Turning City Green

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Turning Unused Acres Green

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

PEACEFUL TAKEOVER In Gowanus, a group from Feedback Farms works on planters to grow vegetables.

By JOHN LELAND

Published: April 27, 2012

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THE city of New York owns thousands of slivers of unused land, and about a year ago, a group of Brooklyn gardeners had an idea: identify all the vacant lots in the borough, then help neighborhood residents take them over. They built an online map, then a mobile app, with information about the plots, including the names and phone numbers of the agencies that owned them. They called themselves596 Acres, after the total area of unused public land in Brooklyn, according to city data./.../

Health Spending is Flattening Out

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Explaining a Slowdown in Health Care Spending

In Hopeful Sign, Health Spending Is Flattening Out

Much of the slowdown is because of the recession, and thus not unexpected, health experts say. But some of it seems to be attributable to changing behavior by consumers and providers of health care — meaning that the lower rates of growth might persist even as the economy picks up.

Because Medicare and Medicaid are two of the largest contributors to the country’s long-term debts, slower growth in health costs could reduce the pressure for enormous spending cuts or tax increases/.../

Vitamin and Mineral Supplements

Sugested by the AMICOR Jorge Ossanai

Vitamin and Mineral Supplements: Do You Really Need Them?

Do you take a dietary supplement? If so, you're in good company: More than half of all U.S. adults take at least one daily or occasionally. But a group of researchers are now saying that vitamin and mineral supplements may be doing some people more harm than good. Two recent studies are questioning the long-term safety of multivitamins for older women and vitamin E supplements for men, and show the need for more research on this important subject. More...

• Over age 50. You may need vitamin B12 and calcium, commonly low in older adults, and vitamin D, which is harder for skin to synthesize from sunlight as we age.
• A postmenopausal woman. You may need extra calcium and vitamin D to keep your bones strong.
• Dark skinned or have limited sun exposure (less than 15 minutes a day). You may not be getting enough vitamin D from the sun alone.
• Frail or elderly and unable to eat sufficient amounts of food. A poor appetite or illness may prevent you from getting essential nutrients.
• Suffering from nutritional deficiencies from a restricted diet. If you have a food allergy, are a vegan or have undergone weight-loss surgery, for example, you may not be able to get all your nutrients from food.
• Suffering from a medical condition. Some illnesses, such as cancer, anemia and celiac disease, cause nutritional deficiencies and require therapeutic doses of supplements.
• Undergoing medical treatment. Some medicines, such as cancer drugs and proton pump inhibitors, can interfere with nutrient absorption or use.
• Diagnosed with a chronic illness for which supplements are part of treatment. People with age-related macular degeneration, for example, may benefit from high doses of certain vitamins and minerals to slow vision loss.

A word of caution. Be cautious about the supplements you take and why you're taking them. Don't take supplements before consulting with your doctor or a dietitian for guidance. He or she can identify any nutritional gaps you may have and make recommendations.

Prevent Alzheimer’s?

Can Household Chores Help Prevent Alzheimer’s?

By AMANDA GARDNER/HEALTH.COM | April 19, 2012 | 

In recent years, several studies have found that older people are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia if they engage in vigorous exercise, such as jogging, swimming or brisk walking.

People who are too frail or out of shape to hit the pool or treadmill shouldn’t despair, however. According to a new study, even mundane, low-key tasks like gardening, cooking and washing dishes can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s if they’re performed often enough.

The study, which was published this week in the journal Neurology, included 716 dementia-free men and women in their 70s and 80s. Compared with the most active people, those with the lowest levels of overall physical activity had more than double the risk of going on to develop Alzheimer’s. Greater physical activity was also associated with a slower rate of aging-related memory and cognitive decline./.../

defeat aging entirely

‘This house wants to defeat aging entirely’: de Grey vs. Blakemore

April 24, 2012

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Aubrey de Grey (credit: SENS Foundation)

Oxford University Scientific Society is hosting a debate on Wednesday, April, 25, 2012, addressing whether aging should be a target of decisive medical intervention — raising the possibility of substantial extension of human lifespan.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey will propose the motion, “This house wants to defeat aging entirely“ and Professor Colin Blakemore will be opposing. The debate will be chaired and moderated by Professor Sir Richard Peto.

