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Amyloid plaque, an earlier harbinger of Alzheimer's.

​Let it not be said that Paul Shaw didn't warn us. When Riverfront Times profiled the Washington University neuroscientist and self-described sleep evangelist this past fall, Shaw talked at length about the ill-effects of sleep deprivation, particularly interrupted sleep, which could lead to problems with memory and learning.

Shaw works primarily with fruit flies, but a recent study by another team of Wash. U. scientists, led by neurologist Dr. Yo-El Ju, has shown that disrupted sleep patterns have just as nasty effects on the minds of humans.

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Pus draining from an infected sinus. Who knew something so little could hurt so much?

​Except for a migraine, there are few things as distractingly painful as a sinus infection. Imagine someone applying several tons of pressure to your face, relentlessly, for days on end. Surely, surely there must be something that can get rid of the pain and the infection, short of cutting your sinuses open and letting the fluid gush out all at once. A drug maybe?

Alas, no, says a group of doctors at the Washington University School of Medicine. In a recent study, published in today's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the doctors distributed pills to 166 patients suffering from sinus infection. Half the pills were antibiotics, the other half placebos. Both sets of patients recovered in approximately the same amount of time.

"Patients don't get better faster or have fewer symptoms when they get antibiotics," Dr. Jay Piccirillo, a professor of otolaryngology and senior author of the study, said in a statement. "Our results show that antibiotics aren't necessary for a basic sinus infection -- most people get better on their own."

So much for the miraculous healing powers of drugs.

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Dr. Travis Stork of "The Doctors."

​The online word game Words With Friends can do anything, it seems. Humble the mighty? Check. Bring two lonely souls together? Yup. Make me get a cell phone? No, not yet. But it is being credited with saving a life -- from across the world.

Beth Legler of Kansas City, Missouri, had been playing the game with Georgie Fletcher of Queensland, Australia, for a few years. During a recent match between the two, Georgie had delayed making her next move for several days. Legler inquired politely about the stalling tactic through the game's built-in chat feature, and Georgie replied that her husband, Simon, had been having some health problems that were keeping her away from the game. Legler, a nurse, inquired about Simon's symptoms, and when Georgie replied, Legler sought advice from her husband, Larry, a doctor.

Dr. Larry's advice to Simon? Get yer Aussie ass to the hospital -- you're on the verge of a heart attack.
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​Missouri received its annual report card last week from the American Lung Association. The result ain't pretty.

The state earned an "F" for tobacco prevention and control (spending just $58,693 last year to prevent tobacco use statewide); an "F" for smoke-free air (with legislators refusing to pass a statewide smoking ban and prohibitions in St. Louis and St. Louis County allowing people to continue to light up in bars and casinos); an "F" for its 17-cent per pack cigarette tax (the lowest in the nation) and an "F" for it cessation efforts with Missouri spending 53 cents per smoker when the CDC recommends at least $10.53 per smoker.

For those keeping score at home, that's an "F" in all four categories, earning Missouri the worst marks possible. Yet just like those New Year's resolutions to quit smoking, hope springs eternal in Jefferson City. And in the past six weeks, the Secretary of State's Office has approved wording for some 14 different ballot initiatives that -- if they get enough signatures by May -- could land on the November ballot.
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courtesy PETA

PETA protestors outside a St. Louis Children's Hospital fundraiser last October.

​There are a few skills every aspiring pediatrician needs to master. Some, such as remaining straight-faced while insisting that a shot won't hurt, are relatively easy to pick up. Others, like intubating an infant -- a notoriously difficult procedure that involves inserting a plastic tube into a baby's trachea to connect its lungs to a ventilator to help it breathe -- require special training. At St. Louis Children' Hospital, which is affiliated with Washington University Medical School, pediatrics residents practice their intubation skills on live cats and ferrets. And PETA is righteously pissed off.

This week the animal rights organization launched an ad campaign targeting the university, with notices in the Post-Dispatch and in Student Life, the Wash. U. student paper. One ad was deemed too inflammatory by local billboard companies; it will appear at gas stations around Wash. U. instead.

