Sports for Disabled Athletes
A new sports research center will offer resources and training for
athletes with disabilities. The Centre for Disability Sport at Loughborough University in
England will support applied research for improving athletic performance and overall
fitness, development of advanced equipment and technologies, and training for
professionals working in the field of disability sports. Supporters believe that
participation in sports contributes to the individual's self-development, self-reliance,
and self-confidence.
Source: Loughborough University, Press Office, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, United Kingdom.
Web site www.lboro.ac.uk.
Food Gets Fancier, Faster, Fresher
Trends in the food industry used to be driven by family-oriented needs, but as baby
boomers become empty nesters, other values are coming into play, such as excitement,
convenience, and health. According to the Institute of Food Technologists, the top trends
in food are quick-fix entrees and side dishes requiring very little preparation, flavor
"layering" of multiple exotic ingredients, do-it-yourself doctoring with diets
aimed at reducing blood pressure or cholesterol, and farm-friendliness-a preference for
foods deemed closer to the farm and less processed.
Source: Institute of Food Technologists, 525 West Van Buren, Suite 1000, Chicago,
Illinois 60607. Telephone 312-782-8424; Web site www.ift.org.
Brain Cells Grown in Lab
Brain cells generated in a lab offer hope of curing Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and
other neural disorders. Scientists at the University of Florida recently succeeded in
getting mice nerve cells to generate new cells. The process could potentially create a
limitless supply of an individual's own brain cells, according to neuroscientist Bjorn
Scheffler. "It's like an assembly line to manufacture and increase the number of
brain cells," Scheffler says of the process. "We can basically take these cells
and freeze them until we need them. Then we thaw them, begin a cell-generating process,
and produce a ton of new neurons." Neuroscientists have long known that the amount of
brain cells a human is born with is not fixed and that small amounts of new cells are
produced even in adulthood. However, the potential to regenerate the needed cells in the
needed spot to repair degeneration is what could have enormous impacts on future human
health.
Source: University of Florida, Health Science Center News and Information, Gainesville,
Florida 32611.
Preventing Breast Cancer
Twenty percent of women surveyed worldwide said they would
consider undergoing a double mastectomy if told they had a high risk of breast cancer. The
survey was undertaken by researchers at Scotland's University of Dundee to determine
women's attitudes toward breast cancer and is part of a larger approaches to cancer
prevention. The researchers are investigating whether the cancer-treatment drug
anastrozole could also be effective in cancer prevention--and thus provide a more
acceptable alternative to mastectomy for women at high risk for the disease. "Many of
us already take medications to prevent heart disease," notes lead researcher Jack
Cuzick, "so just imagine the possibilities if, in the future, we could use a simple,
once-a-day medication to reduce the occurrence of breast cancer." Worldwide, more
than a million women a year are diagnosed with breast cancer, accounting for 23% of all
female cancer cases.
Source: University of Dundee, Press Office, Nethergate, Dundee, Scotland DD1 4HN,
United Kingdom. Web site www.dundee.ac.uk.
Undoing Human Damage to Lakes
It could take a thousand years for lakes to recover from the damage done by humans in
only six decades, claims limnologist Stephen R. Carpenter of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. Due to the extensive use of fertilizers, an enormous buildup of
phosphorus in soils in lake watersheds is putting the lakes at risk of eutrophication for
centuries to come, says Carpenter, an authority on freshwater lakes. Eutrophication
stimulates toxic algae growth and chokes off the oxygen supply in the lakes, killing fish.
The only way to reverse the damage is to substantially change soil management to reduce
soil erosion, says Carpenter, who also recommends developing larger buffers around lakes
and streams, restoring wetlands, and improving manure storage and handling processes in
order to reduce phosophorus runoff.
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison, University Communications, 27 Bascom Hall, 500
Lincoln Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Web site www.news.wisc.edu.
