By DAVID GONZALEZ CANCÚN, Mexico — Thousands of tourists come here every year to swim with dolphins, expecting mystical encounters or unmatched educational experiences. Whether at water parks or even at a mall, the price for an hour's swim is about $100 — not counting the videos, photographs, T-shirts or dolls to commemorate fleeting moments riding atop the snouts of two sleek creatures. But the real cost is much higher, according to a growing international protest movement of environmentalists and animal rights advocates who say there is nothing educational about turning wild animals into lucrative rides and who are outraged over the recent deaths of two captive dolphins at an amusement park. Their past protests led the Mexican government to ban the capture of local dolphins, and the legislature is considering prohibiting imports as well. Now the protesters have turned the tourist-rich Yucatán Peninsula, where there are now nine swim programs, into the front lines of the dolphin wars. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 4323 - Posted: 06.24.2010

More education and research needed to help all groups improve quality of life ANN ARBOR, MI – No matter what its cause, pain of any kind can place a serious burden on a person's ability to work, play and live life. But this burden of pain is heavier for some than for others – and a new research paper finds that members of racial and ethnic minorities often bear the worst of it. The paper, written by a panel of top pain experts and based on a survey of more than 180 pain-related studies from a broad range of specialties, documents a phenomenon that pain specialists have long suspected but don't fully understand. The authors pull together research on racial and ethnic disparities in the perception, diagnosis and treatment of pain in locations ranging from the emergency department to the cancer clinic, and in conditions ranging from chronic pain to acute pain induced in laboratory experiments.

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 4322 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service Carnivores with large home ranges have worse reactions to being caged than those that roam less widely in the wild, according to a major study of zoo animal welfare. The researchers conclude that wide-ranging carnivores should not be kept in captivity. "If we can't keep them well then don't keep them at all," says Ros Clubb at Oxford University, UK, who compiled the research. Scientists have suggested before that range size is important, but the new work is the first to show this with comprehensive data. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 4321 - Posted: 06.24.2010

ST. PAUL, MN – Treating Guillain-Barré syndrome early may speed up the recovery time, according to a guideline developed by the American Academy of Neurology. The guideline is published in the September 23 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Treatment should begin within two to four weeks after the first symptoms appear. Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) causes rapid onset of weakness and often paralysis of the legs, arms, face and breathing muscles. It is the most common cause of rapidly acquired paralysis in the United States, affecting between one and four people in every 100,000 each year. Guillain-Barré is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks the nervous system. The human body produces proteins called antibodies to fight off infections. In GBS, the body produces extra antibodies that become misdirected and attack and damage the nerves.

Keyword: Movement Disorders
Link ID: 4320 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Of all the questions we ask about our minds, "why can't I remember?" is perhaps one of the most frequent. A new BBC television series, 'The Human Mind' sets out to find an answer - and for tips it turns to one man for whom forgetfulness is not a problem at all. Andi Bell has ten shuffled packs of playing cards placed in front of him and is given just 20 minutes to memorise the order of every single card - all 520. When he is tested, Andi - the 2002 world memory champion - correctly remembers the position in the packs and the value of every single card he is tested on. So how does he do it? Andi's technique is an unusual but simple one. Long before taking on any memory challenge he walks past a set of London landmarks, establishing the route firmly in his mind. He might start at the Houses of Parliament, before continuing to the London Eye via Westmister Bridge. (C) BBC

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 4319 - Posted: 10.01.2003

By MARK DERR The small Borneo elephant represents the last remnant of an ancient lineage, a team of international biologists has determined. The finding, based on DNA samples, overturns a long-held prevailing theory of the animals' origins: that they were descended from domesticated elephants that reverted to the wild. Instead, the elephant, isolated in the tropical rain forests of northeastern Borneo, has followed an independent evolutionary path for at least 18,000 years, and probably longer, the scientists conclude. In the process, it has become genetically distinct from other Asian elephants, the experts say, based on extensive comparisons of elephant DNA obtained across Asia. The report appears in the October issue of The Public Library of Science, Biology, a new peer-reviewed, online journal that was created as a free alternative to established journals that allow access only to subscribers. (Their paper was posted in advance of its publication at biology .plosjournals.org.) Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 4318 - Posted: 10.01.2003

