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By Jeffrey Gold, AP Business Writer NEWARK — Appeals courts in New Jersey and Texas on Thursday scrapped verdicts opposite to the drugmaker Merck (MRK) stemming from some of the earliest trials involving its once popular painkiller Vioxx.

A Texas court reversed a $26 million verdict against the drug company stemming from the first trial. The court found no evidence that Robert Ernst suffered a fatal heart problem from a blood clot triggered by Vioxx.

(Read the full post about ‘Appeals courts back Merck in Vioxx cases’…)

free viagraA new study shows that higher levels of vitamin D in the blood are not associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer.

Researchers say previous studies in the lab have suggested that high doses of vitamin D may cut prostate cancer risk. But statistical studies that looked for specifically what causes prostate cancer and whether vitamin ( buy vitamin a & d) D is helpful have been inconclusive, they say.

In this cogitate, researchers from the National Cancer Institute compared 749 men who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer to a control group of 781 men who didn’t accept the disease but who were similarly matched up in terms of age and other factors. (Read the full post about ‘No Dodging Prostate Cancer With Vitamin D’…)

Most of us use sunscreen to protect our skin, but our eyes also have it — that is — the need to be safeguarded from the potentially harmful effects of exposure to the orb of day.

The corresponding; of like kind ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer can also damage our eyes, Early Show therapeutical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay explained Friday.

UV rays can damage the retina, which increases the risk of macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness among older Americans. UV radiation can too damage the eye lens and cause cataracts and, in metabo extreme cases, cancer of the eye. (Read the full post about ‘Eyes Need Protection From Sun, Too’…)

free viagra TOP 16 FITTEST CITIES1. San Francisco2. Seattle3. Boston4. Washington, D.C.5. Atlanta6. Philadelphia7. Chicago8. Dallas/Fort Worth9. New York City10. Miami/Fort Lauderdale11. Phoenix12. Indianapolis13. Houston14. Los Angles15. Riverside, Calif. 16. Detroit Source: American College of Sports Medicine  WEIGHT-LOSS CHALLENGE 2008Eating right: 2-week menus | Comfort food done healthy | Most popular diets | No-hunger methodVideo: Dietitian dishes innovative eating tipsBlog squad: 3 with expertise, 3 with experience have part tipsExercise: Action speaks louder than weight | Is walking most worthwhile?Best weight: 'Set' yourself up for successMaintain weight: Counselor check-ins help | Not everyone does the yo-yoMore tips and tricks   WEIGHT-LOSS BLOG SQUADRoute 237: Realizing she had to misspend 237 pounds to be healthy sparked Claudia Vercellotti to actDietitian Dawn: Expert offers recipes and ideas for healthy snack substitutesHealthy 4 Life: Kelly Rhoads on how she deals with stress (release), has kept pounds off 4 yearsDr. (Read the full post about ‘Go West, unfit American!’…)

free viagraWinning the big game may bring your football team to new heights, but it may also make your physical stature just a little bit smaller.

Researchers report that repetitive blocking and tackling — coupled with the weight loss of helmets and pads - be able to temporarily make smooth nearly half an inch off of players’ heights.

They carefully read 10 high school football players — lineman, defensive tackles, and others whose positions involved repetitive blocking and tackling. The average height of players before the game was 69.5 inches. (Read the full post about ‘Playing Football Makes You Shorter’…)

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that scientists can conduct embryonic stem cell research, which holds the engagement of curing Parkinson’s disease and diabetes but raises ethical concerns about the limits on human living beings. (Read the full post about ‘Brazil court rules in favor of stem cell research’…)

Six young men died after all the rest year after swimming in lakes or pools infested with a brain-eating amoeba, the CDC reports.

The bad blobs — known as Naegleria fowleri or N. fowleri — thrive in warm, fresh water all over the world. But the key word here is violent. The amoeba loves heat. (Read the full post about ‘Deadly Brain-Eating Amoeba Strikes’…)

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LONDON (AP) — A baffling phenomenon known as sudden infant death syndrome is one of the leading causes of death for children under age 1. Now, British researchers say they may have set up a contributing factor: bacteria. A study published Friday in the medical journal The Lancet found potentially dangerous bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus and E coli in nearly moiety of all babies who died suddenly and unexpectedly at a London hospital between 1996 and 2005. “This may be another piece to the puzzle,” uttered Marian Willinger, a SIDS expert at the United States’ National Institute of Child Health and Human Development who was not associated to the British examine. (Read the full post about ‘Study: Bacteria a factor in sudden infant death syndrome’…)

not parsimonious viagraThe math gender gap is huge in some countries and virtually nonexistent in others, suggesting that social and cultural influences trump biology when it comes to how boys and girls learn arithmetic.

When 15-year-olds from different countries took the same math test, little or no alienation was seen in scores between girls and boys living in cultures with few sex-based restrictions on girls.

Test scores for girls lagged the most in countries in what place gender inequities were most pervasive.

“The so-called gender gap in math skills seems to be at least partially correlated to environmental factors,” says economist and study researcher Paola Sapienza, PhD of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. (Read the full post about ‘Culture Is the Key to Math Gender Gap’…)

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NEW YORK (Reuters soundness) - Women who experience asthma flare-ups during the first trimester of pregnancy are at increased risk for having a baby with a birth defect, according to a report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

A first-trimester flare-up increased the odds of a deformity by 48 percent, note Dr. Lucie Blais and Amelie Forget, from Universite de Montreal and Hopital du Sacre-Coeur de Montreal.

(Read the full post about ‘Pregnancy asthma flare-ups tied to birth defects (Reuters)’…)