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by William

Mmm, Chicken noodle soup, aka “grandma’s penicillin”, is commonly known as the cure for the common cold. Now after studies in Japan, chicken soup might have another medical role alongside the cold remedy. Chicken soup may now be used to lower blood pressure.

Ai Saiga cites in his research that previous studies show that chicken breast has collagen proteins. These collagen proteins are the same as the proteins found in ACE inhibitors, the current treatment for high blood pressure. Although these proteins are found it is controversial that these can actually treat high blood pressure. This is because chicken breast only has a little protein and is not suitable for medical reasons, but other parts of the chicken, are more useful.

In a new study, Ai Saiga and his partners took the collagen from chicken and studied it closer. While doing this they identified four individual proteins in the collagen that was in the high ACE inhibitor. This was given to lab rats to simulate high blood pressure, and the results were favorable. The proteins had a significant and prolonged effect. The blood pressure decreased a lot.

Is this an appropriate substitute for proper treatment? Would you recommend this to your parents/grandparents? Could this be a cheap cure for a serious problem?

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by Kevin

Have you ever wondered if obesity and diabetes could be prevented? A solution to this issue may have been found after recent studies performed by researchers of the German Institute of Human Nutrition showed that gene mutation might solve the problem. They have found that a healthy mutation of the Tbc1d1 gene could protect against obesity and diabetes (a common result of obesity).

I am sure that many of you are wondering what the Tbc1d1 gene is and what it does in relation to obesity and diabetes. The Tbc1d1 gene is a gene found in mice (the test subjects of this experiment) that keeps them in shape and protects them from diabetes, regardless of a high-fat diet or not. The researchers are studying the gene more to learn more about its functions in order to help establish whether or not this could be linked to humans and if more tests need to be conducted.

The Tbc1d1 gene is a very complex one. It has been found that the gene “causes increased fat uptake in skeletal muscle and, at the same time, boosts fat oxidation”. While the Tbc1d1 gene causes this, it also reduces glucose uptake in the muscles. Hadi Al-Hassani, the leader of the German Institute of Human Nutrition team, has said that these results of the gene have demonstrated how it plays an important factor in the balancing of energy metabolism.

Studies on the Tbc1d1 gene have been linked to the possibility of preventing obesity and diabetes in humans, as it has been successful when tested on mice, which are genetically similar to humans. If a common factor could be found between mice and humans that plays a role in obesity and/or diabetes, then a medication or vaccine could possibly be created, thus solving the issue.

What more do you think could be done to help prevent obesity or diabetes? What do you think could be done to speed up the search for a solution? What could obese people or diabetics do to possibly help the researchers find a solution?

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by Caitlin

Did you know that three out of four children develop a middle ear infection by the time they turn three years old?  What about that one out of three children get at least three middle ear infections by their third birthday?  According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, that statistic is scarily true.  Several new studies suggest that children that get chronic ear infections are more likely to be obese later in life.  This study shows that repeated childhood ear infections damage an important taste-sensing nerve, creating a preference for rich, unhealthy foods that cause them to be overweight when they get older.

The taste-sensing nerve that is damaged, the chorda tympani nerve, runs through the tongue, along the side of the face, behind the eardrum, and goes to the brain.  Damage to the chorda tympani causes people to prefer sweet, salty, and high-fat foods.  The more they indulge on these foods, the more weight they will gain.

In one study, scientists asked 6,584 people, ages sixteen to ninety-two years old, health questions that determined their history of middle ear infections and their body mass index (BMI).  They found that those who had a mild to severe history of middle ear infections were 62% more likely to be overweight.  In another study, John Hayes, a PhD of Brown University, they found preschoolers with a history of severe history of ear infections were heavier, less likely to eat their vegetables, and ate more sweets instead.

What do you think?  Are there any other nerves that can be damaged by ear infections?  What other nerves can be linked to weight gain if damaged?

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by Hope

Smoking is gross and we all know smoking causes death. But research shows that smoking can cause chronic back pain. Robert Koch interviewed 8000 people and included questions on social and demographic themes, as well as health and lifestyle. During the collection of data, the authors examined whether smoking causes chronic back pain.

The evaluation showed that current smokers and former smokers suffered more back pain than non-smokers. Subjects that have smoked tobacco for sixteen years or more had a two-fold greater chance to have chronic back pain. Subjects who had smoked for twenty years had multiplied their chance to have chronic back pain than those who had smoked for sixteen years. Some smokers even think that if they smoke more their back pain will hurt less but, in the long run, it is exactly the opposite. Smoking does nothing to help your back pain but it just makes it worse.

