A truly extraordinary cure for some forms of blindness is being proposed. The idea is to add light-absorbing pigments from spinach to nerve cells in the retina, to make the nerve cells fire when struck by light. Eli Greenbaum's team at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee has been exploring this possibility for several years. In their latest experiments, the researchers have shown that adding plant pigments to human cells makes the cells respond to light. The technique would restore only limited vision at best - people would be colour-blind, for instance - but Greenbaum thinks it could provide far better resolution than the electronic retinal implants being developed. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 5389 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DINITIA SMITH Almost every day, it seems, there is another alarming study about the dangers of being fat or a new theory about its causes and cures. Just this week, VH1 announced a new reality show called "Flab to Fab," in which overweight women get a personal staff to whip them into shape. But a growing group of historians and cultural critics who study fat say this obsession is based less on science than on morality. Insidious attitudes about politics, sex, race or class are at the heart of the frenzy over obesity, these scholars say, a frenzy they see as comparable to the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism and even the eugenics movement. "We are in a moral panic about obesity," said Sander L. Gilman, distinguished professor of liberal arts, sciences and medicine at the University of Illinois in Chicago and the author of "Fat Boys: A Slim Book," published last month by the University of Nebraska Press. "People are saying, `Fat is the doom of Western civilization.' " Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 5388 - Posted: 05.01.2004

New dietary ammo against diabetes? Janet Raloff Non–insulin-dependent diabetes is epidemic in the United States. The potentially deadly disorder afflicts some 16 million people in this country, accounting for 95 percent of all diabetes. The number of people with non–insulin-dependent diabetes is 50 percent greater today than it was just a decade ago. Cardiovascular complications account for half of all deaths among people with this type of diabetes, commonly called type 2, and the disorder is the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, and amputations in the United States. Nationally, medical expenditures associated with treating type 2 diabetes and its complications are about $92 billion per year. The disease arises when people lose all or part of their sensitivity to insulin, the hormone that normally signals cells to move glucose from the blood into energy-hungry tissues. Because spikes in blood-glucose concentrations can damage the circulatory system and other organs, the long-term health of people with full-blown type 2 diabetes depends upon how tightly they can control their blood sugar concentrations. They do this by making lifestyle changes, such as exercising regularly, losing weight, and choosing certain foods. People considered to be prediabetic because they have faltering blood sugar control also fare better in the long run if they follow the same lifestyle guidelines. Copyright ©2004 Science Service.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 5387 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius Whale-watcher boats may be making so much noise that killer whales off the coast of Washington have to change their calls to communicate over the racket. Recordings made during the past 3 years, after a boom in whale watching in Washington State, show that killer whales lengthen a characteristic call by about 15 percent when boats cluster around them, reports Andrew D. Foote of the University of Durham in England. Recordings from earlier eras, when there were fewer whale watchers, showed no link between call length and the presence of boats, say Foote and his colleagues in the April 29 Nature. They suggest that boats following the whales may not interfere with animal communication until some critical number of churning engines makes the noise just too loud. That change "is certainly a red flag," contends coauthor Rus Hoelzel, also of Durham. "Maybe we ought to think about fewer boats." Copyright ©2004 Science Service.

Keyword: Hearing; Animal Communication
Link ID: 5386 - Posted: 06.24.2010

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – While soy may be beneficial to women in a variety of ways, research in monkeys suggests that it could have an adverse effect on the behavior of men, according to researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Reporting in the current issue of the scientific journal Hormones and Behavior, the researchers found that in male monkeys, "long-term consumption of a diet rich in soy isoflavones can have marked influences on patterns of aggression and social behavior." Isoflavones are a naturally occurring plant estrogen in soy protein. "Although considerable attention has been directed at the potentially beneficial effects of isoflavones in reducing the risk of various cancers, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and postmenopausal symptoms, less effort has been invested in characterizing neurobehavioral effects," according to the study. People have the concept that soy is only beneficial, said Jay R. Kaplan, Ph.D., professor of comparative medicine and anthropology, one of the investigators. "There is the thought that what is good for some is good for all and more is better."

