Stories tagged University of Minnesota
Eutrophication: Agricultural run-off rich in fertilizers stimulates rampant growth of algae.
Courtesy NASA
Human populations effect lakes
Human sewage and fertilizer runoff effects the health of lakes. It often causes huge algal blooms, kills fish, and creates other problems.
Long term study of "cultural eutrophication" released
For 37 years researchers have examined the best ways to control this "cultural eutrophication" process of lakes by varying the levels of phosphorous and nitrogen added to the lake.
After completing one of the longest running experiments ever done on a lake, researchers from the University of Alberta, University of Minnesota and the Freshwater Institute, contend that nitrogen control, in which the European Union and many other jurisdictions around the world are investing millions of dollars, is not effective and in fact, may actually increase the problem of cultural eutrophication.
Time to rethink current practices for healthy lakes
"David Schindler, professor of ecology at the University of Alberta, and one of the leading water researchers in the world, wants to change current practice in controlling nitrogen runoff by stating that
"Controlling nitrogen does not correct the polluted lakes, and in fact, may actually aggravate the problem and make it worse."
This study done by the University of Alberta, University of Minnesota and the Freshwater Institute appears in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Source: PhysOrg.com
Tags : Jane Goodall, the internationally-known chimp researcher, will be making a pair of public appreances at the University of Minnesota on Saturday. Here's a link to the details. Both events are free and open to the public.
A direct route
Researcher William Frey II (Regions Hospital and the University of Minnesota) has stirred up conversation recently about a possible new method of administering drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. For the past 20 years, Frey has been researching and developing a nasal spray to deliver drugs directly to the brain. Other methods of delivery (such as intravenous and oral) do not allow certain drugs to cross the brain's protective blood-brain barrier.
The nasal spray method, reviewed in Drug Delivery Technology, bypasses the blood-brain barrier by delivering the drug to the nerve endings in the upper portion of the nose. These nerves lead directly to the central nervous system.
A promising development
Frey plans to test the method for the delivery of deferoximine, a drug that removes toxic amounts of iron from the body. Some scientists believe that a high level of certain metals in the brain can cause damage to brain cells , which may be part of what leads to Alzheimer's disease. If the drug's safety is proven in animal studies, Frey hopes to test the nose-to-brain delivery of deferoximine in humans.
Researchers do not yet know if this type of drug delivery could treat symptoms of Alzheimer's or if it may lead to a cure for the disease. Clinical trials in humans may be more than a year away, but Frey's discovery, along with other advances in research, offers hope for keeping patients healthy in the future.
Sources:
Drug Delivery Technology. "Nose-to-brain delivery." 5(4):64-72, 2005.
TwinCities.com. "Nose to brain is a promising path in Alzheimer's fight." 2 Feb 2008.
Posted by Meredith Craven, a communications assistant in the Academic Health Center Office of Clinical Research at the University of Minnesota
A burger a day?
With a diet soda, please!
Courtesy ebruli
Researchers from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health have found that adults who eat two or more servings of meat a day increase their risk of developing metabolic syndrome by 25% compared with those who eat meat twice a week. The study, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association also linked a greater risk of developing metabolic syndrome with eating fried foods and drinking diet soda.
What is metabolic syndrome?
Metabolic syndrome is a group of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk factors including:
- elevated waist circumference (a waist measurement larger than 35 inches for women or 40 inches for men);
- high blood pressure:
- elevated triglycerides (the chemical form in which most fat exists in food and in the body);
- low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL or “good”) cholesterol;
- and high fasting glucose (blood sugar) levels.
If a person has three or more of these risk factors, their risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease increases.
The study
The U of M findings came from a study of 9,514 participants from four U.S. communities in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study , funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The researchers divided the group based on an assessment of their food intake. One group ate a "Western-pattern diet" with many refined grains, processed meat, fried foods, red meat, eggs and soda, and an overall lack of fish, fruit, vegetables and whole grain products. Another group ate a "prudent-pattern diet" with vegetables, fruit, fish and seafood, poultry and whole grains, and low fat dairy.
After following the the participants for nine years, almost 40% of study participants had three or more risk factors for metabolic syndrome. When researchers analyzed the results based on specific foods, meat, fried foods, and diet soda were red flags for an increased risk for metabolic syndrome. The good news? They found that regular consumption of low-fat dairy products was beneficial in avoiding the same risk factors.
The authors acknowledge that more research is needed to determine how these specific foods, particularly diet soda, raise risk factors.
The lesson? Follow a balanced diet, include low-fat dairy, exercise, and eat your vegetables!