Does smoking more make you have worse back pain? Do people that smoke more than others have other problems than just back pain? What other terrible problems do people that smoke have that the average person doesn’t normally have?

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by Jennifer

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease that affects your mucus and sweat glands. In this disease, an abnormal gene makes mucus become thick and sticky. It builds up in the lungs and blocks the airways. This makes it easy for bacteria to grow, causing repeated serious lung infections. The mucus can also block tubes in the pancreas, making it impossible for digestive enzymes to reach the small intestine. Those enzymes help break down food, so with cystic fibrosis the intestines cannot absorb fats and proteins fully. Because of all of this, nutrients leave the body unused and you can become malnourished. The abnormal gene also makes sweat extra salty, so people inflicted with this disease can lose large amounts of salt. This can upset the balance of minerals in your blood and may cause a heat emergency.

Most people born with cystic fibrosis often die becauase of a lung disease developed later. Treatments for cystic fibrosis have been improved since 1980, but life expectancy is still only about 35 years.

Before now, scientists have been unable to develop an animal model that develops the fatal lung diseases brought on by cystic fibrosis. Now, a University of Missouri researcher is producing pigs born with the disease that mimic the exact symptoms of a newborn with cystic fibrosis. The researchers hope that the pigs will continue to mimic the human symptoms so the lung disease can be studied and treated. The cellular physiology of pigs is similar to humans. Having this model will hopefully move research on cystic fibrosis forward.

How would you feel if you had cystic fibrosis? Are there other effects of the disease? Will pigs provide accurate models to mimic cystic fibrosis?

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by Samantha H

Did you know that flu shots contain a small amount of the influenza virus? If we are given the right amount of the virus, our bodies learn how to fight the flu off and it makes it harder for us to develop the flu. Our old vaccinations were made in chicken eggs because a fertilized egg contains less than a teaspoon of what will eventually be put in a flu vaccine. But this process usually takes six months. And if the vaccine is not working as well as it should, the scientists have to spend six months growing another vaccine in chicken eggs, which could be too late for some people who die of the flu.

Now, scientists have a new and faster way of creating flu vaccines – caterpillar cells! The new way takes only two months and it could save many lives. Scientists infected caterpillar cells with baculovirus, a type of insect disease that mostly affects larva. Baculovirus infects the caterpillar’s cells and forces them to create the proteins it needs to spread. The scientists changed the virus so it produced an influenza protein instead of a baculovirus protein. Every year, there is an emphasis on different parts of the influenza strain. Since it is so much faster to make, using caterpillar cells instead of chicken eggs could actually make it easier for scientists to figure out what the strain is that year and they could make changes to the vaccine in two months rather than six.

In an experiment led by John Treanor, a vaccine clinical researcher, 640 volunteers (mostly women) were tested to see if the caterpillar cell vaccine really worked better than our old vaccine. A third of the group had an old vaccine, another third had a small dose of the vaccine, and the rest had a strong dose of the vaccine. (The strong dose provoked a strong immune system response without any side effects.) Seven people with the old vaccine got sick, two people with the small dose got sick, and no one from the strong dose group got sick. Even though the vaccine proved effective, Treanor does not think it will be the ultimate way to make flu vaccines.

Would the results of John Treanor’s experiment been altered if he used more men in his study? Do we have to use caterpillar cells or can we use another kind of insect?

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by Cassie

According to this article, a horse takes one breath for every running stride it takes. This gives them a large airflow, but a small flaw in their airway can be very bad for their breathing and performance. There are two arytenoids cartilages that open when the horse breathes and closes when they swallow. This protects the larynx, or sound box. The cartilages can open really wide to let in as much as air as possible when the horse exercises. The recurrent laryngeal nerve runs from the brain, down the neck, and to the spine. It also is near a muscle that opens the cartilages. The nerve is very delicate and can easily be diseased or damaged. When this happens, the muscle cannot open the cartilages properly. The airway is blocked and the horse cannot perform.

Researchers have been developing a pacemaker for the larynx in the last few years. It is an electrical implant placed in the muscle or around the nerve that stimulates the muscle and keeps the cartilages open. This works very well and can be used to keep the cartilages or horses running thirty-five to forty miles per hour open.

