Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition A spoonful of sugar may no longer be needed to help the medicine go down - it could be replaced by natural compounds that block the taste of bitter substances. The compounds could not only help drug companies make bitter-tasting medicines more palatable, they could also help food manufacturers reduce the vast amounts of sugar, salt and fat they add to most processed foods. Part of the reason these additives make food taste better is that they mask bitter tastes. Biotech firm Linguagen of New York received patent protection for the family of blockers it has discovered in January, and it says there is already interest from food and drug companies. "A major food ingredient company is testing them, and a major pharmaceutical company," says chief operating officer Shawn Marcell. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 3486 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By VIRGINIA POSTREL HERE's a game economists play: Player 1 has $10 and can give any dollar amount to Player 2. Player 2 can either accept or reject it. If Player 2 accepts, they both keep the money. If Player 2 rejects it, neither player gets anything. What should the players do? Arguably, Player 2 should accept whatever is offered, since some money is better than none. Player 1 should thus offer as little as possible: $1. That strategy is the standard game-theory equilibrium. But that's not necessarily what happens when real people play this "ultimatum game" in laboratory settings with real money on the line. Faced with low-ball offers, many Player 2's reject them. And many Player 1's make more generous offers, often nearly half the money. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 3485 - Posted: 02.27.2003

It is natural to suppose that conducting the same tests, with the same strain of mice and the same protocols on identical equipment but in different labs will ensure similar results. A University of Alberta researcher and his team have found that assumption not to be true--fuelling the nature vs. nurture debate and shedding some light on the importance of environmental factors in experiments. Dr. Douglas Wahlsten, from the Department of Psychology, is part of a research team that use mice who share the same genetic make-up to study the relationship among an animal's genetics, environment, and behaviour. In a recent study to determine which kinds of tests done in different laboratories--in Alberta and Oregon--give the same results--Wahlsten and the research team first taught the mice how to use a particular apparatus and then tested motor co-ordination under the influence of alcohol.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3484 - Posted: 02.27.2003

Receptors in the nose that detect scent may need a single metal ion to function. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Of the five basic senses, the sense of smell is the least understood. Now, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have sniffed out potential clues to how olfactory receptors in the nose detect odors. Those clues may also explain why dietary zinc deficiencies lead to a loss of smell. Olfactory receptors are proteins that bridge through the cell membrane. Professor Kenneth S. Suslick and co-workers have found that the structure of the protein changes dramatically when a zinc or copper ion binds to it. They propose that the olfactory response to an odorant involves this change in structure that pushes and pulls part of the olfactory receptor protein into and out of the cell in a "shuttlecock" motion. This back-and-forth motion passes information through the cell membrane. The researchers will report their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A paper on the subject is to appear in the PNAS Online Early Edition the week of Feb. 24. The average human nose can detect nearly 10,000 distinct scents, a feat that requires about 1,000 olfactory genes, or roughly 3 percent of the human genome.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 3483 - Posted: 02.27.2003

By Dr David Whitehouse, BBC News Online science editor Palaeontologists say a new fossil find from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania could simplify our understanding of the origin of humans. The remains of the 1.8-million-year-old hominid are said to rank among the best specimens yet discovered of the earliest members of our genus, Homo. Writing in the journal Science, Rutgers University anthropology Professor Robert Blumenschine says the new fossil shows that at least some of the examples of two early groups of Homo should now be reunited into a single species. (C) BBC

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 3482 - Posted: 02.26.2003

Fragile X Syndrome is a type of mental retardation that seems to affect boys more than girls. “Patients with Fragile X Syndrome show a broad spectrum of cognitive impairment,” says William T. Greenough. “The effects are manifested in everything from language, to motor skills. They are retarded; they are typically well behind in school; and they are physically often very, very clumsy. There is also often a tendency towards autistic behavior.” Greenough is a professor of psychology, psychiatry, and cell and structural biology at the Beckman Institute and the University of Illinois. Since 1991, the scientific community has known that the malfunctioning of a gene called FMR1 blocks the production of the Fragile X protein, and that this is somehow related to Fragile X Syndrome. But according to Michael Tranfaglia, Medical Director of FRAXA (a non-profit, family-run, Fragile X research foundation) it is still unclear how the loss of this protein actually causes the specific symptoms of this syndrome. © ScienCentral, 2000-2003.

