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MICE DIET STUDIES FAULTED: Studies in mice provide the foundation for much of the belief that high-fat diets are detrimental to human health. However, the majority of studies on the health effects of high-fat diets in mice published in five respected scientific journals in 2007 were not accurately portrayed, a survey by ºÙºÙÊÓƵ researchers has found.

"The bottom line is, unless the studies we do on mice are appropriately designed, we can't use the information to give people recommendations on diet," said study co-author Craig Warden, a professor of pediatrics and neurobiology, physiology and behavior in the Rowe Program on Genomics.

The survey results are described in a commentary in the April issue of the journal Cell Metabolism. The commentary discusses research reports published in Cell Metabolism, Diabetes, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Nature and Nature Medicine.

The studies' major failing, Warden said, was comparing mice that were fed high-fat "defined" diets (often consisting of 60 percent lard, 20 percent sucrose and 20 percent casein or milk protein, or the mouse equivalent of "pork rinds, ribs and Coke")with mice that were fed a vegetable-based, high-fiber "undefined" diet called chow, composed of varying amounts of carbohydrate, fat and protein.

"Many papers using animal models draw conclusions about dietary effects from the comparison of natural-ingredient chow with defined diets, despite marked differences in micro- and macronutrient content," the commentary states. "When comparing the effects of a chow diet with a high-fat diet, the effects of the dietary fat will be confounded with the effects of other components in the diet."

-- ºÙºÙÊÓƵ Health System

'ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES': Contrary to common education wisdom, computer games and other technologies can foster community-building, a strong sense of identity and higher-level planning even in very young students, ºÙºÙÊÓƵ researchers report.

"There is a lot of hemming and hawing among educators about the introduction of technology in the early grades," said Cynthia Carter Ching, associate professor of education. "But the worst-case scenarios just don't pan out. Technology can facilitate creativity and social awareness, even when we don't design the use of it to do so. And when we do design technology activities with these things in mind, the possibilities are endless."

In two studies of kindergarten and first-grade students, Ching and X. Christine Wang of the University of Buffalo, State University of New York, observed that children found ways to transform their experiences with technology into fun, highly organized group activities. The researchers also found that technology-based activities can be explicitly designed to foster social reflection and advanced planning among young children.

In their first study, Ching and Wang observed children who chose to play a computer game during their free time. Though only one child could play at a time, the children negotiated turns and gave each other advice about how to play the game.

"Though this is hardly the ideal setting for social interaction and higher-level thinking, the children exhibited a great deal of executive planning skills and complex social negotiations without any guidance or interference from adults," Ching said.

In the second study, children were given digital cameras and told to create digital photo journals. The students displayed creativity and engaged in complex planning at every stage of the assignment, from how they framed their shots to how they chose to organize them to tell a story, according to Ching.

-- Donna Justice, School of Education