By NATALIE ANGIER WASHINGTON, - If the mere sight of Tai Shan, the roly-poly, goofily gamboling masked bandit of a panda cub now on view at the National Zoo isn't enough to make you melt, then maybe the crush of his human onlookers, the furious flashing of their cameras and the heated gasps of their mass rapture will do the trick. Cute cues are those that indicate extreme youth, vulnerability, harmlessness and need, scientists say. "Omigosh, look at him! He is too cute!" "How adorable! I wish I could just reach in there and give him a big squeeze!" "He's so fuzzy! I've never seen anything so cute in my life!" A guard's sonorous voice rises above the burble. "OK, folks, five oohs and aahs per person, then it's time to let someone else step up front." The 6-month-old, 25-pound Tai Shan - whose name is pronounced tie-SHON and means, for no obvious reason, "peaceful mountain" - is the first surviving giant panda cub ever born at the Smithsonian's zoo. And though the zoo's adult pandas have long been among Washington's top tourist attractions, the public debut of the baby in December has unleashed an almost bestial frenzy here. Some 13,000 timed tickets to see the cub were snapped up within two hours of being released, and almost immediately began trading on eBay for up to $200 a pair. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Vision
Link ID: 8349 - Posted: 01.03.2006

Reduced volume, or atrophy, in parts of the brain known as the amygdala and hippocampus may predict which cognitively healthy elderly people will develop dementia over a six-year period, according to a study in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. New strategies may be able to prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia among older adults, according to background information in the article. Accurate methods of identifying which people are at high risk for dementia in old age would help physicians determine who could benefit from these interventions. There is evidence that adults with AD and mild cognitive impairment, a less severe condition that is considered a risk factor for AD, have reduced hippocampal and amygdalar volumes. However, previous research has not addressed whether measuring atrophy using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can predict the onset of AD at an earlier stage, before cognitive symptoms appear. Tom den Heijer, M.D., Ph.D., of the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues used MRI to assess the brain volumes of 511 dementia-free elderly people who were part of the Rotterdam Study, a large population-based cohort study that began in 1990. They screened the participants for dementia at initial visits in 1995 and 1996 and then in follow-up visits between 1997 and 2003, during which they asked about memory problems and performed extensive neuropsychological testing. The authors also monitored the medical records of all participants. During the follow-up, 35 participants developed dementia and 26 were diagnosed with AD.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 8348 - Posted: 01.03.2006

By David Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer In medical research, nobody is convinced by a single experiment. A finding has to be reproducible to be believable. Only if different scientists in different places do the same study and get the same outcomes can physicians have confidence the finding is actually true. Only then is it ready to be put into clinical practice. Nevertheless, one of medicine's most overlooked problems is the fact that some questions keep being asked over and over. Repeated tests of the same diagnostic study or treatment are a waste -- of time and money, and of volunteers' trust and self-sacrifice. Unnecessary clinical trials may also cost lives. All this is leading some experts to ask a new question: "What part of 'yes' don't doctors understand?" Two papers dramatically illustrated this problem last year and may have helped nudge the medical establishment toward doing something about it. One article examined 18 years of research on aprotinin, a drug used to reduce bleeding during heart surgery. The other looked at studies on the relationship between a baby's sleeping position and sudden infant death syndrome. Both concluded that research on these subjects went on long after the answers were known -- namely, that aprotinin worked and that babies sleeping on their backs were less likely to die of SIDS. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 8347 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have developed a new tool to help them study endangered whales – autonomous hydrophones that can be deployed in the ocean to record the unique clicks, pulses and calls of different whale species. Those efforts are leading to some surprising findings, including the discovery by a team of researchers of rare right whales swimming in the Gulf of Alaska. "There has been only one confirmed sighting of a right whale in the Gulf of Alaska since 1980, so discovering them is not only surprising, it is fairly significant," said David K. Mellinger, an assistant professor at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. "We picked up the sounds of one whale off Kodiak Island, and several others in deep water, which is also something of a surprise, since most right whale sightings have been near-shore." Results of these and five years of studies have been published in the January 2006 issue of the journal BioScience. Mellinger said scientists have been able to use the hydrophones to distinguish sounds made by different whale species. And some species, he added, have different "dialects" depending on where they are from. Blue whales off the Pacific Northwest sound different than populations of blue whales that live in the western Pacific Ocean, and those sound different from populations of blue whales off Antarctica. And they all sound different than the blue whales off Chile.

