Friday, October 26, 2012

NATURE | NEWS

Testing magnesium's brain-boosting effects

Simple ion therapy faces human trials after ten years of preparation.

David Cyranoski

26 October 2012

Magnesium supplements are touted as a way to improve memory and cognitive ability.

MAGTEIN

More than a decade of research hinting that magnesium supplements might boost your brain power is finally being put to the test in a small clinical trial.

The research, led by biopharmaceutical company Magceutics of Hayward, California, began testing the ability of its product Magtein to boost magnesium ion (Mg²⁺) levels in the brain earlier this month. The trial will track whether the ions can decrease anxiety and improve sleep quality, as well as following changes in the memory and cognitive ability of participants. But critics caution that the trial in just 50 people is too small to draw definitive conclusions.

Neuroscientist Guosong Liu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who founded Magceutics, plans eventually to test whether Magtein can be used to treat a wider range of conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Alzheimer’s disease. But Liu knows that it will be difficult to convince other scientists that something as simple as a magnesium supplement can have such profound effects. It is almost “too good to be true”, he says.

Many scientists contacted by Nature agreed with that sentiment. One clinical researcher cautioned against “over-excitement about a magic drug for a major disorder”. And others wonder whether the study will even be able to prove anything conclusively. “I am very sceptical that the proposed trial will provide the answer to the question being tested,” says Stephen Ferguson, a biochemist at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.

Testing times

It is a crucial moment for Liu, who so far has mostly been testing his product in rats — and in himself. In 1999 he was part of a team that showed, in a well-known ‘smart mouse’ study, that memory in mice could be improved by overexpressing the NMDA receptor 2B (NR2B) in the brain, thereby strengthening synaptic connections¹. In 2004, Liu's team showed that magnesium had a key role in these synaptic changes². In 2010, he showed that in rats, pumping up levels of magnesium in the brain helped to improve long- and short-term memory³.

Other researchers have found that high doses of magnesium improved memory function in old rats⁴. And research in humans has shown that oral magnesium supplements in aged patients increases the duration of deep sleep, and decreases levels of the stress hormone cortisol⁵.

But it has been difficult to build on these studies, because the pharmaceutical industry is unenthusiastic about funding research into an ion that is freely available and thus unpatentable, says Harald Murck, a neuroscientist at the Psychiatric Clinic of the Philipps University of Marburg, Germany.

When Murck was based at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, he carried out research in humans that suggested high levels of intravenous magnesium could have a beneficial effect on cognitive function⁶. “The challenge here is to find a compound which gets the magnesium in the brain to have these physiological effects,” says Murck.

Brain boost

The Magtein compound was designed to solve the problem of delivering the ion to the brain. The product contains magnesium threonate, in which the metal ion is paired with a low-molecular-weight metabolite of vitamin C that is already present in the brain. Tests have shown that the compound boosts levels of magnesium in rats’ brains by 15% after 24 days³.

Liu adds that he and some friends have been taking Magtein and have found that it increases magnesium levels in their bodies by 50%. Despite the lack of clinical-trial evidence, roughly 100,000 people in the United States are already taking the compound as a supplement that is sold by several different companies, all supplied by Magceutics.

In his double-blind study, Liu will give the compound to 25 people with “greater than normal anxiety”, and a placebo to another 25 with the same condition. But Ferguson cautions that the trial is “far too small to provide any statistical power for analysis”, and that several thousand patients would need to be studied to provide convincing evidence.

Liu agrees that future trials will need to be larger, but hopes that positive results in his trial will be enough to justify expanding the research. Based on promising results from animal studies and tests in three patients, he is planning a trial to test Magtein’s effects on Alzheimer’s disease by the end of the year.

Psychiatry researcher Craig Surman at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, is planning a collaboration with Liu to study Magtein’s effect on ADHD. “We have medications that treat ADHD and some aspects of cognitive function, but there are some parts of brain function that we don't have evidence-based interventions for,” says Surman. “If it works with low risk, it opens up a whole new mode of supporting people with cognitive challenges.”

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Proximity to Livestock Raises a MRSA Risk

People living near large concentrations of farm animals are at increased risk for carrying livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or LA-MRSA, even if they have had no direct contact with animals, a new study has found.

