Month: December 2016

Policymakers hope that early childhood interventions and support can help children achieve their full potential. Some small-scale studies have shown that these interventions are effective, but it would be good to be able to identify who needs these sorts of programs the most, so that limited resources are used optimally. If childhood interventions are effective, then they could alleviate costs in adulthood that are associated with these high-risk childhood behaviors.

A recent study published in Nature Human Behavior shows that a small proportion of the adult population is responsible for a large portion of the economic burden triggered by poor health and criminal behavior, and that this population can be predicted using early childhood risks and exposures. Therefore, interventions that address these risks could improve outcomes in future generations.

The study used the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, which is a population-representative birth cohort of 1,037 people in New Zealand. All participants in this study were born between 1972 and 1973, and this study assessed participants a dozen times between ages three and 38.

In a rather curious turn, he Raspberry Pi foundation has released an x86 PC port of its PIXEL+Debian Linux desktop environment.

PIXEL (which is a clunky backronym for Pi Improved Xwindows Environment, Lightweight) is an extensively modified version of the LXDE X11 desktop environment. It was originally released in September for use with Raspberry Pi single-board computers, but now it's also been packaged up for x86 PCs. You can boot your Windows or Mac PC into the PIXEL desktop environment right now, if you so wish.

Wild rodents spread more than 35 diseases. Pet mice and rats carry much fewer, luckily, but the diseases they do spread include rat bit fever and Leptospirosis. (credit: ArtBrom)

A recent study published in Nature Medicine presents striking evidence that fasting alone, with no other treatments, blocks the development and progression of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in mice.

Previous research has demonstrated that caloric restriction has a variety of health benefits, but this is the first study to find such a specific effect. The study also identifies how fasting influences the activity a specific protein on cancer cells. Unfortunately, the data may be specific to acute lymphoblastic leukemia, so cutting out food may not be a general means of attacking cancer.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common form of cancer in children, though it does also occur in adults. Good treatments for this disease are available, but they don't work on all children, and the treatments for adults are not as effective. Over half of adults diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia succumb to the disease within five years of diagnosis, so new treatments would be welcome.