October 31, 2006, 4:43 AM CT

Teenage Girls' Use Of Diet Pills

A study released recently by the University of Minnesota's "Project EAT" (Eating Among Teens) shows startling results of 2,500 female teenagers studied over a five-year period. The study found that high school-aged females' use of diet pills nearly doubled from 7.5 to 14.2 percent. By the ages of 19 and 20, 20 percent of females surveyed used diet pills.

"These numbers are startling, and they tell us we need to do a better job of helping our daughters feel better about themselves and avoid unhealthy weight control behaviors," U of M professor and study researcher Dianne Neumark-Sztainer said.

Other results from the study include:

62.7 percent of teenage females use "unhealthy weight control behaviors"

21.9 percent of teenage females use "very unhealthy weight control behaviors"

Very unhealthy weight control behaviors include the use of diet pills, laxatives, vomiting or skipping meals. Of the 2,500 teenage males studied, their rates were half of the females'.

"We have found that teenage females who diet and use unhealthy weight control behaviors are at three times the risk of being overweight," said Neumark-Sztainer. "Teens who feel good about their bodies eat better and have less risk of being overweight. Parents can play a key role in helping their children to build a positive body image and engage in healthy eating and physical activity behaviors".........

Posted by: Sean      Permalink         Source

October 31, 2006, 4:21 AM CT

Insights Into Spiders' Polymer Art

A team of MIT engineers has identified two key physical processes that lend spider silk its unrivaled strength and durability, bringing closer to reality the long-sought goal of spinning artificial spider silk.

Manufactured spider silk could be used for artificial tendons and ligaments, sutures, parachutes and bulletproof vests. But engineers have not managed to do what spiders do effortlessly.

According to a research findings published in the recent issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, Gareth H. McKinley, professor of mechanical engineering, and colleagues examined how spiders spin their native silk fibers, with hopes of ultimately reproducing the process artificially.

McKinley heads the Non-Newtonian Fluid Dynamics research group in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering. Non-Newtonian fluids behave in strange and unexpected ways because their viscosity, or consistency, changes with both the rate and the total amount of strain applied to them.

Spider silk is a protein solution that undergoes pronounced changes as part of the spinning process. Egg whites, another non-Newtonian fluid, change from a watery gel to a rubbery solid when heated. Spider silk, it turns out, undergoes similar irreversible physical changes.

Stickiness and Flow........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source

October 30, 2006, 8:36 PM CT

Staph Vaccine Shows Promise

By combining four proteins of Staphylococcus aureus that individually generated the strongest immune response in mice, scientists have created a vaccine that significantly protects the animals from diverse strains of the bacterium that cause disease in humans. A report describing the University of Chicago study, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health, appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This finding represents a promising step toward identifying potential components to combine into a vaccine designed for people at high risk of invasive S. aureus infection," notes Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID director.

S. aureus, the most common agent of hospital-acquired infection, is the leading cause of bloodstream, lower respiratory tract and skin infections. These infections can result in a variety of illnesses, including endocarditis (inflammation of the heart), toxic-shock syndrome and food poisoning.

Research in S. aureus has taken on new urgency: In the past few decades, the bacterium has developed resistance to traditional antibiotics, thus allowing infections to spread throughout the body of the infected individual despite treatment. More recently, healthy people with no apparent risk factors have been infected by novel and extremely virulent strains of S. aureus acquired from community rather than hospital sources.........

Posted by: Sean      Permalink         Source

October 30, 2006, 8:23 PM CT

Speaking In Tongues

Glossolalia, otherwise referred to as "speaking in tongues," has been around for thousands of years, and references to it can be found in the Old and New Testament. Speaking in tongues is an unusual mental state associated with specific religious traditions. The individual appears to be speaking in an incomprehensible language, yet perceives it to have great personal meaning. Now, in a first of its kind study, scientists are shining the light on this mysterious practice -- attempting to explain what actually happens physiologically to the brain of someone while speaking in tongues.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered decreased activity in the frontal lobes, an area of the brain associated with being in control of one's self. This pioneering study, involving functional imaging of the brain while subjects were speaking in tongues, is in the recent issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, the official publication of the International Society for Neuroimaging in Psychiatry.

Radiology scientists observed increased or decreased brain activity - by measuring regional cerebral blood flow with SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) imaging - while the subjects were speaking in tongues. They then compared the imaging to what happened to the brain while the subjects sang gospel music.........

Posted by: Sean      Permalink         Source

October 30, 2006, 7:15 PM CT

A New Tool Against Skin Cancer

This new technique is called photodynamic treatment and it uses a special chemical solution applied to the face. This solution makes the damaged cells sensitive to light. After applying the lotion the patient is brought under a special blue light. The combined use of the chemical and the blue light kills the premalignant cells and can also attack cells below the skin's surface.

Scientists say that this new technique is capable of clearing up severe acne and can also stop certain types of skin cancer in the earliest stages.........

Posted by: Sean      Permalink

October 30, 2006, 5:34 PM CT

How Multiple Copies Of A Gene Affect Metastasis?

Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have for the first time described how multiple copies of a gene are responsible for metastases in early-stage breast cancer and poor prognosis for patients.

