The scientists who first discovered that knocking out a particular muscle gene results in “mighty mice” now report that it also softens the effects of a genetic mutation that causes muscular dystrophy. The findings build support for the idea that blocking the activity of that gene, known as myostatin, may one day help treat humans with degenerative muscle diseases.
The greater use of intensivists, physicians who specialize in the management of critically ill patients, in intensive care units (ICUs) significantly reduces ICU mortality, hospital mortality and length of stay, according to a study published by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers.
Results of an animal study published in the journal Science raise the possibility that the use of the rave fave drug Ecstasy ? methylene-dioxymethamphetamine ? can damage brain cells. The same cells, in fact, that are destroyed by Parkinson?s disease.
“We don’t know if human beings develop the same effects we describe in monkeys and in baboons,” Dr. George Ricaurte, a Johns Hopkins neurologist, told Reuters. “The broader issue is, are there hundreds of cases of unexplained parkinsonism in MDMA users? We don’t know because we haven’t looked.”
The Reuters article also contains the following quotation, reproduced below only marginally out of context: “[A]s you might imagine, it is not easy to get a baboon to take an oral dose of a drug.”