Heads up Newswise Blog readers! This blog will soon be moving to its new home on the Newswise site, at http://www.newswise.com/blog.
We will leave this Blogspot blog up and accessible as an archive of our previous posts, but all new posts will go up on the Newswise.com/blog site.
Three for the Price of One
The Newswise blog is going to be divided up into three categories, by topic. The Hot News blog will feature the best stories on Newswise and items about breaking news events around the world. New @ Newswise will include updates about Newswise services, as well discussions and tips about media relations strategies. And finally, the PRwise blog will focus on discussions for the media relations and public relations community, especially about press releases and the new media role in PR.
Head on over to the Newswise blogs and let us know what you think! Thanks for reading Newswise, and see you over on the new blog!
~Thom and all of the Newswise team
Monday, June 7, 2010
The Blog is Moving
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Video in your News Release? Why Bother?
As the use of embedded video in news releases has risen in recent years, we wanted to initiate a discussion and keep our finger on the pulse of how it’s working for our colleagues in media relations, particularly for higher-ed institutions. There has been an interesting discussion about this topic going on over at the PIOnet group on LinkedIn.
The comments we will discuss hit on three major points that make a clear case in favor of using video in your news releases whenever possible.
- Video can draw more attention to your news
- Experts should be coached to give good soundbites
- Even raw, imperfect video can enhance your news
Examples of Good Video on Newswise
Before we get into the discussion from PIOnet, take a look at some good examples of video posted on Newswise that illustrate the first two points:
In this story form the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the embedded video gets to the hard-hitting news quickly, and effectively. The video illustrates how larger teams of firefighters participating in the research study were able to perform at significantly higher levels than teams with fewer firefighters.
All three experts in this video from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, exemplify good media training for experts and researchers. They speak directly to their main points without using a lot of technical jargon, and they provide simple explanations that most lay people would understand.
Both of these news releases have video that, we think, are good examples of why video is a valuable tool, and we would encourage any media relations professional to learn from and emulate these examples.
As a fun experiment for us, we recorded the following short video where Newswise colleauges Thom Canalichio and Zakira Beasley discuss using video in news releases. (Keep in mind we did this video in about 30 minutes, with minimal technical resources.)
Hope you enjoyed seeing us discuss these points! Keep in mind, again, we did this in one take, with minimal processing and editing. Learning from this experience, we want to encourage others to throw caution to the wind and give video a try.
Video Feedback from our PIOnet Colleagues
In order to have a good understanding of how video is working for our media relations colleagues, Newswise President and PIOnet group administrator, Roger Johnson, posed the question for discussion on the PIOnet group’s LinkedIn page: Has your office made much effort to incorporate video with news releases? Are you doing it? How is it working for you? We will discuss some of the most poignant comments, after the jump.
An immediate, positive response by one group member reinforced what we’ve already found; video tends to raise the profile of otherwise ordinary news releases. He writes:
We've had some pretty good luck using video in our advocacy efforts... We've produced some, students have produced others...Interestingly, the videos have been by far the most popular links in our electronic newsletters. We use video on our blog and Facebook now as well.We can see two interesting factors in these comments. First, they have used video in news releases about advocacy efforts, primarily announcements about student financial aid programs. These are, to be frank, not normally the kind of news release to get an extraordinary amount of attention. The correlation of video to increased exposure for their news is a good sign, at least for this institution.
Second, they have been willing to de-centralize the production of the news videos, giving access to students to create the content themselves. Relinquishing total control may seem daring to some colleagues, but it does speak to a common problem of limited resources; who is the right, capable person to capture and produce video to accompany a news release? The conclusion is that the advanced technology and easy-access of video sites such as YouTube are leveling factors. Even amateur users, with a little training and guidance, can produce something worthy of distribution.
Another colleague commented about a more subtle challenge in news release video: getting good sound bites from your experts.
One of the biggest challenges is getting the researchers to speak in soundbites without using jargon. This is particularly difficult [for], but in no way limited to, non-native English speakers. YouTube allows you to upload a transcript, which becomes a caption, and that helps a lot. It's also time consuming to record video and edit it into something that looks decent, especially in this new "do more with less" world that many of us find ourselves in. Heck, I'm having trouble doing the same with less.Reminding your experts and researchers to speak in clear, brief soundbites is one crucial ingredient in the successful use of video in your news releases. It may be enough to just keep that in mind and give a constructive suggestion or two. There is also the option of professional “media training,” but that may be too costly to be practical. As an alternative, if your institution has communications experts, they may be a good resource to coach your expert before and during a video interview. It is also worth noting the suggestion to upload a transcript when an expert’s comments are difficult to follow.
