- January 5, 2009
- 04:27 PM
- 5 views
Can sign language really help babies get along better?
by Dave Munger in Cognitive Daily
Baby sign language is all the rage these days. Upscale day-care centers and nanny services promote it as a better way of understanding what babies want. Babies have been known to reliably produce signs as young as 5.5 months, and studies have shown that they reliably produce signs significantly earlier than spoken words. As we've reported here, there is no evidence that teaching sign language delays spoken language development.
But is formal sign training effective? Some studies about baby sign........ Read more »
Rachel H Thompson, Nicole M Cotnoir-Bichelman, Paige M McKerchar, Trista L Tate, Kelly A Dancho. (2007) Enhancing Early Communication through Infant Sign Training. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 40(1), 15-23. DOI: 10.1901/jaba.2007.23-06
- January 5, 2009
- 03:00 PM
- 8 views
Depression in Parkinson's
by Pallimed Bloggers in Pallimed: a Hospice & Palliative Medicine Blog
Neurology has published a randomized controlled comparison of nortriptyline with paroxetine for depression in patients with Parkinson's disease. It's a rare treat to see a decently designed, controlled trial of depression treatment in a palliative-care-relevant population (when was the last time we've seen a controlled drug trial of depression therapy in advanced cancer patients?).This was an 8 week, NIH-funded, randomized comparison of nortiptyline (starting dose 25 mg), paroxetine CR (startin........ Read more »
M. Menza, R. DeFronzo Dobkin, H. Marin, M. H. Mark, M. Gara, S. Buyske, K. Bienfait, A. Dicke. (2008) A controlled trial of antidepressants in patients with Parkinson disease and depression. Neurology. DOI: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000336340.89821.b3
- January 5, 2009
- 10:25 AM
- 28 views
Uaraneida and the origin of silk in spiders
I do quite a bit of writing on spiders. Many entomologists deal with spiders, mites and other arachnids in their everyday working life. They’re important, ubiquitous predators. To this entomology undergrad, they’re essentially honorary insects.
Everyone knows spiders spin webs. They can be organized and beautiful, such as this orb weaver web
They can be complex and [...]... Read more »
P. A. Selden, W. A. Shear, M. D. Sutton. (2008) From the Cover: Fossil evidence for the origin of spider spinnerets, and a proposed arachnid order. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(52), 20781-20785. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0809174106
- January 5, 2009
- 08:49 AM
- 34 views
Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
The end of 2008 brought us the tabloid headline, Scan Scandal Hits Social Neuroscience. As initially reported by Mind Hacks, a new "bombshell of a paper" (Vul et al., 2009) questioned the implausibly high correlations observed in some fMRI studies in Social Neuroscience. A new look at the analytic methods revealed that over half of the sampled papers used faulty techniques to obtain their results.Edward Vul, the first author, deserves a tremendous amount of credit (and a round of applause) f........ Read more »
Edward Vul, Christine Harris, Piotr Winkielman, . (2009) Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience. Perspectives on Psychological Science.
- January 5, 2009
- 08:10 AM
- 22 views
A Cultural Climate Measure from Iron Age Africa
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
South of the Zambezi River, along the eastern side of Africa, things get dryer and dryer as you go south, until you finally reach the southernmost end of the continent where things become a little bit moister again.
A couple of thousand years ago cattle keeping people speaking Bantu languages and possessing mainly Banutu cultural traits ... the ancestors of the present day Shona, Venda Tswana, Zulu, etc. .... were living in this area, keeping their cattle, and doing all sorts of interesting stu........ Read more »
T HUFFMAN. (2008) A cultural proxy for drought: ritual burning in the iron age of southern africa. Journal of Archaeological Science. DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2008.11.026
- January 5, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 29 views
Reflecting on Climate Change
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
A radical plan to curb global warming and apparently reverse climate change caused by our rampant burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution would involve simply covering large areas of the world’s deserts with reflective sheeting.
The idea is discussed in detail in the January issue of the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues and [...]
Reflecting on Climate Change... Read more »
Takayuki Toyama, Alan Stainer. (2009) Cosmic Heat Emission concept to 'stop' global warming. International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 9(1/2), 151. DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2009.022093
- January 5, 2009
- 05:56 AM
- 27 views
One in five children with cancer receive wrong chemotherapy doses
by Helen Jaques in In Sickness and In Health
A study of nearly 1,400 adult and pediatric cancer patients published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology has found that 19% of children taking chemotherapy drugs in outpatient clinics or at home were subject to some sort of medication error. In addition, 7% of adult cancer outpatients also were on the receiving end of chemotherapy [...]... Read more »
K. E. Walsh, K. S. Dodd, K. Seetharaman, D. W. Roblin, L. J. Herrinton, A. Von Worley, G. N. Usmani, D. Baer, J. H. Gurwitz. (2008) Medication Errors Among Adults and Children With Cancer in the Outpatient Setting. Journal of Clinical Oncology. DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2008.18.6072
- January 4, 2009
- 11:01 PM
- 22 views
A novel pituitary tumor transforming gene identified
by staticnrg in survive the journey
Over the next few days I'll take a look at several recent articles about pituitary tumors. This first post highlights The molecular biology of pituitary tumors: a personal perspective by Ashley B. Grossman, renowned Professor of Neuroendocrinology at St. Bartholomew's in the UK. Prof. Grossman draws on his extensive experience with pituitary tumors to highlight what is known about them and what needs to be further explored.Efforts to establish the ‘cause’ of pituitary tumors have, therefore........ Read more »
Ashley B. Grossman. (2008) The molecular biology of pituitary tumors: a personal perspective. Pituitary. DOI: 10.1007/s11102-008-0158-7
- January 4, 2009
- 02:40 PM
- 37 views
Will VP35 be Ebola's weak link?
