Health Meaning

with researchers studying reprogramming and doctors who developed the revolutionary drug against leukemia, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg won a price of the public Service of the Lasker Foundation nuclear today. The honor recognizes public health Bloomberg-policy banning smoking in bars and restaurants to eliminate trans fats in city restaurants-as well as his philanthropic efforts to support education in public health campaigns and anti -Tabac world.

Bloomberg's public health policies have sometimes met resistance.

Some saw the banning of trans fats as paternalistic and inject the government into dinner people's decisions. Others believe that the policies of the municipality are not always strong scientific support. J. Justin Wilson, senior research analyst at the Center for Consumer Freedom supported by the industry, said Science Insider that policies such as banning trans fats make people believe they can do splurge on unhealthy foods because the government has made healthy food restaurant.

Bloomberg will receive the Mary Woodard Lasker Award 09 for the Public Service October 2, as well as five other winners.

A large clinical trial of a vaccine against AIDS, for the first time, gave positive results. But once the researchers questioned the relevance of the data, indicating that the vaccine offered only modest protection against HIV infection.

The controversial trial, conducted with more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand over the past six years, tested the effectiveness of two vaccines against AIDS used together as a double blow. The researchers randomly assigned an equal number of participants who were at average risk of becoming infected with HIV to receive either the vaccines or a saline placebo. At the end of the study in June, 51 of the vaccinees were infected within 3 years after their last shot, compared to 74 people in the placebo group. The p value, which indicates whether the results are due to chance was less than 0.039, just below the "meaning" break widely accepted but arbitrary 0.05. Surprisingly, the vaccine does not appear to suppress levels of the virus in 51 people who were infected. No serious adverse events were observed in both groups.

Many researchers vaccine against AIDS had predicted that the study would be a failure, and its sponsors are delighted with the effectiveness, marginal though it may be. "Although the level of protection was modest, we believe that the study is a major scientific advance," said Col. Jerome Kim, head of HIV vaccines produced for the US Army, who collaborated with the Thai Ministry Health to conduct the efficacy trial. "We were all very excited by the results." The US military and Thai officials will announce the results of the trial, the largest ever held for a vaccine against AIDS (see table on other vaccine trials against AIDS after the jump) at conference now press in Thailand and the United States.

Several critics long study, which cost $ 105 million, were stunned and wary when they learned the results.

"Wow. Wow," said the researcher vaccine against AIDS Ronald Desrosiers, director of the New England Primate Research Center in Southborough, Massachusetts. "Looking at the numbers, it is disappointing to me. But I want to stay close and get a bunch of people to do the analysis and see if the protective effect held under further review." Dennis Burton, an immunologist at the Scripps research Institute in San Diego, California, had a similar reaction. "It's very early days," said Burton. "People should be extremely careful now." In an editorial published in Science shortly after the start of the trial (January 16, 04, p. 316), Desrosiers, Burton, and 20 other prominent AIDS researchers have argued that the study should never have been started.

skepticism about the study comes from poor results of previous vaccine, tested separately and together, in smaller clinical trials. In the just-ended trial, individuals vaccinated first received "seed" of a preparation, manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur in Lyon, France, which contained a canarypox virus that researchers had designed to contain HIV genes. A "booster" shot contained a recombinant form of the HIV surface protein, gp0, made by VaxGen, a company in South San Francisco, California. VaxGen has sold the rights to develop the product to Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases after the product failed in efficacy trials when tested alone. Both vaccines were based on HIV strains circulating in Thailand.

Although the data are positive, US military researchers point out that many discussions have yet to take place before someone decides to use vaccines with such modest efficacy. Yet Colonel Nelson Michael, director of the Research Program on HIV military of the United States, said he hopes the results will help researchers finally unravel the immune responses that correlate with protection, and then build on this information to design more effective vaccines. "These results tell us that at least walking on this road is worth it," said Michael. "From the scientific point of view, I pray this will begin to inform our arguments. So much of what people have said, in the absence of clinical success as it is theology. We finally have an argument that will be impregnated with data rather than theories. "

Michael and his colleagues plan to present the data in more detail at a vaccine against AIDS conference in Paris on 19-22 October. "That will definitely stir up the field," said Desrosiers

table credit :. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition

Here is an overview of some of the stories that we followed on science political blog of science Insider: as the availability of vaccine against swine flu is increasing steadily, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is intensifying its efforts against a growing sense of complacency in the country about the pandemic. At a press conference last week, Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said that 76 children in the US have died of the new H1N1 virus since it resurfaced in April . She compared this with the last three flu seasons in the country, which recorded between 46 and 88 deaths in this age group. "It is only the beginning of October," Schuchat said. "Of course, the flu season often will last all the way until May."

First impressions can be misleading. The 2010 budget of science, recently presented to Parliament by the Spanish science and Innovation Ministry , has now spread anxiety and uncertainty among the Spanish scientific community. in an open letter published in the newspaper national El Pa & iacutes , 51 biomedical researchers said their "enormous perplexity and confusion" to what some perceive as a violation of the commitment made by the Government to promote science and economy based on knowledge.

