UWIRE » Research

Professor creates male birth control pill

admin — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 15:10:13 +0000

As U. Minnesota students reach for condoms to prevent pregnancy, one professor is on the verge of creating a male contraceptive similar to the female birth control pill.

The College of Pharmacy’s Department of Medicinal Chemistry head Gunda Georg is working with a team of scientists to develop Gamendazole, a drug that may give males an alternative to condoms and vasectomies.

The drug has shown effectiveness in tests on rats, rabbits and nonhuman primates, Georg said.

The research team will soon begin requesting approval from the Food and Drug Administration to test the drug in a clinical setting.

Georg said the drug will be a “reversible” alternative to permanent vasectomies because men will be able to take the pill to temporarily minimize fertility and can regain it if they stop taking it.

The drug would give people another option to plan pregnancy, she said.

Gamendazole faces a long road to the pharmaceutical market because it’s designed for healthy individuals, Georg said. Because of that, the pill is required to be completely free of side effects, like potential sperm damage, before being released onto the market.

“Usually when you develop a drug, it is for a disease, and certainly fertility is not a disease,” she said. “This drug has to be absolutely clean, and that’s a very high hurdle to take.”

Developing new male contraceptives has been historically slow because it’s much more difficult to block sperm than eggs, Georg said.

Every milliliter of semen produced has 15 to 200 million sperm, she said.

“That gives you an idea [of] how difficult that might be to control as opposed to controlling one egg.”

While there’s a perception that men will not want to use a contraceptive pill, Georg said, many men have responded to studies saying they would want to take it.

“I think that men are actually more willing to do this than a lot of people think,” she said.

Some UM students said releasing a male birth control pill into the market could have a positive effect.

Mechanical engineering freshman Dan Sherman said men would probably take the contraceptive as another option to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

“It would make everything safer and better,” he said.

Another UM student, Katie Hanson, said it would be more practical if both genders could take a pill.

“I think it makes sense for guys to take birth control,” she said.

Other students showed concern about how people would respond to a new male contraceptive after years of having only the female birth control pill available.

UM student Tegan Martin said though she thinks male birth control pills are a good idea, she’s not sure if people will change their contraceptive habits.

“I don’t know how easily it will catch on,” she said.

Shane DeGroy, a student in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, said having another option to minimize accidental pregnancy would be helpful, but it would work best if both genders took responsibility for birth control.

“If a guy still thinks it’s the woman’s job to do it,” DeGroy said, “I’m not sure [men will use it].”

Condoms for now

While researchers continue developing the male birth control pill, University students turn to condoms as their main source of contraception.

Among sexually active University students, almost half reported using a condom the last time they had vaginal intercourse, according to Boynton Health Service’s 2010 College Student Health Survey report.

Condoms are the most common method used by University students to prevent pregnancy, followed by the birth control pill, according to the report.

“Sexual health is an important part of health care,” Student Health Advisory Committee member Lauren Beach said. “It’s important that we raise awareness over ways that people can protect themselves.”

Health and wellness junior Amy Whitburn said it’s important to educate students on sexual health care products because not every student comes to college aware of them.

“A lot of people come from high schools or places that they don’t have comprehensive sex [education], and in college people are starting new experiences,” Whitburn said. “If they haven’t had a condom demo or they haven’t have some sort of experience with sexual health … that can lead to a lot of issues.”

Whitburn works as a coordinator for Sexual Health Awareness and Disease Education, a Boynton-sponsored group that works to inform students on sexual health.

During 2011-12, SHADE handed out more than 100,000 condoms to students on campus.

“The fact that it’s that popular of a program demonstrates that it’s an incredibly important part of public health outreach and services on campus,” Beach said.

Lightning’s striking effect on migraines

admin — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 13:00:29 +0000

It’s easy to ignore a grandparent who says a storm is coming because their knees are “acting up.” It’s even more ridiculous to think that Karen from “Mean Girls” knows when it will rain, thanks to her cleavage. But a new study suggests that people who suffer from migraines may actually be able to tell when lightning has been striking nearby.

What researchers found

Fourth-year medical student, Geoffrey Martin, and his father, Doctor Vincent Martin, a professor of Internal Medicine, conducted a study at U. Cincinnati that revealed that chronic migraine sufferers have a 31 percent higher risk of headache and a 28 percent higher risk of migraine on days lightning has struck within 25 miles of their home.

“So basically, on days with lightning, compared to days without lightning, there was actually 31 percent more people that had a headache on those days with lightning compared to not having lightning,” Geoffrey said.

The father-son duo said they analyzed several issues when evaluating the results, such as how lightning directly affects headaches and migraines.

However, the Martins also considered other weather factors often associated with lightning, such as barometric pressure, temperature, precipitation, humidity and wind.

This, Geoffrey said, allowed them to validate that lightning was truly causing the increase in headache frequency.

The study, published in the journal Cephalalgia on Jan. 24, showed that even when other weather factors were accounted for in mathematical models, there was still a 19 percent increased risk of headache on lightning-striking days.

“It was still statistically significant in our population,” Geoffrey said. “Lightning still had an effect on headaches beyond the meteorological factors that are often associated with lightning, such as high winds during a storm or rain, or high temperatures or high humidity.”

The researchers were also concerned about the long lifespans of headaches and migraines. Geoffrey said the life span of migraines often last more than one day.

The research also considered participants who may have suffered a headache prior to lightning, suggesting their headaches were not a direct result of the weather.

To account for this discrepancy, Geoffrey said he added a control variable to the model — he and his father accounted for the presence of headaches lasting up to two days prior to lightning storms. This variable reduced participants’ increased risk of headache from 31 to 24 percent and migraine from 28 percent to 23 percent.

“It’s like a weird Snapple fact,” said Boston U. sophomore Hannah Landers.

Like Landers, Jinzhu Wu, a BU freshman, said the new information was surprising.

“Usually the storm will scare people, but the lightning will only give us some tension that there will be some pretty terrifying noise,” she said.

Wu said this study might further people’s fear of lightning.

How they did it

For their study, the Martins researched detailed headache journals from 100 chronic migraine sufferers from previous studies at U. Cincinnati and U. St. Louis, Geoffrey said. These journals recorded activity during three-to-six-month periods.

“They were recruited in our study from other studies, actually, in which they recorded in a diary or journal their headache activity; whether they had a headache that day or not, their pain scale on that day, and whether they had nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light or noise,” Geoffrey said.

Participants in the study exhibiting such symptoms were labeled as chronic sufferers, or someone who suffers from at least one migraine a month. Geoffrey said a doctor diagnosed this condition using the International Headache Society Criteria.

Participants from Cincinnati recorded their journals between 1998 and 2001 while participants from St. Louis recorded theirs from 2008 to 2010, Geoffrey said.

Geoffrey said he and his father compared this information to weather data recorded during the same time periods. This helped them determine whether or not patients had increased headache activity on specific weather days.

The participants used were 91 percent female with an average age of 44. Geoffrey said that migraine patients are predominantly female, with women making up between 70 and 80 percent of sufferers.

He also said that migraines are generally worse before women reach menopause, resulting in a generally younger population of sufferers.

“We did throw in both age and gender into our models as covariates,” Geoffrey said. “Those did not affect our results in any way.”

Why it happens

In a recent press release, Vincent said there were two possible causes for this strange occurrence.

“Electromagnetic waves emitted from lightning could trigger headaches,” Vincent said in the release Jan. 24. “In addition, lightning produces increases in air pollutants like ozone and can cause release of fungal spores that might lead to migraine.”

“I know that in laboratory studies that various electromagnetic fields can induce EEG [Electroencephalograms] changes,” Geoffrey added to his father’s statement.

What it means

The answer, according to Geoffrey, is not a whole lot yet.

The weather cannot be controlled, so migraine sufferers will have to deal with Mother Nature’s wrath for now.

To prevent migraines, Geoffrey said people should move to areas that are less prone to lightning. Unfortunately this is not a quick fix. However, Geoffrey suggested other headache prevention methods.

“You can’t really control the weather on a day-to-day basis, but you can do individual measures, such as things that are important in preventing offensive migraines,” he said.

He recommended getting adequate rest and staying hydrated, as well as keeping pain relievers on hand.

He also suggested that chronic sufferers with more serious conditions seek professional help and prescription medications.

“The problem is no one really knows when they’re going to have an attack so obviously if someone’s [attacks are] frequent enough, they’re just on the medication every day,” Geoffrey said. “But otherwise it’s very hard to determine when they should be taking these kinds of preventative migraine medications.”

Heeding the Martins’ study, sufferers might check weather forecasts and take medications in preparation for upcoming storms.

Even people without prescription medications can prepare by taking pain relievers at the first sign of a headache, rather than ignoring a slight discomfort and allowing it to develop into a full-blown migraine.

Student Responses

Simone Rauch, a BU sophomore, said she did not have many ideas when asked what the findings could be used for.

“I mean, nothing really,” Rauch said. “You can’t just tell the lightning not to be near headache sufferers, right?”

However Melissa Yee, a BU junior, said she has hope for the new study.

“I get migraines constantly,” Yee said. “I don’t know if lightning would necessarily correlate with that, but I hope it does. Then maybe I could prevent some of my major headaches.”

Geoffrey said he will continue to study the weather-headache paradigm in an attempt to develop better methods of migraine control.

“We’re going to start looking at more complex weather patterns,” he said, “such that we’re going to be looking at intricate relationships between some of the individual weather variables.”

Study finds smoking worsens hangovers

admin — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 03:44:47 +0000

On your next night at the Whiskey Republic, leave the cigarettes at home — smoking could lead to a worse hangover, according to a new study from Brown U’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. The research was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs earlier this month.

To conduct their study, researchers including Damaris Rohsenow, a research professor of behavioral and social sciences, analyzed daily reports from students at an unidentified Midwestern university about how many drinks they consumed, how much they smoked and how they felt the next day.

The researchers focused on drinking episodes when students had an estimated blood alcohol level above .11, slightly over the legal limit of .08. On those nights, students who smoked were more than twice as likely to have a hangover than students who did not. Additionally, students who smoked more cigarettes reported having more intense hangovers the next day.

Hangovers are “not one of the common negatives” reported by students during alcohol counseling, said Frances Mantak, director of health education, so it is difficult to tell whether Brown students have similar experiences. There is a large gap between perceived and actual smoking on campus, with less than 5 percent of students falling into the heavy smoker category, she noted.

The researchers found a correlation between smoking and hangovers but could not explain the relationship. Due to poor understanding of hangover mechanisms in general, explaining that link is difficult, Rohsenow said.

One possible explanation could be that alcohol affects nicotine receptors, Rohsenow said. Smoking has also been linked to poorer sleep quality, which is known to worsen hangovers, she said. Because the students keeping the diaries did not record how much and how well they slept and because the study did not include biological measures, the authors were unable to test these explanations.

Roland Moore, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, wrote in an email to The Herald that he finds the study “persuasive.” Moore drew a parallel between the chemicals in dark liquors like bourbon and rum to those in tobacco smoke. Past research has found that dark liquors lead to worse hangovers, he wrote. “I can speculate that the numerous toxic byproducts of tobacco smoke … could similarly contribute to the experience of hangover,” he added.

Previous research has shown detrimental changes in the brain structures of alcoholics, which are even more pronounced in those who smoke, Rohsenow said.

She said she hopes college students will see her study as yet another reason to quit smoking, as the research demonstrates that even minor use of tobacco with alcohol can have negative effects.

New concussion study indicates required recovery time is longer than previously believed

admin — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:37:39 +0000

Nowadays, it’s not just a simple knock on the head.

A new study led by U. Oregon graduate student David Howell and his advisors Dr. Li-Shan Chou and Dr. Louis “Lou” Osternig indicates that certain individuals may take longer to recover from concussions than previously thought.

The study differentiated symptoms (e.g. headache, memory loss) from their ability to react and multitask, finding that while subjects usually recovered from symptoms between two weeks to a month, the latter left them milliseconds slower, even at the two-month mark.

“Even though somebody feels better and they may say, ‘Okay, I’m ready to play, I feel 100 percent,’ there may be some effects to their response time based on filtering out extraneous information,” Howell said.

Even so, what good is a millisecond? According to Osternig and Chou, the difference a millisecond can make extends beyond protecting yourself on the playing field and into situations like whether you’re able to focus in class, remember information or even hit the brakes in time while driving.

Conducted in the Motion Analysis Laboratory — located in the depths of Gerlinger Annex — the study followed around 20 high school athletes from various sports like soccer and football over the course of two months. Volunteers were required to contact the lab within three days of experiencing a concussion and were not allowed to participate if they had received another concussion within the previous year.

According to Howell, a control group of students who had never been concussed was also assembled. This group consisted of students who matched the age, height, sport and sometimes even the position played by their concussed counterparts.

Osternig and Chou — who have been researching both sports and non-sports related concussions since the early 2000s — have seen a recent increase in volunteers and attribute it to the increased media attention other studies have been receiving. All three are happy with the increased coverage but are concerned with how their research will translate from the observational to the practical.

Chou grabs a clear, half-full water bottle to explain.

“From the outside or even if you did a very detailed scan, there may be no change in the structure of the brain,” Chou said. “But … if you look at our brain, the brain tissue is more like the water being contained in this bottle.”

Chou shoves the bottle across the table to simulate a concussion. The water sloshes violently.

“So, the outside of the bottle is still intact, but the water inside the bottle has been moved around big time,” Chou said. “Those kinds of sheer force, I mean, relative movement between the skull and brain tissue create a lot of stress and strain to the brain tissues and may affect their networking with each other, and that’s why it’s so difficult for us to diagnose, as well as know what really goes wrong.”

Dr. Greg Skaggs, Director of Athletic Medicine, shares similar sentiments.

“It would make my job really easy if there was a scan, but it’s not,” Skaggs said.

As of now, the best treatment for a concussion is complete rest (no class, no driving, no practice). Skaggs says that all of the varsity athletes he cares for are educated about concussions before playing and are highly discouraged from hiding injuries.

“Let’s say you’re a 20-year-old and you’ve worked hard for a bowl game — you’re not going to want to be left out and miss that,” said Skaggs. “It’s our job to protect them from themselves.”

Ultimately, the group’s goal is to provide people with the ability to make educated decisions about high contact sports rather than casting them in a negative light.

“I think we’ll just become more educated about how exactly we engage in these types of sports,” Chou said. “I don’t think it’s going to affect individuals’ willingness to participate in this types of sports, but better prepare them to participate.”

Hockey player Matthew Hanlon echoes this. He’s never been officially diagnosed with a concussion but has seen the effects they’ve had on his teammates.

“I guess you know that that’s a part of the sport, and the positives — the joy of the sport, outweigh the negatives,” Hanlon said.

Sickle cells may be a tool against tumors

admin — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:54:46 +0000

Sickle red blood cells, more commonly associated with disease, may also play a role in treating cancer tumors.

Researchers discovered that sickle cells, unlike normal red blood cells, can obstruct up to 88 percent of tumor blood vessels. When combined with chemotherapeutic agents, the sickle cells may be an effective method of attacking cancer tumors that are resistant to existing treatments. The study was published in the Jan. 9 edition of PLOS ONE and was a joint study among researchers at Duke Medicine and Jenomic Research Institute, a biotech company based in Carmel, California.

Sickle cells are more commonly known for its role in sickle cell anemia, a genetic disease that causes normal red blood cells to take on an abnormal crescent shape. In the study, researchers injected sickle red blood cells into mice with cancerous tumors. The sickle cells were found to clump in the blood vessel vessels of the tumor and its surrounding cells. In contrast, normal red blood cells moved freely through tumor vessels without sticking to one another.

“The tumor blood vessels and the sickle cells are uniquely joined at the hip,” said David Terman, head of Molecular Genetics at Jenomic. “It’s like two pieces of Velcro that are reciprocally sticky.”

The use of sickle cells is especially effective in treating hypoxic tumors, which are tumor cells that have been deprived of oxygen. These tumor cells are particularly resistant to conventional radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and this study may be the beginning of a new treatment method, said Mark Dewhirst, professor of radiation oncology at the Duke Cancer Institute.

Dewhirst added that another reason for hypoxic tumors’ resistance is because hypoxic cells do not divide. Conventional cancer treatment methods work best on cells that are dividing. Additionally, hypoxic cells are located far from major blood vessels, so drugs do not reach the tumor sites as readily.

Terman, who developed the research concept for the study in 1998, said that he brought his ideas to Duke in 2006 seeking collaboration. He currently holds the patents on the findings of the study.

“We managed to bring this project along, albeit slowly,” Terman said. “We were able to punch through the major impediments and proceed through to the endpoints.”

In order to continue research on the project, Terman noted that the next part of the research was to optimize the sickle cells so they can be more effective in attacking tumors, such as by loading the sickle cells with chemotherapeutic or tumor-killing toxins. He hopes that the study will move forward into human clinical studies within the next five to 10 years.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Study: Facebook decreases loneliness

admin — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:41:25 +0000

In a recent study, a U. Arizona professor defended the benefits of Facebook and suggested that updating one’s status more often can reduce the feeling of loneliness.

Matthias Mehl, an associate professor of psychology, published the study, “Does Posting Facebook Status Updates Increase or Decrease Loneliness?: An Online Social Networking Experiment” on Dec. 20, 2012 and examined 102 undergraduate students at UA. The experiment monitored the participants’ Facebook profiles for one week. Half of the students were asked to post more status updates than they normally would, the other half were used as a control group and were not instructed to change anything.

“We had seen that the topic of Facebook, whether it was good for you or bad for you, has been a really long debated question. But no one had ever done an experiment, a true experiment, and that’s the only way to answer the question,” Mehl said.

The experiment was carried out entirely online, where the subjects were directed to temporarily friend a “Research Profile”. This “Research Profile” allowed Mehl and his associate Fenne Deters, of the University of Berlin, to continuously monitor the participants’ Facebook profiles and confirm that they followed all instructions.

For the researchers to learn if posting status updates caused someone to become more or less lonely, they made every participant complete questionnaires including the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness scale. This scale measures subjective feelings of loneliness and social isolation using a scale ranging from one to four, as stated in the study’s procedure.

The results of the study showed that the subjects instructed to post more status updates than they normally would reported a decrease in loneliness, which led to the conclusion that status updating can reduce loneliness, and that this decrease in loneliness was due to “the participants feeling more connected to their friends on a daily basis” when updating their status, as specified in the publication.

“I thought it would be the opposite because you have, like, virtual friends instead of actual friends,” said Lisa Foessel, a pre-computer science freshman.

Surprisingly, the researchers also found that the number of responses to status updates had no effect on the subjects’ feelings of loneliness. When asked why this may be Mehl gave two hypotheses: that people “simply assumed that their status updates will be read,” or that people use status updates to ultimately connect with friends in the real world by using them to “skip the small talk at the beginning of a conversation and jump right to more substantive subjects.”

Even with this evidence of the benefits of social networking some UA students are still skeptical.

“It’s kind of weird that you think you’re more popular just by putting yourself out there on a social network,” said Casey White, an ecology and evolutionary biology freshman. “I don’t really see how that makes sense. I think it’s almost the opposite of being popular, truly.”

The scholars said that their research is just the beginning of the science behind social networking, but are confident in its results and the possibilities it has to inspire further studies.

“For me, this is first optimistic evidence that Facebook does not drive us all into loneliness, Facebook can be used in meaningful ways for creating a sense of social integration and connection,” Mehl said.

Study shows binge drinking trends

admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:40:46 +0000

Exposure to alcohol advertisements and marketing may correlate with increased binge drinking activity, according to a study published in December by a research team from Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine.

The study found that alcohol marketers actively promote adolescents’ identification with and allegiance to particular brands of alcohol.

Lead author Auden McClure and co-author James Sargent collected and analyzed data from 1,734 subjects between 15 and 20 years old. The authors quantified the time each participant was exposed to alcohol marketing from television, internet, branded merchandise and movies, and then authors compared the amount of exposure to the participant’s binge drinking activity.

“Alcohol companies say that they don’t target underage drinkers, but it’s impossible to market to 21-year-olds without spillover to those who are younger,” Sargent said. “We wanted to show that marketers aim to target underage drinkers.”

The research for the published study was cross-sectional, meaning that all the data was gathered at a specific point of time.

Therefore, although the researchers saw a correlation between marketing exposure and the extent of binge drinking, the causal relationship between these factors cannot yet be proven, Sargent said.

The research results also indicate that if a participant self-identifies as a certain type of drinker or associates him or herself with a particular brand, he or she is more likely to engage in binge drinking.

Sargent said he hypothesizes that alcohol brand allegiance leads to binge drinking, but he cannot yet rule out the possibility that binge drinking instead leads to greater brand allegiance. He said that a longitudinal study which is conducted at different periods of time with the same participants must be done in order to substantiate his theory scientifically.

“We’re going to follow up with these particular kids to see which variable came first — which causes the other,” he said.

Sargent said that although he believes alcohol marketing encourages adolescents to seek to drink more alcohol when they arrive on college campuses, he does not believe that Dartmouth’s administration will take any steps to reduce alcohol marketing on campus.

Sargent said his research is significant because it has helped determine the “multiple forces” that produce binge drinking behavior.

Julie Campbell, who identified and analyzed alcohol advertisements for the study, said that she believes limiting alcohol marketing in the media will reduce underage binge drinking.

“The fewer that alcohol companies are clearly present in movies, the fewer adolescents will be able to pinpoint a brand as their favorite,” said Campbell.

Although the trends Campbell observed in her research were unofficial, she said it seemed clear that certain themes, like product quality and taste, targeted adults while others, like partying, were intended to entice younger viewers.

Psychology professor Todd Heatherton said that he hopes the implications of the findings will encourage the College to avoid alcohol-sponsored events and the distribution of alcohol-branded merchandise.

“By late adolescence, we can predict which participants binge drink,” Heatherton said. “This indicates to us some of the factors that might be involved in promoting binge drinking by adolescents.”

The paper was co-authored by U. Oregon research associate Mike Stoolmiller, Geisel pediatrics professor Susanne Tanski and Radboud U. professor Rutger Engels.

The study was published in the journal “Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.”

Study shows music can communicate emotions

admin — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:49:10 +0000

Humans across cultures can express various emotions through music and motion, according to a recent study by Dartmouth College psychology professor Thalia Wheatley, psychology and brain sciences PhD candidate Beau Sievers and music professor Michael Casey.

The study, titled “Music and movement share a dynamic structure that supports universal expressions of emotion,” was published in the Jan. 2 edition of “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

To gather data, researchers asked participants to design either a melody or animation for specific emotions using a computer program that Sievers designed.

Participants used five slider bars in both portions of the experiment to change musical tones or an animation of a bouncing egg.

After collecting data from 50 Dartmouth students — 25 for each portion of the study — Sievers and Wheatley travelled to the L’Ak village of Cambodia to test 80 more participants.

Because the villagers of L’Ak could not read or use computers, Sievers and Wheatley adjusted parts of their computer program by adding pictorial representations of melodic rates and changing other parameters.

Both Dartmouth students and L’Ak villagers created similar responses in both mediums to the same emotional triggers, suggesting that musical and movement-based responses to these emotions are innate.

The melodies and animations shared several movements, illustrating a close association between music and movement in the human brain, Wheatley said.

The study results suggest that dynamic profiles for music and motion are universaluncovered a “signature for emotion that is expressed both in music and movement,” Wheatley said.

Both Sievers and Wheatley said they were surprised by the strength of the results. Sievers said he expected differences in heritage to affect the created melodies or movements, but the study shows “very little intercession of culture,” he said.

Although Sievers said that the study built upon existing research on emotional responses to music and studies of motion, he emphasized the uniqueness of the “cross-modal” approach to the study.

“I don’t know of any study that has done something quite like this with the music and movement,” he said.

The relationship between music and movement may stem from neuronal recycling, a process in which the brain’s innate capacities are “recycled” for new functions, Sievers said.

“Basic evolutionary systems like needing to track movement in the environment have been re-purposed for different tasks,” he said. “Music is one of those.”

Sievers and Wheatley came up with the idea for the experiment in 2008, after Wheatley gave a guest lecture to Sievers’ graduate seminar on evolution and music.

Music professor Larry Polansky, who taught the class, advised them on the theory behind their research.

Daniel Leopold, who collected data for the study while he was a senior at the College, said Wheatley’s enthusiasm for the topic inspired him to pursue clinical psychology.

“[Wheatley] was really excited about the work and the research, not afraid to tackle things like morality, or expression of emotions or intimacy perception,” Leopold said.

The researchers’ trip to Cambodia in December 2010 was sponsored by grants received from the Rockefeller Center and the Dickey Center for International Understanding.

Harvard braces for decline in federal funding

admin — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 16:30:11 +0000

As Washington lawmakers scramble to reach a last-minute budget deal before the end of the year, Harvard and other research universities are bracing for what would be the most dramatic cut in federal research funding in recent history.

Failure to come up with a compromise to avert the so-called fiscal cliff by midnight Monday will trigger an 8.2 percent across-the-board cut in non-defense discretionary spending. As a result, Harvard will lose out on millions of dollars in promised federal grant money for the 2013 fiscal year.

Because the cuts will be applied to the current fiscal year, which began July 1, the loss in sponsorship will be compounded onto the second half of the fiscal year, worsening the blow for the remainder of the 2013 fiscal calendar.

The University received roughly $656 million in federal sponsorship during the 2012 fiscal year. Though the University has yet to release information for the 2013 fiscal year, sponsorship figures were not expected to change drastically from current levels. Federal sponsorship comprised about 16 percent of the University’s overall operating budget for the fiscal year 2012, according to the Office for Sponsored Programs 2012 annual report.

The schools most at risk from federal cuts are Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, both of which rely heavily on the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation for funding. The Medical School alone took in over $250 million in federal funds during the 2012 fiscal year, a sum that accounted for 34 percent of its operating budget. Though the School of Public Health brought in a slightly smaller total of nearly $193 million, that amount was 55 percent of the school’s overall budget.

Of all University schools receiving significant federal support, The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is the most diversified, relying heavily on private sponsorship in addition to federal support. FAS received just over $135 million in federal monies for the fiscal year 2012—about 12 percent of its overall budget.

Roughly 75 percent of federal sponsorship to Harvard comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the NIH. But the University also receives funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Defense, which stands to experience cuts at the slightly higher rate of 9.4 percent.

Younger faculty who rely on upstart research money for their first projects are particularly vulnerable to federal funding cuts, but all University researchers receiving federal sponsorship will be forced to tighten their belts.

University President Drew G. Faust has already warned Congress twice about the dangers of cutting funds for research. This summer, she and more than 100 other university presidents wrote to Congress and the President, urging them to avoid the automatic cuts. “Sequestration is an undiscerning and blunt budget tool that would substantially harm our nation’s future by blindly slashing valuable investments in education and scientific research,” the letter read.

In November, Faust and 15 other leaders of Universities and other research institutions signed a letter sent to the entire Massachusetts congressional delegation, calling on the legislature to avoid cuts to funding that schools “depend on to deliver innovations essential to economic growth.”

Faust told The Crimson in early November that in the long term, the University could make up for federal funding shortfalls through new sources of revenue, including partnerships between researchers and industry or philanthropic support for research. The University already receives millions in private research funds, but those numbers will likely grow as long term cuts are made at the federal level.

According to University administrators, threats to federal funding are not a new concern. Robert D. Reischauer ’63, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation—the University’s highest governing body—said that the Corporation’s budget meetings have discussed preparing for slower growth or reductions in research funding for some time.

“The flashing red lights have been flashing now for a few years,” he said in early December.

The recent set of fiscal cliff measures was written into the Budget Control Act of 2011 in order to force Congress to address mounting budget deficits before the end of the year. The law calls for the sequestration, or automatic trimming, of discretionary and non-discretionary federal spending to the tune of $100 billion. Cuts will take effect on Jan. 2 and increase progressively in coming years. Additionally, Bush-era tax cuts and other more recent breaks will immediately expire.

Any deal that is reached before the fiscal cliff deadline—now less than 48 hours away—is expected to address only taxes, not spending, though Congress has expressed optimism it will reach a broader compromise after the deadline passes.

Study says longer lifespans plagued by disease

admin — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:08:36 +0000

A new study authored in part by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health claims that while people worldwide are living longer, they are living more of those years in poor health.

This week, contributors to the Global Burden of Disease project published new findings in the medical journal The Lancet that they say reveal key changes in the way people worldwide are living with and treating major health problems.

Joshua Salomon, a professor of global health at HSPH who contributed to the study, said that he and other project researchers found that short lifespans are more frequently a product of chronic diseases than of infectious diseases or nutritional deficiencies.

“People are dying from adult diseases more than they are from diseases that kill children,” Salomon said.

According to Salomon, the study is the most comprehensive survey that has been conducted on current trends in global health. As part of the project, researchers distributed a survey that asked questions about the severity of 291 different diseases and injuries. The survey, developed with input from researchers from over 50 countries and distributed mainly online, received responses from over 160 countries and over 30,000 people worldwide.

After collecting their data, project researchers sought to develop tools to measure the impact of certain diseases on quality of life and life expectancy. Mohsen Naghavi, an associate professor of global health at the University of Washington, has worked on improving the quality, distribution, and presentation of the data that has been collected. Naghavi emphasized the importance of taking new approaches to studying diseases over time.

He said that much has changed about the field since 1990, when the first Global Burden of Disease results were released, to the next updated release of statistics in 2004, and again this year with data gathered in 2010.

Although life expectancy in most regions has increased by an average of about ten years since 1990, Salomon said he thinks that countries will have to consider the economic strain created by their rapidly aging populations. According to Salomon, the health issues most threatening today are not nutrition deficiency or infectious diseases, but non-communicable diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer.

While Salomon said it is important to raise awareness of these issues, he warned against taking coordinated political action in response to the global trends identified in the report. He said that policymakers in every country will have to consider the areas of disease that are most serious to develop viable and affordable regional solutions.

“The results are not a direct prescription for policy,” Salomon said.

Adderall addiction: Students misuse drug to gain boost while studying

admin — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:24:54 +0000

The United States is 4 percent of the world’s population but produces 88 percent of the world’s legal amphetamine. Adderall, also known as the “study drug,” is in high demand across the nation and has increasingly become highly abused by college students who claim Adderall is the key to academic success.

According to the Mayo Clinic, Adderall is a combination of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine and is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, known as ADHD, and narcolepsy.

The combination of the two drugs increases attention and decreases restlessness in patients who are overactive, cannot concentrate for very long, or are easily distracted and have unstable emotions.

“There has been a huge increase in demand for evaluations for ADHD over the last several years,” said Dr. Carver Nebbe, a medical doctor with a specialty in family medicine and psychology at Thielen Student Health Center.

Nebbe also said there has been a significant increase in accommodations requests at the Student Disability Resources office on campus.

In 2010, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 11.4 percent of young people ages 12 to 25 used prescription drugs nonmedically within the past year. The study also found that full-time college students, between the ages of 18 and 22, were twice as likely to abuse Adderall than those of the same age and not in college.

“Statistics say that 30 to 40 percent of those who have it misuse it or divert the medication at some time,” Nebbe said.

When abused, Adderall can be extremely addictive. The Drug Enforcement Administration classifies all amphetamines as having a high potential for abuse and limited medical uses.In addition to having the potential of becoming addictive, common side effects of the drug include lack of appetite, increased blood pressure, headache, dry mouth, inability to fall asleep and weight loss.

For many people, they may not experience significant adverse side effects every time they use it.

“Most people that take the drug and a normal dose just to stay up all night, it probably won’t hurt them all that much, but if someone has an underlying heart condition, whether they know about it or not, taking these drugs could potentially exacerbate that problem,” said Edward Bell, professor of clinical sciences at Drake University College of Pharmacy.

Why students would put themselves at a potential health risk and illegally abuse a prescription drug is baffling to some, but for students, they just want good grades.

The strive for perfectionism in society often leaves students feeling an immense amount of pressure to succeed; with increased competitiveness in the job market, college students feel the pressure to get perfect grades.

In June 2012, The New York Times published an article entitled, “In Their Own Words: ‘Study Drugs.’” The article was compiled of personal stories of high school and college students who abused prescription drugs for academic advantage. In the article, students from across the nation vividly describe their experiences with the so-called “academic steroid.”

Frequent abusers of Adderall described feeling inundated with schoolwork and the intense pressure put on by themselves, family members and educators.

“Something inside of me that sparked the drive to be independently successful died, and I swallowed the pills,” said a female student from Minneapolis to the New York Times.

Adderall is considered by some to be the academic miracle drug to college students today, whether they have ADHD and need it everyday or are just using it to study.

“Almost everyone who takes it will benefit from it,” said Nebbe.

With demanding schedules and rigorous courses, college students take Adderall so they can stay up and be productive for a longer period of time.

An apparel, creative and technical design major at Iowa State who wished to remain anonymous, said she and others in her major use Adderall depending on how much work they have to do.

“A lot of times we have to do all-nighters in order to get our projects done. Each project, on average, can take anywhere between 20 to 70 hours to complete,” the student said.

Most of her projects include sewing, computer design, illustrations or construction. She said it is common for students on campus to use Adderall, even if they are not prescribed.

“I feel like at least half the people I know are prescribed, even if they don’t need it, so they sell it,” the student said.

Nebbe said it is hard to determine if students expressing symptoms of ADHD actually have ADHD.

“ADHD is a clinical diagnosis; there is no set test that determines if a person has or does not have ADHD,” Nebbe said.

There is no fine line that determines the criteria for a diagnosis of ADHD, which leads many to argue that Adderall is overprescribed and too easy for students to get, although Nebbe disagrees.

“Researchers on ADHD will tell us that ADHD is dramatically underdiagnosed and undertreated,” Nebbe said. “The outcomes of those treated are sensationally better than those who are not treated.”

Children who are treated at a young age for ADHD are at a lower risk for drug and alcohol abuse, tobacco use and participation in crime. They also have a higher rate of entrance to college.

Interestingly enough, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2010 found that full-time college students abusing Adderall were three times more likely to have used marijuana in the past year than those of the same age not in college.

The same group was also five times more likely to have used painkillers non-medically and 90 percent were reported binge drinkers while more than 50 percent were reported to be heavy drinkers.

Whether students need it or not, the Adderall craze is fueled by perfectionism, fear of failure and competitiveness that has college students across America obsessed with a tiny, orange capsule.

“I do wonder about it, and I think that there is a fair question whether or not a lot of people are getting the medication who don’t need it,” Nebbe said.

FDA: Energy drinks may be to blame for at least 18 deaths

admin — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 03:18:31 +0000

A recent incident report from the federal Food and Drug Administration said energy products like Monster and 5-Hour Energy may have caused up to 18 deaths.

The report has led the FDA to announce last Tuesday an investigation into whether energy products pose a particular threat to teenagers or people with previously existing medical conditions.

“FDA takes every adverse event report seriously and investigates and evaluates other possible causes before deciding whether the product actually caused the medical problem,” the FDA’s report said.

The report lists the incidences of “adverse health” gathered by the Food and Drug Administration that occurred since January 2004 in connection with 5-Hour Energy, Monster, Rockstar and RedBull products. Of the 18 deaths, 13 were associated with 5-Hour Energy products, five with Monster and none with Rockstar or Redbull.

A majority of the incidents involved increased heart rate, headaches, changes in blood pressure, nausea and dizziness, which are all common side-effects of caffeine. Of the 166 incidents reported, 95 were considered serious, life-threatening or required emergency hospitalization.

U.S. Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut have been trying to convince the FDA since April to put energy products up to further scrutiny.

“There is very clearly a lack of understanding about the health effects of energy drinks and their ingredients especially on children and adolescents,” said Durbin in a letter to the FDA. “I am glad to see that the FDA is undertaking a review but more needs to be done and quickly. For instance, FDA can and should take action now to regulate energy drinks that are marketed as beverages, like Red Bull which has more than the standard of 71 mg of caffeine per 12oz which beverages like Coke and Pepsi are held.”

Energy products can contain anywhere form 50mg to 500mg of caffeine per serving, up to seven times the amount of caffeine in a can of soda.

The products are relatively new to the market, and many are sold as “dietary supplements” rather than conventional foods, which are subject to a much more lenient set of regulations under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

According to the FDA’s website, dietary ingredients require no FDA pre-approval before being put on the market, and the regulatory legislation puts the burden on the FDA to prove it is harmful before it can be taken off the market.

“The FDA is aware that new products and patterns of use require us to remain vigilant, and we are working to strengthen our understanding of the nature of ‘energy drinks’ and any causal risks to health,” the FDA announced in a letter.

5-Hour Energy, the company whose products were associated with the highest number of adverse incidents, said its products are safe if used responsibly.

“We recommend on product labels and our website that individuals consume no more than two bottles of 5-Hour energy shots per day, spaced several hours apart,” said Elaine Lutz, of Living Essential, a distributor of 5-Hour energy products. “We also recommend individuals new to 5-Hour energy try half a bottle to start, wait 10 minutes and consume the rest later.”

Column: Sex ranks No. 1 when it comes to a fulfilling life

admin — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:23:15 +0000

Breaking news here folks! A recent study discovered that sex/making love is the most pleasurable, meaningful, engaging and happy thing for people.

But seriously, a study at U. Canterbury joined the small but meaningful ranks of researchers attempting to track and measure the happiness and well-being of relationships in day-to-day life.

The areas of distinction paint an interesting picture of what a “full life” could be described as. Granted, the means of gathering results — achieved through text-messaging — might not seem like the most reliable of methods, but hey, this is the new millennium, and our robot phones are almost an extension of our bodies.

Drinking alcohol/partying came in second in the “pleasure” category, but only 10th in “meaning,” while still hitting fifth in “engagement” and second in “happiness.” Again, not a big surprise given that drinking alcohol/partying tends to lead to sex/making love.

There are oodles of fun activities, or not so fun activities, to peruse at leisure, but when the fun of that has dwindled, take a moment to look at what all of this might mean.

Could this be a fair representation of the times? There are, of course, outliers to the generalizations of folks finding sex to be the pinnacle of happiness, but despite the comical obviousness, the sex result along with the other rankings could really tell us a lot about how to operate in life.

Think about the results of the study in terms of marketing. Such information makes the crafting of commercials or other gimmicks to get a person to buy something a far cry easier if it is agreed upon that making a person happy will sell more things.

And political campaigning or policy formation gets a nice leg up as well. With information measuring and tracking how to achieve a “full life,” issues can be tailored or addressed with specifications that otherwise might have been cast aside in favor of those wacky “traditional” notions a lot of older generations subscribed to.

Not that traditional views of “full life” are not worthwhile, but that the current 35-and-under crowd, the “younger” generations, might really be serious when they say to their parents — as spoken by “da Dawson” himself, James Van Der Beek, in “Varsity Blues” — “But I don’t want your life.”

The applications could do some good with assessing psychological hurdles challenging some, or cause restructuring of jobs to account for what makes people happier, and hence more productive. Who knows how far you can stretch the information for application?

Research that examines what people really want also opens the door to potentially kicking in certain taboos in talking points. There are still some folks uncomfortable with certain topics — sex for example — and as such avoid learning about aspects for what could very likely be the most fulfilling thing in their lives.

There will be people arguing that the results don’t represent them, or that will deny the “validity” of some of the rankings, but that’s opinions for ya. Everybody has to be special, or have some distinction. Meh.

The reality remains: The results do seem to be a reasonable assessment of folks. Well, of the younger generations at least, as we tend to have this whole “new” outlook on life due to our global village upbringings; that and our adoration of sharing every detail of our lives, compared to the less “out there for all” outlook of many previous generations.

Before you scoff, or maybe have a chuckle at the sex “revelation,” and move on with your day, think about what you learned. In fact, you were probably already pondering what things you find in your life to be fulfilling, what make your life have a cherry on top, and ranking them.

And that is the beauty of studies like the one under discussion; those studies let you look inward and think. And if a study — no matter how dubious the methods might seem or how potentially skewed you might consider the results — makes you think and let you learn a little more about yourself, well, doesn’t that make it worth looking into a bit more?

Backpacks, cellphones carry more germs than public toilet seat

admin — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:39:38 +0000

For most students, a typical day on campus is likely to involve a quick trip to the bathroom. In a frantic hurry, you set down your cellphone and take off your backpack, purse or coat. Without thinking about it, your belongings are collecting germs on the floor or counter. Those germs may cause the flu, and as the weather gets colder, it gets harder to stay immune to sickness.

Charles Gerba, microbiologist at U. Arizona, conducted a study on 25 mobile phones and found bacteria growing on nearly half.

“You put it in a warm place, you put it in your hand, you put it in your pocket like I do, it’s nice and warm,” Gerba said in a 2006 ABC article. “Bacteria like that. It can grow in these types of places.”

Students often do similar experiments in classrooms. Olivia Eliasson, a Kansas State U. sophomore, said she participated on one such experiment in high school.

“We tested the inside and outside of a toilet seat and the bottom of our backpacks,” Eliasson said. “The bottom of our backpacks were the most contaminated. Now I am more aware of where I put my backpack, like on my bed.”

Although bathrooms are thought to be one of the most contaminated places by many people, K-State custodial staff are on hand to keep those environments clean.

As the flu season approaches it is important to keep your belongings clean and take care of your body. Here are a few things you can do to prevent a dreaded illness.

For starters, get vaccinated for the flu.

“The flu shot is another precaution to take,” said Julie Gibbs, assistant director at K-State’s health center. ”It’s just like washing hands. It is just one more step you can take to reduce your risk of getting the flu.”

As for your purse, backpack or cell phone — wash them. If you have a canvas-style purse or backpack, you can put it in the washing machine and set it out to dry. As for your cellphone, it can be safely cleaned with a Clorox disinfecting wipe.

Little things can help you to prevent an illness. Next time you go to the bathroom, consciously think about where you are putting your belongings and maybe you can avoid sickness this season.

Telescope finds massive black hole, challenges former theories

admin — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:24:54 +0000

Theories about how black holes are grown inside a galaxy may have to be modified because of a recent discovery astronomers made using U. Texas’ Hobby-Eberly Telescope.

While working on a study to better understand how galaxies grow and form together, astronomers discovered a massive black hole with a size relative to its galaxy bigger than any before. Discovered in galaxy NGC 1277, the black hole makes up 14 percent of the galaxy’s mass. Usually, black holes make up .1 percent of a galaxy’s mass. This black hole has the mass of 17 billion suns.

Karl Gebhardt, UT professor and member of the study, said the black hole “stuck out like a sore thumb.”

“It just has such an extreme black hole mass compared to its galaxy, that it is really going to strain the theories as to how you grow a black hole inside a galaxy,” Gebhardt said.

The study is ongoing, but Gebhardt said if they find other galaxies in similar situations then this could contradict current black hole theories.

“If this is an extreme oddball galaxy, then, you know, odd things happen, this is a big universe, you’re going to get some weird ones now and then,” Gebhardt said. “But if we find these to be a pattern, which is my suspicion now, then we are going to have to modify the theories for how you grow a black hole.”

Study shows activity increases life expectancy

admin — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 14:51:08 +0000

Staying active and maintaining an average body weight can lead to a 7.2-year gain in life expectancy, according to a study released by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital last week.

The study, conducted in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute, surveyed 650,000 individuals of all ethnicities and body mass indexes, aged 21 – 90. Results show that gains in life expectancy are much greater for those who begin regular physical activity earlier in life.

“Those active at a young age also tend to be more active as they grow older, so it is good to start being active at a young age,” wrote Harvard Medical School professor and senior author of the study I-Min Lee in an email.

Despite the busy schedules of college students that can make it difficult to follow an exercise regiment, exercise is crucial even at this early age, according to Meir Stampfer, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“People have a tendency to only think of years added on when they’re 89 years and older. But for a young person, the benefit of physical activity might be preserved vitality,” he said.

Finding opportunities to exercise can be difficult in an increasingly sedentary society, according to the study. The report examined “brisk walking,” an accessible alternative for those intimidated by intense fitness regiments.

Lee’s work shows that someone who walks 150 minutes per week, the amount of exercise recommended by the federal government, will add 3.4 years to someone’s life expectancy. A lesser workout of 75 minutes per week would add 1.8 years.

“I think people neglect the benefits gained from brisk walking. It seems daunting for people [but it’s] just a matter of prioritizing,” said Stampfer.

One of Stampfer’s studies also explores the benefits of exercise for people with varying states of health. This study involved monitoring physical activity in prostate cancer patients.

“Exercise prevents illness, but is also beneficial during illness,” Stampfer said. “In the prostate cancer patients who exercised, there was a decreased death rate compared to those who did not.”

In Lee’s study, the results were consistent for those with higher weights.

“Many individuals in the US are overweight or obese. For such persons, it is often difficult to reduce weight,” wrote Lee in an email. “What is encouraging is that our study shows that by being physically active, even overweight/obese persons can increase their life expectancy compared to someone their weight who is not active.”

Redheads at risk of Melanoma

admin — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 23:29:37 +0000

Scientists have long believed that redheads, with their fair skin and hair, are more sensitive to sunlight than others. Last week, a team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital strengthened the case with new findings suggesting that they have an increased risk of developing melanoma even in the absence of UV radiation.

The study, published in the journal “Nature” and led by Harvard Medical School professor David E. Fisher, originally aimed to explore how moles develop into melanoma in the presence of UV radiation. The researchers examined this phenomenon in mice, breeding one group to express a pigment-producing gene that causes red hair and fair skin while the other group expressed a dark-colored pigment. The next step in their plans was to expose the mice to UV radiation in order to examine how the rate of melanoma development differed between the two groups.

However, the researchers noticed that the “redheaded” mice developed melanoma even before they were exposed to UV radiation.

“The real surprise in this is that we were anticipating to provide UV radiation because UV is so associated with melanoma risk…but what we observed is that the redheaded mice developed melanoma…at a high rate even before we could get to the point of delivering the UV,” said Fisher, who is also the Head of the MGH Department of Dermatology. “One of our initial responses was to get a meter and go into the animal room to make sure that the bulbs were not actually emitting UV radiation by mistake.

The authors concluded that the actual pigment responsible for red hair and fair skin is the root of the carcinogenic effects. “We know that UV is not the only important factor in redheads now and redheads may need to be more thorough in checking themselves and more cautious because it’s not just a question of sun exposure,” said Dunster House resident Annie M. Morgan ’13, a co-author of the paper. “We know it’s not just UV so then the question is: what is the whole spectrum of factors that add up to predispose people to melanoma?”

The researchers cautioned that this does not mean that people can expose themselves to UV radiation without concern.

According to Devarati Mitra, a lead researcher in this study and a Harvard MD/PhD student and Cabot House Resident Tutor, the role of UV radiation in melanoma development is still significant.

“You definitely still need to wear sunscreen and cover up and all of that is unchanged by our results,” Mitra said. “But our results suggest that in addition to that UV effect there is an intrinsic risk of melanoma in individuals who primarily have this red color…so our data does not contradict what was known before but it adds a new dimension.”

According to Fisher, the next stage in advancing this research involves identifying specific traits of molecules that could block the damage caused by this red pigment.

“The class of molecules that we expect might have this activity are actually antioxidants—and though antioxidants are quite popular, we emphasize that not all antioxidants are the same and some may even increase the oxidative damage,” he said. “So we do not under any circumstances recommend that people try their own antioxidant remedies and pour pomegranate juice on their skin, because not only may it not work but it may actually worsen the process.”

Is Facebook a crucial part of relationships?

admin — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:26:07 +0000

A popular saying with students – “It’s not official until it’s on Facebook,” – may be more accurate than people realize.

A study co-conducted by David Westerman, assistant professor of communication studies at West Virginia U., showed publicly displaying romantic relationships on Facebook is a sign of commitment.

“It’s very similar to wearing a wedding ring. You’re publicly showing people ‘look I’m connected to this other person. I’m letting everyone know,’” Westerman said. “If you show it publicly, it makes it that much more meaningful.”

Just as social media has become a way to connect with friends and family, they have also become a tool to build and maintain relationships.

“For me, it came about from seeing social networking sites as being this place where a lot of these things can play out,” Westerman said. “(How they are) providing opportunities for people who live apart but also who live relatively close to each other, to maintain relationships by communicating through these channels.”

Alongside Stephanie Tong of Wayne State U. in Detroit, Westerman investigated how the nature of romantic relationships are affected by Facebook.

Westerman put up an ad on MIX in September looking for people currently involved in a romantic relationship with someone they are friends with on Facebook.

In the study, 306 participants were asked a series of questions about how satisfied they were with their communication on Facebook and how supported they felt by their network.

“We asked them some questions about how they interact with their partner through the private parts of Facebook and through the public part,” Westerman said. “We wanted to see how they played some of these things out on Facebook.”

Westerman and Tong are still analyzing the results of the study, and no statistics have been released.

What the preliminary results of the study show is people who display their relationship more openly on Facebook tend to feel closer to one another than people who don’t.

Westerman believes the idea of being “Facebook official” may play more significant role than many think.

“If you’re doing this publicly, you’re showing that commitment,” Westerman said. “Everyone else in your network knows it, and they can call you on it if you do something stupid.”

The private interactions on Facebook, including messaging and chatting, don’t seem to play as big a role in relationships – to Westerman’s surprise.

“It might be that people don’t just do it very often,” Westerman said. “Facebook is meant to be a public channel, although it certainly has some private parts to it.”

Westerman said he is satisfied with the results of the study, as they prove much of the criticism of social networking sites is unwarranted.

“A lot of people say: ‘These kids today – they’re only interacting on Facebook, and they’re not having real relationships,’ This study shows that might not be the case,” Westerman said.

Westerman and Tong are hoping to finalize their research by early November.

Vitamins cut cancer risk

admin — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 12:38:15 +0000

A prevention trial performed on male physicians revealed that taking a daily multivitamin modestly reduced the occurrence of cancer in men, according to a study by Harvard Medical School researchers published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

This study is the first long-term, randomized clinical trial to suggest the benefits of taking regular doses of multivitamins, according to HMS professor Howard D. Sesso, who is the study’s co-principal investigator. Similar studies in the past have involved high doses of single vitamins or other combinations that aren’t available to consumers, added the lead author, HMS professor J. Michael Gaziano.

In the study, 14,641 male physicians over the age of 50 were given either multivitamins or placebos through the mail over the course of 11 years.

“We [tested only physicians] because they reported their health information well and it was easy for us to consent them, because they understood what we were trying to do…and the importance of sticking with it,” said Gaziano, who works in Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Division of Aging.

According to Sesso, whenever a participant reported a change in their health—like the occurrence of cancer—their medical records were requested and examined by a committee of physicians that either confirmed or unconfirmed the initial self-report.

The group that took the multivitamins experienced 8 percent fewer cases of cancer compared to the placebo group, according to Gaziano.

“It was very well administered, and the controls were well randomized,” said David S. Chapin ’60, a participant in the study and an HMS professor. “The number of people and the length of time makes it so the results are believable.”

While the study only involved healthy males over the age of 50, Sesso believes the benefits might extend to other groups as well.

“We seem to think that the mechanism of effect of a multivitamin is blind to who’s taking it,” he said. “If it’s the combo of all the vitamins and minerals together that interact together to potentially reduce cancer risk, it might not matter whether you’re a man woman or otherwise.”

Sesso said that at least one third of all U.S. adults take multvitamins.

Because of this fact, Chapin said that any findings about multivitamins are significant.

“Vitamins are a multi-billion dollar industry in our country and people may be throwing away their money if there’s no benefit,” he said.

While he said he believes the reduction in cancer rates in the study is fairly small, Chapin said that he will continue to take vitamins.

“I’m not running out to buy them today, but the next time I’m in Costco, I’ll probably buy some vitamins,” said Chapin.

Vitamins may not help HIV patients

admin — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 08:15:51 +0000

Despite the assumption that vitamins are always beneficial, Harvard School of Public Health researchers asserted in a study released Tuesday that high doses of multivitamins may instead have adverse side effects for HIV patients taking antiretroviral drugs.

High doses rather than standard doses of multivitamin supplements could result in increased levels of an enzyme affecting liver function, commonly an indication of liver damage. After examining the study’s findings, Sheila Isanaka, a research fellow at the School of Public Health involved in the test, recommended that patients taking highly active antiretroviral therapy—called HAART for short—consume only standard levels of vitamins.

While previous studies have concluded that nutritional supplements slow HIV disease progression and improve immune function among patients before they start taking HAART, data from this trial in Tanzania indicate that while on HAART, patients do not benefit from an increased multivitamin regimen.

“The general assumption that nutritional intervention is always beneficial needs to be looked at,” said Wafaie W. Fawzi, the School of Public Health professor who served as the director of the study based in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

The five-year study emerged from a long relationship between HSPH and research institutions in Tanzania. More than 20 trials have been conducted that examine nutritional effects on pregnant women, pre-natal health, and infectious diseases such as HIV. The most recent study included 3,418 HIV-positive patients who had already started antiretroviral therapy.

“We randomly assigned half of the patients to receive high doses of supplements including vitamin B complex, vitamin C, and vitamin E and the other half to receive standard doses at the recommended dietary allowance level,” Isanaka wrote in an email from France. “High-dose supplementation had no effect on several key measures that reveal HIV disease progression—CD4 count, plasma viral load, body mandex, or hemoglobin level concentration.”

The only measurable difference between the two groups was the increased risk of liver damage in those patients on the high-dose nutrition supplement. “Many times we think that nutritional supplements are good,” Fawzi said. “And it’s only through rigorous studies…that one is able to identify whether that is indeed the case.”

Isanaka says further research would need to include a placebo group in patients already taking HAART to ascertain if indeed nutritional supplements slow the progression of HIV at all and to learn which combinations of micronutrients are most beneficial to patients.

Researchers will make the findings of their study available to physicians in both Tanzania and the United States. Fawzi said that the possible adverse effects of high-dose multivitamins in patients taking HAART may influence the dosage decisions of doctors and patients. “[It is] a point to note and be cautious about in the future,” he said.

Researchers discover “Fat switch”

admin — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 01:02:09 +0000

A new breakthrough in cellular biology has revealed a biological “fat switch” that could help in the fight against the worldwide obesity epidemic, according to a study published by scientists at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute last week.

The “switch”—a channel-shaped protein that sits in the outer membrane of human fat cells—can help prevent insulin resistance and obesity when it is blocked.

Senior author Bruce Spiegelman, a professor of cell biology at Harvard Medical School, said the implications of this research are far-extending.

“The fact that there is a pathway [...]that is potentially druggable that controls these aspects of biology opens up a pretty clear possibility to develop therapeutics,” he said.

According to co-author Jun Wu, an instructor at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, one-third of the world’s population suffers from obesity, but there are still no effective drugs in the United States capable of helping reduce metabolic rates.

In any animal, a high calorie diet can lead to obesity or insulin resistance–and commonly both. The diseases, especially when coupled, lead to greatly increased risk of coronary heart disease, type II diabetes and stroke.

The fat switch protein these scientists studied is predominately found in “brown fat cells”—a type of fat cell that is especially good at using chemical energy to generate and dissipate heat. This heat dissipation functions to prevent insulin resistance, distinguishing it as a “good” fat cell, according to Wu.

Through five years of experimentation, Spiegelman, Wu and their colleagues found that mice who had blocked fat switch proteins in their brown cells had an increase in their energy expenditure and decrease in insulin resistance compared to mice that did not have this block, even without putting the mice on a low-calorie diet.

Spiegelman said that the fat switch protein is from the same family of proteins as capsaicin, a protein that can be blocked by drugs to prevent the taste of spice—evidence that the fat switch could be manipulated to produce an effect in humans in a similar way.

The “druggable” potential for the fat switch, Spiegelman added, was one of the most exciting finds of his work.

American lifespans could shrink by 5 years

admin — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:05:58 +0000

Although the prevalence of gyms and workout classes has increased over the past few decades, more Americans are leading sedentary lives than ever before.

In “Designed to Move,” a report backed by Nike, the average lifespan of the younger generation is expected to be five years shorter than their parents.

“Physical activity in the United States has declined 32 percent and is on track for a 46 percent drop by 2030,” according to the report.

According to newly released statistics by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in three Americans are obese and nearly 26 million have diabetes. These medical conditions and many more can be directly linked to inactivity.

“I think the reason people are so inactive is a mix between technology and work,” Trey Johnson, a U. Alabama junior, said. “You’re sitting at your job all day, then you’re sitting on the couch watching TV when you get home.”

A new study by the U. South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health estimated that only 20 percent of jobs today require moderate physical activity compared to the 1960s when more than half did. This means most Americans are sedentary for almost all of their nine-hour workdays.

According to a recent Forbes magazine article, people can stay active by standing at their desks or replacing their office chairs with stability balls.

The increasing number of sedentary Americans has caused not only physical, but also economic problems.

According to the “Designed to Move” report, the upcoming generation will affect economies worldwide due to its increasing inactivity causing a less productive education, which leads to lower income and higher health care costs. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that over 30 percent of employers’ wages go toward health care. They also reported that the cost of health care has risen 78 percent from 2001 to 2008.

“I try to exercise regularly every day. When I don’t have time, I try to take the stairs whenever possible, and I always walk to class or ride my bike,” Jackie Nolan, a UA sophomore, said.

According to the Nike report, the more we move, the longer we live. But with busy lifestyles, most students are finding it hard to make time for exercise. According to the British Medical Journal Open, reducing sitting to less than three hours a day can add an additional two years to life expectancy.

“To be more active, people could walk to class as much as possible and just find a gym that’s open late or 24 hours,” Johnson said. “Most apartments have that – even mine does – so I guess I don’t have much of an excuse not to work out.”

John Jackson, assistant director of research and fitness at U. Alabama’s recreation center, said they are working on a new program called METRECs that will hopefully be available for students in the spring. This program will measure the intensity of each group exercise program for students and rank them on a number scale.

“The program is based on an old health and training method called METs, or metabolic equivalency,” he said. “One MET is your basic resting metabolism, and the intensity of activities goes up from there. The higher the number, the higher the intensity.”

This will allow students to know just how much physical activity they are receiving from each class.

“The American College of Sports Medicine says that everyone should get at least 150 minutes per week of ‘moderate intensity activity,’” Jackson said. “But what’s ‘moderate intensity’ really mean? That’s something in the five to seven MET range, so now that’s a little bit easier for you to keep track of.”

Nolan said it is easier to workout in today’s world.

“There’s a gym on every corner, a sidewalk on every street and so much available knowledge, but no one uses it,” Nolan said. “We’re the most capable, but we’re still the laziest.”

Excess coffee drinking could lead to adult vision loss

admin — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:51:16 +0000

Students searching for a caffeine kick to get through midterms may want to think twice before taking a sip of java. Researchers at Harvard Medical School and other health research institutions recently published a study showing a connection between coffee consumption and vision loss.

The study, published in “Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science,” revealed that adults who drink three or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day are 34 percent more likely to develop primary open-angle glaucoma.

The chronic disease affects one percent of the population and occurs when the eye swells, which deteriorates optic nerve cells. As more optic nerve cells die, blind spots begin to form. Often those with the condition don’t even realize they’re losing their eye sight since there are no symptoms tied to it.

The study also found that other caffeinated drinks like soda and tea had no link to POAG. The good news for coffee addicts is that only participants with a family history of glaucoma and over the age of 40 later experienced the vision loss from drinking multiple cups of joe daily.

The author of the study, Jae Hee Kang, ScD, of Channing Division Network of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., spoke with “Science Daily” about the impact the study may have on future dietary studies.

“Because this is the first study to evaluate the association between caffeinated coffee and exfoliation glaucoma in a U.S. population, confirmation of these results in other populations would be needed to lend more credence to the possibility that caffeinated coffee might be a modifiable risk factor for glaucoma,” Kang told Science Daily. “It may also lead to research into other dietary or lifestyle factors as risk factors.”

Although the Harvard study makes drinking coffee seem like an everlasting veil of darkness for the eyes, there are many perks the energizing drink has to offer. Research has found coffee drinkers have a 50 percent less chance of developing liver cancer and a lower possibility of colon, breast and rectal cancer than those who don’t. Avid coffee drinkers are also less likely to get diabetes.

Not everyone who consumes large quantities of coffee daily will develop POAG. Those at risk of acquiring the chronic disease are people 40 and older; those with relatives who have the condition; people with high intraocular pressure; and those with diabetes. The disease is also more prominent in some ethnicities such as Africans, Asians and Latinos.

The Glaucoma Foundation recommends everyone under 40 years of age should have an eye exam every three to four years. Those over 40 should be tested at least every one and half years, while people 40 and older with one of the risk factors should get tested annually.

Remember: Moderation is key in everything, whether genetically jinxed with a family history of glaucoma or not. So fellow coffee lovers, don’t feel like you have to put down that cup of joe just yet.

Affirmative action not best for diversity, study suggests

admin — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:11:32 +0000

Affirmative action plans based on class — not race — might provide more diversity to the nation’s universities than affirmative action, a Century Foundation report released on Wednesday suggests.

“If college admissions officers want to be fair — truly meritocratic — they need to consider not only a student’s raw academic credentials, but also what obstacles [he or] she had to overcome to achieve them,” wrote Richard Kahlenberg, the main author of the report.

The report noted that U. Texas-Austin managed to create even higher levels of minority representation in 2004 using class-based affirmative action than in 1996, when schools considered race as a factor.

The report notes universities in nine states that have created an admissions process attentive not only to racial and ethnic diversity, but also to class inequality.

Seven states have banned affirmative action, an issue likely to face the Supreme Court and add debate to the upcoming elections.

Kahlenberg wrote that admissions officials should pay attention to “strivers,” students who overcame obstacles and succeeded despite socio-economic impediments.

The most economically disadvantaged student is expected to score 399 points lower on the SAT math and verbal sections than the most advantaged student, according to the report.

“Unlike race-based affirmative action, class-based preferences compensate for what research suggests are the more substantial obstacles in today’s world — those associated with socioeconomic status,” Kahlenberg wrote.

Boston U. students said affirmative action is a complex issue, but a diverse student population is necessary to create a well-balanced institution.

“Diversity is important,” said Katie Strelitz, a BU junior. “But diversity means more than just race, background and financial standing.”

Strelitz said it is up to BU to appeal to a wide range of students so that diversity is established.

Ryan Kell, a BU junior, said affirmative action is a touchy subject, and it is easy to sound racially discriminatory when talking about it.

“While I think, on principle, the idea of affirmative action is inherently unfair to the more qualified candidate, I acknowledge that there are still enormous disadvantages minorities face in society,” he said. “Solving them through college admissions may not be the most appropriate solution. Class definitely makes more sense, because ideally those of the lowest class are the people who need an education the most.”

Kell said the overall admissions process is ridiculous for a variety of reasons.

“It’s hard to not think of it as malarkey, because the mixed message we are sent is to make ourselves stand out, but then we’re judged by standardized test scores,” he said.

BU freshman Jess Feng said academic rigor should be the main factor considered by admissions officials.

“It’s very complicated,” he said. “I think that time spent in class working and grades should be weighted the most. But I think it is good for a school to have students with diverse cultures and backgrounds.”

Students who binge drink may report higher levels of happiness, study says

admin — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:41:54 +0000

College students who participate in keg stands, pre-gaming and pub-crawls are likely to have a better college experience, according to a paper presented at the American Sociological Association (ASA) annual meeting in August.

The study, conducted at Colgate U., found that binge drinking was strongly connected to social satisfaction. The study is currently unpublished, but Carolyn Hsu, co-author of the study and associate professor of sociology at Colgate U., said she is revising the study and hopes to submit it for journal publication. Hsu surveyed nearly 1,600 undergraduates at Colgate to measure their level of social satisfaction and their level of binge drinking. The surveys defined binge drinking as at least four drinks for women and five drinks for men in one drinking session at least once every 14 days.

The research found that binge drinking was more common among “higher status students,” students who are white, male, heterosexual and Greek affiliated. Additionally, it found that higher status students tend to be happier with their social lives.

“Lower Status” students (female, non-white, less wealthy, non-Greek affiliated and members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) community) who engage in binge drinking are happier with their college experience than their non-binge drinking peers. Whether they were classified as higher or lower, students who reported that they engaged in binge drinking also reported a higher level of social satisfaction than their peers who did not, according to Hsu.

Hsu said her data does not specifically answer whether it is the drinking that causes happier students or the social atmosphere. “With our data, we cannot directly answer the question about actual drinking versus social aspect,” Hsu said via e-mail.

“Our results seem to indicate that the social aspect plays a large role, but you have to do another, different kind of study to really nail down a conclusion on the issue.”

Rose Marie Ward, associate professor of Kinesiology and Health, has done extensive research on the campus drinking culture at Miami U.

“I think the study seems legitimate, but without seeing the original data, I do not know if there are confounding variables that could also explain this relationship,” Ward said. “High status students might be happier and able to buy more drinks because they are from more affluent backgrounds.”

Miami junior psychology major Luke Custer agreed binge drinking is not necessarily a predictor of a better college experience. “I think that drinking and happiness are correlated, but drinking does not necessarily cause happiness,” Custer said. “As a result of being a social person in college, you are more likely to be drinking. Being a social person is also what leads to happiness.”

Ward has done a related study on the personality types of people who drink.

“People who reported being more social or out to have a good time tend to drink more than people who said they were more introverted,” Ward said. According to Hsu’s paper presented at the ASA annual meeting, people binge drink to fit in. Miami senior Emma Barnaclo agreed. “Socially it is what you are supposed to do in college,” Barnaclo said.“People drink to lose their inhibitions and talk to people.”

The study did not find that unhappy students were drinking to self-medicate for stress and anxiety. On the contrary, the students who reported less stress and anxiety drank more.

Ward has conducted her own research on drinking and coping, and found that men are more likely than women to drink to cope with stress. The study also included an open-ended section, in which many research participants responded that they did not want to binge drink, but found it was the only socially acceptable thing to do for fun.

Custer and Barnaclo had mixed reactions.

“Drinking is such a common occurrence on weekend nights, that most activities that you are invited to involve alcohol,” Custer said. “But doing something outdoors or going to a sporting event are two activities that don’t necessarily have to involve alcohol but are still socially acceptable.”

Barnaclo could not immediately think of socially acceptable non-drinking activities, but said that movie nights can be a fun, socially acceptable alternative.

Study links oral health to pancreatic cancer

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 13:47:04 +0000

Failing to floss may have consequences far worse than cavities, according to an international study led by Dominique Michaud, Brown U. associate professor of epidemiology. The study, published Sept. 18 in the journal Gut, found a twofold increased risk of pancreatic cancer in patients with high levels of antibodies for an infectious oral bacterium.

A particularly insidious form of cancer, pancreatic cancer often remains symptomless until the tumor has spread, at which point patients typically have less than six months to live. Even with aggressive treatment, the disease has claimed the lives of notable figures including “The Last Lecture” author Randy Pausch and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Michaud’s research shines light on a potential cause of pancreatic cancer — namely, oral health.

The study follows previous research that showed a correlation between gum disease and pancreatic cancer. Michaud and colleagues analyzed blood samples of approximately 800 volunteers from 23 centers across Europe in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort.

The first part of the study examined antibodies — factors made by the immune system to respond to specific threats — for five oral pathogens and found that subjects with high antibody levels for the gum disease-causing bacterium Porphyromonas gingivalis were twice as likely to have pancreatic cancer compared to matched controls.

Because the blood samples were obtained years before diagnosis, this relationship hints at a causal relationship between the bacteria and cancer in which the bacteria may actually promote cancer. Michaud has developed a “working hypothesis,” theorizing that oral bacteria migrates to the pancreas via the blood or gut and causes “local damage” that can eventually become cancer.

The second part of the study looked at antibodies for naturally occurring oral bacteria. The researchers identified two subgroups, one of which had significantly higher antibody levels for the natural bacteria. This group had approximately half the risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared to their peers.

Michaud said the antibody levels for these natural bacteria may be indicative of immune strength. This may also explain why smoking is a risk factor, as it lowers antibody levels, she said.

Brown professor of Community Health Karl Kelsey, who was not involved in the study, described the study as having taken an “understudied and novel approach” in characterizing how the body’s natural micro-organisms can contribute to cancer.

Michaud is taking a different approach in a follow-up study to understand the mechanisms by which bacteria can promote cancer. Using a technique called pyrosequencing, the study will examine pancreatic tumors for bacterial DNA. By comparing the results with oral bacterial data, it could demonstrate which bacteria can migrate from the mouth and promote cancer.

Michaud emphasized the importance of detecting the disease early. Though Michaud voiced concern about disparities in access to dental care, for her, the takeaway is simple. “People need to take care of their teeth,” she said.

Vatican discredits “Jesus’s Wife” finding

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 13:30:37 +0000

The Vatican joined a growing number of skeptics Friday in questioning the authenticity of a recently unveiled piece of papyrus said to demonstrate some early Christians believed that Jesus Christ was married. The fourth century fragment, which Harvard Divinity School professor Karen L. King unveiled last week, has come under increasing scrutiny as experts—and now the church newspaper—have called it a fabrication.

“Substantial reasons would lead one to conclude that the papyrus is indeed a clumsy forgery,” an editorial in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano read Friday.

“In any case, it’s a fake,” the editorial, penned by editor Gian Maria Vian concluded.

King revealed the previously unknown fragment of papyrus, dubbed “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” at an academic conference in Rome last week. The fragment, dated to be from the fourth century, contains seven abbreviated lines written in the early Egyptian Christian language Coptic. The fourth line of text reads: “Jesus said to them, my wife…”

King’s finding immediately stirred debate within Coptic academic community and the Roman Catholic Church, which has long said Jesus was not married. While King cautioned that the fragment did prove definitively that Jesus was married, she said it did show that Jesus’s relationship status was a matter of debate among early Christians.

“Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim,” King said in a statement last week. “This new gospel doesn’t prove that Jesus was married, but it tells us that the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage.”

Now, even that claim is under fire. The Vatican editorial discrediting the find comes days after a Coptic scholar at Durham U. published a paper titled ‘The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed.’ In that paper, Durham professor Francis Watson argues that the fragment-—which King and researchers say likely comes from a new gospel—borrows heavily from the Gospel of Thomas. Both gnostic texts are written in Coptic.

Specifically, Watson pointed to four words of phrases found in the Gospel of Thomas that have been rearranged and set in new contexts in the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.

“The compiler has used a ‘collage’ or ‘patchwork’ compositional technique, and this level of dependence on extant pieces of Coptic text is more plausibly attributed to a modern author, with limited facility in Coptic, than to an ancient one,” Watson wrote in his article.

Other Coptic experts have raised questions about the unusual handwriting and grammatical mistakes in the text, according to Janet A. Timbie, an expert in Coptic language and literature at the Catholic University of America. All of which points to the likelihood that the text itself was fabricated sometime in the 20th or 21st century, she said.

“Getting a piece of old papyrus and writing on it is easy,” Timbie said. “And without further analysis, it is difficult to evaluate the document.”

Though King said the papyrus itself was thoroughly vetted and authenticated by outside experts, the ink has not yet been tested. She previously said she plans to publish her findings in a paper in January, after the ink of the text is authenticated. King did not respond to requests for comment for this article. The owner of the fragment has chosen to remain anonymous.

“Dr. King’s ‘marriage fragment’ paper, which Harvard Theological Review is planning to publish in its January, 2013, edition—if testing of the ink and other aspects of the fragment are completed in time—will include her responses to the vigorous and appropriate academic debate engendered by discovery of the fragment, as well as her report on the ink analysis, and further examination of the fragment,” a statement released by the Divinity School said Wednesday.

If authentic, scholars say the fragment could reignite a debate in the Church over the role of women and married men in the priesthood. The text later reads, “She will be able to be my disciple.” Church canon has long justified its policies by stating that Jesus was unmarried.

