By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA and GRANT GLICKSON When Mark Rosenthal suffered a stroke, he was too heavy and wide for a stretcher, so he made the jarring, bouncing dash to the hospital lying on an ambulance floor. The ride injured his back, and he felt as if his own weight would suffocate him. At the hospital, doctors wanted to give him an M.R.I. scan, but he could not fit into the machine. But in that ordeal last June, Mr. Rosenthal's gravest humiliation came from something as simple as having to go to the bathroom. He was in no shape to walk to the cramped bathroom — he might not have been able to fit, anyway — and the hospital's portable commodes and bedpans could not hold his 450 pounds. So, he recalled, hospital workers told him to go in his bed, on himself, saying they would clean it up afterward. "I just cried," said Mr. Rosenthal, 51, the treasurer of District Council 37, the New York City employees' union. "I refused to eat anything for six or seven days, hoping I wouldn't have to go again." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 4618 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A neuroscientist explains why labs such as the proposed Cambridge primate research centre are still needed to study monkey brains Anti-vivisection groups claim that animal research is unscientific. They say animal species, even monkeys, are physiologically so different from us that animal experimentation will lead to misleading results. That many vaccines and treatments against human diseases like polio were successfully developed using primate models can readily be gleaned from scientific literature as well as the internet. But what is the story about the obvious target for anti-vivisectionists: current and future research? Any source of information appears to be contentious in this debate. But one could turn to the Boyd Group, which comprises both scientists involved in animal research and anti-vivisectionists. The Boyd Group seeks points of consensus in their debates and publishes these in reports. (C) BBC

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 4617 - Posted: 11.28.2003

By ROWAN HOOPER It is perhaps rare for readers of British tabloid newspapers to ponder the same questions as evolutionary biologists, but that may have been the case last week. The tabloids enjoyed themselves at the expense of women suffering from a rare and often debilitating condition: persistent sexual arousal syndrome. (The Boston Globe also carried the story, though it didn't aim to titillate its readers.) The syndrome can lead to spontaneous, almost continuous orgasms, leaving the affected woman unable to concentrate on even mundane tasks. Some readers may have wondered what causes the syndrome (unlike the tabloid editors, who didn't seem to care), but no one really knows. As a consequence, women affected can be offered no instant cure. From wondering about what causes the syndrome, more thoughtful readers might have been prompted -- understandably -- to question why males are necessary, and indeed why sex between males and females exists at all. It is this question (the two ask essentially the same thing) that is a favorite of evolutionary biologists. This is not just because evolutionary biologists enjoy thinking about sex, but because it is one of the great mysteries of science. The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 4616 - Posted: 11.28.2003

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR The number of new H.I.V. cases diagnosed in the United States is continuing to climb, and the most significant rise has been among Hispanics and gay and bisexual men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study by the centers, which appeared in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, looked at data from 29 states that included a confidential system that was started in 1999. The picture of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, might even be much worse than the data indicate because states with the highest populations and possibly the highest rates of infection, like New York and California, were not included in the four-year study. From 1999 through 2002, the number of new H.I.V. cases soared by 26 percent among Hispanics and by 17 percent among men who have sex with men, while the increase in new cases over all for that period was 5.1 percent, according to the study. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4615 - Posted: 11.28.2003

Why are academics like Richard Lynn still taken seriously when they claim that IQ is racially determined? Gavin Evans, The Guardian So, here we go again - all the way back to South Africa 1948, Germany 1933 and further, covering the logic of colonial conquests over centuries. What it amounts to is this: we rule because we're smarter than you (and, by the way, that's also why you're so poor and we're so rich). The current culprit - not for the first time - is Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Ulster, who has a long track record here (he also "discovered" that men are more intelligent than women). Lynn claims that samples from 50 countries reveal that the average IQ in Africa is 70. Black South Africans, for example, have an average IQ of 66 - slightly smarter than the sub-moronic Ethiopians at 63. IQ, he claims, is an accurate measure of intrinsic intelligence, which means that Africans are thicker than the rest of us, and because "intelligence is a determinant of earnings", black South Africans and Ethiopians are poor. What is remarkable in all this is not so much that there are people who believe him - after all, there are still those who insist the Earth is flat - but rather that any creditable institution should take it seriously. Yet this week we've heard Lynn pontificating on Radio 4's Today programme, on BBC Radio 5 Live, and appearing in more-than respectful form in the Times. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

