Devin Coldewey We count on machine learning systems for everything from creating playlists to driving cars, but like any tool, they can be bent towards dangerous and unethical purposes as well. Today's illustration of this fact is a new paper from Stanford researchers, who have created a machine learning system that they claim can tell from a few pictures whether a person is gay or straight. The research is as surprising as it is disconcerting. In addition to exposing an already vulnerable population to a new form of systematized abuse, it strikes directly at the egalitarian notion that we can't (and shouldn't) judge a person by their appearance, nor guess at something as private as sexual orientation from something as simple as a snapshot or two. But the accuracy of the system reported in the paper seems to leave no room for mistake: this is not only possible, it has been achieved. It relies on cues apparently more subtle than most can perceive — cues many would suggest do not exist. And it demonstrates, as it is intended to, a class of threat to privacy that is entirely unique to the imminent era of ubiquitous computer vision. Before discussing the system itself, it should be made clear that this research was by all indications done with good intentions. In an extensive set of authors' notes that anyone commenting on the topic ought to read, Michal Kosinski and Yilun Wang address a variety of objections and questions. Most relevant are perhaps their remarks as to why the paper was released at all: We were really disturbed by these results and spent much time considering whether they should be made public at all. We did not want to enable the very risks that we are warning against. The ability to control when and to whom to reveal one’s sexual orientation is crucial not only for one’s well-being, but also for one’s safety.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 24046 - Posted: 09.08.2017

James Gorman African wild dogs sneeze. And that’s a first. No other social animal has been reported to cast a vote, of sorts, by sneezing, although in humans sneezing may once have expressed a negative opinion, as in, “nothing to sneeze at.” Wild dog sneezing is different. For one thing it seems to indicate a positive reaction to a proposal before a group of dogs. When a pack of these dogs is getting ready to hunt, scientists reported Tuesday, the more sneezes, the more likely they are to actually get moving. Just about all social organisms make group decisions that require reaching a consensus. If monkeys or meerkats are looking for a better place to forage, they need to reach a consensus about moving on among a minimum number of animals — called a quorum, just like in Congress. Even some bacteria do this before releasing toxins or lighting up with bioluminescence. Bacteria use chemical signals but larger animals often use sounds as a way of saying, I’m in. However, among grunts, huffs, piping signals and others, the sneeze had not been reported as one of those signals until a group of American, British and Australian researchers published their observations of African dogs in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. They were studying the dogs where they live in Botswana to see how they decide to go on a hunt. Like most carnivores, the wild dogs sleep a lot. But at some point one of the pack will start what is called a rally, getting all the other members excited and milling around as if they want to play. Sometimes the rallies are successful, and off the pack goes. Sometimes the pack members lie down and go back to sleep. Neil R. Jordan of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, the senior author of the report, noticed that the successful rallies there seemed to have more sneezing. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Aggression
Link ID: 24045 - Posted: 09.07.2017

By Andy Coghlan A type of therapy originally designed for insomnia has been found to also help a range of mental health issues, including negative thoughts, anxiety, depression and psychosis. Daniel Freeman, at the University of Oxford, and his colleagues have been testing Sleepio, a type of cognitive behavioural therapy available online. The ten-week course is intended to restore healthy sleep patterns in people with insomnia, and Freeman wanted to see if it could also relieve other problems. Learn more about the science of sleep: In our expert talk at New Scientist Live in London His team asked nearly 1900 students who have difficulty sleeping to try using Sleepio, and nearly 1870 others to try following standard advice for insomnia. Both groups filled in questionnaires beforehand that assessed their sleep patterns, as well as tendencies to experience paranoia and hallucinations. They repeated these questionnaires at three, ten and 22 weeks into the experiment. Overall, those using Sleepio slept 50 per cent better than the control group, says Freeman. Compared to this group, the Sleepio users also had a 30 per cent reduction in hallucinations, 25 per cent reduction in paranoia, and their anxiety and depression levels were 20 per cent lower. © Copyright New Scientist Ltd.

