Welcome To The Science Party

Today, 20 April, sees the launch of The Science Party, a new political party led by bestselling author and New Scientist consultant Dr Michael Brooks. Brooks is standing for the party in the forthcoming British general election in the East Midlands constituency of Bosworth.

Brooks launched The Science Party, whose slogan is “Because Science Matters”, at a Skeptics event in Leicester on Tuesday evening.

So much for my commitment to write.... Just as I have started my blog account, my supervisor asked me to write a 10-page review article on his research -due in two weeks?!! Well, after 2 weeks of craziness, I thought that perhaps I should share a bit about what I have been writing.

Just to start- my supervisor works on engineering viruses to be used as therapeutic agents to destroy brain tumors.

Daily consumption of added sugars in the U.S. averages 3.2 ounces (15.8 percent of daily caloric intake) and has increased substantially since 1977-1978, when added sugars contributed only 10.6 percent of the calories consumed by adults, according to a new study in JAMA.

The study also points out that consuming higher amounts of added sugars is associated with lower levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and higher levels of triglycerides, which are important risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

A mother's shorter height is associated with a reduced growth rate and a higher death rate for her children, among 54 low- to middle-income countries, according to a study in the April 21 issue of JAMA.

Researchers say the association suggests the presence of "an intergenerational transmission from mother's own nutrition, disease, and socioeconomic circumstances during her childhood to her offspring's health and mortality in their infancy and childhood."

Listening to your iPod or mp3 player for several hours at a time could put your hearing at risk, according to the least fun science article ever written.

The editorial, published today in the British Medical Journal, points out that personal music devices such as MP3 players can generate levels of sound at the ear in excess of 120 decibels, similar in intensity to a jet engine, especially when used with earphones that insert into the ear canal.

More than 90%  of teenagers from Europe and the United States surveyed use the newfangled  contraptions. Overall, their use "has grown faster than our ability to assess their potential health consequences," says Peter Rabinowitz from Yale University School of Medicine.

In the last two decades there has been a dramatic rise in the use of psychotropic medications to treat children. One in every fifty Americans is now considered permanently disabled by mental illness, and up to eight million children take one or more psychotropic drugs.

But there is little evidence available to warrant the widespread use of psychotropic drugs for children, and little long term data regarding its long term impact on development. The authors of a new study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy say the mental health field is currently designed to treat adults with psychotropic medications, but they are often misused in the case of children and adolescents.

The reduced risk of cardiovascular disease seen in people who eat a Mediterranean diet may be attributable to the phenolic components of virgin olive oil, which repress several pro-inflammatory genes.

Phenols are micronutrients of olive oil; the extra-virgin varieties have a particularly large phenol fraction.

Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Genomics studied the effects of eating a breakfast rich in phenol compounds on gene expression in 20 patients with metabolic syndrome, a common condition associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

The authors of a new study in Nature Methods say they have discovered 2,363 new DNA sequences corresponding to 730 regions on the human genome not charted in the reference map of the human genome.

"A large portion of those sequences are either missing, fragmented or misaligned when compared to results from next-generation sequencing genome assemblies on the same samples," said Dr. Evan Eichler, senior author of the study. "These findings suggest that new genome assemblies based solely on next-generation sequencing might miss many of these sites."

Modest weight loss appears to reverse many of the damaging changes often seen in the immune cells of obese people, particularly those with Type 2 diabetes, according to a new research.

The recent study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology Metabolism looked at 13 obese people with Type 2 diabetes or prediabetes who were limited to a diet of between 1000 and 1600 calories a day for 24 weeks. Gastric banding was performed at 12 weeks to help restrict food intake further.

The results showed an 80% reduction of pro-inflammatory T-helper cells, as well as reduced activation of other circulating immune cells (T cells, monocytes and neutrophils) and decreased activation of macrophages in fat.

It's well known that serious air pollution can cause of all kinds of nasty health problems - headaches, nausea, allergic reactions, chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer and heart disease counted among them. But according to new statistical correlation, it can also make unborn children stupid at small levels.