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December 28, 2012

Worms turn metal into semiconductors

Worms are useful in the garden and great for fish bait, but one of their talents has remained hidden — until now. Scientists have discovered that worms can manufacture tiny semiconductors.

At King's College in London, researchers fed an ordinary red worm, Lumbricus rubellus, soil laced with metals. The worm produced quantum dots, nano-sized semiconductors that are used in imaging, LED technologies and solar cells. The experiment was published in the Dec. 23 issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The worms created these electronic components because of their ability to detoxify their body tissue. When worms ingest the metals, proteins in their body shuttle these "toxins" to tissues called chloragogen cells that are similar to a liver in mammals. In the case of cadmium, a molecule called metallothionein attaches to it to take it away. Through several chemical steps the worm separates the metals from the organic molecules they are attached to and stores them in tiny cavities its body, but not forever: eventually whatever toxic metals the worm eats are excreted.

December 19, 2012

Metamaterials experts show a way to reduce electrons' effective mass to nearly zero

The field of metamaterials involves augmenting materials with specially designed patterns, enabling those materials to manipulate electromagnetic waves and fields in previously impossible ways. Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have come up with a theory for moving this phenomenon onto the quantum scale, laying out blueprints for materials where electrons have nearly zero effective mass.

Such materials could make for faster circuits with novel properties.

The work was conducted by Nader Engheta, the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Mario G. Silveirinha, who was a visiting scholar at the Engineering School when their collaboration began. He is currently an associate professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal.

Their paper was published in the journal Physical Review B: Rapid Communications.

Their idea was born out of the similarities and analogies between the mathematics that govern electromagnetic waves -- Maxwell's Equations -- and those that govern the quantum mechanics of electrons -- Schrödinger's Equations.

December 18, 2012

Risks: Coffee Linked to Fewer Oral Cancer Deaths

A large study has found that drinking coffee is associated with a reduced risk of death from oral cancer.

Researchers studied 968,432 initially healthy men and women beginning in 1982. All completed questionnaires on health and dietary habits, including amounts of tea and coffee consumed, at the start of the study period. Twenty-six years later, 868 people had died of oral or throat cancer.

After adjusting for smoking, alcohol consumption and other factors, the researchers found that the risk of death from oral or throat cancer was 26 percent lower among those who drank one cup a day, 33 percent lower among those who drank two to three cups daily, and 50 percent lower among those who drank four to six cups daily, compared with those who drank no caffeinated coffee.

There was a barely significant association of decaffeinated coffee with reduced risk, and no link at all to tea. The report was posted online this month in The American Journal of Epidemiology.

Should physicians prescribe cognitive enhancers to healthy individuals?

Physicians should not prescribe cognitive enhancers to healthy individuals, states a report being published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). Dr. Eric Racine and his research team at the IRCM, the study's authors, provide their recommendation based on the professional integrity of physicians, the drugs' uncertain benefits and harms, and limited health care resources.

Prescription stimulants and other neuropharmaceuticals, generally prescribed to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD), are often used by healthy people to enhance concentration, memory, alertness and mood, a phenomenon described as cognitive enhancement.

"Individuals take prescription stimulants to perform better in school or at work," says Dr. Racine, a Montréal neuroethics specialist and Director of the Neuroethics research unit at the IRCM. "However, because these drugs are available in Canada by prescription only, people must request them from their doctors. Physicians are thus important stakeholders in this debate, given the risks and regulations of prescription drugs and the potential for requests from patients for such cognitive enhancers."

The prevalence of cognitive enhancers used by students on university campuses ranges from 1 per cent to 11 per cent. Taking such stimulants is associated with risks of dependence, cardiovascular problems, and psychosis.

"Current evidence has not shown that the desired benefits of enhanced mental performance are achieved with these substances," explains Cynthia Forlini, first author of the study and doctoral student in Dr. Racine's research unit. "With uncertain benefits and clear harms, it is difficult to support the notion that physicians should prescribe a medication to a healthy individual for enhancement purposes."

