Rover Missions Renewed as Mars Emerges from Behind Sun

As NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity resumed reliable contact with Earth, after a period when Mars passed nearly behind the sun, the space agency extended funding for an additional six months of rover operations, as long as they keep working. Both rovers successfully completed their primary three-month missions on the surface of Mars in April and have already added about five months of bonus exploration during the first extension of their missions. ”Spirit and Opportunity appear ready to continue their remarkable adventures,” said Andrew Dantzler, solar system division director at NASA Headquarters, Washington. ”We’re taking advantage of that good news by adding more support for the teamwork here on Earth that’s necessary for operating the rovers.”

Androgen loss may lead to Alzheimer’s

Like estrogen loss in older women, decreased levels of testosterone may put aging men at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study. The findings bolster sparse research on the adverse effects of age-related testosterone depletion in the brain and may lead to future development of hormone replacement therapies. ”Our findings strongly suggest that normal age-related testosterone depletion is one of the important changes that promote Alzheimer?s disease in men.”

Menopause: What makes some cope better than others?

Why it is that some women pass through menopause with barely a hot flush or mood swing to speak of whilst others feel they are stuck on a hormonal roller coaster? ”It’s all about resilience, ” says Associate Professor Lily Stojanovska of Victoria University. Stojanovska set out to investigate how women experience the menopausal transition and whether specifically, menopause was a central factor or if there were other aspects of their life that contributed to their sense of health and wellbeing. ”We really wanted to identify the mechanisms, or coping tools that made some women more resilient and able to positively adapt to a major life event such as menopause.”

What Genesis Solar Particles Can Tell Us

The recent crash of NASA’s Genesis space probe may have looked like bad news for scientists, but its cargo of particles captured from the sun should still yield useful information, according to Qing-Zhu Yin, a planetary scientist at UC Davis. Yin, who is not directly affiliated with the Genesis mission, studies the composition of meteorites to learn about the formation of the solar system. Like the Genesis capsule, meteorites have a hard landing on the Earth, but can still yield useful information, he said.

Key Cell-Death Step Found

A fundamental cellular event related to programmed cell death has been decoded by cell biologists. The work could provide insights on two devastating inherited diseases. In healthy cells, mitochondria (tiny energy substations that churn out each cell’s power supply) continually fuse together and split in two. When mitochondrial fusion goes awry, cells are targeted for programmed cell death, or apoptosis. Apoptosis is a normal process in healthy individuals, but if mitochondrial fusion doesn’t work, the wrong cells die, causing disease. This is what happens in two neurodegenerative diseases: dominant optic atrophy, the most common inherited cause of blindness, and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which reduces sensation in the feet, lower legs and hands. Both diseases kill nerve cells.

Space-tech at the Paralympics

At the 2004 Paralympics this week, Wojtek Czyz, the world record holder for long jump, will be trusting in space technology and expertise to help him win his first Olympic medal. For the competition, parts of the prosthesis he will be using are made from material designed for space to make it both stronger and lighter. Czyz lost part of his left leg in a sports accident three years ago and in order to continue his passion for ”everything that has to do with sport”, this meant that he had to use a prosthesis.

Researchers find troubling offshoot of schizophrenia

New research shows that most of the support programs available for family members of schizophrenics are geared towards adults–the siblings, parents, or spouses of individuals with schizophrenia–and the children are overlooked. ”People with schizophrenia can exhibit symptoms such as auditory hallucinations, delusions of paranoia, mood swings, an inability to experience pleasure, an inability to initiate activity, and an inability to show feeling…. The quality of the relationship these individuals have with their children can suffer because of this, but the children often don’t understand why and can grow up feeling a lack of warmth, trust, or closeness to their parent.”

Acupuncture cuts nausea, vomiting, pain after major breast surgery

In the first such clinical trial of its kind, researchers have found that acupuncture is more effective at reducing nausea and vomiting after major breast surgery than the leading medication. The researchers also found that patients who underwent the 5,000-year-old Chinese practice reported decreased postoperative pain and increased satisfaction with their postoperative recovery. In conducting the trial, the researchers also demonstrated that the pressure point they stimulated possesses previously unknown pain-killing properties.

Cannabis may help combat cancer-causing herpes viruses

The compound in marijuana that produces a high, delta-9 tetrahydrocannbinol or THC, may block the spread of several forms of cancer causing herpes viruses. The gamma herpes viruses include Kaposi’s Sarcoma Associated Herpes virus, which is associated with an increased risk of cancer that is particularly prevalent in AIDS sufferers. Another is Epstein-Barr virus, which predisposes infected individuals to cancers such as Burkitt’s lymphoma and Hodgkin’s disease.

Scientists find nanowires capable of detecting individual viruses

Scientists have found that ultra-thin silicon wires can be used to electrically detect the presence of single viruses, in real time, with near-perfect selectivity. These nanowire detectors can also differentiate among viruses with great precision, suggesting that the technique could be scaled up to create miniature arrays easily capable of sensing thousands of different viruses. ”Viruses are among the most important causes of human disease and are of increasing concern as possible agents of biowarfare and bioterrorism.”

Scientists decipher genetic code of biothreat pathogen

More than 2,400 years after Hippocrates first described the symptoms of glanders, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of the ancient pathogen that causes the horse disease: Burkholderia mallei. The study found that B. mallei, a highly evolved pathogen that has been deployed in the past as a biological weapon, has an extremely regulated set of virulence genes and an unstable genome that may explain the bacterium’s ability to thwart the immune responses of its host animals — mainly horses, mules and donkeys.

Walking associated with reduced risk of dementia in older men

Older men who walked the least in a comparison group had nearly twice the risk for dementia compared to men who walked the most, according to a new study. Evidence suggests that physical activity may be related to the clinical expression of dementia, according to background information in the article. Whether the association includes low-intensity activity such as walking has not been known.

Mediterranean diet may cut metabolic syndrome, symptoms

In a new study researcchers have demonstrated that a Mediterranean-style diet had beneficial effects on endothelial (a layer of flat cells lining the closed internal spaces of the body, including the blood vessels) function and in reducing vascular inflammatory markers in patients with the metabolic syndrome. The metabolic syndrome consists of several factors that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Recent estimates indicate that the metabolic syndrome is highly prevalent in the United States, with an estimated 24 percent of the adult population affected.

Gene transfer to modify course of Alzheimer’s disease

Investigators have successfully initiated a new technique that uses gene therapy to deliver nerve growth factor into regions of the brain where neurons are degenerating, in order to prevent cell death and reverse cell atrophy, two hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. If successful, this could be a major step toward modifying the course of the disease. Rush is the only center in this study. The new technique uses CERE-110 as the gene therapy agent. CERE-110 carries the Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) gene encased in a harmless viral coating, which protects the gene and facilitates its delivery to brain cells.