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The American fashion industry comes out to support its young Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund designers, past and present
While its writers have somehow managed to make the "You know you love me" phrase ubiquitous among pop culture-savvy youth, Gossip Girl hasn't entirely managed to maintain the loyalty of its viewers. For those who have religiously watched all five seasons thus far, it is obvious that Gossip Girl has fallen into the trap that many prime time soaps do — fearing the show is too boring or too safe.
I am an urban, white, female math major with an anxiety disorder and a borderline offensive sense of humor. As further summary: when filling out college applications and needing three words that people would use to describe me, I polled a bunch of friends and there were two words that almost everyone listed: energetic and scary. So, that gives you an idea of the sort of person I am.
The archival materials of the Afro American Newspaper, which have been examined and organized by two Hopkins departments, were presented last night.
You know how some things land on either end of the spectrum?
After being in Beijing, the capital of China, I was assuming that Hong Kong would be similar. Surely a country can't have cities that upstage the capital, right? Wrong. Hong Kong is an extremely modern city that reminds you of New York, except a bit cleaner. Unlike Beijing, there were no glaring signs that this was still a developing country. The people were all smartly dressed in Western high-fashion looks that you might see on the streets of Paris or London, and there were no rickshaws on the road.
Theta Tau, Hopkins's Professional Engineering Fraternity, kicked off National Engineers Week (E-Week) at Hopkins with the Tower of Power competition this Monday in the Glass Pavilion. 19 different teams made up of undergraduates, graduate students, alumni and one team of middle school students competed to see who could build the tallest tower out of uncooked linguini and marshmallows at the annual event.
Department of Physics and Astronomy Professor Colin Broholm is known for his research on neutron scattering and condensed matter physics. He currently is teaching General Physics II for the Physical Sciences.
If you can think back a few years, what differences between your diets then and now come to mind? For many and especially myself, I always broke even. That is, I always ate just enough bad foods to cancel out the hard work that I had put in to get rid them.
When we first heard that a Maryland-based restaurant devoted entirely to grilled cheese sandwiches was coming to Baltimore, we knew without a doubt that we had to visit. For avid cheese lovers, a grilled cheese restaurant is a dream come true.
Try to imagine the following: an Asian-style dragon flying over an Italian Renaissance-painted landscape. I would bet most readers at Hopkins will be able to conjure this untraditional image quite easily. Imagination is a difficult concept to approach, in that it is highly personal and hard to explain to others. It is not a common academic focus, generally limited to psychological sciences and mystic philosophy circles. But the undertones of imagination building are present in society, as children are encouraged to create worlds in which to play with their real-world friends.
Evolutionary biologists may as well ditch their books and race to Russia, where they can now observe the live-action speciation of a single-celled microbe population known as Sulfolobus islandicus. Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new species form, and in this case, it means that Sulfolobus islandicus is on its way to becoming two distinct, new species. Differentiating between species is a challenging business. In sexually reproducing organisms, a species is primarily defined by the ability of its members to mate with one another and exchange genetic information. For instance, humans and chimpanzees are considered two separate species because their members cannot produce viable offspring. Although evolution holds that these two species once shared a common ancestor, significant genetic differences now render them as separate. Classifying species becomes more tricky when one ventures into domains of life that reproduce asexually or by cloning. These species do not mate with other organisms in their population and are, therefore, difficult to distinguish from one other. Scientists classify asexual species using other criteria, including morphological (or structural) differences, behavior observation and DNA sequencing.Sulfolobus islandicus falls into this "difficult to classify" category because it belongs to the domain known as Archaea, whose organisms reproduce asexually. In addition to being asexual, archaeons are single-celled microbes that live in extreme environments. Scientists found Sulfolobus islandicus living on a Russian volcano, in a spring full of boiling, acidic water. Although they live in the same water, some organisms belonging to Sulfolobus islandicus began to show marked genetic changes, and scientists noticed that the shared portions of their genome were decreasing with time. This led them to believe that Sulfolobus islandicus is diverging into two species, which they termed