Researchers studied 27 people with nose swabs positive for LA-MRSA and 60 control subjects carrying other types of the bacterium. The study, published in the November issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, found that 12 of those who tested positive for LA-MRSA had had no contact with animals.

By plotting the locations of cases and controls against the regional populations of livestock, the investigators found that living in an area dense with livestock is a significant risk factor for carrying LA-MRSA, regardless of contact with farm animals.

Previous research has found that LA-MRSA is not transmitted person to person, but these findings suggest that it might be. It is possible, the authors write, that the germ could be transmitted by contact with other domestic animals, by air or by farm waste.

“LA-MRSA appears to be less virulent than other strains,” said the lead author, Beth J. Feingold, a researcher at Johns Hopkins. “But some research suggests that there is a possibility that, like with any bacteria, it can evolve into something more virulent, which is why it’s important to cover our bases now.”

Monster Energy Drink Cited in Deaths

Five people may have died over the past three years after drinking Monster Energy, a popular energy drink that is high in caffeine, according to incident reports recently released by the Food and Drug Administration.

The reports, like similar filings with the F.D.A. in cases involving drugs or medical devices, do not prove a link between Monster Energy and the deaths or other health problems. The records were recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the mother of a 14-year-old Maryland girl who died in December from a heart arrhythmia after drinking large cans of Monster Energy on two consecutive days.
...
In an interview, an F.D.A. spokeswoman, Shelly Burgess, said the agency had received reports of five deaths with possible links to the drink as well as a report of a nonfatal heart attack. Additional incident reports referred to other adverse events such as abdominal pain, vomiting, tremors and abnormal heart rate. The reports disclosed cover a period of 2004 to June of this year, but all the deaths occurred in 2009 or later.
...
Under current F.D.A. rules, companies are not required to disclose caffeine levels in their beverages and can choose to market them as drinks or as dietary supplements. Those regulatory categories have differing labeling and ingredient rules.

While healthy adults can safely consume large quantities of caffeine from sources like coffee, tea and energy drinks, the drug, which acts as a stimulant, can pose risks to those with underlying conditions like heart disorders.

The type of 24-ounce can of Monster Energy that the Maryland teenager, Anais Fournier, drank contains 240 milligrams of caffeine.

The lawsuit filed last week on behalf of the teenager referred to autopsy and medical examiner reports that said she had died of “cardiac arrhythmia due to caffeine toxicity” that had exacerbated an existing heart problem. The report also showed that the teenager had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which can affect the body’s connective tissue, including blood vessels.

Monday, October 22, 2012

NewsDaily: British engineers create petrol from air and water

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/bre89i0v7-us-petrol/
NewsDaily (2012-10-22) -- A small British company has developed a way to create petrol from air and water, technology it hopes may one day contribute to large-scale production of green fuels.

68 Science Nobel Laureates S end Open Letter to America

Friday, October 19, 2012

Science

Reinventing the Pill: Male Birth Control

In the late 1950s near Salem, Oregon, scientists started testing a birth control drug called WIN 18,446 in male prisoners. Men took responsibility for most birth control then, so a male contraceptive seemed a natural fit for American society. WIN 18,446 worked well, too: The prisoners felt fine and seemed quite healthy, except that their sperm was suddenly stunted and feeble. Unfortunately, when clinical trials shifted to the general population, men started getting sick—vomiting, sweating, headaches, blurry vision. They seemed poisoned. After some digging, scientists pinned down the culprit: alcohol. Because prisoners couldn't drink, no one had realized at first that WIN 18,446 did not mix well with liquor. The drug was abandoned, and 60 years later, no one has gotten any closer to the “male pill.”

WIN 18,446 is a perfect example of why creating the male pill is so hard. It did exactly what it was supposed to do—stopped sperm production in everyone who took it—and it was reversible. Sperm levels returned to normal after men stopped taking it. Yet it failed anyway as a drug because of an arguably minor side effect.

Male contraceptives are held to high standards partly because the calculus for male and female birth control is different. For example, taking the female pill increases a woman's chances of developing blood clots. But because pregnancy increases the chances of blood clots by 10 times more, the pill's side effects seem worth the risk. With men, there's no counterbalancing risk of pregnancy, so the tolerance for side effects drops to zero. That's especially true because “you're dealing with healthy people, not people with an illness, and you'd have to use [the pill] for long, long periods,” says Diana Blithe, a program director at the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in Bethesda, Maryland, which funds research into male contraception

...

