Headlines of the day
Wienermobile wipes out (Starr-Gazette.com)
No bun intended.
Pa. Lawmaker Eager to Push Beer Sales 'Into 21st Century' (KYW Newsradio.com)
Does Jules Verne know about this? How about Admiral Richard Byrd?
Rubik's Cube In Center Of Earth? Computer Simulations Support New Model Of Earth's Core
ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2008) — Swedish researchers have presented evidence to support their new theory about the structure of the earth's core. The findings may be of significance for our understanding of the cooling down of the earth, and of the stability of the earth’s magnetic field.
It has long been known that the inner core of the earth, a sphere consisting of a solid mass with a radius of about 1,200 km, is mainly made up of iron. However, seismic observations have shown that elastic waves pass more rapidly through this core in directions that are parallel to the earth’s axis of rotation than in directions parallel to the equator–-a phenomenon that has not been previously explained. At the high temperatures that prevail in the core of the earth, these waves should pass at the same speed regardless of their direction.
In the present study, scientists from Uppsala University and KTH present an explanation for this puzzling characteristic. The new publication in Science is part of a series of articles published by the same research team in Nature and Science.
Initially, in 2003, they published strong theoretical proof that the earth’s core assumes the so-called body-centered cubic crystal structure at high temperatures–-a structure that despite its high degree of symmetry evinces a surprisingly high level of elastic anisotropy, that is, its elastic properties are contingent on direction. This theory about the crystal structure directly contradicted the then prevailing view, but since then the theory has found both experimental and theoretical support.
In this new study the researchers present simulations of how seismic waves are reproduced in iron under the conditions that prevail in the core of the earth, showing a difference of about 12 percent depending on their direction-–which suffices as an explanation for the puzzling observations. First the trajectories of movement were calculated for several million atoms in strong interaction with each other. On this basis, the scientists were then able to determine that the progress of the sound waves was actually accurately described in the computer-generated model for iron under the conditions prevailing in the core of the earth.
“We found that the body-centered cubic structure of iron is the only structure that could correspond to the experimental observations,” says Börje Johansson, professor of condensed-matter theory at Uppsala University.
The earth’s heat balance, like its magnetic field, is dependent on the amount of heat that is stored in the inner core of the earth. These conditions, in turn, are dependent on the crystal structure of the iron in the inner core. Previously these estimates were based on models deriving from the hexagonal structure of iron in the inner core. The Swedish scientists’ discovery will now entail a critical revaluation of the cooling off of the earth and of the stability of its magnetic field.
“This study opens new perspectives for our understanding of the earth’s past, present, and future,” says Natalia Skorodumova, a researcher at the Department of Physics and Materials Science.
In their studies these researchers have used models based on the so-called density-functional theory for which Walter Kohn was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize. The calculations were carried out using the most powerful parallel supercomputers in existence, in Stockholm and Linköping.
The body-centered cubic crystal structure forms a cube with atoms in each corner and a further atom in the middle of this cube. It is oriented in such a way that its great diagonal is directed along the earth’s axis of rotation, which makes it possible for the iron to evince sound propagations with the velocities observed.
Social scientists get a grant to point out the obvious. Film at 11.
Spouses more irritating as time goes on
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Feb. 11 (UPI) -- A University of Michigan study of 800 adults found as people age, they are more likely to see their spouses as irritating and demanding.
Study leader Kira Birditt, a research fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research and colleagues Lisa Jackey and Toni Antonucci interviewed people at different stages in life -- young, middle-aged and older adults -- first in 1992 and again in 2005.
The study participants in their 20s and 30s had the most negative relationships overall.
The study also found that for all age groups, including adults in their 40s and 50s, the spousal relationship was seen as the most negative -- and it tended to increase in negativity over time. However, Birditt said that viewing a spouse more negatively over time may not be all bad.
"As we age, and become closer and more comfortable with one another, it could be that we're more able to express ourselves to each other," Birditt said in a statement. "In other words, it's possible that negativity is a normal aspect of close relationships that include a great deal of daily contact."
The findings were presented at the Gerontological Society of America.
When galaxies fail to move their feet
A Cosmic Fossil? Brilliant But Fuzzy Galaxy May Be Aftermath Of Multi-Galaxy Collision
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2008) — The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of the galaxy NGC 1132 which is, most likely, a cosmic fossil – the aftermath of an enormous multi-galactic pile-up, where the carnage of collision after collision has built up a brilliant but fuzzy giant elliptical galaxy far outshining typical galaxies.
The elliptical galaxy NGC 1132, seen in this latest image from Hubble, belongs to a category of galaxies called giant ellipticals. NGC 1132, together with the small dwarf galaxies surrounding it, are dubbed a “fossil group” as they are most likely the remains of a group of galaxies that merged together in the recent past.
In visible light NGC 1132 appears as a single, isolated, giant elliptical galaxy, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Scientists have found that NGC 1132 resides in an enormous halo of dark matter, comparable to the amount of dark matter usually found in an entire group of tens or hundreds of galaxies. It also has a strong X-ray glow from an abundant amount of hot gas – an amount normally only found in galaxy groups. Its X-ray glow extends over a region of space ten times larger than the 120,000 light-year radius it has in visible light. An X-ray glow that is equal in size to that of an entire group of galaxies.
The origin of fossil group systems remains a puzzle. The most likely explanation is that they are the end-products of a cosmic feeding frenzy in which a large cannibal galaxy devours all of its neighbours. A less likely explanation is that they may be very rare objects that formed in a region or period of time where the growth of moderate-sized galaxies was somehow suppressed, and only one large galaxy formed.
Many galaxies reside in groups that are gravitationally bound together, including our own Milky Way, which is part of the Local Group. Sometimes gravity makes galaxies collide and eventually merge into one single galaxy. There is strong evidence that the Milky Way is one such cannibal that has snacked on numerous smaller galaxies during its lifetime, inheriting their stars in the process. Scientists are keenly studying the environment surrounding galaxies such as NGC 1132 using space telescopes like Hubble, and they try to trace the history of the formation these galaxies by analysing their properties.
In this Hubble image, NGC 1132 is seen surrounded by thousands of ancient globular clusters, swarming around the galaxy like bees around a hive. These globular clusters are likely to be the survivors of the disruption of their cannibalised parent galaxies that have been eaten by NGC 1132 and may reveal its merger history. In the background, there is a stunning tapestry of numerous galaxies that are much further away.
Elliptical galaxies are smooth and featureless. They contain hundreds of millions to trillions of stars, and their shapes range from nearly spherical to very elongated in shape. Their overall yellowish colour is a telltale sign of their great age. Because elliptical galaxies do not contain much cool gas they can no longer make new stars.
NGC 1132 is located approximately 320 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus, the River. This image of NGC 1132 was taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Data obtained in 2005 and 2006 through green and near-infrared filters were used to produce a colour composite.
.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
Making Science More Better For You on 02/08/08
Headlines of the day
Principal denies report that farting is banned in school (The Obscure Store)
Man stabs wife with fork, returns utensil to drawer, police say (The IslandPacket.com)
Music cannot change the world, says Neil Young (Breitbart)
He should know.
This just in. Humans Buy Things So They Won’t Feel Bad. Film at 11:00
Sadness May Encourage More Extravagance
By Mark Jewell, AP Business Writer
BOSTON (AP) -- If you're sad and shopping, watch your wallet: A new study shows people's spending judgment goes out the window when they're down, especially if they're a bit self-absorbed.
Study participants who watched a sadness-inducing video clip offered to pay nearly four times as much money to buy a water bottle than a group that watched an emotionally neutral clip.
The so-called "misery is not miserly" phenomenon is well-known to psychologists, advertisers and personal shoppers alike, and has been documented in a similar study in 2004.
The new study released Friday by researchers from four universities goes further, trying to answer whether temporary sadness alone can trigger spendthrift tendencies.
The study found a willingness to spend freely by sad people occurs mainly when their sadness triggers greater "self-focus." That response was measured by counting how frequently study participants used references to "I," "me," "my" and "myself" in writing an essay about how a sad situation such as the one portrayed in the video would affect them personally.
The brief video was about the death of a boy's mentor. Another group watched an emotionally neutral clip about the Great Barrier Reef, the vast coral reef system off Australia's coast.
On average, the group watching the sad video offered to pay nearly four times as much for a sporty-looking, insulated water bottle than the group watching the nature video, according to the study by researchers from Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and Pittsburgh universities.
Thirty-three study subjects -- young adults who responded to an advertisement offering $10 for participation -- were offered the chance to trade some of the $10 to buy the bottle. The sad group offered to trade an average of $2.11, compared with 56 cents for the neutral group.
Despite the big difference, participants in the sad group typically insisted that the video's emotional content didn't affect their willingness to spend more -- an incorrect assumption, said one of the study's co-authors.
"This is a phenomenon that occurs without awareness," Jennifer Lerner, a Harvard professor who studies emotion and decision making, said in a phone interview. "This is really different from the idea of retail therapy, where people are feeling negative and want to cheer themselves up by shopping. People have no idea this is going on."
The researchers concluded sadness can trigger a chain of emotions leading to extravagant tendencies. Sadness leads people to become more focused on themselves, causing the person to feel that they and their possessions are worth little. That feeling increases willingness to pay more -- presumably to feel better about themselves.
