IF YOUR daughter starts puberty early, you might want to check her shampoo. Unbeknown to many parents, a few hair products-especially some marketed to black people-contain small amounts of hormones that could cause premature sexual development in girls. The evidence that hair products containing oestrogens cause premature puberty is largely circumstantial, and the case is still unproven. But Ella Toombs, acting director for the Office of Cosmetics and Colors at the US Food and Drug Administration, told New Scientist: "No amount [of oestrogen] is considered safe and can be included in an over-the-counter product." Under FDA regulations, over-the-counter products containing hormones are drugs, and thus require specific approval. However, there appears to be a grey area regarding products marketed before 1994. The FDA failed to respond to a request to clarify the position. At least five companies are still making hormone-containing hair products, a source within the industry-who preferred not to be named-told New Scientist.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 1807 - Posted: 04.05.2002

EAST LANSING, Mich. - On appearance alone, one wonders how the eel-like sea lamprey could ever get a date. Now scientists at Michigan State University have made ground-breaking discoveries of how male lampreys attract mates. According to a paper published in the April 5 edition of Science Magazine, Weiming Li, MSU assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife, and his research team have devised revolutionary new methods to isolate and understand the chemicals that the fish release to lure females. Their discoveries have the potential to lead to new ways to control sea lamprey populations in areas where they are destroying sport fish populations. The research also could help boost populations in places where lampreys are considered a delicacy.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste); Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 1806 - Posted: 04.05.2002

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - Results from the first head-to-head study comparing ARICEPT® (donepezil HCl tablets) and Reminyl® (galantamine HBr tablets) demonstrated significantly greater improvements in cognition and activities of daily living (ADLs) in mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients treated with ARICEPT® vs. Reminyl®. ARICEPT-treated patients showed significant benefit over patients receiving Reminyl® as measured by the modified 13-item Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive subscale (modified ADAS-cog), achieved significant improvements on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and had significantly greater improvements in ADLs, as measured by the Disability Assessment for Dementia (DAD) scale total score. The study was primarily designed to evaluate safety and tolerability. The first-ever presentation of these data took place at the 7th International Geneva/Springfield Symposium on Advances in Alzheimer Therapy (AAT) in Geneva, Switzerland. "By comparing two available Alzheimer's disease medications, physicians now have clinical evidence that will help them prescribe the most appropriate treatment for their patients," said study investigator Roy Jones, MD, Research Institute for the Care of the Elderly, St Martin's Hospital, Bath, United Kingdom.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 1805 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Copyright © 2002 AP Online By ANDREW BRIDGES, AP Science Writer - Illnesses as diverse as Alzheimer's, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and adult-onset diabetes may be caused by proteins that fold themselves into defective shapes rather than proteins that have undergone harmful chemical changes, new research suggests. As they develop, these aberrant protein forms can clump together and wreak molecular havoc on healthy cells, according to two studies in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Previously, scientists believed that misfolding was an unusual occurrence limited to perhaps 20 or more protein types. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Prions; Alzheimers
Link ID: 1804 - Posted: 06.24.2010

As a Google user, you're familiar with the speed and accuracy of a Google search. How exactly does Google manage to find the right results for every query as quickly as it does? The heart of Google's search technology is PigeonRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. Building upon the breakthrough work of B. F. Skinner, Page and Brin reasoned that low cost pigeon clusters (PCs) could be used to compute the relative value of web pages faster than human editors or machine-based algorithms. And while Google has dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of our service on a daily basis, PigeonRank continues to provide the basis for all of our web search tools. Why Google's patented PigeonRank™ works so well PigeonRank's success relies primarily on the superior trainability of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia) and its unique capacity to recognize objects regardless of spatial orientation. The common gray pigeon can easily distinguish among items displaying only the minutest differences, an ability that enables it to select relevant web sites from among thousands of similar pages. ©2002 Google

