Author: David Bradley

Bird Flu Test

Researchers at McMaster University, Toronto, have developed a simple diagnostic that can spot all the major human respiratory viruses, including SARS.

The press release announcing this finding includes in the list of “major” viruses – H5N1 (bird flu), but H5N1 is yet to become a “major” human virus having only killed a few dozen people in the forty-odd years since it emerged! This contrasts sharply with the more common influenza type A viruses to which humans have been exposed for centuries that have killed thousands upon thousands.

Obviously, the writer of the press release wants to get the item into the media, hence the mention of H5N1 and SARS, and, admittedly, the diagnostic, which is still undergoing clinical evaluation, will be able to spot those viruses. There is enough disinformation regarding avian influenza as it is. It seems that almost any piece of viral research is likely to have some PR exploitable link to H5N1 these days, but there are two sides to every story and a lot of researchers have stated already that should H5n1 ever mutate into a human transmissable form it will lose its lethality without doubt. After all, it doesn’t kill wild birds, just that pampered stock we breed to eat.

Newborn Bonding

Compared with children raised by biological parents, children who were raised in foreign orphanages before adoption by American families apparently have altered levels of social-bonding hormones, researchers report.

Researchers are interested in how infants’ social experiences can affect brain organization. Seth Pollak and colleagues studied children adopted into American families after being raised from birth in foreign orphanages, where they often failed to receive standard emotional and physical contact from caregivers.

The researchers compared these children with a control group of American children raised by their families. Two hormones were of interest to the researchers: oxytocin and arginine vasopressin, both of which are associated with stress regulation and social bonding, and whose levels rise after socially pleasant experiences such as comforting touches.

Compared with the control group, children raised in orphanages showed lower baseline levels of vasopressin. Also, oxytocin levels of family-raised children increased after playful social contact with their mothers, but orphanage-raised children did not display the same response. The results suggest that a failure to receive typical care as a child can disrupt normal development of these hormonal systems, which can then interfere with the calming and comforting effects that typically emerge between children and their caregivers.

Amazing what a little interpersonal chemistry can do, isn’t it?

SOURCE: PNAS Press Release

Monster black hole

SciScoop member “barakn” commented on a recent posting about the massive black hole that astronomers claim to have found. As ever, there are two sides to a story and, as barakn points out, conflicting research has now been published that suggests it would have taken three galaxies colliding to eject such a large black hole, so it is perhaps more likely that what at first looked like such an astronomical object is in fact a common or garden quasar…

Blogging to Save the World

Imagine a blog that does more than flatter the ego of its creator and those it links to…imagine a blog that might actually be useful!

Dr Jean-Claude Bradley [no relation] an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Drexel University emailed to tell me that he has set up a blog that will join the dots between real scientific problems and concrete and actionable solutions.

For example, one posting presents 90 molecules that stand a good chance of being inhibitors of the enzyme HIV protease, which is essential to viral replication. “To the best of my knowledge,” Bradley told me, “these compounds have not yet been tested.”

However, in order to complete the trail from problem to solution, he says we need a cheap and efficient synthesis for each of these leads, so that they can be tested in vitro for activity against HIV. “The intended audience for the blog is mainly chemists,” he confesses, “and I would like there to be as much experimental detail provided as required for a chemist to understand fully how to reproduce the porposed and executed syntheses.”

Bradley also revealed that, as you’d expect, he has an organic chemistry lab at his disposal and is willing to execute proposed syntheses, if they make synthetic sense.
Bradley hopes to find similar specific problems in which a chemical synthesis or a specific compound or class or compounds is needed that could make a difference to solving the most important problems facing humanity today.

So, if you’ve got a chemistry degree don’t hang around, go to his blog and save the world!

Homeopathic Flu Remedy

It’s rather worrying to see the proliferation of books about avian influenza, as if people aren’t scared enough, but this one is more worrying still – its title alludes to the idea that homeopathy can somehow help us survive influenza epidemics and pandemics. Bizarrely, it says we can survive “past, present and future” episodes. Present and future are really pushing it, given the lack of valid trials of homeopathy in any area of medicine, but “past”?

Forget H5N1, H3N0 is a killer too

According to the People’s Daily Online, the first Vietnamese have died of H3N0 another strain of the influenza A virus, related to but different from the increasingly familiar H5N1. From the scaremongering point of view, there’s no need to hold the frontpage (at least outside Vietnam) as this strain is far less virulent than H5N1.

However, it does bring to light an aspect of flu viruses that gets little mention in the media – avian influenza has killed very few people, especially compared with the number of annual deaths from human influenza, but should any of these avian strains jump between species they are likely to lose their virulence to a great degree. One flu expert told us that, “H5N1 will surely decrease in lethality as it becomes more infectious between humans…no doubt about it.” More on that next week…

Elemental Discoveries on the Radio

Sheffield University’s WebElements guru Mark Winter alerted us to a recent BBC Radio 4 [link dead] series touching on Periodic Tales told by members of the cast of long-lived rural radio soap The Archers…

  • Krypton: Hedli Nicklaus on the Superman element, krypton
  • Helium: Brian Perkins dramatises the effects of Helium
  • Silver: Trevor Harrison finds some unusual properties of Silver
  • Cobalt: Nicklaus takes on the goblin element of cobalt
  • Selenium: Carole Boyd unearths selenium
  • Oxygen: Perkins bravely dramatises the effects of oxygen
  • Arsenic: Charlotte Green takes on the deadly history of arsenic
  • Mercury: Boyd reflects on mercury, the poisonous liquid metal
  • Iodine: Green on the discovery of iodine’s essential place in brain development
  • Nickel: Harrison reveals that the space station Mir is largely made of nickel.

It seems a little more worthy than recent efforts to connect and elements and celebrities, which I mentioned recently, despite the fact that they got radio soap stars to do the task, but presumably has the same conceptual origins of getting chemistry a better name, which can only be a good thing.

Molecular Model of Oseltamivir (Tamiflu)

tamiflu molecular structurePremier molecular modeller Stephan Logan has produced for us a timely reminder of the chemical structure of Tamiflu, the antiviral flu drug. You can order the necessary components to build the Molecular Model of Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and other molecules from Stephan’s site. Perfect for that avian flu lecture!

In case you missed my how to avoid colds and flu article, it’s once again taking pride of place on the sciencebase site.