New Haven, Conn. -- In this week's issue of Nature, a Yale mathematician presents models showing that the most recent person who was a direct ancestor of all humans currently alive may have lived just a few thousand years ago. "While we may not all be 'brothers,' the models suggest we are all hundredth cousins or so," said Joseph T. Chang, professor in the Department of Statistics at Yale University and senior author on the paper. Chang established the basis of this research in a previous publication with an intentionally simplified model that ignored such complexities as geography and migration. Those precise mathematical results showed that in a world obeying the simplified assumptions, the most recent common ancestor would have lived less than 1,000 years ago. He also introduced the "identical ancestors point," the most recent time -- less than 2,000 years ago in the simplified model -- when each person was an ancestor to all or ancestor to none of the people alive today. The current paper presents more realistic mathematical and computer models. It incorporates factors such as socially driven mating, physical barriers of geography and migration, and recorded historical events. Although such complexities make pure mathematical analysis difficult, it was possible to integrate them into an elaborate computer simulation model. The computer repeatedly simulated history under varying assumptions, tracking the lives, movements, and reproduction of all people who lived within the last 20,000 years.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 6169 - Posted: 09.30.2004

By ERIC NAGOURNEY The voice on the other end of the telephone is alluring, and the image in your mind is too. But can you hear what a person looks like? Maybe so. And when you speak up, be careful. It seems that a voice may also convey information on your sex life. When researchers asked volunteers to listen to recordings of people counting to 10 and rate the attractiveness of the voices, they found that the voices rated highest belonged to people having more active sex lives. Moreover, their physical characteristics (broad shoulders and narrow hips in men, narrow waist and broad hips in women, and symmetry in both) conformed to conventional notions of attractiveness. An author of the study, Dr. Gordon G. Gallup Jr., a psychologist at the State University of New York at Albany, pointed out the obvious, that the voice instantly conveyed basic information about a person's sex and age, but he said the voice also "seems to be a medium for the transmission of biologically relevant information." Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Language
Link ID: 6168 - Posted: 09.29.2004

Adolescent drinking is nothing new. During the late 1970s underage drinking reached a peak, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and alcohol is now believed to be the number one drug of choice among children and adolescents. "What has happened in recent years is there's been a split," explains Aaron White, an alcohol researcher in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center. "There's been an increase in sort of a heavy, repeated binge-type drinking and also an increase in abstention. Most adults when they drink, they drink slowly, they have a few glasses of wine at dinner or beer at the football game or something like that, whereas a lot of young people drink as much as they can and as quickly as they can." As part of the ongoing Seattle Social Development Project, sociologist Sabrina Oesterle and her colleagues at the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington in Seattle looked at the long-term health effects of adolescent binge drinking. "We already know that binge drinking in adolescence has immediate health consequences for teenagers," says Oesterle. "So we were especially interested whether drinking, especially heavy drinking in adolescence, has long-term health consequences that we could see in young adulthood." © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6167 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Michael Hopkin The British scientist who created Dolly the sheep has applied for a licence to clone human embryos in the search for treatments for motor neuron disease. If approved, the research should give experts a far better picture of what happens to the dying brain cells that characterize this condition. Ian Wilmut, of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, and his colleagues submitted their proposal today to the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). They hope to receive a decision early next year and could potentially begin cloning around April 2005. Motor neuron disease, a range of related conditions including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, causes around 1,000 deaths in Britain every year. The brain cells that govern movement gradually die off, leaving sufferers paralysed but, usually, with their intellect intact. The causes are still poorly understood, says Wilmut. Around 2% of cases are linked to mutations in a gene called SOD1, although experts are still unclear about how this triggers disease. And a further 8% of patients inherit their disease and therefore presumably have some other genetic predisposition. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease ; Stem Cells
Link ID: 6166 - Posted: 06.24.2010

