Early elementary school start times tougher on economically advantaged children

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Middle- and upper-class elementary school students in Kentucky demonstrated worse academic performance when they were required to start classes early, compared to peers whose school day started later (stock image).

Middle- and upper-class elementary school students in Kentucky demonstrated worse academic performance when they were required to start classes early, compared to peers whose school day started later, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

Researchers led by Peggy S. Keller, PhD, of the University of Kentucky, theorized that earlier school start times would be associated with lower standardized test scores, poorer attendance, more students being left back, lower school rank and school underperformance. They also expected that earlier start times would be especially risky for school performance standards in more disadvantaged schools, including Appalachian schools and those with a higher percentage of students receiving free or reduced-cost lunches.

"What we found, however, was early start times were associated with worse performance in schools in more affluent districts -- that is, those with fewer kids getting free or reduced-cost lunches," Keller said. "For schools with more disadvantaged students, later start times did not seem to make a difference in performance, possibly because these children already have so many other risk factors."

The researchers examined data from 718 public elementary schools in Kentucky. Student performance was measured by looking at scores on a statewide standardized test that assessed reading, math, science, social studies and writing. They also looked at attendance rates, the number of students who were required to repeat a grade (retention rates) and teacher-student ratios. Results were published in APA's Journal of Educational Psychology.

"The relationship between earlier start times and poorer academic performance may be explained by the physical, behavioral and psychological ramifications of sleep deprivation," the researchers wrote. "Students may therefore lose the ability to remain alert and focused in the classroom." Getting less sleep might also increase the frequency and severity of illness among students, which could also lead to lagging performance, they said.

Another unexpected finding was higher rates of students repeating grades in schools with later start times. Every additional minute later a school started increased retention rates by 0.2 percent, the researchers found.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine student retention in relation to school start times, and it is therefore difficult to draw firm conclusions about this finding," Keller said. "However, given that other indices of school performance were improved at later school start times, one possible explanation is that once the average students begin to improve, students with learning difficulties have an especially hard time keeping up."

Most prior research on the effect of early school start times has focused on middle and high school students, on the theory that youngsters going through puberty need more sleep. The researchers in this study concluded that research on school start times shouldn't focus exclusively on adolescents.

They also suggested that delaying middle and high school start times at the expense of making elementary school start times earlier might be a bad idea. This is sometimes done to accommodate staggered bus scheduling. "Our findings suggest that these policy changes may simply be shifting the problem from adolescents to younger children, instead of eliminating it altogether," they wrote.

Family violence leaves genetic imprint on children

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"Family-level stressors, such as witnessing a family member get hurt, created an environment that affected the DNA within the cells of the children," said lead author Dr. Stacy Drury. (Stock image)

A new Tulane University School of Medicine study finds that the more fractured families are by domestic violence or trauma, the more likely that children will bear the scars down to their DNA.

Researchers discovered that children in homes affected by domestic violence, suicide or the incarceration of a family member have significantly shorter telomeres, which is a cellular marker of aging, than those in stable households. The findings are published online in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Telomeres are the caps at the end of chromosomes that keep them from shrinking when cells replicate. Shorter telomeres are linked to higher risks for heart disease, obesity, cognitive decline, diabetes, mental illness and poor health outcomes in adulthood. Researchers took genetic samples from 80 children ages 5 to 15 in New Orleans and interviewed parents about their home environments and exposures to adverse life events.

"Family-level stressors, such as witnessing a family member get hurt, created an environment that affected the DNA within the cells of the children," said lead author Dr. Stacy Drury, director of the Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Laboratory at Tulane. "The greater the number of exposures these kids had in life, the shorter their telomeres were -- and this was after controlling for many other factors, including socioeconomic status, maternal education, parental age and the child's age."

The study found that gender moderated the impact of family instability. Traumatic family events were more detrimental to young girls as they were more likely to have shortened telomeres. There was also a surprising protective effect for boys: mothers who had achieved a higher level of education had a positive association with telomere length, but only in boys under 10.

Ultimately, the study suggests that the home environment is an important intervention target to reduce the biological impacts of adversity in the lives of young children, Drury said.

