Acupuncture combo with adenosine shows promise

Good news for pain management this week: researchers find that acupuncture studies in mice, using adenosine enhancement, may help reduce pain. Obviously there is a ways to go, years of study in humans at some point, before this would be in use at your local doctor's office.

Researchers published in Nature Neuroscience that they identified the molecule adenosine as a central player in parlaying some of the effects of acupuncture in the body. Building on that knowledge, scientists were able to triple the beneficial effects of acupuncture in mice by adding a medcation approved to treat leukemia in people.

You can read more in the press release from the University of Rochester and news coverage including the Boston Globe.

Refresher course on Neanderthals and humans

Does everyone but me realize that Neanderthals and humans are/were different species. I always thought that Neanderthals were humans alive a long time ago.

But the news today that the two interbred over a 50,000 to 80,000 year period has me trying to thread back to what the differences between the two are. USA Today comments on the Science journal article saying, " Humans and Neanderthals likely interbred 50,000 to 80,000 years ago in the Near East, concludes the international genetics team's pair of studies."

So scouting around USA Today stories, I found a recent article that says, "In the Nature journal study, the pinky bone discovered in the Denisova cave archaeological site in southern Siberia yielded mitochondrial DNA — maternal genes inherited outside of the ones found in cell's chromosomes — unrelated to either humans or their extinct Neanderthal cousins."

Okay, this says Neanderthals were cousins to humans. We are getting somewhere. But now, this new article is telling me "although genetically distant from humans, the new species appears much more closely related to humans than apes." So there is another species.

Maybe I should refresh my memory on what "species"means. So, thank you Wikipedia, as always I can find a quick reference. It says, "There are many definitions of what kind of unit a species is (or should be). A common definition is that of a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring of both genders, and separated from other such groups with which interbreeding does not normally happen. Other debatable definitions may focus on similarity of DNA or morphology. Some species are further subdivided into subspecies, and here also there is no close agreement on the criteria to be used."

The San Francisco Chronicle has a good story pointing to the joining of DNA between modern humans and Neanderthals: "The sequencing of Neanderthal genetic material is real gold because we can now compare the Neanderthal genome with our own and pinpoint the genetic changes that have enabled humans to thrive, to spread across the entire globe, and to occupy every ecological niche that exists in the world," says Richard E. Green, about the Science report.

And: "The complete genomes of the Neanderthals and modern humans, whose lineages separated from some unknown common ancestor at least 400,000 years ago, are 99.5 percent identical. They are, in fact, our closest evolutionary relatives. By comparison, humans and chimpanzees share 98 percent of their genes."

Okay - I am getting this better now.

Restricting calories may boost immunity

I have heard some friends say they will restrict calories so that they can live longer ... they have gotten this information anecdotally. A study today seems to lean in this direction.

Researches say in the Journal of Gerontology, Biological Sciences, that volunteers who followed a low-calorie diet or a very low-calorie diet not only lost weight, but also significantly enhanced their immune response. The study may be the first to demonstrate the interaction between calorie restriction and immune markers among humans, they say.

The lead researcher, Simin Nikbin Meydani, is director of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. The study is part of the "Comprehensive Assessment of Long-Term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy" trial.

As people age, their immune response generally declines. Calorie restriction has been shown to boost these immune responses in animals.

For the study, the researchers looked at specific biologic markers. A skin test used called DTH (delayed-type hypersensitivity) is a measure of immune response at the whole body level. The researchers also examined effects of calorie restriction on function of T-cells--a major type of white blood cell--and other factors on the volunteer's immune system.

DTH and T-cell response indicate the strength of cell-mediated immunity. One positive was that DTH and T-cell proliferative response were significantly increased in both calorie-restrained groups. These results show for the first time that short-term calorie restriction for six months in humans improves the function of T-cells, say the researchers.

Epigenetics: how foods work to prevent disease

The Experimental Biology 2010 meeting has a lot of interesting research being presented this week. An important area of study is understanding a person's risks from his or her genetic code. Now scientists are predicting with testing what risks are there and what prevention measures could be taken.