December 17, 2012

The person inside the present: Narcissists buy to big themselves up

But what is the psychology behind gift-giving?

Early results from research led by Dr Aiden Gregg from the University of Southampton, have shown that people with narcissistic tendencies want to purchase products, both for others and for themselves, that positively distinguish them -- that is, that make them stand out from the crowd.

The study -- conducted in collaboration with McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management and Hanyang University in South Korea -- investigated why narcissistic consumers chose certain products and how those products made them feel. Volunteers from both the universities in South Korea or Canada took part in one of four studies.

Why Are Genius and Madness Connected?

Many of history's most celebrated creative geniuses were mentally ill, from renowned artists Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo to literary giants Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allan Poe. Today, the fabled connection between genius and madness is no longer merely anecdotal. Mounting research shows these two extremes of the human mind really are linked — and scientists are beginning to understand why.

A panel of experts discussed recent and ongoing research on the subject at an event held Thursday (May 31) in New York as part of the 5th annual World Science Festival. All three panelists suffer from mental illnesses themselves.

Kay Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the findings of some 20 or 30 scientific studies endorse the notion of the "tortured genius." Of the many varieties of psychosis, creativity appears to be most strongly linked to mood disorders, and especially bipolar disorder, which Jamison suffers from herself. For example, one study tested the intelligence of 700,000 Swedish 16-year-olds and then followed up a decade later to learn which of them had developed mental illnesses. The startling results were published in 2010. "They found that people who excelled when they were 16 years old were four times as likely to go on to develop bipolar disorder," she said.

Resistance to cocaine addiction may be passed down from father to son

Research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reveals that sons of male rats exposed to cocaine are resistant to the rewarding effects of the drug, suggesting that cocaine-induced changes in physiology are passed down from father to son. The findings are published in the latest edition of Nature Neuroscience.

"We know that genetic factors contribute significantly to the risk of cocaine abuse, but the potential role of epigenetic influences -- how the expression of certain genes related to addiction is controlled -- is still relatively unknown," said senior author R. Christopher Pierce, PhD, associate professor of Neuroscience in Psychiatry at Penn. "This study is the first to show that the chemical effects of cocaine use can be passed down to future generations to cause a resistance to addictive behavior, indicating that paternal exposure to toxins such as cocaine can have profound effects on gene expression and behavior in their offspring."

In the current study, the team used an animal model to study inherited effects of cocaine abuse. Male rats self-administered cocaine for 60 days, while controls were administered saline. The male rats were mated with females that had never been exposed to the drug. To eliminate any influence that the males' behavior would have on the pregnant females, they were separated directly after they mated.

The rats' offspring were monitored to see whether they would begin to self-administer cocaine when it was offered to them. The researchers discovered that male offspring of rats exposed to the drug, but not the female offspring, acquired cocaine self-administration more slowly and had decreased levels of cocaine intake relative to controls. Moreover, control animals were willing to work significantly harder for a single cocaine dose than the offspring of cocaine-addicted rats, suggesting that the rewarding effect of cocaine was decreased.

Two Higgs Bosons? CERN Scientists Revisit Large Hadron Collider Particle Data

A month ago scientists at the Large Hadron Collider released the latest Higgs boson results. And although the data held few obvious surprises, most intriguing were the results that scientists didn’t share.

The original Higgs data from back in July had shown that the Higgs seemed to be decaying into two photons more often than it should—an enticing though faint hint of something new, some sort of physics beyond our understanding. In November, scientists at the Atlas and LHC experiments updated everything except the two-photon data. This week we learned why.

Yesterday researchers at the Atlas experiment finally updated the two-photon results. What they seem to have found is bizarre—so bizarre, in fact, that physicists assume something must be wrong with it. Instead of one clean peak in the data, they have found two. There seems to be a Higgs boson with a mass of 123.5 GeV (gigaelectron volts, the measuring unit that particle physicists most often use for mass), and another Higgs boson at 126.6 GeV—a statistically significant difference of nearly 3 GeV. Apparently, the Atlas scientists have spent the past month trying to figure out if they could be making a mistake in the data analysis, to little avail. Might there be two Higgs bosons?

