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Science Tuesday - The Kid Edition
Dec. 9th, 2008 07:55 am
Researchers Put a Microscope on Food Allergies
By KAREN ANN CULLOTTA, The New York Times, December 9, 2008
CHICAGO — For 5-year-old Sean Batson, even a grandmother’s kiss is to be feared.
“My mother was wearing lipstick, and when she kissed Sean’s cheek, it broke out in hives,” said his mother, Jennifer Batson.
At his first birthday party, Sean had a severe allergic reaction — hives, swollen eyes, vomiting and wheezing — to his first nibble of cake. And when a toddler with an ice cream cone touched Sean’s arm with sticky hands during a play date, the arm erupted in hives.
The daily struggle of living with Sean’s allergies to nearly unavoidable foods and food products — soy, eggs and milk, traces of which can turn up even in nonfoods like lipstick — prompted Mrs. Batson and her husband, Tim, to participate in a project that scientists are calling the most comprehensive food allergy study to date.
( Read More )
Scorpios Get More Asthma, but Astrology Isn’t to Blame
By TARA PARKER-POPE, The New York Times, December 9, 2008
How, when and where a child is born may all play a role in lifetime asthma risk, new studies suggest.
Asthma occurs when airways in the lungs spasm and swell, restricting the supply of oxygen. The incidence of asthma in the United States has risen steadily for more than two decades, and about 6 percent of children now have asthma, up from less than 4 percent in 1980, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The reasons for the increase are not entirely clear. Genetics probably plays a role in the risk for asthma, but an array of environmental factors — pollen, dust, animal dander, mold, cockroach feces, cigarettes, air pollution, viruses and cold air — have all been implicated in its development.
This month, The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine is reporting that children born in the fall have a 30 percent higher risk for asthma than those born in other seasons. The finding is based on a review of birth and medical records of over 95,000 children in Tennessee.
( Read More )
18 and Under: What to Do When the Patient Says, ‘Please Don’t Tell Mom’
By PERRI KLASS, M.D, The New York Times, December 9, 2008
Some years ago, in the candor of the exam room, a seventh-grade boy told me that he didn’t really have friends at school, and that he sometimes found himself being picked on. I gave him the pediatric line on bullying: it shouldn’t be tolerated, and there are things schools can do about it. Let’s talk to your parents, let’s have your parents talk to the school; adult interventions can change the equation.
And he was horrified. He shook his head vehemently and asked me please not to interfere, and above all not to say a word to his mother, who was out in the waiting room because I had asked her to give us some privacy.
He wouldn’t have told me this at all, he said, except he thought our conversation was private. The situation at school wasn’t all that bad; he could handle it. He wasn’t in any danger, wasn’t getting hurt, he was just a little lonely. His parents, he said, thought that he was fine, that he had lots of friends, and he wanted to keep it that way.
When treating older adolescents, pediatricians routinely offer confidentiality on many issues, starting with sex and substances. But middle-schoolers are on the border — old enough to be asked some of the same questions, but young enough that it can be less clear what should stay confidential.
( Read More )
Winners of Prestigious Student Science Awards Are Named
By AMANDA M. FAIRBANKS, The New York Times, December 9, 2008
Practical advances in medicine ruled the day in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, one of the nation’s most coveted student science awards, whose winners were announced Monday morning at New York University.
While highly regarded, a Tamari lattice, a mathematical structure, and Bax and Bak, two proteins, lost out to a project by Wen Chyan, 17, a senior at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science in Denton, Tex. Mr. Wen won the top individual prize — a $100,000 scholarship — for research on fighting hospital-related infections with antimicrobial coatings for medical devices.
For genetics research that has the potential to identify new chemotherapeutic drugs and improve existing ones, Sajith M. Wickramasekara and Andrew Y. Guo, both 17 and seniors at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, N.C., took home $50,000 each — the top team prize.
( Read More )
By KAREN ANN CULLOTTA, The New York Times, December 9, 2008
CHICAGO — For 5-year-old Sean Batson, even a grandmother’s kiss is to be feared.
“My mother was wearing lipstick, and when she kissed Sean’s cheek, it broke out in hives,” said his mother, Jennifer Batson.
At his first birthday party, Sean had a severe allergic reaction — hives, swollen eyes, vomiting and wheezing — to his first nibble of cake. And when a toddler with an ice cream cone touched Sean’s arm with sticky hands during a play date, the arm erupted in hives.
The daily struggle of living with Sean’s allergies to nearly unavoidable foods and food products — soy, eggs and milk, traces of which can turn up even in nonfoods like lipstick — prompted Mrs. Batson and her husband, Tim, to participate in a project that scientists are calling the most comprehensive food allergy study to date.
( Read More )
Scorpios Get More Asthma, but Astrology Isn’t to Blame
By TARA PARKER-POPE, The New York Times, December 9, 2008
How, when and where a child is born may all play a role in lifetime asthma risk, new studies suggest.
Asthma occurs when airways in the lungs spasm and swell, restricting the supply of oxygen. The incidence of asthma in the United States has risen steadily for more than two decades, and about 6 percent of children now have asthma, up from less than 4 percent in 1980, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The reasons for the increase are not entirely clear. Genetics probably plays a role in the risk for asthma, but an array of environmental factors — pollen, dust, animal dander, mold, cockroach feces, cigarettes, air pollution, viruses and cold air — have all been implicated in its development.
This month, The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine is reporting that children born in the fall have a 30 percent higher risk for asthma than those born in other seasons. The finding is based on a review of birth and medical records of over 95,000 children in Tennessee.
( Read More )
18 and Under: What to Do When the Patient Says, ‘Please Don’t Tell Mom’
By PERRI KLASS, M.D, The New York Times, December 9, 2008
Some years ago, in the candor of the exam room, a seventh-grade boy told me that he didn’t really have friends at school, and that he sometimes found himself being picked on. I gave him the pediatric line on bullying: it shouldn’t be tolerated, and there are things schools can do about it. Let’s talk to your parents, let’s have your parents talk to the school; adult interventions can change the equation.
And he was horrified. He shook his head vehemently and asked me please not to interfere, and above all not to say a word to his mother, who was out in the waiting room because I had asked her to give us some privacy.
He wouldn’t have told me this at all, he said, except he thought our conversation was private. The situation at school wasn’t all that bad; he could handle it. He wasn’t in any danger, wasn’t getting hurt, he was just a little lonely. His parents, he said, thought that he was fine, that he had lots of friends, and he wanted to keep it that way.
When treating older adolescents, pediatricians routinely offer confidentiality on many issues, starting with sex and substances. But middle-schoolers are on the border — old enough to be asked some of the same questions, but young enough that it can be less clear what should stay confidential.
( Read More )
Winners of Prestigious Student Science Awards Are Named
By AMANDA M. FAIRBANKS, The New York Times, December 9, 2008
Practical advances in medicine ruled the day in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, one of the nation’s most coveted student science awards, whose winners were announced Monday morning at New York University.
While highly regarded, a Tamari lattice, a mathematical structure, and Bax and Bak, two proteins, lost out to a project by Wen Chyan, 17, a senior at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science in Denton, Tex. Mr. Wen won the top individual prize — a $100,000 scholarship — for research on fighting hospital-related infections with antimicrobial coatings for medical devices.
For genetics research that has the potential to identify new chemotherapeutic drugs and improve existing ones, Sajith M. Wickramasekara and Andrew Y. Guo, both 17 and seniors at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, N.C., took home $50,000 each — the top team prize.
( Read More )
