Health & Science

Premature babies face lifelong hurdles

Babies born after only five months in the womb now often survive, thanks to modern medicine. But a new study says there’s a cost to that advance: Preemies are far more likely to face health problems throughout childhood and adulthood. An analysis of more than 1.2 million births by Duke University found that kids who were born very early—at between 22 weeks and 27 weeks—were five times as likely to die before the age of 13, from maladies such as congenital organ defects and childhood cancers. They were also more prone to developmental disorders, and were less likely to graduate from high school and college. Once they were adults, they found it difficult to have babies on their own: Just one in seven men and one in four women born prematurely ended up having biological children. “Are we improving their survival at the expense of significant problems down the road?” researcher Dr. Geeta Swamy asks. Though this study was conducted in Norway, the difficulties it uncovered are likely to be more prevalent in the U.S., where millions of women get pregnant through infertility treatments—which raise the probability of premature birth. In the U.S., the March of Dimes’ Dr. Alan Fleischman tells the Associated Press, “there is an epidemic of preterm birth.”

How to buy happiness

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Why do the Brangelinas, Bill Gateses, and Bonos of the world appear to be so happy? It’s not simply that they have a lot of money—it’s because they’re giving so much of it away, says a new study. Researchers at the University of British Columbia have proved that spending cash on others is far more satisfying than spending it selfishly. When a group of students was given money and directed to give it away, they reported feeling happier than when they’d kept the cash. The researchers found the same pattern when they surveyed more than 600 U.S. citizens. Self-reported happiness rates correlated with the amount of money people had given away, not the amount they had earned or spent on themselves. The data “confirmed our hypothesis more strongly than we dared to dream,” social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn tells Science. She emphasizes that habitual charity is much better than a one-time donation, for both the giver and the receiver. If giving “becomes a way of living,” she says, “then it can make a lasting difference.”

Alive, but not breathing—or aging

In science fiction, astronauts headed for long space voyages are put into a state of suspended animation, so they don’t age as years pass. Scientists have taken a big step toward making that dream a reality, through a study in which they’ve successfully halted the metabolism of test mice while keeping them alive. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital accomplished this trick by dosing mice with hydrogen sulfide gas (which gives swamps and rotten eggs their stink). After inhaling the gas, the animals’ metabolisms completely stopped, and their heartbeats slowed to half their regular rate. When they woke a few hours later, the mice were active as usual, suffering from no apparent lingering effects. “I was surprised how well it worked,” study author Dr. Warren Zapol tells LiveScience. In theory, the technique could “freeze” a human being in a state of hibernation for years. In war zones, doctors could use the technique to stop the biological processes of a dying soldier long enough to get him to a hospital. And yes, Zapol says, suspended animation would make space travel more feasible. “Nine months in a spaceship heading out to Mars,” he says, “takes a lot of oxygen to burn, food and water to consume, and produces a lot of waste.”

Training a fish to come home

Scientists are developing a farm-bred fish that can be released into the open sea after being trained to swim back when it’s time to be turned into food. These farmed black sea bass hear an underwater tone every time they’re fed, conditioning them to swim toward the tone whenever it’s sounded. After a few weeks of this training, says researcher Simon Miner of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood’s Hole, Mass., “you have remote-control fish.” The plan is to train the bass long enough that they’ll remember the tone after weeks or months of feeding and growing in the open sea. In theory, when the sound is set off, they’ll swim back to an underwater cage and be caught. If it works in an experiment involving 5,000 black sea bass that will begin in May, aquaculturists could raise better-tasting fish more cheaply, with less food and waste.

When girls are hyperactive

Hyperactivity is a problem usually associated with boys. But while boys tend to receive treatment and grow out of their restlessness and manic energy, hyperactive girls tend to become more troubled as they age. A study that tracked 800 young girls from childhood to adulthood found that hyperactive girls were twice as likely to become addicted to smoking and to enter into mentally abusive relationships, and four times as likely to perform poorly in school. The girls who exhibited aggression in addition to their hyperactivity were more likely to get pregnant early in life, to have physically abusive relationships, and to subsist on welfare. “Hyperactivity is less common in girls than in boys,” so “there are very few interventions targeting females,” Dr. Nathalie Fontaine tells BBCnews.com. That, she says, needs to change.