Keyword: Sleep; Depression
Link ID: 24044 - Posted: 09.07.2017

By Bob Grant Eating a diet high in fat and low in carbohydrates keeps mice living longer, healthier lives, according to two separate studies published in Cell Metabolism today (September 5). One of the studies, conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California, cycled mice on and off a ketogenic diet, which forces the body to produce fatty acids called ketone bodies to fuel metabolism through the severe limiting of carbohydrates. Those mice, which were given non-ketogenic diets one week and ketogenic diets the next, avoided obesity and memory decline and displayed reductions in midlife mortality, compared to mice on a control diet. The other study, performed by scientists at the Buck Institute in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, Davis, kept mice on a ketogenic diet for 14 months and showed similar results, with the addition of improvements in motor function, grip strength, and other indicators of muscle mass. “The fact that we had such an effect on memory and preservation of brain function is really exciting,” Eric Verdin, CEO of the Buck Institute and coauthor of the study that alternated ketogenic and non-ketogenic diets, says in a statement. “The older mice on the ketogenic diet had a better memory than the younger mice. That’s really remarkable.” © 1986-2017 The Scientist

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 24043 - Posted: 09.07.2017

A test that involves drawing a spiral on a sheet of paper could be used to diagnose early Parkinson's disease. Australian researchers have trialled software that measures writing speed and pen pressure on the page. Both are useful for detecting the disease, which causes shaking and muscle rigidity. The Melbourne team said the test could be used by GPs to screen their patients after middle age and to monitor the effect of treatments. The study, published in Frontiers of Neurology, involved 55 people - 27 had Parkinson's and 28 did not. Speed of writing and pen pressure while sketching are lower among Parkinson's patients, particularly those with a severe form of the disease. Image copyright RMIT University Image caption Treatment options are effective only when the disease is diagnosed early In the trial, a tablet computer with special software took measurements during the drawing test and was able to distinguish those with the disease, and how severe it was. Poonam Zham, study researcher from RMIT University, said: "Our aim was to develop an affordable and automated electronic system for early-stage diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, which could be easily used by a community doctor or nursing staff." The system combines pen speed and pressure into one measurement, which can be used to tell how severe the disease is. David Dexter, deputy research director at Parkinson's UK, said current tests for the disease were not able to accurately measure how advanced someone's condition was. "This can impact on the ability to select the right people for clinical research, which is essential to develop new and better treatments for Parkinson's. "This new test could provide a more accurate assessment by measuring a wider range of features that may be affected by Parkinson's, such as co-ordination, pressure, speed and cognitive function." He added that the test could be a "stepping stone" to better clinical trials for Parkinson's. © 2017 BBC.

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 24042 - Posted: 09.07.2017

Laura Sanders Peer inside the brain of someone learning. You might be lucky enough to spy a synapse pop into existence. That physical bridge between two nerve cells seals new knowledge into the brain. As new information arrives, synapses form and strengthen, while others weaken, making way for new connections. You might see more subtle changes, too, like fluctuations in the levels of signaling molecules, or even slight boosts in nerve cell activity. Over the last few decades, scientists have zoomed in on these microscopic changes that happen as the brain learns. And while that detailed scrutiny has revealed a lot about the synapses that wire our brains, it isn’t enough. Neuroscientists still lack a complete picture of how the brain learns. They may have been looking too closely. When it comes to the neuroscience of learning, zeroing in on synapse action misses the forest for the trees. A new, zoomed-out approach attempts to make sense of the large-scale changes that enable learning. By studying the shifting interactions between many different brain regions over time, scientists are beginning to grasp how the brain takes in new information and holds onto it. These kinds of studies rely on powerful math. Brain scientists are co-opting approaches developed in other network-based sciences, borrowing tools that reveal in precise, numerical terms the shape and function of the neural pathways that shift as human brains learn. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2017.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 24041 - Posted: 09.06.2017

