Category: Daily Free Press

No. 3 W. hockey to host rival Eagles Wednesday

Click: No. 3 W. hockey to host rival Eagles Wednesday Armed with its second consecutive Team of the Week title, the No. 3 Boston University women’s hockey team faces No. 8 Boston College at Walter Brown Arena on Wednesday. “I know they’ll be ready to play,” said BU coach Brian Durocher. “For whatever reason, they’ve had…… Continue reading No. 3 W. hockey to host rival Eagles Wednesday

BU to travel to Northeastern for Hockey East showdown

BU to travel to Northeastern for Hockey East showdown The No. 3/6 Boston University and Northeastern University women’s hockey teams have both started the season off strong—BU with a record of 3–0–0 and Northeastern with a record of 4–0–0 — and are due to meet at Matthews Arena on Tuesday. “You’re looking at a really…… Continue reading BU to travel to Northeastern for Hockey East showdown

Women’s hockey prepares for season opener with BC

Click: Women’s hockey prepares for season opener with BC Coming off a season that ended in triple overtime in the NCAA tournament, the No. 6 Boston University women’s hockey team will start off the season against No. 4 Boston College at Conte Forum on Friday. “I expect to see the best team [BC] has ever had,…… Continue reading Women’s hockey prepares for season opener with BC

Evacuate the Dance Floor

Evacuate the Dance Floor

Science article written for the Daily Free Press on ecstasy for medicinal use:

MDMA. E. XTC. X. Ecstasy is a drug with many names and a colorful reputation, especially on the dance floor.

“I really have only heard good things about ecstasy from those that have used it,” said Boston University College of Arts and Sciences freshman Lindsay Rapkin. “It usually makes people more sensual and sensitive to touch and in combination with the music provides an overall feeling of relaxation.”

But is Ecstasy just for club-goers anymore? Based on studies that could bring new applications for the drug to light, coupled with findings that could contradict certain conventionally presumed negative effects, some think not. Others, however, remain unconvinced.

UPS AND DOWNS

Harvard University’s John Halpern recently published a study in the medical journal “Addiction” that examined the effects of Ecstasy on cognitive ability.

Halpern and his colleagues compared 52 long-term Ecstasy users, aged 18 to 45, with 59 non-users, all of whom were drug-tested prior to their participation in the study to ensure accurate results.

The study found no cognitive changes in the control group of non-users during their Ecstasy experience. There was a small spike in impulsivity in the users, but the researchers attributed this to the personality of the subjects rather than to the drug. The subjects wanted to try Ecstasy because of their impulsive nature – it was not the Ecstasy that caused their impulsivity.

This is not the first time science has explored the medical uses of Ecstasy. But some previous studies, such as Science magazine’s 2002 article about Ecstasy’s potentially healing effect on Parkinson’s disease in monkeys, were debunked after researched found the monkeys had taken methamphetamines and not Ecstasy.

According to Time magazine, more recent research does suggest that Ecstasy or similar drugs could, in fact, help treat Parkinson’s after all. Ultimately, the drug’s effects are objectively neurological.

“MDMA does two things: it increases the neuronal release of dopamine and has an even greater effect on increasing the neuronal release of serotonin,” said BU neuroscience professor Kathleen Kantak in an email.

So what are the origins of the claims against Ecstasy?

“By releasing dopamine, MDMA activates the reward system, which underlies its abuse potential,” she said. “By releasing serotonin, it initially enhances sensory awareness, but because it releases so much serotonin, there is a relative depletion of this neurotransmitter after the drug wears off and therefore it induces depression.”

If the drug is abused, she said, this reaction is not solely a short-term issue.

“Body temperature rises and toxicity to serotonin neurons can develop. The serotonin nerve ending die [sic] and this can result in long term depression and cognitive deficits, particularly those associated with the prefrontal cortex,” she said.
She said these include “executive functions” such as decision-making and judgment, control over inhibitions and the strength of working memory.

BITTER WITH THE BETTER

Those interested in using Ecstasy as a therapeutic drug seem to be more intrigued by the upsides during the experience rather than the potential long-term downsides.

Mary-Catherine Youmell, a third-year philosophy Ph.D. student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, recalled cases where Ecstasy has been used to treat post-traumatic stress syndrome.

