Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
Researchers report initial success in promising approach to prevent tooth decay
A team of researchers report they have created a new smart anti-microbial treatment that can be chemically programmed to seek out and kill a specific cavity-causing species of bacteria, leaving the good bacteria untouched.
NIH/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
Contact: Bob Kuska
kuskar@nidcr.nih.gov
301-594-7560
NIH/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Neurology
Vegetables, not fruit, help fight memory problems in old age
Eating vegetables, not fruit, helps slow down the rate of cognitive change in older adults, according to a study published in the Oct. 24, 2006, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology
NIH/National Institute on Aging
Contact: Mary Ann Schultz
mary_ann_schultz@rush.edu
312-942-7816
Rush University Medical Center
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Neurobiology of Disease
Mayo Clinic study suggests that a central nervous system viral infection can lead to memory deficits
In one of the first known laboratory studies that explores memory deficits associated with a viral infection of the central nervous system, Mayo Clinic researchers have evidence that this infection can lead to memory loss late in life.
National Multiple Sclerosis Society, National Institutes of Health, Donald and Francis Herdrich, Mayo Graduate School
Contact: Amy Reyes
newsbureau@mayo.edu
507-284-5005
Mayo Clinic
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Current Biology
Diversity promotes cooperation among microbes
Understanding how cooperation evolves and is maintained represents one of evolutionary biology's thorniest problems. New research using the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens has identified a novel mechanism that thwarts the evolution of cheats and broadens our understanding of how cooperation might be maintained in nature and human societies.
Les Fonds National de la Science, Programme Microbiologique, Royal Society
Contact: Heidi Hardman
hhardman@cell.com
617-397-2879
Cell Press
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Archives of Internal Medicine
Healthy men who drink moderately have reduced risk of heart attack
For men with healthy lifestyle habits, drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may be associated with a lower risk of heart attack than drinking heavily or not drinking at all, according to a report in the Oct. 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Contact: Bonnie Prescott
617-667-7306
JAMA and Archives Journals
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Steep oxygen decline halted first land colonization by Earth's sea creatures
New research suggests a multimillion year gap in the colonization of Earth's land by marine creatures might have been caused by a sharp drop in atmospheric oxygen.
NASA Astrobiology Institute, US Department of Energy
Contact: Vince Stricherz
vinces@u.washington.edu
206-543-2580
University of Washington
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Journal of American College of Cardiology
Analysis: Condition could predict life or death in heart patients
A growing health problem affecting older Americans puts them at higher risk for dying after heart surgery and other interventional procedures, such as heart catheterizations, according to findings published in the current edition of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and co-authored by two leading University of Kentucky cardiologists.
Contact: Beth Goins
beth.goins@uky.edu
859-327-0078
University of Kentucky
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Journal of Marketing
Bargain or waste of money? Consumers don't always agree
Marketing executives should add new product features for upgraders and improve existing ones for first-time buyers if they want to sell more products, according to an assistant professor of marketing.
Contact: Nancy Gardner
nancylou@u.washington.edu
206-543-2580
University of Washington
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Popular ADHD drug safe and effective for pre-schoolers
A new study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and five other medical centers concludes that carefully measured, low doses of methylphenidate (Ritalin) are safe and effective for attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in preschoolers. Investigators warn, however, that three to five-year-olds appear more sensitive to the drug's side effects, which include irritability, insomnia and weight loss, than are older children with ADHD and require closer monitoring.
Contact: Katerina Pesheva
epeshev1@jhmi.edu
410-516-4996
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
Geological Society of America 2006 Annual Meeting
Far more than a meteor killed dinos
There's growing evidence that the dinosaurs and most their contemporaries were not wiped out by the famed Chicxulub meteor impact, according to a paleontologist who says multiple meteor impacts, massive volcanism in India and climate changes culminated in the end of the Cretaceous Period.
Contact: Ann Cairns
acairns@geosociety.org
303-357-1056
Geological Society of America
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Geology
Mineral discovery explains Mars' landscape
A Queen's University researcher has discovered a mineral that could explain the mountainous landscape of Mars, and have implications for NASA's next mission to the planet.
Contact: Molly Kehoe
kehoem@post.queensu.ca
613-533-2877
Queen's University
Public Release: 23-Oct-2006
Journal of Immunology
Cell wall of pneumonia bacteria can cause brain and heart damage
Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered in mouse models how cell walls from certain pneumonia-causing bacteria can cause fatal heart damage; researchers have also shown how antibiotic therapy can contribute to this damage by increasing the number of cell wall pieces shed by dying bacteria.
American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities
Contact: Bonnie Kourvelas
media@stjude.org
901-495-3306
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Viking landers may have found Martian life after all
Three decades after the mission turned up conflicting evidence of life, a new analysis casts doubt on one experiment that ruled it out
Public Release: 24-Oct-2006
Journal of Neuroscience
Naturally occurring enzyme can break down key part of Alzheimer's plaques
Scientists have identified a naturally occurring enzyme that can break down a key component of the brain plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. The finding may provide researchers with new opportunities to understand what goes wrong in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and could one day help them seek new therapies.
