The artificial lower limbs of double-amputee Olympic hopeful Oscar Pistorius give him a clear and major advantage over his competition, taking 10 seconds or more off what his 400-meter race time would be if his prosthesis behaved like intact limbs.

That's the conclusion — released to the public for the first time — of human performance experts Peter Weyand of Southern Methodist University and Matthew Bundle of the University of Wyoming.

The Weyand-Bundle conclusion is part of a written Point-Counterpoint style debate published Nov. 19 online in the "Journal of Applied Physiology." Weyand and Bundle were the first two authors of the study publishing the test results acquired as part of the legal appeal process undertaken after the governing body of Track and Field — the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) — banned Pistorius from able-bodied track competitions, including the Olympics.

The Christian Science Monitor asked human locomotion expert Peter Weyand to weigh in on the subject of how fast human beings might ultimately be able to run. Weyand's analysis was published as an opinion essay in the newspaper's Sept. 4 online version.

Earlier Weyand was interviewed by the online magazine Matador Sports for the piece "Calculating the Human Speed Limit," which published Aug. 21, 2009; and by Britain's Daily Express, which published "How Fast Can a Bolt of Lightning Travel?" in its July 26, 2009 edition. Weyand was also quoted by the blog SBS.com.au in a story July 22, 2009.

Weyand, a physiologist and biomechanist, is an SMU associate professor of applied physiology and biomechanics in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education & Human Development. He recently lead a team of experts in biomechanics and physiology that conducted experiments on Oscar Pistorius. The South African bilateral amputee track athlete, Pistorius has made world headlines trying to qualify for races against runners with intact limbs, including the Olympics.

As the health care reform debate turns to cutting costs and improving treatment outcomes, two SMU professors are expanding a study that shows promise for reducing both the expense and suffering associated with chronic asthma.

Thomas Ritz and Alicia Meuret, both of SMU's Psychology Department, have developed a four-week program to teach asthmatics how to better control their condition by changing the way they breathe.

With the help of a four-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, they plan to engage 120 Dallas County patients in four weeks of breathing training by the study's projected end in July 2012. Their co-investigators include David Rosenfield, also of SMU's Psychology Department, and Mark Millard, M.D., of Baylor University Medical Center.

Peter Weyand, an SMU associate professor of applied physiology and biomechanics, was part of a team of experts in biomechanics and physiology that conducted experiments on Oscar Pistorius. The South African bilateral amputee track athlete has made world headlines trying to qualify for races against runners with intact limbs, including the Olympics.

The team just released their full findings in the "Journal of Applied Physiology." Some of the findings were previously confidential and are being released now for the first time. The findings were presented earlier to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland in May of 2008.

Reporter Jeannine Stein of the Los Angeles Times reported July 1 on the new findings.

A team of experts in biomechanics and physiology that conducted experiments on Oscar Pistorius, the South African bilateral amputee track athlete, have just released their findings in the "Journal of Applied Physiology." Some of their previously confidential findings were presented to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland in May of 2008. Other findings are now being released for the first time.

A portion of the team's findings had been presented at the CAS to appeal the eligibility ban that had been imposed on Pistorius by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) barring him from sanctioned competitions, including the Olympics and World Championships.

A new study by research psychologists Alan Brown of SMU and Elizabeth Marsh of Duke University provides new clues about déjà vu, that eerie sense of experiencing a moment for the second time.

These clues, in turn, could help unlock the secrets of the human brain.

"Déjà vu is inappropriate behavior by the brain," says Brown, professor in SMU's Department of Psychology and a leading researcher on memory. "By shedding light on this odd phenomenon, we can better understand normal memory processes."

The following story published March 20, 2009 on www.sciencedaily.com

A new study by researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center and Southern Methodist University is the first to pinpoint damage inside the brains of veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome. The finding links the illness to chemical exposures and may lead to diagnostic tests and treatments.

The first comprehensive analysis of air emissions associated with natural gas and oil production in the Barnett Shale finds that those emissions might be a significant contributor to smog formation in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The emissions are comparable to the combined emissions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area from all cars and trucks. State regulators for years have targeted cars and trucks as a major source of smog in the D-FW area.

The Christmas tree that adorns the SMU Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering holiday card is more than a colorfully lit symbol of the season. It's a unique and festive embodiment of the capabilities of the School's cutting-edge laboratories.

Designed and built in the Lyle School's Research Center for Advanced Manufacturing, called RCAM, the tree features a 3-dimensional lattice structure, known for its strength and versatility in a variety of manufacturing applications. With an actual height and width of about 5 inches, the tree was "grown" in a vacuum chamber from thin layers of titanium-alloy powder and shaped by the controlled melting of an electron beam.

Chemist Brent Sumerlin, assistant professor in the Dedman College Department of Chemistry at Southern Methodist University, is assessing the potential uses for nano-scale polymer particles. One of those could be controlled drug delivery.

In one scenario, polymers could detect high glucose levels in a diabetic's blood stream and automatically release insulin, freeing diabetics from a daily injection schedule.