While Parkinson's disease typically brings to mind symptoms such as tremors and slow movement, researchers have found that nearly half of all Parkinson's patients also suffer from depression. While it might seem natural that someone who has a disease such as Parkinson's might become depressed, it's not so simple, says neurologist Irene Richard, M.D., of the University of Rochester Medical Center. "Many patients assume that's it's normal to feel this way. They might say, 'If you had Parkinson's disease, you'd feel this way too.' That's not true. If you treat the depression, they'll still have the other symptoms of the disease, but they feel better. It's one aspect of the disease that may be very treatable," says Richard. "People diagnosed with other serious diseases that may also be disabling, such as rheumatoid arthritis, aren't nearly as likely to become depressed." Richard and co-author William McDonald, M.D., a psychiatrist at Emory University, discussed the links between depression and movement disorders like Parkinson's disease in a review article in the August 24 issue of the journal Neurology. In an article titled, "Can 'blue' genes affect mood and movement?" the two noted that a team from Columbia University has linked a gene known to cause a movement disorder known as dystonia with a type of early-onset depression. Now they and other physicians around the country are exploring possible links between mood and movement in other disorders such as Parkinson's disease.

Keyword: Parkinsons; Depression
Link ID: 6165 - Posted: 09.29.2004

By DENISE GRADY Most people have heard of the placebo effect, in which patients given sugar pills feel better because they think the pills are medicine. But few would like to be on the receiving end of a placebo: a person who asks for a painkiller wants the real thing. The medical profession, at least officially, frowns upon prescribing placebos, because it usually involves lying, implies disrespect and can destroy trust in doctors. Some hospitals ban placebos, except in experiments, and then participants must be told that they might be given inert pills or shots. A new survey, though, suggests that the profession may not always practice what it preaches. In the survey, of 89 doctors and nurses in Israel, 60 percent said they had given patients placebos. Many said placebos could sometimes work, and more than a third reported prescribing them as often as once a month. The patients given fake medicine included women in labor and people suffering from pain, anxiety, agitation, vertigo, sleep problems, asthma and drug withdrawal. Most had no idea that they were getting placebos. Among the prescribers, 68 percent told patients they were receiving real medicine, 17 percent said nothing at all, 11 percent said the medicine was "nonspecific" and 4 percent told patients the truth. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Depression
Link ID: 6164 - Posted: 09.28.2004

By ABIGAIL ZUGER When bedtime comes, as all children and sick people know, the boogeymen come out of the closet. Darkness, silence and isolation can turn chairs into tigers, and make even trivial health problems seem ominous and hopeless. But illness that goes bump in the night may not be just a patient's inner child coming out. Doctors have sensed for centuries that many diseases actually do get worse at night, and science has begun to confirm this impression. The emotions nighttime elicits, although they certainly do not help matters, are not primarily to blame. Instead, it is the body's internal chemicals and hormones, cycling like the invisible gears of a giant cuckoo clock, that send diseases out to strut their stuff at night, then rotate into the background by dawn. Fever burns in the evening. Asthma, ulcers and certain forms of arthritis worsen at night. Heart attacks and strokes brew in the predawn hours and often erupt after sunrise. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 6163 - Posted: 09.28.2004

DALLAS – – UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researchers have uncovered damage in a specific, primitive portion of the nervous systems of veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome. UT Southwestern researchers report that damage to the parasympathetic nervous system may account for nearly half of the typical symptoms – including gallbladder disease, unrefreshing sleep, depression, joint pain, chronic diarrhea and sexual dysfunction – that afflict those with Gulf War syndrome. Their findings will be published in the October issue of the American Journal of Medicine and are currently available online. "The high rate of gallbladder disease in these men, reported in a previous study, is particularly disturbing because typically women over 40 get this. It's singularly rare in young men," said Dr. Robert Haley, chief of epidemiology at UT Southwestern and lead author of the new study. The parasympathetic system regulates primitive, automatic bodily functions such as digestion and sleep, while the sympathetic nervous system controls the "fight or flight" instinct.

