Friday, January 29, 2010
When people imagine back to the past or look in the direction of the future, their body language reflects their intelligence of time travel, a new study suggests. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen fixed subjects with motion sensors and asked them to imagine events in the hope or the past. The bodies of those who idea about the future actually moved forward. Those who thought about the past swayed backward.
The findings emerge online in the journal Psychological Science.
The embodiment of time and space yields an overt behavioral marker of an otherwise invisible mental operation.
Friday, January 8, 2010
New research in rats suggests that some drugs used to treat high blood pressure may help prevent and treat a disorder that causes people with diabetes to mislay their vision.
The researchers tested candesartan (Atacand), a drug known as an angiotensin receptor blocker, on rats to see what would happen to 65 proteins in the retina that appear to be linked to diabetes. They found that the drug prevented over 70 % of the proteins from having abnormal changes.
The findings, which come in the largest study of its kind, can spell hope for people who suffer from diabetic retinopathy or are at jeopardy for it. The disorder damages blood vessels in the retina. Earlier research had suggested that high-blood pressure drugs -- also including ACE inhibitors -- may help.