FDA could have greatly underestimated fetal deaths from Bayer AG's Essure contraceptive device

As per a private analyst who combed through the public database of the US Food and Drug Administration, the agency has probably greatly underestimated the number of fetal deaths in women who got pregnant after using Bayer AG's Essure contraceptive device.

The FDA has mentioned five fetal deaths in women who conceived with the help of Essure, two metal coils put into the fallopian tubes.

A spokeswoman for Bayer said, “Irrespective of the type of birth control a woman uses, when pregnancies do occur, there can be complications. It would be irresponsible to suggest that Essure causes fetal deaths when, after an unsuccessful Essure procedure, an undesired pregnancy cannot be carried to term”.

Diabetes drug lowers risk of recurring stroke and heart attack in large clinical trial of insulin-resistant stroke patients

In a big clinical trial of insulin-resistant stroke patients, Pioglitazone, a diabetes drug, sold as Actos has been shown to decrease the risk of recurring stroke and heart attack.

Yale University researchers have discovered that the drug reduced the number of cardiovascular events in previous stroke patients by about a quarter in the five-year trial.

In the previous studies, Pioglitazone has been shown to prevent stroke and heart attack in patients suffering from type 2 diabetes, and patients, who face trouble in processing sugar but aren’t diabetic, but was controversial because of elevated risks for heart failure and edema and weight gain.

Domestic Salmon’s DNA widely different from Wild Salmon

The salmon fish grown in fish farms are believed to have more contamination and unhealthy fats than those growing in wild. Almost 70% of the salmon fish sold are grown in farms. This poses serious danger to the wild salmon as if it will come in the contact of contaminants releasing from farmed fish, the diseases could contribute in suppressing wild salmon species.

The problem is more concerning in British Columbia where many of the fish farms are located in the sea and are contained within the open nets, which makes the spread of the disease more feasible. The solution for reproducing more wild salmon can be achieved through salmon born in hatcheries.

Mystery Hobbits are not really Homo sapiens or modern humans, study says

A latest study has found that mystery hobbits that used to live on an Indonesian island nearly 15,000 years back aren’t linked to modern humans.

According to scientists, these tiny people were probably an entirely different species. This has added more color and spice to anthropologists’ years-long debate.

Here is how hobbits were discovered. In 2003, experts unearthed the so-called hobbits on the island of Flores in Indonesia, and later named the species Homo floresiensis.

Since their discovery, experts have been arguing over whether the species belonged to an unknown form of early humans or are kinds of present day human beings distorted by some disease.

NASA releases video of solar prominence captured by Solar Dynamics Observatory

On Wednesday, the US space agency released footage of a solar prominence recorded by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The video showed a cloud of solar material unfolding over a time span of 17 hours prior to breaking away from the sun.

The solar prominence, which is a magnetically charged cloud of heated gas, called plasma, erupted over the sun’s surface and was noticed by the SDO on February 3.

Solar prominences follow the magnetic field of the sun and can break off to make a coronal mass ejection (CME). In this instance nothing like that was observed. The origination of charged plasma takes place in the chromosphere, the second layer of the atmosphere of sun. It can extend to the third and final layer the corona.

War may not have destroyed Easter Island civilization

The question about what led to the collapse of Easter Island, broadly thought of as the world's most isolated inhabited place, hundreds of years back is a topic of hot debate.

Conventional wisdom said that environmental destruction and internecine warfare resulted into societal and economic collapse on the small tiny island present at a distance of some 2,150 miles off the Chile coast.

The demise of the island has been presented as a warning tale for our own brutal and environmentally destructive times, for years.

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