"Beauty," goes the old saying, "is in the eye of the beholder." But does the beholder have to be human? (Credit: iStockphoto)

Not necessarily, say scientists at Tel Aviv University. Amit Kagian, an M.Sc. graduate from the TAU School of Computer Sciences, has successfully "taught" a computer how to interpret attractiveness in women. But there's a more serious dimension to this issue that reaches beyond mere vanity. The discovery is a step towards developing artificial intelligence in computers. Other applications for the software could be in plastic and reconstructive surgery and computer visualization programs such as face recognition technologies.

From Mathematics to Aesthetics

"Until now, computers have been taught how to identify basic facial characteristics, such as the difference between a woman and a man, and even to detect facial expressions," says Kagian. "But our software lets a computer make an aesthetic judgment. Linked to sentiments and abstract thought processes, humans can make a judgment, but they usually don't understand how they arrived at their conclusions."

In the first step of the study, 30 men and women were presented with 100 different faces of Caucasian women, roughly of the same age, and were asked to judge the beauty of each face. The subjects rated the images on a scale of 1 through 7 and did not explain why they chose certain scores. Kagian and his colleagues then went to the computer and processed and mapped the geometric shape of facial features mathematically.

Additional features such as face symmetry, smoothness of the skin and hair color were fed into the analysis as well. Based on human preferences, the machine "learned" the relation between facial features and attractiveness scores and was then put to the test on a fresh set of faces.

Says Kagian, "The computer produced impressive results -- its rankings were very similar to the rankings people gave." This is considered a remarkable achievement, believes Kagian, because it's as though the computer "learned" implicitly how to interpret beauty through processing previous data it had received.

Beauty is Golden

The notion that beauty can be boiled down to binary data and interpreted by a mathematical model is nothing new. More than 2,000 years ago the Greek mystic, philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras observed the connection between math, geometry and beauty. He reasoned that features of physical objects corresponding to the "golden ratio" were considered most attractive.

"I know that Plato connected the good to the beautiful," says Kagian. "Personally, I believe that some kind of universal correctness to beauty exists in nature, an aesthetic interpretation of the universal truth. But because each of us is trapped with our own human biases and personalized viewpoints, this may detract us from finding the ultimate formula to a complete understanding of beauty."

Kagian, who studied under the Adi Lautman multidisciplinary program for outstanding students at Tel Aviv University, says that a possible next step is to teach computers how to recognize "beauty" in men. This may be more difficult. Psychological research has shown that there is less agreement as to what defines "male beauty" among human subjects. And his own portrait, jokes Kagian, will not be part of the experiment.

"I would probably blow up the machine," he says.

Kagian published the findings in the scientific journal Vision Research. Co-authors on the work were Kagian's supervisors Prof. Eytan Ruppin and Prof. Gideon Dror.

Adapted from materials provided by Tel Aviv University.

Virtual peer Sam, designed to look around eight-years-old and is gender ambiguous, is projected on a large screen. A dollhouse with moveable furniture and figurines sits between the child with autism and Sam. Sam engages the child with autism in conversation and play while a researcher observes their interaction. (Credit: Northwestern University)

Justine Cassell, professor of communication studies and electrical engineering and computer science, recently presented a preliminary study on the work at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"Children with high-functioning autism may be able to give you a lecture on a topic of great interest to them but they can't carry on a 'contingent' -- or two-way -- conversation," said Cassell, director of Northwestern's Center for Technology and Social Behavior.

Cassell and researcher Andrea Tartaro collected data from six children with high-functioning autism aged 7 to 11 as they engaged in play during an hour-long session with a real-life child, and with a virtual peer named Sam.

In an analysis of those interactions, they found that children with autism produced more and more "contingent" sentences when they spoke with the virtual peer, while their sentences did not become increasingly contingent when they were paired with the real-life children.

"Certainly we're not saying that virtual peers make the best playmates for children with autism," said Tartaro. "The overall goal is for the children with autism to generalize the skills they learn in practice sessions with virtual peers to meaningful interactions with real-world children."

Nor are Northwestern researchers saying they can teach "contingency" -- appropriate back and forth conversation -- in a single session. But their findings hold promise that virtual peers can be useful in helping children with autism develop communication and social skills.

And virtual peers have some distinct advantages over real-life children when it comes to practicing social skills. For starters, children with autism often like technology. "It interacts to us," said one child with autism upon first meeting a virtual peer.

What's more, said Cassell, virtual peers don't get tired or impatient. "We can program their conversation to elicit socially-skilled behavior, and we can vary the way that they look and behave so children with autism are exposed to different kinds of behavior."

Cassell and Tartaro's study is part of larger efforts taking place in the Articulab, the Northwestern University laboratory where Cassell and colleagues explore how people communicate with and through technology.

In the Articulab, Cassell, who was trained as a psychologist and linguist, and Tartaro are teaming up with psychologist Miri Arie to develop assessment and intervention procedures that they hope will give them a better understanding of peer behaviors of children with autism.

A major challenge for children with autism is learning the rules of social behavior that typically developing children seem to learn intuitively.

"Although children's play appears spontaneous and wild, it follows certain basic social rules," said Arie. "We hope virtual peers like Sam will allow children with autism to practice the rules behind joining a game, holding a conversation and maintaining social interaction. Then they can apply their newly acquired skills to real-life situations."

Adapted from materials provided by Northwestern University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Renewable energy sources, such as wind, could help society reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. (Credit: Photo by Bob Henson Copyright UCAR)

The authors, from the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, and McGill University in Montreal, say the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has significantly underestimated the technological challenges of reducing CO₂ emissions. The study, "Dangerous Assumptions," concludes that the IPCC is overly optimistic in assuming that, even without action by policymakers, society will develop and implement new technologies to dramatically reduce the growth of future emissions.

"In the end, there is no question whether technological innovation is necessary--it is," write the authors in the Nature commentary. "The question is, to what degree should policy focus explicitly on motivating such innovation" The IPCC plays a risky game in assuming that spontaneous advances in technological innovation will carry most of the burden of achieving future emissions reductions, rather than focusing on those conditions that are necessary and sufficient for those innovations to occur."

Recent changes in "carbon intensity"--CO₂ emissions per unit of energy consumed--already are higher than those predicted by the IPCC because of rapid economic development, says lead author Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado. In Asia, for instance, the demands of more energy-intensive economies are being met with conventional fossil-fuel technologies, a process expected to continue there for decades and eventually move into Africa.

