By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM ON a brisk autumn afternoon, in the shadow of the marble arch in Washington Square Park, a couple visiting from Ohio walked along holding hands like two teenagers going steady, decades after “going steady” went out of vogue. Locked in People moving in tandem across the city. Some see hand-holding as a public announcement that a couple is approaching. Others see the maneuver as an ideal way to snake through a crowd. When a stranger asked why they had chosen to join hands during their stroll, the man, Dave Findlay, looked at his wife of seven years and answered in a word: “Connection.” Or as the Beatles sang back in 1963: “When I’ll feel that something, I want to hold your hand.” Those simple lyrics turned an expression of teenage longing and first romantic steps into a No. 1 hit. Yet today, when Justin Timberlake is at the top of the charts with “SexyBack” and the digital airwaves are filled with steamy lyrical declarations (“I’m into havin’ sex, I ain’t into makin’ love” sang 50 Cent in “In da Club”), couples like Dave and Carey Findlay still intertwine fingers, kiss palms and link pinkies as they meander through parks, cross streets and snake through crowds. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stress; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9435 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Species respond far more dynamically to disturbances in their environment than we think. This is the conclusion of Dutch researcher Olga Alda Alvarez following her research into the stress response of nematodes, tiny worms that occur in large numbers in the soil. The outcomes of this study are important for further research into the consequences of climate change and pollution on the stability of the ecosystem. Alda Alvarez investigated how two species of nematodes responded to pollution of their environment with toxic substances and changes in the ambient temperature. As bacteria eaters, nematodes play an important role in the decomposition process in the soil. They are also easy to study in the laboratory. The researcher discovered that how nematodes respond to pollution is related to their life cycle. Sexually-reproducing strains are more pollution sensitive than hermaphroditic strains. This in turn has a negative effect on the population growth rate. Alda Alvarez also observed that following the pollution, the toxicity of the nematodes does not increase but is variable. Additionally from a genetic viewpoint, nematodes quickly adapt to environmental factors such as the ambient temperature. For example a temperature rise from 16 to 24 degrees Celsius, results in a significant change in the composition of the genome and the interaction between the genes. The gene regulation network is therefore strongly dependent on the ambient temperature.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 9434 - Posted: 10.05.2006

By John Bohannon When it comes to climate change, what's love got to do with it? A lot, according to a study of shifts in bird migrations in response to global warming. Competition for females may be helping some species adapt to climate change more quickly. The timing of bird migrations appears to be extremely sensitive to climate change. Many migrating species have been arriving earlier by the year as warmer springs thaw the snows ever sooner than in the past. But wWhat remains to be explained is why some species of birds are far more affected than are others in the same geographic range. Answering this question could help scientists better anticipate global warming's impact on biodiversity and allow them to prioritize conservation efforts. What differs between birds that might explain their varying reactions to climate change? One possibility, scientists believe, is sexual selection. In species where males compete fiercely for the attention of choosy females, migrating early actually works in the male’s favor, giving him easy access to females that arrive at their destination ahead of schedule. To test this theory, a team led by Claire Spottiswoode, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Cambridge, U.K., analyzed the history of birds on two islands off the coasts of Germany and Denmark. © 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 9433 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Cancer survivors, take note. The mental fog and forgetfulness of "chemo brain" are no figment of your imagination. A new UCLA study shows that chemotherapy causes changes to the brain's metabolism and blood flow that can linger at least 10 years after treatment. Reported Oct. 5 in the online edition of the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, the findings may help to explain the disrupted thought processes and confusion that plague many chemotherapy patients. "People with 'chemo brain' often can't focus, remember things or multitask the way they did before chemotherapy," explained Dr. Daniel Silverman, head of neuronuclear imaging and associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Our study demonstrates for the first time that patients suffering from these cognitive symptoms have specific alterations in brain metabolism." Silverman and his colleagues used positron emission tomography (PET) to scan the brains of 21 women who had undergone surgery to remove breast tumors five to 10 years earlier. Sixteen of them had been treated with chemotherapy regimens near the time of their surgeries to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence. The team compared PET images evaluating the chemotherapy patients' brain function to PET scans from five breast-cancer patients who underwent surgery only, and 13 control subjects who did not have breast cancer or chemotherapy.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9432 - Posted: 10.05.2006

