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For Alcoholics, New Help in Abstaining—Without Thinking About It

By Guest PostMarch 4, 2011Health, Scienceaddiction, alcoholism, approach bias, carolin eberl, cbm, cognitive behavior therapy, cognitive bias modification, drinking, dutch, german, heavy drinkers, johannes lindenmeyer, mike rinck, psychological scientists, reinout wiers, should i take a drink, strongly confident

Alcoholism is a tough addiction to kick. Eventually, most people return to drinking. But some Dutch and German psychological scientists have tested a short-term regime that promises to help alcoholics stay sober. Their study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association of Psychological Science.

Heavy drinkers tend to behave impulsively in response to temptation. Meanwhile, their “reflective,” or controlled, responses—the thoughts that would help them resist drinking—are often weak. Most therapies, including Cognitive Behavior Therapy, primarily address the reflective responses. “They deal with the reasons and strategies” for sobriety, said University of Amsterdam experimental psychologist Reinout W. Wiers, the study’s lead author. To boost treatment success, his team developed cognitive-bias modification, or CBM, which, for the first time, “tries to turn around those impulsive responses.” (more…)

UF Pine lsland Pollen Study Leads to Revision of State’s Ancient Geography

By Guest PostMarch 3, 2011Scienceavon park formation, calusa indian village, david jarzen, deep injection well, early eocene, evolution of mammals, florida, flowering plants, fort myers, fossils, fredrick rich, geologic history, gray lignitic clay, jonathan bloch, limestone, marine environments, oligocene epoch, paleontologist, phytoplankton, pine island, pollen, sea level

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A new University of Florida study of 45-million-year-old pollen from Pine Island west of Fort Myers has led to a new understanding of the state’s geologic history, showing Florida could be 10 million to 15 million years older than previously believed.

The discovery of land in Florida during the early Eocene opens the possibility for researchers to explore the existence of land animals at that time, including their adaptation, evolution and dispersal until the present. (more…)

Stronger Than Steel, Novel Metals Are Moldable as Plastic

By Guest PostMarch 2, 2011Scienceblow molding, bulk metallic glass, metal alloys, regular metal, stronger than steel, traditional metal processing

Imagine a material that’s stronger than steel, but just as versatile as plastic, able to take on a seemingly endless variety of forms. For decades, materials scientists have been trying to come up with just such an ideal substance, one that could be molded into complex shapes with the same ease and low expense as plastic but without sacrificing the strength and durability of metal. (more…)

Brain Imaging Technique: New Hope for Understanding Parkinson’s Disease

By Guest PostMarch 2, 2011Health, Sciencebasal ganglia, biomedical engineering, brain imaging technique, brain oscillations, disease progression, l dopa, medication, mri, neural oscillations, neurology, parkinsons disease, patients, placebo pill, rachael seidler, radiology, ripple in the pond, scott peltier, symptoms, treatment, youngbin kwak

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A non-invasive brain imaging technique gives new hope to patients with Parkinson’s disease in finding new and better treatment plans and tracking the disease progression, a new University of Michigan study shows.

The technique uses an MRI to measure resting state brain activity oscillations, said Rachael Seidler, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and the Department of Psychology, and study author. (more…)

Language Patterns Are Roller-Coaster Ride During Childhood Development

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2011Scienceaae, african american children, african american english, childhood, ebb and flow, hypothesis, janneke van hofwegen, language, roller coaster effect, roller coaster ride, vernacular language patterns, walt wolfram

Why, and when, do we learn to speak the way that we do? Research from North Carolina State University on African-American children presents an unexpected finding: language use can go on a roller-coaster ride during childhood as kids adopt and abandon vernacular language patterns.

“We found that there is a ‘roller-coaster effect,’ featuring an ebb and flow in a child’s use of vernacular English over the course of his or her language development,” says Dr. Walt Wolfram, William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor of English Linguistics at NC State and co-author of several recent papers describing the research. “This was totally unanticipated.” Vernacular English is defined here as culturally specific speech patterns that are distinct from standard English; in this case, the vernacular is African-American English (AAE). (more…)

Developmental Genes Have More Than One Way to Stop

By Guest PostFebruary 26, 2011Sciencegene activity, gene regulation, genetic level, healthy genes, molecular switch

EAST LANSING, Mich. — There’s more than one way to silence gene activity, according to a Michigan State University researcher. (more…)

A Second Pathway for Antidepressants: Berkeley Lab Reports New Fluorescent Assay Reveals TREK1 Mechanism

By Guest PostFebruary 25, 2011Scienceantidepressant drugs, berkeley lab, c terminal, cell based fluorescent assay, cytoplasm, ehud isacoff, flow of electrical current, fluorescent protein, fluoxetine, gfp, green fluorescent protein, guillaume sandoz, high speed transistors, human brain, ion channels, membrane, molecular gates, neurons, pharmacological agents, plasma membrane, protein, prozac, sarah bell, transmembrane proteins, trek1, trek1 potassium channel

Using a unique and relatively simple cell-based fluorescent assay they developed, scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC), Berkeley have identified a means by which fluoxetine, the active ingredient in Prozac, suppresses the activity of the TREK1 potassium channel. TREK1 activity has been implicated in mood regulation and could be an important target for fluoxetine and other antidepressant drugs. (more…)

‘Chemical Compounds in Trees Can Fight Deadly Staph Infections in Humans’

By Guest PostFebruary 23, 2011Health, Scienceacne treatment, anti bacterial, antibiotic, bacteria, brian thompson, cash crop, cedar needles, chung ho lin, evolving bacterium, farmers, george stewart, immune systems, key to fighting a deadly bacterium, little economic value, methicillin-resistant, missouri, mrsa, pneumonia, red cedar tree, resistant to most medications, skin, skin cancer, staph infections, staphylococcus aureus, superbug, toxic shock syndrome, trash tree, tree species

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Most people would never suspect that a “trash tree,” one with little economic value and often removed by farmers due to its ability to destroy farmland, could be the key to fighting a deadly bacterium. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found an antibiotic in the Eastern Red Cedar tree that is effective against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a “superbug” that is resistant to most medications.

“I wanted to find a use for a tree species that is considered a nuisance,” said Chung-Ho Lin, research assistant professor in the MU Center for Agroforestry at the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. “This discovery could help people fight the bacteria as well as give farmers another cash crop.” (more…)

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