Biotech execs and patent lawyers welcome a decision by the new head of US Patent and Trademark , David Kappos. Under the pressure of a complaint filed by lawyers unhappy with proposed rules, Kappos recently abandoned procedural amendments proposed during the Bush administration that are designed to streamline operations and reduce the backlog of patent applications outstanding. For example, the "rules of continuation" provided would have limited the number of times that an application could be resubmitted for review without justification Other changes would have limited the number of applications per application Opponents -.. Including significantly GlaxoSmithKline - .. prosecuted in court to block the changes

for more on these stories and the latest news and policy analysis in science, visit science Insider

the results are for the national Institutes of challenge much discussed health grants and news is slightly better than expected: the agency has funded 840 projects, which puts the part of the mind boggling 20,000-plus applications funded at about 4%. This is catastrophic from the NIH grant usual rate of success of about 20%. But it beats the 1% -2% (0-400 subsidies) that NIH initially said it would fund.

The data comes from a preliminary report on how NIH spent the first half of its $ 10.4 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The tally comes to 12.788 applications funded for $ 4.35 billion in 09. (contracts add another $ 379 million.) Grant Categories include proposals already discussed that just missed the cut for the regular budget of the NIH, and project extensions (existing supplements and revisions). The distribution of the dollar (see chart): $ 1.51 billion (34.7%) for administrative supplements, $ 1.43 billion (32.9%) to the already examined applications, $ 1.15 billion (26.4 %) in stimulus competitions, $ 218 million (5%) revisions in competition, and $ 45 million (1%) to summer supplements.

This is quite consistent with the NIH plan last February to use most of the money to fund applications already examined and complement existing grants. The amount of money going to each type of award varies-a summer supplement on average $ 34,000, a grant already examined $ 368,000 per year. (Most scholars will receive a similar amount in 2010, so that the NIH has in fact spent most of its stimulus money.)

The $ 1.15 billion for stimulus funding competitions includes $ 389 million for the office of challenge grants from the NIH director and other institutes. The other major new program was the biggest purses of Greater Opportunity; NIH funded 376 such subsidies "GO" to the tune of $ 625 million for 2010. The data are not final and the numbers are still fluctuating. Research Reporter NIH today for challenge grants found they are up to 854.

Source: NIH

Not surprisingly, cancer researchers in Asia think their specialty deserves a higher priority global health . Today, during a discussion Forum Asia Cancer in Tsukuba, Japan, one speaker after another emphasized statistics showing that cancer, although the thought of such a scourge advanced country, is rapidly outstripping AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as a cause of premature death worldwide development. Yet, cancer is not mentioned as one of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. Shigeru Omi, former Regional Director World Health Organization for the Western Pacific now at Jichi Medical University in Tochigi Prefecture, drew murmurs of approval from the partisan crowd when he said the global health pendulum had gone too far to the fight against infectious diseases "at the expense of non-communicable diseases." He suggested that Japan use its influence with international organizations to rebalance priorities.

not so fast, countered Hiroyoshi Endo, an infectious disease specialist at the medical University of Tokyo women. say it offered "constructive criticism from someone in a competition for resources in the field," he noted that scientists from infectious diseases not only had very clear objectives, but proven methodologies and measures to reduce the burden of infectious diseases. "For cancer to be included in the Millennium Development Goals, there must be more explicit objectives and evaluation methods must be clarified," said Endo.

Hajime Inoue, a public health adviser to the government of China Prefectural, suggested cancer researchers do their homework and have solid proposals ready by 2015, the deadline for the current goals Millennium development and a likely starting point for a new global health priorities.

The cancer Asia forum held in conjunction with the 20th Cancer Conference Asia Pacific, running from 12 to 14 November.

Nebraska citizens do not like the new open policy Obama on research with human embryonic stem cells. So, in response to public pressure, the board of regents of the University of Nebraska will vote tomorrow on whether to limit its research to cell lines approved by President Bush:

... if it approves the restrictions - some opponents of the research say they have the votes, while others remain doubtful - the University of Nebraska would become the first state institution in the country of impose limits on research on stem cells that go beyond what federal and state laws allow, university officials say.

For weeks, the Nebraska Board of Regents was the subject of a fierce campaign by opponents of research on embryonic stem cells, more recently, a mail flood and telephone calls, a petition and radio advertisements.

Nebraska law already prohibits public funding for research on non-Bush-approved lines.

A mutation common in Southeast Asia which causes anemia also provides some protection against malaria, according to a new study. The mutation does not protect carriers from the most known cause and the most severe disease, but from a more benign parasite that has been studied much less.

