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  Independent groups of scientists investigating telomeres and stem cells have reported what lies behind the immortality of stem cells – what a leading Australian researcher calls “the most unexpected result of my career”.   Telomeres are the protective caps at chromosome ends. In adult cells, telomeres shorten each time a cell divides and this…

Here’s a warning for the digital age – children learn more and remember better when writing by hand. The Norwegian University of Science and Technology has found the brains of children more active when writing compared with typing. It’s been studied a few times and repeatedly found that handwriting gives the brains more “hooks” to…

  A U.S mother believes her son is alive today because of a world first umbilical stem cell transplant. Little Bennett Harbison was diagnosed before he was born in 2018 with hypo plastic left heart syndrome – a condition his mother Jennifer had never heard of. It means the left side of Bennett’s heart did…

  New research out of the UK has found grandparents have saved parents more than NZ$30 million in childcare fees.   Insurance company Ageas surveyed families and calculated around two thirds of the country’s grandparents regularly help with looking after their grandchildren for an average of 11.3 hours a week and saving each family around…

  Emma was born in Ukraine in 2015 but before her birth her parents were told she had spina bifida.   Spina bifida is a birth defect in which there is incomplete closing of the vertebrae in the spine and the membranes around the spinal cord during early development of pregnancy.   Thanks to one…

  To look at five-year-old Lucas Gutman you wouldn’t know he is living with a congenital heart defect.   His mum Jennifer says he is every bit as active as a typical kid – but the Ohio boy was born with HLHS – hypoplastic left heart syndrome – and became just the second such patient…

  Teen boys are a much-maligned group but we’re told beyond the stereotypes of being hard to talk to, always hungry, restless and accident prone they are generally big hearted youths yearning to be understood and valued.   Teen boys face biological drivers which make their struggle to venture into independence very real and which…

  Toddlers might not be as self-absorbed as you think.  A study into altruism in 19-month-olds found that even when hungry, they would give a tasty snack to a stranger in need.   The team at the University of Washington’s Institution for Learning and Brain Sciences studied nearly 100 toddlers and found not only do…

How Maia’s cord blood changed her life and the lives of her family   Maia Friedlander was the first NZ child to be successfully treated with her own cord blood after suffering brain damage at birth. Thankfully her parents, Jillian and Daniel, had this option because they had saved Maia’s cord blood stem cells with…