Keyword: Genes & Behavior; Intelligence
Link ID: 4614 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Genetics researchers say they have found a gene crucial to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. As this ScienCentral News video reports, it triggers not if we get the diseases, but when. Genetics researchers at Duke University say they have identified a gene that controls both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. But this gene is separate from genes that increase people’s risk for the diseases—rather, it controls when symptoms of the diseases begin to appear. By learning more about the gene, scientists hope to find ways to delay the onset of these devastating ailments. Alzheimer’s affects about 4.5 million Americans and Parkinson’s disease 1.5 million—most of them elderly. As the population ages, these numbers will likely increase unless researchers find efficient therapies. Both diseases have genetic components, and scientists are working hard to find genes that can be targeted by drug developers. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Parkinsons
Link ID: 4613 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News — Male turkeys gobble to attract female turkeys in the spring, but the daily factors that control why and how much an individual turkey gobbles remain a mystery to experts. The puzzle soon may be solved, however, thanks to a high tech turkey necklace developed by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. News of the project was announced in a recent press release issued by the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF), an organization comprised of turkey hunters that is sponsoring the research. Copyright © 2003 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Animal Communication; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4612 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By PATRICK HEALY HICKSVILLE, N.Y., — Animal activists said on Wednesday that they were outraged by a history of problems at the Long Island Reptile Museum and called for the gallery of snakes, lizards and turtles to be shut down. The activists, who have visited the museum and taken some of its animals for rehabilitation, called conditions there the most deplorable they had ever seen. During a visit by the activists in the spring, they said, the reptiles were emaciated and dehydrated, some were covered with red and black mites and some dead animals remained on display. In addition, they said snakes and large lizards had escaped from their cages and were crawling around the rafters, a potential threat to visitors. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 4611 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Evolutionary ideas give farmers credit for Indo-European tongues. JOHN WHITFIELD A family tree of Indo-European languages suggests they began to spread and split about 9,000 years ago. The finding hints that farmers in what is now Turkey drove the language boom - and not later Siberian horsemen, as some linguists reckon. Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson, of the University of Auckland in New Zealand use the rate at which words change to gauge the age of the tree's roots - just as biologists estimate a species' age from the rate of gene mutations. The differences between words, or DNA sequences, are a measure of how closely languages, or species, are related. Gray and Atkinson analysed 87 languages from Irish to Afghan. Rather than compare entire dictionaries, they used a list of 200 words that are found in all cultures, such as 'I', 'hunt' and 'sky'. Words are better understood than grammar as a guide to language history; the same sentence structure can arise independently in different tongues. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Language; Evolution
Link ID: 4610 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Drug to prevent lethal overheating may result from protein find. HELEN R. PILCHER Mice that lack a key protein stay cool after ingesting ecstasy1. Therapies to treat potentially fatal overheating associated with the club drug may follow. Estimates based on first-time users of ecstasy range from 1 death in 2,000 to 1 in 50,0002. Most fatalities occur because the body dehydrates and its temperature soars, causing muscle wasting, and heart and kidney failure. Rodents missing a protein called UCP-3 seem to be immune to these toxic effects, new research suggests. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4609 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Background. The hippocampal formation has long been associated with the execution of higher-order cognitive functions, and impairment of this structure following severe stress and aging has been linked to cognitive disturbances. In order to understand the involvement of the hippocampal formation in the mediation of normal and pathological behaviors, much attention has recently been devoted to hippocampal neurogenesis. The dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation has the ability to generate new neurons throughout the entire life. Surviving de novo produced cells develop into granule neurons and integrate into the functional circuitry. Neurogenesis has been proposed to play a role in hippocampal-mediated learning and has been implicated in the appearance of behavioral pathologies associated with the hippocampal formation. Aim of the work. Although evidence suggest that neurogenesis play a role in spatial learning, the effect of learning on cell proliferation remains unclear. The authors generated and tested the hypothesis that different phases of spatial learning measured in the Morris water maze have distinct actions on cell proliferation. In this task, two phases of learning can be distinguished: an early phase during which performance improves rapidly, and a late phase during which asymptotic levels of performance are reached. These two phases seem to involve different brain processes and consequently may differentially influence neurogenesis.

