Image Reference: http://www.angel-med.com/index.php/patients-families/our-solution.html

What if you could detect a heart attack before it struck so that a patient could seek medical attention to prevent it? This is exactly the question that Mary Carol Day and Christopher Young set out to answer when studying the effectiveness of the AngelMed Guardian © medical device. The device is implanted in the upper left of a patient’s chest and vibrates to signal an impending heart attack or when one has started. The vibrations inside the chest signal the severity of the problem. An external device also gives off alarms and flashes when a heart attack is detected. This device has the advantage of providing a vibrotactile signal in addition to auditory and visual signals. For elderly patients, the sense of vibrations may be easier to detect than an alarm that they may not be able to hear or a flashing light if hidden in a pocket.

In the study appearing in Ergonomics in Design, the researches tested the device among a group of older adults and found that they liked the ease of use and the simultaneous multiple signals alerting them of a potential heart problem. The participants were able to detect the severity of the heart problem indicated by differences in vibrations.

Day and Young have high hopes for the AngelMed Guardian © device. Day believes that, “if the Guardian is approved for sale by the FDA, it might be extended in ways that will change the way the patient interacts with the system as a whole.”

Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. “Implantable medical device is designed to warn patients of impending heart attack.” ScienceDaily, 13 Apr. 2012. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.

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~1940-1960 was the “Golden Age” of antibacterial drug discovery. Every major class of antibiotics was discovered in those two decades. However, since the 1960s, few drugs have been developed to target new classes of bacterial targets. Rather, new drugs since the “Golden Age” are often chemical modifications of pre-existing antibiotics. Medicinal chemists engineered those modifications to existing drugs in order to avoid the resistance mechanisms that had evolved in the bacteria. In fact, one could group most all antibiotics in use today as hitting just four classes of bacterial targets [Walsh, C.T., Antibiotics (2003) ASM Press (below)]. Partly because antibiotics interfere with only a small class of targets in bacterial systems, overuse or misuse of antibiotics can lead to a troubling, rapid incidence of antibiotic resistance.

However, antibiotic resistance isn’t the only troubling outcome of antibiotic overuse. Dr. Martin Blaser of NYU wrote an eye-opening commentary in Nature last year on the dangers of accidentally killing too many of our beneficial bacteria with antibiotics, and suggestions for what precautionary measures we can take.

Here are some examples of how bacteria in our bodies help us:

• Bacteroides species live in our colon and make our vitamin K
• Bacteria in our gut guard us from harmful invading organisms
• H. pylori help regulate the hormones ghrelin and leptin, which send hunger and satiety signals to regulate our eating habits.

One sign that overuse of antibiotics perturb the benefits that our bacteria provide us is illustrated by the correlation below:

What ideas do you have for how we can begin to tackle problems associated with antibiotic overuse?

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After a long and unforgiving week, the weekend has finally arrived and, with it, a whole slew of parties, filled with libations and fellow single college students. When the night turns out to be not as successful as planned, you retreat to the bar or your single-not-by-choice den and drown your sorrows in some more libations (provided that you’re 21 or older, of course). Sound familiar?

While it’s easy to conceive how this behavior could result from social convention, wherein alcohol replaces a human relationship, recent research from the University of California in San Francisco suggests that there’s more to it—it’s biological. How did the researchers reach this conclusion? Fruit flies do it, too.

Headed by neuroscientist Galit Shohat-Ophir, researchers at UCSF have discovered that sexually rejected male fruit flies are more likely to ingest alcohol than non-rejected males, which is the first evidence of social interaction impacting future behavior in fruit flies. Before planning this “wild experiment,” Shohat-Ophir knew from previous literature that consuming alcohol activated reward pathways in the flies’ brains, giving them a sense of pleasure akin to that in humans, but she did not anticipate the “dramatic results” that were found.

Twenty-four male fruit flies were divided into two equal groups; one half were further separated into groups of four, each cluster in a separate vial containing twenty female flies. Under these conditions, these males were able to mate with multiple females. On the other hand, the second half were kept alone in vials with only one female that was not ready to mate, having already copulated with another. After four days in these experimental conditions, the flies were transferred to containers with a mix of alcohol-soaked and normal food mash in separate capillaries.

Based on measurements of how much the flies ate, researchers reported in Science that 1) sexually rejected males preferred the alcohol-soaked mash to the non-alcoholic food 2) sexually accepted males had an aversion to the alcoholic mash. Overall, rejected males drank about four times more alcohol than the accepted flies.