Scientists already know that humans long battle with malaria has shaped our genome. One third of sub-Saharan Africans, for example, carry a mutation that causes sickle cell anemia, but also protects against malaria: The deformed red blood cells prevent the malaria parasite from entering. The researchers identified other mutations as well, but almost all protect against Plasmodium falciparum , a parasite transmitted by anopheles mosquitoes that kills more than a million people each year.

In the current study, geneticist Anavaj Sakuntabhai of the Institut Pasteur in Paris and colleagues examined a mutation in the gene encoding the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate (G6PD), an enzyme that helps protect cells against damage by oxidation of molecules. Mutations in G6PD can cause jaundice in newborns, anemia after infection with certain pathogens, and other problems. Some of these mutations are very common in some areas, including parts of Asia and Africa. Thus, researchers have long suspected that they must have a positive side - perhaps a protection against malaria, as G6PD is important in red blood cells. But studies on P. falciparum in Africa has not found a solid link.

group Sakuntabhai instead turned his attention to Thailand, where P. falciparum and its lesser known cousin, P. vivax , cause malaria. The team zoomed in on a mutation called G6PD Mahidol - after the father of the current King of Thailand, a famous physician and advocate of public health - which occurs throughout Southeast Asia and is the most common Myanmar. Sakuntabhai and colleagues first undertook a genetic study among 384 people - most of them belonging to an ethnic group called Karen - in Suan Phung district of Thailand, where malaria is prevalent. The frequency of mutation Mahidol was 24%, and using a so-called long range haplotype test - a technique that helps to sniff the recent natural selection in the genome - the team found that natural selection has indeed strongly favored transfer, from there about 1500 years. Scientists believe that malaria spread along human agriculture, creating small pools of standing water that mosquitoes like. As it happens, researchers think the Karen moved out of Tibet and began growing rice there are about 1500 years, said Sakuntabhai.

In clinical studies, the team showed that the mutation Mahidol really makes a difference. During a period of 7 years, those with the mutation had roughly the same number of malaria episodes as noncarriers, the authors report in today's issue of Science, but the mutation reduced the number of P. vivax in their blood. Women who had one copy of the gene were 30% less noise; those with two copies had 61% less. Because G6PD is on the X chromosome, men can get a copy at most; who had 40% less noise than controls did. "The parasite is not happy at all, it can not grow as well," said Sakuntabhai. But Mahidol had no effect on P. falciparum numbers.

P. vivax "is generally dismissed as an insignificant actor" who form the human genome as P. falciparum did, said Richard Carter, a geneticist malaria at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. the new study shows that it is probably wrong. P. vivax is not a fast killer as P. falciparum, and today most people can buy medicine to treat it. But in the past, people may have suffered from repeated and long periods with P. vivax , Carter said that "slowly grind down." Reductions in parasite density seen in Mahidol carriers may have lengthened the life of carriers considerably and allowed them to have more children.

Sakuntabhai adds that even today P. vivax may be a bigger health problem than people assume. A study published last year in PloS Medicine showed that P. vivax Children killed in Papua New Guinea, not yet reported by another group that saw Sakuntabhai shows that the parasite can cause anemia over a month after the infection is completed. . "The bottom line is, we should not underestimate P vivax ," he said -. "And we should study more"

Obviously, the ancient Egyptians did not get the memo about lead poisoning. Their eye makeup was full of the stuff. Although we now know that lead can cause brain damage and miscarriages, the Egyptians believed that cosmetics containing lead protected against eye diseases. Now new research suggests that they were on to something.

Previous work indicates that the Egyptians added lead to their cosmetics on purpose. When analytical chemist Philippe Walter and colleagues at the CNRS and the Louvre Museum in Paris analyzed the composition of several samples of the famous bold, black eyeliner Egyptians in the Louvre collection, they identified two types of lead salt not found in nature. This means that the ancient Egyptians had their synthesis. But making lead salt is a tricky process that requires delicate trend for weeks - and unlike other common makeup components, the salts are not glossy. So why do they bother?

The ancient manuscripts have given scientists a clue. It turns out that in the days, people did lead salts and used them as treatments for eye ailments, scars and discolorations. When Walter said chemist Christian Amatore of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris on the findings, Amatore says he was intrigued because lead is now known to have many toxic effects.

To see if the initiative could confer health benefits, Amatore, Walter, and colleagues added lead salts to human skin cells called keratinocytes, which were grown in the laboratory. The researchers hypothesized that the driver stresses the cells and cause them to produce hydrogen peroxide, nitric oxide, and other compounds involved in the body's immune response. And indeed, cells treated with lead began the more nitric oxide pumping than control cells, reports the online team Analytical Chemistry .

Amatore says that nitric oxide triggers a series of biochemical processes in the body that ultimately sends immune cells called macrophages to the site of infection, where they engulf the invading organisms. That's probably not what is happening in keratinocytes, says immunologist Martin Olivier of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who was not involved in the study. It is unlikely that macrophages and other immune cells would leave the body and burst through the skin to fight against infectious agents to the surface, he said. Instead, nitric oxide released by keratinocytes could directly kill eye-disease causing bacteria on the skin or near the eye by breaking the structure or DNA of a bacterium. Another plausible scenario, says Olivier, is that lead itself could stimulate immune cells already directly present in the eyelid.