Promising T cell therapy to protect from infections after transplant

 

June 17, 2014

Technische Universitaet Muenchen

When patients have to undergo a bone marrow transplant, the procedure weakens their immune system. Viruses that are usually kept in check in a healthy immune system may then cause potentially fatal infections. Scientists have now developed a method that could offer patients conservative protection against such infections after a transplant. The method has already been used to treat several patients successfully.

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As work with cells requires highly-pure working conditions, the scientists wear sterile clothing in the clean rooms.

When patients have to undergo a bone marrow transplant, the procedure weakens their immune system. Viruses that are usually kept in check in a healthy immune system may then cause potentially fatal infections. Scientists at Technische Universität München (TUM), together with colleagues from Frankfurt, Würzburg and Göttingen, have now developed a method which could offer patients conservative protection against such infections after a transplant. The method has already been used to treat several patients successfully.

The cells of the human immune system are created from special stem cells in the bone marrow. In diseases affecting the bone marrow, such as leukemia, the degenerate cells must be destroyed using radiation or chemotherapy. Subsequently, the hematopoietic system has to be replaced with stem cells from the blood of a healthy donor. Because of the resulting temporary weakening of the immune system, patients are more exposed to viruses that would normally be warded off.

The cytomegalovirus (CMV), which can cause serious damage to lungs or liver in persons with a weakened defense, poses a major clinical problem. In healthy human beings, a CMV infection will usually not produce any symptoms, since the virus is kept at bay by specific immune cells. In their work, the scientists were able to demonstrate that the transfer of just a few specific immune cells is sufficient to protect the recipient with the weakened immune system against infections. To do this, they used T cells that can recognize and kill specific pathogens.

Tested in an animal model

Dr. Christian Stemberger, first author of the study, and his colleagues, first isolated T cells from the blood of healthy donor mice. These immune cells were directed against molecular elements of a bacterial species which normally causes severe infections in animals. The T cells were then transferred to recipient mice that, due to a genetic modification, could no longer produce immune cells of their own -- similarly to patients suffering from leukemia.

Following the T cell transfer, the researchers infected the treated recipient mice with the bacteria. The results showed that the animals now have effective immune protection against the pathogens, preventing them from becoming ill. "The most astonishing result was that the offspring cells of just one transferred donor cell were enough to completely protect the animals," Christian Stemberger explains.

Successfully used in patients

Finally, the scientists used virus-specific T cells to treat two critically ill patients. Due to a congenital immunodeficiency and leukemia, respectively, stem cell transplants had to be performed on the two patients. Weakened by the procedure, both patients developed CMV infections.

Using a new method, the scientists therefore isolated T cells specifically programmed to target the CMV virus from the blood of the donor and transferred small numbers of these cells to the patients. After only a few weeks, the virus-specific cells proliferated. At the same time, the number of viruses in the blood dropped. "It is a great advantage that even just a few cells can provide protection. This means that the cells can be used for preventive treatment in low doses that are gentler on the organism," Dr. Michael Neuenhahn, last author of the study, explains.

The potential of the identified T cells will now be examined in a clinical study. In addition to an innovative method for cell purification, scientists also have at their disposal a new TUM facility for the sterile manufacture of cell products. In TUMCells, cells can be produced in highly-pure conditions, in so-called clean rooms. In the future, the scientists want to use recent results and TUMCells to develop innovative cell therapies.

Boost for dopamine packaging protects brain in Parkinson's model

 

June 17, 2014

An increase in the protein that helps store dopamine, a critical brain chemical, led to enhanced dopamine neurotransmission and protection from a Parkinson's disease-related neurotoxin in mice in a recent study. Dopamine and related neurotransmitters are stored in small storage packages called vesicles by the vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT2). When released from these packages dopamine can help regulate movement, pleasure, and emotional response.

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Dopamine and related neurotransmitters are stored in small storage packages called vesicles by the vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT2). When released from these packages dopamine can help regulate movement, pleasure, and emotional response. Low dopamine levels are associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease and recent research has shown that VMAT2 function is impaired in people with the disease.

Transgenic mice with increased levels of VMAT2 led to an increase in dopamine release. In addition, it improved outcomes on anxiety and depressive behaviors, increased movement, and protection from MPTP, the chemical that can cause Parkinson's disease-related damage in the brain.