the Red and Blue groups. The scientists concluded that the microbes were structurally identical. However, after observing the archeon behavior, they noticed that organisms belonging to the Blue group grew less rapidly than those in the Red and that Blue group's colonies were subsequently less dense. After collecting strains of Sulfolobus islandicus from the hot spring, they sequenced the microbes' genome and examined their evolutionary relationships. They noticed that the highest difference between the genomes of any two strains totaled to a mere 0.35 percent. Despite being so similar, the strains were telling of a clear movement towards two species, with each individual analyzed bearing a resemblance toward only some of the members. Furthermore, the scientists found that microbes only shared their DNA with some of the members of Sulfolobus islandicus. Namely, they observed that the Blue group began to donate less DNA to the Red one. This was another clue that led them to believe that speciation was indeed taking place. It may seem surprising that microbes can share DNA despite being unable to sexually reproduce. Unlike organisms, who share genetic information through sexual reproduction, however, microbes exchange DNA through a process known as lateral gene transfer. This method of gene transfer stands in contrast to vertical gene transfer, where genes are passed from parents to offspring. Scientists are perplexed as to why Sulfolobus islandicus is rapidly evolving into two separate species. The most common reason for speciation is that organisms become separated by a geographic barrier, such as a mountain or a river, and are subsequently subjected to different selection pressures, thus causing them to evolve. The quintessential example of this phenomenon, known as allotropic speciation, concerns Darwin's finches of the Galapagos Islands. The finches used to share a common ancestor but evolved into separate species after migrating to different islands where they experienced selection pressures like new food sources. In contrast to the finches that underwent allotropic speciation, Sulfolobus islandicus is evolving in one geographic region under the same environmental conditions. This form of speciation, called sympatric speciation, is more difficult to account for and is undergoing further scientific investigation. According to Rachel Whitaker, lead author of the study from the University of Illinois, this is the first known example of sympatric speciation in a microorganism. She believes that the study highlights the extensive genetic diversity that occurs in microbial populations.
The origin of zebra stripes has long been a subject of creation myths and scientific debate. From an evolutionary perspective, the first answer that probably comes to mind is camouflage. The zebra's bold patterns are a mixed blessing: when stationary, the contrasting black and white stripes offer little protection from the prying eyes of lions. This explains why zebras seek safety in numbers - the occasional loss of an animal is offset by the benefits of a herd-wide predator detection system. As conspicuous as they are in broad daylight, the zebra's pattern must confer some kind of benefit for them to be alive in this day and age. In the natural world, conspicuousness is selected for a variety of reasons. Sexual selection has helped to shape the ornate tail of the peacock, helping males advertise themselves to choosy females. For the poison dart frog, its bright colors promise a fast and painful death to any victim unfortunate enough to lay eyes upon it. Finally, a Batesian mimic, such as the viceroy butterfly, is an animal that impersonates a noxious species as an insurance against predators. The zebra is neither poisonous nor a Batesian mimic, but, perhaps, its body patterns come to use in a similar fashion. When a zebra is in motion, its body patterns may create a kind of dynamic optical illusion. The motion dazzle hampers the lion's ability to predict the zebra's speed and direction, improving its chances of escape. The rapidly-moving stripes can also interfere with the lion's perception of spatial location. Add this to the fact that several dozen zebras will probably be bolting off in different directions during a lion attack, the lion will surely have a hard time deciding who to have for supper. At least, this is what one would think given the copious examples on camouflage as a defense mechanism. As convincing as the camouflage theory sounds, the real story behind the zebra stripe has nothing to do with hungry lions. A research team from Hungary and Sweden recently found that zebra stripes are ideal for warding off an entirely different type of predator: blood-sucking parasites. The idea is not new - a different group of researchers formulated the same hypothesis in 1981. This group, however, found solid proof for their claim by conducting experiments with light and dark stripes at a horsefly-infested farm. The horsefly is the terror of grazing animals; it delivers vicious bites and can facilitate the transfer of diseases across distant populations. According to team leader G??bor Horv??th, horseflies are attracted to horizontally polarized light because horizontally polarized water reflections help them determine where they can mate and sow their eggs. In