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Podcast TranscriptThe Naked Scientists: Science Radio & Science Podcasts |
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Manganese Level in Cells Affects Rate of Hiv Growth
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in the USA may have discovered a new way to tackle the problem of HIV, by increasing the levels of a substance called manganese in infected cells. Manganese is found naturally in cells, but high levels of the metal stop a key enzyme from working, called reverse transcriptase, that the virus uses to make new copies of its genetic material. Many of the drugs that we currently use to treat HIV work by stopping this enzyme, reverse transcriptase, but the virus quite quickly adapts to get around the problem. But, by hitting the virus from several different angles simultaneously it is much harder for it to adapt, so the discoverers of this new finding, Eric Bolton and his colleagues at Hopkins, feel that drugs that can boost the levels of manganese in cells offer a powerful new way to tackle the continuing problem of HIV. Encouragingly, the cells that they used for their experiments, with high levels of manganese, looked healthy, suggesting that high manganese levels don't harm cells unduly.
Green tea contains molecules that can prevent HIV from binding onto immune cells.
27th Apr 2002
More Speed Cameras for Cambridgeshires' Roads
Cambridgeshire has long had a poor reputation for road safety because of the high number of accidents, but a new study reveals that this is largely a result of high traffic levels. By taking into account the number of miles travelled within the county, Cambridgeshire has actually been shown to be actually safer than the UK as a whole. New research by a Cambridge graduate student, Stephane Hess as part of his MPhil in Statistical Science, has revealed that speed cameras have had a major impact on road safety in Cambridgeshire, reducing the number of collisions at accident black spots by just over 30 per cent. The new research confirms the findings of previous studies which have established that speeding is a major cause of road accidents. The findings have been welcomed by Cambridgeshire Police, who are increasing their use of speed cameras as part of a national campaign. The government aims to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on the UK's roads by 40 per cent by the year 2010. Sergeant Andy Chatfield, Safety Camera Project Manager said: "Last year, 62 people died and 597 people were seriously injured on the roads in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Although this is an improvement on 2000, it is still too high a number. Our focus has always been, and will continue to be, to make excess speed socially unacceptable. Those who drive too fast threaten not only their own lives but also those of other road users and pedestrians."
27th Apr 2002
Seeing Breast Feeding Mothers, and Newborns, Makes Other Women Broody
The sexual desire of women is boosted by the smells given off by breastfeeding women and newborn babies, researchers have found. The finding adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting that our natural smell influences other people on an unconscious level, supporting the idea that human pheromones exist and still exert a subtle influence over us. The study used childless women volunteers. Julie Mennella of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia and a team at the University of Chicago asked 26 nursing mothers to wear absorbent pads in their bras and under their armpits. The odours collected on the pads probably came from both the mother and the feeding baby. Another 45 women, who had never given birth, then spent the next three months undertaking a "sniff challenge". Four times a day for a month, all the women sniffed 'control pads' which were essentially clean pads dipped in a salt solution. This was to rule out the possiblity that the pads used might be producing an effect. For the next two months, some women were randomly chosen to sniff pads with the breastfeeding compounds, while others continued with the control pads. Each day the volunteers measured their temperature, took a urine sample and recorded sexual activity. In 2001, Mennella's group showed that exposure to breastfeeding odours disrupted the menstrual cycles of volunteers: longer cycles got longer and shorter ones got shorter. The new study revealed a more subtle effect. While the women smelling the breastfeeding compounds did not report increased sexual activity - this behaviour was most obviously influenced by the absence or presence of a partner - they did report significantly heightened and more enduring sexual desire and fantasies. "The data are pretty striking," says Mennella, who presents her evidence this week to a meeting of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences in Sarasota, Florida.
27th Apr 2002
Should Doctors Use Scooters to Get Around ?
When on-call, during emergencies doctors frequently have to get from one side of the hospital to the other very quickly - so should they be using scooters, asked one group of researchers ? They gave a group of doctors a foot scooter each and compared the time it too them to get to an emergency on the scooter and on foot. They also measured their heart rates and manual dexterity when they got there. Although their pulse rates were lower when they arrived by scooter, their manual dexterity and response times were not improved ! (Resuscitation 2002; 52:292-6)
27th Apr 2002
Marijuana Use Is a Symptom, Not a Cause, of Mental Illness
Heavy marijuana users do badly at work or school, and are more likely to be delinquent and develop psychiatric problems, or have abnormal brain waves. Time and again, however, such studies encounter the same objection: are the problems caused by smoking marijuana, or is it just that people with problems are more likely to end up using marijuana heavily? It turns out that, in the case of delinquency, schizophrenia and mental illnesses, the balance of the evidence points to the second explanation. Marijuana doesn't cause the problems, although it may make them worse. Some schizophrenics, for example, are drawn to the drug because it eases their sense of social alienation. And most researchers now accept that the evidence linking marijuana to abnormal brain waves vanishes when people with psychiatric problems, illnesses or a history of general drug abuse are excluded from studies.
27th Apr 2002
Cannabis Use Is Bad in the Long Term
Cannabis users face long-term irreversible damage to their memories, says recent research published in America. The bad news is that you don't need to take much to produce the effects. In the study, people who used Cannabis as little as once per week for only 3 years showed a decline in their memory, and the longer they took it for, the worse their memory became. The subjects in the study were asked to recall words a certain time after they had been shown them. The cannabis users remembered an average of 2.5 fewer words than non-users (JAMA 2002;287: 1123-31) But is the damage permanent ? Unfortunately it looks like it because the subjects continued to show these effects on their memories even after they had stopped using Cannabis. So the best advice can only be to avoid Cannabis since it seems to produce permanent brain damage which gets worse the more times you take it.
Results of a medical trial of the effectiveness of cannabis in multiple sclerosis.
27th Apr 2002
Dogs and Cats Suffering From Obesity Too !
Doctors are worried that people in Britain are too fat, placing themselves at increased risk of heart disease and diabetes - in fact a record one in five of us are now clinically obese and about 1 person in 3 is overweight, a problem that is costing the NHS over 3 billion pounds a year to deal with. But it isn't just people that seem to be having a problem - increasing numbers of dogs and cats are beginning to suffer from diabetes too ! Experts blame increasing weight, lack of exercise, increased life-expectancy and even psychological stress, and are calling for better education of animal owners to tackle the problem (Diabetic Medicine 2002;19:77-80). It's a dog's life eh ?
27th Apr 2002
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