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Popular Articles

Bicycle Helmet Laws For Kids Effective But Not Yet The Norm
Studies have shown wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle reduces one"s risk of death by more than 50 percent, yet every three days, a child in the United States is killed while riding a bicycle, and every day at least 100 children are treated in emergency rooms due to bicycle-related head injuries.

Model For New Generation Of Blood Vessels Challenged
In-growth and new generation of blood vessels, which must take place if a wound is to heal or a tumor is to grow, have been thought to occur through a branching and further growth of a vessel against a chemical gradient of growth factors. Now a research team at Uppsala University and its University Hospital has shown that mechanical forces are considerably more important than was previously thought. The findings, published today in the journal Nature Medicine, open up a new field for developing treatments.
News of the day
Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor Would Be Sixth Catholic On Bench
If Judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, she would be the sixth Roman Catholic currently on the court, the New York Times reports. According to the Times, although Sotomayor was raised Catholic and attended a Catholic high school, she appears to be in line with the majority of U.S. Catholics who identify themselves with the faith but do not regularly go to Mass or become heavily involved in religious life. Several studies have shown that Catholics who rarely or never attend mass are more liberal on political and cultural issues than those who attend more regularly, the Times reports. For example, a Gallup poll released in March found that 52% of Catholics who do not attend church regularly say abortion is morally acceptable, compared with 24% of Catholics that are regular churchgoers. A White House spokesperson said that Sotomayor "currently does not belongs to a particular parish or church, but she attends church with family and friends for important occasions" (Goodstein, New York Times, 5/31).According to the Boston Globe, the number of Catholics on the court has increased sharply over the past two decades, a shift from earlier years when there generally was one "Catholic seat" on the bench. Although Supreme Court experts say that the increase in the number of Catholic justices reflects a fall in anti-Catholicism over the past half-century, they also note that Catholic justices" views have not always aligned with the Church"s teachings and that a judge"s faith is not necessarily an indicator of how he or she will rule on issues like abortion rights or gay marriage. Current Catholic Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts all are in favor of either overturning Roe v. Wade or returning the issue of abortion to the states, the Globe reports. However, there have been previous Catholic justices, such as Justice William Brennan, who were avid supporters of abortion rights (Paulson, Boston Globe, 5/30).Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law and theology at the University of Notre Dame, said, "I don"t think there is any one Catholic stance on the law," adding, "You"ll have judges who are pro-life personally who are going to rule that [Roe] is the law of the land."Sotomayor "Formidable Counterweight" to Catholic Men on Court, Opinion Piece Says "If anyone should be worrying" about Sotomayor as the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court, "it"s the five who are already there," former Catholics for Free Choice President Frances Kissling writes in a Salon opinion piece. Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas "all seem cut from the same traditional Catholic (and Federalist Society conservative) mold," Kissling writes, noting that all five voted in Gonzales v. Carhart to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. If confirmed, Sotomayor"s experience with the other justices "is likely to change [her] as well -- and make her an even more formidable counterweight to the male Catholic bloc," according to Kissling. "There is nothing more likely to radicalize a "moderate" Catholic woman of even marginal religiosity than daily exposure to Catholic men who think women need to be protected from making money or making bad and sad abortion choices," Kissling contends (Kissling, Salon, 5/31).
Diagnostics

Protein From Algae Shows Promise For Stopping SARS

A protein from algae may have what it takes to stop Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) infections, according to new research. A recent study has found that mice treated with the protein, Griffithsin (GRFT), had a 100 percent survival rate after exposure to the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), as compared to a 30 percent survival for untreated mice. The research will be presented at the American Thoracic Society"s 105th International Conference in San Diego on Wednesday, May 20. Despite its dramatic entrance into the domain of worldwide public health threats in 2002, little headway has been made therapeutically toward preventing or treating SARS after infection. But GRFT, a lectin protein derived from algae, offers a new possible hope. GRFT is thought to exert its anti-viral effects by altering the shape of the sugar molecules that line the virus" envelope, allowing it to attach to and invade human cells, where it takes over the cells" reproductive machinery to replicate itself. Without that crucial ability, the virus is unable to cause disease. "While preliminary, these results are very exciting and indicate a possible therapeutic approach to future SARS or other coronaviral outbreaks," stated Christine Wohlford-Lenane, senior research assistant at the department of pediatrics University of Iowa and the lead author of the study. Researchers treated experimental mice with GRFT or a sham treatment and then inoculated them with the SARS virus. They analyzed the antiviral activity of GRFT and the extent to which the virus was able to invade and replicate in the mice at two, four and 10 days after infection. They found that mice who had not been treated with GRFT showed 20 times more plaque-forming units of virus than treated mice. They also noted that the lungs of untreated infected mice showed extensive necrotizing bronchitis and prominent edema, while mice treated with GRFT showed evidence of significantly less severe lung damage. Additionally, mice treated with GRFT did not experience the drastic weight loss of untreated mice, which lost 35 percent of their body mass. "This indicates that not only did the GRFT stop the virus from replicating, but also prevented secondary outcomes, such as weight loss, that are associated with infection," said Ms. Wohlford-Lenane. "We are planning future studies to investigate prophylaxis, versus treatment interventions with GRFT, in the SARS mouse model in collaboration with Barry O"Keefe at the National Cancer Institute," she concluded. "In addition, we want to learn whether mice protected from SARS by GRFT develop protective immunity against future infection." American Thoracic Society (ATS)


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