jsheehan.me

By Diane Mapes

msnbc.com contributor

updated 5:40 a.m. PT, Tues., Dec . 1, 2009

We’re used to hearing about people spreading colds and flu

. But according to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, there’s another human condition that’s equally contagious: loneliness.

“Loneliness spreads across time,” says John Cacioppo, a neuroscientist and psychologist at the University of Chicago and one of the authors of the study. “It travels through people. Instead of a germ, it’s transmitted through our behaviors.”

The longitudinal study, conducted by the University of Chicago, the University of California-San Diego and Harvard, interviewed more than 5,000 people over the course of 10 years, tracking their friendship histories and their reports of loneliness. Participants were part of the Framingham Heart Study, which has studied cardiovascular risks in people in Framingham, Mass., since 1948 and has since been expanded to include other research topics such as loneliness and depression.

Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

In the study, researchers found that lonely individuals tend to move to the fringes of social networks (and, no, we’re not talking about Facebook or Twitter here), where they have fewer and fewer friends.

But before they move to the periphery, they “infect” or “transmit” their feelings of loneliness to their remaining friends. With fewer close relationships, these friends then become lonely and eventually move to the fringes of the social network, again passing their loneliness on to others. Thus, the cycle continues.

“When people get lonely, they’re more likely to interact negatively with others they encounter,” says Cacioppo. “If you have two neighbors and they’re friends and one becomes lonely, they’ll start to treat the other less friendly. Ultimately, they’re less likely to be friends.”

Ironically, loneliness can not only make you feel more socially isolated, it can make you more anxious, more shy and cause you to believe you have poor social skills. Cacioppo says previous research also shows that loneliness can make people less trustful of others and can make the brain more “defensive.”

“Your brain tells you people are rejecting you,” he says. “Loneliness may warp the message that you’re hearing.”

A biological signal
While loneliness can be “contagious,” Cacioppo says it’s important to note it’s not a disease, nor is it a personal weakness. It’s actually a biological reaction, much like hunger or thirst or pain.

“Society tends to think of it as an individual characteristic — there are just loners,” he says. “But that’s the wrong conception of what loneliness is. It’s a biological signal motivating us to correct something that we need for genetic survival. We need quality relationships. We don’t survive well on our own.”

Studies, in fact, show loneliness can actually be harmful to both mental and physical health, leading to depression, high blood pressure, increases in the stress hormone cortisol, and compromised immunity.

Unfortunately, quality friendships can sometimes be difficult to find or maintain in our busy, BlackBerried society.

“I get lonely sometimes but I tend not to seek people out to do things because they’re all married or committed or need to find a babysitter and then it just turns into a circus,” says Tina Kurfurst, a 46-year-old database coordinator from Seattle. “I went out to dinner with some people from work the other night and one of the women kept saying, ‘Wow, you’re funny, why don’t we hang out more often?’ And I just thought, ‘Well, because you have a husband and a 12-year-old and a 17-year-old and it just doesn’t happen. You don’t have time for me.”

Video Loneliness may be contagious   Dec. 1: New study finds that the feeling of loneliness may spread like a cold. Dr. Nancy Snyderman gives her take on this study and more in “The Spin Doctor.” Dr. Nancy

Stephanie Smith, a clinical psychologist with a private practice in Erie, Co., says she tries to encourage her lonely patients — which can range from college students to stay-at-home moms to high-powered CEOs — to find at least one friend in their same situation.

“If you have kids, know at least one other person who has kids,” she says. “Or if you don’t, find someone who doesn’t. It’s important to have people in your life who share your interests and your stage of life.”

But you don’t have to have a slew of BFFs.

“Sometimes people get overwhelmed and think ‘I need to have 15 best friends,’” she says. “But it doesn’t need to be that big. One friend, one relationship, can be very powerful.”

Click for related content

Why we can't remember who we've told what
Why memory lane is such a mortifying stroll
Sleepless in ... West Virginia?
Looking at nature makes you nicer

Facebook and Twitter are no substitute for the real thing, though.

