Why yes Chip, I am feeling quite chipper. After all, my glass is half full.
Republicans Report Much Better Mental Health Than Others
Relationship persists even when controlling for other variables
by Frank Newport
Page:123
PRINCETON, NJ -- Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education.
The basic data -- based on an aggregated sample of more than 4,000 interviews conducted since 2004 -- are straightforward.
The differences are quite significant, as can be seen. While Democrats are slightly less likely to report excellent mental health than are independents, the big distinctions in these data are the differences between Republicans and everyone else.
One could be quick to assume that these differences are based on the underlying demographic and socioeconomic patterns related to party identification in America today. A recent Gallup report (see "Strong Relationship Between Income and Mental Health" in Related Items) reviewed these mental health data more generally, and found that men, those with higher incomes, those with higher education levels, and whites are more likely than others to report excellent mental health. Some of these patterns describe characteristics of Republicans, of course.
All right, all you happy people line up over here. From now on you are going to call yourselves Republicans. Gripers and whiners line up over there. You can call yourselves Democrats. And yes, that is why they call them blue states.
Darwin or no Darwin, speak for yourself
How Our Ancestors Were Like Gorillas
ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2007) — New research shows that some of our closest extinct relatives had more in common with gorillas than previously thought. Dr Charles Lockwood, UCL Department of Anthropology and lead author of the study, said: "When we examined fossils from 1.5 to 2 million years ago we found that in one of our close relatives the males continued to grow well into adulthood, just as they do in gorillas. This resulted in a much bigger size difference between males and females than we see today.
"It's common knowledge that boys mature later than girls, but in humans the difference is actually much less marked than in some other primates. Male gorillas continue to grow long after their wisdom teeth have come through, and they don't reach what is referred to as dominant "silverback" status until many years after the females have already started to have offspring. Our research makes us think that, in this fossil species, one older male was probably dominant in a troop of females.
Of course Beorge Brett and Charley Lau have been the same thing for years, but what would they know. It's not like they measured it or anything.
Better at Bat
Psychologists Link Hitting Skills to Vision
August 1, 2006 — Cognitive psychologists have discovered that baseball skills correlate with how a player sees the ball: Athletes who see the ball bigger than it is tend to perform better. In the experiments, athletes were asked to look at circles of different sizes and pick the ones that matched the ball. The better performers tended to pick circles larger than the ball, while poorer performers tended to pick circles that were smaller than the ball.
Witt found players picking the larger circles performed better, proving that a player's perception of the ball's size is somehow linked to his performance. "It's hard to know which direction the effect goes," she says. "Do you see it as bigger and therefore hit better, or are you hitting better and therefore see it as bigger?"
She also found athletes who hit poorly see the ball as being much smaller than it really is. She says, "If we're a poor hitter, we see the world full of really, tiny, tiny, tiny balls that are really difficult to hit."
So to do well in a game, think big to hit big.
Witt recently conducted another study to find out if golfers who do well in a game see the cup as being bigger. Preliminary results suggest golfers do, indeed, see the cup bigger when playing well.
Big game, big balls...we can see where this is going.
We suspect that it's the same gene that controls a person's ability to fold clothes and put them away.
One Gene Variant Puts Stressed Women At Risk For Depression; Has Opposite Effect In Men
ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2007) — A common variation in genes puts women who are under chronic stress at risk for increased depressive symptoms, but has the exact opposite effect in men, according to new findings from Duke University Medical Center researchers.
The researchers analyzed two independent samples of healthy individuals for the presence of a genetic variant that regulates levels of serotonin — a neurotransmitter that is linked to health in numerous ways, including emotion regulation.
One version of the gene puts women who are under chronic stress at risk for more severe depressive symptoms. But among men, the same gene variant appeared to be protective against depression. In fact, men with the opposite gene variant were the ones who experienced more depressive symptoms when under chronic stress.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/29/07
Headline of the day
Group home's therapy sessions will no longer involve mini-horses
(Fon du Lac Reporter and the Obscure Store))
Well, thank God for that.
Well, guess he finally has an answer to his question. It's, "No we can't."
It's been reported that Rodney King, famous for a videotaped beating from Los Angeles police back in 1991, was shot and wounded on a San Bernardino street corner late Wednesday.
King called Rialto police just before midnight to report the shooting. According to Sgt. Don Lewis, King was struck in the face and arm -- with what appeared to be pellets or birdshot. When police arrived at King's home, they reported that King and others inside appeared drunk. The man got shot in the face -- he deserves a drink!
King was taken to a local hospital, and his wounds were not believed to be life-threatening.
Really? So does that make it normal but not natural or natural but not normal?
Pedophilia May Be The Result Of Faulty Brain Wiring
ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2007) — Pedophilia might be the result of faulty connections in the brain, according to new research released by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The study used MRIs and a sophisticated computer analysis technique to compare a group of pedophiles with a group of non-sexual criminals. The pedophiles had significantly less of a substance called "white matter" which is responsible for wiring the different parts of the brain together.
See also:
The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatry Research, challenges the commonly held belief that pedophilia is brought on by childhood trauma or abuse. This finding is the strongest evidence yet that pedophilia is instead the result of a problem in brain development.
Previous research from this team has strongly hinted that the key to understanding pedophilia might be in how the brain develops. Pedophiles have lower IQs, are three times more likely to be left-handed, and even tend to be physically shorter than non-pedophiles.
"There is nothing in this research that says pedophiles shouldn't be held criminally responsible for their actions," said Dr. James Cantor, CAMH Psychologist and lead scientist of the study, "Not being able to choose your sexual interests doesn't mean you can't choose what you do."
total of 127 men participated in the study; approximately equal numbers of pedophiles and non-sexual offenders.
We understand how one would want to make sweeping generalizations about human behavior based on a study of 127 men.
What tipped you off? The fact they were moody and had acne?
Discovering Teenage Galaxies Billions Of Light Years Away
ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2007) — Staring for the equivalent of every night for two weeks at the same little patch of sky with ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers has found the extremely faint light from teenage galaxies billions of light years away. These galaxies, which the research team believes are the building blocks of normal galaxies like our Milky Way, had eluded detection for three decades, despite intensive searches.
The team, led by Martin Haehnelt of the University of Cambridge, UK, Michael Rauch and George Becker of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution, USA, and Andy Bunker of the Anglo-Australian Observatory, reports their results in the 1 March 2008 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
"The farther we look back into space the farther we see back in time," explained Rauch." We were actually trying to measure a faint signal from intergalactic gas caused by the cosmic ultraviolet background radiation. But as often happens in science, we got a surprise and found something we weren't looking for--dozens of faint, discrete objects emitting radiation from neutral hydrogen in the so-called Lyman alpha line, a fundamental signature of protogalaxies."
Call us dreamers, but don't you think the evidence has been destroyed by now?
Police hunt for stolen Guinness
By Diarmaid Fleming
BBC NI Dublin correspondent
More than 400 kegs were stolen in what is likely to be the largest carry-out of drink this Christmas.
A man drove a truck into the yard on Wednesday, and left with a trailer containing 180 Guinness kegs, 180 Budweiser kegs, and 90 Carslberg kegs.
Police estimated the haul to be worth at least 64,000 euros (£46,000), at wholesale prices.
However, this figure would be considerably more if Dublin pub prices were charged.
The robbery occurred the same day as a special Garda operation known as Freeflow was launched to ease traffic congestion and combat drink-driving over Christmas.
Freeflow officers manning many checkpoints across the city are expected now also to be on the look out for any large quantity of stolen drink flowing through Dublin's traffic.
The stolen trailer has since been found at Slane Hill in County Meath. It was empty.
News we've all been waiting for
Adobe And Yahoo Partner To Put Ads In PDFs
Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo allows publishers to generate ad revenue from their digital content.
By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek
November 29, 2007 06:00 AM
Adobe and Yahoo are bringing advertising to electronic documents.
The two companies plan on Thursday to announce Ads for Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) PDF Powered by Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), a new service for publishers interested in generating ad revenue from their digital content.
The opt-in service will be available initially as a limited beta test, open only to select partners including IDG InfoWorld, Wired, Pearson's Education, Meredith Corp., and Reed Elsevier. Neither Adobe nor Yahoo has committed to a date for general availability.
But eventually anyone with an Adobe account and a Yahoo Publisher Network account will be able to participate.
Publishers first upload PDF files to Adobe. Once digital content gets associated with the publisher for purposes of payment, it gets analyzed so that Yahoo knows what type of ads to place in the document. The files then get ad-enabled and e-mailed back to the publisher to be distributed as the publisher chooses. Thereafter, when opened, ad-enabled documents will call out to Yahoo to fetch dynamic ads for display, provided the PDFs are being read on an Internet-connected device.
As with ads on Web pages, publishers get paid per valid click.
Group home's therapy sessions will no longer involve mini-horses
(Fon du Lac Reporter and the Obscure Store))
Well, thank God for that.
Well, guess he finally has an answer to his question. It's, "No we can't."
It's been reported that Rodney King, famous for a videotaped beating from Los Angeles police back in 1991, was shot and wounded on a San Bernardino street corner late Wednesday.
King called Rialto police just before midnight to report the shooting. According to Sgt. Don Lewis, King was struck in the face and arm -- with what appeared to be pellets or birdshot. When police arrived at King's home, they reported that King and others inside appeared drunk. The man got shot in the face -- he deserves a drink!
King was taken to a local hospital, and his wounds were not believed to be life-threatening.
Really? So does that make it normal but not natural or natural but not normal?
Pedophilia May Be The Result Of Faulty Brain Wiring
ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2007) — Pedophilia might be the result of faulty connections in the brain, according to new research released by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The study used MRIs and a sophisticated computer analysis technique to compare a group of pedophiles with a group of non-sexual criminals. The pedophiles had significantly less of a substance called "white matter" which is responsible for wiring the different parts of the brain together.
See also:
The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatry Research, challenges the commonly held belief that pedophilia is brought on by childhood trauma or abuse. This finding is the strongest evidence yet that pedophilia is instead the result of a problem in brain development.
Previous research from this team has strongly hinted that the key to understanding pedophilia might be in how the brain develops. Pedophiles have lower IQs, are three times more likely to be left-handed, and even tend to be physically shorter than non-pedophiles.
"There is nothing in this research that says pedophiles shouldn't be held criminally responsible for their actions," said Dr. James Cantor, CAMH Psychologist and lead scientist of the study, "Not being able to choose your sexual interests doesn't mean you can't choose what you do."
total of 127 men participated in the study; approximately equal numbers of pedophiles and non-sexual offenders.
We understand how one would want to make sweeping generalizations about human behavior based on a study of 127 men.
What tipped you off? The fact they were moody and had acne?
Discovering Teenage Galaxies Billions Of Light Years Away
ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2007) — Staring for the equivalent of every night for two weeks at the same little patch of sky with ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers has found the extremely faint light from teenage galaxies billions of light years away. These galaxies, which the research team believes are the building blocks of normal galaxies like our Milky Way, had eluded detection for three decades, despite intensive searches.
The team, led by Martin Haehnelt of the University of Cambridge, UK, Michael Rauch and George Becker of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution, USA, and Andy Bunker of the Anglo-Australian Observatory, reports their results in the 1 March 2008 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
"The farther we look back into space the farther we see back in time," explained Rauch." We were actually trying to measure a faint signal from intergalactic gas caused by the cosmic ultraviolet background radiation. But as often happens in science, we got a surprise and found something we weren't looking for--dozens of faint, discrete objects emitting radiation from neutral hydrogen in the so-called Lyman alpha line, a fundamental signature of protogalaxies."
Call us dreamers, but don't you think the evidence has been destroyed by now?
Police hunt for stolen Guinness
By Diarmaid Fleming
BBC NI Dublin correspondent
More than 400 kegs were stolen in what is likely to be the largest carry-out of drink this Christmas.
A man drove a truck into the yard on Wednesday, and left with a trailer containing 180 Guinness kegs, 180 Budweiser kegs, and 90 Carslberg kegs.
Police estimated the haul to be worth at least 64,000 euros (£46,000), at wholesale prices.
However, this figure would be considerably more if Dublin pub prices were charged.
The robbery occurred the same day as a special Garda operation known as Freeflow was launched to ease traffic congestion and combat drink-driving over Christmas.
Freeflow officers manning many checkpoints across the city are expected now also to be on the look out for any large quantity of stolen drink flowing through Dublin's traffic.
The stolen trailer has since been found at Slane Hill in County Meath. It was empty.
News we've all been waiting for
Adobe And Yahoo Partner To Put Ads In PDFs
Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo allows publishers to generate ad revenue from their digital content.
By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek
November 29, 2007 06:00 AM
Adobe and Yahoo are bringing advertising to electronic documents.
The two companies plan on Thursday to announce Ads for Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) PDF Powered by Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), a new service for publishers interested in generating ad revenue from their digital content.
The opt-in service will be available initially as a limited beta test, open only to select partners including IDG InfoWorld, Wired, Pearson's Education, Meredith Corp., and Reed Elsevier. Neither Adobe nor Yahoo has committed to a date for general availability.
But eventually anyone with an Adobe account and a Yahoo Publisher Network account will be able to participate.
Publishers first upload PDF files to Adobe. Once digital content gets associated with the publisher for purposes of payment, it gets analyzed so that Yahoo knows what type of ads to place in the document. The files then get ad-enabled and e-mailed back to the publisher to be distributed as the publisher chooses. Thereafter, when opened, ad-enabled documents will call out to Yahoo to fetch dynamic ads for display, provided the PDFs are being read on an Internet-connected device.
As with ads on Web pages, publishers get paid per valid click.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/28/07
Does that make them magic mushrooms?
Mushrooms may help produce vaccines
STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Nov. 28 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers are using modified mushrooms in a project designed to produce millions of doses of a vaccine or other drugs within a three-month period.
Penn State University Professor C. Peter Romaine and Xi Chen, previously a post-doctoral scholar at Penn State, hold the patent to genetically modify Agaricus bisporus -- the button variety of mushroom that is the predominant edible species worldwide.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Romaine $2.2 million in initial funding for the project. Officials said the total value of the effort, if both phases of the development program are completed, could be up to $5.9 million.
"Our immediate research goals are to maximize the level of expression of various biopharmaceuticals and to devise efficient and economical methods for their extraction and purification from mushroom tissue," Romaine said.
The drugs will then be extracted from the mushroom into forms that could be administered to people. In a pending third year of the project, the researchers are expected to show they can execute a full-scale manufacturing effort and produce three million doses of a drug within a 12-week period.
A defense contract? Right…
Sure, they’re just lookin’ at the biosphere. Yeah, we believe that
Global monitoring system under development
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency said a new global Earth observation system is under review at a ministerial-level meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Group on Earth Observations -- involving 71 governments, the European Commission and 46 organizations, including the ESA -- is meeting this week to assess progress in developing the global system that will provide near real-time data on changes in the Earth's lands, oceans, atmosphere and biosphere via a single Web portal.
The GEO is leading a worldwide effort to develop a Global Earth Observation System during a 10-year period.
The ESA said the operation will work with and build on existing systems, such as ocean buoys, weather stations and satellites, to provide comprehensive, coordinated Earth observations from thousands of instruments worldwide.
Hey, you there. Quit running.
No, actually we recruit people who are already muscle-bound tweekers. We look for what we call the fight or fight response.
Blackwater denies its guards use steroids
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- A sweeping lawsuit by families of victims shot in Baghdad by U.S.-contracted Blackwater guards claims the company condones the use of steroids.
Susan Burke, the lead attorney in the Washington litigation, told CNN the lawsuit is based on a Sept. 16 incident in which 17 people were killed by Blackwater guards.
The suit accuses the North Carolina company of war crimes, wrongful death, assault, negligent hiring, emotional distress and of hiring foreign mercenaries such as ex-Chilean commandos who were barred from security or military work in their home country.
"I think there is a whole corporate culture there that essentially rewards the use of excessive force -- shooting first, asking questions later," Burke told the broadcaster.
However, Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said all company workers face drug tests when they apply and on a quarterly basis.
"Steroids and performance enhancement drugs, both illegal and prescribed, are absolutely in violation of our policy," Tyrrell told CNN.
If they have two heads they can see twice as much
It’s for you
Cell phone may have killed South Korean man
By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 28, 10:20 AM ET
SEOUL, South Korea - An exploding cell phone battery is suspected by police in the death of a South Korean worker Wednesday, though the phone's manufacturer said it was highly unlikely.
The man, identified only by his family name Suh, was found dead at his workplace in a quarry Wednesday morning and his mobile phone battery was melted in his shirt pocket, a police official in Cheongwon told The Associated Press.
"We presume that the cell phone battery exploded," the police official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way.
Kim Hoon, a doctor who examined the body, agreed.
"He sustained an injury that is similar to a burn in the left chest and his ribs and spine were broken," Yonhap news agency quoted Kim as saying. "It is presumed that pressure caused by the explosion damaged his heart and lungs, leading to his death."
Kim was not immediately available for comment.
Police said the phone was made by South Korea's LG Electronics Inc., the world's fifth-biggest handset maker.
An LG official confirmed its product was involved in the accident but said the company would not comment directly on the incident because the cause was not confirmed. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to company policy, said such a fatal explosion would be virtually impossible.
So, how long before heads start exploding?
Mushrooms may help produce vaccines
STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Nov. 28 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers are using modified mushrooms in a project designed to produce millions of doses of a vaccine or other drugs within a three-month period.
Penn State University Professor C. Peter Romaine and Xi Chen, previously a post-doctoral scholar at Penn State, hold the patent to genetically modify Agaricus bisporus -- the button variety of mushroom that is the predominant edible species worldwide.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Romaine $2.2 million in initial funding for the project. Officials said the total value of the effort, if both phases of the development program are completed, could be up to $5.9 million.
"Our immediate research goals are to maximize the level of expression of various biopharmaceuticals and to devise efficient and economical methods for their extraction and purification from mushroom tissue," Romaine said.
The drugs will then be extracted from the mushroom into forms that could be administered to people. In a pending third year of the project, the researchers are expected to show they can execute a full-scale manufacturing effort and produce three million doses of a drug within a 12-week period.
A defense contract? Right…
Sure, they’re just lookin’ at the biosphere. Yeah, we believe that
Global monitoring system under development
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency said a new global Earth observation system is under review at a ministerial-level meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Group on Earth Observations -- involving 71 governments, the European Commission and 46 organizations, including the ESA -- is meeting this week to assess progress in developing the global system that will provide near real-time data on changes in the Earth's lands, oceans, atmosphere and biosphere via a single Web portal.
The GEO is leading a worldwide effort to develop a Global Earth Observation System during a 10-year period.
The ESA said the operation will work with and build on existing systems, such as ocean buoys, weather stations and satellites, to provide comprehensive, coordinated Earth observations from thousands of instruments worldwide.
Hey, you there. Quit running.
No, actually we recruit people who are already muscle-bound tweekers. We look for what we call the fight or fight response.