Painkillers linked to hearing loss

admin — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:38:39 +0000

Frequent use of the analgesic medicines ibuprofen and acetaminophen has been found to increase the likelihood of hearing loss in women, particularly for those under fifty years of age according to a recent study published by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Scientists suggest that these drugs—which are marketed under brand names Advil, Motrin, and Tylenol among others—may reduce blood flow to the cochlea, our primary hearing organ, and impair its function. They also posit that these drugs could disrupt the body’s mechanisms to protect the cochlea from damage.

“We previously found that men who used these medications regularly had an increased risk for developing hearing loss,” said Sharon E. Curhan, head researcher of the study and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “However, this relation had not yet been examined in women, who use these medications even more frequently than men.”

Curhan and other researchers discovered this association between analgesics and hearing loss in women through a 14-year study conducted at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital from 1995 to 2009.

In the study, 62,261 women aged 31 to 48 years old were observed for their use of ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or aspirin. By the end of 14 years, 10,012 women had self-reported experiencing hearing loss.

Findings revealed that while ibuprofen and acetaminophen were associated with hearing loss, aspirin did not have an effect.

Upon further analysis, researchers found that those who used the medicines two or three times per week had more than a 10 percent higher risk for hearing loss than those who used them less than once a week.

For women taking the medicines up to four or five days a week, the risk of developing hearing loss jumped to 21 percent.

Hearing loss is an extremely common, and often disabling, chronic condition, Curhan said. It may have a negative impact on an individual’s communication, social life, and productivity.

According to previous research, in the U.S. alone up to one-third of women in their fifties and two-thirds of women in their sixties have experienced some degree of hearing loss.

“A great take-home message is that even though these analgesics are widely available in drugstores and supermarkets without a prescription, they are still medications and they have potential side effects,” Curhan said.

“It is important to take them mindfully.”

Research links sentence length to inmates’ chances of crime relapse

admin — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:31:49 +0000

Research completed by U. Illinois Professor Dan Bernhardt revealed a relationship between the length of an inmate’s prison sentence and his or her likelihood to rehabilitate.

Bernhardt, UI professor of Economics, evaluated the lengths of prison sentences and their influence on inmates’ rehabilitation efforts. The study was published in the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization.

Bernhardt said he wanted to understand how the length of a prison sentence influenced an inmate’s incentive to rehabilitate. To determine this relationship, Bernhardt said he and his co-researchers, Steeve Mongrain, of Simon Fraser U., and Joanne Roberts, of U. Calgary, used numerical data and simulations to link their findings with correlations that other researchers had previously established.

The research, which took more than three years to complete, found that long, mandatory prison sentences and short sentences can counter-productively decrease an inmate’s motivation to participate in rehabilitative efforts, he said.

According to the published work, inmates with shorter prison sentences may not engage in rehabilitative behavior because they know they will soon be released. On the other hand, inmates with extensively long prison sentences may lose sight of rehabilitation efforts because their release dates are in the distant future.

Bernhardt said inmates usually display rehabilitative behavior to secure an early release date. As a result, prisoners with short sentences find no point in rehabilitation because they understand they will be released in a short amount of time, while prisoners with longer sentences have more to gain in terms of reduction of time served, he said. Bernhardt said this is why longer sentences may raise the incentives to rehabilitate.

Kris Bolt, chief deputy of the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office , said it makes sense that longer sentences would increase rehabilitation rates among inmates.

“With a longer term, the inmates would probably have a better chance to succeed,” Bolt said, adding that it’s hard for prisoners to completely rehabilitate their behavior in a short amount of time.

Although longer sentences can raise incentives and success rates, Bernhardt said if sentences are too long, the possibility for an early release based on good behavior becomes less tangible, making inmates conclude that rehabilitation may not be worthwhile.

“Many people are in prison precisely because they are impatient and lack impulse control,” he said. “Such impatience translates itself in the form of not valuing highly distant future payoffs.”

Bernhardt said inmates are often released without the state knowing if the inmate successfully reformed his or her behavior. As a result, those inmates end up relapsing and committing more crimes.

Jeff Christensen, chief of police for the UI Police Department, said recidivism, the habitual relapse into crime, is a concern when inmates are released from prison. He said he agrees with Bernhardt’s research that the rehabilitation of an individual has something to do with prison sentences but steered toward a more personal claim.

“My personal opinion would be that the eventual or not eventual rehabilitation of an individual is probably more inherently embedded in the desires and attitudes of that individual,” he said.

Christensen said he has observed people who were arrested and served their sentences but showed no signs of recidivism. He said others have a continuous problem with relapsing back to crime. He said he thinks “it just depends on the person.”

Bolt said prison sentencing is partially responsible for inmate’s motivation to rehabilitate; however, his or her surrounding environment is the ultimate determinate. He said prisoners are more likely to succeed if they have the support and attitude they need to move forward.

Bernhardt’s research doesn’t make any statements concerning the ideal sentence length. He said the state is not only concerned with rehabilitation, but also assuring the prison sentence is appropriate for the crime committed.

“Sentencing is very complex,” Bolt said. “There is no cut and dried answer of what an appropriate prison sentence should be.”

Study finds pacifier use may affect development

admin — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:48:45 +0000

A study conducted at the U. Wisconsin Department of Psychology examined the role pacifiers play in the psychological development of children.

UW psychology professor and lead author of the study Paula Niendenthal said inspiration for the study came from the question about whether pacifiers blocked social interactions to the extent that they would have a harmful effect on development.

“This idea led to a study of how prolonged pacifier use affected whether people mimic and develop emotional consequences,” Niendenthal said.

Niendenthal said the general idea behind the importance of mimicking is the fact that the action is a functional and active learning idea, allowing the body to recreate information it received through facial nerves that cause expressions and facial nerves that take messages to the brain.

Niendenthal said the department conducted three studies to further explore the idea.

In the first study, Niendenthal said researchers studied children of ages 6 and 7 and whether they could mimic faces when they looked at them. Results found boys who used pacifiers longer were less able to mimic faces, she said.

In the second study, Niendenthal said researchers asked college-age students to report on their pacifier use in childhood and relate the pacifier use to their scales of visible emotions. The longer boys used pacifiers, the lower their scores were regarding empathy, she said.

In the third study, Niendenthal said questionnaires were administered regarding the relationship between the length of pacifier use and levels of emotional intelligence. She said from this study, researchers found the longer boys used pacifiers, the lower they scored in ability to understand other peoples emotions.

Niendenthal said further research is needed for these findings.

She said society trains girls to expect to understand people’s emotions and be expressive emotionally, and because parents discuss and encourage emotions around girls much more than boys, the general result is boys are more vulnerable to social and developmental implications.

A UW statement said researchers found heavy pacifier use in childhood is tied to levels of emotional maturity found.

This is the first study to tie pacifiers with psychological development, the statement said.

4th-century text not definite proof that Christ had wife, experts say

admin — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 07:42:05 +0000

A fourth-century text indicating Jesus Christ said “my wife” could open new questions for the religious community in a finding Harvard U. announced Tuesday.

“This is the only extant ancient text which explicitly portrays Jesus as referring to a wife,” wrote Karen King, a professor at the Harvard Divinity School, in a paper detailing the discovery. “It does not, however, provide evidence that the historical Jesus was married, given the late date of the fragment and the probable date of original composition only in the second half of the second century.”

The document, a piece of papyrus written in Coptic, belongs to an anonymous private collector that approached King to translate, according to a Harvard press release.

King, who could not translate Coptic, brought the papyrus to the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York from a private owner, where Roger Bagnall and AnneMarie Luijendijk translated it.

“It doesn’t confirm that the historical Jesus had a historical wife,” said David Frankfurter, a professor of religion at Boston U. “It suggests that people in the late second century, who were discussing the value of celibacy, might have speculated that Jesus himself had a wife, or called Mary Magdalene his wife.”

One side of the papyrus contains eight incomplete sentences written in hand, while the backside only displays three words and a few random letters, according to the press release.

“Its language [Sahidic Coptic] as well as the conditions for the preservation of organic material indicate that it was found in Egypt,” wrote King in her paper.

King also wrote that researchers seriously considered whether the piece of parchments was a forgery.

“It would be very difficult to reproduce the kind the damage from insects or moisture that the fragment indicates,” she wrote, “but it could have been penned on a blank piece of ancient papyrus, which are available for purchase on the antiquities market.”

There are many other facts that indicate authenticity, King wrote, including that it would be very difficult to forge the ink’s specific preservation on the material.

Frankfurter said the manuscript is important because “wife” is an unusual word for Jesus to use toward a disciple.

“I think that like most discoveries of ancient manuscripts, it will give us more information about the diversity of Christian opinions in the second century and that it won’t say much about the historical Jesus and his circle,” Frankfurter said.

Anthony Petro, assistant professor of Modern Christianity at Boston U., said there are a lot of questions surrounding this “exciting find.”

Petro said if the fragment were proven authentic, it would have repercussions on the role of women in the priesthood and the question of whether priests can marry.

The discovery could help people build arguments about whether or not priests should be allowed to marry, he said.

“The Catholic Church is a very old institution, and change would come very slowly, so I don’t imagine there would be much reaction immediately to this,” he said.

Both Petro and Frankfurter said that even if authenticated, the document is an interpretation and came after the death of Christ.

Cody Brotter, a BU senior, said this discovery could be significant for religious followers.

“I think it’s a huge scandal that the Christians’ messiah was married,” Brotter said. “I’d like to know who this woman was. Behind every great man is an even greater woman.”

Emelia Thompson, a BU senior, said she was raised Catholic and although she does not still attend services regularly Catholicism is still a large part of her life.

“My opinion of Jesus isn’t at all affected by this new discovery,” she said. “The teachings and the tenants of my faith can withstand the alleged change in marital status of the person I believe suffered and died to save me from myself.”

Ashley Acuña, a BU junior, said she is not religious and that this story does not seem entirely legitimate.

“I think a lot of people will be in disbelief,” she said. “They are going to think, ‘how many years have gone by and I’ve never heard this story?’ It seems a bit suspicious.”

Acuña said if Jesus did in fact have a wife, it would change the Bible’s stories for her.

“I think it would change a lot of the stories had he had a female counterpart to spread the message,” she said. “She would have been essential or at least he [Jesus] would have paid more attention to women.”

Divorced parents’ relationship impacted by communication technology

admin — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:16:26 +0000

As new forms of communication develop, the ability to exchange information without interacting continues to grow. Though this might decrease the amount of face-to-face communication, researchers at U. Missouri have discovered it can help improve cooperation between divorced parents.

“Parents with a positive co-parental relationship used technology to convey information, share co-parenting duties and generally make co-parenting easier,” said Richard Feistman, a graduate student who worked on the project. “Communication technology was a valuable tool for these divorced couples.”

Professor Lawrence Ganong, who was in charge of co-parenting research, said technology could either complicate or simplify one’s life.

“If divorced parents had pretty good relationships as co-parents, then they tended to use communication technology in positive ways, but if they were mad or fighting, then they used the technology to control the other parent’s access to information,” Ganong said.

This information could include important dates such as recitals or soccer games, Ganong said. In some cases, parents said they would call when they knew the other parent was busy so the other parent could not answer the phone.

“Phone calls had the potential to disintegrate into arguments about ongoing disagreements and rehashing of past issues,” according to an article published in Family Relations: a scientific journal that focuses on family studies. “Phone calls, unless recorded, leave no record of what was said, so co-parents can deny having been told things about the children such as their schedules.”

The study was conducted by interviewing 49 parents who were divorced and had at least one child younger than 18 at the time of divorce. The parents varied among single and remarried parents, sole and joint custody and the quality of the relationship.

One participant in the study said sometimes she talks to her child without talking to her former spouse.

“He’ll dial the phone and then hand it to her, and then I answer the phone,” the anonymous parent said. “When I’m done talking with her, I’ll just hang up so he doesn’t talk to me afterwards.”

The kids are aware of the communication issues, Ganong said.

“Some parents would use this as an excuse to give the child a cellphone so that the child could contact the other parent directly,” he said.

Despite these steps, the negative use of communication technology rarely works and makes co-parenting harder for those with a negative relationship, Feistman said.

Parents who already had a positive relationship with their co-parent are often those who use technology most efficiently, Ganong said. Programs like Google Calendar were used to communicate without actual interaction.

“If you don’t want to talk, you can post an event (on Google Calendar) without communicating,” Ganong said. “Oddly enough, the parents that did that got along great anyway. We had some parents who called each other four or five times a day.”

The paper suggests those in family law and family therapy could use these findings to improve communication between parents to maintain healthy relationships.

Ganong and his co-authors plan to continue this research with other studies.

“We are talking about doing a parallel study about how kids interact with their parents using technology,” Ganong said.

Study finds organic food not always the healthier choice

admin — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 21:17:50 +0000

Is that little bit of extra money for organic foods actually worth it in the long run?

Stanford U. doesn’t think so.

Stanford recently published a systematic review, which is a review of research in a specific area, detailing what has been found about the benefits and risks of organic foods.

The study has undergone controversy since the publication about the validity of the methods used for the review.

The study, which was published in the Sept. 4 Issue of annals of internal medicine, found there is not strong evidence that organic foods are more nutritious than conventional foods.

Dr. Suzy Weems, professor and chair in the Baylor U. department of family and consumer sciences, said the findings from Stanford were consistent with previous findings regarding organic food.

“The findings at Stanford were not at all, in my mind, surprising because we have known for quite awhile that the nutrient content in foods that were properly produced, organically and using the more conventional methods, if those foods were harvested and taken care of carefully, the nutrient content was not significantly different,” Weems said.

Weems said the difference between organic and conventionally-produced food lies in the techniques used when growing the foods.

“Organically produced means they have been grown with little to no synthetic fertilizers and they don’t have insecticides,” Weems said. “They really have to be certified as organic producers.”

The use of pesticides and insecticides was mentioned in the Stanford study. In a sept. 3 Press release by Stanford University, studies involving groups of children on organic versus conventional diets showed slightly lower levels of pesticides appearing in children with organic diets versus conventional diets, but it was unclear what the exact cause was.

“I think the statement they made really needs to be highlighted and that was that perhaps the largest amount of pesticides that children are exposed to is not through the food, but in the environment,” weems said.

The overall agreement among the authors of the study was that people should aim for overall healthier diets.

Weems agreed, saying she never advises people for or against organic food, which is generally more expensive than regular food, but leaves the decision up to them.

“I really stress the idea that it’s important to eat fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nutrient-dense foods like lean meats and things,” Weems said. “It’s much more important to have those in the diet every day than to not be able to afford something.”

Some students, like Corpus Christi junior Karla Medina, said they occasionally buy organic food.

“Sometimes I buy organic, but when i’m short on money, I’ll get regular because it has about the same nutritional content,” medina said.

Local organizations, like world hunger relief incorporated, also stress other qualities of food besides whether or not it’s organically produced.

“For us, there is a lot about our growing system that are more important than organic foods,” said the associate director of World Hunger relief Incorporated Matt Hess. “We consider things like grass-pasture-fed, locally produced more important than organic.”

Hess said world hunger relief incorporated use methods similar to organic methods. They say they have also sold some organic products like pecans, but that locally, educating people about other techniques like grass-fed and pasture-fed produce is more necessary.

Weems said there will always be people who prefer organic produce, but that she expects the strong current emphasis on organic products to level out.

“In my opinion, a lot do this because it’s kind of an ‘in thing’ to do not because they’ve done the research to say maybe this is the better thing to do,” weems said.

The press release recommends that people do their own research on the benefits and risks of organic versus conventional and come to their own decision about what they want to consume and what they want to feed their families.

Editoral: Sleep study shows risk for students

admin — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:54:53 +0000

Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that using electronic devices before bed disrupts sleep patterns and hinders one’s ability to fall asleep. Not only do these devices stimulate brain activity overall, they also inhibit natural melatonin production. Melatonin, the hormone your pineal gland creates, which helps you fall asleep, is inhibited by blue light, specifically, which is near the spectrum of artificial light coming from your laptop or cellphone. This exposure to light also disrupts our circadian rhythm, an essential factor in getting a good night’s sleep. The National Sleep Foundation estimates that more than 90 percent of Americans use some kind of device like this before bed.

Although studies have previously concluded that television before going to bed has the same detrimental effects, smartphones, tablets and laptops have all but replaced television sets, especially in college. Everyone knows how difficult it is to juggle classes, work and study time. The only thing many students want to do after a long day like that is surf the Internet or watch a movie, and, come finals week, pulling all-nighters seems to be the only option for success. Yet sleep is imperative for achievement as well, and lots of behavior that is prevalent during a college career can have long-lasting health effects. For example, after even one drink, the body’s ability to fall into Rapid Eye Movement sleep is impaired. Sleep disturbances throughout the night are also associated with intoxication levels prior to falling asleep.

Poor sleep habits and lack of sleep are linked with several health problems in general. Obesity, diabetes, depression, concentration, memory and overall cognitive function and ability have a strong correlation to the amount and quality of sleep a person gets each night.

These two habits, using electronic devices and drinking prior to falling asleep, when combined can have substantial effects on cognitive abilities, yet both are prevalent in college life. This type of behavior, especially if sustained throughout a typical four-year college career or longer, can have substantial effects throughout one’s life. Considering the fact that a typical college student might stay in during weeknights and study, then go out with friends and drink on the weekends, often until late, many students barely give themselves a chance to actually get a restful night’s sleep. Researchers suggest avoiding computers and phones before bed, or at least dimming the screen and limiting alcohol intake. Alcohol can disrupt sleep if consumed even up to six hours before bedtime. These precautions may inhibit social and study schedules, but one can never underestimate the power of a good night’s rest.

Marijuana use possibly linked to specific type of testicular cancer

admin — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 01:55:08 +0000

U. Southern California researchers have found a correlation between recreational marijuana use and the possibility of getting specific types of testicular cancer, according to a study published online on Monday.

The study, published in the American Cancer Society’s journal, cautioned that therapeutic use of marijuana by young men could possibly result in a higher risk of getting testicular germ cells. The study came about because of a steady increase in the frequency of testicular germ cell tumors during the past few decades.

Victoria Cortessis, an assistant professor of preventive medicine, compared the self-reported recreational drug use of 163 young men with testicular cancer with that of 292 healthy men. Those with a history of using marijuana were twice as likely to have subtypes of cancer that tend to occur in young men and have a worse prognosis.

“We do not know what marijuana triggers in the testis that may lead to carcinogenesis,” Cortessis said in a press release. “Although, we speculate that it may be acting through the endocannabinoid system—the cellular network that responds to the active ingredient in marijuana—since this system has been shown to be important in the formation of sperm.”

Teenage marijuana use causes mental deficit

admin — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 19:20:27 +0000

A nearly four decade study led by Duke U. researchers holds harrowing implications for adolescent marijuana users.

The study followed more than 1,000 people from the time they were born and found that individuals who used marijuana regularly in early adolescence suffered on average an eight point IQ decline by the time they reached age 38. Not only is this drop in IQ irreversible, but it is enough to knock a person of average intelligence from the 50th percentile to the 29th percentile.

“Those who started to use cannabis a lot between 16 and 18 were the kids who experienced a lot of the IQ decline,” Avshalom Caspi, an Edward M. Arnett professor of psychology and neuroscience and co-author of the study, said. “Even among people who had quit…if they started very early and used cannabis for many years, their neurological test scores didn’t seem to rebound.”

An IQ drop of eight points has a variety of long-term ramifications for individuals. Not only does IQ influence college admission and job placement, but it can even have an effect on mortality, said Madeline Meier, a post-doctoral researcher and lead author of the study.

The findings only pertain to individuals who were early onset and dependent users. Those who started using marijuana before turning 18 were categorized as early-onset users, and those who continued using even when there were significant health or social consequences were labeled dependent users.

As a result, the findings only pertain to a small segment of the population. Only five percent of the individuals studied were considered early-onset and dependent users and suffered from a significant drop in IQ.

“Some people may look at these findings and say, ‘Well, we knew that all along, we knew stoners and what they were like in high school,’” Caspi said. “But the findings are more nuanced than that because they suggest we must really pay attention to sensitive periods in development where substance use may have more harmful effects than it does in other points in development.”

Although people generally accept that cigarettes are not good for you, many will maintain that marijuana is not harmful—an idea that has been propelled by the medical marijuana movement. The findings reverse any perception that marijuana is completely harmless, Meier said.

But the research could also be used to support marijuana use, Caspi said.

“A lot of people have believed for a long time that cannabis really isn’t harmful and is a wonderful recreation drug,” he said. “There is evidence for that [argument] as well, since many people in our research have smoked cannabis on and off in their lives without any adverse effects on their function.”

Regardless of how the study is ultimately interpreted, the findings highlight that a heavy reliance on drugs during adolescence can haunt an individual far into the future.

“Certain maturational changes occur in the brain from age 13 to up until the early twenties and adolescents who use cannabis are interrupting these critical brain changes,” she said. “To anybody who is an adolescent whose brain is still developing, which can be up to the early twenties, marijuana is not harmless.”

Thomas Szigethy, associate dean and director of the Duke Student Wellness Center, wrote in an email Wednesday that marijuana is the second most heavily used substance on campus, after alcohol. Although some students think pot is less dangerous than alcohol, it can still adversely affect their academic and social lives.

“Many more people smoking pot lose motivation,” Szigethy said. “Ultimately, people need to assess why they are using a substance—what are they avoiding [and] why can they not accomplish the same positive feeling about life without using [this] substance?”

Record-breaking python dissected

admin — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 12:03:55 +0000

Gainesville, Fla. is home to a new record-breaking reptile — but it’s not an alligator.

Researchers with the Florida Museum of Natural History dissected a 17-foot-7-inch Burmese python Aug. 10, the largest of its kind ever found in the state. The 164.5-pounder was pregnant with 87 eggs and broke previous state records for pythons.

“This thing is monstrous; it’s about a foot wide,” Florida Museum herpetology collection manager Kenneth Krysko said in a press release. Krysko was out of town and unavailable for an interview.

The Florida Museum received the specimen from the Everglades National Park as part of a U.S. Department of the Interior project researching methods for managing Florida’s invasive Burmese python problem, according to the release.

After the scientists complete their investigation, the museum will display the snake for about five years. Then it will return to the Everglades for more exhibition.

Museum biologist Rob Robins said although the snake is well within the average length of the species, the fact that they are growing to be so large in their non-native environment is troubling.

“They’re very cryptic and well-camouflaged, so there could be bigger ones out there,” Robins said.

The longest Burmese python previously found in Florida measured 16.8 feet. Another was pregnant with 85 eggs.

The spike in python population led the state to pass a series of laws regarding the snakes. It’s illegal to own them as pets or to transport them across state lines without a federal permit.

People can hunt the pythons in certain areas in some spring months if they have a hunting license and required permits.

At U. Florida, researchers examined the snake’s stomach, which contained feathers that will be identified by museum ornithologists. The pythons’ prey can include birds, deer, bobcats and alligators.

By inspecting the snake and the contents of its stomach, researchers hope to learn more about the elusive reptile and how to stop the snakes from spreading.

Vitamin C intake should increase

admin — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 15:29:06 +0000

An article in the scientific journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition has analyzed a set of studies and concluded that the recommended dietary allowance for vitamin C should be increased from 90 milligrams to 200 milligrams, and that there is strong evidence from many studies that increasing vitamin C intake can have a protective effect against heart disease, stroke and cancer.

The study was authored by Balz Frei, the director of Oregon State U.’s Linus Pauling Institute in association with researchers in France and Denmark. Frei is also a professor of biochemistry and biophysics.

RDAs are the nutritional statistics on food labels, decided by the Institute of Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board. In the case of vitamins, they are commonly expressed on the label as a “percent daily value per serving.”

“The discussion is as follows: Is vitamin C’s only function to prevent the deficiency disease scurvy, or does it have other functions as well?” Frei said.

Current RDAs are engineered only to prevent scurvy, which is characterized by the body having trouble synthesizing working connective tissue, which occurs at critically low vitamin C levels.

Linus Pauling himself was a strong advocate for the other health effects of vitamin C, and got his body used to eating large amounts of it throughout his life by slowly building up his intake. In his later years, he ate 18 grams of the vitamin per day — 200 times more than the current RDA. Most animals are able to produce vitamin C, but humans are among those who cannot and need to acquire it through their diet.

Vitamin C is also a known antioxidant, a compound that could guard against oxidative stress in the body. Oxidative stress has been implicated in contributing to the above chronic diseases, though this alone does not prove the vitamin’s efficacy. The researchers cited a wide range of studies that produced evidence supporting the idea that vitamin C intake can lessen the severity of risk factors for those diseases, and proposed several alternative mechanisms unrelated to vitamin C’s antioxidant activity by which the vitamin may affect chronic disease risk factors.

Official trials have not found vitamin C to decrease chronic disease risks; however, the authors argue that the current method for determining the RDA for a vitamin is flawed, primarily because it is the same trial used for testing newly developed drugs, which are handled differently by the body than vitamins.

“Medicines are foreign compounds that are very quickly metabolized and excreted,” Frei said. “It’s completely different for essential [micro]nutrients. The body retains these compounds because they are essential for normal biological functions.”

“The medical community has essentially concluded that vitamins have no role in chronic disease prevention.”

According to Frei, even very high levels of vitamin C are rarely, if ever, dangerously toxic because the body’s regulatory mechanisms ensure cells don’t overdose on this particular vitamin.

Frei first got involved with vitamin C research as a postdoctoral research associate in 1986. In 1999, he was first invited to give a presentation at the Food and Nutrition Board’s discussions on vitamin C RDAs.

“It’s an ongoing process. The RDA used to be only 60 milligram per day for both men and women.”

Racy scenes encourage greater sexual activity

admin — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:12:26 +0000

Children who watch feature films with more racy scenes tend to engage in sex at a younger age, have more sexual partners and participate in more unsafe sex, according to a study by researchers in a Dartmouth College social health psychology lab and at the Geisel School of Medicine.

The study, titled “Greater Exposure to Sexual Content in Popular Movies Predicts Earlier Sexual Debut and Increased Risk Taking,” was published online in the journal Psychological Science on Wednesday.

The researchers used data from a longitudinal study of American adolescents and determined that racy movies increase sexual risk by “modifying sexual behavior,” according to the article.

“Kids who are watching more of these movies lose their virginity at a younger age and reported less condom use,” lead author Ross O’Hara, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri, said in an interview with The Dartmouth. O’Hara conducted the research while working on his PhD in the psychological and brain sciences department.

In 2003, O’Hara, psychology professor Rick Gibbons, psychiatry professor Meg Gerrard, epidemiology and biostatistics professor Zhigang Li and pediatrics professor James Sargent compiled a list of several hundred top-grossing movies and coded each of them based on the length of sexual content — which ranged from heavy kissing to sexual intercourse — in each movie. They then asked approximately 1,230 children between the ages of 12 and 14 which of the movies they had seen. After six years, the research team asked the same group of children about their sexual behavior — when they first started having sex, the total number of sexual partners and the number of occasions of casual sex without protection in which they had engaged.

The study also considered how these movies affected the children’s development of a trait called “sensation seeking,” or the tendency to “seek novel and intense stimulation,” according to the study. To measure the factor, the researchers surveyed the children on their tendency to seek thrill, susceptibility to boredom and proclivity for intensity.

The results indicated that exposure to sexual content in movies increases sexual risk and also drives the development of the sensation seeking trait.

“Sexual content may accelerate the normal rise of sensation seeking during adolescence, thereby promoting risky behavior,” the article said.

O’Hara said that the study aimed to justify that the current rating system for movies is “sensitive to sex already.” He said that parents should pay attention to these ratings and control what movies their children choose to see.

“If there’s any sexual content in there, it should be restricted to kids of younger ages,” O’Hara said. “What they see on screen will not be a good indication of what will work out when they do decide to have sex.”

O’Hara also said that filmmakers who choose to include sex scenes in their movies should make the scenes more “realistic” by mentioning condom use.

“This is something they should consider because potentially, kids are watching this and taking this as a guide or image when they do decide to have sex,” he said.

The biggest limitation to the research, however, is that it was not an experimental study, so the data can be used to prove correlation but not causation, he said.

“We can’t say for sure that watching these movies is causing changes in behavior,” O’Hara said.

College Health Services Director Jack Turco said he was not surprised by the study’s findings, given the impact of the media on younger generations.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if early input can induce individuals to partake in sexual activity,” he said. “One thing that’s clear is that more and more kids are getting influence from what’s on television and what’s on the internet.”

Turco said, however, that the correlation found in the study could be based on other factors, such as the children’s socioeconomic status or the strictness of their parents.

O’Hara said that the research team is now studying the influence of drinking scenes in movies on children’s sexual behavior.

Psychological study sheds light on links in knowledge

admin — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 19:55:04 +0000

A memory means more than a record of events and might even influence how humans perceive and interpret new information to make decisions, according to a new U. Texas psychology study.

Alison Preston, assistant professor of psychology and neurology, led the study on human memories appearing in the July issue of Neuron, a scientific journal. To conduct the study, Preston and a group of UT researchers showed people a series of images with a group of objects and then showed them the same objects, but paired them off in different ways.

The team then analyzed the subjects’ brain activity using an MRI to evaluate how the brain reacted to the changing visuals. Preston said her research demonstrates that linking knowledge across different experiences enhances people’s ability to make novel inferences about the relationships among different events.

“Let’s say you just moved. One day, you see a woman leaving the apartment next door, the day after, you see a man leaving the apartment next door. You may infer they are a couple, even if you never saw them together,” said Dagmar Zeithamova, co-author of the study and researcher at UT’s Center for Learning and Memory. “Previously, we knew you can make such inferences by using logical reasoning, putting the two pieces of information together. However, in this study, we show that your memory is set up to make such inferences for you.”

Additionally, Zeithamova explains that the process of memory making is the bridging of new and old experiences. “When you have a new experience that somehow overlaps with what you already know, your prior knowledge is brought back to your mind and you form a new memory that is already connected to your prior memories,” Zeithamova said.

Another takeaway of their research was a new perspective on memories. “Our memories do not necessarily reflect the exact events that happen to us,” Preston said. “These techniques provide evidence that learning may be an individualized process that depends on the unique experiences of the person,”

Preston said she hopes their work could be used to develop educational strategies to enhance learning in practical settings, such as the classroom and the medical field.

Study shows extended stay in college may affect students’ post-graduate paycheck

admin — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:46:08 +0000

A study conducted by U. Tennessee’s Center for Business and Economic Research found that students who were able to complete bachelor’s degrees within four years will make between $5,800 and $6,200 more than those who completed the same degree in six years.

The study also found that those who took seven or more years to complete a bachelor’s degree were paid the same average salary as those who had not gone to college at all. The researchers stated many explanations for this finding in their study, including the idea that many employers view extended college stays as a negative reflection on a student’s ability to complete tasks. Another explanation is that those who completed their degrees within the four-year time period had more time in jobs and may already begin receiving raises and promotions.

“Finishing faster is a sign to employers that you are able to get things done, are efficient about it and hard working,” Bill Fox, a researcher from the group at UT, said. “All of these are positive signals.”

The New York Times conducts an annual study of the success rates for graduates from each school in the country. For 2011 UCF graduates, the starting median pay is a $40,800 salary, which is $11,000 less than the national average. However, by mid-career, those same graduates are making almost double the amount they received when they started.

Some students take a longer amount of time because they plan on pursuing a graduate degree post-graduation. Nicole Valdes, a summer 2011 U. Central Florida graduate, will attend the Stetson U. College of Law in the fall.

“My years as an undergrad allowed me to pursue my dream of becoming an attorney. It provided me with the critical-thinking skills and the educational foundation necessary to become a lawyer,” Valdes said. “In addition to time spent in the classroom, all the extracurricular and leadership opportunities I participated in helped with my professional development.

Valdes said that many factors should be considered when looking at how long a student takes to finish a degree, such as if the student had to work part time or full time.

Ashley Kohrt, a UCF alumna, now works at Florida Hospital as a residency coordinator after taking four and a half years to complete her degree in allied health sciences.

“I don’t feel as though not completing my degree in the society standard of four years has had any monetary effect on me, and that it has actually had a positive influence on my life because I was able to enjoy college and not feel pressured to finish quickly,” Kohrt said.

Bill Blank, the director of career development in Career Services, advised that the time a student spends in school is not always the issue.

“The standard for a college degree is now five years, so employers don’t tend to look at the length of time spent in school,” Blank said. “It’s about what he or she achieves while here by participating in clubs and other things offered on campus to get the best experience before they go into their field.”

According to a study done by the Complete College America foundation, 63 percent of UCF students will finish their four-year degree in six years.

“It is difficult to judge someone on their efficiency and hard-working ability based on when they graduate from college,” Kohrt said. “Most students spend their time changing their major and deciding what would be a good fit for them, which causes them to spend more time in school but isn’t a sign of their skills.”

Fox pointed out that the increase in yearly income could be due to stronger connections in the workforce. Building connections can lead to better jobs both monetarily and atmospherically, Fox said.

“For graduate students, time doesn’t matter,” biomedical sciences graduate student Andrew Teblum said. “Companies are looking more for the type of thesis work, publications and experience with equipment, which normally, longer means you are more experienced and therefore sometimes are actually more useful.”

Kohrt agreed.

“Students want to be happy where they decide to go, and sometimes finding their niche can take a little longer,” Kohrt said.

Study: Kids who play sports less likely to be obese

admin — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:47:39 +0000

Childhood obesity — which has tripled since 1980 and now affects roughly 12.5 million children under 19 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control — has captured the attention of several Dartmouth College faculty members and researchers, including Geisel School of Medicine pediatrics professor Madeline Dalton and economics professor Patricia Anderson.

Dalton and her research team completed a study, published Monday in Pediatrics, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, that showed the effectiveness of team sports in reducing adolescent obesity.

Anderson is currently finalizing a paper looking at the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act on children’s weight, according to Anderson.

Dalton’s paper, titled “Influence of Sports, Physical Education and Active Commuting to School on Adolescent Weight Status,” examined the relationship between participation in different types of physical activity and children’s weight.

The research team examined data from 1,718 high school students and concluded that adolescents participating in at least two different sports teams over the course of a year are 26 percent less likely to be obese than their less-than-two-sport counterparts.

They also found that these students were 11 percent less likely to be overweight or obese than students who were not members of at least two different teams.

“In team sports, kids have regular practice and more consistent moderate physical activity, and that’s why they’re more protected [from obesity],” Dalton said.

Children participating in only one sports team, however, did not have a significantly lower risk for being obese or overweight.

Additionally, participating in casual and less rigorous physical activity was not associated with a lower rate of obesity, Dalton said.

The results of the study also indicate that the prevalence of obesity is approximately 22 percent lower for students who walk or bike to school four to five times per week, which is a trend unseen in previous studies, according to Dalton.

Approximately 29 percent of all survey participants were overweight or obese, and roughly 75 percent participated in at least one team sport, according to the article.

Dalton said that the biggest limitation of the study was its design as an observational research project and not an experimental study.

“We performed the study by looking at associations that exist, not by randomizing kids with different levels of physical activity,” she said.

Dalton said that the girls surveyed tended to underestimate their weight while boys tended to overestimate their height.

This trend, however, did not affect the results, as the research team validated much of the self-reported data and after analysis did not find any significant deviations.

Anderson, who performed her research with Wellesley College professor Kristin Butcher and Northwestern University professor Diane Schanzenbach, researched how “accountability pressures” from the No Child Left Behind Act affect childhood obesity rates.

The research team is currently revising their paper before they submit it to a journal for publication, Anderson said.

Due to pressure to increase standardized test scores, schools have reduced recess time and physical education courses.

Schools have also increased the number of food-based incentives and rewards such as bake sales and parties, Anderson said.

Schools have also increased the amount of junk food served in cafeterias in response to the budgetary pressures of the No Child Left Behind, according to Anderson.

“Schools facing increased pressures to produce academic outcomes may reallocate their efforts in ways that have unintended consequences for children’s health,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

Anderson examined the “most pressured” K-12 institutions in Arkansas, which has a large amount of data available for the obesity and test proficiency rates of each school, according to Anderson. These “pressured” schools, which had a passing rate within five percentage points of the adequate yearly progress threshold set by No Child Left Behind, were the most likely to cut physical activity in order to promote academic success, Anderson said.

The study indicated that students in these schools were, on average, 1 percent more likely to be overweight than those at other schools.

Anderson said that this difference, though seemingly negligible, was statistically significant given the number of schools that were sampled.

“The basic gist of the results are that maybe there are some side effects of No Child Left Behind,” Anderson said.

Both Dalton and Anderson said they plan on conducting future research to both expand and confirm the results of their studies.

Dalton said she plans to perform a study examining children’s weight in relation to physical activity alternatives for those who are not athletically inclined.

Anderson said she will analyze data a second pool of data from California middle schools and high schools to further explore her study’s conclusions.

Scientists help find Higgs boson particle

admin — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 17:28:20 +0000

An international collaboration that includes 29 U. Minnesota scientists announced the discovery of a new particle last week that could explain unknown aspects of the universe.

The Higgs boson, which scientists theorize gives every particle mass, was observed at the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider.

They were able to observe the Higgs boson because within the LHC, protons travel at nearly the speed of light and smash into each other — reaching energies comparable to what scientists think occurred during the Big Bang.

These energies are measured by the LHC’s calorimeter, which U. Minnesota physics professor Roger Rusack helped design. He also led the group that operated it from 2009-10.

Since 1993, the University has been represented in the global group of nearly 4,300 people who discovered the particle, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, which is located in Switzerland.

Upon returning to the University, Rusack has been teaching, assisting graduate students and doctoral candidates and managing grants for the University group. The technology CERN uses allows him to continue to participate in the effort from Minnesota. After all, CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 to help CERN scientists communicate with one another.

Higgs history

In the 1960s, scientists theorized the existence of an energy field that interacts with every particle. The more particles interact with the field, the greater mass they gain.

Peter Higgs wrote a paper proposing that the particle within this energy field could be observed because it would also interact with itself like it interacts with every other particle.

Thus, the particle became known as the Higgs boson — its surname coming from Indian scientist Satyendra Nath Bose, who defined “bosons” as a time of particle, according to the Associated Press.

Scientists have been searching for the Higgs boson ever since. Because it decays instantaneously into other particles, the researchers at CERN were actually observing its decay products — smaller particles like electrons and quarks.

Rusack said the discovery is significant because two separate experiments observed the particle’s decay products with a “five sigma probability,” meaning a 99.99995 percent chance the results could be duplicated.

He said CERN also has safeguards to prevent data manipulation during experiments.

“In these types of things, it’s very easy to kid yourself into thinking you’ve found something,” Rusack said.

Although the discovery was a surprise to the world, doctoral candidate Kevin Klapoetke said, CERN scientists knew about it in January.

“It’s not so much of a surprise that something we began to see is finally taking shape and we can confidently say is a Higgs-like particle,” he said.

Klapoetke called it “Higgs-like” because researchers don’t yet know if the particle is exactly what scientists predicted nearly 50 years ago. Rusack said researchers will perform precision measurements on the rate of decay to see if it’s the Higgs boson as predicted or something different.

Thousands of opinions

Rusack said the thousands of people working on the CERN project get along well because they use the “universal language” of science.

“We’re all there because we’re excited about the physics,” he said. “We have a common understanding of the application of the scientific method.”

But Klapoetke said the massive partnership isn’t always easy.

“You’re working with a lot of people so you have unlimited possibilities of problems,” he said.

The contributions students like him have made to the CERN project include programming the software the machine uses to detect particles.

He said he currently has a program that works but getting it accepted into the standard process has not been easy because there is no clear, written explanation of how things should be done.

“In the end, yes, we want it to be uniform and simple so that when you go looking for it it’s not a pain in the butt,” Klapoetke said. “But to get things to that state is a huge, troublesome thing.”

When things start to work, though, he said it’s satisfying. Klapoetke said he also enjoys the recognition when something he designed makes it into a scientific publication.

With nearly 4,300 contributors, the authorship of CERN publications is extensive.

Klapoetke said in a paper like the one researchers will publish on the Higgs boson discovery, every name is included.

“You can’t ever pretend you did it yourself,” he said.

Peter Hansen, who will start graduate school at the University in the fall, started working on the CERN project in May.

Hansen said he was glad to join the group amid this discovery.

“It’s also a pretty historical event,” he said. “It’s one of those things that you know will be known for a long time.”

Although the discovery has earned international attention, CERN researchers are far from finished.

On the Monday following the Higgs boson announcement, Rusack logged in to his CERN account and pulled up a screen that showed what the LHC was doing at that moment, more than 4,400 miles away.

Then, he looked at the meetings for that day. This week, most are about the Higgs boson and the further tests CERN scientists are going to do on the particle.

Rusack found a meeting of interest and joined it via video conference. He said meetings are a big part of life with CERN no matter where he is in the world.

“When you have that many people,” he said, “you have to have that many meetings.”

CERN finds evidence to support existence of Higgs boson, on verge of breakthrough

admin — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:50:44 +0000

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced at a conference early Wednesday morning that they have evidence to support the existence of the Higgs boson and are on their way to a major scientific breakthrough.

While the existence of the Higgs boson — the fundamental particle of the hypothetical Higgs field that explains why some particles have mass and others do not — was not definitively proven at the conference, CERN’s highly anticipated report on the findings from its two experiments, ATLAS and CMS, showed a particle that could be proven to be the Higgs boson after further testing. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers contributed to the ATLAS experiment.

Joe Incandela, CMS spokesperson and UC Santa Barbara physics professor, described the breakthrough discovery of a new particle that could be the Higgs boson in his presentation at the conference.

“This historic milestone is only the beginning,” said CERN director Rolf Heuer to cap the presentation. “It has global implications for the future.”

Ian Hinchliffe, senior physicist at the Berkeley Lab and head of the the lab’s participation in ATLAS, said CERN will need much more detail on the properties of the Higgs boson to prove its existence. The organization will test the properties of the Higgs boson outlined in the Standard Model, the well-tested 20th century theory that most physicists today believe describes the fundamental particle.

CERN will also continue to collect data using the Large Hadron Collider — a particle accelerator with a 27-kilometer circumference on the Swiss-French border near Geneva and the testing site for ATLAS and CMS — in order to accumulate the data necessary to more exactly determine the Higgs boson, according to Incandela. The experiments will also continue to increase the amount of data they collect, according to Hinchliffe.

“Imagine (the Higgs field) like honey or molasses,” said Beate Heinemann, Berkeley Lab scientist and campus physics professor. “Instead of it just being some random molasses, it’s a lot of little Higgs (boson) particles.”

According to Heinemann, if a particle is slowed down by the Higgs field, it has mass, but if it is not slowed down by the Higgs field, it has no mass.

The Berkeley Lab has been extensively involved with the ATLAS experiment, representing one of the largest U.S. contingents with 40 students and postdoctorates working in Geneva, according to Hinchliffe. The lab developed the pixel detector, which serves as the innermost layer of the collider that accurately tracks the particles, designed the software that detects the more interesting collisions and has helped build and operate the ATLAS detector.

“It’s always a very stimulating environment with so many intelligent people around you … to have your ideas questioned by very smart people while you’re questioning the ideas of other very smart people from around the world,” Hinchliffe said.

Although there are currently no hypotheses for practical applications for the Higgs boson, its discovery could provide the foundation for a larger understanding of physics and the universe, according to Paul Preuss, a science writer at the Berkeley Lab’s public affairs office.

“It’s really the keystone to how we understand how the world works,” Pruess said. “It’s a beginning point for where we can explore down other fascinating corridors to find extra dimensions of space, or miniature black holes, or find out what dark matter is made of or any more future unknowns.”

Newly discovered Mayan artifact provides evidence against Mayan “end-date” theory

admin — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:36:15 +0000

A newly discovered Mayan artifact, deciphered by U. Texas art history professor David Stuart, provides evidence that the Mayan “end-date” theory is incorrect, and they did not predict the end of the world on Dec. 21, 2012.

This past April, an ancient Mayan text was discovered along with other artifacts in the ruins of La Corona, an area in Northwestern Guatemala, by Stuart and a team of professors from Tulane University and the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. The text was later deciphered by Stuart and found to reference the ancient Mayan “end-date” of Dec. 21, 2012.

Marcello Canuto, co-director of the excavation at La Corona and Tulane anthropology professor, said the text references the “end-date” as a major time marker for the Mayan people, but in no way refers to an apocalypse of any kind.

“The 2012 date refers to an end of a very important cylindrical cycle in the Mayan calendar,” Canuto said. “It is something that will happen once every six or seven thousand years.”

Canuto said in this case, the date is referenced by a Mayan king who spoke about the power of his empire, stating that it would last as far away as Dec. 21, 2012.

The newly discovered ruin is one of only two known artifacts to reference the “end-date” at all, Canuto said.

According to a 2012 Reuters poll, one in ten Americans currently believe that the world will end on Dec. 21.

Brett Houk, Texas Tech associate professor of archeology and UT graduate, said in the world of professional archeology, the “end-date” theory has never been taken seriously, and the discovery of evidence disputing it doesn’t surprise him.

“What’s ending is just a giant calendar cycle for the Mayans,” he said.

Gregory Calderon, textiles & apparel and international relations and global studies senior, said he doesn’t take the “end-date” theory seriously, and believes most others agree with him.

“Most people just joke around, like, ‘the world’s going to end in 2012’,” he said. “I’m pretty sure most people don’t really believe it.”

Houk said the hype built up around the “end-date” theory has come from unprofessional sources such as western popular culture, which seems to have a fascination with the wisdom of ancient peoples.

Canuto said he plans to spend the next few years exploring the area and deciphering the other artifacts already found.

“We have many more texts to decipher that will deal with the political history of this region, so we are very excited about that,” he said.

Respect brings more happiness than money, study shows

admin — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 13:54:10 +0000

Money doesn’t buy happiness. In fact, a recent study by U. California-Berkeley researchers finds that respect actually impacts happiness more than economic circumstances.

The study — published by Haas School of Business Associate Professor Cameron Anderson on June 20 in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science — attempts to determine the effect of monetary circumstances and social standing on general happiness for a total of 787 participants from diverse backgrounds.

“It’s just that you have to look at the right form of status,” Anderson said. “Respect and admiration in the eyes of others around you, or your sociometric status, matters a great deal, even if income or wealth does not.”

Anderson also studied the relationship between the respect subjects in the study received and their general happiness, to find out if respect directly influenced happiness. The results of the study showed that sociometric status — the amount of respect, prominence, and admiration a person has in their social group — is much more important than socioeconomic status in determining happiness for an individual.

According to Anderson, the study was conducted by observing different groups including campus ROTC, fraternities, sororities, student clubs, MBA students and a national sample of adults using an on-line recruitment system. Anderson said that he used “peer-ratings of status, ‘objective’ indicators such as whether (subjects) had occupied positions of authority, as well as self-reports.”

Anderson then looked at the link between these results and the self-reported happiness of each participant.

2011 UC Berkeley graduate and former President of Delta Phi Epsilon, a campus co-ed foreign service fraternity, Caity Knowlton said that respect is more relevant to happiness than money is “perhaps because of the tight knit bonds we form in college, particularly in professional fraternities, and the pressure to be successful and a respectable member of the community.”

Beyond student life, respect also plays an integral role in the professional world, according to the study.

Don Moore, also an associate professor at Haas, said that in terms of business, and more specifically in terms of employee motivation in the workplace, money is not always the best incentive.

“The most important thing that business executives want to know when they come to Haas, is how to motivate their employees,” he said. “Money comes with problems, (and it) does not provide lasting satisfaction.”

Anderson said he hopes to continue his research, focusing specifically on the theory that sociometric status is more important to happiness than socioeconomic status, because people adapt to socioeconomic status, but they do not adapt to sociometric status.

He also said that people may never become accustomed to being respected, although they can get used to how much money they have.

Big Ten, Ivy League to tackle concussions

admin — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:11:32 +0000

More than 17,000 student-athletes across 20 schools in the Big Ten and Ivy League conferences will be among potential candidates for concussion research.

The two conferences announced last week an unprecedented research partnership that aims to better understand concussions when they occur in sports, particularly in football.

“While athletics is our focus as a conference and as part of the NCAA, this extends beyond the boundaries of the playing surface and goes into the research labs and the world of academics,” said Kerry Kenny, assistant director of compliance at the Big Ten.

It’s rare for two athletics conferences to combine their academic capabilities in a joint research venture, but lately, concussions have become a major issue in the world of sports.

Little is known about how to diagnose them, and even less is known about their long-term effects. National awareness is on the rise, and courts have found themselves having to settle who’s to blame for not knowing.

More than 2,000 former National Football League players brought a joint lawsuit earlier this month against the league, alleging the NFL knew of the damaging effects of head injuries but hid evidence.

Minnesota Gophers head athletics trainer Moira Novak said concussions have been just as much of an issue at Minnesota as they are nationally.

“Most concussions will recover in a seven- to 10-day period,” Novak said. “That’s a very well established, documented fact.We had a number of student-athletes during the previous academic year who exhibited symptoms lasting beyond one year.”

However, Novak said the rise in concussions at Minnesota should be chalked up to an increased awareness, adding that student-athletes are reporting head trauma now more than ever.

“We’ve always had concussions. That hasn’t changed,” Novak said. “What has changed is the public awareness — it has dramatically increased.”

Novak said the impact of head injuries on student-athletes can be more complex because of their age and inexperience to know when they should report a “mild headache.” She said Minnesota has made a conscious effort of educating the coaches and trainers.

Novak said trainers and coaches are in the “driver’s seat,” making it even more crucial that they can identify head injuries early. However, Novak said the increase of concussions has also occurred because the student-athletes report actual injuries more often.

“I think they are owning [head injuries] a bit more,” she said. “So at least that means the education is working.”

The Gophers didn’t allow access to student-athletes for this story.

A collaboration of prior history

The partnership between the Big Ten and Ivy League conferences wasn’t a mix-and-match. The conferences have a brief history of studying concussions caused by sports.

The Big Ten started a “concussion management plan” in 2010 that initiated some of the awareness across athletics conferences. The Ivy League followed in 2011 with several methods aimed to slow football-related concussions, one of which limited the hits student-athletes take during practice.

The Purdue Neurotrauma Group, a research collaborative at Purdue U., is one of the Big Ten groups that pioneered the effort.

The PNG first gained recognition two years ago for its work in studying the brains of high school athletes. Its research found that athletes often play through injuries because their concussions were difficult to diagnose.

Eric Nauman, an associate professor at Purdue and an investigator with the PNG, said the group has also been studying its collegiate athletes, giving 70 to 80 football student-athletes an MRI before the season starts and tracking the hits they take in practice and games through sensors in each helmet.

“It reaffirms what we’ve found: There are a lot of kids without any symptoms during their first season, but they still show real pronounced neurophysiological changes,” Nauman said.

In other words, Nauman said, the MRI says the student-athlete has a concussion but shows no symptoms.

This type of research spurned talks across the schools about sharing information across the Big Ten. However, Nauman said it was the Ivy League that started talks of collaborating across conferences.

Dennis Molfese, the director of the Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior at U. Nebraska, said the Ivy League approached the Big Ten’s committee on intercollegiate collaboration about crossing conferences.

“But there are a lot of details to be worked out at this point,” he said.

Molfese said there are many areas of concussions that simply haven’t been studied — multiple perspectives like behavioral sciences; a concerted effort for sports players to provide feedback before, during and after a season; as well as data on the implications of multiple concussions.

“Putting all those things together doesn’t exist anywhere,” Molfese said.

“If we can pull it off within one or two years, we’ll have learned more about concussions in terms of human behavior and brain processes than we’ve known over the last 140 years.”

Where to start?

Since the research collaboration is still in its early stages, many trainers and researchers haven’t been told where to start.

“The decision to start the research happened at the conference level,” Nauman said.

Novak, the Gophers’ athletics trainer, said the athletics training staff at Minnesota also knew very little about the partnership and that the announcement came as a “surprise.”

“Frankly, they haven’t involved the athletics side of things much in their decision about doing the research,” she said. “While I support what they’re doing, a little heads-up would have been nice.”

Novak said U. Minnesota is always at the forefront of national and international research regarding brain injuries.

“That’s why we’re even more surprised by the announcement,” Novak said.

Minnesota’s top-tier research capabilities haven’t gone unnoticed, however. Researchers across the Big Ten have pointed to how successful it could be to collaborate with Minnesota — let alone with the whole conference.

“The University of Minnesota has the best research MRI facility in the country, if not the world,” Nauman, the researcher at Purdue, said. “Just a partnership with Minnesota would be outstanding.”

Kenny, associate director of compliance at the Big Ten, said the partnership was about seizing an opportunity to help the safety of student-athletes while utilizing “world-class” research institutions. He said the timing of the announcement only marks the beginning of collaboration, not researching.

“We still need to figure out exactly what we’re already doing and what we can join forces on, compared to what we need to start working on as a partnership,” Kenny said.

Kenny said within the next six to 12 months, researchers and trainers from the conferences’ schools will start to hear some direction on what to do.

Study links alcohol to isolation and lower grades

admin — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:15:14 +0000

While some students use drinking as a form of socialization, a U. Texas study has found that alcohol use in teens may hinder rather than fuel a fun night out.

In a study funded in part by the UT Population Research Center, sociology professor Robert Crosnoe and assistant human development professor Aprile Benner measured the attitudes of 8,271 students in grades seven to 12 in 126 schools who were exposed to drinking. Benner said although this is just one study, the results contradict common notions about partying. In one instance, the study found a correlation between the students who drank regularly and the ones who reported feelings of loneliness. It also found that students who reported drinking alcohol had lower grade point averages.

The strongest correlation was seen between those who drank regularly at school where alcohol use was not common by their peers.

“Our findings definitely point to real holes in the notion that drinking will somehow make you more popular,” Benner said.

Regarding how this study pertains to UT students and incoming freshman, Benner said students should think twice before they resort to drinking as a way to get popular or fit in with the crowd.

“The transition to college is already tough, especially as freshman try to find their niche and where they fit in at this very large university. The idea that drinking is going to help these entering students make social connections, at least according to our work, seems unlikely.”

Ivana Grahovac, UT Center for Students in Recovery director, said alcohol addiction treatment requires a holistic approach. The recovery center helps UT students treat their alcohol addiction through group therapy and other methods.

“This study further proves why now more than ever we need to support programs that model sobriety and holistic wellness as a way of life, and to continue supporting the students whom these programs serve,” Grahovac said. “Your life will improve dramatically if you change the way you relate to yourself and the world around you, and removing the symptom of alcohol use is the entryway to learning this way of life.”

Accounting senior Emily Kong said she disagreed with the notion that students who drink are more likely to be lonely and social outcasts.

“During my six semesters at UT, I found that those who don’t drink are more likely to feel lonely or like outcasts because they don’t fit into the ‘college norm,’” Kong said. “It makes sense that there’s a correlation with drinkers and low academic achievement, because drinkers spend more time drinking than studying.”

Some iPhone users choose phone over sex

admin — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:37:46 +0000

Kelsey Stinnett would rather give up sex for a weekend than go without her smartphone.

Stinnett, a 21-year-old U. Florida political science senior, isn’t alone. According to a study released Monday, 15 percent of iPhone users would choose a sex-free weekend over giving up their phone for the same amount of time.

Gazelle.com surveyed 1,000 iPhone users in honor of the iPhone’s fifth birthday, which is June 29.

Stinnett said one of the main reasons she’d choose a smartphone over sex is because she doesn’t feel safe without it.

She’d also be wary of giving up the phone’s convenience.

“Everything’s here — the phone calls, the texts and the Internet — all in one spot,” she said.

Sophia Acord, a professor in UF’s department of sociology, criminology and law who has conducted research at Rutgers U.’s Center for Mobile Communication Studies, said there is evidence dating back to the 1990s showing mobile devices have caused a decrease in the quality of face-to-face interaction.

She said people can feel the need to connect with others who aren’t with them, even if they’re with a group of friends.

“You buy it for one thing, and it begins to nudge its way into every aspect of your life,” she said.

Daniel Siefman, a 21-year-old UF nuclear engineering senior, was surprised by the study’s results.

Although he once walked into a pole while staring at his iPhone, he said he can go without it.

“For some people it’s like their life anchor,” he said. “It keeps them connected to the world, and they can’t live without it.”

Up to 92 percent of Californians under 65 covered by Obamacare, study says

admin — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 13:25:36 +0000

Nine out of 10 Californians under the age of 65 will receive health coverage by 2019 with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, informally known as Obamacare, according to a study by the U. California Berkeley Labor Center and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Researchers from the centers developed a California Simulation of Insurance Markets computerized model to predict changes in health coverage in California under the act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010. The study was funded by the California Health Benefit Exchange, an insurance marketplace for consumers scheduled to open in 2014 following the act.

Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center and co-author of the study said that the research will help the exchange establish priorities in a strategic direction for insurance policies and help the public understand the impact of the act.

“We have lots of demographic data like how does this break down by race, ethnicity, and language for outreach strategies,” Jacobs said. “… It is also important for the general public to understand the implications of the Affordable Care Act.”

According to the report, the CalSIM model uses two scenarios, one based on typical responses by consumers to expanded coverage offerings.

The more comprehensive scenario projects that between 89 and 92 percent of Californians under the age of 65 will have health coverage by 2019, compared to the 84 percent who will have health coverage without the act.

Richard Figueroa, director of Health & Human Services for California Endowment, a statewide private health foundation that supported CalSIM, said the study was important to his foundation because it wanted to make sure people had appropriate access to insurance under the act.

“Cal Endowment has a strong interest within the body of work in making sure policymakers in California have the right tools to figure out who would be covered and who would be left out in order to implement the appropriate response,” Figueroa said. “CalSIM is the direct outgrowth in our strong interest in policy and making sure the people are educated in the implications of (the act).”

Shawn Lewis, a UC Berkeley senior and executive director of Berkeley College Republicans, expressed opposition to the act after seeing the results of the study. Lewis said the number of people covered will not be much use if the healthcare costs are unsustainable.

“Healthcare reform needs to be fundamentally about cost control, not just about the number of people covered,” Lewis said in an email. “Under Obamacare, healthcare costs skyrocket, especially for college students.”

Lewis said the act makes it illegal for any insurance plan to cap benefits some colleges offer their students, making the costs for many student insurance plans increase significantly.

Despite the large proportion of people the act will impact, Jacobs said the results also projected that three to nearly four million will remain uninsured, including one million immigrants.

Jacobs said these numbers outline the purpose of the study, which is to show that outreach and cultural competency around the act is vital to the number of people who would benefit from the act.

“The key point in the model is that what is done around implementation matters a lot … All has to be done to make sure that (policies) are simple, easy, and culturally competent,” Jacobs said.

College-bound students engage in risky behaviors

admin — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:45:22 +0000

Sixteen percent of teens visiting college campuses admit to drinking alcohol during their stay.

A recent study conducted by the Center for Adolescent Research and Education at Susquehanna U. and Students Against Destructive Decisions sought to examine the safety of student hosts and visitors during overnight college visits.

Although Duke U. employs strict policies to prevent such inappropriate conduct during visits, conduct violations result in students getting their admissions rescinded once every two or three years, said Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions.

The study, based on the responses of 270 college visitors aged 16 to 19, found that, aside from the 16 percent who drank alcohol, 17 percent engaged in sexual activities and 5 percent used drugs other than alcohol.

“Teens need to understand the choices they might be faced with and their consequences,” said CARE Director Stephen Wallace. “What is their response going to be, and how are they going to make the decision they want to make?”

More than half of the surveyed students who either consumed alcohol or had sex were doing so for the first time in their lives.

The survey was a follow-up to a study also conducted by CARE in 2003, which found that 26 percent of visitors were drinking alcohol, 28 percent were engaging in sexual behavior and 22 percent were using drugs.

The earlier study encompassed all visits, including those to see siblings and friends, but the recent survey focused specifically on students visiting for the admissions process, which in part explains the lower numbers, Wallace noted.

Flawed perceptions

First time behavior is a particular cause for concern, because it can establish risky behavior as a social norm for college students, Wallace said.

“It creates a perception that that’s what college life is all about,” he said. “Sixteen-year-olds absorb the culture and establish behavioral patterns that will last throughout their four years in college.”

He noted that visiting students may feel pressured by older college students to engage in activities they might otherwise reject. Parents therefore play a key role in establishing expectations for their children and engaging them in dialogue about decision-making.

Academic institutions can also establish measures to prevent risky behavior by visiting students and to protect visitors and their hosts, he said. Visits can be shortened and moved from the weekend to weekdays, when fewer parties are held. Universities can also train hosts and require them to sign contracts, Wallace said.

At Duke, hosts and admitted students participating in Blue Devil Days—a series of two-day admitted student programs when visitors can stay overnight with freshmen hosts—are required to adhere to the Duke Community Standard by signing a consent form, undergraduate admissions officer Morgan Kirkland, Trinity ’11, wrote in an email Monday. The consent form explicitly prohibits the possession and consumption of illegal drugs and alcohol for underage individuals. Visiting students are also required to communicate with their hosts about their whereabouts and planned activities.

Few reports at Duke

The undergraduate admissions office usually handles one or two pre-enrollment conduct violations each year, Guttentag said. In cases of serious conduct violations, the responsible student meets with Guttentag and Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek over the summer, whereupon the students may be asked to reapply or be required to take a gap year depending on the degree of violation.

Students are rarely prohibited from reapplying, he added.

Although Kirkland said there were no official reports of violations this year, parties, alcohol consumption and visits to Shooters II are certainly part of Blue Devil Days.

Tiffany Dong, a sophomore, said she was one of the few prospective freshmen who stayed in the dormitories instead of attending a party and was surprised to hear that so many visitors were going out.

Josh Izzard, also a sophomore, said he briefly attended a party during his overnight stay and that it was the most uncomfortable he felt during the whole visit.

“It was the weirdest part of the whole experience,” Izzard said. “It would be difficult to ban, but cutting down on [parties] would definitely be an improvement.”

He noted that hosts should emphasize alternative night-time activities, such as Devils After Dark events, to reduce the amount of partying during Blue Devil Days.

On a broader level, the overnight college visiting environment is improving, Wallace said, citing the 2003 survey.

“Directionally, there has been a heightened awareness and many colleges and universities are taking steps,” Wallace said. “At the same time, it remains a serious problem that we need to continue to combat.”

Controversial study on gay parenting sparks debate

admin — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:54:26 +0000

A new U. Texas study stating children with gay parents turn out resoundingly different than children with heterosexual, married parents has spurred LGBT advocates across the nation into the offensive.

Led by UT associate professor Mark Regnerus, the New Family Structures Study appeared in the June issue of Social Science Research and sought to answer the question, “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships?” At the end of the study, Regnerus found that adult children who grew up with gay parents, particularly lesbian parents, fared worse socially, emotionally and in relationships than children who had married, heterosexual parents. One theme in the data was instability in LGBT households.

His findings sparked debate online Monday, and today four major LGBT organizations, the Family Equality Council, Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Marry group and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, issued a joint statement condemning Regnerus’ research for seeking to disparage LGBT parents.

“The paper is fundamentally flawed and intentionally misleading,” the statement read. “It doesn’t even measure what it claims to be measuring. Most of the children examined in the paper were not being raised by parents in a committed same-sex relationship, whereas the other children in the study were being raised in two-parent homes with straight parents.”

The Witherspoon Institute, a conservative research organization working to enhance public understanding of moral foundations, and the Bradley Foundation, which supports conservative principles and government, contributed funding to the New Family Structures study. In his findings, Regnerus said funding sources played no role in the study.

Regnerus and others in the UT Population Research Center, a research entity that focuses primarily on topics such as parenting, as well as partnering and human development, analyzed more than 15,000 people ages 18-39. Out of the total respondents, 248 indicated their mother or father had a same-sex relationship at some point while growing up.

In a piece for Slate, Regnerus pointed to findings in recent years suggesting homosexual parents are just as good as heterosexual married parents and in some studies, better. Regnerus said the drastic difference in his findings from those of other researchers was a result of better research methods, particularly his use of a random sampling approach rather than locating and surveying small minorities.

Regnerus said he is not claiming sexual orientation is at fault in these worse outcomes and does not know about any kids currently being raised by lesbian and gay parents.

“Their parents may be forging more stable relationships in an era that is more accepting and supportive of gay and lesbian couples,” Regnerus wrote. “But that is not the case among the previous generation, and thus social scientists, parents and advocates would do well from here forward to avoid simply assuming the kids are all right.”

Report warns Earth may be approaching an environmental tipping point

admin — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:17:16 +0000

A group of 22 researchers from around the world are warning of imminent and irreversible changes to the Earth’s biosphere resulting from a combination of human population growth, mass consumption and extensive environmental destruction.

The researchers’ report, published Thursday in “Nature” magazine, was headed by Anthony Barnosky, professor of integrative biology at U. California-Berkeley. As a collaboration among researchers from a multitude of disciplines, the report emphasizes the possibility of a biological state shift.

Although today’s conditions are caused largely by human activities, episodes of widespread ecological change may occur similar to changes that took place during the transition from the Ice Age 20,000 years ago, according to the report.

“It really will be a new world, biologically, at that point,” Barnosky said in a statement published on the UC Berkeley NewsCenter. “The data suggests that there will be a reduction in biodiversity and severe impacts on much of what we depend on to sustain our quality of life, including, for example, fisheries, agriculture, forest products and clean water. This could happen within just a few generations.”

Campus environmental science, policy and management professor John Harte, another author of the report, has been doing research in Colorado, where he has seen the concept of tipping points in action. In a field experiment that has been running for the last 22 years, Harte has documented how the plant diversity of alpine meadows can be rapidly altered if exposed to constant warmth.

“The evidence in the paper comes from looking around at the world where people have come to see patterns and changes that are disrupting the natural order,” Harte said. “However, the paper is focused not just on individual ecosystems but on the whole planet. We’re looking at a global state shift.”

The report suggests a number of critical areas in which research should be focused to improve policy and guide legislation.

Campus Vice Chancellor for Research Graham Fleming said a development that has subsequently sprouted from the report is The Berkeley Initiative in Global Change Biology.

The focus of the initiative will be to forecast possible ecological and biological changes and understand how species have evolved, how fast they have evolved and where they have lived, according to Fleming.

“With funding from the Moore and Keck foundations, we’ll have over 100 scientists from a range of departments, including integrative biology, environmental science, policy and management and molecular cell biology as well as the College of Engineering working on this initiative,” Fleming said.

“We call for developing as fast as we can the capacity to predict what these changes will look like,” Harte, who will be leading one of five teams working under the initiative, said. “We can then develop policy recommendations that can contribute to the formation of legislation.”

Neo Martinez, another researcher who worked on the report, is head of the PEaCE Lab based in Berkeley and also emphasizes the importance of finding “root causes,” such as the reasons why humans make decisions like buying Hummer vehicles or giant houses.

“We can emphasize research solutions, but we also need social change,” Martinez said. “We need scientific change to bring attention to the public and individuals to realize and make better choices.”

Antibodies in breast milk found to neutralize HIV

admin — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 13:42:50 +0000

Duke U. researchers have isolated an antibody that could aid in the creation of an HIV vaccine.

A research team led by Dr. Sallie Permar, assistant professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases, isolated antibodies that can neutralize HIV in the breast milk of infected mothers in Malawi. The discovery, published in the journal PLoS One last month, could be used to make a vaccine that produces antibodies with extensive virus-resistant capabilities.

“The broadly neutralizing antibodies are those that are capable of blocking infection from a lot of different [HIV] strains,” said co-author Dr. M. Anthony Moody, assistant professor in the department of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases. “Those antibodies are a lot rarer to find, but we are interested in producing a vaccine that will allow for these types of antibodies to enter the body.”

HIV is able to mutate very quickly, making it difficult for the body to naturally produce antibodies that can successfully fight every variant of the virus, Permar said.

Of the two types of antibodies found in the study, one has broad neutralizing capabilities, making it an ideal candidate for the vaccine, Moody noted.

“We have some hope that an antibody with this capability, made by immune cells in breast milk, has enough reach to be able to neutralize many different variants,” Permar said.

James Friedman, a third-year medical student and author on the study, noted that if the antibodies found are able to neutralize HIV before it is transmitted to an infant, they could be promising for creating a vaccine.

“Are antibodies able to inhibit HIV in the infant as well as the mother? That’s sort of the million dollar question,” he said. “That would mean a normal human body is able to produce protective antibodies, and the ultimate goal is to identify them so that they can be used in a vaccine.”

The researchers conducted the study through the Duke Human Vaccine Institute as part of its ongoing efforts to produce an HIV vaccine, Permar said.

Dr. Barton Haynes, director of DHVI, could not be reached for comment.

Friedman noted that the study was not easy to conduct because the breast milk had to be shipped overseas, endangering some of the B-cells, which produce antibodies.

“It’s not a perfect process—a lot of the B-cells didn’t survive the trip,” he said. “I’m sure with better technology and shipping we can identify more antibodies.”

Moody added that there would have been benefits to conducting the research on-site, but this was not possible because site in Malawi does not have sufficient infrastructure, such as reliable sources of power or water. The problems posed from the location would have prevented the technology used from working properly.

Although mother-child transmission of HIV is possible, only 10 percent of breast-feeding infants will become infected, Permar said. This is a “remarkable” fact considering infants are exposed to HIV through breast-feeding multiple times a day for up to two years.

“When you have an HIV-infected mother in a resource poor area, it’s not ethical to recommend that she not breast-feed her infant,” Permar said. “That’s why it’s important to try and determine a way that HIV-infected mothers can breast-feed their children and protect them from HIV as well.”

She noted that there are currently many ways to reduce the risk of mother-child transmission. It is possible to reduce the risk of mother-child transmission by giving mothers anti-retroviral drugs during breast-feeding, Permar said. This reduces the risk of transmission from 10 percent to between 1 and 2 percent.

“The challenge, then, is that if there is still that 1 to 2 percent then there are still a couple of infants infected,” she said. “Our goal is to make breast-feeding completely safe, and vaccines not only accomplish this, but are easier to implement.”

Although this discovery expands the arsenal available to HIV researchers, it forms just a small piece in the large puzzle that is the HIV vaccine, Friedman noted.

“Isolating these antibodies, along with all the others that have been isolated individually, isn’t very important—but the hope is that as we identify even more, we can put together a bigger picture and find the best ways to target HIV with a vaccine,” Friedman said.

Study: Exercise could hurt heart health

admin — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:38:45 +0000

Exercise may actually worsen the health of some individuals, according to a recent Duke U. study.

The study, titled “Adverse Metabolic Response to Regular Exercise: Is It a Rare or Common Occurrence?,” shows that between 8 to 10 percent of individuals have adverse responses, or a worsening in an aspect of their health, to exercise, contradicting advice given by physicians and other health professionals. The authors evaluated data from six exercise studies involving 1,687 people. They measured four markers of cardio-metabolic health: blood pressure, triglycerides, fasting insulin—a marker of glucose control and tendency toward diabetes—and HDL cholesterol—an essential fat sometimes referred to as “good” cholesterol.

“[The authors of the study] are pretty careful [with their research] and they’re all exercise fanatics, so it’s probably hard for them even to think that there are people who are harmed by exercise,” said Dr. Robert Califf, vice chancellor for clinical and translational research and director of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute.

Exercise levels ranged from moderate levels, such as brisk walking, to vigorous jogging, Dr. William Kraus, co-author of the study and professor of medicine at Duke, wrote in an email Sunday. Ten percent of people got worse on one of the four markers, all of which are related to heart disease, in the study. Although many individuals responded poorly in one of the parameters, they did not necessarily react the same in another. Only 7 percent of subjects got worse in multiple categories.

“There was no relation between [the markers],” Kraus noted. “This means that exercise was likely to help one of the risk factors for everyone, and likely to be less helpful or lead to an adverse outcome in another.”

Califf noted that even if someone had an adverse response in one of the parameters, they could take medicine to correct it and continue exercising. For example, if somebody exercises to bring his or her cholesterol level down but it increases blood pressure, then he or she would take blood pressure medicine and maintain their exercise.