Today researchers from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University talked about cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders and other degenerative conditions and say some scientists are moving away from the “nature-versus-nurture” debate and are finding you’re not a creature of either genetics or environment, but both – with enormous implications for a new approach to health.

The scientists say, "The new field of epigenetics is rapidly revealing how people, plants and animals do start with a certain genetic code at conception. But the choice of which genes are expressed, or activated, is strongly affected by environmental influences. The expression of genes can change rapidly over time, they can be influenced by external factors, those changes can be passed along to offspring, and they can literally hold the key to life and death."

In the case of cancer, tumor suppressor genes can cause cancer cells to die by acting as a brake on unrestrained cell growth. But too much of the histone deacetylases (HDAC) enzyme can switch off tumor suppressor genes, even though the underlying DNA sequence of the cell – its genetic structure – has not been changed or mutated.

“We already know some of the things people can do to help prevent cancer with certain dietary or lifestyle approaches,” says researcher Rod Dashwood. “Now we’re hoping to more fully understand the molecular processes going on, including at the epigenetic level. This should open the door for new approaches to disease prevention or treatment through diet, as well as in complementing conventional drug therapies.”

Read the whole story on the OSU web site. To learn more about "predictive health" visit this web site.

Study shows Vitamin D still key for health in aging

The relationship between vitamin D status and physical function in a group of relatively healthy seniors was presented April 25 at the Experimental Biology 2010 meeting in Anaheim.

A press release posted on Eurekalert says that "participants with the highest levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D had better physical function. And, although physical function declined over the course of the study, it remained significantly higher among those with the highest vitamin D levels at the beginning of the study compared to those with the lowest vitamin D levels.

"The scientists were not surprised to learn that, in general, vitamin D consumption was very low in this group of otherwise healthy seniors. In fact, more than 90 percent of them consumed less vitamin D than currently recommended, and many were relying on dietary supplements."

The study was part of the Health, Aging, and Body Composition (Health ABC) study initially designed to assess the associations among body composition, long-term health conditions, and mobility in older adults.

"The researchers say it's impossible to tell from this type of research whether increasing vitamin D intake will actually lead to stronger muscles and preserve physical function. This is partly due to the fact that our bodies can make vitamin D if they get enough sunlight. So, it is possible that the participants with better physical function had higher vitamin D status simply because they were able to go outside more often," the press release notes.

Facinating: Hawking talks about life in the universe

I am impressed with CNN seeking astronomer Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research, to explain further what famed scientist Stephen Hawking was saying in a documentary about intelligent alien life and that it must exist. Go to Discovery Channel to learn more.

Hawking is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include the runaway best seller A Brief History of Time.

Wikipedia information says Hawking has indicated that he is almost certain that alien life exists in other parts of the universe and uses a mathematical basis for his assumptions. "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like." He believes alien life not only certainly exists in planets but perhaps even in other places, like within stars or even floating in outer space. He also warns that a few of these species might be intelligent and threaten Earth. Contact with such species might be devastating for humanity. "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. He advocated that, rather than try to establish contact, man should try to avoid contact with alien life forms.

Tarter says at CNN that "SETI searches will succeed and that the civilization that's transmitting is using a technology that is older and more advanced than our own. Of course he's right, but there's a lot of room for different opinions about what contact with an advanced technology would mean." Read more.

Serious about veggies: study shows best phytonutrients

This week's Experimental Biology 2010 meeting in Anaheim has a lot of health information pouring from studies. Some are from industry and some from academia, so be sure to sort through the intent for presenting the findings. The blueberry folks will want you to know about how healthy blueberries are - and I am sure this is true - just make sure you look closely. I think the following info is interesting and helps the consumer understand more specifically what is in certain foods.

The study from Nutrilite says Americans could improve their phytonutrient intake by choosing to eat more concentrated sources of phytonutrients as well as a wider variety of them. Nutrilite points to source of its study: dataset comes from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, surveys that capture what Americans eat daily, supplemental nutrient concentration data from the United States Department of Agriculture and the published literature.

