Prometheus 6

I saw this headline

Scientists: Watermelon Yields Viagra-like Effects

...and thought, "Yeah, make some watermelon jokes NOW, muhfuggas!"

Truthfully, it ain't really like that.

Found in the flesh and rind of watermelons, citrulline reacts with the body's enzymes when consumed in large quantities and is changed into arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems.

"Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it," said Bhimu Patil, a researcher and director of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center. "Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it's a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects."

And it turns out watermelon has all these other effects

The nature of the fold in a molecule determines its shape and function, he explained. Natural catalysts reconfigure themselves over and over again in response to different chemical cues -- as enzymes do in the body, for example....

"It's not uncommon to have to synthesize dozens of different catalysts before you get the shape you're looking for," Parquette said. "Probably the most important contribution this research makes is that it might give scientists a quick and easy way to get the catalyst that they want."

Synthetic molecules emulate enzyme behavior for the first time
Published: Wednesday, July 2, 2008 - 10:57

When chemists want to produce a lot of a substance -- such as a newly designed drug -- they often turn to catalysts, molecules that speed chemical reactions. Many jobs require highly specialized catalysts, and finding one in just the right shape to connect with certain molecules can be difficult. Natural catalysts, such as enzymes in the human body that help us digest food, get around this problem by shape-shifting to suit the task at hand. Chemists have made little progress in getting synthetic molecules to mimic this shape shifting behavior -- until now.

The study can be viewed at http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060159. 

New map IDs the core of the human brain (7/2/2008)

An international team of researchers has created the first complete high-resolution map of how millions of neural fibers in the human cerebral cortex -- the outer layer of the brain responsible for higher level thinking -- connect and communicate. Their groundbreaking work identified a single network core, or hub, that may be key to the workings of both hemispheres of the brain.

Do you realize how high unemployment would go in rural America is we cut off their supply of prisoners? Not to mention how many DEA agents would find themselves unemployed and unskilled...

Is that too cynical a response? I don't think so.

Not Winning the War on Drugs

According to the White House, this country is scoring big wins in the war on drugs, especially against the cocaine cartels. Officials celebrate that cocaine seizures are up — leading to higher prices on American streets. Cocaine use by teenagers is down, and, officials say, workplace tests suggest adult use is falling.

John Walters, the White House drug czar, declared earlier this year that “courageous and effective” counternarcotics efforts in Colombia and Mexico “are disrupting the production and flow of cocaine.”

This enthusiasm rests on a very selective reading of the data. Another look suggests that despite the billions of dollars the United States has spent battling the cartels, it has hardly made a dent in the cocaine trade.

Our former president needs our understanding and support. A simple explanation by his doctors of the cause of his recent aberrant behaviors should bring peace of mind to Hillary and her campaign staff. If Mr. Clinton better understood his current limitations, he and his staff could take precautionary steps to avoid embarrassments. A long-overdue explanation would help his adoring public more easily accept his mistakes and readily forgive him. It is not your fault, Mr. Clinton.

Bill Clinton’s Madness:
A Consequence of Heart-Bypass Surgery Brain Damage

We Need to Understand and Show Some Compassion

Check this.

You want to download the video game?

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) presents Immune Attack™, an educational video game that introduces basic concepts of human immunology to high school and entry-level college students. Designed as a supplemental learning tool, Immune Attack aims to excite students about the subject, while also illuminating general principles and detailed concepts of immunology.

To learn more about the game visit the Teacher Guide, Game Guide and System Requirements.

Cancer Cured? Granulocytes Treatment Worked 100 Percent In Mice Work But Will It Work In Humans?
By News Account
Created Jun 28 2008 - 3:07pm

Scientists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center are about to embark on a human trial to test whether a new cancer treatment will be as effective at eradicating cancer in humans as it has proven to be in mice.

The treatment will involve transfusing specific white blood cells, called granulocytes, from select donors, into patients with advanced forms of cancer. A similar treatment using white blood cells from cancer-resistant mice has previously been highly successful, curing 100 percent of lab mice afflicted with advanced malignancies.

Zheng Cui, Ph.D., lead researcher and associate professor of pathology, will be announcing the study June 28 at the Understanding Aging conference in Los Angeles.

The decision isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It doesn't allow the ability to buy guns from coin operated vending machines, which seems to be the N.R.A.'s goal. We have the individual right of ownership affirmed, and the locality's right to restrict transactions and concealed carry.

You're still going to get more dead people, though.

Deadly Consequences -- But the Right Call
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, June 27, 2008; A17

Few landmark Supreme Court rulings have been so widely predicted as yesterday's decision striking down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. The mere fact that the court agreed to hear the case was a pretty good indication that the justices were itching to make some kind of big statement about the Second Amendment. Questions from the bench during oral arguments in March left little doubt as to which way the wind was blowing.

This case, for me, is one of those uncomfortable situations in which my honest opinion is not the one I'd desperately like to be able to argue. As much as I abhor the possible real-word impact of the ruling, I fear that it's probably right.

