In a recent study, giving iron supplements to anemic children when they have a cold or other upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) significantly improved their iron status without increasing stomach upset or other side effects, says a Penn State nutritionist.

Dr. Namanjeet Ahluwalia, associate professor of nutrition and principle investigator on the research team, says, “Because of conflicting results from previous studies, physicians preferred to be cautious and generally withhold iron

Howard Bowman and Colin Johnson of the Computing Laboratory at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC) have been awarded a grant of £150,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to construct computational models of human attention. The research will be undertaken in collaboration with the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, one of the UK’s leading centres for research into human attention.

We live in environments in w

Expert in ‘emotional communication’ says 1-year-olds can pick up ‘emotional signals’ and base decisions on them

What do infants learn as they watch people talk or act in a certain manner? If a television is on in a room, how much do infants pay attention to it?

These are questions Donna Mumme, assistant professor of psychology at Tufts University, answers in her study, “The Infant as Onlooker: Learning from Emotional Reactions Observed in a Television Scenario.” Co-authored

Technique used to shrink tumors, delay their growth

A team of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center scientists shrunk tumors or delayed their growth in animal studies by using radiation to enable a drug to “zero in” and block the tumor blood vessels.

The work, reported in the January issue of the journal Cancer Cell, is a model for what might be achieved in patients by using radiation to activate drug targets in tumors. “We can now use combinations of chemotherapy and radiation to

New pathway presents target for medication development

Brain molecules similar to the active compound in marijuana help to regulate alcohol consumption, according to new reports by scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), Bethesda, Maryland, and a separate NIAAA-supported group at several New York state research institutions.

In studies conducted with a strain of mice known to have a high preference for alcohol, the scientists found great

Treatment with two medications that suppress the immune system, rituximab and cyclophosphamide, appears to have cured one woman of an otherwise untreatable case of the blood disease known as thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). The findings support the theory that TTP is an autoimmune disease, and not only provide insight into diagnosis and treatment, but also reveal clues about blood clotting and autoimmune diseases in general.

“In this particular patient who did not respond to stand