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Mosquitoes infected with La Crosse encephalitis found in Southwest Virginia

Virginia Tech entomologists have documented for the first time the presence of mosquitoes infected with La Crosse virus in four Southwest Virginia Counties. Sally Paulson, an associate professor of entomology, said the find from samples taken last year and recently analyzed was surprising because no human cases of the disease had been reported in the counties before. “It surprised me to get so many positives from so few samples from a place I wouldn’t have expected any,” Paulson said.

Fear of ‘foreigners’ may slow scientific progress

Saria Mohamed Hassan’s dream of becoming a doctor was interrupted for a year when she left the United States to conduct a brief malaria workshop in Dakar, Senegal, and then found herself stranded in a bureaucratic no-man’s land: Her international student visa had expired while she was away, and her bid to renew it quickly became mired in a massive, ever-growing backlog of cases under review. Faced with a seemingly impenetrable firewall of post-9/11 security procedures, the Sudanese medical student eventually lost a year’s worth of classes at Harvard.

Hypothermia helps brain heal after cardiac arrest

Cooling body temperature to levels consistent with hypothermia improves survival when induced after cardiac arrest and also promotes growth factors important for the brain’s recovery, suggests a study performed by researchers in the department of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Preliminary results of their study were reported today at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) in Boston.

Researchers identify best hours for shut-eye when sleep must be limited

People getting a minimal amount of sleep do better if they go to bed early in the morning rather than late at night, suggests Stanford University Medical Center research. A recently published pilot study on the effects of sleep deprivation also found that individual tolerance of sleep restriction varies widely, yet study participants had a better overall adaptation to early morning sleep.

‘Virtual biopsy’ – A new way to look at cancer

Scientists are using new imaging technology to help them perform “virtual biopsies,” ? biological profiles of specific tumors that may help predict a patient’s response to treatment and probability of long-term survival. This whole new realm of imaging is called functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), a process that offers insight into a tumor’s character, not just its superficial structure.

Scientists Uncover HIV Escape Route from Drugs and Vaccines

Virologists at Jefferson Medical College may have discovered a new way by which HIV, the AIDS virus, can evade both anti-viral drugs and vaccines. Researchers had reported last summer that a protein called CEM15 is a natural inhibitor of HIV, acting as a brake on HIV’s replication. They also showed that an HIV-encoded protein, Vif, or Virion infectivity factor, counteracts CEM15. Vif, in effect, is a shield to protect HIV from a host cell’s defenses.

Protection Equipment Demonstration: Something for Everyone

Under rows of tents and inside large aircraft hangars, more than 2,600 force protection products were demonstrated and exhibited for Defense Department, federal and local agencies at Force Protection Equipment Demonstration IV May 6-8. Among the highlights: Geocell Systems, which demonstrated how to build sand barriers using a foldable plastic device. The modular and collapsible plastic grids require no special tools and can be assembled in seconds to hold sand horizontally to any desired length. The grids are also stackable to hold sand vertically. Barney Greinke, director of marketing for the company, said the sand-filled wall can act as a barrier against vehicles, and can help stop small-arms fire and blast fragments from small bombs. “You have to understand that a wall of sand 4 feet wide by 8 feet tall weighs around 12,000 pounds,” Greinke said, “So it can be quite effective. It’s basically replaces the sandbag.”

Husbands, wives disagree on their financial status

One reason married couples argue about money may be because they don’t even agree on how much of it they have, new research suggests. The typical husband says the couple earns 5 percent more income and has 10 percent more total wealth than the wife reports, according to a nationwide study. Meanwhile, the typical wife says the family’s debts are about $500 more than reported by her husband.

Orthodox Christianity lowers your cholesterol

Following the fasting regimes laid down by the Greek Orthodox Church could reduce your chances of suffering from heart disease. So says a recent article in BMC Public Health. A group of researchers from the University of Crete found that Greek Orthodox Christians who avoided specified foods three times a year had lower levels of cholesterol and lower levels of the cholesterol-binding proteins called low density lipoproteins (LDL), in their blood after ‘fasting’, compared with other Christians who did not follow the fasting regimes. The levels of other cholesterol-binding proteins called high-density lipoproteins (HDL) did not change.

Secret documents reveal how tobacco industry targeted gay men

Philip Morris (now known as Altria) viewed the gay community as “an area of opportunity” for promoting the Benson & Hedges cigarette brand and targeted the community under the guise of philanthropy, according to UCSF researchers. In an analysis that appears in the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the UCSF team reports that Philip Morris advertised in the gay media in an attempt to “own the market,” but then quickly distanced itself. According to Elizabeth A. Smith, PhD, research associate in the UCSF School of Nursing department of social and behavioral sciences and lead author of the paper, “Philip Morris wanted the gay market but didn’t want to be publicly associated with the community.”

Men, women both crazy jealous

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, or so we’ve been told, and when it comes to jealousy this is especially true. Men, psychologists have long contended, tend to care more about sexual infidelity while women usually react more strongly to emotional infidelity. This view has long been espoused by evolutionary psychologists who attribute these gender differences to natural selection, which, they say, encouraged the sexes to develop different emotional reactions to jealousy. However, a recent research paper published in Personality and Social Psychology Review by Christine Harris, a psychologist with the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, casts serious doubts on this view of gender differences on jealousy and argues that more men and women appear to view sexual and emotional jealousy in the same light.