Blackwater denies its guards use steroids
WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- A sweeping lawsuit by families of victims shot in Baghdad by U.S.-contracted Blackwater guards claims the company condones the use of steroids.
Susan Burke, the lead attorney in the Washington litigation, told CNN the lawsuit is based on a Sept. 16 incident in which 17 people were killed by Blackwater guards.
The suit accuses the North Carolina company of war crimes, wrongful death, assault, negligent hiring, emotional distress and of hiring foreign mercenaries such as ex-Chilean commandos who were barred from security or military work in their home country.
"I think there is a whole corporate culture there that essentially rewards the use of excessive force -- shooting first, asking questions later," Burke told the broadcaster.
However, Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said all company workers face drug tests when they apply and on a quarterly basis.
"Steroids and performance enhancement drugs, both illegal and prescribed, are absolutely in violation of our policy," Tyrrell told CNN.
If they have two heads they can see twice as much
It’s for you
Cell phone may have killed South Korean man
By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 28, 10:20 AM ET
SEOUL, South Korea - An exploding cell phone battery is suspected by police in the death of a South Korean worker Wednesday, though the phone's manufacturer said it was highly unlikely.
The man, identified only by his family name Suh, was found dead at his workplace in a quarry Wednesday morning and his mobile phone battery was melted in his shirt pocket, a police official in Cheongwon told The Associated Press.
"We presume that the cell phone battery exploded," the police official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way.
Kim Hoon, a doctor who examined the body, agreed.
"He sustained an injury that is similar to a burn in the left chest and his ribs and spine were broken," Yonhap news agency quoted Kim as saying. "It is presumed that pressure caused by the explosion damaged his heart and lungs, leading to his death."
Kim was not immediately available for comment.
Police said the phone was made by South Korea's LG Electronics Inc., the world's fifth-biggest handset maker.
An LG official confirmed its product was involved in the accident but said the company would not comment directly on the incident because the cause was not confirmed. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to company policy, said such a fatal explosion would be virtually impossible.
So, how long before heads start exploding?
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/27/07
Tips from the Brooklyn Better Science Club
• How to read a newspaper
Remember, news is just ad space that didn't sell.
Anyone who wonders what makes this a science story has never seen Michael
Jackson Five to reunite, Jermaine says
The Jackson Five are planning to tour again for the first time since 1984, Jermaine Jackson told BBC Radio on Monday.
Jermaine, who appeared in the British version of “Celebrity Big Brother” this year, said he and his brothers, including Michael, could hit the road as soon as next year and that concert dates have been discussed.
“We feel we have to do it one more time. We owe that to the fans and to the public,” Jermaine said in the BBC interview.
The group, which included Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, and later younger brother Randy, stopped touring in the ’80s when Michael and little sister Janet became superstars in their own right. The Jackson Five officially disbanded in 1990.
Since reaching mega-star status, Michael has encounter legal and financial problems. He was acquitted of child molestation charges two years ago. Jermaine told the BBC that Michael's legal problems had delayed reunion plans.
“There's been so much going on, getting over all the hurdles that we all were faced with during Michael's trial,” Jermaine said. “But we are stronger than ever.” He also said he and his brothers were “in the studio at the moment.”
Today’s essay question: Is Tito the Jackson’s “Fredo”? Compare and contrast.
Headline of the day
Computer Glitch Leads To Brawl At Wauwatosa Kmart
2 People Arrested
wisn.com/news
Yeah, we got your blue light special right here pal.
Other headline of the day
Police Dog Bites Football Player in the End Zone (Breitbart)
Oh, go ahead. Fill in your own punch line.
This just in from our "things used to be different" department
Petrified Velvet Worms From 425 Million Years Ago Reveal True Ecology Of Distant Past
ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2007) — University of Leicester Geologist Dr Mark Purnell, with Canadian colleagues, reported, in the journal Geology, a new, exceptionally preserved deposit of fossils in 425 million year old Silurian rocks in Ontario.
The fossils include complete fish (only the second place on Earth where whole fish of this age have been found), various shrimp and worm like creatures, including velvet-worms, which look (in Dr Purnell’s words) “rather like a dozen headless Michelin men dancing a conga.”
The velvet worms were deflated slightly by a little early rotting, but within days of dying these animals had been transformed to the mineral calcium phosphate. This preserved them as beautiful petrified fossils, showing the wonderful detail of their bodies, including coloured stripes.
Dr Purnell commented: “It provides us with our best view of what lived together in such environments 425 million years ago, and our best information for understanding how life on Earth at that time was different to today.
“If people think of a fossil, they will undoubtedly be thinking of something with a hard skeleton or shell of some sort, and it is true that the vast majority of fossil are what in today’s world we call sea shells. But imagine trying to understand the biodiversity and ecology of a submarine seaside ecosystem with only the remains of sea shells to go on.
“All the variety of worms that crawl over and into the sand would be unknown, as would all the shrimpy things that scurry over the surface. We would have only a very partial view of the real biological picture.
“This is what palaeontologists are faced with when they try to reconstruct the history and past ecology of life on Earth, because everything without a shell very quickly, within hours or days, rots away to nothing, leaving no trace that it ever existed.”
Join us tomorrow for another episode of “…and Whitey’s on the moon.” (*with apologies to GSH)
Petrified Velvet Worms..We thought that was the name of Rat
Scabies new band.
What’s passing for science this week or how can I get a lot of press for a study done with a sample the size of a thimble?
According to the BBC, scientists in Taiwan have discovered another downside to smoking: it may increase the risk of baldness for some men.
Male pattern baldness, or androgenetic alopecia, is hereditary and partly caused by male sex hormones.
Researchers found that Asian men - who are less likely to go bald than their Western counterparts - were more likely to lose their hair if they smoked.
The study, of 740 Taiwanese men with an average age of 65, is published in Archives of Dermatology.
• How to read a newspaper
Remember, news is just ad space that didn't sell.
Anyone who wonders what makes this a science story has never seen Michael
Jackson Five to reunite, Jermaine says
The Jackson Five are planning to tour again for the first time since 1984, Jermaine Jackson told BBC Radio on Monday.
Jermaine, who appeared in the British version of “Celebrity Big Brother” this year, said he and his brothers, including Michael, could hit the road as soon as next year and that concert dates have been discussed.
“We feel we have to do it one more time. We owe that to the fans and to the public,” Jermaine said in the BBC interview.
The group, which included Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, and later younger brother Randy, stopped touring in the ’80s when Michael and little sister Janet became superstars in their own right. The Jackson Five officially disbanded in 1990.
Since reaching mega-star status, Michael has encounter legal and financial problems. He was acquitted of child molestation charges two years ago. Jermaine told the BBC that Michael's legal problems had delayed reunion plans.
“There's been so much going on, getting over all the hurdles that we all were faced with during Michael's trial,” Jermaine said. “But we are stronger than ever.” He also said he and his brothers were “in the studio at the moment.”
Today’s essay question: Is Tito the Jackson’s “Fredo”? Compare and contrast.
Headline of the day
Computer Glitch Leads To Brawl At Wauwatosa Kmart
2 People Arrested
wisn.com/news
Yeah, we got your blue light special right here pal.
Other headline of the day
Police Dog Bites Football Player in the End Zone (Breitbart)
Oh, go ahead. Fill in your own punch line.
This just in from our "things used to be different" department
Petrified Velvet Worms From 425 Million Years Ago Reveal True Ecology Of Distant Past
ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2007) — University of Leicester Geologist Dr Mark Purnell, with Canadian colleagues, reported, in the journal Geology, a new, exceptionally preserved deposit of fossils in 425 million year old Silurian rocks in Ontario.
The fossils include complete fish (only the second place on Earth where whole fish of this age have been found), various shrimp and worm like creatures, including velvet-worms, which look (in Dr Purnell’s words) “rather like a dozen headless Michelin men dancing a conga.”
The velvet worms were deflated slightly by a little early rotting, but within days of dying these animals had been transformed to the mineral calcium phosphate. This preserved them as beautiful petrified fossils, showing the wonderful detail of their bodies, including coloured stripes.
Dr Purnell commented: “It provides us with our best view of what lived together in such environments 425 million years ago, and our best information for understanding how life on Earth at that time was different to today.
“If people think of a fossil, they will undoubtedly be thinking of something with a hard skeleton or shell of some sort, and it is true that the vast majority of fossil are what in today’s world we call sea shells. But imagine trying to understand the biodiversity and ecology of a submarine seaside ecosystem with only the remains of sea shells to go on.
“All the variety of worms that crawl over and into the sand would be unknown, as would all the shrimpy things that scurry over the surface. We would have only a very partial view of the real biological picture.
“This is what palaeontologists are faced with when they try to reconstruct the history and past ecology of life on Earth, because everything without a shell very quickly, within hours or days, rots away to nothing, leaving no trace that it ever existed.”
Join us tomorrow for another episode of “…and Whitey’s on the moon.” (*with apologies to GSH)
Petrified Velvet Worms..We thought that was the name of Rat
Scabies new band.
What’s passing for science this week or how can I get a lot of press for a study done with a sample the size of a thimble?
According to the BBC, scientists in Taiwan have discovered another downside to smoking: it may increase the risk of baldness for some men.
Male pattern baldness, or androgenetic alopecia, is hereditary and partly caused by male sex hormones.
Researchers found that Asian men - who are less likely to go bald than their Western counterparts - were more likely to lose their hair if they smoked.
The study, of 740 Taiwanese men with an average age of 65, is published in Archives of Dermatology.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/26/07
Headline of the day
Rural New London man accused of shooting pet goat after wife didn't buy beer
(Appleton Post Crescent)(courtesy of The Obscure Store)
You know, acting their age. No more listening to the Sex Pistols.
Watching Galaxies Grow Old Gracefully
ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2007) —In the early 1900s, Edwin Hubble made the startling discovery that our Milky Way galaxy is not alone. It is just one of many galaxies, or "island universes," as Hubble dubbed them, swimming in the sea of space.
Now, a century later, NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer is helping piece together the evolution of these cosmic species. Since its launch in 2003, the mission has surveyed tens of thousands of galaxies in ultraviolet light across nine billion years of time. The results provide new, comprehensive evidence for the "nurture" theory of galaxy evolution, which holds that the galaxies first described by Hubble – the elegant spirals and blob-like ellipticals -- are evolutionarily linked.
According to this "nurture" theory, a typical young galaxy begins life as a spiral that is actively churning out stars. Over time, the spiral might merge with another spiral or perhaps an irregular-shaped galaxy, before kicking out a few more bursts of newly minted stars. Eventually, the galaxy slows down its production of stars and settles into later life as an elliptical.
"Our data confirm that all galaxies begin life forming stars," said Chris Martin, the principal investigator for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Then through a combination of mergers, fuel exhaustion and perhaps suppression by black holes, the galaxies eventually stop producing stars."
Sure, as long as parents don’t mind having building blocks thrown at them.
Simple Retro Toys May Be Better For Children Than Fancy Electronic Toys
ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2007) — The recent recalls of various children’s toys have parents and would-be Santas leery this holiday season, but it may just be the thing to push consumers to be more creative about the toys they buy their young children.
“Old-fashioned retro toys, such as red rubber balls, simple building blocks, clay and crayons, that don’t cost so much and are usually hidden in the back shelves are usually much healthier for children than the electronic educational toys that have fancier boxes and cost $89.99,” says Temple University developmental psychologist Kathy Hirsh-Pasek.
The overarching principle is that children are creative problem-solvers; they’re discoverers; they’re active, says Hirsh-Pasek, the Lefkowitz Professor of Psychology at Temple and co-director of the Temple University Infant Lab. “Your child gets to build his or her imagination around these simpler toys; the toys don’t command what your child does, but your child commands what the toys do.”
As Roberta Golinkoff, head of the Infant Language Project at the University of Delaware says, “Electronic educational toys boast brain development and that they are going to give your child a head start. But developmental psychologists know that it doesn’t really work this way. The toy manufacturers are playing on parents’ fears that our children will be left behind in this global marketplace.”
Golinkoff adds that “kids are not like empty vessels to be filled. If they play with toys that allow them to be explorers, they are more likely to learn important lessons about how to master their world.”
They’ll probably learn other important lessons too—like how to feel bitter and excluded when their friends talk about how much fun they’re having with their electronic gizmos. Yep, a red rubber ball can be a real motivator.
A defect in the universe? Oh, you mean something you didn’t expect to see.
A cosmic defect that appeared at the beginning of time has come to light
GOD does not play dice, or so said Einstein. But might he knit? If so, physicists seeking to explain the fundamental nature of the universe think they may have spotted a point at which a stitch became tangled, creating a flaw in the fabric of reality.
The universe was born in the Big Bang some 14 billion years ago. The first snapshots of the infant universe, showing it aged a mere 300,000 years, before the first stars coalesced, are taken in the light (or, rather, the microwaves) from that explosion. The cosmic microwave background, as it is known, reveals the early universe to have been a remarkably uniform fireball. Today's universe looks very different. It is lumpy, with clusters of galaxies scattered through it. Physicists have therefore spent years examining the baby pictures in the hope of discerning telltales of how the change happened.
What they have found are subtle variations in the cosmic microwave background, including a large spot that is distinctly colder than the rest. Over the past year, several ideas as to what caused this spot have been proposed and then quashed. The latest suggestion, made by Neil Turok of the University of Cambridge, in England, and his colleagues, and published this week in Science, is that the spot is a blemish which formed as reality crystallised, rather as ice cubes contain irregularities and air bubbles.
At the precise moment the universe began, its constituents—which today appear as fundamental forces such as gravity and electromagnetism, and subatomic particles such as electrons and quarks—were unified into a single substance in the extreme heat of the explosion. As the universe expanded, though, it cooled. And as it did so, it went through phase changes, just as steam condenses to liquid water that then forms ice as the temperature falls. At each point at which the phase of the universe changed, one of the forces of nature became distinct, or a type of matter emerged as being different from the others. Only when this process was complete did the familiar pattern that makes up the laws of physics properly emerge.
So, does God sleep on the cold spot?
Rural New London man accused of shooting pet goat after wife didn't buy beer
(Appleton Post Crescent)(courtesy of The Obscure Store)
You know, acting their age. No more listening to the Sex Pistols.
Watching Galaxies Grow Old Gracefully
ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2007) —In the early 1900s, Edwin Hubble made the startling discovery that our Milky Way galaxy is not alone. It is just one of many galaxies, or "island universes," as Hubble dubbed them, swimming in the sea of space.
Now, a century later, NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer is helping piece together the evolution of these cosmic species. Since its launch in 2003, the mission has surveyed tens of thousands of galaxies in ultraviolet light across nine billion years of time. The results provide new, comprehensive evidence for the "nurture" theory of galaxy evolution, which holds that the galaxies first described by Hubble – the elegant spirals and blob-like ellipticals -- are evolutionarily linked.
According to this "nurture" theory, a typical young galaxy begins life as a spiral that is actively churning out stars. Over time, the spiral might merge with another spiral or perhaps an irregular-shaped galaxy, before kicking out a few more bursts of newly minted stars. Eventually, the galaxy slows down its production of stars and settles into later life as an elliptical.
"Our data confirm that all galaxies begin life forming stars," said Chris Martin, the principal investigator for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Then through a combination of mergers, fuel exhaustion and perhaps suppression by black holes, the galaxies eventually stop producing stars."
Sure, as long as parents don’t mind having building blocks thrown at them.
Simple Retro Toys May Be Better For Children Than Fancy Electronic Toys
ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2007) — The recent recalls of various children’s toys have parents and would-be Santas leery this holiday season, but it may just be the thing to push consumers to be more creative about the toys they buy their young children.
“Old-fashioned retro toys, such as red rubber balls, simple building blocks, clay and crayons, that don’t cost so much and are usually hidden in the back shelves are usually much healthier for children than the electronic educational toys that have fancier boxes and cost $89.99,” says Temple University developmental psychologist Kathy Hirsh-Pasek.
The overarching principle is that children are creative problem-solvers; they’re discoverers; they’re active, says Hirsh-Pasek, the Lefkowitz Professor of Psychology at Temple and co-director of the Temple University Infant Lab. “Your child gets to build his or her imagination around these simpler toys; the toys don’t command what your child does, but your child commands what the toys do.”
As Roberta Golinkoff, head of the Infant Language Project at the University of Delaware says, “Electronic educational toys boast brain development and that they are going to give your child a head start. But developmental psychologists know that it doesn’t really work this way. The toy manufacturers are playing on parents’ fears that our children will be left behind in this global marketplace.”
Golinkoff adds that “kids are not like empty vessels to be filled. If they play with toys that allow them to be explorers, they are more likely to learn important lessons about how to master their world.”
They’ll probably learn other important lessons too—like how to feel bitter and excluded when their friends talk about how much fun they’re having with their electronic gizmos. Yep, a red rubber ball can be a real motivator.
A defect in the universe? Oh, you mean something you didn’t expect to see.
A cosmic defect that appeared at the beginning of time has come to light
GOD does not play dice, or so said Einstein. But might he knit? If so, physicists seeking to explain the fundamental nature of the universe think they may have spotted a point at which a stitch became tangled, creating a flaw in the fabric of reality.
The universe was born in the Big Bang some 14 billion years ago. The first snapshots of the infant universe, showing it aged a mere 300,000 years, before the first stars coalesced, are taken in the light (or, rather, the microwaves) from that explosion. The cosmic microwave background, as it is known, reveals the early universe to have been a remarkably uniform fireball. Today's universe looks very different. It is lumpy, with clusters of galaxies scattered through it. Physicists have therefore spent years examining the baby pictures in the hope of discerning telltales of how the change happened.
What they have found are subtle variations in the cosmic microwave background, including a large spot that is distinctly colder than the rest. Over the past year, several ideas as to what caused this spot have been proposed and then quashed. The latest suggestion, made by Neil Turok of the University of Cambridge, in England, and his colleagues, and published this week in Science, is that the spot is a blemish which formed as reality crystallised, rather as ice cubes contain irregularities and air bubbles.
At the precise moment the universe began, its constituents—which today appear as fundamental forces such as gravity and electromagnetism, and subatomic particles such as electrons and quarks—were unified into a single substance in the extreme heat of the explosion. As the universe expanded, though, it cooled. And as it did so, it went through phase changes, just as steam condenses to liquid water that then forms ice as the temperature falls. At each point at which the phase of the universe changed, one of the forces of nature became distinct, or a type of matter emerged as being different from the others. Only when this process was complete did the familiar pattern that makes up the laws of physics properly emerge.
So, does God sleep on the cold spot?
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/20/07
Maybe we should get the Morlocks to guard it
Doomsday vault begins deep freeze
Engineers have begun the two-month process of cooling down a "doomsday vault", which will house seeds from all known varieties of key food crops.
The temperature inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will drop to -18C (0F) in order to preserve the seeds.
Built deep inside a mountain, it aims to safeguard the world's crops from future disasters, such as nuclear wars, asteroids or dangerous climate change.
The first seeds are scheduled to arrive at the Arctic site in mid-February.
