According to the National Retail Foundation, the most popular Halloween costume last year was Spiderman. Next was “a princess,” followed by witches and vampires, SpongeBob, Barbie and Harry Potter. Sounds about right. But if you read the complete list of top costumes, you’ll notice something missing: astronomers. There are no Sagans, no Galileos, not even a Hubble. And that’s funny, because Halloween is an astronomical holiday.
In response to the emerging threat of pandemic (Avian) influenza, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced the formation of a Rapid Response Team to ensure that antiviral drugs are available to the American people, in the event they are needed. While there is no current flu pandemic, the team will help ensure an adequate supply of treatments, such as oseltamivir phosphate (Tamiflu) and other anti-influenza drugs, for stockpiling in the event there is an outbreak in the United States.
A group of Belgian researchers has determined that a pregnant woman’s ability to metabolize fats is determined not only by her genes but by her baby’s genes as well. The details of their findings appear in the November issue of the Journal of Lipid Research, an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology journal.
For the first time, researchers have detected high concentrations of a popular insecticide in suburban stream sediments, raising concerns about its effects on aquatic life. Pyrethroids, the active ingredient used in most home and garden insecticides, have been on the market for years. Although the compounds are considered potentially less harmful to humans than other insecticides, surprisingly little information is available about their long-term impact on the environment.
Researchers at the Forsyth Institute have discovered that the genes that influence the jaws of cichlid fish, tropical freshwater fish renowned for head shape diversity, offer insight into overall vertebrate diversity. The scientific studies led by R. Craig Albertson, PhD., Staff Associate, show that the growth factor gene, bmp4, is both associated with and has the potential to alter jaw morphology in a way that approximates natural variation among fish species.
Published Oct. 20 in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Health Services Research, the study finds that the average $1,583 cost of substance abuse treatment is offset by monetary benefits such as reduced costs of crime and increased employment earnings totaling $11,487.
Research has demonstrated that a hormone found naturally in the body has the ability to cause limited weight loss. Specifically, the research revealed that peptide YY (PYY) can reduce food consumption in the morning, leading to a mild level of weight loss in the short term. The research is printed in the current edition of the journal Diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes and depression can be a fatal mix. Patients whose type 2 diabetes was accompanied by minor or major depression had higher mortality rates, compared to patients with type 2 diabetes alone, over the three-year period of a recent study in Washington state. The results appear in the November 2005 edition of Diabetes Care, published by the American Diabetes Association.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is notifying the public of its investigation of human tissue recovered by Biomedical Tissue Services, Ltd. (BTS) of Ft. Lee, NJ, and sent to tissue processors. Some of this tissue may have been implanted into patients from early 2004 to September 2005. The tissue was recovered by BTS from human donors who may not have met FDA donor eligibility requirements and who may not have been properly screened for certain infectious diseases. At this time, the implicated tissues from BTS include human bone, skin, and tendons. These products represent only a small percentage of the overall U.S. tissue supply.
Left ventricular function and exercise capacity increased, while the area of heart muscle damage shrank, in 18 patients given infusions of their own bone marrow stem cells up to eight years after a heart attack, according to a new study in the Nov. 1, 2005, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Findings from the largest survey ever conducted on the co-occurrence of psychiatric disorders among U.S. adults indicates a sharper picture than previously reported of major depressive disorder (MDD) in specific population groups. Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) also indicate a strong relationship of MDD to alcohol use disorders, drug disorders and other mental health conditions.
Genetic material derisively called “junk” DNA because it does not contain the instructions for protein-coding genes and appears to have little or no function is actually critically important to an organism’s evolutionary survival, according to a study conducted by a biologist at UCSD.
More than 470 physicists, including seven Nobel laureates, have signed a petition to oppose a new U.S. Defense Department proposal that allows the United States to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. The petition was started by two physics professors at the University of California, San Diego, Kim Griest and Jorge Hirsch, who said they felt an obligation to speak out about the nuclear policy change because their profession brought nuclear weapons into the world 60 years ago.
New research shows a new class of drugs may hold promise in treating brain chemical problems such as Alzheimer’s disease, says the principal investigator of research published in an early on-line version of Peptides. “We found that we can develop antisense — which is a molecular compound — to cross the blood brain barrier enough to alter brain function. This can have a profound effect on treating diseases that occur because there is too much or too little of a certain kind of protein in the brain,” says William A. Banks, M.D., professor of geriatrics and pharmacological and physiological sciences at Saint Louis University and principal investigator.
In August 2003, as the twin Mars Exploration Rovers were barreling toward Mars in their flying saucers, scientists and engineers sent a radio signal disguised as the rovers’ “voice” to the Odyssey orbiter at Mars. The call to Odyssey was what Dr. John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover Science Manager, defines as a “can-you-hear-me-now?” test. Scientists and engineers wanted to ensure the UHF (ultra-high frequency) radio system on Odyssey, a primary communications relay between the rovers and Earth, would work. Odyssey responded with a resounding yes, and something else from Mars responded too….
Researchers from Monash’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology have determined the structure of the protein JAK2 kinase, a discovery with huge implications for the design and development of new cancer drugs.
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