ANIMAL ROBOT
Dementia patients are calmer and wander less when they interact with robots that can talk and respond to touch, temperature and voice, researchers have found.
Griffith University researchers observed 415 people with dementia aged over 60 to see if giving some of them access to a robot seal named Paro in 15-minute sessions, three times a week was beneficial.
Residents who interacted with the $8500 robot were significantly more verbally and visually engaged than those who didn't have access to the robot, Professor Wendy Moyle said.
As well, their tendency to wander decreased, as did their anxiety levels, compared to those who didn't use the robot.
The study was published in the Journal of American Medical Directors Association.
MORE VEGGIES
A NSW government report has found children are eating too many unhealthy snack foods and not enough vegetables.
The What NSW Children Eat and Drink report found only one in 20 children aged five to 15 years eat enough vegetables each day, while half eat an unhealthy snack daily.
However, while more than 40 per cent eat takeaways saturated in fat, salt or sugar weekly, three in five children do eat the recommended daily intake of fruit and two-thirds are drinking a healthy amount of water.
NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant says the findings show too many households regard junk food as dietary staples.
"Snacks such cakes, biscuits and chips are no longer occasional treats - they make up almost 40 per cent of kids' total daily energy intake," Dr Chant said.
DENGUE FEVER FLIGHT
Dengue fever is hitching a ride with jetsetters, a new study shows.
Researchers from Beijing Normal University and the University of Oxford studied dengue viruses collected between 1956 and 2015 from 20 Asian countries to determine how the strains are related and how they spread.
They found three strains of the virus are spread by air travel more than any other method, and air traffic hubs, such as Thailand and India, help seed epidemics to other populations.
"Future trends in global mobility could potentially accelerate the appearance and diffusion of DENV (viruses) worldwide," researchers said in a study published in the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal.
LANGUAGE STUDY
Researchers are hoping to discover some fresh insights about how parents talk to their young children impacts on them as they grow up.
The University of Adelaide and Telethon Kids Institute researchers are recruiting families in Adelaide to understand how the quality and quantity of parent talk in the early years impacts on children later in life in terms of their language development, social skills and education.
Conversations between children aged six months to four years and their carers will be recorded and analysed for language patterns.
The researchers are recruiting Adelaide families with a child born, or who will be born, between February and October 2017.
For more information, go to www.telethonkids.org.au/projects/lilo.
BIG LIVER
A human liver eight times the normal size has been donated to researchers at the University of Queensland.
Fiona Murray donated her 12kg polycystic liver after receiving a kidney and liver transplant.
Mrs Murray, 47, was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease at age 25.
The disease worsened in her 30s when the cysts developed in her liver.
"I was unable to bend over to perform simple tasks like tying a shoelace, and looked like I was pregnant for seven-odd years until receiving a kidney and liver transplant in 2014," she said.
Her liver will join a collection of more than 2500 pathology specimens at UQ's Integrated Pathology Learning Centre at the Faculty of Medicine.
The weight of healthy human liver is typically 1.5kg.
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