National Institutes of Health, NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, American Health Assistance Foundation
Contact: Michael C. Purdy
purdym@wustl.edu
314-286-0122
Washington University School of Medicine
Public Release: 24-Oct-2006
Hubble yields direct proof of stellar sorting in a globular cluster
A seven-year study with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with the best observational evidence yet that globular clusters sort out stars according to their mass. Heavier stars slow down and sink to the cluster's core, while lighter stars pick up speed and move across the cluster to its periphery. This process, called "mass segregation," has long been suspected for globular star clusters, but has never before been directly seen in action.
Contact: Lars Lindberg Christensen
lars@eso.org
49-893-200-6306
ESA/Hubble Information Centre
Vital Signs
Safety: ICE on Cellphones: An Acronym for Emergencies
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Published: October 24, 2006
A simple acronym entered into people’s cellphone listings, ICE, can help emergency room doctors who are trying to track down a patient’s family.
Vital Signs
Performance: Researchers Test Meditation’s Impact on Alertness
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Published: October 24, 2006
Meditation is often credited with helping people feel more focused and energetic, but are the benefits measurable?
A new study suggests that they are.
Where the Doctors Recognize Leprosy
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: October 24, 2006
The patient looked sheepish as he showed Louis N. Iannuzzi the new burn on his leg, the skin puckering where it was seared.
A patient’s feet are cared for in the leprosy clinic at Bellevue Hospital. Loss of feeling in toes can lead to repeated injuries.
It was a classic injury for a leprosy victim, said Mr. Iannuzzi, the physical therapist for the leprosy clinic at Bellevue Hospital in New York.
Government Panel Recommends Shingles Vaccine
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 26, 2006
An influential government advisory panel recommended that Americans 60 and older be vaccinated against shingles
Science Illustrated
The Periodic Table Gets a Makeover
Nearly 140 years after the periodic table was introduced, new elements are still being discovered, including one just last week.
Doctors Say Slow Action on Stents Leads to Heart Deaths
By BARNABY J. FEDER
Published: October 26, 2006
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 — Although a few thousand Americans might be dying needlessly from overuse of heart stents, prominent cardiologists said Thursday that far more are being killed each year by the failure of doctors to promptly clear coronary arteries and install stents when patients arrive at a hospital during a heart attack.
Self-Portraits Chronicle a Descent Into Alzheimer’s
By DENISE GRADY
William Utermohlen’s paintings of his descent into dementia will be exhibited through Friday in Manhattan.
Advertising
The Hidden Life of Paper and Its Impact on the Environment
By LOUISE STORY
After publishing numerous articles on global warming in recent years, large publishers have started thinking about their own impact on the environment.
Worrisome New Link: AIDS Drugs and Leprosy
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Some patients on life-saving antiretroviral drugs are developing painful facial ulcers or losing feeling in their fingers and toes.
* Map: AIDS and the Specter of Leprosy
* Where the Doctors Recognize Leprosy
By CORNELIA DEAN
Several science professors at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have endorsed a candidate for the Ohio Board of Education who supports the teaching of evolution.
Rays and Neutrons, for Art’s Sake
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
The International Atomic Energy Agency is trying to foster the use of nuclear science in the developing world to analyze art.
* Metropolitan Museum of Art: Set in Stone
* Graphic: The Case of the Headless Apostle
Public Release: 25-Oct-2006
Geological Society of America 2006 Annual Meeting
Oldest complex organic molecules found in ancient fossils
Ohio State University geologists have isolated complex organic molecules from 350-million-year-old fossil sea creatures -- the oldest such molecules yet found. The molecules may have functioned as pigments, but the study offers a much bigger finding: An entirely new way to track how species evolved.
National Science Foundation
Contact: Christina O'Malley
Omalley.47@osu.edu
614-292-4036
Ohio State University
Public Release: 25-Oct-2006
Telescopes can tune in to alien TV
Radio telescopes designed to study the early universe could be sensitive enough to pick-up radio leakage from alien civilizations. Researchers from Harvard University say that the most powerful emissions from our own planet come from military radar, TV and FM radio transmitters. If ET is producing similar signals, these spikes in the radio spectrum could be detected by telescopes being built today
Contact: Claire Bowles
claire.bowles@rbi.co.uk
44-207-611-1210
New Scientist
Public Release: 25-Oct-2006
Journal of Labor Economics
Women's education is strongly related to husband's income
Much has been written about the income returns to education, but women have been largely ignored by this literature, having historically spent significant periods of time outside the formal labor market. In a thought-provoking new study, economists from Brigham Young University find that a woman's college completion predicts an average increase in her husband's earnings of more than $20,000 relative to women who only attended some college.
Contact: Suzanne Wu
swu@press.uchicago.edu
773-834-0386
University of Chicago Press Journals
Public Release: 25-Oct-2006
Vitamin C and water not just healthy for people -- healthy for plastics, too
Two new laboratory breakthroughs are poised to dramatically improve how plastics are made by assembling molecular chains more quickly and with less waste.
