Medicine: Capsules: May 10, 1982

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WATER BABIES

Waterbeds, a splashy sales item among the flower children of the '60s, have found a new constituency: premature babies. Studies have shown that preemies sleep better, grow faster and generally seem more contented when their incubators are fitted with waterbeds. Researchers at Stanford University also found that gently oscillating waterbeds reduce breathing difficulties and encourage normal heartbeat in sleeping preemies, perhaps because the pulsations mimic some aspects of the uterine environment. Preemie intensive care units, notes one researcher, tend to be "noisy, bright, loud places with constant activity. Anyone who has spent time there can see that the babies look more comfortable on properly regulated waterbeds."

REPROGRAMMING HEREDITY

Scientists have learned in recent years that several specific genetic defects occurring in human cells cause beta thalassemia, an incurable blood disorder that can lead to anemia, bone deformation and early death. The problem has been to find a way to reprogram the errant genetic messages. Now a series of experiments, directed by Dr. Yuet Wai Kan of the University of California at San Francisco, has brought researchers a step closer to a cure for one type of the disease.

The Kan team first constructed an artificial gene that could replace the instructions of a faulty gene subunit that was causing beta thalassemia. When frog egg cells were then injected with both the man-made instructor and the defective genetic material, the fault was corrected. The successful experiment, published in the British journal Nature, marks the first reported time an artificially constructed gene has been successfully used to correct a human genetic defect.

SOME LIKE IT HOT

It is a commonplace that springtime is for lovers. But, the reason behind the seasonal romantic surge may be as much scientific as emotional, according to a study by Dr. Joel Ehrenkranz, a resident in internal medicine at New York's Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Looking for a relationship between human breeding habits and the effects of seasonal light on the pituitary and pineal glands, Ehrenkranz spent portions of a five-year span measuring the hormone levels of Eskimos in Labrador. Birth records of two Eskimo communities dating back to 1778 showed a sharp increase in births in March. This confirmed Ehrenkranz's observations that secretions from these glands had changed dramatically by the long days of June—exactly nine months before March. ∎