"Intubation is the single most painful process," says Justin Goodman, PETA's associate director of lab investigation. "It can cause swelling and bleeding in the throat and collapsed lungs and death if it's not done properly."

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There's now an honest-to-God scientific explanation as to why these taste so good.

​So we all know, deep in our hearts and thighs and especially our tongues -- and despite all those resolutions we made a couple of weeks ago -- that fat is one of the most awesome things that can ever happen to a piece of food. But it is the goal of Science to illuminate and explain the mysteries of life and nature, and so a group of scientists at Washington University School of Medicine has taken the first step to discover why we love fat so much.

"My key interest in fat is to know why we crave fat," says M. Yanina Pepino, one of the scientists who worked on the study, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Lipid Research. The answer, or at least part of the answer, lies in a gene called CD36, which is connected to the taste buds. People who make more of the CD36 protein have an easier time detecting the presence of fat in food.

This does not mean, Pepino stresses, that they like fat more. "We have to learn what the signal means," she says. "It could be how much fat they need to absorb to get the signal of satiety. This is just the tip of the iceberg, the beginning of the story."

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​Interesting lead story in today's Post-Dispatch, where Nancy Cambria reports that St. Louis County teenagers beset with mental illnesses are typically turned away by emergency rooms after their first visits and that, in the last 18 months, St. Louis County saw unprecedented demand for domestic violence shelters, shelters for teenage mothers and transtional living apartments for homeless teens.

"Right now we just don't have anything to do with kids who definitely need services, but they don't need to be hospitalized," Kate Tansey, the executive director of the St. Louis County Children's Service Fund, told the P-D.

But that could soon change, according to the article, which details a pledge by the children's fund to allocate $2 million next year for an outpatient mental-health crisis program in the County that would provide safe haven for children grappling with mental illness, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse and family violence.

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A field of Dictyostelim discoideum fruiting bodies.

​Depending on which source you look at, the human body contains anywhere from 50 to 75 trillion cells. Somehow they all manage to work together, carrying out their various functions to keep the whole body alive. How the hell is this possible?

A pair of biologists at Washington University have a theory: It's all because all humans start off as a single cell. That cell divides and multiplies, and its descendants develop different specialties, but they cooperate because they're all related. (If only this logic worked with human families.)

Joan Strassmann and David Queller developed their theory, which you can read about in more detail in Science, based on a series of experiments with a social amoeba called Dictyostelim discoideum, or Dicty for short. Yes, you are remembering your basic biology right: amoebae are one-celled creatures. But when Dictys' lives are threatened -- if they lack warmth or light or food (Dicty eat E. coli bacteria) -- they band together into multi-celled colonies that function as a single organism.

And here's where it gets interesting.

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Folks, please wear more of these.

​St. Louisans are still ridin' durrty - even more than before!

According to fresh stats from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, our city has retained its number-two spot in the nation for cases of chlamydia, and vaulted from twelfth to third in gonorrhea.

If you want to absolutely ruin your morning, check out these images of chlamydia and these of gonorrhea (a.k.a., the drip). Cases of both went up last year in St. Louis, according to the CDC.

Whence these numbers?

Says Pam Rice Walker, the city's health director:

Our data shows that STDs are especially prevalent in our young African American adults. In cases where the individual's race is known, African Americans between the ages 15-24 comprised over 90% of chlamydia and gonorrhea cases.

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This may not be such a good idea after all.

​A new study out of Washington University Medical School shows that women with a family history of breast cancer have a greater risk of developing the disease themselves the more they drink. That's right: Not only do you have to get felt up regularly by a cold metal machine, you have to stop drinking, too.

These findings were based on a study by Dr. Graham A. Colditz, an epidemiologist. Over the course of eleven years, starting in 1996, he and his team surveyed 9,000 girls in 50 states about the state of their health. The girls, who were between nine and fifteen years old when the study began, regularly answered questions about various factors that the doctors believed were related to breast cancer: their family medical histories; their own height, weight, waist circumference and path through puberty; and their alcohol intake.

Finally, in a follow-up survey at the end of the study, the doctors asked the participants whether they had been diagnosed with either breast cancer or what they called "benign breast disease": benign lumps that can, eventually, lead to full-blown cancer.

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