“I’ve heard that it can be enormously helpful in PTSD cases because it temporarily shuts down the fear center in your brain, which enables the patient to face the trauma without the body having a panic response,” she said. “I imagine this would be helpful for all sorts of anxiety disorders.”

But distinguishing which patients would benefit from Ecstasy use could be challenging.

“I’ve heard that coming down from the high is really rough, and I think this may make the drug not ideal for many patients,” Youmell said.

Carrie Abend, a junior in the College of Communication, said she would also be interested in Ecstasy being used as a form of treatment for such disorders.

“I think it’s great that the medical world is trying new things to help these people, because mental illness is so stigmatized,” said Abend.

Abend said she finds it acceptable to lump Ecstasy in with many other medicines.

“Like with most drugs, I’ve heard horror stories and also success stories about E, but I think that E as a medicinal drug would be better controlled,” she said. “It’s a drug, and, at the end of the day, not that different from the prescriptions that doctors already give patients.”

Youmell also saw no reason not to safely incorporate Ecstasy into the world of medicine.

“Seems perfectly obvious to me that we need to start having controlled trials here,” she said. “I think we have a responsibility to be really open to alternate therapies, especially when they seem to be more successful and much faster.”

A WAYS OFF

But members of the medical community, such as Prof. Kantak, were still skeptical.

“Supposedly, MDMA brings subconscious thoughts to the foreground, which helps the individual to deal with his or her problems,” she said. “It has been administered only a few times under very carefully controlled conditions.”

And Kantak is not the only member of the BU community who is wary of the effects of Ecstasy on patients. Despite the good things Lindsay Rapkin said she heard from her peers, she said she would not trust Ecstasy as a medical treatment.

“I’m sure that Ecstasy cannot be great for one’s body, because it can alter cognition and is possibly addictive,” she said.

But Rapkin need not fear. Although there are published studies regarding the medicinal uses of Ecstasy, they are few and far between, and Kantak noted that the drug remains, at least for now, in the same class as most other illegal substances.

“Because MDMA is a schedule 1 controlled substance, getting approval to do this type of study is extremely difficult,” she said. “Don’t expect to see this as a mainstream treatment any time soon.”

Microbes and Aliens

Microbes and Aliens

NASA researchers recently discovered a new microbe that can survive without one of the basic elements needed for life on earth. Could this organism be the key to finding life on other planets?

When NASA announced early last week that researchers had made an undisclosed astrobiology discovery that would impact the search for life in space, it sent ripples through the scientific community and popular culture alike. Speculation was rampant about what this discovery could portend. Some hoped the world was days away from meeting little green men from a distant planet.

In reality, the discovery was much closer to home.

In a press conference on Thursday, NASA researchers said they found a new microbe in Mono Lake in Northern California which substitutes phosphorus with arsenic, a toxic chemical, in order to grow and reproduce.

“It is terrestrial life, but not life as we know it,” said Mary Voytek, director of the astrobiology program at NASA headquarters and leader of the press conference’s panel discussion.

“All life that we know of requires carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus and sulfur,” said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, the NASA astrobiology research fellow who led the experiment, in the press conference.

“We’ve discovered an organism that can substitute one element for another in its major biomolecules,” she said.

“The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria,” the NASA website said.

The research was funded by NASA’s astrobiology program, Voytek said.

SUBSTITUTION REVOLUTION

The key to discovering the microbe was not to search far off in space, but to look in Earth’s backyard, Wolfe-Simon said.

“If you want to look for an organism that can substitute one element for another, you might want to think about where that particular element is abundant, and Mono Lake is abundant in arsenic,” she said.

Mono Lake, located just outside Yosemite National Park, contains three times the salt of seawater and has a pH level of 10, which is equivalent to bleach, she said.

“This seemingly inhospitable environment teems with life, like bacteria and algae and brine shrimp,” she said.

She said she had been thinking about the ability to substitute phosphorus with arsenic for a long time.

“The physical size of arsenic and phosphorus are very similar,” she said. “That chemical similarity lends insight into something.”

Researchers took mud from Mono Lake and placed it in a laboratory environment that lacked phosphorus, but was rich in vitamins and sugar needed for growth, she said. Scientists also added high doses of arsenic to the mud, she said.

