Clipmarks | wildcat's health, medicine collection

Even When You Sleep, Your Brain Is Awake

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:05:15 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Sleep in man is divided in two main phases : non-REM sleep, which occupies most of our early sleep night, and REM sleep, during which our dreams prevail. Non-REM sleep is usually considered as a compensatory ‘resting’ state for the brain, following the intense waking brain activity. Indeed, previous brain imaging studies showed that the brain was less active during periods of non-REM sleep as compared to periods of wakefulness.

Although not rejecting this concept, researchers from the Cyclotron Research Centre of the University of Liège in Belgium and from the Department of Neurology of Liege University Hospital demonstrate that, even during its deepest stages (also called ‘slow-wave-sleep’), non-REM sleep should not be viewed as a stage of constant and continuous brain activity decrease, but is also characterized by transient and recurrent activity increases in specific brain areas.

Tags: neuroscience, sleep

Eye Implants to Fight Progressive Blindness

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:09:16 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: So far, Neurotech's approach appears to be safe for patients with degenerative diseases of the retina. That was the finding of a phase I trial with 10 patients, the results of which were published in 2006. "The real challenge is whether we'll be able to translate the positive observations in animals in humans," says Tao

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

A novel medical device could treat eye diseases like age-related macular degeneration.

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fast-tracked a novel treatment for two eye diseases: age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. The treatment, developed by the Lincoln, RI, biotech company Neurotech, is a capsule that's surgically implanted in the eye. Inside the capsule are genetically engineered cells that produce a protein that may prevent light-sensitive cells in the retina from dying--thereby protecting vision. The device is currently in phase II clinical trials.

Neurotech's platform is "unique" and "fills a significant void in treatment options for retinal degenerative diseases," says Stephen Rose, chief research officer at the nonprofit Foundation Fighting Blindness, which has given grant money to Neurotech but does not have a financial stake in it. "To my knowledge, no other company is testing a similar device," Rose says.

Tags: eye implants, progressive blindness

Searching in space and minds: New research suggests underlying link

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:43:46 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Some people might be more inclined to one search mode or the other, having a lesser ability to focus on a given task or difficulty letting go of an idea. An extreme form of the exploratory cognitive style would be someone with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. An extreme form of the exploitive cognitive style would be someone with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

New research from Indiana University has found evidence that how we look for things, such as our car keys or umbrella, could be related to how we search for more abstract needs, such as words in memory or solutions to problems.

"Common underlying search mechanisms may exist that drive our behavior in many different domains," said IU cognitive scientist Peter Todd. "If how people search in space is similar to how they search in their minds, it's a very exciting prospect to try to find the deep, underlying roots of human behavior that may be common to varied domains."

"We asked the question -- are the same mechanisms that let simpler organisms search in space for food related to how we search for things in our mind, for concepts or ideas," Todd said. "Our conclusion is that they seem to be linked at some level, which is what our priming experiment suggests."

Tags: mind, space, objects, ideas

Brain and Creativity Institute

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:24:53 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The mission of the Brain and Creativity Institute is to gather new knowledge about the human emotions, decision-making, memory, and communication, from a neurological perspective, and to apply this knowledge to the solution of problems in the biomedical and sociocultural arenas.

Clip Source: www.usc.edu

The Brain and Creativity Institute was founded by Antonio Damasio and Hanna Damasio in 2006. Since ancient times, thinkers and scientists have sought to explain how we perceive, interpret, and shape our existence. However, until very recently, researchers interested in these questions have had to rely entirely on conjecture or indirect evidence. Now, recent technological advances in brain imaging and fresh insights into the functioning of the human brain at the level of systems, cells and molecules, provide extraordinary new opportunities for uncovering the neurological underpinnings for a large array of mental functions – from emotion and decision-making to innovation and creativity.

It is also apparent that emotion, decision-making, memory and communication, are central to our most fundamental socio-cultural endeavors

The Institute is a groundbreaking effort to make use of important new discoveries from the mind and brain sciences and confront pressing issues of our time.