addition, blood-sucking female tabanids have the uncanny ability to pinpoint the location of their victims using polarized light reflected from their hides. Horseflies are more attracted to dark horses than to white horses. Zebra embryos start out with dark skin, but develop their white stripes before birth. The team wanted to test whether the zebra's hide evolved to disrupt their attractive dark skins and to decrease their appeal to voracious bloodsuckers. To find their answer, the researchers trekked to a horsefly-infested horse farm near Budapest, Hungary. To test the attractiveness of various black and white striped patterns to horseflies, the team varied the width, density and angle of the stripes, as well as the direction of polarization of the light that they reflected. The insects then voted for the winning body pattern by trapping themselves in the oil and glue spread across the stripes. True to the hypothesis, the narrowest stripes attracted the fewest number of flies, indicating that zebras were selected for coat patterns that elicit the minimum possible response from dipteran parasites. As follow-up, the team tested the attractiveness of horse models with varying degrees of skin tone and stripes, predicting that the striped horse would attract an intermediate number of flies. To their surprise, the striped model was the laggard among flies. The results are pretty representative of what happens in nature: when the researchers measured stripe widths and polarization patterns in actual zebras, they observed the same trend. The consensus, then, is that zebra stripes are a wonderful adaptation: females are attracted to it, while horseflies think that it is the most horrendous body pattern to graze the African plains. Not to mention that lions are quite confounded by them. ?
Given the copious amount of sensory stimuli in our surroundings, it is not an easy feat to focus on any one particular piece of information. Take our visual system, for example: how is it possible to locate your friend in a busy lecture hall? Neuroscientists at the Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, identified the connections between different brain regions used to pay attention to selective visual stimuli. It has long been known that the occipital lobe, or visual cortex, located at the posterior part of the cerebral cortex, is responsible for the processes of visual information. Photons of different wavelengths strike the photoreceptors in the eyes, subsequently activating a series of neurons, eventually reaching the visual cortex. Specialized neurons in this area are responsible for encoding different types of stimuli. For example, there are neurons that respond specifically to a particular direction of motion in visual area V5, also known as the MT cortex. The parietal lobe, on the other hand, has been known to receive input from various areas in the brain, including the visual cortex. The information is then processed, thus allowing the subject to selectively pay attention to limited sensory stimuli, singled out from the copious amount available. However, although it has been known that the visual cortex communicates to the parietal lobe, the specific connections have always been a mystery. Do neurons of the visual cortex each correspond to a particular neuron in the parietal lobe, or is the association amongst a broader population of neurons? This study demonstrates that the one-to-one mapping between neurons is not limited to the photoreceptors in the retina. Instead, attention also seems to be a process resulting from one-to-one connections between neurons in the visual cortex and those in the parietal lobe. There are two parts to this study. In the first part, several functional brain scans were used to identify regions responsible for processing of visual stimuli and attention. Participants were asked to fixate on a dot at the center of the screen, while six stimuli flashed around the dot. In the second task, participants were then asked to respond to each stimuli one at a time, while their brains were scanned to determine activity levels in the occipital and parietal cortices. The second part of the experiment was geared toward determining the anatomical information of the white matter connectivity. Participants were scanned without engaging in any tasks. The results were then combined with those of the first part of the study to determine the connectivity of white matter tracks (axons) during functional tasks of part one. Results suggest that the connections are mapped systematically, which means that there are direct connections between visual field locations in the occipital cortex and corresponding regions of the parietal lobe. Furthermore, the scans were performed using "diffusion spectrum imaging," which is a new technique developed at the Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh. Combined with high-resolution tractography, results of this study show a higher level of accuracy in terms of connections mapped, when compared to those determined using other traditional methods. Knowing that training can alter white matter connectivity, researchers hope to improve attention by filtering out irrelevant information through training. It is hopeful that this will provide further insight to visual and attention deficit disorders.