This potential benefit of lead is contrary to everything we know about the substance, but could adapt the hormesis model, says epidemiologist Jennifer Weuve of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. "The premise behind hormesis is that, for some exhibitions, there might be a window where exposure is harmful, but also where it is useful," she says.

Yet Weuve sets cautions against adding lead to the eyeliner in your makeup bag modern people are living much longer than the ancient Egyptians. - many of whom died in their 30s - and the dangers of prolonged exposure to the lead outweigh any antimicrobial benefit, she said. in fact, the strategy of eyeliner Egyptians have turned against them if they had lived long enough, she notes, that long-term exposure to lead can increase the risk of developing cataracts.

OTTAWA Alain Beaudet, almost from the moment he became president of the Health Research Institutes Canada 2 years ago, spoke of the need for an initiative of several billion dollars to fight against disease and Alzheimer's dementia. (In Canada alone, the prevalence of dementia will more than double in 30 years, according to the Alzheimer Society of Canada.) Beaudet spoke flamboyant way with massive spending that could inspire or take advantage of other countries and investments create a global research network.

But this dream seems to have run a deficit on the head of the government. Sources say that the height of Beaudet for the funding of research on dementia in the Conservative Party in power was massively revised down recently something of the order of hundreds of millions of dollars to a far more modest 10 million $. The 2010-2011 budget, sources say, would be used to develop the parameters of a national dementia strategy over the next few years. Even $ 10 million may be too rich for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. His team's office is trying to reduce a deficit which soared to $ 53.5 billion as a result of economic stimulus measures during the recession. Managers are all but trip over themselves to lay the clearing for the cuts to come, which will be unveiled in March.

Beaudet now speaking Canada as an "honest broker" for collaborative projects, rather than a big spender, and gamely hopes his discussions with other nations will eventually produce dividends, as a flat international Platform to focus on early detection and treatment of dementia. "It really is not coordinated at present," says Beaudet. "We may share animal models. We may share patient cohorts. We could put our minds together to develop biomarkers more rapidly "But he adds." If we want to be at all important in this game, we will increase our investments significantly

Today, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) released the proposed revisions to the most influential book in psychiatry: the and diagnostic manual statistical of mental disorders ( DSM ). These draft criteria for diagnosing mental disorders are the result of a decade of work by dozens of researchers and clinicians. After collecting comments on the draft criteria and conducting field trials to test them, APA plans to publish a new fifth edition of DSM in 2013.

By ranking mental disorders and give them names, DSM not only influences the way doctors diagnose and treat their patients. It also undulates how insurance companies decide what conditions to cover, how pharmaceutical companies design clinical trials, and how the funding agencies to decide what research to fund. Make changes to a document widely used was linked to controversy, and it was. "It's like repairing an airplane while still in flight," says psychiatrist Steven Hyman, provost of Harvard University and member of the Executive Committee DSM-V revisions.

researchers and clinicians DSM-V had more ambitious goals, including using new discoveries in neuroscience and genetics to make diagnoses, reducing large dead zones diagnosis of abnormal behavior that fall into the cracks of the current criteria, and introducing the idea of ​​"dimensions" to reflect the degree of severity of symptoms and the overlap between the various disorders.

Some critics, including two psychiatrists who conducted the two previous major revisions DSM , argued that an ambitious overhaul should not have been attempted until more is known of the biological basis mental illness.

Duke University psychiatrist Allen Frances, who led the DSM-IV revisions, wrote a widely read and last year warning debated editorial that drastic changes in mental disorders diagnostic criteria may have unintended consequences, including "epidemics" false "mental illness.

in the working groups focusing on the different types of disabilities, members were confronted with scientific dilemmas and some cases, pressure from patient groups. Among a number of new proposals that seem likely to cause a stir are diagnosed with "pre-psychotic risk syndrome" applies to young people and a redefinition of autism spectrum disorders that would eliminate Asperger syndrome, which many consider a mild form of autism.

See No. tomorrow science for a more complete overview of the draft criteria DSM-V. In the coming weeks Science will explore several new proposals - and researchers and clinicians from the reaction to them - in more detail.

Two federal agencies today announced a new initiative to support regulatory science, tools and standards used to evaluate new drugs and devices. The National Institutes of Health and the US Food and Drug Administration say they are joining forces to build support for an area that FDA believes is neglected.

Today, on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, officials have announced that the NIH Director Francis Collins called "an unprecedented effort ... to catalyze the development of new therapies." part of the initiative is a grant program funded up to $ 6.75 million over 3 years, $ 6 million of it from the NIH common Fund, a pot of money to transversal projects. the request of the NIH proposal lists examples from the design of new clinical trials in tools to detect microbial contamination in products.

the other part is a joint council composed of FDA-NIH Collins FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, and other scientists at the agency that will link research and regulatory review process. It is still to define its program and request comments from patient advocates and others during a public meeting this spring, said Collins.