“If you’re isolated due to a disability or a spouse with Alzheimer’s, then Facebook can be a real boon,” says Cacioppo. “But if you’re spending your time on Facebook rather than face-to-face with friends, it increases your loneliness. It’s about quality. Lonely people use social networks as a substitute; non-lonely people use them to synergize the relationships they already have. The person with 4,000 friends on Facebook may well be a very lonely person.”

The secret, says Cacioppo, is realizing loneliness is nothing more than your body sending you a signal.

“All normal humans feel lonely at some point in time, just like they feel hunger and thirst and pain,” he says. “But while we have cupboards filled with food, taps for water and medications for pain, we don’t have anything comparable for loneliness. I’m not saying you need a cupboard full of friends, but if you feel lonely, pay attention and take the time to repair it.”

© 2009 msnbc.com.  Reprints

• Discuss Story On Newsvine
• Rate Story:
  View popularLow
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  High
  4 after 284 ratings
• Email
• Instant Message
• Print

MORE FROM BEHAVIOR

Behavior Section Front

Compulsive hoarders suddenly in the spotlight   Early treatment may help kids with autism 15 tips for a happier Thanksgiving Being thankful ... you’re not like mom and dad Why we can't remember who we've told what Chill: A little stress may help you live longer Mortifying memories: Your past humiliations Why memory lane is such a mortifying stroll Nothing to sniff at: Clean smells inspire virtue Sleepless in ... West Virginia? Behavior Section Front   Add Behavior headlines to your news reader:   • More RSS feeds from MSNBC.com

Top msnbc.com stories

General Motors CEO Henderson out Afghan pullout in 3 years? Cop-slayings suspect shot dead by officer Troopers to cite Woods for reckless driving Salahis: ‘We were invited, not crashers’

NBC News highlights

Salahis: ‘We were invited, not crashers’   American teacher vanishes in Germany   Woman claims no affair with Woods Clickable video: Hottest budget beauty gifts   'Lady Gaga,' 'Twitter' top Googled tems

SPONSORED LINKS Get listed here La Jolla Mom: Lose 47lbs Following 1 Rule I Cut Down 47 lbs of Stomach Fat In A Month By Obeying This 1 Old Rule RachelRayBlogs.com A Mom's White Teeth Trick The dentists don't want you to know about THIS teeth whitening secret! ConsumerNewsReporter.com/WhiteTeeth Acai Berry SCAM (EXPOSED) This Shocking Report Reveals The Truth Behind Losing 47 Lbs In 30 days www.News6Health.com La Jolla: Unemployed Man Makes $74/Hr! Discover How an Unemployed Man Makes $7000/Month Working from Home! www.PaCourierNews.com How we make 100% Penny Stock Gains Find out how our subscribers are loving 100% return on Penny Stocks. www.PennyPic.com

Very interesting social science research on human networks.

U.S. researchers have come up with a new way for travellers to recover quickly from jet lag - don't eat for 16 hours.

They made the discovery while investigating the internal biological clock that governs our daily sleep-wake cycle.

Scientists have long known that our 24-hour "circadian rhythm" is regulated by a group of cells in the hypothalamus region of the brain. These cells, which represent the body's main clock, are sensitive to changes in light conditions registered through the optic nerve in the eye.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston have now pinpointed a second clock that is set by the availability of food. Their study, published today in the journal Science, is based on research on mice. But they believe all mammals, including humans, possess an internal food clock, too.

Clifford Saper, the senior author of the study, said this second clock probably takes over when food is scarce. It may have evolved to make sure mammals don't go to sleep when they should be foraging for food to stay alive.

Dr. Saper says long-distance travellers can probably use this food clock to adjust rapidly to a new time zone.

"A period of fasting with no food at all for about 16 hours is enough to engage this new clock," he said in a statement released with the study. Once you eat again, your internal clock will be reset as though it is the start of a new day.

Although more research is needed to confirm the findings, travellers could probably activate the second clock in the following way: On an overnight trip to Europe, fast before the flight and don't eat on the plane. After you arrive the next morning, eat a nutritious meal.

Normally, the body's light-driven main clock takes a long time to adapt to a foreign location, adjusting by only an hour or two each day.

