1 In 4 US Children Raised By Single Parent

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based public policy group, has released a report on family welfare which shows that 25.8 percent of US children are raised in a single family household, a number that is expected to increase by 8 percent by 2025 to 2030. This figure is the highest of any developed country in the world. Ireland was second (24.3 percent), followed by New Zealand (23.7 percent). Experts believe a variety of factors contributed to this trend, including a greater acceptance of single-parent families and having children out of wedlock, higher teenage pregnancy rates, economics, and lack of policies to help support families. The US lacks governmental policies, including childcare at work and national paid maternity leave, which are commonplace in other countries. US childhood poverty rates are also expected to climb from 20 percent to 23.5 percent in the coming years. However, the issue isn't so clear cut. Willem Adema, a senior economist at OECD, states that, "The financial strain causes all sorts of other strain, so ultimately it might contribute to family dissolution. At the same time, it might bring some families together. I suspect that the response differs across families.

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MIT DNA Robot

M I B S I T B T

DNA projected to have applications in nanotechnology

It is known that the primary function of DNA in our body cells is to carry genetic information from one generation to the next. However, some scientists have also predicted that DNA can also be effectively utilized as an ideal building material for nanoscale structures. Such DNA based structures can then have applications in drug delivery systems, biosensors, artificial photosynthesis and more. 

Over the past few years, scientists have also tried to build DNA structures on a large scale. Five years ago, a new design strategy called DNA origami was laid out by Caltech computational bioengineer Paul Rothemund which involved the construction of two-dimensional shapes from a DNA strand folded over on itself and secured by short "staple" strands. Few years later, William Shih's lab at Harvard Medical School translated this two dimensional concept to three dimensions. This permitted for the design of complex curved and bent structures that opened new avenues for synthetic biological design at the nanoscale. However, automation of the design process was a major obstacle to these complex designs.

To overcome this hurdle of automation, a team led by biological engineer Mark Bathe at MIT, has developed software that allows easier predictions of the three-dimensional shape that will result from a given DNA template. The software doesn't automate the design process completely but then it makes it considerably easier to design complex 3-D structures."We ultimately seek a design tool where you can start with a picture of the complex three-dimensional shape of interest, and the algorithm searches for optimal sequence combinations," says Bathe, the Samuel A. Goldblith Assistant Professor of Applied Biology. "In order to make this technology for nanoassembly available to the broader community — including biologists, chemists, and materials scientists without expertise in the DNA origami technique — the computational tool needs to be fully automated, with a minimum of human input or intervention."Bathe et al  have described this software in detail in the Feb. 25 issue of Nature Methods. 

DNA is primarily made up of four nucleotide bases known as A, T, G and C, which make the molecule easy to program. According to nature's rules, A binds only with T, and G only with C. "With DNA, at the small scale, you can program these sequences to self-assemble and fold into a very specific final structure, with separate strands brought together to make larger-scale objects," Bathe says. Rothemund's origami design strategy is based on the idea of getting a long strand of DNA to fold in two dimensions, as if laid on a flat surface. In his paper outlining the method, he utilized a viral genome (approximately 8,000 nucleotides) to create 2-D stars, triangles and smiley faces. That single strand of DNA serves as a "scaffold" for the rest of the structure. Hundreds of shorter strands, each about 20 to 40 bases in length, combine with the scaffold to hold it in its final, folded shape.

Bathe also stated that DNA is better suited to self-assembly than proteins since physical properties of proteins are difficult to control and that they are sensitive to their environment. His new software program interfaces with  another software program from Shih's lab called caDNAno.  caDNAno allows users to create scaffolded DNA origami from a two-dimensional layout manually. According to Rothemund, the CanDo program should allow DNA origami designers to more thoroughly test their DNA structures and tweak them to fold correctly. "While we have been able to design the shape of things, we have had no tools to easily design and analyze the stresses and strains in those shapes or to design them for specific purposes," he says. At the molecular-level, stress in the double helix of DNA decreases the folding stability of the structure and introduces local defects, both of which have hampered progress in the scaffolded DNA origami field.

Morning Heart Attacks Cause More Damage

Researchers publishing in the journal Heart revealed that heart attacks which occur in the morning, between 6am and noon, have potential for causing more widespread damage to heart tissues than those which occur at other times during the day. The researchers looked only at patients who suffered a specific type of heart attack called STEMI (ST Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction), during which blood supply to the heart is blocked for a relatively long period of time. Patients who suffered STEMI heart attacks in the morning were found to have 21% more dead heart tissue than those who had heart attacks between 6pm and midnight. Previous studies have shown that one's risk for heart attack can be up to 40% higher in the mornings. Scientists theorize this is due to many factors, including a sudden increase in adrenaline (which increases blood pressure and heart rate), an acute increase in the work the heart needs to do, and more likelihood for blood clots to occur. All these factors may also contribute to the findings in this recent study.

 

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Low Vitamin D Levels May Explain Higher Rates of Hypertension In Blacks

A new study published in the current Journal of General Internal Medicine suggests that low vitamin Dlevels may, in part, explain why blacks have higher rates of high blood pressure when compared to whites in the US. A growing body of evidence has suggested that vitamin D receptors are found in various parts of the body, including the arteries and the heart, and a deficiency of vitamin D may somehow negatively affect the cardiovascular system, leading to issues such as hypertension. And, indeed, in the current study scientists showed that, overall, blacks had significantly lower levels of vitamin D in their blood than whites and low blood levels of vitamin D were linked to elevated systolic blood pressures. According to the researchers, "We also know that blood pressure is highest among Blacks living in the US, where UV exposure is low…these findings point towards vitamin D deficiency as a potential contributor to higher rates of vascular dysfunction – here hypertension – among Blacks living in the US. Further work is required to determine whether vitamin D supplementation could reduce these racial disparities."