Growing up, you may have been told to hear people out when they express an opinion, if for no other reason than to show respect. There is, however, a much more significant reason to hear people out, and I believe it is crucial to overcoming a misinformation gap that is plaguing the American public. Bad arguments only stick when you and I fail to take them in, analyze and challenge them on the battlefield of words. Of course, it is hard to endure the incendiary rhetoric that often form the opening lines of a confrontation. You would probably be loath to sit through a conversation replete with such assertions as "abortion is murder," "global warming is bogus," "evolution is a myth," and "the gays are going to hell." However difficult, though, it is crucial to have the patience to hear out their "reasons" and "evidence" to prevent them from winning arguments on baseless accusations. Regardless of what your personal opinions are on most of the aforementioned issues, you probably accept the validity of evolutionary theory and are most likely astounded by the utter failure of America to properly grasp it. A 2010 Gallup poll found that only 40 percent of Americans support evolution, while a 2011 Fox News poll showed that 40 percent support strict creationism over evolution or theist-driven evolution. We can blame the failure of teachers to grasp evolution themselves or stand up to the pressures of misinformed parents who support religion in the science classroom. We can blame the politicians who have cast baseless claims against evolution, especially those vying for the coveted Republican nomination in the presidential election - catering to an increasingly misguided voter base concerning scientific issues. Ultimately, the blame can come down to us as well, in our failure to get our hands dirty and our personas insulted. Scientists can only write so many op-ed pieces or give so many interviews to influence the public discourse. Politicians who support evolution can only devote so much of their time and efforts before they risk charges of politicizing science. To combat the misinformation in the American body politic, it is necessary that we students engage directly in the national discussion. Sure, it is difficult for any one student to greatly influence the vast arena of discussion in America. Sure, the news media and established public officials hold more sway over the discourse. But from each one of our actions, we can form powerful and cogent arguments to sway the national debate. Armed with proper knowledge, we can instill in others an understanding of the truth, while at the same time defeating misinformation. To succeed in this process, though, we must hone our knowledge, properly informing ourselves and learning what others will say. I can think of no better example in which knowledge can defeat falsity than that of Ray Comfort, an evangelical who has tirelessly campaigned against evolution. Two years ago, his edited version of Darwin's On the Origin of Species featured a lengthy forward that was distributed here at Hopkins and at other universities which attacks evolution through a variety of arguments. These arguments, however, are mixed in with his attempt to spin natural selection as an evil idea that the Nazis used to justify the Holocaust. Setting aside such mudslinging, Comfort's forward presents a number of false points that a deeper study of evolution can easily disprove. In one section, he tries to spin vestigial organs as evidence against evolution. His point falls short, however, in the assumption that natural selection leads only to the development of organs and appendages and not to their destruction. In reality, natural selection can actively hinder the growth - over many generations - of organs and appendages when they are no longer needed, saving the organism the energetic costs of forming those structures. Should you ever come across a denier of evolution, don't shy away from a confrontation. Engage him, find out what he uses to argue his point, then develop your own arguments to counter his. Only when we strengthen our own understanding can we be better prepared to fight America's ignorance and expose the public to the truth.