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3481 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JANE E. BRODY Despite widespread belief among both doctors and lay people that cerebral palsy results from lack of oxygen to the baby's brain during labor and delivery, a new report says that birth asphyxia alone accounts for 10 percent of cases at most. The study found that the vast majority of children who develop cerebral palsy experience prenatal problems, including maternal infections, clotting disorders and strokes, that damage the developing brain long before labor begins. The findings were described yesterday at a news conference in Albany held by the New York division of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which has been concerned about the growing unwillingness of doctors to practice obstetrics because of litigation risks, skyrocketing jury awards and soaring rates of malpractice insurance. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 3480 - Posted: 02.26.2003

CHAPEL HILL -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has named Drs. Linda Buck and Richard Axel co-recipients of the third annual Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize. Buck is a member of the basic sciences division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and affiliate professor at the University of Washington. Axel is University professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University. Both scientists are Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators. The prize carries a $10,000 award and is given to recognize a seminal achievement in the field of neuroscience. Previous awardees were Dr. David Julius from the University of California at San Francisco and Dr. Roderick MacKinnon from Rockefeller University.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 3479 - Posted: 02.26.2003

By Louis Charbonneau VIENNA, Austria (Reuters) - The use of synthetic drugs like ecstasy is booming among the party-goers of the rich world, the United Nations said Wednesday. The U.N. International Narcotics Control Board also said Afghanistan was back as top producer of opium used for heroin, making some 3,500 tons in 2002, 100 tons more than in 2001. "Synthetic drugs like ecstasy could become the main illicit drugs of the future," it said in its report for 2002. © 2003 Reuters

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 3478 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service The traditionally "female" hormone progesterone makes male mice aggressive towards their offspring, shows a new gene knockout study. It overturns the textbook view that testosterone prompts males to threaten their pups. US researchers made the discovery after silencing the actions of progesterone in male mice. They did this by knocking out the gene which makes progesterone receptors, molecules which enable cells to respond to the hormone. This dramatically reduced aggression and enhanced paternal behaviour when infants were placed near their fathers. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Aggression
Link ID: 3477 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Opponents of proposed UC Davis facility go ape over security breach Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writer The escape of a small gray and tan monkey from a UC Davis medical research center may threaten a proposed high-security lab on campus to study deadly infectious organisms such as anthrax and smallpox that could be used as terrorist weapons. The 4-pound rhesus macaque monkey vanished two weeks ago as her cage was being cleaned at the California National Primate Research Center, where she was used for breeding purposes and was "disease free," according to the university. But the primate's disappearance is raising grave concerns among the many opponents of a proposed $150 million biocontainment facility that would be entrusted to study the world's most dangerous diseases. ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 3476 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NATALIE ANGIER This year, the genetic revolution that James D. Watson and Francis Crick ushered in with their discovery of the structure of DNA celebrates its 50th birthday. The molecule that for so long exemplified youthful bravado, vast promise and vaster self-regard has become another aging, pot-bellied baby boomer. In the view of some biologists, nothing would better suit the DNA industry than a genuine midlife crisis, a realization that this most mythologized of bio-abbreviations may not, after all, be the fulcrum around which the Milky Way wheels. As these biologists see it, DNA may be elegant, but it often has been accorded far greater powers than it possesses. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3475 - Posted: 02.25.2003