"Because the study used real commodities and real money, results hold implications for everyday decisions," according to the authors of the study, to be published in the journal Psychological Science, and presented Saturday at a meeting of the Society for Social and Personality Psychology.
Edward Charlesworth, a Houston-based clinical psychologist who was not involved in the study, suggested the misery-is-not-miserly phenomenon is rooted in a culture that encourages people to buy to feel better.
"Certainly, the advertising industry knows that," Charlesworth, citing as an example a 1970s McDonald's fast-food jingle, "You deserve a break today."
Charlesworth frequently sees clients in his clinical practice who overspend to deal with difficulties.
"It's not necessarily that you go to the mall and go on a shopping spree," said Charlesworth, author of a book on stress management. "It's often more subtle -- you spend a bit more on something than you normally would. But if you magnify that over the course of a year, or a lifetime, those little things add up."
Personal shoppers, who make a business of prowling the aisles for others, say they frequently see clients stray from their budgets when they're feeling blue.
"At that point, cost isn't usually a factor," said Kalyn Johnson, of New York City-based Style by Kalyn Johnson. "They say, 'If I can have these wonderful shoes, I'll look better, and feel better.'
"But on the back end, I've seen buyer's remorse. This kicks in after they realize that new pair of shoes, or iPod, or whatever, didn't make them feel better, and then there's that sense of, 'Oh my God, why did I spend money on this?'"
The study released Friday was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health. Besides Lerner, the other study authors were Carnegie Mellon's Cynthia Cryder, Stanford's James Gross, and the University of Pittsburgh's Ronald Dahl.
So Modigliani turns to the model and says, “Why the long face?”
Pygmy dinosaur? It’s right next to the jumbo shrimp.
Pygmy Dinosaur Inhabited Tropical Islands In Britain's Prehistoric Past
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2008) — The celebrated Bristol Dinosaur, Thecodontosaurus, has now been shown to live on subtropical islands around Bristol, instead of in a desert on the mainland as previously thought.
See also:
This new research could explain the dinosaur's small size (2 m) in relation to its giant (10 m) mainland equivalent, Plateosaurus. Like many species trapped on small islands, such as the 'hobbit' Homo floresiensis of Flores and pygmy elephants on Malta, the Bristol Dinosaur may have been subjected to island dwarfing.
Geological mapping indicates that the islands were quite small in size and, judging by abundant remains of fossil charcoal, were often swept by fires. Thus the pygmy Bristol Dinosaur may have met its death in a wildfire.
Thecodontosaurus is one of the earliest named dinosaurs. Its bones were originally found near what is now Bristol Zoo in 1834 - some time before dinosaurs were recognised as a group. In 1975, the remains of at least 11 other individual dinosaurs were uncovered in a quarry at Tytherington, north of Bristol.
Now, a collaboration between two palaeontologists, Professor John Marshall, a University of Southampton expert on fossil pollen, based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and Bristol University's Dr David Whiteside, an authority on extinct reptiles, has revealed that Thecodontosaurus lived more recently than was previously thought.
Dr Whiteside emphasises that this is 'a unique equal collaboration between a palaeontologist specialising in pollen which are microfossils and a vertebrate palaeontologist working on Triassic reptiles.' He says: 'I can't think of any other scientific paper where the two specialisms were combined to produce a complete paleoenvironmental model which includes the whole community of land animals showing the time and habitat they lived in and how they died.'
Microscopic study of marine algae and fossil pollen shows that, rather than inhabiting the arid uplands of the late Triassic Period, the dinosaurs lived just before the Jurassic Period in a series of lushly vegetated islands around Bristol, the outlines of which can still be seen today in the shape of the land.
Professor John Marshall comments: 'The cave deposits with dinosaurs have been known for over 150 years and are world famous. You would think there would be nothing new to find. But by looking at new deposits with a fresh mind we have been able to radically change the environmental interpretation. The big surprise was discovering that these reptiles did not live on arid uplands but rather on small well-vegetated tropical islands around Bristol around 200 million years ago. It is only the microfossil pollen and algae that can tell us this. The outlines of the islands can still be seen today in the shape of the land.'
Professor Marshall and Dr Whiteside add that the deposits that contain the dinosaurs and other reptiles are very unusual. The bones are found in fossil caves, formed by Triassic rain and seawater dissolving the 350 million-year-old Carboniferous Limestone. The caves then filled with sediments including the dinosaur bones as sea levels rose at the very end of the Triassic Period.
Thecodontosaurus bones have been discovered on both Cromhall Island, north of Bristol and Failand Island, part of which is in the city of Bristol and a short distance inland from the present coast. Geological mapping indicates that the islands the dinosaurs lived on were quite small in size.
The discovery that the Bristol dinosaur lived on very small islands is very important as most researchers have believed that it was a primitive member of the prosauropods, which included some very large animals and existed before the huge sauropods such as Diplodocus of the Jurassic.
'This changes the context which we should view Thecodontosaurus,' says Dr Whiteside. 'It has many similarities to the giant Plateosaurus that lived at the same time and other researchers have not taken into account the rapid changes that take place when large animals are isolated on islands of decreasing size. We believe that the Bristol dinosaur is probably a dwarfed species that derived from the giant Plateosaurus or a very similar animal.'
The study The age, fauna and palaeoenvironment of the Late Triassic fissure deposits of Tytherington, South Gloucestershire, UK is published in Geologi
How you doin’? Want to come over and see my rock?
Barnacles Go To Great Lengths To Mate
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2008) — Compelled to mate, yet firmly attached to the rock, barnacles have evolved the longest penis of any animal for their size - up to 8 times their body length - so they can find and fertilize distant neighbours.
Graduate student Christopher Neufeld and Dr. Richard Palmer from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta have shown that barnacles appear to have acquired the capacity to change the size and shape of their penises to closely match local wave conditions.
When wave action is light, a longer (thinner) penis can reach more mates, but at times of higher wave action, a shorter (stouter) penis is more manoeuvrable in flow and therefore can reach more mates.
The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that sexual selection - competition with other males, female choice, sexual conflict between males and females - is not required to explain variation in genital form.
In barnacles, this variation appears to be driven largely by the hydrodynamic conditions experienced under breaking waves.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Alberta.
Principal denies report that farting is banned in school (The Obscure Store)
Man stabs wife with fork, returns utensil to drawer, police say (The IslandPacket.com)
Music cannot change the world, says Neil Young (Breitbart)
He should know.
This just in. Humans Buy Things So They Won’t Feel Bad. Film at 11:00
Sadness May Encourage More Extravagance
By Mark Jewell, AP Business Writer
BOSTON (AP) -- If you're sad and shopping, watch your wallet: A new study shows people's spending judgment goes out the window when they're down, especially if they're a bit self-absorbed.
Study participants who watched a sadness-inducing video clip offered to pay nearly four times as much money to buy a water bottle than a group that watched an emotionally neutral clip.
The so-called "misery is not miserly" phenomenon is well-known to psychologists, advertisers and personal shoppers alike, and has been documented in a similar study in 2004.
The new study released Friday by researchers from four universities goes further, trying to answer whether temporary sadness alone can trigger spendthrift tendencies.
The study found a willingness to spend freely by sad people occurs mainly when their sadness triggers greater "self-focus." That response was measured by counting how frequently study participants used references to "I," "me," "my" and "myself" in writing an essay about how a sad situation such as the one portrayed in the video would affect them personally.
The brief video was about the death of a boy's mentor. Another group watched an emotionally neutral clip about the Great Barrier Reef, the vast coral reef system off Australia's coast.
On average, the group watching the sad video offered to pay nearly four times as much for a sporty-looking, insulated water bottle than the group watching the nature video, according to the study by researchers from Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and Pittsburgh universities.
Thirty-three study subjects -- young adults who responded to an advertisement offering $10 for participation -- were offered the chance to trade some of the $10 to buy the bottle. The sad group offered to trade an average of $2.11, compared with 56 cents for the neutral group.
Despite the big difference, participants in the sad group typically insisted that the video's emotional content didn't affect their willingness to spend more -- an incorrect assumption, said one of the study's co-authors.
"This is a phenomenon that occurs without awareness," Jennifer Lerner, a Harvard professor who studies emotion and decision making, said in a phone interview. "This is really different from the idea of retail therapy, where people are feeling negative and want to cheer themselves up by shopping. People have no idea this is going on."
The researchers concluded sadness can trigger a chain of emotions leading to extravagant tendencies. Sadness leads people to become more focused on themselves, causing the person to feel that they and their possessions are worth little. That feeling increases willingness to pay more -- presumably to feel better about themselves.
"Because the study used real commodities and real money, results hold implications for everyday decisions," according to the authors of the study, to be published in the journal Psychological Science, and presented Saturday at a meeting of the Society for Social and Personality Psychology.
Edward Charlesworth, a Houston-based clinical psychologist who was not involved in the study, suggested the misery-is-not-miserly phenomenon is rooted in a culture that encourages people to buy to feel better.
"Certainly, the advertising industry knows that," Charlesworth, citing as an example a 1970s McDonald's fast-food jingle, "You deserve a break today."
Charlesworth frequently sees clients in his clinical practice who overspend to deal with difficulties.
