nutrition: living longer by eating less works at any age

Posted on March 23, 2004 by agnieszka

It’s been known for decades that an animal’s lifespan could be extended by severely reducing its calorie intake, while avoiding malnourishment. Calorie restriction slows the rate of aging, as well as the development of age-related diseases. (A few hardy, if hungry, souls are testing calorie restriction on themselves to see if this holds true for humans.) But it was also thought that a restricted diet had to be started early in an animal’s life to work well. Now a study on older mice in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition suggests otherwise. Stephen Spindler of the University of California at Riverside and colleagues started late middle-aged mice on a restricted diet and found the same benefits: the mice lived almost six months longer and the onset and progression of cancers were slowed. Genetic analysis revealed that the older calorie-restricted mice had patterns of genetic activity similar to those of mice on the diet from their youth. The researchers suggest that drugs that could mimic the same patterns of genetic activity might give the same beneficial effects.

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 3/23/2004.
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ecology: is the world on the brink of an extinction crisis?

Posted on March 23, 2004 by agnieszka

British researchers have reported dramatic declines in plant and animal species in the United Kingdom and suggest it’s evidence that the earth may be experiencing “the sixth major extinction event in its history.” (Major extinction event number five is whatever wiped out the dinosaurs millions of years ago.) In the March 19 Science, Jeremy Thomas of the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and colleagues report analyzing six surveys compiled by scientists and some 20,000 volunteers that stretched back 40 years and covered almost all of the UK’s plant, bird, and butterfly populations. The researchers found that 28 percent of native plant species decreased in Britain over the past 40 years and that 54 percent of bird species decreased over 20 years. Surprisingly, since insects were thought to be among the more resilient species, butterflies fared particularly poorly: over 20 years, 71 percent of all butterfly species declined. If insects elsewhere are similarly sensitive, then “the world is indeed experiencing the extinction crisis many people have been suggesting and talking about for years,” Thomas stated.

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 3/23/2004.
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evolution: a darwinian explanation for grandma

Posted on March 16, 2004 by agnieszka

In contrast to most other animals, who reproduce until they die, human females live long after their childbearing years are over. Researchers offer proof in the March 11 Nature why this anomaly makes evolutionary sense: grandmothers, by helping their own children bring up children, ensure that more of their genes are passed on to future generations. Mirkka Lahdenpera of the University of Turku in Finland and her colleagues studied multigenerational demographic records of Finnish and Canadian women during the 18th and 19th centuries. According to their study, the longer a woman lived past menopause, the more successfully her children reproduced, breeding earlier and more frequently, and raising more offspring to adulthood. The researchers discovered that women gained, on average, two extra grandchildren for every 10 years they survived past age 50. A grandmother can pass on her child-care knowledge and also help care for her grandchildren, team member Virpi Lummaa stated in a press release, “making it more likely that her children will have more children more quickly.”

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 3/16/2004.
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astronomy: what would you do with the hubble?

Posted on March 16, 2004 by agnieszka

If you have any ideas about what to do with the massive, orbiting Hubble Space Telescope now that its final servicing mission has been canceled, here’s your chance to tell NASA what you think. Even while lawmakers and researchers are debating the observatory’s ultimate fate, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is looking for proposals as to how to extend Hubble’s useful scientific life and also as to how to dispose of the telescope safely once its mission is over. For interested parties, NASA has posted information on the program at http://hubble.gsfc.nasa.gov/end-of-mission.html. But you’d better hurry: Ideas for Hubble’s “end-of-mission alternatives” are due by Monday.

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 3/16/2004.
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ecology: “undisturbed” rainforests disturbed after all

Posted on March 16, 2004 by agnieszka

The Amazonian rainforests are changing, even in areas untouched by human activities such as logging, clearing, or burning — and rising levels of carbon dioxide may be to blame. Over the past 20 years, the species composition of the “pristine” Amazon has altered to favor tall, fast-growing trees, a team of US and Brazilian researchers reported in the March 11 Nature. They suspect that the carbon dioxide, which plants use for growth, is fertilizing the rainforest, giving the faster-growing species the advantage over slower-growing neighbors, which are in decline. The authors warn that this composition change may affect the rainforests’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide,implicated in global warming: Faster-growing trees produce wood less dense than slower-growing varieties, meaning they’ll store less carbon. “The changes in Amazonian forests really jump out at you,” lead author William Laurance of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama stated in a press release. “It’s a little scary to realize that seemingly pristine forests can change so quickly and dramatically.” He added: “If you change the tree communities, then other species — especially the animals that feed on and pollinate the trees — will undoubtedly change as well.”

