http://discovermagazine.com Science, Technology, and The Future http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/08-bitter-pills http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/08-bitter-pills <p><b>65,000: </b>Average number of children under the age of 5 admitted to emergency rooms annually for accidental ingestion of medications, <a href="http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476%2811%2900771-2/fulltext">according to a study</a> published in the <i>Journal of Pediatrics</i> in September. Researchers drew on patient records of 453,559 children, collected by poison control centers in the United States between 2001 and 2008. Over that time, the number of er visits due to the swallowing of painkillers jumped 101 percent. <a style="" class="external-link" href="http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/bio/b/randall-bond/">Randall Bond</a>, an er
doctor and pediatrician at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital who led the study, says the uptick coincides with a dramatic boost in sales of opioid drugs...</p> http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/08-bitter-pills/key_image Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:55:00 -0500 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:55:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/17-lethal-gene-emerged-ancient-palestine http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/17-lethal-gene-emerged-ancient-palestine <img src="http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/17-lethal-gene-emerged-ancient-palestine/jewishgene.jpg" align="right" alt=""> <p class="imgcapright"><img kupu-src="http://72.32.204.61/2011/dec/17-wandering/jewishgene.jpg" class="inline" src="http://72.32.204.61/2011/dec/17-wandering/jewishgene.jpg" alt="">iStockphoto</p> <p>Shonnie Medina was a happy 
girl who felt she would die young.</p> <p>Her physical beauty, when she was a young woman in Culebra and a young wife in Alamosa, was the primary thing that people mentioned about her. Photographs and snatches of videotape don’t quite capture it because fundamentally what people were talking about was charisma. It came through her looks when she was in front of you, tossing her full head of dark hair and giving you her full attention. Then her beauty acted like a mooring for her other outward qualities, undulating from that holdfast like fronds of kelp on the sea. Then Shonnie was magnetic, vain, kind to others, religious without reservation, funny, a little goofy, and headstrong.</p> <p>The gene Shonnie inherited, known as <i>BRCA1</i>.185delAG, also has a long pedigree. Its discovery in the Hispano community confirmed events of half a millennium before in Spain that are echoing still. Most likely the mutation arrived by way of Sephardic Jews who converted to Catholicism under pressure from the Spanish Inquisition. From Spain they traveled to the New World, where eventually they seeded the modern Hispano population. Indian blood and new terrain erased part of the history those emigrants carried, assuming they were even aware of their Jewish legacy. For the Hispano Catholic people of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, Jewish ancestry was a will-o’-the-wisp of memory and culture, which many people had heard about without knowing if it was true. Shonnie’s mutation shows that it is.</p> <p>The breast-cancer mutation 185delAG entered the gene pool of Jews some 2,500 years ago, around the time they were exiled to Babylon. Random and unbidden, the mutation appeared on the chromosome of a single person, who is known as the founder. In the same sense that Abraham is said to have founded the Jewish people, scientists call the person at the top of a genetic pyramid a founder...</p> </div><p><b><i>The full text of this article is available only to DISCOVER subscribers. Click through to the article to subscribe, log in, or buy a digital version of this issue.</i></b></p> Jeff Wheelwright http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/17-lethal-gene-emerged-ancient-palestine/key_image Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/15-how-i-put-a-murderer-away-with-doppler-radar http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/15-how-i-put-a-murderer-away-with-doppler-radar <img src="http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/15-how-i-put-a-murderer-away-with-doppler-radar/haill.jpg" align="right" alt="Howard Altschule Illustration"></p> <p><i>For years, Howard Altschule worked as a meteorologist for television station WNYT in Albany, New York, where each night he told viewers whether the next day would bring precipitation and misery. It was a fun gig for a while, but then Altschule grew bored. So in 2007 he started Forensic Weather Consultants, which offers meteorological snooping to local lawyers, providing expert analysis of weather data and satellite imagery. Now he investigates 175 cases a year: roof damage, slips and falls—even a gruesome double murder. In his own words, here’s how he solved that case in May, helping send Michael Mosley to prison for life.</i></p> <p>The police had arrested someone, but then they found Mosley’s blood in the Troy, New York, apartment where the murder occurred. Years and years went by, until one day they came up with a DNA match...</p> as told to Michael Rosenwald;
 illustration by Zina Saunders http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/15-how-i-put-a-murderer-away-with-doppler-radar/key_image Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:20:00 -0500 Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-alcohol http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-alcohol <img src="http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/21-things-you-didn2019t-know-about-alcohol/alcohol.jpg" align="right" alt="">iStockphoto</p> <p><b>1. </b>Sobering disclaimer: The family of compounds known as alcohols are all toxins that can kill you, whether instantly, quickly, or gradually.</p> <p><b>2. </b>Yet one of them—ethyl alcohol, or <a style="" class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol">ethanol</a>—is a staple of the human diet. Archaeologist <a style="" class="external-link" href="http://www.penn.museum/sites/biomoleculararchaeology/">Patrick McGovern</a> speculates that fermented beverages were made as early as 100,000 years ago, when people first spread out of Africa.</p> <p><b>3. </b>The seeds Johnny Appleseed sold to farmers throughout Ohio and Indiana produced apples that were inedible, but perfect for making hard cider.</p> <p><b>4. </b>According to the <a style="" class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_monkey_hypothesis">Drunken Monkey Hypothesis</a>, our zest for alcoholic beverages derives from our distant ancestors’ impulse to seek the ripest, most energy-intensive fruits.</p> <p><b>5. </b>Designated driver at the zoo: The <a style="" class="external-link" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25908012/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/tiny-tree-shrew-can-drink-you-under-table/">Malaysian pen-tailed treeshrew</a> routinely chugs the equivalent of nine glasses of wine a night in naturally fermented nectar, and yet it remains fully functional.