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Shifting Blame is Socially Contagious


ScienceDaily
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:00 UTC
Merely observing someone publicly blame an individual in an organization for a problem -- even when the target is innocent -- greatly increases the odds that the practice of blaming others will spread with the tenacity of the H1N1 flu, according to new research from the USC Marshall School of Business and Stanford University.

Nathanael J. Fast, an assistant professor of management and organization at the USC Marshall School of Business and Larissa Tiedens, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, conducted four different experiments and found that publicly blaming others dramatically increases the likelihood that the practice will become viral. The reason: blame spreads quickly because it triggers the perception that one's self-image is under assault and must be protected.

The study called "Blame Contagion: The Automatic Transmission of Self-Serving Attributions" is believed to be the first to examine whether shifting blame to others is socially contagious. The results will be published in the November issue of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

"When we see others protecting their egos, we become defensive too," says Fast, the study's lead author. "We then try to protect our own self-image by blaming others for our mistakes, which may feel good in the moment." He adds that in the long run, such behavior could hurt one's reputation and be destructive to an organization and further to our society as a whole.
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Sweet as Can Be: How E. Coli Gets Ahead


ScienceDaily
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:00 UTC
Scientists at the University of York have discovered how certain bacteria such as Escherichia coli have evolved to capture rare sugars from their environment giving them an evolutionary advantage in naturally competitive environments like the human gut.

Microbes are well-known for their ability to grow in demanding and nutritionally poor environments, which has allowed them to colonise some of the most remote places on the planet. Bacteria living in theoretically nutrient-rich environments like the mammalian intestine face similar challenges due to intense competition between bacterial species in the intestine for the finite amount of available food.

Researchers led by Dr Gavin Thomas in the University's Department of Biology discovered that a protein present in the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli was a unique sugar transporter.

Common sugars like glucose form a cyclic structure called a 'pyranose' when dissolved in water. All transporters for glucose recognise the pyranose form. But, for sugars such as galactose, which is commonly found in dairy produce, around 10 per cent is found in a different ring form called a 'furanose'.
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Syringe

H1N1 flu vaccine producing higher anaphylactic reactions among Canadians - GlaxoSmithKline recalls shots

Larry Kusch
Winnipeg Free Press
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:13 UTC
[T]he [Manitoba] province announced manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline had asked provinces to temporarily discontinue vaccinating Canadians from a specific batch of vaccine shipped in October.

The reason is that there has been a higher ratio of severe adverse reactions to the vaccine among Canadians than from other lots.

Winnipeg flu clinics are expected to run out of vaccine containing an adjuvant to boost its effect early today. However, vaccine without adjuvant will still be available for pregnant women and anyone aged 10 to 64 without a compromised immune system.

The province should receive more vaccine with adjuvant early next week.

Manitoba reported its second H1N1 death of the season on Thursday -- and another large increase in confirmed cases of the virus -- but there was also some good news.
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Health

Sleep Apnea May Cause Heart Disease in Kidney Transplant Patients


Science Daily
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:01 UTC
Sleep apnea is common in individuals who receive a kidney transplant and is associated with increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease or stroke, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN).

Researchers found that kidney transplant patients are just as likely to have this sleep disorder as dialyzed kidney disease patients who are on the transplant waiting list. Therefore, both types of patients who have sleep apnea should be considered at high risk for developing serious heart-related complications.

Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death in individuals who receive kidney transplants, and doctors monitor transplant recipients for high blood pressure, or hypertension, and other signs of heart trouble. Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when an individual stops breathing momentarily during sleep due to obstruction of the airway and has been linked to hypertension. Miklos Zsolt Molnar, MD, PhD (Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary), and his colleagues studied the prevalence of sleep apnea in kidney transplant patients and the effects the condition had on their cardiovascular risk.
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The Flu Epidemic: All Fatal Ukraine Cases at GISAID Have RBD D225G Mutation


Recombinomics
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:50 UTC
The patient data associated with the 10 Ukraine isolates sequenced by Mill Hill and deposited at GISAID has been updated with demographic information, suggesting that the samples were from 10 individuals and four of the samples were from deceased patients. These are the same four samples that have D225G (see list below). This association suggests that swine H1N1 with D225G is more aggressive and is cause for concern.

