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As part of its “Brilliant Peoples” series, Science Blog commissioned author and journalist Luke Ford to interview Dr. Julia R. Heiman, author of Becoming Orgasmic: A Sexual and Personal Growth Program for Women and the sixth director of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, Bloomington. Below is a transcript of their wide-ranging discussion, which touches on subjects from the sexuality of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon characters to why we still don’t understand rape.

As part of its “Brilliant Peoples” series, Science Blog commissioned author and journalist Luke Ford to interview Dr. Julia R. Heiman, author of Becoming Orgasmic: A Sexual and Personal Growth Program for Women and the sixth director of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, Bloomington. Below is a transcript of their wide-ranging discussion, which touches on subject from the sexuality of Garrison Keilo’s Lake Wobegone characters to why we still don’t understand prison rape.

Pfizer recently have been faced with a media blitz covering a possible scandal involving 50 out of 23 million Viagra users. That is, a side-effect of the drug could be blindness, but Pfizer never listed this on the side of the bottle. It must be noted, however that men with heart disease and diabetes might also suffer from erectile dysfunction. Heart disease and diabetes are major contributors to adult-onset blindness. Is the drug responsible? Pfizer’s stock will hopefully… read more

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A 30-second prime-time television spot was once considered to be the most effective form of advertising, but search engine ads are replacing it. This year, predicts Advertising Age, the combined advertising revenues of Google and Yahoo! will rival the combined prime-time ad revenues of America’s three big television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley have discovered a computer algorithm that could further increase profits for search engine advertising. “Our algorithm balances two trade-offs in a way that optimizes revenue in Google’s advertising model,” says Vijay Vazirani, professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech.

A recently developed method for treating complicated grief, which includes discussing certain aspects of the death of a loved one, was found more effective than a standard therapy for depression, according to a study in the June 1 issue of JAMA. Many physicians are uncertain about how to identify bereaved individuals who need treatment, and what treatments work for bereavement-related mental health problems.

In a study designed to isolate the root causes of violent behavior, Harvard Medical School researchers found that young teens who witnessed gun violence were more than twice as likely as non-witnesses to commit violent crime themselves in the following years. “Based on this study’s results, showing the importance of personal contact with violence, the best model for violence may be that of a socially infectious disease.”

Public health researchers in Minnesota recently identified 83 persons infected with subtypes of HIV-1 that are not common in the United States, according to a report published in the June 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. Viral subtype identification may be important because subtypes may differ in terms of the efficacy of potential vaccines, diagnostic testing for HIV infection, and monitoring of the health of HIV-infected patients.

A new analysis of tobacco industry documents provides evidence that cigarette companies intentionally modified their products to promote female smoking by emphasizing attributes they knew would appeal to women – stylishness and taste, as well as perceived health benefits. According to the authors, the study presents particularly troubling implications for world health, as tobacco companies seek to increase smoking among women in developing countries. The documents, made public following the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, are examined in a paper in the June 2005 issue of ADDICTION, an international scientific journal.

People with diabetes may be at higher risk for cardiovascular problems when air pollution levels are higher, according to a new study of Boston-area residents. The ability of the blood vessels to control blood flow was impaired in adults with diabetes on days with elevated levels of particles from traffic and coal-burning power plants.

You just can’t tell where you might find love these days. A team led by a neuroscientist, an anthropologist and a social psychologist found love-related neurophysiological systems inside a magnetic resonance imaging machine. They detected quantifiable love responses in the brains of 17 young men and women who each described themselves as being newly and madly in love.

A scientist using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has found evidence that two white dwarf stars are orbiting each other in a death grip, destined to merge. The data indicate gravitational waves are carrying energy away from the star system at a prodigious rate, making it a prime candidate for future missions designed to directly detect these ripples in space-time.

The McGill University Health Center (MUHC) in Montreal is pleased to announce the first successful birth in Canada resulting from frozen eggs. A team confirmed the birth of a healthy baby boy, weighing 3740 grams on April 29. “We are the first in-vitro fertilization (IVF) Centre in Canada to achieve this success…This is fantastic news for both the family and for fertility health research and we would like to congratulate the parents on the birth of their first child.”

Schizophrenia is more common in developed countries than poorer nations, but it is less widespread than previously thought. These findings are from a Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR) report, published in the American-based journal Public Library of Science Medicine. The report debunks a popular textbook definition that schizophrenia will affect 10 in every 1000 people no matter where patients live.

1: DBP D site of albumin promoter (albumin D-box) binding protein [Homo sapiens]
MGC cDNA clone, Links

GeneID: 1628 Locus tag: HGNC:2697; MIM: 124097
updated 25-May-2005

Mass extinctions seem to occur on Earth roughly every 26 million years, leading some scientists to propose that they may be caused by rare collisions with comets or asteroids. A researcher in Poland thinks it may be possible that extraordinary predators are at fault instead.

Thinking small in a time when everything was big has helped Queensland researchers to unearth new evidence that climate change, instead of humans, was responsible for wiping out Australian giant marsupials or megafauna 40,000 years ago. Instead of only excavating ‘trophy specimens’ such as giant kangaroos and wombats, the researchers performed the first systematic analysis of a site in the fossil rich Darling Downs region of south-eastern Queensland.

Two astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to discover a shell of superheated gas around a dying star in the Milky Way galaxy. Their discovery shows how material ejected at two million miles per hour during the final, dying stages of sun-like stars can heat previously ejected gas to the point where it will emit X-rays. The study also offers new insight into how long the ejected gas around dying stars can persist in such a superheated state.

Addressing a persistent debate in the field of dyslexia research, scientists have disproved the popular theory that deficits in certain visual processes cause the spelling and reading woes commonly suffered by dyslexics.

A new technique might allow women diagnosed with cancer the opportunity to have children when chemotherapy and radiation treatments rob them of their fertility, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have found. By having her eggs frozen before she begins cancer treatments, a woman can preserve the hope of one day having a baby.