The system that produces stress-managing hormones in young rats is easily disrupted with binge doses of alcohol, finds a new study from Loyola University of Chicago. In rats, too much booze caused hormone disruptions and led to “behavioral and/or mood disorders in adulthood,” stated the report.

Rat research doesn’t correspond directly to humans, but the researchers’ goal was to learn how adolescent drinkers become depressed adults.

“Exposing young people to alcohol could permanently disrupt normal connections in the brain that need to be made to ensure healthy adult brain function,” Toni Pak, the study’s senior author, told Science Daily.

To study the long-term effects of binge drinking, the Loyola team put the adolescent rats through an eight-day binge cycle, then repeated the cycle one month later when the rats were young adults.

The stress of binge doses of alcohol six days out of eight wasn’t healthy. When they became adults, the rats that had stayed sober produced a normal amount of the stress hormone corticosterone. But the hard-partying rats had a huge spike in corticosterone when alcohol hit their bloodstreams. The rats’ brains had fundamentally changed to release more hormones.

For humans, the equivalent hormone is cortisol. When it hits the bloodstream, cortisol helps give an energy burst for fight-or-flight response. When cortisol floods the brain for an extended time, it seems to trigger depression and contribute to weight gain, Cushing’s syndrome, fibromyalgia and other nasty conditions.

If the study’s findings translate to humans, young adults who binge drink are altering their still-forming brains and risking mood disorders and stress-related conditions later in life. At the very least, the study discourages sharing drinks with underage rats.

– Emily Goyins

U-G-L-Y? Science can fix that.

I’m looking down the beauty aisle at Rite Aid. They’ve got facial scrubs with “sea algae enzymes” and wrinkle creams with “high potency plant stem cells.” They’ve got an Olay anti-wrinkle cream with “a touch of precious marine proteins” and “intracellular fortifiers.”

Terms so scientific, even a nerd like me is dazzled.

There’s a product out there called Valmont Cellular DNA Complex, made from “specially treated” salmon egg DNA. Wow, if only my body could absorb fish DNA. I’ve always wished for gills.

These products use science as a selling point. The companies irresponsibly use scientific jargon to impress me – without ever defining the über-technical terms.

Just because it sounds like science doesn’t make it true.

“What they’re claiming could be totally bogus, but we have no idea,” said Daniel Eisen, director of aesthetic dermatology for the UC Davis dermatology department.

In his years in the field, Eisen has read no scientific literature supporting the topical use of marine proteins or those ever-popular antioxidants.

Eisen, who is also co-director of dermatologic surgery at UC Davis, said the real problem with scientific claims made by cosmetic companies is a lack of scientific evidence. Usually, scientists publish research in journals, and they provide enough information for others to repeat the trials. Sometimes findings are confirmed and sometimes they’re rejected – it’s a transparent system that turns hypothesis into fact.

But cosmetic companies don’t do that.

“Most of the time these [cosmetic] studies are done in-house,” Eisen said.

Makeup companies don’t reveal the set-up of the experiment. Who knows if they used the appropriate concentrations of effective chemicals? Who knows if they tested products on real people or in vitro skin samples (skin from dead people)?

If companies want to use medical lingo to sell products, they should play by the clinical trial rules.

Here’s how a real study would go: Mary Kay (a cosmetics giant) would provide their special face cream and cream without the active ingredient (vitamin C, fruit acids, etc.). Then they’d measure the difference in results between the two. This is called a controlled experiment, and it’s the same process we use to test the efficacy of medicine like Tylenol or Lipitor or Preparation H.

But Mary Kay doesn’t do that. They know customers just need claims to sound science-y. They don’t need the data.

However, claims on packaging aren’t all made up. They’re often the truth with a twist. Eisen said that fruit acids, like glycolic acid, can help cells turn over faster. Unfortunately, the high concentration of acid needed to reduce wrinkles can also irritate skin.

In his recent book, Bad Science, physician Ben Goldacre points out that cosmetic companies often include ingredients in “talismanic concentrations.” They include only a little fruit acid – not enough to hurt, but not enough to help either.

“Companies still name them on the label, wallowing in the glory of their efficacy at higher potencies,” Goldacre writes.

All companies exaggerate the power of their products in order in make money. This food shrinks your waistline/That car gets you babes.

But cosmetic companies abuse our respect for science. We know that there is special medical jargon, so when Olay uses phrases like “amino-peptide and B3 complexes” on their packaging, we feel like we are part of the medical world. The product is more than just gunk to make a girl look nice – it’s a miracle cure!

Judging by product ads, cosmetic companies use scientific language to target older women. On one side of the aisle are the beauty products: mascara and eye shadow advertised by glamorous Hayden Panettiere. On the other side are the anti-aging products. These creams and masks don’t have spokespeople – they have technical charts of hydrated cells and diagrams of smoothed-out wrinkles.

To younger women they sell sex; to older women they sell science.

It’s not just feminist nerds like me who should be upset. When cosmetic company quacks run around in lab coats, it damages the credibility of real doctors and researchers.

MADELINE McCURRY-SCHMIDT has actually never wished to have gills. She’s too scared of sharks to swim in open water. E-mail her about your own galeophoblia or selachophobia at memschmidt@ucdavis.edu.

Never known why you were so inclined to liking those red state Republicans or those blue state Democrats? Well, the answer could be in your genes.

UC San Diego researchers recently analyzed the social lives and genetics of college-aged students. They found that people might be pre-disposed to being liberal as a result of DRD4 – a gene associated with dopamine reception.