</p> <p> <b>6.</b> For a treeshrew, that is...</p> LeeAundra Keany http://discovermagazine.com/2011/dec/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-alcohol/key_image Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:15:00 -0500 Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:15:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/10 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/10 <p>Oncologist David Porter was walking across the quad at the University of Pennsylvania in September 2010 when he got the call. One of his advanced-stage leukemia patients had low levels of electrolytes and compromised kidney function, the caller reported. A spiking fever, chills, and nausea suggested a classic case of flu...</p> Veronique Greenwood http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/10/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/87 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/87 <p>On the morning of Monday, October 3, the Nobel Committee announced that immunologist Ralph Steinman had won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on immune cells and a discovery that led to the first therapeutic cancer vaccine. The members were then staggered to learn that Steinman had died the previous Friday after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer. The news created an unusual problem: Nobel prizes cannot be awarded posthumously. But the committee decided to make an exception for Steinman, given his very recent death, and announced later on Monday that he would remain a laureate.</p> ... Veronique Greenwood http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/87/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/64 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/64 <p>Will we ever see the long- promised medical benefits of stem-cell therapy? Last year that question loomed larger than ever, as some of the most promising lines of research hit daunting roadblocks.</p> ... Valerie Ross http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/64/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/78 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/78 <p>When tiredness sets in, poor decisions and clumsiness often follow. In a study published last April, scientists may have pinpointed the biological basis of such mistakes: tiny clusters of neurons that start napping, even as the brain stays awake. To explore the phenomenon, neuroscientist Giulio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin at Madison tempted lab rats to stay awake longer than usual by supplying them with a steady stream of new toys. At the same time, he measured their brain activity through electroencephalography (EEG). With so much exploring to do, the rats seemed alert, but measurements told a different story. </p> ... Valerie Ross http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/78/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/55 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/55 <p>First came word in past years that coffee may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and slow cognitive decline. Then last March, a metastudy from Fudan University in Shanghai found that one extra cup of coffee daily correlates with a 3 percent reduced risk of a broad range of cancers. And in May, more good news about your morning cup, courtesy of the Harvard School of Public Health. The institution’s 20-year look at the habits of 47,911 men shows that those who drank six or more cups of coffee daily were 18 percent less likely than nondrinkers to get prostate cancer and 60 percent less likely to die from it. Drinking even one to three cups daily lowered the risk of dying by 29 percent.</p> ... Rebecca Coffey http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/55/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/69 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/69 <p>While researchers debate whether microwaves emitted by cell phones might cause brain cancer, a study published in the <i>Journal of the American Medical Association</i> last February raised an entirely different concern. Lead author Nora Volkow, a psychiatrist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health, recruited 47 healthy volunteers and used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to measure glucose metabolism in the brain while cell phones were placed over the right or left ear. She found that 50-minute cell phone calls increased metabolism in the regions closest to the phone antenna—specifically, the orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole, which are involved in sensory integration, language, decision making, and social and emotional processing. Volkow has other studies underway to determine how long the stimulating effects persist.</p> ... Pamela Weintraub http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/69/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/81 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/81 <p>With the rise in obesity has come a 
corresponding increase in rates of type 2 diabetes, in which fat and muscle cells become resistant to insulin, the hormone that transports energy-rich glucose into them. The health implications of diabetes are daunting—heart disease, nerve damage, and worse—so the search for a cure has been fierce. Yet many scientists may have missed a crucial clue by focusing on the wrong root cause of the disease.</p> Melinda Wenner Moyer http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/81/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/56 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/56 <p>Recruiting patients to participate in disease studies is one of the most time-consuming parts of medical research. For some illnesses, getting the necessary few thousand patients together can take more than 10 years. So the personal genomics company 23andMe turned heads in June when it announced that its researchers had analyzed dna from more than 30,000 people and discovered two new genetic variations associated with Parkinson’s disease in only a year and a half.</p> ... Mara Grunbaum http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/56/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/54 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/54 <p>Last summer the particularly virulent 0104:H4 strain of 
