Glucosamine and chondroitin don't slow arthritis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two hugely popular supplements used to fight arthritis and joint pain, glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate, do not seem to work any better than placebo to slow the loss of knee cartilage in osteoarthritis, researchers reported on Monday.

But the researchers said some of their findings were confusing and said more study was needed.

"At two years, no treatment showed what we determined to be a clinically important reduction in joint space width loss," said Dr. Allen Sawitzke of the University of Utah School of Medicine, who helped lead the study.

The study, funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, confirms other findings showing the supplements have few or no effects.



Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080929/hl_nm/us_arthritis_supplements;_ylt=AlQT3kQjZXzkMxxRoHKjXdER.3QA

Three more blind patients helped by gene therapy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three more patients treated with an experimental gene therapy approach have reported better vision, U.S. researchers reported on Monday in a study that lends further support to the approach.

The patients, all in their early 20s, reported markedly better vision after getting the treatment, Artur Cideciyan and James Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues reported.

"Day vision improvement could range up to 50-fold from pre-treatment levels. Night vision was quite dramatic and ranged up to 63,000 times" better, Cideciyan said in a telephone interview.

Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, lend weight to similar results from rival teams all treating the same condition -- Leber congenital amaurosis, or LCA.

The condition is caused by a mutation in a gene called RPE65, and experts have long thought it is a good target for gene therapy. Gene therapy is an experimental field of medicine that aims to correct diseases by replacing faulty genes.



source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080922/hl_nm/blindness_genetherapy_dc

“Smoothest” mirror could lead to new microscopes

Phys­i­cists have cre­at­ed the smoothest sur­face ev­er made, called a “quan­tum sta­bi­lised at­om mir­ror,” ac­cord­ing to this week’s edi­tion of the re­search jour­nal Ad­vanced Ma­te­ri­als.

The scientists from the Au­ton­o­mous Uni­ver­s­ity of Ma­drid and the Ma­drid In­sti­tute of Ad­vanced Stud­ies in Na­no­sci­ence say the in­nova­t­ion is be­ing used to de­sign the world’s first at­omic mi­cro­scope.

The mirror is designed to reflect beams of atoms. One of the stu­dy’s au­thors, Rodolfo Mi­ran­da of the Au­ton­o­mous Uni­ver­s­ity, said the mir­ror re­flects “ex­tra­or­di­narily well” most of these at­oms, through the use of ma­te­ri­als of near-zero thick­ness whose prop­er­ties are dom­i­nat­ed by quan­tum, or at­omic-scale ef­fects.

The mir­ror re­sem­bles a curved wa­fer. It is made up of a thin sil­i­con crys­tal with a thick­ness of one-twentieth of a mil­li­me­ter, and cov­ered with a lay­er of lead one or two mil­lionths of a mil­li­me­ter thick.

To study the re­flec­tion on this met­al, the sci­en­tists used he­li­um at­oms. Un­til now mir­rors made solely from sil­i­con re­flected one per­cent of he­li­um at­oms, but by adding the lay­er of lead they have man­aged to achieve a re­flec­tion of up to 67 per­cent, the sci­en­tists re­ported.


Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080922_mirror

Government probes chelation-heart disease study

The largest alternative medicine study the government has ever launched has stopped enrolling people while officials investigate whether participants were fully informed of the risks and are being adequately protected, The Associated Press has learned.

The research was designed to test very high doses of vitamin and mineral supplements and chelation, which has not been proved effective for heart disease. Chelation (pronounced kee-LAY-shun) involves intravenous doses of a drug, in this case disodium EDTA, that proponents claim will bind to calcium built up in artery walls and help flush it from the body.

Conventional treatments for heart disease include medicines, surgery and artery-clearing angioplasty.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080926/ap_on_he_me/med_heart_study_probe

Stressed plants produce an aspirin-like chemical

WASHINGTON - Aspirin is among the most popular remedies used by people. Turns out some plants like it, too. Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research were surprised to discover that stressed plants produce an aspirin-like chemical that can be detected in the air above the plants. The chemical may be a sort of immune response that helps protect the plants, the scientists speculated.