Keyword: Hearing; Animal Communication
Link ID: 8346 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Initial results of the nation's largest clinical trial for depression have helped clinicians to track "real world" patients who became symptom-free and to identify those who were resistant to the initial treatment. Participants treated in both medical and specialty mental health care settings experienced a remission of symptoms in 12 to 14 weeks during well-monitored treatment with an antidepressant medication. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), used flexible adjustment of dosages based on quick and easy-to-use clinician ratings of symptoms and patient self-ratings of side effects. About a third of participants reached a remission or virtual absence of symptoms during the initial phase of the study, with an additional 10 to 15 percent experiencing some improvement. Subsequent phases of the trials will help determine successful treatments for the nearly two thirds of those patients who were identified as treatment-resistant to a first medication in phase one. The trial, known as the STAR*D study -- Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression -- included 2,876 participants and was conducted over six years at a cost of $35 million. (For more information on STAR*D, go to: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00021528?order=1).

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 8345 - Posted: 01.02.2006

Maryann Mott for National Geographic News New Yorkers have them. So do Georgians, Texans, Brits, and Australians. Now primate researchers have discovered that Japanese macaques can acquire different accents based on where they live—just like humans. The red-faced monkeys frequently utter what researchers have dubbed coo calls to maintain vocal contact with one another. Recordings of these calls taken over an eight-year period show that macaques living hundreds of miles apart "speak" at different frequencies. The finding, the first of its kind, will appear in the January 2006 edition of the German scientific journal Ethology. "One of the characteristics of human language lies in its modifiability," said Nobuo Masataka, a professor of animal behavior at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute, in an email to National Geographic News. "Japanese monkey vocalizations share this characteristic with our language." © 1996-2005 National Geographic Society.

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 8344 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A single unifying physics theory can essentially describe how animals of every ilk, from flying insects to fish, get around, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Pennsylvania State University have found. The team reports that all animals bear the same stamp of physics in their design. The researchers show that so-called "constructal theory" can explain basic characteristics of locomotion for every creature -- how fast they get from one place to another and how rapidly and forcefully they step, flap or paddle in relation to their mass. Constructal theory is a powerful analytical approach to describing movement, or flows, in nature. They said their findings have important implications for understanding factors that guide evolution by suggesting that many important functional characteristics of animal shape and locomotion are predictable from physics. The findings, published in the January 2006 issue of "The Journal of Experimental Biology," challenge the notion that fundamental differences between apparently unrelated forms of locomotion exist. The findings also offer an explanation for remarkable universal similarities in animal design that had long puzzled scientists, the researchers said.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 8343 - Posted: 12.31.2005

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Laughter is either genuine or consciously feigned, according to a new analysis that details how laughter has evolved over the past seven million years. The study, published in the current Quarterly Review of Biology, is the first to emphasize that two types of laughter exist. The first type is spontaneous and stimulus-driven, while the second, with the rather sinister nickname "the dark side of laughter," is strategic and, at times, downright cruel. Matthew Gervais, lead author of the study, described the two types to Discovery News. "One type of laughter arises spontaneously from the perception of a certain class of events, while the other is used strategically in interaction to influence others or modulate one's own physiology," said Gervais, who is a researcher in the Evolutionary Studies Program at Binghamton University in New York. Analyzing past studies that contained data on ape features, such as oral-facial muscle control, as well as using theory and data on brain neurons, evolutionary psychology and other disciplines, Gervais and colleague David Sloan Wilson determined that genuine laughter is innate and mirrors ape play-panting, which arose around seven million years ago. © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 8342 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Despite the prevailing belief that adult brain cells don't grow, a researcher at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory reports in the Dec. 27 issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology that structural remodeling of neurons does in fact occur in mature brains. This finding means that it may one day be possible to grow new cells to replace ones damaged by disease or spinal cord injury, such as the one that paralyzed the late actor Christopher Reeve. "Knowing that neurons are able to grow in the adult brain gives us a chance to enhance the process and explore under what conditions -- genetic, sensory or other -- we can make that happen," said study co-author Elly Nedivi, the Fred and Carole Middleton Assistant Professor of Neurobiology. While scientists have focused mostly on trying to regenerate the long axons damaged in spinal cord injuries, the new finding suggests targeting a different part of the cell: the dendrite. A dendrite, from the Greek word for tree, is a branched projection of a nerve cell that conducts electrical stimulation to the cell body. "We do see relatively large-scale growth" in the dendrites, Nedivi said. "Maybe we would get some level of improvement (in spinal cord patients) by embracing dendritic growth." The growth is affected by use, meaning the more the neurons are used, the more likely they are to grow, she said.

