How Successful Dieters Make Weight Loss Stick

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota Dieters always regain lost weight, right? Not so, according to a new analysis of data from the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), whose 10,000 participants have lost at least 30 lbs. and kept the weight off for a year or longer.The new study, which was presented at the annual scientific meeting of the Obesity Society in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month, included data on a subset of NWCR members: about 3,000 men and women who managed to maintain the bulk of their weight loss for at least 10 years. These successful losers tended to be women and...

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Did Giant Stars Feed Blue Stragglers?

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota In a letter to the journal Nature published this week, astronomers Aaron Geller and Robert Mathieu offer an explanation for the origin of blue straggler stars in a star cluster called NGC 188. Geller suggests the stars fed on neighbor stars, leaving behind white dwarfs.Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.IRA FLATOW, host: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. If you take a telescope, and you trained it on a cluster of stars, you're looking at a...

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Congress to probe listeria outbreak in cantaloupes

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota Farm workers harvest cantaloupe in Somerton, Arizona, June 7, 2006. Credit: Reuters/StringerWASHINGTON | Fri Oct 21, 2011 10:24am EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers in the House of Representatives plan to investigate what caused a deadly food poisoning outbreak in cantaloupes from a Colorado farm.The bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce committee wrote to Ryan and Eric Jensen, who own Jensen Farms, asking them to brief committee...

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Alcohol bill returns to Holyrood

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota 21 October 2011 Last updated at 16:56 GMT Nicola Sturgeon told the conference that the SNP would win its independence referendum A new bill on minimum pricing for alcohol will be introduced at Holyrood within the next month, the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon has promised.She delivered the message in a speech to the party faithful attending their annual conference in Inverness.A first attempt by the SNP to push through a similar alcohol bill failed during the...

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Largest study on cellphones, cancer finds no link

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota LONDON (AP) — Danish researchers can offer some reassurance if you're concerned about your cellphone: Don't worry. Your device is probably safe.The biggest study ever to examine the possible connection between cellphones and cancer found no evidence of any link, suggesting that billions of people who are rarely more than a few inches from their phones have no special health concerns.The Danish study of more than 350,000 people concluded there was no...

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EU rules 'put patients at risk'

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota 19 October 2011 Last updated at 00:12 GMT By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News The European Commission is already reviewing the regulations Patients are being put at "unacceptable risk" because of EU rules governing the movement of health workers, peers say.A House of Lords committee said the current balance between free movement of labour and safety had been skewed.It said regulatory bodies should be able to test the language skills of all...

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Some Question Ohio Animal Abuse Laws

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota Ohio authorities spent much of Wednesday tracking down a pack of wild animals, including lions, tigers, bears and wolves. They'd been let go by their owner, who then committed suicide. Many questions are surfacing about why Ohio has such lax laws that allow a convicted criminal to have dozens of exotic animals.Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.ROBERT SIEGEL, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel. MELISSA BLOCK, host:...

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Kids' daytime wetting accidents linked to ADHD

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota By Kerry GrensNEW YORK | Fri Oct 21, 2011 4:12pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children who wet themselves are more than four times as likely as other kids to also have attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to the results of a new German study."I think a lot of us have known this for a long time," that children with ADHD also struggle with bladder control, said Dr. Peter Jensen, a professor of psychiatry and psychology and the vice chair for research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.But there are few studies that have...

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Most in Massachusetts want state push on health costs

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota By Ros KrasnyBOSTON | Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:00pm EDT BOSTON (Reuters) - Most Massachusetts residents want their state government to take action to reduce high healthcare costs that they blame on drug and insurance companies charging too much, a survey showed on Friday.Massachusetts has almost universal healthcare insurance coverage thanks to a 2006 law driven by current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney when he was state governor.Romney's rivals for the party's 2012 nomination have criticized the law as a government overreach that served...

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Study: Living in poor neighborhood can hurt health

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota Annie Ricks, 55, poses in her public housing apartment Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, in Chicago. Local housing authorities paid for her to relocate to the South Side last year as part of its demolition plans for high-rise tenements, but Ricks says her new neighborhood is worse. According to a study released Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, poor women in big city public housing given a chance to live in more affluent neighborhoods had lower rates of diabetes and...

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CDC Tracks Thoughts of Suicide in Adults, State by State

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota Stephen H. Sheffield / Getty ImagesMore than 8 million Americans thought seriously about suicide in the previous year, according to a new government survey. More adults who considered suicide lived in the Midwest and West than in other parts of the country.The findings were reported on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in its first state-by-state look at suicide contemplation. Unlike previous research that has tended...

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Abbott says hepatitis C combo may be a blockbuster

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota By Ransdell Pierson and Bill BerkrotNEW YORK | Fri Oct 21, 2011 2:13pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Abbott Laboratories Inc said on Friday that it could have a shorter duration combination therapy for hepatitis C on the market in 2015 with annual sales potential of about $2 billion.Significantly, its combination therapy does not include tough-to-tolerate interferon, which causes flu-like symptoms that lead many patients with the serious liver disease to stop or delay treatment.Abbott said that in very small mid-stage trials, a combination of two of its...

