New Orleans Termites Dodge Katrina Bullet:
Tales of survival have been trickling out of New Orleans ever since Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. But few have focused on what might be considered the city's most tenacious residents--its subterranean termites. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologists recently confirmed what many termite researchers and city officials were hoping against. Despite the high waters, winds and other havoc unleashed by Katrina over a year ago, the invasive Formosan subterranean termite is persisting in New Orleans.
Wetlands Curb Hog Hormones In Waste Water:
Constructed wetlands may help reduce hormones in wastewater from hog farms, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-led team reported recently in Environmental Science and Technology. Recently, hog-farm operators have begun incorporating constructed wetlands into their wastewater treatments to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus in the effluent so that it can be spread onto crop fields without causing environmental harm. But little, if any, research has investigated the system's potential to diminish hormones that hogs excrete into wastewater.
'Marathon Mice' Elucidate Little-known Muscle Type:
Researchers report in the January issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press, the discovery of a genetic "switch" that drives the formation of a poorly understood type of muscle. Moreover, they found, animals whose muscles were full of the so-called IIX fibers were able to run farther and at higher work loads than normal mice could.
Doctors Neglect Insomnia In Older Patients, Study Finds:
The sleep problems of older people are often not addressed by their primary care physicians, even though treatment of those sleep disorders could improve their physical and mental health and enhance their quality of life. That's the finding of new research from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. When patients 60 years and older visited their primary care doctors, physicians did not note sleep problems in the patients' charts. This was significant because independent social workers, who interviewed those same patients after their doctors' visits, learned that 70 percent of them had at least one sleep complaint and 45 percent said they had "difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or being able to sleep."
Estrogen Curbs Appetite In Same Way As The Hormone Leptin:
Estrogen regulates the brain's energy metabolism in the same way as the hormone leptin, leading the way to a viable approach to tackling obesity in people resistant to leptin, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the December 31 online issue of Nature Medicine. "We found that estrogen suppresses appetite using the same pathways in the brain as the adipose hormone leptin," said lead author Tamas L. Horvath, chair and professor of Comparative Medicine and professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine.
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