Tags: brain and creativity, antonio damasio

Stressed Out — Chew Some Gum

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:35:15 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: psychcentral.com

A new study discovers chewing gum helped relieve anxiety, improve alertness and reduce stress among individuals in a laboratory setting.

The research effort, titled “An investigation into the effects of gum chewing on mood and cortisol levels during psychological stress,” will be presented at the 2008 10th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine.

The study examined whether chewing gum is capable of reducing induced anxiety and/or acute psychological stress while participants performed a battery of ‘multi-tasking’ activities.

The use of chewing gum was associated with higher alertness, reduced anxiety and stress, and improvement in overall performance on multi-tasking activities.

• Relieved Anxiety: When chewing gum, participants reported lower levels of anxiety.
o Gum chewers showed a reduction in anxiety as compared to non-gum chewers by nearly 17 percent during mild stress and nearly 10 percent in moderate stress.

Tags: stress, chewing, gum

Gene linked to commitment-phobia

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:40:08 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: commitment-phobia, everybody has it..

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

Men with a common gene variation for "bonding" hormone report more marital strife

There’s news for women who want a man who bonds instead of a James Bond: Scientists have identified a common genetic variation that appears to weaken a man’s ability to emotionally attach to one partner.

The study, to appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to try to examine whether a hormone that encourages monogamy in animals plays a similar role in male humans. Before getting ideas about a DNA-fidelity test, though, women should consider that the study wasn’t designed to determine how much — or even whether — the gene in question is responsible for monogamy in humans.

“We can’t with any accuracy predict effects on behavior,” says Hasse Walum of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. “A lot of different things determine how happy you will be in a relationship.”

But women can now wonder, “What about his vasopressin 1a receptor subtype?”

Tags: genetics, commitment-phobia

Blowing Away Stress One Cigar at a Time

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 11:57:27 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: stress-relief medication...

Clip Source: www.scientificblogging.com

If Leopold de Rothschild, Sir Winston Churchill, or the 5th Earl of Lonsdale were alive today their supreme goal would be to eliminate stress from the world with a nice smoke.

At the Tobacco Republic, in Loomis, California, such a place exists.

In this sort of separate universe where the motto is "Every cigar is like a mini vacation," one of the owners, Ron, tells the story of his first experience with cigars, in his usual calm demeanor, which can be fittingly compared to the alluring effect of cigar smoke.

"I stood there and watched them roll the cigar," Ron reflected on his monumental cigar experience in Florida where he grew up. "I was always an anti-smoker," something that he based on his perception of cigarettes.

The main thing that Ron and his employees want to reveal to any individual, cigar connoisseur or amateur alike, is the calming effect that they bring. In modern terms this can be described as stress-relief medication.

Tags: cigars, stress relief

Performance Enhancing Drugs for Pro-Gamers

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:52:40 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: As always what is needed is regulation and not banning

Clip Source: www.dailytech.com

Looking for a competitive edge, some pro-gamers turn to marijuana, amphetamines, and more

Doping scandals in the world of sports are nothing new. As far back as 1889, James Francis "Pud" Galvin, the first pro-baseball pitcher to win 300 games, was advertising an elixir of monkey testosterone which he regularly took. Today, in sports as diverse as baseball, cycling, mixed martial arts, and track and field, athletes are regularly banned and suspended for drug use.

Now, there's a new professional sport that's drawing these timeless tough questions -- professional gaming. While some don't consider pro gaming a "sport" per se, they cannot deny the facts -- top pro gamers are professionals who are making a good deal of money, and regularly use their prestige to create lucrative brands.