According to the researchers, the finding raises the possibility that farmers, forest managers and others may eventually be able to start monitoring plants for early signs of a disease, an insect infestation or other types of stress.

"Unlike humans, who are advised to take aspirin as a fever suppressant, plants have the ability to produce their own mix of aspirin-like chemicals, triggering the formation of proteins that boost their biochemical defenses and reduce injury," NCAR scientist Thomas Karl, the lead researcher, said in a statement.

"Our measurements show that significant amounts of the chemical can be detected in the atmosphere as plants respond to drought, unseasonable temperatures or other stresses."

While researchers had known that plants in the laboratory produce a form of aspirin known as methyl salicylate, they had never looked for it in the forest.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/story/ap/20080918/ap_on_sc/sci_plants_aspirin

Bivacuum Mediated Interaction, as a Bridge between Normal and Paranormal

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am glad to inform you that just yesterday evening I submitted to arXiv big part of my new book:

Unified Theory of Bivacuum, Particles Duality, Time & Fields. Bivacuum Mediated Interaction, as a Bridge between Normal and Paranormal

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0103031

I hope you find there something interesting ;-)


Best wishes.

Alex Kaivarainen
==================

summary


The coherent physical theory of Psi phenomena is absent till now due to its high complexity and multilateral character. The original mechanism of Bivacuum mediated Psi phenomena, proposed here, is based on few stages of my long term efforts. They include creation of new theories: 1) Unified theory of Bivacuum, matter and fields duality, mass and charge origination as a result of Bivacuum fermions symmetry shift, fusion of elementary particles from sub-elementary fermions and dynamic mechanism of their corpuscle-wave [C - W] duality; 2) New quantitative Hierarchic theory of liquids and solids; 3) Elementary act of consciousness or cycle of mind; 4) Theory of Virtual Replica (VR) of material objects in Bivacuum (virtual hologram); 5) Theory of nonlocal Virtual Guides (VirG)of spin, momentum and energy - constructed from virtual Cooper pairs of Bivacuum fermions and antifermions, interacting side-by-side. The bundles of VirG, connecting coherent particles of Sender (S) and Receiver (R), are responsible for macroscopic entanglement and mediate different kinds of Psi phenomena. The 3D net of VirG forms part of Virtual Replica of any macroscopic object, interacting with other objects with similar properties in non equilibrium conditions. The correctness of our Unified Theory (UT) follows from its ability to explain a lot of unconventional experimental data, like remote vision, mind-matter interaction, etc. without contradictions with fundamental laws of nature.

“Junk DNA” key to human evolution?

Sci­en­tists have iden­ti­fied a hand­ful that they say may have con­tri­but­ed to the ev­o­lu­tion­ary changes that en­abled peo­ple to use tools and walk up­right.
The find­ings sug­gest our ev­o­lu­tion may have been driv­en not only by changes in genes, but in ar­eas of the ge­nome once thought of as “junk DNA,” the re­search­ers said.

The re­sults come from a com­par­a­tive anal­y­sis of the hu­man, chim­pan­zee, rhe­sus ma­caque and oth­er ge­nomes re­ported in the Sept. 5 issue of the re­search jour­nal Sci­ence. The scientists noted al­tera­t­ions in this DNA that ac­ti­vat­ed genes in pri­mor­di­al thumb and big toe in a mouse em­bryo.

“Our study iden­ti­fies a po­ten­tial ge­net­ic con­trib­u­tor to fun­da­men­tal mor­pho­log­i­cal [struc­tur­al] dif­fer­ences be­tween hu­mans and apes,” said Yale Uni­ver­s­ity ge­net­icist James Noo­nan, the sen­ior au­thor.




Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080904_upright

Peru archaeologists find pre-Inca sacrificial tomb

LIMA, Peru - Archaeologists in Peru say they have discovered the jawbone of a fetus among the remains of a sacrificed woman in a pre-Inca tomb, suggesting the Lambayeque culture practiced the atypical sacrifice of pregnant women and their children.
In all, Wester La Torre's team reported finding the remains of seven women in two tombs at the Chotuna Chornancap archaeological site, each showing signs of having been cut at the throat.

The sacrifice of a pregnant woman "is very unusual" in the pre-Inca world, said respected Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, who was not involved in the discovery.