"This work suggests that enhanced vesicular filling can be sustained over time and may be a viable therapeutic approach for a variety of central nervous system disorders that involve the storage and release of dopamine, serotonin, or norepinephrine."

Surfing the Web in class? Bad idea

 

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Even the smartest college students suffer academically when they use the Internet in class for non-academic purposes.

The study, funded by the National Science Foundation, speaks to typical lecture-hall culture in which professors compete for students' attention with laptops and smartphones.

"Students of all intellectual abilities should be responsible for not letting themselves be distracted by use of the Internet," said Susan Ravizza, associate professor of psychology and lead investigator on the study.

Ravizza and colleagues studied non-academic Internet use in an introductory psychology class at MSU with 500 students. The working theory: Heavy Internet users with lower intellectual abilities -- determined by ACT scores -- would perform worse on exams. Past research suggests smarter people are better at multitasking and filtering out distractions.

But surprisingly, that wasn't the case. All students, regardless of intellectual ability, had lower exam scores the more they used the Internet for non-academic purposes such as reading the news, sending emails and posting Facebook updates.

Ravizza said that might be because Internet use is a different type of multitasking, in that it can be so engaging.

The study also showed students discounted the effects of Internet use on academic performance, reinforcing past findings that students have poor awareness of how their smartphones and laptops affect learning.

Ravizza said it would be nearly impossible to attempt to ban smartphones or other electronic devices from lecture halls. "What would you do, have hundreds of people put their cell phones in a pile and pick them up after class?" Such a ban might also be a safety issue, since cell phones have become a primary source of receiving emergency messages.

Do 'walkable' neighborhoods reduce obesity, diabetes? Yes, research suggests

 

June 17, 2014

People who live in neighborhoods that are conducive to walking experienced a substantially lower rate of obesity, overweight and diabetes than those who lived in more auto-dependent neighborhoods, according to a pair of studies. Specifically, the studies found that people living in neighborhoods with greater walkability saw on average a 13 percent lower development of diabetes incidence over 10 years than those that were less walkable.

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People who live in neighborhoods that are conducive to walking experienced a substantially lower rate of obesity, overweight and diabetes than those who lived in more auto-dependent neighborhoods.

Researchers in Canada compared adults living in the most and least "walkable" metropolitan areas in southern Ontario and found a lower risk of developing diabetes over a 10-year period for those who lived in neighborhoods with less sprawl, more interconnectivity among streets, and more local stores and services within walking distance, among other measures used to determine a neighborhood's "walkability." The researchers controlled for variables, such as health at baseline, in order to rule out the probability that healthier people were choosing more walkable neighborhoods to begin with. A second study that compared neighborhoods, not individuals, found that the most walkable neighborhoods had the lowest incidence of obesity, overweight and diabetes.

"How we build our cities matters in terms of our overall health," said lead researcher Gillian Booth, MD, Endocrinologist and Research Scientist at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto. "This is one piece of a puzzle that we can potentially do something about. As a society, we have engineered physical activity out of our lives. Every opportunity to walk, to get outside, to go to the corner store or walk our children to school can have a big impact on our risk for diabetes and becoming overweight."

Marisa Creatore, Epidemiologist with the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, added that the studies revealed the degree to which "your environment can influence your decisions about physical activity. When you live in a neighborhood designed to encourage people to be more active, you are in fact more likely to be more active."

Specifically, the studies found that people living in neighborhoods with greater walkability saw on average a 13 percent lower development of diabetes incidence over 10 years than those that were less walkable. However, walkability was only protective in those who were younger and middle aged; those who were age 65 or older saw no benefit from living in a walkable neighborhood.

Diabetes was lowest in the most walkable neighborhoods, where incidence fell 7 percent over 10 years, whereas neighborhoods rated least walkable saw a 6 percent rise in diabetes over the same time period. Overweight and obesity, as well, was lowest in the most walkable neighborhoods and fell by 9 percent over 10 years, whereas it rose 13 percent in neighborhoods with the least walkability during that time.

The researchers also noted that people who lived in the most walkable neighborhoods were three times more likely to walk or bicycle and half as likely to drive as a means of transportation.

Solving the obesity pandemic, concluded Booth, "will require both policy changes as well as individual strategies. We have to take a more population-based approach to the problem, given the environment we live in."

