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Biotechnology startup Spark Therapeutics Inc. announced that its experimental gene therapy meant for visually impaired patients helped improve the vision in a clinical trial. The company said the therapy also does not have any serious safety problems.

The Philadelphia-based company announced the results of the clinical trial in a news release, along with some details. The company said that the additional data will be presented at a medical meeting in Paris on October 10.

October is marked as the Breast Cancer Awareness Month and several things around you can be seen colored pink to support the awareness campaigns. But the advocacy group Breast Cancer Action has been fighting against going pink in October.

The group calls what goes every October as 'pinkwashing'. Every October several companies or organizations claim to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink product, and raising money to fight cancer.

But the same company which claims to care about breast cancer sells products that are carcinogenic or cause other health problems. Karauna Jaggar, head of Think Before You Pink, in an op-ed last year, said that these pinkwashing deals are just exchanges for public goodwill.

Several kids suffer from food allergies in the United States, and in an effort to show support for such children people will be keeping teal colored pumpkins outside their homes this Halloween.

According to the non-profit organization Food Allergy and Education, every year more than 15 million Americans suffer from food allergies.

For seven-year-old Joseph Sexson, Halloween has always come with a share of disappointment. The first-grader is allergic to milk, eggs and peanuts, ruling out some of the tasty treats his older sister, who has no food allergies, enjoys.

A study has linked sleeping late to weight gain in teens and adults. The study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that the time at which teenagers go to sleep plays an important role when it is about weight gain. Teenagers who sleep late at night are more at risk to gain extra weight than their peers who choose to sleep early, according to the study.

The study found that teenagers who choose to go to bed late are more likely to gain weight because they usually consume junk food late at night. Lauren Asarnow, lead author of the study, said the study is the first of its kind that has found a relationship between time to go to bed and weight gain in teenagers and even in healthy adults. The sleep duration also plays a role in weight gain, Asarnow added.

A team of scientists claims that they have found a new way to measure the mass of a pulsar. They said this new met hid allows them to weigh a pulsar even if they are alone in space with no nearby object to use for reference.

So far the traditional way to measure the mass of a star, a planet or a moon is by studying the motion of the object in relation to the other nearby bodies.

The team of researchers from the University of Southampton presented their findings in the journal Science Advances. “For pulsars, we have been able to use principles of nuclear physics, rather than gravity, to work out what their mass is – an exciting breakthrough which has the potential to revolutionize the way we make this kind of calculation”, said university mathematician Wynn Ho.

According to the first ever global assessment, Cacti are one of the world’s most threatened species, even more as compared to mammals and birds. Cacti are native to arid parts of the Americas and have also been introduced to Africa, Australia and Europe. But as per the new research that 31% are threatened with extinction.

A scientist with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and co-lead author of the Global Cactus Assessment, Barbara Goettsch said that before this work just 160 of the approximately 1,500 cacti had been studied.

She said that now they have got a complete clear picture. She mentioned that cacti have been facing increasing pressure from human activity, such as illegal trade, which was quite higher than previously thought.