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HIV eludes body’s smart bomb

HIV eludes one of the body’s key smart bomb defenses against infection, and this finding may lay the groundwork for new drugs to treat AIDS, according to a new Salk Institute study. Nathaniel Landau, a Salk Institute associate professor, and his team have pinpointed how the body battles HIV, a tremendously complex and relentless virus. Their findings appear in the online issue of Cell and will be published in the July 11 print issue. “What we have uncovered is a war that is being fought on the molecular level between viruses and cells. The war has been going on for millions of years, but we didn’t know about it until now,” said Landau.

Heavy drinking: Some students call it quits before graduation

Results of a new study suggest that nearly one in four college students who drink alcohol heavily on a regular basis quit doing so before graduation. While many researchers have looked at why college students stop drinking once they graduate, the current study looks at students who stopped heavy drinking while still in school. Learning what drives heavy drinkers to temper their alcohol use might help researchers create more effective alcohol misuse intervention campaigns on college campuses.

Climate scientists reaffirm view that late 20th Century warming was unusual

A group of leading climate scientists has reaffirmed the “robust consensus view” emerging from the peer reviewed literature that the warmth experienced on at least a hemispheric scale in the late 20th century was an anomaly in the previous millennium and that human activity likely played an important role in causing it. In so doing, they refuted recent claims that the warmth of recent decades was not unprecedented in the context of the past thousand years.

Testing method may be behind abnormal pap test results

Women who take oral contraceptive pills may get an inaccurate and higher rate of false positive results if their physicians use a specific kind of Pap test. Pathologists at Ohio State University re-checked the Pap smears of 84 women whose initial Pap results were diagnosed as abnormal using the ThinPrep testing method. All women were on an oral contraceptive. In each case, the cells lining the cervix looked like cells infected with the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), a leading cause of cervical cancer.

Stem-like cells restore function in rats with severe stroke

Rats with severe strokes recovered function following intravenous injections of stem-like cells obtained from circulating human blood — a finding that points to another potential cell therapy for stroke. The human blood donors were injected with granulocyte stimulating factor (G-CSF) to stimulate the release of stem-like cells from their bone marrow into the bloodstream before a blood sample was collected. These stem-like cells are known as peripheral blood progenitor cells.

Headaches devastating to children’s quality of life

The quality of life of children with headaches is comparable to that of children with such serious conditions as cancer and rheumatic diseases, according to a new study by researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. In fact, the study shows that children with headaches appear to be more affected in emotional functioning and school performance than children with other serious, chronic medical conditions, according to lead author Scott W Powers, PhD, co-director of the Cincinnati Children’s Headache Center –one of the largest pediatric headache centers in the world.

Bird migration takes guts

When birds migrate over long distances to and from their breeding grounds, it takes more than strong flight muscles and an innate knowledge of where they’re going. According to a University of Rhode Island researcher, migration also takes guts. Several studies conducted by URI physiological ecologist Scott McWilliams have shown that birds have a flexible digestive system that they modify to meet the changing energy demands of migration.

Human settlements already existed in the Amazon Basin 4000 years ago

The eastern slopes of the Andean Cordillera, in the Equador province of Zamora-Chinchipe, bordering Peru, form part of the Amazon piedmont. This region of undulating topography, situated between 500 and 2000 m altitude, had not up to now been the focus of any systematic archaeological research. This area was occupied in historical times (from the end of the first millenium) by groups belonging to the Jivaro linguistic family, the Bracamoros, who were probably the inhabitants the Spanish conquistadors encountered in the XVIth century.

Human genes can predict AIDS progression

A Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher and her colleagues have found that people with less common types of proteins on their white blood cells seem to mount a better immune response against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus – the virus that causes AIDS – and tend to fight progression of the disease better than people with common white blood cell proteins.

How Alcohol Use May Worsen Hepatitis C Infection

Immunology researchers have demonstrated that alcohol promotes the proliferation of hepatitis C virus in human liver cells. By studying molecular mechanisms in cell cultures, the researchers help explain the role of alcohol in aggravating hepatitis C infection and interfering with drug treatment for the infection.

Researchers identify clotting protein which causes hepatitis B

A protein molecule that contributes to the severity of chronic viral hepatitis in humans, and which may also be implicated in SARS, has been identified by a team of scientists from Toronto General and St. Michael’s Hospitals. This data is published in the July 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The protein, called Fgl2/fibroleukin prothrombinase, is a newly discovered protein which causes blood to clot in the livers of humans with viral hepatitis. In animal trials, this same protein causes blood to clot in the livers of mice that are exposed to the corona virus.

Hostility may be better predictor of heart disease than smoking, cholesterol

Hostility may predict heart disease more often than traditional coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors like high cholesterol, cigarette smoking and weight, according to research reported on in the November issue of Health Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA). Using a sample of 774 older White men (average age was 60) from the Normative Aging Study, lead researcher Raymond Niaura, Ph.D., and colleagues sought to determine whether hostility was an independent influence or a contributing factor in CHD development. Hostility levels, blood lipids, fasting insulin, blood pressure, body measurement index (BMI), weight-hip ratio (WHR), diet, alcohol intake, smoking and education attainment were assessed over a three year period beginning in 1986.

Key to global warming prediction within reach

The search for a Holy Grail of climate science may be nearing an end, if an MIT-led project is launched by NASA to measure soil moisture?data needed to predict global change, assess global warming and support the Kyoto Protocol. That measurement has been missing from the array of clues?rainfall, atmospheric chemistry, humidity and temperature?used by scientists to predict change in the local and global climate. Using soil moisture, they can calculate evaporation?the process that links the water, energy and carbon cycles?giving them a better understanding of global change.