Culture

A new analytical technique is helping scientists learn how organisms as simple as seaweed can mount complex chemical defenses to protect themselves from microbial threats such as fungus. Known as desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS), the technique for the first time allows researchers to study unique chemical activity taking place on the surfaces of these organisms. Understanding this surface chemistry could one day allow scientists to borrow and adapt some of those defensive chemical compounds for use against cancer, HIV, malaria, drug-resistant bacteria and other…

STANFORD, Calif. - The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the ambitious U.S. government program begun in 2003, has cut the death toll from HIV/AIDS through 2007 by more than 10 percent in targeted countries in Africa, though it has had no appreciable effect on prevalence of the disease in those nations, according to a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine that is the first to evaluate these outcomes. PEPFAR, which the Bush administration initially established as a five-year, $15 billion plan, has kept people alive by effectively providing funds for AIDS treatment and…

University of British Columbia scientists have traced the fragrant scent of grapevine flowers to pollen grains stored in the anthers, contrary to common perception that petals alone produce perfume. While studying grapes used to produce Cabernet Sauvignon from the Okanagan region of British Columbia, researchers from UBC's Wine Research Centre and Michael Smith Laboratories identified a gene that produces and regulates fragrance from the vines' tiny clusters of green blossoms. "This was a surprise in fundamental plant biology," says Joerg Bohlmann, a Distinguished University Scholar and…

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Obesity is twice as common in young American Indian/Native Alaskan children as it is in white and Asian children, according to new research offering the first nationally representative analysis of obesity prevalence among preschool-aged kids in five major racial/ethnic groups. The analysis also shows that obesity prevalence is higher in Hispanic and black children than it is in whites and Asians. The research offers evidence that obesity prevalence differs among racial and ethnic groups in the United States in children as young as age 4. This is the first study to include…

Young children who do not display an ability to regulate their behavior or to delay gratification in exchange for a larger reward appear predisposed to gain extra weight by their pre-teen years, according to two reports published in the April issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Obesity in childhood and adolescence appears to track into adulthood, increasing the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus and certain cancers in adulthood," the authors write as background information in one of the articles. "To mount…

Reducing sugar intake by the equivalent of one can of soda per day and increasing fiber intake by the amount equivalent to one half cup of beans per day appears to improve risk factors associated with type 2 diabetes in Latino adolescents, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Almost 40 percent of Mexican American adolescents age 12 to 19 were overweight or at risk for overweight from 2003 to 2006, according to background information in the article. "Latino children are more insulin resistant and thus…

April 6, 2009-- Replacing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) with water could eliminate an average of 235 excess calories per day among children and adolescents, according to a study published in the April 2009 Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The study's authors conclude that such a replacement would be a simple and effective way to reduce excess intake of calories causing childhood overweight and obesity, as well as address dental cavities and other health problems associated with added sugar. And they predict no detrimental effects on nutrition. "The evidence…

Exerting self-control is exhausting. In fact, using self-control in one situation impairs our ability to use self-control in subsequent, even unrelated, situations. What about thinking of other people exerting self-control? Earlier research has shown that imagining actions can cause the same reactions as if we were actually performing them (e.g., simulating eating a disgusting food results in a revolting face, even if no food has been eaten) and psychologists Joshua M. Ackerman and John A. Bargh from Yale University, along with Noah J. Goldstein and Jenessa R. Shapiro from the University of…

SENSORS -- Math to the rescue . . . Making sense of the enormous amounts of information delivered by all types of sensors is an incredible challenge, but it's being met head on with knowledge discovery techniques developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Some of the strategies and approaches are outlined in a recently published book, "Knowledge Discovery from Sensor Data," (http://books.google.com/books?id=dq7uAA3ssPcC) edited by a team led by Auroop Ganguly of ORNL's Computational Sciences and Engineering Division. The book is specifically aimed at analyzing dynamic data streams from…

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--One of the perplexing questions raised by evolutionary theory is how cooperative behavior, which benefits other members of a species at a cost to the individual, came to exist. Cooperative behavior has puzzled biologists because if only the fittest survive, genes for a behavior that benefits everybody in a population should not last and cooperative behavior should die out, says Jeff Gore, a Pappalardo postdoctoral fellow in MIT's Department of Physics. Gore is part of a team of MIT researchers that has used game theory to understand one solution yeast use to get around this…