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In Autism Awareness Month, Gainesville libraries have decided to launch new programs geared toward children with autism.

It has been found that the Alachua County Library District has planned to unveil Sensory Storytime for children with sensory integration challenges.

Erin Phemester, youth services senior manager at the Alachua County Library District, through an email said that the new storytime program aims at involving children, mainly those with autism.

The very first program has been scheduled to start on April 19 at the Headquarters Library, at 401 E. University Ave. And registrations for the first storytime event will start on Wednesday. Phemester said during the storytime, the children will listen to stories and songs and will play with lap-dogs.

According to reports, pediatricians have urged caregiver and medical providers to use only one method to measure medications. Earlier, a case was reported where a child was rushed to the emergency due to suspected overdose. Caregivers usually use a teaspoon or tablespoon to give medicine to a patient. As there is no definite method to give medicine to a patient, it becomes difficult to solve the problem of overdosing.

Now, according to pediatricians, parents or caregivers should use the metric system while giving medication to a patient. Earlier, a report published in the journal Pediatrics provided the rationale to use this system. The new guidelines represent a significant step to increase safety of giving medications to kids.

Harvard University researchers said in a report on Monday that consumption of fruits and vegetables that contain relatively large amounts of pesticide residue may alter sperm count of men. This poses serious risk of developing fertility problems.

The research was conducted by researchers at the T. H. Chan School of Public Health. The research has been claimed to be the first to establish a link between pesticides in fruits and vegetables and reproductive problems.

A survey was carried out involving more than 16,000 teenagers in north-west England. The results unveiled that one in five students aged between 14 and 17 has bought or tried e-cigarettes.

This has led scientists to ask for urgent controls on the promotion and sale of e-cigarettes to children. The poll unveiled that nearly one in 20 teenagers who bought or tried e-cigarettes have never smoked conventional cigarette before.

It indicates that vaping has become a new thing to try among teenagers. However, the survey could not unveil who among them became long-term users of e-cigarettes or the devices were used to assist them quitting traditional tobacco smoking.

In a breakthrough revelation, researchers from Johns Hopkins Medicine have suggested that if magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines are used to detect sugar molecule biomarkers, it might improve the efficacy of biopsies.

The study researchers shared that the new imaging method was able to detect telltale sugar molecules that were shed by the outer membranes of cancerous cells.

Jeff Bulte, PhD, a professor of radiology and radiological science in the Institute for Cell Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explained that when cells become cancerous, some proteins present on their outer membranes shed sugar molecules making them less slimy.

A new study has found that brain scans of children who come from low-income families are less developed compared to children from wealthier families. The study was conducted by researchers from University of Hawaii and University of California-San Diego.

According to researchers, during the study, they found that brains of children from poorer families have smaller brain surfaces and poorer cognitive performance. They also found that different parts of the brain that help in language, reading and spatial skills were less developed.