Although several patients displayed negative responses to exercise, an equal number of those studied were “super responders,” meaning they had a more favorable response than expected, Kraus said, adding that the statistical distribution was not due to seasonal variances or changes in medication use.

“Most [patients] had some cardio-metabolic risk factors such as cholesterol or lipid abnormalities, mildly elevated blood pressure, [among others],” Kraus said. “Few, if any, were on medications.”

The next step, Kraus said, is to understand how to predict if one will be an adverse or super responder for any given category or health benefit. He added that doing so will allow physicians to individualize exercise “prescriptions” for patients.

Califf agreed that the results need more studying, noting that there is likely a biological rationale for the negative effects of exercise in some people.

“The only effect this study should have is to emphasize the need to measure these key parameters and then respond to them,” Califf said. “I don’t think it will change the fundamental advice which is to eat less and exercise.”

Physical activity is still important in keeping most people healthy, Neva Avery, exercise physiologist and internship coordinator at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center, wrote in an email Tuesday.

“It’s important to understand that the benefits of regular physical activity are still abundant for the greatest majority of the population and those benefits far outweigh any risks,” she said. “There is far greater health risk of being sedentary [versus] being active for most individuals.”

Study links consistent exercise and cognition

admin — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:19:46 +0000

While exercise has long been linked to physical health, research conducted by Dartmouth College psychology professor David Bucci and his team found that it may also benefit mental health. Routine exercise, even in low doses, can improve cognitive function and individuals’ general mood, researchers found.

Results of the study, titled “Differential Effects of Acute and Regular Physical Exercise on Cognition and Affect,” demonstrated that exercise improved cognitive function in those who exercised regularly, but especially in those who also exercised on the day of testing, according to researcher Michelle Van Tieghem. Some individuals also possess genetic dispositions that influence their response to exercise, the research found. “It’s a really interesting result because it shows that some people might be more inclined to exercise to improve their cognitive abilities, and for others it doesn’t affect them as much,” Van Tieghem said. In collaboration with psychology professor Paul Whalen, Bucci asked sedentary Dartmouth students to exercise regularly for four weeks and then fill out a series of cognitive and anxiety surveys. For mood and anxiety issues, research indicates the regularity, rather than the intensity, of exercise is the key factor in improving mood and anxiety, and that it may take some time for the benefits to manifest themselves, according to student researcher and co-author Michael Hopkins. The research, published in the journal Neuroscience, found that guidelines to improve cardiovascular health may be much more demanding than those required to improve mental function, according to Hopkins.

Walking for a total of only 30 minutes every other day for four months was sufficient to produce a measurable improvement in cognition and mood, he said. “I thought that was really good news for people because I think a lot of times, the idea of going to the gym and becoming a regular exerciser is very daunting,” Hopkins said. Results showed that only exercising on the day of testing, however, was not sufficient, according to Bucci. “Probably some aerobic physical activity each day is the way to go,” he said. Whalen said he was surprised to find that exercising the day of testing was also vital for enhanced performance. “You would think if you’ve exercised for four weeks whether you exercise that day or not shouldn’t determine whether you see a benefit, so that’s the stuff we’ll follow up on,” Whalen said. Thus far, research is not extensive enough to establish a systematic or structured exercise program based on the results, Bucci said. It remains unclear how much, for how long and at what time exercise is best carried out. The study is one of the first to use exercise as a manipulated variable instead of as a constant factor taken into consideration at the end of research, Bucci said. “Ours is one of the first to look at exercise in a prospective fashion, not just retrospective, and to head-to-head compare the effects of regular exercise to just an acute single bout,” he said. Hopkins said he hopes more specific exercise parameters will be determined in the future, which will allow the findings to have a tangible impact, particularly for students. “Everybody knows exercise is healthy, but it turns out that what we’re learning is that exercising can actually help you do better on tests, so that’s something to think about when you’re weighing your decisions over the course of the day and week,” Hopkins said. “You cannot only do yourself a favor physically by going to the gym, but you can also be helping your GPA.” Because many Dartmouth students live an active lifestyle, the research reaffirms that students’ activities are aiding their schoolwork, Van Tieghem said. Bucci said he undertook the study following his recent work on the link between exercise and memory in subjects with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. After considering the effects of regular exercise in rats, Bucci said that researchers decided to apply this study to Dartmouth undergraduate students. Hannah Iaccarino, a researcher in Bucci’s lab, described the professor as a model scientist and mentor. “He’s hands on and will come down to the lab and help us when we need it, but he lets us take on our own projects and really take on ownership of the science we’re doing,” Iaccarino said.

Column: Funding the fantastic

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:59:26 +0000

The stranger edges of science and technology are generally couched in the terms of the impossible, the unlikely, or at the very least the under-funded and thus considerably delayed. As someone who cares perhaps a little too much about those edges, it is disheartening to see the plans written up for truly outrageous futures without any real hope of having them be realized. But it is understandable; there’s only so much funding to go around, and a lot of research to do that has a lot more utility now.

All of this makes the recent announcement that an asteroid mining venture, Planetary Resources, not only plans to be operational within half a decade, but also has sufficient funding to do so, something of a shock. The concept is straight out of mid-20th-century science fiction – the huge, mineral-laden rocks that clutter up space broken open and the valuable elements within put to use – and the plausibility comes from about the same place; that is to say, purely theoretical and not a little bit unrealistic. Or so I would have said before a cadre of the ultra-wealthy, including Google executive Lawrence Page and filmmaker James F. Cameron, put their collective economic weight behind the project, turning it from an impossibility to a mere risk.

Yet as much as the project, its aspirations, and even the ideology behind it (a sort of unbridled techno-optimism, and the idea that the human species not merely can but should leave the gravity well of Earth for the final frontier) appeal, it has aspects that are less than ideal. The idea that the ‘one percent’ are going to be the driving force behind the fringe of technology and science is problematic, for numerous reasons. Planetary Resources is maybe the most benign example one could name: who would be against the exploration and exploitation of space, on principle? But the venture is never going to be anything but private; the technologies developed, developed as the ideals of a small clutch of people and in the name of private enterprise. This is not to say it won’t do tremendous good, or even that those people aren’t a good fit for the job, but it is worth considering what this means for science and technology.

Consider, for example, the case of Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal. He has been involved in funding multiple initiatives aimed at promoting his vision of the future; one such project received over a million dollars to fund seasteadings, offshore artificial islands maintaining political independence from the mainland. Seasteading is an unabashedly libertarian exercise in political experimentation that has been failing to successfully set sail for decades now; it is an area of questionable technological priorities that exists only for political reasons.

But even if seasteading were successful, the technologies developed would go purely towards forwarding the aims of the small community on those artificial islands. In a certain light, asteroid mining looks uncomfortably similar, a venture funded not because of public need but because some handful of highly influential and almost obscenely wealthy investors jumped for it. And this kind of millionaire-backed science project seems to be getting more prominent, as various governmental agencies find their budgets reduced, or focus on more prosaic, more immediately practical research.

One of the strong arguments in favor of this new model is that investors can fund less immediately practical, more long-term technological ventures that a government simply cannot at the moment. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the military thinktank responsible for a considerable number of outrageous, boundary-pushing projects, is just that: a military thinktank, with military priorities. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration simply could not justify the expense of this sort of thing; the awful burden of public accountability shuts down the more outlandish possibilities.One of the strong arguments against relying on these privately funded initiatives is their easy avoidance of that burden of accountability. If this becomes the accepted method of funding the more fringe projects, then the interesting edges of science will be a plutocracy, directed towards projects more in line with these individuals’ considerations than the public good. It’s an uncomfortable image, the few and the rich getting into orbit while the rest of the planet can only watch; one small step for investors, one giant leap for investor-kind.

However, despite these misgivings, the deranged millionaire funding scheme has an unbeatable advantage: it’s the only game in town. It may not have a positive effect on the infrastructure of science and technology, but at the moment, there’s no way to fund these initiatives without recourse to the ranks of the forward-thinking one-percenters. All we mere mortals can do is sit back and hope they make good decisions, and try to support them when they do. Asteroids won’t mine themselves, and for now, we’ll be looking to those with a few million to spare to get the job done; we should keep aware of the trend, but for now it looks like trickle-down technology is the only way to go.

Researchers to monitor UCLA, high school athletes in NCAA-funded study on concussions

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:14:03 +0000

In 1948, more than 5,000 residents of Framingham, Mass., enrolled in a long-term study on heart disease, consenting to be monitored throughout their lives.

Many of the now widely accepted risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as smoking and obesity were first identified in the Framingham Heart Study.

A similar long-term study focusing on sports-related concussions is a project envisioned by Dr. Christopher Giza, an assistant professor of pediatric neurology and neuroscience.

The study, which would follow athletes in various sports through high school, college and eventually professional leagues, could provide valuable answers about the long-term consequences of repeated concussions and multiple impacts.

The NCAA showed its support for the ambitious project in early April, awarding a $400,000 grant to the National Sport Concussion Outcomes Study Consortium, which consists of researchers from UCLA’s Brain Injury Research Center, U. North Carolina at Chapel Hill, U. Michigan and the Medical College of Wisconsin. All the universities involved in the consortium are large public institutions with elite athletic programs. The study will start in the summer.

The grant will provide funding to monitor consenting UCLA athletes throughout their collegiate careers. Researchers from Chapel Hill and Wisconsin will monitor players from local high schools.

Giza, the study’s lead investigator at UCLA, plans to apply for additional grants from the NFL and the National Institutes of Health to continue monitoring select athletes throughout their respective professional careers.

“What are the lasting effects of concussions? … What if you don’t have a concussion or symptoms, and you are still out there getting hit? Does that add up in some way?” Giza said, listing questions that he hopes a long-term study may answer.

The NCAA grant gives the consortium an opportunity to monitor a large sample size of athletes from different sports over four years and to compile the results into a database.

Baseline data will first be collected for all UCLA athletes enrolled in the study, using protocols such as cognitive testing, neurological and balance exams and taking medical histories. These evaluations are similar to the preseason tests the UCLA sports medicine department performs on every athlete in the fall.

Since previous research has found a strong link between concussions and impaired cognitive function, computerized tests will evaluate a player’s cognitive ability after sustaining a concussion.

“They test attention, attention span, which is also working memory, and visual and verbal skills,” said Talin Babikian, the neuropsychologist who will monitor the protocols that measure cognitive testing for the NCAA grant study.

In addition to the tests, the NCAA grant provides funding for mouthguard accelerometers, cutting-edge devices that record how many times a player feels an impact, the direction and force with which they are hit and the time of the collision.

The sophisticated mouthguards would allow athletes in many different sports to participate in the study, and are slated for a summer release by Seattle-based developer X2Impact.

Previously, concussion data could only be measured with accelerometers placed in helmets, limiting brain injury studies to helmeted, high-contact sports such as football, lacrosse and hockey.

Giza is especially excited about the opportunity to compare concussion data between sports such as basketball and soccer in which men and women tend to have similar amounts of exposure to impact.

“The only way you can actually study the difference between men and women is to use non-helmet-based accelerometers,” he said of comparing concussion rates between men and women.

Preliminary studies suggest that although concussions are more common in male athletes, female athletes may have a higher concussion rate.

Continually monitoring players will allow researchers to evaluate whether intermediate cognitive impairment can occur without concussions and simply through participation in contact sports.

“There has to be an amount of force that the head has to be exposed to before the brain begins to show a concussion. As the force increases, all of a sudden you have an absolute response, and then you get a concussion,” said David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Research Center.

“One of the things this study is going to help us do is to determine whether that happens a lot and if there is such a thing as a sub-concussive blow that we don’t know about.”

As evidence demonstrating that repeated concussions and sub-concussions lead to long-term repercussions such as impaired cognitive ability, behavioral changes and possibly degenerative neurological disease increases, some scientists believe contact sports should be banned for children younger than 14 or 15.

Hovda, who played football and basketball in high school and a year of collegiate golf at the University of New Mexico, believes that advocating in favor of eliminating contact sports is unreasonable and premature.

“Before we start getting hysterical about everything and claim that we need to ban sports, we need to first figure out what type of problem we have, because organized sports play a huge role in our society,” said Hovda, a sports fan who said he wished he had been talented enough to have played collegiate football or basketball.

Before choosing to make any widespread claims on banning or limiting contact sports, Giza cautions about the importance of putting the issue into perspective.

The number of people at risk for obesity easily outweighs the likelihood of developing a degenerative disease such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Contact sports play an important role in motivating children to exercise.

“You don’t have to play contact sports, but you have to do some type of sport, and most have some type of risk. There are a lot of physical benefits from participating in those activities,” Giza said.

Obesity related to lack of sleep, study says

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:16:48 +0000

People often turn to exercising or dieting as ways to lose weight, but what some may not realize is getting enough sleep may be an effective way to shed the pounds, too.

A recent study published in the journal “Current Biology“ suggests the difference in a person’s internal clock and social clock, known as “social jet lag” can lead to weight gain. In the study, people who had the most differing sleep schedule from the week to the weekend were more likely to be overweight. One hour worth of social jet lag leads to a 33 percent increase in a person’s risk of becoming overweight.

A person’s internal clock — called the circadian clock — is set by day and night time. Our bodies want to be awake when it’s sunny and be asleep when it’s dark. This provides people with the optimal time for getting an adequate amount of sleep. But due to people’s busy schedules, people often ignore their internal clock.

“Our body clocks run differently because we don’t see the sun anymore because we work inside, and that makes our body clocks go later and later,” said the study’s leading author Till Roenneberg, in a video. When a person stays up while they should be sleeping, the body’s metabolism process doesn’t function normally, creating a lower resting metabolism rate and a higher body mass index.

“Because the difference in sleep timing between work and free days resembles the situation of traveling across several time zones to the west on Friday evenings and ‘flying’ back on Monday mornings, the phenomenon of regular, weekly changes in sleep timing was coined social jet lag,” Roenneberg said in the study.

For students, getting up for that 8 a.m. class, working a night shift, pulling a late night to finish that paper or just staying out late with friends all contributes to social jet lag. When people pull that all-nighter, they tend to load up on caffeine and eat unhealthy food.

U. Oregon freshman Katy Kachmarik knows several people who have gotten less than four hours of sleep and gained weight this year.

“I’d probably try to get more sleep because I know physically what it’s like to have jet lag,” Kachmarik said. “And I don’t like it.”

One-third of the 65,000 study participants suffered from two or more hours of social jet lag, while 69 percent of the people suffered from one hour. If a person times their day and sleep schedule to mesh more with their internal clock rather than their social clock, the study said, the amount of social jet lag a person suffers from will decrease.

“Our data suggest that improving the correspondence between biological and social clocks will contribute to the management of obesity,” Roenneberg said.

Seau family considering brain donation to Boston U., still undecided

admin — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:18:57 +0000

Junior Seau’s family is determining whether or not they will donate his brain for research, which could shed light on the cause of the retired National Football League player’s May 2 death.

“The Seau family is currently revisiting several important family decisions and placing them on hold in order to confer with their elders. All possibilities are being considered, but none will be acted upon until the Seaus arrive at an agreed upon direction,” said Pastor Shawn Mitchell, San Diego Charger chaplain.

Only two institutions are researching conditions similar to Seau’s—the Boston U. Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy and the Brain Injury Research Institute, said Robert Fitzsimmons, co-director of the BIRI team.

“There’s a family out there grieving, and there’s people who want to do research that will help a lot of people, but we have to weigh that with the family’s ability to grieve and bury their loved one without this stress and being bothered with it,” Fitzsimmons said.

BU has not confirmed whether or not it has an interest in Seau’s brain for research, but researchers do welcome family members of deceased athletes to donate a loved one’s brain “to be examined neuropathologically for evidence of CTE or other disorders of the central nervous system,” according to their website.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a form of brain damage that a number of researchers are studying to determine its connection with depression and suicide in athletes.

A statement by the BU School of Medicine said the Center is saddened by the tragic death of Seau, and thoughts and prayers are with Seau’s friends and family.

“It is our policy not to discuss any completed, ongoing or potential research cases unless at the specific request of family members,” Jenny Eriksen, a BU spokeswoman, released in a statement. “Our primary goal is to learn more about the long-term effects of repetitive brain trauma by conducting meaningful scientific research.”

As long as the brain is preserved and not buried with the body, there is no rush to decide if the family wants to donate and to whom, Fitzsimmons said.

“There’s enough for everyone to do research on it though,” Fitzsimmons said. “The purpose is to make things better, there shouldn’t be a controversy. . . . I feel bad about that, for their family, that they would be presented with this issue at a time like this.”

Seau’s death parallels the suicide of Dave Duerson, who played in the NFL for 11 seasons, and also shot himself in the chest.

Researchers at BU found Duerson to be suffering from “moderately advanced case of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated brain trauma,” according to the BU Center’s website.

Darren Carrington, a former San Diego Chargers safety, now a pastor at Rock Church in San Diego, said there may be more to Seau’s death than all the concussions.

“When the crowd stops roaring, a lot of times it’s hard for players to make that transition,” Carrington said. “This is your childhood dream, it’s something you worked toward your whole life, you become that guy . . . but you can’t determine your last day.”

A brain does not feel as old and beat up as a body does, so that difference may also have been very difficult for Seau when he retired from the NFL in 2010, Carrington said.

“Everybody knew Junior, and nobody knew Junior,” Mitchell said. “Based on the personality he had, it appears there is something else that must have been going on [in his life].”

Seau’s suicide came as a shock to everyone in the community, Mitchell said.

“He had an effervescent smile, an incredible personality,” he said. “As extraordinary an athlete he is, he’s even a greater person.”

Seau did not seem depressed, Carrington said. He was surfing every day and he loved playing his ukulele, he had a lot of close family and friends around him.

“It is tough for [his family], but they are doing well and getting through it together,” Mitchell said. “I’m amazed at how they’re holding on to God and each other at this time and getting through it.”

NAFTA enables export of obesity, report finds

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:19:18 +0000

The North American Free Trade Agreement’s liberalization of trade policies has allowed the United States to export obesity to Mexico, according to an April 5 study co-authored by David Wallinga. The report, which was published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, suggests that the exportation of American goods such as processed food, corn and soybeans contributed to a 12 percent increase in obesity in the Mexican population between 2000 and 2006.

An individual’s food environment, or the nutritional resources available, influences dietary habits, according to Wallinga, who conducted the research with Karen Hansen-Kuhn, Sophia Murphy, Sarah Clark and Corinna Hawkes, his peers at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. The number of unhealthy foods and convenience stores selling such foods in an individual’s vicinity affects the individual’s likelihood of gaining weight, he said.

“What we found is that there has been a change in obesity in Mexico, and it looks a lot like the obesity epidemic in the United States,” Wallinga said. “The Mexican food environment has evolved to resemble the unhealthy American food environment.”

An analysis of international trade policies and obesity rates in Mexico revealed that obesity rates began to increase shortly after NAFTA’s inception in 1991, Wallinga said.

“If you look at the timeline of when people in Mexico started getting more overweight and obese, it coincided with NAFTA, so we wanted to dig deeper and see how changes in obesity coincided with changes in trade policies,” he said.

NAFTA’s loosening of trade regulations between the U.S., Canada and Mexico allows for an open flow of goods between the three countries, including food products detrimental to human health, Dartmouth geography professor Susanne Freidberg said. As a result, Mexico can import the products it does not produce itself or cannot produce cheaply.

Since 1991, Mexico’s importation rates of corn, soybeans, sugar, artificial sweeteners, processed foods and livestock products has increased, Wallinga said. The corn and soybeans are processed into high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oil, respectively, he said.

Increased consumption of processed dairy products, soft drinks, processed meat and ready-to-eat snacks high in fats and sweeteners can also be traced to the increased availability of these goods in the country, according to Wallinga.

“Mexico is exporting what we call healthy foods and importing more unhealthy foods,” Wallinga said.

NAFTA has also directly affected the Mexican economy by pitting the goods of small-scale farmers against mass-produced American goods in the marketplace, according to the study. Many farmers cannot compete, creating a rise in unemployment.

In addition, NAFTA altered foreign investment rules, intensifying American investment in the Mexican food supply chain, Wallinga said. Beverages, oilseed processing and processed foods are the largest recipients of American investment, and investment in livestock production is also surging, according to the study.

Liberalized free trade policies have allowed U.S.-based fast food retailers such as McDonald’s to expand into Mexico, which is the largest regional market for Yum! Brand, Inc., the owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Long John Silver’s.

Obesity annually costs at least $170 billion in direct medical fees and reduces productivity, Wallinga said.

“Major policies like NAFTA and trade agreements in general are devised without really thinking about the health implications,” Wallinga said. “We’re saying that, ‘Hey, obesity is a really expensive problem for any country to try and address.’”

The study was conducted over a period of approximately two years and is a continuation of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s research, Wallinga said. Data was obtained from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Global Agricultural Trade System and various sources of Mexico-specific data.

The rise in obesity may be linked to additional economic factors, according to Dartmouth economics professor Doug Irwin.

“I don’t know if they can directly attribute the change in diets to the reduction in tariffs on U.S. food as opposed to the rising incomes of Mexicans that make them more like Americans in terms of their eating habits,” Irwin said. “So the question is how much of their result is due to NAFTA per se as opposed to other causes.”

Rising obesity rates in Mexico also raises concerns about the presence of food deserts, in which residents of poor urban neighborhoods must turn to unhealthy eating habits as a result of limited access to fresh foods, according to Freidberg. Ultimately, the underlying force of the institute’s study is an “environmental determinist argument,” she said.

“I don’t think that the causes of obesity are so clear-cut,” Freidberg said. “It’s important to note that there are far-reaching consequences of NAFTA for people’s health and well-being in Mexico, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a direct link between the importation of junk food and the rising obesity rate.”

Wallinga said he pursued his interest in the intersections between health, food and agriculture in medical school and emphasized the importance of environmental programs at the College.

“The study makes clear why things like the Dartmouth Organic Farm and agricultural issues in general should be a little more integrated into the academic curriculum of an Ivy League school like Dartmouth,” he said.

World’s population too large to accomodate urban farming, new study finds

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:46:43 +0000

The debate of organic versus conventional agriculture continues as a new study published by researchers at McGill U. and U. Minnesota concluded that while organic agriculture may not be able to produce enough food for the world, it will play an important role in minimizing environmental damage for the future.

The study found that certain crops like legumes and perennials, which include soybeans and fruits, have a similar output through both organic and conventional farming.

Overall, the study found that organic farming produces approximately 25 percent fewer crops than conventional farming. However, the study found that organic farms can produce just 13 percent less than conventional farms under the best circumstances.

Verena Seufert, one of the researchers from McGill U., said that perennial crops can do better organically because they grow more slowly and are less dependent than annual crops on external factors.

Conventional agriculture is seen as a threat because it can harm the environment by taking up water resources and by releasing greenhouse gases. People on the other side of the argument say organic farming on a large scale would be less productive because it would make food unaffordable for those with lower incomes around the world.

The world is currently producing enough food, Seufert said, but starvation continues because of distribution issues.

“The problems that we have today with so many people not having enough food is more a food access global system,” she said. “It does not depend on increased food production, but increased access to food.”

U. Oregon’s Urban Farm class educates students about the advantages of local farming and how they can get involved. The farm is led by Harper Keeler, a long-time advocate for organic food.

People need to be more connected to their food to understand where it comes from; Lane County residents only eat about four percent of their food from local sources, he said.

“There’s no appreciation for the problem,” he said. “We need people on the land to start understanding where it comes from. Until then, we won’t have the political willpower to make the changes that we need to make.”

Keeler spoke of the advantages of farming for the future health of the population.

“Working outside and growing stuff is going to have health benefits, mental benefits, environmental benefits,” he said. “All those things were lost with the unsettling of America upon industrialization.”

Tom Bettman, a longtime Urban Farm instructor, said organic farming could be plausible if there were a significantly smaller population.

“You need a population of about a billion. Right now, we’re feeding people on petroleum,” he said. “We’re burning fossil fuels to crank out enough food to feed about seven billion people.”

The study concluded that there should not be a mindset of either/or, but that a combination of organic and conventional farming will be the most beneficial for the world’s population.

“I think the solution that will feed the world more sustainably will not be only organic crops or conventional crops but will be a mixture of the two ideas,” Seufert said.

Coral reefs may survive changes in climate

admin — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:59:32 +0000

The future of the world’s coral reefs may not be as grim as we think. A recent study conducted by researchers at the James Cook U. in Australia took a look at the composition of various corals in the Great Barrier Reef and determined that the flexibility across species may allow corals to adapt to future changes in the ocean due to climate change.

A global increase in temperature as a result of the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mainly carbon dioxide), is projected to cause not only a warming of the world’s oceans, but also an increase in ocean acidification. The oceans act as carbon sinks, which means they absorb carbon at a faster rate than they emit it. Currently, oceans remove about 30 percent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmospheres each year.

However, with ever increasing rates of carbon dioxide emissions, the oceans can only swallow so much. A side effect of carbon sequestration is the production of carbonic acids, and the more carbon dioxide oceans take up, the quicker the acid is formed. As a result, the overall oceanic pH level decreases, which in turn decreases the calcium carbonate production of many coral forming organisms. Acidification affects both the organisms building reefs, as well as the reefs themselves.

Originally, the health of a coral reef was determined by “total coral cover.” However, the study’s detailed look into the coral composition of 35,000 different colonies within the Great Barrier Reef discovered another factor that influences the overall ability for corals to survive: the distribution and number of adaptable species.

The yearly temperature fluctuations within the Great Barrier Reef occur on the same scale as predicted changes in conditions due to climate change. Between winter and summer, the ocean temperature fluctuates between 14.4 and 16.2 degrees Fahrenheit. The continual existence of corals within this region supports the claim that corals will be able to adapt to changing water conditions. However some special types of adaptation are what scientists consider to be their main saving mechanisms.

The presence of “warm genes” is one instance of an effective coral adaptation strategy. A study done on the same species of coral in Florida and Mexico found a genetic difference that allowed those in Mexico to survive unharmed in warmer waters. In short, the same species of coral was able to alter its genes to survive.

Another example involved the ability of some corals to survive in extremely acidic “submarine springs,” which are areas with naturally low pH levels that mirror those of projected climate change levels.

Though we may rest assured that corals will not entirely disappear, the natural selection process will cause future reefs to look very different from those we are used to today. For example, the projected increase in mound-shaped coral types, and decrease in branch-like types, will make a much smoother and less elaborate looking reef. This change may also decrease the types and amount of marine fauna present in the reefs because of a decrease in nooks and crannies in which small creatures can hide.

Though the world’s reefs may survive climate change, there are many other factors that threaten their survival. The most current and pressing issues to address include pollution and overfishing.

Study indicates increase in abortion-restricting bills over past decade

admin — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:24:49 +0000

While legislators across the country introduced fewer abortion-restricting bills in the first three months of this year than last year, a study put out by a sexual health advocacy group shows a significant increase over the past decade.

In the first three months of the year, legislators in 45 out of the 46 Legislatures that convened introduced 944 provisions dealing with reproductive health and rights, of which more than half restrict access to abortion, according to a report released earlier this month by the Guttmacher Institute, a sexual health research group.

Since the beginning of 2012, 75 abortion restriction acts were approved by at least one chamber in state Legislatures throughout the country, the report said. Nine of these restrictions have already been enacted.

In 2011, 127 abortion restrictions were approved by at least one legislative body, the report said.

Guttmacher Institute spokesperson Rebecca Wind said this is not unusual in an election year since some state Legislatures do not meet every session, and there are fewer state Legislatures meeting this year.

However, in the last election cycle in 2010, 46 restrictions passed at least one legislative chamber during the first three months of the year, while in the 2008 election cycle only 34 passed, according to the report.

Wisconsin is among the states that passed abortions restrictions. Earlier this month, Gov. Scott Walker signed into law a bill requiring doctors intending to prescribe a drug that medically induces abortion must examine the woman in person and be in the room when the drug is administered.

The law was set in place to ensure women are not being coerced against their will into seeking abortions, Wisconsin Right to Life Executive Director Barbara Lyons said.

“There are often similar stories about women being strong-armed by parents or boyfriends into getting an abortion,” Lyons said. “[The girls] hear ‘you will do this or else,’ and that is coercion.”

Six other states have passed laws similar to the one in Wisconsin, Lyons said. She said other laws up for debate would ban abortion after a certain number of weeks or require women to get an ultrasound before making a final decision on whether to terminate the pregnancy.

However, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws Pro-Choice Wisconsin Executive Director Lisa Subeck said these pieces of legislation are less about protecting women and more about making abortion access more difficult for them, especially the act requiring doctors to be present when administering an abortion-inducing pill.

“[The law] goes against standard medical care and interferes with doctors’ ability to practice,” Subeck said. “We really saw this happen with Planned Parenthood.”

Subeck was referencing Planned Parenthood’s recent decision to stop administering medication-based abortions in response to the signing of the legislation into the act.

Due to the “vague” language in the act, Subeck said Planned Parenthood risks lawsuits, and doctors of the organization could be charged with felonies if they fail to properly comply with the act.

Wisconsin and other states’ recent regulations on abortion are linked to a larger political picture, Subeck said.

“I certainly think that the war on women will play a big role in the national election,” Subeck said. “Women paying attention will see that Republicans are not good for them … not good for them, their daughters and their families.”

Epilepsy mistaken for other disease

admin — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 20:51:47 +0000

New research from Johns Hopkins U. has found that many cases of epilepsy are misdiagnosed due to similar symptoms from an entirely different disease.

According to a paper published in the journal Seizure, these patients are instead suffering from what senior investigator Jason Brandt calls psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, or PNES, resulting from emotional trauma because of the inability to handle stress in an appropriate manner.

True epileptic seizures result from abnormal electrical discharges occurring in the brain, leading to a variety of symptoms characterized as seizures, which can range from long staring spells to violent and uncontrollable muscle spasms. Regardless of the symptom though, the root in all epileptic seizures comes from a disorder in the brain.

However, PNES is caused by an overload of emotional stress which causes an individual to transform mental dysfunction into physical symptoms.

Defunct brain signals from epilepsy can be visualized by an instrument called an electroencephalogram (EEC) which monitors the electrical activity in the brain and can give doctors an inside look at what is happening inside an individual’s head.

This instrument was one of several pieces that led Brandt to believe some diagnoses of epilepsy were faulty. According to a 2005 study on 46 patients, 54 percent of EEC’s were misread as showing epileptic brain signals. Another key indicator that patients with PNES did not have epilepsy was the fact that anti-seizure medications often failed to alleviate symptoms.

In the Hopkins study, the researchers surveyed 40 patients with PNES, 20 patients with epilepsy, and 40 healthy patients about stressful events in the past five years and the amount of stress these events induced. From their data, researchers concluded that all three groups of subjects reported a similar amount of stressful events in the time frame specified. However, the PNES group reported higher levels of stress compared with their epileptic and healthy counterparts.

In further interviews, researchers found the PNES group often failed to cope with their stressful events, leading to increased levels of trauma and subsequent onset of PNES.

Being misdiagnosed caries a high cost for individuals, both financially and emotionally. Costs in medication and hospital stays are high, while social costs can be mentally draining as patients work to fight a seemingly unbeatable disease.
Furthermore, in a particularly interesting twist to PNES, the use of service dogs trained to anticipate epileptic seizures often induced PNES related seizures due to the high suggestibility of PNES patients.

With a higher awareness for the possibility of misdiagnoses, Brandt’s work could open doors for differentiating between epileptic seizures and PNES. Furthermore, proper diagnosis could aid physicians in better psychological treatment for PNES patients, giving them the help they need.

Men struggle more with post-discharge care, study suggests

admin — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:23:15 +0000

A Boston U. School of Medicine study found men are more likely than women to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of original discharge, according to a press release.

Returning to the hospital 30 days after discharge is costly and an indication of poor quality of care, according to the Thursday press release. The study, which was posted online at BMJ Open on Wednesday, may lead to interventions connecting men to primary care resources.

“Identifying and addressing risk factors associated with early post discharge hospital utilization is useful so that resources can be efficiently tailored to each individual patient’s risk profile,” said senior author Brian Jack, BUSM professor of family medicine and principal investigator of Boston Medical Center’s project called Re-Engineered Discharge.

RED is devoted to developing tests and strategies to improve the hospital discharge process so patients remain safe and are not likely to be re-hospitalized.

“Some risk factors like gender, however, may seem inherently immutable,” Jack said. “Yet, as we demonstrated in this study, male gender is associated with other parameters that could potentially be effectively targeted.”

Using RED clinical data, researchers assessed the association between gender and post-discharge re-hospitalization at BMC.

In the study, 47 out of 100 men and 29 out of 100 women were readmitted. Men were less likely to complete a follow-up appointment with a primary care physician after discharge.

This difference can be attributed to males visiting the emergency department more frequently than females and not understanding their follow-up appointments after leaving the hospital. Forty-nine percent of men make it to their follow-up appointments, compared to 57 percent of women.

Medicare recipients paid about $17.4 billion for hospital readmissions in 2004, according to the release.

Being retired, unmarried and depressed were contributing factors to men’s re-hospitalization, as was not being reached for a follow-up call.

Lack of sleep may cause diabetes

admin — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:03:07 +0000

Following an irregular sleep and meal schedule over a prolonged period can lead to an increased risk of obesity and diabetes, according to a new study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Researchers restricted the meal times and sleep schedules of 21 healthy adults, both young and old, over the course of five weeks. For three of those weeks, the participants were exposed to “circadian misalignment,” meaning that the participants were put on a 28-hour day schedule during which they were allowed to sleep for 5.6 hours out of every 24.

Participants lived in the lab for the duration of the study and were monitored closely.

Results showed that participants experienced a decrease in resting metabolic rate and an increase in glucose secretion, and three out of the 21 participants were pre-diabetic by the end of the study. Once participants were allowed to resume normal sleeping and eating habits, they all recovered.

“Your internal 24 clock can’t synchronize to a 28 hour schedule. Most of the time in the week when those participants are sleeping or active, eating or fasting, are times when their bodies are not optimally primed to respond,” said Harvard Medical School professor Orfeu M. Buxton, a lead author on the study titled “Adverse Metabolic Consequences in Humans of Prolonged Sleep Restriction Combined with Circadian Disruption.”

Professor Steven A. Shea, an HMS professor and the paper’s senior author, explained that the study was partially inspired by epidemiological research showing increased rates of diabetes and obesity among shift workers who sleep during the day.

Although the recent findings do not prove conclusively that shift workers are likelier to become diabetic or obese specifically because of their unusual sleep schedules, they do support the data of the epidemiological studies.

“Standing alone based on a month-long experiment in very healthy people, it’s very difficult to extrapolate the results to diabetes, but in the face of all the epidemiological studies showing the adverse metabolic changes associated with shift work, it’s tempting to think about this extrapolation,” said Shea.

“If these findings [...] persist over many months or years, this could well be the reason by which shift workers gain weight and some of them become more prone to diabetes,” he continued.

Buxton explained that college students, like shift workers, often experience circadian disruption, partially due “social jet lag,” which occurs when people stay up late and sleep in on weekends to socialize and then catch up on lost rest.

Computer and cell phone use can also cause sleep disruption, since technological devices emit blue “daytime” light that further confuses circadian rhythms and makes sleeping more difficult.

“Sleep researchers are up against a $100 billion dollar industry that is dependent on college students using cell phones and computers getting this night time blue light that disrupts circadian rhythms,” said Buxton. “I feel like a we’re a little pebble against a tsunami.”

Informatics study looks at why tweets go viral

admin — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:21:05 +0000

After studying 120 million re-tweets in a year’s time, a team from the Indiana U. School of Informatics and Computing found that whether a tweet goes viral doesn’t necessarily depend on its message or the user who posted it.

Instead, the study shows it has more to do with the fact that Twitter users have limited attention to devote to a massive amount of information transmitted daily on the Twitter network.

The 2012 study behind the information, “Competition Among Memes in a World with Limited Attention,” was conducted by third-year doctoral student Lilian Weng, along with informatics professors Alessandro Flammini, Alessandro Vespignani and Filippo Menczer.

The study, Weng said, is the first to scientifically show how social network users’ attention spans affect popularity of posts.

Weng said a tweet’s survival can be measured in the number of times the post is re-tweeted and does not necessarily depend on the post’s message.

She said two hashtags grouping tweets about singer Justin Bieber illustrate her point.

“#BieberFact and #Bieberthing — they both exist and are about the same object,” she said. “They try to represent the same thing, but one of them is extremely popular, and the other was re-tweeted less than 15 times.”

In fact, #BieberFact was re-tweeted 139,760 times during the course of the study, while #Bieberthing was re-tweeted only three times.

According to the report, factors like the tweet’s exposure to media and its relation to world events can affect the popularity and longevity of posts.

The reason for the discrepancy, Weng said, was because of the large number of tweets on Twitter competing for users’ attention.

Competition in the Twitter world works in a similar way to competition in nature, she said, where memes are like species fighting for limited space in users’
memories.

“Imagine in an ecosystem, you have various species, and they’re fighting with each other to get limited resources,” she said.

“In order to get resources to survive and reproduce, they have to compete with each other. You can think of attention as a limited resource in the system.”

In the grand scheme of things, Weng said, most tweets don’t go viral.

Instead, most stop circulating soon after they are posted.

Weng said the structure of the microblogging network, complete with hashtags and the ability to re-tweet, contributes to the distribution of tweet popularity.

Twitter users looking to craft a viral tweet might not find the secret in the new study, however.

Weng said the research looked at aggregate values and the larger context of tweet popularity as opposed to individual cases.

“In our paper, we studied the heterogeneity of meme popularity at a very aggregated, average level,” she said.

“But if you look at individual cases, it’s very hard to predict whether it will be successful. Sometimes it’s just luck.”

UCLA researchers develop genetically engineered stem cells to fight HIV in mice

admin — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:15:26 +0000

A team of UCLA researchers has found a genetic engineering technique that suppresses the HIV virus in mice, an encouraging step toward potentially fighting the disease in humans, researchers said.

The study, led by Scott Kitchen, a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute and assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine, draws upon previous UCLA research findings. It was published last week in the epidemiology journal PLoS Pathogens and funded in part by the UCLA Center for AIDS Research.

Researchers examined the effectiveness of genetically engineered “killer” T cells, which are capable of fighting off disease, at combating the HIV virus in a mouse. The team used a “humanized” mouse engineered to have a human immune system. In the “humanized” mouse, the disease progressed similarly to its progression in humans, making it a reliable tool for the study and providing powerful predictive value for the therapy in humans, Kitchen said. “It’s a major advance and a step closer in demonstrating the potential use of this in people,” he said.

A few months ago, the team introduced a population of the engineered T cells into a mouse so they could develop and grow into a human immune system, Kitchen said. The researchers then conducted blood and organ tests at the second and sixth weeks, finding a decrease in the HIV levels and an increase in the cells HIV typically kills, according to the journal article.

The findings could theoretically be used to support a clinical trial in humans, said Jerome Zack, associate director at the UCLA AIDS Institute and co-author of the study.

A benefit genetic engineering is that it opens the field to therapeutic HIV treatments, and that it can be extended to potentially treat other diseases such as cancer, said co-author Arumugam Balamurugan.

In 2009, the lead scientists from the most recent study showed that human blood stem cells in mice could be genetically engineered to grow large quantities of “killer” T cells, As a result of their genetic engineering, these T cells grew to a large population and targeted HIV-infected cells in the mice.

“We had the idea that we could take the elements of immune response (the T cells) that are successful in suppressing HIV in infected people to see if it was possible to identify a receptor specific to HIV,” Kitchen said, referring to the team’s research in 2009.

Though advances have been made in the fight against HIV, an estimated 50,000 new cases are diagnosed in the United States each year, and there are more than 33 million people living with the disease worldwide, according to the National Institutes of Health. Factors that make the disease difficult to fight include its rapid rate of spread and lack of preventative measures. The findings could lead to more comprehensive methods of fighting the disease and eventually to a clinical trial in humans, Kitchen said.

Mars lava flow image inflames space lovers

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:49:28 +0000

An image taken by the U. Arizona’s HiRISE camera has gone viral.

The image, which resembles an elephant’s head, was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and has appeared on news sites like Discovery News, MSN.com, and Yahoo! News. The “elephant’s head” is actually the edge of a vast lava flow in Elysium Planitia, a plain on the surface of Mars. In addition to shaping the elephant’s trunk and eye, it also shows what could be the animal’s forehead and ear.

The lava flow happened over years or decades, relatively quickly in geological time. The image is also upside down relative to most earthly mapping conventions, as the image is “north side down.” It shows an area about 5 kilometers across and 300 kilometers above the surface.

The natural formation is an example of “pareiodlia,” a situation where the human mind interprets patterns in such a way that it pulls out the image of something familiar, according to Alfred McEwen, a planetary sciences professor and the principal investigator for HiRISE. The same psychological mechanism was responsible for several popular images on Mars, including the famous “Face on Mars” that was photographed by Viking 1 in the Cydonia region of Mars and the “happy-faced” Galle Crater in Argyre Planitia.

In addition to showcasing the camera’s technical abilities, the image also helps give back to the public and spotlights scientific discoveries at the UA, said Ari Espinoza, outreach coordinator for HiRISE.

“The elephant picture is something almost everyone can relate to — it captures people’s imaginations,” Espinoza said. “And although we don’t get increased funding because of it, the public outreach component of what we do continues to be an important part of the mission.”

The HiRISE camera was built at the UA and is installed on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Emperor penguin population much larger than expected

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:37:26 +0000

U. Minnesota concluded the first-ever complete population count of emperor penguins in Antarctica, with unexpected results.

Using high-resolution satellite imagery technology called QuickBird, researchers at the University’s Polar Geospatial Center counted almost 600,000 penguins –– twice the amount expected, including seven previously unknown colonies.

The PGC, in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey, the Australian Antarctic Division and Scripps Institution of Oceanography collected the data by monitoring images taken by a satellite, which passed over Antarctica about five times per day. A computer algorithm translated the images into a total population count.

“I’m floored; we’re talking about counting an entire species from orbit,” said Paul Morin, PGC’s director.

Founded in 2007, the PGC provides mapping services for the United States Antarctic Program. In 2009, Peter Fretwell, a geographer with the British Antarctic Survey, approached one of the center’s graduate students, Michelle LaRue, to help with the survey because of her previous work using QuickBird to map dry valleys in Antarctica.

Fretwell’s work on penguin research began in 2008, when his team realized they could identify the locations of emperor penguin colonies by looking for excrement stains on the ice.

But the low-resolution imagery he was using only provided the locations of colonies, not of individual birds, LaRue said. Collaborating with the PGC allowed for a more thorough and complete count. Using the locations of colonies that Fretwell had found, the team was able to zoom in on those locations and see individual birds.

LaRue, who has visited Antarctica four times to conduct field research, described the continent as surreal.

“There’s no sense of scale. I was in the dry valleys, and I was looking up to the top of this nice little hill –– what I thought was a hill –– and it was actually, I believe, deeper than the Grand Canyon,” she said.

But because the survey utilized QuickBird, very little field work was needed for the population count. Traveling to Antarctica by air or by ship is costly, and certain areas are unreachable, LaRue said.

“Having a satellite image really fixes that problem,” she said.

Images used for the population count were taken during the birds’ mating season in October and November of 2009, LaRue said. During mating season, the birds are in a large group that remains more or less in the same place, making them easy to count, she said.

The discovery of twice as many penguins as expected was astounding for the team.

Previous population counts were based on annual visits to a handful of penguin colonies, LaRue said. Field researchers would take the number of penguins they counted and extrapolate to create an estimate of the population’s total size. Before the completion of the survey, researchers believed the emperor penguin population totaled 300,000 at most.

Thanks to the accurate count of the survey, researchers can now monitor population trends over time. There are also plans to observe changes in sea ice due to climate change. Penguins lay their eggs on the ice, and the team is curious to see if the population will be affected by these changes, LaRue said.

The PGC will continue to use QuickBird for other mapping purposes. Cole Kelleher, one of the students working on Antarctic mapping, said a major part of the work is assisting field researchers.

“They can be more efficient and more prepared for what’s out there,” he said.

The PGC has also received funding to expand its research to the Arctic. This will be different, Morin said, because unlike Antarctica, the Arctic is inhabited by about 4 million people, including 2 million in urban areas.

“We forget about this, but the U.S. is an Arctic nation. We have Alaska. … It’s easy to forget that here as we’re sitting outside in Minnesota drinking iced tea,” Morin said.

Researchers see connections between Facebook and narcissism

admin — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:25:08 +0000

The amount of likes on a Facebook status or the number of comments and uploads of pictures may be an indication of narcissism, according to a recent study.

A study conducted by Dr. Christopher Carpenter, assistant professor of communication at Western Illinois U., tested 294 participants whose ages ranged between 18 and 65. The volunteers participated in an online survey that asked them questions about Facebook use, according to the study.

The study was conducted to see if anti-social Facebook use could be attributed to narcissism. Anti-social Facebook use can range from a user retaliating against a negative comment to becoming angry if someone doesn’t comment on the user’s status.

But, Carpenter said Facebook does not cause users to become narcissists.

Narcissism is a trait people genetically inherit, and Facebook gives those who share this trait a platform to interact, he said.

According to the study, traits of narcissism include a sense of self-importance or uniqueness, an inability to tolerate criticism, an expectation of special favors without reciprocation and greater leadership ability.

But Carpenter said the narcissistic tendency of leadership could be positive.

Facebook users who have the narcissistic trait of “grand exhibitionism” are predicted to have a high friend count. They want the ability to gain attention from a large audience, according to the study.

According to the study, these people are also more likely to accept friend requests from strangers.

Narcissists on Facebook may leave negative comments that can harm interpersonal relationships, according to the study. Carpenter said narcissists who participate in this behavior often do not know the implications of their actions.

“The purpose of the study was not to find the overall amount of narcissists; it was to find the correlation and the patterns of narcissism on Facebook,” S. Shyam Sundar said.

Sundar is the founder of the Penn State Media Effects Research Laboratory. His research investigates the psychological effects unique to web-based mass communication, he said.

Facebook and Twitter allow users to be the masters of their own domain, Sundar said. If they feel like the “rock star” of their personal page, it can give them a sense of self-importance, he said.

But he said this feeling of importance does not constitute narcissism in everyone. Facebook may give someone who is an introvert the ability to express himself or herself online, he said.

Vanessa Foster said people who constantly change their profile picture may be trying to draw attention to themselves. They may be trying to draw positive comments to boost self-confidence, she said.

Foster said a psychologist might be able to use Facebook to diagnose traits of narcissism, but it is only one way to help with the diagnosis.

“You would have to learn about the person, their behavior, and the environment they interact in,” Foster said.

Texting hinders learning, study shows

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:07:39 +0000

Boston U. senior Sana Ali said she usually pays attention in class, but she will text when she has the opportunity.

“I have a lot of three hour classes,” she said. “If I focus for the first two hours, I feel like it’s okay to send a text. It’s a reward system for paying attention and staying on task.”

A recent study, which will appear in the July 2012 issue of the National Communication Association’s journal “Communication Education” found students who text more in class were less attentive and demonstrated lower grades.

Boston U. psychology Professor David Somers said the results of the study were not surprising.

“It seems pretty obvious to me that students who are distracted in class, by texting or anything else, will get less out of lectures,” Somers said in an email interview. “Multitasking typically leads to impairment of performance of both tasks, unless one of the tasks is very automated.”

Students who text in class often perceived themselves as having learned less, according to the study, which surveyed 190 U. Pittsburgh-Bradford students.

Those who reported higher levels of self-regulation graded themselves better and reported learning more.

Somers said he is more interested in why students cannot restrain themselves from texting.

“I believe that texting, for many people, is something of an addiction,” he said. “Each text message that you receive is a reward. To get that reward you need to send a text message.”

Somers said those who text frequently have an expectation of regular “rewards,” and they will unconsciously initiate text conversations to get that reward, which disrupts their focus.

College of Arts and Sciences junior Denise Wong said she rarely texts in class and is not very attached to her phone.

However, Wong said she notices a correlation between the characteristics of a class and how frequently people text in it.

“A lot of times, in my classes which are more interesting, I see less people texting than in others,” Wong said. “It’s also harder if you’re in a smaller class or in harder classes.”

Mounica Donepudi, a BU junior, said she does not usually text during class.

“I don’t get service in a lot of my classrooms,” she said. “Even if I did, I still probably wouldn’t text during class.”

However, Donepudi said professors do not often feel the need to force their students to pay attention.

“In college, you’re expected to do what’s necessary to learn,” she said. “Professors don’t monitor you like they did in high school.”

BU freshman Wesley Kang said he texts during class despite knowing he should not.

“I think it’s not okay to text in class, but I do it anyways,” he said. “It’s rude. “

Kang said he often texts more in large classes that he finds boring.

“I get bored, and if you’re in a large lecture hall, it’s impossible for the teacher to know,” he said. “But if you’re in a discussion where everyone is expected to participate, it’s rude to text.”

Genetic mutations linked to Autism

admin — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:11:48 +0000

Individuals with mutations in specific genes have a high risk of autism, according to scientists working independently at Harvard U., Yale U., and U. Washington in Seattle.

The scientists said they have already identified several genes that lead to an increased likelihood of autism. But there is a possibility that several hundred genes are involved in autism, said Mark J. Daly, an associate professor of medicine the senior writer of the Harvard paper.

“We’re moving away from the single gene Mendelian idea of disorders or the idea that only a few genes cause the effect,” Daly said. “There are many genes in the biological pathways.”

This discovery will allow a better treatment for autism to be developed that targets the mutated genes, according to Daly.

“It’s not good for a predictive model but can help us develop a hard biological model of autism and eventually develop a therapeutic treatment,” Daly said.

The scientists expect to find 25 or more genes by the end of year, said Stephan J. Sanders, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale and lead author of the Yale paper. Although the genes do not allow for diagnosis, it may eventually be possible once they have achieved a comprehensive knowledge of the genes that cause autism, he added. Even more powerful, their findings might lead to a treatment.

“The study of genes helps us understand what autism is at a fundamental level,” Sanders said. “This understanding will help us develop a treatment. Right now we don’t know what autism is, except that it is genetic.”

The scientists at Harvard, Yale, and University of Washington worked independently, only coordinating at the end of their studies when the papers were being submitted for publication, according to Sanders.

The three teams each had papers published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature.

Sanders and the team at Yale studied 238 families, who each had only one child diagnosed with autism. This process was essential so mutations in specific genes could be found, which would indicate the gene’s link to autism. Sanders said that by the end of the year, the Yale research team plans to have studied 2600 families.

“We see genes as part of a jigsaw puzzle; find enough of them and you can see what the disease is,” Sanders said.

Study examines military reserve alcohol abuse

admin — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:53:11 +0000

Many studies have shown that alcohol abuse is common among active members of the military, but a new study led by Brown U. Assistant Professor of Epidemiology Brandon Marshall shows that alcohol problems are common within the reserve population as well. Alcohol problems are especially prevalent among individuals who develop either depression or post-traumatic stress disorder upon returning from deployment, the study finds. The research paper is available in the online edition of the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence and will likely be published in print next month, Marshall said.

The study, which Marshall led as a post-doctoral student at Columbia U., is part of a larger study investigating mental health within the Ohio Army National Guard.

Terry Keane, the director of the Behavioral Science Division of the National Center for PTSD, said Marshall’s study is important because it was one of the first group of studies to examine alcohol abuse in the National Guard. The findings will help to highlight areas of focus for the promotion of “healthy lifestyles post-deployment,” he said.

Marshall’s team looked at a group of around 1,000 National Guard soldiers, more than 100 of whom screened positive for alcohol abuse after returning from deployment. Only 7 percent of soldiers without depression or PTSD abused alcohol, whereas nearly half of those who suffered from both disorders abused alcohol.

These results were surprising, Marshall said, because he originally hypothesized that people with depression or PTSD prior to deployment would have the highest risk of developing alcohol problems.

But the study revealed that those individuals had no elevated risk. Instead, the most vulnerable group included individuals who developed depression or PTSD after returning from deployment.

Marshall warned that more research must be done before any conclusions can be reached. He said it is possible that people with mental health problems may not have been deployed in the first place, so they may have been excluded from the sample. It is also possible that those individuals received more support and treatment that could have “buffered their risk” of developing alcohol problems.

Keane called this finding “anomalous” and said it will require replication in other samples. But in general, the study’s findings did not surprise him, he said. “Alcohol use is very high, and it’s probably exacerbated by experiences in war zones.”

Another finding of Marshall’s study is that married men developed alcohol abuse at a significantly lower rate — 8 percent — compared to those who were never married or had been divorced, 16 percent of whom developed alcohol problems. He attributed this trend to the additional emotional support marriage offers.

“Having people to reach out to is an important piece of the puzzle,” Marshall said.

Marshall said his study points to the importance of improving access to mental health services for National Guard soldiers. Given that alcohol abuse and mental health problems occur together at such high rates, “integrated treatment interventions” could be effective, Marshall said.

In conducting the study, “what struck me was just the level of alcohol abuse,” Marshall said. “Some people were clearly struggling” and turned to alcohol “even if they had never had alcohol problems in their past,” he said.

Study: Humans emit about 37 million bacteria per hour

admin — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:30:25 +0000

A recent study may give germophobic students yet another reason to dread going to lecture. A joint study of indoor microbial composition by U. California-Berkeley and Yale U. researchers found that human presence causes a significant increase in levels of bacteria and fungi indoors. The average human emission, the study states, is about 37 million bacteria per person per hour.

The study — entitled “Size-resolved emission rates of airborne bacteria and fungi in an occupied classroom” — was conducted by collecting and comparing air samples from empty classrooms, occupied classrooms and the outdoors. In samples from occupied classrooms, researchers found elevated levels of microbes shed from human skin and cavities and kicked up in floor dust.

“Whenever you’re in a densely populated space, you’re breathing bacteria coming from other people,” said William Nazaroff, co-author of the study and campus professor of civil and environmental engineering.

The study was originally published online Feb. 13 in Indoor Air, but it has recently garnered attention because of an article written about it March 29 in Discovery News.

According to Nazaroff, the study involved state-of-the-art experimental techniques, including DNA analysis of microbes and particulates. The result was one of the most complete analyses of indoor microbial air composition to date. Previous studies of microbial presence in the air involved culturing — growing captured particulates — and identifying what was able to grow. The problem, Nazaroff said, was that not all microbes could be grown, and thus could not be identified.

With modern techniques, the study for the first time was able to quantify exactly how many bacteria humans were responsible for emitting.

Despite the somewhat unsettling nature of the study’s findings, the impact on human health is still uncertain, Nazaroff said.

“Historically, people have worried about bacteria in buildings because of airborne disease transmission,” he said. “But there may be a benefit to certain kinds of these bacteria.”

Gary Andersen, head of the Ecology Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, emphasized the importance of this new procedure of microbial DNA analysis to studying an indoor environment.

“I think it’ll help for public health and for building design to take into consideration how microbes can impact human health,” he said.

Next, the researchers plan to carry out similar testing in university housing and elementary schools around the world.

Study finds melanoma rates rise

admin — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:56:38 +0000

With summer just around the corner and everyone anxious to jump into bathing suits and sundresses, a recent Mayo Clinic population-based study which found a rise in melanoma cases in young adults, especially in women, is concerning.

“Melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer, develops in the cells that produce melanin — the pigment that gives your skin its color,” according to the Mayo Clinic website. The risk for melanoma increases with exposure to UV light from tanning beds and direct sunlight, as well as close family history of melanoma and exposure to certain chemicals or radiation.

From 1970 to 2009, patients between the ages of 18 and 39 were checked for “first-time diagnoses of melanoma.” The study found a fourfold increase in young men and an eightfold increase in young women.

Researchers believed the rise in melanoma cases could be a result of the increased use of indoor tanning beds.

The important thing for young adults — especially college students — to remember about decreasing their risk for melanoma is that coverage is key, whether that involves clothing, a wide-brimmed hat or sunscreen.

PubMed Health, a website managed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, said initial symptoms of melanoma can be a simple mole or sore on the skin, and can be diagnosed and removed quickly by a dermatologist if spotted early.

The website also provides the useful acronym ABCDE for self-diagnosis for people who are unsure about a recently-emerged skin abnormality.

A stands for asymmetry; simple enough to remember and even easier to check for: merely look at the mole or lesion and judge whether one side is significantly different from the other.

B stands for borders; if the growth has abnormal edges.

C stands for color; if the color changes within the growth or grows darker over time.

D stands for diameter; the growth is suspect if it is about 6 mm or larger.

E stands for evolution; if the mole continues to change appearance over a relatively short period of time.

Although the study showed an increase in cases of melanoma, it also showed a decrease in deaths caused by skin cancer, which is likely because of early detection methods.

More sunscreen companies are producing lotions which protect against both UVA and UVB sunlight as well, significantly decreasing the skin’s exposure to the harmful rays.

Although catching a case of melanoma early reduces chances of fatality, the only real way to prevent skin cancer is by taking measures to protect yourself from the harmful rays.

So before you head off to Foxfield in your spaghetti-strap sundress, ask your roommate to get your back and slap on some SPF-50. When you’re the only one who doesn’t look like a lobster the next day, you’ll thank me.

Studying before sleeping beneficial for recall, according to research

admin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:26:00 +0000

Sleep more, improve recollection. A new study from U. Notre Dame reached this conclusion after finding that going to sleep shortly after learning new information is most valuable for recalling the information in the future.

Jessica Payne, a Notre Dame psychologist who specializes in sleep studies, studied 207 subjects who regularly slept at least six hours per night. The study was focused on how much information a subject remembers after learning it directly before sleeping.

Participants studied either related or unrelated word pairs in the morning or evening, at 9 a.m. or 9 p.m., and would be tested on their ability to remember the word pairings 30 minutes, 12 hours or 24 hours later. Some of the word pairs were semantically related and some pairs were completely unrelated.

This studied declarative memory, which is a person’s ability to remember facts and specific knowledge.

“Following a 12-hour retention interval containing a night of sleep or a day of wakefulness, overall recall was superior in subjects who slept,” the study stated.

These findings were similar at the 24-hour retest. At this point all of the subjects had received a full night’s rest, but researchers found that subjects who went to sleep shortly after learning the words remembered better than subjects who did not.

“Our study confirms that sleeping directly after learning something new is beneficial for memory,” Payne told Science Daily. “What’s novel about this study is that we tried to shine light on sleep’s influence on both types of declarative memory by studying semantically unrelated and related word pairs.”

Jude Kehoe, a nurse at U. Oregon’s Health Center, stressed the importance of sleep for students. She discouraged irregular sleep patterns for studying because the body does not learn as efficiently with irregular sleep. The body can also only make up two hours of sleep, she said.

“Our brain does all of this filing when you are asleep and the REM sleep helps students learn better,” Kehoe said. “If students would study during the day and then sleep eight hours, they would remember the information much better. When you don’t have sleep, it causes a stress reaction to go off in your body, with negative cascading effects.”

Payne encouraged studying directly before sleeping for the greatest recall in the morning.

“Since we found that sleeping soon after learning benefited both types of memory, this means that it would be a good thing to rehearse any information you need to remember just prior to going to bed,” Payne told Science Daily. “In some sense, you may be ‘telling’ the sleeping brain what to consolidate.”

Algae shows promise in biofuel tests

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:53:16 +0000

Anyone with a fish tank has probably put plenty of energy into cleaning algae out of water. Within the next decade, though, the energy in algae may be a viable source for fuel, thanks to researchers at Texas A&M U. who are developing an algae biofuel.

Algae naturally converts sunlight into an energy source during photosynthesis and can be used as a type of biofuel in two different ways. The most common way involves taking lipids, or fats, out of the algae to use as biodiesel. An alternative method creates a hydrocarbon fuel similar to gasoline or diesel. Unlike biodiesels, hydrocarbon fuel does not have oxygen and is more energy dense, which makes it a more versatile fuel source and usable in aircraft.

“The overall efficiency, rapid growth rate and yield are the major advantages of using algae,” said Joshua Yuan, assistant professor in the department of plant pathology and microbiology.

The research group aims to create methods that would generate higher yields from algae; these yields could make it possible for algae biofuel to be produced on a larger scale, then sold as an alternative to gasoline. For this to happen, the process will have to become more cost-efficient.

“For the algae to be useful as a biofuel, there are some technical barriers. For example, extracting lipids is very difficult because it is very costly,” said Shangxian Xie, plant pathology graduate student. “Right now we are developing technology to harvest the algae more cheaply by cultivating it into a pellet so you only need a filter to harvest it.”

Xie said this new method allows for a three-to-four-fold increase in yield. Innovations like this make production less expensive and more applicable to the energy market.

Another method the research group is examining involves photorespiration, an alternative to photosynthesis, where sugar is combined with oxygen. Photorespiration is not as efficient as photosynthesis and typically causes a quarter of the carbon to be lost. Yuan’s research explores ways to use this lost carbon as an energy source.

“The pathway takes the excess carbon normally lost and shunts it towards hydrocarbon synthesis. So now you have a system that just needs light, water, carbon dioxide and some minimal nutrients to produce hydrocarbons,” said Ryan Syrenne, molecular and environmental plant sciences graduate student.

Other methods currently studied by the researchers to improve algae’s use as a biofuel source involve using genes from various algae species to create a type of algae that excels in the critical areas of efficiency, growth and yield.

The possibilities of renewable energy sources like algae are also being explored by the government. In February, President Barack Obama announced his support for algae research and offered up to $14 million in grant money to assist researchers. Yuan said his research proves biofuels have the potential to become a part of the solution to the problem of depending on a non-renewable fuel source.

Currently, production of algae biofuel costs more than $20 per gallon, but that cost is slowly coming down as techniques like those explored by Yuan’s lab make it less expensive to produce large quantities.

Yuan said by the time algae biofuel becomes marketable, at around $5 per gallon in the next decade or two, it will be a much cheaper and viable option compared to gasoline that will possibly sport a double-digit price tag by then. In the meantime, Yuan and his team plan to strive for even better developments.

“My next dream is artificial photosynthesis,” Yuan said. “We are only limited by our resources.”

Texting while driving causes brain ‘brownout’

admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:32:04 +0000

According to the Pennsylvania law firm Edgar Snyder and Associates, around 37 percent of people have sent or read a text while driving. There were over 5,474 deaths attributed to distracted driving in 2009, and young drivers are the most likely to be texting behind the wheel.
On March 8, a Pennsylvania law went into effect that prohibits texting of any sort while driving.

Before the law was even passed, however, researchers at Carnegie Mellon had probed the effects distracted driving has on the brain.

Marcel Just, a senior researcher and professor with the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon, looked at people’s brain activities while talking and driving. Just, along with colleagues Timothy Keller and Jacquelyn Cynkar, published their research in the report “A decrease in brain activation associated with driving when listening to someone speak” in the journal Brain Research in 2008.

The brain has many different parts that work simultaneously. “When you’re listening to me talk, for instance,” Just said, “there are 15 to 20 areas of your brain being lit up that are activated. It’s not one place. People say they ‘use frontal lobe’ for this. That’s really a distortion. There is no task that is done by only one part, ever.”

While these processing regions may seem like the most important parts of the brain, they only make up a relatively small part. According to Just, most of our brain is “white matter,” in which a fatty material covers a series of connectors that act as communication wires among the separate regions.

With a viewing screen directly above their eyes, the subjects in Just’s study went through a simulation in which they “drove” a vehicle by moving a hand-held mouse that was situated at their side. While participants were going through their driving course, the researchers occasionally asked them true or false questions, which the subjects would answer by pressing a button in their other hand. A brain scan determined their brain activity by measuring the amount of blood flow to certain regions in the brain.

The results pointed to a clear debilitation of driving while listening; the brain functions that controlled driving decreased by 37 percent. The studies showed that while people were driving, four main regions of the brain were active, primarily those for vision and spatial relationships.
When the drivers had to respond to questions, however, new areas of the brain associated with language processing became active at the same time.
Despite the fact that the regions are largely separate, answering the questions impaired the ability to drive, and Just thinks it is because the white matter — the tissue that connects brain areas — was heavily taxed.

“I think it’s like plugging in an iron and a hairdryer at the same time, causing brownout,” he said. “There are only certain amounts of resources to go around, and if you’re trying to draw on too much, each demand gets a budget cut. In the case of driving, that’s not a good thing to be happening in some situations.”

To combat distracted driving, Just and others believe that policies regulating cell phone use behind the wheel are important. The researcher himself has created a list of ideas, ranging from legislative mandates to applications that shut off one’s phone once it reaches a certain velocity. But he mainly stresses education.

“Nobody really wants to get into an accident and nobody wants to kill an innocent pedestrian,” Just said. “I think we horribly overestimate our cognitive abilities with respect to attention.”

“I think it’s bad,” Just continued. “I don’t think society realizes that it’s bad. It’s not muggers doing this; it’s just people like you and me and our relatives and friends that are talking on the cell phone.”

Some Carnegie Mellon students, like sophomore art major Marie Barcic, agree with the new cell phone law. “You can’t really afford to be distracted while driving,” she said. “You can just pull over if you need to talk to someone.”

Others, like sophomore chemistry major Abigail Burton, think more needs to be done. “I think it’s a step in the right direction, but I think there is a long way to go to make our roads safe from distracted driving,” she said.

Education, Just says, will make the difference. “If people were more aware of how detrimental to their driving performance cell phone usage is, I think many people, just out of a sense of responsibility, would just stop,” he said.

U.S. can store 100 years’ worth of carbon dioxide underground, study finds

admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:08:37 +0000

The U.S. may have the capacity to store about a century’s worth of America’s carbon dioxide emissions underground in deep saline aquifers, according to a study published last week by Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists.

The scientists found that using carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is “geologically viable,” according to the study. CCS is a process that involves capturing carbon dioxide emissions at such sources as power plants and compressing and injecting them into reservoirs for long-term storage.

The nation produces about six gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, the equivalent of about twenty million barrels of oil per day, said Ruben Juanes, the researcher who led the study and a professor of energy studies in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Researchers found deep saline aquifers – geological formations situated deeper than one kilometer underground that hold saline fluids in their pores – presented feasible storage conditions for these emissions.

Deep saline aquifers could hold up to 20,000 billion metric tons, according to the study, and CCS could hold deposits of carbon dioxide for up to 20,000 years, he said.

The nation’s carbon dioxide emission rates have hovered at about 5.5 billion metric tons per year since the late 1990s, according to United Nations data.

“Human emissions have been increasing in a sustained fashion ever since the advent of the industrial revolution,” Juanes said.

The study sought to determine the best methods for injecting liquefied carbon dioxide to increase the maximum capacity of the aquifers, analyzing such factors as injection rates and pressures. It determined the optimal conditions for employing CCS.

The study also faced constraints such as “uncertainty in geologic storage capacities and sustainable injection rates.”

It attributed the first issue to different procedures of calculating large-scale capacity. Injection rates of carbon dioxide also caused problems due to an accumulation of pressure.

In order to estimate the storage capacity for the U.S., researchers transposed data related to the behavior of fluid carbon dioxide and constraints on injection rates onto a model that applied the nation’s known deep saline aquifers, according to the study.

The aquifers are distributed throughout the country, but clusters of them center in such areas as the Southeast, including Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, and the area bordering Lake Michigan – Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

Storage technology similar to CSS has already been implemented in a number of places, Juanes said, in Norway and Algeria.

Daydreaming good for health, study finds

admin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 23:33:38 +0000

Daydreaming while doing simple tasks, such as planning a doctor’s appointment or tomorrow’s outfit on the way to class, may be an indicator of a better working memory, according to a recent study in “Psychological Science.”

The study showed that while doing low-load tasks that do not take up a person’s full attention, people who daydream or think about other things while doing the task had a higher working memory capacity – memory that holds temporary information – than those whose minds did not drift off to other things.

Jonathan Smallwood from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, one of the study’s researchers, said in a University of Wisconsin-Madison News article that while the brain is in idle, it tends to think about pressing matters.

“What this study seems to suggest is that when circumstances for the task aren’t very difficult, people who have additional working memory resources deploy them to think about things other than what they’re doing,” Smallwood said. “Their brains are trying to allocate resources to the most pressing problems.”

To conduct the experiment, researches asked volunteers to perform one of two simple tasks. They pressed a button in response to the appearance of a certain letter on a screen or tapped a button in time with their breathing.

While doing these tasks, the researchers periodically asked the volunteers if they were fully focused on what they were doing or if their minds were wandering to other things.

To measure the participants’ working memory capacity, the researchers asked the volunteers to recall letters that they were asked to memorize before the tests and complete a series of easy math problems.

“We intentionally use tasks that will never use all of their attention,” Smallwood said, “and then we ask, ‘How do people use their idle resources?’”

Researchers found that individuals with higher working memory resources reported more task-unrelated thoughts. When they gave the volunteers a task but filled them with sensory distractors, their mind’s ability to wander completely turned off.

“Giving your full attention to your perceptual experience actually equalized people, as though it cut off mind wandering at the pass,” said Daniel Levinson, one of the study’s researchers, in the article.

Dr. Michael Hasselmo, a Boston U. psychology professor, said the study seemed valid but not strong because of how difficult it is collect that type of data.

“Just looking at their data it seems that they had effects that were significant but not really strong because there was a broad level of data intuitive level,” Hasselmo said. “We hear stories about people like Einstein daydreaming in class, and maybe high IQ is related to this. But this is just anecdotal; no one has really looked into this specific case.”

Sleep deprivation linked to excessive eating, study finds

admin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:20:53 +0000

Students may want to rethink pulling all-nighters for upcoming tests, as a new study links lack of sleep to excess eating.

The American Heart Association announced its findings during a presentation in San Diego, which showed that those who got about a third less than their average amount of sleep consumed more than 500 additional calories a day on average.

“Sleep loss can lead to hormonal changes that can set the stage for increasing appetite and preference for high-starch foods, which can set the stage for obesity,” said Dr. Sairam Parthasarathy, an associate professor of medicine at U. Arizona. “Sleep deprivation or interruption can lead to hormonal changes that lead to such eating behavior.”

In the study, 17 people aged 18 to 40 were asked to record their eating and sleeping patterns. Subjects were monitored at home as well as in a lab for varied amounts of time on different nights. Subjects in the study were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. In a comparison of a test group that slept 5.2 hours a night and a test group that slept 6.5 hours a night, the researchers found that the first test group ate an average of 143 more calories per day than the subjects who slept more.

“Sleep deficiency alters hormones in the body that control appetite, leading to an increase in hunger,” said Dr. Stuart Quan, professor emeritus from the College of Medicine and retired associate director of Respiratory Sciences. “Especially foods that have a high carb content.”

Some students said they saw the study’s results reflected in their own lives.

“I notice that the less sleep I get, the more I eat the next day,” said Dylan Trujillo, a freshman studying public management and policy. “It’s like I need the extra food to give me the energy to get me through the day.”

The National Sleep Foundation recommends that individuals get seven to nine hours of sleep a night. Healthy adults sleep on average between 8 and 8.5 hours a night, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Smartphone application may ease anxiety

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:56:32 +0000

A recent study by Harvard psychologists found that a smart phone application could reduce anxiety for people suffering from social anxiety disorder and generalized anxiety.

The study was conducted by Psychology Professor Richard J. McNally and his graduate student, Philip M. Enock, in collaboration with Stefan G. Hofmann, director of the Social Anxiety Program at Boston U.

The smart phone application uses a method known as “attentional bias modification” to train people to ignore negative stimuli that were causing them unneeded stress in social situations. Subjects were simultaneously presented with two faces, one neutral and one hostile. Participants were instructed to press a letter that appeared on the screen after the faces were displayed.

For participants in the test group, this letter always appeared in the position where the neutral face had been. By redirecting the subject’s attention from the hostile face to the neutral face with the letter, the researchers hoped to train subjects to look away from social cues that would cause anxiety for a person with social anxiety disorder or generalized anxiety.