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
Ebola is a viral disease that only occasionally infects humans, but when it does, he fatality rate is very high. In some population, where culturally determined methods of treating the dead involve a lot of contact with bodily fluids and where people are unaware of techniques to avoid spread of infection and are otherwise at risk, a large percentage of a rural village population can become infected, and the survival rate once infected can be as low as 10%. With increased awareness of how to av........ Read more »
D. W. Leung, N. D. Ginder, D. B. Fulton, J. Nix, C. F. Basler, R. B. Honzatko, G. K. Amarasinghe. (2009) Structure of the Ebola VP35 interferon inhibitory domain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0807854106
- January 4, 2009
- 01:28 PM
- 41 views
The seas are in trouble
by Kent in Uncommon Ground
The folks at Shifting Baselines have been writing about threats to marine ecosystems for a long time, but this paragraph is not from them.NOT much is known about the sea, it is said; the surface of Mars is better mapped....... Read more »
G. De'ath, J. M. Lough, K. E. Fabricius. (2009) Declining Coral Calcification on the Great Barrier Reef. Science, 323(5910), 116-119. DOI: 10.1126/science.1165283
- January 4, 2009
- 12:14 PM
- 44 views
Lessons from the Video Game Brain
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
See also Lessons from the Placebo Gene. Also, if you like this kind of thing, see my other fMRI-curmudgeonry(1, 2)The life of a neurocurmudgeon is a hard one, but once in a while, fate smiles upon us. This article in the Daily Telegraph neatly embodies several of the mistakes that people make about the brain, all in one bite-size portion.The article is about a recent fMRI study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research. 22 healthy Stanford student volunteers (half of them male) played a "........ Read more »
F HOEFT, C WATSON, S KESLER, K BETTINGER, A REISS. (2008) Gender differences in the mesocorticolimbic system during computer game-play. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 42(4), 253-258. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2007.11.010
- January 4, 2009
- 06:20 AM
- 23 views
Creating Social Connection Through Inferential Reproduction
by Doctor Spurt in Effortless Incitement
Most of us sometimes anthropomorphise things around us. We do this in various ways - talking to them, seeing similarities between them and proper agents, treating them as though they had beliefs or feelings. We also sometimes impute intentional explanations to non-intentional phenomena, such as the rain -- or the supernatural being -- that 'knew' there was a picnic on the go.Most of us are also sometimes lonely. Do loneliness and anthropomorphising have anything to do with each other? The author........ Read more »
Nicholas Epley, Scott Akalis, Adam Waytz, John T. Cacioppo. (2008) Creating Social Connection Through Inferential Reproduction: Loneliness and Perceived Agency in Gadgets, Gods, and Greyhounds. Psychological Science, 19(2), 114-120. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02056.x
- January 4, 2009
- 06:09 AM
- 25 views
The Interactive Effect of Cultural Symbols and Human Values on Taste Evaluation
by Doctor Spurt in Effortless Incitement
I've previously reported on a few studies showing some of the ways that taste evaluation isn't a simple response to the physical properties of what is tasted. Actually, now that I check I've only blagged about one so far: We've seen how the same wine (at least when delivered as sips that aren't being paid for) is preferred when it is thought to cost more. But there will be more on this topic, because I enjoy running interference at my wine tasting group.This paper reports an attempt to find out ........ Read more »
Michael W. Allen, Richa Gupta, Arnaud Monnier. (2008) The Interactive Effect of Cultural Symbols and Human Values on Taste Evaluation. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(2), 294-308. DOI: 10.1086/590319
- January 3, 2009
- 11:51 PM
- 42 views
Developing a New Zealand PHODA - Photographs of Daily Activities
by Adiemusfree in Healthskills: Skills for Healthy Living
One of the goals I set myself for this new year was to complete developing a New Zealand version of the PHODA. The PHODA was originally developed by Kugler, et al., (1999) and consists of 100 photographs depicting people carrying out various daily activities. There are two versions of the lower back PHODA, the second [...]... Read more »
D TURK, J ROBINSON, J SHERMAN, T BURWINKLE, K SWANSON. (2008) Assessing fear in patients with cervical pain: Development and validation of the Pictorial Fear of Activity Scale-Cervical (PFActS-C). Pain, 139(1), 55-62. DOI: 10.1016/j.pain.2008.03.001
- January 3, 2009
- 11:24 PM
- 50 views
Giant stinking flower reveals a hot secret
by Dr Shock in Dr Shock MD PhD
You would think a flower that resembles a 3-metre phallus would have no problems attracting attention, especially if it also stinks like a rotting corpse.