In estimating the emissions reductions required for CO₂ concentration stabilization, the IPCC divides future emissions changes into those that will occur spontaneously (such as in the absence of climate policies) and those that are policy driven. This division hides the full challenge associated with stabilizing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Nature commentary points out, for example, that to stabilize CO₂ levels at around 500 parts per million (compared to the present level of about 390 ppm), the IPCC scenarios assume that 57 to 96 percent of the total carbon removed from the energy supply over the coming century would occur spontaneously.

"According to the IPCC report, the majority of the emission reductions required to stabilize CO₂ concentrations are assumed to occur automatically," says Pielke. "Not only is this reduction unlikely to happen under current policies, but we are moving in the opposite direction right now. We believe these kinds of assumptions in the analysis blind us to reality and could potentially distort our ability to develop effective policies."

Stabilization of atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases was the primary objective of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change approved by almost all countries, including the United States, notes co-author Tom Wigley of NCAR.

"Stabilization is a more daunting challenge than many realize and requires a radical 'decarbonization' of energy systems," Wigley says. "Global energy demand is projected to grow rapidly, and these huge new demands must be met by largely carbon-neutral energy sources--sources that either do not use fossil fuels or that capture and store any emitted CO₂."

Unlike the IPCC assumptions of large future "spontaneous" technological innovations, the Nature commentary authors began with a set of "frozen technology" scenarios as baselines--scenarios in which energy technologies are assumed to stay at present levels.

"With a frozen technology approach, the full scope of the carbon-neutral technology challenge is placed into clear view," says co-author Christopher Green of McGill University.

"In the end, our message should be viewed optimistically rather than pessimistically," Pielke notes, "because it is only with a clear-eyed view of the mitigation challenge that we can ever hope to adopt effective policies. We hope that our analysis is one step toward such a clear-eyed view."

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research operates the National Center for Atmospheric Research under primary sponsorship by the National Science Foundation.

Adapted from materials provided by National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

Diabetes is not exclusively a man’s disease. Males and females of all ages can suffer from diabetes. Diabetes is not a disease that anyone can afford to ignore. It will not go away, and while it can be treated, it cannot be cured.

There are two types of diabetes. Type 1, or diabetes mellitus, is insulin-dependent diabetes and is frequently called ‘juvenile diabetes’ because it occurs at a young age and is usually caused by a viral attack on the body. Most experts believe that the body’s immune system is already weak when this occurs. The result is the destruction of beta cells in the pancreas. The pancreas is no longer able to manufacture insulin. Without insulin the body is unable to utilize glucose, the main food source for the body.

Type 2 diabetes is non-insulin dependent diabetes and often occurs in older individuals with a family history of diabetes. Type 2 is different from Type 1 in that the pancreas does produce insulin, but for reasons not fully understood the insulin is not effective. Some of the common symptoms are poor vision, fatigue, and unusual thirst, frequent urination, slow healing of wounds and tingling or numbness in the feet. Type 2 diabetes has been linked to poor diets.

The National Institute of Health says that there are twenty to twenty-five million people with diabetes related problems. As many as five million people have undetected Type II diabetes. Diabetes can be diagnosed with a simple urine test.

Whether Type 1 or Type 2, the resulting high glucose level in the blood causes the blood to become thick or ‘sticky’ and this causes blood clots or thrombosis that damage blood vessels. Individuals who suffer from diabetes are at higher risk for kidney disease, arteriosclerosis, blindness, heart disease, nerve diseases, and are at greater risk for infections than the general population.

Because diabetes can cause problems related to the nerves and blood vessels it can cause neuropathy, a condition which causes nerve damage throughout the body. Erectile dysfunction, as a result of neuropathy is common in more than half of men who have been diagnosed with diabetes. Nerve damage does not allow proper communication to achieve an erection, and narrow blood vessel damage does not allow healthy circulation of blood in and out of the penis. The emotional response to engage in intercourse is there, but nerve damage and blood vessel constriction do not allow the proper physical response. This type of problem, diabetes related erectile dysfunction, does not respond as well to drugs such as Viagra as non diabetes related erectile dysfunction.

A diabetic male who is experiencing erectile dysfunction should speak to his health professional. This will determine if the problem is entirely related to diabetes.

Other ways to help with the diabetes related problems include:

• Controlling blood sugar
• Avoid all forms of tobacco
• Reduce or avoid alcohol consumption
• Seek treatment for cardiovascular risk
• Seek counseling if diabetes and erectile dysfunction are causing depression

Diabetes, if neglected, can lead to serious health issues besides erectile dysfunction. Proper diet and a healthy lifestyle can greatly reduce the consequences of diabetes and if treatment is started early and is persistent, the risk of erectile dysfunction and other health problems will be greatly reduced. If you believe you have symptoms of diabetes see your health care professional immediately.

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Changing dendritic spines on a neuron -- evidence of brain rewiring. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Rochester Medical Center)

The work ties together several research threads that touch upon the health benefits of exercise. While those benefits are broadly recognized, how the gains accrue at a molecular level has been largely unknown. The new research gives scientists a way to produce changes in the brain that mirror those brought about by exercise, by reducing the effect of the nogo receptor.

The find comes as a surprise, because for much of the last decade, the nogo receptor has been a prime target of researchers trying to coax nerves in the spinal cord to grow again. They named the protein after its ability to stop neurons from growing. Its action in the brain has not been a hot topic of study.

The find by neuroscientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center casts the nogo receptor in a new light. Instead of serving as a target for efforts at regrowing spinal nerve fibers -- indeed, the Rochester team showed last year that the molecule doesn't control that process -- the molecule suddenly has much broader implications for learning and memory.

"One of the central questions in neuroscience is -- what is the molecular and cellular basis of learning?" said Roman Giger, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Genetics, who led the study. "The nogo receptor seems to play a role."

The receptor is a promiscuous molecule that hooks up with several other molecules which prevent the growth of neurons in the spinal cord. For most of this decade, scientists have worked to target the molecule, thinking that if they could block it, they could possibly regenerate nerves, repairing spinal cord damage in a way that is impossible today.

But that road has proved difficult. Last year in the same journal, the Rochester team led by Giger showed that while the nogo receptor does play a role in preventing spinal nerves from growing, it does not control the process outright. While nogo receptor activation can transiently stunt the growth of neurons, it is not required for chronic outgrowth inhibition of injured nerve cells.

Giger's team has found that in some areas of the brain, such as the hippocampus, the nogo receptor is at least 10 times more prevalent than in the spinal cord.

