They’re the third type of mammal shown to have this skill
Mammals other than humans can distinguish between different speech patterns. Neuroscientists in Barcelona report that rats, like humans (newborn and adult) and Tamarin monkeys, can extract regular patterns in language from speech (prosodic) cues. The report appears in the January issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, which is published by the American Psychological Association.
The same heightened electrical activity that indicates an adult taking a treadmill test isn’t getting enough oxygen to his heart is now being measured during labor to see if it can better identify babies in serious distress who need immediate delivery. The Medical College of Georgia in Augusta is the lead site in the nation to help determine whether monitoring ST segment activity during labor reduces the number of babies born with hypoxic brain damage as well as unnecessary Caesarean secti
Cancer researchers at Jefferson Medical College and the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have found that zinc treatment may help prevent esophageal and oral cancers in those individuals at high risk.
Oral and esophageal cancers are associated with nutritional zinc deficiency, and a rise in the expression of the enzyme COX-2 is connected with these cancers. Louise Fong, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Jefferson Medical
Satellites provide a bird’s eye view of planet Earth, and the space-based vantage can be extremely useful to people interested in viewing out-of-the-way places. Conservationists, for example, must monitor far-flung areas in need of protection. Wars, poverty, remoteness, lack of government involvement, and uncertainty over the best places and ways to focus limited resources can all hinder conservation efforts. Now, NASA satellite imagery is giving scientists and conservationists some of the
The combined Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory/University of Rhode Island coupled hurricane-ocean model has helped to improve intensity predictions during tropical storms. However, scientists have found that the model consistently under-predicts maximum wind speed in very strong hurricanes.
In the current issue of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, University of Rhode Island physical oceanographer Dr. Isaac Ginis describes how he and a team of scientists are refining the
A discovery by a Mayo Clinic research team may pave the way for the creation of new drugs to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA) lung disease, which affects an estimated 500,000 patients in the United States. Currently, there are no effective treatments for RA lung disease.
In a paper that appears in today’s online version of the Jan. 13 edition of Arthritis & Rheumatism, the researchers report that RA lung disease may operate much differently from other forms of lung disease. If f
Scientists using NASA satellite data found the shape of the Earth appears to be influenced by big climate events that cause changes in the mass of water stored in oceans, continents and atmosphere.
The study’s principal researchers are Minkang Cheng and Byron D. Tapley, of the Center for Space Research, University of Texas at Austin. They reviewed climate events like El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) that affect the amount of water moving in
Smaller lymph nodes commonly seen on abdominal CT scans in “healthy” people are not clinically significant and require no further imaging, a new study confirms. The study was performed because there is no standard as to what should be done about these patients so they often undergo additional testing to rule out inflammation, cancer or other diseases.
Researchers examined CT scans of 120 patients treated in the emergency room following blunt abdominal trauma that had no history of
Promising new evidence for the optimal use of biologic therapies
A major cause of pain and disability, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is also potentially the most treatable form of chronic arthritis. Researchers, doctors, and patients agree that a group of drugs called disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) can effectively reduce joint pain and stiffness. Yet, even when prescribed early and aggressively, DMARDs alone do not guarantee the desired outcome: the rapid and prolonged su
Study of large, ethnically diverse population shows strong association between high levels of hyaluronic acid and severe osteoarthritis of the knees and hips
chronic degenerative joint disease, osteoarthritis (OA) is a common cause of pain and disability among older Americans. OA of the knee affects up to 6 percent of the older population, while OA of the hip affects about another 3 percent. While treatments vary, there is hope that early intervention – before joint destruction
Stem cell transplants have become the standard of care for Patients with relapsed lymphoma, but not for Patients who suffer from both this disease and HIV. A new study showing that this treatment is a viable option for select Patients with HIV-associated lymphoma will be published in the January 15, 2005, issue of Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology.
Because of the immunodeficiency associated with HIV, HIV-positive Patients are more likely to deve
Dr. Roger Brent, President and Director of Research at the Molecular Sciences Institute (“MSI”), announced today the release of a new approach to simulation of intracellular biochemical networks in the January edition of Nature Biotechnology.
The research article, entitled “Automatic generation of cellular reaction networks with Moleculizer 1.0,” describes MSI’s discrete stochastic event simulator, which keeps track of the thousands of complex species formed from pathway protei
Real exercise capacity wasn’t improved for men or women, young or old by either acute or long-term ascorbic acid ingestion; earlier studies had showed reduced oxidative stress indicating possibility of exercise boost
Orange juice or other sources of vitamin C (ascorbic acid), may (or may not) benefit you in terms of health and exercise, but contrary to what many people thought previously, ascorbic acid doesn’t seem to help physical exercise performance. And in terms of su
US researchers have uncovered reasons why the Mediterranean diet, with its high intake of oleic acid-rich olive oil, seems to protect against breast cancer. They have also found evidence that oleic acid may have a future role in treatment. The findings are reported today (Monday 10 January) in Annals of Oncology[1].
The researchers have demonstrated in a series of laboratory experiments on breast cancer cell lines that oleic acid dramatically cuts the levels of an oncogene called
Correcting for a time lag built into current Global Positioning System satellites can significantly enhance the accuracy of highly detailed GPS observations that are increasingly used to study Earth systems. Choi et al. report that existing satellite techniques often slightly misjudge the location of ground changes, such as seismic activity, ice sheet flow, and volcanic deformation, because researchers used the wrong time delay in the GPS satellites. The authors show that the orbit period
MIT biologists report a potential way to decrease the dose of chemotherapeutic agents needed to tackle cancer, a feat that would reduce these agents’ toxic side effects.
What makes cancer cells unique is that they divide at a faster rate than ordinary cells, which makes them susceptible to the action of chemotherapeutic agents. But although chemotherapy is an effective treatment against fast-growing tumors, it is also associated with numerous toxic side effects because it is
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