Chronic pain affects at least one in three adults in the U.S., which is more than the sum total of those with heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined. For many of these 116 million Americans, their pain is severe and eludes available treatments. In addition to the human suffering, the monetary cost of medical treatment and lost productivity has reached $635 billion a year. [More]
Chronic pain affects at least one in three adults in the U.S., which is more than the sum total of those with heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined. For many of these 116 million Americans, their pain is severe and eludes available treatments. In addition to the human suffering, the monetary cost of medical treatment and lost productivity has reached $635 billion a year. [More]
From medicine to science
When I was about 3 or 4 years old, I got very sick. I stayed in bed for many weeks and every day a nurse would come to give me a penicillin shot. The pain from shots turned into fear, in time fear turned into a plan for revenge. When I got better I demanded to have my own syringe and cruelly treated all teddy bears and dolls. If they didn’t look sick I made them sick, just to perform surgeries, sew wounds and give shots. I even offered my service to family members; unfortunately, they stubbornly kept on being healthy.
From medicine to science
When I was about 3 or 4 years old, I got very sick. I stayed in bed for many weeks and every day a nurse would come to give me a penicillin shot. The pain from shots turned into fear, in time fear turned into a plan for revenge. When I got better I demanded to have my own syringe and cruelly treated all teddy bears and dolls. If they didn’t look sick I made them sick, just to perform surgeries, sew wounds and give shots. I even offered my service to family members; unfortunately, they stubbornly kept on being healthy.
One day 12-year-old Elizabeth McIngvale became obsessed with the number 42, which happened to be her mother’s age at the time, 11 years ago. When she washed her hands, she had to turn the sink on and off 42 times, get 42 pumps of soap and rinse her hands 42 times. Sometimes she decided that she actually needed to do 42 sets of 42. When she dressed, she put her right leg in and out of her pant leg 42 times, then the left. Even getting up from a chair took 42 attempts. She was afraid that if she did not follow her self-prescribed ritual, something terrible would happen to her family--they might die in a car accident, for instance. “Everything I did was completely exhausting and grueling,” she recalls. “I was probably doing 12 to 13 hours a day of rituals.”
McIngvale was diagnosed with obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD), a psychiatric illness that afflicts 2 to 3 percent of Americans, not all of them as severely as McIngvale. Individuals with OCD experience debilitating recurrent and persistent thoughts, or obsessions, which they try to suppress or eliminate with rituals, known as compulsions. Compared with people who have other anxiety or mood disorders, adults with OCD are more likely to be single and unemployed. In fact, OCD is among the 10 most disabling medical and psychiatric conditions.
The underpinnings of autism are turning out to be even more varied than the disease's diverse manifestations. In four new studies and an analysis published June 8 researchers have added some major landmarks in the complex landscape of the disease, uncovering clues as to why the disease is so much more prevalent in male children and how such varied genetic mutations can lead to similar symptoms. [More]
One day 12-year-old Elizabeth McIngvale became obsessed with the number 42, which happened to be her mother’s age at the time, 11 years ago. When she washed her hands, she had to turn the sink on and off 42 times, get 42 pumps of soap and rinse her hands 42 times. Sometimes she decided that she actually needed to do 42 sets of 42. When she dressed, she put her right leg in and out of her pant leg 42 times, then the left. Even getting up from a chair took 42 attempts. She was afraid that if she did not follow her self-prescribed ritual, something terrible would happen to her family--they might die in a car accident, for instance. “Everything I did was completely exhausting and grueling,” she recalls. “I was probably doing 12 to 13 hours a day of rituals.”
McIngvale was diagnosed with obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD), a psychiatric illness that afflicts 2 to 3 percent of Americans, not all of them as severely as McIngvale. Individuals with OCD experience debilitating recurrent and persistent thoughts, or obsessions, which they try to suppress or eliminate with rituals, known as compulsions. Compared with people who have other anxiety or mood disorders, adults with OCD are more likely to be single and unemployed. In fact, OCD is among the 10 most disabling medical and psychiatric conditions.