In 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States made a fateful decision with countless ramnifications. In the lawsuit between Citizens United and the Federal Electoral Commission, the Supreme Court declared Citizens United victorious and effectively allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money towards political contributions. This decision by the Supreme Court drew scathing criticisms from countless political watch dog organizations which characterized the ruling as the beginning of the end of democracy in America. This ruling essentially ended the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform and opened the way for the rise of super political action committees more commonly referred to as "super PACs." Originally, the limit on an individual's campaign contribution was $2500, but the new Supreme Court decision now allows these super PACs to receive unlimited sums of campaign donations. Therefore, a wealthy individual or corporation can single-handedly bankroll a candidate's campaign. We have seen this throughout the Republican primaries in which each candidate has a corresponding super PAC that spends vast amounts of money on behalf of that candidate. The problem with allowing individuals and corporations the ability to contribute an unlimited sum of money to one candidate is that it inherently dilutes the voice of the majority of the American electorate. Unlimited spending in campaign contributions allows special interests to dominate elections. A candidate who receives a $1 million donation from a corporation is going to be more inclined to look after the interests of that particular corporation rather than his constituents. The average voter cannot afford to donate anywhere near as much money to a candidate than a corporation can and this leads to the lack of representation of the people in the U.S. government. At this point, politicians and elected officials are essentially "bought" by special interests. By allowing these unlimited amounts of campaign contributions, we are depriving the average voter of his proportionate voice and influence in the government. And this has already led to the disenchantment of many voters who don't believe they have much political efficacy to effect change in government. To make our democracy better and to fix this issue, we need to institute substantial campaign finance reform on the amount of influence that corporations have on elections. The consensus that needs to be reached is that corporations do not have rights like individuals. Therefore, the notion of corporate personhood should be rejected. A corporation is not, nor has it ever been, a person with voting rights. Yet, at the same time, we are offering them rights that are guaranteed to people. The very idea that corporations can now channel their immense wealth to advocate directly for or against a federal candidate is detrimental to our democracy. Furthermore, there is a compelling state interest to restrict corporate spending in elections. It would level the playing field for all candidates and it would make it tougher for a candidate to win an election just because he has a lot of money. I understand that money is going to end up being an integral part of elections. But I believe that the source of this money should come from people donating to campaigns rather than corporations throwing money at candidates. People have a constitutional right to give those funds and campaign finance reform gives the individual donor a voice more comparable to other interest groups which have always had a disproportionate amount of influence in politics. It is imperative that we as a society push for campaign finance reform because it would advance the objectives of a broader marketplace of ideas and of free speech, assembly, and thought. It would reduce corruption in government by discouraging candidates from "selling themselves" to special interests bidding for their votes. If we as Americans really want to better our democracy, then campaign finance reform needs to be our first legislative step.
If you've tuned into any major news outlet in recent weeks, you might come away with the impression that abortion - rather than the U.S. economy - is the issue upon which Election 2012 hinges. Lightning rod or no, the media circuit has been mostly abuzz with "abortion talk," from the Komen Foundation's Planned Parenthood imbroglio and the GOP's all-male "birth control panel," to Rick Santorum's fire-and-brimstone commentary on prenatal testing, birth control, and the prosecution of "abortion doctors." I've little interest in fanning the flames of feminist rage. What I'd really like to concern myself with, however, is Rick Santorum, the man behind the foot-in-mouth rhetoric - the quasi-evangelical enigma who seems well on his way to being blacklisted by mainstream left- and right-wingers alike. No candidate - at least since the bowing out of pizza-magnate Herman Cain - has proven as baffling as the former Pennsylvania Senator. It was Rick Santorum, after all, who "surged" on the eve of the Iowa caucus, emerging