"It's not necessarily that you go to the mall and go on a shopping spree," said Charlesworth, author of a book on stress management. "It's often more subtle -- you spend a bit more on something than you normally would. But if you magnify that over the course of a year, or a lifetime, those little things add up."
Personal shoppers, who make a business of prowling the aisles for others, say they frequently see clients stray from their budgets when they're feeling blue.
"At that point, cost isn't usually a factor," said Kalyn Johnson, of New York City-based Style by Kalyn Johnson. "They say, 'If I can have these wonderful shoes, I'll look better, and feel better.'
"But on the back end, I've seen buyer's remorse. This kicks in after they realize that new pair of shoes, or iPod, or whatever, didn't make them feel better, and then there's that sense of, 'Oh my God, why did I spend money on this?'"
The study released Friday was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health. Besides Lerner, the other study authors were Carnegie Mellon's Cynthia Cryder, Stanford's James Gross, and the University of Pittsburgh's Ronald Dahl.
So Modigliani turns to the model and says, “Why the long face?”
Pygmy dinosaur? It’s right next to the jumbo shrimp.
Pygmy Dinosaur Inhabited Tropical Islands In Britain's Prehistoric Past
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2008) — The celebrated Bristol Dinosaur, Thecodontosaurus, has now been shown to live on subtropical islands around Bristol, instead of in a desert on the mainland as previously thought.
See also:
This new research could explain the dinosaur's small size (2 m) in relation to its giant (10 m) mainland equivalent, Plateosaurus. Like many species trapped on small islands, such as the 'hobbit' Homo floresiensis of Flores and pygmy elephants on Malta, the Bristol Dinosaur may have been subjected to island dwarfing.
Geological mapping indicates that the islands were quite small in size and, judging by abundant remains of fossil charcoal, were often swept by fires. Thus the pygmy Bristol Dinosaur may have met its death in a wildfire.
Thecodontosaurus is one of the earliest named dinosaurs. Its bones were originally found near what is now Bristol Zoo in 1834 - some time before dinosaurs were recognised as a group. In 1975, the remains of at least 11 other individual dinosaurs were uncovered in a quarry at Tytherington, north of Bristol.
Now, a collaboration between two palaeontologists, Professor John Marshall, a University of Southampton expert on fossil pollen, based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and Bristol University's Dr David Whiteside, an authority on extinct reptiles, has revealed that Thecodontosaurus lived more recently than was previously thought.
Dr Whiteside emphasises that this is 'a unique equal collaboration between a palaeontologist specialising in pollen which are microfossils and a vertebrate palaeontologist working on Triassic reptiles.' He says: 'I can't think of any other scientific paper where the two specialisms were combined to produce a complete paleoenvironmental model which includes the whole community of land animals showing the time and habitat they lived in and how they died.'
Microscopic study of marine algae and fossil pollen shows that, rather than inhabiting the arid uplands of the late Triassic Period, the dinosaurs lived just before the Jurassic Period in a series of lushly vegetated islands around Bristol, the outlines of which can still be seen today in the shape of the land.
Professor John Marshall comments: 'The cave deposits with dinosaurs have been known for over 150 years and are world famous. You would think there would be nothing new to find. But by looking at new deposits with a fresh mind we have been able to radically change the environmental interpretation. The big surprise was discovering that these reptiles did not live on arid uplands but rather on small well-vegetated tropical islands around Bristol around 200 million years ago. It is only the microfossil pollen and algae that can tell us this. The outlines of the islands can still be seen today in the shape of the land.'
Professor Marshall and Dr Whiteside add that the deposits that contain the dinosaurs and other reptiles are very unusual. The bones are found in fossil caves, formed by Triassic rain and seawater dissolving the 350 million-year-old Carboniferous Limestone. The caves then filled with sediments including the dinosaur bones as sea levels rose at the very end of the Triassic Period.
Thecodontosaurus bones have been discovered on both Cromhall Island, north of Bristol and Failand Island, part of which is in the city of Bristol and a short distance inland from the present coast. Geological mapping indicates that the islands the dinosaurs lived on were quite small in size.
The discovery that the Bristol dinosaur lived on very small islands is very important as most researchers have believed that it was a primitive member of the prosauropods, which included some very large animals and existed before the huge sauropods such as Diplodocus of the Jurassic.
'This changes the context which we should view Thecodontosaurus,' says Dr Whiteside. 'It has many similarities to the giant Plateosaurus that lived at the same time and other researchers have not taken into account the rapid changes that take place when large animals are isolated on islands of decreasing size. We believe that the Bristol dinosaur is probably a dwarfed species that derived from the giant Plateosaurus or a very similar animal.'
The study The age, fauna and palaeoenvironment of the Late Triassic fissure deposits of Tytherington, South Gloucestershire, UK is published in Geologi
How you doin’? Want to come over and see my rock?
Barnacles Go To Great Lengths To Mate
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2008) — Compelled to mate, yet firmly attached to the rock, barnacles have evolved the longest penis of any animal for their size - up to 8 times their body length - so they can find and fertilize distant neighbours.
Graduate student Christopher Neufeld and Dr. Richard Palmer from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta have shown that barnacles appear to have acquired the capacity to change the size and shape of their penises to closely match local wave conditions.
When wave action is light, a longer (thinner) penis can reach more mates, but at times of higher wave action, a shorter (stouter) penis is more manoeuvrable in flow and therefore can reach more mates.
The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that sexual selection - competition with other males, female choice, sexual conflict between males and females - is not required to explain variation in genital form.
In barnacles, this variation appears to be driven largely by the hydrodynamic conditions experienced under breaking waves.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Alberta.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Making Science More Better For You on 02/07/08
Headlines of the day
Gangs Turn To Social Networking Sites To Recruit...(Drudge)
Gangs, clubs, what's the difference?
5-legged cat gets 2 useless legs cut off (CNN)
If you let the word get around, pretty soon everybody is going to want one.
Kissing cousins have more kids (MSNBC)
Well, yeah.
And you thought “power to the people” was just a slogan
Knee dynamo taps 'people power'
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
A stroll around the park may soon be enough to charge the raft of batteries needed in today's power-hungry gadgets.
US and Canadian scientists have built a novel device that effortlessly harvests energy from human movements.
The adapted knee brace, outlined in the journal Science, can generate enough energy to power a mobile phone for 30 minutes from one minute of walking.
The first people to benefit could be amputees who are being fitted with increasingly sophisticated prosthetics.
"All of the new developments in prosthetics require large power budgets," Dr Douglas Weber of the University of Pittsburgh, and one of the authors of the paper, told BBC News.
"You need power to run your neural interface; you need it to run your powered joint, and so on.
Biomechanical energy harvester
"Getting that power is going to be really important."
Walk and talk
The new device generates power by a process known as "generative braking", analogous to the braking systems found in hybrid-electric cars such as the Toyota Prius.
"Walking is a lot like stop-and-go driving," explained Dr Max Donelan of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, lead author of the paper.
"Within each stride muscles are continuously accelerating and decelerating the body.
Hybrid electric cars take advantage of stop-and-go driving using so-called "regenerative braking" where the energy normally dissipated as heat is used to drive a generator.
"We have essentially applied the same principle to walking."
Using a series of gears, the knee brace assists the hamstring in slowing the body just before the foot hits the ground, whilst simultaneously generating electricity.
Sensors on the device switch the generator off for the remainder of each step.
In this way, the device puts less strain on the wearer than if it was constantly producing energy.
Tests of the 1.6kg device produced an average of 5 watts of electricity from a slow walk.
"We also explored ways of generating more electricity and found that we can get as much as 13 watts from walking," said Dr Donelan.
"13 watts is enough to power about 30 minutes of talk time on a typical mobile phone from just one minute of walking."
Enlarge Image
However, to generate this amount of power the generator had to be constantly switched on, which required more effort from the wearer.
Battery pack
The knee brace is the latest development in a field known as "energy harvesting".
The field seeks to develop devices and mechanisms to recover otherwise-wasted energy and convert it into useful electrical energy.
"We're pretty effective batteries," Dr Donelan told BBC News. "In our fat we store the equivalent of about a 1,000kg battery."
Tapping this power source is not a new idea and has been exploited in everyday devices such as wind-up radios and self-winding watches.
The US defence research agency Darpa has a long-standing project to tap energy from "heel-strike" generators implanted in soldier's boots and powered through the pumping motion of a footstep.
And in 2005, US scientists showed off an energy-harvesting backpack which used a suspended load to convert movement into electrical energy.
However, heel-strike devices generate relatively little energy whilst people using the backpack have to bear the burden of carrying the bag.
"It requires a relatively heavy load - around 38kg - to get a substantial amount of power," said Dr Donelan.
Simulations showed that a soldier carrying the pack and walking at a relatively brisk pace could generate around 7.4 watts of power. "It's about the same amount of power as [the knee braces] produce," said Dr Donelan.
South African amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius
The technology could be used to make "smart prosthetics"
Kit list
The team believes the new device could have many uses.
"I think the early adopters will be people whose lives depend on portable power," he told BBC News.
"On the medical front, portable power is used by those who have amputated limbs to charge their powered prosthetic limbs," he said.
However, Dr Art Kuo at the University of Michigan does not believe it will be simply a case of strapping the device on to an existing prosthetic.
"It would probably involve building a new [prosthetic] knee that uses some existing ideas and then also tries to harvest energy using these principles," he said.
