Daily non-political popular news in brief.

Does race still play a role in capital punishment sentencing?

10-16-2007 · EurekAlert!

In an ongoing study using survey data from the Capital Jury Project, Dr. Thomas Brewer, assistant professor of justice studies and research fellow for the Institute for the Study and Prevention of Violence at Kent State University, explores the interaction between race and the ability or willingness of capital jurors to consider mitigation evidence during penalty-phase deliberations in a death penalty trial.

Keywords: race, play, role, capital, punishment, sentencing

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Place more than race tied to heart disease risk
03-26-2007 · EurekAlert!
Where you live might play a bigger role in your risk for heart disease than your ethnicity or race. New research reveals that rural residents were more knowledgeable about healthy eating and heart disease risk than urban residents, but that urban residents were more motivated and optimistic about getting healthy. The findings could help health-care professionals better target heart disease prevention programs.
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Health disparities -- Genetics, society and race play an important role in access to healthcare
04-15-2007 · EurekAlert!
Minority individuals are much more likely to develop and die from cancer than the general US population. Previous research points to lack of health insurance, poverty, language and cultural barriers, and inadequate access to early detection services and good medical care as causes.
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Who gets heart failure? Race takes back seat to diabetes and high blood pressure
03-27-2007 · EurekAlert!
Diabetes and high blood pressure, two conditions rooted in genetics and environmental surroundings, play a much greater role than race alone in determining who is mostly likely to develop heart failure, according to the latest study from cardiologists at Johns Hopkins. Each year, nearly 300,000 Americans die from heart failure.
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EuroNews looks at SMOS, ESA's water mission
10-05-2007 · European Space Agency (ESA)
Moisture in soil and salt in the oceans play an important role in the Earth's water cycle - a crucial component of our weather and climate. This week, Euronews looks at SMOS, ESA's water mission that will provide a uniform dataset to better understand this fundamental system.
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How does the antitumor drug get to the cell nucleus?
11-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
Platinum complexes such as the well-known cisplatin are powerful antitumor medications. But how does it get to the nucleus" Italian researchers have now proven that a copper transport protein may play a critical role.
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Atmospheric Measuring Device for Understanding Smog Formation
11-19-2007 · Brookhaven National Laboratory
Scientists at Brookhaven Lab have developed a new tool for quantitatively measuring elusive atmospheric chemicals that play a key role in the formation of photochemical smog. Better measurements will improve scientists' understanding of the mechanisms of smog formation and their ability to select and predict the effectiveness of various mitigation strategies.
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Study suggests genetic connection between short stature and arthritis
01-13-2008 · EurekAlert!
Common genetic variants linked to arthritis may also play a role in human height, a new study shows.
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River plants may play major role in health of ocean coastal waters
01-29-2008 · EurekAlert!
Recent research at MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering suggests how aquatic plants in rivers and streams may play a major role in the health of large areas of ocean coastal waters. The work describes the physics of water flow around aquatic plants. It may be used to guide restoration work in rivers, wetlands and coastal zones by helping ecologists determine appropriate vegetation patch length and planting density.
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Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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Genetics a key factor in premature infants' devastating eye disease
11-22-2006 · EurekAlert!
Genetics play a major role in predisposing infants to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a disease prevalent in premature infants that disrupts normal blood vessel development of the retina and can lead to blindness, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the November issue of Pediatrics.
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