The underpinnings of autism are turning out to be even more varied than the disease's diverse manifestations. In four new studies and an analysis published June 8 researchers have added some major landmarks in the complex landscape of the disease, uncovering clues as to why the disease is so much more prevalent in male children and how such varied genetic mutations can lead to similar symptoms. [More]
Aids researchers and advocates were devastated in 2007, when a much anticipated vaccine against HIV unexpectedly failed to protect anyone in a clinical trial of 3,000 people. Even worse, the experimental inoculation, developed with money from the Merck pharmaceutical company and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, actually increased the chances that some people would later acquire HIV. Millions of dollars and more than a decade of research had gone into creating the vaccine. Meanwhile, in that same 10-year period, 18 million people died of AIDS, and millions more were infected.
The Merck vaccine failed in large part because investigators do not yet know how to create the perfect vaccine. Yes, a number of vaccines have been spectacularly successful. Think of polio and smallpox. In truth, though, luck played a big role in those successes. Based on limited knowledge of the immune system and of the biology of a pathogen, investigators made educated guesses at vaccine formulations that might work and then, perhaps after some tinkering, had the good fortune to be proved right when the vaccine protected people. But all too often lack of insight into the needed immune response leads to disappointment, with a vaccine candidate recognized as ineffective only after a large human trial has been performed.
Poor sanitation can foster transmission of all sorts of nasty bacterial bugs. But a new study has found that among common bacteria, antibiotic resistance is brewing in the New Delhi water supply--and spreading in at least 20 strains, including some that cause dysentery and cholera. [More]
Aids researchers and advocates were devastated in 2007, when a much anticipated vaccine against HIV unexpectedly failed to protect anyone in a clinical trial of 3,000 people. Even worse, the experimental inoculation, developed with money from the Merck pharmaceutical company and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, actually increased the chances that some people would later acquire HIV. Millions of dollars and more than a decade of research had gone into creating the vaccine. Meanwhile, in that same 10-year period, 18 million people died of AIDS, and millions more were infected.
The Merck vaccine failed in large part because investigators do not yet know how to create the perfect vaccine. Yes, a number of vaccines have been spectacularly successful. Think of polio and smallpox. In truth, though, luck played a big role in those successes. Based on limited knowledge of the immune system and of the biology of a pathogen, investigators made educated guesses at vaccine formulations that might work and then, perhaps after some tinkering, had the good fortune to be proved right when the vaccine protected people. But all too often lack of insight into the needed immune response leads to disappointment, with a vaccine candidate recognized as ineffective only after a large human trial has been performed.
Poor sanitation can foster transmission of all sorts of nasty bacterial bugs. But a new study has found that among common bacteria, antibiotic resistance is brewing in the New Delhi water supply--and spreading in at least 20 strains, including some that cause dysentery and cholera. [More]
In 2011, the world will emit more than 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Every day of the year, almost a hundred million tons will be released into the atmosphere. Every second more than a thousand tons – two million pounds – of carbon dioxide is emitted from power plants, cars, trucks, ships, planes, factories, and farms around the world. The average citizen of the world will account for the release of four and a half tons – 9,000 pounds – of CO 2 this year. The average American will be responsible for four times as much, almost 18 tons, or 36,000 pounds of carbon dioxide this year, roughly a hundred pounds of carbon dioxide emissions for every day of the year.
While humans emit far less carbon dioxide than nature, the amount we emit exceeds the capacity of plants and oceans to absorb on top of the amount they’re already absorbing from natural sources. As a result, most of the carbon dioxide we emit remains in the atmosphere. Year over year, the atmospheric concentration of CO 2 creeps up. It will rise only half a percent in 2011, a seemingly tiny change. Yet tiny changes add up. Over the 50 years since 1960, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen nearly 25%. Since the start of the industrial revolution it has risen by 45%, putting it at a level not seen in millions of years.