Heidi Ledford In the rough and tumble world of insect love, having a Zeus bug for a boyfriend just sucks. The girls haul the boys around on their backs for weeks at a time, feeding them all the while from a special gland located right where his royal head rests. Why do they put up with it? Scientists now say a female shows this behaviour because if she doesn't provide her freeloading boyfriend with enough glandular treats, he's more likely to crawl up her back, lean down over her head and steal the dinner right out from under her proboscis. The male Zeus bug violates a time-honoured tradition within the animal kingdom — the male is supposed to give the female gifts, and not the other way around. Take the male spider Pisaura mirabilis, for example, which gives a gift of prey — wrapped in silk, of course — to distract its mate while he copulates. Or the male striped ground cricket, which allows his mate to chew on his own leg for a nourishing treat. Males provide the gifts because they are competing for limited resources: eggs. In contrast, says ecologist Gören Arnqvist from the University of Uppsala, Sweden, getting enough sperm is rarely a problem for females. Viewed in that light, it simply doesn't make sense for the female Zeus bug to donate valuable resources to her mate. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 9431 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The results of two large, randomized clinical trials published October 5, 2006, in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrate that the drug ranibizumab is an effective treatment for neovascular macular degeneration, a complication of age-related macular degeneration that leads to the vast majority of legal blindness associated with the disorder. In an accompanying editorial, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Edwin M. Stone at the University of Iowa contends that now that these trials have shown the drug's “miraculous” effects on patients' eyesight, a crucial next step is to compare ranibizumab to a related drug, bevacizumab. Although it is not FDA-approved for use in the eye, bevacizumab also appears to be effective in treating neovascular macular degeneration. Importantly, a single dose of bevacizumab costs less than $150, compared to more than $2,000 per dose for ranibizumab. Both ranibizumab and bevacizumab work by inhibiting a protein known as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which promotes blood vessel growth. Bevacizumab was originally designed to block blood vessel growth in tumors, halting cancer cells' growth by eliminating their oxygen supply. In 2004, bevacizumab, which is marketed by Genentech under the brand name Avastin, was approved by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic colon cancer. © 2006 Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 9430 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Breastfed babies are smarter because their mothers are clever in the first place, not because of any advantage of breastfeeding itself, a study suggests. Researchers found breastfeeding mothers tended to be more intelligent, more highly educated, and likely to provide a more stimulating home environment. However, they stressed that there were still many advantages to breastfeeding. The British Medical Journal study was carried out by the Medical Research Council and University of Edinburgh. Lead researcher Geoff Der said: "This question has been debated ever since a link between the two [high IQ and breastfeeding] was first discovered in 1929. Breastfed children do tend to score higher on intelligence tests, but they also tend to come from more advantaged backgrounds." The researchers analysed data from more than 5,000 children and 3,000 mothers in the US. They found that mothers who breastfed tended to be more intelligent, and when this fact was taken into account, most of the relationship between breastfeeding and the child's intelligence disappeared. The rest was accounted for by other aspects of the family background. The researchers also looked at families where one child was breastfed and another was not. This confirmed the earlier results - the breastfed child was no more intelligent than his or her sibling. (C)BBC

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Intelligence
Link ID: 9429 - Posted: 10.04.2006

By DENISE GRADY “Thank you for being a part of our study,” said a questionnaire given to surgery patients at Duke University. “We are going to ask you how you feel about postoperative nausea and vomiting.” Most people could answer with a few choice words, especially anyone who has ever woken up in a recovery room, wretched and retching. Not surprisingly, the patients in the Duke study, published in 2001, rated throwing up as a good thing to avoid. If only it could be avoided. Somehow, the wonders of modern medicine have not quite reached this queasy zone. Nausea and vomiting, a blight since the dawn of ether, are still among the most common complications of surgery, anesthesia and pain medicine, affecting anywhere from 20 to 80 percent of patients. Is this really so hard to fix? Or are doctors just too busy with more pressing matters? “It’s an overwhelming problem,” said Dr. Charles Berde, chief of pain medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston. “It’s right at the center of what everybody who studies postoperative pain tries to deal with. There’s an enormous amount of interest in how to do a better job.” Part of the problem is that it’s hard to predict who will get sick, because people respond differently to drugs and to surgery. And once the symptoms start, they are hard to quell. Antinausea medicines can help, but not enough, Dr. Berde said. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 9428 - Posted: 06.24.2010

