Motorists who talk on cell phones drive slower on the freeway, pass sluggish vehicles less often and take longer to complete their trips, according to a University of Utah study.

“At the end of the day, the average person’s commute is longer because of that person who is on the cell phone right in front of them,” says University of Utah psychology Professor Dave Strayer, leader of the research team. “That SOB on the cell phone is slowing you down and making you late.”

“If you talk on the phone while you’re driving, it’s going to take you longer to get from point A to point B, and it’s going to slow down everybody else on the road,” says Joel Cooper, a doctoral student in psychology.

Cooper is scheduled to present the study in Washington on Wednesday, Jan.

Older men with low testosterone levels who received testosterone supplementation increased lean body mass and decreased body fat, but were no stronger and had no improvement in mobility or cognition compared with men who did not use the supplement, according to a study in the January 2 issue of JAMA.

“Male aging is associated with a gradual but progressive decline in serum levels of testosterone, occurring to a greater extent in some men than in others. Decline in testosterone is associated with many symptoms and signs of aging such as a decrease in muscle mass and muscle strength, cognitive decline, a decrease in bone mass, and an increase in (abdominal) fat mass,” the authors write.

Early exposure to environmental toxins can lead to diseases much later in life. This week, Wu et al. report that primates exposed to lead as infants showed Alzheimer’s disease (AD)-like pathology years later.

From birth to 400 d of age, monkeys were exposed to lead levels that produced no obvious sign of toxicity. Although by young adulthood blood lead levels in exposed monkeys were indistinguishable from those of controls, when examined at approximately 23 years of age, the brains of lead-exposed monkeys exhibited many hallmarks of AD, including Aâ plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, as well as increased expression of Aâ precursor protein (APP) and Sp1, a transcription factor that regulates APP expression.

2007 was a big year for science, though it may be that we just noticed it more because it was our first year too. If you're reading this article, you're probably already a fan of our "just science" concept and it seems to be catching on everywhere.

We wanted to create a site where the best science writers, regardless of popularly or politics or ideology, could get together in one place and write about science, whenever they want on whatever topics they want. We went to top people in their fields; well-known authors, post-docs and professors in our various categories, and explained what we wanted to accomplish and the response, from writers and from the audience, has been fantastic.

Phantom noises, that mimic ringing in the ears associated with tinnitus, can be experienced by people with normal hearing in quiet situations, according to new research published in the January 2008 edition of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.

The Brazilian study, which consisted of 66 people with normal hearing and no tinnitus, found that among subjects placed in a quiet environment where they were asked to focus on their hearing senses, 68 percent experienced phantom ringing noises similar to that of tinnitus.

LONDON, December 31 /PRNewswire/ -- A new survey from Red Kooga shows a trend towards doing more rather than giving things up for the New Year.

Typical resolutions like giving up smoking and junk food are being replaced by resolutions to learn new skills, take up more hobbies and be more active.

Over half of the 2,546 people surveyed (56%) are vowing to do more exercise in 2008 - this is up from 43% of people in 2007. This time last year people were more likely to be trying to give up smoking (16% in 2007 down to 13% for 2008), possibly due to the impending ban.

Cells keep a close watch over the transcriptome – the totality of all parts of the genome that are expressed in any given cell at any given time. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of Missouri-Kansas City teamed up to peel back another layer of transcriptional regulation and gain new insight into how genomes work.

Converting the “genetic blueprint” into molecular building blocks requires two basic processes: transcription, which copies the information from DNA into RNA transcripts and takes place in the cell’s nucleus, and translation, where the RNA serves as a template to manufacture proteins outside the nucleus.

An article in the Journal of Neuroscience by Sam A. Deadwyler, Linda Porrino, Jerome M. Siegel, and Robert E. Hampson might appeal to the beleaguered hospital intern or the college student during finals week - anyone who has to combat sleep deprivation or who just wants to stay awake for a long time.

The loss of the hypothalamic neurons that produce orexin-A causes narcolepsy, and the administration of orexin-A produces arousal and increased attention.

This week, Deadwyler et al. provide further evidence that orexin-A can counteract the effects of sleep deprivation. Adult rhesus monkeys were sleep deprived for 30–36 h using a combination of videos, music, treats, gentle rattling of their cages, and constant supervision by laboratory personnel.