news 2010

Men serving long prison sentences surprisingly often have a history of unrecognised and untreated ADHD, despite having had considerable problems since childhood. This according to a recent study published by a team of researchers from Karolinska Institutet in the scientific journal BMC Psychiatry. Working with the Swedish Prison and Probation service, the researchers conducted a comprehensive survey of the inmates of Norrtälje prison in order to ascertain the extent of ADHD and prepare the ground for trials of effective therapies.

If you listen to Radio 4's Today Programme on any given day, you'll inevitably hear a spectrum of politic views from socialist through liberal to conservative. You may find yourself agreeing with the interviewee or irked by their politics depending on your own political persuasion. Liberals and conservatives may find themselves disagreeing on issues as wide-ranging as the future of the NHS, the UK's involvement in Afghanistan and whether students should pay tuition fees at university, but could these differences be a result of different brain structures?

New research has uncovered a forgotten chapter in the history of the Bible, offering a rare glimpse of Byzantine Jewish life and culture. The study by Cambridge University researchers suggests that, contrary to long-accepted views, Jews continued to use a Greek version of the Bible in synagogues for centuries longer than previously thought.

Dec. AUSTIN, Texas — Environmental influences experienced by a father can be passed down to the next generation, "reprogramming" how genes function in offspring, scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) have discovered. A new study published this week in Cell shows environmental cues — in this case, diet — influence genes in mammals from one generation to the next, evidence that until now has been sparse.

Australian scientists have discovered that changes to a gene involved in brain development can lead to testis formation and male genitalia in an otherwise female embryo. Lead researcher Professor Andrew Sinclair of the University of Melbourne and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute said the breakthrough would improve diagnosis and clinical management of patients with disorders of sex development (DSD).

Media Note: For a copy of the abstract and/or full article, contact Preston Smith or John Albin. MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (12/22/2010) —Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered how HIV binds to and destroys a specific human antiviral protein called APOBEC3F. The results suggest that a simple chemical change can convert APOBEC3F to a more effective antiviral agent and that shielding of a common feature shared by related proteins may yield a similar outcome.

Scientists today published an almost complete catalog of the fruit fly and roundworm's functional elements ' sequences in the genome that carry out the instructions in the genome and determine which genes are turned on and off at various times in different cells. Scientists can now study functional elements in the fruit fly and roundworm that are also present in the human genome to better understand human medical conditions.

A group of UK primary school children have achieved a world first by having their school science project accepted for publication in an internationally recognised peer-reviewed Royal Society journal. The paper, which reports novel findings in how bumblebees perceive colour, is published in Biology Letters today.

A team of UCL researchers, part-funded by the Alzheimer's Research Trust, has discovered that combining spinal fluid testing with MRI scans could provide an early indication of a person's risk of developing Alzheimer?s. The approach could allow scientists to test treatments or preventions far earlier in the disease, when experts believe they could be more effective.

After recovering from a cold or other infection, your body's immune system is primed to react quickly if the same agent tries to infect you. White blood cells called memory T cells specifically remember the virus or bacterium and patrol the body looking for it. Vaccines work on the same principle: Harmless fragments of a virus or bacterium provoke the immune system to generate memory T cells that can attack the real thing later on.

PA 364/10 Scientists at The University of Nottingham have written what they believe is the world's smallest periodic table — on the side of a human hair. The table is so small that a million of them could be replicated on a typical post-it note. Experts from the University's Nottingham Nanotechnology and Nanoscience Centre used a sophisticated combination of ion beam writer and electron microscope to carve the symbol of all 118 elements into the strand of hair taken from the head of Professor Martyn Poliakoff, an expert in Green Chemistry.

University of Nottingham News Press releases 2010 December Autistic children's exceptional visual search skills may not translate into everyday life PA 363/10 It is well established in scientific studies that children with autism repeatedly outperform typically-developing children on a range of visual search skills.

The ability to find shoes in the bedroom, apples in a supermarket, or a favourite animal at the zoo is impaired among children with autism, according to new research from the University of Bristol. Contrary to previous studies, which show that children with autism often demonstrate outstanding visual search skills, this new research indicates that children with autism are unable to search effectively for objects in real-life situations - a skill that is essential for achieving independence in adulthood.

In an ideal world, political boundaries would enclose groups of people who are connected to each other more than they are connected to outsiders. A new study using a computer algorithm developed at Cornell shows that Great Britain is - almost - already organized that way. Analyzing a database of British telephone calls, which they call "the largest non-Internet human network," researchers at Cornell, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in the United Kingdom found that connections coincided remarkably well with administrative boundaries.

Just as walkie-talkies transmit and receive radio waves, carbon nanotubes can transmit and receive light at the nanoscale, Cornell researchers have discovered. Carbon nanotubes, cylindrical rolled-up sheets of carbon atoms, might one day make ideal optical scattering wires - tiny, mostly invisible antennae with the ability to control, absorb and emit certain colors of light at the nanoscale, according to research led by Jiwoong Park, Cornell assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology.

Links: Wellcome Trust Professor Greg Towers Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute A virus previously thought to be associated with chronic fatigue syndrome is not the cause of the disease, a detailed study led by UCL scientists has shown. The research shows that cell samples used in previous research were contaminated with the virus identified as XMRV and that XMRV is present in the mouse genome.

PASADENA, Calif. Newly released for the holidays, images of Saturn's second largest moon Rhea obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft show dramatic views of fractures cutting through craters on the moon's surface, revealing a history of tectonic rumbling. The images are among the highest-resolution views ever obtained of Rhea.

Sheffield report reveals recommendation to mental health services for veterans Mental health services for armed forces veterans suffering from a variety of mental health conditions should be staffed by people with knowledge and understanding of the Armed Forces, a University of Sheffield report has recommended.

Study finds food in early life affects fertility The reproductive success of men and women is influenced by the food they receive at an early stage in life, according to new research by the University of Sheffield. The research, which was published online this month (17 December 2010) in the journal Ecology, is the first study of its kind to show that early life food can have a serious influence on the life-long fertility of individuals.

A once fertile landmass now submerged beneath the Persian Gulf may have been home to some of the earliest human populations outside Africa, according to an article in the December issue of Current Anthropology. Jeffrey Rose, an archaeologist and researcher with the University of Birmingham in the U.K., says that this 'Persian Gulf Oasis' may have been host to humans for over 100,000 years before it was swallowed up by the Indian Ocean around 8,000 years ago.