The Norwegian government is paying the $9m (£4.5m) construction costs of the vault, which will have enough space to house 4.5 million seed samples.
See inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault
The collection and maintenance of the seeds is being co-ordinated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has responsibility of ensuring the "conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity".
"The seed vault is the perfect place for keeping seeds safe for centuries," said Cary Fowler, the Trust's executive director.
"At these temperatures, seeds for important crops like wheat, barley and peas can last for up to 1,000 years."
Future proof
The seed vault will be built 120m (390ft) inside a mountain on Spitsbergen, one of four islands that make up Svalbard.
The site, roughly 1,000km (600 miles) north of mainland Norway was chosen as the location for the vault because it was very remote and it also offered the level of stability required for the long-term project.
The vast collection is intended to act as insurance against disasters so food production can be restarted anywhere on the planet following a regional or global catastrophe.
"It is very satisfying to see the vault evolve from a bold concept to an impressive facility that has everything we need to protect crop biodiversity," said Terje Riis-Johansen, the Norwegian Agriculture and Food Minister.
Engineers are using the surrounding rock and permafrost as a "cold store", an energy efficient approach that has become popular in Norway.
"We believe the design of the vault will ensure that the seeds will stay well preserved even if forces such as global warming raise temperatures outside the facility," explained project manager Magnus Tveiten.
Oh good, more heirloom tomatoes.
Headline of the day
Paramedic shoots armed robbery suspect, then treats him (Detroit News)
Would that constitute drumming up business?
Science—Texas style
College kids drink more on football days than on New Year's Eve
According to the Dallas Morning News, a new study out of University of Texas-Austin found that college students drink more alcohol on football game days than other days like New Year's Eve or Halloween.
Researchers followed UT students during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 football seasons. Talk about great timing — you might recall UT winning that little Rose Bowl game. Among the discoveries:
The researchers found students were especially likely to drink more during high-profile games against conference or national rivals. However, the increased drinking rates only occurred when students were on campus.
For instance, drinking levels were high for the 2005 regular-season Ohio State game, but were relatively low for games against rival Texas A&M (played during Thanksgiving break) and both Rose Bowl games, including the national championship (played during the semester break).
Ah yes, the sociable sciences. Boy, this really moves that old wheel of knowledge forward.
Scientist discover one size doesn’t fit all
Women's Medical Needs Are Vastly Different Than Men's
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2007) — Women's bodies and medical needs are vastly different than men's way beyond their reproductive systems. Women wake sooner from anesthesia, have less familiar symptoms of cardiovascular disease and are more likely to suffer from depression and sleep problems-- just to name a few of the differences.
Yet, there's a cavernous void in research based on sex and gender. Historically, most studies have been done on men and the findings applied to women.
Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine has launched the Institute for Women's Health Research to spur much needed research on health issues that affect women throughout their lifespan. Some topics on the ambitious research agenda: cancer, autoimmune disease, anesthesia, cardiovascular disease, depression, sleeping disorders, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and menopause.
"We should look at every research study with a sex and gender lens and see what applies to women as opposed to men," said Teresa Woodruff, executive director of the new Institute for Women's Health Research and the Thomas J. Watkins Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Feinberg School. "What are the differences between women and men that need further exploration? What does gender mean in development of disease throughout the lifespan? What is the influence of hormones? We have many questions, but we don't have concrete answers."
But we’re scientists , why would we lie?
Cancer studies 'wasted millions'
Some scientists say millions of research funds have been wasted
Millions of pounds of charity donations and taxpayers' money have been wasted on worthless cancer studies, the BBC has learned.
File On 4 has discovered thousands of studies have been invalidated.
It found some scientists have failed to carry out simple and inexpensive checks to ensure they are working with the right forms of human tumour cells.
Cancer Research UK said it used robust procedures to check the cell-lines used in research.
One of the latest examples of scientific research to be affected by this problem is a study of oesophageal cancer.
Researcher Dr Chris Tselepis worked with an international team which has found that TE7, an experimental culture of cancer cells used in labs for the past 20 years, was the wrong cancer.
Whole programmes of research had to be redone using verified human brain tumour cells
Prof Geoff Pilkington, University of Portsmouth
"Fortunately, for us our research was based on a number of cell types, so the impact of a mistaken identity for this line has actually been fairly minimal to us," said Dr Tselepis who is studying the cancer at the Cancer Research UK laboratories in Birmingham University.
"But I'm sure there's many other laboratories UK and worldwide-based that essentially base lots of their conclusions on one cell line and in that case, this mistaken identity has a massive impact on conclusions that people draw from such studies," he added.
Few scientists publicly admit such problems but Prof Geoff Pilkington, of the University of Portsmouth, told the BBC that he had to discard research into brain tumours after it emerged his team were studying human cells contaminated by the cells of rats and mice.
"Whole programmes of research had to be redone using verified human brain tumour cells," he said.
"It's hugely expensive and it's incredibly frustrating," Prof Pilkington added.
Erroneous data
The problem is compounded by the fact that studies based on erroneous research data will be printed in reputable scientific journals and become part of the accepted literature, thus misleading future researchers.
Earlier this year 19 eminent cancer specialists from the UK and USA wrote to the US health secretary urging tough action to end this waste of time, effort and money.
The US authorities replied that there appeared to be "abundant evidence" that many studies and publications had been compromised.
But the letter's originator, Prof Roland Nardone of the Catholic University of America, told the BBC that some scientists seemed unwilling to act.
Authenticated cell-lines
He said the best way to get scientists to comply would be to withhold research grants and publication in scientific journals unless their research used authenticated cell-lines.
This verification can be achieved using a technique of DNA profiling which compares the cell-line with a list of known contaminants and can cost as little as £180 per sample.
But the Medical Research Council, the major source of public funds for such research in the UK which provides £70m of grants annually for cancer studies, is reluctant to enforce authentication.
Dr Rob Buckle of the MRC told the BBC: "As soon as you start talking about regulation we have to ensure that it is proportionate and does not inhibit research."
Dr Buckle said the MRC was not aware of any particular study in the UK which had been compromised by problems with cell samples.
However, one of the UK's leading cancer medicine experts has said it is time for the scientific community to put its house in order.
Breast cancer cells
Cancer Research UK says it carries out stringent checks on cell-lines
"No grant or no publication," said Prof Karol Sikora, of Imperial College, London.
"If one of the leading journals, which all of us want to publish in, said: 'You have used cell-line - just give us the certificate of authenticity,' Now we can tell all that and it doesn't necessarily cost a lot of money."
Cancer Research UK, which spends £315m a year on research, would not be interviewed for the programme.
Instead it issued a statement from Dr Lilian Clark, its executive director of Science Operations & Funding, which said: "It is of paramount importance for us to ensure that all our researchers deliver world class science - they have the latest systems and robust procedures in place to guarantee this."
Dr Clark said the charity carried out stringent checks on cell-lines, including a DNA authenticating service.
Other headline of the day
'I'm Sorry I Snapped': Dog Groomer Jailed for Killing Poodle (WBAL-TV)
How about an Olympic standing team?
Sitting May Increase Risk Of Disease
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2007) — Most people spend most of their day sitting with relatively idle muscles. Health professionals advise that at least 30 minutes of activity at least 5 days a week will counteract health concerns, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity that may result from inactivity. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia say a new model regarding physical activity recommendations is emerging.
New research shows that what people do in the other 15 and a half hours of their waking day is just as important, or more so, than the time they spend actively exercising.
"Many activities like talking on the phone or watching a child's ballgame can be done just as enjoyably upright, and you burn double the number of calories while you're doing it," said Marc Hamilton, an associate professor of biomedical sciences whose work was recently published in Diabetes. "We're pretty stationary when we're talking on the phone or sitting in a chair at a ballgame, but if you stand, you're probably going to pace or move around."
In a series of studies that will be presented at the Second International Congress on Physical Activity and Public Health in Amsterdam, Hamilton, Theodore Zderic, a post-doctoral researcher, and their research team studied the impact of inactivity among rats, pigs and humans. In humans, they studied the effects of sitting in office chairs, using computers, reading, talking on the phone and watching TV.
They found evidence that sitting had negative effects on fat and cholesterol metabolism. The researchers also found that physical inactivity throughout the day stimulated disease-promoting processes, and that exercising, even for an hour a day, was not sufficient to reverse the effect.
There is a misconception that actively exercising is the only way to make a healthy difference in an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. However, Hamilton's studies found that standing and other non-exercise activities burn many calories in most adults even if they do not exercise at all.
"The enzymes in blood vessels of muscles responsible for 'fat burning' are shut off within hours of not standing," Hamilton said. "Standing and moving lightly will re-engage the enzymes, but since people are awake 16 hours a day, it stands to reason that when people sit much of that time they are losing the opportunity for optimal metabolism throughout
Doomsday vault begins deep freeze
Engineers have begun the two-month process of cooling down a "doomsday vault", which will house seeds from all known varieties of key food crops.
The temperature inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will drop to -18C (0F) in order to preserve the seeds.
Built deep inside a mountain, it aims to safeguard the world's crops from future disasters, such as nuclear wars, asteroids or dangerous climate change.
The first seeds are scheduled to arrive at the Arctic site in mid-February.
The Norwegian government is paying the $9m (£4.5m) construction costs of the vault, which will have enough space to house 4.5 million seed samples.
See inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault
The collection and maintenance of the seeds is being co-ordinated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has responsibility of ensuring the "conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity".
"The seed vault is the perfect place for keeping seeds safe for centuries," said Cary Fowler, the Trust's executive director.
"At these temperatures, seeds for important crops like wheat, barley and peas can last for up to 1,000 years."
Future proof
The seed vault will be built 120m (390ft) inside a mountain on Spitsbergen, one of four islands that make up Svalbard.
The site, roughly 1,000km (600 miles) north of mainland Norway was chosen as the location for the vault because it was very remote and it also offered the level of stability required for the long-term project.
The vast collection is intended to act as insurance against disasters so food production can be restarted anywhere on the planet following a regional or global catastrophe.
"It is very satisfying to see the vault evolve from a bold concept to an impressive facility that has everything we need to protect crop biodiversity," said Terje Riis-Johansen, the Norwegian Agriculture and Food Minister.
Engineers are using the surrounding rock and permafrost as a "cold store", an energy efficient approach that has become popular in Norway.
"We believe the design of the vault will ensure that the seeds will stay well preserved even if forces such as global warming raise temperatures outside the facility," explained project manager Magnus Tveiten.
Oh good, more heirloom tomatoes.
Headline of the day
Paramedic shoots armed robbery suspect, then treats him (Detroit News)
Would that constitute drumming up business?
Science—Texas style
College kids drink more on football days than on New Year's Eve
According to the Dallas Morning News, a new study out of University of Texas-Austin found that college students drink more alcohol on football game days than other days like New Year's Eve or Halloween.
Researchers followed UT students during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 football seasons. Talk about great timing — you might recall UT winning that little Rose Bowl game. Among the discoveries:
The researchers found students were especially likely to drink more during high-profile games against conference or national rivals. However, the increased drinking rates only occurred when students were on campus.
For instance, drinking levels were high for the 2005 regular-season Ohio State game, but were relatively low for games against rival Texas A&M (played during Thanksgiving break) and both Rose Bowl games, including the national championship (played during the semester break).
Ah yes, the sociable sciences. Boy, this really moves that old wheel of knowledge forward.
Scientist discover one size doesn’t fit all
Women's Medical Needs Are Vastly Different Than Men's
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2007) — Women's bodies and medical needs are vastly different than men's way beyond their reproductive systems. Women wake sooner from anesthesia, have less familiar symptoms of cardiovascular disease and are more likely to suffer from depression and sleep problems-- just to name a few of the differences.
Yet, there's a cavernous void in research based on sex and gender. Historically, most studies have been done on men and the findings applied to women.
Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine has launched the Institute for Women's Health Research to spur much needed research on health issues that affect women throughout their lifespan. Some topics on the ambitious research agenda: cancer, autoimmune disease, anesthesia, cardiovascular disease, depression, sleeping disorders, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and menopause.
"We should look at every research study with a sex and gender lens and see what applies to women as opposed to men," said Teresa Woodruff, executive director of the new Institute for Women's Health Research and the Thomas J. Watkins Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Feinberg School. "What are the differences between women and men that need further exploration? What does gender mean in development of disease throughout the lifespan? What is the influence of hormones? We have many questions, but we don't have concrete answers."
But we’re scientists , why would we lie?
Cancer studies 'wasted millions'
Some scientists say millions of research funds have been wasted
Millions of pounds of charity donations and taxpayers' money have been wasted on worthless cancer studies, the BBC has learned.
File On 4 has discovered thousands of studies have been invalidated.
It found some scientists have failed to carry out simple and inexpensive checks to ensure they are working with the right forms of human tumour cells.
Cancer Research UK said it used robust procedures to check the cell-lines used in research.
One of the latest examples of scientific research to be affected by this problem is a study of oesophageal cancer.
Researcher Dr Chris Tselepis worked with an international team which has found that TE7, an experimental culture of cancer cells used in labs for the past 20 years, was the wrong cancer.
Whole programmes of research had to be redone using verified human brain tumour cells
Prof Geoff Pilkington, University of Portsmouth
"Fortunately, for us our research was based on a number of cell types, so the impact of a mistaken identity for this line has actually been fairly minimal to us," said Dr Tselepis who is studying the cancer at the Cancer Research UK laboratories in Birmingham University.
"But I'm sure there's many other laboratories UK and worldwide-based that essentially base lots of their conclusions on one cell line and in that case, this mistaken identity has a massive impact on conclusions that people draw from such studies," he added.
Few scientists publicly admit such problems but Prof Geoff Pilkington, of the University of Portsmouth, told the BBC that he had to discard research into brain tumours after it emerged his team were studying human cells contaminated by the cells of rats and mice.
"Whole programmes of research had to be redone using verified human brain tumour cells," he said.
"It's hugely expensive and it's incredibly frustrating," Prof Pilkington added.
Erroneous data
The problem is compounded by the fact that studies based on erroneous research data will be printed in reputable scientific journals and become part of the accepted literature, thus misleading future researchers.
Earlier this year 19 eminent cancer specialists from the UK and USA wrote to the US health secretary urging tough action to end this waste of time, effort and money.
The US authorities replied that there appeared to be "abundant evidence" that many studies and publications had been compromised.
But the letter's originator, Prof Roland Nardone of the Catholic University of America, told the BBC that some scientists seemed unwilling to act.
Authenticated cell-lines
He said the best way to get scientists to comply would be to withhold research grants and publication in scientific journals unless their research used authenticated cell-lines.
This verification can be achieved using a technique of DNA profiling which compares the cell-line with a list of known contaminants and can cost as little as £180 per sample.
But the Medical Research Council, the major source of public funds for such research in the UK which provides £70m of grants annually for cancer studies, is reluctant to enforce authentication.
Dr Rob Buckle of the MRC told the BBC: "As soon as you start talking about regulation we have to ensure that it is proportionate and does not inhibit research."
Dr Buckle said the MRC was not aware of any particular study in the UK which had been compromised by problems with cell samples.
However, one of the UK's leading cancer medicine experts has said it is time for the scientific community to put its house in order.
Breast cancer cells
Cancer Research UK says it carries out stringent checks on cell-lines
"No grant or no publication," said Prof Karol Sikora, of Imperial College, London.
"If one of the leading journals, which all of us want to publish in, said: 'You have used cell-line - just give us the certificate of authenticity,' Now we can tell all that and it doesn't necessarily cost a lot of money."
Cancer Research UK, which spends £315m a year on research, would not be interviewed for the programme.
Instead it issued a statement from Dr Lilian Clark, its executive director of Science Operations & Funding, which said: "It is of paramount importance for us to ensure that all our researchers deliver world class science - they have the latest systems and robust procedures in place to guarantee this."
Dr Clark said the charity carried out stringent checks on cell-lines, including a DNA authenticating service.
Other headline of the day
'I'm Sorry I Snapped': Dog Groomer Jailed for Killing Poodle (WBAL-TV)
How about an Olympic standing team?
Sitting May Increase Risk Of Disease
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2007) — Most people spend most of their day sitting with relatively idle muscles. Health professionals advise that at least 30 minutes of activity at least 5 days a week will counteract health concerns, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity that may result from inactivity. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia say a new model regarding physical activity recommendations is emerging.
New research shows that what people do in the other 15 and a half hours of their waking day is just as important, or more so, than the time they spend actively exercising.
"Many activities like talking on the phone or watching a child's ballgame can be done just as enjoyably upright, and you burn double the number of calories while you're doing it," said Marc Hamilton, an associate professor of biomedical sciences whose work was recently published in Diabetes. "We're pretty stationary when we're talking on the phone or sitting in a chair at a ballgame, but if you stand, you're probably going to pace or move around."
In a series of studies that will be presented at the Second International Congress on Physical Activity and Public Health in Amsterdam, Hamilton, Theodore Zderic, a post-doctoral researcher, and their research team studied the impact of inactivity among rats, pigs and humans. In humans, they studied the effects of sitting in office chairs, using computers, reading, talking on the phone and watching TV.
They found evidence that sitting had negative effects on fat and cholesterol metabolism. The researchers also found that physical inactivity throughout the day stimulated disease-promoting processes, and that exercising, even for an hour a day, was not sufficient to reverse the effect.
There is a misconception that actively exercising is the only way to make a healthy difference in an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. However, Hamilton's studies found that standing and other non-exercise activities burn many calories in most adults even if they do not exercise at all.
"The enzymes in blood vessels of muscles responsible for 'fat burning' are shut off within hours of not standing," Hamilton said. "Standing and moving lightly will re-engage the enzymes, but since people are awake 16 hours a day, it stands to reason that when people sit much of that time they are losing the opportunity for optimal metabolism throughout
Monday, November 19, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/19/07
Halts or puts to sleep?
Cannabis compound 'halts cancer'
A compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer spreading throughout the body, US scientists believe.
The California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute team are hopeful that cannabidiol or CBD could be a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy.
Unlike cannabis, CBD does not have any psychoactive properties so its use would not violate laws, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics reports.
The authors stressed that they were not suggesting patients smoke marijuana.
They added that it would be highly unlikely that effective concentrations of CBD could be reached by smoking cannabis.
This compound offers the hope of a non-toxic therapy that could achieve the same results without any of the painful side effects
Lead researcher Dr Sean McAllister
CBD works by blocking the activity of a gene called Id-1 which is believed to be responsible for the aggressive spread of cancer cells away from the original tumour site - a process called metastasis.
No Dude, it’s goood for you.
Well it she does it, it would explain a lot.
Vegan Heather Mills' latest bizarre outburst: 'Why don't we drink rats' milk?'
According to This is London.co.uk, it was another typical day in the world of Heather Mills.
Kicking off with her storming out of a radio interview with London's LBC station, media-shy Heather then turned up at Speaker's Corner, in a gas-guzzling black 4x4 Mercedes, to lecture the assembled crowds on ways of saving the planet.