This same technique may used to create a pacemaker for humans, particularly those who have laryngeal paralysis or have had a laryngeal transplant. This disorder could be in people have had surgery and had their thyroid removed. This surgery can also affect speaking and swallowing. The study of horses’ bodies are very useful in research, and this shows how a horse tested device may save many peoples’ lives.

Why does the nerve also affect the muscle when damaged? How could scientists use a device I n such a large animal like a horse and then figure out a way to transfer it to humans? Why haven’t they found this link between the nerve and muscle before?

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by Caitlin

A new study recently found that mice can literally smell fear.  They do so by using what scientists call an “alarm pheromone,” or a chemical that animals produce when they are stressed.  In 1973, Swiss researchers and scientists discovered an organ known as the Grueneberg ganglion, which produces these pheromones.  This organ contains about 500 nerve cells that carry messages between its body and its brain.

According to this site, when the ganglion was discovered, scientists were unsure of what its purpose was, other than carrying messages to the brain to decipher what the mouse smelled.  After several unsuccessful tests, they tried studying the ganglion under a microscope.  While looking at it, they realized that the substance was letting out alarm pheromones.  To test their hypothesis, they put a scent on a water dish that the mouse would be scared or wary of.  Sure enough, the experiment worked; the mice ran away from the dish and froze in the corner of the cage in fright.

In a new study, when the scientists performed the same experiment on mice that had previously had their Grueneberg ganglions surgically removed, the mice seemed to have no fear.  They, once again, placed a scent on the water dish that the mice should fear and they showed no reaction to it.  However, their sense of smell was not completely distorted; they were still able to smell a hidden Oreo cookie with their ganglions removed.

What other animals possess the Grueneberg ganglion?  How could these experiments be improved?  What would you do if you had to rely on a chemical in your body to feel fear?

Stephen Hawking, a physicist with ALS, Photo Source

by Evelyn

Imagine if you had an itch…but you couldn’t scratch it. Or if your best friend was hurting… but you couldn’t hug them. Are you paralyzed? No, but very close. Most likely you have been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease. ALS is a rapid and fatal neurological disease that attacks your neurons responsible for voluntary control. It is like paralysis, except you can feel pain or pressure on your body. It is categorized as a motor neuron disease because it causes both your upper motor neurons (in the brain) and lower motor neurons (in the spinal cord) to degenerate and die. Patients diagnosed eventually cannot breathe without ventilatory support, and most die within 3-5 years. Only 10 percent even live past 10 years. The worst part of this disease is people don’t lose the ability to think or feel. Their intelligence is normal; they just can’t express it by talking. Source

It is very hard to diagnose or notice it coming on because initial symptoms are so subtle. They may include twitching, cramping, or stiffness of muscles, muscle weakness affecting an arm or a leg, slurred and nasal speech, or difficulty chewing or swallowing. Problems with walking straight, stumbling, speech, or doing simple hand tasks may also occur. Limbs begin to thin and weight is lost when the muscle atrophies, or withers away and dies. You can only be diagnosed if you have signs of both upper and lower neuron failure that cannot be attributed to another cause. There is no true cure to halt ALS. Source

A good friend of our family is diagnosed with ALS. His name is David Jayne, and by the grace of God he has been living with it for 20 years, an EXTREMELY RARE phenomenon. My mom can remember when he could walk and talk with her, and even coax her to ride roller coasters with him. Those days are long over, and they will never come back. David Jayne now must eat either through a feeding tube or a syringe in his stomach. He uses a communication device that is controlled by his eyes (by electrodes implanted in his brain), one of the few parts that still work. It takes a while to type a simple sentence like “Hello, how are you?” But he hasn’t let this disease stop him from staying in his children’s lives and having one of his own. He still keeps in touch with us and other friends by e-mail, and even though it takes over an hour to get out of bed and dressed, he still pushes on every day. Right now he is in the midst of writing a book about his experiences with ALS and the NUMEROUS trials he has had to face.

Check out this article about him!!

Don’t take life as you know it for granted!! Live it now, because you never know when a big hunk of it will just be taken away…just like that.

How do you think it would feel to have no control over any part of your physical body and have to depend on someone else to take care of every basic need?

What do you think it would be like for your mind to be working perfectly but you couldn’t express your thoughts by talking or hand gestures?

What would you do if you had to depend on machines to keep you alive?