Because of the technical barriers involved, some of our colleagues are reluctant to do video because it is too costly or time-consuming to produce a good, professional-looking finished product. The last comment we wanted to highlight here turns that caution on its head:
We've had some good results/luck incorporating pretty raw "in the field/in the lab" video into our news releases. Remember, good video isn't always polished, edited and/or have great soundbites: an image or scene that's compelling in its own right can stand out and get noticed…I'm finding more and more researchers have this stuff - they often just don't think of it off the top of their heads, and/or think raw video won't cut the mustard.In a nutshell: just try it! Even if it is imperfect, video is just another way to convey information and enhance the overall value of your news. The video referred to in these comments included raw footage of in-the-field research, animations, and voice-over narration giving detailed description of the process involved. The news was picked up by a nationally distributed radio program and posted on the show’s website, among other successful pickup.
Video Services with Newswise
Newswise members may already know about Newswise services including video embedding. If you are not a Newswise member, or if you do not currently have video as part of your Newswise membership package, you may be interested to know that we are coming up with creative, flexible ways for you to try it out. If you are curious, or would just like some information, please contact us at info@newswise.com and we can discuss some of your options to join and add video to your services. read the full article...
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Debunking an Immigration Myth: Immigrants Commit More Crime
From the Immigration Policy Center:
Arizona's Punishing Law Doesn't Fit the Crime
Studies Show Decrease in Arizona Crime Rates Over Time
April 28, 2010
Washington, D.C. - Supporters of Arizona's harsh new immigration law claim that it is, in part, a crime-fighting measure. However, people like Republican State Senator Russell Pearce of Mesa, the bill's author, overlook two salient points: crime rates have already been falling in Arizona for years despite the presence of unauthorized immigrants, and a century's worth of research has demonstrated that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native-born. Furthermore, while much has been made about kidnappings in Arizona, law-enforcement officials indicate that most of these involve drug and human smugglers, as well as smuggled immigrants themselves - not the general population of the state.
The Immigration Policy Center releases a fact sheet which shows the decrease in Arizona crime rates over time. The fact sheet also indicates that states with high immigration have the lowest crime rates and that unauthorized immigration is not associated with higher crime rates.
Highlights include:
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, violent crimes in Arizona fell from 512 per 100,000 people in 2005 to 447 per 100,000 people in 2008, the last year for which data is available.
According to a 2008 report from the conservative Americas Majority Foundation, crime rates are lowest in states with the highest immigration growth rates, such as Arizona. From 1999 to 2006, the total crime rate declined 13.6 percent in the 19 highest-immigration states (including Arizona), compared to a 7.1 percent decline in the other 32 states.
Although the unauthorized immigrant population doubled to about 12 million from 1994 to 2004, data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that the violent crime rate in the United States declined by 35.1 percent during this time and the property crime rate fell by 25.0 percent.
Combating crime related to human smuggling requires more trust between immigrants and the police, not less. Yet the undermining of trust between police and the community is precisely what Arizona's new law accomplishes. In the final analysis, immigration policy is not an effective means of addressing crime because the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.
To read the fact check in its entirety, see:
Arizona's Punishment Doesn't Fit the Crime: Studies Show Decrease in Arizona Crime Rates Over Time (PDF) (IPC Fact Check, April 28, 2010) read the full article...
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
More Health News on Newswise Health Marketplace
More than a year in the making, the U.S. Congress and President Obama have completed their reforms to the health insurance system. It has been extremely interesting to watch the developing debate - sorting out fact from fiction, and reading copious expert analysis in the Newswise Health Care Channel.
The heightened interest in health care has lead reporters to seek more sources for health news than ever before. Granted, a lot of that is focused on the politics, but as more people are talking about health care, more people are looking for health news.
And, studies have shown that more and more consumers use the web to research health information. Trends suggest that web users are finding relevant info on the internet to inform and educate their health decisions.
All of this growing demand for health news - both in terms of media coverage and all the way down to each individual consumer of health care - has an increasing influence on the health industry. In response to these trends, Newswise has developed a new category for medical news called Health Marketplace.
The new Health Marketplace section provides Newswise users with a resource for medical product innovation, news about developments in the health care industry, and consumer-focused information. Journalists can use the Health Marketplace section to find leads for their health news reporting, and consumers will find information about new developments in the technology and delivery of health care to inform their own health decisions. Health Marketplace will also include product announcements, clinical trial news, health experts, and announcements regarding meetings, conferences, grants, and funding.
To learn how to participate in the launch of Health Marketplace, see this one-pager on submission and eligibility requirements.
This new category is a significant expansion of Newswise services in medical and health news distribution. Newswise has been delivering high-quality news, including research results, feature pitches, trends and experts since its inception in 1991. Current opt-in subscribers are now more than 20,000 strong, and all major media outlets are represented. Health Marketplace will now add a new level of granularity to the organization of Newswise content.
“The opportunity for journalists to receive a single daily email with health care and medical news, and select and focus on those stories of most value to their constituents, is greatly appreciated,” says Roger Johnson, PhD scientist, former science writer, and founder of Newswise. “Journalists at a wide variety of media outlets, from broadcast, print, and the web use Newswise source material for their coverage.”
