Behold India's unfolding democratic revolution |  |
- Behold India's unfolding democratic revolution
- Focusing on rural areas for non-communicable diseases: Azad
- 2-year-old children understand complex grammar
- Filling without drilling
- Clinical trial shows benefit to adding avastin to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer patients
- Learning secrets of world's most common organic compound driving research for biofuels
- Cleveland researchers collaborate to launch Phase 1 clinical trial for new MS treatment
- Women anticipate negative experiences differently to men
| Behold India's unfolding democratic revolution Posted: 24 Aug 2011 02:12 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A unique revolution is unfolding across India. No matter what is the immediate outcome of this popular upsurge, triggered by the inspiring determination of a 74-year-old man's refusal to eat food till the first step towards containing the hydra-headed monster of state-encouraged corruption is taken, Anna Hazare's fast has already become an event of great historic proportions. Take a few recent developments in the so-called developed democracies of the West. In the United Kingdom marauding mobs robbed innocent people, burned down neighbourhood shops and houses and attacked police with guns and petrol bombs. In otherwise placid Norway, extreme hate-filled anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant mindset led to the mass carnage of innocent students and bombing of buildings in Oslo. In the preacher of democracy, the United States, a prolonged recession, mounting unemployment and venal partisan politics have led to hardening of anti-immigrant prejudices, instead of a pan-American protest movement. A similar narrow-minded response is on display across crisis-ridden Europe. Now contrast that with India's sweeping mass movement. It is peaceful, non-violent and all-inclusive, propagating a 'middle path' shunning the extremism of Maoists on the one hand and rightwing bigotry on the other. We must remember that ordinary Indians have been brutalised for far too long by tyrannical state functionaries ranging from a ruthless policeman to a shameless minister looting public money to a pitiless judge allowing the innocent to rot in prison. And yet, Indians have not swung either to the extreme left or to the extreme right. They have steadfastly remained on the middle path. In a dazzling display of noble human emotions, Indians are helping each other in this mass uprising in a spirit of service and fellow feeling. Look at that family of 40 from Ludhiana distributing food and water at Ramlila grounds and the traders from Shahdara who are running community... http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| Focusing on rural areas for non-communicable diseases: Azad Posted: 23 Aug 2011 05:17 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Aug 23 - Rural areas are now under the health ministry's focus for their large population vulnerable to non-communicable diseases - such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular and psychological diseases among others, union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said here Tuesday. 'Most of the non-communicable diseases stem from lifestyle and are not just a problem of the urban areas. The health ministry is keen on scaling up programmes in rural areas as there is lack of awareness, scattered services and high morbidity rate,' Azad said on the first day of a two-day national summit on NCDs. The summit, organised by ministry of health and family welfare and World Health Organisation -, is taking place place ahead of the September 19-20 high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on NCDs. The ministry has also rolled out schemes such as the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke - and National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly -. 'These programmes span across 100 districts in 21 states, focus mainly on rural districts. The programmes are in second phase,' Azad added. WHO will provide the government with technical assistance for the programmes and research in remote areas. 'We will provide technical assistance in terms of training, development, supplying vital resources and perspective from experts. This will strengthen the surveillance system,' Nata Menabde, WHO representative to India, told IANS. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| 2-year-old children understand complex grammar Posted: 23 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Psychologists at the University of Liverpool have found that children as young as two years old have an understanding of complex grammar even before they have learned to speak in full sentences. Researchers at the University's Child Language Study Centre showed children, aged two, sentences containing made-up verbs, such as 'the rabbit is glorping the duck', and asked them to match the sentence with a cartoon picture. They found that even the youngest two-year-old could identify the correct image with the correct sentence, more often than would be expected by chance. The study suggests that infants know more about language structure than they can actually articulate, and at a much earlier age than previously thought. The work also shows that children may use the structure of sentences to understand new words, which may help explain the speed at which infants acquire speech. Dr Caroline Rowland, from the University's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, said: When acquiring a language, children must learn not only the meaning of words but also how to combine words to convey meaning. Most two year olds rarely combine more than two words together. They may say 'more juice' or 'no hat', but don't know how to form full sentences yet. Studies have suggested that children between the ages of two and three start to build their understanding of grammar gradually from watching and listening to people. More recent research, however, has suggested that even at 21 months infants are sensitive to the different meanings produced by particular grammatical construction, even if they can't articulate words properly. We tested this theory by showing two-year-old children pictures of a cartoon rabbit and duck. One picture was the rabbit acting on the duck, lifting the duck's leg for example, and the other was an image of the animals acting independently, such as swinging a leg. We then played sentences with made-up verbs - the... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Posted: 23 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers at the University of Leeds have discovered a pain-free way of tackling dental decay that reverses the damage of acid attack and re-builds teeth as new. The pioneering treatment promises to transform the approach to filling teeth forever. Tooth decay begins when acid produced by bacteria in plaque dissolves the mineral in the teeth, causing microscopic holes or 'pores' to form. As the decay process progresses these micro-pores increase in size and number. Eventually the damaged tooth may have to be drilled and filled to prevent toothache, or even removed. The very thought of drilling puts many people off going to see their dentist, whether or not they actually need treatment. This tendency to miss check-ups and ignore niggling aches and pains means that existing problems get worse and early signs of decay in other teeth are overlooked. It's a vicious cycle, but one that can be broken, according to researchers at the University of Leeds who have developed a revolutionary new way to treat the first signs of tooth decay. Their solution is to arm dentists with a peptide-based fluid that is literally painted onto the tooth's surface. The peptide technology is based on knowledge of how the tooth forms in the first place and stimulates regeneration of the tooth defect. This may sound too good to be true, but we are essentially helping acid-damaged teeth to regenerate themselves. It is a totally natural non-surgical repair process and is entirely pain-free too, said Professor Jennifer Kirkham, from the University of Leeds Dental Institute, who has led development of the new technique. The 'magic' fluid was designed by researchers in the University of Leeds' School of Chemistry, led by Dr Amalia Aggeli. It contains a peptide known as P 11-4 that - under certain conditions - will assemble together into fibres. In practice, this means that when applied to the tooth, the fluid seeps into the micro-pores caused by acid... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Clinical trial shows benefit to adding avastin to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer patients Posted: 23 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Amid the controversy surrounding the Food and Drug Administration's ruling that Avastin should no longer be used to treat metastatic breast cancer, a new multinational Phase III clinical trial shows that Avastin significantly increased tumor response rates in breast cancer patients when given before surgery. At the annual meeting for the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the nation's premier association of clinical oncologists, Harry D. Bear, M.D., Ph.D., Chair, Division of Surgical Oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center, presented the Avastin findings from the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) Protocol B-40 clinical trial. Bear, who served as the trial's protocol chair, explained that Avastin, when added to preoperative chemotherapy regimens, increased toxicity but also increased pathologic complete response rates by more than 6 percent (34.5 percent versus 28.4 percent) and clinical complete response rates by approximately 8 percent (64.3 percent versus 55.8 percent). Pathologic complete response was defined in the study as no remaining invasive cancer left in the breast, and clinical complete response was defined as a complete disappearance of cancer with no evidence of disease progression. Patients with hormone receptor positive breast cancers appeared to benefit most from the treatment. While encouraging, the results of this study will probably not affect standard neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy practices in the near term, says Bear. There are many different types of breast cancer, and we need more definitive biological predictors of response in order to more accurately identify the patients who will benefit most from Avastin. Though hormone receptor positive patients benefited most from the addition of Avastin in the NSABP Protocol B-40 trial, a second study presented during the same session at the ASCO meeting seemed to contradict the findings. The second... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Learning secrets of world's most common organic compound driving research for biofuels Posted: 23 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Preliminary research at Kansas State University may make a difference one day at the gas pump. Many scientists believe that cellulose, the most common organic compound on earth, has enough energy to be the next source for biofuels -- if a procedure to effectively break it down could be devised. Cellulose is a cell wall component that gives plants their rigidity. Kathrin Schrick, assistant professor in Kansas State University's Division of Biology, has been awarded nearly $900,000 for the next four years from the National Science Foundation to investigate the role sterols, fat-soluble molecules, play in the cell's production of cellulose. If we can understand how it is made and how to break it down into simple sugars, then we can generate energy, Schrick said. We know that sterols are important in making cellulose, but we are not clear how they work. This grant is funding research that should help us with that. Cellulose is composed of complex fibers made of sugar. Since its strength functions to keep plant tissue sturdy, it also makes it difficult to break down, Schrick said. It requires harsh pretreatment and expensive enzymes, so Schrick hopes her research will provide an understanding of how cellulose is made, which might give insight on how to break it down more easily. Not even the structure of cellulose synthase, the enzyme responsible for activating cellulose machinery, is known. We can model it, we can imagine how it looks but we don't really know, and we know even less about how it functions, Schrick said. Schrick has two hypotheses for sterols' association with the cellulose machinery. She believes that sterols either help to stabilize the construction of cellulose, or they transfer glucose residues to the machinery to make cellulose. We know that the machinery that builds cellulose sits in the plasma membrane. Our hypothesis is that the protein complex that makes cellulose actually needs to... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Cleveland researchers collaborate to launch Phase 1 clinical trial for new MS treatment Posted: 23 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A team of researchers at three landmark Cleveland institutions have come together to launch a new clinical trial of an experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS). Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals Seidman CancerCenter, and Case Western Reserve University are collaborating on a ground-breaking study that will test the feasibility and safety of using the body's own stem cells to treat MS. In patients with MS, the immune system abnormally attacks the central nervous system, causing damage to the nerve cells and their protective myelin sheath. The body has mechanisms that attempt to repair this damage; however, in MS, the repair cannot keep pace with the ongoing damage. The Phase 1 trial involves harvesting a patient's mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), which are primitive cells in the bone marrow, culturing them in a laboratory, and then injecting the MSCs intravenously back into the patient to see if the procedure is safe, decreases disease activity, and leads to improved repair. The research team is headed up by Jeffrey Cohen, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic's Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis Treatment and Research, and is funded by a $2.75 million, four-year grant from the United States Department of Defense and a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Cohen is Director of the Mellen Center's Experimental Therapeutics Program and Professor of Medicine (Neurology) in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He has taken a lead role in a large number of MS clinical trials, including a Phase 3 trial that led to the recent approval of the first oral therapy for MS. Currently, there are eight medications approved to treat MS. They slow the disease but none of them reverses it. The hope is that mesenchymal stem cells will lessen ongoing damage caused by MS and promote repair, said Dr. Cohen. We're taking a cautious... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Women anticipate negative experiences differently to men Posted: 23 Aug 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Men and women differ in the way they anticipate an unpleasant emotional experience, which influences the effectiveness with which that experience is committed to memory, according to new research. In the study, supported by a grant from the Wellcome Trust, women showed heightened neural responses in anticipation of negative experiences, but not positive ones. The neural response during anticipation was related to the success of remembering that event in the future. No neural signature was found during anticipation in either positive or negative experiences in men. Dr Giulia Galli, lead author from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience said: When expecting a negative experience, women might have a higher emotional responsiveness than men, indicated by their brain activity. This is likely to then affect how they remember the negative event. For example, when watching disturbing scenes in films there are often cues before anything 'bad' happens, such as emotive music. This research suggests that the brain activity in women between the cue and the disturbing scene influences how that scene will be remembered. What matters for memory in men instead is mostly the brain activity while watching the scene. This finding might be relevant for psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, in which there is excessive anticipation of future threat and memory is often biased towards negative experiences. In an experiment researchers showed a series of images to 15 women and 15 men. Before the image was revealed the participants were shown a symbol that indicated what kind of image they were about to see; a smiley face for a positive image, a neutral face for a non-emotive image and a sad face for a negative image. Examples of the negative images show to the study participants are of severe disfigurement and extreme violence. Positive images included depictions of attractive landscapes and couples holding hands. Neutral images were... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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