Keyword: Regeneration; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 8341 - Posted: 12.29.2005

A new gene therapy technique that has shown promise in skin disease and hemophilia might one day be useful for treating muscular dystrophy, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine. In the study, scheduled to be published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Jan. 2, the researchers used gene therapy to introduce a healthy copy of the gene dystrophin into mice with a condition that mimics muscular dystrophy. The dystrophin gene is mutated and as a result produces a defective protein in the roughly 20,000 people in the United States with the most common form of the disease. Using gene therapy to treat muscular dystrophy isn't a new idea. Thomas Rando, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences, said that researchers have tried several different techniques with variable success. One hurdle is getting genes into muscle cells all over the body. Another is convincing those cells to permanently produce the therapeutic protein made by those genes. The gene therapy technique Rando and postdoctoral fellow Carmen Bertoni, PhD, used was developed by Michele Calos, PhD, associate professor of genetics. One of the main advantages of this method is that it could potentially provide a long-term fix for a variety of genetic diseases, including muscular dystrophy.

Keyword: Muscles
Link ID: 8340 - Posted: 12.29.2005

A diet with a high intake of beta carotene, vitamins C and E, and zinc is associated with a substantially reduced risk of age-related macular degeneration in elderly persons, according to a study in the December 28 issue of JAMA. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a degenerative disorder of the macula, the central part of the retina, and is the most common cause of irreversible blindness in developed countries, according to background information in the article. Late-stage AMD results in an inability to read, recognize faces, drive, or move freely. The prevalence of late AMD steeply increases with age, affecting 11.5 percent of white persons older than 80 years. In the absence of effective treatment for AMD, the number of patients severely disabled by late-stage AMD is expected to increase in the next 20 years by more than 50 percent to 3 million in the United States alone. Epidemiological studies evaluating both dietary intake and serum levels of antioxidant vitamins and AMD have provided conflicting results. One study (called AREDS) showed that supplements containing 5 to 13 times the recommended daily allowance of beta carotene, vitamins C and E, and zinc given to participants with early or single eye late AMD resulted in a 25 percent reduction in the 5-year progression to late AMD. Redmer van Leeuwen, M.D., Ph.D., of Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues investigated whether antioxidants, as present in normal daily foods, play a role in the primary prevention of AMD.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 8339 - Posted: 12.29.2005

