Visiting African scientists collaborate with MBL scientists on infectious diseases
Over the next few months, two African scientists will be collaborating with researchers in the MBL's Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution to help further the world's understanding of infectious diseases, which are responsible for one third of all human deaths each year. ... ...The visiting scientists, called the Ellison Visiting Scholars, are here to take adva...For Africa's valuable mahoganies, it's the soil, stupid
NEW YORK (AUG. 10, 2004) A study by a scientist from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society has revealed how Africa's giant mahoganies, the ancient trees driving the tropical logging industry, require specialized, poorly understood soil conditions results that could have huge implications on how Africa's tropical forests are managed. ...The study, appearing in the latest issue of the...Genetic mutation linked to more aggressive breast cancer found more often in African-Americans
Alterations in a tumor suppressor gene called p53 are more prevalent in breast cancer of African-American women than white women, according to a new study. This study, published August 9, 2004 in the online edition of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, "represents the first reported series of increased prevalence of p53 alterations in African-American breast cancer pa...More aggressive breast cancer tumors found in African American women
New Haven, Conn.--A genetic mutation related to a more aggressive form of breast cancer occurs four times more often in African American patients than their white counterparts, Yale researchers report in the August 9, 2004 online edition of the journal ...Cancer....... In the United States, African-American women have a lower incidence of breast cancer than white women, but they have a higher mor...Team approach works better to reduce blood pressure in African-American men
A three-year Johns Hopkins study led by a nurse investigator has found that it may take a "village" to significantly lower the blood pressure of urban African-American men. "The traditional one-on-one doctor-patient visit in a doctor's office will simply not work," says lead author Martha N. Hill, Ph.D., R.N., dean of The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. "What our study suggests is tha...Africa's richest wildlife region under new threats
Stretching through six countries of Eastern Africa, the Albertine Rift contains more than 7,500 species of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and plants--only the tip of the iceberg for the area's total biodiversity, according to a new report by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and its regional collaborators. However, the authors warn that Rift is in dire need of a comprehensive conserv...Satellites map volcanic home of Africas endangered gorillas
"It's very exciting to get a look at some of the products we're going to be able to take into the field in future," remarked Maryke Gray, regional monitoring officer of the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP). "The area covered is a volcanic massif that is often difficult to access; what maps of it are available are more than three decades old and often inaccurate, and we have no...The first domesticated donkey was born in Africa
This release is also available in ... An international team of researchers, with the participation of UAB professor, Jordi Jordana, has published in Science magazine the results of their investigation into the origins of the domesticated donkey. The authors have discovered by using genetic analysis that the domesticated donkey originated in northeastern Africa approximately 5,000 years ago, quit...National Academies Advisory: June 25 UN public briefing on agriculture in Africa
Africa is rich in both natural and human resources, yet nearly 200 million of its people are undernourished because of inadequate food supplies. Strategies are needed across the continent to marshal the power of science and technology in ways that boost agricultural productivity and sustainability, says a new report from the InterAcademy Council, an international group of science academies that...Two dinosaurs from Africa give clues to continents' split
The fossil skull of a wrinkle-faced, meat-eating dinosaur whose cousins lived as far away as South America and India has emerged from the African Sahara, discovered by a team led by University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno. The find provides fresh information about how and when the ancient southern continents of Africa, South America and India separated.... ...The new species, which is...Colorectal cancer rates in African Americans equal with insurance parity
A collaborative project between researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Meharry Medical College found that when insurance coverage is equal, racial differences in deaths due to colorectal cancer in blacks and whites disappear. ......The new study, which appears in the March issue of Cancer Causes and Control, examined the effect of race on colorectal cancer outcomes in elderly Te...East African artifacts support evolution of symbolic thinking in Middle Stone Age
New finds from an open-air archaeological site in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania have intriguing implications for the evolution of modern human behavior, including further indications that symbolic thinking developed in humans earlier than the currently accepted date of about 35,000 years ago. ...... Archaeologists studying the site say it may contain some of the strongest evidence yet f...Lion attacks on livestock in Africa are significant but manageable
CHICAGO--Although the lion may once have been the world's most widespread terrestrial mammal, experts recently estimated that as few as 22,600 African lions remain 10% of the number alive just 25 years ago. ..."Most of this decline can be attributed to conflicts with an expanding human population, specifically to ranchers killing lions that attack their livestock," said Bruce Patterson, PhD, M...The Lions of Tsavo: Exploring the Legacy of Africa's Notorious Man-eaters
CHICAGOThe very day that the first team of volunteer conservationists joined Dr. Patterson in Kenya to study the notorious Tsavo lions, a lion was heard roaring at the foot of their camp. ...Nevertheless, the volunteers persevered, and others followed. Good thing. Such volunteers are the eyes and ears of Dr. Patterson's research, the first thorough scientific project aimed at understanding the...Whites, African-Americans better rate medical care experiences when seeing same-race physicians
White and African-American patients who see physicians of the same race rate their medical visits as more satisfying and participatory than do those who see physicians of other races, even when the nature of the conversation in both types of visits is similar, a Johns Hopkins study finds. ... ...Results of the study of audiotaped conversations between physicians and patients showed that medical...Does a new hypothesis help explain higher levels of hypertension among African-Americans?