Recognizing the challenge of reaching reporters in the current dynamic media environment, Newswise has also invested heavily in social media, and is expanding its reputation as a reliable news source through developments like the addition of the Health Marketplace section.
Where to find Health Marketplace News
Consumers, reporters, and knowledge-seekers have access to extensive news resources on Newswise.com in the Medical, Science, Business, and Life News sections. Users will find Health Marketplace stories on the home page, the Medical News page, and as its own unique Health Marketplace section. All news releases appear in multiple locations on Newswise.com by category and topic, and they are permanently archived for access through our search engine.
About Newswise
Newswise provides quality news for journalists and media professionals, and anyone interested in knowledge-based news. Subscribers get research results, feature pitches, breaking news and experts delivered directly to their email. Newswise members are innovative, influential organizations worldwide, including top medical schools, universities, research institutions, public relations firms, government agencies, non-profit organizations, associations and advocacy groups.
To find out more, please contact marketplace@newswise.com with any questions.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Thinking about Spring
My colleague, Zakira Beasley, writes in with some hopeful thoughts for the upcoming Spring season, and shares some info about Newswise Theme Wires. 
It’s been a rough winter here in the Mid-Atlantic region. We haven’t seen bare ground since December, and temperatures at night remain in the 20’s. This is nothing for many areas of the US and Canada, but for us in Virginia the snowfall has broken all records, and frankly, we’re weary of icy roads and snowdrifts covering the sidewalks. Public schools were closed for almost two weeks, while working parents scrambled for child care.
I’m an outdoor person at heart, and enjoy daily walks, and dinner on our deck overlooking the meadow and creek. I also love to grow flowers, and last year at this time the early daffodils were showing green shoots at the edge of the woods. My ambitious gardening friends are placing their seed and plant order. Here at Newswise we’re planning the Spring theme wire, which will be distributed on February 26. Here’s a recent comment from a reporter about our theme wires:
I am a weekly newspaper editor who has had access to your service for a couple of years now, and I want you to know a couple of things.
First, you provide a real service to those of us out in the hinterlands who don't have reporters available (here, it's just me) to track down some of these stories using the local community as sources.
Second, it is difficult to use even some of your material because my space requirements are mainly reserved for local material. But the heart month selection of stories I have just now reviewed is excellent, and I do try to take a considered look at what you are providing.
As far as I am concerned, your service is an important source of information that would be of benefit to any newspaper, and I thank you for what you do.Are you also thinking about spring? Send us your spring themed feature pitches and experts. Past topics have included Spring Break, Mothers Day, Gardening, Tax Time (ugh), Daylight Savings Time, Outdoor Activities, and Seasonal Allergies. Here are some examples:
http://www.newswise.com/articles/channels?channel=2
Cheers for spring. It can’t come soon enough. -Zakira read the full article...
Friday, January 29, 2010
Winter Olympics News
The 2010 Winter Olympics are just around the corner, and I can't help but get excited. As a big-time ski-enthusiast, I'm especially looking forward to my favorite events like the Giant Slalom, Snowboarding, and all the other alpine events. I have fond memories of the time I was able to go to the '02 Games in Salt Lake City, where I watched Apolo Ohno skate his way to gold, and I saw Russia and Belarus face off for Ice Hockey bronze.
So it is with a little bit of personal excitement that I share with you the Newswise 2010 Olympics and Winter Sports wire. [This image is just a preview, and the official wire will be sent out at 1 pm today.]
All stories in the 2010 Olympics and Winter Sports wire are also available in the Newswise Feature Channel on Sports, available here: http://www.newswise.com/articles/channels?channel=93
To get Newswise wires, including special wires like the 2010 Olympics and Winter Sports wire, just register with Newswise and select your subscriptions: http://www.newswise.com/register
If you are a media relations professional, and you would like to know how to post a news release on Newswise for inclusion in a special wire, write to us at info@newswise.com and request membership info.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Media Relations in the Online Newsroom
My Newswise colleague, Zakira writes in with a recommended link about media relations and the online newsroom. -ed.
This concise article discusses the essential and optional components of an online newsroom. Perhaps obvious to media relations professionals, these points are still valid for any organization, whether non-profit, higher education or corporate. Also discussed are newsroom best practices, and the importance of transparency in leading journalists to the information they are seeking. The writer includes promotion of her fee based services, but this does not detract from the information offered. I also enjoy her complimentary weekly “marketingminute” emails.
Read the full article here http://www.yudkin.com/onlinenewsroom.htm
Monday, January 4, 2010
5 Tips for Successful Non-Profit Public Relations
There is a lot of talk in the PR world about the evolution of the press release – gone are the days of print-outs and mailings – and some even herald the waning influence of the emailed press release (though my inbox provides copious evidence to the contrary).