We are basically honest – except when we are at work, study suggests

A new study has revealed we are more honest than you might think. The research by the University of Oxford and the University of Bonn suggests that it pains us to tell lies, particularly when we are in our own homes. It appears that being honest is hugely important to our sense of who we are. However, while it might bother us to tell lies at home, we are less circumspect at work where we are probably more likely to bend the truth, suggests the study.

The researchers conducted simple honesty tests by ringing people in their own homes in Germany and asking them to flip a coin. The study participants were asked over the phone to report on how it landed. The catch to this test was that each of the individuals taking part was given a strong financial incentive to lie without the fear of being found out. The study participants were told that if the coin landed tails up, they would receive 15 euros or a gift voucher; while if the coin landed heads up, they would receive nothing.

Using randomly generated home phone numbers, 658 people were contacted who agreed to take part. Although the researchers could not directly observe the behaviour of the individuals in their own homes, the aggregated reports show a remarkably high level of honesty. Over half of the study participants (55.6 per cent) reported that the coin landed heads-up, which meant they would receive nothing. Only 44.4 per cent reported tails up, collecting their financial reward as a result.

Extending Einstein's ideas: New kind of quantum entanglement demonstrated

Physicists at the University of Calgary and at the Institute for Quantum Computing in Waterloo have published new research in Nature Physics which builds on the original ideas of Einstein and adds a new ingredient: a third entangled particle.

Quantum entanglement is one of the central principles of quantum physics, which is the science of sub-atomic particles. Multiple particles, such as photons, are connected with each other even when they are very far apart and what happens to one particle can have an effect on the other one at the same moment, even though these effects can not be used to send information faster than light.

The new form of three-particle entanglement demonstrated in this experiment, which is based on the position and momentum properties of photons, may prove to be a valuable part of future communications networks that operate on the rules of quantum mechanics, and could lead to new fundamental tests of quantum theory that deepen our understanding of the world around us.
"This work opens up a rich area of exploration that combines fundamental questions in quantum mechanics and quantum technologies," says Christoph Simon, paper co-author and researcher at the University of Calgary.

This research extends the theories of Einstein, seventy-seven years later. In 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, commonly referred to as EPR, published a thought experiment designed to show that quantum mechanics, by itself, is not sufficient to describe reality.

December 14, 2012

The limits of the productive capacity of ecosystems

In a letter to Science published today, Karl-Heinz Erb from the Institute of Social Ecology Vienna and a number of co-authors discuss how the measurement of biomass production and consumption can be used to gain a better understanding of the limits of the productive capacity of ecosystems.

Future growth of population and GDP are challenged byglobal biophysical limits, such as the scarcity of resources (land, energy, raw materials) as well as the limited capacity of the biosphere to cope with end products (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions). One promising indicator, which is frequently mentioned in this context, and is the subject of research at the Alpen-Adria-Universität, is the human utilization, or "appropriation" of net primary production (HANPP); that is, of the biomass production of green plants. Biomass represents the basis for all human and animal food chains. Furthermore, biomass is not only a source of energy, but also plays a significant role for the carbon sequestration of ecosystems.

In a current letter to the editor of Science, Karl-Heinz Erb from the Institute of Social Ecology at the Alpen-Adria-Universität joins two AAU colleagues and an international group of colleagues in a discussion of how the measurement of biomass production and consumption can be used to gain a better understanding of the "productive capacity of ecosystems." "We identify the factors -- for example, land use intensity -- which are important for a clearer grasp of the global limits of the productive capacity of ecosystems," Karl-Heinz Erb explains.

Phew! Universe's Constant Has Stayed Constant | Proton-Electron Mass Ratio

The constant — the ratio of the mass of a proton to the mass of an electron — has changed by only one hundred thousandth of a percent or less over the past 7 billion years, the observations show.

