Vibratory urticarial is a ultra rare genetic condition that cause people to break out in hives if their skin is vigorously vibrated or rubbed. In fact, even drying yourself with a towel can cause hives, make your face flush, give you headaches, or produce the sensation of a metallic taste. According to a new study published this week, researchers found a mutation in a gene called ADGRE2 that codes for a receptor protein found on the surface of mast cells - immune cells in the skin that dump out inflammatory molecules such as histamines that increase blood flow to an area and can cause hives. The researchers observed that shaking mast cells in a dish breaks apart two subunits of this receptor protein, which prompts histamine release. In p ...

A landmark study, based on genetic analysis of nearly 65,000 people, has revealed that a person's risk of schizophrenia is increased if they inherit specific variants in a gene related to "synaptic pruning" - the elimination of connections between neurons. The findings represent the first time that the origin of this devastating psychiatric disease has been causally linked to specific gene variants and a biological process. They also help explain decades-old observations: synaptic pruning is particularly active during adolescence, which is the typical period of onset for schizophrenia symptoms, and brains of schizophrenic patients tend to show fewer connections between neurons. The gene, called component 4 (C4), plays a well-known role in t ...

Dog owners often say they "know" that their dog understands what they’re feeling. Now, scientists have the evidence to back this up. Researchers tested 17 adult dogs of various breeds to see whether they could recognize emotional expressions in the faces and voices of humans and other dogs - an ability that’s considered a higher cognitive talent because two different senses are involved. Each dog took part in two test sessions with 10 trials. One by one, they stood facing two screens on which the researchers projected photos of unfamiliar but happy/playful human or dog faces versus the same faces with angry/aggressive expressions (as in the photo above). At the same time, the scientists played a single vocalization - either a dog bark, ...

As cigarette smoking rates fall, more people are smoking tobacco from hookahs: communal pipes that enable users to draw tobacco smoke through water. A new meta-analysis shows that hookah smokers are inhaling a large load of toxicants. According to the study, compared with a single cigarette, one hookah session delivers approximately 125 times the smoke, 25 times the tar, 2.5 times the nicotine and 10 times the carbon monoxide (CO). The latter stat accounts for the light-headedness and high that smokers experience when inhaling the smoke, since CO reduces the amount oxygen capable of binding to circulating red blood cells.

In addition to these estimates, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that, for the first time ...

Meet the ninja lanternshark. It's a newly discovered animal that's really weird. It hides in the deep - and its black skin keeps it camouflaged - but it also glows in the dark.

The ninja lanternshark was discovered by a team at the Pacific Shark Research Centre, in Moss Landing, California. Its official Latin name is Etmopterus benchleyi, after Jaws author Peter Benchley.

The ninja lanternshark is roughly half a metre, or 18 inches long, and it lives at a depth of about 1,000 metres off the Pacific Coast of Central America. Its odd combo of dark and light helps it creep up on its prey, according to its discoverers.
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According to a new study, it's your voice that is to blame if your joke ever falls flat. Researchers recorded men and women telling corny one-liners and then manipulated the pitches of their voices. Artificially lowered voices made the speakers sound more dominant; higher pitched voices made them sound less so. Volunteer listeners then rated each joke’s funniness. Female listeners laughed or groaned regardless of the comic’s voice pitch, but for men it depended on how burly and dominant they were. Guys with bigger biceps and higher self-rated attractiveness were more likely to prefer lower-pitched jokes than less dominant listeners, and vice versa, according to a study in press in Evolution and Human Behavior. The researchers suggest humor ...

Black panthers do have spots. By using an infrared camera, scientists have been able to see the hidden patterns for the first time in wild Malaysian panthers.

Someone who greatly enjoys sweet foods is said to have a "sweet tooth." Experimental evidence now shows us that eating sweets forms memories that may control eating habits. In other words, people may enjoy eating sweets because the taste is correlated with positive memories.

The findings, published online in the journal Hippocampus, show that neurons in the dorsal hippocampus, the part of the brain that is critical for episodic memory, are activated by consuming sweets. Episodic memory is the memory of autobiographical events experienced at a particular time and place.

In the study, a meal consisting of a sweetened solution, either sucrose or saccharin, significantly increased the expression of the synaptic plasticity marker called activity ...