The three blind mice might not have to stay that way much longer. British scientists have shown for the first time that they can improve vision in rodents—by transplanting light-sensitive cells into their eyes. The research could lead to new treatments for millions of people suffering from common forms of blindness, such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, says Rachael Pearson, a Royal Society Research Fellow at University College London.The achievement was hailed by biologist Stephen Rose, chief research officer of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, a private ... Read More
From AT&T to ADHD
June 29, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Dr. Hugh Taylor was curious when he read a report saying mothers of kids with behavioral problems seem to spend a lot of time on cell phones. Did the moms’ chatty habits affect the children’s behavior, he wondered, or could cell phones themselves somehow cause the kid’s attention deficit disorders? Taylor, a Yale School of Medicine professor who studies fetal development, decided to find out. So he got cell phones for 33 expecting mice. The professor suspended the phones a few inches above the rodents' feeding bottles. Then he left them on an active, though silent, call for the ... Read More
Just Breathe: Confirming Meditation’s Benefits
June 20, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
IN THE SPRING OF 1985 THINGS STARTED TO GO WRONG. A jittery teenager held a pistol to my wife’s head and robbed us a few blocks from our home in Houston. A few months later, I had too much to drink at a party and felt as though I was asphyxiating. At the emergency room, they decided I was just hyperventilating but the next morning I woke up feeling disoriented, with tingling extremities. Our doctor thought I had mononucleosis, so I spent the next three weeks resting, obsessing about what was wrong. Before long, I was taking antidepressants and seeing a therapist. We spent months unraveling ... Read More
Psychopaths’ Brains Deviate—And That’s Good
June 6, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
When it comes to committing violent crime, psychopaths may not be bad to the bone, but a new brain study suggests they may lack key neural structures—literally less gray matter—involved in empathy, moral reasoning, and feelings of guilt. And that gives grounds for optimism about the potential to rehabilitate nonpsychopathic offenders, according to a British neuroscientist who studies the brains of the violent. Those neural deficiencies seem to set psychopaths' brains apart from the brains of other violent offenders without psychopathic traits, says Dr. Nigel Blackwood. The King’s ... Read More
Researchers Crack Codes for Lithium, Electroshock
May 17, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
While they have been widely used for decades, no one knew exactly why two mainstays of psychiatric treatment—lithium chloride for bipolar disorder and electroconvulsive (or electroshock) therapy for major depression—worked. But new discoveries are illuminating how these treatments affect brain function, answering old questions and opening the door to new, more effective therapies that may have fewer side effects. Research fellow Qing-Jun Meng and a team at the University of Manchester found that lithium blocks the activity of an enzyme that affects the brain’s master ... Read More
Texas, Tom and Jerry, and a Thirsty Planet
May 15, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Every now and then, Byron Tapley steps outside with a pair of binoculars and trains them toward the late afternoon sky, hoping to catch a glint of sunlight reflecting from a pair of minivan-sized satellites he has nicknamed Tom and Jerry. Tapley has good reason to be proprietary: he leads the team of scientists who launched the twin satellites in 2002. Working in tandem, the satellites orbit the earth from pole to pole every 90 minutes, recording tiny variations in the earth’s gravitational field caused by the movement of vast amounts of water. The two spacecraft have provided compelling ... Read More
Calm Down, Step Away From the Burger
May 4, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
If it’s true that we are what we eat, then people who eat a lot of trans fatty acids — common in fast foods — might be a bit touchier than the rest of us. In a new study of eating habits and behavior, Dr. Beatrice Golomb, a researcher and professor at the University of California, San Diego medical school, lays out evidence that a diet high in trans fats is linked to traits of irritability and aggression. In her study, Golomb gave 945 Californians who had already enrolled in a drug clinical trial a standard dietary questionnaire that asked what they ate and how often they ate ... Read More
Cancer Wars: An Outcast Researcher’s New Theory
April 27, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Compact and white-haired at 75, Peter Duesberg has wide-set blue eyes magnified by corrective lenses as thick as his German accent. He is the picture of a courtly Old World scientist. But Duesberg is given to through-the-looking-glass scientific theories, the most recent of which, about the origins of cancer, could turn an accepted truth of molecular biology on its head. Viruses like hepatitis C don’t cause cancer, he says, and neither do collections of mutated genes — as nearly every other scientist believes. Instead, he argues, cancer arises when the number and appearance of a cell’s ... Read More
Can the Walnut Help Cure Prostate Cancer?
April 27, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
A cup of walnuts holds 117 percent of the fat you need in a day. This fact prompted Paul Davis, a professor at UC Davis (no relation), to approach the California Walnut Board for funding. Davis (the man, not the university) wanted to feed the nuts to lab mice. The research nutritionist had seen studies that connected fatty diets and prostate cancer. And he knew federal guidelines recommend we limit our fat intake to less than 30 percent of our calorie intake. But, he says, he’s also “convinced, given the epidemiological evidence, that the Mediterranean diet, which is high in nuts and ... Read More
Fending Off Skin Cancer With SPF Starbucks
April 26, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Not quite a prescription for a Red Bull and a bike ride, but a new study finds that highly caffeinated mice who get plenty of exercise seem to be at less risk of developing skin cancer from too much sun exposure. Add to that, mice who drink caffeine-laced water and spend time on their running wheel see less tissue inflammation (always a handy measure of general unhealthiness), according to Yao-Ping Lu, a Rutgers University researcher who presented his study at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in Chicago. Following up on other studies that suggest caffeine ... Read More