The team also hope the device could be useful for people who have suffered a stroke or spinal chord injury who wear an "exoskeleton" to help them move.
"The current and future emphasis is on powered exoskeletons," said Dr Donelan.
Soldiers may also benefit from wearing the knee brace to power the multitude of devices they now carry ,such as night vision goggles and GPS.
"They treat batteries like they treat food and water - they are so essential to what they do," he said.
Dr Donelan has now set up a spin-out company to exploit the technology and believes it will eventually be possible to develop a small device that can be fitted internally across different joints.
However, in the short term he has his sights set on a light weight, slim-line version of the knee brace.
"That's about 18 months away, so it's not science fiction far in the future stuff," he said.
Yeah, it's all fun and games until somebody gets a hand chopped off.
Adoption of Islamic Sharia law in Britain is "unavoidable" says Archbishop of Canterbury
Gangs Turn To Social Networking Sites To Recruit...(Drudge)
Gangs, clubs, what's the difference?
5-legged cat gets 2 useless legs cut off (CNN)
If you let the word get around, pretty soon everybody is going to want one.
Kissing cousins have more kids (MSNBC)
Well, yeah.
And you thought “power to the people” was just a slogan
Knee dynamo taps 'people power'
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
A stroll around the park may soon be enough to charge the raft of batteries needed in today's power-hungry gadgets.
US and Canadian scientists have built a novel device that effortlessly harvests energy from human movements.
The adapted knee brace, outlined in the journal Science, can generate enough energy to power a mobile phone for 30 minutes from one minute of walking.
The first people to benefit could be amputees who are being fitted with increasingly sophisticated prosthetics.
"All of the new developments in prosthetics require large power budgets," Dr Douglas Weber of the University of Pittsburgh, and one of the authors of the paper, told BBC News.
"You need power to run your neural interface; you need it to run your powered joint, and so on.
Biomechanical energy harvester
"Getting that power is going to be really important."
Walk and talk
The new device generates power by a process known as "generative braking", analogous to the braking systems found in hybrid-electric cars such as the Toyota Prius.
"Walking is a lot like stop-and-go driving," explained Dr Max Donelan of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, lead author of the paper.
"Within each stride muscles are continuously accelerating and decelerating the body.
Hybrid electric cars take advantage of stop-and-go driving using so-called "regenerative braking" where the energy normally dissipated as heat is used to drive a generator.
"We have essentially applied the same principle to walking."
Using a series of gears, the knee brace assists the hamstring in slowing the body just before the foot hits the ground, whilst simultaneously generating electricity.
Sensors on the device switch the generator off for the remainder of each step.
In this way, the device puts less strain on the wearer than if it was constantly producing energy.
Tests of the 1.6kg device produced an average of 5 watts of electricity from a slow walk.
"We also explored ways of generating more electricity and found that we can get as much as 13 watts from walking," said Dr Donelan.
"13 watts is enough to power about 30 minutes of talk time on a typical mobile phone from just one minute of walking."
Enlarge Image
However, to generate this amount of power the generator had to be constantly switched on, which required more effort from the wearer.
Battery pack
The knee brace is the latest development in a field known as "energy harvesting".
The field seeks to develop devices and mechanisms to recover otherwise-wasted energy and convert it into useful electrical energy.
"We're pretty effective batteries," Dr Donelan told BBC News. "In our fat we store the equivalent of about a 1,000kg battery."
Tapping this power source is not a new idea and has been exploited in everyday devices such as wind-up radios and self-winding watches.
The US defence research agency Darpa has a long-standing project to tap energy from "heel-strike" generators implanted in soldier's boots and powered through the pumping motion of a footstep.
And in 2005, US scientists showed off an energy-harvesting backpack which used a suspended load to convert movement into electrical energy.
However, heel-strike devices generate relatively little energy whilst people using the backpack have to bear the burden of carrying the bag.
"It requires a relatively heavy load - around 38kg - to get a substantial amount of power," said Dr Donelan.
Simulations showed that a soldier carrying the pack and walking at a relatively brisk pace could generate around 7.4 watts of power. "It's about the same amount of power as [the knee braces] produce," said Dr Donelan.
South African amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius
The technology could be used to make "smart prosthetics"
Kit list
The team believes the new device could have many uses.
"I think the early adopters will be people whose lives depend on portable power," he told BBC News.
"On the medical front, portable power is used by those who have amputated limbs to charge their powered prosthetic limbs," he said.
However, Dr Art Kuo at the University of Michigan does not believe it will be simply a case of strapping the device on to an existing prosthetic.
"It would probably involve building a new [prosthetic] knee that uses some existing ideas and then also tries to harvest energy using these principles," he said.
The team also hope the device could be useful for people who have suffered a stroke or spinal chord injury who wear an "exoskeleton" to help them move.
"The current and future emphasis is on powered exoskeletons," said Dr Donelan.
Soldiers may also benefit from wearing the knee brace to power the multitude of devices they now carry ,such as night vision goggles and GPS.
"They treat batteries like they treat food and water - they are so essential to what they do," he said.
Dr Donelan has now set up a spin-out company to exploit the technology and believes it will eventually be possible to develop a small device that can be fitted internally across different joints.
However, in the short term he has his sights set on a light weight, slim-line version of the knee brace.
"That's about 18 months away, so it's not science fiction far in the future stuff," he said.
Yeah, it's all fun and games until somebody gets a hand chopped off.
Adoption of Islamic Sharia law in Britain is "unavoidable" says Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury has today said that the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK is "unavoidable" and that it would help maintain social cohesion.
Rowan Williams told BBC Radio 4's World At One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.
He says that Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court. He added Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".
Dr Williams said there was a place for finding a "constructive accommodation" in areas such as marriage - allowing Muslim women to avoid Western divorce proceedings.
Other religions enjoyed such tolerance of their own laws, he pointed out, but stressed that it could never be allowed to take precedence over an individual's rights as a citizen.
He said it would also require a change in perception of what Sharia involved beyond the "inhumanity" of extreme punishments and attitudes to women seen in some Islamic states.
Dr Williams said: "It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system.
"We already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land as justifying conscientious objections in certain circumstances."
He added: "There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law.
"It would be quite wrong to say that we could ever license a system of law for some community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general.
Scroll down for more...
Sharia law in Britain would provide Muslims with an alternative to our divorce courts
"But there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them.
"In some cultural and religious settings, they would seem more appropriate."
But his views were condemned today by senior Tory MP Peter Luff, who said: "This is a very dangerous route which we should not go down. You can't be a little bit pregnant. You can't have a little bit of sharia law.
"We should not start introducing new different legal systems alongside ours."
But the Archbishop defended his position saying people people needed to look at Islamic law "with a clear eye."
"They should not imagine, either, that we know exactly what we mean by Sharia and just associate it with ... Saudi Arabia, or whatever," he continued.
"Nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that has sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states: the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women."
There were questions about how it interacted with human rights, he said.
"But I do not think we should instantly spring to the conclusion that the whole of that world of jurisprudence and practice is somehow monstrously incompatible with human rights just because it doesn't immediately fit with how we understand it."
Dr Williams said Orthodox Jewish courts already operated in the UK, and anti-abortion views of Catholics and other Christians were "accommodated within the law".
"The whole idea that there are perfectly proper ways the law of the land pays respect to custom and community, that's already there."
He said the issue of whether Catholic adoption agencies would be forced under equality laws to accept gay parents showed there was confusion on the matter.
"That principle that there is only one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a Western democracy.
"But I think it is a misunderstanding to suppose that means people don't have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and that the law needs to take some account of that."
He said he accepted people might be surprised by his call but urged them to consider the wider question.
"What we don't want is a stand-off where the law squares up to people's religious consciences, on something like abortion or indeed by forcing a vote on some aspects of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the Commons ... we don't either want a situation where, because there's no legal way of monitoring what communities do, making them part of the public process, people do what they like in private in such a way that that becomes another way of intensifying oppression within a community."
Sharia law was originally more enlightened in its attitude to women than other legal systems, he pointed out, but did now have to be brought up to date.
"But you have to translate that into a setting where that whole area of the rights and liberties of women has moved on.
"The principle and the vision which animates the whole Islamic legal provision needs broadening because of that."
Responding to comments by one of his senior bishops that Islamic extremism was creating communities with "no-go areas" for non-Muslims, he said it was "not at all the case that we have absolute social exclusion.
"But we do have a lot of social suspicion, a lot of distance and we just have to go on working at how that shared citizenship comes through."
The Bishop of Rochester, The Rt Rev Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said last month that non-Muslims faced a hostile reception in places dominated by the ideology of Islamic radicals.
Dr Williams said the use of the phrase "no-go areas" had sparked controversy because it reminded people of Northern Ireland.
"I don't think that was at all what was intended; I think it was meant to point to the silo problem, the sense of communities not communicating with each other.
"Many Muslims would say that they feel bits of British society are no-go areas for them."
Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Ramadhan Foundation, welcomed the comments.
"These comments further underline the attempts by both our great faiths to build respect and tolerance.
"Sharia law for civil matters is something which has been introduced in some Western countries with much success; I believe that Muslims would take huge comfort from the Government allowing civil matters being resolved according to their faith.
