Latest Health News

THURSDAY, March 31, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- The "love hormone" oxytocin may be able to turn highly territorial lions into social sweethearts, researchers say. Lions typically guard their turf fiercely, which can be a problem when they're on reserves or in captivity and have less space to share than they do in the wild. The authors of a study published online March 30 in the journal iScience tested whether oxytocin could reduce potentially deadly territorial disputes between lions. The researchers used hunks of raw meat to lure 23 lions at a wildlife reserve in South Africa to a fence so they could spray oxytocin up the lions' noses with a special device. "By spraying the oxytocin directly up the nose, we know it can travel up the trigeminal nerve and the olfactory nerve straight up...

WEDNESDAY, March 30, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- "Die Hard" star Bruce Willis is stepping away from acting following a recent diagnosis of aphasia, a disorder affecting the part of the brain responsible for language.Willis' ex-wife Demi Moore, current wife Emma Heming Willis and daughters announced his decision in an Instagram post Wednesday, noting that "he has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities."About 1 million people in the United States have aphasia, and there are nearly 180,000 new diagnoses every year, according to the National Aphasia Association.Aphasia affects each person differently, depending on the cause and severity. People might not be able to speak or understand what's being said to...

WEDNESDAY, March 30, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Many parents of preschoolers insist that naps are essential to recharge their little ones during the day and improve their mood.Turns out that daytime shut-eye may also boost early literacy skills. New research by scholars in Australia and England suggests that naps help preschoolers map letters to sounds, a key to reading success later on."I think we provided some initial evidence, but also combining with the literature and other studies looking at similar things, we can say that nap does seem to help with learning," said study author Hua-Chen Wang, a lecturer at the Macquarie University Center for Reading in Sydney.The new study included 32 children ages 3 to 5 from two Sydney day care centers. Though the tots napped regularly, they...

WEDNESDAY, March 30, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- A handful of "locked-in" amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients can now work a laptop computer using their brain waves, thanks to an implant lodged in a major vein inside their skull.The implant — a stent lined with 16 miniscule electrodes — is nestled in a vein located near the motor cortex of completely paralyzed patients, the authors of a new study on the procedure explained."This device senses the electrical activity that occurs in the motor cortex when someone thinks about moving their limbs," said co-researcher Douglas Weber, a professor of mechanical engineering and neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. "These movement signals are then transmitted to an external device where they are decoded from...