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A tale of two news stories: how to cure an ice cream headache and the hidden camera that found a care home to be less than caring

The Daily Mail reports a story that had researchers baffled until now – how to cure the ice cream headache.

Apparently headaches are hard to study – and thus find a cure for – due to their ‘unpredictable nature', however the ice cream headache ‘is easy to trigger and can be studied in the lab from start to finish.' (It is unclear whether the Mail is referring to the completion of the headache or the eating of the ice cream…)

The paper reports that: ‘Researchers from Harvard Medical School in the US, tracked blood flow to the brain while people drank iced water or lukewarm water. Both were drunk through a straw that was pressed against the roof of the mouth and the volunteers signalled when the pain started and when it ended. Results showed that the pain coincided with an artery called the anterior cerebral artery opening up and flooding the brain with blood.' It is hoped that these findings will lead to better treatments for migraines.

The BBC website tells of a  ‘miniature honeycomb - or scaffold [that] could one day be used to encourage damaged nerves to grow and recover, according to an international group of researchers.'

So far researchers have only re-grown nerves on mice, but hope that one day they will be able to treat spinal cord injuries with the scaffold.

All the major news outlets carry the story of the woman who filmed her 80 year-old mother being physically abused in her care home, using a hidden camera. The Guardian reports: ‘Footage of an Alzheimer's sufferer being beaten repeatedly by a member of staff at a care home will be screened on TV on Monday night.

The clips claim to show an elderly resident being manhandled by carers at Ash Court Care Centre in Kentish Town, north London, last year.'

It is claimed that the CQC had awarded this care home an ‘excellent' rating just months before the footage was gathered, Judy Downey, head of charity the Relatives and Residents Association, said: ‘This is an area where the CQC can do so much if it uses its powers. They can actually cancel the provider's registration if they're shown not to be fit.'

'We would suggest that the provider was very clearly shown not to be fit.'