Rice Catalyst Discoveries

If you have ever struggled to keep up with a dieting plan, you are not alone: some 80 to 90 percent of dieters regain their lost weight within five years. For those who might be chalking up their dieting difficulties to a lack of willpower or resilience, here is some comfort: the secret to your troubles just might be in your hormones.

A new study by Dr. Joseph Proietto and colleagues in the October 27th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that even a year after significant weight loss, high levels of the hormones that modulate hunger can continue to persist. The study suggests that the human body is “wired” for weight regain. In effect, our hormones recognize our weight loss efforts as problematic, and shove us in a “corrective” direction. 

Proietto notes this physiological push towards normalization as an evolutionary adaptation; in earlier environments and behavioral contexts, the neurological impetus to fix weight loss would have been an advantageous survival technique. Given the differences between our current patterns of physical activity, dietary content, and social expectations, and those of our Paleolithic ancestors, what was once an evolutionary adaptation has now become a bothersome inconvenience.

The conclusion here is that there is more at work than sheer power of will in adhering to a dietary plan. Obesity and weight management issues are often seen as the responsibility of the individual, but studies like these suggest the importance of other environmental or biological factors in influencing our health outcomes. To some, that might provide a fallback option: to write off weight issues as unchangeable, biological determinism. Proietto disagrees with this philosophy. 

“What this all means is that people cannot say ‘Oh well, I’ve lost weight and I can now take it easy.’ You can’t. You have to keep on being very focused and maintain your lifestyle changes.” It is possible to read into Proietto’s work as an “acquittal” for those who have experienced difficulties with dieting, but more correctly, the study should spark an increased personal commitment to resisting hormonal impulses and exercising restraint.

Amol Utrankar is a sophomore from Will Rice majoring in Economics and Philosophy.

Inception anyone? Not quite, but scientists have taken a first step towards possibly tapping into people’s minds and recreating what their mind “sees.” Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computer software, researchers at UC Berkeley have decoded and reconstructed people’s internal visual experiences. Shinji Nishimoto, lead author of the study, says “our natural visual experience is like watching a movie.” What makes this experiment different from previous studies is that researchers decoded brain signals generated by moving pictures, not just static images. First, the subjects watched a series of movie trailers while the researchers measured blood flow in the visual cortex with fMRI. Then, the computer associated brain activity with images from the video. Finally, the computer program was put to the test: it used neural signals triggered by another set of movie trailers and 18 million seconds of random Youtube videos to reconstruct what the subject had originally seen. Currently, scientists can reconstruct what people have seen, but not what goes on in the mind - such as memories or dreams. This technology could potentially allow doctors to understand the minds of patients with neurological disorders and help build a brain-machine interface.

Sam Wang is a sophomore from Brown College majoring in Chemistry.

In recent weeks, leading physicists have been trying to make sense of the claim that there are particles that travel faster than the speed of light, blatantly disregarding the fundamental laws of physics. The controversial study arose when earlier this month, researchers involved in the OPERA experiment (Oscillation Project with Emulsion tracking Apparatus) found subatomic particles called neutrinos, able to travel from Switzerland to Italy at 1.000025 times the speed of light. Since then there has been a fury of debate to test and perhaps understand this theory.

The main reason for such an uproar is that nothing moves as fast as the speed of light – other than massless things such as light. As scientist Robert Plunkett describes, “subatomic particles like neutrinos…can accelerate to nearly the speed of light, but never faster.” Should a more conclusive test prove that there are in fact ways to accelerate masses to speeds exceeding that of light, then much of the physical research in the last century would have to be reevaluated. The laws of mass and its motion would have to be recalculated to account for such an astonishing discovery.

Much of the scientific community is still taking sides in this debate, attempting to prove and disprove this phenomenon with extensive research—the scientific method is at work. For example, many question the validity of the experiment – pointing to possibilities of error in calculation or experiment procedure. One group of scientists from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands pointed out that the scientists failed to consider that the GPS satellite used for timing the particles was moving, thus not measuring accurate superluminal speeds. Others are even trying to recreate this very same experiment to test for consistent results. In fact, there are many current criticisms about the experiments and even doubts from the experimenters themselves. Many theories have been formulated to explain what was wrong with the procedure, but until they are able to diagnose the main source of error, if any, this anomaly of an experiment is under further investigation.

Alex Kumar is a freshman from Baker College. For another take on this controversial discovery, take a look at Mariam Junaid’s article from last week.

When considering famous German scientists of the 20^th century, Fritz Haber is probably not the first to come to mind. However, Fritz Haber had a considerable impact in his time, and his innovation continues to be used today. Prior to 1908, the only way of attaining fertilizer was from decomposing materials in the form of manure. However, Haber changed the game when he developed the Haber Process for synthesizing ammonia (NH₃) from atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen gas. As a result, Germany was able to produce its own fertilizer and did not have to rely upon outside sources.

Even more important to Germany was the use of ammonia to easily produce gunpowder and explosives. When World War I broke out, Germany was cut off from trade by blockades. Due to the Haber Process, Germany was able to provide for itself in terms of food and munitions to combat the Allies. Without Haber’s discovery, Germany would not have had any amount of success in World War I. His contributions to German warfare did not end there; Haber also designed the first ever gaseous chemical attack to be used in warfare. In April 1915, German forces released chlorine gas on the forces of Britain and France to devastating effect.

For his discovery of ammonia generation, Haber won the Nobel Prize. It’s easy to see why - fast forward to the present, and it is estimated that fertilizer created by the Haber Process accounts for the survival of a third of the world’s population. Fritz Haber made a lasting contribution to the world outside of the laboratory with his innovation, and the uses of the Haber Process are still evident today.

