Research confirms how early-life events shape later physiology
Underscoring the value of good prenatal care, new research suggests that early infection may create a cognitive vulnerability that appears later during stress on the immune system. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have reported that rats who experienced a one-time infection as newborns didn’t learn as well as adult rats who were not infected as pups, after their immunity was challenged. The r
University of Central Florida study seeks to determine whether women who follow weight-loss and exercise programs at home fare as well as those who go to a center to work out and meet with counselors
Joy Ungerer has improved her health and lost excess weight by walking on a treadmill at an exercise center. Janet Brewer walks, too – either at a mall or in her neighborhood – and has watched the readings on her bathroom scale drop as well.
The two women are among the first p
In its destructive effect on rural families and their children, methamphetamine may be in a class of its own, based on the first study from an ongoing research project in seven Central Illinois counties, conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
If the children of alcoholics often find themselves in a “thunderstorm” of family problems, then the drug methamphetamine brings a “tornado” by comparison, says one of the researchers. The professional
Ultrathin superconducting wires can withstand stronger magnetic fields than larger wires made from the same material, researchers now report. This finding may be useful for technologies that employ superconducting magnets, such as magnetic resonance imaging.
As described in the Jan. 14 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created high-quality superconducting wires with molecular dimensions, and measured
Sunscreen for microbes to be introduced
Two Virginia Tech scientists contributed by invitation to an international scientific meeting called by Abdoulaye Wade, president of Senegal, to identify strategies for the control of the ongoing locust outbreak in West Africa. Last year, locusts stripped fields of crops and trees of foliage across several countries, causing severe income and food supply loss.
Larry Vaughan, associate program director of the USAID-funded Integrate
Finland ranks first in the world in environmental sustainability out of 146 countries according to the latest Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) produced by a team of environmental experts at Yale and Columbia Universities.
The 2005 ESI, to be released at the World Economic Forum January 27 in Davos, Switzerland, ranks Norway, Uruguay, Sweden and Iceland two to five respectively. Their high ESI scores are attributed to substantial natural resource endowments, low population
While Thousands Gather in New Orleans for Mardi Gras Scientists and Students Working to Save Louisiana Wetlands
An impending crisis that could have a detrimental impact on the oil and gas infrastructure and fishing industry in the United States is leading scientists to investigate how to stop rapid deterioration and to start restoring marsh land in Louisiana’s southern coastal wetlands – which are losing a piece of land the size of a football field every 35 minutes. All of t
A combination of four proteins that result from inflammation and infection and lead to premature birth can be rapidly and accurately detected in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women using proteomics technology, Yale researchers report in two studies in the February issue of British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Using proteomics science, the Yale team, in collaboration with two other academic institutions, developed a novel method called MR scoring to discriminate healthy
The varicella vaccine is almost 90 percent effective against chickenpox, but its impact on herpes zoster (shingles) is unknown and needs wider surveillance, Yale School of Medicine researchers write in today’s New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) perspective section.
The varicella virus causes both chickenpox and herpes zoster, which occurs when a latent virus in the brain becomes reactivated and causes a painful rash on the skin, leading to severe pain and burning alo
Prions, infectious proteins associated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or Mad Cow Disease, were previously thought to accumulate mainly in the brain, but Yale and University of Zurich researchers report in Science that other organs can also become infected.
Past research had shown that the brain and spinal cord bear the highest infection risk for BSE, followed by organs such as the spleen, lymph nodes and tonsils. All other organs were thought to be devoid of prions.
A new procedure that could save millions of dollars annually in medical costs – and result in much better patient outcomes and satisfaction – was performed for the first time in the world this week at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
The procedure removed growths from the airway of a patient using new technology that allows the surgery to be done in the doctor’s office with the patient completely awake, and the patient to go home immediately afterward. In the
Speedy speciation curbs courtship options, says Nature article
Biologists at Lehigh University and the University of Maryland have identified a cricket living in Hawaii’s forests as the world’s fastest-evolving invertebrate. Finicky mating behavior appears to be the driving force behind the speedy speciation of the Laupala cricket, the scientists wrote in the Jan. 27 issue of Nature magazine.
Females in the Laupala genus detect tiny differences in the pulse rates of male
Scientists have demonstrated a new way to assess the potentially damaging effects of prenatal drug exposure–a technique that could also be used to monitor a fetus’s response to therapeutic drugs–using sophisticated, noninvasive medical imaging tools. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, whose findings are reported in the February issue of the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s Journal of Nuclear Medicine, used positron emission tomography (PET
Intermetallics could be the key to faster jets and more efficient car engines. But these heat-resistant, lightweight compounds have stumped scientists for decades. Why do so many break so easily? A team from Brown University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and UES Inc. used the world’s most powerful electron microscope to see, for the first time, atomic details that may provide the answer for the most common class of intermetallics. Their results – which could open the door for new materials fo
A new study suggests that people with autism may perform unusually well on some tests of visual processing.
The researchers found that autistic people were less likely than others to have false memories about images they had seen earlier. The researchers had previously demonstrated this kind of effect with verbal material, but not with visual material. In this case, the results suggest that the autistic people had trouble seeing the images in context – a hallmark of the disord
DFG awards initial funding for three years
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is establishing six new Research Units in order to promote cooperation between outstanding scientists and researchers in innovative research projects. This decision was made by the Grants Committee on General Research Support at its meeting on 21 January.
DFG Research Units are distinguished by scientific cooperation in a manageable number of individual proje
Feedback