The initiative comes in addition to a proposed $ 25 million for regulatory science in the 2011 budget for the FDA to nanotechnology and other fields. Hamburg said that "there are elements of integrated regulatory science in all aspects of what we do," but this is the first FDA "targeted initiative."

The FDA has already a 6 years program, the critical path Initiative, which, according to its website, is funding a number of research projects on topics such as the design of the clinical trial. But Collins said his main component of the research institute in Arizona, is "modest in size." he admits that $ 6.75 million-enough for only two or three price is modest, too. But it could grow, he said, according to the interest of scientists.

The Letter cancer , a newsletter based in Washington DC, confidence, reports that the White House intends to appoint Nobel laureate Harold Varmus in as director of the National cancer Institute. Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health (the parent NCI), said Science Insider it 2 weeks ago that rumors of his possible appointment were "exaggerated." He also highlighted two recent share purchase a new apartment and the renewal of its grant research suggests that he did not intend to leave New York, where he is president of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center . But Letter cancer reports (subscription required) that "several sources within the federal government and outside have confirmed that the ad seems imminent" and is expected in the coming days. Varmus did not respond to e-mail this afternoon seeking comment.

Researchers say they have discovered a new molecular player to determine whether cells breast cancer spreads through the body: long strands of RNA called lincRNAs who suppress tumor suppressor genes. The finding may lead to a test to predict metastasis and medication to prevent.

Several factors determine whether the cells will become cancerous and later go mobile. Mutations in tumor suppressor genes such as p53 and BRCA1 play a role, as "microRNA" genes that critics of silence.

Problems with lincRNAs appear to be another mechanism. The researchers first identified lincRNAs-short for intervening noncoding RNAs are big-9 years. Often, hundreds or thousands of times longer than the microRNA, which run approximately 22 nucleotides, some lincRNAs seem to influence the expression of genes by binding to enzymes that modify chromatin, the DNA-protein packet that makes up chromosomes . The lincRNAs run these enzymes chromatin formatting to specific sites along the chromosomes, where they Tack chemical groups on genes, blocking them from being expressed. A lincRNA known Hotair, for example, helps tell embryonic skin cells that express genes based on their location in the body.

Because some cancer genes arose in this working skin cells, cancer biologist Howard Chang of Stanford University began exploring whether Hotair and other lincRNAs could also play a role in the cancer. His group and colleagues eventually hosted in the Hotair in samples of human breast cancer. Hotair levels were hundreds of times higher than normal in samples of metastatic breast cancer, the researchers found, and they were sometimes unusually high in primary tumors. Looking at samples from 132 women with breast cancer followed for many years, the team also found that women with high levels Hotair in their primary tumor were three times more likely to develop metastatic cancer and die.

For more details, Chang's team used modified virus to ramp up Hotair expression in breast cancer cells. When inserted into the tail of mice, these cells caused high Hotair 10 times more metastatic tumors in the lungs than unmodified cancer cells. Hotair apparently promotes metastasis by closing the genes involved in the conservation of cells to move. With these extinct genes, primary tumor cells can more easily invade the cell matrix surrounding organs and form metastatic tumors, said Chang, whose team reports its findings in tomorrow's edition of Nature .

A test for Hotair levels could be used to predict which patients with breast cancer will develop metastases, the authors suggest. Hotair and blocking the enzyme, it interacts with could be a way to prevent metastasis.

The general message is that microRNAs are not the only type of non-coding RNAs that researchers should be careful when it comes to how the cancer spreads, says George Calin MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. "It opens a new research field."

molecular geneticist Maarten van Lohuizen of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam agreed that the study is "important and provocative." But he notes that it raises many questions. For example, he wonders why would Hotair of such profound effects when it is just one of many lincRNAS present at high levels in metastatic tumors.

Where did I leave my car keys? Do I come in this room to get something? And what was the name of that person?

Aging often means getting a little forgetful. Now researchers working with mice believe they have found a new reason. They identified the molecular changes in the brain of mice that prevent aging learning genes and switching memory as they are in younger animals. If the results translate into humans, they could one day lead to drugs that stave off dementia or even the normal cognitive decline in old age. Indeed, a certain class of drugs already in development to treat cancer could fit the bill.

Previous studies have found age-related gene expression in the hippocampus, an important memory center in the brain. Other work involved tiny histone spools of proteins that control gene expression by winding or unwinding DNA in learning and memory. Neuroscientist Andrew Fischer of the European Neuroscience Institute in Göttingen, Germany, and his colleagues wanted to probe the connection histone further. They hypothesized that aging can change the operation of the histones, which causes alterations in the expression of genes that contribute to memory impairment.