Plugs. Hormones. Special underwear. Autoimmune attacks. The “dry orgasm.” There's no shortage of approaches to male contraception (see diagram, p. 319). But all share the same goal: slowing down the relentless proliferation of sperm in men and holding sperm counts to about 1 million per milliliter of ejaculate. Even the reduced concentration “may sound like a lot,” says John Amory, a doctor and reproductive biologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, “but that's a pretty good, effective contraceptive” that will reduce fertility by 99%.

...

Still, the prize could be worth the risk. “Female oral contraception is one of the most important medicines ever developed,” Bradner says. The male counterpart could be in the same league worldwide, and the identification of testes-specific genes and enzymes makes scientists guardedly optimistic that the time for a safe, effective, targeted, and so on, male pill might be nigh. Blithe says: “To say it's a year off or 5 years off isn't accurate. [But] I suspect that if one gets out there, a lot more will follow.”

NATURE

Origins of life: The cooperative gene

The origin of life on Earth remains one of the great unsolved mysteries. A new study suggests that cooperation among molecules could have contributed to the transition from inanimate chemistry to biology.

Cooperation operates at all scales of life, from whole organisms, such as wolves hunting in packs, to individual cells acting in a coordinated fashion during development or organ function. In a paper published on Nature's website today, Vaidya et al.¹ describe networks of RNA molecules that assemble one another, suggesting that cooperation may be as old as life itself.

The molecular architecture of modern-day organisms is based around a division of labour: the nucleic acids DNA and RNA are used mainly for the storage and processing of genetic information, with proteins fulfilling metabolic and structural roles. However, there is compelling evidence for a primordial biology that lacked DNA and proteins and instead relied on RNA for both heredity and metabolism². A cornerstone of this 'RNA world' is self-replication by RNA molecules that also mutate and hence evolve towards ever more efficient self-replication.

But how did such a self-replicating RNA — the original 'selfish gene' — arise from the chemical ingredients present on the early Earth? Recent advances in prebiotic chemistry² (the study of the chemical reactions that might have led to the formation of the molecules typical of today's organisms) offer glimpses of how RNA's building blocks could have accumulated and polymerized into short chains². Indeed, even some very short RNAs can perform chemical reactions³ (and are therefore called RNA enzymes, or ribozymes). But it seems likely that the more complex functionalities required for self-replication would necessitate the assembly of longer, structurally more complex ribozymes, which known prebiotic reactions do not produce.

Vaidya and colleagues' remarkable work points to a possible strategy to begin bridging this gap, based on a principle of self-organization first proposed more than 30 years ago⁴. In this scenario, self-replicating RNA entities go beyond simply making copies of themselves and act on other replicators through a cyclic network of reinforcing loops called hypercycles (Fig. 1). The authors' laboratory had previously described a ribozyme — from an Azoarcus bacterium — that had the ability to assemble itself when fragmented⁵. Now Vaidya et al. show that variants of such RNA fragments can assemble and act on one another to form cooperative self-assembly cycles very much like the proposed hypercycles, in which ribozyme 1 aids assembly of ribozyme 2; 2 aids 3; and 3 aids 1 (Fig. 1).

The authors' key finding is that, through such cooperative cycles, participating RNAs gain an advantage and can outcompete selfish replication cycles, in which a particular fragment assembles itself. Cooperation also allowed full-length ribozyme assembly from sets of four different RNA fragments. Thus, cooperation between small RNA molecules can aid the emergence of longer, more complex RNAs.

The authors describe a certain three-member cooperative cycle in great detail, but the data in one of their experiments hint at the potential for much larger cycles and networks of cooperating RNAs. This observation in particular suggests many lines of investigation that could advance our understanding of molecular cooperation and its significance to the RNA world. Questions for future enquiry include how such networks develop over time, and whether network complexity scales with efficiency — that is, whether larger or more interconnected networks always replicate more efficiently than simpler alternatives.