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 5385 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ST. LOUIS - Saint Louis University researchers have discovered the cause of one form of retinitis pigmentosa, a type of genetically inherited blindness. The research, which will be published Tuesday in the April 27 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), opens the door to the development of new treatments. The research was based on genetic information provided by several blind members of a South African family. The laboratory of William Sly, M.D., chair of the department of biochemistry at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, collaborated on the research with scientists from UCT/Groote Schuur Hospital in South Africa. Further evidence in support of their research was provided by Dr. Kang Zhang at the University of Utah. The research began when a "gene hunt" involving five large families led the South African scientists to discover a genetic mutation not previously known to be involved in retinitis pigmentosa. The discovery was unusual because this gene was expressed only in the kidney and in micro-capillaries such as the capillaries beneath the eye, and not in the retina itself; typically, genes involved in retinal diseases are expressed only in the retina.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 5384 - Posted: 04.30.2004

By watching mice "dance" and comparing the DNA of the dancers to their flat-footed siblings, scientists have discovered a genetic cause of cleft lip and palate in mice, a finding that is already being used to search for a similar genetic defect in humans. A team led by Rulang Jiang of the Center for Oral Biology at the University of Rochester Medical Center found that a gene known as Tbx10 is responsible for causing cleft lip and palate in mice. The group, which reported its results April 26 in the on-line edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is now working with a group at the University of Iowa to find a similar mutation in humans. The Rochester team studied mice that naturally carry a genetic mutation called Dancer, so named because mice with one copy of the Dancer mutation twist as they walk, toss their heads abnormally, and have balance problems due to inner-ear damage caused by the mutation. For more than 35 years it's been known that these mice are also more susceptible than normal mice to being born with cleft lip and palate, while mice with two copies of the mutation are always born with the defect.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5383 - Posted: 04.30.2004

Chemical cause sought for damage to soldiers' nerves. EMILY SINGER Men who have served in the US military are 60% more likely to develop a fatal muscle-wasting disease than civilians, research suggests. The study hints that all military personnel are at increased risk, not just those who served in the first Gulf War. The nerve disorder, known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a relatively rare disease that causes nerve-cell death and muscle wasting. Studies have suggested that the risk of ALS is raised among Gulf War veterans. So Marc Weisskopf from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues decided to see if military service in other conflicts had a similar effect. The researchers studied the causes of death of around 400,000 men over a nine-year period. Some 217 veterans developed ALS compared with just 63 civilians, researchers revealed at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in San Francisco this week. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2004

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 5382 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Matthew Giampoala The behavior of a fly can tell people a lot about their own behavior, according to Seymour Benzer, James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology. Benzer spoke as part of a symposium sponsored by the Franklin Institute and Penn's Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences. Benzer was in Philadelphia to receive the Franklin Institute's Bower Award for Achievement in Science. For almost 40 years, Benzer has been studying the genetics of behavior using the common fruit fly. Benzer claims that many of his contemporaries, and even his own mother, thought he was crazy, but he was undeterred by their opinions. Benzer spoke about the many genes identified in his lab that, if mutated, alter behavior. These genes are thought to shape behaviors ranging from sleep/wake cycles to love and courtship. dailypennsylvanian.com All material copyright 1991-2004.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 5381 - Posted: 04.30.2004

By RANDY KENNEDY In the never-ending search for truly original topics in a world of cinematic recycling, Richard Ledes, a first-time director, probably deserves some kind of award. As far as he or anyone else can determine, he has made the first full-length feature film in which the chief subject is lobotomy. With that in mind, it may almost seem beside the point to mention that the movie, "A Hole in One," stars Meat Loaf. Or that the screenplay relies heavily on an unusual source for dramatic inspiration: the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene Annual Report of 1953. Or even that one character is based on a real neurologist, Dr. Walter Freeman, who pioneered outpatient lobotomies in the late 1940's and, before he lost his surgical privileges in the late 60's, drove around the country promoting the operation in a camper van he called the lobotomobile. "It's hard now to believe that someone like Freeman really existed," said Mr. Ledes, 47, who has been involved for many years with performance art and experimental theater groups in Paris and New York. "And that's one of the reasons that I decided to use the historical material in a made-up story. I felt that fiction could convey the truth better than documentary." Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 5380 - Posted: 04.29.2004