Keyword: Vision; Robotics
Link ID: 1802 - Posted: 06.24.2010

At issue: What inflamed patients' brains? By Douglas Steinberg One cutting-edge neuroscience issue is whether a vaccine can cure Alzheimer disease (AD). A much-ballyhooed clinical trial recently sought an answer. But a mistrial was soon declared, and scientific sleuths now face a fresh mystery: Why did 15 trial subjects get sick? The vaccine, developed by Elan Corp., contained Ab, the peptide widely believed to trigger AD by forming brain-clogging amyloid plaques. When Elan researchers vaccinated transgenic mice that had developed AD-like pathology, plaques melted away. Two-and-a-half years of animal experiments yielded further encouraging results. The vaccine prevented and possibly reversed cognitive deficits.1 Last September, Dublin-based Elan and its partner, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, began a Phase II trial of the vaccine, AN-1792, injecting 375 mildly to moderately afflicted AD patients. In mid-January, the companies suspended further dosing because four patients showed signs of central nervous system inflammation. On March 1, the companies halted the study after 11 more troubling cases turned up. The Scientist 16[7]:22, Apr. 1, 2002 © Copyright 2002, The Scientist, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 1801 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Sleepless nights are the bane of every new parent's life. But in some cases the nightmare drags on for years, not months. Jane Elliott spoke to one mother about her battle for sleep. For two years Holly Muirhead kept her parents awake. Refusing to sleep in her own bed, crying and staying awake, she was not an easy child. Her mother Alison didn't have a life of her own. Holly needed constant attention at night and the one time her mother did try leaving her with a baby sitter she cried so much she made herself sick. Holly ruled the roost and her sleeping patterns looked set to ensure she remained an only child. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sleep; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 1800 - Posted: 03.30.2002

Mind-altering drugs may be so popular because they were once used by our ancestors to survive, two leading anthropologists have argued. Dr Roger Sullivan, of the University of Auckland, and Edward Hagen, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, say there is plenty of evidence that humans have sought out so-called psychotropic drugs over millions of years. These plants are rich in alkaline substances such as nicotine and cocaine that produce a stimulant effect and may have helped to make life bearable in the most harsh of environments. For example, until recently Australian Aborigines used the nicotine-rich plant pituri to help them endure desert travel without food. And Andeans still chew coca leaves to help them work at high altitudes. (C) BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Evolution
Link ID: 1799 - Posted: 03.30.2002

Bruce Bower Archaeologists, by definition, uncover the remnants of past human activity. With the first excavation of chimpanzee stone tools at an African site, however, the scope of their work has entered virgin terrain. Chimps transported suitable pieces of stone to the undated site and used them to crack open nuts placed on thick tree roots, according to Julio Mercader of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "At least some wild chimpanzees have produced stone [artifacts] and left behind an archaeological record of their nut-cracking behavior," says Mercader, who directed the excavation. He described the recent discoveries at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society, held last week in Denver. From Science News, Vol. 161, No. 13, March 30, 2002, p. 195. Copyright ©2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 1798 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The case has long baffled medical researchers. The years following World War II saw a sharp rise in the incidence of a rare brain disease called lytico-bodig among the Chamorro people of Guam. Until 1970, the disease--whose effects include dementia, the slow paralysis associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and the tremors of Parkinson's disease--struck more than a hundred times more often than other types of ALS elsewhere. New research suggests that the consumption of toxin-laden bat meat was to blame. The leading hypothesis had focused on flour ground from toxin-containing seeds of cycad plants. However, lab animals that were fed the flour failed to develop neurological disease. In the March 26 issue of Neurology, ethnobotanist Paul Cox, director of the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kalaheo, Hawaii, and neurologist Oliver Sacks of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City point the finger at another possible culprit. They blame the Chamorros' consumption of "flying foxes," bats that ingest large quantities of the seeds and store the toxins in their fat. Copyright © 2002 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 1797 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tampa, FL — Researchers at the University of South Florida's Roskamp Institute have identified an immune molecule, CD40, on the surface of neurons that appears to promote both neuron development and protection. The finding is a first step in defining the role of CD40 in the brain at different stages of life and evaluating its usefulness in helping neurons survive. The study is published in the latest March issue of the journal European Molecular Biology Organization. In the bloodstream, the interaction between the protein receptor CD40 and another protein, CD40 ligand (CD40L), allows white cells to trigger antibody production and to activate cellular immunity. This immune response helps neutralize foreign invaders, such as bacteria and viruses. However, in an earlier study, the USF reseachers found that when this same CD40-CD40L signaling system is triggered in the brain, the immune response can cause microglia damage to neurons.

