Health
Finding good health news amidst a pandemic can be quite daunting. That’s not the case with The Optimist Daily, where positive news is in high supply. Our Health section covers the latest good news from the health sector, featuring solutions ranging from mental and physical health to immunity, nutrition, and cutting edge medical research.
Handlers are training dogs to sniff out COVID-19
Dogs have been trained to sniff out malaria, cancer, and Parkinson’s disease. A couple months ago, we shared a story about how dogs are even used to detect parasites in orange trees. Now, handlers hope to train dogs to smell COVID-19. Medical Detection Dogs, a charity based in the UK, is Read More...
What neuroscience can teach us about lowering anxiety
If coronavirus has disrupted your usual daily rhythm and kept you indoors, it’s totally understandable if you’ve been feeling a bit more anxious lately. The good news though is that neuroscience can offer some non-pharmaceutical, research-backed ways to mitigate anxiety. Let’s see what the Read More...
Iceland recommends this natural remedy to help with social isolation
Given that humans are by nature social animals, in a time when close contact and embracing are discouraged to slow the spread of the virus, such preventive measures can take a toll on many people’s wellbeing. But since we don’t know exactly for how long physical distancing will keep loved Read More...
Tarantula venom may be used to create painkillers without risk of addiction
While humans tend to have a natural aversion to virtually all of nature’s venomous creatures, one popular arachnid may hold key to unlocking a painkiller that rivals opioids in effectiveness, but without the damaging side-effects, such as addiction. A team of researchers from the University of Read More...
Hospital choir records virtual song performance for healthcare workers
Communities across the world are scheduling nighttime celebrations for healthcare workers by clapping a howling for those who put their lives on the line to treat those infected with COVID-19. A group of employees at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center paid tribute to their fellow Read More...
Volunteers are fighting COVID-19 by creating world’s fastest supercomputer
Before new ways to tackle the coronavirus can be developed, scientists must first unravel the complex dynamics of the proteins that make up Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). Doing this requires computers to perform folding calculations, a process that simulates how proteins are folded Read More...
Asthma rates plummet in Kentucky as coal plants shut down
Air pollution has long been linked to health issues, especially asthma. Coal-fired power plants are a definitive source of air pollution. But it’s been difficult for scientists to attribute respiratory problems of people living near coal specifically to those coal plants because a host of other Read More...
These healthcare workers are getting Red Sox tickets for life
John Krasinski’s “Some Good News” (SGN) has taken the internet by storm with uplifting stories during the COVID-19 pandemic. This week, he was joined by baseball legend David Ortiz to donate a lifetime supply of free Red Sox tickets to the healthcare workers at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Read More...
Ultrasounds could bolster treatments for Alzheimer’s disease
A new study led by Australian researchers is offering further insight into how a novel ultrasound technique could help treat Alzheimer’s disease. The findings describe how focused ultrasound can weaken the blood-brain barrier in brain cells from Alzheimer’s patients, potentially improving the Read More...
Music administered to healthcare workers in NY area to boost morale
Music has been said to be medicine to the mind, body, and soul. Now it’s exactly the type of medication that’s being administered to boost the morale of New York healthcare workers at the epicenter of the US coronavirus crisis. Daily infusions of upbeat songs from The Beatles’ classic Read More...