News Articles

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”That sentence from American journalism’s best-known Santa Claus editorial (the New York Sun’s “Is There A Santa Claus?”) is still so popular that 112 years after it first ran, Macy’s is basing its holiday advertising campaign on it for the second consecutive year. This year, Macy’s and the CBS television network are co-sponsoring an animated children’s program about Virginia O’Hanlon, the eight year old girl who sent her inquiry “Please tell me the truth. Is There A Santa Claus?” to the Sun in 1897.

The Big Dipper has a secret, invisible to the unaided eye, according to a new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, which says that one of the stars that makes the bend in the ladle's handle, Alcor, has a smaller red dwarf companion. Newly discovered Alcor B orbits its larger sibling and was caught in the act with an innovative technique called "common parallactic motion" by members of Project 1640, an international collaborative team that includes astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History, the University of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, the California Institute of Technology, andNASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The holidays are challenging for most everyone's midsection but are they a factor in actual obesity rather than seasonal weight gain?   And are weekends just as detrimental? Researchers at the University of
Pittsburgh and Quinnipiac University say yes to both.  Even weekend eating patterns can have a significant impact.
J. Jeffrey Inman, a University of Pittsburgh professor of marketing
and associate dean for research in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School
of Business, and coauthor Adwait Khare, Quinnipiac University
professor of marketing, studied two years' worth of data on consumers'
eating behavior and found that the quantity and quality of foods eaten
during a meal and over the course of the day differs considerably on
weekends and holidays.

AIDS researchers have for the first time demonstrated that human blood stem cells can be engineered into cells that can target and kill HIV-infected cells — a process that potentially could be used against a range of chronic viral diseases. The study, published today in PLoS ONE, demonstrates that human stem cells can be engineered into the equivalent of a genetic vaccine. By Taking CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes — the "killer" T cells that help fight infection — from an HIV-infected individual, the researchers identified the molecule known as the T-cell receptor, which guides the T cell in recognizing and killing HIV-infected cells.

A political scientist from the University of Alberta has uncovered a dastardly ploy by the producers of Thomas and Friends, a popular children's TV show, to turn their innocent audience of youngsters into  socially intolerant conservatives.  After analyzing 23 episodes of Thomas and Friends, a show about a train, his friends and their adventures on a fictional island, political scientist Shauna Wilton was able to identify themes that she believes are incompatible with the egalitarian world society her and her social scientist friends are planning for our children. 

In a recent Journal of the National Cancer Institute editorial, doctors expressed concern over the media's coverage of oncology research, citing examples of exaggerated fears, hopes, and a general lack of skepticism in the reporting.  The editorial points, for example, to the misleading coverage of a New England Journal of Medicine study that documented the trial results of the new anti-cancer drug olaparib. One national news outlet claimed the drug "was the most important cancer breakthrough of the decade," but failed to note that the study was uncontrolled (so there is no way to know if the drug accounted for the findings), and very preliminary (it is not known if the findings will ever translate into longer life).

A new study appearing tomorrow in Earth and Planetary Science Letters rules out the possibility that the methane on Mars was delivered by meteorites, boosting the theory that life exists on the red planet. Researchers had thought that meteorites might be responsible for Martian methane levels because when the rocks enter the planet's atmosphere they are subjected to intense heat, causing a chemical reaction that releases methane and other gases into the atmosphere.However, the new study, by researchers from Imperial College London, shows that the volumes of methane that could be released by the meteorites entering Mars's atmosphere are too low to maintain the current atmospheric levels of methane. Previous studies have also ruled

If you start smoking cigarettes, chances are you'll become addicted. But that's only part of the story, according to new research published in Psychopharmacology.  After exposing rats to passive smoke and studying how their brains responded, the authors of the studies are suggesting that just being exposed to cigarette smoke may result in nicotine dependence.   In a set of four experiments on male Wistar rats, researchers investigated whether rats exposed passively to tobacco smoke would become dependent on nicotine.  They specifically looked at how the rats' brains responded to being exposed to tobacco smoke and whether the rats displayed withdrawal symptoms.

Female fruit flies can be too attractive to the opposite sex –– too attractive for their own good –– say biologists at UC Santa Barbara. In a new PLoS Biology study, they report that too much male attention directed toward attractive females can lead to smaller families and, ultimately, a reduced rate of population-wide adaptive evolution.The authors explain that the term "good looking," among fruit flies, refers to something, like a large body. From the perspective of a male fly, a desirable mate is a female that is larger and can therefore produce more offspring.

Not only is cardiovascular health good for children physically, it turns out that it may also promote intelligence. In a study published this week in PNAS, researchers say they have demonstrated a clear positive association between adolescent fitness and adult cognitive performance.  The results of the study also show the importance of getting healthier between the ages of 15 and 18 while the brain is still changing.

Despite the considerable amount of concern generated by the H1N1 outbreak earlier this year, the authors of a new study featured in PLoS Medicine believe it's impact will be relatively mild this flu season, with the number of hospitalizations and deaths related to the virus likely to remain much lower than anticipated."As more detailed data have become available, we have been able to improve our estimates of how severe this disease is. Early on, it was difficult to measure the flu's impact and it was crucial to plan for the full range of possible outcomes. Fortunately, the virus now appears to be near the milder end," said Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at HSPH and the study's senior author.

 Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have discovered and directly imaged a faint celestial body that orbits the star GJ 758. Its mass is estimated to be between 10 and 40 Jupiter masses. Accordingly, it is either a giant planet or a brown dwarf, a would-be sun. One thing is certain: with a temperature of around 330 degrees Celsius, GJ 758 B is the coldest companion of a Sun-like star ever to be directly imaged. The discovery is detailed in Astrophysical Journal Letters