Some results: for 10 of the 14 phytonutrients included in the analysis, a single food type accounted for approximately two-thirds or more of an individual's intake of the specific phytonutrient, regardless of whether that person was a high or low fruit and vegetable consumer. Based on the current study, the top food sources consumed by Americans for some selected phytonutrients were as follows:

Beta-carotene – carrots
Beta-cryptoxanthin – oranges/orange juice
Lutein/zeaxanthin – spinach
Ellagic acid – strawberries
Isothiocyanates – mustard
For each of these phytonutrients, however, there is a more highly concentrated food that could be chosen instead:
Beta-carotene – sweet potatoes
Sweet potatoes have nearly double the beta-carotene compared to carrots in a single serving.
Beta-cryptoxanthin – papaya
A serving of fresh papaya has roughly 15 times the beta-cryptoxanthin of an orange.
Lutein/zeaxanthin – kale
By substituting cooked kale for raw spinach, it is possible to triple lutein/zeaxanthin intake.
Ellagic acid – raspberries
Serving per serving, raspberries have roughly three times the ellagic acid compared to strawberries.
Isothiocyanates – watercress
Just one cup of watercress as the basis for a salad has about the same level of isothiocyanates as four teaspoons of mustard.

Find more studies like this for EB 2010 at Eurekalert.

Does happiness grow with more Facebook use?

Now and then I comment on happiness and latest info shared around the net.

I recalled a 2008 Harvard study on happiness and it says on a press release I reviewed just now that you should "thank your friends—and their friends. And while you’re at it, their friends’ friends.... [researchers] found that happiness is not the result solely of a cloistered journey filled with individually tailored self-help techniques. Happiness is also a collective phenomenon that spreads through social networks like an emotional contagion."

With the news this week that Facebook is expanding social connections with the transformation of the web, where you will be seen and heard everywhere you visit online, I started wondering if this new way of adding connections will expand our happiness!

Right now the reaction to the news from Facebook is mixed - read the Christian Science Monitor and ComputerWorld.

Divert from your real issues: Vatican shifts to stem cells

This headline intrigued me: "Vatican to finance adult stem cell research."

According to AP, "The Vatican has drawn criticism for its opposition to embryonic stem cell research. But the Vatican insists there are scientifically viable alternatives and the efforts of the scientific community should go in that direction. Financing this project is part of those efforts. But while embryonic stem cells are especially prized for their pluripotency — meaning they can morph into any type of cell in the body — adult stem cells are not as pluripotent. For that reason, embryonic stem cells are considered to have more potential for the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes and Parkinson's.

ABC News covers the story, too.

Sugar and heart disease now linked

Emory University School of Medicine researcher Miriam Vos, MD, made a significant discovery about sugar - it increases the risk of heart disease.

A new study conducted by Emory, published in the Journal of American Medical Association, found that added sugars may increase cardiovascular disease risk factors.



The study analyzed U.S. government nutritional data and blood lipid levels in more than 6,000 adult men and women between 1999 and 2006. Participants were divided into five groups according to the amount of added sugar and caloric sweeteners they consumed daily.

Researchers found that people who consumed more added sugar were more likely to have higher cardiovascular disease risk factors, including higher triglyceride lev­els and higher ratios of triglycerides to HDL-C, or good cholesterol.

Volcano Facination 2010

There is no doubt that the volcano in Iceland has captured the interest of people around the world. Its impact scientifically, socially and economically is facinating, and it is getting more complicated as the days continue with the eruption still under way today.

First, from scientific perspective, it is facinating and stokes our imaginations. This is a science lesson for everyone - how does a volcano decide to erupt after years of quietude. Go to Joe Palca's interview on NPR to learn from the Iceland scientists monitoring this volcano [there are more nearby].

And, it is beautiful and awesome to watch - images and video.

Air travel is halted and it is evident that we are more interdependent on movement than we pay attention to on a daily bais. The Times Online says airlines are looking for safe passages to use. The Dutch are testing normal flights, sans passengers except for crew.

Quiet watchfulness

Buttermilk sky,

Layers over the morning sun,

The blue sky, almost October,

Shines a smiling light

So bright.

Life is shifting,

Calm and slow motion,

Of stillness and innerness,

Quiet watchfulness of Sophie and Dori,

Watching over the bed's foot,

Mac at the door.

Thanks to web shots for the image.