Participants used this application three times a day, and each session lasted about two minutes. Periodically, they filled out a survey asking them about the level of anxiety they felt in everyday life.

A placebo group used a smart phone application in which the letter was equally likely to appear in place of the neutral face or the hostile face, and a no-treatment group filled out periodic surveys about their level of stress but did not use an application.

The results showed significant alleviation of daily anxiety for those in the test group as well as in the placebo treatment group, and no change for those in the no-treatment group. While encouraged by the participants’ progress, researchers were also confused by the equal outcomes from the active and placebo groups.

Enock said the placebo group may have improved because their choice to use the anxiety-treatment application in itself was empowering. Participants in both groups may also simply have been “expecting some improvement to come along.”

McNally also said that improvements could be because of the “positive aura” surrounding high-tech treatment or because using the application was a method to maintain attention to tasks beyond the game.

The findings are promising but should be viewed with “guarded optimism,” said McNally.

“Right now we really want to make sure we can replicate these effects [and] make them more potent,” he added.

Likewise, Hofmann said that modified studies with larger sample sizes are needed to “examine if attention bias modification has a reliable effect on people’s subjective experience.”

After refinement, said McNally, this type of therapy could provide an alternative to traditional cognitive behavioral therapy for people who do not have access to a trained therapist or who cannot afford professional counseling.

Enock added that the smart phone format is especially well adapted to delivering treatment to a large population—not only for those who are on medication or in therapy, but also those who are currently doing nothing to manage their anxiety.

Red meat study sparks public debate

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:23:37 +0000

Media outlets around the world are covering the release of a Harvard School of Public Health study stating that red meat consumption leads to an increased risk in mortality, stirring debate among the public and experts.

“It was beyond our expectation with so many debates being incurred, but we think it’s a good thing,” said An Pan, lead author of the study and research associate at HSPH. “We want more people to realize the potential health risks of eating too much meat.”

The data showed that one daily serving of unprocessed or processed red meat led to a 13 or 20 percent increase in mortality risk, respectively.

“We saw in this paper that [eating red meat] has implications, although the association is modest,” Pan said. “A 13 percent increase is not that high.”

The overall message was for people to try to reduce red meat consumption to two to three servings per week and to replace red meat with healthier choices, according to Pan.

Mortality risks of red meat consumption have been explored repeatedly, though not on the same scale as the 2012 study.

In 2009, for instance, researchers studied half a million people for three years and concluded that high intakes of processed and red meat may increase mortality risk.

Compared to previous research, the 2012 study surveyed a smaller cohort group for a longer period of time, nearly 25 years, and also distinguished between processed and unprocessed meats.

While earlier research focused on meat consumption’s effect on specific maladies, Pan’s study examined the broader impact on mortality.

The study took advantage of data from two long-term and well-known studies.

The Nurses’ Health Study, which began in 1976 to study breast cancer, was expanded to include a diverse population and to look at other health risks. It is widely regarded as one of the most prominent studies in diet and health, according to T. Colin Campbell, an emeritus professor at Cornell who studies nutrition.

“We realize this would be a good population to learn the long term effect on diet and health,” said Walter Willett, chair of the department of nutrition at HSPH who has overseen the study since its expansion in 1986.

The Health Professionals Follow-Up Study follows men ages 40 to 75.

The researchers designed standardized questions about health and have been updating their results every four years.

The study has been critiqued extensively by the expert community. One critique is that people who eat red meat tend to ignore common wisdoms of healthy behavior, creating correlating factors in their risks of mortality.

“This particular group doesn’t adequately acknowledge that,” said David E. Cummmings, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington. “They try to account for this but never fully.”

Willett acknowledged that the researchers cannot be sure to have taken into account all correlating factors.

The American Meat Institute issued a statement the day of publication responding to the study and criticizing its “unreliable self-reporting.”

“We were concerned that the study was quite definitive in its answer,” said Janet M. Riley, senior vice president of the American Meat Institute.

Study: Students do not recycle as much as before

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:42:22 +0000

A recent study shows the current generation’s college students are less interested in recycling and the environment than past students.

According to a study published March 5 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, fewer students are taking action to help the environment. Millennials, the generation born after 1982, showed less interest in their communities, social issues and protecting the environment than Generation X.

Researchers pulled information from two data collections to evaluate high school seniors and college freshmen.

Fifteen percent of Millennials said they made no personal effort to help the environment. Five percent of baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1961, said the same.

Ashley Pennington, outreach coordinator for the U. Florida Office of Sustainability, said the study does not correlate with what she sees at UF.

According to the Office of Sustainability’s website, UF recycles about 6,000 tons of material a year, and an office report stated that about 3,000 students are involved with sustainability.

UF freshman Germain Gutierrez, 19, said laziness stops him from recycling.

“I think about it, but I don’t recycle,” he said.

Umbilical cord cleansing lowers mortality

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:59:12 +0000

The neonatal mortality rate in the United States is significantly lower than in many countries across the globe. Based on data from 2009 collected by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, an average of 4.19 infants out of every 1000 dies before becoming 28 days old in our country (this represents 0.42 percent of all births).

However, this is not the case for many families in low-income regions around the world. In an effort to identify methods of lowering neonatal mortality, researchers from the Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, led by Dr. Abdullah Baqui, set out to test the effect umbilical cord cleansing could have on mortality rates.

When a child is first born, umbilical cord infection can account for up to 50 percent of neonatal deaths in areas researchers call “resource-poor settings.” The umbilical cord blood vessels are exposed to the environment for several days following birth, making it a prime location for pathogens to find their way into an infant host. This is especially true in rural areas where good hygiene is difficult to maintain.

To that end, the World Health Organization recommends the best method for reducing infection in high risk locations is to keep the umbilical area clean without the application of any topical cleanser, a method called “dry cord care.” However, understanding the fact that cleanliness is not always possible, the WHO also recommends that washing with a solution of chlorohexidine can offer protection from infection for newborns.

Although the name sounds like some rare and complex molecule from your Organic Chemistry course, chlorohexidine is actually a relatively cheap and easy-to-use disinfectant found in many household products, such as mouthwash and skin cleansers. As a neonatal care product, it provides a way for lower-income regions to prevent infection and protect newborn babies. As a result, the cleaner was the focal point of study for Baqui and his team.

The work had its genesis in an early study done in Nepal where researchers found that infants who received anywhere from one to seven cord cleansings with chlorohexidine in the first 10 days of birth reduced infection of the umbilical cord area by 32 percent. Furthermore, cleansing within the first 24 hours of birth led to a 24 percent lower mortality rate.

From this, experts then raised the question “would a simpler cleaning regimen (cord cleansing only once after birth) be equally beneficial?” To answer that question, the Hopkins team went to the three sub-districts of Beanibazar, Zakiganj and Kanaighat in Bangledesh.

In total, the team broke down these rural regions into 133 random clusters which were assigned to one of three possible cleansing regimens: single cleansing with chlorohexidine immediately after birth, daily cleansing for seven days after birth and the typical dry cord care which implemented no form of antiseptic as a means of comparison.

From June 2007 to September 2009, and with the help of local community helpers, the researchers enrolled 29,760 babies in the study with 10,329 having multiple cleanings, 9,324 undergoing a single cleaning and 10,008 utilizing dry cord care. From these trials, the researchers carefully monitored child health over the course of a month, looking for any signs of umbilical cord infection.

After compiling the data and breaking down the numbers, the researchers found an interesting twist in the data. As expected, even a single cleaning with antiseptic significantly prevented mortality compared with dry cord care.

However, when comparing dry cord care with multiple cleanings, contrary to expectation, there was no significant difference in mortality rates. These results contradicted the previous study done in Nepal which showed that cleansing anywhere from one to seven days lowered infant mortality. While the study offers several possible explanations for this apparent aberration, the simple fact is that more research needs to be done in order to understand chlorohexidine’s fullest impact on neonatal mortality.

Despite the deviation in data from multiple cleanings, Baqui and his group emphasize the fact that chlorohexidine “has an excellent safety record and it is simple and inexpensive to deliver.” By increasing awareness to implement these methods of cleansing, Baqui hopes to improve neonatal survival in the places that need it most.

Alzheimer’s symptoms reversed using drug

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:38:21 +0000

According to the study published in the journal Science, neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve U. School of Medicine have found a promising drug that reversed the cognitive, social and olfactory deficits and improved the neuronal circuit function in mice caused by the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Bexarotene, FDA approved for cancer treatment, is the miraculous drug of this study. Scientists knew that the bexarotene activates a protein that helps switch on the ApoE gene. Thus, they hypothesized that bexarotene would enhance normal A-beta clearance mechanism by inducing ApoE expression.

Although the exact cause of the disease is yet unknown, the build-up protein called Amyloid-beta (A-beta), which leads to the development of amyloid plaques, is one of the two hallmarks of the disease, the other being the abnormal tangles created by Tau protein. A-beta itself is not problematic; in fact, all human brains produce A-beta, but, in healthy individuals, enzymes break the fragments down with help from a protein

called Apolipoprotein E (ApoE).
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 5.4 million Americans are living with AD today. One in eight Americans aged 65 and over, and nearly half of people aged 85 and older have the disease. Every 69 seconds, another American develops AD. It is estimated that by 2050, approximately 16 million Americans will be suffering from AD.

AD is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and the only cause of death among the top 10 in America without a way to prevent, cure or even slow its progression. Between 2000 and 2008, mortality rates for AD increased by 66 percent, whereas the mortality rates for other major diseases, including heart diseases, decreased.

For years, scientists and doctors have searched for the cure of this disease, which has resulted in no fruitful outcomes. According to the National Institute of Health, as of 2012, more than 1,000 clinical trials have been or are being conducted to find ways to treat AD, but so far we have been able to treat only symptoms of the disease.

The results of the study were impressive; in two months old mice with Alzheimer’s-like condition, within 6 hours of administering the drug, brain interstitial fluid Aβ40 and Aβ42 levels were rapidly reduced, with 25% reduction by 24 hours. There was a 30% reduction in soluble Aβ levels throughout 14 days treatment and 40% reduction in insoluble Aβ level 72 hours post drug administration with progressive decrease over subsequent 14 days. Total Aβ plaques were reduced by nearly 75% after 14 days of treatment. Similar results were obtained in older mice, indicating that the bexarotene works efficiently in both early and later stages of AD in mouse model.

The drug rapidly restored cognition and memory, which were assessed by contextual fear conditioning. Also, mice treated with bexarotene for 90 days exhibited improved hippocampal function, which was assessed by Morris water maze performance. Furthermore, just 72 hours post treatment with bexarotene nest construction behavior was restored in mice. And finally, 9 days treatment of bexarotene significantly improved the odor habituation behavior in mice.

Ultimately, bexarotene has the potential to help more than 36 million people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease worldwide. Plus, the drug has a good safety and side-effect profile. According to the authors of the study, there is a plan to launch a clinical trial of the drug as soon as possible.

Study connects drinking to ER costs

admin — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:42:50 +0000

The results of a study from two U. Wisconsin researchers suggest alcohol-induced blackouts are a strong predictor of emergency room costs for college drinkers.

According to the study, which the researchers conducted on students who consumed the same amount of alcohol, those who experienced six or more blackouts in one year were 70 percent more likely to visit the ER than those who did not deal with blackouts.

The study said out of 954 students monitored, 404 visited the emergency department throughout a two-year observation period, and of these visits, one-eighth were associated with blackout drinking. Injuries from these visits ranged from broken bones to head and brain injuries.

Marlon Mundt, assistant professor at UW who conducted the study, said the field an understudied area of research that can be used to identify students who are at high risk for ER visits, where those who experience alcohol-induced blackouts are placed in the high-risk group.

According to the study, the ability to assess health care costs associated with high-risk college drinkers could help inform policy makers and school administrators in their decision making on cost-effective ways to combat alcohol injury on college campuses.

“Not everyone who drinks ends up in the ER,” Mundt said. “But if we raise awareness on this issue, hopefully this connection will have some impact in reigning in high-risk drinking events on college campuses.”

According to Mundt, UW makes contact with students through University Health Services and disciplinary events, as well as in times where excessive drinking is not an issue. He added more should be done to help students become more aware of the consequences associated with experiencing alcohol-induced blackouts.

“There needs to be more research on this topic, but starting at UW and shining a light on this issue is a good first step,” Mundt said.

Mundt said his research was based on data coming from a college health intervention study funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism conducted at five universities in the U.S. and one university in Canada.

Mundt took the data from this study and then asked specific questions about college drinking and the consequences associated with it, he said.

To do this, Mundt said he put together data from blackouts and emergency departments to see if they were connected.

“And that’s what I found,” Mundt said. “Since ER visits can be costly, I wanted to quantify just how much of an impact that high-risk drinking is associated with high-cost medical care.”

Tom Sieger, Prevention Director at the University Health Services, said UW in particular has a history of heavy drinking.

“We do have some concerns,” Sieger said. “We have many sources of data and information that suggests that UW-Madison students engage in high-risk drinking much more so than their colleges in other UW System schools.”

Sieger pointed to a study administered by UHS throughout the System schools, which found 70 percent of UW students engage in high-risk or binge drinking compared to 62 percent doing so in other UW System schools.

New study finds teens more likely to drink when they watch drinking in movies

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:08:12 +0000

The movies that kids watch might have more severe implications later on in life when it comes to destructive habits.People ages 10 to 14 who watch movies spotlighting alcohol are 63 percent more likely to participate in binge drinking, according to a recently released study by Dartmouth Medical School.

Binge drinking is “defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row,” according to the study.

According to a study conducted by James D. Sargent, a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School, young teens who watch movies laden with alcohol advertisements are twice as likely to start drinking earlier than their peers.

Kids who see a lot of movies are twice as likely to binge drink compared with kids who do not see a lot of movies, Sargent said.

The study tested 6,522 American children, 10 to 14 years old. Each child was tested to see their personal exposure to drinking by their friends and family. The subject’s exposure to alcohol in movies was also tested.

“This study shows that exposure to movie depictions of alcohol predicts alcohol onset and progression to binge drinking during adolescence,” Sargent said.

Sargent said that alcohol is present in almost 90 percent of films.

“Movies are like influenza, only they’re a commodity,” Sargent said.

Movies made in the United States are distributed worldwide — and children in other continents are influenced in the same way as adolescents in the United States, he said.

Penn State U. senior Shelby Lordi said one of her favorite movies was “Superbad,” in which the characters’ ability to obtain alcohol made them look popular, she said.

“It makes you look like the cool kid…if you have the alcohol,” Lordi said.

At Penn State, Smeal College of Business Professor Emeritus of Marketing Marvin Goldberg researched alcohol and tobacco marketing to youth. Goldberg said when people go to movies, their guard is down — they are not expecting to see an alcohol advertisement. Movies are created reality that can influence our subconscious, he said.

He said that like alcohol, cigarette companies are also advertised in movies. Cigarette companies used to pay actors and actresses to smoke their brand, Goldberg said.

Sargent said parents should avoid any material that increases their children’s exposure to alcohol. To prevent their exposure, parents should not let their children watch adult-rated movies, he said.

But Lordi said forbidding movies with alcohol might just make children want to watch them even more.

Dr. Susanne E. Tanski, a pediatric physician and contributor to the Dartmouth Medical School study, said parents should be aware of risks associated with alcohol and media to help alleviate future problems.

Tanski said it is important to reinforce that alcohol-saturated movies are not reality. Parents should counter-advertise the message alcohol sends in movies to prevent binge drinking, she said.

Researchers make strides in eye growth through stem cells

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:04:05 +0000

U. Wisconsin scientists unveiled groundbreaking research Tuesday which led to their ability to create eye structures from human stem cells.

After a year of research in the UW Waisman Center, ophthalmology professor David Gamm and his team were able to produce chemical retinal structures from stem cells that were derived from human blood. The research produced findings that can be used to treat patients with retinal disorders associated with blindness, Gamm said.

These findings will help scientists study degenerative diseases of the retina, such as retinitis pigmentosa, a prominent cause of blindness in children and young adults, according to a UW statement.

Gamm said the research findings were based on the ability to study stem cell composition.

“Our lab was interested in understanding the basic science behind how to take an undifferentiated stem cell and how to systematically get it to become something as specialized as a photoreceptor cell in the retina,” Gamm said.

Lead study author Joseph Phillips said in an email to The Badger Herald the research team was able to discover this by observing collections of cells from early retinal structures.

The research showed for the first time that retinal cells can be derived from blood, Gamm said. Past research in this area had only been successful by using the patient’s skin, which is more difficult to obtain than taking a blood sample, he added.

Gamm said the study also provided revolutionary evidence that human cells can be used to build primitive tissues and assemble themselves into layers, much like what is seen in the back of the eye.

According to Phillips, it is unclear whether the retinal structures will behave similarly to a real human eye. He added the human retina is highly organized and consists of several layers.

“The functions of the retina-like structures have not been directly tested yet, although our work suggests that some individual neurons may be functional,” Phillips said. “Further tests are required to determine how much these structures behave like a real human retina.”

Phillips said the next step in the lab for eye research is to uncover underlying mechanisms so that scientists can direct the process and increase their efficiency.

This technology will hopefully lead to the creation of complex retinal tissues from stem cells to help people who were previously blind see in the future, Gamm said.

According to Gamm, the lab is also interested in building better models of retinas in a dish by working with blood samples of the patients.

Gamm said when a patient provides a blood sample, it is developed into a stem cell and then engineered into retinal tissue. The method is advantageous, he added, because scientists can use the individual’s sample as a model of that particular patient’s retina in a dish to test its response to drugs, understand how the disease affects that retina and ultimately find a way to stop it.

Gamm said he ultimately hopes to use the results found by his team to help families and children combat serious eye diseases in the future.

Playing video games not a waste of time, according to recent studies

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:31:28 +0000

Whether it’s Angry Birds, World of Warcraft or SimCity, research has found that playing video games can improve the way people think.

Within the last few years, several University studies have shown that video games can boost creativity, reaction time and decision making. Researchers at U. Rochester found that video games improve decision making by 25 percent without sacrificing accuracy. And a new study published last month by researchers at North Carolina State U. found that playing World of Warcraft boosts cognitive ability in older adults.

Jason Allaire, coauthor of the study and World of Warcraft fan, had his 84-year-old grandmother try the game. After two hours of playing the game, Allaire said his grandmother was surprised how mentally tired she felt. Allaire and other psychologists at North Carolina State U. then designed a study for adults aged 60 to 77 to test their cognitive skills — such as attention and memory — while playing World of Warcraft. After participants played the game for 14 hours during a two-week period, researchers found the participants improved their cognitive function, especially those with previously-low cognitive function.

“Video games used to be considered mindless and it was thought that when you’re playing, you’re just letting your brain rot,” Allaire said. “I would think that playing these kinds of video games, or any video game that requires cognitive skills, is just another way to exercise the brain.”

Most research on video games has focused on how games can increase aggression and lower GPAs for students who spend more time watching a screen than hitting the books. But studies focusing on how games can improve cognitive function and creativity show that the 72 percent of American households that play a video or computer game aren’t just wasting their time.

A study last year from psychologists at Michigan State U.’s Children and Technology Project found that playing video games also enhances creativity.

In the three-year study, researchers looked at 491 middle school students and found that those who played more video games were more creative. The students were shown two pictures: a photo of an egg and a photo of an elf-like figure looking at its reflection in water. The students were asked to draw objects around the egg, title the drawing and then tell a story about it. Students were then asked why they thought the elf was looking at itself.

The study’s leading author, Linda Jackson, said children who consistently played video games produced more creative responses.

“If you’re trying to figure out how to kill the enemy, you have to think of something that is not obvious,” she said. According to Jackson, this type of thinking and also navigating in a three-dimensional space may be why video games improve creativity.

Jackson said video-game playing can also serve as “training wheels” to succeed in science, math and technology fields. She said she has friends who attribute their career success to their video game skills.

“Good things can happen playing video games,” Jackson said.

Court says noted environmental professor does not have to turn over research

admin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:51:42 +0000

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled this month that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli does not have the right to review former U. Virginia Environmental Sciences Prof. Michael Mann’s research produced during his time at the University.

The Supreme Court decided state agencies, such as the University, cannot be considered ‘persons’ under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, and therefore cannot be the subject of a Civil Investigative Demand such as the one Cuccinelli issued.

University President Teresa Sullivan issued a statement March 2 thanking the University’s faculty and the faculty at other universities for their support.

“This is an important decision that will be welcomed here and in [the] broader higher education community,” Sullivan said.

Cuccinelli first requested access to Mann’s research grant applications and emails April 2010, allegedly to determine whether Mann had committed fraud during his research. Mann, now a member of Pennsylvania State U.’s faculty, had been conducting research about global warming while at U.Va.

Mann was an assistant professor in the University’s environmental sciences department from 1999 to 2005.

“[The inquiries are] a coordinated assault against the scientific community by powerful vested interests who simply want to stick their heads in the sand and deny the problem of human-caused climate change, rather than engage in the good faith debate about what to do about it,” Mann said in an email.

Mann said the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation had reviewed his research in the context of Cuccinelli’s allegations and had found the allegations to be baseless.

Albemarle County Circuit Judge Paul Peatross denied Cuccinelli’s request to access Mann’s documents in August 2010. Cuccinelli then appealed his case to the state’s Supreme Court. He also filed another CID while the first case was being appealed, which the University filed a motion to deny, University Spokesperson Carol Wood said in an email.

The University spent a total of $570,697.97 to hire Hogan Lovells, a Washington, D.C. law firm, to fight the CIDs. Wood said all funds came from private funds.

Virginia Senate Democrats at Wednesday’s legislative session presented amendments to the proposed budget which would reimburse the University for the funds spent in the fight.

Jeff Ryer, spokesperson for the Senate Republican Caucus, said the amendments were so new he could not yet gauge Senate support.

“I don’t think anyone’s had an opportunity to analyze it; I understand [it was proposed] less than 48 hours ago,” Ryer said Friday.

Though senators did not complete deliberation of the budget by the Saturday deadline, Ryer said the Senate Finance Committee analyzed the reimbursement Friday.

Study finds that T-Rex was the Champ of Chomp

admin — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:13:48 +0000

Ever since its discovery in 1905, the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex has attained a celebrity status that is unique among dinosaurs. While larger and more ruthless dinosaurs have since been discovered, T. rex and his famished companions, the Allosaurus and Velociraptor, continue to secure leading roles in films such as Jurassic Park, Night of the Museum and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

Contrary to what most might think, however, T. rex’s image is far from over hyped; recent research from U. Liverpool suggests that the tyrant lizard has the strongest bite of any terrestrial animal to ever walk this planet.

While paleontologists have long disputed T. rex’s status as an apex predator, arguing that the T. rex was just a lowly scavenger, there is little question that the tyrant lizard could snack on humans. T. rex’s crushing bite would probably earn it a Guinness World Record under “most dangerous animal to ever roam the Earth.” Interestingly, the study indicates that T. rex’s bite strength changes during its lifetime, an adaptation that most likely led to reduced competition between parents and offspring.

Karl Bates and colleagues found that younger T. rex dinosaurs had significantly weaker bites, which probably indicates that they used their fearsome bite less often than their older companions. This sheltered T. rex youngsters from the pressure of competing against their stronger fathers.

To test the dinosaur’s bite strength, the researchers created a model of T. rex’s skull by digitally scanning skulls from an adult and juvenile T. rex, an Allosaurus, an alligator and an adult human. Their estimate of T. rex’s bite strength exceeded those of previous studies, which used skeletal models to create tooth indentations that matched those on the fossils of T. rex’s unfortunate victims.

Using the computer models, Bates and his team simulated T. rex’s bite in a way that allowed them to directly measure its impressive force and speed. Amazingly, the force exerted by just one razor-sharp tooth was an estimated 7,868 to 12,814 pounds. For all you physicists, that’s somewhere along the line of 35,000 and 57,000 newtons. Talk about a large F!

The force of a T. rex bite is equivalent to having a medium-sized elephant sit on you. In other words, if you ever want a hands-on experience of what a T. rex’s bite feels like, consider ticking off an African elephant on your next safari trip.

T. rex’s skull shape allowed ample room for chewing muscles, enabling a powerful bite that justifies the tyrant’s reputation as one of the most fearsome reptiles in dinosaur history.

However, T. rex might fall short if the aquatic arena is considered. According to the researchers, it is possible that the shark Megalodon had an even stronger bite. This colossal predator puts great white sharks and perhaps even T. rex to shame with a maximum bite force of around 20 tons. If the theories are true, then a movie about Megalodon could make Jurassic Park and Piranha look like Disney movies.

Nowadays, it is quite difficult to imagine the actual impact of a dinosaur bite. Evolutionary trends have led to reductions in body size for many animals, and the dinosaurs’ untimely extinction has proved to be quite constraining for the imagination. According to Peter Falkingham of U. Manchester in the United Kingdom, the true strength of the T. rex can be comprehended by looking at the comparatively lower bite strengths of the lion and alligator. Considering the amount of meat these modern predators can tear through, it is not hard to image the T. rex crushing large bones.

Clearly, T. rex would have needed some sort of bite guard to stop its skull from breaking during a serious snacking session. Indeed, past studies have shown that the dinosaur’s fused nasal bones enhanced its tremendous bite force while serving as a skull protector. Even when Falkingham and colleagues scaled the models for differences in body size, the adult T. rex was found to have a much stronger bite than its juvenile counterparts.

Juvenile T. rex dinosaurs may have compensated for their lower jaw strengths with their increased athletic ability and proportionally longer arms. These differences indicate that the dinosaur’s diet likely changed over time, allowing the T. rex to become a growing threat as it matured. Aren’t you glad that dinosaurs are extinct?

Pollution may trigger strokes, research finds

admin — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:56:25 +0000

Even at levels that comply with federal regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency, air pollution may increase the risk of stroke, according to research led by Gregory Wellenius, Brown U. assistant professor of epidemiology. Wellenius’ study was published last month in Archives of Internal Medicine.

Wellenius and his team retrieved the medical records of 1,705 patients at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston hospitalized with ischemic stroke — a condition often caused by the blockage of an artery to the brain — and compared the timing of the onset of their symptoms with air pollution values.

Previous studies had used the date of hospital admission rather than timing the onset of symptoms, a methodology more ‘prone to error’ as half of patients had their strokes on a different calendar day than the date of their hospitalization, Wellenius said.

Boston was ‘always in compliance with federal standards’ for air pollution during the study, Wellenius said, and yet the team found a 34 percent higher risk of stroke on days with ‘moderate’ levels of pollution, as compared to ‘good’ days.

Pollution, as defined by the EPA, includes measurements of ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, as well as different size fractions of particles and lead, though this last component is not as prevalent since it ceased to be present in gasoline.

‘At levels that the EPA considers to be generally safe, we’re seeing a large increase in rate of stroke, which suggests that the EPA may not be adequately protecting the public,’ Wellenius said. ‘This really is a public health problem.’ Wellenius offered the tightening of regulations as a potential solution.

‘I certainly can imagine where air quality will affect all sorts of things health-wise,’ said Elaine Jones, who specializes in stroke at Roger Williams Medical Center. ‘Why there should be a direct effect on strokes is a little surprising to me.’

Even though the study suggests a correlation between air quality and stroke risk, there may not be a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the two, Jones said.

‘In science, you can have things that appear to be related but have nothing to do with each other,’ she continued. ‘On days of poor air quality, perhaps people will eat differently, you know?’

Jones added she would not change her patients’ care or public policy based on Wellenius’s study.

Wellenius’ next goal is to replicate his findings in different cities across the country, as they may have different health risks. ‘Pollution mixtures change in different cities,’ he said. ‘So the pollution in (Los Angeles) is very different from the pollution in Boston.’

Researchers say ADHD medications in high doses can impair memory

admin — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:30:53 +0000

Researchers at U. Wisconsin studying the implications of using methylphenidate, more commonly known by the “trade name” Ritalin, on the behavior of those taking the medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder found the drug can often cause people to be less successful in cognitive tasks.

Abby Rajala, the lead author on the study, said the results of the research published last week in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience resembled similar findings of a 1977 study that has until now not been replicated. Both studies found a low dose of the drug stimulated cognitive performance in subjects with ADHD while a high dose served to diminish hyperactive behavior and impair performance on a memory test.

For the ongoing project that began in 2007, Rajala, a UW graduate student in the Neuroscience Training Program, also worked with Luis Populin, a neuroscience professor at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

She said their team has been evaluating rhesus macaque monkeys, which are the mammals with the closest brain structure and function to humans, on cognitive performance tasks with and without the aid of the drug methylphenidate.

In the investigation, three monkeys were taught to perform a spatial learning task in which they focused on a dot in the middle of a screen before a “target” dot flashed on the screen elsewhere. Successive trials made the monkeys wait varying amounts of time before needing to shift their eyes to the target on the screen.

When a monkey correctly identified that location, they were rewarded with a sip of water. This functioned as a positive reinforcement for their performance, reflecting operant conditioning, Rajala said.

She said more correct trials were observed from monkeys given a low dose of methylphenidate than their high-dose counterparts. Yet despite the lack of a reward, she said the monkeys on high doses continued to perform the task for much longer than those on low doses.

Despite getting the task “wrong” or not receiving any real incentive to keep going, the monkeys on high doses worked for up to seven hours.

Brad Postle, associate professor of psychology at UW, said this study emphasizes the subtleties of the dose-dependent phenomenon. Although teachers may prefer students on a higher dose due to improved classroom behavior, he said it essentially turns children into “zombies.”

“Too much of the drug on board basically makes you dumber,” Postle said.

Rajala noted that while many college students take high doses of Adderall and Ritalin when cramming for exams, they most likely are giving themselves a “false sense of security to study and remember better.”

Jeffrey Henriques, a psychology professor who assisted in the research, said the most intriguing piece about the work is the suggestion that medication may not actually help children as students.

“The monkey data seems to suggest that we are just making them docile and continuing at a task that they’re not being successful at,” he said. “So yes, the teacher is happy that the child is not disrupting class anymore, but have we really helped the child learn anything?”

Tropical forests less able to absorb nitrogen

admin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:53:26 +0000

The Earth’s tropical forests play a key role in absorbing man-made carbon dioxide, and scientists have traditionally believed that tropical forests could absorb nitrogen-based pollutants as well. However, research published by a team including Princeton U. ecology and evolutionary biology professor Lars Hedin and Princeton geosciences professor Daniel Sigman suggests that tropical forests may be less able to absorb polluting nitrogen than previously thought.

The results have implications for nature’s response to climate change, Sigman said. He explained that nitrogen and phosphorous are usually the nutrients that limit plant growth. Because ecosystems’ ability to absorb man-made carbon dioxide is limited by the availability of other nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, ecosystems’ response to climate change will depend on the levels of these nutrients.

Because rocks release phosphorus when they weather, scientists had previously expected the forests in the mountainous regions that the researchers studied to be relatively high in phosphorus and deficient in nitrogen. However, Sigman and Hedin found otherwise.

“The expectation that’s been in the field for decades is that a system like this would be nitrogen-poor,” Sigman said. “But these systems weren’t nitrogen-poor. Their streams have very high nitrate concentration.”

The researchers first investigated whether the extra nitrogen was a result of human activity. The scientists examined over a decade’s worth of water samples from Costa Rican forest streams and measured the levels of different forms of nitrogen in the streams. They found that most of the nitrogen appeared in the form of nitrate, an ion containing nitrogen and oxygen.

Sigman explained that there was no change in the nitrate concentrations in the stream samples over time. He added that this suggested levels of nitrogen in the forest were similar from year to year.

The scientists then investigated the levels of specific isotopes of nitrogen and oxygen in the streams. While the ratios of nitrogen isotopes in the samples confirmed that they were stable over time, the ratios of oxygen isotopes in the samples allowed the scientists to conclude that the nitrate was not produced by human activity.

“The oxygen isotopic composition of nitrate … is strongly affected by how much of that nitrate derives from the atmosphere … versus nitrogen that’s been turned over in the soil,” Sigman said. “All the nitrate had been turned over in the soils.”

Sigman said that because the forests already draw more nitrogen than they need from the atmosphere, they are unlikely to absorb extra nitrogen from pollution as well. If more nitrogen were added to the ecosystem, “all the systems downstream might be altered,” Sigman said.

Hedin also noted in a press release that their results call into question the future of tropical regions where nitrogen pollution is increasing.

Noting that the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi River — where biodiversity is extremely low — is caused by excess nutrients from fertilizers, Sigman said the group’s research indicated that the risk of these areas in tropical regions may be greater than previously thought.

“On the most dramatic scale, this [dead zone] is the type of stuff you worry about,” Sigman said. “Across tropical regions, we may need to expect them to be less absorbent for pollution nitrogen than we thought of them as before.”

The paper was published in the February issue of Nature Geosciences.

IQ, intelligence linked to many genetic factors, researchers find

admin — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:34:14 +0000

Intelligence is influenced by not few, but many genes, according to a recent study from Harvard U., Cornell U. and Union College.

Over the years, many studies have linked particular genes to differences in intelligence, said Christopher Chabris, a researcher of the study and professor at Union College, in an email.

These studies showed that people with a version of a particular gene tend to score a bit higher on IQ tests than people without that version, he said.

“Initially, we thought that we would replicate those results – that is, we thought we would find the same associations that those earlier researchers found,” Chabris said. “But over time, our experiences led us to think that the opposite might be true, that most of those findings might be false positives.”

The researchers systematically tested as many of these “IQ genes” as they could by using three large, independent datasets, Chabris said.

“Our study is consistent with many recent findings that show that complex traits like intelligence, personality and even height are influenced by probably hundreds or thousands of genes, each of which has a very tiny effect on the behavior,” he said.

Associate Professor Kimberly Saudino, director of the Boston U. Developmental Behavioral Genetics Laboratory, said the study does not disprove evidence from twin and adoption studies that showed differences in intellectual abilities is “to some extent” related to genes.

“What they are saying is that early attempts to identify specific genes have produced what looks to be false positives,” Saudino said in an email.

Chabris said there is definitely a strong genetic component to intelligence, but the study shows the actual story is more complex than previously thought.

He said social scientists should take into account this complexity in future research and not rely on studies of individual genes.

“The problem is that if thousands of genes each explain a tiny fraction of these differences, it will take huge studies with tens or hundreds of thousands of subjects to find them,” Chabris said.

Professor V. Scott Solberg, the associate dean for research at BU’s School of Education, said he stressed other factors that might play a role in understanding human intelligence.

“The common belief is that genes set the parameters for one’s potential but that reaching that potential occurs when one is exposed to quality developmental and learning opportunities,” Solberg said in an email.

He said the task of creating an environment in which youth could maximize their intellectual potential fell to educators.

Professor Hardin Coleman, the dean of BU’s School of Education, said he agreed with the necessity for creating a supportive environment. This study shows humans have more abstract ideas than actual data when it comes to human intelligence, he said.

“The best we can say is that we all have bio-genetics that need to be effectively nurtured in order for us to be effective students and citizens,” Coleman said in an email.

Coleman said there has been a disproportionate focus on genes when it comes to human intelligence, which has distracted academic institutions from the ways in which social organization may affect outcomes.

“I think that the presumed genetic link to intelligence has had an awful effect on education,” Coleman said. “We are organized around the assumption that the ‘able’ or ‘bright’ students will succeed so that failure is a function of a lack of motivation or ability.”

Chabris said while other factors such as education influences intelligence, genetics still account for much of the difference.

“Our own results found that about 47 percent of the differences among individuals in intelligence can be explained by genetic differences among those individuals,” he said.

Chabris said the study has implications for how research involving genetic links to human traits will be conducted in the short-term future.

He said this would involve much larger genetic data sets and scientists who will need to look for how genes might have a very small effect on intelligence.

“We need to understand intelligence better,” he said. “[We need] to get a better handle on the biology of cognitive differences so that we can look for genes associated with biological factors rather than just overall IQ scores.”

Direct correlation between AP courses and long-term success, study says

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:52:24 +0000

Claire Young, a Boston U. sophomore, said her 29 credits from Advanced Placement exams placed her ahead of her peers.

“I took them in high school mainly to get credit,” Young said. “I’ll be graduating early. Some of them actually counted toward my major. They’re actually really useful.”

In a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research and Northwestern U., researchers found inner-city students who took part in college-preparatory programs were more likely to attend college in greater numbers, remain in college past their first year and secure employment.

The study, published in February, focused on the AP Incentive Program, a high school initiative that includes cash incentives for teachers and students with passing AP exam scores. The results reflected a general correlation between taking and excelling in AP classes and long-term success.

“Students [who take AP courses] are more likely to go to college and graduate,” said Devon Wible, executive director of academics at Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.

AP courses offer a rigorous curriculum designed similarly to college courses, Wible said in a phone interview.

“It prepares students for the rigor that they will face in college,” she said. “[AP courses have] more reading, more writing and more inquisitive thinking, opposed to standard memorization.”

More than half of the students who enrolled at BU had with AP credits, BU spokesman Colin Riley said in a phone interview. On average, a prospective student applied with having taken one or two AP courses, but some students took many more.

Riley said admissions looks at an applicant in a holistic way, but the most important component is their academic transcript.

“What an academic transcript shows is that students challenged themselves with the most rigorous curriculum available to them in high school, meaning AP and honors courses, and [had] done well in them,” Riley said.

Admissions look to see what the students selected for classes in high school, Riley said.

“People who are high achieving, challenging themselves, . . . are going to take every opportunity gain more knowledge and succeed,” Riley said. “It’s not surprising to see high achieving students succeed and then go on to succeed in college and the business world.”

Wible said the APIP seemed like a good way to motivate student, but that the “best reward” is to gain knowledge from having taken the course.

BU freshman Ross Huston said he took the AP U.S. History and AP English classes, but did not take the exams.

“[The classes] would look good on a transcript, granted I received a good grade, so I chanced it,” Huston said. “I took neither of the tests because I didn’t want to spend money on only a possibility of credit.”

Anneliese Scheck, a sophomore at BU, said she took the AP Language and AP Literature exams, both of which she said she passed. However, Scheck’s school did not participate in the APIP.

“We didn’t get rewarded for taking the tests, but we got penalized if [we] were in an AP class and didn’t take the test,” she said. “I definitely feel like AP Literature class and preparing for AP Language helped strengthen my writing skills, so I was well-prepared for college.”

U. Kansas Medical Center works to develop men’s birth control

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 02:04:31 +0000

Birth control pills aren’t just for women, according by Dr. Joseph Tash, director of the interdisciplinary center for male contraceptive research and drug development at U. Kansas Medical Center. Tash has received national attention for his research in advancement in contraceptives.

The Kansas City Star reported on the research done by Tash as well as several McClatchy newspapers nationwide and the Canadian public broadcasting network. The Colbert Report also ran a clip about it, according to C. J. Janovy, director of communications at KU Medical Center. “This is obviously a topic of wide interest,” Janovy said.

For over a decade, Tash and collaborators developed a compound that blocks sperm production and was originally part of a cancer treatment. The side effects from this included infertility.

The term “infertility” may seem scary, but if men are taking the pill and decide they want to conceive, they stop taking the pill.

“It’s not only 100 percent effective, but 100 percent reversible, which is the holy grail of a contraceptive,” Tash said.

The drug has seen effectiveness and safety for testing in mice, rabbits and most recently, primates. The animal testing has also shown the offspring produced by former users of the drug are normal and without mutation.

Tash’s team is preparing for its first meeting with the FDA to begin human testing, which will begin in another year or two. The length of time needed for approval is unclear, given the unique non-hormonal nature of the drug.

“We are going to be paving new areas, even with the FDA,” Tash said.

Valentine Agbor, a graduate student from Kumba, Camaroon, is working in a collaborating research lab that is focused on disrupting a protein related to sperm development as another form of non-hormonal male contraceptive. While Agbor’s work is still preparing for animal testing, Agbor sees the importance of increased options for male contraceptives.

“By producing more male birth control, it’s going to help males contribute to family planning,” Agbor said.

The development of these drugs could potentially impact the world, said Tash. Tash cited that half of all pregnancies are unplanned and in the US, half of those unplanned pregnancies occurred while under supposed use of contraceptives. Tash recently presented to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation as an expert in contraception.

“The simpler a contraceptive is to use, the more desirable and easy it is to distribute and use,” Tash said.

Climate change can affect animal size, research shows

admin — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 20:56:50 +0000

Researchers led by scientists from U. Florida and U. Nebraska recently found a link between animals’ body size and global temperatures.

The researchers’ study, released Feb. 24 in Science magazine, shows that as temperatures increased, the size of the earliest horses decreased.

“Especially on a specific scale, what we’ve shown is climate can influence the evolution of mammals in a direct way,” said Johnathan Bloch, co-author and Florida Museum of Natural History associate curator of vertebrate paleontology.

Sifrhippus, the earliest known horse, first appeared about 56 million years ago. The horse lived during a 175,000-year span of global warming, Bloch said.

During this period, temperatures rose about 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Horses started out about the size of miniature schnauzers, Bloch said. The researchers used the teeth to measure body size evolution.

The research traced the evolution of the 12-pound horse as it shrank to about 8 pounds — the size of a small house cat, he said. Then the horse’s weight climbed to about 15 pounds.

The size change corresponds to global warming and subsequent cooling.

Researchers also sampled oxygen and carbon atoms with varying masses in the tooth enamel of Coryphodon, which are hoofed animals associated with water environments.

Scientists have a better record of them, said co-author and UF anthropology professor John Krigbaum. The Coryphodon were sampled to get a measure of relative shift in climate.

Krigbaum said masses of the atoms were used to evaluate the changing environment and the animals’ changing diet.

He said the tooth size and atom mass changed similarly over time.

Bloch said it was about seven years ago when co-author Stephen Chester, a UF undergraduate at the time, measured horse teeth and found they weren’t the same size for the whole period. He said it was an obvious pattern as they collected more data.

“It was the first key there was something going on we didn’t know about,” Bloch said.

Movies influence teen drinking, research finds

admin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:20:40 +0000

Teenagers who watch movies with scenes depicting alcohol consumption are twice as likely to begin drinking as those who are not exposed to on-screen drinking, according to a study conducted by researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. The study has attracted attention from multiple national news outlets such as Fox News and U.S. News and World Report.

The study began in 2000 as a survey of teens in northern New England, according to James Sargent, a pediatrics professor at Dartmouth Medical School and one of the leading authors of the study.

“The thing that’s striking about our research is how strong the data is across studies and across study designs,” Sargent said.

The study — which surveyed 6,500 participants between the ages of 10 and 14 in the U.S. — regularly quizzed adolescents over a two-year period about levels of alcohol consumption and potential sources of influence, including movies and marketing, home environment, peer pressure and personal rebellion.

The study’s authors randomly selected 50 movies from the top 100 U.S. box office hits in each of the past five years, as well as 32 films that had grossed more than $15 million in the first quarter of 2003, the survey’s first year, according to DHMC’s website.

Coders charted the number of seconds of on-screen alcohol use in each of these movies, as well as alcoholic beverage product placement. The researchers found that the adolescents had viewed approximately 4.5 hours of on-screen alcohol use on average, with many viewing more than eight hours.

The participants who had been exposed to the most on-screen alcohol use were twice as likely as their peers to begin drinking, according to the study. They were also 63 percent more likely to progress to binge drinking.

Product placement in films plays a large role in motivating teens to drink, according to the study.

While product placement for cigarettes has been forbidden in the U.S., it is “legal and commonplace” for alcohol companies to promote their products in films, the study says. Drinking scenes, however, should be subjected to the same scrutiny as cigarette product placement, according to the study’s authors.

Dartmouth psychology professor Todd Heatherton said the researchers’ findings reflect the intentions of marketing, built on the premise that the portrayal of certain behaviors can influence consumers.

“I do think it’s very interesting, though, and a little bit scary, for parents especially to know how much the media can affect a child’s behavior,” Heatherton said.

In addition to documenting the effects of on-screen alcohol consumption, researchers found that teens with friends who drank, felt the need to rebel or owned branded merchandise featuring the name of a beer, wine or spirit company were also more likely to begin drinking and then progress to binge drinking.

The study’s authors also found that parent drinking habits and availability of alcohol in the home were motivators for teens to drink, but did not necessarily cause them to progress to binge drinking.

Students interviewed by The Dartmouth said the results of the study were compelling.

“I think growing up and seeing parents have a glass of wine at dinner encourages kids to have an image of alcohol that leads them to think of drinking as something to be done in an adult, composed situation,” Bridget Shaia said.

Shaia said the results of the study are not surprising given the “powerful” role television and movies can play on influencing young people’s decisions.

The study was published on Feb. 20 in the online medical journal BMJ Open.

Cheaper natural gas reduces carbon emissions, study says

admin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:58:36 +0000

The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants in 2009 can be explained by a fall in the price of natural gas, according to an article published last month by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The power generation sector, which typically accounts for 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, reduced its greenhouse gas output by 8.76 percent in 2009 relative to 2008, according to the research.

The study found that most of this reduction could be attributed to a shift from coal to natural gas—a change driven by a decrease in gas prices.

“Generating one kilowatt-hour of electricity from coal releases twice as much CO2 to the atmosphere as generating the same amount from natural gas, so a slight shift in the relative prices of coal and natural gas can result in a sharp drop in carbon emissions,” said Michael B. McElroy, the study’s lead researcher, in a press release.

McElroy, an environmental studies professor, published the article with postdoctoral researcher Xi Lu and applied math alumnus Jackson S. Salovaara in the most recent issue of Environmental Science and Technology.

The researchers developed an econometric model that divided the nation into nine different regions to account for differences in the price and patterns of power generation and usage.

Lu said that the study’s results suggest important implications for U.S. environmental and energy policy.

For example, Lu said that even a modest tax on carbon emissions could push power plants to switch to gas, which would further reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Although a carbon tax would affect power plants that use both coal and gas, the higher carbon dioxide output of coal usage would give plants a financial incentive to switch.

Lu said, however, that the article did not fully address the methods used to extract natural gas.

“The main driver of the price decrease in 2009 was from shale gas,” said Lu, referring to natural gas trapped in shale deposits and extracted through the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

“We are not in a position to defend shale gas as cleaner,” Lu said about lifetime-cycle greenhouse gas emissions. “It’s a very controversial topic. Some papers argue that shale gas is cleaner than coal, but other people have the opposite opinion.”

In addition to the desirable effects of decreasing carbon dioxide emissions, the article cited several other advantages of using natural gas, regardless of extraction technique. According to the research, those benefits include lower emission rates of other pollutants such as mercury and higher overall efficiency in the power sector.

“The advantage of an increase in the supply of natural gas and an associated decrease in the price of the gas relative to coal is clear,” the study said.

Study shows break-through in birth control option for men

admin — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:30:39 +0000

Female birth control pills have been readily available for the past 50 years, and men have often faced little responsibility when it came to their roles in pregnancy prevention. But after more than 40 years of research, a male birth control pill may soon give men the chance to be more active in family planning.

Researchers of the U. Kansas Medical Center have a non-hormonal contraceptive pill for men in the works. Joseph Tash, reproductive biologist at the center, said he began his studies in the late 1960s after noticing how all reproductive responsibility fell upon the female.

“I felt it was one-sided, and if I could do something to develop a male pill that would help the situation I would,” Tash said. “I’ve been working on it since.”

During the past 10 years, Tash and his research team have been experimenting with a pill that could potentially change the role of contraceptives.

“We are targeting a variety of different aspects of male reproduction that ultimately prevent the sperm from either getting to the egg or being produced, period,” Tash said.

This method employs the use of H2-gamendazole, a compound that stops sperm from developing in the testes. Derived from an anticancer drug, Tash said gamendazole prevents mature, competent sperm from ever producing.

The new drug development has no effects on the male’s hormonal system, which is dissimilar than that of the female birth control pill. The female pill uses hormones to prevent ovulation; tricking the brain into thinking it had already ovulated, thus turning off egg production.

There have been attempts with hormonal methods for men, but unlike women, shutting down the reproductive system is a little more complicated. While women make one egg each month, men produce about 1,000 sperm every second, said Ajay Nangia, urologist at the center and researcher alongside Tash.

“It’s a much more defined hormonal cycle that can be targeted,” Nangia said.

But giving men testosterone, like giving women estrogen and progesterone, is not as effective as one would think, Nangia said. Some men’s hormones shut down more readily than others, a factor that could be attributed to race. Researchers are unsure of why.

“The hormones that are used effect more than just the production of sperm or eggs, and this is where the side effect issues can become problematic with the hormonal approach,” Tash said. “You’re affecting more systems than just the sperm in the testes.”

But because gamendazole only targets later stages of sperm production, the pill would act as a quicker and safer method than that of a hormonal contraceptive. This also means there are minimal side effects.

Should such a pill hit supermarket shelves, will men actually take it?

Evan Hall, Kansas State U. senior in fine arts, said he’s not sure if he likes the idea of a male birth control method, but he would not completely rule out using the contraceptive.

“I think birth control is for women,” he said. “But if I wanted to be absolutely certain I wouldn’t get a girl pregnant, I would use it.”

Nangia conducted a study of around 300 people in the Kansas City area to gauge social acceptability of a male contraceptive. What he found is that peoples’ responses were dependent on the stage in their life and stability within relationships.

“Ninety-plus percent of both men and women agree that it’s a joint responsibility,” Nangia said. “It’s the responsibility that women have felt all along; that they need to take control and take charge but they have other issues that they also, both male and females in their college years, have to be considerate of, which is STD prevention.”

Jordan Louis, KSU junior in elementary education, said a new birth control method for men takes away built-up pressure for women. Too often, she said, guys blame the female if their birth control fails. Now, men will be held equally responsible.

Such a pill is required to hold promise for being safe, effective and, also importantly, reversible. The center has begun its discussions with the Food and Drug Administration and is currently in pre-clinical status. However, Tash said he is ready to approach them regarding what additional studies need to be completed before human trials.

“It has to be very effective,” Nangia said. “One hundred percent if at all possible; 100 percent reversible and no side effects. That’s a high bar to aim for.”

Safety is the main factor in if the FDA will grant human trials. As of now, Tash is ready to present his extensive safety data, but additional safety tests will ultimately be required to determine any possible side effects.

The amount of time it will take for gamendazole to complete all phases will be determined by the administration. However, Tash said he hopes that the research between the center and the department of urology will lead to human clinical trials within the next few years.

Rich people are more likely to behave unethically, study finds

admin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:57:53 +0000

Wealthy individuals are more likely to engage in unethical behavior, a new study from U. California-Berkeley and U. Toronto researchers suggests.

The study – which was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal – found that those in higher social classes are more likely to engage in behaviors such as cheating, stealing and lying, due to being “less generous and altruistic” than their counterparts in lower social classes.

“These findings suggest that it is the people who occupy relatively high levels of wealth and rank in society who are more inclined to favor greed and behave unethically, whether that means breaking the law while driving, keeping extra change given to you at a coffee shop, lying to another person in the service of self-interest or even cheating in games,” said Paul Piff, a UC Berkeley doctoral student in psychology and lead author of the study, in an email.

In the first and second of seven separate studies conducted within the overarching study, researchers found that individuals in more expensive vehicles were more likely to cut off other drivers and pedestrians with right of way.

The rest of the studies required participants to report their socio-economic statuses and take surveys about various scenarios in which moral dilemmas appeared. Across the board, results showed that those from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to take valued goods from others, lie in negotiations, cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize and endorse unethical behavior at work than their lower class counterparts.

The study suggests that the tendency for wealthy participants to engage in unethical behavior may stem from several factors. Members of the upper class have more privacy and independence in their professions and therefore associate less risk with unethical behavior than others may, according to the study. They also have more resources to handle any possible repercussions of such behavior, the study states.

The findings also suggest that the trend may exist because upper-class individuals view greed in a more positive light than others do.

After being encouraged to think of the positive aspects of greed in the final portion of the study, lower class participants were as likely as their wealthier counterparts to engage in unethical behavior.

“Upper-class individuals, who may be more likely to serve as leaders in their organizations, may … be more likely to have received economics-oriented training and to work in settings that hone self-interest,” the study states. “These factors may promote values among the upper class that justify and even moralize positive beliefs about greed.”

Piff conceded that there are exceptions to the findings, but maintains that the general trend – one that he says may have contributed to the country’s current economic turmoil – remains consistent.

“There are important exceptions to our findings — for instance, the notable philanthropy of super rich individuals like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — but in general, what we find in the lab resonates with patterns observed in timely political events, from scandalous acts of insider trading to the unethical acts committed by financiers in the times leading up to the recent financial meltdown,” Piff said in the email.

The “Orgasmatron”

admin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:06:36 +0000

For most, Cupid is a naked baby with feathered wings who shoots arrows into unsuspecting victims, making them instantly fall in love with one another. Cupid, however, may now come in more than one form. Scientists in North Carolina and in the United Kingdom recently have been developing technological versions of the Roman deity: implanted “sex chips” in both the brain and the waist. These experimental implants have come to the scientific forefront during the past three months, raising a variety of sexual possibilities, questions and concerns.

After studying an experiment in which a chip was implanted into a woman significantly increased her sex drive, Oxford U. Senior Fellow Morten Kringelbach started researching the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain behind the eyes that derives pleasure from activities such as eating and sex. He eventually found that the orbitofrontal cortex could be a “new stimulation target” for those who suffer from anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure from events that would normally induce it. A small, surgically implanted chip could help those suffering from the condition, and Tipu Aziz, Kringelbach’s colleague and a professor of neurosurgery at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, has stated that he has high hopes for the technological development becoming an accessible reality during the next decade.

Implanting such a sex chip requires connecting a wire from a heart pacemaker to the brain. Although Aziz said the procedure is “intrusive and crude,” future scientists may have the ability to create a chip that would be controlled by a handheld device. It could have great implications for therapy, helping those who normally cannot experience pleasure without this form of outside stimulation, he said in The Sunday Times, a British newspaper.

Belinda Overstreet, counseling and psychological services psychologist at U. Virginia’s Student Health Center, also said she believes such a device could be effective in terms of therapy. “If [the device] is used for someone who is having sexual problems because of illness or injury, I think it could be helpful as long as it is something people in a relationship are talking about, is included in discussions of what is problematic in the relationship and how this would be an improvement,” she said, noting that the possibility for chip implant abuse exists.

The chip also has made its way to the United States, albeit by accident. In North Carolina, Dr. Stuart Meloy recently has been developing a chip he trademarked the “Orgasmatron,” mimicking the fictional machine in Woody Allen’s 1973 comedy “Sleeper.” According to the Los Angeles Times, Meloy made his discovery when he inadvertently implanted electrodes into the incorrect position on a patient’s spine for a pain in her leg — and she suddenly had an orgasm.

Meloy’s study, published in the Journal of the Neuromodulation Society, followed the implantation of a chip approved for bladder control in 11 different women, some of whom have never had an orgasm.

In this study, two electrodes were placed between the women’s spines and the vertebrae. With handheld remotes, the women controlled varying degrees of electronic pulsing that stimulated a variety of nerve networks, particularly nerves near the pelvis that enter the spinal cord via the tailbone.

The device was able to sexually stimulate 10 of the 11 women. Four out of five women who had never had an orgasm received some pleasurable stimulus from the chip but were still unable to oragasm. The fifth woman did not use the device because of work-related stress, she said. Meloy speculated that perhaps the women could not orgasm because the foundations required for having an orgasm were not there in the first place. Similarly, those who had regained their ability to orgasm lost it again without the chip, he told the Los Angeles Times.

Men, who had experienced erectile dysfunction in the past, also participated in the study. They not only had the ability to maintain an erection, but also experienced a powerful ejaculation, according to Meloy’s report. Meloy said these results, paired with the results from the women who were having trouble achieving an orgasm, suggest that these types of implanted devices have the potential to rehabilitate those who physically cannot experience pleasure, supporting Aziz’s claim about such a device’s potential for therapy.

Meloy’s procedure, which he said he believes could be approved by the Food and Drug Administration in two or three years, would cost about $12,000 for those who would want such a device for nonmedicinal purposes.

Overstreet said she is not too worried about the chip detracting from the emotional aspect of relationships, especially if used as directed.

“If it’s hedonistic and not with the desire to do something helpful for the relationship then I don’t think it’s any different than casual sex,” Overstreet said. “There isn’t a desire to build a relationship from that.”

It comes as no surprise that the introduction of the philosophical concept of predetermination into the physical realm — in the sense of being able to generate orgasms almost at will — could create controversy. While some may encourage this type of sexual research for positive rehabilitation, correction or therapy, others may be wary of the potential for abuse, both physically and emotionally.

Study explores internet use

admin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:31:06 +0000

Many of the online search, information evaluation, and creation skills that shape students’ academic activity are actually developed in their personal and social lives, according to a study conducted by The Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The two-year study on the intersection of youth, digital media, and information quality is the first formal analysis of these issues.

“If you look at online safety or privacy stuff, I think schools have already started to respond to that quite a bit,” said Urs Gasser, executive director of The Berkman Center and principal researcher for its Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality study. “But here, where arguably it’s as critical a skill to find stuff online and have to sort through it and make judgments about the quality, that’s still not even on the radar. That’s the finding that bothers me the most.”

Gasser said that an important first step is for educators, administrators, students, and parents to start a conversation about information quality and Internet use both in and out of school.

“The system has to work with students about how they use and interact with information…as opposed to being led to junk and just saying, ‘You’re on your own to figure out what’s good and what’s bad,’” said June A. Casey, a Harvard Law School Research Librarian who collaborated on the study.

Casey suggested that education about classifying high quality information should be seamlessly integrated into curricula and that after spending 10 to 15 minutes searching for information, students should ask a research librarian for help.

However, some schools are limiting access to potentially useful information, making rules or using URL blacklists to restrict student access to certain websites at school. According to Gasser, students use many of those sites to find information. Even teachers have pushed back against such rules. In August, the Missouri State Teacher’s Association sued the state for trying to ban social networking between teachers and students.

“You basically cut off this very important activity and reinforce the delegation to the personal and social space outside of school instead of trying to incorporate it and have conversation around it,” Gasser said.

Just this month, several website publishers that direct resources to lesbian, bi-sexual, gay, and transgender youth sued a school district for filtering its content as inappropriate for “sexuality” while allowing access to anti-LGBT materials labeled under “religion.”

Instead of creating laws or rules that mandate Internet usage, Gasser recommended that policy-makers help schools develop innovative approaches and curricula to incorporate digital technology and ensure that they have the requisite resources.

The Berkman Center’s Youth and Media lab has already built and tested five curriculum modules focused on information quality and hopes to continue it’s research.

“This is a starting point, this report, and I hope it stimulates a discussion within the research community,” said Gasser. “This is an important as well as interesting topic.”

Study shows diet soda is associated with vascular risk factors

admin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:59:21 +0000

It seems harmless, but a recent study shows that diet soda could be risky for your heart.

For ten years, researchers from U. Miami and Columbia U. followed about 2,500 New Yorkers who were over age 40 and had never had a stroke before the study.

The participants declared their soda-drinking habits before the study, and researchers contacted the participants about changes in their health each year. The participants who drank diet soda daily were most likely to experience a stroke or heart attack than the other participants.

The study that was published Jan. 27 showed that daily diet soda consumption was associated with more vascular risk factors.

The vascular risk factors are linked to metabolic syndrome. U. Kentucky HealthCare cardiologist Alison Bailey described metabolic syndrome as a “constellation of everything bad.”

Metabolic syndrome includes high blood pressure, obesity, low HDL (heart protective) cholesterol, high triglycerides (fat) and high glucose.

“We know that your risk in developing cardiovascular disease over your lifetime is related to the number of risk factors you have,” Bailey said. “All of these things are risk factors.”

Bailey said it’s unknown whether something in the soda causes the risks or if people who drink more soda have unhealthy lifestyles. She said she believes it’s a combination of both.

“A lot of people will have a high-fat meal, or high-calorie meal, and grab a diet soda and think it equals out,” she said.

Bailey said some studies show that diet soda’s artificial sweeteners, which taste sweeter than sugar, can lead to more sugar cravings. She said when people eat sugar, they tend to eat more of it because it takes more sugar from other sources to satisfy the brain.

Bailey quit drinking diet soda a year and a half ago and lost ten pounds without changing any other habits. She said she doesn’t crave sweets as much and feels healthier.

Keith Parrott, a UK junior, said he drinks about three diet sodas daily and often craves sugar.

“Not having that extra sugar makes you want to get more sugar from another source,” Parrott said. “I could see where it would make you want to drink regular pop or eat chocolate cake or something like that.”

Amanda Kirby, a UK freshman, said she quit drinking soda for seven months. After having just one, she started drinking it again.

“I just drank one and then I just couldn’t stop,” she said. “They’re really good, but I just know they’re bad for you.”

She quit drinking soda again in January and said she can see a difference in weight.

“Whenever I drink more soda, I just don’t feel like exercising,” Kirby said. “I don’t feel like doing anything.”

She said she feels better and makes healthier choices overall when she doesn’t drink soda.

Bailey said if diet soda can’t be proven bad, it definitely can’t be proven good. She said water is the best choice.

However, Bailey said completely giving up soda might not be necessary.

“Moderation is key to everything in life,” she said. “I think if you drink one diet soda a week or one regular soda a week, you’ll be fine.”

Bailey said maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, avoiding cigarette smoke and eating a healthy diet – vegetables, fruits, whole grains and lean protein sources – is how to have a healthy heart.

Fear can make items appear bigger than they are, study finds

admin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:50:25 +0000

The more afraid someone is of a spider, the bigger they estimate the spider’s size, according to new research from Ohio State U.

In a study published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, a group of psychologists recruited 57 people who were clinically afraid of spiders to interact five times with tarantulas, which were in uncovered glass tanks. Participants were asked how afraid they were on a scale from 0 to 100 after standing 12 feet away from the spiders and after touching the spider with an 8-inch or shorter probe.

Afterward, they were taken away from the tarantulas and asked to draw a line on a sheet of paper representing how big they thought the tarantula was.

“Some people drew lines up to two times as big as the spider was,” said Michael Vilensky, co-author of the study and graduate student researcher at Ohio State U. “The average fearful person did not overestimate the size of the spider, but the very fearful did.”

He said the new research shows there may be a link between the parts of the brain that control visual connection and the parts that control fear and anxiety.

“When you start feeling afraid, that fear system starts talking to your visual perception. It is telling the brain to get away from there,” he said.

U. Oregon psychology professor Paul Dassonville said the study is similar to previous research that found people who are afraid of heights tend to overestimate the height of a balcony.

“It’s not surprising that our emotions affect our perceptions,” Dassonville said. “People have the general perception that when they look at the world, they see it how it is, but that’s been proven not to be true.”

He cited other studies that have found people overestimate the steepness of a hill depending on how tired they feel. With the new research on phobias, he said psychologists are finding more about how the brain can be fooled by context.

Vilensky said his team has already conducted follow-up studies; in one study, researchers found that people overestimated the size of a spider even while they were looking at it. He also said that fear made people overestimate the size of other objects, such as a block or a plastic flower.

“When someone’s afraid, it’s almost like this magnification effect happens, and they start seeing things differently,” he said.

Research successful in DNA binding, possible uses include HIV treatment

admin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:37:57 +0000

Chemists from U. Texas have developed a DNA-targeting molecule that could change the future of treating genetic conditions such as HIV.

The molecule is able to bind to specific DNA sequences by threading itself through the DNA double helix and was reported to have the longest dissociation half-life recorded to date, according to the report. The study outlining the process of developing the molecule was released Sept. 25, 2011. Interest in finding a molecule that targets DNA has been a subject of interest in the scientific community for many years, said Amy Rhoden Smith, UT chemistry graduate student and contributing author to the study.

“It started quite a few years ago,” Rhoden Smith said. “Basically we’ve made a molecule that can wind itself around the DNA the way a snake might climb a ladder. The thing that made the paper so interesting was once the molecule finds its binding site, it takes an incredibly long time for it to be able to come back out.”

The molecule was reported to have a dissociation half-life of 16 days, she said. Development of a molecule with the capability to target DNA sequences and bind to them for such a long period of time is a significant achievement, Rhoden Smith said.

“With this type of study we showed that we can make a molecule that will sit and stay there tightly in biological time frames that are very significant,” Rhoden Smith said. “A lot can happen in 16 days with cell reproduction, etcetera. This type of therapy can work in the future.”

The long-term goal of the molecule is to find potential cures for genetic disorders, including HIV, she said. The ability to combat these disorders at the DNA level is an important step in finding such a cure, said contributing author Brent Iverson, professor and chair in the UT Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

“The AIDS genetic information is encoded into the cells of the patient,” Iverson said. “To be able to truly attack that, you have to go after the DNA itself. Long term, you’re trying to create therapies that modulate what happens with DNA. You’re basically attacking the problem at its source.”

The next step is to continue trying to extend the amount of time the molecule is bonded to the DNA, Iverson said.

“Sixteen days isn’t enough,” Iverson said. “The important thing is to be able to interact with the DNA for a long period of time. You don’t want to treat people for an hour. You have to treat them over a long period of time.”

UT biochemistry senior Joshua Hays said he believes the development of the molecule will help treat some disorders faster than other vaccines.

“I’ve heard about the research targeting HIV DNA, and how it activates the replication of the virus,” Hays said. “It seems like good research.”

Iverson said although the development of the molecule is a positive accomplishment, there is still much to be done.

“It’s really premature to really talk about its impact,” Iverson said. “It’s one milestone among many. There are a whole lot of things that have to fall into place before this has a significant effect. We’re not even almost there, but we have taken an important step.”

Highly effective teachers have long-term impacts on students, study suggests

admin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:05:41 +0000

An education study co-authored by two Harvard professors found that top teachers increase students’ lifetime income and standard of living, confirming the commonly-held belief that a single teacher can transform a student’s life.

According to the study, high value-added teachers—or those in the top 5 percent as measured by test scores—produce students who are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, live in better neighborhoods, and save for retirement. The students are also less likely to get pregnant as teenagers.

The study, titled “The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood,” was published in December by Economics professor Raj Chetty and Kennedy School assistant professor John N. Friedman and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia.

The research examined 18 million 3rd through 8th grade test scores in English and math drawn from 1989 to 2009 and compared the data with tax records to determine outcomes. A teacher’s “value-added” was determined by averaging his or her test score gains during the academic year, and the scores were adjusted for differences such as students’ previous scores.

The data was obtained from a large, diverse public school district that encompasses neighborhoods of differing socioeconomic statuses, Friedman said.

The research suggests that value-added assessments of teachers effectively predict long-term outcomes.

According to the study, “Replacing a teacher whose VA is in the bottom 5 percent with an average teacher would increase the present value of students’ lifetime income by more than $250,000” on average.

“If you’re concerned about growth, especially in a global economy, you’re concerned about making U.S. workers competitive,” said Chetty. “Investing in education, especially at the elementary level, makes a lot of sense.”

The study’s findings add to the debate over education spending and reform.

Friedman said that teachers should be evaluated like other high-earning professionals.

“If we want to pay teachers $100,000, we should treat them like people in other professions that are getting paid six figures,” he said. “We should evaluate performance, we should give feedback, we should improve them as much as possible, we should richly reward those who are successful, and we should improve performance among those who are not doing so well.”

Yet Friedman noted that test scores not the only means of evaluation.

He suggested combining tests scores “with other things like principal evaluation, classroom observation, peer evaluation, and student evaluation” in order “to put together as rich and as accurate a picture of each teacher as you can.”

The study’s findings have attracted significant attention, and was the subject of a column in the New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof.

Allison R. Kimme, Director of Advocacy at Harvard Students for Education Reform, said the study shed light on the importance of effective teachers.

“People don’t realize that teachers have these long-term effects on students,” Kimmel said. “We think that teachers matter for one year to make sure students master content, but great teachers are able to affect people’s lives long after they leave the classroom.”

Study links urge to pee with impairment

admin — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:08:22 +0000

“They made it to the bathroom, but it was a pretty ugly scene,” said Peter Snyder, Brown U. professor of neurology. “There was a bit of some pushing to get into the stalls.”

Snyder was not describing a frat house on a Saturday night or the mad dash for the ladies’ room during the intermission of a lengthy play. Instead, he was talking about his study, which took one afternoon, cost less than $2 and ultimately won him and his team a 2012 MSNBC Weird Science award. The study also caught the eye of the team of Nobel Laureates who determined the winners of the 2011 Ig Nobel Prizes, designed to “honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think,” according to their website.

Snyder’s research showed that the painful need to urinate causes levels of cognitive deterioration on par with staying awake for 24 consecutive hours or having a blood alcohol content level of 0.05, just shy of the legal limit for driving.

But Snyder did not set out to determine the effects of a full bladder. In order to test the effects of drugs on people’s mental capabilities, Snyder’s team was trying to design cognitive tests that would resist the “practice effect” — the improvement that subjects show after being tested multiple times in the same day.

But a test that avoids the practice effect still must be able to measure small changes in cognitive performance.

Using pain to affect cognition is an old idea, Snyder said, but his team was the first to ask people to withhold their urine. Snyder and his colleague, Paul Maruff, came up with this idea after realizing that “the urge to void” is not only painful but is also easily relieved and cheap, Snyder said. The entire study cost around $1.25, far less than the thousands of dollars his usual brain-imaging research requires.

Snyder and his team ran the study on eight individuals, who each drank 250 milliliters of water every 15 minutes until they reached their “breaking point,” where they could no longer hold their urine. As subjects’ self-reported pain levels increased, so too did their levels of cognitive impairment as measured by simple tasks on the computer that tested attention and working memory.

Snyder said the results reflect the anatomical organization of the underlying neural networks that are involved in modulating pain and sustaining concentration — two networks he said are close together.

Geert Crombez, a professor of health psychology at Ghent U. in Belgium who researches how pain affects cognition, described Snyder’s study as “weird, but fascinating” in an email to The Herald.

“It is in line with our theoretical model, which essentially states that there are some basic motives that demand urgent action,” he wrote. “These urges interrupt and call for additional attentional resources. They also need to be controlled at the expense of cognitive resources.”

The study’s results have real-world implications Snyder and his team did not anticipate. “We didn’t set out to really talk about the risk of driving when you really need to break to go to the bathroom,” he said. “Honestly, this didn’t occur to us, that it’s the same as drinking until you are too drunk to drive.”

Since publishing the study, he said he has heard from truck drivers who have experienced first-hand cognitive impairment from needing to pee. “At least three or four people who are either truck drivers themselves or are related to truck drivers have told me that they almost killed themselves because they weren’t paying attention when they had to go so badly,” he said.

Since winning the Ig Nobel Prize last year, Snyder has added a “Dubious Honors” section to his resume. “If you can’t laugh at what you do sometimes, then there’s a problem,” he said.

Study: Narcissistic men are at higher risk for health problems

admin — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:04:18 +0000

You’re so vain.

You probably think this article is about you. And it might be.

A new study conducted by researchers at U. Michigan and U. Virginia suggests narcissism might be especially detrimental to men’s mental and physiological health, more so than for women.

“Prior work shows that narcissism is associated with relationship problems, but seemed to have no negative consequences for narcissists,” said study co-author Sara Konrath, an assistant research professor at U. Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

Studies showed people with narcissism might have trouble maintaining trusting relationships, but they appear mentally healthy on a number of other self-report measures, according to Konrath.

“They score lower in depression and anxiety,” she said, “and higher in happiness and self-esteem, compared to people who are less narcissistic.”

However, Konrath’s study examined what is going on “under a man’s skin.”

“Narcissists actually have more stress hormones floating around in their veins,” she said, “which has implications for their long-term health if this physiological state of ‘high alert’ goes unacknowledged.”

So, men’s health is more at risk.

These implications pertain to cardiovascular wellness because the stress hormone cortisol can lead to high blood pressure and heart problems, especially in narcissistic males, Konrath said.

