Bipolar Disorder Phenome Database

From Science Daily:

A novel, free, public online database opening this week should greatly speed efforts to find genes linked to increase risk of bipolar disorder. The Bipolar Disorder Phenome Database--a joint project of Johns Hopkins Psychiatry and the National Institute of Mental Health--is the first of its kind, offering detailed descriptions of symptoms and course of disease on more than 5,000 people with bipolar illness, a mood disorder commonly marked by alternating bouts of depression and manic or overexcited behavior.

It's wonderful to see more researchers sharing information in this way. Having access to information is a vital part of research.

They have named their particular branch of research BioinforMOODics.

Drugs in the News

A short summary of interesting articles about drugs and medications in the last few days.

Lithium may promote bone healing: Researchers have described a novel molecular pathway that may have a critical role in bone healing and have suggested that lithium, which affects this pathway, has the potential to improve fracture healing.

Pigeon population control with birth control pills: Happening in Hollywood = Over the next few months a birth control product called OvoControl P, which interferes with egg development, will be placed in bird food in new rooftop feeders.

Marijuana's lung damage: Smoking a single joint of cannabis has the same impact on breathing capacity as up to five cigarettes, according to a New Zealand study published on Monday in a specialist British journal, Thorax.

Maternal smoking bad for baby's blood pressure: Smoking during pregnancy may raise newborn babies' blood pressure, a new Dutch study shows...Babies born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy had an average systolic blood pressure (the first number in a blood pressure reading) that was 5.4 points higher than that of babies whose mothers hadn't smoked or been exposed to secondhand smoke during pregnancy.

Fire Eating Class TV segment

Here's the TV segment from our fire eating class with firepixie.

From Louisa's Outdoor Adventures:

Marijuana increases risk of psychosis

Sounds like the data finds a correlation between marijuana and psychosis, but no provable explanations for why this is the case, or whether the marijuana use actually causes the psychosis.

From physorg:

Zammit and colleagues from the University of Bristol, Imperial College and Cambridge University examined 35 studies that tracked tens of thousands of people for periods ranging from one year to 27 years to examine the effect of marijuana on mental health.
They looked for psychotic illnesses as well as cognitive disorders including delusions and hallucinations, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, neuroses and suicidal tendencies. They found that people who used marijuana had roughly a 40 percent higher chance of developing a psychotic disorder later in life. The overall risk remains very low.
"The strongest case is that there are consistencies across all of the studies," and that the link was seen only with psychoses - not anxiety, depression or other mental health problems, he said.

Predicting risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) with hearing tests?

Sounds like a very strange connection, but the preliminary data is intriguing.

The current study is by Dr. Daniel D. Rubens of Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. His new theory:

It is known that the inner ear contains tiny hairs that are involved in both hearing and vestibular function. Rubens proposes that vestibular hair cells are important in transmitting information to the brain regarding carbon dioxide levels in the blood. He postulates that injury to these cells will disrupt respiratory control, playing a critical role in predisposing infants to SIDS.

From Science Daily:

This is the first time doctors might be able to identify newborns at risk for SIDS by a simple, affordable and routine hearing test administered shortly after birth. In the study, medical records and hearing tests of 31 babies who died from SIDS in Rhode Island were examined and compared to healthy babies. Rhode Island has a particularly robust database of newborn hearing test data.
The SIDS infants in Rubens' study showed a consistent four point lower score in their standard newborn hearing tests, across three different sound frequencies in the right ear, when compared to babies that didn't die from SIDS. Additionally, healthy infants typically test stronger in the right ear than the left. However, in each of the SIDS cases studied, the right ear tested lower than the left, reversing the test results of healthy babies.

If he's right, this will hopefully bring us many steps closer to preventing such a devastating, deadly disease.

Predict and prevent seizures with a brain implant?

A wonderful technology that could significantly improve the quality of life for some of the 2 million people with seizures in the United States. Apparently, 30-40% of those with seizure disorders don't have any control or benefit from medications.

From Science Daily:

Researchers at the Jefferson Comprehensive Epilepsy Center are enrolling patients in a study of the Responsive Neurostimulator System (RNS) made by Neuropace to determine if it is effective in stemming seizures. The system contains a computer chip that detects seizures and then delivers electric current to the brain to stop them.

This part is fascinating:

Patients will also receive a device that is able to scan the chip for information about seizures just by holding a wand over the scalp, he said. The information can then be downloaded by the patient onto a computer and sent via telephone to epilepsy researchers to review.

They are even looking for more participants:

Participants in the RNS study must be from 18 to 70 years of age and meet the following requirements:
have disabling (significant enough to impair functional abilities or day-to-day life activities) motor simple partial seizures, complex partial seizures and/or secondarily generalized seizures; failed treatment with a minimum of two antiepileptic medications; and experienced an average of three or more disabling seizures every 28 days for three consecutive periods prior to enrollment and have no more than two regions that induce seizures in the brain.

For more information or to participate in the study, please call 1-800-Jeff-now, 215-955-4672 or 1-866-904-6630.

People powered 'Crowd Farm'

Pic: The students' test of the Crowd Farm in a train station and public space in Torino, Italy. Graphic / MIT School of Architecture and Planning

A very cool idea. Probably a much bigger initial investment than harvesting solar or wind power, but this is great for reminding us about the cause and effect of our actions.

From physorg:

The so-called "Crowd Farm," as envisioned by James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk, both M.Arch candidates, would turn the mechanical energy of people walking or jumping into a source of electricity. Their proposal took first place in the Japan-based Holcim Foundation's Sustainable Construction competition this year.
A Crowd Farm in Boston's South Station railway terminal would work like this: A responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress slightly under the force of human steps would be installed beneath the station's main lobby. The slippage of the blocks against one another as people walked would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current.

I especially like this idea: And while the farm is an urban vision, the dynamo-floor principle can also be applied to capturing energy at places like rock concerts, too. "Greater movement of people could make the music louder," suggests Jurcyzk.