TopNews

A new research has suggested that humans should thank their Neanderthal ancestors not only for giving the disease-fighting genes but also for their allergies.

According to two new studies published on January 7 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, genetic variants present in modern humans that originally belonged to Neanderthals could predispose the immune system in human body to overreact to environmental allergens.

However, these Neanderthal loaner genes could have had a silver lining as the study have also discovered that interbreeding with Neanderthals could have helped ancient humans, belonging to Africa, in getting a head start in settling down in Europe.

Scientists have found that microbes extracted from a 5,300-year-old mummy have shown that he suffered from a stomach bug before his death. Researchers said that Oetzi the Iceman, the name which scientists gave to the frozen body found in 1991 in the Alps, suffered a bacterial infection that is quite common in the present era.

He has died 5,300 years earlier after getting struck by an arrow. Published in the journal Science, the latest study has suggested that he had an infection that can result into stomach ulcers and gastritis.

Offering a rare sneak peek into the courtship behavior of dinosaurs, an international team of scientists has claimed that the giant extinct animals would shake a tail feather and use fancy footwork to attract their mates.

The findings, based on millions of years old fossils found in the rocks of Colorado, have been published in Scientific. The fossils provide physical proof that some dinosaurs may have acted much like birds, their modern-day relatives. An asteroid that smashed into the Earth some 66 million years ago led to the complete wipeout of the dinosaurs. This typical form of mating is called "scraping”, which is more common among modern ground-nesting birds.

Several companies will now be using the IBM’s Watson cognitive system to enhance their applications. Under Armour, Softbank Robotics’ Pepper and others have entered a strategic partnership with IBM for access to IBM Watson’s machine learning algorithms and AI. Watson will be used by these companies to enhance the intelligence and personalization of their applications and other services.

This marks the latest move in the expansion of IBM’s Watson, following the launch of a Cognitive Business Solutions facility and a distinct IoT hub in Germany earlier in the year. IBM CEO Ginny Rometty revealed that the company has undertaken nearly 30 acquisitions for enhancing its proficiency and database.

A latest analysis has suggested that bigger, broader studies need to be conducted to tell whether cancer screening actually saves lives or not.

The authors pointed out that cancer screening could be linked to fewer deaths from tumors, but detecting cancers doesn't necessarily save lives when fatalities due to all causes are taken into consideration.

In the BMJ, two doctors and a health care journalist argued that studies so far may have included quite few people to find out slight overall mortality benefits linked to screening,. It might be the case that any fall in cancer deaths because to screening could have been offset by fatalities related to bad effects of the tests themselves or of needless treatments.

A latest study has suggested that conceiving while taking birth control pills doesn't apparently increase the risk of birth defects. Researchers discovered similar rates of birth defects in women who had never taken birth control pills and the ones who took them before pregnancy or before realizing that they were pregnant.

Lead researcher Brittany Charlton said that women who conceive either soon after they stop taking oral contraceptives, or even while taking them, must know that this exposure is unlikely to cause birth defects.