It identified, marijuana, amphetamines (speed), Dexamphetamine and Methylphenidate (Ritalin), Caffeine, and FpsBrain, the German drug cocktail

It's funny because it's true

Tags: performance enhancing drugs, gaming

Michael Phelps: ‘Naturally’ transhuman

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:37:25 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: * He has proportionately short legs relative to his long, powerful trunk; this large upper body is the engine that powers his long arms. Moreover, his unique physique reduces drag through the water and allows for maximum propulsion.
* Phelps has a greater-than-average lung capacity allowing him to execute his underwater dolphin kicks longer than the competition.
* He has a genetic advantage that cause his muscles to produce 50% less lactic acid than other athletes. This means he can work at higher work loads for longer periods.
* With a low body fat of 4%, he is better able to convert his effort into speed.

Looking at this list it’s as if Phelps was designed to swim.

Which leads to an interesting question: Given the potential for genetic modification and gene doping, should it be acceptable for other athletes to acquire the same physiological endowments through artificial means?

If not, what makes it so acceptable to come by these traits ‘naturally?’ And how

Clip Source: ieet.org

Watching Michael Phelps swim you quickly realize that he’s not like the others. He’s clearly in a league of his own.

Or more accurately, he’s swimming in a genetic pool of his own. Phelps has a number of fortuitous physical endowments that have enabled him to dominate like no other. Simply put, he is the perfect swimmer.

Here’s what Phelps has going for him:

Most people have a wingspan that matches their height. Not Phelps. He may be 6’4” tall, but his arms extend outward to a total of 6’7”.

The average shoe size for a person the size of Phelps is 12; he wears a size 14 which gives him a 10% advantage over the competition.

He also has a larger than average hand size which allows him to move more water.

Phelps is double-jointed in the chest area; this enables him to extend his arms higher above his head and pull down at an angle that increases his efficiency through the water by as much as 20%; this also allows him to have quicker starts and turns.

Tags: natural, transhuman

Where Is Human Evolution Heading?

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 11:21:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The race's DNA is changing faster than ever; what it means for our descendants

Clip Source: www.usnews.com

If you judge the progress of humanity by Homer Simpson, Paris Hilton, and Girls Gone Wild videos, you might conclude that our evolution has stalled—or even shifted into reverse. Not so, scientists say. Humans are evolving faster than ever before, picking up new genetic traits and talents that may help us survive a turbulent future.

Much remodeling has gone on since the dawn of agriculture about 10 millenniums ago. "People who lived 10,000 years ago were much more like Neanderthals than we are like those people," says John Hawks, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. "We've changed."

Hawks is among a growing number of scientists who are using whole-genome sequencing and other modern technologies to zero in on just how we've changed. Their research is helping illuminate not only how humans became what we are but also where we might be headed

Humans will continue to change to cope with new diseases, if history is any guide

Tags: dna, mutations, evolution

Surge in Food Nanotechnology Worries Consumers

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:09:20 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Davies quoted David Rejeski of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, who advocates a U.S. investment of $150 million a year in such research by 2010, to benefit from an industry that will involve “15 percent of globally manufactured goods, worth $2.6 trillion, by 2014.”

Clip Source: www.findingdulcinea.com

As more foods produced by nanotechnology are making their way to the public, some consumers worry about the health implications of the largely unregulated industry.

Companies say that so-called nanofoods could be more flavorful and healthier than regular food. There’s even indication that a juicy hamburger could taste the same minus the fat and cholesterol, and peanuts could one day provide an innocuous snack for those with peanut allergies, for example.

Nanotechnology alters the characteristics of materials by manipulating their atoms and molecules, which generally measure only about 1–100 nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, and a single human hair measures 100,000 nanometers wide.

