New Jersey
Researchers have discovered what could be the newest target for drugs in the treatment of memory and learning disabilities as well as diseases such as Alzheimer's and fetal alcohol syndrome: a protein known as cypin. Cypin is found throughout the body, but in the brain it regulates nerve cell or neuron branching. Branching or dendrite growth is an important process in normal brain function and is thought to increase when a person learns. A reduction in branching is associated with certain neurological diseases.
In keeping with a national trend, surgeons at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital say a new, less invasive approach to removing a kidney from a living donor is prompting more people to give one of their kidneys to someone in need of a transplant. Over the past four years, the number of people donating a kidney at the hospital has doubled, from 14 in 1999 to 28 in 2002. This is consistent with increases seen at other kidney transplant centers since the introduction several years ago of a surgical procedure called laparoscopic kidney removal, which makes the process much easier on the donor.
There is a growing disconnect between American children and marriage -- society's chief child-rearing institution -- according to the latest report by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Fewer children are living in married-couple households and fewer married couples families have children compared to past decades, according to "Marriage and Children: Coming Together Again?" from "The State of Our Unions 2003," a report issued annually by the National Marriage Project.
Scientists may have peeled away another layer of mystery about materials floating in deep space. Tiny multilayered balls called "carbon onions," produced in laboratory studies, appear to have the same light-absorption characteristics as dust particles in the regions between the stars. "It's the strongest evidence yet that cosmic dust has a multilayered onionlike carbon structure," said Manish Chhowalla, assistant professor of ceramic and materials engineering at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Chhowalla used transmission electron microscopes to study radiation absorption of the laboratory-produced onions and found characteristics virtually identical to those reported by astrophysicists studying dust in deep space.
A New jersey researcher has discovered a gene responsible for melanoma, the most aggressive form of malignant skin cancer. Melanoma may appear in places that never see sun, spread to other parts of the body and become lethal. This type of cancer is not generally responsive to chemotherapy. Cancer Institute, in the United States the incidence rate of melanoma has more than doubled in the past 20 years.
Having a patch of woods in your backyard may boost your spirits but could threaten your health. New research shows that small forest fragments in New York have more Lyme disease-carrying ticks, which could increase peoples' risk of the disease. "These results suggest that...habitat fragmentation can influence human health," say Felicia Keesing of Bard College in Annandale, New York; Brian Allan of Rutgers University in New Jersey; and Richard Ostfeld of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, in the February issue of Conservation Biology.
A multi-year physician survey on career fulfillment showed significant variation in satisfaction levels across local health care markets, and it found that nationally, 18 percent of physicians were somewhat or very dissatisfied, according to a study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) that appears in the Jan. 22 Journal of the American Medical Association. Overall, the study shows that physician career satisfaction levels were relatively consistent from year to year, and a clear majority of physicians nationally are satisfied with their careers.
An international research consortium has launched an approximately $100 million public-private effort to create the next generation map of the human genome. Called the International HapMap Project, the new venture is aimed at speeding the discovery of genes related to common illnesses such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
For the latter part of the 20th century, much of what we knew about plasma fusion came out of Princeton's Plasma Physics Laboratory. There the massive Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor worked for 15 years, forcing hydrogen atoms together in crazy strong magnetic fields in the search for a sustainable fusion reaction. I wrote a paper about this back in the late 1980s in UC Santa Barbara's terrific History of the Nuclear Age. Anyhow, the Tokamak was taken offline in 1997, and Princeton says it has now successfully dismantled and removed the leviathan. Just to give you an idea about the machine's intensity, it was the first to produce more than 10 million watts of fusion power. And in 1995, TFTR attained a world-record temperature of 510 million degrees centigrade -- more than 25 times that at the center of the sun.
Incidentally, if you ever wondered what Tokamak means, it's not --- as I once thought --- some Native American name or word. It's actually Russian shorthand describing the squished donut shape of the magnets. To(roidal'naya) kam(era s) ak(sial'nym magnitnym polem), or toroidal chamber with axial magnetic field. Now you know.
New Scientist reports on a year-long study to find the world's funniest joke. The Internet-based project was coordinated by psychologist Richard Wiseman and colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire, U.K. and involved more than 2 million votes on 40,000 submissions. The goal was to identify universal aspects to humor, which could one day allow computers to devise truly funny jokes. Before we get to the winner, an interesting aside is that the team found in the process the world's funniest animal: the duck. "If you're going to tell a joke involving an animal, make it a duck," Wiseman says. Now to the ultimate rib-tickler, which folks from Asia to Africa, the States to Siberia all seemed to enjoy. A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator, in a calm soothing voice, says: "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: "OK, now what?" Thank you folks, I'll be here all week.