The researchers tested 106 undergraduate students, 79 females and 27 males, to determine whether a person had an “unhealthy” or “healthy” narcissism score.

Participants first provided a saliva sample to measure the level of basal cortisol in their bodies. Basal cortisol concentrations measure peoples’ stress while they are in a resting, or non-stressed state, according to Konrath.

After two assessments, the basal cortisol revealed how overactivated people’s physiological stress systems were, even when in a non-stressful environment.

Some studies examine how cortisol levels are affected by stressors, but the researchers were only testing cortisol at its baseline, Konrath said.

She said there isn’t a determining factor for “abnormal” cortisol, but higher baseline scores seem more detrimental if they are maintained for a long period of time. High levels of cortisol are linked to negative health outcomes, such as poor cardiovascular health.

The participants took a 40-question narcissism personality test with responses such as, “If I ruled the world it would be a better place,” and “The thought of ruling the world frightens the hell out of me.”

The total number of narcissistic responses were summed together, with higher scores indicating higher levels of narcissism. The study also examined whether specific narcissism traits were related to cortisol.

An unhealthy narcissism score was created by adding up the entitlement and exploitative subscales of the test. A healthy narcissism score was created by summing the leadership/authority, self-sufficiency, superiority, and vanity traits.

Konrath said that in her understanding of the terms “healthy” and “unhealthy” narcissism, the main distinction is how people see themselves versus how they treat others. The “unhealthy” narcissism can more easily cause harm to others than the “healthy” type, she said.

Narcissistic personality traits are also capable of being diagnosed as a personality disorder, according to MayoClinic.com.

“Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration,” the website says.

Kay Konz, a mental health therapist at Lincoln Behavioral Health Clinic, said personality disorders are difficult to diagnose without a comprehensive clinical interview and history based on a pattern of behavior over time. She said the researchers did not identify participants as having a narcissistic personality disorder during the study.

“A 40-item tool measuring narcissistic traits does not diagnose narcissistic personality disorder,” Konz said.

Konz said a 40-item scale measuring six different traits has obvious limitations, including using only a few questions to identify a trait. She said there was no information provided about the validity of the measure and also no control group.

“Maybe all men who have ‘unhealthy’ personality traits like aggressiveness, suspiciousness, etc., have higher cortisol levels,” she said.

While the small sample size of men compared to women did not show any sex differences, it may have been biased by coincidence, according to Konz. She said that this could have happened because it was a small sample, or may have been due to selection bias – the nature of women who agreed to participate in the study as compared to men.

Konz said people with narcissistic personality disorder are not as likely to seek therapy or stay with it, as they don’t see themselves as the problem.

“Narcissistic personality disorder is very hard to treat,” she said. “Narcissistic traits may not be.”

Konrath said there are a number of ways narcissistic males can help alleviate potential risks to their health.

“First, they can try to work on having a more realistic sense of their self-worth, but this would likely be difficult for them,” she said.

They should also work on their connections with others, she said. Social relationships are associated with a number of health benefits, and narcissists generally have low-quality relationships because they don’t value others and they aren’t afraid to make that obvious.

Konrath lastly recommended narcissistic males deal with the physiological overreactivity by finding ways to reduce stress levels.

“They may want to go to the gym more,” she said, “try out a low-key activity such as yoga or tai chi, or try a variety of mental strategies to cope with stress.”

One factor the researchers didn’t collect was sexual orientation, Konrath said. The difference in narcissism levels between heterosexuals and homosexuals would be an interesting question for future research, she added.

Konrath said future research will look into why women don’t respond physiologically to narcissism as men do.

Study shows people are more likely to lie through texting

admin — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:33:21 +0000

A study conducted by David Xu, assistant professor at Wichita State U., and Karl Aquino and Ronald Cenfetelli, professors at U. British Columbia, found that people are much more likely to lie in a text message than in any other form of audio/visual communication, according to a Feb. 1 USA Today article by Megan Gates.

The reason given was the lack of face to face contact between the two people communicating, contributing to the fact that people can plan text messages rather than concocting a cover story on the spot.

The results of the study were taken from a mock stock sale where the sellers were to intentionally lie to the buyers, according to the USA Today article. The sellers had insider information and their job was to dupe the buyer into buying bad stock over three different forms of telecommunication and an in-person meeting. Almost all buyers, 95 percent, reported lies from the text message category; the reports of sellers lying declined when it came to phone calls, video chat and in-person sales.

“Because of this anonymity there are little to no concerns with making a good appearance to the other party — which is the buyer in this setting — so they are more likely to violate the personal standpoint of honesty,” Xu said in the USA Today article.

Thomas Gould, associate professor of journalism and mass communication at Kansas State U., said that the degree of anonymity offered by texting was a key factor in why people would try to get away with lying.

“Once, in the New Yorker, there was a great visual example of this,” Gould said. “It showed a dog sitting at a computer and the caption read, ‘On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.’ That degree of being faceless appeals to people running off and doing silly things.”

Richard Harris, KSU professor of psychology, said that separation plays a key role in situations where outright lying occurs.

“Not being face to face, people would have fewer inhibitions about trying to get away with something,” Harris said. “If you don’t have to face them, it is less judgment over your nerve. You wouldn’t see their reactions and you become less accountable to the other person.”

This principle of removal from a situation seems to apply for people in situations akin to chat rooms, blogs and other forums. How does this same principle work between friends who communicate on the fly via text or social networks?

In the article about the study, Xu mentioned that participants were more upset over being lied to by text than from face to face interaction. Would it not make more sense for people to be angrier from being lied to in person?

Wei-Chun Chu, research associate in psychics, said that, to him, the results of this study make sense.

“I would be angrier if it was a lie told over a text message than something said to me in person. I usually treat something written down as being serious,” said Chu. “In text message, we are trying to communicate by saying everything in the most concise way possible, and to do that we have concise terms for saying things. That is unlike the situation when we are verbally communicating with others. Speaking face to face, people use terms much more softly.”

With this difference in how we communicate, we would also consider how we gauge people differently face to face. Chu said that when you are told a story, your reaction in each situation is noticeably different.

“If a friend told you something that sounded untrue or incorrect, your reaction would be disbelief and you would say that they must be joking to say something like that. You would give them the benefit of the doubt if they were wrong,” said Chu. “In a text message, you factor in that they took the time to contact you when you are not there with the likelihood of how much you think they are just wrong about what they said.”

More on the results of the study will be available when it is published in the March edition of the “Journal of Business Essays.”

Researchers find possible cure to AIDS

admin — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:28:40 +0000

Scientists may be one step closer on the path to finding a cure for the millions of people living with AIDS worldwide. This month researchers found that the protein SAMHD1 can slow or stop HIV growth by removing cells that form the virus.

NYU Langone Medical Center, U. Rochester Medical Center and research groups from France have worked together for five years to look into the role of SAMHD1 in contracting AIDS.

Most recently, they discovered building blocks of HIV virus disappeared when the anti-viral protein SAMHD1 was placed in an AIDS-infected cell. As a result, DNA components of the virus replicated slower or stopped replicating.

Nathaniel Landau, an NYU professor and one of the main researchers of the study, said the discovery will lead to new understandings of HIV.

“It may lead to mechanisms or ways to boost the immune systems response,” he said. “It will not cure somebody, but it will allow the immune system to control the violence [of AIDS].”

But Landau said these new findings cannot be seen as a cure for HIV.

“This tells us how the immune system tries to fight the virus and how the virus tries to escape from the immune system,” he said. “Now we have to think about how to prevent the virus from escaping. A cure for HIV will not be coming up soon.”

However, Landau said the group will research further to understand the idea of attacking the HIV infection.

Pablo Tebas, director of the adult AIDS Clinical Trials Unit research site at the University of Pennsylvania, said the study is an interesting mechanism to fight against viral infection.

“The cells of the body have developed multiple mechanisms to fight viral infections and prevent the virus for taking over,” Tebas said. “It seems that the investigators identified another protein that is part of that system.”

Sita Awasthi, a researcher of Infectious Disease Division at Penn, said finding the function in relation to HIV infection was groundbreaking.

“[The] HIV-1 field will [now] be exploring therapeutic potential of this [SAMHD1] finding in controlling HIV-1 infections,” she said.

Cell phone use associated with selfish behavior, study finds

admin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:51:42 +0000

New research from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at U. Maryland found that cell phone use may be linked to people being less likely to interact with others.

In a working paper called “The Effect of Mobile Phone Use on Pro-social Behavior,” two marketing professors and a graduate student conducted three experiments using college students in their early 20s. They found that students who used a cell phone were less likely to engage in “pro-social behavior,” which the study defined as actions intended to benefit an individual or society. The researchers think this is because cell phone use satisfies people’s need for connecting with others, which reduces their motivation to help others or volunteer.

“We had always been interested in the idea that a technology that should increase social interaction may have the opposite effect,” Rosellina Ferraro, co-author of the study, said. “We had seen some anecdotal evidence suggesting that people were using their cell phones as a way to avoid social contact.”

According to numbers from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, about 95 percent of American adults ages 18 to 24 own a cell phone. The researchers worry that the desire to help others may become a problem as the number of Americans who own a cell phone increases.

In one experiment, 197 undergraduate students were divided into two groups. One group was instructed to use Facebook for three minutes and the other group was instructed to use a cell phone for three minutes. After the time was up, both groups were shown an advertisement for a charity called, “Help the Homeless” and were asked how likely they were to volunteer at the charity. Group members who used a cell phone were less likely to volunteer than those who used Facebook.

“While social connection may be a benefit of using Facebook, many people may utilize it more for stating their status rather than connecting,” Ferraro said. “Contacts on Facebook are more diverse and diffused compared to mobile phone contacts.”

Ferraro said they plan to conduct subsequent studies on the topic and will also research whether using other social media, such as Skype and Facebook, show similar effects.

Study finds gender nonconforming children may be at higher risk for abuse

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:17:01 +0000

Harvard School of Public Health researchers recently found that one in ten children whose activity choices and interests differ from typical gender norms have a higher risk of being sexually, physically, or psychologically abused, and of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, as children or later in life.

“The message needs to go to parents that they need to find ways that they can protect and support their children if they’re gender nonconforming because the discrimination and abuse that these kids experience has lasting impacts on their health,” said lead author Andrea L. Roberts, a research associate in the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at the School of Public Health.

“Schools also need to teach tolerance and work hard to prevent bullying,” she said.

According to Roberts, past research has suggested that people are uncomfortable with gender nonconformity and may discriminate against those who fall outside of gender norms. Parents may become harsher in an attempt to change their children’s behavior to better conform to gender stereotypes.

Nearly 9,000 young adults answered a questionnaire in which they self-reported their childhood behavior and interests.

The questionnaire asked participants—whose average age was 22—to recall their experiences from before age 11, including favorite toys and games, roles they took while playing, and television or movie characters they admired or imitated.

They also answered questions about physical, sexual, or emotional abuse that they may have experienced throughout the course of their lives, and were screened for PTSD.

Roberts said that children who are considered “unusual”—including children who are disabled—are often targeted by sexual predators. Children who are gender nonconforming may also be at risk, she said.

Despite common assumptions about gender nonconformity in childhood, 85 percent of the children who were gender nonconforming identified as heterosexual as adults.

Men and women who ranked in the top 10th percentile of childhood gender nonconformity reported a higher prevalence of abuse compared with those who ranked below the median of nonconformity. Young adults who were gender nonconforming in childhood faced nearly twice the risk rate of PTSD than those who followed the norms of gender expression.

Victor G. Carrion, an associate professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, wrote in an email, “beyond screening for adverse childhood experiences, the pediatric and mental health community need to engage in policy and legislation that protects these children and educate their parents.”

Carrion acknowledged that regardless of sexual orientation or role identity, children are also vulnerable during periods in which they are exploring their identities if they do not conform to societal expectations.

“The message is tolerance, protection, and support,” Roberts said.

The nationwide study’s results were published on Monday in an online edition of Pediatrics, a research journal.

Study shows prevalence of arsenic

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:33:04 +0000

In the search for healthier food options, many people choose foods labeled “organic,” assuming that such products are both nutritious and free of toxins. However, a study by Dartmouth researchers published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives called attention to high levels of arsenic — linked to cancer, chronic diseases and negative developmental effects — in foods listing organic brown rice syrup, a common substitute for high-fructose corn syrup, as a primary ingredient. The tested foods included 17 infant formulas.

“We noticed products containing organic brown rice syrup often had very high concentrations of arsenic,” study co-author and earth sciences post-doctoral researcher Vivien Taylor said. “This led to a study of foods such as infant formulas, cereal bars and energy foods, which use organic brown rice syrup. These foods tend to be marketed to health-conscious consumers who would unintentionally be exposed to a known carcinogen.”

Concentrations of arsenic in some products were above the Environmental Protection Agency standard of 10 parts per billion for drinking water, according to the study.

Past studies by Dartmouth researchers and others have identified arsenic consumption through rice, an observation which spurred the rice syrup study by the Dartmouth Superfund Research Program, which included Kathy Cottingham, Margaret Karagas, Tracy Punshon, Taylor and lead author Brian Jackson. The team concluded that foods containing organic brown rice syrup as a primary ingredient can be a significant source of arsenic.

“By publishing these results, we hope that U.S. food standards authorities will set guidelines for arsenic in food,” Punshon, a research assistant, said. “We want to see that manufacturers using products containing processed forms of rice begin to measure the arsenic concentrations of these ingredients routinely.”

Researchers examined 17 infant formulas, 29 cereal bars and three types of energy drinks purchased from Upper Valley stores. Using plasma mass spectroscopy at the Trace Element Analysis Core facility at the College, the team compared food products containing organic brown rice syrup with similar products that did not use the syrup. The report did not specify which product brands were tested.

Of the 17 toddler formulas tested, two listed organic brown rice syrup as a main ingredient. These formulas — one dairy-based and one soy-based — were found to have arsenic concentrations 20 times greater than the formulas made without organic brown rice syrup. The concentration of inorganic arsenic averaged 8.6 parts per billion for the dairy-based formula and 21.4 parts per billion for the soy-based formula.

High arsenic concentrations in infant formula are greatly concerning, Jackson said. EPA standards for drinking water are set for full-grown adults, so the impact of these arsenic levels might be far greater for infants due to their low body weight and developing brains, he said.

“Ideally, levels for arsenic in infant formula should at least be at the drinking water level, but lower levels would probably be advisable,” Jackson said.

The researchers also examined cereal bars and energy products obtained from local markets. Twenty-two of the cereal bars listed one of four rice products — organic brown rice syrup, rice grain, rice flakes or rice flour — in the first five ingredients.

Like infant formula, cereal bars and high-energy foods containing organic brown rice syrup also had higher arsenic concentrations than those that did not contain the syrup. The cereal bars that had no rice-based ingredients ranged from 8 to 27 parts per billion of arsenic, while those containing a rice ingredient ranged from 23 to 128 parts per billion.

Compared to the potential problems with infant formula, there is minimal risk associated with eating a cereal bar every few days, according to Jackson.

Nevertheless, the research team and other biologists agree that the arsenic concentrations in foods necessitate more research as well as changes in food standard regulations.

“We need to know more about what we eat and drink,” biology professor Rob McClung said. “Hopefully we will start testing foodstuffs for contaminants — not necessarily all foodstuffs — but where scientific research suggests there are issues.”

Research professor Celia Chen suggested the potential for new research exploring the specific health effects of arsenic exposure through food and a means to limit arsenic uptake by plants.

Since the study’s publication, media and concerned parents have given its findings a great deal of consideration, according to Jackson.

“The attention is flabbergasting,” she said. “I hope that this response will be positive in helping set much needed guidelines and regulations.”

Evolving climate patterns to cause more storms, study says

admin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:50:18 +0000

Changing climate patterns could cause more storms and water surges for low-lying cities such as Boston, according to experts and a study published Feb. 14 in Nature Climate Change.

The study, “Physically Based Assessment of Hurricane Surges under Climate Change,” used climate models and two hydrodynamic models to determine the storm surge for New York under different weather conditions.

It used present and predicted climate conditions with hydrodynamic models, which create forecasts for different coastal areas to determine the risk of surge threat.

The study calculated climate change ultimately increases surge flood levels for New York, giving “an additional rationale for a comprehensive approach to managing the risk of climate change, including long-term adaptation planning and greenhouse-gas emissions mitigation.”

The study also concluded the effect of “storm climatology change” and sea-level rise would cause floods to happen more often. Flooding in New York that usually occurs only once every 100 years may occur once every 20 years.

Research over the years has predicted the average maximum winds and rainfall of tropical cyclones in a warmer climate will increase, according to the study.

But the effect of climate change on hurricane size has still not been investigated, according to the study. Some models predicted more severe storm surges than others. The regional storm frequency also affects the surge risk.

Rob Garrity, executive director of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, said he is not surprised about the new data.

“It makes a lot of sense,” Garrity said. “There is a lot more heat energy in the atmosphere due to global warming and so there will be larger storms.”

It is difficult to completely measure the impact that climate change could have on hurricane surges, according to the study, and high-resolution models of hurricane surges are expensive and limited.

Garrity said he agreed the government should be funding or sponsoring technology, but there are parts of government that have been aware of these problems for years.

“The Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant was built several feet higher to account for higher sea levels,” he said.

Garrity said Boston, as a low-lying city, is “very susceptible” to flooding.

The danger of climate change is hard for people to comprehend because it is so outside of their experience, Garrity said.

“People expect the world to work pretty much the way it always has,” he said. “They do not expect such a dramatic change within their lifetime.”

Study: High heels negatively affect walking motion

admin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:20:14 +0000

It’s a routine familiar to anyone who has stepped into heels for the night: By the time you’re on your way home, the shoes become too uncomfortable to bear, and they end up in your hands instead of on your feet.

Now, a new study uncovers what causes those heels to be so painful that they just have to come off.

Conducted by researchers at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, the study found that wearing high heels for extended periods of time entirely changes the mechanics of how women walk. Women who wore heels frequently had shorter, more forceful strides and put more strain on their muscles, caused in part by a shortening of the calf muscle fibers, according to the study.

When walking regularly, the muscles and tendons should work together to allow women to stretch each leg and stride out, Stephen Piazza, associate professor of kinesiology at Penn State U., said.

But as someone walks in high heels, the toe remains pointed downward with the heel up. The tendons are never given the opportunity to stretch out and the calf muscles remain short.

“If you walk all the time with your feet in a plantar flexed position, which is what you have to do in high heels, your muscle fibers are going to become shorter,” Piazza said. “As you’re always pointing your toes and you walk around that way for enough time the muscle learns to adapt, and it’ll become permanent.”

The tendons in the leg also store elastic energy as someone walks and stretches. As those springy tendons are doing their job it actually saves the walker metabolic energy, Piazza said. But when a person wearing high heels does not allow that tendon to stretch it becomes tight and doesn’t have the same capacity for energy storage. Instead, high heel walkers rely almost solely on their muscles, which can cause rapid muscle fatigue.

These tight tendons and shortened muscles can also cause other problems.

“If they become short and tight, they’re not as able to generate as much of contraction. There’s not much room to shorten since they’re already short,” Piazza said. “You can’t generate as much energy with your muscles when you’re walking and that’s bad because you need to generate energy when you walk and you need to be able to push off.”

To conduct the University of Jyväskylä experiment, researchers enlisted nine women who had worn high heels for 40 hours a week for at least two years and 10 women who wore high heels periodically for less than 10 hours a week.

The women were equipped with electrodes to track their muscle activity and various other attributes as they walked. According to the study, not only did strides appear shorter and choppier, and put more strain on the muscles when the women were in high heels, those who wore high heels frequently saw the same effects when walking barefoot.

With research available on the negative effects of high heels, Piazza poses a question.

“If high heels are so bad, why is there no change in usage? The reason is people think they look good in high-heels,” Piazza said. “How far are women willing to go to look good even though they’re doing damage?”

Several Penn State students came to the same general consensus — they’ll continue to wear high heels because they love how they look in them.

“It makes an outfit look better. You have to complete the look with shoes,” sophomore Danielle Weiss said.

And while they agree that high heels can be painful and potentially harmful, they’ll continue to slip their feet into them on a regular basis.

“You may pay for it later, but there’s worse stuff out there than high heels,” junior Lauren Applegate said.

Unusual pollution research studies whale earwax

admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:35:54 +0000

Whale earwax is not a topic that usually comes up on a walk to get coffee, but it did for Baylor U. researchers Dr. Stephen Trumble, assistant professor of biology, and Dr. Sascha Usenko, assistant professor of environmental science.

They were trying to answer one student’s question, which led them to recently come up with a new way to study contaminants in the ocean using whale earwax.

A student had been looking at some bowhead whale sample, and asked how to determine a whale’s age, Trumble said.

He was thinking about it during a walk to Starbucks, began discussing it with Usenko and came up with ear plugs — the built-up wax that whales develop during their lifetime.

Since whales keep their earwax in their skull from birth until death, it can act like the rings in a tree trunk for aging.

Trumble wondered if the plugs could be used for other purposes too, he said.

He called a colleague from the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and together with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History they agreed to donate some samples of ear plugs for research.

Trumble, Usenko and graduate student Eleanor Robinson discovered that by examining the wax, they can measure the whale’s exposure to pollutants and know if the contaminants affected its physiology, Trumble said.

“You have to cut it in half, shave off layer after layer, do a lot of lipid extraction,” Trumble said. “It’s not easy; it’s very tedious.”

He also said it is difficult to find samples because they have to be removed from a dead whale’s skull, while blubber can be sampled in a biopsy.

“But the ear wax gives a lifetime profile from birth to death, and blubber only gives a snapshot from the last couple months,” Trumble said.

“You can’t get something this detailed from any other living organism that I know of,” he said.

So far, the team has found several pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the wax.

Usenko said that some pesticides are natural and some are man-made, and they can travel through the environment into the oceans.

They are studying the possible correlation between these chemicals and the whales’ stress levels and physiology using cortisol, a stress hormone.

Trumble has been studying the cortisol levels to see if the increase in chemicals has an impact on the whale’s life, or if whales that migrate through shipping routes and have more contact with humans and contaminants are more stressed than normal, he said.

The main conclusion that can be drawn right now is that ear wax can be used to study the things that blubber is usually used for, Usenko said, but the researchers are hoping it will lead to more information about the chemical profiles in the environment.

Trumble has been studying the hormones in the wax. Cortisol, a stress hormone, can be measured to see if the increase in contaminants has an impact on the whale’s life, or if whales that migrate through shipping routes and have more contact with humans and contaminants are more stressed than normal, he said.

There is a finite number of samples, Trumble said, but the team is hoping to find more wax sample donors so that they can continue their research.

“We’ve already gotten the okay from national museums in London, and we’re looking at Japan and Russia,” he said. “I suspect people will try to jump on the band wagon, but we’re trying to strike the sample world now and get what we can.”

Trumble also said the researchers are entertaining the idea of doing a similar study in humans, but it will be different because humans’ ear wax is exposed to the environment and a lifetime sample can’t be obtained. They would have to study short term samples instead of a lifelong history.

Their research has been featured in Science Magazine, a national publication for the scientific world.

“It’s a unique opportunity [to be in Science],” Usenko said. “It shows that high quality research can happen at Baylor, and puts us on a national stage. It’s a big deal.”

Concealed carry prevents more crime than it creates, study says

admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:16:39 +0000

With Wisconsin’s concealed carry law being in effect for just over three months, a recent national study suggests armed citizens prevent more crimes than previously thought.

The Feb. 2 report by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C., cites roughly 5,000 news reports from October 2003 to November 2011 involving defensive gun usage. However, the authors, Clayton Cramer and David Burnett, said the actual number of cases is much higher, as many instances are not covered by the media.

“Many defensive gun uses never make the news,” the report said. “After all, ‘Man Scares away Burglar, No Shots Fired’ is not particularly newsworthy.”

Among the researchers’ findings were 285 incidents involving concealed carry licenses, 154 instances involving defensive gun use by women, and 21 cases for minors and 201 for seniors. For specific crimes, 65 carjackings saw defensive gun usage, as did 25 rapes.

The authors also said concealed carry policies on college campuses lead to a reduction in crime, using two Colorado schools as test cases. After the state enacted its concealed carry law in 2003, Colorado State U. decided to allow students to carry concealed weapons while U. Colorado prohibited them. The report found a 60 percent decrease in crime at Colorado State since 2004, while U. Colorado saw a 35 percent increase during the same time period.

“(It does not) seem likely that a would-be robber would be deterred because of stickers on the doors announcing that armed robbery is severely frowned upon by the student code of conduct,” the report said. “Conversely, a campus that allows concealed carry, and where even one student, professor, or even a member of the maintenance staff is armed, would present a much riskier target to criminals.”

The study comes just days after 35 year old Nazir Al-Mujaahid of Milwaukee shot a robber at an Aldi grocery store in what has become Wisconsin’s first major instance of a concealed carry license being used to shoot in self-defense.

The Jan. 30 incident saw Al-Mujaahid fire six or seven shots at the suspected robber, who subsequently dropped his shotgun and fled the store. According to a criminal complaint, the shotgun was not actually loaded and was just a tool to scare the cashier into giving the suspect money.

Although the grocery store posted a sign prohibiting the carrying of firearms inside, Al-Mujaahid will not be charged with violating the store’s ban.

But Ladd Everitt, director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, called the Aldi incident a best-case scenario that was an exception to what he called an otherwise dangerous concealed carry law. Everitt said the concealed carry law is dangerous because it does not have strict time requirements for training.

“How often are you going to have an outcome like this?” Everitt said. “The point is people do not have the training needed to play police officer. Do you want someone who is required to have zero hours of training to open fire in a business you are standing in, under any circumstances?”

Everitt said it was “disturbing” that Al-Mujaahid was breaking the law by bringing a gun into a prohibited location and questioned whether people applying for concealed carry permits were “the most law-abiding people in America.” Al-Mujaahid said he was unaware of the store’s gun ban and would have gone somewhere else had he known about it.

Meghan O’Leary, a junior in Marquette U.’s College of Communication, echoed Everitt’s sentiments, saying the prospect of random people carrying firearms created more opportunities for bad than good.

“By allowing people to conceal guns I don’t think it will protect people, but (it will) make things more dangerous,” O’Leary said. “I don’t feel safe knowing anyone around me could be carrying a gun.”

Cell phone use interferes with walking accuracy

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:56:06 +0000

Everyone knows the danger of texting or talking on a cell phone while driving, but a new study has found that using a cell phone while walking may hold hidden dangers as well. A study done at Stony Brook U. shows that cell phone usage in combination with walking interferes with memory recall.

In order to establish a baseline control, 33 people in their 20s were tested on their walking abilities when not using a cell phone. They were first shown a target on the floor eight meters away. Then the participants were blindfolded and asked to walk casually to where they thought the target was. The amount of time it took to reach the target and where the participant landed were recorded.

One week later, participants returned and did this exact same task, but with two additional experimental conditions. One third of the returning participants walked while texting. Another third did the same task while talking on a cell phone. The final third of the participants did the task without any changes.

Results surprised the researchers. They found that both talking and texting on cell phones were disruptive. Those who used a cell phone in either scenario walked slower and deviated from the intended target than the control group.

Participants who talked on cell phones had a 16 percent reduction in speed and a lateral deviation of 13 percent, compared to those who texted, with a 33 and 61 percent deviation, respectively.

Dr. Lamberg of Stony Brook U. explains that these results can be attributed to the fact that certain areas in the brain require conscious engagement while walking, despite the fact that it is a seemingly intuitive ability.

When one uses a cell phone while walking, areas of the brain are affected, and working memory is subsequently lessened.

However, more experimental studies with larger and more varied subjects are required to render anything conclusive.

Nonetheless, these results may be useful in helping physical therapy patients regain mobility.

In addition, this experiment can help scientists further understand why walking while using a cell phone is difficult.

Finally, these results could help with creating new and safer technology, such as voice-activated text devices, so that people can be safer not only while driving, but also when walking.

For more information on the study, it was published in the online edition of Gait and Posture.

Some tweets are not worth reading, researchers say

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:51:44 +0000

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon U., the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Georgia Institute of Technology found that Twitter users say only about a third of the tweets they receive are worth reading.

According to Twitter’s website, more than 200 million tweets are sent each day. However, most users get little feedback about the messages they send, except when their tweets are retweeted by their followers or when people opt to stop following them.

“If we understood what is worth reading and why,” said Paul André, a postdoctoral fellow in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute and lead author of the study, in a university press release, “we might design better tools for presenting and filtering content, as well as help people understand the expectations of other users.”

André worked with his colleagues — Michael Bernstein and Kurt Luther, doctoral students at MIT and Georgia Tech, respectively — to create “Who Gives a Tweet?”: a website that collects readers’ evaluations of tweets.

Those who have visited André and his team’s website were promised feedback on their tweets if they agreed to anonymously rate tweets by the users they were already following. Over a period of 19 days in late 2010 and early 2011, 1,443 visitors to the site rated 43,738 tweets from the accounts of 21,014 Twitter users they followed.

Overall, the readers liked just 36 percent of the tweets and disliked 25 percent, while another 39 percent elicited no strong opinion.
The researchers will present their work next Monday at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Seattle.

Bar, night club workers harmed by cigarette smoke

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:41:04 +0000

Airborne pollution can come in many forms, but one of the most dangerous ones is secondhand smoke. While many individuals can avoid significant exposure, employees of bars and restaurants that do not have bans on smoking are forced to work in a potentially hazardous environment.

A study done by the Johns Hopkins U. Bloomberg School of Public Health in collaboration with other institutes investigated how much secondhand smoke can really find its way into the body. Their findings were reported in the most recent edition of British Medical Journal.

From 2007 to 2009, researchers took samples from 24 bars and restaurants in America, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. They included 10 venues per city and five employees per venue. In total, 625 non-smoking and 311 smoking employees were subjected to testing to build an incredibly large and diverse study on the topic.

Locations ranged from bars right here in Baltimore all the way to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. The basis of the study looked to compute air nicotine concentrations at each location and then see if there was any correlation between that and the nicotine concentrations in the subjects’ hair, a good biomarker of nicotine presence in people.

The data collected showed that air nicotine concentrations ranged from 0.1μg/m3 to 0.7μg/m3 in non-smoking locations and from 1.5μg/m3 to 8.5μg/m3 in smoking areas, a dramatic but expected increase.

Along with samples of air quality, the researchers took samples of hair from their selected participants in order to determine if there was any correlation to higher air nicotine levels. In order to maintain consistency throughout the data, researchers went to such lengths as taking hair near the back of the scalp where hair growth is uniform amongst different people.

Researchers then utilized gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to determine hair nicotine amounts. After analyzing the results, they were able to determine that for each 1μg/m3 increase in air nicotine concentrations, hair nicotine concentration went up five percent for non-smokers and three percent for smokers.

In order to account for other possible sources of nicotine, each participant was asked a series of questions to allow researchers to make necessary adjustments for age, sex, education, living with a smoker, hair treatment, region and former smoking status.

In conclusion to their data, the researchers believe that not enough bars and restaurants have rules against smoking, which puts their very own employees at risk. The 2012 study cited research done in 1993, which found that there is about a 50 percent increase in lung cancer risk among employees in bars and restaurants compared to the general population. However, as of 2011, only 11 percent of the world’s population fell under protection of some sort of policy prohibiting smoking in bars, restaurants and nightclubs.

The study suggests that there is not enough non-smoking legislation but also recognizes the strides that have been made in recent years toward reducing the number of smoking venues. Researchers found that since 2008, over 385 million people have fallen under protection of smoke-free laws, a 6 percent increase in the world’s population that is protected. The key now is to continue that trend in order to allow employees of bars and restaurants to breathe clean air.

Study: People use ‘found time’ for play, not work

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:50:19 +0000

If people had a window of opportunity for more time off work, they would spend it on leisure activities rather than efficient actions such as studying or cleaning, according to a new economics study.

U. Texas economics professor Daniel Hamermesh co-authored a study examining how people spent their free time after a permanent cut in work hours by reviewing data from national time-use diaries from 1976-2006 in Japan and 1999-2009 in Korea. The study was completed last year and was conducted with UT alumnus Jungmin Lee and associate economic professors from Korea and Japan. Hamermesh said the study used thousands of daily time diaries from before and after the governments of Japan and Korea passed laws making it more costly for employers to use overtime work. The study examined how those keeping diaries spent the time they had free.

Hamermesh said the results showed that people spent their free time engaging in relaxing activities.

“In neither country was the extra time used to clean the house, take care of the kids, cook or shop,” Hamermesh said. “It was used for leisure and/or personal maintenance, such as grooming.”

Hamermesh said he has done much research on time use and finds the study to be a topic that has intrigued people for many years.

“It is very difficult to answer because so many things are happening at once, but this data provides the opportunity to get a clean answer,” Hamermesh said.

Although the study did not include Americans, Hamermesh said he firmly believes that Americans generally work too much and Europeans do much less work but seem happier.

Advertising senior Amanda Cummings, president of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, said she spends every day studying and is constantly doing something for her organization or taking care of her priorities. However, she said she does separate some time to collect herself after she learned that relaxation is also a key aspect of living life, as the study has shown.

“I would always be busy and would emotionally break down,” Cummings said. “Now, I find it’s important to make free time for yourself.”

Psychology sophomore Ian Bell, an officer of the Longhorn Powerlifting team, said he spends his free time working out in order to stay fit and keep busy. However, Bell said his daily routine includes about an hour of relaxation in order to keep his life balanced, which relates to the study’s conclusion that people do prefer more relaxing activities.

“Without my free time, I wouldn’t be able to work out as much as I would want to,” he said. “If you use your free time efficiently, then you can accomplish more things throughout the day and keep things from piling up.”

An in-depth view of Hamermesh’s study will be published this spring in the American Economic Review Journal.

Study: Obama mentioning climate change far less in speeches

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:03:53 +0000

Last summer, Brown U. senior Graciela Kincaid was digging around for White House budget statistics on climate finance policy as part of her Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award when she stumbled across something that caught her attention.

“I started looking at speeches online and just out of curiosity started doing word searches on them,” she said.

Poring over speeches and press releases of the Obama administration’s top officials, Kincaid compared the number of times officials referred to “climate change” versus the number of times they cited “clean energy.” Intrigued by the possibility of exploring rhetorical trends, Kincaid mentioned the project off-hand to her mentor, J. Timmons Roberts, professor of sociology and environmental studies and director of Brown’s Climate and Development Lab. Roberts encouraged Kincaid to follow through on the project, and Kincaid “was off to the races,” Roberts said.

After examining 1,908 administrative speeches delivered since January 2008, Kincaid uncovered a poignant rhetorical trend in the administration’s climate and energy references. Administrative language involving climate change had been radically swept away by optimistic talk of “clean energy.”

Comparing the number of times the word “energy” was mentioned compared to “climate” during the Obama presidency, she found an average ratio of 7.6:1, meaning for every seven times energy was referred to, climate was mentioned once. The ratio has doubled in magnitude between 2009 and 2011, according to Kincaid’s study.

“Her study is totally new, really, because nobody had tracked how much climate change was being spoken of by the administration,” Roberts said. “We all sort of noticed that he’d stopped talking about it.”

In his 2011 State of the Union address President Obama referred to energy nine times but steered completely clear of the words “climate change.”

What the president says signals his agenda and his priorities and sets the tone of the general debate, Kincaid said.

“It’s like talking the talk and walking the walk,” she added. “If he doesn’t talk about it, there’s just this silence that isn’t going to be filled.”

Obama’s change in rhetoric is largely due to the increasingly polarized political climate, Kincaid said. Climate change was mentioned most frequently in December 2009, when Obama attended the Copenhagen Summit. But the midterm elections of 2010 resulted in a stronger conservative influence in Congress, and factors such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, negative public opinion surveys and failure of cap-and-trade policies in Congress have struck a huge blow to hopes of domestic climate change policy, Kincaid said.

After analyzing her results, Kincaid offered to sell the study to several blogs but was rejected. Instead, she decided to publish her findings on the recent startup blog of the Climate and Development Lab.

“The study ended up getting a lot more attention than we thought it would,” Kincaid said. Kincaid’s article quickly became the blog’s most viewed link — and important players were noticing.

The New York Times found Kincaid’s study and tipped off several professionals at other universities, said Max Boykoff, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a research fellow at Colorado’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. After checking out the study himself, Boykoff deemed Kincaid’s systematic examination of rhetoric “constructive” and published an opinion piece entitled, “A dangerous shift in Obama’s ‘climate change’ rhetoric,” in the Washington Post Jan. 27.

“The argument I make is supported by the data (Kincaid) had gathered,” Boykoff said. “It’s only when someone systematically looks at these issues that we gain a greater appreciation for the larger patterns taking place.”

Obama’s change in rhetoric is an adaptation to political conditions in Washington D.C., Boykoff said.

“Climate change in the U.S. has become such a politically polarizing issue,” he added. “Other issues such as energy efficiency and switching to renewables actually do appeal to people across the spectrum. Maybe Obama and his staff are attuning to these trends and are adjusting their language accordingly.”

Rhetorical fine-tuning is especially important as election time nears, said Shawn Patterson ’12, president of the Brown Democrats.

“It’s hard to come out against clean energy,” he added. Obama’s move is a “bipartisan attempt to make progress in the direction he wants to go in addressing climate change,” while taking the Republican majority in the House into account. Obama doesn’t want to waste political capital on projects that aren’t going to get anywhere, Patterson said.

The political flipside is slightly more critical.

“As we get closer and closer to election time, Obama is under pressure to show that he’s actually been doing something in office,” said Terrence George, president of the Republican Club of Brown University. “I think he’s trying to push more popular things closer to election time. Global warming is still a contentious issue, but energy production isn’t quite so much.”

Kincaid said she is disappointed that Obama has never used the bully pulpit when it comes to climate change. But as she spoke with White House staffers during the course of her research, she said she was pleasantly surprised to find that climate change is a personal issue for the president.

“That made me feel good and like I wasn’t just being really idealistic in hoping that my president cared about climate change,” Kincaid said.

Kincaid’s study will be presented at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting in Denver this August. Until then, she will continue to fine-tune her study and said she is hoping to publish in a professional journal in time to “catch the wave” before election time.

Leukemia drug kills T-cells, spares immunity

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:37:47 +0000

A study published this January by dermatologists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital may transform the way physicians approach treatment for leukemic cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (L-CTCL).

L-CTCL is a cancer that affects a type of white blood cell known as the T-cell and causes damage to the skin and other organs. Once diagnosed, patients with the disease generally have a poor prognosis—with an average of three years to live.

BWH Department of Dermatology chairman Thomas S. Kupper and BWH assistant professor of dermatology Rachael A. Clark led a study which explored the efficacy of a new drug regimen to treat L-CTCL. Their report, which was published in Science Translational Medicine, showed that a low dosage of the drug Campath, or alemtuzumab, combats L-CTCL by selectively targeting cancer cells. In addition, they found that the low-dose Campath allows for treatment without increasing their patients’ risk of acquiring infections.

“Standard chemotherapies and alemtuzumab can put L-CTCL into partial or complete remission, but the disease is not curable and eventually will recur,” Kupper wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson.

Much of Clark and Kupper’s work involved understanding Campath’s interaction with the immune system, specifically T-cells. Though previously believed to kill all T-cells and B-cells—the cells at the frontline of the immune response—the researchers found that Campath actually only kills T-cells that enter the blood stream.

“The amazing thing about Campath is that it kills all the T-cells in the circulation but it doesn’t kill the T-cells in the skin,” said Clark. “They [the T-cells in the skin] are protected from the medication because they don’t circulate.”

Through the course of the study, Clark and Kupper administered Campath to patients with L-CTCL. They found that the patients improved most significantly when given low doses of the drug. In order to study the physiological effects of the drug, the researchers then took blood samples and skin biopsies. Upon examination, they found that T-cells in the skin remained greatly unaffected as the patients improved.

“We sampled their skin through skin biopsies [and] found large numbers of T-cells in the skin,” Clark said. “Here was the drug that was supposed to kill all the T-cells and yet there they were.”

With this finding, Clark and Kupper were led to further investigate the nature of these unaffected skin T-cells. Their research demonstrated for the first time that there were two types of T-cell populations in humans and validated extensive research on the migratory patterns of T-cells within tissues.

“This is still a very novel concept—a sort of paradigm shift in the way we view the immune system—but our work and that of others suggest that we need to pay very close attention to what is happening in tissues,” said Kupper.

With the publication of these ground-breaking findings, the scientists wished to acknowledge the patients who participated in their research.

“The real heroes of this work are our patients, who in spite of this devastating disease willingly and often enthusiastically donated their blood and skin biopsies for this work,” said Kupper.

Doctors’ weights linked to diagnosis for patients

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:09:14 +0000

Being “too skinny” or “too fat” has always come down to the number on the scale when a doctor is reading a patient’s body mass index. However, a recent study led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, linked patients’ weight diagnosis to the weight of their doctors.

“Our findings indicate that physicians with normal BMI more frequently reported discussing weight loss with patients than overweight or obese physicians,” the lead author of the study, Sara Bleich, said in a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health news release.

The study said that 93 percent of normal-weight doctors would likely diagnose a patient as obese if the patient’s BMI was the same or greater than their own.

Bleich, an assistant professor with the school of public health, said physicians with normal BMI have a greater confidence in their ability to provide diet and exercise counseling and perceive their weight loss advice as trustworthy when compared to overweight or obese doctors.

Only 7 percent of overweight and obese doctors were likely to report feeling the same.

The study was titled “Impact of Physician BMI on Obesity Care and Beliefs” and was published in the online research journal “Obesity.” The research was conducted from a national cross-sectional survey of 500 primary care doctors. Bleich and other researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine determined that physicians with a self-reported BMI below 25 were of “normal-weight.” Any BMI above 25 were considered overweight, and over 30 — obese.

Weight and height are used to calculate a patient’s BMI, said Dr. Nate Haecker, chief of staff of the University Health Center at U. Nebraska-Lincoln.

“The University Health Center sees many students who are obese,” Haecker said. “About one-third of U.S. adults are obese so it is a problem in all health care settings.”

Haecker said the health center probably sees slightly less obesity than a typical clinic in the community because less than 20 percent of obese patients are adolescents — a different patient population than what the UHC receives.

“But it is still a problem on college campuses,” he said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity is estimated to cost $147 billion annually in health care costs. Obesity increases a person’s risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said that only one-third of overweight and obese patients report receiving an obesity diagnosis or weight-related counseling from their physicians. In addition, an article in the Associated Press reported that many doctors aren’t talking to overweight kids about their weight, according to a study conducted by U. North Carolina.

Haecker said there wasn’t much formal education about non-surgical weight management and nutrition options for doctors when he was attending medical school. Despite this, Haecker said his years of practice have made him very comfortable about discussing obesity with his patients.

He also said that he thinks most health care providers feel obligated to practice what they preach, yet there are still lots of physicians that do a poor job of caring for their own body.

“One of the best physicians I’ve ever met was an overweight smoker but was adored by his patients and provided wonderful care,” Haecker said. “His patients appreciated the fact that he was ‘real’ and admitted to struggling with the same issues they did.”

Jason Thomas, a first-year medical student at the U. Nebraska Medical Center, said doctors who are in shape are more likely to talk to their patients about getting in shape.

“A lot of taboo things that need to be talked about are overlooked in the doctor’s office,” Thomas said.

Tyler White, a UNL senior pre-med and biology major, said that it’s tough for the doctor. He said that although he understands the weight of younger doctors coming out of medical school who work 30 to 40 hour weeks during their residency, he would have a hard time taking advice from a 35-year-old obese doctor.

“It’s frustrating for doctors when patients don’t take their advice and then repeatedly come back with more complaints,” White said. “You can’t be there every second to slap their hand away from that cookie.”

Study finds calories alone account for changes in body fat

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:56:51 +0000

The scale may not be the best way to determine obesity.

According to a recent study conducted by Louisiana State U.’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center, excess calories are the cause of fat gain, and fat gain does not always translate to weight gain.

In Pennington’s study, 25 participants aged 18 to 35 spent 10 to 12 weeks living in a monitored metabolic unit.

During the first few weeks, participants were fed a normal diet after determining a daily caloric intake level that would not change their current weights. But in the final eight weeks of the study, participants were overfed by 954 calories a day.

Study participants were assigned to one of three diets — a low protein diet containing 5 percent of calories from protein, a normal protein diet containing 15 percent of calories from protein or a high protein diet containing 25 percent of calories from protein. Carbohydrate intake was the same among all diets.

Participants were given food that met their dietary requirements, monitored to ensure everything was eaten and discouraged from exercise.

The study found that all participants gained weight over the three-month investigation period. Those assigned the low protein diet lost lean body mass, while the other two groups gained it.

Those in the low protein group gained less weight than the higher protein groups, but more of the excess calories were stored as fat.

According to the study, 90 percent of the extra energy in the low protein group was stored as fat, whereas 50 percent was stored as fat for the other diet groups.

George Bray, chief of Pennington’s Division of Clinical Obesity and Metabolism and a researcher on the study, summarized the results in an e-mail to The Daily Reveille saying, “In a controlled setting, the increase in body fat during overeating is determined by the excess caloric intake. Protein affects thermogenesis (energy expenditure) and gain of lean body mass, but not body fat.”

Bray said he and the rest of the research team were interested in the subject because they wanted to investigate ideas from past studies.

“Some earlier research suggested that if you ate a low protein diet you might ‘waste’ calories. This is clearly not the case, but it was an interesting hypothesis to test,” Bray said.

Vanessa Richard, LSU Student Health Center dietitian, said gaining body fat is dangerous because it can increase risk for chronic diseases later in life.

One could be a normal weight, or even underweight, and still have an above-normal percentage of body fat, Richard said.

“Just because someone is thin doesn’t mean their body is healthy on the inside,” she said.

Richard said body weight is not an accurate measure, as it’s impossible to determine if fat or muscle is being gained or lost. A body composition analysis is more accurate, she said.

Richard said she recommends eating consistently throughout the day and “frontloading” calories, or eating a substantial breakfast in lieu of a large dinner.

Bray recommends consuming a diet comprising 15 to 18 percent of protein, with high fruit and vegetable intake and low-fat dairy products.

The results of this study will be reviewed when the Dietary Guidelines Panel reconvenes in 2015, Bray said. The results could possibly lead to an increase in the national recommended daily protein intake.

“I’d encourage people to take the ideas from this study and apply them to their daily lives, in combination with general balanced eating,” Richard said.

Shark attack numbers down nationally, up around the world

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:20:20 +0000

An annual U. Florida report released Tuesday showed a decrease in shark attacks in the U.S. but a rise for the rest of the world.

The report found 75 instances of unprovoked shark attacks worldwide. Out of those attacks, 29 incidents happened in the United States — the lowest since 1998.

According to George Burgess, the director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, Florida has the most attacks nationwide. Burgess said Florida’s population and popularity as a tourist destination contribute to the number of attacks.

In 2011, there were 11 attacks in Florida, compared to 13 in 2010.

“You’ve got a lot of people in the water year round,” Burgess said. “The opportunities are there for interactions between the two species, and they do occur.”

Some UF students aren’t concerned with shark attacks.

Dyann Lesnever, a 19-year-old telecommunication freshman from Miami, said he visits the beach regularly.

“Before I moved to Gainesville, I used to go at least three times a month,” Lesnever said. “We always check the flags to see if there are any jellyfish, but we’ve never had reason to worry about shark attacks.”

Study: Some political stereotypes hold true for liberals and conservatives

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:40:21 +0000

Characterizing conservatives as realistic and liberals as idealistic may seem like mere stereotypes, but a new study at U. Nebraska-Lincoln found these stereotypes may hold some truth.

“We found that there is physiologically a basis for these stereotypes,” said Kevin Brian Smith, a political science professor at UNL.

Smith, along with John Hibbing, a political science professor, and Michael Dodd, an assistant professor of psychology, conducted a study to see how conservatives and liberals would react differently to positive and negative images.

The study consisted of two parts: one physical and one psychological. For the first part, 50 adults were randomly selected in the Lincoln area, Hibbing said. They were seated in front of a computer screen and hooked up to a series of sensors measuring electrodermal activity — or how much the nervous system has become emotionally aroused. These same types of machines are used in lie detector tests.

Next, the participants were shown a series of negative, positive and neutral images. Some of the images shown included a sunset, a spider, an open wound and political figures.

The responses measured by the machine showed liberal participants had a higher psychological response to positive images and conservative participants had a higher response to negative images.

In the second part of the study, about 100 undergraduate students from UNL were also seated in front of computer screens. This time, the participants were hooked up to eye-tracking equipment, Smith said. The students were shown a collage of positive and negative images. The equipment measured how long the participant looked at each image.

They found that liberals looked at positive images for a longer amount of time and conservatives looked at negative images longer.

This means that liberals and conservatives may disagree on so many things partially because of differences in their biological makeup. Genes influence your brain and cognitive patterns, how you experience and view the world and what you like and dislike, Smith said.

This resembles how conservatives tend to be more wary of perceived threats, like illegal immigration, and want a decrease in government with fewer taxes, while liberals are more accepting of the government’s help in issues such as welfare and health care, according to the study’s Feb. 1 news release.

“It’s amazing the extent to which they perceive the world differently,” Hibbing said.

New blood test may help to diagnose depression

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:47:16 +0000

A new blood test designed at Massachusetts General Hospital appears to accurately indicate whether a person is suffering from depression, according to a paper published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Depression, a psychological disorder currently diagnosed by matching a certain number of patient symptoms to those listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, has been known to have physiological indicators. According to George I. Papakostas, the primary researcher for the new test at MGH, after more than 50 years of experimenting with depression there were still many questions about the biological signals of the disorder.

“There were signs, but not strong enough for a test,” said Papakostas, who is also a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

He and the other researchers in his lab wondered, “what if the solution is multi-faceted?”

After a series of experiments, a blood test was designed to measure the level of nine different chemicals shown to be associated with depression. According to Papakostas, when the results of the blood tests were compared to the diagnoses of a trained clinical psychologist, the blood test proved to be surprisingly accurate.

The test is designed to be simple, Papakostas said. The patient comes in for a regular blood draw and then the blood is sent to a lab for testing.

The results of this test are translated into a point system that indicates whether a patient is likely suffering from depression.

According the Papakostas, the most important implications of this discovery are the new questions it raises and its potential applications. He and his researchers are now asking whether it can be used to monitor the recovery of a patient suffering from depression, find patients who have a potential to be depressed, or indicate that a patient is likely to relapse into depression. However, the question currently at the forefront for Papakostas is whether or not this test is effective in screening subjects in a doctor’s clinic.

Papakostas said the test will undergo further study, this time in a clinical field, to gauge how effective it is in the real world. He hopes it will become a helpful tool for diagnosticians and a clue to help researchers better understand depression.

Papakostas does not see this test as a new standard for clinical diagnosis.

“Testing negative is not a reason for insurance companies to not cover the expenses of treatment or reason to absolutely reject depression as a diagnosis,” said Papakostas. “The test is supposed to complement clinical care.”

Column: Not forgetting about Alzheimer’s

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:22:38 +0000

Imagine it is the year 2030. Your parents are two of the 7.7 million Americans who have Alzheimer’s disease. You have two kids to take care of and a demanding job. You want to take care of your parents, but cannot physically be there all the time to make sure they are okay. You see your parents’ savings rapidly disappear. You are emotionally drained as you watch your parents slowly lose the ability to do everything. What can you do? What could you have done differently?

Luckily, it is not 2030, but 2012. I am writing this article because I think it is time that we as a nation step up to the plate and tackle this problem head on. Yes, I think it is fantastic that the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) passed in January 2011. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, “The National Alzheimer’s Project Act requires creation of a national strategic plan to address the rapidly escalating Alzheimer’s disease crisis and will coordinate Alzheimer’s disease efforts across the federal government.” NAPA was a start, but we need to pass legislation which will actually accomplish goals and not just state them. Congress needs to follow through and pass the Alzheimer’s legislation that is on the table: the HOPE Act and the Alzheimer’s Breakthrough Act. These two acts provide legislation that will implement the goals set in the NAPA Act. It is an election year, and so many people do not think much legislation will be passed this year. This is my message to Congress: Prove me wrong and pass this legislation to start the path to end Alzheimer’s.

Congress — if we hold off investing for a cure or a way to slow the progression of the disease today, we will be paying for it later. According to the Alzheimer’s Association: “Over the next 40 years, caring for individuals with Alzheimer’s will cost American society $20 trillion — including $15 trillion to Medicare and Medicaid.” With a health care system that already has its problems, Alzheimer’s disease will only escalate them.

As a nation, we can ill-afford to continue with the status quo in dealing with Alzheimer’s. And frankly, the members of Congress are in an age group that should be very concerned about Alzheimer’s. According to the Congressional Research Service, in the 112th Congress the average age of a U.S. Senator is 62.2 years old and the average age of a U.S. Representative is 56.7 years old. The problems accompanying aging are sobering to think about, and they are an honest reality which our lawmakers should consider.

Finally, I want to reach out to my generation. I am 22 years old and know firsthand the effects of Alzheimer’s, as my grandfather had the disease. I also know that I am in the generation which many older Americans describe as “the screwed generation.” We are the generation which is going to have to pay the piper from the federal deficit. We are the generation which will not get Social Security and other benefits which older Americans receive today. Does that mean we are supposed to just accept every problem and not try to improve things? No, we can do our part and try to help best we can.

It always helps to have a celebrity who supports a cause that needs attention. Seth Rogen and his wife, Lauren Miller, recently held an event called “Hilarity For Charity” to raise money and awareness among the younger generation about Alzheimer’s disease. To quote Seth, “Hilarity for Charity started as a message to my generation that it’s time to step up and realize that Alzheimer’s is not just an ‘old person disease,’ but something that will greatly affect all of us.”

Seth and Lauren are actively involved in raising awareness and fundraising for Alzheimer’s, as Lauren’s mother was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 55. They raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for their event and are a great example of how younger generations can make a difference.

Where does that leave us? Of course we do not have the same outreach as a Hollywood star, but we can do plenty. We can be a voice. Please go to this website — http://www.alzimpact.org/Legislative-Action-Center — to write your Congressmen and ask him to help pass legislation which can help cure Alzheimer’s. You can also take 30 seconds to fill out a form which will go to President Obama to ask him to include Alzheimer’s in his budget this year: http://www.alz.org/petition/. It may not feel like much, but it truly will make a difference.

Researchers find link with daily diet and maturity

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:09:44 +0000

U. Wisconsin researchers have discovered a link between large amounts of caloric intake and early onset of puberty in girls.

Yesterday, the National Primate Research Center at UW released results from its recent study that found this link through its research on primates.

Researcher Joe Kurian said after careful observation, the scientists discovered a significant decrease in the age of puberty over the last 150 years. More specifically, at one point girls would undergo puberty between the ages of 17 and 18. Now, some girls enter puberty around the age of 12.

“This can be very traumatic physically and psychologically to a young girl who is already showing signs of being a woman at age eight rather than age 12,” Ei Terasawa, professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine and Public Health, said in a statement.

Kurian said he, Terewasa, researcher Ricki Colman and colleagues wanted to determine why exactly this decrease has happened. Based on 30 years of research, they developed the theory that caloric intake accelerates the body’s growth, thus accelerating puberty, according to the statement.

Being that rhesus macaque monkeys, the subject of the researcher’s work, have similar reproductive and developmental organs to humans, the group was able to test its theory on the monkeys at the Primate Center located in Madison.

According to the statement, research from scientists has shown the only difference between the macaque monkeys and humans is that the monkeys age faster, making the process of monitoring their caloric intake quicker and more efficient.

As for the UW study, the statement said the team of researchers fed a group of 12-month-old macaque monkeys with two different diets: one including an increased amount of calories and the other a control diet. The team began its study in January 2011.

They monitored the monkeys daily, feeding them their allotted diets. After six months of observation, Kurian and team determined that calories do have an impact on early maturity. Kurian said these results came 12 months earlier than anticipated, however, solidifying their theory that increased caloric intake leads to early puberty.

They observed this trend through raised levels of the hormones leptin and IGF-1, Terasawa said in the statement. Kurian said the results provide for more of a reason to closely administer children’s eating habits.

He said too much caloric intake does not only increase timing of maturity but also brings about metabolic diseases in adulthood, including type II diabetes, heart disease and cancer. While some may associate larger caloric intake with obesity, Kurian said it is important to understand that the animals on an increased caloric diet were by no means obese, just merely larger animals in size.

As for the future, he said the team of researchers does not plan on ending its research in the field.

“Our next stage of the research is for us to understand how the high fat diet changes your genetic makeup,” Kurian said.

He said by ingesting large sums of fat and calories, the genes in a specific part of the brain are changed, and the researchers hope to discover what exactly those genes are.

Small businesses yield better health, study finds

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:11:45 +0000

Small businesses may be what communities need in order to have healthier populations, according to a study done by two Baylor U. professors and a Louisiana State U. professor.

Dr. Carson Mencken and Dr. Charles Tolbert, Baylor professors of sociology, along with Dr. Troy Blanchard, associate professor of sociology at LSU, conducted a study that examines the relationship between small businesses and the health of people in their community.

“It was the first study to show that small businesses are healthier for the growth of a population,” Mencken said.

The researchers found the growth of small-businesses might produce positive results in the health of the residents in the community, Blanchard said.

The researchers used data from several different national databases and examined the relationship between the sizes of businesses in a community (small or large) and the health percentages of the community.

Mencken said there are many theses regarding the growth of big businesses and the relationship to the health of local populations. The professors were attempting to test the hypothesis that small businesses lead to healthier local populations than big businesses.

Blanchard said the health of a community is part of its growth and that there are different ways a community can grow and become stable. He said the first way is attracting large businesses from outside the community. “This approach is common, and we know it tends to yield positive benefits,” Blanchard said.

The second way of growing a community is by stimulating small business growth and allowing small businesses to be successful, he said.

With this method, Blanchard said it is often hard to see how it affects local residents because small businesses are not usually expected to improve the health of the population.

“Most people assume small locally owned businesses cannot provide health stability,” Mencken said. “We showed the opposite.”

The goal of the study was to understand how small businesses have added benefits over big businesses.

“The big places come and go; the small places commit to the community,” Mencken said, regarding the conclusion of their study. “A more grounded approach can be better for long-term growth.” The commitment to the community is what helps people become healthier, Mencken said.

The study found the mortality rates, the rate of diabetes and the obesity rates of populations surrounded by a variety of small businesses were lower than those surrounded by large businesses, Blanchard said.

In a press release, Tolbert said small businesses have an attitude of determination and take “a practical problem-solving approach in which a community takes control of its own destiny.”

The hypothesis the researchers studied was established on the idea small businesses, unlike large businesses, have more invested in a community and have more at stake concerning customers, employees, and others, according to the press release. The release also said local businesses are more likely to support bond issues for health infrastructures, recruit physicians, push for local anti-smoking legislation, promote community health programs and activities and support local farmers’ markets. To conduct the study, the professors studied the data provided by the 2000 Census of Population and Housing, the 2007 Centers for Disease Control Obesity and Diabetes Estimates, National Center for Health Statistics Compressed Mortality records from 1994-2006, the 2002 County Business Patterns and the 2002 Nonemployer Statistics.

Facebook affects happiness, study says

admin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:05:02 +0000

For some students, Facebook provides a much-needed study break during midterm week, but a recent study suggests that Facebook can actually make people feel worse about their own lives.

The study, conducted at Utah Valley U. and published in January in the journal, “Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking,” is based on previous research that people use computer-mediated communication like Facebook to optimize their self-presentation, or present themselves in a positive way they want others to see.

“We usually see the bright side of others, especially from the positive images and comments posted on Facebook,” said Hui-Tzu Grace Chou, sociologist and main researcher of the study. “If we only see the sunny sides of others, it is easier for people to feel that others have a better life, or life is unfair, especially when they themselves are having some difficult times in life.”

Chou and research partner, Nicholas Edge, surveyed 425 undergraduate students from UVU, asking them to gauge their agreement with statements like, “Many of my friends are happier than me,” and “Life is fair,” while comparing factors such as how long they had a Facebook, how often they used it and how many of their Facebook friends are essentially strangers.

The study found that people who have had Facebook longer and had more Facebook friends they didn’t actually know perceived others to be happier than they were and thought life was less fair.

Polly Isurin, a fourth-year Ohio State U. student who has never had a Facebook account, said she’s never felt the need for it and doesn’t plan on getting one. She said she feels that on top of having more time than those with a Facebook, she’s better off without it.

“I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily happier,” Isurin said. “Just probably less self-conscious because I don’t compare myself because I have nothing to compare it to.”

Chou said there are also positive sociological effects of Facebook, like connecting with friends and a sense of belonging, but it shouldn’t replace face-to-face interaction.

Shelby Spressart, a third-year OSU student, said she tries to be careful about the time she spends on Facebook.

“In general I like it because it’s mostly how I find things to do with my friends and see what’s going on and pictures,” Spressart said. “I get on it, then I see what’s going on, then I get off. I can’t stay on too long because then I just get frustrated with other people.”

Hollie Kinney, a fourth-year OSU student, said she enjoys Facebook because of the sometimes negative light in which people present themselves.

“I spend a lot of time on Facebook out of boredom.” Kinney said. “I think it’s fun, it gives people something to do and you can see which of your friends are idiots and drama wh-res. That’s kind of an elitist thing to say, but whatever.”

Facebook has filed registration documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public, and has set a preliminary goal of $5 billion for its initial public offering.

Spressart said she’s thought about quitting Facebook so she wouldn’t have to hear about peoples’ lives all the time, but could never bring herself to do it.

Isurin said the people she knows who don’t have a Facebook had it at one point, then got rid of it most likely due to the way people present themselves.

“I don’t think Facebook is bad,” Isurin said. “But I think it has gotten out of hand.”

Study shows students drink more while studying abroad

admin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:40:55 +0000

In college, students have almost unlimited possibilities and freedoms as they break away from adolescence and become adults while gaining their degree, but those under the age of 21 still cannot legally drink alcohol in the United States. Many students enhance their learning experience by studying abroad, which increases wisdom and also provides underage students the opportunity to drink legally.

Students who are under the age of 21 almost triple their drinking habits while studying abroad, according to a study done by U. Washington.

“I was the only UA student within my program. I did take advantage of the lower drinking age, but not as much the nightlife,” said Keely Dye, a U. Arkansas senior majoring in international relations, European studies and economics. “A lot of the drinking that took place within my study abroad experience was with my homestay family. They would have wine or spirits at almost every dinner and any celebrations I was a part of.”

Most countries have lower drinking ages than the U.S., which cause students to become more attracted to the party life abroad.

“I definitely think other students took advantage of being able to go out and drink, legally,” said Jessica Hawley, a UA senior majoring in Spanish. “That was the most popular thing to do for the majority of the students in the program.”

Studying abroad is a great opportunity for students to gain experience with other cultures while gaining credits toward their degree, but often students are distracted from this goal from overseas nightlife.

“My observation is that students do take advantage of the lower drinking age, not necessarily with the intention of abusing the privilege, but in part to enjoy the freedom,” said DeDe Long, Director of Study Abroad and International Exchange. “Learning how to drink responsibly is so important.”

While many underage students drink in the United States, the University of Washington found that those who increased their drinking levels abroad still continued their excessive drinking when they returned home.

“Once you do start drinking, it is easier to continue doing so once you go back home,” Hawley said.

The most popular study abroad destinations for American students are the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain, all of which have a legal drinking age of 18. Germany, Greece and Luxembourg have a minimum drinking age as low as 16 while Albania and Vietnam have no drinking age at all. The United States is one of only five countries in the world to have the legal age set at 21.

A factor that causes students to drink more while abroad is the convenience.

“The major appeal of the nightlife is living in an area with public transportation. You have a set way to get home without any worry of drunk driving,” Dye said. “You also are in a program with students in the same situation as yourself: away from home, more relaxed academic schedule and more accessible nightlife with almost no age restrictions.”

The U. Washington researchers discovered that studying abroad in Australia, New Zealand and European countries caused students to drink more heavily than those who studied in Asian, African, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries.

“Students need to take responsibility for themselves abroad just like they do when they participate in college life here in Fayetteville,” Long said. “If they get caught up in drinking here, they are going to have to be extremely careful not to mimic that behavior in another country, where access may be much easier.”

Studying abroad allows the student to learn new perspectives from being in a foreign country, but if drinking becomes too much of a distraction, the chance of a lifetime can become threatened.

“I think that those who did [drink more] tended to go to class less and focus less on their studies,” Hawley said. “School and studying was not their priority.”

The cornerstone of studying abroad is to acquire knowledge not already found in the United States, and the opportunity can benefit the future of the student.

“Study abroad is a significant investment of time and money,” Long said. “What a waste it would be to throw such a great learning experience away by finding yourself without money or a passport, or on a plane home after an accident caused by poor judgment.”

The study abroad program is trying to prevent and raise awareness of binge drinking overseas.

“In our pre-departure meetings with students, we continually stress how important it is for students to be mindful of their surroundings, take care of themselves, and to represent the University of Arkansas well,” Long said. “We strongly discourage over-drinking. Over-drinking can easily put a student in a vulnerable position, this is when they get lost, hurt or robbed.”

Some students already find normal college life to be distracting enough and factoring in the culture and exciting night life of a foreign country may lead them to stray away from the aspiration of studying abroad.

“I would tell students who are apprehensive about studying abroad that they should not worry,” Hawley said. “The partying scene wasn’t for me, and I had a very enjoyable time abroad without partying. I think you can have an enjoyable time anywhere, without having to drink or hang out at clubs.”

Polling location may influence how you vote

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:52:32 +0000

Cathedrals or government buildings could influence voting, a recent Baylor study showed.

Dr. Wade Rowatt, co-author of the study and associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, said this is called “priming.”

The study was called “Differences in Attitudes Toward Outgroups in Religious and Nonreligious Contexts in a Multinational Sample: A Situational Context Priming Study.”

“Priming is when something in the environment influences an emotion, thought or idea,” Rowatt said. “The presence of an American flag could increase someone’s patriotism.”

In the study, headed by Dr. Jordan LaBouff, priming was given a closer look when Baylor students and professors surveyed people outside of churches and government buildings.

LaBouff, a psychology lecturer at U. Maine, was obtaining his doctorate at Baylor while conducting this study. LaBouff was also one of the professors who accompanied students on the Baylor in Maastricht study abroad program, where some of the research took place. Surveyors interviewed people near a cathedral and near a government building.

People were asked their opinion about various issues, such as gay and lesbian marriage. People surveyed in front of the different cathedrals responded with more conservative, religious attitudes, compared to people who were interviewed near government buildings. “The religious prime is the presence of the cathedral,” Rowatt said.

According to a press release, participants of the survey were diverse and multicultural — “Ninety-nine individuals from more than 30 countries.” Participants were surveyed outside the Basilica of Saint Servatius, Maastricht Town Hall, Westminster Abbey and Parliament. Each building was in a major public area.

The study has been published online in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, and furthers evidence that religious priming can influence both religious and non-religious people. Similar surveys have been done in the past. Stanford U. conducted a study about school taxes, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in 2008.

Stanford looked at a case in which people voted on a funding referendum inside of a school building. The study showed that voters who were polled within the school supported a state tax increase, but those polled after voting in churches did not.

Other co-authors of the Baylor study included Meghan K. Johnson, a doctoral candidate, and Callie Frankle, a graduate student in global health at George Washington U.

The research was conducted by Baylor students in the Baylor in Maastricht Study Abroad program. Baylor psychologists analyzed the data.

LaBouff said the findings are significant because churches and other religiously affiliated buildings are among the most common polling places.

“We need to be aware of where decisions are made,” LaBouff said. “Context matters.”

Heart disease attacks both young and old

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:44:09 +0000

More and more Americans are dying of heart disease at younger ages, and conditions are likely to be worse in Oklahoma, according to a new study by the U. Oklahoma College of Public Health.

Christina Shay, assistant professor at OU and lead investigator of the study, looked at health profiles of more than 5,000 children and teenagers, ages 12 to 19, she said. The results indicated that none of them met all the criteria outlined by the American Heart Association for ideal cardiovascular health.

The study looked at whether participants smoked, their body mass indexes, diets, physical activity, total cholesterol, blood glucose and blood pressure, Shay said.

The three most important factors influencing obesity and heart disease in the U.S. are long periods of sedentary behavior, low rates of physical activity and poor diets, Shay said. Smoking and obesity levels contribute to why residents in Oklahoma typically rank below national averages on healthy lifestyle measures.

“Healthy lifestyles and diet both affect blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol,” epidemiology professor Gary E. Raskob said, “Those issues should be dealt with as early as possible to avoid cardiovascular disease and related disease”.

The study also revealed that more females had ideal healthy diet scores, and the percent of overweight or obese participants was nearly the same in males and females, Shay said.

The American Heart Association recommends an hour each day of physical activity for children and a diet rich in fruits and vegetables but low in sugar drinks, OU Health Sciences Center graduate student Yi Xiong said.

Researchers find DNA connection to onset of menopause

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:12:23 +0000

Researchers at Boston U.’s School of Public Health and School of Medicine found 13 new genetic areas associated with immune function and DNA repair affecting aging and the beginning of menopause, according to a press release.

The BU press release stated associate professor of medicine Joanne Murabito and biostatistics professor Kathryn Lunetta concluded the genes associated with a woman’s age at menopause include genes involved in DNA repair and immune function in addition to genes involved in hormonal regulation. Their findings were published in a Jan. 22 article in Nature Genetics.

“Our findings suggest that ovarian aging and aging per se may be regulated by some of the same biological mechanisms,” Lunetta said in an email interview.

Their investigation, which took more than 18 months to complete, involved a study of more than 53,000 people of European decent who had experienced menopause between the ages of 40 and 60, Lunetta said. The data involved 36 separate studies from more than 180 researchers.

“Women who have entered menopause are at higher risk for a variety of health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, low bone density and breast cancer,” Lunetta said. “We hope that by identifying the factors that affect age at menopause, we will also identify new pathway for treatment of these conditions.”

New technologies and statistical methods will help researchers identify additional genetic factors contributing to menopause in the near future, Lunetta said.

“However, we have only just begun to understand the genetic factors that contribute to the age at which a woman enters menopause,” she said. “We expect that new technologies and statistical methods will help us identify additional genetic factors contributing to menopause in the near future.”

The researchers said they plan to continue their research on menopause.

One study that is underway examines genetic variations among African-American women and will be used to compare their findings from European women, Lunetta said.

“We also hope that our findings will lead us to new therapies for women who suffer from premature ovarian failure and early menopause,” she said.

Another ongoing project involves working to determine whether genetic factors that contribute to normal menopause age influence early menopause onset in some women.

Professor studies rare ‘face blindness’

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:00:01 +0000

Experts in psychology have long known that prosopagnosia — a condition also known as face blindness — is caused by brain damage, but it was unknown until recently that roughly 2 percent of the population is born with the facial recognition disorder, according to Dartmouth College psychological and brain sciences professor Brad Duchaine, who devotes his time to studying the condition.

People with prosopagnosia often cannot recognize the faces of close friends or even family members and have to rely on other clues, such as voice or gait. Prosopagnosics usually have other types of recognition impairment, such as place or object recognition, but sometimes it is just an issue of face perception, Duchaine said.

“There are a lot of people out there that have face-processing deficiencies,” Duchaine said.

Through his research, Duchaine said he hopes to better understand the science behind the condition in order to develop ways to help those who suffer from it. In conjunction with Ken Nakayama, a psychology professor at Harvard U., Duchaine said he devotes his time to studying the cognitive and neural basis of prosopagnosia.