Contact: Josh Chamot
jchamot@nsf.gov
703-292-7730
National Science Foundation
Public Release: 25-Oct-2006
Nuclear security: Diaster waiting to happen
The world's oldest storage center for weapons-grade uranium in Oak Ridge, Tenn., has decaying storage facilities and doubtful security. The dangers are revealed in a detailed study of safety at the complex where there have been 22 fires and explosions recorded since 1997. During these incidences workers have been injured and contaminated, but a major fire would have catastrophic consequences to the thousands of people living nearby.
Contact: Claire Bowles
claire.bowles@rbi.co.uk
44-207-611-1210
New Scientist
Public Release: 25-Oct-2006
Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience
Moderate drinking may boost memory, study suggests
In the long run, a drink or two a day may be good for the brain. Researchers found that moderate amounts of alcohol -- amounts equivalent to a couple of drinks a day for a human -- improved the memories of laboratory rats. Such a finding may have implications for serious neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
Contact: Matthew During
During.1@osu.edu
614-247-4351
Ohio State University
Public Release: 25-Oct-2006
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Erotic images prove useful in coaxing out unconscious brain activity
When your eyes are presented with erotic images in a way that keeps you from becoming aware of them, your brain can still detect and respond to the images according to your gender and sexual orientation, a team of University of Minnesota psychologists has found. Even when unaware of erotic images in their field of vision, research subjects shifted the focus of their visual attention according to whether they were straight males, gay males, straight women or gay/bisexual women.
James S. McDonnell Foundation, National Institutes of Health
Contact: Mark Cassutt
cassu003@umn.edu
612-624-8038
University of Minnesota
Science
Scientists find major susceptibility gene for Crohn's disease
Researchers report the discovery of a new genetic link to Crohn's disease. Mutations of a gene, which codes for a receptor in a major inflammatory pathway, are strongly associated with Crohn's, they found. Surprisingly, one type of mutation appears to confer significant protection, prioritizing a crucial target for drugs that might better manage Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. More than 1 million Americans have Crohn's or colitis, known collectively as inflammatory bowel disease.
NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases
Contact: Lisa Rossi
RossiL@upmc.edu
412-647-3555
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Public Release: 26-Oct-2006
Journal of Advanced Nursing
Healthcare staff under report child physical abuse and 1 in 5 worry about getting it wrong
Sixty percent of healthcare professionals have seen a child they suspect was being physically abused, but only 48 percent reported it to the authorities. Twenty-one percent were worried about getting it wrong and confronting families, inexperience and fear of litigation were also common barriers to reporting. Seventy-nine percent felt they needed more information on reporting mechanisms.
Contact: Annette Whibley
wizard.media@virgin.net
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Public Release: 26-Oct-2006
Genome Research
New genetic analysis forces re-draw of insect family tree
The family tree covering almost half the animal species on the planet has been re-drawn following a genetic analysis which has revealed new relationships between four major groups of insects.
Human Frontier Science Program Organization, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Royal Society, 21st Century Research & Technology Fund
Contact: Andrew McLaughlin
a.mclaughlin@bath.ac.uk
44-012-253-86883
University of Bath
Public Release: 26-Oct-2006
Nature Medicine
Three-in-one virus killer prevents common, often fatal infections
A novel combination therapy drastically reduces the infection rate of three prevalent viruses -- and risk of death -- in transplant patients with compromised immune systems. Trivirus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), the first multivirus killer of its kind, called, controlled infections caused by three commonplace viruses -- cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and adenovirus -- with no toxicity in a phase 1 trial.
NIH/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Contact: Ross Tomlin
htomlin@bcm.edu
713-798-4710
Baylor College of Medicine
Public Release: 26-Oct-2006
Survivors of organized violence often left with traumatic memories
A series of studies, conducted by a psychotraumatology research group headed by Thomas Elbert in collaboration with Penn State psychologist William Ray, has examined a group of people who have been exposed to different magnitudes of torture and found the appearance of dissociation -- mental separation from the incident -- long after the event. The research is published in the latest issue of Psychological Science.
Contact: Sean Wagner
swagner@bos.blackwellpublishing.com
781-388-8550
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
For crying out loud -- pick up your baby
A study by Queensland University of Technology has found parents don't know whether or not they should pick up their crying baby.
Contact: Sandra Hutchinson
s3.hutchinson@qut.edu.au
61-731-382-130
Queensland University of Technology
Public Release: 27-Oct-2006
Breastfeeding boosts mental health
A new study has found that babies that are breastfed for longer than six months have significantly better mental health in childhood. The findings are based on data from the ground-breaking Raine Study at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research that has tracjed the growth and development of more than 2,500 West Australian children over the past 16 years.
Contact: Tammy Gibbs
tammyg@ichr.uwa.edu.au
61-894-897-963
Research Australia
Public Release: 27-Oct-2006
Babies say 'thank you' as new research reveals breastfeeding boosts mental health
A new study has found that babies that are breastfed for longer than six months have significantly better mental health in childhood.
Contact: Tammy Gibbs
tammyg@ichr.uwa.edu.au
61-894-897-963
Research Australia
For a World of Woes, We Blame Cookie Monsters
By GINA KOLATA
Last week the list of ills attributable to obesity grew: fat people cause global warming.
* Times Topics: Obesity