Keyword: Apoptosis; Neurogenesis
Link ID: 4608 - Posted: 11.27.2003

WOMEN who cannot have orgasms can now have a device implanted in their spines that will trigger the sensation for them. Clinical trials of the "orgasmatron" have begun in the US, with the approval of the Food and Drug Administration. The device was the focus of massive media attention two years ago, after New Scientist broke the news of its existence and used the term orgasmatron to describe it (10 February 2001, p 23).But despite all the coverage, few people are volunteering for the trial. "I thought people would be beating my door down to become part of the trial," says Stuart Meloy, the surgeon who patented the treatment. "But so far I am struggling to find people." That does not surprise some experts, who think an implant is too radical a treatment for sexual problems. "Why would you do it invasively if you can do it with a vibrator?" asks Marca Sipski of the University of Miami, who studies sexual function in women with spinal cord injuries. Only one woman has completed the first stage of the trial, and one other is now being signed up. Meloy hopes to find eight more to complete the first stage of the study, in which wires connected to a battery pack are inserted through the skin and into the woman's spinal cord.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 4607 - Posted: 11.27.2003

Being in love is physically similar to the buzz of taking drugs and also has withdrawal symptoms, an expert on addiction has said. Dr John Marsden says dopamine - the drug released by the brain when it is aroused - has similar effects on the body and mind as cocaine or speed. "Attraction and lust really is like a drug. It leaves you wanting more," the National Addiction Centre head said. His findings will appear in a BBC programme to be broadcast next month. "Being attracted to someone sparks the same incredible feelings no matter who you are. Love really does know no boundaries," he said. According to Dr Marsden - a chartered psychologist - the brain which processes emotions becomes "fired up" when talking to someone it finds attractive. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4606 - Posted: 11.26.2003

Larry Arnhart The power of biotechnology for changing human nature has been exaggerated. The most fervent advocates of biotechnology welcome the prospect of using it to transform our nature to make us superhuman. The most fervent critics of biotechnology warn us that its power for transforming our nature will seduce us into a Faustian bargain that will dehumanize us. Both sides agree that biotechnology is leading us to a “posthuman future.” But this assumption is false. It ignores how evolution has shaped the adaptive complexity of our human nature—our bodies, our brains, and our desires—in ways that resist technological manipulation. A Darwinian view of human nature—one truer to the facts of human biology and human experience—reveals the limits of biotechnology, so that we can reject both the redemptive hopes of its advocates and the apocalyptic fears of its critics. Biotechnology will be limited both in its technical means and in its moral ends. It will be limited in its technical means because complex behavioral traits are rooted in the intricate interplay of many genes, which interact with developmental contingencies and unique life histories to form brains that respond flexibly to changing circumstances. Consequently, precise technological manipulation of human nature to enhance desirable traits while avoiding undesirable side effects will be very difficult if not impossible. Biotechnology will also be limited in its moral ends, because the motivation for biotechnological manipulations will come from the same natural desires that have always characterized human nature. In the first issue of The New Atlantis, Leon Kass suggests that if biotechnology were to transform human nature, it would do so to satisfy the human dream of physical and mental perfection—“ageless bodies, happy souls.” But how likely is that? As an indication of what he foresees, Kass says that with drugs, “we can eliminate psychic distress, we can produce states of transient euphoria, and we can engineer more permanent conditions of good cheer, optimism, and contentment.” He refers to those “powerful yet seemingly safe anti-depressant and mood brighteners like Prozac, capable in some people of utterly changing their outlook on life from that of Eeyore to that of Mary Poppins.” Similarly, psychiatrist Peter Kramer—in his best-selling book Listening to Prozac—described patients using Prozac who were not just cured of depression but so transformed in their personalities as to be “better than well.” Shy, quiet people were apparently turned into ebullient and socially engaging people. “Like Garrison Keillor’s marvelous Powdermilk biscuits,” Kramer observed, “Prozac gives these patients the courage to do what needs to be done.” This was the beginning, he concluded, of “cosmetic psychopharmacology,” by which people could use chemicals to take on whatever personality they might prefer.