as a kind of "dark horse" - a robust, unanticipated force to be reckoned with. The story read like this: While frontrunners Romney and Gingrich were busy slinging mud-pies, underdog Santorum stumped on doggedly, muscling his way through the finish line the good, old-fashioned way. But it was Santorum's caucus-night speech that definitively tipped the scales in his favor. For voters tuning in for the first time, he appeared articulate and even athletic in his argumentation, pulling off his smiley "compassionate conservative" shtick like a gosh-darn natural. He was folksy, inoffensive; he thrived as a charming, down-home, anti-Romney - at least with his evangelism left on the back burner. But that Santorum - the one who performed impressively all along the debate circuit - seemed at odds with the off-air Santorum, who insisted that "standing up and defending [heterosexual] marriage" was "the ultimate homeland security." His unhinged, off-the-trail rhetoric - for instance, his equation of homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality - left even mainstream Republicans nonplussed. Before long, the teetering balance he'd achieved between "straight-laced conservative" and "bible-thumping evangelical" had tipped into fringe territory. As of late, Santorum's made his bread and butter as "Mr. Social Conservative," trotting out his borderline fanatical views on prenatal testing, birth control and the prosecution of "abortion doctors" with frightening nonchalance. In an ill-fated CNN interview, he even questioned whether women should serve on the front lines of combat because of "emotions that are involved." Those sound bites, and others like it, have rebranded Santorum as a kind of "culture warrior" - a religious zealot with a Cro-Magnon perspective on women's rights. It's no wonder he's been ridiculed ad nauseum as a zero-prospect candidate by both the Fourth Estate and the Republican Old Guard. The reality is that Santorum has four Superdelegates to Romney's 91. He can't win by any stretch of the imagination. But here's the kicker: The latest results from Gallup's nationwide daily tracking poll indicate that 35 percent of registered Republicans back Santorum over Romney's 27 percent. Those numbers - and the paradoxical picture they paint - mean that Santorum matters, and will continue to matter in the relay leading up to the Tampa Convention. Sure, he might not be an electoral game-changer, but he'll continue to highlight a symbolic divide in the Grand Old Party between the suit and the sweater-vest - the "Chablis Republicans" and "Budweiser Republicans" continuously wrestling for dominance. It's a dynamic that's peculiar to both candidates, and how they've defined themselves with respect to each other. Does Santorum's evangelical streak, for instance, make Romney look good? Or does Romney's smarmy elitism make Santorum look better? It's difficult to tell. What's 100 percent certain, however, is that the two men provide a study in political contrasts, highlighting each other's distinct strengths and weaknesses - for better or worse.Santorum's eight-point Gallup margin tells me there's something terribly wrong with candidate Romney - and the gatekeepers know it. Santorum's improved numbers, in many respects, are less about his advantages than Romney's lingering disadvantages. Sure, Romney's got the credentials - the unquestioned economic savvy that, according to a Washington Post-ABC News Poll, 50 percent of Americans trust over Obama's 44 percent. But fewer constituents seem to be voting for him, than voting against Obama -and when they do cast their ballot for Romney, they do so begrudgingly. Which leads us to ask: why the reluctance? As far as voters are concerned, Romney is of Wall Street: a predatory, big-business capitalist, rather than a sympathetic blue-collar or small-business advocate. He oozes so much wealth he might as well be named Mitt "Moneybags" Romney. Of course, that isn't to say that the former Massachusetts Governor should be crucified for hard work or good fortune - simply that he's perceived by voters as a dreaded "one-percenter" who doesn't play for the underdog, for the average American. And it shows. When Mitt Romney insists that "Corporations are people, my friend," it's a stab in the gut to unemployed America. And when he says he's "not concerned about the very poor," it's the rhetorical equivalent of swilling a thousand-dollar Merlot. In politics, perception is 80 percent of the game, and Romney has unfortunately been adorned with a big scarlet "E." E, that is, for elitist - a dreaded, campaign-killing word for today's Republican political aspirants. No wonder there's something appealing about Rick Santorum's "Vox Populi, Vox Dei"-style campaign, and not just for "guns-and-bible" Republicans. Say what you will about him, but Santorum can connect with blue-collar and middle-class constituents in ways that $250 million dollar-Mitt Romney cannot. For GOPers, however, it comes down to a matter of preference. Who's more distasteful in today's political climate: an elitist or an evangelical?