Researchers at Southern Methodist University and The University of Texas at Dallas have identified a group of chemical compounds that slows the degeneration of neurons, a condition that causes such common diseases of old age as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and amyotropic lateral sclerosis.

SMU Chemistry Professor Edward R. Biehl and UTD Biology Professor Santosh R. D'Mello teamed to test 45 chemical compounds. Four were found to be the most potent protectors of brain cells, or neurons.

In 1996 the introduction of "triple cocktail" drug therapy transformed AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable chronic disease. The drug regimen, also known as HAART for highly active antiretroviral treatment, involved treating patients with three or more classes of antiviral medicines.

But the virus fought back. It mutates easily, and the mutations caused resistance to first one and then another drug making up the cocktail. Unsettling reports of newly infected patients with the drug-resistant virus meant researchers needed to find new ways to fight HIV infection.

That could be what is happening in the Dedman Life Sciences Building at SMU, where a young assistant professor of biological sciences is conducting research that may lead to a novel way of combating HIV-1.

Popular culture's image of the 21st-century woman is tall, large-breasted, narrow-hipped and ultra-slender. Like cultural standards of beauty throughout history, today's "thin ideal" is unattainable for most women; for many, it also can be destructive.

Katherine Presnell, assistant professor of psychology, is helping at-risk teens challenge this ideal with the Body Project, an eating disorder prevention program that she helped develop with psychology professor Eric Stice at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her doctorate in 2005.

Shawna, who is pregnant, calls diabetes a scourge. She is a member of the Akimel O'odham tribe in Arizona. "Diabetes is a sign that this life we're living isn't our life," she says. "The one our ancestors had was way better."

Before World War II, diabetes was rare among the members of the Akimel O'odhams, also known as the Pima. Today, however, Shawna is among the 12,000 tribal members on the Gila River Reservation in south central Arizona who have the highest recorded rate of diabetes of any population in the world.

If you've ever visited a dog park, you may have noticed that a chihuahua tires much more quickly than a German shepherd. That does not occur just because a small dog takes more steps to cover the same amount of ground, says Peter Weyand, associate professor of applied physiology and biomechanics in SMU's Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development.

In his research into animal and human physiology, Weyand has studied the impact of such factors as muscular force and the amount of time limbs are in contact with the ground on the energy cost of walking and running.

Southern Methodist University psychology professor Alicia Meuret proves conventional wisdom is dead wrong: A person suffering a panic attack who tries deep breathing to calm themselves only increases his or her level of hyperventilation and overall panic-related symptoms.

SMU Professor of Electrical Engineering Gary Evans recently received some good news: Journal reviewers said they thought his proposal for solving one of the most perplexing problems in the emerging field of integrated photonics sounded impossible.

"To me, that's extremely promising when the reviewers don't think it's possible," Evans said. "When that's happened, it's been fun showing the reviewers that the conventional wisdom is incorrect."

In his third-floor laboratory in Dedman Life Sciences Building, biologist Robert Harrod and his team are zeroing in on a new way to inhibit the virus that causes AIDS. They already have shown that their approach, which involves the rare genetic disorder Werner syndrome, works when the disorder's enzyme defect is introduced into cells.

Now they are trying to find practical ways to use this pathway to inhibit the AIDS virus. The beauty of this approach is that the AIDS virus will not be able to mutate in a way that can defeat this treatment, says Harrod, associate professor in the Biological Sciences Department of Dedman College.

More and more Americans are choosing to receive medical treatment — even complicated surgeries — in foreign countries to save big money. The practice is called "medical tourism," but do the risks to consumers outweigh the savings?

That's an important question, says Nathan Cortez, SMU Dedman School of Law assistant professor, who is focusing his research in health law on this emerging medical market.

"Patients take a calculated risk by seeking medical care overseas in regulatory systems that may not offer the rights or protections they expect," Cortez says.

An estimated 18 percent of adolescents in the U.S. are overweight or obese. Robert Hampson, associate professor of psychology in Dedman College, wants to know what role families can play in reducing that rate.

In collaboration with The Cooper Institute and the Family Studies Center at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and with funding from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, Hampson has been comparing two group interventions for obese girls and their families.

Each year more than 1 million children in the United States are brought to shelters to escape family violence. Each of their families reports, on average, more than 60 acts of aggression at home during the past year, ranging from pushes and shoves to hits and kicks. More than half of the families report an incident involving a knife or gun.

"Research that studies children who witness violence in the home is fundamental to helping them," says Paige Flink, executive director of The Family Place in Dallas. The Family Research Center, a new program of SMU's Psychology Department in Dedman College, works with shelters such as The Family Place to address the mental health problems of children facing domestic violence.

David Son uses some of the Earth's most common building blocks to create complex new materials with potential wide-ranging applications.

Son conducts research on polymers containing silicon. One of the main elements in the Earth's crust, silicon is the major ingredient in common sand, and is readily available.

The movement of aquatic life can appear inexplicable when viewed through the glass of an aquarium tank.

But Paul Krueger believes the mechanics that jellyfish and squid use to maneuver can be applied to technology in the emerging field of "micro" vehicles.