Ian Sample Science editor A drug that mimics a zero-carbohydrate diet could help people live longer, healthier lives and have better memories in old age, US researchers claim. Scientists hope to develop a medication after two independent studies showed that mice fed on a diet stripped of all carbohydrate lived longer and performed better on a range of physical and mental tasks than those that had regular meals. Because the diet is hard to stick to, the researchers are working on a compound that aims to deliver the same benefits for humans. If they are successful, it would amount to an extra seven to ten years of life on average, and protection against the weakening muscles and faltering memories that are defining aspects of human ageing. “I’m excited about this, and it’s hard not to be after what we’ve seen that it does. These are pretty profound effects,” said Eric Verdin, a physician who led one of the studies at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California. The zero carb diet was designed to induce a dramatic change in metabolism, by fooling the mice into thinking they were fasting. When deprived of carbohydrate, the body shifts from using glucose as its main energy source to burning fat and producing chemicals in the liver known as ketone bodies. In 2013, Verdin showed that a ketone body called BHB served as fuel in the body and might also protect animals against the microscopic damage that builds up in cells as part of the natural ageing process. © 2017 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 24040 - Posted: 09.06.2017

Laurel Hamers Zika’s damaging neurological effects might someday be enlisted for good — to treat brain cancer. In human cells and in mice, the virus infected and killed the stem cells that become a glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor, but left healthy brain cells alone. Jeremy Rich, a regenerative medicine scientist at the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues report the findings online September 5 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Previous studies had shown that Zika kills stem cells that generate nerve cells in developing brains (SN: 4/2/16, p. 26). Because of similarities between those neural precursor cells and stem cells that turn into glioblastomas, Rich’s team suspected the virus might also target the cells that cause the notoriously deadly type of cancer. In the United States, about 12,000 people are expected to be diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2017. (It’s the type of cancer U.S. Senator John McCain was found to have in July.) Even with treatment, most patients live only about a year after diagnosis, and tumors frequently recur. In cultures of human cells, Zika infected glioblastoma stem cells and halted their growth, Rich and colleagues report. The virus also infected full-blown glioblastoma cells but at a lower rate, and didn’t infect normal brain tissues. Zika-infected mice with glioblastoma either saw their tumors shrink or their tumor growth slow compared with uninfected mice. The virus-infected mice lived longer, too. In one trial, almost half of the mice survived more than six weeks after being infected with Zika, while all of the uninfected mice died within two weeks of receiving a placebo. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2017. A

Keyword: Glia
Link ID: 24039 - Posted: 09.06.2017

By Michael Le Page We are still evolving – very slowly. In the 20th century, people in the UK evolved to be less likely to smoke heavily, but the effect was tiny. So claims a study of 200,000 genomes. A population can be described as evolving when the frequency of gene variants changes over time. Because most people in rich countries now live well beyond reproductive age, some argue that we have stopped evolving because natural selection has been weakened. But several recent studies claim we are still evolving, albeit slowly. Now Joseph Pickrell at Columbia University in New York and his team have analysed human genome sequences to spot gene variants that are becoming rarer. One variant, of a gene called CHRNA3, is associated with heavier smoking in those that smoke, raising their risk of a smoking-related death. Comparing people over the age of 80 with people over the age of 60, Pickrell estimates that the variant has declined by 1 per cent between generations. However, his team was not able to prove this, as they did not have any genomic data from people under the age of 40. A variant of the ApoE4 gene that is known to increase the risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, as well as cardiovascular disease, may also be getting rarer. © Copyright New Scientist Ltd.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 24038 - Posted: 09.06.2017