"We are however disappointed that the Archbishop of Canterbury was silent when Mr Nazir-Ali was promoting intolerance and lying about no-go areas for Christians in the UK by Muslim extremists.
"Unless he speaks out against this intolerance, Muslims will take his silence as authorisation and support for such comments.
"The Ramadhan Foundation will continue to work with the Church of England to build understanding and respect for our two communities."
Dr Williams's comments are likely to fuel the debate over multiculturalism in the UK.
But he insists that Sharia law needs to be better understood.
At the moment, he says "sensational reporting of opinion polls" clouds the issue.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Making Science More Better For You on 06/25/08
Headlines of the day
Dover firefighters use 'jaws of life' to free boy from washing machine (WKYC.com)
Trailer burns when woman uses gas to clean up (SunSentinel.com)
Scientists to launch paper planes from space (MSNBC)
Oh, so that’s what she meant when she called me a “fat head”
Obesity May Be Wired In The Brain, Rat Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2008) — A predisposition for obesity might be wired into the brain from the start, suggests a new study of rats.
Rats selectively bred to be prone to obesity show abnormalities in a part of the brain critical for appetite control, the researchers found. Specifically, the researchers show that the obese rats harbor defects in neurons of the arcuate nucleus (ARH) of the hypothalamus, which leaves their brains less responsive to the hunger-suppressing hormone leptin.
"The neurodevelopmental differences in these animals can be seen as early as the first week," said Sebastien Bouret of the University of Southern California. "The results show that obesity can be wired into the brain from early life. The three-million-dollar question now is how to get around this problem."
It is increasingly accepted that obesity results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors, the researchers said. Rodent models of obesity can provide valuable insights into the biological processes underlying the development of obesity in humans. The "diet-induced obese" (DIO) rats used in the current study are particularly suited to the task, according to Bouret, because their tendency to become overweight shares several features with human obesity, including the contribution of many genes.
Previous studies had suggested that the brains of DIO rats are insensitive to leptin, the researchers added. Circulating leptin, produced by fat tissue, acts as a signal to the brain about the body's energy status. Leptin is also critical for the initial development of ARH neurons.
In the new study, the researchers examined the obesity-prone rats for signs of abnormal brain development. They found that the animals' brains had fewer neural projections from the ARH, a deficiency that persisted into adulthood. Those projections are needed to relay the leptin signal received by the ARH to other parts of the hypothalamus, Bouret said.
The researchers found further evidence that those changes in brain wiring stem from a reduced responsiveness of the brain to leptin's action during development.
"It seems [in the case of these rats] that appetite and obesity are built into the brain," Bouret said. While their condition might be ameliorated by exercising and eating right, he added, the findings suggest that the propensity to gain weight can't be reversed.
But there is hope yet. It's possible that treatments delivered during a critical early period of development might be capable of rewiring the brain, Bouret said.
This research was published in the February issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press.
The sign said 10 minutes for a quarter
Why Do Earthquakes Stop?
ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2008) — Why do some earthquakes terminate along a fault, while others jump or step-over a gap to another fault? The underlying structure of a fault determines whether an earthquake rupture will jump from one fault to another, magnifying its size and potential devastation.
Understanding why some earthquakes terminate along a fault, while others jump or step-over a gap to another fault, is essential to forecasting the seismic hazard of complex fault systems, such as the San Andreas Fault.
In a paper published in the February issue of BSSA, author David Oglesby of University of California at Riverside suggests that the pattern of stress at the end of the primary fault can strongly affect an earthquake's ability to jump to a secondary fault.
He suggests that a smooth, gradual decrease in stress along a rupture results in slower rupture deceleration, less strain, less generation of seismic waves, and lowers the likelihood that the earthquake will jump to another fault.
In contrast, a stress pattern that terminates suddenly leads to abrupt rupture termination, higher strain, more seismic radiation, and a higher likelihood of the rupture jumping to a secondary fault. The results of this numerical study illustrate the importance of the slip gradient and the acceleration of the rupture front in determining the probability of a rupture jumping from one fault segment to another.
Dover firefighters use 'jaws of life' to free boy from washing machine (WKYC.com)
Trailer burns when woman uses gas to clean up (SunSentinel.com)
Scientists to launch paper planes from space (MSNBC)
Oh, so that’s what she meant when she called me a “fat head”
Obesity May Be Wired In The Brain, Rat Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2008) — A predisposition for obesity might be wired into the brain from the start, suggests a new study of rats.
Rats selectively bred to be prone to obesity show abnormalities in a part of the brain critical for appetite control, the researchers found. Specifically, the researchers show that the obese rats harbor defects in neurons of the arcuate nucleus (ARH) of the hypothalamus, which leaves their brains less responsive to the hunger-suppressing hormone leptin.
"The neurodevelopmental differences in these animals can be seen as early as the first week," said Sebastien Bouret of the University of Southern California. "The results show that obesity can be wired into the brain from early life. The three-million-dollar question now is how to get around this problem."
It is increasingly accepted that obesity results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors, the researchers said. Rodent models of obesity can provide valuable insights into the biological processes underlying the development of obesity in humans. The "diet-induced obese" (DIO) rats used in the current study are particularly suited to the task, according to Bouret, because their tendency to become overweight shares several features with human obesity, including the contribution of many genes.
Previous studies had suggested that the brains of DIO rats are insensitive to leptin, the researchers added. Circulating leptin, produced by fat tissue, acts as a signal to the brain about the body's energy status. Leptin is also critical for the initial development of ARH neurons.
In the new study, the researchers examined the obesity-prone rats for signs of abnormal brain development. They found that the animals' brains had fewer neural projections from the ARH, a deficiency that persisted into adulthood. Those projections are needed to relay the leptin signal received by the ARH to other parts of the hypothalamus, Bouret said.
The researchers found further evidence that those changes in brain wiring stem from a reduced responsiveness of the brain to leptin's action during development.
"It seems [in the case of these rats] that appetite and obesity are built into the brain," Bouret said. While their condition might be ameliorated by exercising and eating right, he added, the findings suggest that the propensity to gain weight can't be reversed.
But there is hope yet. It's possible that treatments delivered during a critical early period of development might be capable of rewiring the brain, Bouret said.
This research was published in the February issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press.
The sign said 10 minutes for a quarter
Why Do Earthquakes Stop?
ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2008) — Why do some earthquakes terminate along a fault, while others jump or step-over a gap to another fault? The underlying structure of a fault determines whether an earthquake rupture will jump from one fault to another, magnifying its size and potential devastation.
Understanding why some earthquakes terminate along a fault, while others jump or step-over a gap to another fault, is essential to forecasting the seismic hazard of complex fault systems, such as the San Andreas Fault.
In a paper published in the February issue of BSSA, author David Oglesby of University of California at Riverside suggests that the pattern of stress at the end of the primary fault can strongly affect an earthquake's ability to jump to a secondary fault.
He suggests that a smooth, gradual decrease in stress along a rupture results in slower rupture deceleration, less strain, less generation of seismic waves, and lowers the likelihood that the earthquake will jump to another fault.
In contrast, a stress pattern that terminates suddenly leads to abrupt rupture termination, higher strain, more seismic radiation, and a higher likelihood of the rupture jumping to a secondary fault. The results of this numerical study illustrate the importance of the slip gradient and the acceleration of the rupture front in determining the probability of a rupture jumping from one fault segment to another.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Making Science More Better For You on 02/05/08
Headlines of the day
Being daddy's girl is a good thing for baboons (MSNBC)
Oh yeah, we’re different.
A work wife: Good for business? (CNN)
The vice squad has another name for that kind of relationship.
I so love nature, without the icky bits.
Communing without nature
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As people spend more time communing with their televisions and computers, the impact is not just on their health, researchers say. Less time spent outdoors means less contact with nature and, eventually, less interest in conservation and parks.
Camping, fishing and per capita visits to parks are all declining in a shift away from nature-based recreation, researchers report in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Declining nature participation has crucial implications for current conservation efforts," wrote co-authors Oliver R. W. Pergams and Patricia A. Zaradic. "We think it probable that any major decline in the value placed on natural areas and experiences will greatly reduce the value people place on biodiversity conservation."
"The replacement of vigorous outdoor activities by sedentary, indoor videophilia has far-reaching consequences for physical and mental health, especially in children," Pergams said in a statement. "Videophilia has been shown to be a cause of obesity, lack of socialization, attention disorders and poor academic performance."
By studying visits to national and state parks and the issuance of hunting and fishing licenses the researchers documented declines of between 18 percent and 25 percent in various types of outdoor recreation.
The decline, found in both the United States and Japan, appears to have begun in the 1980s and 1990s, the period of rapid growth of video games, they said.
For example, fishing peaked in 1981 and had declined 25 percent by 2005, the researchers found. Visits to national parks peaked in 1987 and dropped 23 percent by 2006, while hiking on the Appalachian Trial peaked in 2000 and was down 18 percent by 2005.
Japan suffered similar declines, the researchers found, as visits to national parks there dropped by 18 percent between 1991 and 2005.
There was a small growth in backpacking, but that may reflect day trips by some people who previously were campers, wrote Pergams and Zaradic. Pergams is a visiting research assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, while Zaradic is a fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program, Delaware Valley, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
While fishing declined, hunting held onto most of its market, they found.