Keyword: Neurotoxins
Link ID: 6162 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Donald Rogers, Pharm.D., BCPS With the help of the National Pharmaceutical Council and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (2001), pain management has exploded into the 21st century. Such entities have confirmed that pain should be monitored as the fifth vital sign and that the assessment, treatment and monitoring of pain should be available to every patient, despite their social, economic or cultural background. Any institution that fails to do so runs the risk of not being accredited by such organizations. Although close in proximity within the English dictionary, pain and psychiatry are two terms not often thought of in the same sentence. As pain clinics and pain teams emerge in attempts to meet the requirements of accrediting agencies, many fail to address or even acknowledge the psychiatric component of pain. As a result, psychiatrists are often left out of the equation. Furthermore, many practitioners question the role that a psychiatrist would play in the treatment of pain or feel it is outside the psychiatrist's scope of practice. After all, what would a psychiatrist know about the treatment of osteoarthritis, postherpetic neuralgia or fibromyalgia? Based on such premises, this article will serve multiple purposes. First, it will present the reader with a compelling argument for the inclusion of psychiatry in pain management. It will also present data supporting the need to rule out pain-related syndromes in the psychiatric setting. A brief review of terminology will familiarize the reader with the classification of pain. Two sections will then present the medical approach and potential psychiatric interventions to pain management. The latter will emphasize what the psychiatrist needs to accomplish to make sure the patient is treated as a whole. Finally, pharmacologic treatment alternatives and potential interactions with medical medications will be reviewed.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 6161 - Posted: 09.28.2004

Chronic use of opiate drugs may alter brain neurons to make animal brains more sensitive to stress, according to a new study. If the research proves applicable to humans, the findings may help explain how hospital patients who have received morphine may be susceptible to stress disorder, attention problems and sleep disturbances. The effects on the brain may also contribute to better understanding of drug addiction. The study, published in the September 22 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, was the first to show that chronic opiate use disrupts the stress response of nerve cells in the noradrenergic system. This system, using a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine, influences the brain's arousal and attention levels when a stressful event occurs. The researchers observed that the norepinephrine neurons of rats that had received morphine infusions for a week discharged more frequently in response to a stressor, compared to neurons of rats that had not received morphine. "The increase in neuron firing indicated the neurons were more sensitive to stress, and we also found this sensitization translated into behavioral changes--as shown in the rats' swimming behavior," said study leader Rita J. Valentino, Ph.D., a behavioral neuroscientist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Stress
Link ID: 6160 - Posted: 09.28.2004

Drum the tip of a finger on a typewriter key quickly "eeeeee." Now, stop and type "e" take a moment, type "e," take another moment, type "e" again. The motion in both cases is exactly the same, performed by the same finger. But the brain processes that make the two different streams of 'e's are utterly different, according to a study done by a University of Southern California neural specialist and colleagues. The insight may lead to, among other things, better movement control by humanoid robots, but also new ways of movement rehabilitation. And perhaps it even offers some insight into the effect of music. Dr. Stefan Schaal, an associate professor in the computer science department of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering led the international team that used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans to test a longstanding question regarding "rhythmic" versus "discrete" movement. "Rhythmic movements like walking, chewing or scratching are found in many organisms, ranging from insects to primates," notes Schaal in an article published in Nature Neuroscience Sept. 26. "In contrast, discrete movements like reaching and kicking are behaviors that have reached sophistication in young species, particularly in primates."

Keyword: Biomechanics
Link ID: 6159 - Posted: 09.28.2004

DES MOINES, Iowa - Azy and Indah are heading to school this week — a unique experience for two clever orangutans whose classroom will eventually encompass more than 200 acres of lowlands, river forest and lakes. On Tuesday, the inquisitive primates will become the first residents of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. While there, researcher Rob Shumaker and a team of scientists will study the behavior and learning capabilities of the apes. Azy, 26, and Indah, 24, who are brother and sister, have never lived in the wild. They were born at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., where they have been part of a research program, the Orangutan Language Project, since 1995. Shumaker developed the program, which allows the long-haired apes to communicate by selecting symbols on a computer monitor. "The opportunities that lie ahead for them and this world-class research center are limitless," said Shumaker, the trust's director of orangutan research. Construction of the Great Ape Trust began in 2003 at the site of a former sand and gravel quarry. Besides orangutans, the Des Moines campus also will house bonobos, chimpanzees and lowland gorillas. Some consider the site the most comprehensive ape research facility in the world. Copyright © 2004 Yahoo! Inc.