By NATALIE ANGIER A normal human baby, according to psychologists, will cry about two hours over the course of a day. A notorious human crybaby, according to her older siblings, parents and the building superintendent, will cry for two hours every two hours, refusing to acknowledge any distinction between crying and other basic infant activities, like “being awake” or “breathing.” Current and former whine enthusiasts, take heart. It turns out that infant crying is not only as natural and justifiable as breathing: The two acts are physically, neurologically, primally intertwined. Scientists have discovered that the small cluster of brain cells in charge of fast, active respiration also grant a baby animal the power to cry. Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Carmen Birchmeier and Luis Hernandez-Miranda, of the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, and their colleagues showed that infant mice stripped of this key node — a mere 17,000 neurons, located in the evolutionarily ancient hindbrain — can breathe slowly and passively, but not vigorously or animatedly. When they open their mouths to cry, nothing comes out. As a result, their mothers ignore them, and the poorly breathing pups quickly die. “This was an astonishing finding,” Dr. Birchmeier said. “The mother could see the pups and smell the pups, but if they didn’t vocalize, it was as though they didn’t exist.” The new study is just one in a series of recent reports that reveal the centrality of crying to infant survival, and how a baby’s bawl punches through a cluttered acoustic landscape to demand immediate adult attention. The sound of an infant’s cry arouses a far quicker and stronger response in action-oriented parts of the adult brain than do similarly loud or emotionally laden noises, like a dog barking or a neighbor weeping. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Animal Communication
Link ID: 24037 - Posted: 09.05.2017

By Susan Noakes, CBC News Researchers studying fish from the Niagara River have found that human antidepressants and remnants of these drugs are building up in their brains. The concentration of human drugs was discovered by scientists from University at Buffalo, Buffalo State and two Thai universities, Ramkhamhaeng University and Khon Kaen University. Active ingredients and metabolized remnants of Zoloft, Celexa, Prozac and Sarafem — drugs that have seen a sharp spike in prescriptions in North America — were found in 10 fish species. Diana Aga, professor of chemistry at University at Buffalo, says these drugs are found in human urine and are not stripped out by wastewater treatment. Could affect fish behaviour "It is a threat to biodiversity, and we should be very concerned," Aga said in a release from the university. Fish in the Niagara River show concentrations of antidepressants in their brains higher than levels in the river itself. (David Duprey/The Associated Press) "These drugs could affect fish behaviour. We didn't look at behaviour in our study, but other research teams have shown that antidepressants can affect the feeding behaviour of fish or their survival instincts. Some fish won't acknowledge the presence of predators as much." The Niagara River, which carries water from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, is already under stress, with reports this summer of untreated wastewater released into the river. The research, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found levels of antidepressants in fish brains that were several times higher than levels in the river itself, indicating that the chemicals are accumulating over time. ©2017 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 24036 - Posted: 09.05.2017

Lauren Silverman In health care, you could say radiologists have typically had a pretty sweet deal. They make, on average, around $400,000 a year — nearly double what a family doctor makes — and often have less grueling hours. But if you talk with radiologists in training at the University of California, San Francisco, it quickly becomes clear that the once-certain golden path is no longer so secure. "The biggest concern is that we could be replaced by machines," says Phelps Kelley, a fourth-year radiology fellow. He's sitting inside a dimly lit reading room, looking at digital images from the CT scan of a patient's chest, trying to figure out why he's short of breath. Because MRI and CT scans are now routine procedures and all the data can be stored digitally, the number of images radiologists have to assess has risen dramatically. These days, a radiologist at UCSF will go through anywhere from 20 to 100 scans a day, and each scan can have thousands of images to review. "Radiology has become commoditized over the years," Kelley says. "People don't want interaction with a radiologist, they just want a piece of paper that says what the CT shows." 'Computers are awfully good at seeing patterns' That basic analysis is something he predicts computers will be able to do. Dr. Bob Wachter, an internist at UCSF and author of The Digital Doctor, says radiology is particularly amenable to takeover by artificial intelligence like machine learning. "Radiology, at its core, is now a human being, based on learning and his or her own experience, looking at a collection of digital dots and a digital pattern and saying 'That pattern looks like cancer or looks like tuberculosis or looks like pneumonia,' " he says. "Computers are awfully good at seeing patterns." © 2017 npr