"This may be related to various overfishing and pollution issues decreasing access to fish populations, contrasted with exploding deer populations," they said.
The research was funded by The Nature Conservancy. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend
“God, I feel so alive, sitting here, warmed by the glow of the screen.”
This sounds like a psychotherapist’s wet dream
Three-parent embryo formed in lab
Scientists believe they have made a breakthrough in IVF treatment by creating a human embryo with three separate parents.
The Newcastle University team believes the technique could help to eradicate a whole class of hereditary diseases, including some forms of epilepsy.
The embryos have been created using DNA from a man and two women in lab tests.
It could ensure women with genetic defects do not pass the diseases on to their children.
The technique is intended to help women with diseases of the mitochondria - mini-organs that are found within individual cells.
They are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's energy.
Faults in the mitochondrial DNA can cause around 50 known diseases some which lead to disability and death.
About one in every 6,500 people is affected by such conditions, which include fatal liver failure, stroke-like episodes, blindness, muscular dystrophy, diabetes and deafness.
At present, no treatment for mitochondrial diseases exists.
The Newcastle team have effectively given the embryos a mitochondria transplant.
They experimented on 10 severely abnormal embryos left over from traditional fertility treatment.
Within hours of their creation, the nucleus, containing DNA from the mother and father, was removed from the embryo, and implanted into a donor egg whose DNA had been largely removed.
The only genetic information remaining from the donor egg was the tiny bit that controls production of mitochondria - around 16,000 of the 3billion component parts that make up the human genome.
The embryos then began to develop normally, but were destroyed with six days.
Appearance
Experiments using mice have shown that the offspring with the new mitochondria carry no information that defines any human attributes.
So while any baby born through this method would have genetic elements from three people, the nuclear DNA that influences appearance and other characteristics would not come from the woman providing the donor egg.
However, the team only have permission to carry out the lab experiments and as yet this would not be allowed to be offered as a treatment.
Professor Patrick Chinnery, a member of the Newcastle team, said: "We believe that from this work, and work we have done on other animals that in principle we could develop this technique and offer treatment in the forseeable future that will give families some hope of avoiding passing these diseases to their children."
Dr Marita Pohlschmidt, of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, which has funded the Newcastle research, was confident it would lead to a badly needed breakthrough in treatment.
"Mitochondrial myopathies are a group of complex and severe diseases," she said.
"This can make it very difficult for clinicians to provide genetic counselling and give patients an accurate prognosis."
However, but the Newcastle work has attracted opposition.
Josephine Quintavalle, of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said it was "risky, dangerous" and a step towards "designer babies"
"It is human beings they are experimenting with," she said.
"We should not be messing around with the building blocks of life."
Mrs Quintavalle said embryo research in the US using DNA from one man and two women was discontinued because of the "huge abnormalities" in some cases.
Fortunately, finding an obese person in Mississippi is a bit like unicorn hunting
Miss. Law Would Ban Serving Obese Diners
By Emily Wagster Pettus, Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A state lawmaker wants to ban restaurants from serving food to obese customers — but please, don't be offended. He says he never even expected his plan to become law.
"I was trying to shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi,'' said Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier, who acknowledges that at 5-foot-11 and 230 pounds, he'd probably have a tough time under his own bill.
More than 30 percent of adults in Mississippi are considered it obese, according to a 2007 study by the Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention.
The state House Public Health Committee chairman, Democrat Steve Holland of Plantersville, said he is going to "shred'' the bill.
"It is too oppressive for government to require a restaurant owner to police another human being from their own indiscretions,'' Holland said Monday.
The bill had no specifics about how obesity would be defined, or how restaurants were supposed to determine if a customer was obese.
Al Stamps, who owns a restaurant in Jackson, said it is "absurd'' for the state to consider telling him which customers he can't serve. He and his wife, Kim, do a bustling lunch business at Cool Al's, which serves big burgers — beef or veggie — and specialty foods like "Sassy Momma Sweet Potato Fries.''
"There is a better way to deal with health issues than to impose those kind of regulations,'' Al Stamps said. "I'm sorry — you can't do it by treating adults like children and telling them what they can and cannot eat.''
The Dutch, they know so much. Welcome to the world of unintended consequences
Actually, it's a long, healthy life that costs more
Treating obesity and smoking is cheaper than keeping folks fit, study says
LONDON - Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money, researchers reported Monday.
It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.
“It was a small surprise,” said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. “But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more.”
In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.
Van Baal and colleagues created a model to simulate lifetime health costs for three groups of 1,000 people: the “healthy-living” group (thin and non-smoking), obese people, and smokers. The model relied on “cost of illness” data and disease prevalence in the Netherlands in 2003.
The researchers found that from age 20 to 56, obese people racked up the most expensive health costs. But because both the smokers and the obese people died sooner than the healthy group, it cost less to treat them in the long run.
On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and obese people lived about 80 years. Smokers and obese people tended to have more heart disease than the healthy people.
Cancer incidence, except for lung cancer, was the same in all three groups. Obese people had the most diabetes, and healthy people had the most strokes. Ultimately, the thin and healthy group cost the most, about $417,000, from age 20 on.
The cost of care for obese people was $371,000, and for smokers, about $326,000.
The results counter the common perception that preventing obesity will save health systems worldwide millions of
Being daddy's girl is a good thing for baboons (MSNBC)
Oh yeah, we’re different.
A work wife: Good for business? (CNN)
The vice squad has another name for that kind of relationship.
I so love nature, without the icky bits.
Communing without nature
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As people spend more time communing with their televisions and computers, the impact is not just on their health, researchers say. Less time spent outdoors means less contact with nature and, eventually, less interest in conservation and parks.
Camping, fishing and per capita visits to parks are all declining in a shift away from nature-based recreation, researchers report in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Declining nature participation has crucial implications for current conservation efforts," wrote co-authors Oliver R. W. Pergams and Patricia A. Zaradic. "We think it probable that any major decline in the value placed on natural areas and experiences will greatly reduce the value people place on biodiversity conservation."
"The replacement of vigorous outdoor activities by sedentary, indoor videophilia has far-reaching consequences for physical and mental health, especially in children," Pergams said in a statement. "Videophilia has been shown to be a cause of obesity, lack of socialization, attention disorders and poor academic performance."
By studying visits to national and state parks and the issuance of hunting and fishing licenses the researchers documented declines of between 18 percent and 25 percent in various types of outdoor recreation.
The decline, found in both the United States and Japan, appears to have begun in the 1980s and 1990s, the period of rapid growth of video games, they said.
For example, fishing peaked in 1981 and had declined 25 percent by 2005, the researchers found. Visits to national parks peaked in 1987 and dropped 23 percent by 2006, while hiking on the Appalachian Trial peaked in 2000 and was down 18 percent by 2005.
Japan suffered similar declines, the researchers found, as visits to national parks there dropped by 18 percent between 1991 and 2005.
There was a small growth in backpacking, but that may reflect day trips by some people who previously were campers, wrote Pergams and Zaradic. Pergams is a visiting research assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, while Zaradic is a fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program, Delaware Valley, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
While fishing declined, hunting held onto most of its market, they found.
"This may be related to various overfishing and pollution issues decreasing access to fish populations, contrasted with exploding deer populations," they said.
The research was funded by The Nature Conservancy. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend
“God, I feel so alive, sitting here, warmed by the glow of the screen.”
This sounds like a psychotherapist’s wet dream
Three-parent embryo formed in lab
Scientists believe they have made a breakthrough in IVF treatment by creating a human embryo with three separate parents.
The Newcastle University team believes the technique could help to eradicate a whole class of hereditary diseases, including some forms of epilepsy.
The embryos have been created using DNA from a man and two women in lab tests.
It could ensure women with genetic defects do not pass the diseases on to their children.
The technique is intended to help women with diseases of the mitochondria - mini-organs that are found within individual cells.
They are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's energy.
Faults in the mitochondrial DNA can cause around 50 known diseases some which lead to disability and death.
About one in every 6,500 people is affected by such conditions, which include fatal liver failure, stroke-like episodes, blindness, muscular dystrophy, diabetes and deafness.
At present, no treatment for mitochondrial diseases exists.
The Newcastle team have effectively given the embryos a mitochondria transplant.
They experimented on 10 severely abnormal embryos left over from traditional fertility treatment.
Within hours of their creation, the nucleus, containing DNA from the mother and father, was removed from the embryo, and implanted into a donor egg whose DNA had been largely removed.
The only genetic information remaining from the donor egg was the tiny bit that controls production of mitochondria - around 16,000 of the 3billion component parts that make up the human genome.
The embryos then began to develop normally, but were destroyed with six days.
Appearance
Experiments using mice have shown that the offspring with the new mitochondria carry no information that defines any human attributes.
So while any baby born through this method would have genetic elements from three people, the nuclear DNA that influences appearance and other characteristics would not come from the woman providing the donor egg.
However, the team only have permission to carry out the lab experiments and as yet this would not be allowed to be offered as a treatment.
Professor Patrick Chinnery, a member of the Newcastle team, said: "We believe that from this work, and work we have done on other animals that in principle we could develop this technique and offer treatment in the forseeable future that will give families some hope of avoiding passing these diseases to their children."
Dr Marita Pohlschmidt, of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, which has funded the Newcastle research, was confident it would lead to a badly needed breakthrough in treatment.