As part of her extraordinary tirade at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, Heather exhorted people to try drinking rat's milk instead of cow milk to help reduce global warming.
The former model said eating meat and dairy was destroying the earth and insisted the milk of rats, cats and dogs would be more eco-friendly.
"Why don't we drink rat's milk or cat's milk or dog's milk?" she asked.
Ms Mills, 39, was launching a pro-vegan campaign for animals charity Viva!
Macca, Macca, Macca…what were you thinking?
Yeah, here’s the thing. If you keep them busy, they think they’re accomplishing something. You know, feel good about themselves.
Attention San Francisco shoppers: Plastic grocery store bags are going, going, gone.
Starting Tuesday, large grocery stores in the city can no longer use the traditional plastic bags that are a staple of the supermarket checkout line, as a city ordinance passed earlier this year to ban the bags takes effect.
"People are used to getting free bags and thinking there is no real consequence to them, but there is a cost," said Jack Macy, commercial recycling coordinator for the city's Department of the Environment, which is implementing the new policy.
The 180 million plastic bags city officials estimate are handed out in the city each year end up as litter on city streets, clog storm drains, harm wildlife, and contaminate and jam machines used in recycling, Macy said.
And then there is the giant patch of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean that scientists are monitoring, estimated to weigh 3 million tons and cover an area twice the size of Texas. The patch is about 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, but plastic dumped in the ocean here can end up there.
Stores can still use plastic bags so long as they are a special type that are compostable. Bags must now be made of at least 40 percent high-grade recycled paper, and many stores are using bags made from 100 percent recycled paper, Macy said.
Few, if any, stores offer compostable bags to customers, though. Those bags are biodegradable, and Macy cautions people not to throw them out with the regular garbage but instead to put them in the green city waste bins. When they are available, the city will require the compostable bags to be clearly marked.
Headline of the day
Hubby says nothing to wife about his $600,000 lottery win
Did they have PETA back then?
Ancient Maya elite binged on big game, loved furs
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Ancient Maya rulers devastated big game in Central America and Mexico by bingeing on deer meat and flaunting jaguar fur in an early example of poor resource management, new research shows.
The Maya built soaring pyramids and elaborate palaces in Central America and southern Mexico before mysteriously abandoning their cities around 900 A.D.
A population explosion in the elite class just as the Mayan culture began to decline increased the demand for big game meat, especially white-tailed deer seen as a status symbol for nobles, said Kitty Emery, a curator at Florida Museum of Natural History.
"The elite class was growing disproportionately and they had to prove their power by acquiring more high status food," Emery said.
"They are making more demands on the environment and just like in the modern world there are limited resources," said Emery, whose study appeared in the October 31 issue of the Journal for Nature Conservation.
The collapse of the Maya, who dominated the region for some 2,000 years as accomplished scientists and urban builders, is one of the great mysteries of archeology.
Scholars have blamed the demise on everything from disease to over-farming, incessant warfare or climate change that led to prolonged drought.
Massive deforestation caused by the Maya building great cities and ceremonial complexes as well as a two-century drought shrank the habitat for animals like deer, jaguars and wild boars, said Emery.
Their extravagance nearly wiped out many large game species before the arrival of Spanish colonists around 1500 A.D., said Emery, who examined close to 80,000 samples of animal bones discarded in ancient garbage dumps around excavated ruins in Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and Belize.
"The people probably said, 'I don't care how many jaguar booties you are wearing, I don't have any corn on my table, I'm not bringing you any more deer,"' says Emery. "That's the point where people just walk away from the cities."
Jaguar booties? We think we saw them play at CBGB one time.
Cannabis compound 'halts cancer'
A compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer spreading throughout the body, US scientists believe.
The California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute team are hopeful that cannabidiol or CBD could be a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy.
Unlike cannabis, CBD does not have any psychoactive properties so its use would not violate laws, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics reports.
The authors stressed that they were not suggesting patients smoke marijuana.
They added that it would be highly unlikely that effective concentrations of CBD could be reached by smoking cannabis.
This compound offers the hope of a non-toxic therapy that could achieve the same results without any of the painful side effects
Lead researcher Dr Sean McAllister
CBD works by blocking the activity of a gene called Id-1 which is believed to be responsible for the aggressive spread of cancer cells away from the original tumour site - a process called metastasis.
No Dude, it’s goood for you.
Well it she does it, it would explain a lot.
Vegan Heather Mills' latest bizarre outburst: 'Why don't we drink rats' milk?'
According to This is London.co.uk, it was another typical day in the world of Heather Mills.
Kicking off with her storming out of a radio interview with London's LBC station, media-shy Heather then turned up at Speaker's Corner, in a gas-guzzling black 4x4 Mercedes, to lecture the assembled crowds on ways of saving the planet.
As part of her extraordinary tirade at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, Heather exhorted people to try drinking rat's milk instead of cow milk to help reduce global warming.
The former model said eating meat and dairy was destroying the earth and insisted the milk of rats, cats and dogs would be more eco-friendly.
"Why don't we drink rat's milk or cat's milk or dog's milk?" she asked.
Ms Mills, 39, was launching a pro-vegan campaign for animals charity Viva!
Macca, Macca, Macca…what were you thinking?
Yeah, here’s the thing. If you keep them busy, they think they’re accomplishing something. You know, feel good about themselves.
Attention San Francisco shoppers: Plastic grocery store bags are going, going, gone.
Starting Tuesday, large grocery stores in the city can no longer use the traditional plastic bags that are a staple of the supermarket checkout line, as a city ordinance passed earlier this year to ban the bags takes effect.
"People are used to getting free bags and thinking there is no real consequence to them, but there is a cost," said Jack Macy, commercial recycling coordinator for the city's Department of the Environment, which is implementing the new policy.
The 180 million plastic bags city officials estimate are handed out in the city each year end up as litter on city streets, clog storm drains, harm wildlife, and contaminate and jam machines used in recycling, Macy said.
And then there is the giant patch of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean that scientists are monitoring, estimated to weigh 3 million tons and cover an area twice the size of Texas. The patch is about 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, but plastic dumped in the ocean here can end up there.
Stores can still use plastic bags so long as they are a special type that are compostable. Bags must now be made of at least 40 percent high-grade recycled paper, and many stores are using bags made from 100 percent recycled paper, Macy said.
Few, if any, stores offer compostable bags to customers, though. Those bags are biodegradable, and Macy cautions people not to throw them out with the regular garbage but instead to put them in the green city waste bins. When they are available, the city will require the compostable bags to be clearly marked.
Headline of the day
Hubby says nothing to wife about his $600,000 lottery win
Did they have PETA back then?
Ancient Maya elite binged on big game, loved furs
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Ancient Maya rulers devastated big game in Central America and Mexico by bingeing on deer meat and flaunting jaguar fur in an early example of poor resource management, new research shows.
The Maya built soaring pyramids and elaborate palaces in Central America and southern Mexico before mysteriously abandoning their cities around 900 A.D.
A population explosion in the elite class just as the Mayan culture began to decline increased the demand for big game meat, especially white-tailed deer seen as a status symbol for nobles, said Kitty Emery, a curator at Florida Museum of Natural History.
"The elite class was growing disproportionately and they had to prove their power by acquiring more high status food," Emery said.
"They are making more demands on the environment and just like in the modern world there are limited resources," said Emery, whose study appeared in the October 31 issue of the Journal for Nature Conservation.
The collapse of the Maya, who dominated the region for some 2,000 years as accomplished scientists and urban builders, is one of the great mysteries of archeology.
Scholars have blamed the demise on everything from disease to over-farming, incessant warfare or climate change that led to prolonged drought.
Massive deforestation caused by the Maya building great cities and ceremonial complexes as well as a two-century drought shrank the habitat for animals like deer, jaguars and wild boars, said Emery.
Their extravagance nearly wiped out many large game species before the arrival of Spanish colonists around 1500 A.D., said Emery, who examined close to 80,000 samples of animal bones discarded in ancient garbage dumps around excavated ruins in Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and Belize.
"The people probably said, 'I don't care how many jaguar booties you are wearing, I don't have any corn on my table, I'm not bringing you any more deer,"' says Emery. "That's the point where people just walk away from the cities."
Jaguar booties? We think we saw them play at CBGB one time.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/16/07
Headline of the day
Landlord threatens to release sex tape if rent isn't paid (Northwest Florida Daily News/The Obscure Store)
Remember, always read the fine print on a lease.
It seems having fewer working parts could be an advantage
Simple Reason Helps Males Evolve More Quickly
ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2007) — The observation that males evolve more quickly than females has been around since 19th century biologist Charles Darwin noted the majesty of a peacock's tail feather in comparison with the plainness of the peahen's.
No matter the species, males apparently ramp up flashier features and more melodious warbles in an eternal competition to win the best mates, a concept known as sexual selection.
Why males are in evolutionary overdrive even though they have essentially the same genes as females has been a mystery, but an explanation by University of Florida Genetics Institute researchers to appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week may shed light on the subject.
"It's because males are simpler," said Marta Wayne, an associate professor of zoology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and director of UF's Graduate Program in Genetics and Genomics. "The mode of inheritance in males involves simpler genetic architecture that does not include as many interactions between genes as could be involved in female inheritance.”
We swear no quarterbacks were injured during this research
Tracking Your Team
Colors Are Key To Keeping Your Eyes On The Game
December 1, 2006 — People can focus on more than three items at a time if those items share a common color. Psychologists at Johns Hopkins University have demonstrated that when players wear uniforms, it allows spectators, players and coaches at major sporting events to overcome humans' natural limit of tracking no more than three objects at a time. The common color of uniforms allows them to overcome the usual limit because they perceive separate individuals as a single set.
Color helps the fans, refs and coaches stay focused on an action-packed game. But what if everyone was wearing the same color? Could you still pay attention to the game?
If it weren't for colored jerseys, the game could be hard to follow. Johns Hopkins University Psychologist Justin Halberda, Ph.D., says our brains have trouble keeping track of more than three objects -- or players -- at one time.
"It appears to be something fundamental about the way the brain is made, that attention is linked to three objects at once," Dr. Halberda tells Ivanhoe.
A new study at Johns Hopkins shows color is the key to grabbing your attention. When multiple players are in one color, the brain can keep track of several at once. Volunteers viewing a series of flashing colored dots could accurately count large numbers of dots of the same color.
"It appears to be something fundamental about the way the brain is made, that attention is linked to three objects at once," Dr. Halberda tells Ivanhoe.
“OK, thesis, antithesis synthesis and the rule of three on one. Hut.”
Other headline of the day
Fabio calls Clooney ‘low-class scumbag’ (MSNBC)
A guy that reps fake butter talks smack...classy
Stop the presses—Research shows getting and spending tied to low self esteem. Do advertisers know about this?
In Children And Adolescents, Low Self-esteem Increases Materialism
ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2007) — One of the first studies to focus on materialism among children and its development reveals a strong connection between an increase in materialism during adolescence and a decline in self-esteem.
Indeed, Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) show that the relationship appears to more than just a correlation, but a causal relationship -- low self esteem causes increased materialism and raising self esteem decreases materialism.
In a forthcoming study in the Journal of Consumer Research, Chaplin and John studied children of different age groups and found that, generally, self-esteem increases from middle childhood (8-9 years) to early adolescence (12-13 years), but then declines during adolescence until the end of high school (16-18 years). This mirrors patterns in materialism, which increases in early adolescence but decreases in late adolescence during the transition into young adulthood.
They found that even a simple gesture to raise self esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity: "By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth," they write.
How about that Marx guy, does he know about this?
Landlord threatens to release sex tape if rent isn't paid (Northwest Florida Daily News/The Obscure Store)
Remember, always read the fine print on a lease.
It seems having fewer working parts could be an advantage
Simple Reason Helps Males Evolve More Quickly
ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2007) — The observation that males evolve more quickly than females has been around since 19th century biologist Charles Darwin noted the majesty of a peacock's tail feather in comparison with the plainness of the peahen's.
No matter the species, males apparently ramp up flashier features and more melodious warbles in an eternal competition to win the best mates, a concept known as sexual selection.
Why males are in evolutionary overdrive even though they have essentially the same genes as females has been a mystery, but an explanation by University of Florida Genetics Institute researchers to appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week may shed light on the subject.
"It's because males are simpler," said Marta Wayne, an associate professor of zoology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and director of UF's Graduate Program in Genetics and Genomics. "The mode of inheritance in males involves simpler genetic architecture that does not include as many interactions between genes as could be involved in female inheritance.”
We swear no quarterbacks were injured during this research
Tracking Your Team
Colors Are Key To Keeping Your Eyes On The Game
December 1, 2006 — People can focus on more than three items at a time if those items share a common color. Psychologists at Johns Hopkins University have demonstrated that when players wear uniforms, it allows spectators, players and coaches at major sporting events to overcome humans' natural limit of tracking no more than three objects at a time. The common color of uniforms allows them to overcome the usual limit because they perceive separate individuals as a single set.
Color helps the fans, refs and coaches stay focused on an action-packed game. But what if everyone was wearing the same color? Could you still pay attention to the game?
If it weren't for colored jerseys, the game could be hard to follow. Johns Hopkins University Psychologist Justin Halberda, Ph.D., says our brains have trouble keeping track of more than three objects -- or players -- at one time.
"It appears to be something fundamental about the way the brain is made, that attention is linked to three objects at once," Dr. Halberda tells Ivanhoe.
A new study at Johns Hopkins shows color is the key to grabbing your attention. When multiple players are in one color, the brain can keep track of several at once. Volunteers viewing a series of flashing colored dots could accurately count large numbers of dots of the same color.
"It appears to be something fundamental about the way the brain is made, that attention is linked to three objects at once," Dr. Halberda tells Ivanhoe.
“OK, thesis, antithesis synthesis and the rule of three on one. Hut.”
Other headline of the day
Fabio calls Clooney ‘low-class scumbag’ (MSNBC)
A guy that reps fake butter talks smack...classy
Stop the presses—Research shows getting and spending tied to low self esteem. Do advertisers know about this?
In Children And Adolescents, Low Self-esteem Increases Materialism
ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2007) — One of the first studies to focus on materialism among children and its development reveals a strong connection between an increase in materialism during adolescence and a decline in self-esteem.
Indeed, Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) show that the relationship appears to more than just a correlation, but a causal relationship -- low self esteem causes increased materialism and raising self esteem decreases materialism.
In a forthcoming study in the Journal of Consumer Research, Chaplin and John studied children of different age groups and found that, generally, self-esteem increases from middle childhood (8-9 years) to early adolescence (12-13 years), but then declines during adolescence until the end of high school (16-18 years). This mirrors patterns in materialism, which increases in early adolescence but decreases in late adolescence during the transition into young adulthood.
They found that even a simple gesture to raise self esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity: "By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth," they write.
How about that Marx guy, does he know about this?
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/15/07
As Joseph Stalin might have said, " And how many albums has the pope sold?"
Britney And K-Fed Doing It All Wrong, Researcher Says
ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2007) — Britney Spears and ex-husband Kevin Federline continue to duke it out in the headlines over the custody of their two children. This week, a judge turned down Spears’ plea for joint custody. Her visitations rights were previously reinstated and she is allowed to see her two boys three times a week during monitored visits. A University of Missouri-Columbia researcher and expert in divorce and stepfamily issues said this story should open everyone’s eyes to the damage that can be inflicted on children who are caught in a custody war.
“They are doing almost everything wrong,” said Larry Ganong, professor and co-chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences and professor in the Sinclair School of Nursing. “Interparental conflict is so damaging for kids. The message is that parents need to cooperate as much as possible, put the children’s needs first, stifle anger and take the high road. I don’t get the sense that Brit and K-Fed are doing that.”
More than half of America’s courts require some type of parental education for adults going through divorce or separation. Ganong is one of the co-creators of “Focus on Kids” – a program developed 12 years ago by HDFS faculty at MU and continually updated. It is used in many courts to educate parents on ways to put their differences aside for the sake of their children.
“We don’t necessarily expect the parents to like each other, but we do try to teach them to act cordial as though a person would with a co-worker or a business associate. In this case, that business is raising a child,” Ganong said.
As Mr. Sporty once said on his Christmas album, “‘Cause it’s all about the chillin.’”
So Larry thinks, “Interparental conflict is so damaging for kids. The message is that parents need to cooperate as much as possible, put the children’s needs first, stifle anger and take the high road.” Right, good luck. We’ve got toasters smarter than these two added together.
"From this single bone, which is about the size of a pastrami sandwich from the Stage Deli, I can say, unmistakably, that this dinosaur walked with an accent, spoke with a limp and was the inspiration for the Ramones song “Pinhead.” And you can’t prove I’m wrong, see.”
Fossil is new family of dinosaur
According to the BBC, a fossilised bone dug up near Hastings 113 years ago has been recognised as a completely new family of dinosaur.
The animal belongs to a general type of dinosaur called a sauropod - which was characterised by a large body, a long neck and a small head.
A PhD student from the University of Portsmouth stumbled upon the specimen while browsing through the shelves of London's Natural History Museum.
The work is to appear in the academic journal Palaeontology.
The fossil represents the dorsal vertebra (back bone) of a new family, genus and species of dinosaur now named Xenoposeidon proneneukus.
It lived about 140 million years ago, was about the size of an elephant and weighed 7.5 tonnes.
What, no Glenn Branca tuning?
World's first 'robot' guitar tunes itself
Six nonstandard tunings also available at the push of a button
According to MSNBC, Gibson has introduced the world's first robot guitar — an electric guitar that not only keeps itself in tune even after string changes but also allows players to access six nonstandard tunings at the push of a button.
After 15 years of research, Gibson Guitar is launching a limited edition Les Paul Robot Guitar next month that has set players abuzz with both enthusiasm and skepticism.
"It will not make you a better guitar player but it will allow the average player to access some very sophisticated tunings," Gibson Guitar Chief Executive Henry Juszkiewicz told Reuters on Tuesday.
The six nonstandard preset tunings were used on hits ranging from "Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones and Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" to Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" and Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game."
Gibson says the robot guitar is aimed at amateurs who have a hard time keeping their guitars in tune, as well as professionals who now use technicians during concerts to keep about 100 guitars tuned to different keys.
"Professional guitar players use a lot of different tuning and people who listen to the stars wonder why they can't reproduce the same sound themselves," Juszkiewicz said.
Temperature variations, changing strings and simply playing the instrument have long been tuning challenges for guitarists with even the best musical ear.
But some have already poured scorn on the robot guitar.
"I'm sorry, this is just lazy. With stuff like this, tuning is going to be a lost skill," wrote LettheBassPlay on the www.ultimate-guitar.com Web site forum.
Gibson said the robot guitar is the biggest advance in electric guitar design in more than 70 years.
"It's very addictive," Juszkiewicz said.
Gibson will launch 4,000 limited edition, blue silverburst Les Gibson Robot Guitars around the world on December 7 at a price in the region of $2,500. It expects to roll out a standard robot edition starting in January 2008.