Keyword: Brain imaging; Robotics
Link ID: 24035 - Posted: 09.05.2017

By TARA PARKER-POPE It started as a simple conversation about a child’s birthday party. But it quickly escalated into a full-blown marital rift. She accused him of neglecting the family. He said she was yelling. “Whatever,” she said. “Go. Go.” “Go where?” he replied. “I don’t know,” she told him. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” The bickering parents were among 43 couples taking part in an Ohio State University study exploring how marital interactions influence a person’s health. Every couple in the study — just like couples in the real world — had experienced some form of routine marital conflict. Hot-button topics included managing money, spending time together as a family or an in-law intruding on the relationship. But while marital spats were universal among the couples, how they handled them was not. Some couples argued constructively and even with kindness, while others — like the couple fighting about the birthday party — were hostile and negative. What made the difference? The hostile couples were most likely to be those who weren’t getting much sleep. “When people have slept less, it’s a little like looking at the world through dark glasses,” said Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, a longtime relationship scientist and director of the Ohio State Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research. “Their moods are poorer. We’re grumpier. Lack of sleep hurts the relationship.” The men and women in the study had been married from three to 27 years. They reported varying amounts of sleep — anywhere from three and a half to nine hours a night. Each couple made two visits to the lab, where the partners were prodded to talk about the issues that caused the most conflict in their relationship. Then the researchers analyzed videos of their exchanges using well-established scoring techniques to assess positive and negative interactions and hostile and constructive responses. After all the data were parsed, a clear pattern emerged. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep; Emotions
Link ID: 24034 - Posted: 09.05.2017

Anna VlasitsAnna Vlasits A sheen is starting to appear on Rocky Blumhagen’s forehead, just below his gray hair. He’s marching in place in a starkly lit room decked out with two large flatscreens. On both of the TVs, a volcano lets off steam through wide cracks glowing with lava, their roar muffling the Andean percussion and flutes on the soundtrack. Golden coins slide across the screen. Rocky reaches out his left hand, as if to grasp a coin from midair, and one of them disappears with a brrring. “I don’t know if I can do it,” he says to a guy named Josh sitting nearby in a felt-covered lounge chair. He looks up from his iPad, watching Rocky, age 66, grab, jog, kick, and reach his way through the videogame. “Keep it up,” Josh says as the heart monitor in the corner of the screen reads 129. Rocky and research assistant Josh Volponi are technically in a lab clinic at the University of California, San Francisco, but aside from the mannequin heads studded with electrodes, the room looks more like a man cave. But here, the videogames could halt the mental decay of aging. This is the premise that the university’s new research institute, named Neuroscape, was built to test. This is Rocky’s 18th training session at Neuroscape, founded by neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley. Rocky is fit for his age—he works as a substitute yoga instructor, after retiring from careers producing radio and performing Cole Porter songs—but as he makes it to the end of the level, he looks exhausted. The game cuts to an animation of a jungle, birds chirping and light playing through the canopy as a list of his past scores pops up. This round wasn’t his best. “I haven’t been here for a week,” he says. Volponi asks him to rate his physical exertion level. Rocky gives it a 15 out of 20; Volponi marks it on the iPad. “I feel rusty,” he says, wiping his hands on his orange exercise shorts.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 24033 - Posted: 09.04.2017