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 6158 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Harvey McGavin Fortifying foods such as flour and pasta with folic acid could significantly reduce the likelihood of babies being born with disabilities such as spina bifida, a study shows. The number of babies with neural tube defects, brain or spine abnormalities, has fallen by more than 75 per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador since a law forced fortification of staple foods with folic acid. Women who take folic acid supplements while trying to conceive reduce the risks of having a baby with neural tube defects. The Food Standards Agency advises a daily supplement of 400 micrograms. Folic acid occurs naturally in green leafy vegetables, brown rice, yeast extract, oranges and bananas. More than 30 countries already decree fortification of food products, leading to a fall in the number of babies being born with defects. In Newfoundland and Labrador, folic acid has been added to all flour, cornmeal and pasta since 1998. Researchers found the proportion of babies born with neural tube defects in the province has fallen by 78 per cent in six years. ©2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6157 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ANDREW POLLACK Merck & Company has obtained rights to license an experimental drug to treat obesity that has generated scientific interest because it is based on a hormone used by the body to signal that it has eaten enough. The rights are from the Nastech Pharmaceutical Company, which has developed a nasal spray incorporating the hormone. The two companies are expected to announce the deal today. The drug is now in the earliest stages of clinical trials, meaning that, if found to be effective, it would probably take several years to become available to consumers. The spray incorporates peptide YY 3-36, or PYY for short. It is a hormone made by the small intestine that is sent to the brain to signal satiety. There is some evidence that obese people make less of this hormone than leaner people, suggesting that their brains might be receiving only a weak signal to stop eating. In one small experiment, published in The New England Journal of Medicine last year, both obese and lean volunteers received a single intravenous infusion of the hormone. At a buffet lunch later that day, they ate 30 percent less than those who received a placebo. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 6156 - Posted: 09.27.2004

By Matthew Chapman The government is to investigate claims that increasing numbers of parents of children with Asperger's Syndrome are being falsely accused of abuse. The investigation follows revelations by BBC Five Live. It is estimated around 48,000 children in Britain could have Asperger's, a condition under which patients can have high IQs, but lack social skills. Experts fear some local authorities misrepresent outwardly odd behaviour and suspect parents of abuse. Those holding that view include Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, of Cambridge University. He says some councils have "turned the clock back 50 years" in their investigations of children with the syndrome. Professor Baron-Cohen said: "It has come to my attention that an increasing number of parents of children with Asperger's are being regarded with suspicion when their child shows behavioural problems at school." He said that books such as last year's bestseller "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" had increased awareness of the condition. "This increase in recognition though has revealed that schools and social services have been mis-recognising it and putting it down to bad parenting," he added. He has now written a set letter for parents of Asperger's children involved in abuse allegations to give to social services to explain the syndrome. Large numbers of worried parents have also been contacting charities such as the National Autism Society, which is currently helping a mother accused of Munchausen's By Proxy, a controversial diagnosis where mothers are accused of deliberately harming their own children. (C)BBC

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 6155 - Posted: 09.27.2004

Vitamin E can help restore hearing in people who become deaf suddenly for no known reason, research suggests. This natural antioxidant has already been hailed as a potential cancer therapy by preventing or slowing damage caused by certain oxygen compounds. A study of 66 patients with sudden hearing loss, by the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, found those given vitamin E made the best recovery. The work was presented at an Ear, Nose and Throat surgery meeting in New York. About 123,000 people in the UK experience sudden so-called "sensorineural" hearing loss. In most cases, the cause is known. The culprit can be a viral or bacterial infection or trauma, for example. However, in about 10-15% of cases there is no obvious cause and this is called idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss. About two-thirds of people with idiopathic hearing loss will recover within days without treatment, but the others do not. All of the patients involved in the study had been admitted to hospital within the previous eight days for sudden hearing loss of an unknown cause. All were given standard treatment, which included bed rest, steroid drugs and a mixture of carbon and oxygen gas by a mask. (C)BBC

