Health and Medicine

With the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon now one month ago, this is the time when cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in those who witnessed the events in person or through the news media will start being diagnosed, according to a psychologist at the University at Buffalo.

Making sure that cell-phone calls go through, particularly in times of disaster, as well as at times of heaviest use, is the goal of new architecture for next-generation wireless systems for cellular telephones being proposed by researchers at the University at Buffalo.

The University at Buffalo has received a $7.3 million, three-year grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research to plan and conduct a pilot study for a clinical trial of the impact of periodontal disease treatment on prevention of second heart attacks.

University at Buffalo biophysicists studying the motility of cells have shown that simple cells react in less than a millisecond to changes in membrane voltage, a property scientists have thought was confined to highly specialized cells such as the cochlear outer hair cells responsible for hearing.

Women with a history of problem drinking exhibited significant increases in abstinence and light-drinking days, and decreases in heavy drinking, after participating in a 10-week program at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions.

The image of an airplane flying into the second tower of the World Trade Center and exploding in flames, played over and over on television following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, will remain in America's collective consciousness for a long time. For all, that image forever will represent a national tragedy. But for some, there will be a more profound personal effect, according to a University at Buffalo expert in psychological trauma.

The World Trade Center twin towers should be rebuilt as a "focal sign for American resolve, for the ability of a democratic society to suffer injury and heal," according to an urban sociologist at the University at Buffalo.

The proposed federal takeover of airport security ultimately could permit longer and more careful screening of passengers and their baggage, according to a University at Buffalo professor who serves on a Federal Aviation Administration panel that studies research and development needs in aviation security.

A review and analysis of 26 studies of physical activity levels of children, completed by University at Buffalo researchers, has found that children accumulate more physical activity than previously thought.

A major emphasis on improving intelligence-gathering -- including having the FBI and CIA work in tandem -- must be a key piece of the U.S. retaliation against terrorists for last week's attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to a University at Buffalo professor who is a former editor of the journal Armed Forces & Society. "If President Bush looks only to the military, which seems to be both his initial inclination, and what the American public wants him to do, he will get incomplete and misleading information about what's important," said Claude E. Welch, Jr., Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the UB Department of Political Science.