The debate will begin at 7 pm Oxford time (11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern in the U.S.) in the University of Oxford’s Sheldonian Theater.

A video recording of the debate and questions will be posted on the SENS Foundation YouTube channel as soon as possible after the event.

Aubrey de Grey is Chief Science Officer of SENS Foundation, a biomedical research charity that aims to develop, promote, and ensure widespread access to rejuvenation biotechnologies that address the diseases and disabilities of aging./.../

Brain: ‘use it or lose it’

Protecting your brain: ‘use it or lose it’

April 25, 2012

Effects on neurons of an active cognitive lifestyle in Brodmann area 9 (mid-prefrontal lobe, involved in memory). A high cognitive lifestyle score was associated with increased neuronal density (A, B) and greater neocortical thickness (C, D). (Credit: M. J. Valenzuela et al./Biol Psychiatry)

Cultivation of an active cognitive lifestyle through lifespan engagement in a rich array of mentally stimulating activities may help reduce dementia risk, according to a major study of more than 13,000 individuals aged over 65 years and followed for 14 years.

An active cognitive lifestyle score (CLS) in men was associated with less cerebrovascular disease, and in women was associated with greater brain weight. In both men and women, a high score was associated with greater neuronal density and cortical thickness in the frontal lobe.

“Overall, our research suggests that multiple complex brain changes may be responsible for the ‘use it or lose it’ effect,” said Associate Professor Michael J. Valenzuela, a brain aging expert at the Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, Australia, who led this new study. “This research throws some light on what may be happening at the biological level.”/.../

Polythiophenes inhibit prion propagation

Polythiophenes inhibit prion propagation by stabilizing PrP aggregates

1. Ilan Margalith1, et al.
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Background: Luminescent conjugated polymers (LCPs) are highly specific to amyloid conformations and may represent potential antiprion compounds.

Results: LCPs significantly reduce prion titers, while rendering PrP^Sc more stable to proteolytic digestion.

Conclusion: LCPs possess pronounced antiprion potential and appear to act by compaction of frangible fibers.

Significance: LCPs may represent novel pharmacophores for the prevention and treatment of prion diseases.

“Based on these results, we can now customize entirely new molecules with potentially even better effect. These are now being tested on animal models,” Nilsson says.

Researchers want to go even further and test whether the molecules will function on fruit flies with an Alzheimer’s-like nerve disorder. Alzheimer’s is caused by what is known as amyloid plaque, which has a similar but slower course than prion diseases.

student-produced educational video

MIT launches student-produced educational video initiative

Original short videos, in collaboration with Khan Academy, aim to fuel K-12 students’ interest in engineering and science.

David L. Chandler, MIT News Office; Chad Galts, School of Engineering

MIT has launched an initiative encouraging its students to produce short videos teaching basic concepts in science and engineering. The videos — aimed at younger students, in grades from kindergarten through high school — will be accessible through a dedicated MIT website and YouTube channel. A subset of the videos will also be available on Khan Academy, a popular not-for-profit educational site founded by an MIT alumnus.

“We wanted to help inspire young people to change the world through engineering and science, and realized that the 10,000 superstar students we have at MIT are uniquely positioned to do that,” says Ian A. Waitz, dean of the School of Engineering and the Jerome C. Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “Our students have responded with all the energy and enthusiasm we knew they would. We worked with them to design the program, and the results are fantastic.”

images of the Milky Way Galaxy

Picture captures a billion stars

By Jonathan AmosScience correspondent, BBC News, Manchester

Scientists have produced a colossal picture of our Milky Way Galaxy, to reveal the detail of a billion stars.

It is built from thousands of individual images acquired by two UK-developed telescopes operating in Hawaii and in Chile.

Archived data from the project, known as the Vista Data Flow System, will be mined by astronomers to make new discoveries about the local cosmos.

