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Diverse Parental Genes Lead to Taller, Smarter Children, Finds Extensive Study

Those who are born to parents from diverse genetic backgrounds tend to be faster-thinking and taller than others, a new study led by Dr Peter Joshi of the University of Edinburgh has found. Dr Joshi and co-authors analyzed health and genetic information from more than 100 studies carried out around the world. These included details on more than 350,000 people from…

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Study Finds Males May Contribute to Offspring's Mental Development Before Pregnancy

A new study from Indiana University provides evidence in mice that males may play a positive role in the development of offspring’s brains starting before pregnancy. The research, reported June 30 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, found that female mice exposed to male pheromones gave birth to infants with greater mental ability. “This…

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Cuba Nearly Eliminates Mother-to-Child HIV Infections

Cuba on 30 June became the first country in the world to receive validation from the World Health Organization (WHO) that it has eliminated mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV and syphilis.  Low-level transmission still occurs there: in 2013, three babies were born with congenital syphilis and two with HIV. But the country has met the official WHO criteria for elimination: …

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Flatworms Could Replace Mammals for Some Toxicology Tests

Scientists at UC San Diego have discovered that planarians, commonly used in high-school biology labs to study regeneration and the primitive nervous system, are actually quite sophisticated when it comes to modeling the response of the developing human nervous system to potentially toxic chemicals. The researchers published their findings in the current issue of the journal Toxicological Sciences. “Because planarians…

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