How might such networks have arisen (and persisted) in the pools of random RNA chains generated on the early Earth? In the present study, all members of the pool are derived from a set of 'prefabricated' fragments of the Azoarcus ribozyme. It will be important to determine how cooperative RNA networks perform in the presence of many unrelated and potentially interfering RNAs, and how much sequence variation within the Azoarcus fragments can be tolerated before self-assembly is abolished. The present work is encouraging in this respect, as it shows that limited sequence diversity in the three-member system yielded better assembly than defined fragments, demonstrating that some sequence variation can be harnessed for gains in efficiency.

Comparison with an earlier two-component system, in which two ribozymes catalysed each other's synthesis from a mixture of four fragments⁶, is illustrative. This system displayed exponential self-replication and, when seeded with fragments of defined sequence variation, yielded a diverse pool of recombinant molecules, some of which were more efficient replicators than the initial ones. Thus, such molecular systems can harness the powerful evolutionary potential of recombination to reassort themselves into more active replicators. Vaidya and colleagues' use of a ribozyme system that had a larger degree of freedom in the choice of assembly partners has now enabled networks to develop beyond this two-component system.

However, the need for defined RNA components is likely to constrain the evolutionary potential of such systems, because recombinants are unable to break away from the prescribed component structure. A more general capacity for self-replication and evolution would require a different type of system that has the ability to copy genetic information — akin to present-day biology, in which RNA or DNA sequences are replicated by polymerase enzymes 'letter by letter' from monomer units. Although RNA-polymerizing ribozymes have been described⁷, their activity falls short of self-replication, despite recent improvements⁸.

The excursions into 'molecular ecology' described by Vaidya et al. suggest that cooperative networks might be designed to harness the best of both types of system, if synthesis of short RNAs by polymerizing ribozymes could be coupled to a ribozyme system capable of self-assembly⁹. Such networks might outperform replicators that go it alone, and exploit recombination to resist the gradual accumulation of harmful mutations¹⁰ and the concomitant deterioration of the encoded genetic information. Finally, complete covalent assembly might not be essential for higher-order functions such as molecular kin recognition and polymerizing activities. Indeed, non-covalent assembly of multiple RNA chains into functional complexes has precedents in modern-day biology, notably the ribosome, a large complex of multiple RNA and protein chains, which catalyses protein synthesis and may date back to the RNA world.

The precise molecular events that led to the origin of life on Earth are likely to be lost in time, but science can construct molecular 'doppelgängers' of the ancestral molecules and explore the plausibility of different ways in which the transition from prebiotic to biotic matter might have occurred. Vaidya and colleagues make a persuasive case for the benefits of cooperation even at this nascent stage of life. The first genes may not have been so selfish, after all.

A Rogue Climate Experiment Outrages Scientists

A California businessman chartered a fishing boat in July, loaded it with 100 tons of iron dust and cruised through Pacific waters off western Canada, spewing his cargo into the sea in an ecological experiment that has outraged scientists and government officials.

The entrepreneur, whose foray came to light only this week, even duped the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States into lending him ocean-monitoring buoys for the project.

Canada’s environment ministry says it is investigating the experiment, which was carried out with no government or scientific oversight. A spokesman said the ministry had warned the venture in advance that its plan would violate international agreements.

Marine scientists and other experts have assailed the experiment as unscientific, irresponsible and probably in violation of those agreements, which are intended to prevent tampering with ocean ecosystems under the guise of trying to fight the effects of climate change.

Though the environmental impact of the foray could well prove minimal, scientists said, it raises the specter of what they have long feared: rogue field experiments that might unintentionally put the environment at risk.

The entrepreneur, Russ George, calling it a “state-of-the-art study,” said his team scattered iron dust several hundred miles west of the islands of Haida Gwaii, in northern British Columbia, in exchange for $2.5 million from a native Canadian group.

The iron spawned the growth of enormous amounts of plankton, which Mr. George, a former fisheries and forestry worker, said might allow the project to meet one of its goals: aiding the recovery of the local salmon fishery for the native Haida.

Plankton absorbs carbon dioxide, the predominant greenhouse gas, and settles deep in the ocean when it dies, sequestering carbon. The Haida had hoped that by burying carbon, they could also sell so-called carbon offset credits to companies and make money.

Iron fertilization is contentious because it is associated with geoengineering, a set of proposed strategies for counteracting global warming through the deliberate manipulation of the environment. Many experts have argued that scientists should be researching such geoengineering techniques — like spewing compounds into the atmosphere to reflect more sunlight or using sophisticated machines to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

But tampering with the environment is risky, they say, so any experiments must be carried out responsibly and transparently, with the involvement of the scientific community and proper governance.