The scientists determined this by pointing the Effelsberg 100-m radio telescope at a distant galaxy that lies 7 billion light-years away, meaning its light has taken that long to reach Earth. Thus, astronomers are seeing the galaxy as it existed 7 billion years ago. The telescope looked for special light features that reflect the absorption of methanol, a simple form of alcohol that contains carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

If the ratio of the mass of the protons and electrons inside those atoms were different than it is here and now in our own galaxy, the scientists would be able to detect this in the properties of the light.

"This idea makes the methanol molecule an ideal probe to detect a possible temporal variation in the proton-electron mass ratio," astrophysicist Wim Ubachs of VU University Amsterdam said in a statement. "We proposed to search for methanol molecules in the far-distant universe, to compare the structure of those molecules with that observed in the present epoch in laboratory experiments."

Their observations confirmed that the proton-electron mass ratio has changed by no more than 10^-7 over the past 7 billion years. The universe itself is 13.7 billion years old. [The Universe: Big Bang to Now in 10 Easy Steps ]

Schizophrenia linked to social inequality

Higher rates of schizophrenia in urban areas can be attributed to increased deprivation, increased population density and an increase in inequality within a neighbourhood, new research reveals. The research, led by the University of Cambridge in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London, was published today in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Dr James Kirkbride, lead author of the study from the University of Cambridge, said: "Although we already know that schizophrenia tends to be elevated in more urban communities, it was unclear why. Our research suggests that more densely populated, more deprived and less equal communities experience higher rates of schizophrenia and other similar disorders. This is important because other research has shown that many health and social outcomes also tend to be optimal when societies are more equal."

The scientists used data from a large population-based incidence study (the East London first-episode psychosis study directed by Professor Jeremy Coid at the East London NHS Foundation Trust and Queen Mary, University of London) conducted in three neighbouring inner city, ethnically diverse boroughs in East London: City & Hackney, Newham, and Tower Hamlets.

427 people aged 18-64 years old were included in the study, all of whom experienced a first episode of psychotic disorder in East London between 1996 and 2000. The researchers assessed their social environment through measures of the neighbourhood in which they lived at the time they first presented to mental health services because of a psychotic disorder. Using the 2001 census, they estimated the population aged 18-64 years old in each neighbourhood, and then compared the incidence rate between neighbourhoods.

December 13, 2012

Too many antibiotics? Bacterial ecology that lives on humans has changed in last 100 years

A University of Oklahoma-led study has demonstrated that ancient DNA can be used to understand ancient human microbiomes. The microbiomes from ancient people have broad reaching implications for understanding recent changes to human health, such as what good bacteria might have been lost as a result of our current abundant use of antibiotics and aseptic practices.

Cecil M. Lewis Jr., professor of anthropology in the OU College of Arts and Sciences and director of the OU Molecular Anthropology Laboratory, and Raul Tito, OU Research Associate, led the research study that analyzed microbiome data from ancient human fecal samples collected from three different archaeological sites in the Americas, each dating to over 1000 years ago. In addition, the team provided a new analysis of published data from two samples that reflect rare and extraordinary preservation: Otzi the Iceman and a soldier frozen for 93 years on a glacier.

"The results support the hypothesis that ancient human gut microbiomes are more similar to those of non-human primates and rural non-western communities than to those of people living a modern lifestyle in the United States," says Lewis. "From these data, the team concluded that the last 100 years has been a time of major change to the human gut microbiome in cosmopolitan areas."

December 12, 2012

Gay sex makes fish more attractive to females

A little fish that appears to enjoy homosexual relations with other males simultaneously increases their attractiveness to females, German researchers have discovered.

A new study by scientists from the University of Frankfurt found the Shortfin molly – a popular fish for tropical aquariums – places a premium on sexual activity. Therefore a male engaging in homosexual behaviour can impress a female with his virility and fitness.

