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

The likelihood of a person committing suicide is partly determined as early as at birth, researchers believe. The Swedish team looked at 700,000 adults and found low birthweight and being born to a teenage mother meant a two-fold rise in suicide risk. The report also said risk increased for shorter babies. The authors, from the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention in Stockholm, said it proved genetics played an important role in suicides. The researchers followed the adults, who were all born between 1973 and 1980, and assessed the proportion of suicides and attempted suicides between 10 and 26 years of age. The overall suicide rate in Sweden in 1999, when the follow-up exercise finished, was around 20 per 100,000 of the population. Babies weighing 2kg or less were more than twice as likely to commit suicide as adults than those weighing between 3.25kg and 3.75kg, according to the findings published in The Lancet medical journal. Children born to mothers under 19 years old were also more than twice as likely to commit suicide as those born to women aged 20 to 29. (C)BBC

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6149 - Posted: 09.24.2004

The door to apartment 2F looked like any other. But what lay inside was a shocking sight: Mounds of garbage and trash so tall and so plentiful that there was almost no way to open the front door. "There was a huge table there piled high with stuff and there was a tiny little path. In some places you had to sneak by it sideways," says Ron Alford who runs Disaster Masters, Incorporated www.theplan.com , a company dedicated to helping extreme pack rats clean house. "Stuff was just stacked up and the cockroaches were walking up behind it and making a mess on the wall." After an 85-year-old man broke his leg tripping over the clutter, his family called Alford, who with a crew of six men and women waded through an apartment packed full of old roller skates, radio parts and airplane model material. Nearly three days later, the carpets and floors began to see daylight. Alford has a special word he coined to describe such hoarding behavior: disposophobia. "When you trip and fall on your own stuff, when you're ashamed or afraid to have your friends, relatives or neighbors come into your house and sit down, that's how we draw the line," he says. "Your life has become abysmal because the stuff is overruling your life." © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 6148 - Posted: 06.24.2010

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 by USC researchers. The team's findings – appearing as a letter to the editor in the Sept. 22 issue of the Journal of American Medical Association – 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," said Christian Pike, senior author of the study and an assistant professor at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. "Understanding how these changes increase vulnerability to the disease is critical not only for elucidating Alzheimer's development, but also for identifying those persons most at risk," Pike said. While the link between estrogen loss in women and increased susceptibility to a variety of diseases – including Alzheimer's – has long been well established, there has been less focus on the health effects of hormonal depletion in men.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 6147 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Mating with close relatives often leads to no good, so most animals try to avoid it. So pity the female red jungle fowl. With randy and aggressive brethren, they don't have much choice when it comes to mates. But the hens can avoid the ill effects of inbreeding by picking which sperm fertilize their eggs, scientists have discovered. Among promiscuous animals, males and females may have conflicting strategies when it comes to inbreeding. Because males can produce many sperm fairly cheaply, it's no great loss if mating with their mother or sister happens to yield a few bad eggs. But for females, producing eggs requires more effort and they ought to strenuously avoid inbreeding. In the promiscuous red jungle fowl Gallus gallus, the wild progenitor of domestic chickens, the risk of inbreeding is high because hens and cocks stay close to their home turf. Smaller female jungle fowl can do little to resist incest. But because they can store sperm, females may be able to choose whose sperm wins their egg. Copyright © 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 6146 - Posted: 06.24.2010

DURHAM, N.C. -- Neurobiologists have pinpointed the molecular storehouse that supplies the neurotransmitter receptor proteins used for learning-related changes in the brain. They also found hints that the same storage compartments, called recycling endosomes, might be more general transporters for 'memory molecules' used to remodel the neuron to strengthen its connections with its neighbors. They said their finding constitutes an important step toward understanding the machinery by which neurons alter their connections to establish preferred signaling pathways in the process of laying down new memories. Understanding such machinery could also offer clues to how it might degenerate in aging and disease to degrade learning and memory, they said The researchers, led by Michael Ehlers of the Duke University Medical Center and Julie Kauer of Brown University, published their findings in the September 24, 2004, issue of the journal Science. Other co-authors on the paper were Mikyoung Park of Duke, and Esther Penick, Jeffrey Edwards of Brown. Their research was supported by the National Institutes of Health. In their studies, the researches sought to understand how neurotransmitter receptors in the depths of the neuron are carried to the surface -- a process called exocytosis. These receptors are proteins that are activated by bursts of signaling chemicals, called neurotransmitters, launched from another, transmitting neuron. The connection between transmitting and receiving neurons is called the synapse.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 6145 - Posted: 09.24.2004

