In experiments with mice, researchers have found that eliminating what appears to be a master genetic switch for the development of pain-sensing neurons knocks out the animals’ response to “neuropathic pain.” Such pain is abnormal pain that outlasts the injury and is associated with nerve and/or central nervous system changes. The animals rendered deficient in the gene, called Runx1, also showed lack of response to discomfort caused by heat and cold and inflammation. The researchers said t
Hispanics in America who self-identify as Black are suffering higher rates of hypertension than their Hispanic counterparts who identify as White, according to research conducted at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. However, the study found that on the whole, U.S. Hispanics have lower rates of high blood pressure (16.8 percent) than non-Hispanics (24.7 percent).
The study suggests this apparent health advantage could be an artifact of the U.S. Census groupin
Ancient water bodies may contain ecosystems adapted to life beneath more than two miles of ice
The Earth Institute at Columbia University–Lying beneath more than two miles of Antarctic ice, Lake Vostok may be the best-known and largest subglacial lake in the world, but it is not alone down there. Scientists have identified more than 145 other lakes trapped under the ice. Until now, however, none have approached Vostok’s size or depth.
In the February 2006 issue of
Research puts actors’ memory on center stage
“How do you learn all those lines?” It is the question most asked of actors and their art. The ability to remember and effortlessly deliver large quantities of dialogue verbatim amazes non-thespians. Most people imagine that learning a script involves hours, days, and even months of rote memorization. But actors seldom work that way; in fact, they often don’t consciously try to memorize lines at all. And they seldom consider mem
Transistor channels can detect single DNA base mutations
University of Pittsburgh researcher Alexander Star and colleagues at California-based company Nanomix, Inc., have developed devices made of carbon nanotubes that can find mutations in genes causing hereditary diseases, they report in the Jan. 16 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. This method is less expensive and takes less time than conventional techniques.
Carbon nanotubes are ro
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers are studying whether delivering chemotherapy drugs directly to breast “plumbing” might make treatment of early breast cancer easier on the patient and at least as good as surgery or radiation. A report on successful tests of intraductal therapy in rats and mice published in the January 15 issue of Cancer Research has paved the way for one of the first preliminary clinical trials in women with breast cancer, currently under way in women
New procedure may revolutionize traditional asthma care by lessening smooth muscle tissue in the airway
Up until now, if you suffer from asthma, medication has been the only treatment available to you for relief. But now, clinical researchers at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) hope to open up a new avenue to alleviate the debilitating symptoms of asthma – through an investigative bronchoscopic procedure where the smooth muscle of the airway, which causes the
While more free time sounds like a good thing for everyone, new research suggests it is a better deal for men than it is for women.
A study found that men who have more free time feel less rushed than men with less leisure time. But even when women have more time free from paid work and household tasks, they don’t feel less rushed.
The results suggest that women – particularly mothers – may feel the pressures of childcare and housework even when they have ti
A study published in the latest issue of Conservation Biology examines the effects of humans on Magellanic Penguins and finds no immediate, negative effects of tourism. Although first seeing people is stressful for the penguins, habituation is rapid. The authors monitored the defensive head turns and the level of a hormone secreted in response to stress (plasma corticosterone) of penguins when encountering humans. “Head turns of penguins visited for 10 days were significantly lower than those of
Perhaps edging closer to finding planets that harbor life, astronomers have discovered the smallest planet yet identified outside our solar system.
Researchers, including a University of Florida astronomer, found the planet, which has a mass about five times that of Earth, orbiting a small star near the center of the galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius.
Located about three times as far away from its star as the distance from Earth to the sun, it is probably too cold
Conservation scientists generally agree that many types of protected areas will be needed to protect tropical forests. However, little is known about the comparative performance of inhabited and uninhabited reserves in slowing the most extreme form of forest disturbance: conversion to agriculture. In a paper recently published in Conservation Biology (2006, Vol 20, pages 65-73), an international team of scientists, led by Daniel Nepstad of the Woods Hole Research Center and the Instituto de Pesqui
Research from UNSW provides the most convincing evidence to date that complex mental activity across people’s lives significantly reduces the risk of dementia. The researchers found that such activity almost halves the incidence of dementia.
The paper, which has just been published in Psychological Medicine, is the first comprehensive review of the research in the field of ’brain reserve’, which looks at the role of education, occupational complexity and mentall
Specific recommendations for improving breast-health care and cancer treatment in countries with limited resources have been published by the Breast Health Global Initiative (BHGI), an international coalition of doctors, scientists, policy makers and advocates led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
“The Guidelines for International Breast Health and Cancer Control” are published as a 122-page supplement in the January-Februa
Care at a trauma center lowers by 25 percent the risk of death for injured patients compared to treatment received at non-trauma centers, according to the results of a nationwide study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Washington School of Medicine. “A National Evaluation of the Effect of Trauma Center Care on Mortality,” to be published in the January 26, 2006, edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, is among the
Discovery of small, rocky, extrasolar world suggests such planets may be common
Using a relatively new planet-hunting technique that can spot worlds one-tenth the mass of our own, researchers have discovered a potentially rocky, icy body that may be the smallest planet yet found orbiting a star outside our solar system.
The discovery suggests the technique, gravitational microlensing, may be an exceptional technology for finding distant planets with traits that could su
A team led by a University of Minnesota researcher has found a universal rule that regulates the metabolism of plants of all kinds and sizes and that may also offer a key to calculating their carbon dioxide emissions, a number that must be known precisely in order to construct valid models of global carbon dioxide cycling. Emissions of the gas occur in both plants and animals through the process of respiration; Peter Reich, a professor of forest resources, and his colleagues have found that plant
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