Research

WHAT WOULD you say if I told you that you could profoundly cut your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer? Significantly decrease your risk for Alzheimer's disease, too? And, better yet, that you could do all this without spending a single dime? Impossible, right? Wrong. All that and more may be possible simply by following the sage advice of Dr. Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and co-author of The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting . The "Fast Diet" is all the rage in Britain and could take flight here as well.

NEW YORK - Carnival Cruise Lines prices have taken a dip this spring, according to pricing data, and some industry observers blame headlines about problems on several Carnival ships. Todd Elliott, owner of Cruise Vacation Outlet, said his agents had seen a drop in price of 20 percent or more for equivalent cruises. "Rates are far lower than I have seen in a while; for example, the Carnival Dream, seven nights, Eastern Caribbean out of Port Canaveral, May 4 is $299 per person," he said.

By Brian Wright O'Connor Nearly 50 years after leaving the University of Pennsylvania for Vietnam, Lt. Col. Mortimer Lenane O'Connor will receive a posthumous Ph.D. today in a ceremony honoring academic achievement and sacrifice on the field of battle. My father, who set aside his dissertation to lead soldiers in war, will be included in the Class of 1968, the year he would most likely have completed his doctorate had fate not intervened. Born in 1930, my dad grew up in the company of soldier-storytellers on Army garrisons from Manila to the Old West, and watched his own father and three uncles set off for war in Europe.

Leon Salganicoff, 86, of Center City, a professor emeritus of pharmacology at the Temple University School of Medicine who dealt with challenges on two continents to pursue important medical research, died of heart failure Sunday, April 17, at Montgomery Hospital Medical Center in Norristown. A native of Argentina, Dr. Salganicoff earned a degree in pharmacy and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Buenos Aires. He refused to take a political propaganda course and was denied his diploma until after dictator Juan Peron was overthrown in 1955.

Trina Gipson-Jones, a registered nurse, has focused her career on helping minorities - not just locally, but also nationally and abroad. She conducts research for the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Disparities. On Feb. 3, she was honored for her work by the National Black Nurses Association and was the recipient of a research excellence award. Gipson-Jones has worked at the center, within the university's school of nursing, for two years. She holds a master's degree in nursing administration and a doctorate in nursing.

One of the most controversial alternatives to using animals in scientific research involves the bodies of brain-dead people, or "neomorts. " Proposals to use neomorts "could revolutionize research, toxicity testing and education and thereby greatly reduce our reliance on laboratory animals," said Martin Stephens, an associate director of the Humane Society of the United States. Each year, more than two million people die in the United States; 150,000 die from accidents, suicides and other causes that leave their bodies intact, Stephens said.

Dr. David B.P. Goodman, 60, of Wynnewood, a medical school professor, researcher, and director of the endocrinology laboratory at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, died of septic shock Monday at Lankenau Hospital. Dr. Goodman decided on a career in research when he was a student at Harvard University, where scientist James Watson, a discoverer of the structure of DNA, was a member of the faculty. A biology major, Dr. Goodman was inspired by Watson's groundbreaking achievement and resolved to focus his future medical career on research science, said his wife, Kathleen Greenacre Goodman.

Jung Kim, 15, and Hermina Paczynski, 16, hovered over their thick, black desk-top machine - a double-beam spectrophotometer - and checked their vials of bubbly yellow liquid. Kim dropped a vial into a small compartment of the machine that contained a light and a mirror, and the students watched as squiggly lines on the connected printer told them what they needed to know: how much light passes through the substance in the vial. For Kim and Paczynski, this is exciting work.

The eight-month-old Weston Institute, founded by the man who started the environmental management firm of Roy F. Weston Inc., is up and running with more than a half-million dollars in funding and a plan to encourage research in the environmental industry. The institute, based in West Chester, will develop a catalogue of potential research projects generated by professionals working for companies in the environmental and health-safety fields. "The professionals have a unique perspective on the environmentalresearch," said Weston Institutepresident William Gaither, the former president of Drexel University.