 

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Meningitis Vaccine Now Approved For Infants

The U.S. FDA announced this past week that the vaccine Menactra has been approved for use in children as young as 9 months of age. Previously, the vaccine was approved for use in people ages 2 to 55. Menactra is used in the prevention of invasive meningococcal disease caused by the bacteriaNeisseria meningitidis, a leading cause of meningitis in children. "The highest rate of meningococcal disease occurs in children under one year of age. With today's approval, Menactra can now be used in children as young as 9 months of age to help prevent this potentially life-threatening disease," said Karen Midthun, M.D., director of FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. The safety of Menactra in this age group was evaluated in four clinical trials in which over 3,700 participants received the vaccine. The most common adverse events reported in children who received Menactra at 9 months and 12 months of age were injection-site tenderness and irritability. Occurrence of fever was comparable to other vaccines routinely recommended for young children. [via FDA]

Q: Friends of mine have a toddler who only eats bagels, pizza, oatmeal, apples and toast – no meats, pastas or vegetables. How healthy is this?

A: At some point in time most children will go through phases where they may be considered "picky eaters." In fact, being a picky eater is part of normal toddlerhood and very seldom will eating issues turn into eating disorders later on. What most parents consider eating problems, in fact, may be very normal behavior for children between the ages of two to six. Children this age will often go through food binges, consuming only one or two foods for a stretch of days, or only a handful of foods for a month or two. Rest assured that this is very common behavior for this age group and most children will not have trouble meeting nutritional requirements. Think about it from a larger perspective. Rather than strictly enforcing the child to have foods from each food group at every meal, it's more important that the child has a variety of foods over the period of days to weeks. Furthermore, if your child is meeting developmental milestones, then their dietary consumption is likely to be just fine. Toddlers and young children will need approximately 1000 to 1600 calories each day at minimum. A rough estimate of required caloric intake can be calculated by starting with 1000 calories and adding 100 calories for each year of their age. For example, if your child is 5 years old he or she will require at least 1500 calories (1000+500) per day. If you have any concerns about your child's eating habits or development, it is very important to speak to your pediatrician or family physician.

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What Gut Type Are You?

Would it surprise you to find out that you are a part of a group you probably didn't even know existed? Astounding new research, published in the journal Nature, shows that humans have three distinct gut types. Specifically, we each have one of three distinct varieties of bacterial ecosystems living inside our gastrointestinal tract. According to lead researcher Peer Bork of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, "We found that the combination of microbes in the human intestine isn't random, our gut flora can settle into three different types of community — three different ecosystems, if you like." The gut types are named after the predominant bacteria in each type: Bacteroides, Prevotella and Ruminococcus. According to New Scientist, "People with a bacteriode ecosystem have a bias towards bacteria that get most of their energy from carbohydrates and proteins. Prevotellas specialise in digesting sugar-covered proteins in mucin, the mixture of viscous proteins in the gut – an ability shared by people with a ruminococcus ecosystem." To our further surprise one's ecosystem type isn't dependent on your location, age, diet, or genetic makeup. Scientists aren't exactly sure how it is that we come to have only three gut profiles. And the exact implications of this is as yet unclear. What we do know is that people with Bacteriodes-predominant gut make high amounts of vitamins C, B2, B5 and H, and prevotellan-predominant guts make more vitamin B1 and folic acid. This research certainly suggests that the relationship we have with our gut is much more complex then previously though

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Low Sunlight Exposure and Mono Linked To MS

New research from Oxford University, published in the current issue of the journal Neurology, finds that the combination of low sunlight exposure and having a history of mononucleosis raises the risk for developing multiple sclerosis (MS). It's well-known that the incidence of MS is generally greater as you move away from the equator to regions that receive less sunlight. As such, MS is far more common in places like Scandinavia, Canada, and the Northern U.S. In the current study scientists used NASA satellite data on UV radiation exposure to calculate sunlight exposure in various parts of the UK, in addition to scouring all National Health Service hospital admissions records for cases of MS and mononucleosis. What they found was that 72% of all cases of MS patients lived in areas of relative low UV exposure and had a history of mononucleosis. It's believed that vitamin D (which is produced by our skin in reaction to UV light exposure) plays a protective role in preventing MS. However, more research is underway to further understand the association between mononucleosis and MS

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Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth day! Our planet has been facing problems like climate change and air and water pollution. This planet is all we have and it needs to be protected from destructive development. 

Click to see the video

The planet needs heroes who protect it from human greed. Every step taken to keep the earth safe is an investment for a safe future.

Greenpeace India has been working to keep the planet safe. To maintain its independence, Greenpeace does not accept money from government or business houses. All the work is funded by contributions madeby individuals like you. There can't be a better day than today, to pledge your support to the planet. Here's what you can do:

Watch this inspiring video and then make a contribution to strengthen the fight to keep this planet safe. 

http://www.greenpeace.in/donate/earth_day_donate_to_greenpeace_india.php

What more, you can get a cool environment hero shirt for the contribution you make. 

Thanks a billion!

 

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