One of the body’s basic survival mechanisms is the neural machinery that triggers the hungry brain to the alertness needed for seeking food. That same machinery swings the other way after a hearty meal, as exemplified by the long and honored custom of the siesta. However, scientists have understood little about how the basic energy molecule, glucose, regulates such wakefulness and other energy-related behaviors.
Now, in an article in the June 1, 2006, Neuron, Denis Burdakov of t
Whether finding your way through an unfamiliar neighborhood to a friend’s house or deciding on a political candidate, your brain is adept at adapting. It can make decisions based on incomplete information and update those decisions based on new information.
The nature of such sophisticated decision making in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for high-level processing, has been “poorly studied and little understood,” according to Wako Yoshida and Shin Ishii of the Nara Inst
A UCLA/Veteran’s Affairs study showed that more than 40 percent of patients who initially had received a positive result on a fecal occult blood test (FOBT) — an initial screening tool for colon cancer — did not receive appropriate diagnostic follow-up tests such as a colonoscopy or barium enema in 2002. According to the authors, the study may even underestimate this problem in the United States, since previous studies have shown the VA’s level of preventive care and follow-up traditi
Aided by a powerful imaging technique, scientists have discovered they can detect smoking-related lung damage in healthy smokers who otherwise display none of the telltale signs of tobacco use.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were able to probe deeper into smokers’ lungs by tracking the movement in the respiratory organs of a harmless gas known as helium. Helium can be inhaled and visually detected via the widely used diagnostic technique known as magnet
A potentially ground-breaking treatment for nerve damage caused by diabetes has shown promising results in preclinical and early patient trials.
The University of Manchester team has discovered that injection of a novel therapeutic that works by stimulating a person’s genes may prevent nerve damage – primarily to the hands and feet – caused by the disease.
The positive preclinical results – reported in the journal Diabetes – are further evidence that the research cou
Any owner of a freshwater aquarium likely has had guppies (Poecilia reticulata), those small brightly colored fish with a propensity for breeding. Now guppy populations manipulated in natural habitats in Trinidad have taught researchers an evolutionary lesson on the survival of a rare genetic trait. Reporting in the June 1 issue of the journal Nature, scientists from six institutions detail how male guppies with the most colorful – and most rare – patterns are more likely than their more c
This image, taken by the advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft, shows the central peaks of crater Zucchius.
AMIE obtained this image on 14 January 2006 from a distance of about 753 kilometres from the surface, with a ground resolution of 68 metres per pixel.
The imaged area is centred at a latitude of 61.3º South and longitude 50.8º West. Zucchius is a prominent lunar impact crater located near the southwest limb. It has 66 kilome
One of the world’s leading flu experts, Alan Hampson, a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Influenza Taskforce and advisor to the Australian Government, is to edit the first international journal dedicated to the subject.
He has been appointed Editor of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, which is being launched by Blackwell Publishing amid growing international concerns about the possibility of an influenza pandemic.
“Alan Hampson is an ideal choic
A recent Finnish randomized population-based study shows that TV-viewing, and particularly exposure to adult-targeted programs, such as current affairs programs, TV series and police series and movies, markedly increases the risk of sleeping difficulties in 5-6 year old children. Also passive exposure to TV increases sleeping difficulties.
Questionnaires concerning TV viewing, sleep disturbances, and psychiatric symptoms were administered to 321 parents of children aged 5-6 years, represen
The European Society of Cardiology released today new Guidelines for the Management of Stable Angina Pectoris. The updated Guidelines include information on new developments in cardiovascular care, advances that have been made in improving the prognosis of coronary artery disease including the use of statins and ACE inhibitors, as well as strategies to alleviate symptoms.
The Guidelines also provide updated information in the area of risk stratification and define which patients should
Study finds that the economic and political transformation of the Central Eastern European region over the last two decades may be simultaneously considered a success and a failure.
2004 saw the accession to the European Union of several Central Eastern European countries, attesting to their newly established democratic political systems and functioning market economies. The rapid pace of reform and the relative harmony surrounding the process may be regarded as a great success st
The European Science Foundation (ESF) and the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Research Integrity (ORI) join together in announcing plans to hold a World Conference on Research Integrity in Lisbon, Portugal on 17 to 19 September 2007. ESF and ORI are working together as co-organisers for this event which is being hosted by the Portuguese Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education as part of the forthcoming EU Portuguese Presidency.
Research integrity has
The promise of watching the football World Cup with 21st century technology hints at a world where all media are tied together in a complete package that can excite, inform and entertain modern audiences using interactive technologies. We’re not there yet. But we’re getting there with the help of cutting-edge research.
Thanks to an ambitious and highly focused research project, all the existing media channels, internet, TV, phone, could be linked together to offer a wide va
Researchers of the University of Malaga are to develop molecular markers and biochips that allow the early identification and selection of trees with good features for improving forest production in appropriate environments. This is a project of excellence funded with 190,900 euros by the Andalusian Ministry of Innovation, Science and Enterprise.
Scientists believe that the new technologies of genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics can be used to determine the function of the genes invol
A trail-blazing research project started by academics at the University of Leicester has paved the way for a new generation of academics.
’Cyberparents’- a project by University of Leicester academics Clare Madge and Henrietta O’Connor -started in 1998 in order to examine how new parents used the web for information and as a form of social support.
Such has been the success of this project that the researchers secured funding from the Economic and Social
At the Psycholinguistic Laboratory of the University of the Basque Country (EHU-UPV), Basque-Spanish bilingualism and the relation between language and the brain have been under study. It is a fact that the human brain is organized specifically for us to master languages. Also taking part in this research into bilingualism are researchers from Catalonia and the Canary Islands. Within this context they analysed how word order and grammar, amongst other things, are structured in the brain.
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