Savvy PR professionals know that exaggerations about the “death of the press release” are premature, and they know that newswire services are quite useful to promote the mission 
of their non-profit clients. Services like Newswise, by distributing news to a targeted media audience and providing in-depth effectiveness reporting, can augment a PR strategy to serve the non-profit’s mission. Whether the goal is to increase awareness, promote a campaign, influence consumers, or raise money and secure sponsorships, PR for a non-profit should follow these 5 essential tactics for success
1. Distribute content to a targeted audience
2. Achieve prominent results on search engines
3. Pitch experts and spokespeople to media outlets
4. Drive users to an action, such as to donate or sign a petition
5. Monitor effectiveness through reporting tools
Targeted Audience
The first goal for any PR campaign is to get the message out to the media. Simple, right? We'll explain how that's not targeted enough, and get into tips 2-5 after the jump.
Although it might be relatively easy to get a press release out to all of the media, the hard part is getting the info to the right media.
Newswise gives journalists the opportunity to filter the news they receive with more topic-specific focus. Health reporters can choose to receive only medical-based news, for example. This can serve a non-profit client’s goals in particular because these highly-focused media personnel are unencumbered by excess information in which they are not interested.
In any case, the advantage of using a newswire service is that at least some media are going to be interested in your non-profit client’s news. That includes broadcast and mainstream print media, all the way down to very specific regional outlets and trade publications.
Search Engine Optimization
Using a service to post news releases adds SEO effectiveness in several ways. First, newswire services like Newswise tend to achieve large amounts of daily traffic, and therefore are ranked well by the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. A press release posted to a newswire is likely to appear high in the search results for keywords related to your non-profit client’s content. Furthermore, any links you include in that press release tracking back to the non-profit client’s website should provide an uptick in their site’s ranking as well. Done effectively, this can have a lasting impact on the inbound traffic to your client’s content.
Pitching Experts
If your non-profit client has experts and spokespersons ready and willing to talk to the media, a newswire press release is a great way to promote them. Newswise even provides an "experts available" feed of stories, with the expert's contact info available only to verified, logged-in journalists.
For an effective expert pitch, Newswise recommends your press release should include the following:
• Who is the expert and why are they a credible authority in their field?
• Provide quotations and a brief description of the expert’s work on the topic.
• Describe the expert’s media experience and their availability for interviews.
An effective expert pitch can position your non-profit client to broadcast their message more directly to a wider audience.
Driving Action
A non-profit client often has some type of advocacy as part of their public relations goals. Whether that means something vague like influencing consumer behavior or something concrete like collecting donations, an effective press release can play an important part. This is probably the most obvious area where PR for a non-profit client is different than for corporate clients. A driving action might mean linking to an online donation form, persuading people to support a cause (sign a petition, call your congressperson), or even a creative bit of viral multimedia messaging (PETA’s vegetarianism PSA featuring a very sexy, and very naked Alicia Silverstone).
Whatever approach seems right for your non-profit client, do not neglect this crucial ingredient for success.
Monitor Effectiveness
Finally, no PR strategy is complete without a plan to monitor effectiveness. This can be done by setting up a Google News alert on keywords related to your non-profit client’s press release, by carefully tracking media clips, and through incoming requests from the media for more information.
Newswise offers several effectiveness reporting tools with different levels of membership, including hit reports on each press release, and online media clippings for an additional fee. A combination of several success monitors can be used to determine if a message is on-target or needs tweaking, and give predictions for long-term media impact of a release. Keeping the non-profit client’s goals in mind, effectiveness monitoring can help evaluate current and future public relations strategies.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Last Week's Site Issues Resolved
Last week, Newswise.com was experiencing some intermittent server issues, causing slow response times and long delays on pageloads. It was frustrating for all of us, including you, dear user.
After a lot of hard work and some expert diagnostics, the site is working at normal speed and the issues seem to be resolved.
Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work out the kinks. And thanks for using Newswise!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tamiflu Metabolite Measured in Japanese Sewage Discharge, River Water
Tamiflu Metabolite Measured in Japanese Sewage Discharge, River Water - This story, posted to Newswise on Monday, September 29, has attracted quite a lot of attention, particularly as the H1N1 flu virus continues to affect concerns about the upcoming flu season.
Tamiflu is arguably the most popular over-the-counter treatment, and is considered a viable option to at least speed up recovery if you've already come down with the flu. One potential complication, however, is that trace amounts of Tamiflu's active ingredient, oseltamivir carboxylate (OC), is now showing up in treated sewage and river water.
From the article:
"[I]n the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP), researchers measured oseltamivir carboxylate (OC), the active metabolite of the popular anti-influenza drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate), in samples of sewage discharge and river water collected near Kyoto City during Japan’s 2008–2009 flu season."
The results indicate the potential damage these trace amounts of OC could cause:
"...the peak drug concentrations observed in this study may be high enough to promote the emergence of drug-resistant influenza strains in waterfowl exposed to OC-contaminated waterways."
Researchers continue to examine the possibility of drug-resistant viruses, so watch Newswise for the results of those future studies. Follow our Feature News Channels on Drug-Resistant Superbugs and a Breaking News Channel on H1N1 Influenza. read the full article...