"The neat thing about this second clock is that it can override the main clock ... and you should just flip into that new time zone in one day," Dr. Saper said in an interview.

ANTIDEPRESSANTS

IN PREGNANCY

Expectant mothers can safely use antidepressant medications during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy without fear of the drugs causing birth defects, according to a Quebec study.

Researchers at the Université de Montréal and Sainte-Justine Hospital used data from the Quebec Pregnancy Registry to assess possible risks of taking antidepressants during this critical period of fetal development when limbs and major organs start to take shape.

"In terms of birth malformations in this population, we found no difference between women who used antidepressants and those who did not use antidepressants during their first trimester," the senior researcher Anick Bérard said in statement released with the study, published in The British Journal of Psychiatry.

Previous studies have indicated that depressed patients who stopped taking their medications during pregnancy are at an elevated risk of later developing postpartum depression.

"They are better off continuing with their medications because they will be better able to care for their baby."

DOPE, A HEART RISK?

Smoking marijuana may boost your chances of having a heart attack or stroke, according to a U.S. government study. But you apparently have to do an awful lot of dope.

The researchers found elevated levels of a specific protein called apolipoprotein C-III in the bloodstream of heavy marijuana users.

This protein, in turn, leads to increased levels of triglycerides, fats that can clog arteries and increase the risks of heart disease and strokes, said lead researcher Jean Lud Cadet of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.The 18 marijuana users who volunteered for the study smoked between 78 and 350 joints a week. The average was 130.

Dr. Cadet acknowledged that's an unusually large amount and said he was surprised by their level of consumption. "They don't have jobs, they don't go to school, they basically spend their time smoking marijuana," he said in an interview.

Dr. Cadet can't say whether moderate and occasional smokers also have elevated levels of the protein without doing another study.

Marijuana activists said the high levels of pot used in the study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, render the results meaningless.

"If you do anything to that level of excess, it might well have some untoward effects, whether it's marijuana or wine or broccoli," Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, told Reuters.

ptaylor@globeandmail.com

Humh, 18 hours w.o food or jet lag, which is worse?

By GAUTAM NAIK

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- The Obama administration's push to solve the nation's energy problems, a massive federal program that rivals the Manhattan Project, is spurring a once-in-a-generation shift in U.S. science.

The government's multibillion-dollar push into energy research is reinvigorating 17 giant U.S.-funded research facilities, from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory here to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. After many years of flat budgets, these labs are ramping up to develop new electricity sources, trying to build more-efficient cars and addressing climate change.

View Full Image

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Carbon-fiber researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which has jump-started work on biofuels and magnetic-fusion technology.

In fiscal 2009, the Obama administration increased the funding by 18%, to $4.76 billion, to the Department of Energy's Office of Science, which oversees 10 national labs and funds research at another seven. The office will receive $1.6 billion in government stimulus spending, as well, much of which it will also channel to these laboratories.

The Office of Science estimates its bigger budget allowed it to create nearly 1,400 research jobs at the 10 labs it oversees in the fiscal year ending in September, up 11% from the previous year's staffing levels. It estimates it created another 1,400 science jobs at universities. In addition, it says, funds from the Obama administration's stimulus package created hundreds more government lab jobs. As a result, the balance of U.S. science is shading a few degrees -- away from the pure research typically practiced at universities, and toward applied science.

These efforts mark a third wave of spending at national labs such as Oak Ridge, a vast complex of woods and research facilities not far from Knoxville, Tenn. Oak Ridge was one of three labs set up to help build the atomic bomb during World War II. It boomed again during America's energy-independence push in the 1970s.

Oak Ridge plans to increase its staff by 25%, or 800 positions, over the next 18 months -- even as its neighbor, the University of Tennessee, has lost state funding and pared back faculty searches.

America's Labs

View Interactive

Take a closer look at the 17 U.S.-funded research facilities and the work they're doing.

• More interactive graphics and photos

"We have a renewed sense of mission and urgency," says Oak Ridge's director, Thom Mason.