“Sexual activity in itself is a sign of quality for females because sick or underfed males show little sexual behaviour,” said evolutionary biologist David Bierbach, adding this could possibly explain bisexuality in some other species as well.

December 10, 2012

Female sharks capable of virgin birth

Female sharks can fertilize their own eggs and give birth without sperm from males, according to a new study of the asexual reproduction of a hammerhead in a U.S. zoo.

The joint Northern Ireland-U.S. research, being published Wednesday in the Royal Society's peer-reviewed Biology Letter journal, analyzed the DNA of a shark born in 2001 in the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Neb. The shark was born in a tank with three potential mothers, none of whom had contact with a male hammerhead for at least three years.

Analysis of the baby shark's DNA found no trace of any chromosomal contribution from a male partner. Shark experts said this was the first confirmed case in a shark of parthenogenesis, which is derived from Greek and means "virgin birth."

3-D printer helps create a 'biobot'

These bots were made for walking — out of rat heart cells and hydrogel.

Scientists have paired these unlikely ingredients to create simple biological machines that look something like a front-loaded inchworm and can step their way through fluid at speeds up to 236 micrometers per second.

Bioengineers working at the boundary between organics and mechanics dream of harnessing the power of biology's nuts and bolts. Some have built tweezers out of DNA; others have made sensors by sticking bacteria on a chip. It's no easy task — plastic and metal are far more predictable materials to work with.

But in work published recently in Scientific Reports, a team of bioengineers described how they came up with a way to manufacture biobots quickly and efficiently with a three-dimensional printer.

The printer builds preprogrammed shapes layer by ultrathin layer, until it has constructed a soft "body" out of hydrogel, a class of polymers that includes the stuff contact lenses are made from, said senior author Rashid Bashir, a bioengineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Engineered immune cells produce complete response in child with an aggressive leukemia

By reprogramming a 7-year-old girl's own immune cells to attack an aggressive form of childhood leukemia, a pediatric oncologist has achieved a complete response in his patient, who faced grim prospects when she relapsed after conventional treatment. The innovative experimental therapy used bioengineered T cells, custom-designed to multiply rapidly in the patient, and then destroy leukemia cells. After the treatment, the child's doctors found that she had no evidence of cancer.

Google Search Algorithm Models Cancer Spread

The equations Google employs to predict the Web pages users visit has inspired a new way to track the spread of cancer cells throughout the body.

“Each of the sites where a spreading, or “metastatic,” tumor could show up are analogous to Web pages,” said Paul Newton, a mathematician at the University of Southern California, who has been working with cancer specialists at the Scripps Research Institute.

Google ranks Web pages by the likelihood that an individual would end up visiting each one randomly. These predictions are based on the trends of millions of users across the Web. Google uses something called the "steady state distribution" to calculate the probability of someone visiting a page.

“You have millions of people wandering the Web, [and] Google would like to know what proportion are visiting any given Web page at a given time,” Newton explained.

“It occurred to me that steady state distribution is equivalent to the metastatic tumor distribution that shows up in the autopsy datasets.”

Violent video games: More playing time equals more aggression

A new study provides the first experimental evidence that the negative effects of playing violent video games can accumulate over time.

December 7, 2012

'Time reversal' research may open doors to future tech

Imagine a cell phone charger that recharges your phone remotely without even knowing where it is; a device that targets and destroys tumors, wherever they are in the body; or a security field that can disable electronics, even a listening device hiding in a prosthetic toe, without knowing where it is.

While these applications remain only dreams, researchers at the University of Maryland have come up with a sci-fi seeming technology that one day could make them real. Using a "time-reversal" technique, the team has discovered how to transmit power, sound or images to a "nonlinear object" without knowing the object's exact location or affecting objects around it.

"That's the magic of time reversal," says Steven Anlage, a university physics professor involved in the project. "When you reverse the waveform's direction in space and time, it follows the same path it took coming out and finds its way exactly back to the source."