(Atlanta, GA) Some 50 million Americans have high blood pressure, according to the American Heart Association, yet the prevalence of essential hypertension -- high blood pressure with no identifiable cause -- is much higher in African-Americans than in Caucasians. While this disparity is well documented, the mechanisms by which stress might contribute to these differences are far less clear. .....African American teen mothers have greater risk for low birth weight and premature babies
African American teens are twice as likely to deliver low birth weight babies and 1.5 times more likely to have premature babies than white adolescents, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study, conducted by the School's Center for Human Nutrition (CHN), examined birth outcomes of 1,120 pregnant African American teens age 17 and younger...Lake ecosystem critical to East African food supply is threatened by climate change
ARLINGTON, Va.- In an important new study directly linking climatic warming with the survival of lake organisms, researchers have found multiple lines of evidence showing that increasing air...and water temperatures and related factors are shrinking fish and...algae populations in a major lake. The lake holds 18 percent of the world's liquid freshwater and is a critical food source in East Afric...Depression in African-American men may be barrier to high blood pressure control
A study from The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing concludes ...depression may sabotage efforts to control high blood pressure in urban, ...African-American men. The researchers found no direct link between ...depression and high blood pressure, but the depressed men were five times ...more likely to abuse alcohol, leading to behaviors that counteract efforts ...to control blood pressure...Strategy to treat AIDS patients in Africa with less drug, reduced toxicity set for clinical test
PHILADELPHIA - An innovative AIDS-treatment strategy that would reduce the overall amount of drugs needed to control a patient's HIV infection by about a third has been approved for clinical testing in South Africa. The collaborative international study, led by researchers at The Wistar Institute and the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, brings together scientists and physicians from a...U-M researchers seek answers for African-Americans at risk for prostate cancer
... ...ANN ARBOR, Mich. Doctors know that black men face a much higher risk of prostate cancer than whites, and a higher risk of dying from the disease. And while research is zeroing in on answers, too few African-American men have ever been involved enough to determine if a promising genetic finding applied to African-American as well as Caucasian men.... ...Now, a new study by University of M...African Americans concern about the environment equal to or greater that of whites
ANN ARBOR, Mich. --- Contrary to commonly held assumptions, African Americans are as concerned as white Americans and in some cases more so about environmental issues.... ...Paul Mohai, associate professor at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment, is the author of a new study, the first comprehensive examination to date of the environmental concerns, prioritie...Pregnant African American teens need more calcium for healthy fetal bone development
Poor nutrition among pregnant African American teens in Baltimore, Md. may be adversely affecting the bone development of their babies, according to the results of a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Human Nutrition (CHN). The study showed that more than 75 percent of teens included in the analysis consumed inadequate levels of calcium. The r...Study evaluates biology of prostate cancer progression in African-American men
TORONTO - Despite the fact that the death rate from prostate cancer is much higher in African-American men than in Caucasian men, little is known if prostate cancer biology could be different among the two racial groups. Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center are exploring differences in the molecular behavior of the cancer between the two groups.... ...Their small a...Catastrophic decline of Africa's apes, Nature says
... ...NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, Princeton University and other organizations have reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature that a dramatic decline of gorillas and chimpanzees is taking place in western equatorial Africa, the last stronghold for great apes on the continent. Ravaged first by a wave of commercial hunting, and mor...Chimpanzees with little or no human contact found in remote African rainforest
It's been called "The Last Place on Earth" ... by National Geographic magazine, and Time describes ... it as the "Last Eden." ...The ... Goualougo Triangle, nestled between ... two rivers in a Central African ... rain forest, is so remote that ... primate researchers who traveled ... 34 miles, mostly by foot, from ......Malaria rise in Africa parallels warming trends
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and other institutions conclude that the increase in the incidence of malaria in East Africa parallels warming trends over the last several decades. The new findings challenge the results of a study, "Cli...Pan-African Malaria Conference November 17-22 in Arusha, Tanzania
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland -- The Fogarty International Center (FIC) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announces the Third Pan-African Malaria Conference of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM). The MIM conference, now open to members of the media, will be held November 17 to 22, 2002, in Arusha, Tanzania....... The MIM conference will bring together malar...DNA evidence suggests 3 types of elephants roam Africa