As per a research findings published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the gene, called uPAR, offers a promising target for therapeutic drugs to stop or slow the progression of the disease and could serve as a screening tool for assessing which types of drugs a patient will respond to.

The gene launches a biochemical process in which a molecule called plasmin perforates the membranes of tissues, causing the membranes to break down and allowing the cancer cells to escape into the bloodstream and to adjacent tissues. The result is metastasizing breast cancer. About 20 percent to 25 percent of breast-cancer patients were shown to have uPAR gene amplification, which means they carry too a number of copies of the gene.

"The uPAR system probably plays a role in metastases in a number of of the common solid tumors," said Dr. Jonathan Uhr, professor in the Cancer Immunobiology Center and of microbiology and the study's senior author.

While analyzing slides of individual tumor cells - either from the primary tumor or circulating tumor cells - of 72 patients with advanced recurrent breast carcinoma, the UT Southwestern research team discovered how uPAR may work in concert with another known breast cancer gene, HER-2.........

Posted by: Sean      Permalink

October 29, 2006, 8:01 PM CT

See What A Three-legged Tortoise Got

Tina the tortoise has been given a lift after being fitted with a suspension system and a pneumatic tyre to help her cope with muddy terrain.

The three-legged reptile can now go off-road after the 4-4-style system was attached to her shell.

Tina was fitted with a plastic wheel four years ago to replace her rear right leg.

But our increasingly warmer autumns mean Tina hibernates later in the year, leaving her battling to cope with muddy grass and slopes and dead leaves.

So the rudimentary wheel has now been replaced with an air-filled tyre and a spring suspension system with shock absorber.

From Metro.co.uk.........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source

October 29, 2006, 7:45 PM CT

Untold Stories Of Elk Skeleton

Seeing the well-preserved antlers, skull and partial skeleton of a very large elk that was found in northern Wisconsin was impressive enough. But what really intrigued Jean Hudson was what was found nearby - a Clovis point, a type of spearhead used by hunters from about 10,000 years ago.

Very few have been found this far north, and this spearhead may be the one that doomed the animal all those millennia ago, says Hudson, an associate professor of anthropology. Or the two specimens could be completely unrelated, she says.

If the two are linked, it would mean that the elk remains are particularly rare. More physical evidence of animals such as mastodons, wooly mammoths and giant bison exists than that of elk, says Hudson.

But decoding the secrets of an animal skeleton requires asking the same questions you would at a crime scene investigation: What were the time, cause and circumstances of death? It also involves sometimes getting it wrong, leading to new questions.

A swimmer discovered the antlers of what appears to be a prehistoric elk at the bottom of Middle Eau Claire Lake in Barnes, Wis., last summer. Matt McKay of the Department of Natural Resources in Hayward, who is assigned to the maintenance of the Clam Lake elk herd, estimated the elk would have been between 1,000 and 1,100 pounds when it was alive.........

Posted by: Ashley      Permalink         Source

October 29, 2006, 7:03 PM CT

Racial discrimination against African-American in Healthcare

The experience of racial discrimination may be a key factor in explaining why African Americans have higher rates of obesity and suffer at higher rates from such diseases as diabetes and cardiovascular disorders, according to UCLA researchers.

Repeated responses to such discrimination -- which include elevated blood pressure and heart rate -- can cause enormous stress on a person's mental and physical health, according to research scheduled to be published in Volume 58 of the Annual Review of Psychology.

Race-based discrimination may help explain why African Americans, despite gains in civil rights and targeted health programs, continue to have the highest rates of diabetes, cardiovascular heart disease, hypertension and stroke as compared to all other racial or ethnic groups in the United States.

"This is not to say that every African American has poor health," said Vickie Mays, the report's lead author, a UCLA professor of psychology and health services and director of the Center for Research, Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities. "However, African Americans -- as a group of people -- have not been able to gain as much ground as other ethnic groups. That's when you need to worry and look at missing factors that can explain these health disparities".........

Posted by: Sean      Permalink         Source

October 29, 2006, 6:58 PM CT

Lighter And Cheaper Alloys

Car engines that consume less energy and can keep running on low oil, lead-free plumbing fixtures, and tanks that are light enough to be airlifted, but are just as rugged as the much heavier varieties.

They sound futuristic, but these products are already realities thanks to materials that stretch the limits of performance. Called cast metal matrix composites (MMCs), they are cheaper, lighter and stronger than their original alloys. In fact, an aluminum-based MMC developed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) can replace iron-based alloys.

"These composites have a number of applications in the transportation, small engines, aerospace and computer industries," says Pradeep Rohatgi, a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor of Engineering who pioneered cost-effective methods of manufacturing these composites.

Now more than a 100-million-a-year industry themselves, MMCs have been used in components for train brakes, thermal management devices in computers, and even the space shuttle and the Hubble Space Telescope.

MMCs are engineered by combining metal with a totally different class of material, such as ceramics and recycled waste. Incorporating the two materials the matrix and the reinforcement materials result in amazing structural and physical properties not available in the natural world.........

Posted by: Sarah      Permalink         Source