To test the idea, Fischer and colleagues compared young and old mice. old mice do not have the car keys to lose track, but they are struggling to remember a place where they once received an unpleasant surprise or hidden platform in a water basin disorder. The team found staggering differences in gene expression between young 3 month old mice and 16-month-old mice (equivalent to the average age at the end of man). An hour after being trained to associate a particular room with an imminent shock to the foot, nearly 2,000 genes in the hippocampus became more active in younger mice compared with only six genes in aged mice.

The reason seems to be that in younger mice association between the bedroom and the results of shock in a type of chemical modification, called acetylation, to a specific site on the protein histone H4K12. Histone acetylation causes to decelerate their DNA, thus allowing gene expression to proceed, if acetylation decrease generally reduced gene expression.

Indeed, when the researchers injected a drug into the hippocampus of aged restore acetylation mice, the gene expression profiles of these mice had look similar to those of their younger counterparts. Furthermore, this treatment has improved the old mice's ability to remember a foot shock, as evidenced by a fearful behavior "freeze" when they reviewed the room a day later, the team reports in number tomorrow Science .

"These studies bring us one step closer to understanding memory loss related to age and closer to developing a drug that might help boost memory in aging associated with memory loss' says David Sweatt, a neuroscientist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Sweatt notes that recent studies by his group and Ottavio Arancio and colleagues at Columbia University found that drugs that stimulate histone acetylation can improve memory in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. Some of these drugs, called histone deacetylase inhibitors are already approved for the treatment of cancer, and more are in the pipeline, said Arancio. But he warns that it remains to be seen if they are precise enough to work as memory enhancers without causing serious side effects. Fischer suggests that drugs that specifically enhance H4K12 acetylation, if they can be developed, could do the trick.

This is not to spit on: Scientists say they may be able to track diseases transmitted by mosquitoes fatal studying saliva insects leave behind when they feed sweet bait.

diseases transmitted by mosquitoes are a major health hazard worldwide. Some, such as malaria, chronically afflict certain regions. But others, such as dengue fever, West Nile virus and chikungunya, can rapidly emerge in new places or reappear in areas where they have gone dormant. This means that those responsible for public health should keep a constant eye on the movement of diseases.

The usual methods for the detection of virus by mosquitoes all have a weakness: Based on clinical diagnoses means a disease has already happened in the population; keep '' sentinel 'animals is expensive, and the animals themselves provide a food source for mosquitoes; and capturing thousands of mosquitoes and analyzing their RNA is expensive and labor intensive.

Now, Andrew van den Hurk, a virologist with Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services in Coopers Plains, Australia, and colleagues found a way to monitor diseases transmitted by mosquitoes that may be simpler than the current and suitable methods for use over large geographical areas. For their new study, the researchers took advantage of the fact that mosquitoes are sloppy eaters: When they feed on a sugar source, the insects leave behind a slobbery mess. And van den Hurk and colleagues have discovered that they can detect the virus in the mosquito residue spit, as they report online today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

To prove this, the scientists created box traps that attract mosquitoes with gas, carbon dioxide Äîmosquitoes are attracted to things, because it indicates the presence of an animal breathing and therefore a meal , Äîand then suck them inside a fan. Once in the trap, the mosquitoes feed on filter paper soaked in honey, Äîdyed blue for the color rubbed off on mosquitoes that take the bait. Researchers have traps in Bunbury in Western Australia near Cairns, in northeastern Australia, Äîtwo historical warm beds virus Ross River and Barmah Forest mosquitoes. Over 11 weeks, the scientists returned to the traps weekly to collect the filter paper and the trapped mosquitoes and send to the laboratory for analysis.

Whenever the filter paper returned positive for viral RNA, laboratories also found the virus in mosquitoes they had captured, which means the filter paper accurately reflects the presence of carrying mosquitoes virus. Scientists suggest that the technique could be able to be modified to detect other diseases like malaria and the virus of bluetongue.

Honey is antibacterial, so it's a great way to protect the viral RNA from bacteria until the researchers return to collect. Traps can be left out for more than a week, allowing them to set traps on a relatively large geographical area and check the traps intermittently, the researchers say. Another advantage is speed. Laboratories can analyze the filter paper using a RNA technology known as identifying the reaction reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, indicating that the diseases are almost instantaneously present. However, sorting, storage and transportation of mosquitoes trapped for analysis of RNA is a process much longer and more arduous. The current method also requires keeping the samples cold mosquitoes Äîsomething it is not always possible in warm, tropical environments.

Jonathan Day, an entomologist at the University of Medical Entomology Laboratory in Vero Beach Florida, said that compared to analyze the trapped mosquitoes or finding the infection in sentinel animals, essentially new technique could halve the time required to detect and respond to an outbreak in a new area. But he said it remains to be seen whether the technique will be profitable enough to justify switching to researchers it. '' It is certainly intelligent, '' Day said, '' but the cost is the critical factor. '' Day also highlights that the technique lets you know if the disease is present and can not tell the researchers the extent of the infection from a mosquito population in the area.

