The 5th Annual NIH Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation: Research at the Crossroads will be held March 19-20, 2012, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Rockville, Md.  The conference will facilitate communicating and networking for researchers, evaluators and implementers who are interested in identifying opportunities and strategies for overcoming obstacles for dissemination and implementation research/evaluation. There is no fee for registration. Abstracts for posters, oral presentations, and panel sessions are invited. The deadline for proposals is Nov. 10, 2011.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has made available an updated version of the Automated Self-Administered 24-Hour Recall (ASA24), an online dietary assessment tool. It may be of particular interest to sleep and circadian clinical researchers studying the relationship of sleep deficiency to metabolic disorders, appetite regulation and obesity. ASA24T is available to researchers free of charge. Note that using the tool requires "registering" studies to enable Web access.

Enacted on October 4, 2011, this CR will fund government operations through November 18 at the FY 2011 level minus 1.5 percent. “Until FY 2012 appropriations are enacted, NIH will issue non-competing research grant awards at a level below that indicated on the most recent Notice of Award (generally up to 90% of the previously committed level),” the NIH statement reads. “Upward adjustments to awarded levels will be considered after our FY 2012 appropriations are enacted.”

A study in the Oct. 1 issue of SLEEP suggests that children and teens who keep an “early to bed and early to rise” schedule may be slimmer and more physically active than their night-owl peers. A WebMD article noted that previous studies of sleep and weight may have “missed the mark” by focusing on sleep duration while ignoring sleep schedules.  An article in the Herald Sun reports that the results seem to contradict the idea that a later sleep pattern is healthy for teens.

A study by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that almost 70 percent of high school students reported getting less than eight hours of sleep on an average school night.  The study also found that insufficient sleep was associated with higher odds of many health-risk behaviors such as current use of cigarettes, marijuana and alcohol, as well as current sexual activity and having seriously considered attempting suicide.

A Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) issued by the NIH Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences Opportunity Network (OppNet) solicits Research Project grant (R01) applications for Mechanistic Pathways Linking Psychosocial Stress and Behavior (RFA-HL-12-037).  This FOA will facilitate investigation of multiple and potentially bidirectional pathways underlying the behavioral, environmental, and psychosocial link(s) between psychosocial stressors and behaviors that may ultimately impact biological function, health and disease.  The letter of intent due date is Nov. 19, 2011, and the application due date is Dec. 19, 2011.

The next letter of intent due date is Jan. 2, 2012, for the Education Research in Sleep Health and Sleep-Circadian Biology grant (PAR-11-098) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued funding opportunity announcements for three grants under the title of, “Healthy Habits: Timing for Developing Sustainable Healthy Behaviors in Children and Adolescents.” Developing healthy sleep patterns is one of the positive health behaviors that may be targeted by applications for these three grants: R01 research project grant (PA-11-327), R03 small grant program (PA-11-328) and R21 exploratory/developmental research grant award (PA-11-329). Standard application due dates apply.

Researchers have identified 29 genetic variations across 28 regions of the human genome that control blood pressure. Ten of the variations were found in unexpected locations, and provide new clues to how blood pressure is regulated. The findings may help predict the genetic risk of cardiovascular disease. Subjects with multiple variants had an increased risk of hypertension complications such as increased thickness of heart chamber, heart failure, stroke and coronary artery disease.