Keyword: Glia; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 1796 - Posted: 06.24.2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla.---Scientists report this week they have demonstrated that the injection of two corrective genes into a specific brain region generated significant restoration of normal limb movement in rats with a chemical-induced form of Parkinson’s disease. The findings – by a team of researchers from the University of Florida in Gainesville and Lund University in Lund, Sweden – are published in the current online version of the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Neuroscientists Anders Bjorklund of Sweden and Ronald Mandel with UF said the strategy that proved effective in the rodents is not a cure for Parkinson’s disease, but is expected to lead to a better method for delaying and controlling symptoms of the progressively disabling condition. About 1 million Americans are affected by Parkinson’s disease, which occurs most often between the ages of 65 and 90. "We found that the simultaneous delivery of two selected genes, coupled with a powerful gene-activating agent, works like a pump to prime the production of L-dopa, which is then converted into dopamine by appropriate nerve cells in the brain," said Mandel, a professor of neuroscience with UF’s Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute and the UF Genetics Institute. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter chemical that plays a lead role in coordinating limb movements.

Keyword: Parkinsons
Link ID: 1795 - Posted: 06.24.2010

DIFFERENT SOUND DIMENSIONS INTERACT AND LEAD TO DISTORTED PERCEPTIONS Increasingly popular auditory "displays" may require further research to ensure their effectiveness WASHINGTON - From the classroom to the cockpit, a burgeoning number of devices use sound -- whether in the form of beeps, clicks, alarms or tones -- to tell people what's happening in bodies, structures and machines. These devices translate data changes into corresponding sound changes, guiding everyone from nurses and surgeons to jet pilots -- sometimes in critical or life-threatening situations. However, new research reveals that people misperceive how sounds change when both their pitch and loudness change, as often happens with these devices. Listeners can't accurately judge how the sounds' changes reflect changes in the underlying data -- and may, as a result, make serious mistakes. The research appears in the March issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 1794 - Posted: 03.29.2002

By DANA CANEDY MIAMI, — For Connie Standley, the final indignity came when the manager of a fast food restaurant asked why she was bringing her service dogs into his business in the Florida panhandle when she was obviously not blind. "He kept saying to me that these are not guide dogs," Ms. Standley, who has epilepsy, recalled of a trip home from the Grand Canyon last year. "I said, `No, they are seizure-alert dogs,' and he kept on saying he has never heard of that and `I don't want you in here.' " For the rest of the trip, she ate in her car. In the seven years since she bought her first service dog, Ms. Standley, who lives in Eustis, about 30 miles northwest of Orlando, has had to explain countless times that she relies on Alex, an 80-pound black Bouvier des Flandres, to keep her safe. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 1793 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It is amazing how our eyes adapt to let us see in hugely differing light conditions, from almost complete darkness to blinding sunlight. It is almost as if they had built-in sunglasses. Two papers in today's issue of Neuron provide striking insights into the molecular nature of this important phenomenon, with converging experimental evidence from work in rats and flies. The first step in “seeing” happens in the eye. It is there that light hits the specialized photoreceptor cells of the retina and is captured by complexes of proteins that convert the captured light energy into an electrical signal that is ultimately carried to the brain. (Reference: Neuron, Volume 34 Number 1, March 28, 2002) Copyright © 1995-2002 UniSci. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 1792 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A tiny section of the brain that is ravaged by Alzheimer's disease is more important for our ability to orient ourselves than scientists have long thought, helping to explain why people with the disease become lost so easily. The findings by neuroscientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center are reported in the March 29 issue of Science. Neurologist Charles Duffy, M.D., Ph.D., previously discovered that a small section of brain tissue slightly above and behind the ear - known as the medial superior temporal area (MST) - acts much like a compass, instantly updating your mental image of your body's movements through space. In new research, Duffy and graduate student Michael Froehler show that the MST acts not only as a compass but also as a sort of biological global positioning system, providing a mental map to help us understand exactly where we are in the world and how we got there. The findings help explain why people with Alzheimer's disease have such a difficult time finding their way in the world, Duffy says. Doctors already know that brain cells in the MST die in great numbers in patients with the disease, and four years ago Duffy described a condition known as "motion blindness" that explains why Alzheimer's patients lose the ability to keep track of their own movements. ©Copyright University of Rochester Medical Center, 1999-2002.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Vision
Link ID: 1791 - Posted: 06.24.2010