Rory McAbee, biologist at Fresno Mosquito and Vector Control District in California, acknowledges that the method could be a time saver for researchers, but warns that traps only work for the mosquitoes that are attracted to the dioxide atoms. '' All species will not enter the trap, '' she said. '' This should be assessed for each species and viruses. ''

What can you do to make your children smarter? The maintenance of good health might help. A new study suggests that differences in the world of intelligence can be explained by disparities in infectious diseases. The researchers found that the most severely affected by infectious diseases countries generally had the lowest average IQ. They propose that these diseases hinder brain development of children, although their conclusion is gathering mixed reviews.

The new research is based on data first published in 02 in a controversial book called IQ and the Wealth of Nations . In the book, the psychologist Richard Lynn of the University of Ulster UK and Tatu Vanhanen political scientist at the University of Tampere in Finland searched the published literature to come up with average IQ measures for 81 countries. They also estimated IQ for another 104 countries by averaging the neighboring nations IQ. Hong Kong topped the list with an average IQ of 107. The authors argued that national differences in IQ at least partially explained the differences in national wealth. In 06, they expanded the data to include IQ measures 113 countries and new estimates for 79 others.

Several groups have attempted to explain the reason. In the new study, Christopher Eppig, a doctoral candidate in biology at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and colleagues propose that low IQ is related to the number of infectious diseases. Their idea, the researchers call the "parasite-stress hypothesis" is that children who become "parasites", which they define to include everything from intestinal worms to bacteria and viruses, devote more energy the fight against infection. therefore, they have less energy available to brain development. the countries where infectious diseases are prevalent, Eppig and his colleagues say, have lower intelligence.

to test this idea, the researchers analyzed statistically the relationship between 06 Lynn and Vanhanen data and 04 data on the burden of infectious diseases to the World health Organization, which measures the potential years of healthy life lost to premature death and disease as a result of 28 infectious diseases, including malaria, hepatitis and tetanus. the researchers also reviewed factors that other research groups had related to IQ, such as nutrition, literacy, education, gross domestic product, and temperature.

The figures appear to confirm the hypothesis, the team will report online tomorrow in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B . When the researchers analyzed each factor separately, they found that the burden of infectious diseases was more closely correlated with IQ than other variables. "Parasites alone represent 67% of the variation around the world in the mind," says Eppig. To further evaluate the relationship, the researchers constructed a statistical model that allowed them to test the predictive power of the load infectious diseases against other variables previously associated with IQ, such as education, temperature, distance from sub-Saharan Africa, and wealth. burden of infectious disease again came out on top, though temperature and distance SSA explained some of the changes as well.

Eppig stresses that their study can not rule out any of the other factors. "I would never say that parasites are only thing that affects the global diversity of intelligence. "

Maureen Black, a pediatric psychologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, is skeptical. It argues that health itself is not enough for the full development of the brain. "For children to develop intellectual skills they need not only solid objects and the absence of infections, they also need opportunities to explore and enrichment opportunities." These opportunities could be lacking in countries with low average IQ.

But Richard Guerrant, MD, an infectious disease expert at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, says researchers are on the right track. His work suggests a link between diarrheal diseases, malnutrition, stunted growth, and lower IQs. The next challenge, he says, will be to discover the exact mechanisms.

Vienna- A highly anticipated presentation here at the 18th International AIDS Conference proved to be doubly sweet. As Science reported yesterday, researchers announced that South African women who received a vaginal gel containing the anti-HIV drug tenofovir had a chance to 39% less to be infected by the virus than those who received placebo. But the researchers also report that the microbicide gel had a more powerful effect against herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2).

"It is very interesting and clearly must be followed," said Zeda Rosenberg, who heads the International Partnership for Microbicides, a nonprofit based in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Quarraisha and Salim Abdool Karim, husband and wife team who led the study, called CAPRISA 004, presented the key data during a session of the afternoon today. As explained Salim, nearly half of women did not have HSV-2 at baseline. of this group, 58 of 224 women in the placebo arm of the study were infected with HSV-2 over to 29 of 202 who received the gel. the difference, 51% was statistically significant, and the effect of the microbicide on the HIV infection was independent HSV-2 conclusion noted Salim Abdool Karim.

the finding is particularly encouraging because HSV-2 increases the risk of being infected with HIV-1 a person. "once confirmed and replicated, tenofovir gel has the potential to alter the course of the HIV epidemic, "said Salim Abdool Karim.

As he explains, a precursor compound tenofovir is actually a drug marketed to treat HSV-2 infection. But some AIDS researchers knew the connection, and many were stunned that tenofovir had a powerful impact on the HSV-2.

"It goes to show that sometimes you learn unexpected things scientific projects well designed," said Robert Grant of the University of California, San Francisco, who studies a related prevention strategy that uses an anti -HIV pill to protect uninfected people. "It is a fine example of how prevention interventions can in synergy with each other."