In the brain, Giger's team found that the nogo receptor wields broad influence over a process known as neuroplasticity, which describes how our brain cells change and adapt constantly to meet our needs. It can be thought of simply as the brain's ability to rewire itself on the fly to meet the demands of an organism. The process explains why people are able to recover many of their abilities even after a traumatic brain injury or a stroke: Other brain cells pick up the work for the ones that have died.

Giger's team found that the nogo receptor plays an important role in changing the brain in two ways.

First, the molecule plays a completely unexpected role manipulating the strength of signals between brain cells in the synapses. A team led by Peter Shrager, Ph.D., professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy, made sophisticated measurements of the strengths of the signals as they passed from cell to cell in mice. They found that mutant mice with fewer nogo receptors than normal had stronger brain signaling, what scientists call "long-term potentiation.

The molecule also affected tiny structures known as dendritic spines, crucial connections that are extensions of the neuron and help cells "talk" to other cells. Mice with lots of the nogo receptor had a different mix of dendritic spines than normal mice. In the hippocampus, the mutant mice had fewer mushroom-shaped dendritic spines and more stubby and thin spines than the other mice. Scientists don't yet know the ramifications of the change, but they say it's firm evidence that the nogo receptor has effects on the anatomic structure of the brain. Creation and removal of dendritic spines is an important form of brain rewiring.

The team attributes much of the effects of the nogo receptor to its ability to strongly bind to a growth factor known as FGF2 (fibroblast growth factor 2), which in the brain and other parts of the central nervous system nourishes neurons, allowing them to branch out and grow new sprouts. When the nogo receptor is present in abundance, it binds to FGF2 molecules, and as a result neurons no longer branch and sprout as they otherwise would.

Altogether, the findings show that the nogo receptor has a broad impact on processes in the brain that underlie learning and memory, said Giger.

"It's known that changes in synaptic strength can lead to rewiring of the nervous system in such a way that we can compensate for mild to moderate injuries," said Giger, who is a scientist in the Center for Neural Development and Disease. "Enhancing synaptic plasticity can partially counter the effects of an injury like stroke, or traumatic brain injury. Really, the process happens routinely in many stroke patients -- it's what makes rehabilitation after stroke possible."

Much of the same type of rewiring also happens as a result of exercise. Scientists have shown that exercise improves the brain's neuroplasticity, boosting the brain's ability to sprout new structures and send crisp signals, which in turn helps people recover from injuries to the central nervous system. And recently, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm showed that exercise reduces the abundance of the nogo receptor in the brain. Giger's work provides a molecular framework that brings the disparate findings together.

The findings could also explain something that has puzzled scientists, said Giger. Mice with damaged spinal cords that have been treated with compounds designed to knock out the nogo receptor seem to improve a bit, even though scientists have never been able to demonstrate nerve regrowth in those mice. It may be that their improvement instead is coming through the signal-boosting effect in the synapses.

While it's tempting to think that knocking down the nogo receptor is a simple process that would help people under all circumstances by boosting their brain power, Giger points out that the molecule is not only found at synapses but also along axons, where scientists believe it plays an important role limiting the sprouting of nerve fibers. Any effort to reduce the nogo receptor will have to be studied thoroughly to watch for other effects.

The findings are in the March 12 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. While Giger headed the project, much of the research was done in equal part by the two first authors, Research Assistant Professor Hakjoo Lee, Ph.D., and graduate student Stephen Raiker. Other authors include former graduate student Karthik Venkatesh, Ph.D., now at the University of Michigan; former Professor Hermes Yeh, Ph.D., now at Dartmouth; technician Rebecca Geary; graduate student Laurie Robak; and Yu Zhang, Ph.D., now a research assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery.

The work was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the New York State Spinal Cord Injury Research Program, and the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Research Medical Foundation's Adelson Program in Neural Repair and Rehabilitation.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Rochester Medical Center.

Age on the brain. An experimental drug, S18986, seems to counteract numerous symptoms of aging in rats. Animals given the drug daily for four months were active, with better memories and less inflammation in their brains. Dopamine-producing neurons in the forebrain of an 18-month-old drugged rat (top) are far more active than those in a normal rat of the same age. (Credit: Image courtesy of Rockefeller University)

The drug, temporarily designated S18986, interacts with AMPA (short for α- Amino-3-hydroxy-5- methylisoxazole-4- propionic acid, or ampakine) receptors in the brain. These receptors transmit excitatory signals in the brain, and

researchers were interested in experimental AMPA-receptor drugs (such as S18986) for their neuroprotective abilities and for the way they temporarily boost memory. But rather than investigating the compound’s short-term effects, Alfred E. Mirsky Professor Bruce McEwen and his lab members made a far longer commitment: The scientists studied the drug’s impacts on middle-aged to elderly rats and found that, when administered daily over four consecutive months, it appeared to improve memory and slow brain aging.

“Nobody had ever looked at the long-term effects of these ampakines on the aging brain,” says McEwen, head of Rockefeller’s Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology. Short-term studies, he notes, had shown that the drug appears to improve aspects of memory, likely by temporarily ramping up AMPA receptors in the hippocampus — the brain’s memory and learning center. But McEwen, research assistant Erik Bloss and postdocs Elizabeth Waters and Richard Hunter found that, over the course of four months, S18986 changed the entire profile of the older rodents’ brains.

When compared to control animals that had received only sugar water, the drugged rats were not only more active and better at memory tests, but their brains showed physical signs of slowed aging. Neurons in the forebrain that produce acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter known to play a role in learning and memory, had 37 percent less decline. Dopamine-producing neurons, which are responsible for sustaining activity and motivation levels, slowed their decline by 43 percent. Levels of inflammation in the brain were also significantly lower. “Every marker we chose to look at seemed to indicate there was some preservation of function during aging with chronic treatment,” Hunter says. The drug appears to slow aging’s effects throughout the entire brain.

Dopamine is a motivation- and movement-related neurotransmitter in the brain, and its presence is necessary for maintaining normal activity levels — it’s the chemical that helps you get up off the couch and socialize or exercise. A severe loss of dopamine production causes Parkinson’s disease, “so this drug has the potential, perhaps, to block the progression of the disease,” Hunter says.

Not only that, but it could be helpful for much less severe conditions, too. As people age, it’s often harder for them to feel motivated to socialize or even eat, leading to depression and making latent conditions worse. “So maybe this drug isn’t going to be the one that prevents Parkinson’s,” Waters says, “but maybe it’s going to improve the quality of life as you age, so that up until the very end of your life you can sustain that quality and sustain a higher activity level.”