Existing Drug Reverses a Form of Mental Retardation in Mice
Scientists hope medication could treat learning disorders caused by autism
By Nikhil Swaminathan

A drug already on the market for a completely unrelated condition could be used to treat a form of mental retardation linked to autism—if the results of a study in mice hold up, researchers report.

Some of the diseases have been brought from overseas, the report says, but most have long existed in this country. The diseases are largely concentrated in poverty-stricken regions, including Appalachia, inner cities, the Mississippi Delta and the border with Mexico.

Exotic illnesses afflict American poor
A study calls them the 'neglected infections of poverty.'
By Wendy Hansen
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 25, 2008

Despite plummeting mortality rates for most infectious diseases over the last century, a group of largely overlooked bacterial, viral and parasitic infections is still plaguing the nation's poor, according to a report released this week.

Many of the diseases are typically associated with tropical developing countries but are surprisingly common in poor regions of the United States, according to the analysis, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Outside the Neighborhood and Family Health Center on East 149th Street in the South Bronx, Melissa Sierra, 20, expressed concern on Wednesday that the focus on the Bronx would reinforce “a lot of stereotypes” about the borough. “It might keep people away,” she said.

City Is Pushing for H.I.V. Tests for All in Bronx
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

The New York City health department plans to announce on Thursday an ambitious three-year effort to give an H.I.V. test to every adult living in the Bronx, which has a far higher death rate from AIDS than any other borough. The campaign will begin with a push to make the voluntary testing routine in emergency rooms and storefront clinics, where city officials say that cumbersome consent procedures required by state law have deterred doctors from offering the tests.

“Routine would mean if you came into the emergency room for asthma or a broken leg, we test everyone for H.I.V., if they’re willing,” the health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said in an interview on Wednesday.

That title may be the clearest, most sensible thing ever to appear in the NY Times Opinions section. Let me repeat it:

There is never a good reason for Medicare to pay far more than the market rate for medical equipment.

Of course, it does...and steps are being taken to make sure it continues to do so.

There is little doubt that Medicare has been paying far too much for equipment — including wheelchairs, hospital beds, oxygen concentrators, diabetic test kits, and walkers — under fee schedules based on historical charges. According to federal officials, Medicare currently pays $1,825 for a hospital bed that can be bought online for $754, and $4,023 for a power wheelchair that can be bought online for $2,174.

Much is riding on the result. Hundreds of workers who could not return to jobs after 9/11 have had their lives interrupted until the litigation is settled. The city and its contractors could be forced to pay $1 billion or more in compensation if they are found to have been negligent in not ensuring that the workers received breathing masks and wore them.

City Questions 9/11 Workers’ Claims of Illness
By ANTHONY DePALMA

The first detailed review of the medical records of nearly 10,000 ground zero workers who are suing New York City and its contractors suggests that many are not as sick as their lawyers have claimed, attorneys for the city say.

The city’s review, based on medical records submitted in federal court by the workers and their lawyers, found that as many as 30 percent of the workers reported nothing more than common symptoms like runny nose or cough. Their records, according to the review, did not indicate that doctors had ever diagnosed a specific disease.

In fact, more than 300 workers admitted in court documents that they were not ill at all.

Research points to link between low vitamin D, mortality
Canwest News Service
Monday, June 23, 2008

In the latest run of good news for vitamin D comes a new study showing that people with higher levels of the "sunshine" vitamin were less likely to die from any cause - including cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 killer of Canadians - after eight years of tracking.

The finding held even when researchers took coronary artery disease, exercise and other factors into account.

Low vitamin D levels "can be considered a strong risk indicator for all-cause mortality in women and in men," researchers report Tuesday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

By the time the paper had been accepted for publication, the team had dug deeper and found low vitamin D status "had other significant negative effects in terms of incidence of cancer, stroke, sudden cardiac death and death of heart failure," lead author Dr. Harald Dobnig, of the Medical University of Graz in Austria, said in an e-mail.

Georgia's New State Health Plan Is Google
Posted by kdawson on Sunday June 22, @04:51PM
from the step-away-from-the-computer-screen dept.

theodp writes "In yet another case of life imitating Dilbert, the State of Georgia has issued a press release touting how helpful Google products will be in getting Georgians to go outdoors. According to the release and a follow-up Yo-State-So-Fat Official Google Blog post, this includes AdWords, Analytics, Maps, Earth, Picasa, Gadgets and a branded YouTube channel for the GO Georgia initiative

Time Magazine has published a story about a cohort of teenaged girls who made a pregnancy pact. The New York Times basically rewrote the article today (they gave credit to Time), though it adds an interview with a school board member. You can read either, but read one of them.

School officials started looking into the matter as early as October after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together.

Exercise: Link Is Seen Between Crime and Fitness
By ERIC NAGOURNEY

Thinking about a life of crime? You may want to hit the gym first.