Given these results, the scientists also measured levels of neuropeptide F (NPF), a chemical in the brain known to regulate alcohol preference. Indeed, the sexually rejected males had about half as much NPF as the mated males, and decreasing the amount of NPF receptors in mated males increased their alcohol preference. This indicates that NPF controls drinking behavior by encouraging the flies to activate their reward systems.

Shohat-Ophir points out that these findings could potentially help us understand how complex behaviors, including reward behavior, are processed in the brain. Since mammals have a protein known as neuropeptide Y (NPY) that functions quite similarly to NPF, this claim doesn’t seem too far off. She notes, however, “Our results certainly don’t translate directly from flies to humans.”

In any case, this extremely fascinating study may offer hope to bachelor(ettes) with a proclivity for drinks: flies know your pain.

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There have been multiple research studies and articles in the past year or two that have shown the benefits of bilingualism. Here’s another article from the NYT citing much of this research from the past few years!

A few major findings:

“They were not wrong about the interference: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system obstructs the other. But this interference, researchers are finding out, isn’t so much a handicap as a blessing in disguise. It forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.”

“Bilinguals, for instance, seem to be more adept than monolinguals at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles.” (As a bilingual myself, I have to say sadly this isn’t true for everyone. Scored a class low in a mental rotation cognitive task just last week in section…hmm maybe I don’t know Chinese as well as I thought?

“In a recent study of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals, scientists led by the neuropsychologist Tamar Gollan of the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals with a higher degree of bilingualism — measured through a comparative evaluation of proficiency in each language — were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease: the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the age of onset.”

I guess I should thank my mom for making me go to Chinese school, even if I dropped out so soon! It helps in childhood as well as old age; who knew language could be powerful in so many ways?

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…but didn’t we know that already? Well apparently, according to a new study done by researchers at Mass General Hospital…

“Evidently we women see a man’s willingness to share negative feelings as a sign that he’s invested in the relationship. Cohen says: “That’s telling her something about his availability to engage in the conflict.”

Men feel exactly the opposite about those moments of conflict: They see it as a threat to the relationship. Instead, Cohen says, “They do derive satisfaction when their girlfriends or wives are happy.”"

As NPR blogger Nancy Shute puts it, “I guess we women have to stop and take notice at those moments of male happiness. And men could profit by starting a sentence with the phrase “I feel bad about ….”"  That’s true. But there is probably a reason that this type of behavior has emerged in pair-bonding in humans…perhaps there is some kind of evolutionary adaptation for it?

Any ideas?

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Need some inspiration for spicing up your Valentine’s Day? Don’t just settle for the boring chocolate and roses. Ok, those are sweet and my myocardium will still give a sudden contraction to pump more blood from my left ventricle into my aorta if I get those on February 14th. But as Harvard scientists we can’t simply follow the stereotype; we have to make our distinguished mark in the endless and hopeless—oops, didn’t mean to let that slip–search for love. So think test tubes and indicator paper. Ask Steve Spangler for further advice. Also no pun intended on CrimsonSpark.

May Science Spark Love <3

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"Classic Portrait of a Barred Spiral Galaxy," Science Daily (Credit: NASA & ESA)

Sometimes to figure out ourselves, we often have to take a step back.

According to an article in the Science Daily, the distant barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073 may help us to better understand our own Milky Way galaxy as a similar galactic model.

Talk about universal themes!

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Tags: Mir Saima

(Credit: © Antrey / Fotolia), Science Daily

I’m going to be starting a photo blog, ‘Snapshots in science.’ After all, aren’t pictures worth a thousand words?

Take a look a look at the efficiency of these ants!

According to an article in Science Daily, “Political and economic theorists could learn lessons from studying how an ant colony allocates food resources, according to the authors of a new paper.”

With new compelling hybrid fields continuously emerging, a look at biologically-inspired economics might provide nature’s hidden insightful lessons for society in today’s global crisis.

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Tags: Mir Saima

I did not know a leap second existed. Yes, I’ve heard about leap years and as a strict proponent of the lunar calendar, which is responsible for predicting the date of one of the most celebrated holidays, Spring Festival, I think it’s totally legitimate. But wait, we’re arguing not about leap years, leap months, leap days, leap hours, oh for heaven’s sake leap minutes even. We’re debating the triviality of the leap second.

According to the New York Times, these are “occasionally added to the world’s atomic clocks to keep them synchronized with Earth’s rotational cycles.”

But normally, I don’t really think about that when I look at my watch. Take a look anyway, before we rule the leap second invalid: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/science/the-leap-seconds-reprieve.html?_r=1&ref=science

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Can there really be a wonder drug? Lately research has shown that almost so-called cure-all has its downsides. So before you pop that daily aspirin to help reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke, or cancer, please note this article

Aspirin may be deposed from its throne as the "wonder drug"

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