-- Findings of a Dartmouth Medical School study may provide a step for treating as well as understanding an incurable debilitating eye disease that can eventually lead to blindness. The research targets the mutation of a specific gene that can trigger retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a hereditary disease that affects 1.5 million people worldwide, many of whom are legally blind by the age of 40. The study, appearing in the October 3 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, highlights research conducted on the gene rhodopsin, a protein located in the back of the eye that is credited with helping sight in dim or low-light conditions. It is one of several proteins in the retina that controls how light is detected. The mutation linked to RP can be traced to the photoreceptor, rhodopsin. A single mutation, state the researchers, can cause a cascade of retinal events that leads to retinitis pigmentosa and eventual blindness. "We wanted to concentrate on the reasons why rhodopsin is prone to misfold; that way we have the best chance of correcting that distortion before the disease can worsen," said lead author, John Hwa, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School. Copyright © 1992-2003 Bio Online, Inc.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 4317 - Posted: 06.24.2010

St. Louis-- A team led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, in collaboration with researchers at Eli Lilly and Co. in Indianapolis, have developed a new technique that, for the first time, provides a way to dynamically study proteins known to be related to Alzheimer's disease in the fluid between brain cells, called interstitial fluid. Using this new technique in mice, the team discovered that the relationship between levels of a key molecule involved in Alzheimer's disease, amyloid-beta (ABeta), in interstitial fluid and cerebrospinal fluid changes as the disease progresses. Cerebrospinal fluid -– the fluid that cushions and surrounds the brain – is a main focus in efforts to diagnose and possibly treat Alzheimer's disease. "The most exciting part of this study is that we now have a way to measure a pool of ABeta that previously could not be evaluated," says John R. Cirrito, a graduate student in neuroscience. "Using this new approach, we were able to identify another difference between young mice that have not yet developed Alzheimer's-like changes and those that have developed Alzheimer's-like brain changes, which provides a new opportunity to explore the development of this disease."

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4316 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Creative people more open to stimuli from environment by Jessica Whiteside -- Psychologists from U of T and Harvard University have identified one of the biological bases of creativity The study in the September issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology says the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment. Other people's brains might shut out this same information through a process called "latent inhibition" - defined as an animal's unconscious capacity to ignore stimuli that experience has shown are irrelevant to its needs. Through psychological testing, the researchers showed that creative individuals are much more likely to have low levels of latent inhibition. "This means that creative individuals remain in contact with the extra information constantly streaming in from the environment," says co-author and U of T psychology professor Jordan Peterson. "The normal person classifies an object, and then forgets about it, even though that object is much more complex and interesting than he or she thinks. The creative person, by contrast, is always open to new possibilities."

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Intelligence
Link ID: 4315 - Posted: 10.01.2003

STANFORD, Calif. - A good night's sleep may be one weapon in the fight against cancer, according to researchers at Stanford University Medical Center. Their work is among the first to piece together the link between mental well-being and cancer recovery. Previous studies have found people with cancer who go through group therapy or have a strong social network fare better than those with weaker social support. The question has been how psychosocial factors exert their influence on cancer cells. David Spiegel, MD, the Jack, Lulu and Sam Willson Professor in the School of Medicine, and Sandra Sephton, PhD, Spiegel's former postdoctoral fellow now at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, suggest that a person's sleep/wake cycle might be the connection. Their work will be published in the October issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. "Psychosocial factors affect your behavior patterns, such as exercise, what you eat and drink, and your sleep," Spiegel said. Of these factors, how well you sleep can seriously alter the balance of hormones in your body. This makes the sleep/wake cycle, also called the circadian rhythm, a good candidate for linking a person's social network to their cancer prognosis.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 4314 - Posted: 10.01.2003