With such a variety of impacts on neurotransmitters, S18986 holds enormous potential. But so far, it’s only potential. The researchers hope to dig deeper to find out precisely how the drug works. “There’s a lot to be done,” Hunter says, “and this shows that there’s broad potential for these compounds.”

Reference: Experimental Neurology 210(1):109–117 (March, 2008)

Adapted from materials provided by Rockefeller University.

Each human nose encounters hundreds of thousands of scents in its daily travels perched front and center on our face. Some of these smells are nearly identical, so how do we learn to tell the critical ones apart? Something bad has to happen. Then the nose becomes a very quick learner. (Credit: iStockphoto/Stacey Newman)

Something bad has to happen. Then the nose becomes a very quick learner.

New research from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine shows a single negative experience linked to an odor rapidly teaches us to identify that odor and discriminate it from similar ones.

"It's evolutionary," said Wen Li, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at the Feinberg School. "This helps us to have a very sensitive ability to detect something that is important to our survival from an ocean of environmental information. It warns us that it's dangerous and we have to pay attention to it."

In the study, subjects were exposed to a pair of grassy smells which were nearly identical in their chemical makeup and perceptually indistinguishable. The subjects received an electrical shock when they were exposed to one scent, but not when they were exposed to the other similar one.

After being shocked, the subjects learned to discriminate between the two similar smells. This illustrates the tremendous power of the human sense of smell to learn from emotional experience. Odors that once were impossible to tell apart became easy to identify when followed by an aversive event.

Li and her colleagues also found specific changes in how odor information is stored in "primitive" olfactory regions of the brain, enhancing perceptual sensitivity for smells that have a high biological relevance.

The study will be published March 28 in the journal Science.

Motorcyclist with safety helmet. The motorcyclist fatality rate has increased in states that repealed their universal helmet laws during the past decade. (Credit: iStockphoto/Joshua Blake)

Lilliard Richardson, professor in the MU Truman School of Public Affairs, and David J. Houston, associate professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, compared the changes in helmet laws across all 50 states and the District of Columbia from 1975 through 2004. In states where repeals of universal coverage were instituted, the fatality rate increased an average of 12.2 percent. Conversely, in states with universal helmet laws, the fatality rate was 11.1 percent lower than in states with no helmet mandates.

“Previous studies have been limited to certain states and fail to distinguish the states with partial coverage from those with no legislation,” Richardson said. “Our focus was not limited to a single state or a single change. We looked at effects in states that went from universal helmet laws to partial laws and states that went from partial laws to no laws, and states which kept their laws in place. We highlighted repeals of laws in six states by using separate variables to distinguish the effects of universal and partial coverage. We included controls for temperature, precipitation, per capita alcohol consumption, income, age, population density and other traffic safety policies.”

Experts have estimated that an additional 615 motorcyclist fatalities occurred in the six states that repealed motorcycle helmet laws from 1997 to 2004, Richardson said. The researchers also found that fatality numbers in states with partial laws were not statistically different from those with no helmet laws.

“The federal government has pressured states to adopt universal helmet laws, but the trend has been toward more state control of helmet laws,” Richardson said. “The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration promotes the effectiveness of helmet laws for getting motorcyclists to wear helmets, but there is no strategy for encouraging states to maintain or adopt universal coverage laws. This does not bode well for the future of universal helmet laws and motorcycle safety in the United States.”

Currently, several states are considering modifying their helmet laws.

“Advocates in many states are pushing to repeal state universal helmet laws or impose partial mandates that require only young riders to wear helmets,” Richardson said. “Many assume that wearing

helmets becomes a habit for riders like wearing a seatbelt is for drivers and that having a law in place isn’t necessary. This is a misconception. When laws aren’t in place and enforced, the evidence shows that a majority of riders do not wear helmets.”

The study, “Motorcycle Safety and the Repeal of Universal Helmet Laws,” was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Missouri-Columbia.

Couple in Hawaii. Satisfactory sexual intercourse for couples lasts from 3 to 13 minutes, contrary to popular fantasy about the need for hours of sexual activity, according to a survey of U.S. and Canadian sex therapists. (Credit: iStockphoto/Justin Horrocks)

Penn State Erie researchers Eric Corty and Jenay Guardiani conducted a survey of 50 full members of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research, which include psychologists, physicians, social workers, marriage/family therapists and nurses who have collectively seen thousands of patients over several decades.

Thirty-four, or 68 percent, of the group responded and rated a range of time amounts for sexual intercourse, from penetration of the vagina by the penis until ejaculation, that they considered adequate, desirable, too short and too long.

The average therapists' responses defined the ranges of intercourse activity times: "adequate," from 3-7 minutes; "desirable," from 7-13 minutes; "too short" from 1-2 minutes; and "too long" from 10-30 minutes.

"A man's or woman's interpretation of his or her sexual functioning as well as the partner's relies on personal beliefs developed in part from society's messages, formal and informal," the researchers said. ""Unfortunately, today's popular culture has reinforced stereotypes about sexual activity. Many men and women seem to believe the fantasy model of large penises, rock-hard erections and all-night-long intercourse. "

Past research has found that a large percentage of men and women, who responded, wanted sex to last 30 minutes or longer.

"This seems a situation ripe for disappointment and dissatisfaction," said lead author Eric Corty, associate professor of psychology. "With this survey, we hope to dispel such fantasies and encourage men and women with realistic data about acceptable sexual intercourse, thus preventing sexual disappointments and dysfunctions."

Corty and Guardiani, then-undergraduate student and now a University graduate, are publishing their findings in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, but the article is currently available online.

The survey's research also has implications for treatment of people with existing sexual problems.

"If a patient is concerned about how long intercourse should last, these data can help shift the patient away from a concern about physical disorders and to be initially treated with counseling, instead of medicine," Corty noted.

Adapted from materials provided by Penn State.

New research suggests that a woman's waistline may have less to do with rigorous exercise and abstaining from sweets than it does with the genes of her parents. (Credit: iStockphoto/Alexander Novikov)

A woman's waistline may have less to do with rigorous exercise and abstaining from sweets than it does with the genes of her parents, according to a new study by Prof. Gregory Livshits from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and colleagues from King's College in London. Dr. Livshits and his colleagues have found a scientific link between the lean body mass of a woman and her genes. They've determined that thinness -- like your smile or the color of your eyes -- is an inheritable trait.