But for the carrion flower, which has the world’s largest flowering head, getting noticed by flesh-eating insect pollinators in its jungle home requires yet another amazing adaptation – and one that [...]... Read more »
W. Barthlott, J. Szarzynski, P. Vlek, W. Lobin, N. Korotkova. (2008) A torch in the rain forest: thermogenesis of the Titan arum ( ) . Plant Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1438-8677.2008.00147.x
- January 2, 2009
- 11:21 PM
- 68 views
STAR*D Trial Sheds Little Light on how to manage Depression in Clinical Practice
by Dr Shock in Dr Shock MD PhD
Dr Shock stayed out of the discussions about the STAR*D trials. The choice of treatments was absolutely not evidence based and the results could never by generalized to Europe or The Netherlands for that matter. A recent publication in Evidence Based Mental Health Care summarizes the difficulties of the STAR*D trials.
Difficulties with STAR*D
There was [...]... Read more »
S. Hatcher. (2008) The STAR*D trial: the 300 lb gorilla is in the room, but does it block all the light?. Evidence-Based Mental Health, 11(4), 97-99. DOI: 10.1136/ebmh.11.4.97
- January 2, 2009
- 05:18 PM
- 57 views
Classics in Physiology - Kao's Neural and Humoral Dogs
by Isis the Scientist in On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess...
A few days ago I read a great post written by my brother in ScienceBlogging, PhysioProf on the generation of novel scientific ideas. His post stemmed from a post originally written by Zuska, and PhysioProf noted that one of the ways he generates new ideas is through the generation of novel methodologies. This left your humble domestic and laboratory goddess reflecting on the source of her own methods. You see, in the work that I am doing the problem came first and the method ev........ Read more »
Kao FF. (1956) Regulation of respiration during muscular activity.. Am J Physiol, 185(1), 145-151. DOI: http://ajplegacy.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/185/1/145
- January 2, 2009
- 03:51 PM
- 58 views
Protecting health by genetically engineering mosquitoes
by Sandra Porter in Discovering Biology in a Digital World
Mosquito-borne diseases, like Dengue and Malaria, are serious problems in many parts of the world. While some people are working on treatments for mosquito-carried disease, others are looking at ways to treat the mosquitoes.
Figure 1. Image of Aedes aegypti from the Public Health Library
tags: tropical disease, yellow fever, dengue, insect control,
malaria Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
C. J. McMeniman, R. V. Lane, B. N. Cass, A. W.C. Fong, M. Sidhu, Y.-F. Wang, S. L. O'Neill. (2009) Stable Introduction of a Life-Shortening Wolbachia Infection into the Mosquito Aedes aegypti. Science, 323(5910), 141-144. DOI: 10.1126/science.1165326
A. F. Read, M. B. Thomas. (2009) MICROBIOLOGY: Mosquitoes Cut Short. Science, 323(5910), 51-52. DOI: 10.1126/science.1168659
S. Zabalou. (2004) Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility as a means for insect pest population control. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(42), 15042-15045. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0403853101
- January 2, 2009
- 10:46 AM
- 80 views
Yellowstone Caldera Resources
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
With the increased seismic activity in the Yellowstone Caldera, it is likely that there is some increased interest in in the geology of the area. Here are some resources that should be of interest.
First, we have a fairly recent peer reviewed publication on the "Super Volcano" known as Yellowstone, including some discussion of just what a "Super Volcano" is.
The largest scale of volcanic eruptions, the so-called super-eruptions, can
destroy all living beings and infrastructure over tens of ........ Read more »
Lowenstern, J.B., Hurwitz, S.. (2008) Monitoring a Supervolcano in Repose: Heat and Volatile Flux at the Yellowstone Caldera. Elements, 35-40.
Jacob B. Lowenstern, Robert B. Smith, David P. Hill. (2006) Monitoring super-volcanoes: geophysical and geochemical signals at Yellowstone and other large caldera systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 364(1845), 2055-2072. DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2006.1813
- January 2, 2009
- 10:19 AM
- 56 views
Evolution applied: Biological warfare against mosquito-borne disease
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim & Tweed
This week's issue of Science starts the new year with an exciting application of evolutionary dynamics: a sort of biological warfare agent to control disease-bearing mosquitoes.
Even in the twenty-first century, mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and Dengue fever remain major public health challenges, particularly in the developing world. When vaccines are not available, the only way to... Read more »
C.J. McMeniman, R.V. Lane, B.N. Cass, A.W.C. Fong, M. Sidhu, Y.-F. Wang, S.L. O'Neill. (2009) Stable introduction of a life-shortening Wolbachia infection into the mosquito Aedes aegypti.. Science, 323(5910), 141-4. DOI: 10.1126/science.1165326
A.F. Read, M.B. Thomas. (2009) MICROBIOLOGY: Mosquitoes cut short. Science, 323(5910), 51-2. DOI: 10.1126/science.1168659
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