Many gene mutations can extend life--at least in fruit flies. Although most of these life-extending mutations cause crippling side effects, researchers now report that the most potent longevity mutation known leaves flies relatively vigorous. In 2000, molecular geneticist Stephen Helfand of the University of Connecticut in Farmington and colleagues discovered that a mutated "Indy" gene (the name is an acronym for the line "I'm not dead yet" from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail ) nearly doubled the average lifetime of flies to roughly 70 days. That was a promising improvement--previously discovered mutations extended life by only 35% to 80% and most drastically curtailed metabolic rates, physical activity, or fecundity. Not so for the Indy mutants, Helfand and colleagues report online 24 February in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . The mutant flies exhaled just as much carbon dioxide as normal flies, they found, indicating a comparable metabolic rate. And digital movies revealed that they flew at least as fast as normal flies. In addition, the mutants had 10% to 20% higher egg-laying rates than normal flies when fed high-calorie diets. However, on lower calorie diets that approximate what flies eat in the wild, egg laying was cut in half. "This could be why this mutation does not dominate in the wild," Helfand says. Copyright © 2003 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3474 - Posted: 06.24.2010

EVANSTON, Ill. -- In an unexpected discovery, a team led by Northwestern University scientists has become the first to show that progesterone, a hormone usually associated with female reproduction and maternal behavior, plays a key role in regulating male aggression toward infants in mice. Testosterone, not progesterone, had been thought to be responsible. The researchers found that the absence of progesterone's actions reduced aggression while promoting positive paternal behavior. The findings, to be published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of Feb. 24, suggest a new approach to studying an area of biology that has been poorly understood. "We discovered that the hormone progesterone and its receptor are important in males, not just females," said Jon E. Levine, professor of neurobiology and physiology, who led the provocative study. "Paternal behavior may be based in the same biology as maternal behavior."

Keyword: Aggression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 3473 - Posted: 02.25.2003

For the first time, researchers have shown that the brains of dyslexic children can be rewired - after undergoing intensive remediation training - to function more like those found in normal readers. The training program, which is designed to help dyslexics understand rapidly changing sounds that are the building blocks of language, helped the participants become better readers after just eight weeks. The findings were released Monday in ``Neural deficits in children with dyslexia ameliorated by behavioral remediation: Evidence from functional MRI,`` published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.

Keyword: Dyslexia
Link ID: 3472 - Posted: 02.25.2003

Toni Baker Dr. Paul Sohal, developmental biologist at the Medical College of Georgia, is exploring the potential for a possible new cell type he's found that is capable of making all four of the major human tissues.] A cell type with the potential for making the four major types of human tissue has been found in the stomach and small intestine by a Medical College of Georgia researcher. These VENT cells have been found in addition to the three sources of cells typically associated with gastrointestinal development, says Dr. Paul Sohal, MCG developmental biologist, who first identified these cells nearly a decade ago. Identification of VENT -- ventrally emigrating neural tube -- cells within the stomach and small intestine is another piece in Dr. Sohal’s effort to fully define and describe the cells that he first found migrating out from the neural tube of a chick embryo. Copyright 2003 Medical College of Georgia All rights reserved.

Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 3471 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rob Stein, Washington Post Staff Writer For as long as she can remember, Laurie Lucchina was kind of strange about food. Sweets, like cheesecake and ice cream, were too rich for her. Spicy food was so hot it felt as if it was literally burning her mouth. She didn't just dislike many vegetables -- they made her sick. "There were a lot of foods I really didn't like," said Lucchina. "I was always a skinny kid." It wasn't until years later that Lucchina discovered she wasn't just a picky eater. Lucchina is a "supertaster" -- born with a genetic trait that makes her extremely sensitive to certain tastes. © 2003 The Washington Post Company