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 3/16/2004.
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psychology: worry beads block formation of bad memories

Posted on March 9, 2004 by agnieszka

In many cultures, people repetitively finger strands of beads to help them deal with their worries. Now British researchers may have figured out why this kind of distraction works. A report by Emily Holmes of University College London and her colleagues in the March issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General suggests that performing a “visuospatial pattern task” during a trauma may help curb flashbacks of the disturbing event. The researchers had volunteers perform various tasks as they watched a graphic film of real-life car crashes replete with screaming victims and severed body parts. In one experiment, some volunteers tapped out a repetitive pattern on a keyboard while watching the film, while others simply watched. The viewers who tapped suffered fewer intrusive memories of the film in the following week compared to the other volunteers, researchers said. Holmes said she believes the same types of memory may be used to process both the keyboard tapping and the traumatic images of the film, so performing a pattern task during a trauma may reduce the retention of that memory, leading to fewer flashbacks.

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 3/09/2004.
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astronomy: Very Large Telescope finds faraway galaxy

Posted on March 9, 2004 by agnieszka

It appears that astronomers are in a hot race to discover the most distant galaxy in the universe. Just a few weeks ago, astronomers using the Hubble and Keck telescopes announced a record-holder — a galaxy 13 billion light-years away. Now a team of Swiss and French astronomers report in the European research journal Astronomy and Astrophysics that they have smashed that distance record. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, the researchers have discovered a galaxy they have named Abell 1835 IR1916, which is located 13.23 billion light-years away. The primeval galaxy is being seen at a time only 470 million years after the big bang, when the universe was barely 3 percent of its current age. The researchers hope the find will tell them more about how galaxies formed.

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 3/09/2004.
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empathy more than a feeling

Posted on March 2, 2004 by agnieszka

When your girlfriend tells you she feels your pain, she’s not lying. British researchers from University College London have found that feeling empathy activates regions of the brain involved with processing pain. Tania Singer and her colleagues used 16 heterosexual couples for their study, published in the Feb. 20 Science. They scanned the brains of the women as they were given an electrical shock, and then again as the women watched their loved ones undergo the same painful jolt. Pain has sensory and emotional components, and when the women were physically hurt, the researchers found that areas of the brain involved with processing both components were active. But even when the women were merely spectators, the parts of their brains that processed the emotion of pain were just as active as when they were shocked themselves. “The results suggest that we use emotional representations reflecting our own subjective feeling states to understand the feelings of others,” Singer stated in a press release. “Our human capacity to `tune in’ to others when exposed to their feelings may explain why we do not always behave selfishly in human interactions but instead engage in altruistic, helping behavior.”

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 3/02/2004.
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hepatitis drug may help treat SARS

Posted on March 2, 2004 by agnieszka

A commercially available drug may help treat severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which currently has no effective therapies or vaccines. An international team of researchers report in the March Nature Medicine that pegylated interferon-alpha, an antiviral drug commonly used to treat hepatitis C, eases the disease’s symptoms and may even help reduce its spread — in monkeys, anyway. Albert Osterhaus of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and his colleagues treated macaques with interferon before infecting them with the SARS virus. Interferon reduced the damaging effect of the virus on the lungs, helping the animals breathe easier, and significantly reduced the amount of virus in the body. The treated monkeys’ throats exhaled fewer infectious particles, which, if the drug has the same effect in humans, might curb its transmission. Using interferon on animals already infected with SARS produced similar effects on a smaller scale. The authors write that the drug “should be considered a candidate drug for SARS therapy” and advise clinical trials.

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 3/02/2004.
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archeology: darwin’s beagle found?

Posted on February 24, 2004 by agnieszka

The Beagle 2 Mars lander may be lost, but British archeologists may have found the original ship it was named after. Charles Darwin’s observations during his voyage aboard HMS Beagle in the 1830s were crucial in helping him formulate the theory of evolution. But the fate of the vessel, today an icon for scientific research, has remained mysterious for more than a century. A British paper, The Observer, reports that marine archeologist Robert Prescott of St. Andrews University in Scotland is “quietly confident” he has found the remains of the ship. Tracing the vessel’s last known movements to an estuary in Essex, England, Prescott used ground-penetrating radar to locate what he believes to be the ship’s final resting place. Radar images show a ship similar in size to the Beagle lying under 12 feet of mud inside an abandoned dock. “It is possible that this could be another ship,” Prescott told The Observer, “but I am pretty sure that we have now got the Beagle.”

This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the Boston Globe’s Health/Science section on 2/24/2004.
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