In the Human Performance Laboratory at Florida State University's Center for Expert Performance Research, a nursing student is told to care for a simulated patient admitted for chest pain. The dummy patient's vital signs, as well as his voice, are controlled by a nursing professor behind a two-way mirror. When the "patient" suddenly can't breathe, the student gets to experience a novice nurse's nightmare -- a life-or-death situation with no one to take over and rescue the patient, or coach her what to do. Putting both experts and novices through critical scenarios like this, cognitive psychology researchers K. Anders Ericsson and Paul Ward don't just observe the differences in subjects' performance. They also use interviewing techniques they've developed to understand the differences in their minds. "We’re looking at how people think and how that thinking affects how they perform," says Ward. Before a novice or expert participates in the simulation, Ward prepares them for how they will be debriefed afterward. He teaches them how to give a "think-aloud" report of their performance, in which they simply recount what they were thinking throughout the scenario without trying to evaluate or explain it. "That’s when we uncover the expert superiority: their ability to perceive more information, and also, after the fact, remember more of the thought processes than the novices," says Ericsson. © ScienCentral, 2000-2006

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 9427 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The concept of whetting the appetite by serving hors d'oeuvres before a meal may have a solid scientific basis, according to a new report in the October issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. In a study of rats trained to a strict feeding regime, researchers found that brain activity in important hunger centers spiked with the first bites of food. "The drive to eat is massively stimulated by the start of eating," said Gareth Leng of the University of Edinburgh, who co-led the new study with Louise Johnstone. "This shows the appetizing effect of food itself as hunger circuits are acutely switched on." The imminent expectation of food also activated certain brain cells involved in stimulating hunger in the animals, they found. The rats' optimal window for consumption was brief, however, as brain centers responsible for registering satiety--the feeling of being full or satisfied--switched on almost as soon as food hit their stomachs, Leng said. The new study is the first to chart the sequence of changes in brain activity over the course of a meal, according to the researchers. The researchers provided rats with food for just 2 hours per day. After 10 days on the strict regimen, food intake and body weight stabilized, the researchers reported.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9426 - Posted: 10.04.2006

Relapse to uncontrolled drinking after periods of sobriety is a defining characteristic of alcoholism and is often triggered by stress. A new study in rats reports that a specific receptor for a stress-response transmitter may play an important role in stress-induced relapse. The study, a collaboration between scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and at Camerino University, Italy, appears online in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on October 2, 2006. “This finding helps untangle the complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors that influence relapse,” says NIAAA Director T-K Li, M.D. “It also points to potential approaches for treating individuals at risk for relapse.” Anita C. Hansson, Ph.D., a fellow in NIAAA’s Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Studies, and other NIAAA scientists worked with Camerino University scientists to examine stress-induced relapse in rats that were bred to have a greater-than-normal preference for alcohol. “These animals provide an excellent model for identifying genes involved in stress-mediated relapse,” says Dr. Hansson. “Not only do they voluntarily consume large amounts of alcohol they also display anxiety and depression-like traits, characteristics that are common among human alcoholics and which indicate a maladaptive response to stress.”

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Stress
Link ID: 9425 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Whether specific types of antidepressants are effective for patients with late-life major depression may depend if they have certain genetic variations, according to a study in the October 4 issue of JAMA. Initial drug treatments fail in 30 percent to 40 percent of patients with major depression. Pharmacogenetic (the relation of genetic factors to variations in response to drugs) prediction of response is one possibility for improving antidepressant treatment, according to background information in the article. Polymorphisms (occurrence in more than one form) in the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT) may influence antidepressant response to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs – a class of antidepressant drugs). Hyeran Kim, M.D., of Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea, and colleagues conducted a study to determine whether there were significant associations between the efficacy of norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (NRIs - a class of antidepressant drugs) and norepinephrine transporter (NET) polymorphisms and also between SSRI efficacy and 5-HTT polymorphisms. If confirmed, these associations could provide a basis for predicting response to certain antidepressants. The study included 241 Korean patients with major depression. They were treated for 6 weeks with an SSRI (fluoxetine or sertraline; n = 136) or an NRI (nortriptyline; n = 105) antidepressant. The average age at onset of major depressive disorder among these patients was in the early to mid-50s.