“So which tuning is appropriate for “Metal Machine Music?”
Headline of the day
Luxury pet hotel cancels grand opening
It’s called Chateau Poochie. No, really.
More from the Miami Herald.com
“Mitzi Bitzi, a Brussels Griffon who spent Tuesday at the groomers, was understandably miffed. Her big brown eyes and strawberry blonde locks had earned her the honor of modeling a $118,000 diamond necklace at the party.
''We were so disappointed,'' said Mitzi Bitzi's owner Marilyn Belkin, who lives in Delray Beach. ``I had just bought her eight new dresses and we were going to pick something from that selection to wear.”
Further proof that evolution is a sometime thing.
Britney And K-Fed Doing It All Wrong, Researcher Says
ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2007) — Britney Spears and ex-husband Kevin Federline continue to duke it out in the headlines over the custody of their two children. This week, a judge turned down Spears’ plea for joint custody. Her visitations rights were previously reinstated and she is allowed to see her two boys three times a week during monitored visits. A University of Missouri-Columbia researcher and expert in divorce and stepfamily issues said this story should open everyone’s eyes to the damage that can be inflicted on children who are caught in a custody war.
“They are doing almost everything wrong,” said Larry Ganong, professor and co-chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences and professor in the Sinclair School of Nursing. “Interparental conflict is so damaging for kids. The message is that parents need to cooperate as much as possible, put the children’s needs first, stifle anger and take the high road. I don’t get the sense that Brit and K-Fed are doing that.”
More than half of America’s courts require some type of parental education for adults going through divorce or separation. Ganong is one of the co-creators of “Focus on Kids” – a program developed 12 years ago by HDFS faculty at MU and continually updated. It is used in many courts to educate parents on ways to put their differences aside for the sake of their children.
“We don’t necessarily expect the parents to like each other, but we do try to teach them to act cordial as though a person would with a co-worker or a business associate. In this case, that business is raising a child,” Ganong said.
As Mr. Sporty once said on his Christmas album, “‘Cause it’s all about the chillin.’”
So Larry thinks, “Interparental conflict is so damaging for kids. The message is that parents need to cooperate as much as possible, put the children’s needs first, stifle anger and take the high road.” Right, good luck. We’ve got toasters smarter than these two added together.
"From this single bone, which is about the size of a pastrami sandwich from the Stage Deli, I can say, unmistakably, that this dinosaur walked with an accent, spoke with a limp and was the inspiration for the Ramones song “Pinhead.” And you can’t prove I’m wrong, see.”
Fossil is new family of dinosaur
According to the BBC, a fossilised bone dug up near Hastings 113 years ago has been recognised as a completely new family of dinosaur.
The animal belongs to a general type of dinosaur called a sauropod - which was characterised by a large body, a long neck and a small head.
A PhD student from the University of Portsmouth stumbled upon the specimen while browsing through the shelves of London's Natural History Museum.
The work is to appear in the academic journal Palaeontology.
The fossil represents the dorsal vertebra (back bone) of a new family, genus and species of dinosaur now named Xenoposeidon proneneukus.
It lived about 140 million years ago, was about the size of an elephant and weighed 7.5 tonnes.
What, no Glenn Branca tuning?
World's first 'robot' guitar tunes itself
Six nonstandard tunings also available at the push of a button
According to MSNBC, Gibson has introduced the world's first robot guitar — an electric guitar that not only keeps itself in tune even after string changes but also allows players to access six nonstandard tunings at the push of a button.
After 15 years of research, Gibson Guitar is launching a limited edition Les Paul Robot Guitar next month that has set players abuzz with both enthusiasm and skepticism.
"It will not make you a better guitar player but it will allow the average player to access some very sophisticated tunings," Gibson Guitar Chief Executive Henry Juszkiewicz told Reuters on Tuesday.
The six nonstandard preset tunings were used on hits ranging from "Honky Tonk Women" by The Rolling Stones and Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" to Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" and Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game."
Gibson says the robot guitar is aimed at amateurs who have a hard time keeping their guitars in tune, as well as professionals who now use technicians during concerts to keep about 100 guitars tuned to different keys.
"Professional guitar players use a lot of different tuning and people who listen to the stars wonder why they can't reproduce the same sound themselves," Juszkiewicz said.
Temperature variations, changing strings and simply playing the instrument have long been tuning challenges for guitarists with even the best musical ear.
But some have already poured scorn on the robot guitar.
"I'm sorry, this is just lazy. With stuff like this, tuning is going to be a lost skill," wrote LettheBassPlay on the www.ultimate-guitar.com Web site forum.
Gibson said the robot guitar is the biggest advance in electric guitar design in more than 70 years.
"It's very addictive," Juszkiewicz said.
Gibson will launch 4,000 limited edition, blue silverburst Les Gibson Robot Guitars around the world on December 7 at a price in the region of $2,500. It expects to roll out a standard robot edition starting in January 2008.
“So which tuning is appropriate for “Metal Machine Music?”
Headline of the day
Luxury pet hotel cancels grand opening
It’s called Chateau Poochie. No, really.
More from the Miami Herald.com
“Mitzi Bitzi, a Brussels Griffon who spent Tuesday at the groomers, was understandably miffed. Her big brown eyes and strawberry blonde locks had earned her the honor of modeling a $118,000 diamond necklace at the party.
''We were so disappointed,'' said Mitzi Bitzi's owner Marilyn Belkin, who lives in Delray Beach. ``I had just bought her eight new dresses and we were going to pick something from that selection to wear.”
Further proof that evolution is a sometime thing.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/14/07
Somewhere William Gibson is having a real good laugh
Virtual theft' leads to a real arrest
According to the BBC, a Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website.
The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money.
Five 15-year-olds have also been questioned by police, who were contacted by the website's owners.
The six teenagers are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own Habbo rooms.
A spokesman for Sulake, the company that operates Habbo Hotel, said: "The accused lured victims into handing over their Habbo passwords by creating fake Habbo websites.
"In Habbo, as in many other virtual worlds, scamming for other people's personal information such as user names has been problematic for quite a while.
It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money
Sulake spokesman
"We have had much of this scamming going on in many countries but this is the first case where the police have taken legal action."
“Let’s see, a threat of doing real time for a virtual theft, the value of which is based on real money. This calls for the unique talents of that legal scholar, Algonquin J. Calhoun.”
Headline of the day
Cows flee after seeing McDonald's (AP)
Great, now all we need is a script and a co-pay schedule
'Dragon's Blood' Quenches Stomach Ulcer Bacteria
ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2007) — "Dragon's blood" may sound like an exotic ingredient in a witch's brew or magic potion. But researchers in China are reporting that the material -- which is actually a bright red plant sap used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine -- contains chemicals that were effective in laboratory experiments in fighting bacteria that cause millions of cases of gastrointestinal disease each year.
In the new study, Weimin Zhao and colleagues indicate that "dragon's blood" has been used for years in China and other countries as a folk remedy for stomach ulcers, blood clots, and other conditions. Researchers, however, have never identified the active ingredients in dragon's blood responsible for its beneficial health effects on peptic ulcer and preventing blood clots.
The researchers isolated 22 different compounds from the powdered stems of Dracaena cochinchinensis, a common source of dragon's blood. The scientists tested the compounds' effects on Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), the bacteria known to cause most cases of stomach ulcers and gastritis.
“Dragon’s Blood? It’s on the shelf over there next to the eye of Newt Gingrich.”
You don’t live for ever on a low-carb diet, it just seems like it.
A Low-carb Diet May Stunt Prostate Tumor Growth
ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2007) — A diet low in carbohydrates may help stunt the growth of prostate tumors, according to a new study led by Duke Prostate Center researchers. The study, in mice, suggests that a reduction in insulin production possibly caused by fewer carbohydrates may stall tumor growth.
"This study showed that cutting carbohydrates may slow tumor growth, at least in mice," said Stephen Freedland, M.D., a urologist at Duke University Medical Center and lead researcher on the study. "If this is ultimately confirmed in human clinical trials, it has huge implications for prostate cancer therapy through something that all of us can control, our diets."
Freedland conducted most of the research for this study while doing a fellowship in urology at Johns Hopkins' Brady Urological Institute under the tutelage of William Isaacs, Ph.D., a molecular geneticist there.
Yeah, you stay there and let us know how that works out. How about a conga line? Running serpentine?
Suicide Bomber? Running For Exit May Be The Worst Thing To Do
ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2007) — Recent research by Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani, a Florida Institute of Technology doctoral student and Fulbright Scholar, indicates that various crowd formations exacerbate or minimize injuries and fatalities in the event of a pedestrian suicide bomb attack.
His work was conducted through virtual simulation. It showed that the crowd formation experiencing the worst effects is a circular one, with a 51 percent death rate and 42 percent injury rate, thus reaching 93 percent effectiveness. A person that is in line-of-sight with the attacker, rushing toward the exit or in a stampede was found to be in the least safe position.
The safest way to stand or sit in a crowd, Usmani found, was in vertical rows.
Finally, something Canadians can point to with pride. Who else would stand in vertical rows during a terrorist attack?
Virtual theft' leads to a real arrest
According to the BBC, a Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website.
The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money.
Five 15-year-olds have also been questioned by police, who were contacted by the website's owners.
The six teenagers are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into their own Habbo rooms.
A spokesman for Sulake, the company that operates Habbo Hotel, said: "The accused lured victims into handing over their Habbo passwords by creating fake Habbo websites.
"In Habbo, as in many other virtual worlds, scamming for other people's personal information such as user names has been problematic for quite a while.
It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money
Sulake spokesman
"We have had much of this scamming going on in many countries but this is the first case where the police have taken legal action."
“Let’s see, a threat of doing real time for a virtual theft, the value of which is based on real money. This calls for the unique talents of that legal scholar, Algonquin J. Calhoun.”
Headline of the day
Cows flee after seeing McDonald's (AP)
Great, now all we need is a script and a co-pay schedule
'Dragon's Blood' Quenches Stomach Ulcer Bacteria
ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2007) — "Dragon's blood" may sound like an exotic ingredient in a witch's brew or magic potion. But researchers in China are reporting that the material -- which is actually a bright red plant sap used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine -- contains chemicals that were effective in laboratory experiments in fighting bacteria that cause millions of cases of gastrointestinal disease each year.
In the new study, Weimin Zhao and colleagues indicate that "dragon's blood" has been used for years in China and other countries as a folk remedy for stomach ulcers, blood clots, and other conditions. Researchers, however, have never identified the active ingredients in dragon's blood responsible for its beneficial health effects on peptic ulcer and preventing blood clots.
The researchers isolated 22 different compounds from the powdered stems of Dracaena cochinchinensis, a common source of dragon's blood. The scientists tested the compounds' effects on Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), the bacteria known to cause most cases of stomach ulcers and gastritis.
“Dragon’s Blood? It’s on the shelf over there next to the eye of Newt Gingrich.”
You don’t live for ever on a low-carb diet, it just seems like it.
A Low-carb Diet May Stunt Prostate Tumor Growth
ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2007) — A diet low in carbohydrates may help stunt the growth of prostate tumors, according to a new study led by Duke Prostate Center researchers. The study, in mice, suggests that a reduction in insulin production possibly caused by fewer carbohydrates may stall tumor growth.
"This study showed that cutting carbohydrates may slow tumor growth, at least in mice," said Stephen Freedland, M.D., a urologist at Duke University Medical Center and lead researcher on the study. "If this is ultimately confirmed in human clinical trials, it has huge implications for prostate cancer therapy through something that all of us can control, our diets."
Freedland conducted most of the research for this study while doing a fellowship in urology at Johns Hopkins' Brady Urological Institute under the tutelage of William Isaacs, Ph.D., a molecular geneticist there.
Yeah, you stay there and let us know how that works out. How about a conga line? Running serpentine?
Suicide Bomber? Running For Exit May Be The Worst Thing To Do
ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2007) — Recent research by Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani, a Florida Institute of Technology doctoral student and Fulbright Scholar, indicates that various crowd formations exacerbate or minimize injuries and fatalities in the event of a pedestrian suicide bomb attack.
His work was conducted through virtual simulation. It showed that the crowd formation experiencing the worst effects is a circular one, with a 51 percent death rate and 42 percent injury rate, thus reaching 93 percent effectiveness. A person that is in line-of-sight with the attacker, rushing toward the exit or in a stampede was found to be in the least safe position.
The safest way to stand or sit in a crowd, Usmani found, was in vertical rows.
Finally, something Canadians can point to with pride. Who else would stand in vertical rows during a terrorist attack?
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/13/07
A success without educators or drugs? How could that be?
Troubled young pupils may turn out well, too, studies say
By Benedict Carey
Published: November 12, 2007
According to Science.com, educators and psychologists have long feared that kindergartners with behavior problems were doomed to fall behind in the upper grades. But two new studies suggest that many young children who are identified as troubled or given diagnoses of mental disorders settle down in time and do as well in school as their peers.
Experts say the findings, being published Tuesday in two journals, could change the way scientists, teachers and parents understand and manage children who are disruptive or emotionally withdrawn in the early years of school. The studies may even prompt a reassessment of the possible causes of disruptive behavior in some children.
"I think these may become landmark findings, forcing us to ask whether these acting-out kinds of problems are secondary to inappropriate maturity expectations that some educators place on young children as soon as they enter classrooms," said Sharon Landesman Ramey, director of Georgetown University Center on Health and Education, who was not connected to either study.
In one study, an international team of researchers analyzed measures of social and intellectual development from 20,000 children and found that disruptive or antisocial behaviors in kindergarten were not at all correlated with academic success at the end of elementary school.
Kindergartners who interrupted the teacher, defied instructions, even picked fights, were performing just as well in reading and math as well-behaved children of the same abilities by fifth grade, the study found.
Other researchers cautioned that the findings, being reported in Developmental Psychology, did not imply that emotional problems were trivial or could not derail academic success in the years before or after elementary school.
In the other study, government researchers using imaging techniques found that the brains of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder developed normally but more slowly, in some areas, than in children without the disorder.
The disorder, ADHD, is by far the most common psychiatric diagnosis given to disruptive young children - 3 percent to 5 percent of school-age children are thought to struggle with attention problems - and researchers have long debated whether it was due to a brain deficit or a delay in development.
Doctors said the report, being published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps explain why so many children grow out of the diagnosis, usually in adolescence.
The findings on behavior and academic success grew out of a collaboration among a dozen leading researchers to reassess data from six large child-development studies performed since 1970.
Each of the studies tracked hundreds of children from an early age through elementary school on a number of measures, from reading and math skills to emotional stability and concentration, or attention.
Most used teacher reports to gauge students' emotional and social progress and their ability to pay attention when asked. The researchers adjusted the findings to eliminate the influence of factors like family income and family structure.
While there was little correlation between behavior problems in kindergarten and academic success later on, the researchers did find that scores on math tests at age 5 or 6 were highly correlated with academic success in fifth grade. Kindergarten reading skills, and scores on attention measures, also predicted later academic success, but less strongly than math scores did. The results were about the same in girls and boys.
The study suggests that preschool programs might consider developing better, or more effective, math training, the authors said.
The findings should also put to rest concerns that boys and girls who are restless, disruptive or withdrawn in kindergarten will suffer academically as a result.
"For kindergarten, it appears teachers are able to work around these behavior problems in a way that enables kids to learn just much as other kids with equal levels of ability," said the lead author, Greg Duncan, a professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University.
This finding in particular, he said, "has been very controversial among developmental psychologists who have seen the paper."
One who is concerned, Ross Thompson, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, said it would be a mistake to conclude from the results that programs to guide preschoolers' emotional development were not helpful.
"That would be a double-whammy for really difficult kids," he said, "to have no help managing their behavior and then - wham! - to get labeled as problem kids as soon as they enter school."
"Welcome to Kindergarten...and may I say that's a wonderful little "Born to Lose" tattoo you have there."
Hipster Headline of the day
Pete Doherty lends support to distraught Amy Winehouse as husband is taken to the cells (the Daily Mail)
Those creative types, they understand one another
He who talks first loses
Men Talk More Than Women Overall, But Not In All Circumstances
ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2007) — A Gallup poll recently confirmed that men and women both believe that it is women who are most likely to possess the gift of gab. Some even believe that women are biologically built for conversation. This widespread belief is challenged in new research.
The article* describes a recent set of meta-analyses conducted by Campbell Leaper and Melanie Ayres. These analyses collect all of the available evidence from decades of scientific study and systematically combine the findings into an overall picture of the differences between men and women regarding talkativeness.
The authors found a small but statistically reliable tendency for men to be more talkative than women overall -- especially in certain contexts, such as when they were conversing with their wives or with strangers. Women talked more to their children and to their college classmates.
The type of speech was also explored in the analyses, which looked at verbal behavior in a wide variety of contexts. The researchers discovered that, with strangers, women were generally more talkative when it came to using speech to affirm her connection to the listener, while men's speech focused more on an attempt to influence the listener. With close friends and family, however, there was very little difference between genders in the amount of speech.
"These findings compellingly debunk simplistic stereotypes about gender differences in language use," conclude Leaper and Ayres.
Boy, that’s great that they have all that debunkin' goin' on. They’re doing valuable work. If you don't believe us, just ask them.
A warped disc? We bet it's Syd Barret’s demo of “Interstellar Overdrive”
Nearby Barred Spiral Galaxy Shows Off Its Warped Disc
ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2007) — Known until now as a simple number in a catalogue, NGC 134, the 'Island in the Universe' is replete with remarkable attributes, and the VLT has clapped its eyes on them. Just like our own Galaxy, NGC 134 is a barred spiral with its spiral arms loosely wrapped around a bright, bar-shaped central region.
One feature that stands out is its warped disc. While a galaxy's disc is often pictured as a flat structure of gas and stars surrounding the galaxy's centre, a warped disc is a structure that, when viewed sideways, resembles a bent record album left out too long in the burning Sun.
Warps are actually not atypical. More than half of the spiral galaxies do show warps one way or another, and our own Milky Way also has a small warp.
Many theories exist to explain warps. One possibility is that warps are the aftermath of interactions or collisions between galaxies. These can also produce tails of material being pulled out from the galaxy. The VLT image reveals that NGC 134 also appears to have a tail of gas stripped from the top edge of the disc.
So did NGC 134 have a striking encounter with another galaxy in the past? Or is some other galaxy out there exerting a gravitational pull on it? This is a riddle astronomers need to solve.
The superb VLT image also shows that the galaxy has its fair share of ionised hydrogen regions (HII regions) lounging along its spiral arms. Seen in the image as red features, these are glowing clouds of hot gas in which stars are forming. The galaxy also shows prominent dark lanes of dust across the disc, obscuring part of the galaxy's starlight.
Studying galaxies like NGC 134 is an excellent way to learn more about our own Galaxy.
Yeah, we’ll really see the benefits this in another century or so.
