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Parents can help nature by bouncing babies, study shows

By wire services
Published June 3, 2005

WASHINGTON - Gently bounce a baby while you sing, and you'll usually get squeals of glee. But it's not just fun: Feeling the beat helps wire babies' brains to hear rhythm.

So says new research that tested moms and babies doing what comes naturally - dancing around together.

As psychologist Laurel Trainor studied how babies perceive music, she noticed parents hardly ever sing to them without bouncing or rocking. She wondered if that movement was important developmentally.

Her research shows it is: Using multiple senses helps the brain learn about rhythm - how we move indeed influences what we hear - Trainor reports in today's edition of the journal Science. "It's wiring the sensory system," said Trainor, of Canada's McMaster University. "That early experience that parents do naturally is probably really important for learning down the road."

Weighing a little too much might not kill you, but there's nothing healthy about it, the head of the nation's health agency said Thursday, distancing herself from a controversial report suggesting that being overweight isn't so bad.

Health experts increasingly are faulting a recent study by scientists at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that concluded obesity is not nearly as dangerous as was thought and that being a little plump might actually lower the risk of death.

CDC chief Julie Gerberding acknowledged potential flaws in the study and pledged to get the public back on track.

"It is not okay to be overweight. People need to be fit, they need to have a healthy diet, they need to exercise," she said. "I'm very sorry for the confusion that these scientific discussions have had."

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - An experimental booster shot designed to protect adults and adolescents from whooping cough proved safe and effective in a study released Thursday, offering a vital new tool for fighting a resurgence of the disease over the past few years.

The vaccine, developed by Sanofi Pasteur and already widely given to teenagers in Canada, appears likely to win U.S. government approval later this month.

The vaccine is needed "to prevent the disease in teenagers and adults themselves and, secondly, take away their ability to be contagious," said Dr. Michael E. Pichichero of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

WASHINGTON - Government scientists have found an important clue to how rogue proteins that cause mad cow disease and its cousins destroy the brain: These mysterious substances must latch on to the outside of cell membranes to be toxic.

If scientists could break the fatty Velcro-like bond that anchors these so-called prions, they might devise a treatment for the illnesses, research suggests.

[Last modified June 3, 2005, 01:17:39]