America’s beekeepers have been having tough times, and scientists are moving on several fronts to help.
The greatest threat comes from two varieties of mite that prey on bees. They have become so widespread as to cause a shortage of bees needed to pollinate fruits and vegetables.
Some hope comes from a federal lab in Baton Rouge where scientists have found that Yugoslavian honeybees are resistant to the mites. Most domestic bees in America are of Italian origin. The scientists have been distributing Yugoslavian bees to selected breeders in hopes of introducing their mite resistance to the nation’s domestic strain.
On another front, researchers have found why the so-called killer bees that are now in southern Texas don’t lose their nasty characteristics through interbreeding with domestic bees.
Researchers at Arizona State University and the University of Florida have found that hybrids from matings between the African “killer” strain and mild-mannered European bees tend to have a slower metabolism than either of the parents.
The study, which appeared in the journal Science, suggests that even though the two strains may mate and produce hybrids, the hybrids are poor competitors. That may be why African killer bee populations released 30 years ago in Brazil continue to be mostly pure African bees today.
`JACKALOPE OF BIRDS’ FOUND IN ANTARCTICA
An entertainment popular in some taverns of rural America is to graft small antlers to the head of a stuffed jack rabbit and to call this creature a “jackalope.” The fun comes when visitors from urban parts ask locals about this animal.
While such trickery might not fool an expert, paleontologists are always on the lookout for odd combinations in the fossil record that point to evolutionary shifts. Purdue University researchers may have made such a discovery.
“We think we’ve found the jackalope of birds,” said Purdue’s Bill Zinsmeister. He and Argentine colleagues have found a fossil of what appears to be a creature about the size of a chicken with the body of a shore bird and the head of a duck. It was found in Antarctica and dates back 70 million years.
SMALL STUDY LINKS OVULATION AND APPETITE
Women who regularly eat more during certain times of the month may have a biological reason, ovulation.
A study of 12 women found that they burned 5 to 7 percent more calories between ovulation and menstruation than they did during and after menstruation.
Ovulation speeds up metabolism, thereby increasing the need for energy from food, said Juliette Howe of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Energy and Protein Nutrition Lab in Beltsville, Md.
MANY DOCTORS KNOW LITTLE ABOUT TREATING TB
Despite the worrisome increase in tuberculosis, many physicians treat the serious lung disease improperly, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A survey of more than 2,000 physicians who had treated TB patients found that 42 percent were unable to cite the official recommendations for treating TB patients and that 11 percent did not know that TB must be reported to local health departments.
“This study clearly indicates the need for improved dissemination of treatment recommendations to physicians, and for some method of ensuring that physicians know about recommended practices,” psychologist Esther Sumartojo reported at the annual American Lung Association meeting.
AIR BAGS SHOWN TO CUT DRIVER DEATHS BY 19%
If all cars and trucks had been equipped with driver and front-seat passenger air bags in 1990, there would have been 5,400 fewer crash deaths that year. As it was, 29,500 drivers and passengers died.
This estimate by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Va., is based on the latest studies showing that air bags cut the driver death rate by 19 percent. The death rate was reduced by 50 percent in big cars and 14 percent in small ones.
“This study shows that the long-awaited promise in lifesaving benefits of air bags is already a reality,” the Insurance Institute’s Paul Zador reported in the American Journal of Public Health.
DOCTOR LEARNS WHY COLDS GET WORSE BEFORE DAWN
Dr. Carl G.A. Persson of University Hospital in Lund, Sweden, has done research suggesting that people have a circadian rhythm in their inflammatory response to colds that makes their noses drippier in the morning than during the rest of the day.
Persson reported at the recent San Francisco meeting of the International Conference of the American Lung Association that in a study of 20 people, he found that proteins in their blood associated with inflammation peaked between 4 and 8 a.m.
“This means that in the common cold, the airway inflammatory process goes on largely during the late night and early morning hours,” Persson reported.
The findings could have implications for the best time to give cold sufferers anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve their symptoms.
TAKING A WALK CAN JOG THE MEMORY
Jogging one’s memory may actually be the way to go. Taking a brisk stroll around the block apparently helps older people to remember things, says a report in the May issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The study involved 20 nursing home patients whose recall ability was measured before and after 15 minutes of light exercise. The post-exercise sessions scored 20 percent higher than the pre-exercise tests.
SHORTCOMINGS FOUND IN NEW PROSTATE TEST
A study from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore suggests that much of the enthusiasm for a new prostate cancer test may be misplaced. Many doctors now test their patients for a chemical in their blood called prostate specific antigen (PSA) as a marker to see if they may have prostate cancer.
Addressing the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in San Antonio, Dr. Ballentine Carter reported on studies with 16 men who had PSA readings taken for 12 to 26 years before diagnosis of prostate cancer. The men also had been followed for 5 to 12 years after diagnosis.
Carter said the changes in PSA levels, which is what physicians watch to diagnose cancer, didn’t tell the doctors which patients had serious cancer likely to spread and which had slow-growing cancers.
“While the rate of change of PSA may reflect the growth of some prostate cancer,” Carter said, “such measurements before actual diagnosis of cancer do not appear to give an accurate prediction of the ultimate outcome of individual cases.”
A DISCOURAGING REPORT ON BREAST X-RAYS
Women urged by such groups as the American Cancer Society to have breast X-rays to detect cancer might be put off by a report in the Journal of the American Medical Associaton that outlines the uneven quality of such tests.
In the Journal’s news section, Teri Randall describes a Yale study that found that 10 experts disagreed as to whether the woman needed further testing for cancer on about one-third of the breast X-rays each viewed.
That was on average. The disagreement among the doctors varied widely. The most conservative radiologist said that only 16 percent of the X-rays he read were normal and the rest all had abnormalities requiring further tests.
At the other extreme was a radiologist who read the same X-rays and said that 61 percent were normal.
Five months later, the same radiologists were asked to examine the same X-rays and the Yale researchers found it was common for a doctor to reach a different conclusion about the same X-ray image he had seen before.
“The investigators found no correlation between the accuracy of the radiologists and the number of years of experience they had, number of mammogram results they read per year, percentage of time they spent reading mammogram results, whether they were in academic or private practice…,” the Journal report noted.