The neonatal mortality rate in the United States is significantly lower than in many countries across the globe. Based on data from 2009 collected by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, an average of 4.19 infants out of every 1000 dies before becoming 28 days old in our country (this represents 0.42 percent of all births). However, this is not the case for many families in low-income regions around the world. In an effort to identify methods of lowering neonatal mortality, researchers from the Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, led by Dr. Abdullah Baqui, set out to test the effect umbilical cord cleansing could have on mortality rates. When a child is first born, umbilical cord infection can account for up to 50 percent of neonatal deaths in areas researchers call "resource-poor settings." The umbilical cord blood vessels are exposed to the environment for several days following birth, making it a prime location for pathogens to find their way into an infant host. This is especially true in rural areas where good hygiene is difficult to maintain. To that end, the World Health Organization recommends the best method for reducing infection in high risk locations is to keep the umbilical area clean without the application of any topical cleanser, a method called "dry cord care." However, understanding the fact that cleanliness is not always possible, the WHO also recommends that washing with a solution of chlorohexidine can offer protection from infection for newborns. Although the name sounds like some rare and complex molecule from your Organic Chemistry course, chlorohexidine is actually a relatively cheap and easy-to-use disinfectant found in many household products, such as mouthwash and skin cleansers. As a neonatal care product, it provides a way for lower-income regions to prevent infection and protect newborn babies. As a result, the cleaner was the focal point of study for Baqui and his team. The work had its genesis in an early study done in Nepal where researchers found that infants who received anywhere from one to seven cord cleansings with chlorohexidine in the first 10 days of birth reduced infection of the umbilical cord area by 32 percent. Furthermore, cleansing within the first 24 hours of birth led to a 24 percent lower mortality rate. From this, experts then raised the question "would a simpler cleaning regimen (cord cleansing only once after birth) be equally beneficial?" To answer that question, the Hopkins team went to the three sub-districts of Beanibazar, Zakiganj and Kanaighat in Bangledesh. In total, the team broke down these rural regions into 133 random clusters which were assigned to one of three possible cleansing regimens: single cleansing with chlorohexidine immediately after birth, daily cleansing for seven days after birth and the typical dry cord care which implemented no form of antiseptic as a means of comparison. From June 2007 to September 2009, and with the help of local community helpers, the researchers enrolled 29,760 babies in the study with 10,329 having multiple cleanings, 9,324 undergoing a single cleaning and 10,008 utilizing dry cord care. From these trials, the researchers carefully monitored child health over the course of a month, looking for any signs of umbilical cord infection. After compiling the data and breaking down the numbers, the researchers found an interesting twist in the data. As expected, even a single cleaning with antiseptic significantly prevented mortality compared with dry cord care. However, when comparing dry cord care with multiple cleanings, contrary to expectation, there was no significant difference in mortality rates. These results contradicted the previous study done in Nepal which showed that cleansing anywhere from one to seven days lowered infant mortality. While the study offers several possible explanations for this apparent aberration, the simple fact is that more research needs to be done in order to understand chlorohexidine's fullest impact on neonatal mortality. Despite the deviation in data from multiple cleanings, Baqui and his group emphasize the fact that chlorohexidine "has an excellent safety record and it is simple and inexpensive to deliver." By increasing awareness to implement these methods of cleansing, Baqui hopes to improve neonatal survival in the places that need it most.
