Toronto, Sep 28 : Canadian researchers have discovered how cancer cells become invisible to the body's immune system which may help in developing immune biomarkers that can potentially stop the disease in its tracks.

This 'invisibility' phase is a crucial step that allows tumours to spread throughout the body -- when the spread cannot be traced.

Toronto, May 21 : Having an erectile dysfunction and too embarrassed to consult a doctor? You may find buying Viagra online an easy option but those may be fake.

To deal with the problem of counterfeit drugs, most of which are erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra (Sildenafil citrate), researchers have now developed an efficient technique that can detect fake drugs in just 10 minutes.

Toronto, May 17 - Does you toddler play with magnet-powered toys? Throw these away as the chances of him/her ingesting tiny magnets is high, resulting in serious injuries that require surgery, an alarming study says.

“With the inclusion of smaller, spherical magnets in children's toys, we are seeing an increased number of visits to the hospital for surgeries to remove them from the gastrointestinal tract,” said Matt Strickland, a general surgery resident at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and University of Toronto.

Toronto, May 14 - In a first, biologists have found a way to shed light on early stages of Y-chromosome degeneration - thus rewriting the evolutionary history of sex chromosomes - in plants.

Till date, it was now well understood what happens to the Y chromosome during the earliest stages of this evolution, or the time scales over which degeneration occurs.

Toronto, May 8 : Detecting cancer could soon become a lot easier as scientists have used DNA to develop a tool that detects and reacts to chemical changes caused by cancer cells.

The nanosensor measures pH variations at the nanoscale - how acidic (a higher pH level) or alkaline (a lower pH level) it is.

Cancer cells often display a lower pH compared to normal cells: the pH level inside cancer cells is higher than it is outside.

Toronto, May 5 - Children who are bullied suffer in silence and the trauma may lead to anxiety, depression, psychotic episodes and even suicide, an alarming study has indicated.

Researchers from Warwick University maintain that nightmares or night terrors are more common among 12-year-olds who had earlier reported being bullied when they were eight and 10 years.

Toronto, April 12 - Why is it that we find the initial hours of a journey longer than the final stretch?

The answer, according new research: because we consider the places ahead of us to be physically nearer than those behind, though the actual distance may be the same.

"Feeling close to or distant from something impacts our behaviour and judgment," said Sam Maglio, an assistant professor at University of Toronto Scarborough, who led the team of researchers.

Toronto, April 11 : If you think your partner does not know about if you are actually satisfied after sex, you are fooling yourself - and there is no point faking it in bed either!

A fascinating study has found that men and women are equally perceptive of their partners' levels of sexual satisfaction.

Toronto, April 8 : Eating one serving a day of beans, peas or lentils can significantly reduce "bad cholesterol" and therefore the risk of cardiovascular disease, a study has found.

Sievenpiper of St Michael's Hospital here said that by eating one serving a day of pulses, people could lower their LDL ('bad') cholesterol by five percent.

Toronto, April 2 - Does your hubby spend most of his leisure time online or in front of the TV set to the extent of ignoring family? The reason may well be depression early on his life, a study suggests.

Young men who have experienced depression early on are more vulnerable than women to becoming sedentary later in life, the study found.

Toronto, March 14 - Daily meditation can help improve mood and sleep in teenagers suffering or recuperating from cancer, a promising research shows.

Mindfulness-based meditation could lessen some symptoms associated with cancer in teenagers, according to the results of a clinical trial intervention led by researchers at University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine children's hospital.

Toronto, Feb 27 - Fructose, which is naturally found in fruit, vegetables and honey, is not responsible for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, says a promising research.

The consumption of fructose, which is also found in sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup - the two most common sweeteners in commercially prepared foods - has been frequently debated for its link with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Toronto, Feb 25 - Learning and exploring new ideas at work or home change your brain cells and the process has now been unlocked.

A study by University of British Columbia (UBC) has identified a key molecular change that occurs in the brain when we learn and remember.

The research shows that learning stimulates our brain cells in a manner that causes a small fatty acid to attach to delta-catenin, a protein in the brain.

Toronto, Feb 14 - Scientists have discovered a novel approach to treat leukemia by disarming a gene that is responsible for tumour progression.

That gene, known as Brg1, is a key regulator of leukemia stem cells that are the root cause of the disease, resistance to treatment and relapse, said researchers at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) of Université de Montréal, Canada.

Toronto, Feb 11 - A first-of-its-kind research examining trends in fertility rates among girls with mental illness finds that young girls with mental illness are three times more likely to become teenage parents than those without a major mental illness.

Toronto, Jan 29 - Taking probiotics - live microorganisms such as bacteria or yeast that are believed to improve health - may help women, and not men, shed those extra kilos.

Certain probiotics could help women lose weight and keep it off, said researchers at Université Laval in Quebec, Canada.

To test their hypothesis, researchers recruited 125 overweight men and women.

Toronto, Jan 22 - Folic acid supplements, if taken in high amounts, may increase the risk of developing breast cancer.

“The experiment in my lab has shown for the first time that folic acid supplements in doses 2.5-5 times the daily requirement 'significantly promotes' the growth of existing pre-cancerous or cancerous cells in the mammary glands of rats,” said Young-In Kim, a physician and researcher at St Michael's Hospital here.

Ottawa, Jan 21 - Can't figure out why your toddler is throwing toys at you or hitting his/her sibling?

Blame it on genes.

The development of physical aggression in toddlers is strongly associated with genetic factors and to a lesser degree with the environment, says a study.

Toronto, Jan 2 - To reduce smoking in middle-income countries like India, where the cheapest cigarettes are relatively affordable and where smoking rates continue to rise, heavy taxes is the only way out.

Toronto, Dec 31 - Fructose, naturally found in fruit, vegetables and honey, is the sugar often blamed for the obesity epidemic and doctors the world over warn against having an excess of it.

A new research has shown that fructose does not itself has any impact on an emerging marker for the risk of cardiovascular disease known as post-prandial triglycerides.

Toronto, Dec 28 - Next time you go out in the sun to get some Vitamin D, think about mushrooms.

Why mushrooms? Well, this is what is going to be your best source of Vitamin D soon.

In order to give mushrooms a vitamin D boost, researchers exposed them to quick pulses of ultraviolet light. And voila! In less than a second, a mushroom with effectively no vitamin D had plenty of it!

Vancouver, Oct 16 : Children who stutter have less grey matter in key regions of the brain responsible for speech production than children who do not stutter, according to a new Canadian study.

The study, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Cortex, explains how the brain is built for speech production, why people stutter, and affirms the importance of seeking early treatment, Xinhua reported citing the study.

Montreal, March 5 : Canadian scientists have identified the factors that cause distress after sleep paralysis, a psychological phenomenon of which little was previously known, according to a study.

Toronto, Feb 22 : Mouldy bread could soon be a thing of the past. Canadian scientists have discovered that sourdough bread, which resists fungi unlike conventionally leavened ones, could inspire healthier and tastier varieties of bread that would counteract mould without preservatives.

Toronto, Feb 18 - Using powerful X-rays, researchers have modelled arrhythmia in real time.

Arrhythmia, characterised by the heart beating too fast, too slow or inconsistently, may precipitate a decrease of blood flow to the brain and body, resulting in heart palpitation, dizziness, fainting, or even death. It may be too tiny for a microscope to observe.