Critics of big government say the Obama energy plan gives politicians too big a role in how the nation conducts science, just as they fret about the government's increased role in the financial sector. They also question whether the government's funding push is sustainable amid mounting budget deficits.

Others, in academics and industry, say that while government-funded research has made big gains, including advances in DNA mapping and magnetic-resonance imaging, the cost of administering such research is unnecessarily high. University-funded pure research has its own string of successes in areas from physics and chemistry to biomedicine and genetics, they say, including breakthroughs that led to the laser, pacemaker, ultrasound technology and rocket fuel.

"Most of our great breakthroughs have not been through [top-down government] funding," says Michael Witherell, a former head of the government-funded Fermilab and now vice chancellor for research at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

Diffuse Challenge

Even some of those involved in the energy push acknowledge its challenges. While a federal plan proved successful for building the atom bomb and putting a man on the moon -- both clear-cut tasks -- the energy problem is more diffuse, with hard-to-measure outcomes.

"We're talking about very large, complex problems," says Don McConnell, president of global energy business at Battelle Memorial Institute of Columbus, Ohio, which manages five DOE labs, including Oak Ridge and Brookhaven. Mr. McConnell adds there's a "lack of clarity" on the desired outcomes for energy-research projects at the various labs. "We have multiple incremental plans rather than a handful of big, transformational plans."

Journal Community

• discuss

“ Having limitless amounts of clean energy would do wonders for this world in terms of political stability, development, and quality of life. The second Renaissance so to speak. ”

— Robin Djang

For now, the federal jobs are welcomed by newly minted scientists as university budgets are declining and endowments faltering. This year, 5% of U.S. universities laid off faculty and 31% laid off non-faculty members, according to a survey published in October by the Chronicle of Higher Education. More than 40% instituted full or partial hiring freezes.

University science departments can benefit from the government's unprecedented $18.4 billion in stimulus spending for basic research, as well, provided they sign on to the government's energy mission. Of the $1.6 billion bound for the DOE's Office of Science, about $347 million is available to universities. Schools will also be able to tap funds through other stimulus recipients, including other DOE branches as well as the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Science Foundation.

The catch is that government grants can require large amounts of paperwork -- requiring workers that universities must pay themselves. "We're losing staff that administer the research. It's a problem all universities are tackling," says Dr. Witherell of the University of California.

Feast and Famine

The history of government labs is one of periods of breakthrough separated by long fallow stretches. During World War II, the U.S. built Oak Ridge, Illinois' Argonne and New Mexico's Los Alamos. The government added more labs in the 1950s, where scientists mainly pursued nuclear-weapon design and nuclear energy.

The mission changed dramatically in late 1973, when an Arab embargo on oil exports to the U.S. led to soaring fuel prices and long lines at gas stations. President Jimmy Carter's administration began to pour money into the DOE labs, challenging them to come up with alternative energy sources. Over the next years, Congress passed laws revving up research in electric- and hybrid vehicles, and solar and wind power.

View Full Image

Getty Images

A billboard at Oak Ridge in 1945, when the facility was helping to develop the atomic bomb.

Oak Ridge, which had been laying off workers before the crisis, hired 800 people from 1974 to 1976, mostly scientists and engineers. They worked in subsequent years on making biofuels from switchgrass and poplar trees and devised power electronics for electric cars. They also pursued magnetic-fusion energy, which would harness the same forces that power the sun and would, in theory, promise an inexhaustible energy supply.

In the 1980s, oil shortage turned to glut and government-funded science came under fire. During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, energy-research funding in the U.S. was dramatically cut. Funding fell for research such as Oak Ridge's biofuel, magnetic-fusion and electric-car projects.

National labs retrenched. Some continued defense projects and many focused on their core research in high-energy physics, using supercomputers and massive accelerators -- the likes of which didn't exist in universities and corporations -- to study the behavior of atoms and subatomic particles.

Several of these experiments yielded advances. Government lab scientists, studying the effects of radiation on DNA, discovered how its intricate chemical code could be deciphered, an insight that gave rise to the human genome project completed in 2000. Government labs were also behind breakthroughs in technologies that permit noninvasive detection of medical conditions, including positron emission tomography and MRI scanning.

