from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
Today's Headlines - November 4, 2009
from USA Today
An analysis of more than 1,000 California patients hospitalized with H1N1 flu during the first four months of the pandemic found that infants were most likely to be admitted, and patients 50 and older were most likely to die once admitted.
In the first four months of the pandemic, H1N1, like the seasonal flu, was especially severe in older people, who are more likely to have underlying health conditions, says lead author Janice Louie, a public-health medical officer at the California Department of Public Health.
However, Louie says, unlike seasonal flu, older people are far less likely than children and young adults to contract the H1N1 flu in the first place. For that reason, the study won't lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add healthy older people to the list of priority groups for H1N1 vaccine, director Thomas Frieden told reporters Tuesday.
http://snipr.com/t2064
from the Scientist (Registration Required)
... At its most enthusiastic, science has always been prone to promise rather more, and sooner, than it has managed to deliver. It can sometimes feel as if cures for diseases are forever 10 years off, while nuclear fusion seems to have been 50 years away from practical reality for about half a century now.
... Meanwhile, in bleaker moments, scientific authorities have predicted the end of the world and civilization as we know them at the hand of pandemics or environmental catastrophe. And yet we are still here ...
Of course, scientists have a strong incentive to make bold predictions--namely, to obtain funding, influence, and high-profile publications. But while few will be disappointed when worst-case forecasts fail to materialize, unfulfilled predictions--of which we're seeing more and more--can be a blow for patients, policy makers, and for the reputation of science itself.
http://snipr.com/t2087
from the New York Times (Registration Required)
The massive eruption of the Thera volcano in the Aegean Sea more than 3,000 years ago produced killer waves that raced across hundreds of miles of the Eastern Mediterranean to inundate the area that is now Israel and probably other coastal sites, a team of scientists has found.
The team, writing in the October issue of Geology, said the new evidence suggested that giant tsunamis from the catastrophic eruption hit "coastal sites across the Eastern Mediterranean littoral." Tsunamis are giant waves that can crash into shore, rearrange the seabed, inundate vast areas of land and carry terrestrial material out to sea.
The region at the time was home to rising civilizations in Crete, Cyprus, Egypt, Phoenicia and Turkey.
http://snipr.com/t208u
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)
America has seen its last Lost Generation. Thanks to an invisible armada of incessantly broadcasting satellites, collectively called the Global Positioning System, and to the explosive proliferation of GPS receivers in gadgets from dashboard map units to cellphones to dog collars, even the cartographically clueless are now good to go.
The same technology that allows the military to drop precision-targeted bombs on terrorists has become a $30 billion worldwide market, spawning devices that lead hikers through the trackless wild, recover itinerant tykes with GPS units sewn into their backpacks, let golfers see the distance to the next hole, stamp the location on digital photos and show the nearest pizza joint on a PDA screen.
Very soon it may be possible to find your lost keys as receivers shrink to the size of a dime and smaller. It has all happened deliriously fast. Modern GPS has been fully operational only since 1995.
http://snipr.com/t2099
from Scientific American
The power to resist temptation has been extolled by philosophers, psychologists, teachers, coaches, and mothers. Anyone with advice on how you should live your life has surely spoken to you of its benefits.
... Of course, this assumes that our natural urges are a thing to be resisted--that there is a devil inside, luring you to cheat, offend, err, and annoy. New research has begun to question this assumption.
A new brain imaging study by Josh Greene and Joe Paxton at Harvard University published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that what separates the well-behaved from the poorly-behaved might not be the ability to control your temptations but rather what kind of temptations you have.
http://snipr.com/t209r
from the New York Times (Registration Required)
It is one of the most intriguing labels in psychiatry. Children with Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism, are socially awkward and often physically clumsy, but many are verbal prodigies, speaking in complex sentences at early ages, reading newspapers fluently by age 5 or 6 and acquiring expertise in some preferred topic--stegosaurs, clipper ships, Interstate highways--that will astonish adults and bore their playmates to tears.
In recent years, this once obscure diagnosis, given to more than four times as many boys as girls, has become increasingly common.
Much of the growing prevalence of autism, which now affects about 1 percent of American children, according to federal data, can be attributed to Asperger's and other mild forms of the disorder. And Asperger's has exploded into popular culture through books and films depicting it as the realm of brilliant nerds and savantlike geniuses.
http://snipr.com/t20an
from ScienceNOW Daily News
For 9 months in 1898, two lions terrorized the southern Kenyan region of Tsavo, killing as many as 135 people by one account. Although the almost mythic tale has spawned three movies, people still debate the final death toll. Now, hair and bone samples from the famed lions have shed light on how many people they devoured and why they did it.
The attacks began in March as the British were building a railway bridge across the Tsavo River, which provided the only water to the parched landscape. The two lions crept into the workers' camp at night, snatching people from their tents, according to some accounts.
... Anthropologist Nathaniel Dominy and ecologist Justin Yeakel of the University of California, Santa Cruz, wanted to pin down the death toll. The scientists knew they could piece together the lions' diet from isotopes found in their hair and bone.
http://snipr.com/t20b2
from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)
CHICAGO (Associated Press) -- An international group of scientists has decoded the DNA of the domestic pig, research that may one day prove useful in finding new treatments for both pigs and people, and perhaps aid in efforts for a new swine flu vaccine for pigs.
Pigs and humans are similar in size and makeup, and swine are often used in human research. Scientists say they rely on pigs to study everything from obesity and heart disease to skin disorders.
"The pig is the ideal animal to look at lifestyle and health issues in the United States," said Larry Schook, a University of Illinois in Champaign biomedical science professor who led the DNA sequencing project.
http://snipr.com/t20d5
from BBC News Online
Scientists have identified the most ancient fossil relative of the predatory dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex.
The new addition to T. rex's clan is known from a 30cm-long skull uncovered during excavations in Gloucestershire in the 1900s. The well-preserved fossil is now held in London's Natural History Museum.
A British-German team has now uncovered evidence linking it to what may be the most famous dinosaur family of all. The dinosaur, named Proceratosaurus, lived about 165m years ago, during the middle Jurassic Period.
http://snipr.com/t20di
from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)
It's one of the first things you do at a doctor's visit--fill out a family medical history. But does providing this information actually do any good? Perhaps not.
In a new analysis, researchers funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reviewed 137 studies on family history-taking. They set out to examine the pros and cons of collecting a family medical history; how well the history predicts an individual's risk of disease; and how accurately patients report it. The studies were performed between 1995 and March of this year.
The results showed that few studies actually examined these questions. Overall, there was not even enough evidence to say how history collection affects patients' outcomes. What the researchers did find was that patients tend to report the absence of disease in relatives better than the presence of disease.
http://snipr.com/t20dy
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