While many corporate reform advocates urge companies to add outside board members to guard against corporate fraud and deception, that approach may actually exacerbate an already massive problem of directors being too cozy with the very people they’re supposed to be overseeing, researchers say.
Researchers have been awarded new federal grant money to develop experimental compounds that may someday extend the period during which a person exposed to anthrax can be treated successfully. Ravi Kane, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Rensselaer, has been awarded a grant of $500,000 from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to develop inhibitors of the anthrax toxin. The inhibitors will be tested in collaboration with Dr. Jeremy Mogridge at the University of Toronto.
Colorado State University research points to the use of sheep – instead of laboratory rats – to more accurately study the effects of menopause after several research projects verify that under induced menopause the animal experiences similar symptoms and conditions as do women. Older ewes – female sheep – experience hot flashes, eye trouble, bone density loss and other symptoms of menopause when their ovaries are removed, which means that research that would benefit menopausal and post-menopausal women, such as research about estrogen replacement therapy, osteoporosis treatments, and prevention of arthritis and sight-inhibiting changes can be conducted on ewes.
Astrophysicists have had an exceedingly difficult time charting the mysterious stuff called dark matter that permeates the universe because it’s–well–dark. Now, a unique “mass map” of a cluster of galaxies shows in unprecedented detail how dark matter is distributed with respect to the shining galaxies. The new comparison gives a convincing indication of how dark matter figures into the grand scheme of the cosmos.
Those dreaded piano lessons pay off in unexpected ways: According to a new study, children with music training had significantly better verbal memory than their counterparts without such training. Plus, the longer the training, the better the verbal memory. These findings underscore how, when experience changes a specific brain region, other skills that region supports may also benefit ?- a kind of cognitive side effect that could help people recovering from brain injury as well as healthy children.
Children who witness their parents using violence against each other and who regularly receive excessive punishment are at increased risk of being involved in an abusive relationship as an adult, according to a 20-year study that followed children into adult romantic relationships. In partner violence cases that result in injury, the study finds that being the victim of physical abuse and conduct disorders as a child are also important risk factors. The findings are reported on in the August issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
People with heart failure and normal cholesterol may benefit from cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins, researchers report. “This is the first prospective study to show that statins have beneficial effects in heart failure in the absence of coronary artery disease or high blood cholesterol,” says senior author James K. Liao, M.D., director of vascular medicine research at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. “This was a surprising finding in that the benefits occur after only 14 weeks of treatment and with a very low dose of the drug.”
A substantial increase in U.S. hospitalizations for atrial fibrillation, the most common sustained irregular heartbeat, will be a “staggering burden” on public health and patients’ quality of life, researchers report in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Prevention and education efforts must be pursued to curb the trend, says senior author George A. Mensah, M.D., chief of the cardiovascular health programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, and co-author of the study.
Boys are 28 percent more likely than girls to have a stroke, and black children are more than twice as likely to have a stroke as other ethnic groups, according to a new study. Researchers identified 2,278 first admissions for childhood stroke in a 10-year period in California by examining a statewide hospital discharge database. Children were one month through 19 years of age and were classified by their parent or guardian as white, black, Hispanic, Asian or other. Boys made up 51 percent of the population, and girls made up 49 percent.
After only three weeks of reading instruction, brain scans in children with dyslexia develop activation patterns that match those of normal readers, according to a new study. These findings indicate that children with dyslexia use the same regions of their brains as other readers, and that specialized instruction can rapidly compensate for some types of reading deficits.
Deepwater coral reefs in the US Virgin Islands may occupy a much larger area and be in better health than previously thought, based on evidence gathered by a new autonomous underwater vehicle which flies through the sea like a helicopter. Scientists and engineers used an autonomous underwater vehicle and imaging platform called SeaBED during a first-of-its-kind study to determine the health of deepwater coral reefs and related spawning areas for commercial fisheries.
A new study by gene therapy scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may lead to an effective long-term treatment for preventing seizures associated with a common form of epilepsy. The study appears this week in the Internet edition of the journal Nature Medicine and will appear in the Aug. 1 print edition of the journal. The research provides an important foundation for the development of new gene therapies to treat focal seizure disorders, the authors said.
When it comes to nicotine content, all cigarettes are not created equal, according to a new study by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University. In fact, the study finds that some commercial cigarette brands contain 10 to 20 times higher percentages of nicotine in the so-called “free-base” form — the form thought to be most addictive — than believed up to now. The study documents the first reliable measurements of free-base nicotine in tobacco smoke.
Researchers have discovered a novel class of compounds that affects the cell’s garbage disposal system which degrades proteins and opens a window for understanding a vital cell function as well as for treating heart disease and cancer. Just as cells produce proteins, they must also get rid of those they no longer need. Structures called proteasomes chew up proteins made within the cell — including viruses and other parasites — that are targeted for destruction.