But more simply, it represents a fabulous portrait of the night sky./.../

10 toxic chemicals suspected to cause autism and learning disabilities

The top 10 toxic chemicals suspected to cause autism and learning disabilities

April 27, 2012

The current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives calls for increased research to identify possible environmental causes of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in America’s children and presents a list of the top ten target chemicals in consumer products likely to contribute to these conditions: 1. Lead 2. Methylmercury 3. PCBs 4. Organophosphate pesticides 5. Organochlorine … more… To begin formulation of a systematic strategy for discovery of potentially preventable environmental causes of autism and other NDDs, the Mount Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center, with the support of the NIEHS and Autism Speaks, convened a workshop on “Exploring the Environmental Causes of Autism and Learning Disabilities.” This workshop produced a series of papers by leading researchers, some of which are published in this issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. It also generated a list of 10 chemicals and mixtures widely distributed in the environment that are already suspected of causing developmental neurotoxicity: Lead (Jusko et al. 2008) Methylmercury (Oken et al. 2008) Polychlorinated biphenyls (Winneke 2011) Organophosphate pesticides (Eskenazi et al. 2007; London et al. 2012) Organochlorine pesticides (Eskenazi et al. 2008) Endocrine disruptors (Braun et al. 2011; Miodovnik et al. 2011) Automotive exhaust (Volk et al. 2011) Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (Perera et al. 2009) Brominated flame retardants (Herbstman et al. 2010) Perfluorinated compounds (Stein and Savitz 2011).

PET Scan & Alzheimer's D.

PET Scan Readings Lead to Alzheimer's Misdiagnosis

Pauline Anderson

April 25, 2012 (New Orleans, Louisiana) — Misdiagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) based on positron emission tomography (PET) scan readings appears to be a troubling problem that could get worse as more amyloid-specific tracers become available.

A new study found that almost two thirds of patients were misdiagnosed or had inconclusive data on the basis of interpretation of their PET scan in a community setting.

"We concluded that since this is such a large percentage of people who are misdiagnosed based upon their PET scans that we should caution clinicians to weigh the risks versus the benefits before ordering PET scans," said Sheena M. Shipley, BS, Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver.

She presented the data here at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting./.../

200 Years of the New England Journal of Medicine

A Reader's Guide to 200 Years of the New England Journal of Medicine

Allan M. Brandt, Ph.D.

N Engl J Med 2012; 366:1-7January 5, 2012

 Comments open through December 31, 2012

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Audio Interview

Interview with Allan Brandt on the first 200 years of theJournal as a window into the history of medicine, science, and society. (22:26)

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With this issue, the New England Journal of Medicine marks its 200th anniversary. In January 1812, as the first issue came off the handset letterpress, few of its founders could have predicted such continuity and success. (See Figure 1FIGURE 1Illustration from “Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart and Lungs,” by John C. Warren, April 1, 1812, Issue of the Journal., from an 1812 issue.) John Collins Warren, the renowned Boston surgeon, his colleague James Jackson, a founder of Massachusetts General Hospital, and the small group of distinguished colleagues who joined them in starting the New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery, and the Collateral Branches of Science expressed modest and largely local aspirations for the enterprise. Boston, a growing urban center, and the wider New England environs had no medical journal of their own, although much medical knowledge and practice was considered region-specific. Although the name and format of the Journal would vary until 1928, 7 years after its ownership passed to the Massachusetts Medical Society, it remains the longest continuously published medical periodical in the world. The prospectus for the Journal, a call for papers issued in late 1811, explained the goals of Warren and his collaborators: “The editors have been encouraged to attempt this publication by the opinion, that a taste for medical literature has greatly increased in New England within a few years past. New methods of practice, good old ones which are not sufficiently known, and occasional investigations of the modes in common use, when thus distributed among our medical brethren in the country, will promote a disposition for inquiry and reflection, which cannot fail to produce the most happy results.”1

Periodontal Disease and Vascular Disease

Periodontal Disease and Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease:


/.../Evidence for PD as a Risk Factor for ASVD
The potential associations between PD and ASVD can be considered in light of published standards for levels of evidence that include Level of Evidence A, for which supportive data are derived from multiple randomized clinical trials or meta-analyses, and Level of Evidence B, for which data derive from a single randomized trial or nonrandomized studies. An association between PD and ASVD is supported by evidence that meets standards for Level of Evidence A. A benefit of periodontal intervention in decreasing local periodontal inflammation is also supported by level A evidence. Causation of ASVD by PD is not supported by either level A or level B evidence. The same is true about a benefit of periodontal intervention in decreasing longterm systemic inflammation./.../