H. Fearnbach, NMML, NMFS permit 782-1719, Picture Source

by Katie

“Cool! An albino whale!” was the first thing I thought when I saw this picture. Who wouldn’t stop to look after seeing the picture? However, it turns out this whale isn’t albino. “It still has signs of darker pigmented areas on its body” (Source). Another clue would have been if the individual’s eye is pink, but no one actually got to see the eye. It’s possible that this whale has Chediak-Higashi Syndrome.

Chediak-Higashi Syndrome is an inherited immune and nervous disease. It is an autosomal recessive disease that is VERY rare. In humans, there have been only 200 cases recorded. Besides humans and killer whales, it (or something very similar) has been observed in mice, Hereford cattle, blue smoke Persian cats, and mink. (Source)

“Other symptoms associated with the disease include enlargement of the liver and spleen,…and depressed activity of other cells, called natural killer cells, that are involved in defending the body against infection” (Source). The coloration isn’t the main problem; although, if the whale was being hunted, it could be.

One thing that really caught my attention was that although this individual is obviously different from the others and may be carrying diseases that are harmful to the pod (a “pack” of orcas), the individual is still submerged in the pod. Humans tend to shun those that are different or sickly. Maybe we should learn something from these whales.

For more information on this whale, go to this site or this site. For more information on Chediak-Higashi Syndrome, go to this site or this site.

What other ways could Chediak-Higashi Syndrome affect the individual? What are some other causes for albinism, or partial albinism? Hypothesize why the pod has accepted the individual, while other species would have not.

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by Emily R

Cancer is a serious disease that affects millions of people around the world. It has become a major concern to the public, as well as scientists. All kinds of organizations have been formed to find a cure, and researchers dedicate their lives to doing just that. But what exactly is cancer? With cancer, extra cells are formed at a rapid rate, and some cells which should “commit suicide” do not. These extra cells form a mass called a malignant tumor, whose cells may invade nearby tissues and spread rapidly throughout the body. Because of the severity of this disease, scientists are constantly at work trying to determine the cause and find effective treatments.

Scientists at Penn State studied the creation of adenine and guanine, two components of DNA in a cell, and came upon amazing discoveries. Adenine and guanine, also called purines, are vital in the construction of DNA and the reproduction of cells. So, if scientists can limit the production of purines, they can limit the production of cells and the spreading of cancer.

Scientists attached fluorescent proteins to the enzymes that make purines to more easily observe them. Erin Sheets, who helped work on the study, compared this method to “giving a bright orange helmet to your favorite football player so you can more easily monitor his actions.” They monitored the enzymes in the presence of purines and in the absence of purines. They found that in the absence of purines, the enzymes formed clusters and produced purines at a higher rate than those in the presence of purines. “In a key experiment, the researchers were able to influence the association and dissociation of the enzyme cluster by changing the cells’ exposure to purines.” So, they could manipulate the production of the purines, and therefore, the reproduction of the cells. This could serve as a future cancer treatment and puts scientists one step closer to the cure.

What other cancer treatments are available? Have any other discoveries been made in trying to find a cure for cancer?

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by Matt

Maybe being short is not such a bad thing? What if the same gene that caused you to be short gave you a longer life? New studies now show that this mutation has been proven true in women.

Researchers have studied the genes of Ashkenazi Jews because of their uniform like structure, and have found that there is a mutation that causes shorter height in women along with longer lives.  The study was of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I)  which is regulated by human growth hormone. IGF-I is extremely important to children in their early growth stages. Scientist studied animal IGF-I and found that mutations in the genes led to shorter animals with longer lives.

In order to see if this mutation had the same affect on humans, scientists studied genetic variations in Ashkenazi Jewish centenarians. In order to get other views on the genetic variation scientist also examined the children of the centenarians and a group of Ashkenazi Jews with no family history of  extended lifetimes.  The IGF-I plasma levels were higher in the children of the centenarians than in the control group (Ashkenazi Jews with no history of longevity). These daughters were also shorter than the young girls in the control group. Dr. Nir Barzilai, the senior author in the study and director of the Institute for Aging Research at Einstein said,

Our findings suggest that, by interfering with IGF-I signaling, these gene mutations somehow play a role in extending the human life span, as they do in many other organisms.

Currently there is a drug being tested that would reduce IGF-I action in the body. The drug is being tested to treat cancer but could be helpful to reduce aging. Dr. Brazilai spoke on this and said,

Since the subjects in our study have been exposed to their mutations since conception, it is not clear whether people would need such a therapy throughout life or if it could help people who received it at a later time.

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What are some other ways genetic mutations have a positive effect on people? What are negative ways?