“Geoengineering is extremely controversial,” said Andrew Parker, a fellow at the Belfer Center at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. “There is a need to protect the environment while making sure safe and legitimate research can go ahead.”

Mark L. Wells, a marine scientist at the University of Maine, said that what Mr. George did “could be described as ocean dumping.”

Dr. Wells said it would be difficult for Mr. George to demonstrate what impact the iron had on the plankton and called it “extraordinarily unlikely” that Mr. George could prove that the experiment met the goal of permanently removing some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

NOAA acknowledged that it had provided the project with 20 instrument-laden buoys that drift in the ocean for a year or more and measure water temperature, salinity and other characteristics. Such buoys are often sent out on what the agency calls “vessels of opportunity,” and the data they provide, uploaded to satellites, is publicly available.

But a spokesman said the agency had been “misled” by the group, which “did not disclose that it was going to discharge material into the ocean.”

The nature of Mr. George’s project was first reported this week in an article in The Guardian, a British newspaper, after it was revealed by the ETC Group, a watchdog group in Montreal that opposes geoengineering.

Mr. Parker, of Harvard’s Kennedy School, said it appeared that the project had contravened two international agreements on geoengineering, the London Convention on the dumping of wastes at sea and a moratorium declared by the United NationsConvention on Biological Diversity — as well as a set of principles developed at Oxford University on transparency, regulation and the need for public participation.

Mr. George, said that his experiment was not related to geoengineering, and that 100 tons was a negligible amount of iron compared to what naturally enters the oceans. “This is a community trying to maintain its livelihood,” he said of the Haida.

He said his team had collected a “golden mountain” of data on the plankton bloom. Mr. George, who described himself as chief scientist on the project and said he has training as a plant ecologist, refused to name any of the other scientists on the team.

Scientists who have been involved with sanctioned iron fertilization experiments strongly disputed Mr. George’s assertion about the quality of his experiment, saying that it was roughly 10 times bigger than any other but that the fishing boat used and the science team were clearly insufficient.

Victor Smetacek, an oceanographer with the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany who recently published an analysis of the last sanctioned experiment, one in 2009 in the Southern Ocean, said Mr. George’s project would give a black eye to legitimate research. “This kind of behavior is disastrous,” he said, describing Mr. George, with whom he had brief contact more than five years ago, as a “messing around, bumbling guy.”

Mr. George, 62, of Northern California, was previously in the public eye when, as chief executive of a company called Planktos, he proposed a similar iron-fertilization project, in the equatorial Pacific west of the Galápagos Islands, whose purpose was the sale of carbon offsets. Under cap-and-trade programs in various countries, polluters can offset their emissions of greenhouse gases by buying credits from projects that store carbon or otherwise mitigate global warming.

The project was canceled in 2008 after what his company called a “disinformation campaign” by environmentalists and others made it impossible to attract investors.

Mr. George said that during that period he was contacted by the Old Massett Village Council, one of two Haida groups on Haida Gwaii, about “wanting to do something about their fish,” which had suffered population declines.

But John Disney, the council’s economic development director, said he had worked with Mr. George on other projects before, including one to generate carbon credits by replacing alder forests on the islands with conifers. That project never came to fruition.

Mr. Disney defended the iron sprinkling project, saying that it had been approved by Old Massett’s villagers and cleared by the council’s lawyers.

He said at least seven Canadian government agencies were aware of the project. But a spokesman for Canada’s environment minister said Thursday that the salmon group was twice warned in advance that its plan violated international agreements Canada had signed that would prohibit an iron-seeding project with a commercial element, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Mr. Disney also said that the marine science community, including researchers at the Wegener Institute in Germany, had known about the project.

But Mr. Smetacek disputed that as well. “I’ve had no contact with this guy on this,” he said, referring to Mr. George
.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

MIT's artificial leaf is ten times more efficient than the real thing

Speaking at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in California, MIT professor Daniel Nocera claims to have created an artificial leaf, made from stable and inexpensive materials, which mimics nature's photosynthesis process.