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 9424 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Heidi Ledford Efforts to hold back the world's expanding waistline have been dealt another blow this week, as scientists announce disappointing results from a clinical trial of their latest obesity drug. The test shows that the drug, developed by Merck & Co, Inc. in New Jersey and named MK-0557, works — but only a little bit. Overweight or obese patients receiving MK-0557 lost only 1.6 kilograms more than those who were given a placebo over the course of a year. The results, reported in this month's issue of Cell Metabolism, are statistically significant1. But they are also clinically irrelevant. "We consider this a negative study," says Steven Heymsfield, a clinical researcher at Merck who evaluated the drug. The pharmacological rubbish heap has become littered with failed obesity drugs as the pharmaceutical industry rushes to treat the over 1 billion overweight and obese people worldwide. ©2006 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 9423 - Posted: 06.24.2010

For obese people overeating is akin to drug addiction, research suggests. Scans on seven overweight people revealed the regions of the brain that controlled satiety were the same those in drug addicts craving drugs. The US team who carried out the research said the findings could potentially help to uncover new treatments for obesity. The work, led by a New York scientist, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers looked at brain impulses in seven overweight individuals. They had all been previously fitted with a weight-reduction device called an implantable gastric stimulator (IGS). The implant sends electronic signals to the vagus nerve which then relays messages of satiety to the brain, thus reducing the desire to eat. To study the interaction between the stomach and the brain, the volunteers received two brain scans spaced two weeks apart, one when the implant was turned on and the other while it was switched off. While the volunteers were feeling full and the implant was turned on, the scan revealed an increased metabolism in the hippocampus, an area of the brain associated with emotional behaviour, learning and memory, the orbitofrontal cortex and the striatum. Lead researcher Dr Gene-Jack Wang, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, said: "As soon as we saw these scans, immediately it reminded me of what we had studied in drug abuse when people were under a craving situation - the same areas in the brain lit up." (C)BBC

Keyword: Obesity; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 9422 - Posted: 10.03.2006

By Shankar Vedantam Schizophrenia patients do as well, or perhaps even better, on older psychiatric drugs compared with newer and far costlier medications, according to a study published yesterday that overturns conventional wisdom about antipsychotic drugs, which cost the United States $10 billion a year. The results are causing consternation. The researchers who conducted the trial were so certain they would find exactly the opposite that they went back to make sure the research data had not been recorded backward. The study, funded by the British government, is the first to compare treatment results from a broad range of older antipsychotic drugs against results from newer ones. The study was requested by Britain's National Health Service to determine whether the newer drugs -- which can cost 10 times as much as the older ones -- are worth the difference in price. There has been a surge in prescriptions of the newer antipsychotic drugs in recent years, including among children. The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, is likely to add to a growing debate about prescribing patterns of antipsychotic drugs. A U.S. government study last year found that one of the older drugs did as well as newer ones, but at the time, many American psychiatrists warned against concluding that all the older drugs were as good. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 9421 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JANE E. BRODY Jenni Ewald and her husband, Russ, both lost their hearing as young children after bouts with meningitis — Jenni when she was 1, Russ more gradually starting at age 3. They met in college, communicating with sign language and lip reading, fell in love, married and had a baby. But neither could hear their baby cry, at least not until Jenni got a cochlear implant at Loyola University Health System in Maywood, Ill. Russ was so impressed with Jenni’s result that he underwent the same procedure a few months later. Now living in Tempe, Ariz., both Ewalds can hear their two young daughters. As victims of profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss — a destruction of the hair cells in the cochlea of the inner ear that transmit sound signals to the auditory nerve — the Ewalds were not candidates for hearing aids, which simply amplify sounds reaching the ear and depend on normally functioning hair cells. But they benefited from an implant that makes it possible for profoundly deaf people to hear and learn to interpret speech and other sounds. Perhaps as many as one million people in the United States could benefit from a cochlear implant. For children born deaf or who lose their hearing before they are verbal, the implants enable them to learn to talk. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 9420 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE They are eerie sensations, more common than one might think: A man describes feeling a shadowy figure standing behind him, then turning around to find no one there. A woman feels herself leaving her body and floating in space, looking down on her corporeal self. But according to recent work by neuroscientists, they can be induced by delivering mild electric current to specific spots in the brain. In one woman, for example, a zap to a brain region called the angular gyrus resulted in a sensation that she was hanging from the ceiling, looking down at her body. In another woman, electrical current delivered to the angular gyrus produced an uncanny feeling that someone was behind her, intent on interfering with her actions. The two women were being evaluated for epilepsy surgery at University Hospital in Geneva, where doctors implanted dozens of electrodes into their brains to pinpoint the abnormal tissue causing the seizures and to identify adjacent areas involved in language, hearing or other essential functions that should be avoided in the surgery. As each electrode was activated, stimulating a different patch of brain tissue, the patient was asked to say what she was experiencing. Dr. Olaf Blanke, a neurologist at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland who carried out the procedures, said that the women had normal psychiatric histories and that they were stunned by the bizarre nature of their experiences. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 9419 - Posted: 10.03.2006

