Science News

This is the world's 1st app-controlled prosthetic hand, and it will change a lot of lives. The user can control the hand's movement with an iPhone/iPad app.

For as long as parents and babies have been smiling, laughing and cooing at each other, scientists still have a lot of questions about just how these interactions help infants develop. With support from the National Science Foundation, University of Miami psychology professor Daniel Messinger and his colleagues want to learn more about child development by studying how moms, dads and babies respond to each other. "We believe that through interacting, babies learn early social rules, such as when to take turns with their vocalizations, when to smile at the same time, says Messinger. "It's by smiling at the same time as their mothers, the baby responding to the mother and the mother responding to the baby, that babies develop a sense of shared social emotion." In an experiment at the University of Miami's Early Play and Development Lab, babies are secured in a special seat, so they can get a good view of mom or dad, and move both their arms and legs. Babies are tested at four months, and again at one year. Several video cameras capture this short, structured playtime. "They play. Then, after two minutes, the mom will stop responding to the baby. We want to see what the baby does. How the baby either chooses to try to re-engage the mom, or maybe uses that time to look away and disengage, and then, will start playing again," explains Messinger. The videos are analyzed with a software program that precisely measures the facial movements of both the baby and the mom. The key, he adds, is to use those measurements to better understand how interaction occurs, and how babies learn early social rules. Along with studying healthy child development, Messinger and his colleagues also work with youngsters at high risk for developmental disorders. The program "Sibling Studies Measuring Infant Learning and Emotion," or UM SIBSMILE for short, investigates the social, emotional and cognitive development of children who are between the ages of two months and four years-old. "We have looked at babies who are at high risk for autism spectrum disorders in this lab, and these are kids who have an older brother or sister who has a diagnosed autism spectrum disorder," says Messinger.

Software like Apple’s Siri that responds to your voice is convenient and incredibly cool, but what if a similar kind of voice analysis could diagnose disease? A new initiative aims to make detection of Parkinson’s disease as easy as making a phone call.

Sara Mednick, a psychologist at UC San Diego, talks about how napping improves mind and memory...

Researchers created this virtual bar, virtual crack house and other virtual reality situations to help treat addiction. Addicts can develop coping skills.

Hypoglycemia may be a much larger problem among patients with diabetes than is currently realized, according to a study of members of a diabetes-focused social network conducted by researchers in Boston Children's Hospital's Informatics Program.

A team of researchers in South Korea has developed a method to cause cell death in both living fish and lab bowel cancer cells (in vivo and in vitro) using a magnetic field. The application of the magnetic field, as described in their paper published in the journal Nature Materials, triggers a "death signal" that leads to programmed cell death.

Despite differences in rituals and beliefs among the world's major religions, spirituality often enhances health regardless of a person's faith, according to University of Missouri researchers.

The UCLA Child Life/Child Development Program launched "Dréa's Dream," the first pediatric Dance Therapy Program in Los Angeles in November 2008, providing dance/movement therapy for children with cancer and special needs

A quadriplegic man has regained partial control of his hands after doctors rewired the nerves in his arm.