A handful of genes in a morphine free poppy could hold the key to producing improved pain management pharmaceuticals. Norman, the 'no-morphine' poppy, is superior to morphine producing poppies as it produces thebaine and oripavine – compounds preferred by industry in the manufacture of alternative high value pain-killers. CSIRO's Dr Phil Larkin, and The Australian National University's Anthony Millgate and Dr Barry Pogson have been working with Tasmanian Alkaloids to investigate Norman the morphine-free poppy. "The genes we found behaved differently in Norman compared to standard morphine producing poppies and were consistently associated with the blockage in morphine synthesis and with the accumulation of thebaine and oripavine," Dr Larkin says. "Understanding the genes responsible for the production of morphine, thebaine and oripavine is an important step in further developing poppies that are tailored to produce alternative pharmaceuticals." The morphine free poppy variant, TOP1, was first discovered in 1995 by Tasmanian Alkaloids then released as Norman for commercial production in 1997 in Tasmania where it is now widely grown.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 6144 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Dog walkers know the canine habit of sniffing lampposts for urine only too well. Now, in a novel experiment, a team of scientists and dog trainers have put this traditional canine behaviour to good use – sniffing human urine to detect bladder cancer sufferers. The researchers hope that analysis and identification of the characteristic chemical odorants may lead to non-invasive, early-detection screening methods for bladder cancer in the future. “There had been a series of anecdotal stories about patients whose pet dogs had aroused concern by continually sniffing their moles, which actually turned out to be cancerous. I was pretty sceptical and needed to design a simple experiment to test it,” explained the study’s lead author, Carolyn Willis, from Amersham Hospital in the UK. The impracticalities of training dogs to detect skin cancer using skin biopsies led Willis and colleagues to consider trying bladder cancer detection, using easily obtainable urine samples. The group used urine samples from 36 patients with bladder cancer, and 108 control samples from cancer-free individuals. Six dogs of varying ages and breeds underwent a seven month training course in cancer detection, carried out by trainers from Hearing Dogs for the Deaf. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 6143 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Rats equipped with radios that transmit their brainwaves could soon be helping to locate earthquake survivors buried in the wreckage of collapsed buildings. Rats have an exquisitely sensitive sense of smell and can crawl just about anywhere. This combination makes them ideal candidates for sniffing out buried survivors. For that, the animals need to be taught to home in on people, and they must also signal their position to rescuers on the surface. In a project funded by DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, Linda and Ray Hermer-Vazquez of the University of Florida in Gainesville have worked out a way to achieve this. First the researchers identified the neural signals rats generate when they have found a scent that they are looking for. “When a dog is sniffing a bomb, he makes a unique movement that the handler recognises,” says John Chapin, a neuroscientist at the State University of New York in Brooklyn who is collaborating on the project. “Instead of the rat making a conditioned response, we pick up the response immediately from the brain.” © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 6142 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Emma Marris Dolphins, when dozing, swim in lazy circles. A new paper uncovers the odd fact that dolphins in the Northern Hemisphere swim in anticlockwise circles, whereas dolphins in the Southern Hemisphere swim in clockwise circles. The marine mammals only sleep with one half of their brains at a time, and continuously swim as they snooze. Wild dolphins, not just captive ones, have been seen to swim in circles when they sleep, and dolphins of various species had previously been shown to move preferentially anticlockwise. That prompted speculation as to why they choose this direction, with explanations relating mainly to the animals' anatomy, perhaps an asymmetry in their brain. But when Paul Manger, a dolphin neuroethologist from Sweden, moved to the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, he realized that all reports of dolphins swimming anticlockwise round their pools came from the Northern Hemisphere. On a hunch, he went down to the local dolphinarium with a video camera and a Thermos of hot coffee. Four nights of watching the animals produced the surprising result that these Southern dolphins spent 86% of their time swimming clockwise. ©2004 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 6141 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It is well known that obesity has reached epidemic proportions. As waistbands expand, so do the number of health gurus heralding the benefits of portion control and exercise to keep obesity at bay. But with some studies indicating that the rate of obesity is greater in women than in men, could it be that women are at a disadvantage when it comes to these obesity avoidance tactics? Is it possible that females are predisposed