Students News and Research

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Genetic roots of obesity

A discovery by Queen's biologists and their students sheds new light on the genetic roots of obesity a condition that is increasing dramatically in North America and has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer.

24 Jan 2008

New method enables design, production of extremely novel drugs

A new chemical synthesis method based on a catalyst worth many times the price of gold and providing a far more efficient and economical method than traditional ones for designing and manufacturing extremely novel pharmaceutical compounds is described by its University at Buffalo developers in a review article in the current issue of Nature.

24 Jan 2008

Low-income US children less likely to have access to qualified teachers

Children from low-income families in the United States do not have the same access to qualified teachers as do wealthier students, according to a University of Missouri study. Compared to 46 countries, the United States had the fourth largest opportunity gap, the difference between students of high and low socioeconomic status in their access to qualified teachers.

24 Jan 2008

Few strategies exist to prevent MRSA spread in nursing homes

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureu (MRSA) is making news as a dangerous, sometimes fatal disease for hospital patients, and in recent cases, students.

24 Jan 2008

New way to boost the immune system

Queen's University immunologists have discovered how to manipulate the immune system to increase its power and protect the body from successive viral infections.

23 Jan 2008

Genetic switches could lower cost of producing drugs, proteins

Bacteria have evolved complex mechanisms called quorum sensing systems that provide for cell-to-cell communication, an adaptation that allows them to wait until their population grows large enough before mounting an attack on a host or competing for nutrients.

23 Jan 2008

National High Magnetic Field Lab receives $2 million to tackle tuberculosis

About 5,000 people around the world die from tuberculosis every day, but no effective new drugs have been developed to combat it in 40 years.

18 Jan 2008

Survey shows US teens confident in their inventiveness; hands-on, project-based learning needed

American teens are confident they can invent solutions to some of the world's pressing challenges, such as protecting and restoring the natural environment, but more than half feel unprepared for careers in technology and engineering, the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index has found this year.

17 Jan 2008

School attendance linked to lower risk of HIV among young people in rural South Africa

The study, a collaboration between the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), examined sexual behaviour and HIV prevalence among 916 young men and 1003 young women aged 14 to 25 in rural South Africa.

17 Jan 2008

Study looks at effects of moral conviction on voting or intentions

Recent American presidential elections have led to discussion of the importance of moral values and whether these values have tipped an electoral advantage to the political right.

16 Jan 2008

Trust between doctors and patients is culprit in efforts to cross racial divide in medical research

More than three decades after the shutdown of the notorious Tuskegee study, a team of Johns Hopkins physicians has found that Tuskegee's legacy of blacks' mistrust of physicians and deep-seated fear of harm from medical research persists and is largely to blame for keeping much-needed African Americans from taking part in clinical trials.

16 Jan 2008

Important new finding for people with anorexia

People given a biological and genetics-based explanation for the causes of anorexia nervosa were less likely to blame people with anorexia for their illness than those given a sociocultural explanation, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study found.

15 Jan 2008

Uses of medications in psychoanalysis

As Americans increasingly seek a "quick fix" to physical and mental ailments, psychoanalysts can be caught in the crossfire of a debate about the potential benefits and drawbacks of including medication in their treatment plans.

10 Jan 2008

Important finding for people with anorexia

10 Jan 2008

Help with getting off the couch

It's only been a few weeks since you made that New Year's resolution to exercise more, but already you're finding reasons to skip days - maybe even weeks.

10 Jan 2008

Divorce may hinder father-child closeness

The typical distancing from parents by adolescents is exacerbated by divorce for fathers, but not for mothers, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family.

10 Jan 2008

When shorter waits increase stress

New research published in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that the effectiveness of wait-related customer service depends upon the nature of the waited-for event.

9 Jan 2008

Teens find the benefits of sexual abstinence decline with age

The percentage of teens who report solely positive benefits from not having sex declines precipitously with age, according to a new study by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco.

9 Jan 2008

Emerging diseases and environmental change

The EDEN Project, which was launched in 2004 on the initiative of CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), IRD ((Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement) and the Institut Pasteur in Paris, to run for five years, associates 49 partners in 24 countries, most of them European.

9 Jan 2008

Physical education and active play help teens maintain normal weight as adults

Adolescents who participate in physical education at school are more likely to maintain a normal weight as young adults, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

8 Jan 2008