Lead researcher James Fowler, professor of political science and genetics at UCSD and Jaime Settle, a graduate student at UCSD, used a 2,574 person sample collected by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to see how political ideology might be affected by genetics and social environment. They looked at the number of friendships a person had and that person’s political point of view.

The project was a way to bring social science and genetics together. The UCSD team compared the data on friendships to the presence of DRD4. They found that people who had this certain variant of the DRD4 gene, along with an active social life, were more prone to be liberal.

The researchers looked at political ideology on a scale from very conservative to very liberal. People who had exposure to this “liberal gene” variant, were 40 percent more likely to move into a more liberal category – if you are a moderate liberal who has the alleles, you could be moved as much as 40 percent closer to the liberal side of the scale.

The recently published study states that the gene alone cannot be single-handedly responsible for determining a person’s political orientation. Political orientation is heavily influenced by the number of friendships a person has, thus proving how essential friendships are when it comes to a social context.

“This study reminds us that people should try to be more tolerant and agreeing about understanding other peoples’ views on politics,” Settle said. “We need to understand where the other person is coming from – that their ideology is a combination of genes and their environment.”

Some are skeptical of the team’s early results.

Dean Keith Simonton, a distinguished professor of political psychology, states that there is no “liberal gene,” but there are other factors that influence political orientation.

“There are a number of cognitive and personality traits that are associated with liberal political beliefs,” Simonton said.

Simonton acknowledged that while personality traits do seem heritable, there is no question that environmental factors also play a role in political orientation.

“Certain experiences at home and school will increase or decrease any tendencies toward conservative or liberal viewpoints. Where a person stands politically will thus be a joint function of both nature and nurture,” Simonton said.

Simonton said people often become more liberal during college as they begin to associate with new people with different viewpoints; meanwhile people who are more conservative often continue associating with their close network of like-minded friends from high school.

Mark Bahl, president of the Davis College Republicans, said he is very skeptical of any “liberal” gene. He believes upbringing is the major influence in a person’s political orientation.

“If that [liberal gene] was the case, then individuals wouldn’t change over time – such as my dad’s friend, who was very liberal growing up, and is now very conservative,” Bahl said. “I feel that people are raised and adopt beliefs of their own.”

ERIC C. LIPSKY can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

In new experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, researchers work to recreate the first microseconds after the Big Bang. They want to see how the energy of particles are distributed around the universe. These particles make all matter we see – from the solar system to deli sandwiches.

UC Davis professors Daniel Cebra and Manuel Calderon de la Barca Sánchez from the Heavy Ion Group in the UC Davis physics department will be taking part in experiments to collide lead ions and create an extremely hot “particle soup.”

Until recently the LHC had been accelerating small particles called protons in hopes of finding the elusive Higgs Boson particle, which physicists theorize is the particle that gives matter mass. While the Higgs Boson particle remains unconfirmed, experiments conducted with Cebra and Calderon will smash together lead ions at energies higher than ever used before at the LHC.

The lead ion will reveal different results than the previous collisions of smaller particles.

In order to conduct the experiments, large particles have to be broken down into their smaller ingredients. Lead ions are made of a lot of protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons belong to a group called nucleons. Protons are positively charged and made of smaller particles called quarks and gluons.

“The lead ion collisions have so much energy that the nucleons which make up the lead nuclei are completely vaporized,” Cebra said. “These collisions create a hot dense plasma of quarks and gluons.”

Cebra hopes to find out the mechanism for energy loss as the plasma cools; physicists predict that the plasma loses energy. This is similar to the loss of energy seen when a light bulb radiates light.

Calderon’s experiments will also focus on the quark-gluon plasma and how the strong nuclear force affects these particles. The strong nuclear force is the force that keeps protons and neutrons attached in nuclei.

“Without [the strong nuclear force], protons, neutrons and the nuclei that make up all the matter we are familiar with would not exist,” Calderon said on his UC Davis website.

Running the LHC with positively charged lead ions is different than with protons, but the transition has so far gone smoothly.

“It’s been very impressive to see how well the LHC has adapted to lead ions,” said Spokesperson Jürgen Schukraft, in a press release for the LHC facility.

The LHC consists of a 27 kilometers long ring of highly efficient magnets. Charged particles are forced into a stream by the magnets and accelerated over several revolutions around the ring until a stream starts in the opposite direction. The particles collide and highly sensitive equipment detects the particles that emerge.

The LHC experiments are working to validate The Standard Model of Particles and Forces. The Standard Model states that everything in the universe is made of 12 basic particles and four fundamental forces. Physicists have conducted experiments over the past century that show how the Standard Model is the best explanation of how the Universe works. Cebra and Calderon’s project could help expand on the behavior of forces around us.

“We experimentalists always want to push the limits to find the region where the model no longer works,” Cebra said.

However, gaps still remain in our understanding of the Standard Model. The model predicts that four forces keep the Universe together: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. These forces are all related somehow. The problem is that no one has yet figured out how gravity is related to the other three forces.

Another issue is that the Standard Model also predicts the presence of the mysterious Higgs Boson particle that gives matter the property of mass. Such a particle has yet to be found.

Physicists at the LHC have studied protons for the past two years, but they hope that the new round of lead ion experiments will give new knowledge into the model of forces and particles. They want to understand why our universe looks the way it does.

AMY STEWART can be reached at science@theaggie.org.