to succumb to the temptation to overeat? And could exercise be a less effective method of appetite suppression in women than in men? Researchers at The Florida State University say the answer could be yes. Overeating (hyperphagia) and sedentary behavior are known risk factors for obesity, but research in these areas – especially overeating – has been studied almost exclusively in males. In the new animal study “Diet-induced hyperphagia in the rat is influenced by sex and exercise,” Lisa A. Eckel and Shelley R. Moore (The Florida State University Program in Neuroscience and Department of Psychology) found that female rats are more susceptible than male rats to over consume a palatable, sweetened diet, and that female rats are less likely than male rats to use exercise as a means to control appetite in the presence of such a diet.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 6140 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New studies indicate that a specific type of lipid molecule plays a critical role in controlling the behavior of vesicles that store neurotransmitters within neurons. Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers that neurons release to communicate with one another. The identification of a regulatory role for the molecule, phosphatidylinositol 4,5 biphosphate, or PtdIns(4,5)P2, provides a new view of the operation of the machinery that produces and recycles synaptic vesicles. Led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator Pietro De Camilli, the researchers published their findings in the September 23, 2004, issue of the journal Nature. De Camilli, HHMI investigator Richard Flavell, Reiko Fitzsimonds, and their colleagues at Yale University School of Medicine collaborated on the studies with Timothy A. Ryan and researchers from the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Synaptic vesicles are initially loaded with neurotransmitter molecules in the interior of neurons. They then secrete their cargo at synapses — the junctions between neurons. At the synapse, the vesicles undergo a process called exocytosis, in which they fuse with the synaptic plasma membrane and unload their neurotransmitters. Afterward, they are drawn back into the neuron in the process of endocytosis. © 2004 Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6139 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BENEDICT CAREY Last week, a federal advisory panel urged regulators to warn parents that antidepressant drugs not only increase the risk of suicide in some children, but that most have a poor track record in curing their disease. The recommendation came after a yearlong debate over whether the drugs are as safe and effective as advertised. It was based on evidence that a small minority of children show increased signs of suicidal behavior when taking the drugs. Through it all, one of the drugs seemed somehow above the fray: Prozac. Although the warning is recommended for Prozac as well as other drugs, Prozac is still the only one approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of depression in children and adolescents. A large government-financed trial recently found that it worked better than talk therapy in helping teenagers overcome depression. And when British health officials announced a sweeping ban of antidepressant use in children, which touched off the debate last year, they specifically exempted Prozac. But is it really that different? The short answer is no, experts say. Although chemically distinct from other drugs in the same class, Prozac works on precisely the same principle, they say, and there's no evidence that it is significantly safer or more effective than the others in treating childhood depression. Prozac has shown in several trials that it can relieve depression in youngsters and adolescents significantly better than dummy pills. Such convincing evidence is not available for the other drugs. But, research psychiatrists say, that does not mean the other drugs in the same family do not work in young people, only that they have not been properly tested. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression
Link ID: 6138 - Posted: 09.22.2004

Monkeys have a lot in common with people, including the ability to procrastinate. Like us, they tend to work harder when the goal is closer, and get lazy when it seems farther away. But researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have used a genetics trick to turn monkeys into workaholics. "All the animals, including humans, are continually making decisions about the value of a reward and the amount of work or effort it's going to take to get a reward, or desired goal," says Barry Richmond of the NIMH's Laboratory of Neuropsychology. "The cognitive behavior we're studying is this balance between the desire to have the reward and the, if you will, burden of having to work to get it." Richmond and his team taught four monkeys to release a lever to make an onscreen dot change color from red to green. A gray bar on the screen in the background told them how much work remained before they received a reward for their efforts. "Normally when they get a cue that says they have a couple of more trials to do, they tend to work a little more slowly and they tend to make errors," says Richmond. "In trials where they know a reward is coming, they make no errors." © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Intelligence; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 6137 - Posted: 06.24.2010