Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have utilized an animal model to trace how the virus that causes AIDS in humans may enter and spread throughout the body following an oral exposure.
By innoculating monkeys with SIV, the simian version of HIV, scientists traced which tissues in the mouth and digestive tract were infected during the first week. Furthermore, they traced which organs and lymph nodes were first infected and uncovered likely routes of infection.
A successful method for healing spinal injuries in dogs has been developed by Purdue University researchers, offering hope for preventing human paralysis.
Lab tests have shown that an injection of a liquid polymer known as polyethylene glycol (PEG), if administered within 72 hours of serious spinal injury, can prevent most dogs from suffering permanent spinal damage. Even when the spine is initially damaged to the point of paralysis, the PEG solution prevents the nerve cells from r
A new study from Ohio State University provides the first laboratory evidence that certain antioxidants found in dark leafy green vegetables can indeed help prevent cataracts.
Vitamin manufacturers often add the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin to their products, but until now there has been no biochemical evidence to support the claim that these substances help protect the eyes, said Joshua Bomser, a study co-author and an assistant professor of nutrition at Ohio State Universi
Obesity is likely to affect individuals in low-income areas where fresh fruits and vegetables may not be as plentiful, according to a new University of Houston study.
The finding is suggested in a study on the availability and quality of produce in high-income versus low-income urban neighborhoods. The study was made possible by a two year, $110,000 grant from the American Heart Association Heartland Affiliate. “Obesity disproportionately burdens low-income, ethnic minority popul
The current flu vaccine shortage demonstrates the importance of better protecting the elderly against disease.
Scientists at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute at Oregon Health & Science University have made a discovery that helps explain why our immune system worsens with age. The work was led by Janko Nikolich-Zugich, M.D., Ph.D., a senior scientist at the VGTI. The scientists hope this new information can be used to better protect the elderly from infectious diseases by f
Princeton researchers develop method to better measure people’s quality of life
A new research method that quantifies people’s quality of life — beyond how much money they make — could lead to a national index of well-being, similar to key measures of economic health. The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), developed by Princeton researchers and colleagues from three universities, creates an “enjoyment scale” by requiring people to record the previous day’s activities
For Marcel Proust, the taste of a madeleine conjured remembrance of the distant past. In today’s multi-tasking, hyper-speed world, it can be a trick to remember what we did yesterday.
But a new method of reconstructing the previous day’s activities not only helps people remember how they spent their time, it also captures how they really felt about their activities. The technique, described in the Dec. 3 issue of Science, provides insight into what people actually enj
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have unveiled a fundamental change in the properties of matter. The theoretical finding, that bosons placed in two-dimensional harmonic traps will crystallize when the strength of their repulsive interactions is increased, appears in the December 3 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters (volume 93, article 230405, 2004).
One of two categories of elementary particles, bosons typically form cloudy aggregates called Bose-E
A spectacular new discovery from an ongoing excavation at the Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Moon is revealing a grisly sacrificial burial from a period when the ancient metropolis was at its peak, with artwork unlike any seen before in Mesoamerica.
Though archaeologists hope that discoveries at the pyramid will answer lingering questions about the distinctive culture that built the great city, the new find deepens the mystery, with clear cultural connections to other burial
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analyzed how airborne particulate matter from forest fires in the Canadian providence of Quebec traveled more than 700 miles to homes in Baltimore, Md. The study authors found a dramatic increase in outdoor and indoor fine particulate matter – an atmospheric pollutant that is harmful to people with respiratory diseases– in Baltimore during the first weekend of July 2002, which coincided with several forest fires in Quebec. The
Research done in the last decade has suggested that limiting energy availability, for example, by dietary restriction, may extend the lifespan of different organisms. Now research from scientists at Elixir Pharmaceuticals provides a molecular sensor that supports this theory. A group headed by Javier Apfeld has found that an increased cellular ratio of two small molecules, AMP and ATP correlates well with increased lifespan in nematode worms. ATP is routinely used by the body as a source of energy a
The world’s fastest glacier, Greenland’s Jakobshavn Isbrae, doubled its speed between 1997 and 2003. The rapid movement of ice from land into the sea provides key evidence of newly discovered relationships between ice sheets, sea level rise and climate warming.
The findings were reported in the journal Nature on December 2, 2004. Co-authoring the study was University of New Hampshire glaciologist Mark Fahnestock of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (
Finding could lead to new cancer drugs, more effective radiation treatments
One of five known DNA-repair mechanisms in cells has been completely analyzed and reconstituted in a test tube by an international collaboration of researchers led by scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. The team is the first ever to reconstitute this pathway, known as the nonhomologous end joining pathway, or NHEJ, and NHEJ is only the third repair pathway to
Scientists at The Wistar Institute, working in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Helsinki, have discovered structural similarities among viruses that infect hosts from all three domains of life. These structural similarities suggest that the viruses, despite their genomic variations and differences in hosts, may have evolved from a common ancestor billions of years ago. The findings will be published in the December 3 issue of Molecular Cell.
Until recently, scie
A new research tool developed by an interdisciplinary team of psychologists and economists could help social scientists more accurately evaluate how well individuals and society are faring. The method offers a new way to characterize the daily life experience of individuals, aimed at providing a measure that could be used in assessing social interventions, including clinical trials. Its developers are working on a way to use the method in calculating a “National Well-Being Account,” to provide a
Women with suspected coronary artery disease and smaller social networks die at twice the rate of those who have a larger circle of social contacts, according to a new study.
Thomas Rutledge, Ph.D., of VA San Diego Healthcare System and colleagues found that women who had more social contacts and saw them more often also had lower blood glucose and blood pressure levels, lower rates of smoking and other factors that reduced their risk for coronary disease. Women with larger social
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