With light echoes, the invisible becomes visible

 

June 17, 2014

Scientists have developed a novel camera system which can see around the corner without using a mirror. Using diffusely reflected light, it reconstructs the shape of objects outside of the field of view. A laser shines on the wall; a camera watches the scene. Nothing more than white ingrain wallpaper with a bright spot of light can be seen through the lens. A computer records these initially unremarkable images and as the data is processed further, little by little, the outlines of an object appear on a screen.

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Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Hullin from the Institute of Computer Science II at the University of Bonn.

Scientists at the University of Bonn and the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) have developed a novel camera system which can see around the corner without using a mirror. Using diffusely reflected light, it reconstructs the shape of objects outside of the field of view.

The researchers will be reporting their results at the international Conference for Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) from June 24-27 in Columbus (Ohio, USA).

A laser shines on the wall; a camera watches the scene. Nothing more than white ingrain wallpaper with a bright spot of light can be seen through the lens. A computer records these initially unremarkable images and as the data is processed further, little by little, the outlines of an object appear on a screen. Yet, this object is behind a partition and the camera cannot possibly have seen it -- we have apparently looked around the corner. A magic trick? "No," says Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias B. Hullin from the Institute of Computer Science II at the University of Bonn. "This is an actual reconstruction from diffusely scattered light. Our camera, combined with a mathematical procedure, enables us to virtually transform this wall into a mirror."

Scattered light is used as a source of information

The laser dot on the wall is by itself a source of scattered light, which serves as the crucial source of information. Some of this light, in a roundabout way, falls back onto the wall and finally into the camera. "We are recording a kind of light echo, that is, time-resolved data, from which we can reconstruct the object," explains the Bonn computer scientist. "Part of the light has also come into contact with the unknown object and it thus brings valuable information with it about its shape and appearance." To be able to measure such echoes, a special camera system is required which Prof. Hullin has developed together with his colleagues at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) and further refined after his return to Bonn. In contrast to conventional cameras, it records not just the direction from which the light is coming but also how long it took the light to get from the source to the camera.

The technical complexity for this is comparatively low -- suitable image sensors came onto the mass market long ago. They are mainly found in depth image cameras as they are used, for instance, as video game controllers or for range measurements in the automotive field. The actual challenge is to elicit the desired information from such time-of-flight measurements. Hullin compares the situation to a room which reverberates so greatly that one can no longer have a conversation with one's partner. "In principle, we are measuring nothing other than the sum of numerous light reflections which reached the camera through many different paths and which are superimposed on each other on the image sensor."

This problem, known as multipath interference, has been giving engineers headaches for a long time. Traditionally, one would attempt to remove the undesired multipath scatter and only use the direct portion of the signal. Based on an advanced mathematical model, Hullin and his colleagues, however, developed a method which can obtain the desired information exclusively from what would usually be considered noise rather than signal. Since multipath light also originates from objects which are not at all in the field of view, the researchers can thus make visible what is virtually invisible.

Minimal technical complexity and intelligent programming

"The accuracy of our method has its limits, of course," says Prof. Hullin -- the results are still limited to rough outlines. However, the researchers assume that based on the rapid development of technical components and mathematical models, an even higher resolution can be achieved soon. Together with his colleagues, he will present the method at the international Conference for Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) from June 24 to 27 in Columbus (Ohio, USA). The new technology is received with great interest -- Hullin hopes that similar approaches can be used, for example, in telecommunications, remote sensing and medical imaging.

Psychology researchers explore how engineers create: It's not so much 'eureka' moments as it's the sweat of one's brow

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Simply put, engineers make things. But is finding that "new" invention a massive mental leap from point A to point B, or are there scores of unnoticed intermediate steps in between?

The University of Pittsburgh's Joel Chan and Christian Schunn say that not enough has been done to understand how engineers create. Understanding the process, they say, may provide a road map for speeding up innovation.

Chan, a graduate student in psychology in Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and his mentor Schunn, a professor of psychology as well as a senior scientist in Pitt's Learning Research and Development Center, recently published a paper online in the journal Cognitive Science that delves into the workings of the creative engineering mind by examining the process in real life.

"Most companies make all their money on new products," Schunn says. "They barely break even on old products. They have to innovate to be viable, and that's a hard path to follow."

