) which carried out the treatment — a first in the United States — said in a statement Tuesday the milestone represents hope for patients around the world with hearing loss caused by genetic mutations. Aissam Dam was born […]
A World Health Organization official on Wednesday described dire conditions in the Gaza Strip’s remaining hospitals, where patients are “waiting to die” due to extreme shortages of staff and supplies. Emergency medical team coordinator Sean Casey said that during some five weeks he spent in the war-torn Palestinian territory, he saw hospital patients “every day with severe burns, with open fractures waiting hours or days” for treatment. “They would often ask me for food or […]
MADRID, Jan 5, 2024 (AFP) – The Spanish government on Friday called for the wearing of masks to be obligatory in medical facilities as cases of flu and Covid-19 surge with the onset of winter. With the increase in respiratory infections, “we are calling” for the return of obligatory mask-wearing in hospitals and health centres, Health Minister Monica Garcia said on X, formerly Twitter. The minister said she would bring up the subject on Monday […]
LONDON, Jan 3, 2024 (AFP) – Hospital doctors in England on Wednesday began their longest consecutive strike in the seven-decade history of Britain’s National Service (NHS). Junior doctors — those below consultant level — started a six-day walkout at 0700 GMT, in a major escalation of their long-running pay dispute with the UK government. The industrial action, which ends next Tuesday, comes at one of the busiest times of the year for the state-funded NHS, […]
By Issam AHMED Watching someone cry often evokes an emotional response — but according to a new study published Thursday, human tears themselves contain a chemical signal that reduces brain activity linked to aggression. The research was carried out by the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, and appeared in PLOS Biology, a US science journal. Though it involved female tears, because women made themselves available as donors, it probably isn’t a sex-dependent effect, the authors […]
By Claire LEE SEOUL, Dec 19, 2023 (AFP) – When news broke about a bedbug outbreak in his native South Korea, 29-year-old blockchain engineer and self-professed insectophobe Kang Jae-gu got straight to work — on the data. As authorities scrambled to install high-temperature steam heaters at the airport and approve industrial-strength insecticides for home use, Kang started mapping reported infestations. South Korea has been largely bedbug-free for years, but it has seen a surge in […]
There was a clear failure in the psychiatric care of the radicalised Islamist suffering from mental troubles who stabbed a German tourist to death in central Paris at the weekend, France’s interior minister said Monday. “There was clearly a failure, not from the point of view of his monitoring by the intelligence services, but a psychiatric failure,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told BFM TV, adding the attacker had an “acute mental illness”. “Doctors said on […]
WASHINGTON, Nov 29, 2023 (AFP) – Americans’ life expectancy rose in 2022 after two years of sharp decline, although it did not return to pre-pandemic levels, health officials said Wednesday. Life expectancy at birth in the United States rose by 1.1 years between 2021 and 2022, and stood at 77.5 years, according to initial estimates from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC). “The increase… primarily resulted from decreases in mortality due to Covid-19,” […]
Australia will ban imports of disposable vapes from January 1, the government said Tuesday, slamming the devices as recreational products addicting children. The block on single-use vapes is aimed at reversing a “disturbing” increase in vaping among young people, Health Minister Mark Butler said. Australia first revealed the import ban in May but had not given a start date until now. Vaping had been sold to governments as a tool to help long-term smokers quit, […]
LONDON, Nov 27, 2023 (AFP) – UK public health officials on Monday said they had confirmed a first human case of a swine flu strain similar to one that has been circulating in pigs. The variant of the H1N2 virus was confirmed in an individual who had been tested by their doctor after experiencing respiratory symptoms. It has not previously been detected in humans in the country, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said. “This […]
By Ludovic EHRET BEIJING, Nov 23, 2023 (AFP) – China has reported no ‘unusual or novel pathogens’ in a respiratory illnesses spreading in the north of the country, the World Health Organization said Thursday. Northern China has recorded an increase in “influenza-like illness” since mid-October when compared to the same period in the previous three years, said the WHO, which had requested more information on the situation. China’s National Health Commission told reporters last week […]