It may be possible to treat Alzheimer's by inserting genetically modified tissue directly into the brains of patients, research suggests. A team from the University of California, San Diego, used the technique to boost activity in the brains of volunteers. Brain cells appeared to respond to the introduction of grafts designed to trigger production of growth factors. The research was presented at an American Academy of Neurology meeting. The scientists stress that their work is still at a very early stage. So far they have only worked on a small number of patients, and the tests have been designed to find out whether the technique is safe, rather than effective. However, the early indications suggest that it might help to slow the advancement of disease. (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 5379 - Posted: 04.29.2004

By AMY HARMON Last July, Steven Miller, a university librarian, came across an article about a set of neurological conditions he had never heard of called autistic spectrum disorders. By the time he finished reading, his face was wet with tears. "This is me," Mr. Miller remembers thinking in the minutes and months of eager research that followed. "To read about it and feel that I'm not the only one, that maybe it's O.K., maybe it's just a human difference, was extremely emotional. In a way it has changed everything, even though nothing has changed." Mr. Miller, 49, who excels at his job but finds the art of small talk impossible to master, has since been given a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, an autistic disorder notable for the often vast discrepancy between the intellectual and social abilities of those who have it. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 5378 - Posted: 04.29.2004

The brainpower of young women who are lacking in iron can be markedly boosted by taking supplements of the mineral, suggests a new study. Even women who were just modestly iron deficient did much worse on attention, memory and learning tests than those with enough iron in their blood, found the study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the US. "The iron deficient women took longer to do tasks and were less successful," says John Beard, one of the team. For those classified as anemic the difference was particularly stark, he says: "The number of errors in a memory task was double than in the iron sufficient group." But giving these women daily supplements of iron for four months reversed this effect. "It was a highly significant improvement, which is really the proof of the pudding," he told New Scientist. "If you give iron and somebody improves you can be pretty sure the iron was causally related in the first place." © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 5377 - Posted: 06.24.2010

— The fast-growing activity of whale watching can interfere with communication between cetaceans, and this could have an impact on their survival, biologists fear. If there are too many vessels, there is too much background noise from engines; this requires the animals to "sing" longer in order to make themselves heard by other members of their group, the experts said in Thursday's issue of Nature. They compared recordings of calls made by orcas living in the inshore waters of Washington state made during three separate periods: from 1977 to 1981, from 1989 to 1992 and from 2001 to 2003. Copyright © 2004 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Hearing; Animal Communication
Link ID: 5376 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHAPEL HILL -- Among the most accomplished navigators in the animal kingdom, sea turtles often migrate across thousands of miles of open ocean to arrive at specific feeding and nesting sites. How they do so, however, has mystified biologists for over a century. Now, new findings by a research team headed by Drs. Kenneth and Catherine Lohmann, marine biologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, indicate that the navigational ability of sea turtles is based at least partly on a "magnetic map" -- a remarkable ability to read geographic position from subtle variations in the Earth’s magnetic field. Previous work by the group showed that baby sea turtles can use magnetic information as a built-in compass to help guide them during their first migration across the Atlantic Ocean. Their latest studies reveal that older turtles use the Earth’s field in a different, far more sophisticated way: to help pinpoint their location relative to specific target areas, the scientists say. In effect, older turtles have a biological equivalent of a global positioning system (GPS), but the turtle version is based on magnetism.