Bad News First, Then the Good

Prof. Livshits, whose findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (2007), says, "The bad news is that many of our physical features, including our weight, are dependent on our genes. The good news is that women still have an opportunity to go against their genetic constitution and do something about it."

Until now, scientists were not sure to what extent environmental influences and genetics played a role in a woman's body size. When controlling for the variance of age, the differences in womens' body sizes can be predicted in the genes more than 50 percent of the time, the researchers found.

Prof. Livshits conducted his study on more than 3,000 middle-aged women in the United Kingdom who belonged to either an identical or fraternal twin pair. He measured their "total lean mass," one of the three major components of body weight, and compared it to markers in their genes.

A Slim Chance?

Additional collaborative research between the two teams, which builds on the past study, is to be published in the next few months. It may help pave the way for a "skinny gene test," which one day may help women trying to lose weight understand what kind of battle they can expect.

Those without the lean genes, however, will always find it harder to stay slim, predicts Prof. Livshits. But before your diet falls by the wayside, consider Prof. Livshits' contention that genetics can be overcome.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

It's important to not have high expectations, he warns. "Women need to know that what they can do about their body weight -- especially when they age -- is relatively little, and they will do it only with much difficulty."

Very few studies to date have been able to associate a body's lean mass with genetics. The topic is a specialty at the Tel Aviv University lab, one of the top labs in the world to study the genetics of aging of body composition. This area includes the study of bone, fat and lean mass as it develops in a person over time.

Research on body composition components -- their growth, degradation and genes -- is part of Prof. Livshits' ongoing work on aging and health. Issues such as weight gain are complex, he says, especially when age is factored in.

So don't get too jealous of your friend's dress size. It may be mostly out of your hands -- and in your DNA.

Adapted from materials provided by Tel Aviv University.

Image of a solar tsunami as it raced across the Sun at millions of kilometers per hour. (Credit: University of Dublin)

Solar tsunamis are launched by huge explosions near the Sun's atmosphere, called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Although solar tsunamis share much in common with tsunamis on Earth, the solar version can travel at over a million kilometers per hour.

The tsunami took place on 19th May 2007 and lasted for about 35 minutes, reaching peak speeds around 20 minutes after the initial blast. The observations were made by a team from Trinity College Dublin.

The discovery was presented by David Long at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast on April 2. “The energy released in these explosions is phenomenal, about two billion times the annual world energy consumption in just a fraction of a second. In half an hour, we saw the tsunami cover almost the full disc of the Sun, nearly a million kilometres away from the epicentre,” said Long.

STEREO’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUVI) instruments monitor the Sun at four wavelengths which correspond to temperatures ranging between 60 000 and 2 million degrees Celsius. At the lowest of these temperatures, scientists can see structures in the chromosphere, a thin layer of the solar atmosphere that lies just above the Sun’s visible surface. At temperatures between 1 and 2 million degrees Celsius, scientist can monitor features at varying levels in the solar corona.

The SOHO spacecraft, which was launched in 1995, also monitors the Sun at these wavelengths but only took images four times per day, giving scientists rare snapshots of these tsunamis. STEREO’s EUVI instruments take an image every few minutes to create a series, making it possible for scientists to track how the wave spreads over time.

This is the first time that a tsunami has been observed at all four wavelengths, which enabled the team to see how the wave moved through the different layers of the solar atmosphere.

“To our surprise, the tsunami seems to move with similar speed and acceleration through all the layers. As the chromosphere is much denser than the corona, we’d expect the pulse there to drag. It’s a real puzzle,” said Dr Peter Gallagher.

To complicate matters, the interval between images is not the same for all four cameras. At the time of the tsunami, the cameras monitoring radiation at 1 million degrees Celsius were set to take an image every 2.5 minutes. They recorded much higher speeds and accelerations for the wave than the other cameras, which were on 10 or 20 minute cycles. By taking a sample of one image in four, the data from these cameras matched the lower values observed in the other layers.

“We’ve thought for some time that the tsunamis might be caused by magnetic shockwaves but, in previous snapshots, the waves appeared to be travelling too slowly. However, we’ve seen from this set of observations that if the time interval between images is too long, it’s easy to underestimate the speed that the waves are moving. With a few more rapid-sequence observations of solar tsunamis, we should finally be able to identify the cause of these waves,” said Gallagher.

Adapted from materials provided by Royal Astronomical Society.

House flies can have a role in spreading Salmonellato poultry. (Credit: Photo by Stephen Ausmus)

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) microbiologist Peter S. Holt and entomologist Christopher J. Geden found that the common housefly, Musca domestica, readily picks up bacteria from its surroundings. When the chickens eat the flies, the bacteria get inside the birds. Holt works in the Egg Safety and Quality Research Unit at the ARS Richard B. Russell Research Center in Athens, Ga., while Geden is at the ARS Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology in Gainesville, Fla.

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.

In three experiments, Holt placed chickens in individual, adjacent laying cages. Geden delivered fly pupae just 48 hours short of hatching as flies; this timing ensures the flies aren't exposed to any microbe prior to emergence. The fly pupae were placed in an open box in the bird room. Three days later, hens were orally infected with Salmonella.

The researchers detected the bacteria in and on 45 to 50 percent of the flies within the first 48 hours of the flies' hatching.

Next, uninfected hens were exposed to the newly infected flies. Just being around the flies didn't cause healthy birds to become infected, but eating infected flies did. This showed that simple physical contact may not be the primary method of transfer of Salmonella bacteria to different surfaces in a poultry house. But, according to the researchers, a hen's eating of contaminated flies does seem to be the primary mechanism of transmission of Salmonella from flies to birds.

According to Holt, this shows that flies in poultry houses are not only a nuisance, but also a threat to the safety of poultry products.

Adapted from materials provided by US Department of Agriculture.

Hand X-Ray. (Credit: Image courtesy of American Association of Neurological Surgeons)

An estimated 260,000 carpal tunnel surgeries are performed annually in the United States, and of those, more than 35,000 were performed in 2006 by neurosurgeons, according to AANS statistics. A neurosurgeon’s primary role in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome is diagnosis, interpretation of test results, and when necessary, surgery. There are frequently other medical professionals involved in the treatment process, such as physical therapists.

