Research

Scientists urged to stop excluding left-handed people from scientific studies
Left-handed people really do have different brains and genes from right-handed people. Yet left-handed people are almost never included as study subjects in scientific research. Therefore in an article in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Roel Willems and his colleagues from the Donders Institute and Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen call for more research into left-handed people. The article was published online on 12 February 2014. MedicalXpress

Scarcity of fruit millions of years ago could have caused loss of enzyme that prevents gout
Apes, including humans, lack an enzyme called uricase that breaks down uric acid. Because we lack uricase, we are predisposed to developing gout. After reconstructing ancient versions of the enzyme found in other mammals, Eric Gaucher of the Georgia Institute of Technology and his colleagues have concluded that apes lost the ability to produce uricase so they could better convert fructose, fruit sugar, to fat for survival when fruit was scarce. The research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  MedicalXpress

Researchers discover how ALS spreads
A study led by University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute researchers has revealed how the fatal neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is transmitted from cell to cell, and suggests the spread of the disease could be blocked. University of British Columbia