Duchaine said he is interested in discovering the process in the brain that leads to face perception and hopes to find the genes involved in developmental or genetically-based prosopagnosia. He is also working on developing better tests for identifying children with prosopagnosia, improving treatment and raising awareness about the condition. Nakayama and Duchaine created Faceblind.org in January 2002, a website that serves as a forum for people with prosopagnosia. Through the website, about 6,500 prosopagnosics can converse with prominent experts about their condition, according to Duchaine.

Duchaine’s research can be used to develop methods to help prosopagnosics improve their facial recognition abilities.

“[Duchaine’s research] is important for understanding social interactions, but it is also important for computer science and artificial intelligence,” Ming Meng, a Dartmouth psychological and brain sciences professor, said.

If scientists can understand how facial perception works in the human brain, perhaps one day they can develop technologies that can recognize faces as well, a development that would be important for the future of the technological world, according to Meng.

Duchaine joined the Dartmouth faculty in June 2010 and has been well-received by the community, he said. Duchaine offers a “unique perspective” on the field, and his presence has broadened the ability of the psychological and brain sciences department to address the complicated relationship between brain processing and social perception, Meng said.

“Of all the professors I’ve had at Darmouth, Duchaine has been one of my favorites,” Jesse Gomez, who works with Duchaine in the psychological and brain sciences department’s social perception lab, said. “It’s been great working with him. He’s a genius, but he’s so down to earth.”

Gomez said that Duchaine is not only studying the problem but also developing tests to better identify the disease and spread awareness.

“Prosopagnosia can be debilitating, and Duchaine offers a personal viewpoint to the study of [the disease],” Gomez said.

Duchaine previously worked at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, where he and his colleagues brought together the largest sample of prosopagnosics in the world. Duchaine recieved his PhD in psychology at U. California, Santa Barbara and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Vision Sciences Lab at Harvard.

Study finds off-campus party hosts drink more than party-goers

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:39:24 +0000

Whether it’s beer, wine or liquor, a new study says that off-campus-party hosts tend to drink more alcoholic drinks than their guests.

The study also found that on any given weekend, at least 10 percent of students could be hosting a party.

Natalie Milliron, a first-year Ohio State U. student, said this research is definitely in line with her personal experiences.

“Whenever, I go to (off-campus) parties, I would say the people who host them are going pretty crazy,” Milliron said.

Random samples of students were given online surveys on high- and low-risk weekends between 2005-2007, said Cynthia Buettner, assistant professor in the OSU College of Education and Human Ecology and lead author of the study.

Buettner said the research focused on party hosts because it was an audience that had not been closely studied. And the results are not too surprising, Buettner said.

Off-campus party hosts consumed an average of nine drinks while those on campus consumed an average of 4.5 drinks.

Research found that people hosting on-campus parties drink less than those attending.

The average number of drinks consumed by attendees at on- and off-campus parties was about the same: 7.5 drinks.

Students hosting parties on campus might worry about university-sanctioned consequences while off-campus hosts are less likely to do so, Buettner said.

“We know from research that one of the things that makes a difference in people’s drinking is whether they think that the policies and laws around drinking will be enforced and how likely they are to be caught,” she said.

While he agrees with the findings, Tommy Glace, a first-year OSU student, said it all depends on the situation.

“If somebody has all these people in their house they might (not drink) to watch what people are doing,” Glace said. “But it depends on the person.”

Milliron said she agrees there might be something to be said for staying sober if you’re hosting a party.

“I’ve actually had a bunch of friends who have had stuff stolen because they just don’t know what’s going on,” Milliron said.

On the other hand, safety could also be a factor that would encourage off-campus party hosts to drink more heavily.

“When you go to parties, you can’t drink to the point where you can pass out, you have to walk home,” Milliron said. “But (off-campus party hosts) can just pass out and go upstairs or go to bed.”

Max Layman, a third-year OSU student, hosts large parties once or twice a quarter with his roommates and said some party hosts drink to be social.

“If you’re having a party, you want to enjoy it,” Layman said.

Layman said money might also be an issue for off-campus hosts. If you have a party and buy alcohol, you’re probably going to drink some of it because you paid for it, Layman said.

Buettner said she hopes students who do host are aware of the risks.

“(As a party host), you’re less likely to be able to control the party at your place because you’ve had too much to drink,” Buettner said. “All of the risks that go along with drinking too much are just increased if you’re a party host off campus.”

iPad and other tablet use can lead to neck, back pain, study says

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:00:20 +0000

Touch-screen tablets such as the iPad and the Kindle can save students from carrying heavy backpacks full of textbooks and notebooks, but a new study found these devices are not free of health risks.

The study, which was published earlier this month by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, found that using touch-screen computer tablets strained muscles in the head and neck more than a desktop or laptop computer would.

Microsoft participated in the research, contributing funding and a team of scientists to the study which appeared in “Work: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment, and Rehabilitation.”

Researchers looked at the four most common positions for tablet use: on the lap and in the user’s hand (lap-hand), on the lap and in a case (lap-case), on a table and in a case (table-case), and on a table at a greater angle in the case (table-movie). The table-movie position was deemed the safest because it placed the tablet at an angle where users didn’t have to look down to see the screen. The other three positions put a lot of strain on the head and neck.

Kay Coots, director of Environmental Health and Safety at U. Oregon, wasn’t surprised by the study.

“Whether it’s an iPad, a tablet or a mobile device, the more we use those small devices, the greater chance we’ll have to strain the neck, arms, shoulders, or wrists,” Coots said. “It’s like watching a movie with your head turned 45 degrees. Of course your neck would hurt by the end of it.”

Although Apple gives safety tips on its website for using desktop computers, the company hasn’t provided safety tips for its popular iPad. New research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project show that the number of Americans who own a computer tablet or e-reader jumped from 18 percent in December to 29 percent in January. And with worldwide iPad sales expected to go from an estimated 17.6 million in 2010 to 300 million in 2015, Coots worries that with the tablets’ sudden popularity, users won’t know how to use them safely.

UO sophomore Kayla Steindorf lounged in a chair in the EMU during the week while playing games on her Kindle Fire between classes. Steindorf uses her Kindle to take notes in class and said she hasn’t had problems with neck pain.

“It’s the same as looking at a piece of paper or taking notes on a piece of paper,” Steindorf said.

UO sophomore Leah Mancino also said working on her iPad isn’t any different than reading a textbook. Mancino said she usually props her iPad up on a desk at home.

“It’s a bit more difficult to hold up sometimes compared to other e-readers,” Mancino said. “But it’s much better than having actual textbooks.”

Coots agreed that iPads and other tablets may not strain the neck much more than looking down at textbooks and notes, but she urged students to pay attention to their head and neck posture while studying either way. Coots recommends students take breaks and stretch every 30 minutes if they plan to use the tablets for several hours. She also suggested students create a workstation where the tablet is propped up with a keyboard plugged in, similar to how a desktop computer is set up.

“There’s a lot of alternatives,” she said. “My best advice is to not be on these things for long periods of time.”

Study shows marijuana use declining, prescription drug abuse skyrocketing

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:57:44 +0000

A recent U.S. government study has revealed a decrease in the use of marijuana and cocaine, in every generation since the 1960s, along with a large increase in the abuse of prescription medication by young people.

Richard Miech, professor at U. Colorado at Denver, presented the statistics and analysis of his study in a lecture titled “Trends in Illegal Drug Use Over the Past 25 Years: A Cohort or Period Process?” Miech said his statistics were based on a survey of over 700,000 Americans between the ages of 15 and 64.

“The results regarding marijuana and cocaine were what was expected. Marijuana and cocaine use has decreased dramatically over the past several decades,” Miech said. “Although roughly 20 percent of Americans between 20 and 24 have smoked marijuana in the past year, overall drug use has declined generation by generation since the baby boomers.”

However, Miech said, a problem that is beginning to reveal itself in today’s youth is the abuse of prescription medication. Miech said the usage of prescription drugs in a non-medical way has become the second-most common type of drug use among young people and has increased over the past two and a half decades.

Miech said prescription medications are the leading cause of drug use overdose mortality.

“It’s pretty scary. The chances of young people using prescription drugs non-medically has increased four-fold over the last 25 years,” Miech said “It’s a whole new beast.”

U. Texas junior business major Andrew Bowen said he has been exposed to this emerging problem.

“Xanax, Oxycontin, Vicodin, I hear of people doing it all the time,” Bowen said. “They’re even more open about abusing medication than with marijuana use.”

Bowen said he believes people abuse prescription medication because they think it is safer.

“They think there’s no danger to it because it’s legal in some context,” Bowen said.

Professional private practice counselor James Banks said he has worked with people with medication abuse problems.

“[Some people] will reach for a substance to try to alleviate their pain,” Banks said. “But oftentimes, that makes their depression much more intense.”

Banks said the best way to approach prescription medication abuse is from a psychological point of view.

“There are healthier options to getting out unwanted feelings,” Banks said. “Drinking and consuming prescribed medication is a very dangerous combination. A lot of times people don’t realize how harmful that can be. When you do that, you’re playing with fire.”

Banks said he believes the best way to combat this is to let people know there are counseling resources available.

“Reaching out for help is a strength, not a weakness. It’s not a bad thing — it’s a smart thing,” Banks said. “Taking care of your psyche is just as important as taking care of your body.”

Banks said doctors must be weary of these issues when prescribing medication.

“Hopefully, doctors will begin gathering more information on people’s social history and family background,” Banks said. “That way they can avoid prescribing medication in instances when there may be better options.”

Banks said prescription medications are not going away, so people must become better informed about the dangers of abusing them.

“As a parent, the number one thing is to educate your child,” Banks said. “It’s challenging growing up, but there are people and resources available that can help.”

Study shows protein-free diet before surgery might reduce health complications

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:51:40 +0000

Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health found that limiting protein or amino acid intake several days before surgery may reduce the risk of surgical complications.

According to the School of Public Health study, published in Science Translational Medicine, dietary intake of amino acids and protein before surgery might increase chances of health complications such as heart attack or stroke.

“We were interested in picking apart…what’s missing in the diet,” said James R. Mitchell, assistant professor of genetics and complex diseases at the School of Public Health. “What are we eating that we shouldn’t be eating?”

Previous studies over the past few decades have suggested that long-term dietary restrictions can extend longevity and slow the aging process. A recent study also demonstrated the benefits of restricting protein with fruit flies.

“What we found was that a brief dietary intervention in a mouse could protect against [surgical complications],” Mitchell said. “We wanted to know what the nutritional and genetic basis of that protection is.”

Researchers analyzed two groups of mice, with one group allowed to eat normally for 6 to 14 days while the other group ate an amino acid or protein-free diet.

When both groups were placed under surgical stress, 40 percent of the mice with a normal diet died. All of the mice with amino acid and protein-free diets survived.

According to Mitchell, he said he plans to further elucidate the nutritional basis and the underlying genetic mechanisms behind the study’s discovered link.

“Currently, there are no nutritional guidelines in and around the time of surgery. It’s just not a part of medical management specifically,” Mitchell said. “We think this might be an opportunity that, if this works in people…we can reduce stress resistance in the human body by a simple dietary restriction.”

Mitchell said that before this research can be translated to the clinical level, his team of researchers still needs to determine the optimal diet—and how long it should be maintained—for it to be effective.

Smartphone use linked to stress

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:20:43 +0000

A study from psychologist Richard Balding of U. Worcester, England, shows a relationship between smartphone use and stress.

Balding’s study suggests that because smartphone’s allow for easy access to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, the pressure to keep up with one’s social life becomes a large contributor to stress.

“The presence of information a smartphone can provide may indeed work to overwhelm people within their already busy and demanding environment,” St. Thomas U. psychology professor Paul Beckmann said. “It’s like having a fire hose of information.”

Many students said that they agree with the study, and St. Thomas sophomore Mauricio Carranza said that smartphones keep people “wondering what everyone is doing at every minute of every hour of every day.”

“Then you are wondering what other people think of what you are doing,” Carranza said.

St. Thomas freshman Samantha Bogdanovich said that she agrees that smartphones not only add stress, but they also interrupt everyday activities.

“If you are talking to someone on Facebook or texting and then there is something going on that is stressful, it interrupts what you are doing,” Bogdanovich said.

Beckmann said that smartphones are an issue because people “don’t have the mental horsepower to deal with everything in the environment.”

“There may be other things going on in an environment, but we are selecting those things out,” Bechmann said.

Bogdanovich said that she does not believe turning the device off will necessarily solve the problem.

“I feel like maybe if you just didn’t have it with you because you can always just turn it back on, I think that would help,” Bogdanovich

The study also found that smartphone use for work purposes did not increase stress levels.

“I prefer to read my emails on my phone,” St. Thomas sophomore Max Bischmann said. “If I am out on the go, I want to know what is going on.”

Carranza said that he is sometimes relieved when his phone is not able to distract him.

“I am actually sometimes happy when it (phone) is not charged or the battery goes out sometimes. You’re like, ‘OK, I don’t have to worry about that anymore,’” Carranza said.

The research suggests that those people who are most stressed out, experience phantom vibrations. A phantom vibration is when a person thinks their phone has vibrated when it really has not.

“You can develop heightened sensitivity under conditions of stress…if they have a high level of stress they may have a muscle tremor,” Beckmann said. “That muscle tremor may be a real movement of their skin against their cellphone rather than their cellphone against their skin.”

The study was conducted by a questionnaire that was administered to over 100 participants, including university students and employees from a range of occupations.

Excessive Internet usage can lead to anxiety, depression

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:54:13 +0000

With just a few mouse clicks, it can tell you the temperature outside, the score of the game last night and who is dating who. You can carry it in your pocket for constant access to almost anything, at any time. However, having the Internet at your fingertips at all times might not always be a positive thing.

According to a study published in this month’s issue of General Hospital Psychiatry, excessive use of the Internet can cause Internet Addiction Disorder, or IAD, which can lead to anxiety and depression.

“Something becomes an addiction when it becomes problematic, when you choose to continue to do something in spite of consistently negative consequences,” said Bill Arck, director of Kansas State U.’s Alcohol and Other Drug Education Service.

The concept of IAD was introduced in 1995 by researcher Ivan Goldberg, according to the study. Since then, there have been a variety of definitions of excessive Internet usage, including compulsive computer use, pathological Internet use or Internet addiction.

The study, authored by Frederico Tonioni, et al, and entitled “Internet addiction: hours spent online, behaviors and psychological symptoms,” defines the important criteria to diagnose IAD as “a misuse of Internet, characterized by many hours spent online avoiding interpersonal relationships with real and known people.”

In the study, 86 participants were given various tests, surveys and interviews about their Internet usage. Only time spent on non-studying and non-working purposes was counted in the research. All participants exhibiting current drug or alcohol addiction, psychotic disorders or other deficits were eliminated from the participant pool.

There are key questions that can help determine if an addiction is occurring, Arck said.

“I ask questions such as ‘Is it affecting your interpersonal relationships?,’ ‘Do you ever feel guilty about the time you spend on the computer?’ or ‘Have you even been annoyed by other’s criticism about time you spend on the Internet?’” Arck said, adding that he asks very similar questions when asking about substance abuse problems.

The survey consisted of a total of 20 similar questions gauging participants’ Internet usage. At the end of the study, 21 participants were found to exhibit symptoms of IAD. Of those participants, non-working and non-studying Internet use ranged from 20.3 to 75.3 hours per week.

The remaining 65 participants were used as the control group.

Participants who were labeled as exhibiting IAD scored higher on each question except “How often do you check your email before something else you need to do?” Their response suggests that people with IAD are not interested in communicating with people in the real world.

According to the study, levels of depression and anxiety were positively correlated with the number of hours per week spent online.

Arck agreed that a correlation often exists between addiction, depression and anxiety.

“A fairly high percentage of students that I see have co-occurring mild to moderate depression and a lot of social anxiety disorder. There is a connection there,” Arck said. “There tends to be a connection because the addiction is a way of muting those feelings. If people are addicted to the Internet, they are going to turn to it because they get enjoyment out of it.”

Other symptoms of Internet addiction include difficulty cutting down on online time, lack of sleep, fatigue, declining grades or poor job performance, apathy and racing thoughts, decreased investment in social relationships and activities, and irritability.

While K-State doesn’t offer a specific program to assist those suffering from IAD, there are resources available on campus, said Dorinda Lambert, director at K-State’s Counseling Services.

“We would certainly meet with them, and find out what was happening and what can be done to help,” Lambert said. “We don’t have a specific program (for IAD), but we would be a good resource to start with. We can look at what’s fueling the feeling of needing to connect with people online instead of connecting with other people, making them too connected to the Internet.”

According to a study conducted by Arck on K-State students’ Internet usage in 2010, K-State students are using the Internet for recreation, but a majority of students limit their recreational Internet use to a few hours a day.

“The question was ‘Approximately how many hours per day do you typically spend recreationally on your computer/Internet?’ This included being on Facebook, Myspace, playing games and other recreational activities,” Arck said.

The survey polled 950 students. A majority of students, 56 percent, reported spending an average of two hours per day on the Internet for recreational purposes. On the highest end of the spectrum, 7 percent of students responded that they spend five or more hours per day on the Internet for recreation.

“Out of those surveyed, we’re looking at 7 percent that say they spend five plus hours per day on the Internet. That’s 35 hours per week,” Arck said. “That’s incredible, especially when they also reported they spend about 10 hours per week studying.”

Marylynn Griebel, freshman in industrial engineering, spends approximately 60 to 90 minutes a day using her computer for recreational activities.

“I use it mostly for watching TV shows on Hulu and getting on Facebook,” Griebel said.

While Griebel said she has never made the conscious decision to spend time on her computer instead of spending time with people, she does have the ability to take the Internet with her at all times on her cellphone.

“I’m on Facebook all the time on my phone when I’m bored,” Griebel said. “I check it quite a bit. I probably spend about 15 minutes a day, just hopping on and checking it periodically.”

While each person handles Internet usage differently, if it begins to decrease life quality, it is not something to take lightly, Arck said.

“This is not an addiction to ignore,” Arck said. “No matter if it’s an alcoholic, drug, sexual, Internet or some other type of addiction, addiction is addiction. It’s usually an indicator of something much greater that’s wrong.”

Study links critical thinking to job placement

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:25:53 +0000

Students who do not exercise critical thinking skills and are not civically engaged in college have greater difficulty finding jobs, according to a study released yesterday at the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

The study, “Documenting Uncertain Times: Post-graduate Transition of the Academically Adrift Cohort,” used the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized testing evaluation of higher education, to compare the academic strength of 925 students to post-graduate success.

The study comes about a year after U. Virginia Asst. Sociology Prof. Josipa Roksa and New York U. Sociology Prof. Richard Arum stirred debate in higher education circles with their book, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” which broadly found that students’ critical thinking and analytic reasoning skills do not improve during their four years in college. The report released Tuesday studied the same students surveyed in “Academically Adrift.”

As a follow-up to that book, Arum and Roksa “were interested to learn if [the outcomes of the] Collegiate Learning Assessment … would be related to employment,” Roksa said.

In the latest study, graduates who scored in the bottom quintile of the test were three times more likely to be unemployed than those who scored in the top quintile, twice as likely to still be living at home and significantly more likely to have amassed credit card debt.

Study results also indicated that business majors in particular failed to display notable strides in critical thinking.

“The associations found between educational experiences and life-course outcomes (such as employment, financial status, and civic engagement), further reinforce an appreciation of the importance of college academic achievement and performance,” the report says.

Walking while wearing headphones can be deadly, study finds

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:51:14 +0000

Wearing headphones and walking to the beat of booming bass lines may be a relief after lectures, but has proven to be dangerous and, in some cases, deadly.

A new study by researchers at the U. Maryland School of Medicine looked at pedestrian injury data from 2004 to 2011 and found 116 deaths or injuries that occurred nationwide to pedestrians walking while wearing headphones.

“There’s a lot said about distracted drivers talking on phones and texting, but not much is said about pedestrians wearing headphones,” said Richard Lichenstein, the study’s leading author and director of pediatric emergency medicine research at the U. Maryland Hospital for Children.

The study, which was published last week in the journal “Injury Prevention,” found that most of the crashes involved trains and that 90 percent were in urban areas. The study also found that 68 percent of victims were male, and 67 percent of victims were under the age of 30.

While injuries and deaths from distracted walking are increasing, so are sales of music players. For example, iPod sales have increased rapidly in the last two decades, going from 600,000 in 2002, to 275 million in 2010. Lichenstein noted that 74 percent of teens own an MP3 player.

The researchers think two factors may explain why pedestrian headphone use can be dangerous: multitasking and environmental isolation.

Wearing headphones while walking is an example of what Lichenstein called “inattentional blindness,” where the brain cannot pay attention to other objects like traffic while listening to music. A warning sound, such as a horn, was sounded in 29 percent of the crashes.

“You can enjoy your music, your podcast, but keep the volume low, and be aware that you can’t really multitask,” Lichenstein said. “Nothing is that important in the big scheme of things than getting to where you want to go safely.”

Lichenstein pointed out that drivers involved in the crashes could have been distracted as well. He plans to continue researching the topic to get a better picture of the risks associated with pedestrian headphone use.

Midwest ranks among top in national binge drinking study

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:53:47 +0000

A recent report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention stated that a significant amount of binge drinking was found in the Midwest.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, used data on national binge drinking trends from a 2010 study. Binge drinking is defined as when a woman or man drinks four or five alcoholic beverages respectively on one occasion.

The study consisted of phone interviews conducted by the CDC to over 450,000 people nationwide. Interviewees were asked a series of questions about their alcoholic consumption over the previous month.

According to the study, four of the top six states with the highest binge drinking prevalence were located in the Midwest, with Illinois ranking sixth highest in the nation. The top state on the list was Wisconsin with 25.6 percent of their population being considered binge drinkers, while Illinois had 21.4 percent.

The study also showed the intensity of binge drinking nationwide in regards to the average amount of drinks consumed during binges and the number of episodes in a given month. Topping the list again was Wisconsin at nine drinks and about five episodes. Illinois came close to those averages with 6.9 drinks and 4.5 episodes.

Zachary Buchanan, U. Illinois sophomore, said he was surprised about the Midwest’s statistics but noted that the problem is not only local.

“I think it’s as much of a problem in the Midwest as anywhere else,” Buchanan said.

A Center of Substance Abuse prevention survey shows that 42 percent of college students are defined as binge drinkers, although that number has recently plateaued, said Richard Lucey, Jr., special assistant to the director of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.

“The actual consumption isn’t what concerns me, what concerns me most is the levels of intoxication now when compared to 20 years ago,” said Skip Frost, University police captain. “It’s a very tough issue; anyone who knows the solution would be making millions because this isn’t just a University issue but a social issue.”

Due to increased prevalence, especially in the Midwest, some are suggesting that more can be done to let people know about the dangers of binge drinking and alcohol consumption. According to the CDC, the percentage of adult smokers in the U.S. dropped from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 19.3 percent in 2010 in large part due to billions of dollars being spent on advertising campaigns aimed at younger audiences as well as cigarette taxes being raised.

This has led some people to believe that it could work for alcohol, too.

“Smoking campaigns have created major positive changes, so why are we not taking alcohol abuse more seriously?” said Tonya Lawyer, co-owner of Allison and Lawyer Counseling Services of Champaign.

“Alcohol is the number one abused drug over any other combined, but most people don’t recognize it or take it seriously enough. We raise taxes on cigarettes, but why not alcohol?”

Lucey Jr. said he is confident that in time, alcoholic consumption will decrease as tobacco usage did.

“There’s still approximately 10 million underage drinkers nationwide,” said Lucey Jr. “But it took 30 to 40 years for tobacco to get to what it is now, so it’s not going to happen overnight. We believe that alcoholic prevalence rates one day can be as low as they should be with collective effort.”

Researchers to use zebra dung in biofuel project

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:25:45 +0000

Most people wouldn’t want to step in a pile of smelly zebra dung, but researchers at Tulane U. are jumping right into it.

Scientists have found a bacterium called TU-103 in the waste of African zebras, which might be the solution to a cheaper enzyme for biofuel, according to The New York Times.

Tim Sink, an intern at U. Florida’s Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies Laboratory, said the available enzymes are expensive to use, so finding another microbe is essential to the economic efficiency of a biofuel project.

He said it’s hard to guess whether the new enzyme will be successful because research is conducted on a trial-and-error basis.

Pratap Pullammanappallil, who teaches environmental biotechnology at UF, said animal droppings are commonly used to create another alternative energy source called biogas, a replacement for natural gas.

Jonathan Miot, director of the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo, said zebras, which are in the same taxonomic family as horses, have especially strong stomachs.

Miot referred to them as a garbage dump, because while most animals have trouble digesting various species of grasses, zebras can eat all of them.

Miot said zebras have excellent digestive systems due to the bacteria in their guts.

When a zebra eats, the bacteria break down cellulose, a substance indigestible to mammals.

The bacteria produce a waste called volatile fatty acid, which the zebra uses as energy.

Zebras’ bacteria just happen to be right for biofuel research.

“They eat, and they poop,” Miot said. “It’s what they do all day anyways.”

But zebras can be dangerous to handle. They have a strong kick, which, he said, is equivalent to the power of a hand grenade explosion.

Scientists won’t need to continue to gather droppings from captive zebras because the enzymes can be reproduced in a laboratory, Pullammanappallil said.

Miot said Tulane’s project has the potential to inpsire new ideas about how to harness animals’ capabilities.

“There is a lot of stuff out there that we have no idea [about],” he said. “Animals are a lot more creative than we think, though it’s not intentional.”

Aspirin not as effective as thought in preventing heart attacks

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:55:14 +0000

Aspirin is not effective as a preventative measure for healthy people hoping to avoid heart attacks and strokes, according to a study published earlier this month in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Examining nine trials with 102,621 people, researchers observed that taking aspirin did not result in a reduction in deaths from heart attack, stroke or cancer. In fact, taking aspirin as a primary prevention method when there is no history of heart attack or stroke increases the chances of internal bleeding by 30 percent. The study does not try to persuade those taking aspirin for proven cardiovascular disease to stop doing so, however. Official guidelines issued in 2005 by the Joint British Societies currently recommend 75 mg of aspirin a day for high-risk patients older than 50.

Math pattern found in killings

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:33:47 +0000

A scientific paper published last week by two UCLA researchers shows that a mathematical pattern exists behind the 12-year killing streak of a well-known Soviet serial killer.

Professor Vwani Roychowdhury and researcher Mikhail Simkin, both from the electrical engineering department, claim that the time intervals between each murder committed by Andrei Chikatilo in Russia between 1978 and 1990 follow the “Devil’s Staircase” – a graphic curve that follows a specific pattern and appears visually in the shape of a staircase.

At first glance, the time intervals between each murder appear completely random.

But a graph comparing the cumulative murders over the murder history reflects a mathematical model.

Investigators could potentially predict when a serial killer will attack again based on the research, Roychowdhury said.

This could also help them with understanding cold-case files.

Another consequence of the research, Simkin said, is the discovery that there is a high probability that a murder will occur immediately after another.

That knowledge could also prove helpful to investigations, he added.

The time period between each murder varies between long and short intervals.

Chikatilo sometimes went days and other times several years between attacks.

This characteristic is representative of the “Devil’s Staircase.”

This information is likely common knowledge among criminal investigators, Roychowdhury said.

But he does not think concrete patterns have ever been formalized before.

The findings sparked interest in Andrew Perkins, a graduate student in clinical psychology at the University of Arizona and nephew of Roychowdhury, who works in the Forensic/Sex Research Lab there.

He said his colleagues are discussing whether this mathematical model and formula could also be found in the behavior of sex offenders and other impulse-driven criminal behavior.

Perkins also said the research could potentially be used in scientific profiling of serial killers.

In general, the research makes the behavior of serial killers more humanized, Roychowdhury said.

Psychologists and neuroscientists could further the research for the purpose of intervention, he said.

The two researchers have plotted the data for other serial killers who also fit the pattern.

They also plan to publish a revised paper that includes this data.

The “Devil’s Staircase” pattern has previously accounted for the frequency of natural phenomenon, such as earthquakes and avalanches, Roychowdhury said.

Cancer patients still smoking after diagnosis

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:20:46 +0000

A sizeable minority of patients diagnosed with lung and colorectal cancer continued smoking after their diagnosis, according to a recent Harvard Medical School study published in the journal Cancer.

Though the percentage of smokers universally decreased in that time period, the study—headed by Harvard Medical School Associate Professor of Psychology Elyse R. Park—found a disparity in the number of those quitting between the two types of cancer.

“The proportion of smokers that quit was actually lower among colorectal cancer patients, and in that case I think it’s probably because they don’t perceive their cancer as being related to smoking,” said HMS Associate Professor of Health Care Policy Nancy L. Keating, also a researcher on the study.

The researchers analyzed a sample of over 5,000 lung and colorectal cancer patients and compared the percentage of patients who were smoking at the time of diagnosis with the number still smoking five months later.

HMS Health Care Policy Assistant Professor Yulei He, who was not involved in the research, did not express surprise at the study’s findings. He said that patients who are diagnosed with something as traumatizing as cancer may not have the willpower to quit smoking or, if their treatments are effective, even feel the need to do so.

Further, Park said that the “embarrassment and stigma” of being diagnosed with cancer as a smoker may further deter patients from quitting.

“It’s a time when many feel very helpless,” Park said.

The study’s findings also raise questions about the role that medical professionals play in helping their patients overcome smoking addictions.

“I think physicians in general probably need more training in effective motivational techniques to help get their patients to quit,” Keating said. “The challenges of taking care of patients with 15-minute visits [do] make spending a lot of time thinking and talking about smoking cessation very challenging.”

Despite the difficulties associated with getting smokers to quit, Keating said there is hope for greater success in the future. For example, other health professionals could provide physicians with more training in counseling patients on smoking cessation.

Yet ultimately the percentage of cancer patients who cut the habit will only increase if they are motivated enough to make a change, according to Keating.

“I just think it’s never too late to do something to help yourself,” Park said.

Study finds link between airline profitability and risk

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:18:52 +0000

A Brigham Young U. professor has conducted a recent study that suggests an airline’s ability to meet financial goals may increase the likelihood of accidents.

Peter Madsen, assistant professor of organizational leadership and strategy in the Marriott School of Management, investigated 133 United States airlines between 1990 and 2007 and found a relationship between an airline’s ability to reach its financial aims and its number of accidents. According to Madsen, the study indicates as an airline exceeds or falls short of its financial aims, there is a decrease in the risk of accident.

Madsen based his study on a theoretical tradition called the ‘Behavioral Theory of the Firm.’

“Behavioral Theories of the Firm … focus more on the behavior that leads to outcomes. In other words, these theories are more concerned with why people do things,” said Mark Hansen, assistant professor of organizational leadership and strategy, in an email.

According to Madsen, the increased risk generated when companies are close to meeting their performance targets is caused largely by subconscious decisions.

“People pay a lot of attention to goals,” said Madsen. “If a company knows it’s close to a financial target and might miss it, there is a tendency to take a few more risks, or to not act as carefully. Whereas if you are far away from targets, there isn’t that emphasis on making sure you’re getting the company over the financial hump.”

Despite these findings, Madsen isn’t suggesting travelers check financial statements before booking their next vacation.

“Commercial aviation in the United States, and the first world, is so incredibly safe,” said Madsen. “The effects of this study were statistically meaningful, but still very small.”

In fact, the aim of his findings were not geared towards informing passengers of potential risks, but intended for those decision makers responsible for the safety of travelers.

According to a study used by Madsen, a traveler could fly every day for about 35,000 years before being killed in an accident.

“What I found, was that as profitability declines or increases relative to the target by 10 percent, you’ll see a drop-off in accident risk of 7 percent,” said Madsen. “Even a 7 percent increase in accident risk still means you could take a flight every day and still not be killed in a crash for over 32,000 years.”

The results of this study may also extend beyond aviation and be transferable to other industries.

“The theory I developed is very general,” said Madsen. “I have to be careful because I’ve only studied this in terms of aviation, but I expect that these findings could be even more defined in other industries only because aviation is so safe and so heavily regulated.”

The Federal Aviation Administration has also taken an interest in his findings and Madsen said he hopes as a result, his model could be used to help decision makers emphasize safety measures when companies are close to financial targets.

Binge drinking still prevalent in US

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:38:35 +0000

A recently released report shows binge drinking is still prevalent throughout the country.

The report, published this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, states that more than 90 percent of the alcohol youth drink is consumed while binge drinking.

According to the CDC’s January 2012 Vital Signs report, most binge drinkers in the U.S. are 18 to 34 years old.

“Individuals in that age range, for the most part, tend to be more accepting of binge drinking among their peers,” said Lisa Merlo, a clinical psychologist at U. Florida. “It plays a larger role in social interactions compared to some other age groups.”

UF’s Core Alcohol and Drug Survey confirms that UF is no stranger to the issue of binge drinking. According to the 2010 survey, 41.6 percent of participating students reported having five or more drinks in one sitting within two weeks of taking the survey.

The CDC defines binge drinking as consuming four or more alcoholic beverages within a short period of time for women and five or more for men.

Additionally, more than half of UF students surveyed reported having a hangover in the past year, and about one third admitted to having memory loss due to drinking.

However, the survey stated that 5.8 percent or less of people who took the survey considered their drinking a problem.

“With that age group, regardless of whether you’re in college or not, there’s that feeling of invincibility that a lot of young people have,” said Maureen Miller, coordinator for alcohol and drug prevention at UF.

College students are not immune to the consequences of binge drinking, said Cara Bearison, 20-year-old UF sophomore.

“It’s not fun for you because you’ll probably throw up and not remember anything,” Bearison said. “You’re putting yourself at risk for basically anything bad that could happen to you, so I think it’s dangerous.”

Despite high levels of alcohol abuse among students, percentages of alcohol use have decreased gradually since 2004, according to the UF survey.

“I like to think that’s a positive sign — kind of contributing to the work that we have been doing,” Miller said. “I feel really good about the direction that we’re heading.”

Twitter study reveals unhappiness in users

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:11:50 +0000

A team of U. Vermont scientists, led by applied mathematician Peter Dodds, analyzed over 46 billion words from 63 million individual users on the website Twitter over a 33-month period to conclude that happiness is not a trending topic.

Through Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online workforce that provides human intelligence, people rated the “happiness” of the 10,000 most popular words on a scale from one to nine: one being sad, five being neutral and nine being happy.

Words such as “laughter” rated an 8.5 and “food” rated a 7.44, while “funeral” rated a 2.1 and “terrorist” rated 1.3.

These results indicate that happiness is on the decline in the world of Twitter, according to a study published on PLoS ONE, a website dedicated to peer-reviewed science publications.

“Words are the atoms of our language, the building blocks of our sentences,” Dodds said. “We kind of forget about language, since we use it so much. Now we have social networks that provide a wealth of knowledge that we can look at and collect data [from].”

The study revealed a response between bad news and unhappiness in tweets.

Events such as the bailout of the U.S. financial system, the swine flu pandemic, natural disasters in Chile and Japan all produced relatively low happiness. The largest single-day drop occurred with the death of Michael Jackson.

Cultural and sporting events such as the season finale of “Lost” and the results of the 2010 World Cup when Germany defeated England also demonstrated recognizable drops in happiness.

Dodds said that because Twitter contains such an enormous amount of data, it pushes the limits on what scientists can do.

“Twitter is a great tool to see the reflection of movements,” he said. “We can see how movies, books and even diseases take off and slowly build over time by word of mouth.”

The research team is not the only group interested in studying social mood patterns on Twitter.

“The CIA has been following Twitter for signs of social discontent,” Dodds said. “There is a worry that big governments are following people, but as democratic nations-we can only hope it is for good of the people.”

Chris Danforth, an assistant professor in the department of mathematics and statistics, said that social media has introduced a whole new method of research for scientists.

“Before, researchers could only collect data from a few hundred people. But now, we can do it on a global scale, since Twitter is nearly universal,” he said.

The research group said they benefited greatly from the Vermont Advance Computing Core.

“We were receiving roughly 30 million messages a day, taking up 50 gigabytes of memory,” Danforth said. “Messages that come from Twitter were pulled out [by the ‘Super-Computer'] with their relevant information such as location and time. We wouldn’t be able to parse that data without it.”

The team of researchers is currently working on a website where users would be able to play around with the information gathered from Twitter.

“For example, people could search tweets about ‘pancakes’ and find out how happy those tweets are or the demographics of the tweets,” Danforth said.

But not all news is negative.

The study also showed that people were happier during the weekends and holidays, with Christmas Day reported as the highest level of happiness, followed by Christmas Eve.

Yet Dodds also said that too much happiness may not be the best goal for society.

“We wouldn’t want to live in a place like Brave New World—where everyone is high on soma, wandering around because everything is beautiful,” he said.

Study may link divorce to health ailments

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:55:52 +0000

U. Arizona researchers are conducting a new study that may show that divorce affects not only your daily life, but also your life span.

Researchers in the psychology department have been awarded a National Institutes of Health grant for $1.3 million to study how adults recover from marital separation and divorce.

“We are trying to shed new light on the differences between people who cope well and those who really struggle after a divorce,” said David Sbarra, an associate professor of psychology and the director of clinical training. “What are the people who are doing well doing?”

Psychology professor Richard Bootzin will lead the divorce study with Sbarra and Matthias Mehl, an associate psychology professor.

“Many people go through divorce and the stress is substantial,” Mehl said. “We want to find ways to alleviate this distress.”

The study will span a five-month period and will track three variables: how people feel about the divorce, their sleep methods afterward and their social environment and interactions.

Participants will wear an actigraph watch, which measures how much movement occurs at night, Sbarra said. Researchers will also assess their participants’ social environment using an Electronically Activated Recorder, a research tool developed by Mehl that periodically records snippets of participant’s daily lives.

“We want to find factors we can influence such as sleep and the social network, which I think is important because that way we can develop behavioral programs that help people deal with divorce-related stress,” Mehl said.

The recorder will also allow researchers to see how much the participant talks and spends time with other people, in addition to analyzing the quality of their interactions.

Mehl has expertise in studying the social environment, Sbarra in divorce adjustment and Bootzin in sleep, but they will work together collaboratively on the study.

“The most important thing is that this is truly a collaboration among all three of us,” Bootzin said. “We are all equal partners.”

Ultimately, the researchers will aim to understand how health problems are produced in individuals going through a divorce as well as seeing what produces resilience, Bootzin said.

“I think what this will do, assuming we are able to understand better, is help two individuals who are going through divorce of ways they don’t develop health problems,” he said. “This could be a set of guidelines that would help people deal with the stresses so they wouldn’t have negative health problems as a consequence.”

According to Sbarra, about 85 percent of people cope well after a divorce, and 10 to 15 percent of people tend to struggle. Because 2 million people are impacted by divorce each year, Sbarra said, this makes a relatively small number like 10 percent translate into a large number of people who are struggling.

“If you’re struggling with a separation, how can we tell you to think about your problem?” Sbarra asked. “We can’t tell you to change your personality, but is there something we can help you cultivate that will promote your well-being?”

Study finds some forms of gossip may be beneficial

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:44:27 +0000

Though traditionally seen as a way to spread nasty rumors and scandalous information, gossip may gain a better reputation after the release of a new study by a team of U. California-Berkeley researchers that suggests some forms of gossip can actually be positive.

The study — which was published online in the January edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — finds that spreading information about someone’s reputation or “gossiping” about antisocial behavior can actually lower stress in those who observe it and help prevent bad behavior in the future.

“Much of what we call gossip is driven by a sincere desire to help others,” said Robb Willer, UC Berkeley associate professor of psychology and sociology and co-author of the study, in an email. “(It) may be a critical way in which people maintain social order. Spreading rumors about people who have behaved badly allows our friends and acquaintances to know who to trust and who to avoid.”

Willer, campus psychology graduate student Matthew Feinberg, social psychology graduate student Jennifer Stellar and psychology professor Dacher Keltner reached their conclusions after staging a series of experiments over three years in Barrows and Tolman Halls.

According to the “Virtues of Gossip” study, volunteers in the researchers’ experiments who tried to prevent untrustworthy actions through “prosocial behavior” were most likely to gossip, despite economic consequences in the context of the study.

The team also discovered that gossip lowered the elevated heart rate that some volunteers experienced after observing unfair actions in the experiments and lessened the frustration caused by the situation.

“You might even say it’s therapeutic,” Willer added in the email.

Over the course of four experiments, the researchers gradually increased the number of participants faced with the task of deciding whether to report the behavior of others within a trust game.

The first experiment tested the reactions of 52 volunteers observing a trust game between two players, where it became clear after time that one player was playing unfairly at the expense of the other.

When the observers were given the chance to pass the affected player a “gossip note,” almost all observers — 26 out of 27 — chose to advise the affected player against the untrustworthy player, the study states.

“Individuals’ underlying prosociality, their regard for the well-being of others, drives them to share information of value to vulnerable others,” the study states.

The second study operated with the same structure, involving 111 volunteers who reported feeling less frustrated after gossiping.

Even when the researchers introduced an economic cost for gossiping and informed participants that gossiping would not change the outcome of the experiment, volunteers continued to gossip about untrustworthy players in the third study.

The final study used 399 participants in an online version of the trust game and found that volunteers faced with the possibility of being gossiped about acted more prosocially.

“With reputational concerns almost always present, group members were forced to keep selfish motives in check or risk ostracism,” the study states.

Willer said the research team may continue to study the workings of gossip in the future in different cultures and countries, but no studies are currently under way.

Caffeine intake may boost intelligence, study shows

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:55:51 +0000

Dispelling any negative connotations of the phrase “coffee addict,” a recent study shows that the substance might increase intelligence.

Scientists have found that caffeine enhances nerve cell connections in the brain—synapses—which are scientifically considered to be the cellular basis for learning. Serena Dudek, a senior investigator in the Neurobiology Laboratory at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in the Research Triangle Park, said that although the findings are notable, the degree to which the study applies to humans is still unclear, given the biological differences between humans and the study’s test subjects: rats.

“Effects of caffeine on memory in humans are obviously subtle,” Dudek said. “If it really made us that much smarter, we’d all be consuming a lot more of it! Although, I joke, there seems to be an awful lot of people who are pretty impaired cognitively and socially before their first cup.”

Dudek’s team found that caffeine improves the efficiency of chemical reactions involving neurons in rats. In the trials, caffeine dramatically increased signalling between neurons in the rats’ brains that is rich in adenosine receptors, which cause drowsiness. Essentially, Dudek said, caffeine takes the spot of adenosine—the chemical causing drowsiness—in these ports, preventing fatigue, increasing energy and improving memory.

She added that human cells may not have the same distribution of receptors as rats, possibly leading to different effects of similarly proportioned dosages. There are, however, enough strong similarities between humans and rodents—often used as test subjects in designing pharmaceuticals—to make such an extrapolation useful and support the notion of caffeine as a positive substance for humans.

“I drink about three cups [of coffee] a day, on average, but don’t consider myself an addict,” Dudek said. “I have no problem giving it up for decaf if I wean myself off, but why [would I]?”

Duke U. sophomore Inka Johnson said she drinks approximately five cups of coffee per day, occasionally replacing a cup with a caffeine pill or using energy drinks during high-stress periods.

“Half a caffeine pill is one cup of coffee, so I never take more than half of pill at one time,” Johnson said. “If I drink more than a cup, I just get jittery. Monster energy drinks are my go-to if I need to be more alter for a longer period of time, like during exam week. I know they’re not healthy for me, but sometimes I need them.”

Although she doesn’t necessarily believe that caffeine directly makes her more intelligent, Johnson noted that coffee helps her stay awake and attentive in class.

“If I’m feeling drowsy or easily distracted, I’ll go get a cup of coffee and 15 minutes later I feel more focused,” she said. “Indirectly, it makes you smarter because you can pay attention to what you’re learning in class, but I don’t think it makes me any smarter than I would have been if I had just gotten enough sleep.”

Duke sophomore Lucy Yin said she drinks tea as a last resort if she is trying to stay awake.

“I don’t think I learn better with caffeine, and it’s better to just get more sleep,” Yin said. “I don’t like drinking too much caffeine before a test because it makes me jittery, but I think a little bit helps me focus.”

Elliot Anderson, a barista at Joe Van Gogh, agreed that the most coffee has to offer is the ability to stay awake later or avoid class-induced drowsiness.

“I wouldn’t say caffeine itself makes you more intelligent, it conspires with other elements to do so,” said Max Berry, another Joe Van Gogh barista. “I could see it making you smarter socially—[drinking coffee] is a social activity, which gives you something to do and talk about.”

Recent study links alcohol use and personality traits

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:21:01 +0000

If you’re the type of person who gets aggressive when you’ve had too much to drink, one study says you shouldn’t blame it on the alcohol. Chances are, you lack a trait that allows consideration of future consequences.

This is according to a recent study conducted at U. Kentucky by Ohio State U. psychology professor Brad Bushman, who was the lead author of the study. U. Kentucky professor Peter Giancola co-authored the study along with Dominic Parrott, associate professor of psychology at Georgia State U., and Robert Roth, associate professor of psychiatry at Darmouth Medical School.

“People who tend to focus on the future are not very aggressive,” Bushman said. “And it doesn’t really matter if they’re drunk or sober. Whereas people who focus on the here-and-now, they’re more aggressive than others but especially when they’re intoxicated.”

Bushman called the combination of alcohol and the inability to control one’s impulses a “double whammy.”

Bushman, who specializes in conducting studies surrounding violence and aggression, said he was not surprised by the results.

“Both alcohol intoxication and the failure to consider future consequences are related to what we call cognitive executive functioning,” Bushman said. “That’s the functions in your brain that look at things like your ability to reason and make good judgments and alcohol wipes that out … We didn’t know for sure, but we predicted the combination would lead to the highest level of aggression and it did.”

Ben Stickney, a fifth-year student at OSU, said he agrees with the results of the study.

“People who are aggressive will tend to be aggressive when they’re drunk.” Stickney said. “I’m a pretty happy person to begin with and I’m a happy drunk, so I think (alcohol) enhances whatever you’re feeling and you’re good at.”

Bushman and his colleagues conducted the study over the course of a year, with 500 participants with an average age of 23.

Participants were asked to complete a “consideration of future consequences scale.” The questionnaire asked participants whether they agreed with statements such as “my behavior is only influenced by the immediate outcomes of my actions.” Answers to the questionnaire determined the aggressive nature of participants.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups; one group was given an alcoholic beverage while the other group was given a placebo (non-alcoholic) drink.

All participants were then told they were competing in a computer game against another same-sex contender. Winners would be given the opportunity to administer electric shock to the loser.

According to the press release, participants had a total of 34 trials, participants were told they had “won” half the games and “lost” the other half. Bushman and his colleagues randomly determined these results.

With every loss, participants received an electric shock from their “opponents.” The duration of the shocks varied in length, but the purpose of the electric shocks was to see how participants would retaliate. Participants who turned out to be of the here-and-now type retaliated by administering shocks to their opponents longer than participants who thought about the future.

“The most aggressive people in our study were those who were drunk and didn’t think about their consequences,” Bushman said.

Bushman’s advice to individuals who behave irrationally when intoxicated is to refrain from consuming alcohol altogether.

“If you’re the kind of the person that thinks about the here-and-now, you should avoid drinking alcohol especially in situations that could lead to fights,” Bushman said. “And if you know somebody like that then you should avoid them when they’re drunk.”

Katie Soehnlen, a fourth-year OSU student, said she does her best to avoid aggressive drunks.

“I’m a pretty passive person, so I just stay up against the wall and walk away.” Soehnlen said. “I try not to affiliate with those people.”

Study finds digital personalities match offline traits

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:01:42 +0000

A psychological connection exists between the use of Facebook profiles and the physical behavior of Facebook users, according to a study by a U. Texas psychology professor.

Psychology professor Samuel Gosling and partner Sam Gaddis were both involved in a collaborative study between the UT Department of Psychology and the Department of Psychology at Washington U. in St. Louis. The study found that users who are more heavily involved in their social circles offline are more likely to have an active virtual social life.

The study, published in September 2011, has reappeared in online discussion this month. In “Manifestations of Personality in Online Social Networks: Self-Reported Facebook-Related Behaviors and Observable Profile Information,” researchers recorded data submitted by the subjects themselves. The data shows how often users post content to social media websites as well as information they keep publicly available on their profiles. This information was referenced with individual scores based on the five-factor model of personality which measures the traits of openness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and conscientiousness.

“People are increasingly doing studies on these forms of social media,” Gosling said. “Some people have speculated that these portals serve as compensation for people’s personalities and are not how they express themselves in real life. It’s hard to know, about half the people think you don’t get a good impression and about half think you do. I wouldn’t say I was surprised, necessarily, given the results of other studies I’ve done.”

The five traits measured in each subject proved to indicate specific types of behavior on Facebook, according to the study. Study participants who placed higher in extraversion were more likely to constantly update content and comment on their friends’ posts. Although this was the strongest pattern exhibited in the study, social work junior Alexander McArthur said he feels he is an exception to the rule.

“I’m kind of an opposite, because I’m more introverted in real life than I am online,” McArthur said. “It’s hard to start a conversation with someone face-to-face, but when you’re online it’s much easier.”

While the neuroticism trait did not have a significant effect on online behavior, characteristics such as agreeableness and openness indicated higher levels of friends and information available on profiles, while low agreeableness levels demonstrated less page views and information available.

“I keep my education and workplace listed and all that,” McArthur said. “I usually fill out everything except the phone number, and I have an infinite number of ‘likes.’”

Patterns of Facebook usage and activity also gave researchers insight to real life habits that students often face, according to the study. Participants expressing low levels of conscientiousness were likely to spend more time viewing pages on Facebook, a practice researchers said was consistent with those who have a tendency to procrastinate.

“I usually have Facebook open while I’m doing other things like homework,” said biology freshman Taylor Bruner. “I check Facebook probably every hour.”

Users’ observations of their peers’ pages was equally as informative of online personality accuracy, according to the study.

“I definitely think people post stuff that goes with their real personality,” Bruner said. “I’ll post something about Broadway which fits me perfectly, while my friends who are sports fans are always posting about the game.”

The real butterfly in your stomach – Scientists explore the possibility of a “second brain” in our gut

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:12:06 +0000

Ever had someone tell you to follow your gut? Or maybe you’ve been sitting with a test in front of you or a decision to make, and deep down there is something in your gut telling you what the correct answer or choice is.

Research has now revealed that what you may have thought of as an idiom —the “gut instinct”—passed down through the ages is actually deeply rooted in scientific fact. For the past few decades, researchers have been studying the enteric nervous system—a part of the nervous system in the stomach. What they have found tells us not only a lot about what governs our bowel, but also about what controls instincts, mood and even some diseases.

The enteric nervous system (ENS) is a part of the peripheral nervous system, the nerves and ganglia (cell bodies) that lies outside of the brain. It is defined as the “intrinsic innervations of the gut” explains Dr. Michael Gershon, Professor and Chairman of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Columbia U. Medical Center and author of the 1998 book The Second Brain over email.

“I looked at the brain and found it daunting,” said Gershon in his email explaining why he chose to study this “second brain” over fifty years ago. “I hoped to find an independent nervous system that was simpler to study than the brain.”

When Gershon started out, he was one of two researchers in the entire world looking into the ENS, noted a recent article in Psychology Today. Now the study of the neurons and neurotransmitters that make up the ENS is the subject of the research of hundreds and the field of neurogasteroenterology is rising in popularity.

THE NERVES THAT CONTROL YOUR NERVES

“There are between 200 and 600 million neurons in the human ENS, which is equal to the number of neurons in the spinal cord,” writes Dr. Emeran Mayer, the Director of the Center for Neurobiology of Stress at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, in a recent study published in Nature.

“[These neurons] regulate the behavior of the bowel and that of neighboring organs, including the gall bladder and pancreas,” says Gershon.

But the role of the ENS does not stop there. The vagus nerves connect the ENS to the brain and when stimulated, these control epilepsy, relieve depression and improve learning and memory, Gershon further explains.

“[The implication of this is that] it is possible that signals from the bowel alter mood,” Gershon says.

A SOLO ACT

If the neurons contained one of the major reasons that the ENS interests researchers is because it can operate without any input from the brain.

“The ENS is the only region of the PNS that is able to mediate reflexes and integrative neuronal activity in the absence of input from the brain or spinal cord,” says Gershon.

Another aspect of the ENS that has intrigued researchers is the reverse nature of the signaling between the brain and the ENS. Traditionally, the brain is expected to signal the rest of the body. However, research has found that the ENS more commonly sends signals to the brain.

“Over 90% of the nerve fibers in the vagus nerves carry information from the guy to the brain. This is shockingly more than the number of vagal fibers carrying information from brain to gut.”

As a result of these signals sent from the stomach to the brain, sadness, stress, memory, learning, and decision-making are affected, reports a recent article in Psychology Today. This reverse signaling may explain why the idea of a “gut instinct” may actually be a scientific fact.

EATING YOUR FEELINGS

Recent research on the ENS has revealed many groundbreaking truths about the body. For one, it has demonstrated that there may actually be a scientific link between food and feelings.

“Food and stress are powerful modulators of the body-mind connection,” reports a recent article published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The ties between food and mood could offer promising treatments for the obesity epidemic, explain researchers Giovanni Cizza, M.D, Ph.D. and Kristina Rother, M.D, both from the National Institute of Health, in the article.

A group of researchers from the University of Leuven in Leuven, Belgium have studied the interactions between signaling initiated in the gut and the emotions that they elicit, according to a recent report published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in August 2011.

They found that there was a relationship between the intake of fats and the level of neural activity in the brain as a result, reports the study. They discovered that the intake of fatty acids reduced sadness and hunger.

“These findings increase our understanding of the interplay among emotions, hunger, food intake and meal-induced sensations in health, which may have important implications for a wide range of disorders, including obesity, eating disorders, and depression,” the researchers noted in their report.

Additionally, the ENS has also been thought to possibly have links to diseases such as autism.

“Autism has not yet been definitively linked to the ENS; however, it is likely that genetic defects in synapse formation which may contribute to autism affect development of the ENS as well as development of the central nervous system,” Gershon wrote in his email interview.

DO BACTERIA CONTROL THE BRAIN?

A study published in the journal Neurogastroenterology and Motility indicates that it is not simply the neurons and neurotransmitters in the stomach that play a role in signaling to the brain. In fact, a large part of the work may be done by the “intestinal microbiota” in your gut—a.k.a. the germs in your stomach.

There are approximately 100 trillion bacteria that reside in your intestines, reports Psychology Today. Researchers in Canada have studied these microbes and have concluded, “that the presence or absence of conventional intestinal microbiota influences the development of behavior and is accompanied by neurochemical changes in the brain.”

Some believe that this study could serve as a gateway to treating stress-related disorders such as depression, reports Psychology Today.

A NEW ERA IN RESEARCH

Neurogasteroenterology is now one of the cutting edge fields in the world of science. Boston University students believe that it is important to explore new fields such as this one.

“Advancements such as these are important, because as the world changes, science needs to keep up with the advancements the human race is making in other areas. It is especially important in medicine as new diseases are discovered every year, so new cures need to be found every year,” says Amanda Kirshkaln, a sophomore in the Sargeant College of Rehabilitation Sciences.

Students also agree that it is research into areas such as the ENS that are pushing the boundaries of science and medicine.

“These advancements are saving lives! I think they are important for a better understanding of the human body and to know our limits and go beyond!” says College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, Celia Gagliardi.

Research into the ENS has changed the way people are thinking about the relationship between the brain and the stomach. Much has changed since Gershon began his research 50 years ago.

“The idea that there are multiple neurotransmitters in the ENS is now accepted. The concept of the ENS as an independent region of the peripheral nervous system is also established,” Gershon notes. “The ENS is suspected to contribute to human GI disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome. We know the ENS contains stem cells.”

When Gershon embarked on his study of the ENS, he thought he was choosing a simple system compared to the brain. However, Research has revealed that his initial hypothesis is far from the truth.

“My mistake was to think that the ENS could be described with the word simple,” Gershon admits in his email. “A simple nervous system is an oxymoron.”

New solar cell could revolutionize industry

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:38:06 +0000

Translucent windows harvesting the sun’s energy more efficiently than our current solar panels, cell phones that charge when exposed to ambient light and lights powered by the sun on a cloudy day may not be figments of scientists’ imagination. In the not too distant future, these things could exist due to research at the NC State U. College of Textiles.

According to Maqbool Hussain, a graduate student working on the new solar technology, there are many ideal renewable energy sources, but solar energy is the best and most viable renewable energy source.

“Only one percent of the light that shines on Earth is enough to power most civilized countries,” Hussain said.

The breakthrough is called a Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC). The researchers have developed this dye that bonds to Titanium Dioxide, a semiconductor, according to Ahmed El-Shafei, the professor leading the research. This dye absorbs photons from sunlight, which excite the dye’s electrons, according to El-Shafei. These electrons then transfer to the Titanium Dioxide semiconductor and go through a circuit, which generates a current, Hussain said.

There are a few aspects of the DSSC that make them a viable option for everyone, but one of the most important aspects is the price difference compared to regular solar panels.

“Other solar panels use costly inorganic materials and need very special preparation methods,” Hammad Cheema, another graduate student working on the project, said. “Our Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells are much simpler and cheaper.”

According to El-Shafei, DSSC’s are around 60 to 70 percent cheaper than other solar panels.

Aside from the attractive price difference, another aspect of a DSSC is its ability to absorb photons from ambient light as well as direct sunlight. According to El-Shafei, this means the Dye Sensitized Solar Cell is able to use the sun’s energy while not being in direct contact with the sun’s rays. This also means the DSSC can harvest energy from the sun on a cloudy or rainy day. According to El-Shafei, regular solar panels collect different amounts of energy throughout the day, peaking at noon, whereas the DSSC collects the maximum amount of energy throughout the day, due to its ability to capture ambient light.

The final aspect of the Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell that allows it to trump regular solar panels is the fact that a dilute solution of the dye can be used in the cell, allowing the cell to be transparent, according to Cheema. This means that windows, building facades and touch screens on cell phones have the capacity to harvest solar energy with the DSSC technology, according to El-Shafei.

The research team has already produced a dye that is 14 percent more efficient than the current state of the art dye, but their goal is to increase this to 30 percent by the end of the year. According to El-Shafei, this would be a game changer in the solar energy industry. Companies are already interested in their current DSSC and are working to make a deal, which would bring money to N.C. State.

Study says marijuana less harmful to lungs

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:16:16 +0000

Some students are beginning to re-evaluate their smoking habits, as a study released last week by the Journal of the American Medical Association stated there is no decline in lung function after one marijuana joint a week for 49 years.

The study, which followed more than 5,000 people for 20 years, found smoking marijuana daily led to a decline in lung function after 10 years, although not to a significant degree.

Chris Julian-Fralish, coordinator of the alcohol and drug abuse program at the Southern Illinois U. Student Health Center, said he anticipates seeing students who use the results of the study as an excuse to smoke marijuana.

“People are not going to look at the actual research, and they’ll use it as a justification to use it in ways that aren’t necessarily healthy,” he said.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug.

About three-quarters of those who use illicit drugs cite marijuana use.

Julian-Fralish said he thinks people need to pay more attention to the details of the research because the study primarily examined those who smoke marijuana only two to three times a month.

“What the authors also report in this is that it’s more difficult to estimate potential effects of regular heavy use because this pattern of use is relatively rare,” he said.

College-aged students are most responsible for the increase in marijuana use, according to a study conducted by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The study reported drug use among young adults ages 18 to 25 has jumped from 19.6 percent in 2008 to 21.5 percent in 2010.

For some students, the results of the study came as no surprise. Before seeing the results of the study, Trevor, an SIU sophomore whose last name will not be used due to the nature of this article, said he suspected marijuana smoke was not dangerous.

Trevor said he has been smoking marijuana twice a day since high school, and he does not think the drug has had a negative effect on his health.

“I play sports and it’s never been a problem,” he said. “I can still run and swim just fine.”

Marijuana smoke contains many of the same chemicals as cigarette smoke, and until now, researchers were unsure whether marijuana use led to the same injuries to the lungs as cigarette smoking.

Michael, an SIU sophomore, said he smoked marijuana for three years and never found the drug hazardous. However, when he began smoking cigarettes, he said he felt a negative change in his short-term health.

“I smoked cigarettes for six months and it was harder to breathe,” he said. “I was coughing a lot.”

Michael said although he never experienced health problems from smoking marijuana, he would not say the drug is completely without health risks.

“If you’re going to smoke weed everyday, you’re bound to come into some health problems that aren’t necessarily from smoking alone,” he said. “You might stop taking care of yourself as much. You could eat worse. You might not want to exercise.”

Julian-Fralish said it is important to be responsible with information and not just focus on one extreme or the other.

He said people think smoking is not a health hazard for the heart and lungs, but that is not true.

“On the other hand, maybe … the idea that any amount of smoking is going to harm you physically isn’t necessarily accurate. Both sides may not be true, and it doesn’t serve to live … in these areas of extremism with these ideas,” he said.

Julian-Fralish said the study has the potential to open up conversations about a more accurate portrayal of the dangers of smoking.

“We’re not living in a black and white world,” he said. “The world’s a shade of gray, and so is the marijuana issue.”

Unpublished study draws ire from minorities

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:45:16 +0000

A recent Duke U. study examining the correlation between academic performance and race is being deemed racist by a number of students and members of the Duke community.

The officially unpublished report—“What Happens After Enrollment? An Analysis of the Time Path of Racial Differences in GPA and Major Choice”—examined how minority students close the gap in academic performance as compared to white counterparts at Duke. The research found that black students’ GPAs indeed converge eventually with those of white students, but attributed this to black students being more likely than white students to switch to less difficult majors. About 35 people protested the study Sunday, claiming that the research minimizes the achievement of black students and wrongly characterizes some humanities disciplines as easier than other majors.

The Black Student Alliance sponsored the protest following remarks by Donna Brazile, vice chair of voter registration of the Democratic National Committee, in the Duke Chapel Sunday. In a statement released by the organization Monday, BSA expressed concern about the study’s methodology and called for action.

“We reject the notion that majors in the humanities and social sciences are inherently easier and call on the University administration to do the same, publicly,” the statement said. “Furthermore, we ask the entire Duke community to stand with us against this attack on the academic achievements of all students in the humanities and social sciences and black students at this University.”

BSA members declined to comment further.

“This study does not embody Duke’s values as an institution,” said sophomore Jacob Tobia, who attended the demonstration. “We do not stand for that type of racist inquiry and that misuse of academia to mischaracterize the accomplishments of the African-American students at our institution.”

For the purposes of the research, the investigators quantified the difficulty of certain majors based on student evaluations, measured study times, grades and grading standards. Among the “more difficult” majors were engineering, hard sciences and economics. Subjects in the humanities and social sciences were deemed less difficult.

According to the study, among students matriculating in 2001 and 2002 who initially expressed an interest in majoring in engineering, economics or the natural sciences, 54 percent of black males and 51 percent of black females ended up switching to other majors in the humanities or social sciences. By contrast, only about 8 percent of white men and 33 percent of white women switched majors.

Black students are slightly more likely than white students to express an initial interest in engineering, economics or the natural sciences—61.7 percent for blacks compared to 60.8 percent for whites—yet less than 30 percent of black students finish with a major in that realm compared to 50.5 percent of whites.

‘Not the intent’

Peter Arcidiacono, the report’s lead author and professor of economics, said that he is not certain what BSA and others are criticizing about the study.

“I was very surprised that the study received coverage given that it is unpublished,” Arcidiacono wrote in an email Sunday. “The reaction may be because others are using the study in a lawsuit against racial preferences in admissions.”

Arcidiacono is meeting with BSA members Thursday.

“I hope that people have actually read the study,” he said. “When I meet with BSA, I hope to make clear what the paper says and what it doesn’t say.”

Although most of the controversy centers around the racial aspect of Arcidiacono’s study, he and his colleagues also observed similar results with legacy students, who—like minorities—are often given an advantage in college admissions.

In the report, the scholars argue that their findings undermine other studies that play down the difficulties experienced by recipients of affirmative action and legacy students by asserting that these students eventually earn the same GPAs as their white counterparts. The research found similar major-switching patterns in legacy students as well.

BSA President Nana Asante, a senior, said in a speech before Brazile’s remarks that the study undermines the scholastic achievements of black students at Duke.

“That was definitely not the intent,” Arcidiacono said. “I don’t think other academic economists read the paper in that way, either.”

He added that people may be misinterpreting what the study actually says.

“The study doesn’t say anything about what races are better at Duke or anything like that,” he said in an interview. “What it actually says is that if you take white students and black students with similar levels of academic preparation, then they leave the hard sciences and economics at the same rate,”

The reason that the gaps are so different in terms of how many people switch out is that students are coming to Duke with very different academic backgrounds, he added.

‘Affront to the liberal arts’

Protesters, who held signs reading “GPA has no race” and “My major is not easy” among other statements, had an equally passionate response to the fact that some majors were quantified as less difficult than other subjects.

According to the report, self-reported assessments of course difficulty indicated that the sciences were more difficult than the humanities. Students taking courses in the natural sciences, engineering and economics earned grades that were on average 8 percent lower than courses outside those fields. Moreover, these subjects were associated with 50 percent more study time than others.

“The study is an affront to the diversity of our institution and an affront to the liberal arts in general,” Tobia said.

Sophomore Alston Neville said he thinks the study is biased.

“It doesn’t take into account anything about the value of the majors,” Neville said. “It’s just assuming that hard majors are in pre-med classes, so it’s really not taking into credit what majors at Duke are different, and it’s not all about color as it is making it seem.”

Arcidiacono said that, in contrast to some accusations, his study did not label majors that fall within the social sciences as easy.

“I just read [the report] again and could not find anything that said humanities and social science majors were easy,” he said. “All statements are about relative difficulties, given student answers to the survey questions.”

Senior Thomas Burr, an economics major, said BSA overreacted to the study and misunderstood economics department’s purpose. He added that he believes the professors who spearheaded the study—Arcidiacono and Kenneth Spenner, professor of sociology, psychology and neuroscience—were unfairly attacked in the email BSA sent to students that called for a protest and labeled Aridiacono’s study “hurtful and alienating.”

“Essentially, BSA has implied that the professors had malicious intent when performing this research, which is absurd,” Burr wrote in an email Sunday. “They should have met with the professors before making such an inflammatory charge against their characters.”

U. California faculty help discover smallest solar system

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:59:19 +0000

A NASA mission led in part by U. California-Berkeley faculty has discovered the smallest solar system to date, taking a step toward finding another planet that can support life.

The discovery revealed a solar system made up of three planets, each smaller than Earth, orbiting around a red dwarf star located about 120 light years away. The planets are believed to have a rocky terrain that is more likely to support life but are too hot to have liquid water, with surface temperatures between 500 and 600 degrees Celsius, according to Geoff Marcy, a campus professor of astronomy involved with the research.

After the Kepler Telescope observed the three planets passing in front of the distant star, the information was reinforced by subsequent observations from Palomar Observatory near San Diego and the Keck Observatory on the volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii that confirmed its existence, according to a press release.

Marcy and Gibor Basri, campus vice chancellor for equity and inclusion, are two of 19 co-investigators providing leadership for the NASA Kepler mission — an ongoing search for another planet that can sustain life — deciding what data to look for and how to interpret it.

Researchers can also use a remote observing station on campus to remotely operate the Keck Observatory from far away. Marcy said he spent 150 nights operating the telescope in Hawaii for the research.

Since the discovered solar is system is somewhat like our own, it is giving rise to the hope that researchers will find another habitable planet. One of the planets discovered is about the same size as Mars, marking the first time a similarly sized planet has been found, Marcy said.

“We are still looking for the holy grail of an Earth-sized planet with a similar environment … but we are homing in on a truly Earth-like planet,” he said.

Adderall use common among students

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:55:44 +0000

A U. Oregon freshman, who asked to remain anonymous, first heard about Adderall in the dorms two weeks before finals.

“People would say, ‘I need to take some Adderall and go to the library,’” she said. “A lot of people are looking for it.”

Although usually prescribed to people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, more college students nationwide who don’t have ADHD have been turning to the orange and white pills as a study aid.

According to a 2010 National College Health Assessment, 8 percent of surveyed University students said they had used stimulants within the past 12 months that were not prescribed to them. Numbers from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 6.4 percent of full-time college students abused Adderall in 2007. But some studies have found that as many as 25 percent of students abused prescription stimulants.

“My impression is that by the end of people’s time at U. Oregon, a much higher percentage of students use a stimulant,” University psychiatrist Rick Friedrich said. “I would guess that even 25 percent would be on the low end.”

Gregg Wendland, pharmacy manager at the University Health Center, also thinks abuse is fairly common.

“Students aren’t going to come in and tell us they’re using Adderall,” he said. “But based on national trends, I think it’s reasonably widespread.”

Wendland said the University has “stringent policies” on diagnosing students with ADHD. Students, Friedrich said, must take several tests to make sure it’s not just poor study habits preventing them from concentrating. The University pharmacy also carefully tracks prescriptions for Adderall, which cannot be refilled without a new prescription from a doctor and cannot be refilled early.

Prescriptions aren’t cheap either, ranging from $50 to $300 a month.

Two years ago, the University started giving students who are prescribed drugs like Adderall a contract that spells out both the health and criminal consequences of abusing the substance. Selling a drug like Adderall is a Class B felony and can result in 24 months of probation and up to 60 days in jail. Possessing the drug without a prescription can result in 18 months probation and up to 30 days in jail.

And when taken by people without ADHD, Adderall can cause panic attacks and heart problems after one use.

As national trends show, the University is not alone in dealing with stimulant abuse.

“Health centers across the country are flooded with requests with people saying they can’t concentrate, thinking they must have ADD,” Friedrich said, adding that universities must treat students who have ADHD, but must also monitor whether students are being responsible with their medications.

Jessica Champion, senior substance abuse counselor at the University, said the University needs to do more to prevent Adderall abuse. She said there is an “overwhelming need for intervention” to inform students about stimulant abuse.

She and her staff work with about 400 students who have had substance abuse problems in the past. Of those students, she said about 75 percent abused Adderall during finals. “Students are not concerned about (health effects) at all,” she said.

One student’s account shows a similar attitude toward the drug.

“They don’t think it’s dangerous at all,” said University freshman Angie Hall about students who use Adderall in her dorm. “Sometimes they take a little too much. They’ll say things like, ‘Oh, I’m not focused enough. I need more Adderall.’ And then they take more.”

Although the University has tutoring centers, outreach programs and student groups to help students who use substances or have trouble focusing, these programs may not be enough to change students’ attitudes toward Adderall.

“It’s quick, easy — it’s a shortcut,” Friedrich said. “There’s always going to be folks who opt for the pop-a-pill attitude to take care of their problems, but some additional services along the lines of helping people with focus and study abilities would help.”

‘Unfriending’ could have psychological impact

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:15:03 +0000

A U. Arizona researcher found losing friends on Facebook may present negative psychological effects for some, but for a site that has more than 800 million users and counting, losing one friend may seem insignificant to others.

David Sbarra, a UA psychology professor, said the psychological effects on some Facebook users who are unfriended are especially common in those with a history of social rejection.

Neuroscience research demonstrates that even rejection from something as simple as a game of catch can cause activation in regions of the brain that are associated with physical pain, Sbarra said.

“We are a social species, we get along best by connecting with other people,” he said. “Being unfriended is a signal that something isn’t going right in the social environment and we are programmed to detect threats in the social environment.”

Sbarra explained that some people are hyper-focused on relationships and their status within those relationships. These people tend to have a more anxious attachment to others and are more likely to get upset when unfriended.

“I think it would bother people who aren’t social and don’t have a lot of friends, or people with a low self-esteem,” said Erica Goudy, a psychology sophomore who has more than 100 Facebook friends.

Others with a friend count as high as 700 sometimes don’t even notice when someone deletes them, or if they do, they are unfazed by the action.

“It bothers people that are addicted to Facebook and care too much,” said Tim Brousse, a UA freshman studying pre-business who has more than 700 friends. “It doesn’t bug me at all.”

