Health & Science

A blood test for Alzheimer’s

An experimental new blood test may soon make it possible for people to know they will develop Alzheimer’s disease years before any telltale symptoms have surfaced. The simple procedure determines the levels of 10 lipids in the blood, which at low levels have been found to signal, with more than 90 percent accuracy, the onset of Alzheimer’s within three years. “This is a potential game changer,” Georgetown University neurologist Howard Federoff, who helped develop the test, tells CNN.com. Currently, there is no reliable test that predicts the onset of Alzheimer’s. To develop the new test, researchers took blood samples from 525 people ages 70 and older and then tracked their cognitive health for five years. By comparing the samples from 53 participants who developed mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s against samples from 53 participants who did not, they identified 10 lipids, or fats, that distinguished the afflicted group’s blood samples. They then found the same lipids in samples from 41 other participants. More research would be needed to develop the test so that it could be used outside clinical trials, and since there’s still no cure or effective drug treatment, many people might question the point of taking one. “I think it’s a very personal decision,” Federoff says. “Patients and their families would have to be counseled.”

Bullying teens into suicide

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Children and young adults who are bullied are more than twice as likely to consider suicide and two and a half times as likely to try to kill themselves, a new study has -concluded—and those taunted online are even more vulnerable. The findings are based on more than 40 studies, involving more than 284,000 young people ages 9 to 21, that examined the relationship between bullying and suicidal thoughts or attempts. Previous studies have found that traditional bullying and cyberbullying—by email, text messages, or videos—are equally likely to provoke suicidal thoughts in victims. But the new study found that kids subjected to cyberbullying are about three times more likely than their peers to have suicidal thoughts. “This may be because victims of cyberbullying feel denigrated before a wider audience, or because the event is stored on the Internet, they may relive denigrating experiences more often,” study leader Mitch van Geel of Leiden University in the Netherlands tells LiveScience.com. An estimated 15 to 20 percent of adolescents are involved in bullying—as the perpetrator, the victim, or both.

Phones make for bad parenting

Adults distracted by their smartphones do a lousy job of caring for their kids. That’s the worrisome conclusion of a new study based on detailed anthropological observations of 55 sets of caregivers and children while they were dining out. The findings paint a sobering picture of the inattention—and more often, the harshness—kids suffer when adults are engrossed in their phones. Forty of the caregivers observed used their smartphones during the meal; the most-absorbed texters and swipers rarely looked up to check on their kids, while those who used phones only to receive calls typically were engaged with their charges. Many of the ignored children responded by acting out in an attention-seeking way—enraging the distracted adults. “What stood out was that in a subset of caregivers using the device almost through the entire meal, how negative their interactions could become with the kids,” Boston University pediatrician Jenny Radesky tells Time.com. Adults in this group answered kids in curt tones, yelled, and even kicked them under the table.

Genghis Khan’s climate ally

One of the fiercest figures in world history, Genghis Khan united the tribes of Central Asia into a marauding army, massacred millions, and built the greatest land empire ever known. But now it seems he was aided by a factor beyond his ruthlessness and military prowess: the weather. As Smithsonian.com reports, an unprecedented warm and rainy period occurred in Central Asia in the early-13th century, around the time of Genghis Khan’s boldest exploits. Researchers say the climate change promoted luxuriant grass growth, allowing the warrior’s terrifying cavalry to roam widely while easily feeding their steeds and livestock. The findings are based on an analysis of tree rings taken from a stand of ancient pines in the Khangai Mountains of Central Mongolia, which allowed scientists to reconstruct the region’s weather from A.D. 900 to the present. The “persistently wide” rings between 1215 and 1226 indicated exceptionally strong growth due to increased rainfall. The preceding years from 1180 to 1190, in contrast, were marked by severe drought, creating conditions for the Great Khan’s rise. “The transition from extreme drought to extreme moisture right then strongly suggests that climate played a role in human events,” says West Virginia University physical geographer Amy Hessl.