Some 3.2 million Americans have chronic hepatitis C , an infection that can linger in the body for years before producing symptoms. It can eventually lead to serious liver scarring and cancer. And most infections in the U.S. are the disease's particularly tough breed, known as genotype 1, which has a cure rate of less than 40 percent with the best current treatment. [More]
In 2011, the world will emit more than 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Every day of the year, almost a hundred million tons will be released into the atmosphere. Every second more than a thousand tons – two million pounds – of carbon dioxide is emitted from power plants, cars, trucks, ships, planes, factories, and farms around the world. The average citizen of the world will account for the release of four and a half tons – 9,000 pounds – of CO 2 this year. The average American will be responsible for four times as much, almost 18 tons, or 36,000 pounds of carbon dioxide this year, roughly a hundred pounds of carbon dioxide emissions for every day of the year.
While humans emit far less carbon dioxide than nature, the amount we emit exceeds the capacity of plants and oceans to absorb on top of the amount they’re already absorbing from natural sources. As a result, most of the carbon dioxide we emit remains in the atmosphere. Year over year, the atmospheric concentration of CO 2 creeps up. It will rise only half a percent in 2011, a seemingly tiny change. Yet tiny changes add up. Over the 50 years since 1960, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen nearly 25%. Since the start of the industrial revolution it has risen by 45%, putting it at a level not seen in millions of years.
Some 3.2 million Americans have chronic hepatitis C , an infection that can linger in the body for years before producing symptoms. It can eventually lead to serious liver scarring and cancer. And most infections in the U.S. are the disease's particularly tough breed, known as genotype 1, which has a cure rate of less than 40 percent with the best current treatment. [More]
The sun strikes every square meter of our planet with more than 1,360 watts of power. Half of that energy is absorbed by the atmosphere or reflected back into space. 700 watts of power, on average, reaches Earth’s surface. Summed across the half of the Earth that the sun is shining on, that is 89 petawatts of power. By comparison, all of human civilization uses around 15 terrawatts of power, or one six-thousandth as much. In 14 and a half seconds, the sun provides as much energy to Earth as humanity uses in a day.
The numbers are staggering and surprising. In 88 minutes, the sun provides 470 exajoules of energy, as much energy as humanity consumes in a year. In 112 hours – less than five days – it provides 36 zettajoules of energy – as much energy as is contained in all proven reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas on this planet.
The sun strikes every square meter of our planet with more than 1,360 watts of power. Half of that energy is absorbed by the atmosphere or reflected back into space. 700 watts of power, on average, reaches Earth’s surface. Summed across the half of the Earth that the sun is shining on, that is 89 petawatts of power. By comparison, all of human civilization uses around 15 terrawatts of power, or one six-thousandth as much. In 14 and a half seconds, the sun provides as much energy to Earth as humanity uses in a day.
The numbers are staggering and surprising. In 88 minutes, the sun provides 470 exajoules of energy, as much energy as humanity consumes in a year. In 112 hours – less than five days – it provides 36 zettajoules of energy – as much energy as is contained in all proven reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas on this planet.
BOSTON--A novel treatment for HIV could involve changing the genes in a person's immune cells and, ultimately, in his or her stem cells, as well. It might even lead to a cure for that deadly disease. Promising advances in that direction were presented here Monday at the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
The pieces have been coming together for some time. First came the understanding that HIV enters a cell by grabbing on to a CD4 receptor molecule on the surface, and then on to a co-receptor molecule--the one most commonly used is called CCR5.
BOSTON--A novel treatment for HIV could involve changing the genes in a person's immune cells and, ultimately, in his or her stem cells, as well. It might even lead to a cure for that deadly disease. Promising advances in that direction were presented here Monday at the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
The pieces have been coming together for some time. First came the understanding that HIV enters a cell by grabbing on to a CD4 receptor molecule on the surface, and then on to a co-receptor molecule--the one most commonly used is called CCR5.