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Newswise Client Tutorials: Changes to the Contribution Form
Hello there, Journalists, Bloggers, Clients and friends of Newswise! As I wrote a few weeks ago, we've undergone many changes here at Newswise with the launch of our revamped website. With a lot of valuable user-feedback, we've made some improvements and we hope you're enjoying the new site.
For some additional info, I've asked my cohorts in Member Services to come up with some tips for our clients on how to navigate some of the new features on the article contribution form. Working together with my colleague, Andy Roy, we've put together this list of brief tutorials geared specifically toward our clients. If you are not a Newswise member and you have any questions about joining, you can reach us at info at newswise dot com, or use our contact form.
HTML tags: You are now allowed to use HTML tags when you contribute a release. This means you can apply styling such as bold and italics, for example. Perhaps most importantly, you can include tags to create a link in the body of your article. The HTML must be entered manually; simply copying and pasting from Word or other types of documents will cause the HTML formatting to be lost or corrupted. If you don't choose to put in the HTML to activate a url yourself, we will activate it for you as usual.
Tip: HTML code to create a link looks like this:
Save as Draft: If your release is awaiting approval or you just aren't ready to commit it to go live on our site, you may choose to save it as a draft and return to complete it later. You can access drafts through the "Manage Articles" link in the left-hand navigation bar, or in the "Tools" drop-down menu at the top.
Tip: Navigate to your "Manage Articles" page from either of these two locations:
Submit your article: Once you have finished your submission click the "Submit and View" button at the bottom of the page. This submits your article for review by Newswise staff, and it will bring you to a confirmation screen showing you a sample of what your release will look like. Keep in mind that some formatting will not be done on your release until Newswise editors review it; for example, your contact info will not yet appear in its usual place to the right of the article under "contact info".
Also, on the confirmation screen for your article, there is now a button labeled "Return to Edit", which takes you back to the article to make changes. If you do this right away, before Newswise editors have reviewed the story, your changes will be live immediately. However, if you edit the article after it has been reviewed by Newswise editors, your changes will create a replacement article. More info about replacements is explained next.
Editing a reviewed article (replacements): Once your article has been submitted, our editor will review it and release it at the time you specified. If you need to make edits after our editor has reviewed it, you will notice some html tags in your article
Tip: When you submit a replacement, it goes into a queue for Newswise editors to review the changes. In the meantime, you will not see your changes live on the article yet. Only after we review the replacement article will your changes overwrite the existing article.
Release Time: Our release times are now on a 12-hour clock, not 24, as it was before. Midnight is now 12AM instead of 00:00, and noon is 12PM instead of 12:00.
Embedding Images/Audio/Video: We've moved the "add image and multimedia" option to the bottom of the contribution form. To add images or multimedia such as audio and video, click the "Add Images and Multimedia" button, which will take you to a new screen. Follow the instructions to add image and multimedia files, captions and credits, and when you are done, select "Save as Multimedia" at the bottom.
Tip: Multimedia options are only available with certain levels of membership. If you have any questions about your options or wish to add multimedia to your membership, contact us at member@newswise.com
Tags (keywords): Tags should no longer be pasted in; they should be entered one tag at a time. You must then select your tag from the drop-down list. Adding appropriate tags will help your article appear in more searches on our site and on the web.
We hope these tips are helpful. If you have any additional questions or you are having trouble contributing a story, you can reach Andy at andy@newswise.com, or by phone at 434-296-9417. read the full article...
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Newswise 2.0 Website Update News
Welcome friends, fans, media types, researchers, science nerds, bloggers, journalists, and John Q. Publics; Welcome to Newswise 2.0.
As with any new web site launch, we've had a few bugs and hiccups. The new search tool doesn't accept special characters, for example. Also, some users running Internet Explorer 7 or earlier are having some issues with their login, and certain pages not displaying. We recommend using Mozilla Firefox, or at least upgrading to version 8 of Internet Explorer if you're having issues.
Some users have noticed that there's not currently a "printer-friendly" link on the article page view. If you wish to print an article, you can automatically print it in a printer-friendly format by just selecting file>print from the broswer's menu. Your print-out should be a single column of only the article body, and some users are finding that this seems to take up more pages than necessary. We're working on improving the printer-friendly format, and should have fix soon.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please use our Contact Form, and someone will respond to you as soon as possible.
Thanks for bearing with us as we go through this transition while we work on improving the Newswise 2.0 experience for you. Your support and patience is much appreciated.
All the best,
Thom and the rest of the Newswise Staff
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Study Reveals Major Genetic Differences Between Blood and Tissue Cells
Study Reveals Major Genetic Differences Between Blood and Tissue Cells
New research reveals there may be some critical variations in the DNA of blood versus tissue samples, particularly when it comes to researching and treating disease.
McGill University researchers in Montreal, while searching for a genetic cause for Abdominal Aortic Aneurisms (AAA), found that a gene found in tissue samples did not match perfectly with patients' blood DNA. It all came down to the BAK gene, a gene which controls cell death.