A new study that looked at the physical characteristics of about 5,000 Arkansas inmates found that most were athletically fit when they entered prison. The researchers referred to them as mesomorphs.

Oh, there were also endomorphs and ectomorphs — fatties and skinnies to the lay people. But the study found that they were less likely to have been imprisoned for violent crimes.

Part 2 of the video on the other side of the link.

VA testing drugs on war veterans
Experiments raise ethical questions
Audrey Hudson
Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The government is testing drugs with severe side effects like psychosis and suicidal behavior on hundreds of military veterans, using small cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments that often target distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a Washington Times/ABC News investigation has found.

In one such experiment involving the controversial anti-smoking drug Chantix, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) took three months to alert its patients about severe mental side effects. The warning did not arrive until after one of the veterans taking the drug had suffered a psychotic episode that ended in a near lethal confrontation with police.

James Elliott, a decorated Army sharpshooter who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after serving 15 months in Iraq, was confused and psychotic when he was Tasered by police in February as he reached for a concealed handgun when officers responded to a 911 call at his Maryland home.

For photos, video of James Elliott, official FDA documents and more, visit the interactive site for the Disposable Heroes report.

Scientists Link Brain Symmetry, Sexual Orientation
By Alexis Madrigal
June 16, 2008 | 11:56:17 AM

A scientist with a brain scanner could figure out your sexual orientation based on the symmetry of your brain, new research from the Stockholm Brain Institute hints.

The findings support the notion that biological factors help determine sexual orientation and leave a specific neuroanatomical signature.

Using MRI scans of gay and straight men and women, the researchers found that people who liked women -- heterosexual men and homosexual women -- had larger right brain hemispheres, while people who liked men -- heterosexual women and homosexual men -- had symmetrical brains. As seen in the image, MRI and PET scans showed a similar pattern in two specific regions of the brain, the right and left amygdalas, which are thought to control fight-or-flight reactions.

Ghetto kids can't afford to get high on prescription drugs. Cocaine is much cheaper.

The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328.

Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0).

Zero deaths from marijuana. Imagine that... 

Legal Drugs Kill Far More Than Illegal, Florida Says
By DAMIEN CAVE

MIAMI — From “Scarface” to “Miami Vice,” Florida’s drug problem has been portrayed as the story of a single narcotic: cocaine. But for Floridians, prescription drugs are increasingly a far more lethal habit.

An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.

It is a repercussion of racism and racist practices of the past. But because 'racism' implies fucking crazed hostility or any and all references to race no matter how innocuous, applying the term here would raise obstacles we don't want to see.

Socioeconomic factors like income or insurance status explained 13 percent to 38 percent of the racial differences, the authors calculated. But they found much larger racial disparities — from 66 percent to 75 percent — in patients who were treated by the same doctor. Adjusting for clinical differences among patients did not change the findings.

Doctors Miss Cultural Needs, Study Says
By KEVIN SACK

As researchers ponder growing evidence that blacks have worse outcomes than whites in the treatment of chronic disease, they often theorize that members of minorities suffer disproportionately from poor access to quality care. Now a new study of diabetes patients has found stark racial disparities even among patients treated by the same doctors.

The lead author of the study said in an interview that he attributed the differences less to overt racism than to a systemic failure to tailor treatments to patients’ cultural norms. The problem, said the author, Dr. Thomas D. Sequist, an assistant professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, may be that physicians do not discriminate in the way they counsel patients.

More People Undergoing Colonoscopy in New York
By DAN HURLEY

The number of New York City residents 50 and older who have undergone a colonoscopy has risen by about 50 percent in five years, city officials announced on Thursday.

The study was commissioned by the nation’s largest health-related philanthropy, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which on Thursday planned to announce a three-year, $300 million initiative intended to narrow health care disparities across lines of race and geography. Officials said it would be the largest effort to improve health care quality ever undertaken by a charity in the United States.

Two "for the record" statements. I appreciate the effort to "narrow" health care disparities, but it's like Hillary said about universal health care: if your goal is to eliminate the problem, that must be your goal. Eliminating health care disparities is NOT a national goal at this point.

Second point: This could become a series. Not beating up on Obama, just pointing out that voting for President isn't all that needs doing...and it's stuff we can't do alone. This, for instance, is a problem that can't be lifted by all the bootstraps that ever existed.

Research Finds Wide Disparities in Health Care by Race and Region
By KEVIN SACK

Race and place of residence can have a staggering impact on the course and quality of the medical treatment a patient receives, according to new research showing that blacks with diabetes or vascular disease are nearly five times more likely than whites to have a leg amputated and that women in Mississippi are far less likely to have mammograms than those in Maine.

The study, by researchers at Dartmouth, examined Medicare claims for evidence of racial and geographic disparities and found that on a variety of quality indices, blacks typically were less likely to receive recommended care than whites within a given region. But the most striking disparities were found from place to place.