Yale scientists have discovered a molecular pathway that is implicated in maternally inherited deafness, a discovery that was published in Cell. Not only has this study shed light to the molecular interactions in the pathway, but it also has provided a solution for elucidating tissue specificity of human mitochondrial-based disorders. The mitochondrion is a vital organelle that is considered to be the powerhouse of all of our cells. Through a certain process known as oxidative phosphorylation, mitochondria produce units of energy for our cells to carry out certain cellular activities. Mitochondria have their own DNA, which is maternally inherited and can be subject to mutations that lead to mitochondrial dysfunctions. These dysfunctions are implicated in diabetes, heart disease, cancer, neural degeneration and aging. A milestone in determining the cause of maternally inherited deafness occurred back in 1993, when the A1555G mutation was discovered in human mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA). A1555G denotes a point mutation where an adenine nucleotide is mutated into a guanine in the 1555th nucleotide. More specifically, A1555G is a mutation in the 12S rRNA gene that codes for a certain subunit of ribosomes in mitochondria. This gene was found to cause irreversible deafness, which implies that the crucial, irreplaceable cells within the inner ear were subject to an apoptotic pathway, or cell-death, due to this mutation. A major obstacle in understanding mitochondrial diseases is the elucidation of its tissue specificity. Despite all cells in the body carrying the same mitochondrial mutation, the primary effect of the A1555G mutation is the eventual loss in hearing, in both mice and humans. This suggests that there is a cell-type specific response to the stress caused by the mutation. The A1555G mutation impairs the ribosome, an organelle known for translation, the process in which cellular proteins are built. This can, downstream, cause defects in the process of oxidative phosphorylation, which is important for producing energy for cells. However, it was found that the 12S rRNA was hypermethylated, due a consequent overexpression of mtTFB1, an enzyme that is implicated in methylation. Hypermethylation means that methyl groups were added to the 12S rRNA. The hypermethylation was key to the molecular defects instigating apoptosis. Yale scientists hypothesized that the hypermethylation of 12S rRNA causes a stress signaling pathway that eventually leads to apoptotic susceptibility of cells. A pro-apoptotic transcription factor, E2F1, was identified to be one of the downstream contributors to cell death. Transcription factors, as E2F1, facilitate the expression of other proteins, which in this case are implicated in cell death. This E2F1 pathway may have become a paradigm for other scientists to not focus on the immediate effects of defects in oxidative phosphorylation, but to find a possible link between apoptosis and retrograde signals caused by hypermethylation in mitochondrial ribosomes.
According to a new study, asteroids could be falling into the supermassive black hole in the middle of our Milky Way. The study is significant because the findings suggest that a huge number of asteroids must be present around the black hole. NASA's Chandra spacecraft has been detecting X-ray flares coming from Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A* for short) about once a day for several years. According to the study, the flares may be caused by the black hole swallowing up asteroids in its proximity.Sgr A* is the black hole in the center of our galaxy, and due to the clearly hostile environment around a black hole, it has been doubted that asteroids could form nearby at all. However, the study, led by Kastytis Zubovas of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, suggests that, in fact, large numbers of asteroids may be present around Sgr A*, as evidenced by the production of the flares. In fact, it is likely that a cloud near Sgr A* could contain trillions of asteroids, as well as comets that were stripped from their parent stars by the black hole. The distance between the Earth and the sun is roughly 100 million miles or 160 million kilometers. At this distance from Sgr A*, asteroids would get torn to pieces by the black hole's gravity. In addition, if an asteroid gets too close to a star or planet close to Sgr A*, its orbit could change, meaning that it could be thrown toward the black hole. Then, as the asteroids come into contact with the hot gas flowing onto Sgr A*, the asteroid fragments would be vaporized by friction, just as meteors get burned up by gases in the Earth's atmosphere. It is this vaporization that probably gives rise to the X-ray flares detected by Chandra. The flares last for a few hours and can range from a few times to nearly 100 times as bright as the black hole usually is. Then, whatever is left of the asteroid gets swallowed up by the black hole. The flares seen around Sgr A* would have to be generated by asteroids at least six miles or 10 km, wide. Although the black hole is probably also munching up smaller asteroids, the flares that would appear as a result would be too faint to detect. Previous modeling work has estimated that trillions of asteroids are likely to be found around Sgr A*. Findings from this study roughly agree with this conclusion. While a few trillion asteroids should have been swallowed up by the black hole over the 10-billion-year lifetime of the Milky Way, the majority of the total number of asteroids should remain untouched. The results could also be an indication of planets that come too close to the black hole, rather than asteroids, which would result in even brighter flares. However, such events would be extremely rare, since asteroids are much more common than planets. Nevertheless, it is likely that it has happened in the past: about 100 years ago, the X-ray flares of Sgr A* became brighter by a factor of a million. Unfortunately, this happened before telescopes were invented. It has been detected, however, by X-ray 'echoes' reflecting off clouds, according to the researchers. The study provides exciting new evidence for the size, amount and proximity of asteroids around our galaxy's black hole, contrary to doubts regarding the existence of asteroids around Sgr A*.