Sources and additional information:
"Dietary Intake and the Development of the Metabolic Syndrome. The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study." Pamela L. Lutsey, Lyn M. Steffen and June Stevens. Circulation; published online Jan 22, 2008.
University of Minnesota Academic Health Center
Posted by Meredith Craven, a communications assistant in the Academic Health Center Office of Clinical Research at the University of Minnesota
Decellularization: A rat heart as the cells are removed (left three images) and replaced (right two images) over time.
Courtesy Thomas Matthiesen, University of Minnesota
Science fiction?
Did you know that nearly 5 million people live with heart failure? More surprisingly, approximately 50,000 United States patients die annually waiting for a donor heart.
University of Minnesota researchers recently announced they have created a beating heart in the laboratory. It sounds like science fiction, but it is a real medical breakthrough. The researchers removed the tissue from a dead rat heart and replaced it with living cells from newborn rats. With the help of electrical signals, the entire heart began to beat.
"Ghost hearts"
The researchers used a detergent to remove the cells from the rat hearts. This left behind only the nonliving fibers that give the heart its shape. The result was a white, rubbery, 3-D “skeleton”. This structure, called the extracellular matrix, allows cells to attach and grow into tissue, and gives the heart muscle something to pull against. The researchers injected cells from newborn rats into the left ventricle and pumped oxygen and nutrients through the structure of blood vessels. They helped the process by sending electrical signals through the new tissue. In eight days, the hearts were pumping – some continued beating for 40 days.
The supply of donor organs is limited and the risks for infection or rejection of the transplanted organ can be high. If the technique is perfected, doctors may be able to use patients’ own stem cells to recellularize a donor heart.
The next steps
The University of Minnesota research team has successfully decellularized pig hearts, and hopes that other types of organs can be created in the future.
Dead heart transformed into a living heart
Tissue engineering has allowed a dead rat heart to be stripped of its cellular material, then after injecting the remaining scaffold material with with new cardiac cells, the cells organized themselves until the heart became alive.
A "crazy idea" at the University of Minnesota that could not get federal funding yielded "unbelievable" results after getting funding from the University of Minnesota and from the Medtronic Research Foundation.
New source for replacement organs
The accomplishment gave a significant boost to medicine’s dream of growing human organs to replace damaged ones. Organ transplants usually require replacement organs that fulfill extreme compatibility issues. By using the patients own cells in the rebuilt organs scientists hope to eliminate the need for patients to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives.
Growing human hearts at least 10 years away, if ever
The next step will be to use these techniques on pig hearts. Pig hearts are similar enough to a humans that parts from them have already been used in humans.
"Although this is only a first step requiring considerable follow-up development, the study nevertheless represents an exciting breakthrough that will eventually make the prospect of repairing damaged hearts a reality and will also be an approach that can be extended to other organs." Dr Jon Frampton Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow at the University of Birmingham
Source articles
TwinCities.com
New York Times
BBC News
USA Today
Nature Medicine journal's Perfusion-decellularized matrix: using nature's platform to engineer a bioartificial heart (abstract)
Geese flying in a "V": Image courtesy Greg7 via Flickr.The University of Minnesota is conducting a new campaign called “Driven to Discover”. While new ad campaigns are not typical fodder for a current science web site, this particular campaign is interesting in that it is featuring some of the current research taking place at the University of Minnesota and answers questions like, “When will it be possible for human beings to fly?” and “My dog exhibits strange behavior shortly before a thunderstorm begin. Can dogs sense a change in weather?”
One current question that I often wondered: Why do ducks and geese fly in a “V” formation is a recently answered question.
These birds are just doing the avian equivalent of a NASCAR driver’s slipstreaming (or drafting). Geese and ducks are relatively large birds, and they affect the air they fly through just as a race car does. Each bird creates a slight uplift at the tips of their wings during flight. By flying behind and slightly above another bird’s wing tip, birds experience an updraft. These trailing birds gain an advantage and expend less energy than they would if they were flying by themselves. Studies have shown that a bird in a flock flying the same speed as a bird flying alone flaps its wings half as often.
Scott Lanyon, Director, Bell Museum of Natural History and Professor, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior.
Check out the current and older campaign to see some of the really interesting questions people asked. You can even sign up for a monthly newsletter featuring this information. It’s fun reading.
Name needed: The apple variety, currently known at the University of Minnesota Arboretum as MN-447, needs a proper name. What do you think this small, sweet and sometimes cracked apple should be called? Send in your suggestion.A few years ago, actress Gwyneth Paltrow named her new-born son Apple. Now you have the chance to name an apple.
