Barefoot running which is a craze among running enthusiasts and who had long believed that running without shoes or in minimalist footwear makes running easier, speedier and less injurious have to look back at this concept due to new studies casting doubts on barefoot running. A large number of new studies examining how the body actually responds to when a person runs wearing birthday shoes or skimpy footwear suggest that for many people these expectations are not being met.

Findings published last month in The Journal of Applied Physiology looked into whether or not landing near the front of the foot when the concerned runner runs is more physiologically efficient than striking the ground first with the heel. The barefoot style running that involves running shoeless or in minimalist footwear promotes a forefoot landing. Without the heel cushioning provided by the standard running shoes, barefoot proponents say, runners will gravitate naturally towards landing slightly near the balls of the feet. Moreover, they should most proponents add, because landing near the front of the foot requires less oxygen and efforts to allow the runner to push harder at any given speed and ultimately run faster and longer.

Patients suffering from bouts of schizophrenia who do not respond to medication are now helped through avatars developed by a team of researchers. People with schizophrenia learned to control hallucinatory voices with the aid of a computer program that used avatar of their imagined persecutor. This study conducted and led by psychiatrist emeritus Professor Julian Leff at University College London said that many of the patients did learned to stand up to their voices and told them to go away. The research study carried on was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in February.

Using the customized computer software, the patients created avatars that match the voices that they are hearing and after six therapy sessions, most of the patients said their voice had improved and three of the patients said that they had stopped hearing the voices entirely. The Wellcome Trust which is the world’s second largest biomedical charity said that it is giving the scientists at University College London and King’s College London about 1.3 million pounds ($2 million) to test the avatar therapy in more patients.

The green spaces such as parks, gardens within the concrete jungle of cities have a positive impact on the people living nearby. A recent research carried on the subject of how important is green space to people for better or worse in cities by Mathew P. White and colleagues of the European Center for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter in Truro –Cornwall wrote about their findings in a paper. This paper is due to be published online this week in the Journal “Psychological Science” suggests that green space that included gardens produced happier urban dwellers.

Other studies have also discovered the connection between green space and better mental health on people living near the green spaces. White’s study was undertaken to measure the actual effects of the green space on individual’s mental health and happiness. White and his colleagues described how they examined the data from the national survey that followed the United Kingdom households for a time and even after taking into account differences in income, marital status, employment, physical health, and type of housing. These factors resulted in finding out that city dwellers reported higher life satisfaction and less mental distress when they lived in greener areas.

Heart disease is the number one killer disease with about 80 million Americans suffering from this disease. Majority of patients suffering from heart disease are using multiple drugs that in turn are compromising the overall health of these heart patients. A number of leading cardiologists who attended the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) that was held on March 9-11 in San Francisco has raised concerns with each of them voicing criticism over the use of multiple drugs in the treatment of heart disease.

The cardiologists opined that eliminating certain drugs would potentially improve care without compromising on the treatment related with heart disease. As evidence is emerging that, some medications are not effective. According to Dr. Steven Nissen – Head of the Cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic and past president of the ACC, he cast doubt whether the benefits are additive or not. The cardiologists are giving a second look on certain medications that include AbbVie’s Niaspan or prescription drug niacin that aims to raise good cholesterol. The other well known so called fenofibrate such as the top selling branded drug TriCor (also from the stables of AbbVie) that lowers the blood fats called triglycerides and beta blockers most of which are inexpensive older generics are also under the scanner of these cardiologists.

Planet Earth played the role of a host with an asteroid as big as a city block shot close relatively to the earth’s orbit on Saturday, which is the latest in a series of visiting celestial objects that included an asteroid the size of bus that exploded over Russia injuring over 1500 people. The newly discovered asteroid is named Asteroid 2013 ET is nearly eight times larger than the previous asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk- Russia as on February 15. The size of this asteroid is estimated to be around 100 meters (64mtrs by140mtrs).

The most interesting part of this asteroid is that it is unknown and is about two and half times as far as the moon, which is quite close on a cosmic yardstick. The asteroid moving at a speed of about 2600 miles per hour could have wiped out a large city if it had hit the earth as per the views of Slooh telescope engineer Paul Cox. Previously, the asteroid that hit the Russian part of Chelyabinsk has force of explosion equivalent of about 440 kilotons of dynamite that created shock waves shattering windows and damaged buildings.

On the same day of February 15, another small asteroid known as DA14 passed about 17,200 miles from Earth that is closer than the orbiting networks of weather and communication satellites. Two other small asteroids both about the size of the Russian meteor will also be on Earths’ orbit this weekend. The asteroid 2013 EC had passed the earth’s orbit just 93,000 miles away this Saturday, which is just stone’s throw of our earth’s atmosphere. Scientists assume that undetected objects can strike Earth without warning like the surprise meteor explosion over Russia last month creating a sense of insecurity for our planet earth.

Alzheimer is a dreaded disease that is affecting an estimated 5.1 million Americans and the likelihood of getting it increases with the person reaching an age of 65 years or above. Within two years of its diagnosis, this disease can turn an individual into dud or lame duck with symptoms like incapability of recalling basic information, unable to communicate the simplest of thoughts and other linked up symptoms. Alzheimer disease is one of the leading causes of death in the United States with more than $100 billion a year being spent on health care costs.