"Mitochondrial myopathies are a group of complex and severe diseases," she said.
"This can make it very difficult for clinicians to provide genetic counselling and give patients an accurate prognosis."
However, but the Newcastle work has attracted opposition.
Josephine Quintavalle, of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said it was "risky, dangerous" and a step towards "designer babies"
"It is human beings they are experimenting with," she said.
"We should not be messing around with the building blocks of life."
Mrs Quintavalle said embryo research in the US using DNA from one man and two women was discontinued because of the "huge abnormalities" in some cases.
Fortunately, finding an obese person in Mississippi is a bit like unicorn hunting
Miss. Law Would Ban Serving Obese Diners
By Emily Wagster Pettus, Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A state lawmaker wants to ban restaurants from serving food to obese customers — but please, don't be offended. He says he never even expected his plan to become law.
"I was trying to shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi,'' said Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier, who acknowledges that at 5-foot-11 and 230 pounds, he'd probably have a tough time under his own bill.
More than 30 percent of adults in Mississippi are considered it obese, according to a 2007 study by the Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention.
The state House Public Health Committee chairman, Democrat Steve Holland of Plantersville, said he is going to "shred'' the bill.
"It is too oppressive for government to require a restaurant owner to police another human being from their own indiscretions,'' Holland said Monday.
The bill had no specifics about how obesity would be defined, or how restaurants were supposed to determine if a customer was obese.
Al Stamps, who owns a restaurant in Jackson, said it is "absurd'' for the state to consider telling him which customers he can't serve. He and his wife, Kim, do a bustling lunch business at Cool Al's, which serves big burgers — beef or veggie — and specialty foods like "Sassy Momma Sweet Potato Fries.''
"There is a better way to deal with health issues than to impose those kind of regulations,'' Al Stamps said. "I'm sorry — you can't do it by treating adults like children and telling them what they can and cannot eat.''
The Dutch, they know so much. Welcome to the world of unintended consequences
Actually, it's a long, healthy life that costs more
Treating obesity and smoking is cheaper than keeping folks fit, study says
LONDON - Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money, researchers reported Monday.
It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.
“It was a small surprise,” said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. “But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more.”
In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.
Van Baal and colleagues created a model to simulate lifetime health costs for three groups of 1,000 people: the “healthy-living” group (thin and non-smoking), obese people, and smokers. The model relied on “cost of illness” data and disease prevalence in the Netherlands in 2003.
The researchers found that from age 20 to 56, obese people racked up the most expensive health costs. But because both the smokers and the obese people died sooner than the healthy group, it cost less to treat them in the long run.
On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and obese people lived about 80 years. Smokers and obese people tended to have more heart disease than the healthy people.
Cancer incidence, except for lung cancer, was the same in all three groups. Obese people had the most diabetes, and healthy people had the most strokes. Ultimately, the thin and healthy group cost the most, about $417,000, from age 20 on.
The cost of care for obese people was $371,000, and for smokers, about $326,000.
The results counter the common perception that preventing obesity will save health systems worldwide millions of
Monday, February 4, 2008
Making Science More Better For You on 02/04/08
Headlines of the day
Exorcist's calendar full; Vatican seeks help (CNN)
Chimps show reluctance to barter (MSNBC)
Good news for mice everywhere, Humans must wait their turn.
Sniffling mouse could unlock cold cure: British scientists
The first mouse to catch a cold has given British scientists fresh hope that they could finally find a cure for coughs and sneezes, as well as more serious conditions like asthma, they said Monday.
Scientists at Imperial College London created a genetically engineered mouse susceptible to the virus causing most colds, which normally only infects humans and chimpanzees.
The breakthrough means that it should now be easier to test new cold remedies as well as treatments for other respiratory conditions like asthma and bronchitis, potentially speeding up the discovery of cures.
The research, led by Professor Sebastian Johnston, was published in the journal Nature Medicine.
"These mouse models should provide a major boost to research efforts to develop new treatments for the common cold as well as for more potentially fatal illnesses such as acute attacks of asthma and of COPD (constructive obstructive pulmonary disorder, such as chronic bronchitis)," Johnston said.
The discovery was welcomed by Leszek Borysiewicz, chief executive of Britain's Medical Research Council, which funded the study.
He said the research would "open up new paths to finding treatments which have been delayed for many years and provides us with the opportunities for further breakthroughs in the future".
Rhinoviruses, which cause most colds, were discovered 50 years ago but studying them without being able to experiment on mice has proved difficult.
The Common Cold Unit started work in Britain in 1946 to find a cure for the sniffles through experiments on human volunteers but it was disbanded in 1989 after failing to crack the problem.
Most colds are triggered when rhinoviruses latch on to a receptor molecule found on the surface of cells.
In mice, the receptor is slightly different to the version in humans so the viruses are unable to bind with it.
But in this case, the Imperial College scientists modified the mouse receptor to make it more like the human one, meaning the rodent could catch a cold.
Life is the blue plate special: If your order the roast beef, you get the green beans. Order the bananas and you get…well... you see.
You Are What You Eat: Some Differences Between Humans And Chimpanzees Traced To Diet
ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2008) — Using mice as models, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology traced some of the differences between humans and chimpanzees to differences in our diet.
Humans consume a distinct diet compared to other apes. Not only do we consume much more meat and fat, but we also cook our food. It has been hypothesized that adopting these dietary patterns played a key role during human evolution. However, to date, the influence of diet on the physiological and genetic differences between humans and other apes has not been widely examined.
By feeding laboratory mice different human and chimp diets over a mere two week period, researchers at the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, were able to reconstruct some of the physiological and genetic differences observed between humans and chimpanzees.
The researchers fed laboratory mice one of three diets: a raw fruit and vegetable diet fed to chimpanzees in zoos, a human diet consisting of food served at the Institute cafeteria or a pure fast food menu from the local McDonald's™ (the latter caused the mice to significantly gain weight). The chimpanzee diet was clearly distinct from the two human diets in its effect on the liver - thousands of differences were observed in the levels at which genes were expressed in the mouse livers. No such differences were observed in the mouse brains. A significant fraction of the genes that changed in the mouse livers, had previously been observed as different between humans and chimpanzees. This indicates that the differences observed in these particular genes might be caused by the difference in human and chimpanzee diets.
Furthermore, the diet-related genes also appear to have evolved faster than other genes - protein and promoter sequences of these genes changed faster than expected, possibly because of adaptation to new diets.
Homer Simpson vindicated. Glazed donuts all around.
Daytime Nap Can Benefit A Person's Memory Performance
ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2008) — A brief bout of non-REM sleep (45 minutes) obtained during a daytime nap clearly benefits a person's declarative memory performance, according to a new study.
The study, authored by Matthew A. Tucker, PhD, of the Center for Sleep and Cognition and the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, focused on 33 subjects (11 males, 22 females) with an average age of 23.3 years. The participants arrived at the sleep lab at 11:30 a.m., were trained on each of the declarative memory tasks at 12:15 p.m., and at 1 p.m., 16 subjects took a nap while 17 remained awake in the lab. After the nap period, all subjects remained in the lab until the retest at 4 p.m.
It was discovered that, across three very different declarative memory tasks, a nap benefited performance compared to comparable periods of wakefulness, but only for those subjects that strongly acquired the tasks during the training session.
"These results suggest that there is a threshold acquisition level that has to be obtained for sleep to optimally process the memory," said Dr. Tucker. "The importance of this finding is that sleep may not indiscriminately process all information we acquire during wakefulness, only the information we learn well."
It is recommended that adults get between seven and eight hours of nightly sleep.
The article "Enhancement of Declarative Memory Performance Following a Daytime Nap is Contingent on Strength of Initial Task Acquisition" was published in the February 1 issue of the journal Sleep.
Bacon used to be good for you, back when it came from the pig of knowledge ...before the fall.
Bacon, eggs used to be full of omega-3s
KATONAH, N.Y., Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Eating fish isn't the only way to add omega-3 to one's diet -- grass-fed livestock and some oils also give an anti-inflammatory boost , a U.S. author advises.
Susan Allport, author of "The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed From Our Diet and What We Can Do To Replace Them," explains that livestock used to eat grass, insects and other green foods, but livestock today eats mostly seeds and grains. Omega-3s originate in the green leaves of plants -- not fish, as many believe -- and they accumulate in animals that eat the green foods including fish.
Food today is full of polyunsaturated fats, omega-6s that are much more prevalent in seeds and grains. Polyunsaturated fats produce cell messengers -- prostaglandins -- which are far more inflammatory, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
"It may not be practical for us to eat only grass-fed (livestock) and eggs, but it's also not possible for us to catch, or raise, enough fish to correct this problem," Allport says in a statement. "We can increase our omega-3s by eating small amounts of fish and grass-fed animals and using vegetable oils with a healthier balance of omega-6s to omega-3s."
.
Exorcist's calendar full; Vatican seeks help (CNN)
Chimps show reluctance to barter (MSNBC)
Good news for mice everywhere, Humans must wait their turn.
Sniffling mouse could unlock cold cure: British scientists
The first mouse to catch a cold has given British scientists fresh hope that they could finally find a cure for coughs and sneezes, as well as more serious conditions like asthma, they said Monday.