Sometimes the act of unfriending is as simple as people going through their Facebook friend list and deleting anyone they do not socialize with, Sbarra said. Other times, being unfriended can reflect a rift in a friendship.

“I don’t really care,” said Beatriz Verdugo, a UA pre-business sophomore. “You don’t really need a friend if they’re deleting you. You can tell what kind of person they are if they do.”

Study: one in three people will be arrested before age 23

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:15:34 +0000

A simple phone call to parents is no longer a common punishment for young troublemakers when police catch them in the act, experts said.

Nearly one in three people will be arrested by the age of 23, according to a study published in the January 2012 edition of Pediatrics, a peer-reviewed national journal. When the study was published in 1967, researchers found 22 percent of young adults would be arrested by age 23. In the latest study, researchers concluded 30.2 percent of people will be arrested by age 23, said principal author of the study Robert Brame.

But Penn State U. professor of sociology and crime, law and justice John Kramer said the increase in arrests isn’t due to an increase in crime. In fact, the crime rate has substantially decreased in the last 15 years, Kramer said.

Rather, Kramer attributes the increase of youth arrests to a more formal legal system in the United States.

“Fifty percent of the time, we expected delinquent activity to just be reported to our parents,” Kramer said, referring to his generation’s interaction with police several decades ago.

Over the past 40 years, laws have also expanded, Kramer said, which contributes to the increased number of arrests. For example, motor vehicle laws and underage drinking laws are stricter now than ever before, Kramer said.

Brame, also a professor at U. North Carolina-Charlotte, echoed Kramer’s reasoning. He added that many more incidents will trigger law enforcement involvement today than in the past.

Strict “no tolerance” policies in schools also did not exist when the study was conducted more than 40 years ago, Brame said, which may have contributed to the increased number of arrests.

Because of the changing times, Brame said an updated study “needed to be done.”

Using data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics between 1997 and 2008, researchers analyzed individuals who were between the ages of 12 and 16 at the end of 1996, Brame said.

The same group was asked a variety of questions over the 11-year time period. One of the questions was if the individual has been arrested or taken into custody for something other than major traffic violations, Brame said.

To experts like Kramer and Brame, the results were not surprising.

Kramer said during criminology classes he instructs, he teaches his students the recent “broken window” movement of police — another reason why it may be more common for youth to be arrested.

The police mentality, he said, is that small things can become big things. More serious crimes can occur if police are lenient and do not report less serious offenses, he said.

Forty years ago, a crime such as vandalism may have resulted in just a phone call home. Police must now file the crime in the legal system to deter more serious crimes committed by the same person, Kramer said.

Through his more than 20 years experience as a Pittsburgh magisterial district judge and private attorney, Lou Coles said he has seen firsthand that low-level offenses are treated differently now than they were in the past.

Coles said on Friday and Saturday nights, it is very common for police to arrest people who drink alcohol on the streets or urinate in public. But decades ago, police would have just issued a citation, instead of making an arrest, Coles said.

One possible reason, Coles said, is the money each arrest brings the municipality.

“Crime is a gross business,” Coles said. “It keeps lawyers, judges and police in business.”

Dartmouth professor works on HIV vaccine

admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:53:43 +0000

A research consortium led by engineering professor Margaret Ackerman has received an $8 million-grant from Partners Health Care, a non-profit health care provider in Massachusetts, to fund the development of a new type of HIV vaccine, according to Ackerman.

The consortium, led by Ackerman and Galit Alter, a professor at Harvard Medical School, includes researchers with a wide variety of specialties from both national and international institutions, Ackerman said. Although researchers have been trying to develop HIV vaccines for three decades, Ackerman’s initiative differs from its predecessors by shifting the focus from the adaptive immune system to the innate immune system, she said. Typically, when the body is infected with a virus, the immune system responds by producing neutralizing antibodies, which block structurally important parts of the pathogen from binding with the body’s cells. This system has been the primary focus of the vast majority of HIV vaccine research efforts, and investigators have for years sought to develop a drug that would induce this response in order to prevent infection. However, one of the factors that contributes to the difficulty of developing an HIV vaccine is the disease’s rapid rate of mutation, according to Ackerman. Because the disease constantly mutates into different strains, an effective vaccine would require very “broad coverage,” which researchers have not been able to produce by focusing on the adaptive immune system.

“There is more viral diversity in a single person infected with HIV than in all of the people in the world infected with the flu,” Ackerman said.

Ackerman said she hypothesizes that the innate immune system — a “beacon for waking up the rest of the immune system” — could be used to neutralize the infection. While the innate immune system is usually considered a temporary defense measure used by the body until the adaptive immune system can identify and destroy the pathogen, Ackerman said a successful HIV vaccine could result from utilizing the innate immune system’s signalling mechanisms.

This hypothesis is supported by the results of a three-year vaccine trial conducted in Thailand, the results of which were published in 2009. Although the study was controversial and researchers are still debating the results, the trial resulted in a statistically effective vaccine, and subjects did not exhibit the typical hallmarks of an adaptive immune system response, according to Ackerman.

“The trial showed success despite the absence of the neutralizing antibodies,” Ackerman said. “Clearly, something else must have been contributing to the success of the vaccine.”

The controversy of the trial stems from the fact that the vaccine — a combination of two unsuccessful HIV vaccines — was found to be only 31 percent effective, a statistic that created doubt about the legitimacy of the results.

With the help of computer science professor Chris Bailey-Kellogg, Ackerman is engineering a platform to assess the many variables involved with developing an effective vaccine.

The team’s efforts are not guaranteed to prove successful, but the results have been promising, according to Eric Brown, a first-year student at Thayer School of Engineering.

“It’s definitely something that needs to be investigated,” Brown said.

The Partners Health Care funding was awarded through a grant from the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Cure for leukemia draws near

admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:35:41 +0000

Penn State researchers may be one step closer to finding a cure for leukemia.

Researchers have discovered a compound, known as delta-12-protaglandin J3, or D12-PGJ3, which appears to target leukemia stem cells. The compound, produced from fish oil, targeted and killed the stem cells of chronic myelogenous leukemia, or CML, in mice, associate professor of immunology and molecular toxicology Sandeep Prabhu said.

Prabhu, who co-directed the research alongside associate professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences Robert Paulson, said the research has been so successful because the compound specifically activates a gene, known as p53, in the leukemia stem cells that cause the cell’s own death.

The pair began to get their research ideas together about two years ago. The collaboration for the research began at an informal weekly lunch where faculty “bounce ideas off of each other,” Prabhu said.

Prabhu and Paulson started talking to figure out if they could

accomplish such a feat as discovering a cure for leukemia.

“I was presenting data on fatty acids and [Paulson] and I talked about how we could do this,” Prabhu said. “We have combined our interests and tried to explain how we can selectively target these leukemia stem cells.”

The research is significant because leukemia is a cancer of bone marrow and blood that involve the uncontrolled production of white blood cells. Killing the stem cells in leukemia is crucial because stem cells can divide and create more cancer cells.

Other leukemia treatments that are currently on the market are unable to kill stem cells, Paulson said. He added other treatments also must be administered continuously or the drug will relapse.

The research has come a long way from discussions at weekly lunches,Prabhu said, with all of the mice in the trials being completely cured of the disease.

“We have some mice that have been living for about eight months, and they show no sign of the disease,” Prabhu said. “The blood work is done continuously, and it’s safe to say that we have cured CML in mice.”

The researchers have already applied for a patent regarding their findings, which have been released in a recent issue of Blood, a magazine published by the American Society of Hematology.

Although the discovery is an important step forward in the ongoing fight against cancer, researchers still have much ground to cover.

Researchers are currently waiting for funding that would allow collaboration with the Hershey Cancer Institution.

Prabhu said he is hopeful, though, having already received calls from numerous people with CML who have offered to participate in human clinical trials.

But despite signs of a promising future, Prabhu said that they must move forward with caution.

“I feel like we have something huge, but mice and humans are different, and we have to be very careful,” Prabhu said. “It has some potential, but we’re just being cautiously optimistic. The results we have seen are definitely very encouraging.”

THON Local Print Media Captain Victoria Maseda said that she’s excited to be a part of an institution that works to fight cancer in more ways than one.

“It’s something that’s really exciting for the THON community,” Maseda (sophomore-public relations) said. “We focus on finding cures so we can help the kids.”

Studies show that students study less than past generations

admin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:50:18 +0000

Just before Thanksgiving break began and most students were focusing on getting home for the holiday instead of doing schoolwork, a report was released on Nov. 17 from the National Survey of Student Engagement that listed this year’s average number of hours students are studying each week.

In 1961, full-time undergraduate students clocked in 40 hours of study time per week, according to a 2010 report issued by Phillip Babcock and Mindy Marks. By 2003, that number dipped to 27 hours per week.

At Penn State U., one of the participating universities in the NSSE, students in their first year and senior year were surveyed on the amount of hours they thought they studied during a school week.

Given the option to choose from a range of numbers — 0, 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, 26-30 and more than 30 — senior and first-year University Park students, on average, said they study about 16 hours per week.

According to the study, University Park engineering senior students studied 19.8 hours per week and engineering first-year students studied 17.2 hours per week.

Angela Linse, executive director and associate dean of the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, said it is not as surprising to see that students in engineering and the sciences are studying the most, but to see education seniors studying the second highest — 18.8 hours per week — is quite interesting.

Penn State freshman Rackel Nderi said she feels that she studies too much. Nderi said she studies between 34 and 36 hours each week.

“I stress myself out from studying, since I am a pre-med major,” Nderi said.

According to the study, University Park business majors study the least amount of hours per week.

Seniors prepare 12.3 hours per week and first-year business students prepare 14.3 hours.

One factor to take into consideration for is that first-year students are coming into college with the same study habits from high school, whereas seniors are taking more classes that pertain to their major, Linse said.

The report may prove that engineering students are studying more than business majors, but it also found that business students, especially full-time seniors, are working about 16 hours per week.

For every hour of time spent in the classroom, a student should be studying two to three hours outside of the classroom, Linse said.

If this equation is based on the 15 to 18 credits per semester a student takes, then the average number of hours a University Park student studies per week is low.

Using the formula, a student taking 15 credits should study between 30 to 45 hours a week, and one who is taking 18 credits should study between 36 and 54 hours a week.

But she said that she questions how students interpreted the survey — for instance, what did students consider studying?

“Reading a textbook, reading over notes before class and doing group work is considered prepping for class, but do students consider this when they were asked how many hours per week they studied?” Linse said.

The same concerns were expressed by Penn State sophomore Brigitte Ruiz.

“It all depends on if I have an exam that week and what class it’s for. I probably study between five and eight hours per week, but it also depends on what work is considered studying,” Ruiz said.

For PSU junior Dave Furjanic, he said that some people are studying too much.

He considers a productive week spending five hours per week studying, and he still gets the grades that he wants.

“If two people can both get an A on a test and one person spends more time studying, than the extra time studying is wasted,” Furjanic said.

The aggregate information that was collected only “roughly” represents the student population — often times women are more likely to answer surveys — which insists gathering further data to find the nuances, Linse said. The best way to figure out how students are studying is to take a sample group and have further discussions, she added.

According to Babcock and Marks, “increased market pressures have empowered students, causing colleges to cater more to students’ desires for leisure.”

When Russell Chuderewicz, a Penn State senior lecturer in economics, taught in Miami, Fla., he said that he was up against the weather.

“I had to compete with South Beach,” he said. “Students would much rather spend a nice day on the beach as opposed to class, which is why I had to keep the class interesting.”

There is also the possibility of advances in technology, making it easier to accumulate information.

Chuderewicz said that in an hour’s time today, students could do more work than in 1961. There are many more alternatives to studying as well.

With the larger percentage of students that do attend college today, the quality of education they are receiving decreases, Chuderewicz said. Lack of communication between faculty and students could also cause for the decreasing numbers.

Chuderewicz said though he does not specifically tell his students how long to study, he expects them to work at least four to five hours per week on his class.

Even if this level of transparency exists between the two parties, some question if professors should be expecting more of their students.

Linse, a woman who has taught many classes herself, said that students are coming into college with the expectation of not having to study outside of class.

Unfortunately, the solution to this problem is not simple.

“Getting everyone here at Penn State to do one thing is not practical,” Linse said.

Researchers discover largest black holes ever

admin — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:56:53 +0000

U. California-Berkeley researchers have discovered the two largest black holes ever spotted, according to a recently published report in the journal Nature.

According to the researchers, the discovery of the black holes — which took about eight years of research — may help scientists further explore the ways in which black holes and galaxies form. One of the holes is located in a galaxy about 320 million light years from Earth and has a mass about 9.7 billion times the mass of the sun, while the other hole resides in a galaxy about 336 million light years from Earth and has a mass about 21 billion times that of the sun, according to the report published Thursday.

Members of the research team began looking at telescopic photographs of various galaxies about eight years ago, according to campus graduate student Nicholas McConnell, one of the researchers and an author of the report. Though the black holes were first discovered in 2003, assembling the right team of experts and quantifying the size of the holes took time, McConnell said.

“We wanted a slower, cleaner job (rather) than a quick, sloppy one,” McConnell said.

The scientists used the Gemini and Keck observatories in Hawaii and the McDonald Observatory in Texas to take “snapshots” of various galaxies and monitor how stars moved. The team then used the velocity of the stars to detect the presence of a black hole, McConnell said.

Chung-Pei Ma, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley and co-author of the report, said in an email that the observations were difficult because the team had to measure the motion of stars in a region about 1,000 light years large from hundreds of millions of light years away.

“This is like squinting at Jascha Heifetz playing the violin in New York’s Carnegie Hall from Washington, D.C., and trying to measure how fast his fingers were moving,” Ma said in the email.

McConnell said he hopes to use the data gathered by the team to further investigate the formation of black holes and the nature of the early universe.

Additionally, Ma said in the email that she believes the research could indicate a link between quasars — very bright and distant galaxies that are believed to be powered by black holes — and the nearby massive elliptical galaxies.

The findings may also allow researchers to gain a better grasp of how galaxies form.

“Measurements of these massive black holes will help us understand how their host galaxies were assembled, and how the holes achieved such monstrous mass,” Ma said in the email.

Studies show effects of Facebook on GPA

admin — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:52:02 +0000

During the intensive studying and last minute cram sessions of finals week, students often blame Facebook for interfering in their study efforts and fueling procrastination.

While Facebook might not be helpful when it comes to studying, it doesn’t mean students’ grades have to suffer. According to a recent study, some types of Facebook use actually correlate with higher grade point averages.

Published in Computers in Human Behavior, the study analyzed 1,839 college students’ grades and Facebook usage.

These students reported spending an average of 106 minutes each day on Facebook. How those 106 minutes of time on Facebook were spent determines the kind of impact Facebook has on the student, according to the study.

Engaging in activities that involve collecting and sharing information, such as sharing informative links, proved to have a positive impact on students’ GPAs. Posting frequent status updates and using Facebook chat, however, were determined to negatively affect GPA.

This distinction is one that can also be seen offline and around campus.

“Those students who spend more time socializing to the exclusion of engaging in academic work have poor academic outcomes,” the study said.

At the same time, those who post links and use Facebook to communicate useful information are more likely to be engaged with the outside environment and in the classroom, the study said.

Penn State Learning Community Associate, Leagh Anderson said that the impact on GPA could also depend on when the students are accessing Facebook. Those who are frequently updating their statuses are often those who are on Facebook intermittently throughout the day.

This intermittent and frequent checking of Facebook can interfere with the time needed to digest and absorb course material, Anderson said.

Students Greg Brulo and Amy Niedbala both reported spending up to two hours each day on Facebook. Niedbala said that it sometimes interferes with her studying, but they both agreed that it does not have any sort of negative impact on their grades.

“I use Facebook to take a break so I don’t get mentally drained while studying,” Brulo said. “My time management has a stronger correlation to my grades than Facebook.

Sugary drinks may hurt women

admin — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:45:05 +0000

Popular sugary drinks could have harmful long-term implications for women, including heart disease and a high risk for diabetes, according to a study by a U. Oklahoma Health Sciences Center professor.

OU public health professor Christina Shay was the lead author on a study presented to the American Heart Association conference in November. In the study, she found that women who drink more than two sugary drinks a day have more health complications.

“There were two things we saw: an increased risk of high triglycerides in the blood and a high risk of pre-diabetes, which is one step before diabetes,” Shay said. “This was only in the women and only in those that drank two or more sugary drinks a day.”

About 25 million people in the U.S. have diabetes and about two million more are diagnosed every year, according to the National Diabetes Association. Oklahoma ranks in the top 20 states for diabetes-related deaths.

This study was part of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and surveyed more than 4,000 men and women and asked if they consumed more than two sugary drinks, classified as soda, sweetened-mineral water and non-alcoholic beer, Shay said. Though not listed, other sugary drinks include sports and energy drinks and sweetened tea.

The group tracked the people over time and looked at their health problems, she said.

Another interesting part of the study was that the women getting these complications were not necessarily obese to begin with, meaning obesity was not the reason behind the diseases, she said.

“I am an observational researcher, so I look at studies that collect information to see how things naturally occur,” Shay said. “I only look observationally at causes and associations.”

Women could be more at risk because of their typically smaller sizes, Shay said. A sugary beverage can contain as many as 150 calories, a larger part of a woman’s daily calorie consumption.

“That 150 calories may be worth more in form of risk because of the smaller daily energy needs,” Shay said. “You get a bigger bang for your buck.”

Sugary drinks and sugary foods can have negative effects in the short-term as well, such as fatigue and losing concentration, said Patti Landers, dietician for OU Health Services. Students should try to balance their diet with proteins and fibers, especially while studying for finals.

Good snacks include nuts, dried fruit, whole wheat bread with cream cheese and high-fiber cereal, Landers said.

Shay said she is in the process of having her study published and is interested in further studying the implications of sugary drinks and encouraging other researchers to look into whether cutting back on drinks makes people healthier.

Researchers receive funding to develop HIV vaccine

admin — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:33:10 +0000

Duke U. Medical Center researchers have received grants totaling $37.2 million to continue work developing an effective HIV vaccine.

Duke researchers are working to develop a vaccine that is designed to prevent recipients from contracting HIV, which can cause AIDS—the syndrome that results in the progressive failure of the human immune system. Last week, researcher David Montefiori, professor and director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development, received a five-year $24.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—the largest of the three awarded grants. Montefiori’s research largely focuses on identifying the varying effectiveness of antibodies against different strands of HIV in hopes of developing a vaccine.

“One of the crucial aspects of the work that we do is look at the ability of the antibodies to block the many different strains of HIV… [which] allows people to identify the more promising candidates and to weed out the weaker vaccine candidates so more work can be done in the more promising approaches,” Montefiori said.

One of the major issues in prevention of HIV has been developing an effective vaccine that protects against the variations of the virus around the world, Montefiori said. There are nine major genetic variations of HIV, and when a patient becomes infected with two different types, they can combine into circulating recombinant forms, which make the vaccine development process much more complicated.

The World Health Organization has estimated that 34 million people worldwide are infected with HIV as of 2010, a number that has been steadily growing for years. The Gates Foundation grants will fund the Medical Center’s HIV and AIDS prevention work in the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery program, which is an international network of researchers attempting to develop vaccines and clinical trials. The program was created by the Gates Foundation in 2006 and has awarded grants that support 94 institutions in 19 countries. Duke researchers joined the collaboration in 2006, when it received a $31.5 million grant that allowed the Medical Center to establish the Comprehensive Antibody Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium, which is led by Montefiori.

Another recipient of a Gates Foundation grant is Dr. Barton Haynes, director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology and Frederic M. Hanes professor of medicine and immunology. Haynes, who received a three-year $11.7 million grant, focuses on developing the next generation of HIV vaccines based on previous trials by examining immune cells from vaccinated people in order to determine which antibodies are effective. Haynes said he is currently analyzing antibodies from a vaccine trial carried out by the U.S. Army and the government of Thailand in 2009. Of 18,000 Thai citizens, 30 percent of participants were protected against the virus. Although that ratio of success was not high, the study contained important implications for vaccine development, he said.

“The trial gave us hope that indeed a vaccine could be made,” Haynes said.

The final grant recipient is Dr. Michael Frank, a professor of pediatrics and immunology, who was awarded a three-year $892,000 grant to study the HIV antigen for vaccine development.

Duke’s work to combat HIV does not end with development of this HIV vaccine, Montefiori said. It is part of a broader effort on campus to combat HIV/AIDS and raise awareness around the issues, especially given that December is HIV/AIDS Awareness Month. Programs such as “Know Your Status”—a student campaign that sponsors HIV testing with the Student Health Center—encourage awareness about HIV and offer free testing every Monday on campus.

“Our goals are twofold—to increase awareness of HIV on campus, as well as decrease the stigma around HIV testing,” said senior Ijeoma Agu, co-director of Know Your Status.

New technology gives paralyzed reason for hope

admin — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:43:33 +0000

Hearing a series of quick scratching sounds is not generally cause for celebration. But for Leigh Hochberg the sounds represented a scientific breakthrough that could enable paralyzed people to interact with the world more easily.

Hochberg, a professor of engineering and co-director of the BrainGate2 research effort, first heard the scratching sounds, which represent neural impulses, in 2005. Almost seven years later, researchers at Brown are forging ahead and collaborating with new partners. Early last month, Stanford came on board, and researchers at the university are actively enrolling participants for clinical trials of a system that would allow paralyzed people to manipulate machinery with their minds.

Turning thought into action

Most people take for granted the complicated series of biological signals that translate a thought into action. The process that allows us to think about grabbing a glass of water in front of us and almost instantly move our hand can be harnessed to allow quadriplegic people to control external devices.

The clinical trials test three main aspects of the BrainGate2 neural interface, said John Donoghue, professor of neuroscience, director of the Brown Institute of Brain Science and Hochberg’s co-leader on BrainGate2, a continuation of the original BrainGate project.

The first step in translating neural signals into the manipulation of a device is a sensor, a small square the size of a baby aspirin with 100 thin, millimeter-long spikes. The sensor picks up and records the firing patterns of anywhere from a few to 150 of the brain’s 86 billion neurons. The device is implanted into the area of the motor cortex that controls arm and hand movement, Donoghue said, because the paralyzed trial participants control objects like cursors that are generally operated with those body parts.

Training computers to work with brains

Michael Black, professor of computer science and a BrainGate2 researcher, said his work focuses on decoding neural signals into patterns that can be understood by machines.

“The work that my group has been doing involves mathematically modeling how the activity of a population of neurons in the brain is related to movement or imagined movement,” he said.

Computers need to be trained to recognize neural patterns and respond to them, Black said. During each trial, the parameters of the computer models that decode neural signals need to be adjusted because the firing rates of neurons vary depending on a variety of factors like the noise level in a room or the subject’s energy level, Black said. The goal is to compile large amounts of “training data” to help the computer eventually adjust the models on its own.

“The whole reason we care about that is to make these things more robust,” Black said. “We want to take this whole research from a very simple level in a controlled environment and make it more practical for people.”

Decoding the neural impulses is necessary so users can activate and operate different devices. The first device that was operated in a clinical trial was a simple mechanical hand that opened and closed. Donoghue said other devices tested have included a cursor, a small robot that grabbed a piece of candy and a primitive wheelchair.

Researchers in Hochberg’s lab are working on new communication devices. Undergraduate researcher Kathryn Tringale has been designing more intuitive keyboards that would be easier for participants to control with their minds than standard QWERTY keyboards. The standard keyboard, designed to prevent typewriter jams, is organized so letters that frequently appear next to each other in writing are not near each other on the keyboard, an impractical design when the cursor is controlled mentally.

Tringale said she has been studying mathematical models of the brain to better understand what a practical communication device would look like and to create a model of a neuron-controlled cursor that she uses to compare the different keyboards she has designed.

Currently, many people with locked-in syndrome, a condition that prevents almost all movement, communicate with letter boards. Participants must go through each letter until they get to the one they want and indicate it through eye movement, painstakingly spelling out words and sentences. Tringale said observing this time-consuming process has motivated her research. “Actually having that interaction and experiencing it in real time really inspires you,” she said.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve are also investigating devices that could greatly impact those living with paralysis. Hochberg said Case Western’s Functional Electrical Stimulation Center is researching technology to restore simple movements in paralyzed people by stimulating the nerves in the arms and legs with implanted electrodes that can be controlled through simple switches. Hochberg said he hopes this technology could one day be combined with BrainGate2 so people’s thoughts could again control their own limbs, rather than an external device.

‘Remarkable participants’

BrainGate2 has enrolled seven participants to date, two of whom are currently enrolled. Hochberg said Brown and Stanford researchers have permission to enroll up to 15 participants.

“Largely, the participants or their families find us,” Hochberg said. Once participants make an initial contact and if they seem to meet the inclusion criteria, Hochberg visits them at their homes to describe the study and answer their questions.

Participating in the trial requires a significant commitment — in addition to attending half-day research sessions twice a week for at least 13 months, participants also must undergo surgery to implant the neural sensor in their brains.

Both Hochberg and Donoghue said interacting with participants is the most important and the most rewarding part of their work.

“We could not develop this technology without the feedback of remarkable participants,” Hochberg said.

Donoghue said the project still has a long way to go.

One of the many challenges now is the development of a wireless implant system. Right now, battery technology is insufficient and neural implants must be plugged into a power source. The challenge is creating a battery whose lifespan is long enough to merit implantation with the knowledge that a participant will be forced to undergo neurosurgery each time the battery runs out. Donoghue said he thinks the team will soon be able to create a battery with a 10-year lifespan.

The process of decoding neural signals is also very complex, and the team is still striving to create the tools that will allow people to control devices with as much ease and fluidity as able-bodied people control their own bodies.

“Working on BrainGate has taught me that we can do basic science and have a profound impact on people’s lives at the same time. … I want everything I do to have an impact like that,” Black said. “It’s changed me profoundly.”

Exercise can promote memory, brain health, study says

admin — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:11:20 +0000

While students may forget to work out regularly, a recent study on cognitive health suggested that students who exercise may have better memory.

The U. Dublin study, cited in a Nov. 30 article in The New York Times, suggested that physical activity increases the level of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor protein that improves memory. The researchers tested male college students who exercised to varying degrees on their performance on memory tests.

Jamie Bunce, a Boston U. researcher who is not affiliated with the original study, said the exact role this protein plays in cognition and recall is still being researched.

“This study raises some interesting questions about the way exercise affects cognitive performance,” Bunce said. “It’s still unclear what role BDNF is playing, as the study shows increases in BDNF levels didn’t necessarily correlate with more accurate memory performance.”

Karin Schon, senior postdoctoral associate at the BU Cognitive Neuroimaging Lab, said researchers at the BU Center for Memory and Brain are looking into the effects of cardio-respiratory fitness on memory-task performance.

The study suggested that a healthy lifestyle consisting of regular exercise promotes good brain health and may even protect individuals from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease, according to the Times.

“The more we learn, the more it seems the old adage, ‘Healthy body, healthy mind’ is apt,” said Bunce.

Students said they have heard that exercise can prevent future diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, but never knew physical activity could improve your mental processes in the mean time.

“Now that I know it’s not just for the aging population, I might test out the theory for myself,” said Harsha Reddy, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Craig Baldino, a BU sophomore, said this study has prompted him to consider his daily routine’s impact on his academic performance, especially as the Fall semester’s final grades approach.

“When I work out I definitely feel rejuvenated and more productive,” Baldino said. “I’m going to rethink my daily schedule if working out more would help me retain more information and bring up my GPA.”

BU sophomore Michalis Michaelides, however, said while exercise may improve your temporary cognition and memory, it probably does not mean that you will be a better or more productive student.

Despite what the study suggests about BDNF protein levels impact on memory, Bunce said she thinks students should not be quick to make assumptions about how much exercise can affect their academic performances.

“While the authors may argue that acute exercise is enough to increase performance on a memory task, I would hazard a guess that sprinting to your final, in and of itself, may not be sufficient to get that A,” Bunce said.

Suicide leading cause of mortality rates on college campuses, study reports

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:51:17 +0000

Suicide has eclipsed alcohol related deaths as the leading cause of mortality on college campuses, a November study by researchers from U. Virginia suggests.

The study, the first examining college student mortality rates since 1939, according to the American Public Health Association, collected data from more than 150 public and private colleges.

Suicide emerged as the leading cause, claiming 70 of 254 reported deaths, followed by non-alcohol related vehicular deaths, claiming just over half as many.

The study also found, however, that mortality rates from both suicide and alcohol-related deaths 47 percent and 60-76 percent lower respectively than rates among adults ages 18-24 not attending school.

But Associate Dean for Student Health and Wellness John Greene says these studies need to be looked at in context.

“Similar studies indicate that increasing numbers of students arrive on campus who are already being treated for illnesses such as anxiety and depression,” Greene said.

“Once on campus, academic and social stresses can significantly increase the distress experienced by young adults. Therefore, all universities have a responsibility to develop outreach programs and resources for providing mental health care.”

Vanderbilt’s Psychological and Counseling Center has developed the MAPS (mental health awareness and prevention of suicide) program, which is presented to all VUceptors and resident advisors, as well as any faculty or staff who wish to participate.

“Preventative care comes in the form of outreach services we provide to the campus,” Dr. Rhonda Venable, director of the PCC, said. “This allows for students to approach the topic of mental Health in a manner which is not as uncomfortable.”

According to Venable, of the 300 Visions groups who participated in the MAPS program this fall, 95 percent said the experience made them feel more comfortable going to the PCC or referring a friend.

Venable attributes the fact that Vanderbilt’s own suicide mortality rates lie below the national average to the PCC’s holistic, preventative program.

Rising problem of sleep texting not dreamed up

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:11:12 +0000

Students text their friends while they are eating, in class or even while watching a movie. But one strange and unexpected time that students text, is while sleeping.

Sleep texting is occurring more frequently among students, said Dr. Markus Schmidt, a sleep expert at the Ohio Sleep Medicine Institute.

“We see more and more patients that are doing that at a particularly young age,” Schmidt said.

Sleep texting is as simple as it sounds: a person will respond or send out a text message in the middle of their sleep. Most people who do this usually do not remember doing it and it usually doesn’t make much sense, Schmidt said.

Hope O’Brien, a second-year in social work, said she has sleep texted ever since she began attending OSU.

“If someone texts me (when I’m asleep,) I will respond but I wont remember,” O’Brien said.

Schmidt said many people sleep with their phones either near their beds or on their beds. He said the proximity of the phone is what could cause a major disturbance while sleeping.

“Somewhere around 20 percent of 13- to 18-year-olds say they receive a phone call or an email that almost wakes or wakes them up every night,” Schmidt said.

This disturbance through a text message is what O’Brien said causes her to text while sleeping. However, she said she is not exactly sure why she does it.

Schmidt said sleep texting is something that can be classified as a repetitive behavior since people do it so often. While in a certain sleep stage, people can do habitual or repetitive actions that they may do in the daytime.

“A recent poll says these kids spend an hour-and-a-half texting each day,” Schmidt said. “It’s nothing unusual for them, in fact, it’s very habitual to text in the middle of the night.”

Mallory Ray, a third-year in interior design, said she has also sleep texted before.

“It’s usually while I am falling asleep, and I just end up texting and sleeping but I won’t remember what I said the next day,” Ray said.

The fact that some people do not remember the next day is what Schmidt said can be a problem with sleep texting.

Ray admitted that she has sent embarrassing texts while asleep, but did not say what she sent.

“I just told that person that I was really tired and I didn’t remember sending the text,” Ray said.

Schmidt said another issue with sleep texting is that it can interrupt sleep.

“When you start including text messages coming in the middle of the night, your quality of sleep is being adversely affected,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt said one way to avoid sleep texting is by keeping the phone away from you as you sleep.

Study shows Chesapeake Bay environment, dead zones healing

admin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:27:42 +0000

A recent study has shown that efforts to reduce the flow of fertilizers, animal waste and other pollutants into the Chesapeake Bay appear to be increasing the health of the bay.

Published in the Nov. 2011 issue of Estuaries and Coasts, this examination was conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins U. and the U. Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

According to Rebecca Murphy, the leading research assistant in the study and a doctoral student in the Johns Hopkins Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at Hopkins, the team was aiming to develop a database of water quality data in order to analyze the long-term trends of the dead zones, areas of the Bay where plants and animals cannot live. Building off previous research that indicated that the dead zone was not responding to changes in the amounts of nutrients coming into the bay, Murphy and her team created a database to further analyze these prior findings and determine what really is happening.

The team looked at 60 years of data and found that the size of summer oxygen-starved dead zones leveled off in deep channels of the bay during the 1980s and has been declining ever since. In addition, they determined that the duration, or how long the dead zone persists each summer, is closely linked each year to the amount of nutrients entering the bay.

The timing is key because in the 1980s, an intense effort to cut nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay was initiated through the multi-state federal Chesapeake Bay Program. The goal was to restore the water quality and health of the bay.

“I was really excited by these results because they point to improvement in the health of the Chesapeake Bay,” Murphy said. “We now have evidence that cutting back on the nutrient pollutants pouring into the bay can make a difference. I think that’s really significant.”

“When we found that the dead zone is indeed responding to a decrease in nutrient loads, it’s good news because it means the bay is doing what we expect,” Murphy said.

She further explained that if the agriculture industry continues to improve farming practices and decrease the amount of nutrients going into the bay, then the size of the dead zone should become smaller.

Although this has been well known for quite some time, the data did not seem to reflect that. Instead, the data suggested the dead zones were not responding to decreases in nutrient loads at all.

“This study shows that our regional efforts to limit nutrient pollution may be producing results. Continuing nutrient reduction remains critically important for achieving bay restoration goals,” Don Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, said.

The Chesapeake Bay is the nation’s largest estuary, a body of water where fresh and salt water mix. According to the Chesapeake Bay Program, the bay is about 200 miles long, has about roughly 4,480 square miles of surface area and supports more than 3,600 species of plants, fish and other animals.

However, the health of the bay deteriorated during much of the 20th century, contributing to a drop in the Chesapeake’s fish and shellfish populations. Environmental experts blamed this largely on a flow of nutrients entering the bay from sources such as farm fertilizer, animal waste, water treatment discharge, and atmospheric deposition. Heavy spring rains typically flush these chemicals, mostly nitrogen and phosphorus, into the Susquehanna River and other waterways that empty into the Chesapeake. There the nutrients promote a large growth of algae.

When the algae die, their remains sink to the bottom of the bay, where they are consumed by bacteria. As they feast on algae, the bacteria utilize dissolved oxygen in the water. This leads to a condition called hypoxia, or depletion of oxygen.

As this process continues through the spring and summer, the lack of oxygen turns large areas of the Chesapeake into dead zones. Hypoxia sometimes results in fish kills.

“By looking at existing data, we have been able to link decreasing hypoxia to a reduction in the nutrient load in the bay,” study co-author Michael Kemp, an ecologist with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Laboratory, said. “The overall extent and duration of mid-to-late summer hypoxia are decreasing.”

The steady decrease in dead zones coincides with the launch of state and federal efforts to reduce the flow of algae-feeding pollutants into the bay.

For instance, farmers were encouraged to plant natural barriers and to take other steps to keep fertilizer out of waterways that feed the Chesapeake. Also, water treatment plants began to pull more pollutants from their discharge, and air pollution control measures curbed the movement of nitrogen from the atmosphere into the bay.

Despite these efforts, Murphy explains that the greatest reduction of pollutants in the bay have been a result of voluntary agreements between the states and the ETA, which consists of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New York, Washington D.C. and a small part of Delaware and West Virginia.

All of the states agreed to decrease pollutants by certain percentages each year. Recently, the ETA has put into works an act called the Total Maximum Daily Load, which sets limits of nitrogen and phosphorus coming into the bay. Although not yet officially established, once passed it will be a federal law to control pollutants in hopes of further improving the reduction of dead zones.

According to Murphy, new efforts like this need to continue to be established.

“What we’ve seen is a really slight improvement. There needs to be much more reduction of nutrients coming into the bay and a decrease in the amount of sediment,” he said.

With more work, Murphy firmly believes there will be more improvement.

The study also examined a trend that shows an early summer spike in dead zones. This observation has troubled many bay watchers because they feared that keeping more nutrients out of the bay was not improving its health. However, the new study found that the early summer jump in dead zones was influenced by climate forces, not by the runoff of pollutants.

Dead zone formation occurs in a phenomenon called stratification. This is when fresh water from the rivers entering the bay forms a layer on top of the more dense salt water, which comes from the ocean.

The two layers don’t easily mix, so when air near the surface adds oxygen to the top layer, it doesn’t reach the deeper salt water. Without oxygen at these lower depths, marine animals cannot live, and a dead zone is formed.

“Rebecca discovered that the increase in these early summer dead zones is because of changes in climate forces like wind, sea levels and the salinity of the water. It was not because the efforts to keep pollutants out of the bay were ineffective,” William P. Ball, a professor of environmental engineering at Hopkins, said.

Ball, a co-author of the new study, is Murphy’s doctoral adviser.

“We believe that without those efforts to rein in the pollutants, the dead zone conditions in June and early July would have been even worse,” Ball said.

The study was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Commerce, NOAA. The research was conducted as part of a larger five-year Chesapeake Bay Environmental Observatory project, funded through the Chesapeake Research Consortium, which involves seven institutions.

Study methods prove to be more effective than all-nighters

admin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:03:05 +0000

It’s the end of the semester and, though you promised yourself that this time would be different, you’ve let your work slide, and you’re not prepared for the final at all. Without a minute to waste, you’re going to need to spend every second you have studying, maybe even pulling an all-nighter or two.

Unfortunately, that may be one of the worst ways to prepare, according to U. Texas professor Russell Poldrack, who studies memory, learning and how we acquire new skills.

“Getting a good night’s sleep is probably the most important thing,” he said. “It’s a really important way that memories get transformed in the brain.”

In other words, walk into a test feeling like a zombie, and you’ll likely perform like one. Aside from getting a good night’s rest, there are other techniques to keep in mind while studying.

For one, make studying an active process. Rereading the same textbook for the eighth time isn’t going to do a whole lot for you on test day. A 2006 experiment by Henry L. Roediger, III and Jeffrey D. Karpicke confirmed this, suggesting that rereading boosts confidence in the subject matter without significantly increasing mastery of the material. This is a recipe for disaster.

A better way to prepare for the final is to continually test yourself.

“The act of retrieving something from memory is actually one of the most powerful ways to get it to stick in memory,” Poldrack said.

Additionally, Poldrack suggests that your surroundings can make a huge difference as to how well you can recall information. A classic study performed by D.R. Godden and A.D. Baddeley of U. Stirling placed subjects either on land or in SCUBA suits underwater and asked them to learn a list of words. When tested, the ones who learned the words on land performed better on land and those who learned them underwater performed better underwater. As such, it may be more effective to study in a library or classroom setting that’s similar to where you’ll be tested rather than curled up in bed.

Even something as simple as your mood could make a difference as to how well you remember things. A paper published in American Psychologist by Gordon H. Bower of Stanford collected several experiments testing this idea and the results very strongly suggest that if you’re in a crummy mood when you’re studying, you’re better off waiting until after the test to cheer up.

These are all things to keep in mind to minimize damage, but, ultimately, the most important thing to consider is how you found yourself in this mess to begin with. The nights you spent watching TV or going to parties may have seemed like good ideas at the time, but not in retrospect. And, ultimately, those nights may be what make the difference between the average students and those who excel.

A classic and on-going study by Walter Mischel (currently at Columbia U.) involved leaving small children alone in a room with a treat such as a marshmallow. If a given child could avoid eating the marshmallow until a researcher returned to the room, the researcher would reward the child with a second marshmallow. Approximately one-third of the subjects lasted long enough to get the reward, while the rest gave in to temptation.

The amount of time a given child could hold off eating the treat had a long-lasting impact. For instance, those who could wait for the reward ended scoring higher on the SAT more than 10 years later than the other group.

Of course, none of that matters at the tail end of the semester when there’s no time to give in to temptation, but it’s something to keep in mind for the next one.

Poldrack explains, “One very fundamental thing that we know about people is that events in the future get discounted. The impact of something in the future is much smaller than the impact in the present. Even if the prospect of failing a class is a very bad thing, that’s not going to happen until the end of the semester.”

So let this semester be a lesson of what not to do. Don’t just read through the book several times and call it studying — instead, put your brain to work and test yourself constantly. Be mindful of your surroundings as well as your mood and make sure you get plenty of sleep, particularly around midterm and finals time. And while a night of partying may be fun and even deserved every once in a while, remember not to give in to the marshmallow.

At least not too often.

Study shows dream sleep relieves emotional stress

admin — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:07:58 +0000

After an emotionally stressful day, dreaming can help in coping with distressing memories, according to a U. California-Berkeley study published Nov. 23 in the journal Current Biology.

The study, which shows that rapid-eye movement sleep can decrease emotional intensity in reaction to past events, is the first to systematically test how sleep affects reactivity to previous emotional experiences at both a brain and behavioral level.

“It’s the first to look at REM sleep in such a sophisticated way,” said Els van der Helm, a UC Berkeley doctoral student in psychology and lead author of the study, in an email. “It aids therapies not only for (post-traumatic stress disorder) but also mood disorders.”

According to the research — which was conducted over one and a half years — REM sleep creates an ideal environment for the brain to process emotions because it reduces stress-inducing electrical activity patterns and activity of some neurotransmitters.

“We believe this unique brain state helps to put these emotional experiences ‘in perspective’ by integrating them with previous memories while ‘stripping away’ the emotional tone associated with them,” van der Helm said in the email.

The study is the first to record sleep’s effect on both brain activity and behavioral reactions to emotional experiences. Researchers tracked activity in the emotional regions of the brain and measured how intensely participants rated the emotional images that were shown to them during the study after REM sleep.

Researchers also noticed that the aggressive reactionary forces of the brain’s emotion-processing area — the amygdala — decreased as a result of REM sleep, allowing the rational part of the brain to regain control of the individual’s emotional reactions.

During REM sleep, neurotransmitters that play an important role in memory processing are more active. The heightened presence of these chemicals, as well as reduced stress, allows the brain to process emotions most beneficially during the most vivid dreams, van der Helm said in the email.

“The finding that REM sleep physiology is associated with … amygdala activity in response to previous emotional experiences … the next day has some very exciting implications for treatment of mood and/or anxiety disorders,” said Carrie Bearden, associate professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences and psychology at UCLA, in an email. “It’s a very innovative study.”

For the study, researchers showed images invoking intense emotional response to 35 healthy young adults twice with a 12-hour interval in between.

Participants who were allowed to sleep between the two viewings showed a significantly less intense reaction to the images the second time around compared to those who stayed awake.

“This research shows that sleep plays a crucial role in emotional processing and opens up doors for therapeutic avenues,” van der Helm said in the email.

The study focuses particularly on the condition of post-traumatic stress disorder, characterized by REM abnormalities and exaggerated amygdala reactivity where “sleep problems are often part of the diagnostic criteria, but often go untreated,” van der Helm said in the email.

Patients with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mood disorders can benefit from improved therapeutic sessions using the findings in the study, he said in the email.

“It would be interesting to conduct a longer-term study to examine cross-lagged effects of changes in amygdala reactivity and subjective emotional reactivity over time,” Bearden said in the email. “The relationship of REM sleep to emotional response is surprisingly under-studied so I think this is a great step in that direction.”

Alcohol may not cause risky sexual behavior

admin — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:04:45 +0000

Having too much to drink is no longer an excuse for that irresponsible one-night stand.

Studies done by researchers at U. Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions, as well as a study by an Ohio State graduate, show that binge drinking and risky sexual behavior have no relation.

The study at the U. Buffalo, Randomized Controlled Trial of Brief Interventions to Reduce College Students’ Drinking and Risky Sex, surveyed 154 heavy-drinking college students, 91 women and 63 men, whose sexual behavior put them at risk for HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases. Students were subjected to counseling on the amount of alcohol they consumed and their risk for HIV.

Counseling for HIV-risk sexual behavior led to a decrease in unprotected sex. However, the counseling on alcohol consumption did not reduce unprotected sex.

Kurt Dermen, lead investigator of the study, said the results were surprising.

“It was somewhat surprising that reducing drinking did not lead to a reduction in risky sex,” Dermen said. “However, it is clear from other research that many factors affect students’ decisions about condom use and partner choice.”

Daniela Faloon, a June 2011 OSU graduate with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, completed research for her honors thesis on binge drinking, self-esteem and sexual activity among women. Her thesis, “The Relationships between Self-esteem, Binge Drinking and Sexual Risk Behaviors among Young Women” showed no correlation between binge drinking (defined as four or more drinks in one sitting) and risky sexual behavior.

However, higher levels of self-esteem were related to higher levels of binge drinking, according to Faloon’s findings.

“Women with higher self-esteem may be more confident and therefore, be more likely to go out and socialize,” Faloon said.

According to Faloon’s research, almost half of all sexually transmitted infections each year are among people ages 15 to 24.

“As a student at a large university I saw firsthand the prevalence of binge drinking and how it affects decision-making,” she said.

Both Faloon and Dermen acknowledged that there are other studies that show alcohol does play a role in sexual activity.

Amy Bonomi, a professor of human sexuality at OSU specializing in domestic violence and assault, cited a pilot study done by researchers at OSU showing that any alcohol use, including binge drinking (having five or more drinks on any given occasion), leads to more sexual partners.

“On college campuses, the trend is to hook up,” Bonomi said. “The traditional date is like no longer in existence.”

Alexandra Egger, a fourth-year in communication, said that alcohol can alter peoples decision making.

“Alcohol lowers your inhibition and reduces your ability to make judgments that coincide with your beliefs,” Egger said. “That factor, plus the college environment where there is constant peer pressure, can really lead to more promiscuous behavior.”

Bonomi explained that there are many more factors involved with risky sexual behavior than sexually transmitted diseases.

Women tend to feel bad after having a “random hook up,” she said. Typically men are not upset by these occurrences.

Bonomi attributed this situation to society’s “gender double standard” that men are expected to be more sexually forward than women.

Bonomi’s advice to students who want to avoid finding themselves in risky sexual situations: use the “buddy system” at parties and bars, abstain from drinking or simply drink less.

“Let’s put it this way: the hook up does not happen without alcohol,” Bonomi said.

Sarah Stemen contributed to this story.

Study shows genes may indicate an individual’s trustworthiness

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:17:26 +0000

People may be able to judge if someone is trustworthy and empathetic within seconds of seeing them, according to a U. California Berkeley study published Nov. 14 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research, which shows a link between biology and empathetic behavior, reveals that people with the guanine-guanine genotypic configuration more often display behaviors that indicate empathy — such as head nodding, eye contact and an open body posture — allowing people to determine if they trust a stranger in a matter of seconds, according to the researchers.

“We know that you can’t see a person’s physiology — it has to manifest in some sort of behavior,” said co-author Christopher Oveis, assistant professor of management at UC San Diego. “You can accurately tell something about a person from very little behavior.”

For the study, the researchers video recorded Berkeley couples talking with each other about times of suffering, said Aleksandr Kogan, lead author of the study and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. The researchers then deleted the audio and showed strangers 20-second clips of the partner who was listening during the interaction.

When they asked the viewers to rate the listeners on how trustworthy and compassionate they were, the genotype mostly predicted the ratings, Kogan said, although there was some variation. Of the 10 people rated the most trustworthy, six had the guanine-guanine genotypic variation on a receptor related to pro-social behavior, while the other four had a different variation. Of the least trustworthy, one person had the guanine-guanine genotype, he said.

“I think this is just another way to color a person’s personality,” said Sarina Saturn, co-author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University. “(Guanine-guanine) people tend to be a little more social — looking at other people’s eyes, reading others’ behavior. It’s not for better or worse.”

Saturn compared the study’s findings on the oxytocin receptor to scientists’ understandings of seratonin’s relation to moodiness and dopamine’s relations to thrill-seeking.

The researchers said they are cautious not to over-interpret the study’s results, calling it “preliminary” research.

“There’s a huge interaction between biology, experiences, psychology and all of these things work together to create the person,” Kogan said. “People don’t need to worry about their genotypes and whether they have the good or bad version.”

Although the study found the genotype to be a powerful predictor of people who display trustworthy and caring behavior, Kogan said there are other factors that make it difficult to predict how certain individuals will be perceived. He added that this genotype variation is one of “a ton of other factors” that go together to affect a person’s behavior.

The researchers said they did not know what actually causes the biology to translate to certain behavior.

“Exactly what’s going on is a pretty big mystery,” Kogan said. “We think this gene is involved in a broader system.”

While she said more research is needed, Saturn said she hopes this information can be used to help people who may struggle socially.

“I really believe this is just to inform us,” she said. “We’re all born into different shoes, and some of us are really social. We’re all a little different.”

Europa might be most habitable after Earth

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:26:29 +0000

Europa, one of Jupiter’s at least 63 moons, is about 500 million miles away from earth, but comes closer to resembling our planet and providing potential for life than anything else in the solar system, researchers said.

U. Texas researchers discovered what they said appears to be a body of liquid water the volume of the North American Great Lakes locked inside the icy shell of Europa.

The “lake” holds potential as a habitat for life, and there may be many more such lakes throughout the shallower regions of Europa’s shell, said lead author Britney Scmhidt, postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Geophysics, in the article.

The idea of liquid water beneath Europa’s surface is nothing new, said Robert Pappalardo, senior research scientist for NASA.

“For a while now, since the first Galileo pictures in the mid-90s, there has been mounting evidence that there is a liquid water ocean under the icy shell of Europa,” Pappalardo said. “Although how far down has been a topic of debate.”

Researchers focused on images from Galileo, the first satellite to orbit Jupiter, which showed two roughly circular, bumpy features on Europa’s surface called “chaos terrains.”

The chaos terrains look like an ice-covered puddle all broken up and full of little ice pieces, said Don Blankenship, co-author and senior research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics.

Pappalardo said according to Blankenship and Schmidt’s model, these chaos terrains are formed by blobs of warm ice, which are heated as Europa orbits Jupiter.

“[Europa] is squeezed,” Pappalardo said. “It flexes in and out, and that creates heat like bending a paper clip back and forth.”

The squeezed blobs of warm ice, like a lava lamp, float to the surface, pushing the surface up, Pappalardo said.

As the ice melts, the water takes up less room causing the surface to cave in, forming fractures near the surface.

The lake of water, which exists beneath the sinking ice shelf, may provide a mechanism for transferring nutrients and energy between the surface and the vast ocean which is thought to exist beneath, according to their research.

Interaction between the surface and the ocean beneath could make Europa and its ocean more habitable, Schmidt said.

Pappalardo said the model is a step forward in understanding the potentially habitable moon, but that further exploration is necessary. Pappalardo and his team of scientists are planning a six-year space mission, which he estimates will start in 2020.

The federal government cut nearly $240 million to NASA’s 2011 budget, consequently cutting funds to many of NASA’s programs. However, Pappalardo said Washington continues to see the value in the space mission and have called Europa a top-priority.

Pappalardo said sending a satellite to Europa would cost around $1.5 to $2 billion, “a large amount,” but a worthwhile one, he said.

“It comes out to a dollar a person, kind of a candy bar or a can of soda per person per year to fund a planetary mission like this,” Pappalardo said. “That is not too bad to understand whether there are habitable regions elsewhere in the solar system.”

World population growth could spur food shortage

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 18:12:35 +0000

Global food demand could double by 2050, according to a new projection released by U. Minnesota researchers Monday.

This could severely increase the amount of environmental pollutants and threaten extinction for many species, according to the findings of David Tilman, regents professor of Ecology in the College of Biological Sciences, and his colleagues.

According to United Nations demographers, the world’s population could reach 9.3 billion by 2050. The world’s total population is already at or nearing 7 billion, based on varying reports from the U.N. and the U.S. Census Bureau.

As poorer nations increase their populations’ annual incomes in future decades, there will be a large increase in demand for animal products like meat and dairy, said Jason Hill, an assistant professor in the University’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, As a result, demand for grain crops to feed livestock will also increase, he said.

Tilman and Hill, along with another University researcher Belinda Befortand, and Christian Blazer — a University of California, Santa Barbara professor — co-authored an article that summarized their findings and the potential risks of current international agricultural practices.

“It’s long been known that there’s more that we can do to ensure that there’s a sustainable food supply for the future,” Hill said. “But in this paper we put some hard numbers behind the claims.”

Thirty-five percent of all greenhouse gas emissions come from agricultural processes, compared with 20 percent from automobile emissions, Tilman said. But the effects could be decreased by improving agricultural practices in poorer countries, he said.

For example, in nations like the United States, farmers control fertilizer use based on the specific needs of different areas of land. This could easily be adopted by farmers with smaller areas of land in poor countries, Tilman said.

According to the article, agricultural techniques in richer nations can increase crop yield and reduce the amount of pollution emitted. Crop yields for the wealthiest nations were more than 300 percent higher than yields for the poorest nations in 2005, the article said.

Traditionally, farmers in developing countries would simply clear more land when attempting to grow more food. But that technique does nothing to increase crop yield, Tilman said. The technique also accounts for a large portion of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and threatens certain species of animals with extinction, Tilman said.

But he said industrialized agriculture techniques require a large amount of farmer education and often come with larger costs up front.

If current agricultural techniques continue, the article stated, critical levels of nitrogen and carbon could be released into the environment and excessive use of fertilizer could contaminate groundwater.

If current levels of land clearing continue, more than 2.5 billion acres of land would be cleared by 2050, an area the size of the United States. But if new processes are adapted, that amount could be reduced to half a billion acres, Tilman said.

“It’s not an emergency, but it’s not something we can wait until 2050 to start doing,” Tilman said. “By that time, we will have the environmental damage done, and we’ll have lots of people with very substandard diets around the world.”

Clear skin could improve job prospects, study finds

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:35:59 +0000

Acne isn’t just a preteen worry anymore: It may be reason someone isn’t hired for a job.

People with moderate to severe acne or prominent birthmarks and scars may be discriminated against in the job market, according to a recent study conducted by Rice U. professor Mikki Hebl and U. Houston professor Juan Madera.

The study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, found that in mock interview settings, interviewers were more likely to be distracted by a job candidate’s facial birthmarks and acne and would give that candidate a lower evaluation score than one who didn’t have facial blemishes.

Madera and Hebl conducted two studies: One tracked eye activity in undergraduate volunteers and the other featured experienced employers.

The first study found that the undergraduate volunteers couldn’t help but keep their eyes on a person’s facial blemishes instead of his or her eyes or mouth. The second study found that experienced managers rated applicants with clear skin higher than those with scars and blemishes. The undergraduate volunteers rated their blemished applicants better than the experienced managers did.

Jill Skufe, a career development coordinator at the U. Florida Career Resource Center, said the CRC hasn’t had any students ask questions about how acne or facial scars could play a role in their job searches.

She said her advice to students who may be concerned would be to look as presentable as possible.

Women shouldn’t go overboard with makeup, Skufe advised, but if they are worried, they should ask someone close to them.

“Just ask someone you know and trust and can be honest to you,” she said.

Katherine Shearouse, a 22-year-old public relations senior at UF, agrees with the study’s findings.

“If you’re unkempt or have zits all over your face, I think people are put off by it,” she said. “It may not be professional, but it happens all the time.”

But appearance shouldn’t be the only factor, she said.

“If you’re completely overqualified and you have a scar, I don’t think they’re not going to hire you because of that,” Shearouse said. “But if they have someone just as qualified as you are, they would rather hire him or her.”

Study finds increasing number of babies born addicted to mothers’ medications

admin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:14:22 +0000

Expectant mothers might want to think twice before taking a prescription drug, a new report indicates.

In 2006, 354 babies were born in Florida with withdrawal syndrome, according to data provided by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. That number increased each year after that, until 2010, when it peaked at 1,374.

Prescription drug abuse has been labeled an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy on whitehouse.gov.

Mark Hudak, U. Florida professor of pediatrics and division chief for neonatology at the College of Medicine in Jacksonville, said it is important to raise awareness of this growing issue.

“Many women and some adult physicians may not realize that pregnant women who are on prescription narcotics for treatment of pain can potentially ‘addict’ the fetus and cause the newborn baby to undergo withdrawal after birth,” he said.

Avoiding narcotic pain relievers is ideal, he said, but when necessary, it is important for the woman and physician to use the smallest dose of medication necessary to be effective. Non-narcotic pain relievers should always be used first, he said.

Hudak worked with a committee this year to update treatment guidelines for babies with withdrawal syndrome. The update will be published next year.

“This guideline summarizes the recent studies that address different strategies for treating the infants, including using different drugs,” he said.

Right now, babies that suffer from the withdrawals are medicated with sedatives and narcotics – in essence, what they are addicted to.

The update, jointly authored by the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Drugs and the Committee on Fetus and Newborns, will contain recommendations for treatment based on the available evidence, he said. It will also show what studies need to be done to make treatment more effective.

He said the statement also addressed how to care for critically ill babies who needed long term sedation/anxiolysis since these infants would also need to be weaned from these drugs.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi recently took action by creating a task force to gather data on drug-exposed babies and develop prevention efforts.

The Gainesville area has agencies to help women in drug-abuse situations, but none are directly targeted at pregnant women on pain medication.

The Women’s Resource and Medical Clinic does not screen for drug addiction, said the center’s executive director Tania Studstill, 49.

If a woman is open about her drug problems, the clinic will refer her to an agency like Meridian Behavioral Healthcare for counseling.

Hudak has hope for Bondi’s plan and said that with the right help from the right professionals, it could make an impact on lowering the number of babies born with withdrawal syndrome.

“Florida appears to be a maelstrom of the problem,” Hudak said. “The number of infants discharged from the hospital after birth who are noted to have withdrawal signs on their discharge diagnosis coding has increased by nearly 10-fold over the past 10-15 years.”

As many as one baby in 14 at hospitals in Jacksonville are being treated or observed for signs of drug withdrawal, he said.

Doctors study heart drug use

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:56:22 +0000

Even when given free medicine, heart attack survivors are unlikely to consistently take the medications prescribed to prevent further disease and save lives, according to a new study led by Harvard Medical School researchers.

Previous research showed that one-third of Americans cited cost as a reason they didn’t fill a prescription or used less medicine than they should. In this study, researchers set out to determine if patients would be more likely to follow their doctors’ orders if their medications were free.

Led by Dr. Niteesh K. Choudhry of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the study offered 2,845 of 5,855 total participants free drugs including cholesterol-lowering statins and lifesaving medications that regulate heart rate and prevent subsequent complications. The other patients, chosen at random, were responsible for their own copayments for the same drug regimens.

The findings, published online by The New England Journal of Medicine and presented this past Monday at an American Heart Association conference, reveal that the share of patients who filled their prescriptions increased only modestly after a year, from 38.9 percent in the group that paid part of the cost to 44.3 percent among patients given the same drugs for free.

While the incidence of heart attacks, strokes, chest pain, and heart failure was notably lower in the group offered free medicine, the authors said the small gain in adherence signaled a need for further investigation of other factors contributing to the problem.

Choudhry, associate professor at Harvard Medical School, said cost is by no means the only cause of non-adherence. Knowledge of drugs and their side effects, ease of filling prescriptions, the number of pills prescribed, and forgetfulness are also factors. “It is well-known that the more pills you have to take during the course of the day, the less likely you are to be adherent,” he said. “Many of these patients have to take six to 10 pills a day on average — it is important to make it as simple as possible for patients to obtain their medication from the pharmacy so that they will continue to take them.”

Choudhry and his team are taking steps to further investigate and find solutions to the phenomenon of non-adherence. Said Dr. Elliott M. Antman, Harvard Medical School professor and another author of the study, “What we have learned is that a combination of reducing cost barriers and interventions will be necessary to produce any sustained improvement. It will be important to have integrated health care teams that will support the patient, not only face-to-face, but also via email and text messaging. We live in a very digital world, and should utilize it.”

In fact, one strategy proposed by Choudhry is to have patients sign a contract agreeing to take their medicine — and be able to prove that they are — in exchange for a small stipend. Another idea is to regularly remind patients of their medical routines via text messaging. For Choudhry, the results of these efforts will be incremental, but effective in concert. “Reducing each factor will likely only increase adherence by five or 10 percent, but if we can combine them, then we can talk about a sizeable improvement,” he said.

The cost of the drugs used in the study was covered by Aetna, the commercial insurer of all participants. Choudhry said the insurer is considering implementing a similar free medication program in the near future, made economically feasible by reductions in the cost of subsequent hospital care for patients who take the free drugs.

This area of research reflects a shifting attitude toward health care and the job of doctors. “Many doctors think that their job is done after they write a prescription and the patient walks out the door,” said Dr. Robert J. Glynn, associate professor in biostatistics and the statistician of the study. “But that’s just not true — a lot of people just don’t like taking their pills, and we need to start addressing the reasons for that.”

‘Skinny Genes’: Researchers take steps to regulate human fat

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:51:33 +0000

What do humans have in common with fruit flies? Both possess a gene that controls metabolism and weight, and now a U. Arkansas professor is researching this gene to determine how humans might regulate metabolism.

Michael Lehmann, UA professor of biological sciences, is the lead researcher on work that could provide some insight into how to regulate human metabolisms.

“We have discovered a gene, that if we knock this gene down, we basically produce fat-free fly larvae; little maggots that you can look through, are transparent, because they don’t contain, or contain very little, fat tissue,” Lehmann said. “That’s the same gene that controls fat metabolism in humans as well.”

“The gene that we’ve found in these flies is present in humans as well, so most likely the gene has the same weight function in humans,” Lehmann said. “We can use the gene in the flies to see how the protein is regulated; how it’s activated or repressed. More often than not, it turns out that what we find in flies also applies in humans.”

The research on metabolism is important because obesity has become a worldwide problem, Lehmann said.

“Obesity has become a problem in not just the U.S., but the entire industrialized world,” Lehmann said.

For adults, overweight and obesity ranges are determined by using weight and height to calculate Body Mass Index, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

BMI consistently correlates with a person’s amount of body fat. An adult who has a BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight; 30 or higher is considered obese.

About 34 percent of adults in the U.S. are obese, according to the CDCP.

“People are becoming more and more overweight, and not just overweight, but morbidly obese,” Lehmann said. “Some people would say ‘just eat less,’ but in some cases, that just doesn’t work because these people have metabolisms that are so deranged. We have to take a medical approach and try to help these people.”

The research is being supported primarily by the National Science Foundation and the Arkansas Bioscience Institute, Lehmann said.

“We have been working on this since 2007 and just received a new grant this year from the NSF for another three years,” Lehmann said. “I hope, though, we will be able to continue our metabolism work beyond those three years. There is lots of work to be done.”

Fruit flies were the optimum choice for the research.

“Fruit flies have been used for pretty much exactly a hundred years now as model organisms in genetics research,” Lehmann said. “Because they are such a good model organism, they have many advantages over other organisms. Especially in genetics, because if you want to use a quantitative approach, you need a lot of offspring. A single female fruit fly can have 800 little fly babies. They also have a very short life cycle, so you get from one generation to the next in eleven days, so they’re very suitable for experimentation.”

Fruit flies are useful for a variety of scientific studies.

“The fly can be used to study many aspects of biology, that are also relevant to human biology, which surprises many people, because you wouldn’t necessarily expect this because they are so different from us,” Lehmann said. “It turns out that the basic processes, even in development, are very similar.”

Sexting and depression among teens are linked, study says

admin — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:20:29 +0000

Teenagers who ‘sext’ are more likely to have symptoms of depression, according to a Nov. 2 study.

Thirty-six percent of students who had ‘sexted’ reported depressive symptoms in the past year, according to the study conducted by The Educational Development Center, while only 17 percent of students who have not ‘sexted’ reported symptoms of depression.

The study, which was based on a 2010 survey that included more than 23,000 high school students, also revealed that 13 percent of high school students who have ‘sexted’ reported a suicide attempt in the past year, while only 3 percent of students who had not ‘sexted’ reported suicide attempts.

The survey did not reveal if ‘sexting’ causes depressive symptoms, or if depressive symptoms cause people to ‘sext.’

The survey is part of a greater research project, the MetroWest Adolescent Health Survey, which informs local officials involved with health education, prevention and policy-making programs.

It defines ‘sexting’ as sending, forwarding or posting nude, sexually suggestive or explicit photos or videos.

Preliminary results concluded that 10 percent of students who took the survey had sent a ‘sext’ in the past year, and 5 percent had an explicit photo or video of themselves sent by another person.

Students who had sexual intercourse at some point were five times more likely to ‘sext’ than those who had not, according to the survey.

Students who did not identify themselves as heterosexual were also more likely to send explicit messages or have pictures of themselves sent by others, according to the study.

Lead project researcher Shari Kessel Schneider said that while specific research in gender difference is forthcoming, there was a difference between men and women in result statistics.

“We found that 10 percent of males and 11 percent of females have sent a ‘sext’ of someone they know in the past 12 months,” Schneider said in an email, “and 6 percent of males and 4 percent of females have had a ‘sext’ sent of them in the past 12 months.”

Although Schneider said that the EDC has yet to research specific correlations between females affected by ‘sexting’ and depressive symptoms, slightly more females than males reported that they were involved in ‘sexting’ in the survey.

The prevalence of sexting among females, can be attributed to the kinds of relationships they choose, said Boston U. psychology Professor Deborah Belle.

Belle said that girls tend to enjoy the sense of vulnerability and intimacy that dyadic relationships – relationships exclusively between two individuals – have.

“I think that girls often orient themselves to dyadic relationships,” she said. “Girls tend to seek out and be comfortable with one other person at a time. Girls more than boys, research suggests, are involved in dyadic relationships.”

But sexting can be harmful to both partners in a relationship, no matter what their gender is, Belle said. She said there is also a possibility of betrayal in these relationships, especially when one person makes his or herself vulnerable to the other by sending an explicit message.

“The other person fails to honor that self-disclosure and makes it public,” Belle said.

Some BU students said they agreed that the decision to ‘sext’ can be risky.

Paul Robinson, a BU sophomore, said that ‘sexting’ explicit images is often a result of peer pressure, and in some cases, constitutes child pornography.

“It takes the romance away from sex itself,” Robinson added.

BU sophomore Troy Wilson said that ‘sexting’ can get out of hand and that it is more risky if a couple that has ‘sexted’ in the past breaks up.

“Especially if they turn against you or something,” he said. “Of course, the obvious situation is if you accidently send it to your mom.”

Drugs in pill form to provide savings

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:45:46 +0000

It is frightening to consider the costs behind the large amount of drugs used to treat patients today. Fortunately, a recent study at Johns Hopkins U. Hospital led by Brandyn Lau and colleagues shows that potentially millions of dollars can be saved each year by simply replacing intravenous medications for pills in hospitalized patients who are capable of swallowing.

The study utilized computerized records at the Hopkins Hospital for 2010. From these records, researchers estimate a total of 1.1 million dollars can be saved from just the Department of Medicine alone, not counting surgical patients, if four commonly prescribed IV medications were exchanged for their oral counterparts.

The four IVs considered for this study were chlorothiazide, voriconazole, levetiracetam and pantoprazole. These drugs are used to prevent high blood pressure, fungal infections, seizures and acid reflux respectively. Researchers chose these medications in particular because of the high similarity between the IV and oral forms. However, many other drugs can potentially be swapped as well.

In this study, IV medication administration for inpatients was first correlated with diet order status. Those who were able to feed through their mouth were labeled as eligible for the switch from IV to oral drug intake. Those who cannot eat this way were manually reviewed for other indicators of switch eligibility.

Research indicates that approximately 12 percent of United States’ health expenditures in 2009 were spent on medications, amounting to a total of $293.2 billion. In hospitals, the cost of drugs accounts for up to eight percent of total cost, significantly adding to the cost of patient care.

Furthermore, IV medications are generally more expensive compared to their oral equivalents. Thus, by simply switching eligible patients to oral medications as soon as they qualify, hospitals can greatly reduce costs associated with IV administration. Moreover, this will also reduce risks associated with bloodstream infections, cellulitis and other side effects associated with IV access that may result in longer hospital stays.

Although not all patients can switch from IV to oral medications, even a small portion of switches will substantially reduce hospital costs. Patients who are prescribed other orally taken drugs or are able to consume solid meals are generally eligible for the swap from IV drugs to oral equivalents.

One potential limiting factor to the implementation of this plan is the difficulty of encouraging physicians to switch without over-reminding them to the point of annoyance. Medical facilities can add alert systems that indicate when a patient on an IV drug qualifies for the oral version. However, considering the number of notifications doctors get, one must be cautious of how to raise awareness amongst physicians.

The researchers behind this study suggest that one potential avenue to resolve this problem is through education. Teaching doctors the cost effectiveness of oral medications over intravenous ones may be more effective than constant reminders.

A limitation to this study is the lack of consideration for all complicating factors, which include stability of patient cases over time, product prices over time, and medical practice patterns in different facilities.

Study reports income inequality a growing trend in Boston

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:01:36 +0000

Income inequality has increased in Boston over the past 20 years despite the fact that the poverty rate has remained stable, according to a recent study by the Boston Indicators Project.

The study, sponsored by The Boston Foundation, the City of Boston and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, was released last Wednesday as part of a decade-long project for the Boston Foundation, said Ted McEnroe, spokesman for the Boston Foundation.

“The project is a statistical look at the city of Boston,” McEnroe said in a phone interview. “As part of this project, [the Boston Foundation] began to see some of these trends written about in the poverty report.”

The study pointed to extreme income inequality in Boston, he said, as the number of wealthy and well-educated Bostonians has increased while poverty levels have not declined.

While this trend is visible nationwide, McEnroe said that Boston’s situation is still unique.

“Boston is certainly part of a national trend,” McEnroe said. “In Boston, the gap exists only more so because of the strength of our high-tech economy. You get punished more if you don’t have the education and skills to step into these jobs, so it enhances the gap.”

The “officially” poor of Boston are poorer than they were 20 years ago, a trend that the study attributes to the city’s high cost of living.

“There are some very real difficulties in breaking the generational effects of poverty,” said Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson, of Roxbury. “You see trauma and the deterioration of families, from economic as well as social factors.”

Still, officials from The Greater Boston Food Bank said they have noticed more short-term changes due to the economic downturn.

“Since the recession began, the number of people we’re feeding has risen by 23 percent between 2006 and 2010,” said Stacy Wong, spokeswoman for The Greater Boston Food Bank.

Wong said that the state as a whole has been affected by the economy.

“The need has not gone down,” Wong said. “The state’s high unemployment rate is taking its toll.”

Yet, Boston faces more severe poverty problems than much of the state, according to the study.

Massachusetts’ highest concentration of child poverty is located in Boston, specifically the Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan neighborhoods, the study said. In these areas, the child poverty rate is 42 percent.

“A recession in the city is a depression in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan,” Jackson said. “Many of these workers are most susceptible because they are low-skilled workers.”

In terms of finding solutions to Boston’s poverty problems, McEnroe said the Boston Foundation recognizes that there is no simple solution due to the current economic climate.

More than half of Boston’s population may face difficulties making ends meet in the city in the aftermath of the recession, according to the study.

“We are definitely aware of the disproportion of wealth and the effects on the poor,” Jackson said. “This creates an obstacle not only for today and right now, but for the future and future generations. This will be a very difficult obstacle to dig out of this hole.”

McEnroe said that spending is a multi-dimensional problem.

“For the city of Boston, some of these [programs] are being cut at the federal or state level,” he said.

Demand for safety-net programs, the study said, is growing despite budget cuts by the state.

However, to provide future workers the skills needed for a technology-based work force, McEnroe said he poses one solution.

“One thing the city can do is strengthen its education system,” he said. “We can get students into post-secondary level schools.”