Dr. Bruce Gottlied explains: "In multi-factorial diseases other than cancer, usually we can only look at the blood. Traditionally when we have looked for genetic risk factors for, say, heart disease, we have assumed that the blood will tell us what's happening in the tissue. It now seems this is simply not the case.
"From a genetic perspective, therapeutic implications aside, the observation that not all cells are the same is extremely important. That's the bottom line," he added. "Genome-wide association studies were introduced with enormous hype several years ago, and people expected tremendous breakthroughs. They were going to draw blood samples from thousands or hundreds of thousands of individuals, and find the genes responsible for disease.
"Unfortunately, the reality of these studies has been very disappointing, and our discovery certainly could explain at least one of the reasons why."
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Newswise Blog Update
Exciting things on the horizon for Newswise! We've stepped up our presence in the social media, including several Twitter feeds, here, here, here, and here.
Coming soon - a whole new look to the Newswise website - with better navigation, search engine, sharing and recommending links, and eventually, a place for the blog on our domain!
If you are interested in getting a look at the new site while we beta test, please contact me at thom at newswise dot com.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Earth Perhaps Not Such a Benevolent Mother After All
Some refer to that idea as the Gaia hypothesis, named for the ancient Greek goddess of Earth. The Gaia hypothesis suggests that the planet behaves as a kind of giant organism, with its complex systems finely tuned to compensate when one system gets out of kilter.
But Peter Ward, a University of Washington paleontologist, says that it is the Gaia view that is out of kilter. Ward has looked closely at conditions that existed during numerous mass extinction events in Earth's history to draw the conclusion that the Earth maybe isn't such a hospitable, harmonious nurturing mother after all.
In a new book, he suggests the planet ultimately is inhospitable to life, and that life itself might be the primary reason. Rather than Gaia, he invokes the darker Medea from Greek mythology.
"The Medea hypothesis says life is already shutting down Earth as a habitable planet. Not just the diversity of life, but the actual biomass," Ward said. "Life keeps evolving, and there are unintended, often negative, consequences."
"The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?" was published in April by Princeton University Press. In the 208-page book, Ward argues that humans have to use engineering to manage their environment or face potential extinction if the Earth is left to manage itself.
"The engineering I'm talking about is not girders and sky shields. It's engineering microbes to take over food production and energy production," he said.
Microbes have undergone evolution, a sort of natural engineering, throughout Earth's history, he said, and humans have the ability to guide such changes to clean the environment, for example, or regulate carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Like Gaia, Medea is a mythological character, though she is decidedly much darker in nature. Medea was married to Jason at the time he pursued the Golden Fleece but, according to legend, he left her and in revenge she killed their two children.
Ward, a UW professor of biology and of Earth and space sciences, says numerous mass extinctions show that our planet behaves in somewhat the same way. For example:
**The evolution of oxygen-producing organisms twice plunged Earth into ice ages as carbon dioxide, crucial for photosynthesis, was stripped from the atmosphere.
**The evolution of the first true animals caused extinction of most stromatolites, layers of microbes living in sediment in the oceans' intertidal zones. The result was somewhat more complex life forms, but a vastly smaller volume of living matter.
**The evolution of the first forests 400 million years ago is considered one of the great events in Earth history. But tree roots pushed into subsurface rocks, exposing them to increased weathering. The weathered elements again stripped carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and plunged the Earth into a 90 million-year ice age.
"The irony is that we have way too much carbon dioxide right now, but we should stash it in a bank because we're going to need it," Ward said. "The end of life as we know it is when we reach just 10 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."
Currently, carbon dioxide is at 380 parts per million and rising, creating a greenhouse effect that most climate scientists say will greatly increase temperatures around the world, with some severe consequences. For example, with the melting of mountain and polar ice sheets, the world's most-productive agricultural land will be submerged and humans will struggle to find food, Ward said.
He noted that throughout Earth's history, carbon has been stripped from the atmosphere and stored in trees, rocks, even the oceans. He said those processes will continue until atmospheric carbon dioxide drops to 10 parts per million, a point at which no plants can live. Once plants are gone, within 20 million years the oxygen will plummet to 1 percent of the total atmosphere and life as we know it will end.
"Then you've gotten to a point where it will be forever impossible to get diversity of life back. It will be forever impossible to regain an oxygen-rich atmosphere. That's not Gaia. It's the opposite of Gaia," he said.
He notes that of 15 mass extinction events in Earth's history, only the one 65 million years ago that brought an end to the age of dinosaurs was likely caused by a comet or asteroid crashing into the planet's surface. The others all resulted from Earth's own processes.
"There's no Gaia. There's just this dumb, blind life. It tries out all kinds of new things that are good for new kinds of life but are detrimental to everything else that exists. The innovations lead to disaster," Ward said.
