Health & Science

Acupuncture’s real benefits

To the surprise of doctors, new research on acupuncture has found that the ancient Chinese healing technique provides real pain relief. Acupuncture involves sticking needles into specific points in the body that Chinese healers believe contain unseen energy pathways; the needles supposedly stimulate the flow of “qi,” or energy. Western medicine has viewed these claims with deep skepticism, contending that any benefits from acupuncture were due to the placebo effect: When people believe in a phony treatment, they often feel relief from symptoms. But a new analysis of studies involving 18,000 patients by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York found that real acupuncture is more effective than sham acupuncture, in which the needles are administered at random spots in the body, and is also more effective than some traditional over-the-counter pain relievers. About 50 percent of patients with migraines, arthritis, and chronic back or joint pain felt markedly better after undergoing acupuncture, as opposed to 43 percent of patients who received sham acupuncture and 30 percent who tried traditional remedies. “The effects aren’t due to the placebo effect,” Andrew Vickers, a researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, tells The New York Times. Even if doctors don’t understand how acupuncture works, he says, they now have “firm evidence’’ that it can relieve chronic pain.

Our most distant missionary

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On the 35th anniversary of its launch, the Voyager 1 spacecraft is close to becom-ing the first man-made object to escape our solar system. The spacecraft—run by a 1977 computer 100,000 times less powerful than an iPod Nano—is currently 11.3 billion miles away. In 2004, Voyager 1 entered the turbulent boundary zone beyond Pluto, where solar winds encounter plasma pushing back from interstellar space. Now, researchers say, the spacecraft has reached a surprising area of calm that could mean it’s at the solar system’s outermost edge, where solar winds are expected to finally peter out. “We’re anxious to get outside and find what’s out there,” Ed Stone, Voyager’s chief scientist, tells the Associated Press. Earlier in its travels, Voyager 1—and its sister spacecraft, Voyager 2—provided the first close-up views of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Researchers predict that Voyager—which carries an audio-visual disc inscribed with greetings from Earth, photos of people and animals, and some Mozart—will exit the solar system within a year. It’s expected to continue sending information back to Earth for a decade before its batteries run out.

Letting babies cry

Allowing infants to cry themselves to sleep won’t do them any harm—and it may help parents get much-needed rest. That’s the finding of Australian researchers who studied a group of 225 babies and their parents for six years. Half of the babies were “sleep-trained” by parents who either allowed them to wail for increasing lengths of time before soothing them or sat with them while they fell asleep, moving their chairs farther from the cribs each night. The other half of the babies received no sleep training. Researchers found that by age 6, the sleep-trained children were no more likely to have behavioral or emotional problems or trouble bonding with their parents than the children who weren’t sleep-trained. Meanwhile, the infants who were sleep-trained woke up less during their first two years. Consequently, their parents got more sleep and were less likely to show signs of fatigue and depression—a big benefit for parents and kids. “A well-rested parent,” Judith A. Owens, a researcher at Children’s National Medical Center, tells The Wall Street Journal, “is going to be a better parent.”

The bear in the backyard

Severe droughts across the Western states have pushed desperate black bears to seek water and food where people live—producing growing numbers of alarming encounters. In August alone, police in Aspen, Colo., received 292 calls about bears breaking into homes, raiding trash cans, and otherwise coming dangerously close to people—up from just 38 calls in August 2011. The lack of rain in Colorado, Wyoming, and other Western states has drastically reduced the number of chokecherries, serviceberries, and acorns that the bears typically eat, tempting them to forage for human fare instead. At this time of year, bears are trying to put on enough fat to get through the winter, which requires them to consume about 20,000 calories a day. “They will spend 20 of 24 hours a day looking for food,” Randy Hampton, a spokesperson for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department, tells ABCNews.com. Once bears learn to associate people with grub, they become more aggressive and are hard to keep away. Aspen wildlife officials put down 23 bears this summer—more than double the number killed last year.