“We found that not only did this microbe cope, or deal with the toxicity…but it grew and it thrived, and that was amazing,” she said. “Nothing should have grown.”

Then, researchers measured the total arsenic concentrations within the cells to determine what was occurring at the molecular level, she said.

“We found that the arsenic was associated with a band of genomic DNA,” she said.
Researchers determined that the microbe incorporated arsenic into the backbone of its DNA, rather than maintaining the normal phosphorus backbone, she said.

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

Scientists said the discovery has changed common conceptions of what is required for life on Earth, and that it could potentially affect the search for extraterrestrial life as well.

According to NASA’s website, “The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth’s evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.”

“It is not about arsenic, and this isn’t about Mono Lake,” Wolfe-Simon said. “It’s about thinking about life in a planetary context, and asking questions, simple questions, with a simple experimental design.”

“If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven’t seen yet?” she said. “We’ve cracked open the door to what’s possible elsewhere in the universe.”

ALIEN ACADEMICS

West, who will be teaching Astronomy 105, “Alien World,” next semester, said he most likely would incorporate the new finding into his class.

“We will be discussing many issues of habitability and the possibility of life in the universe,” he said. “These new results do alter our perspective about what is possible.”

“For our astronomy classes, it will just remind us to keep an open mind,” he said. “However, for the biologists, this result may lead to fundamental changes in their curricula if the result holds up.”

Students said they didn’t necessarily share the researchers’ enthusiasm.

“It’s all well and good, but it would have been cool to have been shaking hands with aliens next week,” said Samuel Taber, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore. “Maybe I’ve just seen too many science fiction movies.”

Slam dunk: Spoken word club hosts open mic night

Slam dunk: Spoken word club hosts open mic night

From condoms to nursery rhymes, the members of Boston University’s Speak for Yourself aren’t afraid to cover any subject matter in order to express themselves through slam poetry.

A group of about 40 people gathered at BU Central on Tuesday night to watch members of the spoken word club celebrate the start of Speak’s on-campus performances.

The gathering had no title prior to its kick off, but promptly earned the name of “Fo’ Show” (or “faux show”) from one of the club leaders.

Speak for Yourself has been a fixture in BU’s community for the past six years, encouraging members to share poems with each other, said club president and College of Arts and Sciences senior Kemi Alabi.

Occasionally, the group takes trips across the river to Cambridge’s famed Cantab Lounge, but yesterday was Speak’s first on-campus open mic night, she said.

For some students, it was their first time reading their poetry to an audience, while others had faced crowds numerous times.

“I did some spoken word at home, but there’s a much bigger [spoken word] community here at BU,” said College of Communication freshman Catie James.

James said she wass inspired by personal experiences and her poetry style was influenced by classics and modern poets she admires.

Similarly, COM freshman Jay Schwartz said he also pulled information from his experiences.

“The piece I’m performing is about a condom I found on my brother’s floor,” he said. “I’ve practiced in front of my floormates, but this is my first time in front of a crowd.”

CAS sophomore Brooke Morgan also performed at Speak for the first time Tuesday, reciting a poem she wrote that was inspired by dark nursery rhymes.

“I write when I can’t sleep,” she said. “Writing is a great outlet.

“Morgan said although her passion lies in theater, she likes poetry because she can use her own words.

“I was really nervous and felt like a dork,” she said about her debut performance. “Speak is really welcoming…but still really intimidating.”

A welcoming environment is exactly what Alabi and co-president Keith Esposito, a CAS senior, said they want members of Speak to feel upon performing with the group.

Alabi said she’s been writing since high school, but didn’t take part in spoken word until she saw Speak’s booth at SPLASH her freshman year.

Like Morgan, she was intimidated at first, but quickly got used to sharing her words with others, she said.

“It’s a brilliant thing,” she said. “Spoken word allows for lots of expression.”

Members of Speak gather frequently to work on their poems together but their biggest obstacle is getting members to perform, Esposito said.

“Everyone has something to say,” he said.

Esposito said he and Alabi would love for more students to realize that no subject matter is off limits when it comes to poetry.

“Poetry is not boring,” Alabi said. “It’s the language of today. Taught poetry is one thing, but spoken word is a whole different community.”