He added that, contrary to recently popular beliefs, the planet likely would not somehow "heal itself" if all humans were suddenly removed. Instead, he said, humans are the key to saving the planet and, in the end, are perhaps the only true Gaian force.
"We're not renting. We're the owners, but there can be a cost to the rest of nature of our ownership," Ward said. "There is an easy fix – the only fix is intelligence. Knowing that there is a problem is what will get us out of it. We're the only ones who can put our hands on the controls." read the full article...
Friday, May 15, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Your Brain On--and Off--Caffeine
Ever miss your daily cup of coffee and subsequently get a pounding headache? According to reports from consumers of coffee and other caffeinated products, caffeine withdrawal is often characterized by a headache, fatigue, feeling less alert, less energetic and experiencing difficulty concentrating. Researchers from the University of Vermont College of Medicine and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine sought to investigate the biological mechanisms of caffeine withdrawal in a paper published recently in the online edition of the scientific journal Psychopharmacology. They looked at brain electrical activity and blood flow during caffeine withdrawal to examine what was taking place physiologically during acute caffeine abstinence, including the likely mechanism underlying the common "caffeine withdrawal headache."
The group examined caffeine's effects in a double-blind study, which involved the administration of caffeine and placebo capsules. Each participant's response to the caffeine or placebo was measured using three different measures -- brain electrical activity via electroencephalogram (EEG); blood flow velocity in the brain via ultrasound; and participants' self-reports of subjective effects via questionnaires. The team demonstrated that stopping daily caffeine consumption produces changes in cerebral blood flow velocity and quantitative EEG that are likely related to the classic caffeine withdrawal symptoms of headache, drowsiness and decreased alertness. More specifically, acute caffeine abstinence increased brain blood flow, an effect that may account for commonly reported withdrawal headaches. Acute caffeine abstinence also produced changes in EEG (increased theta rhythm) that has previously been linked to the common withdrawal symptom of fatigue. Consistent with this, volunteers reported increases in measures of "tired," "fatigue," "sluggish" and "weary." Overall, these findings provide the most rigorous demonstration to date of physiological effects of caffeine withdrawal.
The researchers also discovered a provocative and somewhat unexpected finding -- that there were no net benefits associated with chronic caffeine administration.
"In addition to looking at caffeine withdrawal, this rigorous design also permitted comparison of chronic caffeine maintenance with chronic placebo maintenance, which provides unique information about the extent to which there are net beneficial effects of daily caffeine administration," said Stacey Sigmon, Ph.D., research associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont and first author on the study. "In contrast to what most of us coffee lovers would think, our study showed no difference between when the participant was maintained on chronic placebo and when the participant was stabilized on chronic caffeine administration. What this means is that consuming caffeine regularly does not appear to produce any net beneficial effects, based on the measures we examined."
Co-authors on the study, which was a collaboration between Sigmon and Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, include Griffiths, as well as Ronald Herning, Warren Better and Jean Cadet of the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Molecular Neuropsychiatry section.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Autism Linked to Being Firstborn, Breech or Moms 35 and Older Giving Birth
Children who are firstborn or breech or whose mothers are 35 or older when giving birth are at significantly greater risk for developing an autism spectrum disorder, University of Utah School of Medicine researchers have reported in a new study with Utah children.
In the April 27, 2009, online issue of the journal Pediatrics, the researchers showed that women who give birth at 35 or older are 1.7 times more likely to have a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), compared with women between the ages of 20-34. Children diagnosed with ASD also were nearly 1.8 times more likely to be the firstborn child, the researchers found.insert beginning span tag hereAlthough they didn't identify a causal relationship between breech births and autism, children diagnosed with the disorder were more than twice as likely to have been a breech presentation, meaning they were not born head first.
"The results of this study give us an opportunity to look more closely at these risk factors for children across the autism spectrum, and not only those diagnosed with autism," said first author Deborah A. Bilder, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry. "This shows that further investigation of the influence of prenatal factors is warranted."
Autism is a complex brain disorder that impairs social, communicative, and behavioral development and often is characterized by extreme behavior.
Bilder and her colleagues in the U medical school's department of psychiatry and the Utah Department of Health examined the birth records of Utah children who had been identified as having an autism spectrum disorder in a 2002 epidemiological study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That study looked at 8-year-old children in Utah's three most populous counties--Salt Lake, Davis, and Utah--and used nationally accepted criteria for an ASD classification. The researchers compared birth records for children identified with an ASD with unaffected children born in those three counties in 1994. Of that group, 196 were identified with an ASD. Birth certificates were available for 132 of those children, and the researchers examined those records for possible prenatal, perinatal, and neonatal risk factors related to ASD.
Their investigation showed that the mother's age when giving birth (older than 34), breech presentation, and being firstborn were significant risk factors for the development of an ASD. The researchers also identified a small but significant relationship between the increased duration of education among mothers of those children.