"The concept of fertility was well respected, so this could represent a sacrifice for a very important religious event," he said Wednesday.

Chotuna Chornancap is a sacred site of the Lambayeque culture, which flourished in northern Peru between 800 and 1350 A.D.

Wester La Torre said he believes the sacrifices were made to honor the reconstruction of the temple at Chotuna Chornancap or an important member of the Lambayeque culture possibly buried nearby.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080911/ap_on_sc/peru_pre_inca_tomb

Strange New Source of Bladder Pain Discovered

A painful bladder condition known as interstitial cystitis is not at all what it seemed, scientists have discovered.

The pain seems to originate not in the bladder but in the colon, and the body miscommunicates the source of the pain to the brain. The finding could open up new treatments to the roughly 1.3 million U.S. residents, mostly women, who suffer from the condition.

Among other causes, spicy food, citrus and caffeine are causes of interstitial cystitis. The pain can be debilitating. Patients typically also feel an urgent need to urinate up to 50 times a day.

"This disease has a devastating effect on people's lives," said David Klumpp, principal investigator and assistant professor of urology at the Feinberg School at Northwestern University. "It affects people's relationships with family and friends." Klumpp said some women who suffer from this become so depressed, they attempt suicide.

Researchers had long believed the spike in the patients' symptoms was triggered when foods they had digested produced chemicals in the urine that irritated the bladder.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080911/sc_livescience/strangenewsourceofbladderpaindiscovered

Study helps unlock secrets of how the brain sees

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists who tricked monkeys by swapping images of sailboats for teacups have figured out how the brain learns to recognize objects, a finding that could lead to robots that "see."

"One of the central questions of how the brain recognizes objects and faces is that you never essentially see the same image twice," said James DiCarlo, an associate professor of neuroscience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He said humans have no trouble recognizing a dog, regardless of whether it is running, lying down, wagging its tail or begging for food.

"The pattern of light in your eyes is never the same when you view your wife or your dog, yet you can still recognize that as the person or creature that you love," said DiCarlo, whose research appears on Thursday in the journal Science.



Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080911/sc_nm/brain_vision_dc

Key to a Good Memory: Forget a Few Things

Childhood memories might best be kept in a photo album, not in your mind. Turns out, storing old memories can make you forget an important appointment or what you needed to buy at the store today.

Too many long-term memories make it hard to properly filter new information and process short-term memories, according to a study last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"In our world, we are constantly bombarded by new information so we are constantly filtering, and if we did not do this, we would be overwhelmed," said study team member Gaël Malleret of Columbia University Medical Center.

The new research indicates that those with better working memory may have fewer new neurons being developed in their hippocampus—a region of the brain involved in formation of memories. This "helps them forget old and useless information sooner and enables them to take in new information faster,” Malleret said.

Researchers previously believed that growth of new neurons in the hippocampus, known as neurogenesis, was beneficial to memory.

But the results of the new study, in which Malleret and colleagues suppressed nuerogenesis in two independent groups of mice, showed improved working memory—short term memory that maintains a limited amount of information relevant to the task at hand.

The mice had to locate food within areas in a maze. Those with suppressed neurogenesis made better choices and found the food faster.

"We were surprised to find that halting neurogenesis caused an improvement of working memory, which suggests that too much memory is not always a good thing, and that forgetting is important for normal cognition and behavior," Malleret said.

The researchers believe that the findings could eventually help those battling with memory dysfunctions.


Source: http://www.livescience.com/health/070409_memory_overload.html

Humans Have Astonishing Memories, Study Finds

If human memory were truly digital, it would have just received an upgrade from something like the capacity of a floppy disk to that of a flash drive. A new study found the brain can remember a lot more than previously believed.
In a recent experiment, people who viewed pictures of thousands of objects over five hours were able to remember astonishing details afterward about most of the objects.

Though previous studies have never measured such astounding feats of memory, it may be simply because no one really tried.

"People had never tested whether people could remember this much detail about this many objects," said researcher Timothy Brady, a cognitive neuroscientist at MIT. "Nobody actually pushed it this far."


