SCIENCE IN THE NEWS WEEKLY
The Heroic Cells of an Unwitting Donor
Many modern medical breakthroughs have come about thanks to laboratory research that relied on an immortal cell line known as HeLa, which stands for Henrietta Lacks, the woman from whom the cells came. A new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, was much in the news last week, thanks to reviews and author interviews.
In other biomedical news, the American Psychiatric Association plans to release a draft of the fifth version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders this week, the subject of an article by the Economist.
A new study found that four out of 23 patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state showed signs of consciousness on brain-imaging tests, and one was even able to answer yes-or-no questions using the researchers' technique.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looked at a stem cell treatment in China for a rare neurological disorder, one of dozens of medical treatments overseas that are sidestepping Western standards and enticing desperate patients and their families.
Meanwhile, the British medical journal Lancet retracted a controversial 1998 paper that claimed a link between vaccines and autism. But the New York Times reported that the retraction is unlikely to sway many parents who blame vaccinations for their children's mental problems.
Another new study found that infants who died of SIDS had low levels of serotonin, a brain chemical that helps the brainstem regulate breathing, temperature, sleeping, waking and other automatic functions.
And in what could turn out to be a landmark study, researchers found that sex education classes that focus on abstinence can convince a significant proportion of sixth- and seventh-graders to delay sexual activity.