Column: The end of AIDS

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:49:49 +0000

“Creating an AIDS-free generation has never been a policy priority for the United States government—until today,” Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton proclaimed in an address to the National Institutes of Health on Tuesday, as she called for a renewed U.S. focus on fighting the global AIDS epidemic. We, as AIDS activists, applaud Secretary Clinton for expressing this message at such a crucial juncture.

Just a year ago, members of the Harvard Global Health & AIDS Coalition, a chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign, together with people living with HIV/AIDS and community members[RR1] , publicly called upon President Obama to make the fight against global AIDS a U.S. priority. As a presidential candidate, Obama promised to increase funding by $50 billion over five years for AIDS treatment and prevention programs overseas. As modest increases during his first years in office made it evident that he was not living up to this promise, we joined together with other national AIDS activists to put pressure on the President at midterm election rallies he attended in Philadelphia, Boston, Bridgeport, and New York.

We understand the other immense pressures President Obama is under in light of the billions of dollars that must be cut in order to reduce the deficit. However, cutting these dollars from foreign aid, which makes up a mere fraction of one percent of the U.S. budget is neither effective, nor morally conscionable. As AIDS activists, we have been frustrated by President Obama’s stagnancy and lack of leadership on the issue. Currently, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the main mechanism through which the U.S. funds treatment for people overseas, aims only to reach four million on treatment by 2013. This goal will likely be reached by the end of this year, with an unambitious plan in place to expand treatment targets. As the discovery of HIV/AIDS enters its thirtieth year, the end of the virus that has eluded humanity for the past three decades is finally in sight.

Several new scientific studies show that now, more than ever, we have the tools to eradicate the disease. One groundbreaking study brings to light the fact that treatment is prevention: People who are on treatment are 96 percent less likely to transmit the disease. A new framework shows that if we invest now in the most effective prevention and treatment strategies, such as condom distribution, male circumcision, and a focus on mother-to-child transmission, in just four years, the costs of these programs will start to decrease. These exciting new discoveries prompted the UN, in a meeting last June, to commit to putting 15 million people on treatment by 2015. Now, AIDS activists are calling on the current administration to increase their treatment target to eight million people on treatment by 2015.

In her address, Secretary Clinton highlighted the pivotal role the United States has historically held in efforts of research, development of anti-retroviral medication, and funding for treatment and prevention programs such as PEPFAR. Moreover, she acknowledged the urgency of maintaining U.S. leadership on this issue, contending that “Our efforts have helped set the stage for the historic opportunity the world has today: to change the course of this pandemic and usher in an AIDS-free generation.”

Included in Clinton’s proposed interventions were many of those effective strategies, such as prevention of mother-to-child transmission and voluntary medical male circumcision, along with a strong emphasis on treatment with anti-retroviral therapy. The integration of these initiatives into a comprehensive plan will allow us to treat those suffering while also mitigating transmission—but its adoption will rely on the continued support and leadership of the United States. Our unique ability to take advantage of new scientific advances equips us with the capability to witness an end to AIDS. The realization of this goal depends on resurgence where faltered efforts and broken promises have compromised progress, beginning with the establishment of concrete and expanded treatment targets with timelines to follow in moving forward. In this critical moment of opportunity, we urge President Obama to capitalize on this momentum and lead concerted action.

Research shows fracking may not contaminate ground

admin — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 18:15:44 +0000

There is no direct link between fracking and contamination of groundwater, according to preliminary results of a study by U. Texas’ Energy Institute.

Hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, involves shooting high-pressure water mixed with sand and other chemicals into shale rock causing it to shatter and release natural gas. Though fracking has been used for decades, environmentalists have recently become concerned the process may be polluting ground water, said Charles Groat, geology professor and Energy Institute associate director and project leader.

Research began in May to separate fact from fiction, Groat said. He said the Barnett, Marcellus and Haynesville shales, areas which range from Northeast Texas to the Northeast U.S., have been scientifically tested.

“The basic thing we found out was that the subject so many are concerned about is not actually happening,” Groat said.

Reports of groundwater contamination are rare, Groat said, and when they occur, fracking is not to blame. Rather, above-ground leaks, the mishandling of waste water and poor casing or cement jobs could be causing the contamination.

“If you spill something or something leaks, those are things you have to pay attention to,” Groat said. “Those are problems with anything, though, and not specific to shale fracking.”

This study covers a six-month period and Groat said much more research is needed to find the long-term, cumulative effects and risks of fracking. His study will continue for the remainder of 2011, but he said he recommends an additional baseline study be implemented to learn more about long-term effects.

“Things go on in and around the surface that we need to pay attention to,” Groat said. “Accidents happen, but being educated can prevent them.”

For the remainder of the study, Groat and his team will interview residents of fracking areas, review popular media concerns of fracking and make suggestions on government regulations of the method.

Electrical engineering freshman Shawn Bhalla said he will feel more comfortable about fracking when more research is done.

“I still think there needs to be more safety precautions set in place,” Bhalla said. “I think we will be able to frack with more efficiency [after more research is done.]”

Electrical engineering junior Leonardo Gomide said this study proves how much scientists still need to learn.

“This really shows how little we know about what we are doing to the environment and how quickly things change in the engineering field,” Gomide said.

‘Planet hacking’ project aims for new climate model

admin — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:10:40 +0000

In an attempt to explore ways to stabilize rising global temperatures, a team of researchers including Harvard U. Applied Physics Professor David Keith has developed a plan to quantify and model the effects of solar radiation management (SRM)—techniques to reflect sunlight back into space.

Dubbed the “planet hacking” project, SRM aims to combat rising global temperatures by mitigating the “greenhouse effect,” which traps solar radiation near the Earth’s surface. For example, SRM techniques may add aerosols to the upper atmosphere, thereby scattering light and limiting the greenhouse effect.

Keith and his colleagues provide a framework for analyzing the potential benefits of exploring SRM techniques more deeply, concluding that further testing of SRM would be beneficial.

“Our goal was to examine the all-or-nothing assumption common in studies of SRM, by using climate models to find out if a limited test of SRM could be detected in the face of natural climate variability,” Keith said in a SEAS press release.

“Our results suggest that it should be possible to turn SRM on slowly—looking carefully for unexpected side-effects—before committing to full-scale use.”

Though SRM may help combat rising global temperatures, environmentalists worry that such protocols would deter nations from enacting stricter emissions policies.

“There is a taboo when it comes to talking about this because there is an underlying feeling that even talking about technical fixes like this will encourage people not to cut emissions,” Keith said.

Nonetheless, Keith said inaction is more harmful to the environment than the effects of solar radiation management.

According to an opinion article Keith published in the January 2010 issue of Nature, solar radiation management could offset rising temperatures 100 times more cheaply than emission cuts.

Though the project is very economical, Keith said that it may still be a risky proposition.

“This is not a cost-benefit trade-off,” Keith said. “It’s a risk-risk trade-off, so doing this stuff has some risks, including some very serious global risks, but it has some potential large benefits.”

Minority students perform better under minority professors, study shows

admin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:57:52 +0000

A new study shows that minority students perform better academically under minority professors. In a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, researchers found that minority students in community colleges have better grades when their professor is the same race.

Researchers say the connection between minority students and professors is due to what they call the “role-model effect.”

“When you see someone who has commonalities doing something great, it inspires you,” said Bryan Fair, professor of law at U. Alabama. “I didn’t know until high school that blacks earned PhDs.”

UA’s faculty demographic numbers tell a story all on their own. In the fall of 2010, 5.3 percent of professors were black, 4.6 percent were classified as Asian, 1.6 percent were Hispanic and 83.8 were white.

“I’m an engineering major and I don’t have any teachers who are black,” said Jelami Hardwick, a black senior majoring in electrical engineering. “But it’s not an issue for me because a lot of the administration are black.”

The University has a comprehensive strategic diversity plan in place to diversify the University’s faculty and student body, said UA spokeswoman Cathy Andreen.

The plan establishes five goals that commit the University to better communicating its commitment to diversity as part of its educational mission: create and sustain an inviting, respectful and inclusive campus environment; increase diversity within the faculty and senior level administration and the student body; and annually review goals and assess effectiveness of the action steps and initiatives in enhancing diversity within the University’s educational mission.

“Since I’ve been at the University I have not had a minority professor,” said Asia Stephens, a junior majoring in human development and family studies. “When I studied abroad this summer I had two minority professors and a minority dean of diversity come on the trip.”

But minority students are not the only group of students who could benefit from having minority professors, Fair said.

“In some ways, diversity among the academy will also benefit white students,” Fair said, “Especially those not used to minorities in leadership positions.”

Patsy Dempsey, a sophomore majoring in secondary education social science has a different take on the story.

“It’s awkward in my history class when we go over slavery in United States’ history,” Dempsey said. “Because people see you’re white and in Alabama, assume you have some history with slavery, racial problems and so on.”

Study says couch potatoes are cancer patients in the making

admin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:01:15 +0000

People normally don’t think of their health while watching movies, sitting down at a restaurant, or doing homework for a couple hours, but these activities could be putting people at risk for cancer.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, sedentary activity contributes to 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43,000 cases of colon cancer every year.

While cancer is typically associated with older people, even college students need to be conscious of their physical activity.

“If you’re a college student, what you do now is going to impact what happens to you later in your life,” said Alice Bender, a registered dietitian for the American Institute for Cancer Research.

Arielle Allen, a U. Arizona sophomore, said she was physically active for the first few weeks of school but isn’t as devoted now. Allen added that she thinks this is a common trend among college students.

“It’s very difficult to work out if you’re not working out for a reason,” said Beverley Makhubele, a pre-computer science sophomore. “I walk around a lot because I’m on campus and I’m busy.”

But it’s not just about being active, it’s also about not being inactive, said Dr. Cynthia Thomson, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the UA. Even those who work out for 30 minutes each day shouldn’t be sedentary for the remainder of the day.

“You can be kind of that active group, but you may not benefit from that activity if the rest of the time you’re sitting on your butt,” Thomson said. “That sitting time, that sedentary time, is as much of a risk factor for cancer and other chronic diseases than the activity part is protective.”

At the annual American Institute for Cancer Research conference on Thursday and Friday, epidemiologist Dr. Christine Friedenreich talked about biomarkers or potential cancer-risk indicators, which include inflammation, sex hormone levels and insulin resistance, Bender said.

“All of those are very positive things that happen when we’re physically active,” she said.

Friedenreich found that the risks went down for people who were physically active, Bender said.

Bender said another doctor, Neville Owen, found that when people sit longer, they have increased levels of insulin resistance, sex hormone levels and inflammation in the body. By breaking up sedentary behavior throughout the day, it can help lower the indicators, she added.

“When you exercise, you’re less insulin resistant,” Thomson said. “So you tend to have lower levels of circulating insulin in response to eating.”

She added that when this happens it helps prevent the growth of tumors when excess insulin is present.

One of the top risk factors for cancer is age, Thomson said, and as a person ages, they have less muscle mass. Inside those muscles, there’s also more fat accumulation. But regardless of age, people should stay active so they don’t have the fat muscle mass, she added.

“So when you’re inactive a lot of the time, it increases what we call intramuscular fat,” Thomson said.

In addition, people shouldn’t sit for longer than 60 minutes and should stand up at least once every hour and take a one to two minute break, Bender said. On average, people are sedentary for nine to 10 hours a day, assuming a 16-hour waking day, she added.

Makhubele said she tries to stretch out or get up every 30 minutes while she studies. If she has a heavier workload, she gets up every hour. She said she has also been trying to use a timer to schedule break times.

For those in residence halls, they can walk down the hall and talk to people instead of using Facebook or email, Bender said.

“It’s really important that we send the message to people that it’s not just about meeting those activity guidelines,” Thomson said. “It’s also about making sure that you look at what’s going on with your free time where you’re not exercising.”

Reformed diet may slow prostate cancer cell growth

admin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:43:53 +0000

Men with prostate cancer may be able to manage the disease simply by watching their diet, according to a study conducted by researchers at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The study showed that men who followed a low-fat, high omega-3 diet for four to six weeks before prostate removal experienced a lower rate of cancer cell growth than men who followed a traditional “Western” diet, which had almost three times the amount of fat calories than the low-fat diet in the study.

Participants on the modified diet had higher concentrations of omega-3 oils in their cancer cells than those of men on the high-fat, low omega-3 diet. This indicated to researchers that a change in diet could affect both the composition and rate of growth of cancer cells.

Dr. William Aronson, first author and principal investigator of the study, said he believes the dietary implications of the study are significant because the changes in diet manifested in the cancer cells’ composition.

Aronson said large-scale studies on cancer and nutrition are rare because of their high-implementation costs, which arise because researchers need to ensure uniformity in patients’ diets.

For this trial, all food was prepared by the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute and was delivered directly to patients by the university, said Colette Galet, a researcher with the UCLA Department of Medicine who co-authored the study. Patients were also required to meet with a dietitian and keep food diaries.

The researchers’ primary goal was to test the effect of the modified diet on IGF-1, a component of blood that can be used to measure the effectiveness of a prostate cancer treatment.

Despite effects on prostate cancer cell proliferation and makeup, researchers found no significant link between the modified diet and IGF-1 levels.

“If they had a more drastic diet with more pronounced weight loss and much fewer calories overall, I think you would have seen a more dramatic effect on the cancer and lower IGF-1,” said Dr. Pinchas Cohen, an author on the study.

Aronson said the men enrolled in the study had early-stage prostate cancer, and researchers examined the prostate cells after they had been surgically removed.

However, researchers believe there are also potential benefits from the diet for patients with advanced-stage prostate cancer that has spread beyond the prostate.

But men with prostate cancer should not yet make dietary changes given the small-scale nature of the study, Aronson said. He is currently organizing a larger, yearlong study of 100 men to test the study’s findings.

The participants in the next study have chosen to forgo medical therapy and will be closely monitored by clinicians to track their disease, a technique called active surveillance.

“If the findings are confirmed in the next clinical study, to me that would be very good news for prostate cancer patients because there may be a lifestyle change that they could make that would potentially slow the growth and progression of prostate cancer,” Aronson said.

Future studies may examine the combined effects of patients’ diets and typical medical treatments for cancer. Such treatment combinations have shown benefits in other forms of cancer, such as lung cancer.

“Now we’re interested in combining nutrition therapy with types of targeted therapies, such as radiation and chemotherapy,” Aronson said.

He also said researchers believe a diet low in saturated fat and high in omega-3 oils may increase the effectiveness of standard cancer treatments and reduce their side effects. Aronson said such studies are already being conducted on animals and have shown effectiveness in other types of cancers. He also added that future tests will determine their effectiveness in humans and potentially lead to their use in the clinical treatment of cancer.

Economic downturn increases alcoholism

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:16:14 +0000

During rough economic periods, people often cut out nonessential aspects of their lives in an effort to save money. The principle is especially prevalent in the unemployed, who reserve their cash until the next job, but also in those with jobs who fear the possibility of unemployment. Statistics from across industries over periods of recession and depression show that businesses, such as gym memberships and cosmetic procedures, take a dip when the money starts running dry.

One would expect this effect to carry over to alcohol consumption during difficult economic times. However, a recent study led by Michael T. French, a health economist and director of the Health Economics Research Group at U. Miami, asserts that even during steep economic downturn and reductions in income, people still increase risky drinking.

This study contradicts previous work which found that job loss results in a decrease of excessive drinking due to a lack of funding. The discrepancy in data was accounted for by controlling for factors such as alcohol abuse and dependence, which skew the data.

The study analyzed data from 34,120 people who were considered a representative sample of the American population. The data was collected from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) between 2001 to 2005.

The data revealed that all parties, regardless of gender, race and age, were subject to the same fate. Men, women, African Americans, Hispanic, Asian and Caucasian individuals from the ages of 25-59 all showed the same trend of increased alcohol consumption with increased unemployment rates.

In an attempt to explain their findings, the group believes the tie between unemployment and excessive drinking is stress. Even for those with jobs, the fear of losing one’s job leads to more drinking as unemployment levels rise.

Another explanation offered by noted Henry Wechsler, who has spent his life studying drinking habits and patterns, is that unemployment provides more opportunities to drink because of less time spent working or focusing on a job.

No matter the explanations that can be offered for this behavior, it is clear that excessive drinking is not the answer to increased anxiety over employment. Not only does it have adverse health consequences for the individual, but it also affects the people around the drinker.

However, beginning to drink during tough times does not guarantee an addiction. Addiction specialist Paul LeslieHokemeyer says that drinking addictions are worst when an individual feels alone, and that being surrounded by people can help prevent an addiction from happening.

While Dr. Hokemeyer’s words certainly are encouraging, they most likely will have little impact on the mass population. With the economy expected to remain at a high unemployment rate for the next few years, we can only expect excessive drinking to remain an issue according to Dr. French’s work.

IQ can change noticeably during adolescence, for better or worse

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:14:30 +0000

It is generally assumed that everyone has a stable IQ (intelligence quotient) score, thereby making it a standard measure of intelligence for teenagers everywhere. Those who perform badly in IQ tests as teenagers are written off as being unable to do as well in future endeavors, like getting into a highly ranked college or finding a job. Those who do well in such tests can get complacent, believing that they are “naturally smart” and are destined to do well.

However, new research has found that IQ is not a stable a trait as was previously believed. Using IQ tests taken from a group of 33 adolescents when they were between the ages of 12 and 16 and then again four years later when the same adolescents were between 15 and 20 years old, researchers have found that there were significant changes in their scores from 2008 compared to the scores from 2004.

Changes were up to a 20 point increase or decrease in scores, whether it was in verbal (language, math, knowledge and memory) or non-verbal (visual puzzles, identifying missing pieces of a picture) types of IQ. Changes to one type of IQ did not appear to cause a change in the other type.

Along with comparing IQ scores, researchers also looked at MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans of the subjects brains. They found that the increase in scores correlated with increases in grey matter of the brain.

Grey matter is where processing takes place in the brain, so it makes sense that increased intelligence would correlate with increased information processing. Specifically, increased verbal IQ scores correlated with increased density of grey matter in the part of the brain which is activated during speech, and increased non-verbal IQ scores correlated with the part of the brain activated during hand movements. It was not clear whether decreases in IQ scores meant a decrease in grey matter in the relevant areas of the brain.

So what does this mean? This research shows that intelligence is still developing in children, and that having a low IQ score during the pre-teen years doesn’t necessarily mean anything later on. It also shows that students who have a high IQ score earlier in life may not have the same score later, so they have to keep working hard and studying.

This last point especially is supported by research which has also found that the brain doesn’t lose its plasticity — its ability to mold itself and change with the amount and type of input it is receiving and the environment it is in — even when people are adults. For example, Professor Eleanor Maguire from the Wellcome Trust Centre found that taxi drivers in London have increased volume in their hippocampus, an area of the brain which controls memory and navigation.

Further research will be needed to decide whether or not this finding can be generalized to IQ changes even as adults, and whether these results also apply to other cognitive functions. Research can also be done to determine why these changes are happening and if it’s really just as simple as “working out” that part of your brain more or less. Research on these changes may have long-lasting impacts on education, employment, and how the education system is structured in the future. Furthermore, this research could be applied to mental disorders and whether changes in supposedly “stable” traits like IQ could contribute to such disorders.

Clearly, people’s brains don’t stop changing as they grow older, and this applies to no other group more distinctly than teenagers. Their brains are still changing and molding dramatically, even more so than adults’ brains, and intelligence is something that can be molded along with practical and physical skills. Brains are made to adapt to situations, and if one stops trying to study and better himself or herself, his or her brain might simply stop trying to keep up.

Study finds black holes may kill stars

admin — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:42:29 +0000

A U. Arizona professor’s co-authored study found evidence that black holes are ripping apart and killing stars.

On the rare event that a star gets too close to a black hole, gravity will pull the star unevenly on one of its sides. The stretching will continue until the star tears apart and shatters, said Dennis Zaritsky, a UA professor of astronomy in the Steward Observatory who co-authored the study. The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

After analyzing data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a project that took images of the sky, a handful of objects were found that resembled stars being partially swallowed by a black hole. The process of a star being shredded and falling into a black hole is called a tidal disruption event, Zaritsky said.

Most of a star’s matter spirals into the black hole where nothing, not even light, can escape. The remaining material was examined by a team of researchers.

Black holes are located near the center of the galaxy, which is where the star remains were found. Their location is strong evidence that these were indeed tidal disruption events, and not one of the many possibilities that resemble them, Zaritsky said.

After more analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s data of a few million galaxies, they settled on two tidal disruption events.

“Could there be some other kind of exploding star that we’ve never seen? Perhaps, but it would have to always happen at the center of galaxies,” Zaritsky said. “Then again, the universe is usually weirder than you think.”

People have been looking for tidal disruption events for at least the last decade, Zaritsky said.

“It’s hard to say this is the first time they’ve been discovered, because other people have put out claims of finding them,” he said. “But this is the first large optical survey where you look for variability and find them that way.”

What if a human fell into a black hole?

“That’s a standard problem we give in class to figure out how stretched you get,” he said. “If you didn’t rip apart initially, you’d get stretched hundreds of feet until you did.”

Under Arizona Stadium, a telescope’s mirror is being finished that will revolutionize the way this type of research is done, Zaritsky said.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope’s 8-meter mirror will take images of the entire sky every few nights. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey used a 2-meter mirror telescope.

Zaritsky said the LSST might be ready by 2020.

“We’ll see a lot more tidal disruption events,” Zaritsky said. “We’ll find all sorts of weird things, I guarantee it.”

Breast cancer drug likely to be disapproved by FDA

admin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:00:21 +0000

When clinical trials suggest an expensive cancer drug is ineffective but individual cases highlight its benefits, the methods for evaluating clinical research come into question.

Avastin, a drug for use against metastatic breast cancer—an advanced stage of the disease—is currently pending final approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Recent clinical trials do not show overall improvements in survival rates, casting doubts on the drug’s practical effectiveness. But some oncologists are saying that if ways to see which patients would respond positively to Avastin are developed, it could be a very effective treatment for metastatic breast cancer.

“Some patients do benefit from Avastin,” said Dr. Gary Lyman, medical oncologist and professor of medicine at Duke U. “The problem is that most don’t.”

Lyman was part of the FDA’s Oncologic Drug Advisory Committee, which in 2007 placed Avastin on an accelerated track for use against breast cancer. Accelerated approval is uncommon, and it was granted partially due to promising results of a clinical trial and Avastin’s previous success as a treatment for colorectal cancer, Lyman said. Avastin, though potentially beneficial, is also toxic, like most cancer drugs. It was approved with the provision that the drug be assessed again when two other clinical trials concluded.

When the trials ended in 2010, they showed unexpected results.

“The [new] data reviewed this past year was not as encouraging as we had hoped based on the initial, accelerated approval decision,” Lyman said. “None of the [new] trials have shown an overall survival improvement indication.”

Compared to the first trial, the new trials indicated a shorter period of progression-free survival, the time during or after medication in which the cancer ceases to worsen. They did not demonstrate a survival advantage or an improved quality of life on average, Lyman said. He and other oncologists noted, however, that there are certain patients for whom Avastin works very well, a phenomenon that might not be reflected in a large clinical study.

“In individual patients, we have seen remarkable responses to Avastin, but we have not yet learned to tell who will be one of those people with the remarkable response,” Dr. Gretchen Kimmick, Duke associate professor of oncology, wrote in an email Monday. “Here, further research needs to be done.”

The FDA, however, required the advisory board to either unconditionally approve the drug—which would have exempted Avastin’s developer from providing more clinical data—or deny it. The board ultimately rescinded its approval. Lyman and 10 others voted against Avastin, and one member voted for it.

“If we had been given the opportunity to extend approval, I think several panel members including myself would have voted for that,” Lyman said.

The FDA has yet to make the final decision, though historically it has rarely deviated from the advisory board’s decision, he said. If it rescinds Avastin’s approval, then it is likely that insurance companies will cut off funding for the drug for breast cancer use.

“To me, [the end of insurance coverage] would almost be the worst case scenario,” Lyman said. “It’s very likely that those with means would be able to pay for the drug and many patients would not, or they would end up mortgaging their homes or end up going into great debt in order to get the treatment they or their doctor thinks they need.”

Dr. Neil Spector, Duke associate professor of medicine and associate professor of pharmacology and cancer biology, said there is financial need to develop an identifying method.

“If we prescribe expensive drugs to 100 people in order to get two responders, our health care system will not be sustainable,” Spector wrote in an email Tuesday. “That is not being harsh, it’s being realistic…. We need to develop effective therapies, understand who is most likely to benefit and make them available to likely responders at costs that patients can afford.”

Economics may limit developers’ ability to tailor a drug to specific individuals, added Dr. Erich Huang, a surgical oncologist and the director of cancer research at Sage Bionetworks in Seattle, Wash.

“The question then is, are we incentivizing people to figure out which drug works for which patient?” Huang said. “It’s the kind of question that needs economic analysis because it is more profitable for [pharmaceutical companies] to market an agent to a larger, un-selected group of patients.”

Lyman said he is confident that Avastin’s usefulness as a drug will emerge as ways of finding which patients would respond well to it are developed.

“I sincerely believe in the near future there will be a marker, a gene, gene pattern or protein that will tell us which patient is most likely to respond,” he said. “To me, that’s the holy grail for Avastin because of [its toxicity].”

Danish study disproves cell phone-related cancer … or does it?

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:18:53 +0000

Move aside “Mythbusters,” Danish researchers may have just busted the most feared urban legend of our generation.

A team of six from the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen recently published a study which they say disproves the myth that cell phone use can increase the risk of brain cancer.

The study looked into the health of 350,000 people over the age of 30 who subscribed to mobile phone contracts. Researchers compared the rate at which they had brain tumors to the rates of those who were non-subscribers over a 17-year period.

The study should provide relief to weary consumers who saw the May report from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer which listed cell phone use as a “carcinogenic hazard,” the same category as lead, engine exhaust and chloroform.

However, Dr. Steven Graves, a highly decorated scholar and former associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the way the Danish study was conducted raises some doubts.

“It is a retrospective study, that is it evaluates data collected previously, as opposed to being a study collecting new data to specifically answer a scientific question,” Graves said. “These types of studies are considered less strong than prospective studies.”

Graves said another limitation of the study was the actual amount of phone use by subscribers in the study sample is unknown. The investigators were only able to compare cell phone subscribers to non-subscribers. While one could infer an average amount of phone use for subscribers, Graves said, there was no way to measure whether the individuals in the study used their phone once a day for a few minutes or multiple times a day for many hours.

Despite those limitations, Graves said there was absolutely no evidence in the study to attribute cell phone use to an increased incidence of brain tumors.

“I think that it is reasonable to conclude that cell phone use in most individuals is unlikely to increase the risk of brain cancers,” Graves said. “Future studies may be able to determine whether longer exposure carries a small risk, but I think that all the hype around cell phone use and that causing cancer is mostly hype and not fact. ”

‘Hooking up’ may be exaggerated

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:41:50 +0000

The term “hooking up” is often used among college students. But the phrase is used more than the actual number of “hook ups,” according to a recent study.

“Hookups” is a term used when referring to intimate encounters outside of a dating relationship, according to a study by U. Nebraska-Lincoln.

The study surveyed 300 U. Montana students find how social networks impact the amount of hookups individuals have throughout a school year.

“The term ‘hooking up’ is very explicit and broad,” said Amanda Holman, graduate student at UNL and lead author of the study. “More people think college students participate in hookups more than they actually do because of the subculture.”

The study showed a large percentage of the students claimed to have spoken about hookups to peers regarding themselves and others in their social networks.

Though the percentage of students talking about hookups was high, the actual number of hookups was 54 percent of the students that participated in the study.

According to the study, 54 percent of participating students said they had one hookup during the school year. Of that percentage, 63 percent were male and 45 percent were female.

With that, 37 percent of the participating students said they had two or more hookups with one school year. The study also showed 90 percent of participating students estimated a “typical” student would have two or more hookups per year.

Holman said the definition of “hooking up” varied among students. Yet, the most common definition given was unplanned sex.

According to some students across U. Kentucky’s campus, the idea of a student’s social status could provide them with more hooking up opportunities. Being involved in certain groups exposes students to a higher amount of people rather than the average student.

“There are more opportunities for students that have an active social life to participate in hookups,” said Katelyn Hawkins, an animal science senior at UK.

Kameron White, a University Health Service Sexpert and a UK sophomore, said there is not a hookup rate for UK, but after looking at this study, she didn’t think the hookup rate would be drastically higher or lower.

She said she didn’t think a student’s social status would necessarily influence hookups.

“Social behaviors and their personal definition of having fun can affect the number of hookups thay have a year,” White said.

Women more likely than men to get hurt in car crashes

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:43:57 +0000

U. Virginia researchers found that women are 47 percent more likely to sustain injuries in car crashes than men in a study to be published in the December print edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

The study, conducted by University Engineering Research Scientist Dipan Bose and Engineering Prof. Jeff Crandall with help from Maria Segui-Gomez, adjunct epidemeology and public health professor at Universidad de Navarra, used data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on adult drivers who were involved in car crashes between 1998 and 2008.

The data showed detailed information on 45,445 crashes, allowing the researchers to eliminate extraneous information and more effectively compare similar crashes.

“This was a finding we did not anticipate,” Bose said, explaining that the researchers expected to find discrepancies between women and men because men have a higher risk of being involved in fatal car crashes.

The study pointed to vehicle type and driver size as contributing factors to the difference in injuries sustained by men and women. Females in the study were an average of 14 centimeters shorter and 16 kilograms lighter than males. In addition, the females’ vehicle type was 13 percent more likely than males’ to be a passenger car, and 15 percent less likely to be a truck.

Programs are in place to test the safety of vehicles for women by using smaller dummies when testing car crashes, the NHTSA said in an email.

“As a public health and safety agency, NHTSA is continually working to ensure all vehicle occupants are protected — regardless of age, gender or size,” the NHTSA said. “Due to their smaller stature, women are generally at a greater risk of being injured in frontal and side crashes than their male counterparts would be if exposed to the same type of crash.”

Manufacturers are trying to put more adaptable safety systems in place, Bose said, including introducing customized safety belts. He added that maintaining a 10-inch distance from the steering wheel and wearing a seat belt that fits helps reduce the risk of injury in a crash.

Study: Freshman 15 just a myth

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:35:30 +0000

Go ahead, college freshman! Eat that extra bowl of ice cream.

Despite repeated warnings about packing on the dreaded “freshman 15” and rising obesity rates in the United States, a recent study says most college students do not gain 15 pounds in their first year.

“The ‘freshman 15′ is a myth,” said Ohio State U. research scientist Jay Zagorsky, co-author of the study that is believed to be the first nationwide look at the purported phenomenon. “There is no ‘freshman 15.’”

His research, to be published in the December issue of the journal Social Science Quarterly , found the average student gains between 2.4 and 3.5 pounds freshman year. For women, the average weight gain was 3.1 pounds, while men gained an average of 3.5 pounds.

There are many reasons why college students gain weight.

All-you-can-eat cafeterias, high-calories drinks and a lack of time to spend at the gym all contribute to these few extra pounds. However, the research found that most students don’t even gain 15 pounds during four years of college. Women gained an average 8.9 pounds over four years of college, while men gained an average 13.4 pounds.

The two factors that seem to make a difference in weight gain are heavy drinking and working more hours, but it isn’t college itself that leads to weight gain. It’s growing up.

The study found the average freshman gains less than a pound more than someone the same age who didn’t go to college.

The study also found that just under 10 percent of college freshman do gain 15 pounds or more; 25 percent of freshmen lost weight, and the average person gained 1.5 pounds a year in each of the first four years after college.

The survey was conducted for the U.S. Department of Labor by the Ohio State’s Center for Human Resource Research.

The study recommends the media and colleges stop using the term “freshman 15” because with so many people already suffering from body image issues, its continued use could lead people to suffer eating disorders.

The bottom line is that people should learn to be healthy while they’re still young. College is the perfect opportunity for young adults to learn how to eat healthy on their own.

Research finds that intestines grow in response to food

admin — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:41:42 +0000

U. California-Berkeley research shows a more dynamic role for stem cells and insulin in the intestine, a finding that could have implications for diabetes treatment.

The research, which was published in the journal Cell on Oct. 28, shows that the quantity of intestinal stem cells grows or shrinks to accommodate food, instead of maintaining a stable quantity, as scientists previously thought.

For researchers Lucy O’Brien, postdoctoral researcher, and David Bilder, associate professor of cell and developmental biology, the logic of the findings made evolutionary sense.

“If the animal can expand the size of the intestine and digest more food but then shrink when there is not as much need, it makes the animal more efficient, more physiologically fit,” O’Brien said.

The four-year-long research project, which examined the intestines of fruit flies, began somewhat by chance, she said.

One day in the lab when O’Brien needed to observe a certain genotypic mutation, there was only one slide available — one of a fly that had not been eating.

“When I opened it, its gut was so small,” O’Brien said. “I thought there’s no way this organ could have as many cells as a normal organ I’m used to looking at. That got me wondering whether the act of feeding was actually changing the makeup of the original tissue.”

Her idea diverged from the research of the time, which argued that stem cells in fruit flies divided at a reasonably constant rate, according to O’Brien.

In the lab, she began her work by observing the flies immediately after they had undergone metamorphosis and emerged as adult flies but before they had first eaten. At this point, the stem cells were mostly “inert,” according to O’Brien.

“But when I would give the flies food, I would see the stem cells come to life, and they would divide and divide and divide and divide,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien then spent a year digitally reproducing the intestines of the fruit fly and using computerized algorithms to rigorously count the 4,000 to 10,000 cells in any given fruit fly.

Here, the small size of the fruit fly helped.

“The ability to get at really fine-grain detail about individual cells in the organ makes the fruit fly such a useful animal to study,” O’Brien said.

As a biologist, O’Brien said her first thought was that insulin — which is central to regulating metabolism — would be a key factor in the response of stem cells to food.

The secreted insulin directed stem cell growth. During feeding, insulin secretions would increase, signaling intestinal growth.

In exploring the impact of insulin, O’Brien’s research has laid preliminary groundwork regarding the use of stem cells in the treatment of diabetes in humans, according to an article by Abby Sarkar, a Harvard University graduate student, and Konrad Hochedlinger, associate professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard, that accompanied the study’s publication.

Musclelike cells in the human intestines similarly secrete insulin. However, understanding the impact of those secretions is much more challenging in the context of a human versus that of a fruit fly, O’Brien said.

“The fruit fly is going to give us indications about how the equivalent process would work in the human,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien plans to continue her current work by examining involvement of muscle tissue in the secretion of insulin. She will also explore what factors limit stem cell growth.

Prototype for $1K house has final price tag of $6K

admin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:40:10 +0000

What can you build for $1,000? Last summer, MIT Professor Yung Ho Chang in the Department of Architecture and Ying chee Chui — then a graduate student in the department — designed and built a house in Sichuan, China using local materials for that much.

The house, known as the “Pinwheel” prototype, is based on a single module that has a central courtyard space with rectangular rooms branching out on all sides. Once one unit is built, it can be duplicated and rotated to construct an entire house. The house also makes use of hollow brick walls with reinforcing steel bars, wooden box beams, and structural insulation panels to help it withstand earthquakes.

Chang said he was first inspired in 2009 when his colleague, Tony Ciochetti, chairman of the MIT Center for Real Estate, came to him with the idea to build a house for $1,000 after seeing the One Laptop per Child project, of the foundation of the same name headed by Media Lab co-founder Nicholas P. Negroponte ’66.

“The 1,000 number was completely arbitrary, but I got excited and wanted to know if it could be done, so we decided to do a project in studio that spring to work on the idea,” Chang said.

Chang and a group of graduate students created a set of designs, one of which, the “Pinwheel,” was selected to be built last summer in Mianyang, Sichuan Province, China.

Chang says that it took about a year to establish ties with an NGO in Beijing and secure funding for the construction of an actual prototype. In the summer of 2010, Chui headed to Sichuan to build the prototype on site.

“The final price tag was about 6K, but the house was 30 percent bigger than we had originally planned,” she said.

Unique design process

Chang emphasized that what makes the 1K house unique is not just its low cost, but the interactions between the architect, the engineers, and the end user that occurred during its construction.

Usually, according to Chang, the three parties don’t interact at all.

“Practically speaking, architects can’t build their own design, and inhabitants can’t either — they don’t have the equipment, crew of people. It was very unusual, in our case then, that we worked directly with all parties. Even the person who ended up living in the house was physically building it.”

Chui says that the process of working with structural engineers and being heavily involved in the construction was a rewarding experience.

“I learned a lot about the engineering perspective — we designed the house in studio, but we had to select the material at the time during construction. It was a challenge because we were building in a rural area and we had to look for materials that were close-by, and met the structural and cost requirements.”

Chang said designing the house within tight cost constraints was a valuable experience as well. “Architects have very strong design tendencies,” he said.

“For example, we don’t like some colors, maybe some of us don’t like colors at all, but in this project, we had to let go of a lot of these things. In Chee’s case, I knew she didn’t like the color of the roof panel, but it turned out that color was the cheapest one.”

“You don’t have to give up on design, but you realize what’s important is the most essential elements,” he added.

Chang hopes that the locals can take away design principles from their involvement in the construction of the house.

“Most houses in the area use solid brick which doesn’t stand well against lateral stress as well as the hollow bricks we used, so we hope that they can incorporate that design principle into their own building convention and future designs.”

Now that the prototype $1K house has been completed, Chang is working on a $10,000 house for Japan that could be built quickly after natural disasters.

“We wanted to get the $1,000 house out as a message. It’s not about building one house, but the first house,” Chang said.

Study: More soda, more violence

admin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:49:04 +0000

Teenagers who consume large amounts of soda are more likely to display violent tendencies, according to a study recently conducted by David Hemenway, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Hemenway, along with his co-author, U. Vermont Economics Professor Sara J. Solnick, found that teens who drank more soft drinks were between nine and fifteen percent more likely to be violent.

The study’s results were published in Injury Prevention, an international peer review journal.

The research was conducted using questionnaires collected from over 1,800 inner-city Boston public school students between the ages of 14 and 18. The majority of the students were African-American, Hispanic, or interracial and came from similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

Among other questions, the students were asked how many non-diet soft drinks they consumed in an average week, whether they carried weapons of any kind, and whether they had been involved in violent acts.

According to Hemenway, the questionnaires covered many different aspects of violence. These included witnessing violence and fearing violence, as well as partaking in violence.

“The more soda the students drank, the more likely the students were to perpetrate violence,” Hemenway said. “It was violence in all areas—against peers, against dates, against siblings—and they were even more likely to carry guns.”

After finding the initial correlational relationship, the researchers set out to control for a number of other factors, including gender, age, ethnicity, body mass index, alcohol use, tobacco use, and sleep. Hemenway said that several of these factors—particularly alcohol and tobacco use—are themselves heavily associated with violence.

Yet after this analysis was conducted, “the relationship [was] still there and … incredibly strong,” Hemenway said.

According to Solnick, previous studies have suggested that soft drinks have been linked to mood disorders in teenagers.

However, Solnick said that there is not enough data to firmly conclude that soda is a direct cause for an increase in violent tendencies. High soda consumption may simply indicate a poor diet in participants.

“People who drink a lot of soda are missing out on other proper nutrition, and that may lead to aggression and violence,” Solnick said.

Solnick said that she and Hemenway will continue their research by looking at other types of violence, studying the relationship between soft drink consumption and suicidal behavior or self-harm.

“There are so many different factors that contribute to the problem, and we want to untangle all of them,” Solnick said.

OCD far more severe than proverbial ‘neat freak’

admin — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:30:16 +0000

Betty Ray knew that her son Nathaniel preferred to have his Lego block creations in a precise formation on his bookshelf. When she entered her 7-year-old son’s room to clean, she took a mental photograph of where he had placed them in relation to one another.

She dusted off the ledge and put his blocks back the way he had arranged them — or so she thought. When Nathaniel re-entered his room, he knew immediately that something was wrong.

His mother watched as he meticulously adjusted the Legos to restore them to their original positions, recalling precise angles and distances.

Though they didn’t know at the time, Nathaniel suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). His condition rendered him unable to ignore the disposition of his toys, despite his mother’s efforts to arrange them correctly.

Many college students have probably uttered the phrase “so OCD” when it comes to cleaning their dorm rooms or using proper punctuation in emails. Yet, the term isn’t meant to describe laughable quirks. Rather, it refers to stress-induced thoughts and actions that hinder those diagnosed with it from living full and productive lives.

OCD is a neurobiological anxiety disorder characterized by obsessions and compulsions. OCD causes overwhelming fears and doubts that continually occupy the forefront of the mind. This results in unwanted thoughts, as well as coping rituals that interfere with everyday life.

What separated young Nathaniel from someone who simply “likes things a certain way” was the amount of stress such minute details caused him. In his mind, he didn’t just want his Legos a certain way; he needed them a certain way.

The fourth most common psychiatric disorder, OCD affects one in 100 children and one in 40 adults, meaning more than 1,000 USF students could suffer from this anxiety disorder.

Nathaniel’s physician, Dr. Eric Storch of U. South Florida Health, said there is a clear difference between “neat freaks” and those diagnosed with OCD.

“When someone (with OCD) comes through my door, typically their concerns are so prominent that they want to do something about it,” he said.

Experts say 98 percent of people with OCD experience two distinct sets of phenomena: obsessions in the form of intrusive thoughts that dominate the mind and compulsions manifested in performed, repetitive rituals.

What causes OCD is subject to extensive debate and research. Some studies have linked the disorder to a chemical imbalance in the brain, specifically of serotonin. A 2007 study published in Nature magazine showed how mice lacking a vital brain-circuitry protein exhibited “increased anxiety and compulsive grooming behavior.”

Other possible causes include genetic inheritance, as seen in studies that compare OCD twins separated at birth, and traumatic events such as childhood bouts of sickness. Storch said no two cases are the same.

“One example I give is a boy who counted shapes with a 90-degree angle,” he said. “In his case, he was in a classroom that had a brick wall. Every time he’d lose count, he’d have to start anew.”

Storch said engaging in OCD-induced rituals can often lead to a misdiagnosis of other conditions, such as attention deficit disorder. The boy’s teacher mistook his ritual as another case of an inattentive student, even though he had no choice but to count every brick in the classroom.

Storch said cases such as this exemplify the obvious difference between someone with OCD and someone simply labeled “obsessed.”

“With kids, you’ll see a lot of video game playing, and the parent will say, ‘My kid’s obsessed with video games,’” he said. “That’s not OCD to the extent that there’s not something that’s distressing the child in the form of an intrusive thought, and certainly no compulsion related to it.”

Three years after his mother noticed him adjusting his Legos, Nathaniel sat with his parents watching television. Even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, Nathaniel began apologizing to his mother.

“In a 30-minute time span, he apologized over 60 times. I finally quit counting,” Betty said. “And I said, ‘OK, this is not normal.’”

Diagnosing OCD isn’t done with lab equipment or brain scans, but rather by conducting a clinical interview. Storch said the two indicators he looks for are obsessions that slow down patients’ days and the degree of stress caused by their inability to perform a ritual.

Nathaniel and his mother compiled a list of obsessions and compulsions severe enough to cause him anxiety. Nathaniel then began cognitive behavioral therapy, which targeted his specific compulsions. After he and his mother ranked them in terms of severity, Storch began exposing him to his obsessions, starting with things that caused him the least anxiety.

Forced to see his Legos out of place time after time, Nathaniel slowly began to build up a mental immunity to the circumstance that had before made him overly anxious. These weekly therapy sessions slowly allowed him to manage his OCD.

Storch researches treatment options for OCD through USF. Though some drugs are available for OCD, Storch said the therapy has proved most effective.

“Whenever I hear someone say, ‘OCD is a biological disorder or a brain disorder,’ I take pretty strong offense to that because it neglects the most robust data that we have, which is that exposure-based psychotherapy is the most profound treatment,” he said.

Storch’s research, recently featured in the St. Petersburg Times, has shown that a drug, currently FDA approved for tuberculosis, has enhanced the cognitive therapy treatment in a number of children. The next step toward approving the drug for OCD involves more than 100 child patients, some given the drug and others given a placebo.

Today, Nathaniel is 15 years old and plays wide receiver for the junior varsity football team at Timber Creek High School. Though it takes him longer to finish his school work than it does for his peers, Nathaniel maintains a 4.0 grade point average. Therapy sessions over the past five years have given him the tools needed to stop OCD from running his life. He occasionally visits Storch for booster sessions.

“Because of the (cognitive behavioral) therapy, I have become a stronger person,” Nathaniel said. “I’ve learned to manage my OCD, rather than my OCD managing me.”

Study anticipates high Medicaid costs

admin — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:28:17 +0000

Policy makers should anticipate potential shortcomings and unexpectedly high costs associated with the expansion of Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act of 2010, according to a study released Wednesday by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In an effort to provide insurance coverage to the 50 million uninsured Americans, the Affordable Care Act revised Medicaid to include more low-income adults by 2014. But according to the researchers, their analysis revealed much more uncertainty than the government’s estimates of the number of people who would become eligible for Medicaid and then elect to enroll.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services predicted that 16 million Americans would elect to join the Medicaid program by 2014. But the Harvard researchers predict that as few as eight million or as many as twenty-two million uninsured individuals would actually enroll, increasing uncertainty surrounding the policy change.

“Medicaid expansion may be successful or not depending on how many people enroll,” senior author and Professor of Health Policy and Management Arnold M. Epstein said.

Based on their numbers, the researchers estimated that federal spending for increased Medicaid enrollees would range from $34 billion to $98 billion and create a demand for 4,500 to 12,1000 new physicians to care for the enrollees.

“This could leave a lot more people either having to go through [state] exchanges or being uninsured, or it could potentially cost us more than we expected,” Epstein said.

For any piece of legislation concerning federal spending, the CBO must determine the potential budget impact and can only produce one estimate. Together, the CBO and the CMS provided Congress with the estimate that 16 million Americans would join the Medicaid program.

“Our objective was to provide a more realistic range of how many people might be covered by Medicaid under ACA and what the implications would be for health care providers,” Professor of Health Policy and Economics Katherine Swartz said.

Led by Harvard Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Economics Benjamin D. Sommers, the researchers used a simulation model and national surveys to determine how many people would enroll in Medicaid.

The study suggests that legislators should be prepared for a broader number of possible new Medicaid enrollees. If the number is higher than anticipated, policy makers will have to increase care providers and compensate for the costs, Swartz said. If the number is lower, then they will have to develop a marketing strategy to encourage people to enroll, Swartz added.

“It’s going to be a lot of time for all this to iron itself,” Swartz said. “It’ll be 2019 or 2020 before we know.”

Using microscopic algae to solve big fuel problems

admin — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:17:05 +0000

Heike Winter-Sederoff has an eye for recognizing the potential in some of the smallest and mostly commonly overlooked things.

This summer Sederoff, assistant professor of plant biology at North Carolina State U., sent experiments on a common garden weed to the International Space Station. Now she’s looking to make biofuels out of an algae commonly used in fish feed to make salmon orange. She’s also investigating the oily properties of the camelina seed, a mustard plant that thrives in poor conditions.

Unlike biodiesel and ethanol, Sederoff is using the Dunaliella salina algae to produce lipids and fatty acids that burn similarly to petroleum.

“The oils this algae produces will be converted into a fuel that can be substituted for petroleum based fuels,” Sederoff said.

Unlike ethanol, which is only a supplement, algae biofuels can replace petroleum fuels 100 percent.

“Ethanol is only an additive,” Sederoff said. “If you’re driving a car you can only use 15 percent of your fuel as ethanol. The biofuels we are making will be ‘drop in replacements,’ or complete substitutes.”

Sederoff said algae fuels will be the most viable solution to finding a replacement to oil. After starting in 2009, the multidiscipline research team has invested their efforts in to converting natural algae into small fuel factories.

“The algae can control how its genes serve its needs, like any organism. This includes lipid production and control. We want to override that,” Sederoff said. “We want to keep that oil production switch on.”

Amy Gruden, associate professor of microbiology, is working to isolate genes in extremophile archaeabacteria—the living relics of simple prokaryotic bacteria that thrive in extreme conditions. High salinity environments interest Gruden and Sederoff most.

“I work with halophilic bacteria, which are extremely salt tolerant,” Gruden said. “The algae we are using is a halophile itself, so it grows in sea water. The reason why we went with this is so we don’t have to worry about freshwater usage, which is a commodity we want to save on in the biofuels process.”

Gruden is working to transform extremophile genes into the genetic material of the algae, but the team hasn’t been successful in finding the exact locus, or location on a chromosome, to place the bacteria genes.

“So far the algae has been spitting the genes back at us, but all we need is some time to find where it will fit,” Sederoff said. “Give us time, we just got started.”

The research team just sequenced the genetic blueprint of the Dunaliella algae through an institution in China, according to Sederoff.

Although Sederoff’s lab on the top floor of Gardner Hall is one of only a handful of labs looking into the potential of algae, the biofuel business is becoming a topic serious international examination.

“Biofuels, just like petroleum, is an international business and it’s only going to grow. It’s got to.” Sederoff said. “In Southeast Asia there is a big business in palm oil, another biofuel option.”

According to Gruden and Sederoff, the military is looking to turn to biofuels in the near future. Sederoff said any garage can produce a battery that can power a truck, but aircraft rely on hydrocarbon fuels for combustion. The Air Force plans to operate on 50 percent biofuels by 2016.

“The military has made a huge commitment to biofuels,” Sederoff said. “And if the military can become independent on oil, then we can forget about those wars.”

In addition to algae-based biofuels, Sederoff is researching the camelina seed, which has a high oil content of 40 percent according to the USDA. This robust plant grows in poor soils and dry climates and requires little fertilizer. The Native American Resource Council for Energy is keen to build camerlina farms and processing plants reservations—which are historically infamous for being on marginal lands.

Unlike sugarcane or corn-derived ethanol, algae and camelina biofuels won’t compete with the food supply, according to Sederoff.

“Producing ethanol requires incredible amounts of fertilizer and fresh water, so it’s unsustainable,” Sederoff said. “We can culture our algae in salt water. We can grow camelina blindfolded. So we really thing this could be our solution.”

According to Sederoff, biofuels have come a long way since the beginning, but she thinks this new generation of biofuels will be the answer to the post-petroleum energy market.

“It’s exciting to be on the cutting edge, but it still requires a lot of work,” Sederoff said. “But it’s been an honor working with the whole spectrum—biologists, engineers, economists, biochemists, microbiologists—to try to solve our current issues.”

Blood test detects Down syndrome

admin — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:15:22 +0000

The U. Virginia Health System and 27 other participating universities published a study last week about a new, noninvasive prenatal blood test which can detect Down syndrome in a fetus.

The test, which was released in 20 metropolitan regions last week, can reduce the need for risky diagnostic procedures which may put the health of the mother and the fetus at risk.

The study, published in the journal “Genetics in Medicine,” found that a noninvasive method using blood tests may be a safer alternative to the normal screening process, said Glenn Palomaki, a lead researcher on the study and senior research associate in the division of biology and medicine at Brown U. “There is no other test like this,” Palomaki said, “It may delay things for a week, but it is extremely reliable.”

The study concluded that the test’s Down syndrome detection rate was 98.6 percent, and the false positive rate was 0.2 percent.

A Health System press release said the results “demonstrate that the new test will be highly effective when offered to women considering invasive testing.”

Current procedures using amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling are more invasive procedures which put the fetus at risk, Palomaki said. This new blood sampling procedure will give pregnant women more testing options, he added.

The new blood test helps reassure patients who are at increased risk, thereby avoiding these invasive procedures, said Devereux Saller Jr., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at U. Virginia’s Medical School. Saller added that if a patient is at increased risk for having a Down syndrome pregnancy, she may choose to have a diagnostic test rather than this new procedure. The diagnostic test differs in that it involves sticking a needle or catheter into the womb to obtain a sample. “This has some risk to the pregnancies and is more expensive,” Saller said.

The University Health System joined the study team in late 2009 or early 2010, Palomaki said, and greatly contributed to the research that was done. “I couldn’t do the study without sites like U.Va.,” he said. “They are the reason that the site works. It’s great to have partners with places like U.Va. and Dr. Saller.”

New clues into mass dinosaur extinction

admin — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:46:20 +0000

To test an alternative theory explaining the 65-million-year-old mass extinction that led to the demise of the dinosaurs, Princeton U. researchers developed a model that more accurately accounts for the Earth’s heterogeneities and offers different interpretations from previous models.

The researchers, who were based in the lab of geoscience and applied and computational mathematics professor Jeroen Tromp, focused on a theory that explained the mass extinction as the result of a long volcanic eruption triggered by a meteorite strike near Chicxulub on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. This theory suggested that the strike could trigger volcanic activity on the opposite side of the globe.

The project started in May 2010 and was the result of a collaboration between the first author, Matthias Meschede of U. Munich, and co-authors Conor Myhrvold and Tromp.

Meschede, who got involved through the University’s Visiting Student Research Collaborators program, said that the project was interesting for him because it focused on an unconventional source of earthquakes.

The original calculation for a link between the meteorite strike and the catastrophic volcanic eruptions included an analytical approximation based on a spherical earth model that failed to account for the heterogeneities of the Earth. The Princeton research showed the model to be very inaccurate.

“The Princeton group could simulate earthquakes on a global scale better than anybody else could before, and so we could take into account all the heterogeneities of the earth and make a much more accurate calculation,” Meschede said.

The Princeton model showed that, while a symmetric Earth focused seismic waves more strongly on a single point, a non-spherical Earth with heterogeneities spread waves over large areas that decreased the amplitude of earthquakes on the other side of the planet.

As a result, the amplitude of the Earth’s maximum ground displacement in the previous model was decreased by a factor of five; moreover, the Princeton model showed that heterogeneities basically filtered out the highest wave frequencies so that these frequencies became scattered and didn’t interfere constructively.

“This is basically the main difference, and so we think it’s a very important effect that you have to account for,” Meschede said.

Meschede also noted that, based on their findings, a relation between the meteorite strike and volcanic eruptions large enough to cause a mass extinction is unlikely.

In addition to providing more information on the possible connection between the eruption and the meteorite strike, the research has also created a model that could offer insight on the surface of other planets based on past collisions.

“For every meteorite impact, when you want to figure out what’s going to happen on the Earth, the moon, Mercury or Mars you have to consider the focusing effect on the other side, and if you want to see how large this is going to be, then you have to model it like we did,” Meschede said.

Because the Princeton model showed that the focusing factor was decreased by a factor of five when heterogeneities and the Earth’s asymmetry were taken into account, Meschede noted that vast improvements are possible with this more accurate model.

“Apart from that, just being able to simulate the heterogeneities, not just for the meteorite but also for other impacts and other planets — this is the development from the last five to 10 years,” Meschede said.

Global temperature up by 1 degree Celsius since 1950s, according to study

admin — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:55:46 +0000

Amidst allegations of bias, the Berkeley Earth group has concluded that global warming is happening, according to the results of its study on temperature data released Thursday.

Over the course of about one year, the team, led by U. California-Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller and composed of climate experts, statisticians and physicists — including Nobel Prize-winning UC Berkeley professor Saul Perlmutter — compiled 1.6 billion temperature measurements and found “reliable evidence” of a rise in the average world land temperature of about one degree Celsius since the mid-1950s.

The study was tailored to address specific concerns raised by climate change skeptics, such as the urban heat island effect — the phenomenon in which the temperature of an urban area is significantly warmer than the rural areas surrounding it.

“There were huge uncertainties in the accuracy of the thermometers,” Muller said. “Many (stations) were close to buildings or other sources of heat that could greatly distort the picture.”

The study found the effect to be “locally large and real” but not significant enough to have a large impact on the rise in average land temperature because only a small percentage of the Earth’s land is urban.

Muller’s team has been criticized by members of the scientific community because the research is funded in part by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Koch is the co-owner of Koch Industries, Inc., a conglomerate that operates oil refineries across the United States and Alaska, which calls into question the team’s ability to generate an unbiased report, according to Michael Mann, professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University.

However, Elizabeth Muller, project manager of the Berkeley Earth group and Richard Muller’s daughter, said contributions from Koch in no way affected how the research was conducted.

Elizabeth Muller said the purpose of the study was to look at what occurred from the 1950s to the present — not to predict the future.

Mann said the findings do not serve to further advance the study of global warning.

“Muller’s report simply verifies what scientists have already known, and this study did not further our scientific understanding of the problem,” he said.

The Berkeley Earth study comes at a time when public opinion on global warming has shifted. An October 2010 poll from the Pew Research Center found that 59 percent of Americans believed there is solid evidence that the earth is warming — down from 79 percent in 2006.

Fewer people believe global warming is an issue because environmental issues have been replaced by economic concerns, said William Patzert, a climatologist and oceanographer who has worked at the California Institute of Technology’s NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for more than 28 years.

With the study’s results verifying previous findings, Muller said it is time for politicians to move into a dialogue about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Many of us believe we have to switch from our fossil fuel addiction to renewable energy sources, and green not only our homes but our country,” Patzert said. “If we do rid ourselves of fossil fuels and go to renewable energy, we might get hit in the head with a ping pong ball rather than a bowling ball.”

Research shows media promotes violence in youth

admin — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:20:37 +0000

A new study published by Brigham Young U. professors shows a positive correlation between the amount of profanity in youth video games and TV shows and aggressive attitudes.

The study took place in Missouri starting last April and polled 223 middle-schoolers to determine their top three favorite video games and TV shows they play and watch. With this information in mind, the researchers then compared the middler-schoolers’ tendency for profanity and aggression and the amount of profanity in their media.

Sarah Coyne, a professor from the School of Family Life, was one of four professors who conducted the study.

The study, Coyne said, pointed heavily toward a direct causation between profanity in the students’ media and their tolerance and usage of profanity.

“The results overwhelmingly suggest that the students who consume media with profanity have a more supportive attitude toward it,” Coyne said.

Coyne also said the study showed the effects didn’t stop there, but that the tolerance created in the students led to a predictable chain reaction of behaviors.

“Tolerance of profanity led to more use of profanity, which then led to physical and/or relationship aggressive behavior,” Coyne said. “We checked the reverse to see if perhaps children who are OK with violence tend to seek out violent games, but it didn’t stand up under the test.”

The games the youth reported using the most included Halo, Call of Duty, Wii Sports, Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers. The TV shows varied widely.

John Bradford, 26, said he feels that although profanity may have an effect on youth, he does not think media violence converts into actual violence.

“My passion for Super Smash Brothers has never encouraged me to exchange blows with another person in real life, whether friend or foe,” Bradford said.

Kevin Pace grew up in California and is majoring in Linguistics. As a self-professed avid gamer, he disputes via a Facebook comment the idea that video games influence outward behavior in children.

“My aggression is fueled by the real world, not the virtual world,” he said. “Real people are the ones who make me mad.”

Both Bradford and Pace said they find a release in media violence rather than encouragement.

However, as Bradford said, the world of video games and television today is different than for those who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s.

“Back in the ’80s most games were 2D side-scrollers and the object was to kill bad guys,” he said. “When N64 came out, I embraced giving 3D beatings to bad guys, but the motivation was the same as in the side-scrollers: someone needed rescuing or the world needed saving.”

Bradford said that until recently, games embodied this “good vs. evil” complex that often gave users a morale boost and a feeling of heroism.

“Games didn’t have swear words or violent scenes until recently,” he said. “I never encountered indecent games until XBOX 360 showed its face and today, for the first time ever, the player can actually be the bad guy in games.”

Study may link bacteria to cancer

admin — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:27:21 +0000

High levels of Fusobacterium cells have been discovered in the tumor tissues of several colorectal cancer patients, raising the possibility that these bacteria may be linked to the cancer, according to a recently released study headed by Harvard Medical School Graduate Student Aleksandar D. Kostic.

Scientists say they will need to conduct more research to determine the exact relationship between the bacterium and colon cancer, but the findings should make diagnosing patients easier and could have implications for the treatment of colon cancer.

The study, titled “Genomic Analysis Identifies Association of Fusobacterium with Colorectal Carcinoma,” located extraneous organisms in normal and infected tissues by examining their microbial make-up through a process called Pathogen Sequencing.

Taking initial samples from nine colorectal cancer patients, a team of 18 researchers was able to compare DNA sequences to determine which microorganisms were present in the cancerous tissue but not in the healthy tissue. A close analysis of the samples revealed that one genus of bacteria seemed to be present in the infected tissues.

“From the individual samples, we identified more than 300 distinct organisms,” said Kostic. “But there was one very striking exception, and that was the abundance of Fusobacteria in the tumor tissues.”

With this observation, researchers then proceeded to validate their findings with a broader participant pool of 95 patients. Again, the presence of Fusobacteria was found to be common across the samples that were collected.

Tremendous improvement in DNA sequencing technology throughout the past decade helped make the discovery possible, researchers said.

“We had been conducting research on colon cancer since 2001,” said Harvard Medical School Pathology Professor Matthew L. Meyerson, a researcher on the study. “DNA sequencing technology has helped us make leaps and bounds in attempting to determine the cause of colon cancer.”

Researchers point out, however, that this link between Fusobacteria and colon cancer does not necessarily determine causality.

“What this work shows is simply an association,” said Kostic. “What we’re still trying to establish is whether Fusobacteria is a cause or consequence of colon cancer.”

Kostic and his team have already begun further research on the topic, and are currently conducting experiments on mice.

Although conclusive findings could be a decade away, if the animals are found to develop colon cancer upon exposure to Fusobacteria, it could establish a causal relationship between the bacterium and colon cancer.

The results could play a major role in developing potential treatments for colon cancer.

“We don’t know yet whether there is a causal relationship between this bacteria and colon cancer,” said Kostic. “But if there is, then it might be possible to give patients Fusobacteria-targeting antibiotics to treat colon cancer.”

Brain study finds links between number of Facebook friends and brain size

admin — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:03:38 +0000

Looking at the number of friends one has on Facebook does not only show how popular that person is. A research released by scientists from the University College London suggests the number of friends one has on Facebook predicts how much grey matter the person has in certain regions of his brain.

The research, titled “Online social network size is reflected in human brain structure” and published on the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, discovers that the more Facebook friends a person has, the more grey matter that person has in the amygdala, the right superior temporal sulcus, left middle temporal gyrus and entorhinal cortex. While the latter three regions are specifically associated with online social network sizes, the amygdala is correlated to both real-life and online social network sizes.

The study also shows a person who has more Facebook friends also tends to have more real-life friends.

According to the journal, the research collected MRI images of 125 college students by scanning their brains, and looked into both their online and real-life social networks. Then the result is compared to another sample of 40 college students.

Although the study shows a link between the number of Facebook friends and the sizes of those brain regions, researchers of the study emphasized that the data collected does not show whether a person is born to have strong networking skills, or the size of those brain regions are changed through social networking.

“Finally, our study was by design cross-sectional and so cannot determine whether the relationship between brain structure and social network participation arises over time through friendship-dependent plasticity in the brain areas involved; or alternatively whether individuals with a specific brain structure are predisposed to acquire more friends than others,” said the researchers at the end of their journal article. “The relative contributions of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ therefore remain to be determined.”

Political scientists use experimental methods, reveal importance of name recognition

admin — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:00:39 +0000

Short, flimsy, and gaudy, the political yard sign is a fixture of any American election, loudly proclaiming the political affiliation of a homeowner. But are these tiny signs serving another purpose? Are they actually getting inside our subconscious and changing the outcome of our elections?

Two political scientists at Vanderbilt University think they know. Cindy Kam and Elizabeth Zechmeister tested the effects of name recognition using carefully controlled experiments, an unusual but growing practice among political scientists. In the lab, the pair learned that voters are more likely to support one unknown candidate over another if they catch a glimpse of that candidate’s name. Further experiments in the field showed that voters who were exposed to a candidate’s yard signs showed greater support for that candidate. This link between name recognition and candidate support in low-information races could change the way voters and candidates behave in local elections.

Kam and Zechmeister have shown, in a paper currently under consideration for publication, that brief exposure to a candidate’s name increases voter support by 13%, if voters know nothing else about the candidates. Using a political science lab at Vanderbilt University, the two researchers were able to test almost five hundred subjects, split into two groups. One group was subliminally exposed to a candidate’s name, while the other was shown an identical questionnaire, but flashed only random letters in place of a name. The controlled setting allowed the researchers to keep every aspect of the experiment consistent, varying only whether subjects were exposed to the name, thus proving that name recognition caused the increase in support. However, the Vanderbilt team wanted to see if their results translated to the real world. In cooperation with a local school, they posted yard signs along a road travelled by half of all parents to reach the school. When surveyed, parents using that road were 10% more likely than others to vote for the candidate named on the yard signs. While this field experiment lacked some of the accuracy of the lab tests, it demonstrated a real world link between name recognition and candidate support.

This link holds implications for local elections in which voters know nothing about the candidates involved. Campaign staffers can gain a simple advantage by investing in signs and ads to spread their candidate’s name. Voters can learn to recognize situations in which their decisions could be unknowingly affected by name recognition. As Zechmeister explains, “our research tries to get voters or potential voters to stop and think about the process that they undergo when they step into the voting booth.”

The experimental methods employed by Kam and Zechmeister represent an nontraditional, but increasingly popular, approach to political science research. As Kam notes, for much of the twentieth century, political scientists focused on case studies to learn more about political processes. Only in the last two decades, as computers enabled political scientists to collect data in larger, more accurate sets, did experimental research become prevalent. In the Research on Individuals, Politics, and Society (or RIPS) lab, where Kam and Zechmeister conduct their research, fourteen computers line the walls of two nondescript rooms. Using these computers, researchers at Vanderbilt can pose very specific questions to subjects, while carefully controlling the information those subjects receive. Sohee Park, a research psychologist who has collaborated with Cindy Kam on past studies, see parallels between this design and those employed in psychological research. “We use exactly the same methodology, with some small differences… I think of Cindy as a social psychologist in disguise.”

Today, the RIPS lab, founded in 2008, is one of an estimated thirty such labs in the United States. That number is growing. In a recent study, Jamie Druckman, a political scientist at Northwestern University, found that the number of experimental political studies published each year has doubled since the late 1980s. Zechmeister agrees, noting that “when you put a lab in a political science department, like we have at Vanderbilt, you find that more and more people start to use it.”

Yet, experimental research is not appropriate for all types of political science. “Real politics are more complex. A major challenge for the field in future years is to design experiments that clarify political phenomena in more dynamic, and arguably realistic, ways,” explains Druckman. Additionally, as Donald Green of Columbia University points out, experimental methods cannot answer questions such as “what is the best form of government?” or “is obesity on the rise?” Kam acknowledges that the nature of her field will always create challenges. “We’re not a hard science in that we deal with people, and in fact, that’s harder because people are more unpredictable.”

Researchers’ modification of switchgrass may pave way to more efficient biofuel energy

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:13:11 +0000

Research centered around a small, fast-growing type of grass may be leading the way to a more efficient and high-yield source of energy.

In a report published Oct. 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U. California-Berkeley research geneticist George Chuck, a geneticist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Gene Expression Center, and his team genetically modified switchgrass so that it produces increased amounts of starch — the product which is eventually broken down into biofuel.

By introducing a gene — corngrass1 — from corn into switchgrass, Chuck and his team created a plant that never develops past a juvenile state and yields more than twice the amount of starch produced by unmodified switchgrass. These traits make the modified plant easier and less costly to break down into fuel because it contains less of the organic polymer lignin, which strengthens cell walls.

While Chuck said that the finding, a result of approximately six years of experimentation, will not be applicable to biofuel production anytime soon, the research could be a step toward addressing energy issues.

“We’re looking for a lot of alternatives to corn, and right now people are talking about alternatives like switchgrass,” said Chuck. “I think there’s going to be lots of different answers to the whole energy crisis, and this will definitely be a part of it. We could potentially solve our transportation energy problems just by growing crops like switchgrass.”

Chuck added that switchgrass has come to be seen as a viable alternative to fossil fuels and corn as a source of energy because it has a much higher net energy gain than corn and uses a marginal amount of crop land.

Greg Hartgraves, senior director of research for Poet LLC, the largest corn-based ethanol producer in the United States, said that the company has begun to consider crops other than corn, including switchgrass.

“Humans have made alcohol from cellulose for thousands of years, but the challenge we face is making it economically viable in large quantities for fuel,” Hartgraves said. “Anything that can increase carbohydrate content per unit of weight of biomass can have a significant impact on the economics.”

The company has begun construction on a processing facility in Iowa, scheduled to open in 2013, which will produce ethanol from sources such as corn biomass but may also work toward using switchgrass.

Although many companies and scientists say that biofuels are increasingly becoming an inevitable alternative to fossil fuels, the idea has met with criticism from other scientists.

Tadeusz Patzek, professor of petroleum and geosystems engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, said that the modified switchgrass may be more dangerous than helpful.

“Older plants need lignin for structural stiffness,” Patzek said. “So the ‘always young’ plants, which are also huge, will lay on the ground, be stunted in growth and die … If these modified switchgrass genes were to spread to wild grasses, the impact would be catastrophic.”

However, Chuck said that the fact that the plants are fixed in a juvenile phase of development means that they never flower and thus never spread their seed.

Chuck added that using native grass like switchgrass is not new and could actually help the land it grows on.

“Native grasses such as switchgrass … actually help preserve, or even improve cropland, compared to growing corn which causes loss of top soil and nitrogen runoff,” Chuck said in an email.

Study looks into benefits of reflective roofs

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:09:24 +0000

Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are investigating how reflective roofs can save on electric bills and send solar radiation back into space.

Lab researchers are measuring how white, reflective roofs can save money on an individual level by studying whether they reduce a building’s air conditioning costs. On a global level, the scientists are exploring the possibility that reflective roofs can cool the earth by reflecting solar radiation back into space. The scientists hope to publish the results in April.

“We are studying the radiative cooling benefit of employing reflective roofs in urban settings and what the radiative cooling benefit means to the extent that we would be able to cool the earth,” said Marc Fischer, co-investigator for the study and staff scientist at the lab.

Fischer said that using white surfaces instead of dark ones on roofs cool areas below. When buildings have white roofs in hot climates, it generally keeps the rooms below at a much cooler temperature, he said.

During sunny days, white roofs can reflect about 80 percent of the sun’s radiation back to space, while dark roofs usually absorb approximately 90 percent of that radiation, which then gets transferred to rooms below and increases air conditioning costs, according to Surabi Menon, lead scientist for the study and staff scientist at the lab.

“If you reflect away this solar radiation from a building, you don’t need to spend as much electricity or money with an air conditioning unit in warm climates,” Fischer said. “Having a reflective surface saves you energy and money.”

While the research studies a reflective roof’s impact on the individual level, it also focuses on measuring how much heat is reflected off the white roofs and back into space, said Francisco Salamanca, a co-investigator of the study and postdoctoral fellow at the lab, in an email.

When solar radiation is reflected off white roofs, some of it gets caught in the layer of pollutants that lingers in the earth’s atmosphere, which Fischer termed the “warming blanket.” Fischer said that this layer, which prevents solar radiation from exiting the atmosphere, is usually heavier in urban industrial environments, Fischer said.

Because a location’s air quality and climate can have such a significant effect on the efficacy of reflective roof, the researchers are conducting tests in India, which has both clean and dirty air sectors, according to Menon.

Although white roofs are advantageous in warm climates near the equator, reflecting solar radiation is not as beneficial in colder climates or locations that experience mostly cloudy conditions, Fischer said.

Fischer said that according to a past campus study, if reflective roofs were installed in most urban — where the presence of smog and poor air quality is typically higher — and low-latitude environments with hot climates, the installments could subtract the equivalent of three years of global fossil fuel

emissions from the atmosphere.
But although installing reflective roofs seems promising, Fischer said these roofs cannot replace better environmental practices.

“Coating roofs white once can subtract three years from the atmosphere, but it is no substitute for refusing fossil fuel CO2 emissions,” Fischer said. “Three years is nothing to a decade or a century. So it is just a small part of a solution to a much bigger problem.”