In the pursuit of innovation, Schunn says, companies pay big money to consultants to help spur creativity. "But little of what they do is based on research," he adds.

So, along with Chan, Schunn used multiple hours of transcripts of a professional engineering team's "brainstorming" sessions and broke down the conversation systematically, looking for the path by which thought A led to thought B that led to breakthrough C.

"We want to understand the nature of cognitive limitations," Schunn says. "Why do we get stuck (on an idea), what kinds of things get us unstuck, and why do they work?"

What they found in the sessions they studied is that new ideas didn't spring fully formed after massive cognitive leaps. Creativity is a stepwise process in which idea A spurs a new but closely related thought, which prompts another incremental step, and the chain of little mental advances sometimes eventually ends with an innovative idea in a group setting.

Channeling Thomas Edison's dictum that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, Schunn concludes that "inspiration creates some … perspiration."

So, thus far, the lesson seems to be that if you're not making creative progress, don't wait for a bolt from the blue, keep talking to your peers, and keep sweating.

Barriers to obtaining gene expression profiling test heightened perceived value

 

June 17, 2014

Barriers to obtaining gene expression profiling tests heightened their perceived importance among patients with early breast cancer who were deciding whether to have chemotherapy, a new study says. Gene expression profiling tests, such as Oncotype Dx, analyze the patterns of 21 different genes within cancer cells to help predict how likely it is that a women's cancer will recur within 10 years after initial treatment and how beneficial chemotherapy will be to her.

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Barriers to obtaining gene expression profiling tests heightened their perceived importance among patients with early breast cancer who were deciding whether to have chemotherapy, a new study says.

Gene expression profiling tests, such as Oncotype Dx, analyze the patterns of 21 different genes within cancer cells to help predict how likely it is that a women's cancer will recur within 10 years after initial treatment and how beneficial chemotherapy will be to her.

Dr. Yvonne Bombard, a genomics and health services researcher in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael's Hospital, found that access to this newly available and expensive technology is subject to careful administration and oversight.

However, she said that has created unintended consequences such as making oncologists gatekeepers for determining when it was medically appropriate for someone to have the test, leading to perceived inequalities in access by patients. Moreover, media attention made patients more aware of the gene expression profiling tests and led them to specifically ask for them, but that complicated physicians' gatekeeping efforts, sometimes hurting the doctor-patient relationship.

"There was a sense that the test was scarce or difficult to obtain, which heightened patients' desire for it and led them to perceive gene expression profiling tests as the deciding factor in their chemotherapy decisions, over and above other clinical tests and indicators," she said.

Dr. Bombard interviewed 14 oncologists and 28 breast cancer patients in Ontario for a study published today in Current Oncology. Ontario was the first province in Canada to fund gene expression profiling tests.

She said the careful oversight required of oncologists to the test created perceived inequities in access among patients. This often occurred in how oncologists discussed the test with their patients. Some oncologists offered the test to all their patients, others only to those who were eligible or where they felt there was uncertainty about the potential value of chemotherapy. Some raised it early in their consultations with patients, others late in the process, leading some patients to feel their doctors had already made the decision to recommend chemotherapy. Dr. Bombard said some patients felt information about the test was not offered to them because of its high cost, $4,000.

"Such delays or omissions in mentioning the test often left patients confused or feeling that something of great value was being withheld," she said.

Some patients said they learned about the tests from media reports describing a lack of funding in Canada that framed the issue as one of inequitable access to a highly effective, game-changing technology. Several of the oncologists said they felt pressured by the media coverage to offer the test to women for whom they knew it would not provide useful information for their decision-making about chemotherapy.

Another barrier was the extra paperwork around the test, which is not performed in Canada. Patients and oncologists must fill out forms to establish eligibility for OHIP reimbursement. Oncologists were then required to obtain government approval before sending tumour samples out of the country for testing. Results usually take about three weeks. This extra paperwork was cumbersome, increased anxieties about missing the window to start treatment and also reinforced the impression that the test was special, because it warranted special attention.

Growing use of complex therapies for heart rhythm abnormalities

 

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The EHRA (European Heart Rhythm Association) White Book 2014 will be officially launched at the CARDIOSTIM EHRA EUROPACE 2014 congress which starts today in Nice, France.