The device is an advanced solar cell, no bigger than a typical playing card, which is left floating in a pool of water. Then, much like a natural leaf, it uses sunlight to split the water into its two core components, oxygen and hydrogen, which are stored in a fuel cell to be used when producing electricity.

Nocera's leaf is stable -- operating continuously for at least 45 hours without a drop in activity in preliminary tests -- and made of widely available, inexpensive materials -- like silicon, electronics and chemical catalysts. It's also powerful, as much as ten times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural leaf.

With a single gallon of water, Nocera says, the chip could produce enough electricity to power a house in a developing country for an entire day. Provide every house on the planet with an artificial leaf and we could satisfy our 14 terrawatt need with just one gallon of water a day.

Those are impressive claims, but they're also not just pie-in-the-sky, conceptual thoughts. Nocera has already signed a contract with a global megafirm to commercialise his groundbreaking idea. The mammoth Indian conglomerate, Tata Group has forged a deal with the MIT professor to build a small power plant, the size of a refrigerator, in about a year and a half.

This isn't the first ever artificial leaf, of course. The concept of emulating nature's energy-generating process has been around for decades and many scientists have tried to create leaves in that time. The first, built more than ten years ago by John Turner of the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was efficient at faking photosynthesis but was made of rare and hugely expensive materials. It was also highly unstable, and had a lifespan of barely one day.

For now, Nocera is setting his sights on developing countries. "Our goal is to make each home its own power station," he said. "One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology."

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/28/artificial-leaf

Monday, October 15, 2012

NEJM

Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates

Dietary flavonoids, abundant in plant-based foods, have been shown to improve cognitive function. Specifically, a reduction in the risk of dementia, enhanced performance on some cognitive tests, and improved cognitive function in elderly patients with mild impairment have been associated with a regular intake of flavonoids.1,2 A subclass of flavonoids called flavanols, which are widely present in cocoa, green tea, red wine, and some fruits, seems to be effective in slowing down or even reversing the reductions in cognitive performance that occur with aging. Dietary flavanols have also been shown to improve endothelial function and to lower blood pressure by causing vasodilation in the peripheral vasculature and in the brain.3,4 Improved cognitive performance with the administration of a cocoa polyphenolic extract has even been reported in aged Wistar–Unilever rats.5

Since chocolate consumption could hypothetically improve cognitive function not only in individuals but also in whole populations, I wondered whether there would be a correlation between a country's level of chocolate consumption and its population's cognitive function. To my knowledge, no data on overall national cognitive function are publicly available. Conceivably, however, the total number of Nobel laureates per capita could serve as a surrogate end point reflecting the proportion with superior cognitive function and thereby give us some measure of the overall cognitive function of a given country.

RESULTS

There was a close, significant linear correlation (r=0.791, P<0.0001) between chocolate consumption per capita and the number of Nobel laureates per 10 million persons in a total of 23 countries (Figure 1FIGURE 1

Correlation between Countries' Annual Per Capita Chocolate Consumption and the Number of Nobel Laureates per 10 Million Population.). When recalculated with the exclusion of Sweden, the correlation coefficient increased to 0.862. Switzerland was the top performer in terms of both the number of Nobel laureates and chocolate consumption. The slope of the regression line allows us to estimate that it would take about 0.4 kg of chocolate per capita per year to increase the number of Nobel laureates in a given country by 1. For the United States, that would amount to 125 million kg per year. The minimally effective chocolate dose seems to hover around 2 kg per year, and the dose–response curve reveals no apparent ceiling on the number of Nobel laureates at the highest chocolate-dose level of 11 kg per year.

DISCUSSION

The principal finding of this study is a surprisingly powerful correlation between chocolate intake per capita and the number of Nobel laureates in various countries. Of course, a correlation between X and Y does not prove causation but indicates that either X influences Y, Y influences X, or X and Y are influenced by a common underlying mechanism. However, since chocolate consumption has been documented to improve cognitive function, it seems most likely that in a dose-dependent way, chocolate intake provides the abundant fertile ground needed for the sprouting of Nobel laureates. Obviously, these findings are hypothesis-generating only and will have to be tested in a prospective, randomized trial.