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins said in a press call this afternoon to the court order yesterday blocking funded by federal research on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) will not affect the payment of subsidies that have already gone through the door this year. That's good news for the scores of researchers who fear that their experiences would would stop. But the injunction forcing NIH to freeze its reviews of new hESC grants, and has jeopardized payments for more than 20 ongoing grants pending their annual payment in September.

Collins called the decision taken yesterday by the District Court of the United States in Washington, DC, "development very unexpected" that NIH staff "stunned." It affects both lines approved under Obama's policy on stem cells in 09, and those previously approved by President George W. Bush, he said.

the consequences are dramatic "and far reaching," he said. Fifty grants awaiting peer review have been set aside; another dozen grants totaling $ 15 million to $ 20 million that had passed the first stage of the Peer Review and were directed to the NIH advisory councils will also reprints. Another 22 grants totaling $ 54 million in funding, which were for the annual renewal in September are also waiting. NIH also canceled a planned meeting of an advisory board today which investigated whether to add more cell lines to those approved for funding from the NIH.

Another 0 or so grants totaling $ 131 million that had already been allocated this year are safe for now, but could be at risk when they come for their annual turnover in the coming months, Collins said .

Collins said the idea that hESC ongoing projects could quickly find private sources of funding "is not an idea that I think we can put forward without a healthy dose of skepticism."

Department of Justice and other parts of the Obama administration are still working on their response to the decision, Collins said. "There are many people who thought they were going to be on vacation to work really hard," he said

Science Insider was left with an unanswered question when Press :. did the two doctors who won the injunction to challenge the interpretation of the Obama administration that it does not apply to grants that have been funded this year?

for Learn more about the prohibition of stem cells, see our full coverage.

In the latest twist in a complex legal battle, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has appealed refusal of a judge Tuesday to lift the ban on funding for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. Wednesday night, government lawyers have filed a petition with the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for an "immediate administrative stay" of the ban. A decision could come as early as this week.

In his brief statement Tuesday, Royce Lamberth CJ rejected the national demand Institutes (NIH) of Health for a stay of the preliminary injunction. In this, he reiterated his view that the current policy NIH violates the Dickey Amendment, which prohibits the federal government to fund research that undermines embryos. "Congress remains perfectly free to amend or revise the law. This Court is not free to do so, "he wrote, seeming to imply that he was in Congress to change the law.

But the Ministry of Justice replied yesterday that Congress has for years both tacitly and explicitly approved approved hESC research. "When Congress included the Dickey Amendment in the proposed fiscal 2010 appropriations law, he was fully aware of the guidelines of the NIH," DOJ lawyers note. They emphasize that specifically stated accompanying report that the Dickey Amendment "shall not be construed to limit federal support for research on human embryonic stem cells." If Congress intended to prohibit hESC research, the government argued, legislators have already changed the law.

The appeal also challenges the decision Lamberth on the "balance of harm" resulting from the financing prohibition. In their action, the plaintiffs James Sherley and Theresa Deisher claim that the funding of the research NIH hESC diverts funds from other work and hurts their chances of winning a scholarship to study adult stem cells. In granting the injunction, Lamberth agreed with this statement and in hESC research would not be seriously harmed because they could "obtain private funding for their research." The call notes of the Ministry of Justice, however, that Deisher, who never asked for the NIH grant, said in a brief submitted on Friday that "private financing is scarce" and that "in order to continue my research ... I have to get funding of "NIH. the call MJ wonders why NIH funding is needed for someone who has never made the request while" it is not as necessary for research of these scientists are now completely cut . "

The US Circuit Court of Appeals, DC Circuit is the same court that gave Sherley and Deisher legal status in June. It is dominated by Republican appointees, but some observers believe is irrelevant because the legal issues do not concern the ethics of research involving embryos, but if the courts should defer to how several jurisdictions have interpreted Dickey -Wicker. The plaintiffs expect to file a motion for summary judgment tomorrow Lamberth-a request that he decided the case without trial. One possible scenario is that the appeal court will injunction while Lamberth considered the case.

See our full coverage of this issue.

If you ask biodefense experts to name two diseases that prevent them from sleeping at night, there's a good chance they mention smallpox and anthrax. Both are highly lethal, and current vaccines have major problems. Now researchers have found a way to target both the threats both :. A candidate vaccine that protects against both diseases and seems to work better than existing preventatives

The vaccine against smallpox, a terrible viral disease that has killed 30% of its victims before it was eradicated in 1970 is very effective in a single dose. But the vaccine is a live virus itself, called vaccinia, which can cause serious side effects such as brain and heart inflammation, sometimes leading to death. It is not recommended for different risk groups such as patients with eczema and immunocompromised which together form a quarter of the population. Officially, only two laboratories in the United States and Russia still have major , the smallpox virus smallpox, but many worry about hidden stocks elsewhere.