E. coli bacteria sickened at least 4,075 people, primarily in Europe, according to the World Health Organization. Of those, 908 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a life-threatening kidney complication, and 50 died, making the 2011 outbreak the most lethal bout of foodborne illness on record.</p> ... Mara Grunbaum http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/54/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/47 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/47 <p>Forget carpet bombing with insecticides or spending millions to devise effective human vaccines: Australian scientists have concocted a novel way to combat dengue fever, a deadly insectborne infection that sickens up to 100 million people every year. They inject mosquitoes with harmless bacteria that thwart the spread of the dengue-causing virus, opening the door to an eco-friendly way of stopping other bugborne infections, from malaria and yellow fever to West Nile virus.</p> ... Linda Marsa http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/47/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/27 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/27 <p>A report released earlier this year confirmed something that has increasingly concerned public health authorities over the past decade or so: In the last 30 years, blood transfusions caused at least 159 cases of babesiosis, an emerging infectious disease that is normally transmitted by ticks. And the risk may be increasing because the majority of these incidents—77 percent—occurred between 2000 and 2009. Twenty-eight of the patients died soon after their transfusions, and in many cases, the infection may have contributed.</p> ... Linda Marsa http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/27/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/90 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/90 <p>Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (in which symptoms persist after antibiotic treatment) have spent decades fending off charges that their debilitating exhaustion and cognitive problems were simply imagined. But a study released last February provides tangible evidence that their conditions are real and distinct entities.</p> Katie Palmer http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/90/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/58 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/58 <p>More than one couple in 10 in the United States struggles to conceive a child, and the cause of their infertility is often unknown. In July University of California, Davis, reproductive biologist Gary Cherr and colleagues reported that they had identified a surprisingly common genetic mutation that may underlie many unexplained cases of male infertility and offer new avenues for treatment.</p> ... Jocelyn Rice http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/58/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/60 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/60 <p>Every year 70,000 americans develop melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, and nearly 9,000 die from the disease. In 2011 two treatments that enhance a patient’s immune system showed promise for slowing tumor growth and improving melanoma survival rates.</p> ... Jocelyn Rice http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/60/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/02 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/02 <p>Talk of curing AIDS made front-page news last year, in part due to an astonishing new gene-editing technology: lab-engineered proteins called zinc finger nucleases. The finger-shaped, zinc-containing molecules, developed by California-based Sangamo BioSciences, can enter cells and snip any desired gene. Using this approach, scientists were able to excise the gene for an all-important receptor, called CCR5, located on the surface of the CD4 immune cells that HIV primarily invades. Without ccr5, the virus cannot slip inside and do its damage...</p> <p><b><i>The full text of this article is available only to DISCOVER subscribers. Click through to the article to subscribe, log in, or buy a digital version of this issue.</i></b></p> Jill Neimark http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/02/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/99 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/99 <p>In 2009 a controversial study published in <i>Science</i> made an extraordinary claim: Chronic fatigue syndrome, whose cause had long been unknown, could be linked to a retrovirus that first arose in mice. According to retroviral immunologist Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI) in Reno, Nevada, xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus, or XMRV, was present in 68 out of 101 people with chronic fatigue syndrome, compared with only 8 of 218 healthy controls. ...</p> Jill Neimark http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/99/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/94 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/94 <p>Five years ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention controversially recommended that girls be vaccinated to prevent infection with human papilloma virus (HPV). Now the agency is extending the recommendation to boys ages 11 to 13, with a onetime “catch-up” injection suggested between ages 13 and 21. The vaccine protects against four common strains of the virus, considered the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. ...</p> Jill Neimark http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/94/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/22 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/22 <p>The identity of the bacterium behind the Black Death, a plague that killed as many as 50 million people in medieval Europe, was finally verified in August. It was a strain of <i>Yersinia pestis</i>, long believed to be at large, that researchers now confirm died out nearly seven centuries ago.</p> ... Emily Elert http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/22/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/28 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/28 <p>A vaccine conferring immunity to only half the people receiving it is not generally considered a success, but malaria is a special case. The mosquito-borne disease caused by the Plasmodium parasite kills more than 700,000 people every year, the vast majority of them African children, and no vaccine has ever shown efficacy in trials. So in October, when drug maker GlaxoSmithKline announced that its new malaria vaccine cut African youngsters’ infection rates by about half in a large trial, global health officials rejoiced.</p> ... Elizabeth Svoboda http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/28/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/13 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/13 <p>The newest weapon against malaria comes from the most unlikely of places—the guts of a mosquito. Johns Hopkins University microbiologist George Dimopoulos discovered that a class of <i>Enterobacter</i> bacteria living inside some Zambian mosquitoes makes the insects resistant to <i>Plasmodium falciparum</i>, a parasite that causes malaria.</p> ... Ed Yong http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/13/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/38 http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/38 <p>Cancer therapies are often harsh because eradicating malignant cells entails damaging healthy tissue as well. But three studies from the past year may present a road map for singling out the cancer cells alone.</p> Dan Hurley http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jan-feb/38/key_image Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:20:00 -0500 Print Article