Further investigation would be needed to understand how these three risk factors may relate to ASD. But a possible explanation for the correlation of firstborn children might be that parents are reluctant to have a second child if the first is diagnosed with ASD. A possible interpretation of increased risk associated with advanced maternal age is that changes in genes occurring over time may contribute to autism spectrum disorders. The association found between breech presentation and ASD most likely indicates a shared cause, such as neuromuscular dysfunction. The vast majority of children born breech, however, are healthy.
This study follows several from the University in recent years, which found that Utah has one of the highest autism spectrum disorder rates in the country (one in 133 Utah children has the disorder), helped indentify a gene that may predispose people to autism, and showed that Utah adults with autism have a better quality of life than those in other studies.
For the next step in their research, Bilder and her colleagues want to repeat this study, using a larger population of Utah 8-year-olds from subsequent birth years, to see if it replicates the results of the current study. They also may study the subset of children with breech presentation to determine whether they haven a genetic vulnerability that put them at increased risk for developing an autism spectrum disorder.
The study's other authors are Judith P. Zimmerman, Ph.D., research assistant professor of psychiatry; Judith Miller, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry; and William M. McMahon, M.D., chairman of the Department of Psychiatry.
read the full article...Lack of Food Variety Puts Kids with Autism at Risk for Poor Nutrition
The strong preference kids with autism have for certain foods places them at risk for nutritional deficiencies because their diets lack sufficient variety, according to research presented at this year's Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Baltimore.
Researchers said screening children for the amount of variety of food in their diets may be a good clinical marker to predict which children might be at risk for nutrition problems. Kids with low food variety scores who are at risk could then be referred to dieticians or therapists to help them expand food choices and improve nutrition, said Michelle Zimmer, M.D., lead investigator and a pediatrician in the division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's.insert beginning span tag hereThe study is one of two presented by Dr. Zimmer and colleagues this year at PAS that deal with autism, the second one showing that the red blood cells of children with autism have low levels of a fatty acid linked to cognitive function. This finding, the researchers report, warrants further research into how the low fatty acid levels may trigger biochemical changes in the brain linked to autism.
The team found that levels of docosahexanoic acid and total omega-3 fatty acids were significantly lower in the red blood cells of autistic children than in normally developing children. Omega-3 fatty acids are nutritionally important substances considered vital to the normal development of children.
Evidence of abnormal fatty acid metabolism in children with autism runs counter to at least one previous study that suggested no difference between normally developing and autistic children. The different results between studies may be explained by the current research focusing on an older group of children, Dr. Zimmer said.
"The fatty acid docosahexanoic is linked to other mental health issues, and this raises questions about whether there are functional issues in neural cells involving a deficiency of essential fatty acids," said Dr. Zimmer. "The main point of the study is we cannot rule that fatty acids are part of the story of what is going on with kids who have autism."
Dr. Zimmer said its possible older children with autism have had more time to use up their bodies' stores of omega-3 fatty acids and are unable to replenish those stores. The 21 children with autism in this study were between the ages of 3 and 18 years, as were the 20 age-matched normally developing children and 10 if their siblings who served as control subjects.
The research team is conducting a larger study with more children to verify its PAS findings. Dr. Zimmer said another study is also under design to give essential omega-3 fatty acids, such as docosahexanonic acid, to children with autism to see what impact it has on brain chemistry and/or the disorder.
Increasing foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids in the diets of autistic children has been suggested by some researchers as potentially beneficial, Dr. Zimmer said. Although doing so would not have a negative impact on the children, until studies are conducted it isn't known what affect, if any, it might have, she added. Also, given the findings of the previous study on the lack of food variety among kids with autism, augmenting their diets could be challenging.
Most of the 19 autistic children in the food study had much lower food variety scores in their diets than typically developing children. A majority of the children with autism also suffered from nutritional deficiencies. The researchers concluded children with autism and low food variety scores are at risk for mild and serious nutritional deficiencies.
Researchers participating in studies were from the division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and division of Neurology at Cincinnati Children's. Researchers from the department of Pathology at the University of Cincinnati participated in the study on food variety.
The PAS meeting is the largest international meeting focused on research in child health. It is sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Pediatric Society, the Society for Pediatric Research, and the Ambulatory Pediatric Association.
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is one of America's top three children's hospitals for general pediatrics and is highly ranked for its expertise in digestive diseases, respiratory diseases, cancer, neonatal care, heart care and neurosurgery, according to the annual ranking of best children's hospitals by U.S. News & World Report. One of the three largest children's hospitals in the U.S., Cincinnati Children's is affiliated with the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and is one of the top two recipients of pediatric research grants from the National Institutes of Health. For its achievements in transforming healthcare, Cincinnati Children's is one of six U.S. hospitals since 2002 to be awarded the American Hospital Association-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize (r) for leadership and innovation in quality, safety and commitment to patient care. The hospital is a national and international referral center for complex cases, so that children with the most difficult-to-treat diseases and conditions receive the most advanced care leading to better outcomes. Additional information can be found at www.cincinnatichildrens.org.
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