Carpal tunnel syndrome most often occurs when the median nerve in the wrist becomes inflamed, caused by a combination of thickened ligaments over the nerve and repetitive movements. “Carpal tunnel syndrome is most prevalent in women ages 40 to 60, and also tends to affect people more frequently who use their hands excessively, such as pianists, concert violinists, hairdressers, computer operators, manual laborers, artists, sculptors, dentists, and even neurosurgeons,” says James R. Bean, MD, AANS president-elect.

Any repetitive motions that cause significant swelling, thickening or irritation of membranes around the tendons in the carpal tunnel can result in pressure on the median nerve, disrupting transmission of sensations from the hand up to the arm and to the central nervous system.

Diseases or conditions that may increase your chances of developing carpal tunnel syndrome include pregnancy, diabetes, menopause, broken or dislocated bones in the wrist, and obesity. Additional causes include repetitive and forceful grasping with the hands, bending of the wrist, and arthritis.

It is important to seek medical advice when you first notice persistent symptoms. Do not wait for your pain to become intolerable. Before your doctor can recommend a course of treatment, he or she will perform a thorough evaluation, including a medical history, physical examination and diagnostic tests. Your doctor will ask about the extent to which your symptoms affect daily living. Sometimes a case turns out to be tendonitis and not carpal tunnel, but only a doctor can make a proper diagnosis.

The main purpose of conservative treatment is to reduce or eliminate repetitive injury to the median nerve. In some cases, carpal tunnel syndrome can be treated by immobilizing the wrist in a splint to minimize or stop pressure on the nerves. If that does not work, patients are sometimes prescribed anti-inflammatory medications or cortisone injections in the wrist to reduce swelling. Your doctor may suggest specific types of hand and wrist exercises, which may be helpful. Treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome may include rest, the use of a wrist splint during sleep, or physical therapy. Conservative treatment methods may continue for up to eight weeks.

If conservative treatment methods do not provide sufficient relief, your doctor may perform diagnostic studies to determine if surgery is an effective option. These diagnostic tests include x-rays and electromyogram and nerve conduction studies. X-rays can help determine if any abnormalities in bones of the wrist may be contributing factors. Electromyogram and nerve conduction studies can reveal significant compression on the median nerve in the carpal tunnel.

If patients suffer from severe pain that cannot be relieved through rest, rehabilitation or nonsurgical treatment, there are several surgical procedures that can be performed to relieve pressure on the median nerve. The most common procedure is called a carpal tunnel release, which can be performed using an open incision or with endoscopic techniques. The open incision procedure or carpal tunnel release, involves the neurosurgeon making an incision in the wrist or palm and then releasing the ligament that is compressing and placing pressure on the median nerve. The endoscopic carpal tunnel release procedure involves making a smaller incision and using a miniaturized camera to assist the neurosurgeon in viewing the carpal tunnel.

Risks of carpal tunnel surgery are minimal. The majority of individuals recover completely. “The results of surgery are usually excellent, with most patients receiving nearly full relief of their symptoms. The earlier you get diagnosis and treatment, generally the better the outcome,” states Dr. Bean.

Adapted from materials provided by American Association of Neurological Surgeons, via Newswise.

Polyketide (Tetracycline) (Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Irvine)

For the first time, scientists at UC Irvine have discovered how polyketides form their ringlike shape, making it easier for chemists to manipulate them into new drugs.

The key, they found, is an enzyme called aromatase/cyclase, which forms a C-shape mold in which polyketides can form one molecule at a time. By changing this mold, chemists can control the size and shape of the polyketide, resulting in the formation of new drugs.

“Almost every polyketide has rings in its chemical structure, and if we can control ring formation, we can produce more polyketide drugs,” said Sheryl Tsai, lead author of this study and an assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry and chemistry at UCI. “Until now, polyketide ring formation was a mystery that hampered our efforts to produce new drugs.”

Polyketide-based drugs and products account for more than $35 billion in sales annually. They include antibiotics that can cure a bacteria infection (tetracycline and erythromycin); anti-cancer drugs used in chemotherapy (doxorubicin and mithramycin); anti-oxidants that help prevent cancer and promote heart strength (EGCG and resverastrol); and drugs that lower cholesterol levels (Zocor). Green tea and red wine also contain beneficial polyketides.

Polyketides are made naturally by bacteria, fungi, plants and marine animals. Those organisms produce polyketides to kill their predators, be it another bacteria or fungi. They can produce different types of polyketides that kill different types of enemies.

“Because bacteria do not have arthritis or diabetes, they would not evolutionally select polyketides that could be used for arthritis or diabetes treatment,” Tsai said. “But we can coax the bacteria to do precisely that, if we can control the ring formation in the polyketides.”

Prior to this study, it was not known how nature controls the polyketide ring shape, which is essential for antibiotic and anti-cancer properties.

By using molecular cloning and chemical biology techniques, Tsai and her scientific team discovered that the aromatase/cyclase enzyme has a pocket that shapes the polyketide, promoting a unique ring pattern.

Said Tsai: “We hope this will lead to the development of new drugs in such areas as cancer therapeutics, obesity treatment and stem cell research.”

The research appears online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. UCI scientists Brian Ames, Tyler Korman, Peter Smith, Thanh Vu, along with UCLA researchers Yi Tang and Wenjun Zhang, also worked on this study, which was funded by the Pew Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Adapted from materials provided by University of California - Irvine.

Panoramic shot of the SPT site. (Credit: Photo by Steffen Richter)

Frigid and bone-dry, with six straight months of night each year, the South Pole is a forbidding place to live or work. But for largely the same reasons, it’s one of the best spots on the planet for surveying the faint cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation left over from the Big Bang. The 10-meter microwave South Pole Telescope (SPT), which began operating in February 2007, is studying the CMB to gather clues about the birth, evolution and eventual fate of the universe.

The SPT project, led by researchers at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, aims to help solve one cosmological mystery in particular – that of dark energy. Little is known about this force, other than that it works against gravity and appears to have sped up the expansion of the universe. Unlike energy as we know it (and measure it), dark energy does not seem to act through any of the fundamental forces of nature other than gravity.

It can’t be detected directly, for instance, through light or other manifestations of the electromagnetic force. The evidence for dark energy is indirect. Its existence was first posited in 1998 by scientists seeking to explain unexpected data from distant supernovae. Since then, research using the Hubble Space Telescope and other instruments has traced the impact of dark energy to about nine billion years ago, when the universe was five billion years old and galaxies started flying away from one another at a faster pace.

