Noted

The number of black women with graduate degrees has risen dramatically since 1980. But at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (August 8), sociology professor Hannah Brueckner and Natalie Nitsche ’12PhD reported on the costs to those women. Their analysis of U.S. census data showed that today, highly educated black women are twice as likely as their white counterparts to have never married by age 45 and twice as likely to be divorced, widowed, or separated.

Lyme Disease, which was not widely known in the United States until the late 1970s, was present in North America when the colonists arrived. It became rare due to deforestation, which reduced deer and deer tick populations, pushing the Lyme bacterium into retreat in Wisconsin and Northeast coastal islands. In a new genetic analysis, epidemiologist Durland Fish -- who recently showed that Lyme originated in Europe -- demonstrates how the disease reemerged in the 1970s and spread as trees and deer gained ground. (The study appeared online August 14 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

School of Medicine neurobiologist Sabrina Diano and her colleagues may have come up with a new way to lose weight, reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, and boost energy. The researchers were able to accomplish all three -- so far, only in mice -- by reducing a brain enzyme known as PRCP. The strategy, described in the August Journal of Clinical Investigation, points to new targets for drug development.

Every year, more than 25,000 babies die before birth. Often the cause is a placenta too small to nurture the fetus. In the American Journal of Perinatology (August 3), research biologist Harvey J. Kliman and colleagues described the first placental measurement method that is “simple, rapid, and accurate.”