The University of Minnesota is taking suggestions for a more proper name for one of its research apples. It’s currently known as MN-447. And who really wants to go by MN-447, right?
The apple has actually been around for some time, although it hasn’t been put out on the commercial market. It’s a breeding apple that’s been used to create new varieties of apples, including the U’s world-famous Honeycrisp.
According to apple researchers at the U, while it has some great genetic characteristics to pass along to other apples, it isn’t exactly the “apple of the eye” to consumers. It is a smaller apple that often cracks around the top and has a strange flavor that’s been compared to Hawaiian Punch, molasses and sugarcane on steroids.
In taste tests, usually five or ten percent of samplers give it high marks. But it’s exactly that small group, a niche market, that the university wants to provide an apple to. And it wants to market it with a better name than MN-447.
Hmmmmm? What would be some good names for this particular apple? It’s small, very sweet and sometimes a bit cracked. How about “Harpo” after Harpo Marx. Or maybe something more contemporary like “Howie” after Howie Mandel from Deal or No Deal.
You can submit your own name suggestion for MN-447 by clicking in the "What's New" section at www.arboretum.umn.edu through Oct. 31. Here are some of the names that have already been suggested: Tropical Blizzard, Tropical Punch, Arctic Blast, Arctic Oasis, Polar Picnic, Northern Nugget, Hardy Tropical Punch, Tundra Crunch, Nordic Delight, Sugar Cane, Cold Snap, Iceberg.
Dr. Clarence Lehman of the University of Minnesota will present an evening program on Energy and Biofuels at the Warner Nature Center on Friday, January 12, 2007 at 7:00 PM.
Dr. Lehman co-authored a paper featured as the cover story in the prestigious journal Science on Dec. 8, 2006. The highly regarded work emphasizes the importance of native grassland perennials in providing more usable energy, greater greenhouse gas reductions and less agrichemical pollution than corn grain ethanol or soybean biodiesel.
The evening is co-hosted by the Friends of Warner Nature Center and the Friends of the St. Croix Watershed Research Station Research. Refreshments and beverages will follow the program. The cost of the evening is free to any members of either Friends group and is open to the public with tickets priced at $12/family or $8/individual. Call (651) 433-2427 to register or for more information.
Buzz stories about biofuel:
- Which biofuel is better?
- Latest development in renewable energy (This article is based on the paper in Science.)
- Making fuel from trash
- Hydrogen from soybeans
- Chalk one up for diversity
- Fanning the flames of change at the University of Minnesota-Morris
Xcel funds renewable energy development
in Scientific Inquiry, Energy Transformations, and Scientific Enterprise
Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment
Xcel donates multi-millions to Renewable Development Fund.
What would you do if you were given $16 million each year to develop renewable energy? Minnesota Statute 216B.2423 requires Xcel Energy to donate $500,000 annually for each dry cask containing spent nuclear fuel to a renewables development fund.
To date Xcel Energy has committed to funding nearly $53 million for projects to identify and develop new or emerging renewable energy sources. A third round of funding is to begin by March 2007. A one-time payment of $10 million was made to the University of Minnesota's Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment on July 1, 2003.
University of Minnesota creates Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE).
The mission of IREE is
to promote statewide economic development, sustainable, healthy, and diverse ecosystems, and national energy security through development of bio-based and other renewable resources and processes.
In fiscal year 2005 alone, IREE awarded nearly $11.5M to renewable energy research and demonstration projects at the University of Minnesota. These funds were used to support 67 projects and leveraged an additional $9.3M from state, federal and business and industry partners.
IREE's Third Annual Research Symposium is Tuesday
Want to talk to researchers about what they are doing with millions of dollars in grant moneys. University of Minnesota faculty and researchers will showcase groundbreaking new work in the areas of renewable energy and the environment next Tuesday, Nov. 28, at the McNamara Alumni Center.
Don Shelby, news anchor for WCCO TV, and Edward Garvey, Deputy Commissioner for the Energy and Telecommunications Division with the Minnesota Department of Commerce, are scheduled to give the keynote addresses. University of Minnesota Regents Professor David Tilman will give the capnote address at the conclusion of this year's conference.
A poster session featuring IREE-funded projects will also take place throughout the day in the main hall.
I attended last year's symposium and plan to go again this Tuesday. My favorite experience last year was talking to the U of M Solar Vehicle team about their car and their experiences racing it cross-country. Here is a link to the Research Symposium schedule. Online registration is now closed but IREE will be accepting walk-up registrations at the door the day of the conference.
Read more about IREE and their funded projects
IREE funded projects 2005, 2004, 2003.
IREE website index.
IREE objectives and activities.
Science Buzz and all related activities
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