Keyword: Animal Migration
Link ID: 5375 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service Neanderthals' teeth developed faster than their human cousins, new research has revealed. This may mean Neanderthals reached maturity at 15 years old, around three years earlier than our early human ancestors. The study compared the growth rings in the enamel of 150 fossilised Neanderthal teeth with those of ancient humans. The rings are laid down at a rate of around one every nine days. By counting the number of rings in adult teeth, José Maria Bermudez de Castro of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, Spain, and Fernando Ramirez Rozzi at the CNRS centre for anthropological sciences in Paris, France, calculated that the Neanderthal's teeth developed 15 per cent faster than those of Cro-Magnon man. From this they inferred that Neanderthals matured around three years earlier. In primates, slow developers also tend to have teeth that take longer to reach maturity, notes Bermudez de Castro. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 5374 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Women born in the summer have fewer children on average than women born at other times of the year, according to research published (Thursday 29 April) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction[1]. The findings, from a study of more than 3,000 Austrian women, show that despite the advent of modern contraception a woman's birth month influences her reproductive performance, just as it has been found to do within historic populations. Lead researcher Dr Susanne Huber of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna and her colleagues at the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, found that, on average, the number of children was lower among women of reproductive age born between June and August than in those born in any other month, although there was no association between birth month and childlessness. "It partially confirms a study of pre-modern women in Canada, which found that women born in mid to late summer and early autumn had below average numbers of live-born children, although that also found that women born in April had fewer children. It also partially confirms a study of historic Dutch women that showed fewer children among women born in mid to late summer and early autumn," said Dr Huber.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 5373 - Posted: 04.29.2004

ST. LOUIS -- Looking for another reason to convince your teenager not to try marijuana? Teenage boys who infrequently use marijuana but occasionally binge on the drug may face a greater risk of stroke than their peers, according to a study in Pediatrics by a Saint Louis University associate professor of neurology. Thomas Geller, M.D., who also is a pediatric neurologist at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children Hospital, said the risk of stroke, while increased, remains extremely small. He examined the cases of three teenage boys who used occasionally marijuana and suffered strokes after consuming large doses. "The novice (marijuana user) may be at greater risk of stroke, especially if they use a lot at one time. It's another reason not to start using marijuana," Dr. Geller says. Strokes in children and teens are extremely rare, occurring in about six cases per 100,000 young people a year. When Saint Louis University doctors saw three cases of strokes in male adolescents during a five year period, they became suspicious, Dr. Geller says. All three teens had strokes in the cerebellar hemispheres of the brain. Two of the adolescents died.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Stroke
Link ID: 5372 - Posted: 04.29.2004

Discovery could help doctors plan treatment, prevention before symptoms appear PORTLAND, Ore. – The rate of brain volume loss may help doctors predict whether a patient will develop dementia before they even start showing signs of the disease, Oregon Health & Science University researchers discovered. Scientists at the Layton Center for Aging & Alzheimer's Disease Research in the OHSU School of Medicine's Department of Neurology found that rates of total brain volume loss may help identify patients with mild cognitive impairment who are at high risk of developing dementia. The discovery could help doctors plan early treatment strategies and prevention studies. Joseph F. Quinn, M.D., study co-author and assistant professor of neurology, and cell and developmental biology, OHSU School of Medicine, called the findings "very important." "The measurements can be used to both screen people for prevention studies and to monitor the effects of intervention," said Quinn, an investigator at the OHSU Layton Center for Aging & Alzheimer's Disease Research.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 5371 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer Despite some early disasters, a novel gene-therapy treatment for Alzheimer's disease has produced encouraging results in the first half-dozen patients, scientists reported Tuesday. After years of animal studies, researchers led by Dr. Mark Tuszynski, a neuroscientist and neurologist at UC San Diego, began the first human safety trial of the new approach in April 2001. Tuszynski summarized the results during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, which is under way this week in San Francisco. The study has drawn attention as the first attempt to use gene therapy to treat an incurable neurodegenerative disorder. Alzheimer's disease currently affects about 4 million people in the United States, and that number is growing as the population ages. Gene therapy has been touted as a way of curing some of the most intractable diseases known, typically by injecting a benign virus or other "vector" to deliver therapeutic genes inside a patient's own cells. But the first studies were fraught with safety problems that cooled some of the early enthusiasm. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 5370 - Posted: 06.24.2010