Scientists at Imperial College London created a genetically engineered mouse susceptible to the virus causing most colds, which normally only infects humans and chimpanzees.
The breakthrough means that it should now be easier to test new cold remedies as well as treatments for other respiratory conditions like asthma and bronchitis, potentially speeding up the discovery of cures.
The research, led by Professor Sebastian Johnston, was published in the journal Nature Medicine.
"These mouse models should provide a major boost to research efforts to develop new treatments for the common cold as well as for more potentially fatal illnesses such as acute attacks of asthma and of COPD (constructive obstructive pulmonary disorder, such as chronic bronchitis)," Johnston said.
The discovery was welcomed by Leszek Borysiewicz, chief executive of Britain's Medical Research Council, which funded the study.
He said the research would "open up new paths to finding treatments which have been delayed for many years and provides us with the opportunities for further breakthroughs in the future".
Rhinoviruses, which cause most colds, were discovered 50 years ago but studying them without being able to experiment on mice has proved difficult.
The Common Cold Unit started work in Britain in 1946 to find a cure for the sniffles through experiments on human volunteers but it was disbanded in 1989 after failing to crack the problem.
Most colds are triggered when rhinoviruses latch on to a receptor molecule found on the surface of cells.
In mice, the receptor is slightly different to the version in humans so the viruses are unable to bind with it.
But in this case, the Imperial College scientists modified the mouse receptor to make it more like the human one, meaning the rodent could catch a cold.
Life is the blue plate special: If your order the roast beef, you get the green beans. Order the bananas and you get…well... you see.
You Are What You Eat: Some Differences Between Humans And Chimpanzees Traced To Diet
ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2008) — Using mice as models, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology traced some of the differences between humans and chimpanzees to differences in our diet.
Humans consume a distinct diet compared to other apes. Not only do we consume much more meat and fat, but we also cook our food. It has been hypothesized that adopting these dietary patterns played a key role during human evolution. However, to date, the influence of diet on the physiological and genetic differences between humans and other apes has not been widely examined.
By feeding laboratory mice different human and chimp diets over a mere two week period, researchers at the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, were able to reconstruct some of the physiological and genetic differences observed between humans and chimpanzees.
The researchers fed laboratory mice one of three diets: a raw fruit and vegetable diet fed to chimpanzees in zoos, a human diet consisting of food served at the Institute cafeteria or a pure fast food menu from the local McDonald's™ (the latter caused the mice to significantly gain weight). The chimpanzee diet was clearly distinct from the two human diets in its effect on the liver - thousands of differences were observed in the levels at which genes were expressed in the mouse livers. No such differences were observed in the mouse brains. A significant fraction of the genes that changed in the mouse livers, had previously been observed as different between humans and chimpanzees. This indicates that the differences observed in these particular genes might be caused by the difference in human and chimpanzee diets.
Furthermore, the diet-related genes also appear to have evolved faster than other genes - protein and promoter sequences of these genes changed faster than expected, possibly because of adaptation to new diets.
Homer Simpson vindicated. Glazed donuts all around.
Daytime Nap Can Benefit A Person's Memory Performance
ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2008) — A brief bout of non-REM sleep (45 minutes) obtained during a daytime nap clearly benefits a person's declarative memory performance, according to a new study.
The study, authored by Matthew A. Tucker, PhD, of the Center for Sleep and Cognition and the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, focused on 33 subjects (11 males, 22 females) with an average age of 23.3 years. The participants arrived at the sleep lab at 11:30 a.m., were trained on each of the declarative memory tasks at 12:15 p.m., and at 1 p.m., 16 subjects took a nap while 17 remained awake in the lab. After the nap period, all subjects remained in the lab until the retest at 4 p.m.
It was discovered that, across three very different declarative memory tasks, a nap benefited performance compared to comparable periods of wakefulness, but only for those subjects that strongly acquired the tasks during the training session.
"These results suggest that there is a threshold acquisition level that has to be obtained for sleep to optimally process the memory," said Dr. Tucker. "The importance of this finding is that sleep may not indiscriminately process all information we acquire during wakefulness, only the information we learn well."
It is recommended that adults get between seven and eight hours of nightly sleep.
The article "Enhancement of Declarative Memory Performance Following a Daytime Nap is Contingent on Strength of Initial Task Acquisition" was published in the February 1 issue of the journal Sleep.
Bacon used to be good for you, back when it came from the pig of knowledge ...before the fall.
Bacon, eggs used to be full of omega-3s
KATONAH, N.Y., Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Eating fish isn't the only way to add omega-3 to one's diet -- grass-fed livestock and some oils also give an anti-inflammatory boost , a U.S. author advises.
Susan Allport, author of "The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed From Our Diet and What We Can Do To Replace Them," explains that livestock used to eat grass, insects and other green foods, but livestock today eats mostly seeds and grains. Omega-3s originate in the green leaves of plants -- not fish, as many believe -- and they accumulate in animals that eat the green foods including fish.
Food today is full of polyunsaturated fats, omega-6s that are much more prevalent in seeds and grains. Polyunsaturated fats produce cell messengers -- prostaglandins -- which are far more inflammatory, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
"It may not be practical for us to eat only grass-fed (livestock) and eggs, but it's also not possible for us to catch, or raise, enough fish to correct this problem," Allport says in a statement. "We can increase our omega-3s by eating small amounts of fish and grass-fed animals and using vegetable oils with a healthier balance of omega-6s to omega-3s."
.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Making Science More Better For You on 02/01/08
Headlines of the day
Blind Austinite again seeks acupuncture license (the statesman.com)
Pot Bust Made After Internet Advertisement Posted (WCBS)
Dude …you know…..dude.
BREAKING NEWS: Bush says there are 'serious signs' the economy is weakening (MSNBC)
Danger Will Robinson, danger.
Welcome to The Mouse Channel—All Cheese All the Time
Tiny camera implanted inside a mouse’s brain
Technique could lead to treatments for Parkinson’s disease, scientists say
TOKYO - Japanese researchers have implanted a small camera inside a mouse’s brain to see how memory is formed, in an experiment they hope someday to apply to humans to treat illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease.
The experiment, described in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods, as well as Sensors and Actuators, used a camera roughly 0.1 inch wide (3 by 2.3 by 2.4 millimeters), said Jun Ohta, professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology in western Japan.
Working with researchers at Kinki University, Ohta implanted the special semiconductor camera inside the hippocampus of the mouse’s brain, designing the device so that a screen showed blue light whenever the camera captured memory being recorded by the brain.
The researchers injected the mouse with a substance that lights up whenever there is brain activity. The camera captures that light, and the visuals come up on a screen.
The team now plans to use the camera while the mouse is walking.
“We are thinking about how to apply this to humans, though we must be very careful, as it involves implanting something into the brain,” Ohta told Reuters. “It would take 10 years at the earliest.”
The researchers hope the study will lead to new ways to treat Parkinson’s disease, as they aim to have the camera track brain activity that trigger symptoms such as tremors.
Gong Hay Fat Chance
Mississippi Pols Seek To Ban Fats
New bill would make it illegal for restaurants to serve the obese
FEBRUARY 1--Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. Bill No. 282, a copy of which you'll find below, is the brainchild of three members of the state's House of Representatives, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows. The bill, which is likely dead on arrival, proposes that the state's Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi's Council on Obesity. It does not detail what penalties an eatery would face if its grub was served to someone with an excessive body mass index.
Blind Austinite again seeks acupuncture license (the statesman.com)
Pot Bust Made After Internet Advertisement Posted (WCBS)
Dude …you know…..dude.
BREAKING NEWS: Bush says there are 'serious signs' the economy is weakening (MSNBC)
Danger Will Robinson, danger.
Welcome to The Mouse Channel—All Cheese All the Time
Tiny camera implanted inside a mouse’s brain
Technique could lead to treatments for Parkinson’s disease, scientists say
TOKYO - Japanese researchers have implanted a small camera inside a mouse’s brain to see how memory is formed, in an experiment they hope someday to apply to humans to treat illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease.
The experiment, described in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods, as well as Sensors and Actuators, used a camera roughly 0.1 inch wide (3 by 2.3 by 2.4 millimeters), said Jun Ohta, professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology in western Japan.
Working with researchers at Kinki University, Ohta implanted the special semiconductor camera inside the hippocampus of the mouse’s brain, designing the device so that a screen showed blue light whenever the camera captured memory being recorded by the brain.
The researchers injected the mouse with a substance that lights up whenever there is brain activity. The camera captures that light, and the visuals come up on a screen.
The team now plans to use the camera while the mouse is walking.
“We are thinking about how to apply this to humans, though we must be very careful, as it involves implanting something into the brain,” Ohta told Reuters. “It would take 10 years at the earliest.”
The researchers hope the study will lead to new ways to treat Parkinson’s disease, as they aim to have the camera track brain activity that trigger symptoms such as tremors.
Gong Hay Fat Chance
Mississippi Pols Seek To Ban Fats
New bill would make it illegal for restaurants to serve the obese
FEBRUARY 1--Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. Bill No. 282, a copy of which you'll find below, is the brainchild of three members of the state's House of Representatives, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows. The bill, which is likely dead on arrival, proposes that the state's Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi's Council on Obesity. It does not detail what penalties an eatery would face if its grub was served to someone with an excessive body mass index.
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