Morning sky after the storm

Torrents of rain,

Saturated and flooding,

Many days of misery for many,

Sailing from homes.

Today awakes,
The world, my world,

Powder blue, amost October sky,

Dabs of white painted here.

On the hill, over the city,

Light of morning,

Cast shapes of gold and lemon,

Over sturdy skyscrapers.

Mist low in altitude,

Creates a pattern, a mosaic,

Exhaled air,

Against the vertical.

Thank you to Tim's pictures for the image.

Cancer discoveries everyday

An exciting basic discovery in cancer research was communicated yesterday - including in an online story at the BBC: Olaparib is the first successful example of a new type of personalised medicine using a technique called "synthetic lethality" - a subtle way of exploiting the body's own molecular weaknesses for positive effect. In this case the drug takes advantage of the fact that while normal cells have several different ways of repairing damage to their DNA, one of these pathways is disabled by the BRCA mutations in tumour cells. Olaparib blocks one of the repair pathways by shutting down a key enzyme called PARP.

Robert Bazell at NBC says: "All this enthusiasm is based on a small report published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. It focuses on one clinical trial in its earliest stage in 60 patients with breast, ovarian and prostate cancer. Some — but not all — of the patients whose cancers seemed hopeless saw them shrink drastically or disappear. Many avoided the typical side effects — nausea, hair loss — associated with cancer treatment."

Advances on many cancer fronts are coming fast and furiously, so much so it is hard to keep up with them. This is great for patients who are trying to directly treat their cancers without harming themselves while trying.

Thanks to createmotions for the image.

Conversation on Competition in Science

There is some conversation going on in the science world about competition, so you may want to follow this discussion in the NYT this week and last.

What if scientists, instead of rushing to publish or perish, chose to cooperate? Sean Cutler decided to do “a little experiment,” as he calls it, and you can see the results in the forthcoming issue of Science. "I can already anticipate that a lot of people will say, “This is a bad message. You are painting an unflattering portrait of scientists.” To this I respond: Most of the scientists I know are very good, passionate and ethical people who behave. But some don’t, and these unethical types gain an unfair advantage that needs to be addressed so that competitive forces can work their magic most effectively. Good ethics = good competition. They are not in opposition."

John Tierney asks in his NYT blog called TierneyLab: "How widespread do you believe this problem is? Have you seen this sort of unethical competition in your field? Ever engaged in it yourself?"

Journey to the Center of ....

I just watched Journey to the Center of the Earth where the scientists fall through volcanic tubes... and then saw this story about being sucked into a black hole! This is a great story, so read A. Pawlowski's story on CNN. Thank you to UCLA for the image.

"To be sucked in by a black hole, you need to reach its event horizon, the one-way boundary beyond which nothing can escape. The more massive a black hole, the bigger this point of no return around it, said Jeff McClintock, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Scientists can try to simulate a trip inside with the help of equations in Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which make predictions about black hole behavior, said Andrew Hamilton, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

"Black holes are some of the simplest things in the universe. We think of them as being complicated things because they're described by complicated mathematics," Hamilton said.

"But as a practical matter, they are, in fact, much simpler than the sun, far simpler than stars and infinitely simpler than human beings."

"The same force ripping you apart would also concentrate the view of the universe into a thin band around your waist. It would cause the scene above and below you to appear redshifted, or dimmer, and the light around your waist to become blueshifted, or very bright, Hamilton said.
You may also regret that you only have two eyes. In a strange twist, Hamilton and Polhemus argue that three eyes would be needed to properly judge distances inside a black hole, where space-time is highly curved and our binocular vision would become confused."

Short or Poor Sleep Can Lead to More Eating and Risk of Diabetes

Studies continue to show that sleep curtailment or decreased sleep quality can disturb neuroendocrine control of appetite, leading to overeating, and can decrease insulin or increase insulin resistance, both steps on the road to Type 2 diabetes.

On April 22, at the Experimental Biology 2009 meeting in New Orleans, a panel of leading sleep researchers describes recent and new studies in this fast growing field. The session is part of the scientific program of the American Association of Anatomists (AAA).

