An Herbal Cure for PMS? Approaches to treating premenstrual syndrome (PMS) include taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac, rubbing in progesterone creams, and eating more essential fatty acids, all of which are of questionable efficacy. An Internet search turns up the usual "food supplement" remedies. "Herbal solace," for example, offers as a main ingredient phenylalinine, an "element" that is found naturally in some plants and animals. This makes some sense, for phenyla

Photos © Michael Davidson and The Florida State University These photos show the 60-carbon alkene buckminsterfullerene ("buckyballs"). This substance joins graphite and diamond as a third form of carbon molecule. Technology sometimes derives from clever combinations of tools. Merging immune system cells with cancer cells led to the hybridoma technology that produces monoclonal antibodies. A recipe of restriction enzymes, plasmids, and DNA underlies recombinant DNA and transgenic technologi

Sexual dimorphism makes life interesting for many species. In the case of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, the rear end of a male is so much darker than that of a female that a seasoned fly pusher can distinguish he from she even without the aid of a microscope. A telling investigation by Artyom Kopp and Sean Carroll at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ian Duncan at the Department of Biology at Washington Uni

Inbreeding Isn't All Bad A geographically isolated population subjected to a bottleneck event and then the inevitable inbreeding seems a recipe for genetic disaster, yet the Chillingham cattle of northern England, highly inbred for three centuries, are remarkably healthy and fertile. In 1947, the herd consisted of five males and eight females, and by October 30, 2000, their numbers had grown to just 49 animals. Their secret to success: probably luck, explains Peter Visscher, a reader in animal

Credit: Celgene CorporationThe drug thalidomide, sold as Thalomid (shown above) by the Celgene Corp. As the legendary phoenix rose from the ashes, so the drug thalidomide, responsible for severe birth defects across Europe in the early 1960s, is rising again and finding new uses. At the 42nd annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology held in San Francisco on December 4, 2000, researchers reported promising results with thalidomide in patients with multiple myeloma or myelodysplasias, a

The lead editorial in the December 23 British Medical Journal is appropriately entitled, "A pile of strangeness." The collection of articles, worthy of a stateside April Fool's issue, explores such compelling topics as physicians as serial killers, how to make an ophthalmoscope, whether animals bite more during a full moon, clues to alleviating back pain by studying the sleeping positions of apes, the history of constipation, and how not to give a presentation. Buried within the strangene

Most media reports on stem cell biology trace the field's origin to two key papers published in 1981.1,2 But Leroy Stevens at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, laid the groundwork in mice from the 1950s through the 1970s, manipulating bizarre growths called embryoid bodies,3 to see what these cells would become. Embryoid bodies formed when cancer cells were transplanted into mouse abdomens. At first they appeared to be a ring of cells enclosing blood, debris, and a few unspecialized c

Kenya changed Claire Fraser. The president of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), based in Rockville, Md., has had her name linked to an impressive number of the genomes sequenced to date, but her current work on a parasite that is causing devastation in Africa is especially meaningful to her. The target of her research is a comparatively unfamiliar organism--a tick-borne parasite related to the malaria pathogen called Theileria parva that causes a swiftly fatal leukemia-like illness in c

Luis Fermin Tenorio, the last polio case in the Western hemisphere The goal to eradicate polio by the end of 2000 remains elusive, and the amount of time left in this month won't change that. On Sept. 27, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rotary International, UNICEF, and various private donors announced at the Polio Partners Summit held at the United Nations that they are joining forces to intensify the eradication campaign, with a new deadline

Credit: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Cross sections of muscle cells from a mouse treated with an adeno-associated virus vector carrying a mini-dystrophin gene (green area). Blue stains indicate cell nuclei. Gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) has been particularly challenging because of the enormity of the dystrophin gene. Fitting the 3 million base pair behemoth into a viral vector is not unlike Prince Charming trying to shove large feet into Cinderella's tiny glass sl

Courtesy of David Hill, ART Reproductive Center Inc.Two separated blastomeres subjected to FISH analysis to check the chromosomes. In early October, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) made headlines when a Colorado couple used assisted reproductive technology (ART) to have a baby named Adam, whose umbilical cord stem cells could cure his six-year-old sister Molly's Fanconi anemia.1 When Adam Nash was a ball of blastomere cells, researchers at the Reproductive Genetics Institute at Illinois

Editor's Note: This is an extended version of the Research Notes that appeared in the print edition of The Scientist. A CF-Sinusitis Connection Some sufferers of chronic sinusitis can attribute their debilitating headaches to carrying a mutation in the cystic fibrosis (CF) gene, according to striking results from a study at the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (XinJing Wang et al., "Mutation in the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis