ScienceCache
Vol. 175
June 21, 2004
AN UNPRECEDENTED LOOK INTO THE CHAOS WITHIN OUR BLOOD VESSELS
The chaos that takes place in our blood vessels every moment is the focus
for researcher Michael King, assistant professor of biomedical engineering,
who has won a $200,000 James D. Watson Investigator award from New
York State to support his work. Much like the forces that occur within
a crush of pedestrians jockeying for space on a New York sidewalk,
the forces at work within our arteries and veins are extremely complex
as dozens of types of blood cells bump and grind past each other as
they’re buffeted about and carried throughout our bodies. King
has created a computer formula known as MAD – multiparticle adhesive
dynamics – to simulate the flow of blood cells, analyzing how
cells in complex suspensions like blood affect each other and the surfaces
they’re flowing past. Such forces literally have life and death
control over us. When an infection develops, we rely on our white blood
cells to flow through our blood, recognize the body’s signals
that an intruder’s afoot, and somehow step out of the rush and
enter the fray. The same forces are at play in cardiovascular disease
and the development of blood clots that can kill a person by causing
a heart attack or stroke.
Full story
SCIENCE-BASED CURRICULUM SHOWS GAINS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
Dan and Julie Graf thought it natural to use their daughter Rachel's
knowledge of solids, liquids, and gases to create a fun travel game for
long car trips. They point out the window and she's quick with the correct
category for real and man-made objects. Four-year-old Rachel and her
classmates at Faith Child Care and Nursery School in Penfield are learning
skills and expanding their world through a science-based curriculum developed
by Lucia French, associate professor at the Margaret Warner Graduate
School of Education and Human Development. French designed and expanded
her ScienceStart! curriculum for city and suburban children during the
past decade. More than $1 million from the U.S. Department of Education
provided the opportunity for her to train teachers and support staff,
and continue to test and document the curriculum's effectiveness. In
the past three years, French and her staff have worked with 30 preschool
programs, almost 100 teachers, 60 paraprofessionals, and more than 2,250
children in the greater Rochester area. “Preschoolers in ScienceStart!
classrooms have made large gains in language development, particularly
in the acquisition of vocabulary and in their ability to explain,” says
French. “They've also made significant advancement in their knowledge
by using a scientific approach that raises questions and investigates
possible answers.” ScienceStart! embraces science as an essential
part of preschool. Basic scientific terms and concepts are the norm;
integrated activities give children the chance to use oral and text-based
language for problem solving and other skills.
Full story
“
FALSE BRAIN TUMOR” GROWING AMONG YOUNG WOMEN
Prevalence of an illness called idiopathic intracranial hypertension
(IIH) or pseudotumor cerebri, better known as “false brain tumor” because
patients have symptoms like those of a brain tumor, is growing in tandem
with the waistline of America. Patients usually have a severe headache,
and they often have blurred vision or see double, says neuro-ophthalmologist
Deborah Friedman, an expert at the University of Rochester Eye Institute
who hopes to study the disease with a new career development award from
the National Institutes of Health. But there is no tumor. Instead, the
cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord is under abnormally
high pressure, pushing on vital structures like the optic nerve and sometimes
causing permanent visual loss. The same fluid that normally acts like
a shock absorber, keeping the brain safely cushioned in the skull, suddenly
begins doing damage. “When you meet a patient with symptoms like
a severe headache and blurry vision, the first thing you worry about
is a brain tumor. It turns out not to be – but even so, this condition
is very serious and even causes blindness for a fair number of patients.” While
doctors don’t know the exact cause of the disease, they do know
that weight gain increases the risk that people, particularly women,
will get IHH. The disease strikes heavy young women most often – overweight
women of child-bearing age are nearly 20 times as likely as others to
get IIH. “Awareness of this disorder is really increasing,” Friedman
says. “The bad news is that it’s becoming more common, as
the population gets fatter and more people are at risk. It’s now
twice as common as it was in the 1980s.”
Full story
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