Studies and Analyses

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analyzed how airborne particulate matter from forest fires in the Canadian providence of Quebec traveled more than 700 miles to homes in Baltimore, Md. The study authors found a dramatic increase in outdoor and indoor fine particulate matter – an atmospheric pollutant that is harmful to people with respiratory diseases– in Baltimore during the first weekend of July 2002, which coincided with several forest fires in Quebec. The

For Marcel Proust, the taste of a madeleine conjured remembrance of the distant past. In today’s multi-tasking, hyper-speed world, it can be a trick to remember what we did yesterday.

But a new method of reconstructing the previous day’s activities not only helps people remember how they spent their time, it also captures how they really felt about their activities. The technique, described in the Dec. 3 issue of Science, provides insight into what people actually enj

A recent study of 43 garden crops led by a University of Texas at Austin biochemist suggests that their nutrient value has declined in recent decades while farmers have been planting crops designed to improve other traits.

The study was designed to investigate the effects of modern agricultural methods on the nutrient content of foods. The researchers chose garden crops, mostly vegetables, but also melons and strawberries, for which nutritional data were available from both 1950

A new study on early steroid withdrawal following liver transplantation found that there was a higher incidence of rejection and a lower incidence of glucose intolerance necessitating treatment for diabetes. It was the first double-blind placebo-controlled study to examine the effects of early steroid elimination.

The results of this study appear in the December 2004 issue of Liver Transplantation, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (

Organ damage that goes beyond the liver due to alcoholism is often seen as a barrier to liver transplantation, despite a lack of data on how a transplant affects these complications. A new study describes a patient with alcoholic liver disease complicated by peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage affecting the arms and legs) who underwent a liver transplant and regained almost normal muscle strength.

The results of this study appear in the December 2004 issue of Liver Transplantation,

Contrary to the movie Jurassic Park, in which scientists recreate dinosaurs from ancient DNA, genetic material more than about 50 thousand years old cannot be reliably recovered. Nevertheless, a team of scientists has now demonstrated that computers could be used to reconstruct with 98 percent accuracy the DNA of a creature that lived at the time of the dinosaurs more than 75 million years ago–a small, furry nocturnal animal that was the common ancestor of all placental mammals, including human