By SANDY SMOLAN I’ve long been interested in the capacity of storytelling and journalism to transport an audience. Shooting my first documentary in North Africa 35 years ago, I used multiple projectors and screens to create an immersive experience. The approach at the time was experimental and while I moved on to more traditional storytelling in features, television and documentaries, I always held on to the idea of using immersive environments to transport viewers and allow them to experience an expanded vision of the world. They surrounded the divers and started clicking — they seemed to be saying hello. Then last year I visited the virtual reality lab at Stanford, which is at the fore of contemporary immersive journalism. I realized that V.R. had the potential to become a powerful new form of storytelling, and the medium has been evolving faster than anyone had ever expected. After I read James Nestor’s book “Deep,” about free diving and the human connection to the ocean, I realized that the combination of stunning imagery and the way in which a team of researchers were studying the language of whales and dolphins by free diving with them would translate perfectly to V.R. I had never forgotten my first open water dive in the Caribbean with my father when I was 17 and the transcendent experience of being suspended 30 feet beneath the surface, midway between the boat above us and the white sand of the ocean floor below. Now my son has become a free diver and as I recently watched him dive silently, on a single breath, his body elongated with outsize fins, unencumbered by tanks, regulators and the noise of escaping bubbles, I saw what James so eloquently described in his book — a human being interacting with the ocean and marine life in a manner few people can ever experience. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Animal Communication; Hearing
Link ID: 24032 - Posted: 09.04.2017

Robin McKie Science Editor People who use genetic tests to trace their ancestry only to discover that they are at risk of succumbing to an incurable illness are being left to suffer serious psychological problems. Dementia researchers say the problem is particularly acute for those found to be at risk of Alzheimer’s disease, which has no cure or effective treatment. Yet these people are stumbling upon their status inadvertently after trying to find their Viking, Asian or ancient Greek roots. “These tests have the potential to cause great distress,” said Anna Middleton, head of society and ethics research at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge. “Companies should make counselling available, before and after people take tests.” The issue is raised in a paper by Middleton and others in the journal Future Medicine. A similar warning was sounded by Louise Walker, research officer at the Alzheimer’s Society. “Everyone has a right to know about their risk if they want to, but these companies have a moral responsibility to make sure people understand the meaning and consequences of this information. Anyone considering getting genetic test results should do so with their eyes open.” Alzheimer’s is linked to the build-up in the brain of clumps of a protein called amyloid. This triggers severe memory loss, confusion and disorientation. One gene, known as ApoE, affects this process and exists in three variants: E2, E3 and E4. Those possessing the last of these face an increased chance of getting the disease in late life. © 2017 Guardian News and Media Limited

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 24031 - Posted: 09.04.2017

Marsha Lederman Santiago Ramon y Cajal wanted to be an artist, but his father, a physician and anatomy teacher, wanted his son to follow in his medical footsteps. It's a familiar story of family dynamics, but what wound up happening in this case was revolutionary. Cajal, who was born in 1852 in northeastern Spain, did ultimately go into medicine, as his father wished. He became a pathologist, histologist and neuroscientist. But he also applied his artistic skills to his area of interest. His hand-drawn illustrations of the brain, based on what he saw through the microscope using stained brain tissue (thanks to a technique developed by his contemporary, the Italian histologist Camillo Golgi) were pioneering. Cajal, who won the Nobel Prize in 1906 (along with Golgi), is known as the father of modern neuroscience. More than a century after he made them, his drawings are still used to illustrate principles of neuroscience. "When I was a student … everybody would start their talk, 'as first shown by Cajal,'" says Brian MacVicar, co-director at Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health and Canada Research Chair in Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia. When MacVicar learned that an exhibition of Cajal's drawings was being planned by neuroscience colleagues in Minnesota along with the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, he was immediately on a mission: to bring the drawings to Vancouver. He finally extracted a yes from the show organizers, but not operating in the art world, MacVicar wasn't sure who might want to exhibit them in Vancouver. The answer turned out to be right in his backyard – or at least, a few blocks away on campus. Scott Watson, director/curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia, had seen Cajal's work at the Istanbul Biennial in 2015 – and understood their appeal and value.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 24030 - Posted: 09.04.2017

