IF YOU’RE gripped by panic whenever someone asks you to do a simple mental sum, you may soon be able to claim that you suffer from a newly classified learning disability: maths anxiety.

Professor Mark Ashcraft, a cognitive psychologist, raised the spectre of maths anxiety this week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference.

Ashcraft, of Nevada University, is one of a small army of academics studying the phenomenon, in which people’s minds turn into a jumble of dancing figures when confronted by maths.

He says his studies support the theory that mathematics and fear both occupy the same space in your head — your working memory. This area simply overloads when trying to run both processes at once.

Rather than trying to improve your maths, it is best to tackle the fear, says the research. Even top maths students flunk exams because of it, says Ashcraft.

One study has shown that relaxing lavender smells can improve worriers’ maths skills. And research by Western Michigan University says that laughing at the problem seems to improve people’s results in tests.

If lavender and laughter don’t work, Richard Hopko, a psychologist at Tennessee University, is here to help. He is about to publish a study defining maths anxiety as a bona fide learning disability.

Cheap as chips: a test for Parkinson’s

A CHEAP silicon-chip based blood test could soon tell you whether you are at risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. It may even tell you how quickly the disease would progress, say investigators at the Howard Florey Institute in Australia.

There is no specific diagnostic test for Parkinson’s at the moment and doctors rely on their observations to make a diagnosis, the institute says. It cautions that some patients, therefore, do not get the most suitable drugs — and about 15 per cent of patients told they have Parkinson’s actually have something else.

The test uses a chip that can read DNA sequences. It screens for 17 genes; 6 that are already known to cause Parkinson’s disease, plus 11 other suspects. The study leader, Justin Rubio, says that the test would cost only £200 a time and may also predict the speed of the disease’s progress. It is about to be trialled on 400 volunteers.

Meanwhile, American researchers say they are on the trail of a gene that may predispose people to commit suicide. Scientists at John Hopkins University say they are examining an area of the genome on chromasome 2 that family studies reveal to be implicated in suicide.

They say that ultimately it may enable them to create a life-saving drug that blocks some suicidal predispositions.

Hairy spacesuits

EAR HAIR has finally found a role in humankind’s future — powering spacesuits. Nasa scientists are examining how to use prestin, a protein in the outer hair cells of human ears, to make a wearable skin that converts movement into energy. Prestin contracts and lengthens cells by converting electricity into motion. But Nasa says it can also work in reverse, turning movement into electricity. Star Trek’s final frontier now has hair in it.

Spray-can vaccine

SPRAY-DRYING technology used to make powdered milk could help to save the lives of millions at risk of tuberculosis.

The Areas Global TB Foundation, in Maryland, which is backed by Bill Gates, says it has developed the spray-dried version of the BCG vaccine as a safer and more efficient way of delivering it in developing nations. Mass needle use is an infection risk in areas such as Africa, but the new system uses an aerosol to deliver the vaccine straight to the lungs. The foundation says this may prove clinically more effective.

In a glass darkly

KEEPING your eyes shut may prove the best way to choose healthy orange-juice brands.

Consumer researchers have discovered that our fine-tuned ability to discern quality OJ disappears when the colour is made darker.

JoAndrea Hoegg, a professor of marketing at British Columbia University, found that volunteers were great at telling top juice from rubbish stuff when shown the labels. They could also discern between pure and sweetened juice in blind tests.

But when the drinks were darkened with food colouring, pure and sweetened tasted the same to them. They could no longer even differentiate between pure, fresh-squeezed juice and cheapo generic stuff made from concentrate. “Colour totally dominates taste,” says Hoegg.

We’d better all lighten up.

Northern soul

TROUBLE being understood? Perhaps a deep Barnsley accent may help. Scientists at Sheffield University are using the voice of Ian McMillan, the poet known as the Barnsley Bard, for a computerised portable speech translater for people with severely disordered speech. McMillan’s dialect is hoped to make Northerners feel at home with the gadget. Will there be a louder, ruder variant for Londoners?

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