So far we’ve had mashed tubers, tubers au gratin, Belgian fried tubers with mayo, tuber pancakes and tuber salad…this menu is getting old
Digging Chimps Provide Insights Into Early Human Diet
Even when food is plentiful above ground, chimps still choose to dig for roots and tubers, indicating that perhaps our hominid ancestors were not such big meat-eaters after all. Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Southern California and the University of Wisconsin-Madison say that their work with chimps raises questions about the relative importance of meat for brain evolution.
The study documents the novel use of tools by chimps to dig for tubers and roots in the savanna woodlands of western Tanzania. Researcher Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar says the chimps' eagerness for buried treats offers new insights in an ongoing debate about the role of meat versus potato-like foods in the diet of our hominid ancestors. The debate centers on the diet followed by early hominids as their brain and body size slowly increased towards a human level. Was it meat-and-potatoes, or potatoes-and-meat? "Some researchers have suggested that what made us human was actually the tubers," Hernandez-Aguilar said.
Until now, anthropologists had believed that roots and tubers were mainly fallback foods for hominids trying to survive the harsh dry season in the savanna 3.5 million years ago. "We look at chimps for the way that we could have behaved when our ancestors were chimp-like," Hernandez-Aguilar said. Co-researcher Travis Pickering, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, added: "Savanna chimps, we would contend, are dealing with environmental constraints and problems - evolutionary pressures - that our earliest relatives would have dealt with as well."
The study was based on observation of 11 digging sites in the Ugalla savanna woodland of western Tanzania. Chimpanzees were linked to the excavated tubers and roots through knuckle prints, feces, and spit-out wads of fibers from those underground foods. Seven tools were found at three of the sites, with worn edges and dirt marking implying their use as digging implements.
"Chimpanzees in savannas have not been considered a priority in conservation plans because they live in low densities compared to chimps in forests," Hernandez-Aguilar noted. "We hope that discoveries such as this will show the value of conserving the savanna populations."
Mice remember to erect a statue to scientists in Oklahoma. Worship them as “The Big Cheese.”
An Alzheimer's Vaccine? Promising Results In Mice
ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2007) — Could a new vaccine be the key to stopping Alzheimer's disease? A new research study from the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) shows that immunization could offer a way to blunt or even prevent the deadly, memory-robbing disease.
OMRF scientists immunized Alzheimer's mice with a protein believed to play a key role in the disease-causing process. The mice who received the vaccination showed a significant reduction in the build-up of protein plaques that, when present in the brain for long periods of time, are believed to cause the cell death, memory loss and neurological dysfunction characteristic of Alzheimer's.
The immunized mice also showed better cognitive performance than control mice had not received the vaccine.
"These results are extremely exciting," said Jordan Tang, Ph.D., the OMRF researcher who led the study. "They certainly show that this vaccination approach warrants additional investigation as a therapy for Alzheimer's disease."
Tang and his colleagues at OMRF previously had identified the cutting enzyme (known as memapsin 2) that creates the protein fragments believed to be the culprit behind Alzheimer's. In the current study, researchers used mice that had been genetically engineered to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's, then immunized the animals with memapsin 2.
"What we saw is that the mice immunized with memapsin 2 developed 35 percent fewer plaques than their non-vaccinated counterparts," said Tang. "Those immunized mice also performed better than control mice in tests designed to assess their cognitive function."
Tang's work with memapsin 2 also has led to the creation of an experimental drug to treat Alzheimer's disease. That drug, which works by inhibiting the cutting enzyme, began human clinical trials in the summer of 2007.
Tang emphasized that the vaccine approach should be viewed as a supplement to--rather than substitute for--the experimental inhibitor and other treatments currently in development for the illness.
"Alzheimer's is a complicated, multi-faceted disease," said the OMRF researcher. "As with illnesses like cancer and heart disease, Alzheimer's demands that we develop many different approaches to combat it. We cannot rely on a 'one-size-fits-all' strategy, because what works in one patient will not necessarily have in another."
A vaccination approach--getting the immune system to clean up the plaques--has been considered a promising way to tackle the disease, but its success has been limited. In 2002, for example, the pharmaceutical company Elan halted trials of a different vaccine after 15 patients suffered swelling of the central nervous system.
Wow..and they knew that without cable or nothing.
Ancients knew chocolate was good
WASHINGTON (AP) ---- Residents of Central America were enjoying chocolate drinks more than 3,000 years ago, a half millennium earlier than previously thought, new research shows.
art.chocolate.gi.jpg
People were drinking chocolate in Central America more than 3,000 years ago, scientists say.
Archaeologists led by John Henderson of Cornell University studied the remains of pottery used in the lower Ulua Valley in northern Honduras about 1100 B.C.
Residue from the pots contained theobromine, which occurs only in the cacao plant, the source of chocolate, the researchers said in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The find dates the first use of chocolate to some 500 years earlier than previously known, they said.
The style of the pottery indicates that cacao was served at important ceremonies to mark weddings and births, according to the authors.
Headline of the day
Woman finds boyfriend stuck -- and dead -- in cat door (the obscure store) (News4Jax.com)
Troubled young pupils may turn out well, too, studies say
By Benedict Carey
Published: November 12, 2007
According to Science.com, educators and psychologists have long feared that kindergartners with behavior problems were doomed to fall behind in the upper grades. But two new studies suggest that many young children who are identified as troubled or given diagnoses of mental disorders settle down in time and do as well in school as their peers.
Experts say the findings, being published Tuesday in two journals, could change the way scientists, teachers and parents understand and manage children who are disruptive or emotionally withdrawn in the early years of school. The studies may even prompt a reassessment of the possible causes of disruptive behavior in some children.
"I think these may become landmark findings, forcing us to ask whether these acting-out kinds of problems are secondary to inappropriate maturity expectations that some educators place on young children as soon as they enter classrooms," said Sharon Landesman Ramey, director of Georgetown University Center on Health and Education, who was not connected to either study.
In one study, an international team of researchers analyzed measures of social and intellectual development from 20,000 children and found that disruptive or antisocial behaviors in kindergarten were not at all correlated with academic success at the end of elementary school.
Kindergartners who interrupted the teacher, defied instructions, even picked fights, were performing just as well in reading and math as well-behaved children of the same abilities by fifth grade, the study found.
Other researchers cautioned that the findings, being reported in Developmental Psychology, did not imply that emotional problems were trivial or could not derail academic success in the years before or after elementary school.
In the other study, government researchers using imaging techniques found that the brains of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder developed normally but more slowly, in some areas, than in children without the disorder.
The disorder, ADHD, is by far the most common psychiatric diagnosis given to disruptive young children - 3 percent to 5 percent of school-age children are thought to struggle with attention problems - and researchers have long debated whether it was due to a brain deficit or a delay in development.
Doctors said the report, being published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps explain why so many children grow out of the diagnosis, usually in adolescence.
The findings on behavior and academic success grew out of a collaboration among a dozen leading researchers to reassess data from six large child-development studies performed since 1970.
Each of the studies tracked hundreds of children from an early age through elementary school on a number of measures, from reading and math skills to emotional stability and concentration, or attention.
Most used teacher reports to gauge students' emotional and social progress and their ability to pay attention when asked. The researchers adjusted the findings to eliminate the influence of factors like family income and family structure.
While there was little correlation between behavior problems in kindergarten and academic success later on, the researchers did find that scores on math tests at age 5 or 6 were highly correlated with academic success in fifth grade. Kindergarten reading skills, and scores on attention measures, also predicted later academic success, but less strongly than math scores did. The results were about the same in girls and boys.
The study suggests that preschool programs might consider developing better, or more effective, math training, the authors said.
The findings should also put to rest concerns that boys and girls who are restless, disruptive or withdrawn in kindergarten will suffer academically as a result.
"For kindergarten, it appears teachers are able to work around these behavior problems in a way that enables kids to learn just much as other kids with equal levels of ability," said the lead author, Greg Duncan, a professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University.
This finding in particular, he said, "has been very controversial among developmental psychologists who have seen the paper."
One who is concerned, Ross Thompson, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, said it would be a mistake to conclude from the results that programs to guide preschoolers' emotional development were not helpful.
"That would be a double-whammy for really difficult kids," he said, "to have no help managing their behavior and then - wham! - to get labeled as problem kids as soon as they enter school."
"Welcome to Kindergarten...and may I say that's a wonderful little "Born to Lose" tattoo you have there."
Hipster Headline of the day
Pete Doherty lends support to distraught Amy Winehouse as husband is taken to the cells (the Daily Mail)
Those creative types, they understand one another
He who talks first loses
Men Talk More Than Women Overall, But Not In All Circumstances
ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2007) — A Gallup poll recently confirmed that men and women both believe that it is women who are most likely to possess the gift of gab. Some even believe that women are biologically built for conversation. This widespread belief is challenged in new research.
The article* describes a recent set of meta-analyses conducted by Campbell Leaper and Melanie Ayres. These analyses collect all of the available evidence from decades of scientific study and systematically combine the findings into an overall picture of the differences between men and women regarding talkativeness.
The authors found a small but statistically reliable tendency for men to be more talkative than women overall -- especially in certain contexts, such as when they were conversing with their wives or with strangers. Women talked more to their children and to their college classmates.
The type of speech was also explored in the analyses, which looked at verbal behavior in a wide variety of contexts. The researchers discovered that, with strangers, women were generally more talkative when it came to using speech to affirm her connection to the listener, while men's speech focused more on an attempt to influence the listener. With close friends and family, however, there was very little difference between genders in the amount of speech.
"These findings compellingly debunk simplistic stereotypes about gender differences in language use," conclude Leaper and Ayres.
Boy, that’s great that they have all that debunkin' goin' on. They’re doing valuable work. If you don't believe us, just ask them.
A warped disc? We bet it's Syd Barret’s demo of “Interstellar Overdrive”
Nearby Barred Spiral Galaxy Shows Off Its Warped Disc
ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2007) — Known until now as a simple number in a catalogue, NGC 134, the 'Island in the Universe' is replete with remarkable attributes, and the VLT has clapped its eyes on them. Just like our own Galaxy, NGC 134 is a barred spiral with its spiral arms loosely wrapped around a bright, bar-shaped central region.
One feature that stands out is its warped disc. While a galaxy's disc is often pictured as a flat structure of gas and stars surrounding the galaxy's centre, a warped disc is a structure that, when viewed sideways, resembles a bent record album left out too long in the burning Sun.
Warps are actually not atypical. More than half of the spiral galaxies do show warps one way or another, and our own Milky Way also has a small warp.
Many theories exist to explain warps. One possibility is that warps are the aftermath of interactions or collisions between galaxies. These can also produce tails of material being pulled out from the galaxy. The VLT image reveals that NGC 134 also appears to have a tail of gas stripped from the top edge of the disc.
So did NGC 134 have a striking encounter with another galaxy in the past? Or is some other galaxy out there exerting a gravitational pull on it? This is a riddle astronomers need to solve.
The superb VLT image also shows that the galaxy has its fair share of ionised hydrogen regions (HII regions) lounging along its spiral arms. Seen in the image as red features, these are glowing clouds of hot gas in which stars are forming. The galaxy also shows prominent dark lanes of dust across the disc, obscuring part of the galaxy's starlight.
Studying galaxies like NGC 134 is an excellent way to learn more about our own Galaxy.
Yeah, we’ll really see the benefits this in another century or so.
So far we’ve had mashed tubers, tubers au gratin, Belgian fried tubers with mayo, tuber pancakes and tuber salad…this menu is getting old
Digging Chimps Provide Insights Into Early Human Diet
Even when food is plentiful above ground, chimps still choose to dig for roots and tubers, indicating that perhaps our hominid ancestors were not such big meat-eaters after all. Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Southern California and the University of Wisconsin-Madison say that their work with chimps raises questions about the relative importance of meat for brain evolution.
The study documents the novel use of tools by chimps to dig for tubers and roots in the savanna woodlands of western Tanzania. Researcher Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar says the chimps' eagerness for buried treats offers new insights in an ongoing debate about the role of meat versus potato-like foods in the diet of our hominid ancestors. The debate centers on the diet followed by early hominids as their brain and body size slowly increased towards a human level. Was it meat-and-potatoes, or potatoes-and-meat? "Some researchers have suggested that what made us human was actually the tubers," Hernandez-Aguilar said.
Until now, anthropologists had believed that roots and tubers were mainly fallback foods for hominids trying to survive the harsh dry season in the savanna 3.5 million years ago. "We look at chimps for the way that we could have behaved when our ancestors were chimp-like," Hernandez-Aguilar said. Co-researcher Travis Pickering, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, added: "Savanna chimps, we would contend, are dealing with environmental constraints and problems - evolutionary pressures - that our earliest relatives would have dealt with as well."
The study was based on observation of 11 digging sites in the Ugalla savanna woodland of western Tanzania. Chimpanzees were linked to the excavated tubers and roots through knuckle prints, feces, and spit-out wads of fibers from those underground foods. Seven tools were found at three of the sites, with worn edges and dirt marking implying their use as digging implements.
"Chimpanzees in savannas have not been considered a priority in conservation plans because they live in low densities compared to chimps in forests," Hernandez-Aguilar noted. "We hope that discoveries such as this will show the value of conserving the savanna populations."
Mice remember to erect a statue to scientists in Oklahoma. Worship them as “The Big Cheese.”
An Alzheimer's Vaccine? Promising Results In Mice
ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2007) — Could a new vaccine be the key to stopping Alzheimer's disease? A new research study from the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) shows that immunization could offer a way to blunt or even prevent the deadly, memory-robbing disease.
OMRF scientists immunized Alzheimer's mice with a protein believed to play a key role in the disease-causing process. The mice who received the vaccination showed a significant reduction in the build-up of protein plaques that, when present in the brain for long periods of time, are believed to cause the cell death, memory loss and neurological dysfunction characteristic of Alzheimer's.
The immunized mice also showed better cognitive performance than control mice had not received the vaccine.
"These results are extremely exciting," said Jordan Tang, Ph.D., the OMRF researcher who led the study. "They certainly show that this vaccination approach warrants additional investigation as a therapy for Alzheimer's disease."
Tang and his colleagues at OMRF previously had identified the cutting enzyme (known as memapsin 2) that creates the protein fragments believed to be the culprit behind Alzheimer's. In the current study, researchers used mice that had been genetically engineered to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's, then immunized the animals with memapsin 2.
"What we saw is that the mice immunized with memapsin 2 developed 35 percent fewer plaques than their non-vaccinated counterparts," said Tang. "Those immunized mice also performed better than control mice in tests designed to assess their cognitive function."
Tang's work with memapsin 2 also has led to the creation of an experimental drug to treat Alzheimer's disease. That drug, which works by inhibiting the cutting enzyme, began human clinical trials in the summer of 2007.
Tang emphasized that the vaccine approach should be viewed as a supplement to--rather than substitute for--the experimental inhibitor and other treatments currently in development for the illness.
"Alzheimer's is a complicated, multi-faceted disease," said the OMRF researcher. "As with illnesses like cancer and heart disease, Alzheimer's demands that we develop many different approaches to combat it. We cannot rely on a 'one-size-fits-all' strategy, because what works in one patient will not necessarily have in another."
A vaccination approach--getting the immune system to clean up the plaques--has been considered a promising way to tackle the disease, but its success has been limited. In 2002, for example, the pharmaceutical company Elan halted trials of a different vaccine after 15 patients suffered swelling of the central nervous system.
Wow..and they knew that without cable or nothing.
Ancients knew chocolate was good
WASHINGTON (AP) ---- Residents of Central America were enjoying chocolate drinks more than 3,000 years ago, a half millennium earlier than previously thought, new research shows.
art.chocolate.gi.jpg
People were drinking chocolate in Central America more than 3,000 years ago, scientists say.
Archaeologists led by John Henderson of Cornell University studied the remains of pottery used in the lower Ulua Valley in northern Honduras about 1100 B.C.
Residue from the pots contained theobromine, which occurs only in the cacao plant, the source of chocolate, the researchers said in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The find dates the first use of chocolate to some 500 years earlier than previously known, they said.
The style of the pottery indicates that cacao was served at important ceremonies to mark weddings and births, according to the authors.
Headline of the day
Woman finds boyfriend stuck -- and dead -- in cat door (the obscure store) (News4Jax.com)
Monday, November 12, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/12/07
A study designed to help the guys in the lab get some
Curvy women may be a clever bet
BBC.com reports that researchers studied 16,000 women and girls and found the more voluptuous performed better on cognitive tests - as did their children.
The bigger the difference between a woman's waist and hips the better.
Researchers writing in Evolution and Human Behaviour speculated this was to do with fatty acids found on the hips.
In this area, the fat is likely to be the much touted Omega-3, which could improve the woman's own mental abilities as well as those of her child during pregnancy.
Men respond to the double enticement of both an intelligent partner and an intelligent child, the researchers at the Universities of Pittsburgh and California said.
The findings appear to be borne out in the educational attainments of at least one of the UK's most famous curvaceous women, Nigella Lawson, who graduated from Oxford.
But experts are not convinced by the findings.
"On the fatty deposits being related to intelligence front, it's very hard to detangle that from other factors, such as social class, for instance, or diet," said Martin Tovee of Newcastle University.
"And much as we logically like the idea that men are interested in the waist to hip ratio, it actually features relatively low down the list of feature males look for in a potential partner."
Researchers writing in Evolution and Human Behaviour speculated this was to do with fatty acids found on the hips. Boy those guys at E&HB, sure know how to sweet talk a woman.
“Why am I staring there? Has anyone ever told you how smart you look?"
Scientists admit there’s a lot of dirty things they don’t know yet.
New Study Suggests Many Unknown Microbes in Soil
ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2007) — Metagenomic analysis of microbial biodiversity in soil samples suggest that non-bacterial species greatly outnumber bacterial species. This means the majority of microorganisms on the Earth remain undiscovered, according to researchers from the University of Colorado, University of South Florida, San Diego State University and Duke University.
Soil microorganisms represent a significant portion of living matter on Earth and play a key role in ecosystem functions. Bacteria, fungi, archaea and viruses are the four microbial groups currently known to man. Bacterial presence in soil has been the most extensively studied, however with the environment at the forefront of worldwide focus, expanded research on fungal, archaeal, and viral communities is much needed.
In the study researchers used an RNA-based analysis technique to examine the richness of bacteria, fungi, archaea, and viruses in samples collected from prairie, desert, and rainforest soils. These sites were specifically targeted because they represent globally dominated ecosystem types and are broad in aridity and productivity. Results showed that unique archaeal or fungal units appeared to rival or exceed unique bacterial units in each of the soil samples.
Breaking news: Young people away from home hook up—no, really
One In Five Young Britons Has Sex With Someone New While Abroad
ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2007) — Around one in five young Britons has sex with a new partner while overseas, finds research published ahead of print in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.
And they are apparently opting for British or European sexual partners in the belief that this minimises the chances of HIV infection, but seemingly unawares of their risks of contracting other sexually transmitted infections.
The findings are based on interviews with a random sample of 12,000 men and women aged between 16 and 44, who took part in the 2000 National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL).
Just under 14% of men, and just over 7% of women, said they had sex with someone new while overseas, with this type of liaison accounting for one in 10 of all men's partnerships and one in 20 of women's in the past five years.