Sara Reardon Scientists studying human behaviour and cognitive brain function are up in arms over a plan by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to classify most studies involving human participants as clinical trials. An open letter sent on 31 August to NIH director Francis Collins says that the policy could “unnecessarily increase the administrative burden on investigators,” slowing the pace of discovery in basic research. It asked the NIH to delay implementation of the policy until it consulted with the behavioural science community. As this article went to press, the letter had garnered 2,070 signatures. “Every scientist I have talked to who is doing basic research on the human mind and brain has been shocked by this policy, which makes no sense,” says Nancy Kanwisher, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who co-wrote the letter with four other researchers. The policy is part of an NIH clinical trial reform effort started in 2014 to ensure that all clinical results were publicly reported. The policy is scheduled to go into effect in January 2018. Its definition of a clinical trial included anything involving behavioural ‘interventions’, such as having participants perform a memory task or monitor their food intake. Such studies would need special evaluation by NIH review committees and institutional ethics review boards; and the experiments would need to be registered online in the clinicaltrials.gov database. © 2017 Macmillan Publishers Limited

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 24029 - Posted: 09.02.2017

By Meghana Keshavan, Inflammation has become one of the hottest buzzwords in medical science, pointed to as a culprit in causing or aggravating conditions ranging from allergy to autism to Alzheimer’s disease. But it’s far from clear that standard anti-inflammatory drugs, which have been around for decades, will help patients with those conditions, especially since they often come with dangerous side effects. So in labs across the country, scientists are trying to puzzle through the basic biology, understanding how inflammation leads to disease — and whether it’s possible to develop drugs that could interrupt that process. The latest evidence of inflammation’s broad role in disease came this past week, when a global clinical trial of 10,000 patients who had previous heart attacks showed that an anti-inflammatory drug from Novartis reduced their risk of further heart attacks or strokes. A surprise side effect: The drug also sharply cut the risk of lung cancer. That finding still needs to be confirmed with more research. But lead investigator Dr. Paul Ridker, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said he saw the trial as a clear indication of inflammation’s role in spurring cancer growth. The results, he said, turn “the way people look at oncology upside down.” Although inflammation has been studied for decades, there’s still a lot left to learn about this complex physiological condition. It’s basically an unnecessary state of hyperactivity in the body, in which the immune system’s reserve capacity is thrown into overdrive. This excess immune activation sends the wrong cellular signals to various parts of the body — and can wind up worsening conditions like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and potentially even cancer. © 2017 Scientific American

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 24028 - Posted: 09.02.2017

By JOSH KATZ The first governmental account of nationwide drug deaths in 2016 shows overdose deaths growing even faster than previously thought. Drug overdoses killed roughly 64,000 people in the United States last year, according to the first governmental account of nationwide drug deaths to cover all of 2016. It’s a staggering rise of more than 22 percent over the 52,404 drug deaths recorded the previous year — and even higher than The New York Times’s estimate in June, which was based on earlier preliminary data. Drug overdoses are expected to remain the leading cause of death for Americans under 50, as synthetic opioids — primarily fentanyl and its analogues — continue to push the death count higher. Drug deaths involving fentanyl more than doubled from 2015 to 2016, accompanied by an upturn in deaths involving cocaine and methamphetamines. Together they add up to an epidemic of drug overdoses that is killing people at a faster rate than the H.I.V. epidemic at its peak. This is the first national data to break down the growth by drug and by state. We’ve known for a while that fentanyls were behind the growing count of drug deaths in some states and counties. But now we can see the extent to which this is true nationally, as deaths involving synthetic opioids, mostly fentanyls, have risen to more than 20,000 from 3,000 in just three years. Deaths involving prescription opioids continue to rise, but many of those deaths also involved heroin, fentanyl or a fentanyl analogue. There is a downward trend in deaths from prescription opioids alone. At the same time, there has been a resurgence in cocaine and methamphetamine deaths. Many of these also involve opioids, but a significant portion of drug deaths — roughly one-third in 2015 — do not. © 2017 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 24027 - Posted: 09.02.2017