Scientists have found out more information about how quickly very young children learn. They did it by tracking the eye movements of infants. As this ScienCentral News video reports, they found out that infants do indeed learn very quickly. At first, an infant doesn’t comprehend that if his mom leaves the room, she's going to come back. But eventually, babies do learn what psychologists call "object permanence" or "object concept." "The term has traditionally been used to describe sort of everyday common sense notions of how objects normally behave in the world,” explains Scott Johnson, a psychology professor at New York University . "If I were to take my keys out of my pocket, drop them on the floor, turn around walk somewhere else, and then come back, I would know that they would be on the floor and could pick them up and put them back in my pocket. I know that my keys still exist even though I can't see them, can't hear them, I'm not in physical contact with them. That's an object concept." © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 4313 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War may be more than twice as likely to be stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease than members of the general population are, new findings suggest. What is more, the condition often strikes vets sooner than those who did not serve, according to the results of two studies published in the current issue of the journal Neurology. Some soldiers who completed tours of duty during the first Gulf conflict complained of ill health after their return home. Gulf War syndrome, which lists fatigue, joint pain, depression, balance problems and diarrhea among its symptoms, was first diagnosed in 1997 and is said to be linked to exposure to toxic chemicals. That same year, Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center began investigating a potential connection between time served in the Persian Gulf and Lou Gehrig's disease--amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)--after receiving a request from a 35-year-old veteran suffering from the fatal affliction. The researchers located 17 veterans under the age of 45 who were diagnosed with ALS between 1991 and 1998. Of these individuals, five were diagnosed in 1998--in contrast to the 1.38 cases expected for an age group of this size. "The increasing slope of the epidemic curve beginning three years after the Gulf War and still increasing in 1998 further supports a true excess. © 1996-2003 Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease
Link ID: 4312 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The agonizing mental decline caused by Alzheimer's disease currently affects more than four million Americans. Although scientists are slowly beginning to understand the condition and its causes, it remains untreatable. Findings published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest a new approach to treating the disease: using a drug known to be successful against a rare blood cancer. The drug Gleevec was approved for treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) in May of 2001. Paul Greengard of Rockefeller University and his colleagues investigated whether the drug can curtail the production of beta-amyloid, which forms the basis of the toxic plaques that interfere with brain function in people suffering from Alzheimer's. The researchers tested Gleevec in immature rat neurons and cultured human cells and found that levels of beta-amyloid decreased compared to control cells. What is more, the drug had a similar effect in live guinea pigs that have amyloid peptides comparable to those found in humans, with declines of up to 50 percent relative to control animals reported. © 1996-2003 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 4311 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Kenneth J. Bender, Pharm.D., M.A. A clinical trial of olanzapine (Zyprexa) to determine whether early intervention can delay or prevent onset of psychosis in prodromally symptomatic patients is underway (McGlashan et al., 2003). Prevention Through Risk Identification Management and Education (PRIME) is being conducted at four sites: Yale University; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the University of Toronto; and Foothills Hospital, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Although a prodromal phase of psychotic illness is usually recognized in retrospect after the first psychotic break, study investigators have employed new criteria to diagnose and treat prodromal patients. Sixty study subjects were identified through responders to advertisements about mental illness development or through referrals from practitioners and health services receiving study recruitment materials on early intervention. The PRIME study is the first randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of an atypical antipsychotic in this newly defined clinical population. The study incorporates long-term phases with and without medication to ascertain rate of psychotic-onset conversion in this population, as well as the safety and efficacy of antipsychotic intervention at this stage of illness development. © 2003 Psychiatric Times. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Schizophrenia
Link ID: 4310 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JANE E. BRODY For all that has been written and spoken about addiction as a medical disease, most people, including most physicians, understand little about what draws people to drugs and keeps them hooked, often despite severe consequences and repeated attempts to quit. A better understanding of the pull and tug of addiction can help those who are hooked and those who want the monkey off their backs for good. The savings in life-years, quality of life and lost income can be huge, not to mention the costs of drug-instigated crime and medical care. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 4309 - Posted: 09.30.2003