The only possible outlier in Figure 1 seems to be Sweden. Given its per capita chocolate consumption of 6.4 kg per year, we would predict that Sweden should have produced a total of about 14 Nobel laureates, yet we observe 32. Considering that in this instance the observed number exceeds the expected number by a factor of more than 2, one cannot quite escape the notion that either the Nobel Committee in Stockholm has some inherent patriotic bias when assessing the candidates for these awards or, perhaps, that the Swedes are particularly sensitive to chocolate, and even minuscule amounts greatly enhance their cognition.

A second hypothesis, reverse causation — that is, that enhanced cognitive performance could stimulate countrywide chocolate consumption — must also be considered. It is conceivable that persons with superior cognitive function (i.e., the cognoscenti) are more aware of the health benefits of the flavanols in dark chocolate and are therefore prone to increasing their consumption. That receiving the Nobel Prize would in itself increase chocolate intake countrywide seems unlikely, although perhaps celebratory events associated with this unique honor may trigger a widespread but most likely transient increase.

Finally, as to a third hypothesis, it is difficult to identify a plausible common denominator that could possibly drive both chocolate consumption and the number of Nobel laureates over many years. Differences in socioeconomic status from country to country and geographic and climatic factors may play some role, but they fall short of fully explaining the close correlation observed.

STUDY LIMITATIONS

The present data are based on country averages, and the specific chocolate intake of individual Nobel laureates of the past and present remains unknown. The cumulative dose of chocolate that is needed to sufficiently increase the odds of being asked to travel to Stockholm is uncertain. This research is evolving, since both the number of Nobel laureates and chocolate consumption are time-dependent variables and change from year to year.

CONCLUSIONS

Chocolate consumption enhances cognitive function, which is a sine qua non for winning the Nobel Prize, and it closely correlates with the number of Nobel laureates in each country. It remains to be determined whether the consumption of chocolate is the underlying mechanism for the observed association with improved cognitive function.

Evolution of nanostructural architecture in 7000 series aluminium alloys during strengthening by age-hardening and severe plastic deformation

NATURE

Stress: The roots of resilience

Most people bounce back from trauma — but some never recover. Scientists are trying to work out what underlies the difference.

Telomeres and adversity: Too toxic to ignore

Epigenetics: Stress makes its molecular mark

http://0-www.nature.com.luna.wellesley.edu/news/490165a-i1-0-jpg-7.6789?article=1.11570

Marijuana Referendum Divides Both Sides

By KIRK JOHNSON

Published: October 13, 2012

SEATTLE — Most efforts to legalize marijuana possession have generally run aground in the face of unified opposition. Mothers Against Drunk Driving led the charge in helping to defeat a ballot measure in California in 2010. Law enforcement groups, not too surprisingly, have also been largely opposed in the past.

Matthew Ryan Williams for The New York Times

Rick Steves of the advocacy group Norml speaking in Olympia on Friday in support of a ballot initiative that would legalize the possession of an ounce of marijuana or less.

But in Washington State, as a measure that would legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana heads toward a vote next month, the opposition forces have been divided, raising hopes by marijuana advocates of a breakthrough. A poll conducted last month by Elway Research showed that 50 percent of voters either definitely or probably were in favor of legalizing the possession of an ounce of marijuana or less.

Some former law enforcement officials have appeared in television ads in favor of the legalization. Safety concerns about drugged driving have been muted by a provision of the measure, called Initiative 502, that would create a standard to measure impairment. A promised flood of tax money to drug and alcohol treatment programs from legal marijuana sales has also kept some antidrug groups on the sidelines.

But if opponents are in disarray or disagreement, supporters of legalization are as well. And that is making the outcome hard to predict, both sides say.

In fact, some of the most vehement opposition to the initiative is coming from what might seem the least likely corner of all: medical marijuana users. Organized through a group called No on I-502, they say the plan, especially the new legal standard of impairment while driving, creates a new legal risk for regular users because THC, marijuana’s primary psychoactive ingredient, can stay in the bloodstream for days after consumption, and thus be measurable by a blood test whether a person is impaired or not.

At a recent debate at the University of Washington here in Seattle, a medical marijuana provider and the leader of the No on I-501, group, Steve Sarich, brought out a marijuana plant as a prop, but spoke to the mostly student crowd as if he were trying to scare them straight.

“They can take you to the hospital, they can take your blood,” Mr. Sarich said about the driving provisions. “And if they find any trace of THC in your system, there goes your Pell grant, there goes your college.”