FLASH Alzheimers away: flashing light therapy may help ward off Alzheimer's, say US scientists after promising trials in mice, reports BBC News.
The Massachusetts team found shining a strobe light into rodents' eyes encouraged protective cells to gobble up the harmful proteins, called beta amyloid, that accumulate in the brain in this type of dementia.
The perfect rate of flashes was 40 per second - a barely perceptible flicker, four times as fast as a disco strobe, and enough to help recruit resident scavenging immune cells called microglia into the battle, scientists said.
Applications are in to the US Regulator, the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to test the effect in humans.
Thus far trials showing success in mice have not always translated into effective treatments in humans, and drug approaches have generally been "disappointing".
a WELCOME mistake - a Cash4Life lottery ticket sold to a couple in Lakewood, New Jersey, US, was chosen by mistake, but won $1m, reports Yahoo News.
The 70-year-old Dante Castillo normally uses his own numbers but this time the computer took over without him knowing and matched the first five numbers to the winning formula, but not the cash ball number.
The couple opted for the $1m prize rather than $1,000 per week for life, understandably.
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