GENDER-bending chemicals could be interfering with the breeding of songbirds. First alligators and fish were being feminised by synthetic hormones leaking into the environment. Now nightingales, skylarks and even the humble sparrow seem to be at risk. Researchers have found that such chemicals interfere with songbirds' reproduction. They also alter their brains, making females sing when they shouldn't. "This is very significant," says David Crews, an expert on the effects of synthetic chemicals on animal reproduction at the University of Texas in Austin. He says that until now, concrete evidence on how pollutants affect animals has been scarce. "This is the first step needed to demonstrate a causal link between specific pollutants and the effects on wildlife populations," he says.

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 1790 - Posted: 03.29.2002

The ability to recognize objects in the real world is handled by different parts of the brain than those that allow us to imagine what the world is like. That is the result of a brain mapping experiment published in the March 28 issue of the journal Neuron. The study focused on two cognitive tasks widely used by experimental psychologists. One is mental rotation – mentally rotating a complex object into a different position to compare it with a second similar shape – and object recognition – determining whether two complex objects are the same or different. “Mental rotation and object recognition are indistinguishable from a behavioral viewpoint: You can’t tell them apart,” says the paper’s first author, Isabel Gauthier, assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt. “As a result, the field has been deadlocked over the question of whether the brain uses the same mechanism or different mechanisms for the two tasks.”

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 1789 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Sufferers are not seeking alternative treatments New York – New survey data released today reveals that people with hard to control epilepsy experience a poor quality of life, but that many do not proactively pursue new treatments that could help. The Quality of Life in Epilepsy survey, sponsored by Cyberonics, reveals that people with epilepsy are three times more likely to be unemployed than the national average. Almost half of these patients suffer from depression and believe that epilepsy has reduced their daily activities and their personal and professional goals for the future. Three-quarters of the epilepsy patients surveyed strongly believe that even modest improvements in seizure control would significantly improve their daily lives but only one-third of them regularly ask their doctor if new or alternative treatments are available. The Balance Between Seizure Control and Number of Medications Only 25 percent of surveyed patients have been seizure-free for the past year, with the remaining 75 percent experiencing an average of 70 seizures each year.

Keyword: Epilepsy
Link ID: 1788 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Gunjan Sinha Almost everybody gets pleasure from some kind of pain. Some people like their food so hot it makes them sweat; others get off on the "burn" that comes from a hellacious workout. Scientists, meanwhile, are hard at work figuring out why some things hurt so good. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have discovered that the part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which lights up when people feel pleasure, also does so when they feel pain. This, says David Borsook, one of the study's authors, proves that there's a bona fide intersection between pain and pleasure. Copyright © 2002 Popular Science.

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Emotions
Link ID: 1787 - Posted: 06.24.2010