David Salt, ABC Science Online — A person's mental ability as a child could well be an indicator of their chances of surviving to a ripe old age, according to a landmark study which has followed up on surveys carried out in the first half of the last century. Professor Ian Deary from the Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, presented findings of an ongoing investigation during a two-day symposium on aging held last week at the Australian National University. "This is by far the longest follow-up study of mental ability differences in the scientific literature," said Deary, who led the research. The study was remarkable because it spanned a long time period, included a large number of people and managed to get around some of the problems faced by previous studies into how age affects mental ability. Copyright © 2003 Discovery Communications Inc.

Keyword: Intelligence
Link ID: 4308 - Posted: 06.24.2010

But OHSU researcher says jump in BDNF, neurogenesis may not be beneficial PORTLAND, Ore. – Exercise enthusiasts have more reasons to put on their running shoes in the morning, but an Oregon Health & Science University scientist says they shouldn't step up their work-outs just yet. A study published today in the journal Neuroscience, journal of the International Brain Research Organization, confirmed that exercise increases the chemical BDNF – brain-derived neurotrophic factor – in the hippocampus, a curved, elongated ridge in the brain that controls learning and memory. BDNF is involved in protecting and producing neurons in the hippocampus. "When you exercise, it's been shown you release BDNF," said study co-author Justin Rhodes, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience at OHSU's School of Medicine and at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Portland. "BDNF helps support and strengthen synapses in the brain. We find that exercise increases these good things."

Keyword: Trophic Factors
Link ID: 4307 - Posted: 06.24.2010

STANFORD, Calif. - Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have identified a genetic marker that can explain why some people experience side effects to common antidepressants while others do not. They also found that a key liver enzyme involved in breaking down these antidepressants surprisingly played no role in the development of side effects nor in how well the drugs worked. The findings may lead to fewer side effects for patients undergoing antidepressant drug therapy. "Antidepressants are among the most widely prescribed medications in the world," said lead author Greer Murphy Jr., MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. "One of the mysteries at this point is why some people get debilitating side effects and others don't." To start solving the mystery, Murphy and Alan Schatzberg, MD, the Kenneth T. Norris Jr. Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, wanted to find differences among patients in the function of proteins - and the genes that encode those proteins - that could account for the varied response to drug treatment. Their findings appear in the October issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Keyword: Depression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 4306 - Posted: 09.30.2003

-- Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have linked a defective protein in Huntington's disease to gridlock in the transportation system that moves signals and vital protein cargoes within the brain, eventually leading to neuron cell death. Published in the September 25, 2003 issue of the journal Neuron, their studies in Drosophila, the fruit fly, showed that a protein called huntingtin is critical for normal neuronal transportation. When the protein is defective, however, it appears to physically blocks traffic in the narrow axons that are the long pipes of the nerve cells. Although defective huntingtin genes have previously been linked to Huntington's disease, this is the first study to illustrate that the defective protein may cause neuronal damage by aggregating (sticking together) and blocking axonal traffic. Copyright © 1992-2003 Bio Online, Inc.

Keyword: Huntingtons
Link ID: 4305 - Posted: 06.24.2010

New Haven, Conn. -- Midlife postmenopausal women who received daily treatment with estrogen showed improved oral reading and verbal memory performance, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the September issue of the journal Menopause. "This is the first study to specifically examine the effect of estrogen on reading ability," said principal investigator Sally Shaywitz, M.D., professor of pediatrics and in the Yale Child Study Center . Most of the research examining the association between estrogen use and cognitive function has focused on global, more non-specific, mental status or memory as the principal outcome. "The study also shows that estrogen may benefit younger postmenopausal women engaged in everyday activities, such as reading," Shaywitz added. "It should encourage physicians caring for postmenopausal women to inquire about and take seriously concerns about difficulties in reading and in memory."

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 4304 - Posted: 09.25.2003