Keyword: Evolution; Depression
Link ID: 4605 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JERE LONGMAN LANO, Tex., — After recording one save last season, Taylor Hooton expected to join the starting rotation next spring for the baseball team at Plano West Senior High School. "You could count on the kid to throw strikes," said Billy Ajello, Taylor's best friend and a catcher at Plano West, which is located amid the affluent sprawl north of Dallas. By all accounts, Taylor was popular and ebullient. He was a cousin of Burt Hooton, the former major league pitcher, and his brother pitched in college. Next spring, he would make his own mark during his senior season. But on July 15, a month past his 17th birthday, Taylor Hooton killed himself. The authorities ruled the death a suicide by hanging. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Depression
Link ID: 4604 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Coordinated begging extracts more food. JOHN WHITFIELD Children accompanying their parents on Christmas shopping trips: take a tip from black-headed gull chicks, and team up with your siblings to increase pester power. Gull nestlings put aside their differences and coordinate their begging to extract the maximum amount of regurgitated food from mum and dad, French researchers have discovered. It flies in the face of conventional wisdom - children should fight each other for the biggest share of parental care. "Competition should increase with the number of chicks, but that's not what we found," says Nicolas Mathevon of Jean Monnet University in Saint-Etienne. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 4603 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Children usually spill if trying to drink from a full cup, but adults rarely do. How we learn to almost automatically complete complex movements -- like how to lift a cup and tip it so the liquid is right at the edge when we're ready to drink -- is one of our brain's mysterious abilities. Now, by conducting experiments with robots and humans, scientists at Johns Hopkins have solved part of this mystery and created a new computer model that accurately reflects how the brain uses experience to improve motor control. "Now we have a much better idea of how the brain uses information from a variety of sources to create a model of the world around us, and how errors modify that model and change subsequent movements," says Reza Shadmehr, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "We don't just know how to control objects around us, we have to learn how."

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 4602 - Posted: 11.26.2003

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Children with unusually delayed speech tend to listen with the right side of the brain rather than the left side of the brain, according to a study published in the December issue of the journal Radiology. Preliminary study results were presented at the Radiological Society of North America's (RSNA) Annual Meeting in 2002. The research represents the first time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to investigate brain activity associated with speech delay. "With the advent of neuroimaging, we saw a new way of looking at language disorders," said Nolan R. Altman, M.D., co-author of the study and chief of radiology at Miami Children's Hospital. The researchers completed fMRI studies on 17 abnormally speech-delayed children and 35 age-matched children without delayed speech to compare the brain activation patterns between the two groups. To study the brain's reaction to passive language, the children's brains were imaged as they listened to audiotapes of their mothers. The children were between ages 2 and 8 with a mean age of approximately 4 ½ years.

Keyword: Language; Laterality
Link ID: 4601 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Findings suggest olanzapine’s advantages may be limited WEST HAVEN, Conn. - A study at 17 Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals comparing an older, pennies-a-day schizophrenia drug with a newer, far more expensive one found little advantage to the high-ticket drug. The researchers, who report their findings in the November 26 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, say this is the first long-term, rigorously designed experimental study of the newer drug, which boasts U.S. sales of $2 billion annually. The researchers compared haloperidol, one of an older class of schizophrenia drugs called typical antipsychotics, to olanzapine, the most expensive among the newer atypical antipsychotics. Used alone, the older medications are more likely to cause troubling side effects such as tremors and twitches. But the study had doctors prescribe haloperidol as they would ideally in actual practice-accompanied from the outset by another drug, benztropine, to minimize side effects. "We gave the benztropine prophylactically along with the haloperidol, as is needed for a fair and clinically informative comparison," said lead author Robert Rosenheck, MD, director of VA's Northeast Program Evaluation Center in West Haven, Connecticut, and a professor of psychiatry and public health at Yale University Medical School.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 4600 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers tracking the ebb and flow of cognitive function in the human brain have discovered surprising differences in the ability of younger and older adults to shut down a brain network normally active during periods of passive daydreaming. The differences, which are especially pronounced in people with dementia, may provide a clear and powerful new method for diagnosing individuals in the very early stages of Alzheimer's disease. "In young adults, there are parts of the brain that are very active during a passive free-thinking state, but these areas appear to shut down dramatically or 'turn off' when the person is asked to do something," said Cindy Lustig, research team member and post-doctoral fellow in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. "Interestingly, older people, especially those with Alzheimer's disease, don't show this same kind of brain activity during free- thinking, resting conditions." In a study published Nov. 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, Lustig and colleagues detail results of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tests conducted on groups of young adults, older adults and adults experiencing early signs of Alzheimer's-related dementia.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4599 - Posted: 11.26.2003