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080909/sc_livescience/humanshaveastonishingmemoriesstudyfinds

How Tiny Life Could Power the Future

Hydrogen is the cleanest and most abundant fuel there is, but extracting it from water or organic material is currently not a very efficient process. Scientists are therefore studying certain bacteria that exhale hydrogen as part of their normal metabolism.

"The production of hydrogen by microorganisms is intimately linked to their cellular processes, which must be understood to optimize bioenergy yields," said Amy VanFossen of North Carolina State University.

Of particular interest are microbes that thrive in hot temperatures, near the boiling point of water. VanFossen and her colleagues carried out a detailed DNA study of one of these thermophilic (heat-loving) bacteria called Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus, which was first found in a hot spring in New Zealand.

The results, presented last week at the American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia, indicate which genes allow C. saccharolyticus to eat plant material, referred to as biomass, and expel hydrogen in the process.



Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080827/sc_livescience/howtinylifecouldpowerthefuture

People is happier

The 2008 World Values Survey found that freedom of choice and tolerance—and not simply wealth—have lots to do with a rise in happiness

Happiness hunters have done it again. They've used an army of pollsters and a mountain of data to uncover the world's happiest countries. But this year, there are some unexpected winners—for unexpected reasons.

The World Values Survey, which has compiled data from 350,000 people in 97 countries since 1981, found Denmark to be home to the planet's most contented citizens (again) with Zimbabwe as the most miserable (again). Classic Scandinavian front-runners like Sweden and Finland were nudged out of the top 10 by Puerto Rico and Colombia. El Salvador placed a surprising 11th, beating out Malta and Luxembourg. Further down the list came the U.S., ranked in 16th place.

Directed by University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart and administered from Stockholm, the survey found that freedom of choice, gender equality, and increased tolerance are responsible for a considerable rise in overall world happiness. The results shatter the more simplistic and traditionally accepted notion that wealth is the determining factor, says Inglehart.



Source: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/aug2008/gb20080820_874593.htm

Washington’s doctors absolved

Poor medical care didn’t kill George Washington, a new study con­cludes—his fi­nal ill­ness was a hope­less situa­tion.

The death of the U.S. found­ing fa­ther from a throat in­fec­tion at 67 trig­gered an im­me­di­ate and still-smoul­der­ing de­bate over wheth­er doc­tors con­tri­but­ed to his de­mise, in par­tic­u­lar through their co­pi­ous blood ex­trac­tions. Blood­let­ting was stand­ard med­i­cal prac­tice then, though it was al­ready ques­tioned in some quar­ters.


Source: http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/080819_washington

Cows seem to know which way is north

WASHINGTON - Talk about animal magnetism, cows seem to have a built-in compass. No bull: Somehow, cattle seem to know how to find north and south, say researchers who studied satellite photos of thousands of cows around the world.

Most cattle that were grazing or resting tended to align their bodies in a north-south direction, a team of German and Czech researchers reports in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And the finding held true regardless of what continent the cattle were on, according to the study led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall of the faculty of biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

"The magnetic field of the Earth has to be considered as a factor," the scientists said.




Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080825/ap_on_sc/sci_cow_compass

Scientists: century-old drug might cure Parkinson’s,

A study with mice sug­gests a century-old drug, meth­yl­ene blue, could slow or even cure Alz­heim­er’s and Park­in­son’s dis­ease in small doses, re­search­ers say.

“To find that such a com­mon and in­ex­pen­sive drug can be used to in­crease and pro­long the qual­ity of life by treat­ing such se­ri­ous dis­eases is truly ex­cit­ing,” said Bruce Ames, a co-author of the study at Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal & Re­search Cen­ter Oak­land, in Cal­i­for­nia.

In very low con­centra­t­ion­s—the equiv­a­lent of a few rain­drops in four Olym­pic-sized swim­ming pools—the drug slows cel­lu­lar ag­ing and en­hances the func­tion of cel­lu­lar “power plants” called mi­to­chon­dria, the ex­pe­ri­menters said.

Their re­sults ap­peared in the March is­sue of the Fed­er­a­t­ion of Amer­i­can So­ci­eties for Ex­pe­ri­men­tal Bi­ol­o­gy Jour­nal.


Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080818_blue