Health and Medicine

While Louisiana and Mississippi residents struggle to evacuate, to relocate and -- above all else, to survive -- many of the youngest among them face years of recovery from a variety of traumas Hurricane Katrina has dispersed upon them.

Intestinal diseases like diarrhea and dysentery, along with outbreaks of West Nile virus, are likely to occur because of floodwaters affecting New Orleans and other areas along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, according to microbiologist Iain Hay at the University at Buffalo.

The hundreds of thousands of Gulf coast residents left homeless by Hurricane Katrina have not only lost their homes, possessions and possibly loved ones, they also have lost their sense of security, says Hilary Weaver, associate professor of social work at the University at Buffalo.

"Nasty social behavior" is very common following the first 48 hours of a disaster, according to University at Buffalo professor Charles Ebert, Ph.D., who teaches the course, "Disasters: analysis of natural and human-induced hazards."

Reports of widespread looting in New Orleans following the tragic flooding of the historic city sound less like actual criminal activity than desperation, according to a forensic psychologist at the University at Buffalo.

If you log on to eBay or murderauction.com these days, you will find a variety of "murderabilia" on sale for anywhere from $5 to $10,000. This might seem ghoulishly commercial, but it is just one manifestation of America's century-long obsession with serial killers. This compulsive preoccupation and its use in American culture is the subject of a new book by UB's David Schmid.

Findings from a collaboration between scientists at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) and George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., have established the importance of distinguishing between feelings of shame and guilt when providing treatment for substance abuse and in developing substance-abuse prevention programs.

Neuroscientists from the University at Buffalo have described for the first time how rotenone, an environmental toxin linked specifically to Parkinson's disease, selectively destroys the neurons that produce dopamine, the neurotransmitter critical to body movement and muscle control.

Thanks to creative designers and engineers, as well as inventors with disabilities determined to live independently or simply to have fun, devices that make nearly any activity of daily living easier now are available on the market. Many of these devices, including those that were developed at the University at Buffalo's Center for Assistive Technology (CAT), are on display in a model home newly installed in the Western New York Independent Living Project, Inc.

Heroin addicts trying to kick the habit often profoundly grieve their lost "relationship" with the needles they use to inject the drug, according to a new study by a University at Buffalo doctoral student.