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 | Snapshots of Science & Medicine Archive |
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Research in the News
Ulcers - The Culprit is H. Pylori (November 5, 1998)
Everybody knows that high stress jobs--air traffic controller, bomb squad technician, high-school student--can give you ulcers. But everybody is wrong. Instead, a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori is responsible for the vast majority of ulcers. Most people with ulcers can be successfully treated with antibiotics. http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/928BAB9A176A71B585256CCD00634489
Dyslexia Leaves Its Mark (October 26, 1998)
For a long time people with dyslexia were called dumb or lazy. New research shows that specific brain abnormalities lie at the heart of this learning disability.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/63464347915C760A85256CCD006392E5
Thalidomide Gets a Second Chance (October 23, 1998)
The drug thalidomide caused a tragic worldwide outbreak of birth defects in the early 1960s. Now, researchers are finding new uses for thalidomide, giving it another chance to benefit humanity.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/544E6D04B78B8E9E85256CCD0063E875
Prions: Infecious Puzzling Proteins (1997)
Prions cause diseases, but they aren't viruses or bacteria or fungi or parasites. They are simply proteins, and proteins were never thought to be infectious on their own. Organisms are infectious, proteins are not. Or, at least, they never used to be.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/D07612181A4E785B85256CCD0064857B
Spinal Cord Injury (1997)
Until recently, many scientists believed that damage to nerve cells in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) could not be repaired. But within the past few years that attitude has begun to change; experiments with laboratory animals are revealing that some regeneration and recovery might be possible
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/41B8971F1A21A38F85256CCD00631593
Creating a Cloned Sheep Named Dolly (1997)
The verb "to clone" refers to the process of creating cloned cells or organisms. The process differs, depending on the kinds of cells used in the cloning procedure and the desired result.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesTopicsGenetics/BC5086E34E4DBA0085256CCD006F01CB
VHL: A Genetic Disease (1997)
Cells of people who inherit VHL contain one altered copy of the VHL tumor suppressor gene and one normal copy of that gene. Each copy is called an "allele." As long as the normal allele of the tumor suppressor gene remains normal and works correctly, tumors will not grow. If the second allele is altered, tumor suppression ends in that cell and the disease begins.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesTopicsGenetics/4C2BAD0D0ED8F6C985256CCD00701E43
Emotions and Disease (1997)
How tightly are emotions and diseases linked to each other? Can someone actually die from loneliness? Is it really possible to become sick with fear?
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/3373E7350D5D1E9785256CCD0070E65A
Video Game Epilepsy (1997)
Video game epilepsy was first documented in early 1980s when the video game boom began. Seizures can be triggered both when one is playing a game and when one is watching someone else play.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/9C44C02CD08C1E6F85256CCD007146FC
Sports Injuries: In Your Face (1997)
144,000 children in the United States suffer annually from head injuries in bicycle accidents, and 85% of these injuries would not have occurred had the child worn a helmet.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/26DA3B19E6E78D3685256CCD0071BF9F
How Do Your Blood Vessels Grow? (1997)
The growth of blood vessels is called angiogenesis. The word comes from two Greek words, angeion, which means vessel, and genesis, which means birth.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesGrade+Levels+High+School/52BEB73E7AEACC5F85256CCD007276E1
Insights From A Broken Brain (1997)
Explosive powders propelled a three and a half foot long iron rod into Phineas Gage's face. It pierced his left cheek, traveled behind his eye, and flew out the top of his skull. He didn't die. In fact, almost immediately after the accident, Gage could talk and walk.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/B2BB7C9BC636495785256CCD0072EA52
Tuberculosis: Out of Control Again (1997)
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is not readily responding to antibiotics that once successfully stopped this disease. In a disturbing number of patients, the bacteria are not killed by several different antibiotic drugs. Such bacteria are called multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/80950CA9FC1CEAD585256CCD00734643
Help for Cuckoo Clocks (1997)