By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer The spiraling cost of post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans has triggered a politically charged debate and ignited fears that the government is trying to limit expensive benefits for emotionally scarred troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the past five years, the number of veterans receiving compensation for the disorder commonly called PTSD has grown nearly seven times as fast as the number receiving benefits for disabilities in general, according to a report this year by the inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs. A total of 215,871 veterans received PTSD benefit payments last year at a cost of $4.3 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 1999 -- a jump of more than 150 percent. Experts say the sharp increase does not begin to factor in the potential impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, because the increase is largely the result of Vietnam War vets seeking treatment decades after their combat experiences. Facing a budget crunch, experts within and outside the Veterans Affairs Department are raising concerns about fraudulent claims, wondering whether the structure of government benefits discourages healing, and even questioning the utility and objectivity of the diagnosis itself. "On the one hand, it is good that people are reaching out for help," said Jeff Schrade, communications director for the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. "At the same time, as more people reach out for help, it squeezes the budget further." © 2005 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 8338 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have discovered a molecular link between a high-fat, Western-style diet, and the onset of type 2 diabetes. In studies in mice, the scientists showed that a high-fat diet disrupts insulin production, resulting in the classic signs of type 2 diabetes. In an article published in the December 29, 2005, issue of the journal Cell, the researchers report that knocking out a single gene encoding the enzyme GnT-4a glycosyltransferase (GnT-4a ) disrupts insulin production. Importantly, the scientists showed that a high-fat diet suppresses the activity of GnT-4a and leads to type 2 diabetes due to failure of the pancreatic beta cells. The experiments point to a mechanistic explanation for why failing pancreatic beta cells don't sense glucose properly and how that can lead to impaired insulin production, said Jamey Marth, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Marth and first author Kazuaki Ohtsubo at UCSD collaborated on the studies with researchers from the Kirin Brewery Co. Ltd., and the University of Fukui, both in Japan. The discovery of the link between diet and insulin production offers new information that may aid in the development of treatments that target the early stages of type 2 diabetes.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 8337 - Posted: 12.29.2005

By BENEDICT CAREY ANAHEIM, Calif. - The small car careered toward a pile of barrels labeled "Danger TNT," then turned sharply, ramming through a mock brick wall and into a dark tunnel. A light appeared ahead, coming fast and head-on. A locomotive whistled. "Uh-oh," said one of the passengers, Dr. Martin Seligman, a psychologist and a pioneer in the study of positive emotions. But in a moment, the car scudded safely under the light, out through the swinging doors of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and into the warm, clear light that seemed to radiate from the Southern California pavement. "Well," Dr. Seligman said. "I don't know that I expected to be doing that." One of several prominent therapists who agreed to visit Disneyland at the invitation of this reporter, Dr. Seligman was here in mid-December for a conference on the state of psychotherapy, its current challenges and its future. And a wild ride it was. Because it was clear at this landmark meeting that, although the participants agreed it was a time for bold action, psychotherapists were deeply divided over whether that action should be guided by the cool logic of science or a spirit of humanistic activism. The answer will determine not only what psychotherapy means, many experts said, but its place in the 21st century. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 8336 - Posted: 12.29.2005