Understand the Past; Predicting the Future

From studying the CMB and what it tells them about the geometry of the universe, scientists estimate that dark energy makes up 70% to 75% of the universe’s entire mass and energy combined. This is about three times as much as dark matter, which cannot be detected by light or other electromagnetic radiation but exerts a powerful gravitational pull on galaxies. Only about 4% of the cosmos is ordinary matter, the stuff we are made of and the stuff we can see.

So whatever dark energy is, its effect is stronger than anything else on large scales. It also may determine the future of the universe. It might gain strength and end the universe by pulling all matter apart – even atomic nuclei (cosmologists call this the “big rip”). Or it might weaken and allow gravity to re-pack the universe, in a so-called “big crunch,” resulting in something like the infinitely dense condition at the point of the Big Bang. Or perhaps it will simply let the current expansion continue until most stars and galaxies are too distant to be seen.

What can the SPT tell us about the past and future of dark energy? John E. Carlstrom, director of KICP and the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, says the telescope is examining clusters of galaxies to learn what role dark energy played in their evolution. “One of the important things we need to learn about dark energy is what influence it has had on structure,” Carlstrom says. If scientists can learn how the density of clusters changed over time, he says they can determine “constraints on the equation of state of dark energy.” That is, they can get a more precise idea of whether dark energy is taking us toward a big rip, a big crunch or something in between.

The telescope is looking specifically for the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect, a distortion of the CMB radiation caused by the highly energized gas of galaxy clusters. When photons originating from the CMB traverse the clusters, they interact with electrons and tend to scatter, creating slight variations in temperature -- shadows against the microwave background – that the SPT detects with a battery of 1,000 sensors chilled to near absolute zero.

The SPT will survey about a fifth of the entire southern sky and is expected to detect thousands of clusters. Analyzing follow-up data from optical telescopes, the scientists will determine the mass, distance and age of the clusters. They will then map the clusters in space and time to see how their density and structure evolved over billions of years under the competing pulls of gravity and dark energy. They hope to learn how much power dark energy exerted in the early universe, how it evolved to dominate the universe now, and by extension, how much power it may wield in the future.

Back to the Big Bang

The SPT’s activity will not end with this survey of galaxy clusters. Another project in the works will use the telescope to scan the CMB for tiny fluctuations in its polarization. Like visible light, the microwave radiation from the Big Bang has waves moving in electromagnetic fields at different angles, some up-and-down and other side-to-side. Observations with another South Pole instrument, the degree angular scale interferometer (DASI), have confirmed that the CMB is polarized as expected from prevailing theories about the physics of the Big Bang. Researchers now want to use the more sensitive SPT to look for minute variations in the CMB polarization that mark the presence of huge gravity waves.

Stephan Meyer, associate director of KICP and Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, says these waves are “a reasonable fraction of the size of the universe” in length and would have been generated in the “inflationary epoch” of the Big Bang. This was the time when the universe was just 10-50 seconds old and matter had not yet coalesced into neutrons and protons. “We don’t really understand the physics of that era,” Meyer says. A new set of sensors, able to detect polarization as well as heat, is being built by the University of Chicago and should be ready for installation on the SPT by the austral summer (the northern winter) of 2009-10.

Carlstrom and Meyer have both made multiple trips to the South Pole since the mid-1990s. Meyer calls it “somewhat monotonic … there are no bugs, no kids” but he says there is “a brutal and stark beauty about it all.” Carlstrom points out that, as remote as the Pole is, it has “very well-developed infrastructure” thanks to the National Science Foundation and its Office of Polar Programs. Still, installing a 75-foot-tall, 280-ton telescope at the South Pole is a major logistical feat. Carlstrom notes with some pride that he and his team (he is principal investigator on the SPT project) took just three months in the austral summer of 2006-07 to assemble the SPT, insulate it and get it up and running.

The SPT was funded with $18.7 million from the NSF, along with additional support from the Kavli Foundation the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation of San Francisco. The project manager is Steve Padin, Senior Scientist in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago.. Senior members of the SPT team include William Hozapfel, Adrian Lee and Helmuth Spieler of UC Berkeley; Joe Mohr of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; John Ruhl of Case Western Reserve University; Antony Stark of the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; Matt Dobbs of McGill University, and Erik Leitch of Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Chicago.

Bisphenol A, a chemical that leaches into food and beverages from many consumer products, causes normal, non-cancerous human breast cells to express genes characteristic of aggressive breast cancer cells. (Credit: iStockphoto/Beata Becla)

This new information about bisphenol A (BPA) is timely because the State of California is currently considering placing BPA on the Prop 65 list of hazardous chemicals, and State Senator Fiona Ma has proposed legislation that would ban BPA in products used by children.

The study was done by researchers at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, in collaboration with the Stanford Genome Technology Center.

The findings are significant because BPA is found in many plastic water bottles, in plastic baby bottles, in the lining in food cans, as well as in sealants used by dentists to protect teeth.

“This is a very common compound that most of us are exposed to on a regular basis, often without even being aware of it,” says William Goodson, M.D., Senior Clinical Research Scientist at the Institute and lead researcher on the study. “If it’s true that exposure to BPA can cause normal, non-cancerous human breast cells to behave in ways that are more characteristic of aggressive breast cancer cells, this is very worrying.”

The researchers did needle aspirations on eight consented women at high risk of breast cancer, or its recurrence, to remove a small sample of non-cancerous cells. The cells were exposed to BPA in the lab and then analyzed to see if the exposure had altered, in any way, the gene expression of the cells.

“We screened 40,000 genes in normal human cells that had been exposed to BPA and found a striking increase in the sets of genes that promote cell division, increase cell metabolism, and increase resistance to drugs that usually kill cancer cells, and prevent cells from developing to their normal mature forms,” says says Shanaz Dairkee, Ph.D., the Principal Investigator of this California State-funded project at CPMCRI, and the co-author of the study. “Breast cancer patients with this kind of gene expression tend to have a higher recurrence than other patients, and they have a worse survival rate.”

The researchers chose to focus on BPA because it is a common compound with a controversial reputation. BPA acts like an estrogen, and in animal studies has been shown to have carcinogenic effects including increasing the risk of breast and prostate cancer, as well as reducing sperm-count and impacting the immune system. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2004 found that 95 percent of people tested had traces of BPA in their urine, with women having higher blood concentrations of BPA then men, and children having higher concentrations than adults.

“Our use of fresh cells for short term cultures in this research is unusual in medical research,” emphasizes Dr. Goodson, “which makes the results especially useful because this is the closest we can ethically get to studying the effects of giving BPA directly to living people. Our cells are much closer to normal tissue than usual cell culture techniques which use cells that have been growing in laboratories for months or even years.”