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Mobile phone cancer link rejected

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota 21 October 2011 Last updated at 01:11 GMT By Nick Triggle Health correspondent, BBC News Mobile phone safety has been much debated over the past two decades Further research has been published suggesting there is no link between mobile phones and brain cancer.The risk mobiles present has been much debated over the past 20 years as use of the phones has soared.The latest study led by the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Denmark looked at more than...

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Report: Food labels need Energy Star-like ratings

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota WASHINGTON (AP) — Just as that Energy Star tag helps you choose your appliances, a new report says a rating symbol on the front of every soup can, cereal box and yogurt container could help hurried shoppers go home with the healthiest foods.Thursday's report urges the Food and Drug Administration to adopt new food labeling to clear the confusing clutter off today's packages and give consumers a fast way to compare choices.It wouldn't replace the in-depth...

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IQ Isn't Set In Stone, Suggests Study That Finds Big Jumps, Dips In Teens

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota iStockphoto.com Brain researchers say the big fluctuations in IQ performance they found in teens were not random — or a fluke. For as long as there's been an IQ test, there's been controversy over what it measures. Do IQ scores capture a person's intellectual capacity, which supposedly remains stable over time? Or is the Intelligent Quotient exam really an achievement test — similar to the S.A.T. — that's subject to fluctuations in scores?The findings...

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Men with breast cancer 'isolated'

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota 20 October 2011 Last updated at 09:34 GMT By Eleanor Bradford BBC Scotland Health Correspondent Bernard Greenan had surgery after being told the spot on his nipple was nothing to worry about Even the NHS is forgetting that men get breast cancer, according to some of those who have been diagnosed.Only 1% of breast cancer cases are in men and research for a website suggests many of them feel isolated by a health service which is geared towards women.Kate...

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Amputee veterans' care gets £15m

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota 21 October 2011 Last updated at 10:52 GMT Headley Court is a specialist service for ex-service personnel Prosthetics services for military veterans are to receive funding of up to £15m, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced.A review of services was carried out after concerns from charities and service personnel that the NHS was under-equipped.The Department of Health has now said a number of specialist units will be set up across England. Mr Cameron...

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Science Diction: The Origin Of 'Bunsen Burner'

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota Every high school chemist has no doubt fiddled with a Bunsen burner—but where did the apparatus get its name? Science historian Howard Markel talks about the German chemist Robert Bunsen, and why his experiments necessitated the invention of the gas burner still in use today.Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The alphabet has only 26 letters. With these 26 magic symbols, however, millions of words are written...

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Dance Your Ph.D.: When Science People Shake A Tail Feather, Everybody Wins

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota UPDATE: The grand prize winner is Joel Miller, for his "Microstructure-Property relationships in Ti2448 components produced by Selective Laser Melting: A Love Story." See that and the other winners here.Every now and then, you learn about something so amazing that you're instantly (1) cheered that you know about it now, and (2) sad for yourself that you never knew about it before.That's how I felt when Andrew Prince at NPR's science desk told me about Dance Your Ph.D., a contest in which people who work in the sciences — physics, chemistry, biology...

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Contagion: Could it really happen?

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota 21 October 2011 Last updated at 23:39 GMT By Caroline Parkinson Health editor, BBC News website The film shows how panic and chaos spread Hollywood blockbusters are not normally known for their scientific accuracy. So how realistic is the new disaster movie Contagion, which depicts the spread of a killer virus across the world?'Too late to contain swine flu', 'Sars virus 'mutating rapidly', 'Bird flu fear as mutant strain hits China and Vietnam'.These...

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A Premiere Chef Explores The Jiggly Joys Of Gelatin

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota Enlarge Jacquelyn Martin/ASSOCIATED PRESS Chef Jose Andres at his avant garde Minibar restaurant in Washington. Andres' experiments with gelatins have helped make him one of the most innovative chefs in the country. Jacquelyn Martin/ASSOCIATED PRESS Chef Jose Andres at his avant garde Minibar restaurant in Washington. Andres' experiments with gelatins have helped make him one of the most innovative chefs in the country.If you think gelatin's charms...

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Teens' IQ May Rise or Fall Over Time

AppId is over the quotaAppId is over the quota The brain undergoes more change in adolescence than at any other time of life, save before birth and during infancy. That may help explain why teenagers' IQ can fluctuate significantly over time, as a new study finds, registering large enough changes to move a child from "average" to "gifted" or in the other direction, to below average intelligence.Cathy Price, a neuroscientist at University College London, led the research, imaging the brains of 33 teens, first in 2004 when they were aged 12 to 16, then again in 2007 or 2008 when they were 15 to...

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