Short sleep, poor sleep: novel risk factors for obesity and for type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Eve Van Cauter, University of Chicago, is a specialist in the effect of circadian rhythms on the endocrine system and has conducted several studies in which short-term sleep restriction damaged the body’s ability to regulate eating by lowering levels of leptin, the hormone that tells the body when it has had enough. In the AAA symposium, Dr. Van Cauter describes other recently published studies from her group, one showing that only three days sleep disruption is sufficient to increase insulin resistance in humans (thus causing the body to need higher levels of insulin) and a large epidemiological study showing that short sleep over a five year period causes an increase in systolic blood pressure.

Energy metabolism during chronic sleep deprivation: sleep less, eat more, don’t gain weight, yet show signs of progression toward diabetes.

Panel member Dr. Michael Koban, Morgan State University, reports a new study in which sleep restriction in rats led to glucose intolerance, a prediabetic state in which the blood glucose remains higher than normal after glucose challenge. Significantly, this is the first rodent study of sleep deprivation in which there was no association between glucose dysregulation and weight gain.

The researchers believe that extending sleep restriction will produce more pronounced glucose intolerance in which glucose levels do not return to normal levels for a longer period, thus providing more evidence that not sleeping enough could lead to diabetes in humans. The researchers also are looking for mechanisms to explain the change in metabolism related to sleep deprivation and the dissociation between weight gain and glucose dysregulation and insulin resistance.

Stress-related behaviors and hormone changes after prolonged sleep deprivation – and environmental factors that appear to modify them

Dr. Deborah Suchecki, Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, describes how prolonged sleep deprivation activates the neuroendocrine stress response, as measured by increased blood levels of the stress-related hormones adrenaline, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), and corticosterone. Earlier studies have shown that sleep restriction in animals can gradually change brain and neuroendocrine systems in ways similar to those seen in stress-related disorders such as depression, while epidemiological studies suggest that sleep restriction may be an important risk factor for cardiovascular and other diseases linked to stress.

CNS changes after chronic sleep deprivation have role in both food intake and metabolism.

Dr. Gloria Hoffman, also of Morgan State University, presents studies that explain the role of the central nervous system pathways in stimulating feeding and causing metabolic changes associated with progression to diabetes. Specifically, increased production of the neurotransmitter neuropeptide Y and decreased production of proopiomelanocortiini products in the hypothalamus explain the hyperphagic response.

Although the CNS’s role in regulating metabolic rate is not well understood, she believes that histamine might be involved. Histamine neurons not only affect the maintenance of wakefulness but also are regulators of peripheral metabolism. In sleep deprived rats, elevations in the glucose to insulin ratio were positively correlated with an increase in histamine expression that raises the possibility that a dysregulation of histamine function during impaired sleep might serve to trigger metabolic and other changes leading to diabetes.

The scientists agree that as sleep curtailment becomes more common in industrialized countries it becomes increasingly important to understand how limited or poor quality sleep produces changes that can lead to obesity and diabetes, both epidemic in the developed world. More and more scientists are jumping on board with these lines of investigation, says Dr. Hoffman, and there is an increased demand for information on the part of health professionals and members of the general public, many of whom consider themselves sleep deprived.

Kids Like Fruits and Veggies When Given a Chance

The good nutrition news is that children in poor, rural parts of the Lower Mississippi Delta are a lot more willing to try fresh fruits and vegetables than generally believed, even by their parents or the kids themselves. The bad news is that such foods are often in short supply in an area where gas stations and convenience stores are the closest places to buy food and where growing family gardens has given way to long work commutes by parents – and that the situation is growing worse with a worsening economy.

Two presentations drawing from a multi-year nutrition research program in Delta summer camps and schools were presented on April 19 at the Experimental Biology 2009 meeting in New Orleans as part of the scientific program of the American Society for Nutrition. The ongoing research program is being conducted under the direction of research nutritionist Dr. Beverly McCabe-Sellers, US Department of Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service, Little Rock, Arkansas, and is part of the Delta Obesity Prevention Research Unit (OPRU) headed by Executive Director Dr. Margaret Bogle.

The research arm of the Delta OPRU works with local communities to understand obstacles to better nutrition in the Lower Delta (including rural parts of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi), which leads the nation in the rising prevalence of obesity in both adults and children.