"Although the study itself does not prove that BPA causes malignancy, the observation that exposure to BPA altered the expression of genes in human breast cells deserves further investigation," says Wenzhong Xiao, Ph.D., a senior researcher at Stanford Genome Technology Center and a co-author of the study.

The concentration of BPA that the researchers tested was very low (less than one tenth of a millionth of a gram per milliliter), but this concentration of BPA has been found in blood from pregnant women in both the United States and Germany.

The solar wind consists of electrically charged particles that flow out from the Sun in all directions. Even at their slowest, the particles race along at 200 km per second, taking less than 10 days to travel from the Sun to the Earth. When stronger gusts of the wind run into the magnetic field of the Earth there can be dramatic consequences, from creating beautiful displays of the northern and southern lights (aurorae) to interfering with electronic systems on satellites and sometimes even overloading electrical power grids on the ground.

From its launch in the autumn of 2006, scientists have used the Hinode mission to study the Sun in unprecedented detail. One of the instruments on the probe, the UK-built Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) measures the speed at which material flows out from the Sun.

Image of the Sun in X-rays. (Credit: NASA)

The Sun is a cauldron of hot gas shaped by magnetic fields, which create bright regions of activity on the solar surface. Using EIS, the scientists found that at the edges of these bright regions hot gas spurts out at high speeds. Magnetic fields connect the regions together, even when they are widely separated. For example, in the Hinode images that Prof Harra will present on Wednesday, magnetic fields linked two regions almost 500000 km apart – a distance equivalent to 40 Earths placed side by side in space. When magnetic fields from two regions collide they allow hot gas to escape from the Sun – this material flows out as the solar wind.

Professor Louise Harra of UCL-Mullard Space Science Laboratory says, “It is fantastic to finally be able to pinpoint the source of the solar wind – it has been debated for many years and now we have the final piece of the jigsaw. In the future we want to be able to work out how the wind is transported through the solar system”.

Adapted from materials provided by Royal Astronomical Society.

The project has discovered extrasolar planets (artist's impression)

Astronomers from Queen's University Belfast have helped to discover 10 new planets.

The discovery will be announced later at the Royal Astronomical Society's largest ever National Astronomy Meeting, taking place at Queen's.

The extrasolar planets - which orbit around other stars - were found by an international team using cameras in the Canary Islands and South Africa.

Queen's astronomers designed and built the camera used in the find.

The Wide Area Search for Planets (SuperWasp) project uses two sets of cameras to watch for events known as transits, where a planet passes directly in front of a star and blocks out some of its light, so from the earth, the star temporarily appears a little fainter.

The cameras work as robots, surveying a large area of the sky at once.

Each night, astronomers have data from millions of stars which they check for transits. The transit method also allows scientists to deduce the size and mass of each planet.

Dr Don Pollacco from Queen's University will announce discoveries

Forty-five planets have now been discovered using the transit method, and since they were set up in 2004, the SuperWasp cameras have found 15 of them - making them the most successful discovery instruments in the world.

Announcing the latest results on Tuesday will be QUB's Dr Don Pollacco.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, he said: "SuperWasp is now a planet-finding production line and will revolutionise the detection of large planets and our understanding of how they were formed.

"It's a great triumph for European astronomers.

"Queen's and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council funded the first SuperWasp on La Palma, the camera was designed and built at Queen's."

SEOUL, April 1 (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is considering a single-digit percentage increase in prices for computer memory chips in April, in a sign that a long and brutal industry slump may be ending.

Chu Woosik, executive vice president in charge of investor relations at the world's top maker of memory chips, told Reuters by telephone that the South Korean company was considering raising contract prices for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips—widely used in personal computers.

"We think we have hit a bottom" in the memory market, Chu said. But he added that current market conditions did not warrant a big price increase.

Samsung's comments come a day after Japanese rival Elpida Memory Inc said it aimed to raise the price of DRAM chips by 20 percent in April.

A small rise in the price of memory chips is unlikely to have a significant impact on the retail price of electronics due to small scale of the increase and the number of other components. But analysts dismissed talk of price increases above the level mentioned by Samsung.

Chu's remarks lifted Samsung shares 2.4 percent to 638,000 won by 0404 GMT, outperforming the wider market's 0.39 percent rise. Elpida's stock rose for another session, adding a further 9.3 percent.

Memory chip makers worldwide are grappling with oversupply and collapsing prices in DRAM chips. The sector's profitability has also been hit by steep price falls in NAND flash memory chips used in portable electronics.

The average spot price of the 512 megabit double-data rate two chip which runs at 667 megahertz stood at $0.93 each as of Monday, 69 percent lower than a year earlier, according to online chip clearinghouse DRAMeXchange.

The average contract price for the same type of chips was at $0.91 per unit in the second half of March, DRAMeXchange data showed.

Elpida on Monday said it hoped to negotiate with computer makers for a 10 percent price increase in its DRAM chips in the first two weeks in April and another 10 percent in the second two weeks, saying the current prices are not sustainable.

But Hynix Semiconductor Inc, the world's No. 2 memory chip producer, remained cautious.

"We will negotiate to obtain the best results in the current market conditions," Hynix vice president James Kim, in charge of investor relations, said when asked about contract prices.

Hynix shares rose 1.44 percent to 28,250 won.

SMALL RAISE SEEN

"A 3-4 percent rise in DRAM price could be possible," said Lee Min-hee, an analyst at Dongbu Securities, referring to Samsung's plans.

"The timing of the price rise seems a little early, but there is evidence that the contract market is tighter."

Lee, however, dismissed Elpida's 20 percent target.

"That is impossible. PC makers will refuse to negotiate."

PC makers echoed Lee's prediction.

"We don't think there is room for a 20 percent price increase for DRAM since supply and demand are balanced right now," said a spokesman for Taiwan's Compal Electronics, the world's No. 2 contract laptop PC maker.

"There is no reason to see such a big price jump and it won't be accepted by PC makers. If it's just a small increase then it shouldn't affect PC vendors that much, but it will make prices tighter."

Lehman Brothers, in a note on Tuesday, agreed that a bottom had been reached in the first quarter.

"The best time to buy memory names was 1Q08," the report said. "We belive the war in the DRAM industry is already over, with Samsung being the winner." (Additional reporting by Sheena Lee in TAIPEI, editing by Keiron Henderson and Louise Heavens)

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