The young and single were the most likely to have sex with someone new while overseas.
Almost one in four men (23%) and one in six women (17%) between the ages of 16 and 24 said they had done this.
Half of all respondents said their overseas partners were British, and more than one in three said these were from another European country.
This is likely to reflect choice of destination as three quarters of overseas trips in 2005 were to European countries, but it may also indicate perceived risk, say the authors.
When quizzed about potential HIV risk, respondents cited North America, Thailand, and Kenya as high risk, and as higher than Britain.
Yet one in 10 men and one in 12 women who said they had had sex while overseas assessed their HIV risk as high or moderately high.
Men were significantly more likely to have sex with Asian and North American partners.
So, if there were more country songs about scientists, kids wouldn’t get high? Oh yeah, we believe that.
One Of Every Three Popular Songs Contains References To Substance Use
ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2007) — Know what your kids are listening to when they’re blocking you out with their iPod earbuds firmly in place? If they are listening to popular music, chances are high that they are hearing references to substance use.
According to new research presented at the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting & Exposition in Washington, D.C., 33 percent of the most popular songs of 2005 portrayed substance use. The study, in which researchers analyzed 279 of the year’s most popular songs according to Billboard magazine, also found that allusions to substance use varied widely by genre.
Rap music led the way with 77 percent of songs referring to substance use, followed by country at 37 percent and R&B/hip-hop at 20 percent. Rock and pop were on the lower end of the spectrum at 14 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
Alcohol and marijuana were the substances most frequently portrayed. Substance use was commonly associated with partying, sex, violence and/or humor, and was most often motivated by peer/social pressure, sex, and/or money (for instance, through trafficking). The majority of songs with substance use portrayed more positive than negative consequences of use.
“Previous research has shown that exposure to substance use messages in media is linked to actual substance use in adolescents,” said Brian A. Primack, MD, EdM, lead researcher on the study. “That is why we need to be aware of exposures such as these, especially when they are associated with highly positive consequences and associations.”
“Previous research has shown that exposure to substance use messages in media is linked to actual substance use in adolescents,” said Brian A. Primack, MD, EdM…
We don’t know much, but it always seemed that exposure to somebody who actually had a joint was more a link to getting high than the lyrics to a Travis Tritt song. Even if the lyrics could make you feel “ten feet tall and bulletproof.” At least, that's what the older guys on the corner told us.
Headlines of the day
Man hits the jackpot with car wash change machine (The Obscure Store)
Universe may weigh less than thought (MSNBC)
Looks like that Jenny Craig thing must work
Kangaroo tramples kid, evades officers (CNN)
Too bad they couldn't work in Maruding Marsupial.
Curvy women may be a clever bet
BBC.com reports that researchers studied 16,000 women and girls and found the more voluptuous performed better on cognitive tests - as did their children.
The bigger the difference between a woman's waist and hips the better.
Researchers writing in Evolution and Human Behaviour speculated this was to do with fatty acids found on the hips.
In this area, the fat is likely to be the much touted Omega-3, which could improve the woman's own mental abilities as well as those of her child during pregnancy.
Men respond to the double enticement of both an intelligent partner and an intelligent child, the researchers at the Universities of Pittsburgh and California said.
The findings appear to be borne out in the educational attainments of at least one of the UK's most famous curvaceous women, Nigella Lawson, who graduated from Oxford.
But experts are not convinced by the findings.
"On the fatty deposits being related to intelligence front, it's very hard to detangle that from other factors, such as social class, for instance, or diet," said Martin Tovee of Newcastle University.
"And much as we logically like the idea that men are interested in the waist to hip ratio, it actually features relatively low down the list of feature males look for in a potential partner."
Researchers writing in Evolution and Human Behaviour speculated this was to do with fatty acids found on the hips. Boy those guys at E&HB, sure know how to sweet talk a woman.
“Why am I staring there? Has anyone ever told you how smart you look?"
Scientists admit there’s a lot of dirty things they don’t know yet.
New Study Suggests Many Unknown Microbes in Soil
ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2007) — Metagenomic analysis of microbial biodiversity in soil samples suggest that non-bacterial species greatly outnumber bacterial species. This means the majority of microorganisms on the Earth remain undiscovered, according to researchers from the University of Colorado, University of South Florida, San Diego State University and Duke University.
Soil microorganisms represent a significant portion of living matter on Earth and play a key role in ecosystem functions. Bacteria, fungi, archaea and viruses are the four microbial groups currently known to man. Bacterial presence in soil has been the most extensively studied, however with the environment at the forefront of worldwide focus, expanded research on fungal, archaeal, and viral communities is much needed.
In the study researchers used an RNA-based analysis technique to examine the richness of bacteria, fungi, archaea, and viruses in samples collected from prairie, desert, and rainforest soils. These sites were specifically targeted because they represent globally dominated ecosystem types and are broad in aridity and productivity. Results showed that unique archaeal or fungal units appeared to rival or exceed unique bacterial units in each of the soil samples.
Breaking news: Young people away from home hook up—no, really
One In Five Young Britons Has Sex With Someone New While Abroad
ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2007) — Around one in five young Britons has sex with a new partner while overseas, finds research published ahead of print in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.
And they are apparently opting for British or European sexual partners in the belief that this minimises the chances of HIV infection, but seemingly unawares of their risks of contracting other sexually transmitted infections.
The findings are based on interviews with a random sample of 12,000 men and women aged between 16 and 44, who took part in the 2000 National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL).
Just under 14% of men, and just over 7% of women, said they had sex with someone new while overseas, with this type of liaison accounting for one in 10 of all men's partnerships and one in 20 of women's in the past five years.
The young and single were the most likely to have sex with someone new while overseas.
Almost one in four men (23%) and one in six women (17%) between the ages of 16 and 24 said they had done this.
Half of all respondents said their overseas partners were British, and more than one in three said these were from another European country.
This is likely to reflect choice of destination as three quarters of overseas trips in 2005 were to European countries, but it may also indicate perceived risk, say the authors.
When quizzed about potential HIV risk, respondents cited North America, Thailand, and Kenya as high risk, and as higher than Britain.
Yet one in 10 men and one in 12 women who said they had had sex while overseas assessed their HIV risk as high or moderately high.
Men were significantly more likely to have sex with Asian and North American partners.
So, if there were more country songs about scientists, kids wouldn’t get high? Oh yeah, we believe that.
One Of Every Three Popular Songs Contains References To Substance Use
ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2007) — Know what your kids are listening to when they’re blocking you out with their iPod earbuds firmly in place? If they are listening to popular music, chances are high that they are hearing references to substance use.
According to new research presented at the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting & Exposition in Washington, D.C., 33 percent of the most popular songs of 2005 portrayed substance use. The study, in which researchers analyzed 279 of the year’s most popular songs according to Billboard magazine, also found that allusions to substance use varied widely by genre.
Rap music led the way with 77 percent of songs referring to substance use, followed by country at 37 percent and R&B/hip-hop at 20 percent. Rock and pop were on the lower end of the spectrum at 14 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
Alcohol and marijuana were the substances most frequently portrayed. Substance use was commonly associated with partying, sex, violence and/or humor, and was most often motivated by peer/social pressure, sex, and/or money (for instance, through trafficking). The majority of songs with substance use portrayed more positive than negative consequences of use.
“Previous research has shown that exposure to substance use messages in media is linked to actual substance use in adolescents,” said Brian A. Primack, MD, EdM, lead researcher on the study. “That is why we need to be aware of exposures such as these, especially when they are associated with highly positive consequences and associations.”
“Previous research has shown that exposure to substance use messages in media is linked to actual substance use in adolescents,” said Brian A. Primack, MD, EdM…
We don’t know much, but it always seemed that exposure to somebody who actually had a joint was more a link to getting high than the lyrics to a Travis Tritt song. Even if the lyrics could make you feel “ten feet tall and bulletproof.” At least, that's what the older guys on the corner told us.
Headlines of the day
Man hits the jackpot with car wash change machine (The Obscure Store)
Universe may weigh less than thought (MSNBC)
Looks like that Jenny Craig thing must work
Kangaroo tramples kid, evades officers (CNN)
Too bad they couldn't work in Maruding Marsupial.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/09/07
Brooklyn Better Science Club factoid of the day
Thirty-one people were killed in wood chipper accidents between 1992 and 2002, according to a 2005 Journal of the American Medical Assn. report.
Scientists are shocked to find out that nobody cares about their journal article—not even mom
Lost In The Middle: Author Order Matters, New Paper Says
ScienceDaily (Nov. 9, 2007) — Rare is the scientific paper today written by a single author. With research being conducted by teams of scientists, most studies now boast a half-dozen or so authors. According to a new study led by a scientist at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, credit for those papers is far from evenly distributed, and the order in which the authors' names are listed makes a big difference.
In scientific circles, the long-accepted hierarchy of authorship places the one who did the lion's share of the work first and the senior author last. "What we wanted to know was: What about everyone in between?" said Wren. "What do people think about the middle authors and their contribution to the work described in the paper?"
The new findings appear in the Nov. 1 issue of the scientific journal EMBO Reports. OMRF's Jonathan Wren, Ph.D., is the first author on the paper, which is entitled "The write position.
It’s a good thing there is no such thing as careerism in research.
Cause it’s fun? And I like it? And you can’t tell me not to like it.
And I can quit anytime I want…I just don’t’ want to
Why Quitting Smoking Is So Difficult
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — New findings clarify the brain mechanisms that explain many aspects of dependency on nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco. Among them: Individual differences in brain chemistry can have a profound effect on a person's susceptibility to addiction, and smoking may predispose adolescents to mental disorders in adolescence and adulthood. In addition, researchers have identified a potential neural network that regulates the body's craving response and have demonstrated how smoking may affect decision-making.
"As the negative health consequences of smoking have become more and more obvious, the majority of smokers have attempted to quit," says Marina Picciotto, PhD, of Yale University. "Unfortunately, people who want to quit often find that they cannot, and recent neuroscience research has identified many of the molecular mechanisms that lead to nicotine addiction.
"It is notable that many who smoke cigarettes have affective disorders, and many who have affective disorders such as major depression also smoke cigarettes and find it much harder to quit. We need new treatments for smoking cessation based on neuroscientific evidence and we need to understand the interaction between smoking and affective disorders so we can target new therapies to people who have the hardest time quitting."
….Montague found that both smokers and nonsmokers were strongly guided by rewards that are actually experienced. But the team also found that chronic smokers do not adjust their behavior based on what could have been, despite the clear presence of the fictive error signal identified in their brain activity.
Yeah, I hate those rewards that aren’t actually experienced...did he just call me a mook?
Remember when getting something for nothing was called a bargain?
Store-bought Freshwater Fish Contain Elevated Levels Of Mercury, Arsenic And Selenium
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — White bass wild-caught and sold commercially contained significantly higher levels of mercury, arsenic and selenium than fish caught near former industrial areas. The University of Pittsburgh study showed mercury levels were 2.2 to 4.8 times higher in fish caught in the Canadian Lake Erie and available commercially than in fish caught near former iron and steel mills on the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in Pittsburgh. While several of these mills have been closed for many years, the nearby rivers continue to contain high levels of pollution from sewer overflows and active industrial operations.
For the study, researchers used local anglers to catch 45 white bass at two locations in Pittsburgh and bought 10 white bass locally that were caught in the Canadian Lake Erie. They analyzed the fish for levels of mercury, arsenic and selenium. In addition to higher levels of mercury, the store-bought fish had levels that were 1.7 times higher for arsenic and 1.9 times higher for selenium.
"We were surprised by our results since we had hypothesized that levels of contaminants in fish would be higher in specimens caught near once heavily polluted sites," said Conrad D. Volz, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., principal investigator, department of environmental and occupational health, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. "These results indicate to us that purchasing fish from a local market cannot guarantee food safety. We recommend a more rigorous testing program for commercial freshwater fish with particular attention to fish entering the U.S. from other countries."
Wow, pollution in Lake Erie. Wonder if they know. And to think consumers get to choose
where their fish comes from—Lake Erie or the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Oh yeah, break me off some of that.
Headline of the day
Thirty-one people were killed in wood chipper accidents between 1992 and 2002, according to a 2005 Journal of the American Medical Assn. report.
Scientists are shocked to find out that nobody cares about their journal article—not even mom
Lost In The Middle: Author Order Matters, New Paper Says
ScienceDaily (Nov. 9, 2007) — Rare is the scientific paper today written by a single author. With research being conducted by teams of scientists, most studies now boast a half-dozen or so authors. According to a new study led by a scientist at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, credit for those papers is far from evenly distributed, and the order in which the authors' names are listed makes a big difference.
In scientific circles, the long-accepted hierarchy of authorship places the one who did the lion's share of the work first and the senior author last. "What we wanted to know was: What about everyone in between?" said Wren. "What do people think about the middle authors and their contribution to the work described in the paper?"
The new findings appear in the Nov. 1 issue of the scientific journal EMBO Reports. OMRF's Jonathan Wren, Ph.D., is the first author on the paper, which is entitled "The write position.
It’s a good thing there is no such thing as careerism in research.
Cause it’s fun? And I like it? And you can’t tell me not to like it.
And I can quit anytime I want…I just don’t’ want to
Why Quitting Smoking Is So Difficult
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — New findings clarify the brain mechanisms that explain many aspects of dependency on nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco. Among them: Individual differences in brain chemistry can have a profound effect on a person's susceptibility to addiction, and smoking may predispose adolescents to mental disorders in adolescence and adulthood. In addition, researchers have identified a potential neural network that regulates the body's craving response and have demonstrated how smoking may affect decision-making.
"As the negative health consequences of smoking have become more and more obvious, the majority of smokers have attempted to quit," says Marina Picciotto, PhD, of Yale University. "Unfortunately, people who want to quit often find that they cannot, and recent neuroscience research has identified many of the molecular mechanisms that lead to nicotine addiction.
"It is notable that many who smoke cigarettes have affective disorders, and many who have affective disorders such as major depression also smoke cigarettes and find it much harder to quit. We need new treatments for smoking cessation based on neuroscientific evidence and we need to understand the interaction between smoking and affective disorders so we can target new therapies to people who have the hardest time quitting."
….Montague found that both smokers and nonsmokers were strongly guided by rewards that are actually experienced. But the team also found that chronic smokers do not adjust their behavior based on what could have been, despite the clear presence of the fictive error signal identified in their brain activity.
Yeah, I hate those rewards that aren’t actually experienced...did he just call me a mook?
Remember when getting something for nothing was called a bargain?
Store-bought Freshwater Fish Contain Elevated Levels Of Mercury, Arsenic And Selenium
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — White bass wild-caught and sold commercially contained significantly higher levels of mercury, arsenic and selenium than fish caught near former industrial areas. The University of Pittsburgh study showed mercury levels were 2.2 to 4.8 times higher in fish caught in the Canadian Lake Erie and available commercially than in fish caught near former iron and steel mills on the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in Pittsburgh. While several of these mills have been closed for many years, the nearby rivers continue to contain high levels of pollution from sewer overflows and active industrial operations.
For the study, researchers used local anglers to catch 45 white bass at two locations in Pittsburgh and bought 10 white bass locally that were caught in the Canadian Lake Erie. They analyzed the fish for levels of mercury, arsenic and selenium. In addition to higher levels of mercury, the store-bought fish had levels that were 1.7 times higher for arsenic and 1.9 times higher for selenium.
"We were surprised by our results since we had hypothesized that levels of contaminants in fish would be higher in specimens caught near once heavily polluted sites," said Conrad D. Volz, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., principal investigator, department of environmental and occupational health, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. "These results indicate to us that purchasing fish from a local market cannot guarantee food safety. We recommend a more rigorous testing program for commercial freshwater fish with particular attention to fish entering the U.S. from other countries."
Wow, pollution in Lake Erie. Wonder if they know. And to think consumers get to choose
where their fish comes from—Lake Erie or the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Oh yeah, break me off some of that.
Headline of the day
Supreme Court: Mannequin sex doesn't equal indecent exposure
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Making Science More Better For You on 11/08/07
Headline of the day
Grandpa Picks Up Wrong Kid From School
The Simpsons come alive. “Doh.”
So, the doormouse was really saying “Get good grades,”
Brain-boosting drugs spark ethical debate in UK
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - A rise in healthy people popping pills to boost performance in exams or work, raises long-term ethical and safety concerns about the effects of such treatments, British doctors said on Thursday.
The British Medical Association (BMA) wants a public debate about the risks and benefits of using drugs to improve memory and concentration, sometimes called "cognitive enhancement".
The ability of prescription drugs and medical procedures to improve intellectual performance is likely to increase significantly in the next 20 to 30 years as technology advances.
"We know that there is likely to be a demand by healthy individuals for this treatment," Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA's Medical Ethics Committee said at the launch of a discussion paper on the issue.
"However, given that no drug or invasive medical procedure is risk free, is it ethical to make them available to people who are not ill?"
Surreptitious use of brain-boosting prescription drugs is particularly common in the United States and likely to increase in Britain, the BMA said.
"There is a growing expectation that the use of these so-called cognitive enhancers in the UK is both imminent and inevitable," the BMA said.
Today, the use of pharmaceutical aids to boost performance is mainly confined to certain groups -- notably students cramming for exams.
Popular choices include drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, such as Ritalin, or methylphenidate, made by Novartis AG and others.
Another favourite is modafinil, the active ingredient in Cephalon Inc's narcolepsy medicine Provigil.
Such drugs are widely available to buy online.
BOTOX FOR THE BRAIN
In the future scientists may be able to provide more permanent fixes for bad memory or poor concentration through brain stimulation and neurotechnology.
This would involve techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation -- sometimes referred to as "botox for the brain" -- where magnetic pulses are used to stimulate particular brain regions, and deep brain stimulation, where electrodes are inserted into the brain to transmit tiny electrical currents.
These and future medical interventions could benefit individuals and, potentially, wider society, if they increase the competitiveness of the workforce.
But "over-enhancement" of the brain's cognitive functions could have damaging side-effects.
It may, for instance, impair a normal brain's ability to selectively filter out trivial or traumatic information, resulting in the individual being plagued by unwanted or traumatic memories. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Golnar Motevalli)
“So the movie is kind of like “Easy Rider,” only instead of going off to find America, they go off to find the right MBA program. What do you think?”
But what about show tunes?
Genetics Has A Role In Determining Sexual Orientation In Men, Further Evidence
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — Is sexual orientation something people are born with - like the colour of their skin and eyes - or a matter of choice?
Canadian scientists have uncovered new evidence which shows genetics has a role to play in determining whether an individual is homosexual or heterosexual.
The research was conducted by Dr. Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University, and colleagues at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto who studied the brains of healthy, right-handed, 18- to 35-year-old homosexual and heterosexual men using structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
About 10 years ago, Witelson and Dr. Cheryl McCormick, then a student of Witelson's, demonstrated there is a higher proportion of left-handers in the homosexual population than in the general population -- a result replicated in subsequent studies which is now accepted as fact.