As per the opinion of Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy – Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center and coauthor of the book “The Alzheimer’s Action Plan”, there is no magic bullet and no strategy that has been proven to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. However, there are certain tips or advice through which the Alzheimer’s disease can be avoided. Some of the advice or more prominent treatments that have gained attention include:

The biggest global entertainment event that regaled about 40.3 million viewers worldwide was the 85^th annual Oscars ceremony. The grand show of the Oscar event on Sunday night had thrown opened lot of surprises in the form of “Argo” that stormed to be the Best Picture of the year. In the process, there were disappointments for front-runner “Lincoln” and handing over the overall wins to “Life of Pi”. The movie “Argo” based on the Iran hostage drama marked the triumphant comeback into the Hollywood’s mainstream for its director “Ben Affleck”, who failed to get a nomination in the directing category six weeks ago.

This was the first time since “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1990 that a film won the top prize for Oscars without its director also being nominated. The film “Argo” won the best film editing and best adapted screenplay for its overwhelming and often comedic tale of the CIA mission to rescue six U.S. diplomats from Tehran shortly after the Islamic Revolution. The award rating for Oscar usually depends more heavily on the nominated films and this year a broad range of movies took home Oscar trophies from hits like Agro, Lincoln, Life of Pi and Silver Linings Playbook. The Oscar show took about 3 hours and 35 minutes to conclude and historically a typical lengthy event for about 20 minutes longer of the previous Oscar events of the last two years. The host of the show Seth MacFarlane received criticism from some of the critics for his comments judged to be offensive while his fans thought he was too tame.

A Chinese research team led by Beijing Forestry University, BGI, Beijing Lin Fu Ke Yuan Flowers Co. Ltd and other institutes has completed a combined study of the first genomic sequence of Prunus mume known as mei. This research was extremely important for the deeper understanding of the Rosaceae evolution and in providing an invaluable resource for the improvement of fruit trees. This latest study was published online in the December 27 in Nature Communication.

The P.mume is domesticated in China for over 3000 years ago and it belongs to the Rosaceae, which is the third most economically important plant family in temperate regions that is characterized by high nutrition, medical value and is tolerant to low temperatures during winter season. This tree is has been placed in high esteem by the artists, writers in their literature by extolling its beauty of its flowers and the blossom is considered to be symbol of Chinese nationalist spirits. With the availability of the P.mume genome, scientists and researchers opine that a new door had been opened for better decoding the mysteries of this fascinating tree.

The artificial grafting of this tree makes the P.genome so diverse that it is quite difficult to assemble their genomes. During the research process, the scientists has sequenced the genome of P.mume – a wild species from Tibet by using a robust approach through integrating with next generation sequencing or NGS and a whole genome mapping or WGM technologies. The scientists then constructed a high-density genetic map by applying the restriction site associated DNA (RAD) marker strategy that further improved the quality of genetic reference. The final efforts of this assimilation resulted in the yielding of the ~237 Mb P.mume reference genome.

A new research carried on by a team of researchers from King’s College – London Institute of Psychiatry and University of Bristol revealed that people or adults with mental disorders are more likely to have experienced domestic violence than the general population. The findings suggest that the physicians should be aware of the link and must ensure that the patients with mental health problems are kept safe from domestic violence and be treated for their mental health effects of such abuse.

The findings are the result of the study that was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and is published in PLoSONE journal in their 26December issue. The research is based on the reviewed data from 41 studies carried on worldwide. The study states that compared to women without any mental health problems, women with depressive disorders were around two and half times (with prevalence estimated at 45.8%) are more likely to have experienced or suffered domestic violence during their adult lifetime. Women with anxiety disorders were more than three and half times (with a prevalence estimate of 27.6%) and women with post-traumatic stress disorder or PSTD were around seven times (prevalence estimate of 61.0%) more likely to have been abused.

Women with other disorders that include obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD, eating disorders, common mental health problems, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia were also at an increased risk of domestic violence compared to women without mental health problems. For men there was a similar pattern as men with all types of mental disorders were also at an increased risk of domestic violence. Nevertheless, the research showed that prevalence estimates were much lower than for women, indicating that it is less common for men to be the victims of the repeated severe domestic violence.

The risk of cancer especially among men in United Kingdom is going to increase to 50 out of 100 or about half of the men have the risk of developing cancer during his lifetime by 2027. The Cancer Research UK released these figures on Wednesday that shows that in the next fifteen years about half of the men in the United Kingdom will be diagnosed with cancer at some point of their lives during their lifetime compared with 44 out of 100 in 2010. During the year 2010, around 164,000 were diagnosed with the disease of cancer and this figure is likely to increase to about 194,000 in the next 15 years.

The researchers consisting of a team from the Wolfson Institute of Prevention Medicine at Queen Mary, University of London reached their predictions or figures by looking at the past cancer incidences and mortality rates and projected data for the United Kingdom. The researchers also predicted that there will more than 194,000 women diagnosed with cancer in 2027 compared with 160,000 in 2010 that would mean that a women’s chance of developing cancer during her lifetime would be in the range of 44 in 100  up from 40 in 100. The cancers that are set to increase the most are related to bowel, prostrate and skin cancer. Age is the biggest risk factor in developing cancer as living longer means a high risk of developing cancer and in the United Kingdom like in any other developed nation more people are reaching an age where they are more likely to develop cancer.

Experts opine that prostate cancer remains a huge challenge as cases related with prostate cancer are growing and there is no exact or reliable way to determine or identify those prostate cancer cases that are life threatening. In the United Kingdom, over the last forty years the incidences of prostate cancer has increased three fold and about three quarters of the cases are diagnosed in men who are over 65 years old. The challenge for specialists is getting men to turn up for cancer screening even when a good test for it exists and men tend to at a greater risk of developing bowel cancer than women, even though relatively fewer men than women go for screening for this type of cancer.