By MARGARET WERTHEIM When I was a physics major in the late 1970’s, my very few fellow female students and I had high hopes that women would soon stand equal with men in science. But progress has proved slower than many of us imagined. A report last month by the National Academy of Sciences documents widespread bias against women in science and engineering and recommends a sweeping overhaul of our institutions. While there may indeed be subtle biological differences contributing to the scarcity of women in the top ranks of science, interviews make clear that many female scientists continue to experience both overt and covert discrimination. The academy’s report is welcome, yet there is reason to believe that when it comes to the mathematically intensive sciences like physics and astronomy, it is not just bureaucracies that stand in the way. Female physicists, astronomers and mathematicians are up against more than 2,000 years of convention that has long portrayed these fields as inherently male. Though women are no longer barred from university laboratories and scientific societies, the idea that they are innately less suited to mathematical science is deeply ingrained in our cultural genes. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Intelligence
Link ID: 9418 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Trevor Butterworth and Rebecca Goldin Ph.D As the evidence for sex discrimination in the sciences mounts, media pundits continue to cite math test scores for innate differences between women and men. Here’s why the numbers don’t add up If you are going to be a provocateur, and your bully pulpit happens to be a forum of academics, a certain grasp of the facts is advisable – especially if you are bent on provoking thought outside your own discipline. This was not merely lost on Larry Summers, the former President of Harvard University, when he ventured to expound on why women were under-represented in math and science departments, and suggested, among other reasons, that women were innately compromised in this kind of cognitive functioning; it was often overlooked by those of the punditocracy, who rallied to his defense in the name of academic freedom. “What is it about the word ‘provoke'’ those Harvard intellectuals don't understand?” asked the editorial page of the Boston Herald. “The transcript of Harvard University president Larry Summers' now infamous remarks about a female's innate scientific capabilities proves he was doing just what he said he was doing, provoking discussion.” If anything should have renewed this discussion – and perhaps drawn it to a conclusion – it was the recent publication of a report by the National Academy of Sciences announcing that innate intelligence had nothing to do with the gender disparities in science and engineering. Rather, bias, discrimination and “outmoded institutional structures” were responsible for holding women back.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Intelligence
Link ID: 9417 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK, ANDREA DORFMAN You don't have to be a biologist or an anthropologist to see how closely the great apes--gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans--resemble us. Even a child can see that their bodies are pretty much the same as ours, apart from some exaggerated proportions and extra body hair. Apes have dexterous hands much like ours but unlike those of any other creature. And, most striking of all, their faces are uncannily expressive, showing a range of emotions that are eerily familiar. That's why we delight in seeing chimps wearing tuxedos, playing the drums or riding bicycles. It's why a potbellied gorilla scratching itself in the zoo reminds us of Uncle Ralph or Cousin Vinnie--and why, in a more unsettled reaction, Queen Victoria, on seeing an orangutan named Jenny at the London Zoo in 1842, declared the beast "frightful and painfully and disagreeably human." It isn't just a superficial resemblance. Chimps, especially, not only look like us, they also share with us some human-like behaviors. They make and use tools and teach those skills to their offspring. They prey on other animals and occasionally murder each other. They have complex social hierarchies and some aspects of what anthropologists consider culture. They can't form words, but they can learn to communicate via sign language and symbols and to perform complex cognitive tasks. Scientists figured out decades ago that chimps are our nearest evolutionary cousins, roughly 98% to 99% identical to humans at the genetic level. When it comes to DNA, a human is closer to a chimp than a mouse is to a rat. © 2006 Time Inc.

Keyword: Evolution; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 9416 - Posted: 06.24.2010