SCIENCE AND HEALTH HIGHLIGHTS

March 4, 2016 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Major insight into killer pancreatic cancer (BBC)
• Cancer-causing HPV plummeted in teens since vaccine, study finds (CNN)
• Strokes On The Rise Among Younger Adults (NPR)
• Cancer Trials At UCSD Aim To Use Body's Immune System (City News Service)
• More Women Are Having Mastectomies And Going Home The Same Day (NPR)
• Air Pollution Heightens Risk of Obesity and Diabetes (TIME)
• Gay man taking daily HIV prevention pills contracts resistant strain of the virus - in … Daily Mail
• Should Sprouts Come With A Warning Label? (NPR)
• Woman's blindness apparently reversed by stem cell treatment (Baltimore Sun)
• One cuppa a day could cut heart risk: Tea reduces likelihood of stroke or cardiac arrest (Daily Mail)
• Sleep Munchies: Why It's Harder To Resist Snacks When We're Tired (NPR)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

• New low-power Wi-Fi could save batteries throughout your house (CS Monitor)
• VIDEO: Rise in butterfly numbers ‘inspirational’ (BBC)
• Using Billboards, Company Will Collect Personal Information To Help Advertisers (NPR)
• U.S. Navy Brings Back Navigation By The Stars For Officers (NPR)
• Smart rats sniffing out Cambodia's vast mine fields (AP)
• Chinese-owned brand Volvo is recalling 59,000 cars
• U.N. agency bans lithium-ion batteries on passenger aircraft (Reuters)
• In An Unusual Move, The EPA Tries To Pull Pesticide From Market (NPR)
• Is Nutritious Food In Peril, Along With Pollinators? (NPR)
• MIT team makes solar cells as light and thin as soap bubbles (CS Monitor)
• Why do people blindly trust robot rescuers, even when they're wrong? (CS Monitor)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

HEALTH

Major insight into killer pancreatic cancer (BBC)

Pancreatic cancer is at least four separate diseases each with a different cause and needing a different treatment, scientists have discovered.

Cancer-causing HPV plummeted in teens since vaccine, study finds (CNN)

Since the human papillomavirus vaccine was recommended for teen girls in 2006, the prevalence of the cancer-causing virus has been dropping among young women. 

Strokes On The Rise Among Younger Adults (NPR)

Fewer people are having strokes now than decades ago. But that improvement seems to be mostly among the elderly. Young people are actually having more strokes, partly because of the rise in obesity.

Cancer Trials At UCSD Aim To Use Body's Immune System (City News Service)

Three clinical trials are recruiting participants at the Moores Cancer Center to test a way to harness the body's immune system to fight cancer.

More Women Are Having Mastectomies And Going Home The Same Day (NPR)

There's very little data on how having a mastectomy as same-day outpatient surgery affects a woman's health. Laws in some states have restricted the use of so-called "drive by" mastectomies.

Air Pollution Heightens Risk of Obesity and Diabetes (TIME)

Researchers from Duke University exposed lab rats either to Beijing air or filtered air for 19 days; at the end, the group that got the highly polluted Beijing air had higher bad cholesterol levels (50%), triglycerides (46%) and total cholesterol (97%), factors that can affect the risk of developing obesity and diabetes, United Press International reports. Male rats exposed to pollution ended the study 18% heavier than their filtered air counterparts, and female rats ended the study 10% heavier.

Gay man taking daily HIV prevention pills contracts resistant strain of the virus - in … Daily Mail

Reports of a 43-year-old who caught HIV while taking daily pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drugs for two years suggests they might be less effective against drug-resistant strains, experts revealed at a Boston conference.

Should Sprouts Come With A Warning Label? (NPR)

Over 20 people have been sickened in two new outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to alfalfa sprouts. For something many deem a "health food," sprouts continue to be a vexing food-safety challenge.

Woman's blindness apparently reversed by stem cell treatment (Baltimore Sun)

No one can explain exactly how Belton came to see again, not even the doctor who treated her as part of an unconventional stem cell study shortly before she regained limited vision.

One cuppa a day could cut heart risk: Tea reduces likelihood of having a stroke or cardiac arrest (Daily Mail)

Study found tea drinkers had a 35 per cent lower chance of cardiac arrest, also had less chance of having a stroke or cardiovascular death due to tea. Previous research suggests it is due to flavonoids, an antioxidant in tea

Sleep Munchies: Why It's Harder To Resist Snacks When We're Tired (NPR)

A new study finds that too little sleep boosts a signal in the body that may drive a stronger desire to eat. It's the latest evidence linking sleep deprivation to overeating and increased body weight.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

New low-power Wi-Fi could save batteries throughout your house (CS Monitor)

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a new technology called "Passive Wi-Fi" that they say consumes 10,000 times less power than ordinary Wi-Fi signals.

VIDEO: Rise in butterfly numbers ‘inspirational’ (BBC)

The number of Monarch butterflies travelling thousands of kilometres south for winter is 'inspirational' conservationists say.

Using Billboards, Company Will Collect Personal Information To Help Advertisers (NPR)

Clear Channel Outdoor — one of the largest outdoor advertising companies in the U.S. — is starting a new program called Radar that will use billboards to map real-world habits and behaviors from nearby consumers.  The technology is sure to help advertisers better target their ads. But privacy advocates argue that it's, well, a little creepy. 

U.S. Navy Brings Back Navigation By The Stars For Officers (NPR)

A decade after phasing out celestial navigation from its academy courses, the U.S. Navy has restarted that formal training. The shift comes at a time of growing anxiety over possible threats to GPS.

Smart rats sniffing out Cambodia's vast mine fields (AP)

It's been a busy morning for Cletus, Meynard, Victoria and others of their furry band. Tiny noses and long whiskers twitching, they've scurried and sniffed their way across 775 square meters (8,300 square feet) of fields to eliminate a scourge that has killed thousands of Cambodians: land mines.

Chinese-owned brand Volvo is recalling 59,000 cars

Sweden's Volvo Cars says it is recalling 59,000 cars in 40 markets because of faulty software that can briefly shut down the engine and electric system while driving.

U.N. agency bans lithium-ion batteries on passenger aircraft (Reuters) - The U.N. aviation agency on Monday prohibited shipments of lithium-ion batteries as cargo on passenger aircraft, following concerns by pilots and plane makers that they are a fire risk.

In An Unusual Move, The EPA Tries To Pull Pesticide From Market (NPR)

The pesticide got "conditional" approval just eight years ago, but the EPA now says it could poison fish. The move is raising hope among activists who want the EPA to regulate pesticides more tightly.

Is Nutritious Food In Peril, Along With Pollinators? (NPR)

Food production will decline along with the pollinators. This is the basis of a headline-generating summary of a new and massive scientific report prepared by 80 scientists around the world, and sponsored by the United Nations….  According to the summary, fewer pollinators could lead to food shortages, "impacting health and nutritional security.”  This simple, logical deduction, however, is bedeviled by many complicating factors. 

MIT team makes solar cells as light and thin as soap bubbles (CS Monitor)

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed power cells that are so light and thin that they could be applied to almost any surface as an efficient power source.

Why do people blindly trust robot rescuers, even when they're wrong? (CS Monitor)

Robot engineers at Georgia Tech found something very surprising in a recent experiment: People blindly trusted a robot to lead them out of a burning building, even if that robot led them in circles or broke down just a few minutes before the emergency.  “We thought that some people would probably trust the robot as a guide, but we didn’t expect 100 percent of people would,” Paul Robinette, a Georgia Tech research engineer who led the study, told The Christian Science Monitor in an interview.