Trying to tie together the known forces of the universe isn't much different than achieving perfection in body and mind, Linc Gotshalk figures. For sure, they're both fairly impossible goals. No matter. To Gotshalk, strength and weightlifting coach at Temple University, it's the trying that counts. That's why, with all the available athletic role models in existence, Gotshalk's main man among men is a bespectacled, internationally renowned British physicist named Stephen Hawking, who is bound to a wheelchair by amyotrophic lateral sclerosi, more commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease.

A rare shorebird that has defied all the odds was spotted yet again last week on Delaware Bay. He's a small thing - no bigger than a robin, weighing only as much as a stick of butter. But he has one of the longest migrations on the planet. And a lot of renown. Scientists refer to him as B95, after the number on his leg band. But his fans, which apparently are legion, call him the Moonbird because in his lifetime, researchers figure, he has flown the equivalent of the distance to the moon and at least halfway back.

JILL ROSS STEIN has a cherished photo of her father, Leonard Ross, and her son, Harry Ross Stein, at the Rodin Museum in Paris in June 2011. They are seated on a bench and her father is pointing at Rodin's "Gates of Hell" and very seriously explaining something to Harry, then 12, and Harry is taking it in. It would surprise no one that Leonard Ross knew all about Auguste Rodin, as he seemed to know all about so many subjects in science, history,...

IF I SAY "vegan rock star," Chrissie Hynde or Moby or Jason Mraz might come to mind. You wouldn't immediately think of T. Colin Campbell, 79, professor emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University. But Campbell's half-century of research in nutrition, hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and a key role in the world's most comprehensive study of health and nutrition, the "China Study," have surely made him a rock star in the plant-eating world. He summarized that groundbreaking study (which the New York Times called "the Grand Prix of epidemiology")

Repurposing an existing drug, researchers in Lancaster and Philadelphia reported last week that they had prevented seizures in an extremely rare form of epilepsy and suggested future lines of attack against more common types of the disorder. The immediate finding involves a neurodevelopmental disorder almost unheard of in the general population. But an estimated 4 percent of Old Order Mennonites in Lancaster County carry the genetic mutation. Offspring of two carriers develop what the community calls "pretzel syndrome" because of the odd patterns babies form with their limbs.

Garret FitzGerald, chair of the pharmacology department at the University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded the 2013 Grand Prix Scientifique, considered the world's most prestigious honor for cardiovascular research. FitzGerald shares the prize with Carlo Patrono, chair of pharmacology at Catholic University in Rome, for their work showing that low-dose aspirin can help prevent cardiovascular disease. The prize, valued at 500,000 euros ($650,000), will be awarded under the presidency of the chancellor of the Institut de France and the president of the French Academy of Sciences on June 5. In a statement, FitzGerald said he was delighted to receive the prize and to share it with Patrono, "a special friend for more than 30 years.

Jonathan Chernoff, chief scientific officer for Fox Chase Cancer Center, says the "slow-motion train wreck" that is sequestration is starting to damage the research laboratories at his institution. He has had to tell the leaders of five or six "productive" labs that they will have to drop employees when the new fiscal year starts in July. At least six people, most likely young scientists getting postdoctoral training, will lose their jobs. That's not a huge number, but Chernoff worries that this kind of instability will lead bright young people to take other work.

JEFFREY DEITCH majored in psychology, but eventually became more fascinated by what goes on inside the brain than its emotional reactions. He was intrigued by the "miracle of this extraordinarily well-oiled machine - our brains," said his son, Caleb Deitch. This fascination led him to the main thrust of his scientific work, the study of the crippling disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and the search for a cause and cure. "He found his life's professional path and passion," his son said.

Recently, this space has been devoted to reader complaints that builders of over-55 housing aren't meeting the physical and financial needs of aging baby boomers. It's a discussion that was initiated a few weeks ago by a reader who was disappointed by what she considered to be the options the market offered. In response, I received more than 100 e-mails and calls supporting her observations, some of which I quoted in a subsequent column. The result of that, of course, was 150 more e-mails.