The White Book reports on the current status of arrhythmia treatment in 49 of the 56 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) member countries for the year 2013. The new White Book is published in electronic format only and will be distributed on a USB stick as well as being available on the EHRA website. As a new feature, the USB stick contains complete data also from the six previous editions of the White Book.

EHRA White Book co-coordinator Dr David O. Arnar (Iceland) said:

"The EHRA White Book has become an important annual reference of the status of treatment of arrhythmias as well as to assess the availability of therapies for heart rhythm abnormalities in the ESC countries. The data collection is the result of voluntary participation by the EP Working groups of the National Cardiac Societies and we are indebted to our collaborators that provided us with this valuable information."

The White Book contains data on the use of cardiovascular implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) including pacemakers, implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs), cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices, and lead extractions procedures in Europe.

According to Dr. Arnar lead extraction has become increasingly important as the number of individuals with transvenous CIED leads continues to expand. The leads are the most delicate part of the CIED system and in many cases they need to be replaced either due to damage, malfunction or infection, because of the limited capacity for leads in the venous system.

As in previous years the highest number of CIED implantations and ablations was in Germany (total procedures 163.040), Italy (90.602), United Kingdom (78.081), France (60.000) and Russia (58.825). However, the White Book data reveal a large range in the number of CIED implantations and ablations in the ESC member countries.

The countries with the lowest combined number of CIED implants and ablations were in San Marino (349), Armenia (278), Moldova (287), Montenegro (299) and Malta (329). There were some countries, such as Kazakhstan, that reported a surge in the number of CRT devices, ICDs and loop recorders. The use of loop recorders is on the rise, but this device is important for diagnostic purposes and allows physicians to follow the results of interventions such as ablations.

Italy had the biggest increase in the use of loop recorders over one year, from 2500 in 2012 to 3700 in 2013. Also interesting is the trend for use of CRT defibrillators instead of CRT pacemakers, which is illustrated by the data from Belgium.

EHRA White Book Coordinator Professor Pekka Raatikainen (Finland) said:

"White Book data confirm that implantable devices and catheter ablation have become key components in the treatment of tachy- and bradyarrhythmias. There is a continued increase in complex therapeutic interventions such as atrial fibrillation ablation and CRT implantation in most countries. On the other hand, a large disparity in the availability and use of these treatments still exists across Europe. This is of concern and therefore one of the major goals of EHRA is to reduce this gap."

Another important feature of the White Book is an assessment of obstacles to implementation of guidelines for arrhythmia care across Europe. The White Book presents data by country and compares it to the previous year´s statistics. Further analysis and graphic presentation of the White Book data with interpretations from experts in the field will be published in a dedicated supplement of EHRA's official journal EP Europace later this year.

"The presentation of the data in the supplement will allow us to readily compare activities between countries and show how utilization of treatment has changed over time," said Prof. Raatikainen. "It will thus serve as a benchmark and pinpoint the inequalities in access to specialized arrhythmia care in Europe."

"We hope to expand next year's data collection to include ventricular tachycardia ablations. This is the next frontier in ablation therapy. While many of these patients already have an ICD there is a growing need to provide treatment options which reduce the ventricular tachycardia burden in this population," Dr. Arnar added.

Does the moon affect our sleep? Research says no

 

June 17, 2014

No correlation between moon phases and human sleep has been found by researchers studying the topic. For centuries, people have believed that the moon cycle influences human health, behavior and physiology. Folklore mainly links the full moon with sleeplessness. "We could not observe a statistical relevant correlation between human sleep and the lunar phases," remarked researchers after a large study completed.

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Popular beliefs about the influence of the moon on humans widely exist. Many people report sleeplessness around the time of full moon. In contrast to earlier studies, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich did not observe any correlation between human sleep and the lunar phases. The researchers analyzed preexisting data of a large cohort of volunteers and their sleep nights. Further identification of mostly unpublished null findings suggests that the conflicting results of previous studies might be due to a publication bias.

For centuries, people have believed that the moon cycle influences human health, behavior and physiology. Folklore mainly links the full moon with sleeplessness. But what about the scientific background?