In the 1990s, the Cold War over, U.S. lawmakers proposed shutting the labs or drastically revising their role. In early 1995, the Department of Energy convened a task force on "alternative futures" for its labs, headed by Motorola Inc.'s then-chairman, Robert Galvin. It concluded that while the labs did fine research, they were inefficient and ought to be "defederalized."

"At least 25% of their time was being wasted by administration and inspection by DOE people, and the structure was interfering with getting the job done," recalls Mr. Galvin. "My guess is that's exactly the situation today."

In response, DOE spokeswoman Tiffany Edwards said: "The Obama Administration is making significant investments in science and our national laboratories in particular. Not only is this creating good-paying jobs right away, it's helping to ensure America can win the race for the clean energy technologies of the future."

The latest upwelling of support dates to 2006. That year, the National Academies, a group of scientists and technology experts who advise the government, published "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," a report that said America's scientific and technological expertise was "eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength." Then-president George W. Bush proposed doubling the budget for the DOE's Office of Science over 10 years.

One-Time Infusion

The approach is essentially being continued under Mr. Obama, whose administration has provided more funding and a one-time stimulus infusion.

The DOE's Brookhaven lab in Upton, N.Y., is approved to get $261 million of stimulus money, most of which will be used to accelerate construction of a high-intensity light source. The $912 million machine, a ring nearly two-thirds of a mile in circumference, will generate a beam 10,000 times more powerful than any current light source, allowing researchers to peer deeply into the atomic structure of new materials.

Brookhaven's existing light source has been used to develop breast-cancer detection methods and explore techniques for making faster computer chips. It hopes the new one, which is expected to generate hundreds of jobs in the next half decade, will lead to battery-technology and even drug breakthroughs.

In California, the Lawrence Berkeley lab says it will receive about $240 million for research in alternative energy sources, computing, energy efficiency and other areas.

Oak Ridge, meanwhile, is using most of its $71.2 million in stimulus funds for infrastructure investments, and has been allocated a further $267 million or so, as it pursues research it had partly abandoned in the 1970s, including magnetic-fusion research, electric car technology and making fuel from switchgrass. "We were looking for a short-term fix back then," says Jim Roberto, director of strategic capabilities at Oak Ridge. "We have not made as much progress" as we could have, he adds, given reduced funding in areas like magnetic fusion.

Plastic Airplane

One of Oak Ridge's biggest projects now is the Spallation Neutron Source, a billion-dollar particle accelerator that bombards a mercury target with high-energy protons, producing neutron beams. These powerful beams are then used to understand and even alter materials at the atomic level. The accelerator was turned on in 2006.

View Full Image

Oak Ridge National Laboratory,

The Spallation Neutron Source machine.

The machine will be an important tool in the quest to create materials that could be used to increase computer storage capacity, as well as light alloys for space probes and military aircraft that can withstand high temperatures. Similar materials are needed to make better batteries and solar cells, and to make cars more fuel efficient and less polluting. The Boeing 757 passenger jet is made from one such novel material: It is essentially plastic.

"What changes now is there's going to be a big push on the energy problems that are materials-related," said Dr. Mason, Oak Ridge's director. "It's going to really jumpstart the science."

The accelerator has attracted young researchers, many of whom say they had planned to work at universities. They include Xianglin Ke, who moved to the U.S. from China in 2001 and spent three years as a post-doctoral student at Pennsylvania State University in State College, Penn. His expertise is neutron scattering, a way to study the magnetic structure of materials.

When Dr. Ke began seeking a tenure-track, faculty position last winter, he struck out. Of the 20 or so universities he applied to, at least one-third said they had to belatedly cancel their faculty searches, he says. But he was determined to land a job in neutron scattering.

He found it at Oak Ridge, where his work with the Spallation Neutron Source could play a role in creating high-temperature superconductors, powerful lightweight magnets or stronger, lighter plastics. "The tool is different," says Dr. Ke. "But the research is the same."

Write to Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1

Great article from WSJ's Gautam Naik about the impact of the green energy push on science and research in the United States.