Nanotechnology has already brought advances in medicine, weaponry, construction, and consumer products, including lightweight tennis rackets, bicycles, certain sunscreens, washing machines and containers for food

Tags: nanotech, food, future

The Coming Death Shortage

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:33:49 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "Why the longevity boom will make us sorry to be alive" a must read.
Though I fail to agree with many of the premises of this article, the critical views it presents are important and the issues need be taken into consideration seriously

Clip Source: www.theatlantic.com

Stem-cell banks, telomerase amplifiers, somatic gene therapy—the list of potential longevity treatments incubating in laboratories is startling. Three years ago a multi-institutional scientific team led by Aubrey de Grey, a theoretical geneticist at Cambridge University, argued in a widely noted paper that the first steps toward "engineered negligible senescence"—a rough-and-ready version of immortality—would have "a good chance of success in mice within ten years." The same techniques, De Grey says, should be ready for human beings a decade or so later. "In ten years we'll have a pill that will give you twenty years," says Leonard Guarente, a professor of biology at MIT. "And then there'll be another pill after that. The first hundred-and-fifty-year-old may have already been born."

The critical issue, in Goldman's view, will be not the costs per se but determining who will pay them. "We're going to have a very public debate about whether this will be covered by insurance," he says

Tags: longevity, death, economy, future, public debate

Please Help Scientists By Participating In National Orgasm Day July 31st

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:05:04 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: So, Britain, privatize your National Health Services and cut the welfare - tell those people in Manchester the steel industry is never coming back so they should get other jobs. Then you could put money toward science studies that really count, like this.

After all, this is not a gender-specific issue. Having British women famous for lack of orgasms really doesn't make the men there look all that great either.

Clip Source: www.scientificblogging.com

I'm taking a moment away from crafting "Journey To The Center Of The Uterus", my opus on reproduction and culture, to discuss something of equal import - namely, orgasms.

It will shock you to know this, but nearly 50% of British women don't have orgasms. Are they frigid? No, not at all, as my 1999 layover at Heathrow can attest. Science funding is the issue, as we shall see.

As we have discussed in articles like The Science of Orgasms and Would Female Orgasms Kill Men?, (1) orgasms are tricky business but scientists know what they are doing. Fewer scientists means fewer orgasms. Britain is in the throes of a science funding meltdown so the problem for British women will only get worse. With fewer scientists there can be fewer studies on important stuff like this.

What are we talking about?

To celebrate National Orgasm Day on July 31, concerned groups in the UK have been conducting a survey on female orgasms - and the results are not good

Tags: humor, britain

Is There a Laziness Gene?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:59:57 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.time.com

Have you ever wondered why you can't get off the couch and exercise — despite paying for an expensive gym membership, despite your New Year's resolutions, even despite the doctor's scolding at your last check-up? Turns out that your inertia may be coded right into your genes.

Based on some intriguing, preliminary studies in animals, J. Timothy Lightfoot, a kinesiologist, and his team at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, suggest that genetics may indeed predispose some of us for sloth. Using mice specially bred and selected according to their activity levels, Lightfoot identified 20 different genomic locations that work in tandem to influence activity levels in mice — specifically, how far the animals will run

genes may affect either the way muscles work — perhaps causing them to use energy more efficiently and preventing fatigue — or some higher-order biochemical circuit in the brain, such as levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine or serotonin

Tags: laziness, genetics

They're Putting Anti-Aging Enzymes in the Water

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:42:41 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: io9.com

Within about 10 years, you might be drinking anti-aging enzymes with your bottled water. California biochemists have a plan to keep the world younger and healthier by using nanotech to deliver an enzyme called CoQ10 to our drinking water. This coenzyme is naturally produced by the body, but in smaller and smaller amounts as we age. And yet it's vital for the body's basic functioning, as it helps our cells convert sugars to energy. Perhaps if we boost its presence in our bodies as we age, our organs will remain productive and healthy for much longer.

Chemists like UC Santa Barbara's Bruce Lipshutz, who studies CoQ10, hope that in the future we will also accept the idea that CoQ10 comes in drinking water, perhaps along with several other vital vitamins and enzymes. So even if you want to grow old and die in the old-fashioned way, you may not be able to — at least, if you plan to drink water.

Nanotechnology Adds Vital Enzyme to Drinking Water [via ZDNet]

Tags: anti-aging, enzymes, water