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 6154 - Posted: 09.25.2004

By Alex Kirby The world's oceans are now so saturated with noise that whales and other marine mammals are dying, biologists say. The UK's Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society is launching a campaign, Oceans of Noise, to tackle what it says is the increasing problem of noise pollution. It says key sources of undersea noise are the search for oil and gas, and the use of low-frequency military sonars. The WDCS is proposing an action plan to regulate submarine noise pollution, and says a worldwide treaty may be needed. It says there is evidence that noise is causing hearing loss in cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises), injuring them and causing them to strand themselves, and is sometimes killing them. It also believes excessive noise is seriously interfering with cetaceans' ability to communicate with each other. The WDCS says the frequency ranges of some noise sources of human origin may be blotting out other, biologically important sounds, preventing mothers and calves from staying in touch and masking sound cues for predators and their prey. It says: "Flight, avoidance or other changes in behaviour have been observed in cetaceans from tens to hundreds of kilometres from the noise sources. (C)BBC

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 6153 - Posted: 09.25.2004

Few have heard of the degenerative, deadly disease called Ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) but a University of Alberta researcher is hoping to provide clues to this mysterious disorder. Dr. Shelagh Campbell, from the U of A's Department of Biological Sciences, is a basic researcher who studies how normal cell cycles are regulated, by analyzing genes that are responsible for repairing DNA damage that offer insights into human diseases like cancer and A-T. A-T is a progressive, degenerative disease that affects a startling number of body systems. Children with A-T appear normal at birth but at around the age of two, some of the first signs--walking and balance is wobbly caused by ataxia or lack of muscle control--start appearing. "Kids are often misdiagnosed with cerebral palsy but what distinguishes A-T is it gets worse," said Campbell. "Sadly, many of the people with A-T end up in wheelchairs and most die young (I think there is a fair range).

Keyword: Movement Disorders
Link ID: 6152 - Posted: 09.25.2004

Emma Marris Tibetan mothers have provided anthropologists with a prime example of ongoing human evolution. Researchers have found that women who are able to store more oxygen in their blood have more offspring that live to maturity. Cynthia Beall, a physical anthropologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and colleagues travelled to the Himalayas to see if they could catch the population there in the act of adapting to the low levels of oxygen found at 4,000 metres. Beall and her team lived in a series of villages, interviewing thousands of inhabitants, creating detailed family trees and, for women between 20 and 60, recording pregnancy histories. They also estimated the concentration of oxygen in the villagers' blood, by shining a light through their fingertips. Haemoglobin in the blood absorbs different amounts of the light, depending on how saturated it is with oxygen. Once non-genetic factors such as age, illness, or smoking were removed, a subset of the group seemed to have a blood-oxygen concentration that was 10% higher than normal. This trait was inherited in a way that suggested the difference was due to a single gene. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 6151 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Susan Milius A Tasmanian company has developed a poppy that produces a commercially useful drug precursor instead of full-fledged morphine, and an international research team has now reported how the plant does it. The top1 mutant of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) came out of a company research effort in 1995, but scientists haven't previously published studies of this mutant, says Philip Larkin of the plant-industry section, in Canberra, of CSIRO, Australia's federally funded research agency. In the top1 mutant, the poppy's natural chemistry has a glitch that stops the normal process of making morphine, which is prized as a drug by itself and as a raw material for opiates such as heroin. As a consequence of the synthetic pathway's breakdown, top1 accumulates two intermediate compounds: thebaine and oripavine. To make some modern painkillers and addiction treatments, pharmaceutical companies convert morphine back to thebaine and then process it further. Starting with thebaine is more efficient, Larkin says. The Tasmanian drug industry has been using top1 since 1998 for production of buprenorphine, oxycodone, naloxone, and naltrexone. Copyright ©2004 Science Service.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 6150 - Posted: 06.24.2010