J. Scott Yaruss Stuttering is a communication disorder generally characterized by involuntary disruptions in the flow of speech. These disfluencies can take many forms, such as repetitions of parts of words (“li-li-like this”) and moments when a sound or a period of silence is prolonged (“lllllike this” or “l-----ike this”). Individuals who stutter often experience negative emotional, cognitive or behavioral reactions that can further affect their ability to communicate. Ultimately, stuttering can have a significant adverse impact on an individual’s quality of life and ability to participate in daily activities. The stuttering classification encompasses a number of communication disorders: neurogenic stuttering and psychogenic stuttering are associated with sudden onset and, as their names imply, with a specific known cause--either a flaw in the makeup of the brain or a profound psychological challenge. These disorders are relatively rare and differ in terms of etiology, symptoms and treatment from developmental stuttering, the most common disorder. Developmental stuttering typically starts in early childhood, between the ages of two and a half and four. The onset of the disorder, which can be gradual or relatively sudden, generally occurs during the period of rapid development in a child’s language skills, motor skills, temperament, and social interaction. Later onset of developmental stuttering has also been reported, though less is known about this variant. The causes of developmental stuttering are not well understood and various theories have been offered throughout the history of speech-language pathology. The roots of stuttering have been attributed to a number of causes: emotional problems, neurological problems, inappropriate reactions by caregivers and family members, language planning, and speech motor difficulties, among others. © 1996-2005 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Language; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 8335 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Mary Beckman Marijuana has a reputation for making people dash to the kitchen (or the nearest convenience store). New research shows why and helps explain how a hormone called leptin usually keeps the appetite under control. The results may help scientists design better diet drugs. Researchers have known for several years that a connection exists between leptin and cannabinoids, the molecules in the brain that stimulate appetite and that are related to those found in marijuana (ScienceNOW, April 11 2001). Mice that don't make leptin have oversized appetites, for example, and they have unusually high concentrations of cannabinoids in the hypothalamus. But no one knew how leptin and cannabinoids interacted in the brain. To examine the relation, Young-Hwan Jo, now at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City, and colleagues, took a look at slices of mouse hypothalamus. When the team dropped a cannabinoidlike compound onto the neurons, the neurons fired. If the researchers added leptin first, the neurons did not activate. © 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Obesity; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 8334 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius New videos of ants fixing an entrée of fruit fly stew show that it's the youngsters who do the colony's version of cooking. What's more, they don't nibble as they cook but wait to be served their fair share. Ants prepare their meat not by heating but by marinating it with digestive enzymes to create a glistening protein slurry. With their hourglass figures, adult ants have such tiny waists that solid food can't pass through to their abdomens. Biologists already knew that the blob-shaped larvae predigest meat. Some scientists had suggested that the adults feed meat to the larvae and return later for some regurgitated protein slurry. That's not what happened, though, in videos of lab colonies of pinhead-size Pheidole spadonia, says Deby Cassill of the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. Adults placed lumps of prey in little hairy depressions on top of the larvae's bellies, and for some 5 hours, larvae drooled digestive enzymes over the meat as it dissolved into a protein drink. The adults collected the slurry to distribute, but during the kitchen prep, the youngsters rarely took a swallow themselves. ©2005 Science Service.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 8333 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Horses prefer fenugreek, banana and cherry-flavored feed to all other flavors, according to one of the most detailed studies yet on horse flavor preferences. Three of the most popular flavors added to commercial horse feed — molasses, garlic and mint — did not fare nearly as well. In fact, most horses in the study rejected garlic-flavored food, unless it was their only choice. According to the study, which is published in this month's Applied Animal Behavior Science, horses ranked flavors as follows: fenugreek, banana, cherry, rosemary, cumin, carrot, peppermint and oregano. Many horse enthusiasts in Western countries feed their horses apples, but the eight competition-breed horses in the study liked the flavor of bananas better. "Horses tend to be fed food that is cheap and local, so what they are offered will vary around the world," said Deborah Goodwin, lead author of the study. "We offer horses apples in the U.K., but in Japan they are expensive and people gift wrap them and give them to each other as presents." © 2005 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 8332 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Charlotte Schubert Our perception of colours can depend on whether we view them from the left or the right, scientists have found. They say this demonstrates how language can alter the way we see the world. The idea that language can affect cognition is not new. In the 1930s, the American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf proposed the controversial hypothesis that the structure of language affects the way people think. Later studies have hinted that this may be true in some circumstances (see 'Tribes without names for numbers cannot count'). But whether language affects our perception of the world has remained an open question. Richard Ivry of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues suspected that separating out the effects of visual input to the right and left brain hemispheres might yield some clues. Language is processed mainly in the left hemisphere of the brain, which also deals with signals from the left side of the retinas in both our eyes. Because light from objects to our right falls mainly into the left-hand area of our retinas, the researchers hypothesized that colours to the right would feel the influence of language more keenly. Conversely, objects on our left side activate the right hemisphere of the brain, so the effect of language would be minimal. ©2005 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Vision; Laterality
Link ID: 8331 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Gaia Vince Reindeer have a body clock that does not rely on a 24-hour day/night light cycle, according to Norwegian researchers. It may explain how they stay awake to carry out their Christmas duties. Instead, the herbivores’ stomachs seem to keep their body clocks ticking along. Karl-Arne Stokkan at the University of Tromsø, and colleagues, logged the festive animals’ movements every 10 minutes for a year using a radio transmitter device embedded in collars around the reindeers’ necks. The collars were placed on 12 reindeer – six who roamed a mountainous region of mainland Norway at a latitude of 70° North, and six found in the more-northerly Arctic archipelago of Svalbard (78° N). Winter in these regions is unyieldingly dark, while in summer the Sun does not set. Spring and autumn provide just a few weeks of night/day cycles. In the absence of light stimuli humans, like most mammals, naturally revert to a 6 to 8-hour sleep pattern due to an inbuilt circadian rhythm. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 8330 - Posted: 06.24.2010