Handedness is a sign of how the brain is organized to represent different aspects of intelligence. Language, for example, is usually on the left - music on the right.
In other research, Witelson and research associate Debra Kigar, had found that left-handers have a larger region of the posterior corpus callosum -- the thick band of nerve fibres connecting the two hemispheres of the brain -- than right handers.
This raised the hypothesis for the current study -- whether the anatomy of the brain of the sub-group of right-handed homosexual men is similar to that of left-handers.
They found that the posterior part of the corpus callosum is larger in homosexual than heterosexual men.
The size of the corpus callosum is largely inherited suggesting a genetic factor in sexual orientation, said Witelson "Our results do not mean that heredity is destiny but they do indicate that environment is not the only player in the field," she said.
While this is not a litmus test for sexual orientation, Witelson said this finding could prove to be one additional valuable piece of information for physicians and individuals who are trying to determine their sexual orientation. "Sometimes people aren't sure of their sexual orientation."
“About 10 years ago, Witelson and Dr. Cheryl McCormick, then a student of Witelson's, demonstrated there is a higher proportion of left-handers in the homosexual population than in the general population…”
Yeah, but are there more starters or relievers? If you were waiting for a pitchers and catchers reference, shame on you.
This kind of explains that whole couple’s resort movement
When Animals Evolve On Islands, Size Doesn't Matter
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — A theory explaining the evolution of giant rodents, miniature elephants, and even miniature humans on islands has been called into questions by new research.
The new study refutes the 'island rule' which says that in island environments small mammals such as rodents tend to evolve to be larger, and large mammals such as elephants tend to evolve to be smaller, with the original size of the species being the key determining factor in these changes.
The new research findings suggest that the tendency to either evolve larger or smaller on islands varies from one group of species to another, irrespective of original size. The research team, from Imperial College London, suspect instead that a number of external factors, including the physical environment of the particular island, the availability of prey, the presence of predators and the presence of competing species all play a role in determining the size evolution of island mammals.
Dr Shai Meiri from the NERC Centre for Population Biology at Imperial College London, lead author on the paper, explains: "If the island rule was correct, then most large mammals living on islands would be smaller than their continental relatives, and most small island mammals would be larger those living on continents. Our large dataset of mammal body sizes shows that this isn't the case: there is evidence that most mammal groups show no tendency to consistently either grow larger or smaller, in contradiction to the island rule."
Dr Meiri, who carried out the work with Professor Andy Purvis and Natalie Cooper from the College's Department of Life Sciences, added: "The island rule suggests that the smallest mammals such as mice will exhibit the most evolutionary growth on islands, whilst the largest mammals like elephants will dwarf the most, with all mammals in between on a sliding-scale.
"Our analyses showed this isn't the case, and the relationship between mammal size and evolutionary size change on islands is not that straightforward. Crucially, when we examined size change in light of the evolutionary relationship between different species, there was no connection between an evolution towards large size and greater degree of dwarfism on islands, or between evolution towards small size and island gigantism."
The other headline of the day
Woman in wedding dress drives SUV into pond, bites rescuer
(The Obscure Store)
Maybe it’s all tied to one of those “going green” eco things.
What can we say, we just like needles
America May Over-vaccinate, According To New Research
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine* by Oregon Health & Science University researchers suggests that timelines for vaccinating and revaccinating Americans against disease should possibly be reevaluated and adjusted. The study shows that in many cases, the established duration of protective immunity for many vaccines is greatly underestimated. This means that people are getting booster shots when their immunity levels most likely do not require it.
* MMR vaccine
"The goal of this study was to determine how long immunity could be maintained after infection or vaccination. We expected to see long-lived immunity following a viral infection and relatively short-lived immunity after vaccination, especially since this is the reasoning for requiring booster vaccinations. Surprisingly, we found that immunity following vaccination with tetanus and diphtheria was much more long-lived than anyone realized and that antibody responses following viral infections were essentially maintained for life," explained Mark Slifka, Ph.D. Slifka serves as an associate scientist at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute with joint appointments at the Oregon National Primate Research Center and the department of molecular microbiology and immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine.
"We want to emphasize that proper vaccination is vital for protecting people against infectious disease. We also need to mention that over-vaccinating the population poses no health or safety concerns -- it may just be unnecessary under certain circumstances. What our study found was that the lifespan of protective immunity for certain vaccines is much longer than previously thought. So what does this mean? Based on this data and other studies, we may want to consider adjusting some of our recommended vaccination schedules. Doing so may reduce the number of required shots that are administered each year in this country while at the same time help extend limited health care resources," Dr. Slifka explained.
To conduct the research, Slifka and his colleagues evaluated 630 blood samples from a total of 45 study participants. In the case of some participants, archived serum samples provided data going back as far as 26 years. Once gathered, the data was then analyzed to determine the level of immunity in each individual for measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox (Varicella-zoster virus), mononucleosis (Epstein-Barr virus), tetanus and diphtheria over an extended period of time. Upon further examination, researchers found that antibody responses caused by viruses such as measles mumps, and rubella remained at protective levels for several decades and in most cases, for life. This is interesting because these three viruses were classically described as "childhood infections" because it was rare to be infected twice in a lifetime.
The research also reconfirmed a previous finding by Slifka and his colleagues: that the duration of immunity after smallpox vaccination is much longer than previously thought. In that earlier study published in the journal Nature Medicine in 2003, these OHSU researchers observed surprisingly long-lived antiviral antibody responses but they were unable to measure the slow rate of decline. In this current study, they demonstrate that this type of immunity is maintained with a calculated half-life of 92 years -- a number that is substantially longer than the estimate of only 3 to 5 years of immunity following vaccination that was previously proposed by experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Another example is the tetanus vaccine," said Slifka. "Doctors are told that vaccination is effective for a period of 10 years -- but after that, people should be revaccinated. Based on our studies and the work of others, once a person has received their primary series of vaccinations they are likely to be protected for at least three decades. Indeed, other countries such as Sweden have changed their vaccination policies and doctors are advised to offer tetanus revaccination only once every 30 years." Importantly, this has not resulted in any increase in the number of tetanus cases in Sweden and demonstrates first-hand that switching from the 10-year to 30-year policy is safe and effective. Taking this small step in vaccination scheduling could save hundreds of millions of dollars on health care here in the US."
You see, buggin’s a good thing
Infections, Bacteria 'Critical For Healthy Life'
ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2007) — Mothers around the world are armed with anti-bacterial gels, sprays and baby blankets, diligently protecting their children from nasty forms of bacteria. But recent research shows that society's anti-bacterial and anti-infection crusade makes children and adults more likely to develop asthma and allergies - and perhaps even mental illnesses.
Dr. Gerald Callahan, who studies bacteria and infectious diseases at Colorado State University, argues that all living things on earth must have infections to thrive, and society's challenge is to sort the good infections from the bad infections. People's love affair with anti-bacterial products is changing - and not necessarily for the better - how immune systems, gastrointestinal systems and even nervous systems develop and function.
"Microorganisms shape the lives of all living things and infections steer the course of the world. Most people understand that infections are at the root of many terrible diseases like malaria and leprosy. But infection may also play a significant role in many chronic aliments, including some that may surprise you such as schizophrenia, ulcers and obsessive compulsive disorder," said Callahan, an immunology professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts.
The role Toxoplasm gondii, a parasite, may play in producing schizophrenia in people isn't clear. But rats infected with T. gondii exhibit suicidal behaviors. And otherwise normal men and women infected with T. gondii exhibit alterations in their behaviors: Infected women are likely to be more warmhearted and outgoing, and infected men often are more jealous and suspicious.
About 15 percent of all cancers could be prevented if infectious diseases that play a role in causing these cancers, which include stomach, cervical and liver cancers, could be controlled, Callahan said.
But what many people may not realize is that most infections ensure our health instead of compromise it.
Mitochondria are bacteria that take fats and sugars and make adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. Every action that distinguishes a living human being from a dead human being is dependent on ATP.
"We need our bacteria," Callahan said.
Hand sanitizers—they're the devil’s playground.
The other, other headline of the day
Ah yes, some really are born to the purple.
Grandpa Picks Up Wrong Kid From School
The Simpsons come alive. “Doh.”
So, the doormouse was really saying “Get good grades,”
Brain-boosting drugs spark ethical debate in UK
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - A rise in healthy people popping pills to boost performance in exams or work, raises long-term ethical and safety concerns about the effects of such treatments, British doctors said on Thursday.
The British Medical Association (BMA) wants a public debate about the risks and benefits of using drugs to improve memory and concentration, sometimes called "cognitive enhancement".
The ability of prescription drugs and medical procedures to improve intellectual performance is likely to increase significantly in the next 20 to 30 years as technology advances.
"We know that there is likely to be a demand by healthy individuals for this treatment," Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA's Medical Ethics Committee said at the launch of a discussion paper on the issue.
"However, given that no drug or invasive medical procedure is risk free, is it ethical to make them available to people who are not ill?"
Surreptitious use of brain-boosting prescription drugs is particularly common in the United States and likely to increase in Britain, the BMA said.
"There is a growing expectation that the use of these so-called cognitive enhancers in the UK is both imminent and inevitable," the BMA said.
Today, the use of pharmaceutical aids to boost performance is mainly confined to certain groups -- notably students cramming for exams.
Popular choices include drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, such as Ritalin, or methylphenidate, made by Novartis AG
Another favourite is modafinil, the active ingredient in Cephalon Inc's
Such drugs are widely available to buy online.
BOTOX FOR THE BRAIN
In the future scientists may be able to provide more permanent fixes for bad memory or poor concentration through brain stimulation and neurotechnology.
This would involve techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation -- sometimes referred to as "botox for the brain" -- where magnetic pulses are used to stimulate particular brain regions, and deep brain stimulation, where electrodes are inserted into the brain to transmit tiny electrical currents.
These and future medical interventions could benefit individuals and, potentially, wider society, if they increase the competitiveness of the workforce.
But "over-enhancement" of the brain's cognitive functions could have damaging side-effects.
It may, for instance, impair a normal brain's ability to selectively filter out trivial or traumatic information, resulting in the individual being plagued by unwanted or traumatic memories. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Golnar Motevalli)
“So the movie is kind of like “Easy Rider,” only instead of going off to find America, they go off to find the right MBA program. What do you think?”
Genetics Has A Role In Determining Sexual Orientation In Men, Further Evidence
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — Is sexual orientation something people are born with - like the colour of their skin and eyes - or a matter of choice?
Canadian scientists have uncovered new evidence which shows genetics has a role to play in determining whether an individual is homosexual or heterosexual.
The research was conducted by Dr. Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University, and colleagues at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto who studied the brains of healthy, right-handed, 18- to 35-year-old homosexual and heterosexual men using structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
About 10 years ago, Witelson and Dr. Cheryl McCormick, then a student of Witelson's, demonstrated there is a higher proportion of left-handers in the homosexual population than in the general population -- a result replicated in subsequent studies which is now accepted as fact.
Handedness is a sign of how the brain is organized to represent different aspects of intelligence. Language, for example, is usually on the left - music on the right.
In other research, Witelson and research associate Debra Kigar, had found that left-handers have a larger region of the posterior corpus callosum -- the thick band of nerve fibres connecting the two hemispheres of the brain -- than right handers.
This raised the hypothesis for the current study -- whether the anatomy of the brain of the sub-group of right-handed homosexual men is similar to that of left-handers.
They found that the posterior part of the corpus callosum is larger in homosexual than heterosexual men.
The size of the corpus callosum is largely inherited suggesting a genetic factor in sexual orientation, said Witelson "Our results do not mean that heredity is destiny but they do indicate that environment is not the only player in the field," she said.
While this is not a litmus test for sexual orientation, Witelson said this finding could prove to be one additional valuable piece of information for physicians and individuals who are trying to determine their sexual orientation. "Sometimes people aren't sure of their sexual orientation."
“About 10 years ago, Witelson and Dr. Cheryl McCormick, then a student of Witelson's, demonstrated there is a higher proportion of left-handers in the homosexual population than in the general population…”
Yeah, but are there more starters or relievers? If you were waiting for a pitchers and catchers reference, shame on you.
This kind of explains that whole couple’s resort movement
When Animals Evolve On Islands, Size Doesn't Matter
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — A theory explaining the evolution of giant rodents, miniature elephants, and even miniature humans on islands has been called into questions by new research.
The new study refutes the 'island rule' which says that in island environments small mammals such as rodents tend to evolve to be larger, and large mammals such as elephants tend to evolve to be smaller, with the original size of the species being the key determining factor in these changes.
The new research findings suggest that the tendency to either evolve larger or smaller on islands varies from one group of species to another, irrespective of original size. The research team, from Imperial College London, suspect instead that a number of external factors, including the physical environment of the particular island, the availability of prey, the presence of predators and the presence of competing species all play a role in determining the size evolution of island mammals.
Dr Shai Meiri from the NERC Centre for Population Biology at Imperial College London, lead author on the paper, explains: "If the island rule was correct, then most large mammals living on islands would be smaller than their continental relatives, and most small island mammals would be larger those living on continents. Our large dataset of mammal body sizes shows that this isn't the case: there is evidence that most mammal groups show no tendency to consistently either grow larger or smaller, in contradiction to the island rule."
Dr Meiri, who carried out the work with Professor Andy Purvis and Natalie Cooper from the College's Department of Life Sciences, added: "The island rule suggests that the smallest mammals such as mice will exhibit the most evolutionary growth on islands, whilst the largest mammals like elephants will dwarf the most, with all mammals in between on a sliding-scale.
"Our analyses showed this isn't the case, and the relationship between mammal size and evolutionary size change on islands is not that straightforward. Crucially, when we examined size change in light of the evolutionary relationship between different species, there was no connection between an evolution towards large size and greater degree of dwarfism on islands, or between evolution towards small size and island gigantism."
The other headline of the day
Woman in wedding dress drives SUV into pond, bites rescuer
(The Obscure Store)
Maybe it’s all tied to one of those “going green” eco things.
What can we say, we just like needles
America May Over-vaccinate, According To New Research
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine* by Oregon Health & Science University researchers suggests that timelines for vaccinating and revaccinating Americans against disease should possibly be reevaluated and adjusted. The study shows that in many cases, the established duration of protective immunity for many vaccines is greatly underestimated. This means that people are getting booster shots when their immunity levels most likely do not require it.
* MMR vaccine
"The goal of this study was to determine how long immunity could be maintained after infection or vaccination. We expected to see long-lived immunity following a viral infection and relatively short-lived immunity after vaccination, especially since this is the reasoning for requiring booster vaccinations. Surprisingly, we found that immunity following vaccination with tetanus and diphtheria was much more long-lived than anyone realized and that antibody responses following viral infections were essentially maintained for life," explained Mark Slifka, Ph.D. Slifka serves as an associate scientist at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute with joint appointments at the Oregon National Primate Research Center and the department of molecular microbiology and immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine.
"We want to emphasize that proper vaccination is vital for protecting people against infectious disease. We also need to mention that over-vaccinating the population poses no health or safety concerns -- it may just be unnecessary under certain circumstances. What our study found was that the lifespan of protective immunity for certain vaccines is much longer than previously thought. So what does this mean? Based on this data and other studies, we may want to consider adjusting some of our recommended vaccination schedules. Doing so may reduce the number of required shots that are administered each year in this country while at the same time help extend limited health care resources," Dr. Slifka explained.
To conduct the research, Slifka and his colleagues evaluated 630 blood samples from a total of 45 study participants. In the case of some participants, archived serum samples provided data going back as far as 26 years. Once gathered, the data was then analyzed to determine the level of immunity in each individual for measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox (Varicella-zoster virus), mononucleosis (Epstein-Barr virus), tetanus and diphtheria over an extended period of time. Upon further examination, researchers found that antibody responses caused by viruses such as measles mumps, and rubella remained at protective levels for several decades and in most cases, for life. This is interesting because these three viruses were classically described as "childhood infections" because it was rare to be infected twice in a lifetime.
The research also reconfirmed a previous finding by Slifka and his colleagues: that the duration of immunity after smallpox vaccination is much longer than previously thought. In that earlier study published in the journal Nature Medicine in 2003, these OHSU researchers observed surprisingly long-lived antiviral antibody responses but they were unable to measure the slow rate of decline. In this current study, they demonstrate that this type of immunity is maintained with a calculated half-life of 92 years -- a number that is substantially longer than the estimate of only 3 to 5 years of immunity following vaccination that was previously proposed by experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Another example is the tetanus vaccine," said Slifka. "Doctors are told that vaccination is effective for a period of 10 years -- but after that, people should be revaccinated. Based on our studies and the work of others, once a person has received their primary series of vaccinations they are likely to be protected for at least three decades. Indeed, other countries such as Sweden have changed their vaccination policies and doctors are advised to offer tetanus revaccination only once every 30 years." Importantly, this has not resulted in any increase in the number of tetanus cases in Sweden and demonstrates first-hand that switching from the 10-year to 30-year policy is safe and effective. Taking this small step in vaccination scheduling could save hundreds of millions of dollars on health care here in the US."
You see, buggin’s a good thing
Infections, Bacteria 'Critical For Healthy Life'
ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2007) — Mothers around the world are armed with anti-bacterial gels, sprays and baby blankets, diligently protecting their children from nasty forms of bacteria. But recent research shows that society's anti-bacterial and anti-infection crusade makes children and adults more likely to develop asthma and allergies - and perhaps even mental illnesses.
Dr. Gerald Callahan, who studies bacteria and infectious diseases at Colorado State University, argues that all living things on earth must have infections to thrive, and society's challenge is to sort the good infections from the bad infections. People's love affair with anti-bacterial products is changing - and not necessarily for the better - how immune systems, gastrointestinal systems and even nervous systems develop and function.
"Microorganisms shape the lives of all living things and infections steer the course of the world. Most people understand that infections are at the root of many terrible diseases like malaria and leprosy. But infection may also play a significant role in many chronic aliments, including some that may surprise you such as schizophrenia, ulcers and obsessive compulsive disorder," said Callahan, an immunology professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts.
The role Toxoplasm gondii, a parasite, may play in producing schizophrenia in people isn't clear. But rats infected with T. gondii exhibit suicidal behaviors. And otherwise normal men and women infected with T. gondii exhibit alterations in their behaviors: Infected women are likely to be more warmhearted and outgoing, and infected men often are more jealous and suspicious.
About 15 percent of all cancers could be prevented if infectious diseases that play a role in causing these cancers, which include stomach, cervical and liver cancers, could be controlled, Callahan said.
But what many people may not realize is that most infections ensure our health instead of compromise it.
Mitochondria are bacteria that take fats and sugars and make adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. Every action that distinguishes a living human being from a dead human being is dependent on ATP.
"We need our bacteria," Callahan said.
Hand sanitizers—they're the devil’s playground.
The other, other headline of the day
Ah yes, some really are born to the purple.
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