Vijay Venkatesan is a freshman from Baker College. His blog series will take a look at the role of science in history to better understand the impact that science has had on the past and, therefore, the present. With the large number of important scientific discoveries being made, it’s important to remember those inventions and discoveries that have occurred in the past and their effects on discoveries today.

Neutrinos that can travel faster than the speed of light? This cataclysmic news filled the headlines on September 23rd, 2011. Neutrinos are fundamental neutral particles that are omnipresent in the universe. Millions pass right in front of us every second. However, if these particles travel faster than the speed of light, the whole theory of relativity would be thrown upside down. Einstein’s theory states that “as objects speed up, time slows down. Time stops altogether on reaching the 299,792,458 metres per second at which light zaps through a vacuum. Go any faster and you would be moving backwards in time.”.  Recently, OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion tRacking Apparatus) detected that a neutrino beam ejected from Geneva arrived in Italy 60 nanoseconds faster than it was expected to. This means the neutrinos traveled faster than the speed of light, which is thought to be the speed limit for matter in the universe.  

Many implications could be considered if the argument were proven true, not the least of which is that a fifth dimension may exist. That would also open doors for time travel if Einstein was right in his belief that anything travelling faster than light would travel backwards in time. However, these are still only postulates and nothing can actually be proven from them yet. In my opinion, such an extraordinary application would require years and years of evidence since all of physics is based on the fundamental equation E=mc2. According to the theory as we know it now, a particle cannot pass the fundamental speed limit of the universe: the speed of light. The theory of relativity has been tested and tested over and over again to finally gain the status that it has: no one has yet been able to refute it. If neutrinos are able to go faster than light, why hadn’t it been observed before? Granted, in 2007 there was a similar result in the United States, but that result had a huge experimental error and was forgotten. This experiment may also have some experimental error inherent within it. If not, the foundation of physics must be completely rewritten.

Mariam Junaid is a freshman from Baker College.

Discovering a cure for cancer is still an elusive goal for modern scientists. Recent innovations in drug research and development have shown potential, but they have been marred with unfortunate disadvantages and other limitations. Fortunately, XALKORI, a recently approved lung cancer drug by Pfizer Inc., seems promising and may even set a precedent for more effective cancer treatments.

XALKORI targets “non-small lung cancer (NSCLC)” that is anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) positive, which means that the ALK enzyme is the cause of this particular type of NSCLC. Despite the fact that only “three to five percent of NSCLC tumors are ALK positive,” XALKORI still has the potential to aid thousands of people a year in the United States alone. According to the drug’s online information page for patients, XALKORI may be taken orally twice a day.

Interesting to note is the change in the development of anti-cancer drugs illustrated by the specificity of XALKORI. After unsuccessful attempts to treat a broad range of cancers with a single drug, scientists have taken a more specialized route: in this case, Pfizer drug developers targeted a very specific subset of lung cancer. The drug development strategy that resulted in XALKORI will hopefully set a precedent for researchers to create drugs for other specific cancers.

Similar to all newly-developed drugs, XALKORI does have negative side effects. A disturbing sixty-two percent of patients in clinical trials experienced vision disorders. Four out of 255 patients experienced severe cases of pneumonitis, the inflammation of lung tissue. In addition, only fifty to sixty percent of patients made high levels of progress against lung cancer after taking XALKORI, indicating that the drug is not perfectly effective in helping patients recover from lung cancer.

Despite these negative details, this drug is definitely a step in the right direction in developing a more effective lung cancer treatment, as XALKORI was the first lung cancer drug in six years to be approved by the FDA. Though curing cancer may take years of research and clinical trials, perhaps one day lung-cancer patients will be able to simply pick up a prescription at the local pharmacy to effectively treat one of the most serious diseases around.

Charles Ho is a freshman from Duncan College.

A month into the Occupy Wall Street movement, a protest of big business’ political influence and greed amidst the hardships of the economic downturn, there is a palpable sense of animosity towards financial executives and traders whose risky activities triggered the financial crisis. If it is any consolation to the masses protesting on Wall Street and in major cities around the country, emerging research in neuroscience and genetics suggests that the risk-taking behaviors of finance sector professionals might not be entirely under their control.

An article from the September 24^th edition of the Economist profiles the research of Dr. John Coates, who studied the relationship between endocrine systems and investment behavior in traders. In a 2008 study, Dr. Coates found that a trader’s morning testosterone levels, before trading markets opened, was a predictor variable for a higher profit/loss margin.

The relationship between testosterone levels and profitability falls in line with prior research in neurobiology and behavioral sciences. Elevated testosterone levels have associated biological factors underpinning the “animal spirits” of stock market traders.

Some of the risk-taking inclination may also be innately rooted in genetics. A study by Dr. Camelia Kuhnen and Dr. Joan Chiao of Northwestern University found certain forms of polymorphisms in the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT) and the dopamine receptor gene (DRD4) that are associated with risky financial behavior. It has been estimated that some 20% of variation in risk preference comes from heritable genetic characteristics. While there are other environmental and individual factors that keep risk-prone traders from being completely off the hook for their actions, such research suggests that they might just be, quite literally, “naturally competitive.”

In response to Occupy Wall Street’s outcry against business interests, politicians have floated options like a financial transactions tax (FTT) and more stringent financial regulation to prevent market volatility from spurring future downturns. If the neuroeconomists have a say in the matter, they might propose some additional solutions. Perhaps, instead of case interviews and behavioral assessments, financial firms should incorporate genetics testing into their hiring process. More simply, they might just be better off hiring women, who are generally more risk-averse and have lower testosterone levels than men.

Amol Utrankar is a sophomore from Will Rice majoring in Economics and Philosophy.