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 Back to Eurekalert Medical and Health News Archives
Eurekalert Medical and Health News: 12-17-2004
Five years after the establishment of the Emmy Noether Programme to promote outstanding young researchers, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) has made the eligibility requirements more flexible. This aims to ensure that the outstanding young researchers' individual career paths can be better taken into consideration.
Scientists have identified a genetic repair process in the brain that can re-coat nerves with myelin - fatty 'insulation' - that is stripped away in multiple sclerosis.
Two months from now comes a landmark day in planetary history: the Kyoto Protocol finally comes into legal force on 16 February 2005. However Kyoto was intended only as an initial step in mitigating climate change: a 6000-strong Buenos Aires gathering due to conclude today has spent a fortnight discussing follow-up strategies, with ESA among them.
Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is this year's recipient of the prestigious Pollin Prize for Pediatric Research. Dr. Sommer's groundbreaking discoveries led to the widespread use of inexpensive vitamin A supplements that reduced childhood mortality by 34 percent in the developing world. Dr. Sommer will be presented with the Pollin Prize at a reception at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City on December 17, 2004.
A new report on health insurance coverage of Iowa children indicates that nearly 90,000 children in the state are uninsured at some point in the year. Some programs, however, are available to help families, and more could be done to expand, as well as educate people about, options.
Scientists at the University of British Columbia have discovered an enzyme in mammals crucial to the transportation of proteins within cells. Published today in Neuron, this discovery opens new avenues of understanding of the mechanisms underlying neuronal function and new therapeutic approaches for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers and Huntington Disease.
Findings suggest that individuals with high overall cardiovascular risk in midlife can be identified by relatively higher risk factors when they are younger. They found also that young people from families with a lower SES experienced greater increases in those risk factors than people higher on the scale. Also, the researchers found that the effect of SES on risk accumulation is stronger in women than in men, and stronger in blacks than in whites.
McGill researchers have identified a new therapy that successfully improves cholesterol levels. This regimen involves consuming plant-based oils and exercising, and may benefit those at risk of heart disease.
New research provides the strongest evidence to date that infants and young children - unlike adults -- are more drawn to sounds than they are to visuals in their environment. In fact, when 4-year-olds are presented with sounds and pictures at the same time and told to pay particular attention to the pictures, they can't - the sounds dominate their attention.
During this season to be jolly, when alcohol flows more freely than usual, a new study alerts drinkers that a habit of drinking outside of meals may be setting them up for high blood pressure.
Thomas Kusch, Ph.D., a Senior Research Associate at the Stowers Institute working with Investigator Jerry Workman, Ph.D., has identified a histone-modifying complex from Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies), which facilitates DNA double-strand repair by locally increasing DNA accessibility at sites of damage. The findings are available in the Dec. 17 issue of Science.
Hurricane Season 2004 brought an unusually high number of intense storms, however, according to LSU Assistant Professor of Geography and Anthropology and Louisiana State Climatologist Barry Keim, the season was forecast reasonably well. .Nevertheless, the heavy activity in late summer and September meant a heavy workload for LSU hurricane experts, as they went about aiding state emergency officials in their preparation efforts and adding to their growing knowledge on the storms and their effects.
UC San Diego postgraduate Ben Raphael will use his $500,000, five-year career award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and computational skills to analyze cancer genomes, including maps of the breast and brain tumor genomes.
Dutch researcher Kirsten ten Tusscher has developed a model that can simulate the electrical behaviour of the heart during heart rhythm disorders. One of the things her model revealed is that the electrical activity of the heart during a rhythm disorder is much less chaotic than was originally thought.
Dutch researcher Laura Bungener has developed a vaccine against cervical cancer. Vaccinated laboratory animals no longer developed the disease and animals which had already developed a tumour, could be treated with the vaccine.
Two studies by University of Illinois food science and human nutrition professor Sharon Donovan show that the soy isoflavone genistein, in amounts present in commercial soy infant formulas, may inhibit intestinal cell growth in babies. So what are we to think about soy in a baby's diet? Donovan said it's an important question to ask because almost 25 percent of formula-fed babies in the United States consume soy formula.
Botrytis cinerea (grey mould) has a large arsenal of molecular pumps at its disposal to protect it against toxic substances such as antibiotics, plant defence compounds and fungicides. Dutch researcher Henk-jan Schoonbeek saw how the fungus started to pump out certain toxic substances within just 15 minutes.
Along with Brittany's weddings, Julia's babies and Martha's new home in a federal penitentiary - one of the biggest stories of 2004 was plastic surgery. As the experts in the specialty, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons offers its 2004 Top 10 Hot Topics in Plastic Surgery.
Dutch research has shown that the development of permanent resistance by bacteria and fungi against antibiotics cannot be prevented in the longer-term. The only solution is to reduce the dependence on antibiotics by using these less.
Ten to 20 million people in the United States have chronic kidney disease but most don't know it, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Health Statistics.
Sixty people crowded last week into a small room at the Bayonne police firing range to witness smart gun technology. Donald B. Sebastian from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), stood near an oversized screen displaying a real-time video of a policeman shooting a handgun in an adjacent range. Although there was no applause as shots rang out, the action demonstrated that smart gun knew friend from foe. Twenty electronic computerized sensors embedded in the gun's grip distinguished known from unknown users.
Javier Ochoa Rep.raz has developed an acellular vaccine aginst Salmonella enteritidis. The vaccine has shown itself to be efficacious in mice infected with this illness and is currently being employed on experimental farms of Hipra laboratories in Gerona, a compnay involved in the control of pathogens in birds.
TWAS, The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, and illycaff., one of the world's premier coffee producers, have launched the Trieste Science Prize. The prize, which carries a US$50,000 cash award, is designed to honour the most eminent scientists in the developing world and promises to bestow prestige and visibility to deserving researchers living and working in the South.
More than 16,000 biological and biomedical scientists will gatherfor Experimental Biology 2005, an annual meeting that brings togetherscientists from dozens of different disciplines, from laboratory totranslational to clinical research, from throughout the United States andthe world. This year, the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS) willhold its 35th Congress - a meeting held every five years - in conjunctionwith the Experimental Biology meeting.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh will examine the way a fish-rich diet helps maintain a low risk of heart attack amongst Eskimos, in the first study of its kind to be carried out in the city. Investigators hope that the results would help to guide the development of future heart treatments.
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