Several studies searched in re-analyses of pre-existing datasets on human sleep for a lunar effect, although the results were quite varying and the effects on sleep have rarely been assessed with objective measures, such as a sleep EEG. In some studies women appeared more affected by the moon phase, in others men. Two analyses of datasets from 2013 and 2014, each including between 30 and 50 volunteers, agreed on shorter total sleep duration in the nights around full moon. However, both studies came to conflicting results in other variables. For example, in one analysis the beginning of the REM-sleep phase in which we mainly dream was delayed around new moon, whereas the other study observed the longest delay around full moon.

To overcome the problem of possible chance findings in small study samples, scientists now analyzed the sleep data of overall 1,265 volunteers during 2,097 nights. "Investigating this large cohort of test persons and sleep nights, we were unable to replicate previous findings,"  " It has been  observed a statistical relevant correlation between human sleep and the lunar phases." Further, his team identified several unpublished null findings including cumulative analyses of more than 20,000 sleep nights, which suggest that the conflicting results might be an example of a publication bias (i.e. the file drawer problem).

The file drawer problem describes the phenomenon, that many studies may be conducted but never reported -- they remain in the file drawer. One much-discussed publication bias in science, medicine and pharmacy is the tendency to report experimental results that are positive or show a significant finding and to omit results that are negative or inconclusive.

Up to now, the influence of the lunar cycle on human sleep was investigated in re-analyses of earlier studies which originally followed different purposes. "To overcome the obvious limitations of retrospective data analysis, carefully controlled studies specifically designed for the test of lunar cycle effects on sleep in large samples are required for a definite answer”

Nanoshell shields foreign enzymes used to starve cancer cells from immune system

 

June 17, 2014

A nanoshell to protect foreign enzymes used to starve cancer cells as part of chemotherapy has been developed by nanoengineers. Enzymes are naturally smart machines that are responsible for many complex functions and chemical reactions in biology. However, despite their huge potential, their use in medicine has been limited by the immune system, which is designed to attack foreign intruders.

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The shell’s pores are too small for the enzyme to escape but big enough for diffusion of amino acids that feed cancer cells in and out of the particle. The enzymes remain trapped inside where they deplete any amino acids that enter.

A nanoshell to protect foreign enzymes was used to starve cancer cells as part of chemotherapy.

Enzymes are naturally smart machines that are responsible for many complex functions and chemical reactions in biology. However, despite their huge potential, their use in medicine has been limited by the immune system, which is designed to attack foreign intruders. For example, doctors have long relied on an enzyme called asparaginase to starve cancer cells as a patient undergoes chemotherapy. But because asparaginase is derived from a nonhuman organism, E. Coli, it is quickly neutralized by the patient's immune system and sometimes produces an allergic reaction. In animal studies with asparaginase, and other therapeutic enzymes, the study found that their porous hollow nanoshell effectively shielded enzymes from the immune system, giving them time to work.

Asparaginase works by reacting with amino acids that are an essential nutrient for cancer cells. The reaction depletes the amino acid, depriving the abnormal cells from the nutrients they need to proliferate.

It’s is a pure engineering solution to a medical problem.

The nanoshell acts like a filter in the bloodstream. The enzymes are loaded into the nanoparticle very efficiently through pores on its surface and later encapsulated with a shell of nanoporous silica. The shell's pores are too small for the enzyme to escape but big enough for diffusion of amino acids that feed cancer cells in and out of the particle. The enzymes remain trapped inside where they deplete any amino acids that enter.

This is a platform technology that may find applications in many different fields. The starting point was solving a problem for cancer therapeutics.

Former athletes finish first in race for top jobs

 

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Whether you were a quarterback or point guard, past participation in competitive team sports marks you as a winner in the competition for better jobs. "Participation in competitive youth sports 'spills over' to occupationally advantageous traits that persist across a person's life," People who played a varsity high school sport are expected to be more self-confident, have more self-respect, and demonstrate more leadership than people who were part of other extracurricular activities.

Former varsity athletes also reported significantly higher prosocial volunteerism and charitable activities. Also, many ex-jock octogenerians parlayed 65-year-old leadership skills into successful management careers -- some at the highest level.

Those who earned a varsity letter more than 50 years ago do demonstrate these characteristics more than others -- plus, they donate time and money more frequently than others and possessed great prosocial behavior in their 70s, 80s, and 90s,"