The body's pacemaker in the brain helps to regulate melatonin secretion. Each day, the pacemaker must reset the body's "biological clock," because the clock does not run automatically on a 24-hour cycle, yet people's lives do.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesTopicsEndocrine+System/CDBF746BF140304785256CCD0073D418
Serendipity In the Discovery of the Ataxia Telangiectasia Gene (1997)
The defective gene in AT is situated on human chromosome #11. In the 50 patients whose genes have been analyzed so far, Shiloh and his coworkers found 43 different mutations that all caused the disease.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/F0CF617FA43797B585256CCD007437D9
Tales From the Crypt (1997)
In 1991 two Russians found what they figured might be the burial site of the massacred Russian Imperial Family. They asked scientists to examine the bones using DNA technologies. The findings were published in an article in Nature Genetics.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/7B03A00B7B8D9EA685256CCD00749BD5
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People Doing Science
Facilitating Xenotransplants - Suzanne Ildstad (May 20, 1999)
Suzanne Ildstad studies how to make the immune system tolerate transplanted organs tissues--be they from human beings or other animals.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/F1CF2206B270B8FC852570F3005BF4E3
Research Neuropathologist - Mary Herman (January 10, 1999)
Mary Herman looks for the structural changes in the brain that cause schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/1CEA34C6D39C6E83852570F3005D8EC3
Serious Researcher, Amateur Naturalist - Clifton Barry (June 1, 1999)
Clifton Barry's "real work" is deadly serious: he looks for new ways to battle tuberculosis, a dreaded disease making an unfortunate comeback. But whenever he gets teh chance, he indulges his penchant for directly observing the natural world.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/9DC2938412E4D201852570F3005F45C2
Rock 'n Roll Researcher - Ellie Carson (November 4, 1998)
Who says scientists are dull? Ellie Carson is a researcher in a cancer research lab at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where she tries to understand what makes good cells go bad. But she also is the lead singer of a Baltimore rock band, Wild Type.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/8CFC3826B05B3222852570F300656EE7
Man With a Mission - Jose Vargas (November 3, 1998)
When Jose Vargas immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic in the eighth grade, he spoke virtually no English. Now, after a stint as an NIH undergraduate research fellow, he's off to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, then on to a career in medicine.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/DA49D1B7E6D7FA9E852570F30069D40B
Genetic Counselor - Barb Biesecker (October 20, 1998)
Doing genetic testing is the easy part. Helping people understand what the results mean, and helping them to cope with the implications, can be very, very hard. For genetic counselor Barb Biesecker, that challenge makes her job worth doing.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/9B399DBAC884389D852570F3006B55B3
Historian of Science - Victorian Harden (October 19, 1998)
Scientific knowlege is not found on tablets handed down from on high. Instead, scientists have to use the tools and ideas they have on hand to move science forward. Victoria Harden studies the rich history of how science grows.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/F540479D2267ADD0852570F3006D09F9
The First Woman Doctor - Elizabeth Blackwell (October 16, 1998)
To be the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States, Elizabeth Blackwell had to be brilliant, diplomatic, tenacious, and tough as nails.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/B47A2C254724C3FB852570F3006EFA1D
Women's Health Dynamo - Vivian Pinn (January 1, 1997)
As director of the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health, pathologist Vivian Pinn is the government's point person on women's health. Her job it to make sure that the right research gets done to protect the health of women.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/85896EA93F77AF6F852570F30070079F
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Stories of Discovery
Animal Parts - Learning the Tricks (April 26, 1999)
People have dreamed of using animal organs and tissues to cure human disease for a very long time. Now researchers are starting to make that dream a reality. Here's how we got there.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/7130D1B3155B123C852570F300709106
Hib Vaccine (April 23, 1999)
Vaccines are among the most powerful disease prevention tools we have. But they don't just pop out of thin air. Here is the story of a new vaccine that has stopped the child-killing bacterium Haemophilus influenzae in its tracks.
http://science.education.nih.gov/home2.nsf/Educational+ResourcesResource+FormatsOnline+Resources+High+School/BEB8326ABA992481852570F30071D67A
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