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 3470 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Males impress mates with gaudy décor. JOHN WHITFIELD Fish like flash, researchers have discovered. Give a male stickleback some shiny baubles and he'll decorate his nest with them - females prefer males with colourful abodes. In the lab, males' favourite knick-knacks seem to be red foil sticks, report ecologists Sara Östlund-Nilsson and Mikael Holmlund of the University of Oslo in Norway - they offered the fish blue beads, and blue and silver foil sticks, as well as the red ones1. Females spent nearly 90% of their time inspecting gaudy nests rather than plain ones. In the wild, male three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) weave tunnels from pondweed or twigs. Females lay their eggs in these tunnels, and tend them until they hatch. © Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 3469 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ARTHUR P. GROLLMAN, M.D. An elite athlete has once again succumbed to the extraordinary promises of weight loss coupled with enhanced performance made by the manufacturers of an ephedra-related product and paid the ultimate price. This time, it was the Baltimore Orioles pitching prospect Steve Bechler, 23, who died last Monday, leaving a wife who was pregnant with the couple's first child. Before this latest death, the Minnesota Vikings star Korey Stringer, the Northwestern University football player Rashidi Wheeler and the Florida State linebacker Devaughn Darling had used supplements containing ephedra before their untimely demises. How many more deaths of young, apparently healthy athletes will have to happen before all sports organizations — from amateur to professional — officially ban ephedra-related supplements? Ephedra has been banned by the N.C.A.A., the N.F.L. and the International Olympic Committee, but what about Major League Baseball, the N.B.A. and numerous other athletic associations? They have all had the opportunity to tighten their drug policies but have continually failed to do so. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 3468 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By LAUREN SLATER You've been in therapy for years.You've time-traveled back to your childhood home, to your mother's makeup mirror with its ring of pearl lights. You've uncovered, or recovered, the bad baby sitter, his hands on you, and yet still, you're no better. You feel foggy and low; you flinch at intimate touch; you startle at even the slightest sounds, and you are impaired. Hundreds of sessions of talk have led you here, back to the place you started, even though you've followed all advice. You have self-soothed and dredged up; you have cried and curled up; you have aimed for integration in your fractured, broken brain. This is common, the fractured, broken brain and the uselessness of talk therapy to make it better. A study done by H.J. Eysenck in 1952, a study that still causes some embarrassment to the field, found that psychotherapy in general helped no more, no less, than the slow passing of time. As for insight, no one has yet demonstrably proved that it is linked to recovery. What actually does help is anyone's best guess -- probably some sort of fire, directly under your behind -- and what leads to relief? Maybe love and work, maybe medicine. Maybe repression. Repression? Isn't that the thing that makes you sick, that splits you off, so demons come dancing back? Doesn't that cause holes in the stomach and chancres in the colon and a general impoverishment of spirit? Maybe not. New research shows that some traumatized people may be better off repressing the experience than illuminating it in therapy. If you're stuck and scared, perhaps you should not remember but forget. Avoid. That's right. Tamp it down. Up you go. The new research is rooted in part in the experience of Sept. 11, when swarms of therapists descended on New York City after the twin towers fell. There were, by some estimates, three shrinks for every victim, which is itself an image you might want to repress, the bearded, the beatnik, the softly empathic all gathered round the survivors urging talk talk talk. ''And what happened,'' says Richard Gist, a community psychologist and trauma researcher who, along with a growing number of colleagues, has become highly critical of these debriefing procedures, ''is some people got worse. They were either unhelped or retraumatized by our interventions.'' Gist, who is an associate professor at the University of Missouri and who has been on hand to help with disasters from the collapse of the Hyatt Regency pedestrian skywalks in Kansas City, Mo., in 1981 to the United Airlines crash in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989, has had time to develop his thoughts regarding how, or how not, to help in times of terror. ''Basically, all these therapists run down to the scene, and there's a lot of grunting and groaning and encouraging people to review what they saw, and then the survivors get worse. I've been saying for years, 'Is it any surprise that if you keep leading people to the edge of a cliff they eventually fall over?''' Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stress; Depression
Link ID: 3467 - Posted: 02.23.2003