TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Report: Climate science panel needs change at top By SETH BORENSTEIN 2010-08-30T21:37:46ZWASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists reviewing the acclaimed but beleaguered international climate change panel called Monday for a major overhaul in the way it's run, but stopped short of calling for the ouster of the current leader.... hosted.ap.org |
Low-dose Prozac may relieve misery of PMS A study in mice suggests that taking just a tenth of the dose of Prozac most commonly prescribed for depression could reduce the symptoms of PMSLow doses of the anti-anxiety drug Prozac may alleviate the misery of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), scientists have found.Researchers at the University of Birmingham found that Prozac, known generically as fluoxetine, raises levels of a sex hormone that can drop sharply in women at the end of their menstrual cycle. This sudden drop is thought to cause the symptoms of PMS.Millions of women around the world suffer the effects of PMS every month in the week before the start of their menstrual period. Symptoms can range from anxiety and irritability to headaches or joint and breast pain.Not all women show symptoms, but around 75% are thought to experience PMS and, in up to 40% of cases, it can interfere with daily activities. Around 3% of women can experience a severe form of PMS, a psychiatric condition known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder.Thelma Lovick, a neuroscientist at the University of Birmingham, thinks she has evidence that a 2mg daily dose of fluoxetine in the final week before menstruation could alleviate PMS. She presented her work at the British Science Festival in Birmingham today and her three-year study on rats, which were induced to have PMS-like symptoms, was funded by the Medical Research Council. Lovick now plans to submit her research to a scientific journal for peer review."We've got available to us a drug that is already in production, it's already gone through its safety tests, something we could use at very low dose to perhaps ameliorate the development of pre-menstrual syndrome in women," said Lovick.Normally progesterone levels fall during the pre-menstrual period and this is when symptoms appear. "Progesterone is a hormone that circulates in the bloodstream and gets into the brain," said Lovick. "It breaks down into ALLO and it's this change in the ALLO concentration in the brain that causes excitability in the nerve circuits in parts of the brain that are involved in emotional behaviour."Lovick thinks it is the sharp fall in the brain's ALLO levels that triggers PMS symptoms. "ALLO can alter the activity of nerve cells, thus it is described as a neuroactive steroid. It enhances the activity of GABA, one of the brain's inhibitory neurotransmitter chemicals, and in those parts of the brain that process emotional responses, ALLO normally produces calming effects."When the levels of progesterone, and hence ALLO, in the brain drop during the final stages of the premenstrual period, that natural inhibition is turned off. "As a consequence these brain circuits become more excitable, leaving the individual more responsive to stress, which is often manifested behaviourally as anxiety and aggressive behaviour."If ALLO levels could be allowed to fall gradually at the end of the monthly cycle, thought Lovick, PMS might not develop. She confirmed this idea by monitoring the hormone in rats' brains as they were administered fluoxetine."Millions of women take Prozac but the dose they take it in is relatively high. One of the effects of fluoxetine is that it acts on serotonin systems in the brain, that's why it's used as an antidepressant. One of the things it does in addition is increase ALLO concentrations in the brain and it does this at very low doses."Tim Kendall of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, warned against self-medicating with fluoxetine. "Prozac is associated with a number of different side-effects. The most common is sexual dysfunction, it can lower libido and induce impotence. It can stop you sleeping and make you anxious and wound-up and affect appetite. And particularly in young people, under the age of 30, it can trigger suicidal thoughts and self-harm. I don't know if these side-effects would occur at low doses but it would strike me as unwise to start tipping drugs out of capsules."Fluoxetine in sometimes prescribed as a treatment for PMS by some doctors in the US, but it is given at doses normally used in antidepressant therapy. Lovick said the standard antidepressant dose – 10-20mg per day – is inappropriate for PMS.Her research team found that the dose required to produce a response was only a tenth of that found in the most commonly prescribed form of fluoxetine. "And you'd only be taking it for about a week so the side-effect issue should be non-existent," said Lovick.The team now want to take their findings out of the lab and into clinical trials.Kendall agrees that the use of low-dose fluoxetine in PMS needs more study. "PMS makes a lot of women quite miserable and if there is something we can do for them, that would be very good. But it is premature to say this is the thing."ReproductionMedical researchBiologyBritish Science Festival 2010British Science FestivalHealthHealth & wellbeingAlok Jhaguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Ig Nobel awards go to slime mould and fruity bats Britain lands a national record four wins at awards for scientific research that makes people laugh first and think laterBritain has once again proved a country to be reckoned with in science after landing a national record four wins at the annual Ig Nobel awards ceremony at Harvard University.Researchers from across the UK were honoured for achievements that included proof that swearing relieves pain, a means of collecting whale snot with a remote-controlled helicopter and the first documented case of fellatio in fruit bats.Not to be confused with the real (and more lucrative) Nobel prizes, which are due to be announced next week, the "Igs" are awarded to scientists whose work makes people laugh first and think later.The ceremony, hosted by the Harvard-based journal Annals of Improbable Research, took place last night with the much-coveted prizes handed out by real Nobel laureates. Recipients were allowed a maximum of 60 seconds to deliver their acceptance speech, a time limit enforced by an eight-year-old girl.Commenting on the strong showing of UK scientists this year, Marc Abrahams, the master of ceremonies, told the Guardian: "The nation may agonise over its place in the world, but in this one thing at least, Britannia rules."The Ig Nobel 2010 winners were:Medicine prizePsychologists Simon Rietveld and Ilja van Beest at the University of Amsterdam share the award for discovering that breathing difficulties brought on by asthma can be alleviated by repeated rollercoaster rides.Physics prizeAwarded to Lianne Parkin and her team at the University of Otago in New Zealand for demonstrating that people are less likely to slip over on icy footpaths if they wear their socks outside their shoes instead of inside.Biology prizeA description of the sexual antics of the short-nosed fruit bat earned the award for Gareth Jones at Bristol University and collaborators in China. The team showed that females who performed oral sex on their mates copulated for longer. "It is the first documented case of fellatio by adult animals other than humans to my knowledge, and opens questions about whether female animals can manipulate males via sexual activity, perhaps in this case to improve their chances of successful fertilisation," Jones told the Guardian. He planned to demonstrate the behaviour at the ceremony using puppets.Writing about the research for the Huffington Post last year, the primatologist Frans de Waal said: "The fellatio story on bats is a bright spot in an otherwise miserable record that denies animals the pleasure principle, homosexuality, and other forms of non-reproductive sex."Peace prizeAwarded to psychologist Richard Stephens and others at Keele University for confirming that swearing relieves pain. Stephens, who began the study after striking his thumb with a hammer, found volunteers could tolerate more pain if they repeated swearwords rather than neutral words. He suspects that "swearing induces a fight-or-flight response and nullifies the link between fear of pain and pain perception".Engineering prizeThe task of monitoring dangerous bugs in whales at sea is a formidable one. Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and others at the Institute of Zoology in London developed a way to collect fluids ejected from whales' blowholes by attaching petri dishes to the underside of small, remote-controlled helicopters and hovering them overhead.Transportation prizeWorking with Japanese scientists, Mark Fricker and Dan Bebber at Oxford University used slime mould to model an effective railway network. In the experiment, cities were represented by porridge oats that were linked to one another as the slime mould grew. "The Ig Nobel awards are great. They are a wonderful vehicle for putting some science into the public domain in a fun and interesting way," said Fricker.Management prizeTo Alessandro Pluchino and team at the University of Catania for demonstrating mathematically that companies work more efficiently if staff are promoted at random.Public health prizeAwarded to Manuel Barbeito at the Industrial Health and Safety Office in Maryland for scientific studies that found microbes cling to beards, making more hirsute men a potential laboratory hazard.Chemistry prizeFor research in 2005 that overturned the long-held belief that oil and water do not mix, the prize was awarded to Eric Adams at MIT and others, including researchers at BP.Economics prizeAwarded jointly to the executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AIG and Magnetar for "creating and promoting new ways to invest money – ways that maximise financial gain and minimise financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof."Ig Nobel PrizesScience prizesResearchHigher educationUnited StatesIan Sampleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Richard Dawkins, extraterrestrials and 'a very nubile female' Matt Ridley interviews Richard Dawkins about what extraterrestrial life might be like, based on what we know about life here on EarthOne of the many things that I appreciate about Richard Dawkins is the overall scientific quality of his speculations: he is an interesting thinker as well as an imaginative one. In this video we see him conversing with journalist and writer Matt Ridley. Dawkins speculates what is and is not universal about life: life on Earth, life in space, human life, artificial life, synthetic life, the origin of life, the secret of life, the meaning of life. This discussion is focused on the central question; if/when we discover extraterrestrial life, what might it look like?To answer this question, we must first know what life is. Dawkins manages to synthesise research in genetics, biochemistry and cell biology (amino acids are universal while DNA is a "frozen accident"), synthetic life (which might have applications for resurrecting extinct species such as mammoths), artificial life and computer simulations and virtual worlds (revealing that his Second Life avatar is "a very nubile female"). What are the qualities that would be common to all living things? This interview took place on 17 June 2010 in front of a live audience at the Centre for Life in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The video comes to Guardian science courtesy of our friends at the Newton Channel.EvolutionBiochemistry and molecular biologyGeneticsBiologyGrrlScientistRichard Dawkinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Green: On Our Radar: Wild Midwest Storms Reports of tornado sightings and high winds abound, including near-hurricane-force levels on Lake Superior. feeds.nytimes.com |