Using DNA extracted from the dung of wild elephants in Africa, biologists at the University of California, San Diego have determined that three different types of elephants exist on the African continent. ... Their discovery, detailed in a paper to be published in the October 7 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, affirms the existence of the well-known savanna elephant and th...African-Americans more likely to lose limbs due to vascular disease than other groups
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins physical medicine and rehabilitation department report that African Americans with vascular disease are up to four times more likely to have lower limb amputations than those of other groups with the same medical conditions.... ...The findings, reported in the September issue of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, reveal that African Americans ac...Some people of African descent more susceptible to heart condition, Science study suggests
This news release is also available in .... ...A gene found in some people of African descent may slightly increase the chance that they will experience an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia, which can be lethal in rare cases. Most people with this gene will never experience an arrhythmia, but some may benefit from taking certain precautions, say the study authors. The U.S. and U.K. team reports...Scientists identify gene variant associated with arrhythmia in African Americans
... Scientists supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have identified a gene variant that is associated with arrhythmia - abnormal heart rhythm - in African Americans. Mark Keating, M.D., of Children's Hospital, Departments of Pediatrics and Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, and colleagues report in the August 23 issue of Science that a variant of the cardiac sodium chann...Gene variant increases risk of cardiac arrhythmia for African-Americans
A variant form of a gene found in the heart muscle of some African-Americans increases the chances of developing a potential deadly heart condition called cardiac arrhythmia, say researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Children's Hospital in Boston.... ...The finding could benefit African-Americans by making it possible to detect who is at increased risk for developing arrhythmia...Joint Genome Institute to sequence key African frog genome
WALNUT CREEK, CA In their continuing search for new clues to how human genes function and how vertebrates develop and evolve, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) are gearing up to map the DNA of a diminutive, fast-growing African frog named Xenopus tropicalis. ... ...Frogs have long been a favorite subject for biologists because their growth from eggs to t...African HIV strains appear more resistant to current therapies
Of the 40 million people infected worldwide with HIV, more than 70 percent live in Africa. Yet a new study suggests a key component in current therapies could be less effective on African forms of the virus. The findings are reported in the July 9 print issue of , a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. ...... "Although clinical studies a...African predator rediscovered in Tanzania
A scientist from the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society has rediscovered an African carnivore that has remained undetected for the last 70 years. Photographed by a camera trap on the eastern side of Tanzania's Udzungwa Mountain National Park, the Lowe's servaline genet - a three-foot-long relative of the mongoose family - was previously known only from a single skin collected in 1932....Obesity may exacerbate a heart disorder in African American females
New Orleans, LA -- Sedentary lifestyle habits, poor dietary habits, and childhood obesity are becoming epidemic in America. These behaviors are more prevalent in children than ever before. ...Low levels of physical activity and poor dietary habits are causes of childhood obesity, a condition associated with risk factors for adult chronic diseases. ... ...Background ...Previous studies reveal tha...New study finds need for improved nutrition for low-income African American females
Results of study involving l08 African American mothers and daughters documents dietary deficiencies for folate, iron, calcium, vitamin D, and excesses of dietary fat, cholesterol and overall energy intake.... ...New Orleans, LA -- African Americans in the United States are subject to higher death rates related to coronary heart disease (CHD) and diabetes than are their Caucasian counterparts. As...New indicators for predicting hypertension in African-American males
...New Orleans, LA -- The threat of hypertension is real and deadly. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 23 percent of Americans ages 20-74 suffer from hypertension (more commonly known as high blood pressure). Some 15,000 die each year from this disorder; more than 32 million visit the doctor's office each year for treatment, but the disease affects African Americans dispr...The Tanzanian government has announced plans to create a new national park in a region known for its staggering diversity of orchids, marking the first protected area in tropical Africa set aside primarily for its floral significance.... The 52-square-mile park will safeguard part of the Kitulo Plateau, part of Tanzanias Southern Highlands. Known as the Garden of God by the regions local people...