The challenge to having more fruits and vegetables in the diets of youngsters is not their unwillingness, she says, nor is it necessarily the admittedly low income in the area. Potato chips are not inexpensive, but the children often had small bags of them for every meal. The largest challenge, she believes from her experience, is the difficulty in obtaining quality fresh produce at a reasonable cost in these rural areas far away from distribution centers.

Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Found for Pancreatic Cancers

Finally some promising news about pancreatic cancer, one of the most fatal cancers, due to the difficulties of early detection and the lack of effective therapies: Johns Hopkins University pathologist Akhilesh Pandey has identified an epidermal growth factor receptor aberrantly active in approximately a third of the 250 human pancreatic cancers studied.

In a presentation April 18, at Experimental Biology 2009 in New Orleans, Dr. Pandey explained why this finding and related work in his Hopkins laboratory is promising in terms of both a new treatment for a large subset of pancreatic cancers and a potential blood or urine screening tool that might eventually do for pancreatic cancer detection what biomarkers like prostate-specific antigen levels have done for prostate cancer. His presentation was part of the scientific program of the American Society for Investigative Pathology.

Personalized treatment. Phosophorylated epidermal growth factor receptor (pEGFR), the receptor identified by Dr. Pandey, is closely related to HER-2, a growth factor receptor found and used as a drug target in a subset of breast cancers. After he found and profiled the pEGFR activated in the pancreatic cancers, Dr. Pandey realized the same receptor had been found by other researchers to be activated in a subset of lung cancers. And, most promising, an EGFR inhibitor named erlotinib already has been through the long and complex Food and Drug Administration approval process and is in use for treatment of these specific lung cancers.

But would the drug work in pancreatic cancers? Dr. Pandey’s group moved from studies of human cell lines to studies in mice in which human pancreatic tumor cells with activated EGFT had been placed. The tumors began growing. But when treated with erlotinib, they began to shrink. Other tumors without activated pECFR showed no response.

The promise – and the challenge – of using pEGFR is that of personalized medicine, says Dr. Pandey. Obviously a growth factor receptor that is activated only in a subset of all pancreatic cancers cannot be a one-size-fits-all target for treatment. Earlier studies in other laboratories and clinical trials already had tried EGF inhibitors as a treatment for pancreatic cancer and concluded that they did not work. When Dr. Pandey’s collaborators allowed them to re-examine their samples, they found that the only case in 12 cases that had responded to the EGF inhibitor was the only case with an activated EGF receptor. Dr. Pandey would like to see other researchers go back and re-analyze their data, separating patients with and without the activated receptor, and then determining the success rate. He believes it would tell a different, more hopeful story.

Screening for pancreatic cancer. Dr. Pandey’s other goal in his research is to use mass spectrometry to find additional markers of pancreatic cancer in the tumors themselves but also in blood and urine, which would avoid the problems of invasive biopsies. As a first step, his team has gone through the scientific literature to create a compendium of several hundred proteins and genes reported to be overexpressed in pancreatic cancers, making them excellent candidates for further study. The compendium already is being used by a consortium of investigators who are developing antibodies against the 60 most promising targets.

Brain Waves Synchronicity

Scientific American continues to produce the best coverage of science and the mind. The story on musicians and how they sync efforts is interesting. Thank you to Movietome Beta for the image of the album by The Police called Synchronicity.

I like the description on Wikipedia on synchronicity: Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a supposedly meaningful manner. In order to count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance. The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by their meaning. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and subconscious influence, not every correlation in the grouping of events by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.

Jordan Lite's 60-Second Science blog, says, "Ever wonder how musicians manage to play in unison? Credit their brain waves: they synchronize before and while musicians play a composition, according to new research. German scientists report in BMC Neuroscience that they measured the brain waves of eight pairs of guitarists using electroencephalography (EEG) while they played a modern jazz piece called Fusion #1 (by Alexander Buck). The researchers found that the guitarists' brain waves were aligned most during three pivotal times: when they were syncing up with a metronome, when they began playing the piece and at points during the composition that demanded the most synchrony."