As noted earlier, D225G has been appended onto multiple genetic backgrounds via recombination, and the data from Ukraine adds further support. Samples from Ternopil and Khmelnitsky (see updated map) have a regional marker that is found in swine but no other human isolates. This marker is on all 6 Termopil isolates, indicating it was an early acquisition, but only the two fatal cases have D225G indicating it was appended onto the Ternopil genetic background. However, it is also found in the two fatal cases from Lviv, which do not have the regional marker. Similarly, earlier isolates with D225G represent distinct genetic backgrounds with D225G.
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Health

Norwegian scientists report mutated form of swine flu

Rob Stein
washingtonpost.com
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:13 UTC
Scientists in Norway announced Friday they had detected a mutated form of the swine flu virus in two patients who died of the flu and a third who was severely ill.

In a statement, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health said the mutation "could possibly make the virus more prone to infect deeper in the airways and thus cause more severe disease," such as pneumonia.

The institute said there was no indication that the mutation would hinder the ability of the vaccine to protect people from becoming infected or impair the effectiveness of antiviral drugs in treating people who became infected.
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Study Uses Brain Scans to Discover How Children 'Read' Faces


PhysOrg
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:00 UTC
Image
© AhtamResearcher Banu Ahtam guides 9 year old Oscar Nathan through the study.
Oxford University scientists are using brain-scanning technology to understand how we learn to recognize and 'read' faces as children.

The research will also investigate whether there are any differences in the way people with autism spectrum disorders respond to seeing faces.

'Faces are really very similar in their basic features, but we are very good at recognizing different faces instantly. The brain has to be very specialized to be able to do this quickly and accurately,' says Dr Jennifer Swettenham, who is leading the study.

The ability to recognize faces is very important for communication and socializing. We need to be able to recognize people's facial features, and also understand their emotions, respond to where they are looking, and many other signs and indications.
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Attention

World's largest aspartame maker Ajinomoto is trying to rename it 'Aminosweet'!

Stephen Fox
OpEd News
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:52 UTC
Image
© Unknown
If you have read any of my articles at OpEdNews over the past two years, or any by the many physicians who have also written articles and letters to the FDA commissioner, you will recognize what a bunch of stupid gobbledegook appears below. These critics of aspartame include Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, Internist H.J. Roberts, Psychiatrist Ralph Walton, and Pediatrician Kenneth Stoller, all medical doctors.

This new press release is one of the dumbest things I have ever read, but no surprise: aspartame is at the heart of the many reasons that Americans have gotten dumber, after decades of the "dumbing down" processes....
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Mathematical Abilities Examined in Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

Catherine Lebel
Medical News Today
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:00 UTC
Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) have a number of cognitive deficits, but mathematical ability seems particularly damaged. Little is known about the brain structures related to mathematical deficits in children with FASD. A new study that used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate the relationship between mathematical skills and brain white matter structure in children with FASD supports the importance of the left parietal area for mathematical tasks.

Results will be published in the February 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

"Children with FASD have learning difficulties with reading, memory, executive functioning, attention, and mathematics," said Christian Beaulieu, associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Alberta and senior author for the study.

"Specific deficits in mathematics exist even when their global deficits are taken into account," added Claire D. Coles, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Emory University School of Medicine. "Children with FASD are similar in their presentation to children with nonverbal learning disabilities, which are sometimes associated with visual/spatial deficits and math deficits; one of the factors thought to produce these effects is deficits in white matter integrity."
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Sounds Can Penetrate Deep Sleep and Enhance Associated Memories Upon Waking


ScienceDaily
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:00 UTC
They were in a deep sleep, yet sounds, such as a teakettle whistle and a cat's meow, somehow penetrated their slumber.

The 25 sounds presented during the nap were reminders of earlier spatial learning, though the Northwestern University research participants were unaware of the sounds as they slept.

Yet, upon waking, memory tests showed that spatial memories had changed. The participants were more accurate in dragging an object to the correct location on a computer screen for the 25 images whose corresponding sounds were presented during sleep (such as a muffled explosion for a photo of dynamite) than for another 25 matched objects.

"The research strongly suggests that we don't shut down our minds during deep sleep," said John Rudoy, lead author of the study and a neuroscience Ph.D. student at Northwestern. "Rather this is an important time for consolidating memories."
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