How calorie restriction influences longevity: Protecting cells from damage caused by chronic disease

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have identified a novel mechanism by which a type of low-carb, low-calorie diet -- called a "ketogenic diet" -- could delay the effects of aging. This fundamental discovery reveals how such a diet could slow the aging process and may one day allow scientists to better treat or prevent age-related diseases, including heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and many forms of cancer.

As the aging population continues to grow, age-related illnesses have become increasingly common. Already in the United States, nearly one in six people are over the age of 65. Heart disease continues to be the nation's number one killer, with cancer and Alzheimer's close behind. Such diseases place tremendous strain on patients, families and our healthcare system. But now, researchers in the laboratory of Gladstone Senior Investigator Eric Verdin, MD, have identified the role that a chemical compound in the human body plays in the aging process -- and which may be key to new therapies for treating or preventing a variety of age-related diseases.

In the latest issue of the journal Science, available online December 6, Dr. Verdin and his team examined the role of the compound β-hydroxybutyrate (βOHB), a so-called "ketone body" that is produced during a prolonged low-calorie or ketogenic diet. While ketone bodies such as βOHB can be toxic when present at very high concentrations in people with diseases such as Type I diabetes, Dr. Verdin and colleagues found that at lower concentrations, βOHB helps protect cells from "oxidative stress" -- which occurs as certain molecules build to toxic levels in the body and contributes to the aging process.

What happens to plant growth when you remove gravity?

It is well known that plant growth patterns are influenced by a variety of stimuli, gravity being one amongst many. On Earth plant roots exhibit characteristic behaviours called 'waving' and 'skewing', which were thought to be gravity-dependent events. However, Arabidopsis plants grown on the International Space Station (ISS) have proved this theory wrong, according to a study published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Plant Biology: root 'waving' and 'skewing' occur in spaceflight plants independently of gravity.

In plant roots, 'waving' consists of a series of regular, undulating changes in the direction of root tips during growth. It is thought to be associated with perception and avoidance of obstacles, and is dependent on gravity sensing and responsiveness. 'Skewing' is the slanted progression of roots growing along a near-vertical surface. It is thought to be a deviation of the roots from the direction of gravity and also subject to similar mechanisms that affect waving. Even though the precise basis of these growth patterns is not well understood, gravity is considered to be a major player in these processes.

To test what happens to plant root growth when you remove gravity entirely, a research team from the University of Florida, Gainesville, USA, grew two types of Arabidopsis thaliana cultivars -- Wassilewskija (WS) and Columbia (Col-0) -- on the ISS. The plants were grown in specialized growth units that combined a plant habitat with a camera system which captured images every six hours. Imaging hardware delivered the telemetric data in real-time from the ISS, and comparable ground controls were grown at the Kennedy Space Centre.

How common 'cat parasite' gets into human brain and influences human behavior

Toxoplasma is a common 'cat parasite', and has previously been in the spotlight owing to its observed effect on risk-taking and other human behaviours. To some extent, it has also been associated with mental illness. A study led by researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now demonstrates for the first time how the parasite enters the brain to influence its host.

"We believe that this knowledge may be important for the further understanding of complex interactions in some major public health issues, that modern science still hasn't been able to explain fully," says Antonio Barragan, researcher at the Center for Infectious Medicine at Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control. "At the same time, it's important to emphasize that humans have lived with this parasite for many millennia, so today's carriers of Toxoplasma need not be particularly worried."

The current study, which is published in the scientific journal PLoS Pathogens, was led by Dr Barragan and conducted together with researchers at Uppsala University.

Toxoplasmosis is caused by the extremely common Toxoplasma gondii parasite. Between 30 and 50 per cent of the global population is thought to be infected, and an estimated twenty per cent or so of people in Sweden. The infection is also found in animals, especially domestic cats. People contract the parasite mostly by eating the poorly cooked flesh of infected animals or through contact with cat faeces. The infection causes mild flu-like symptoms in adults and otherwise healthy people before entering a chronic and dormant phase, which has previously been regarded as symptom-free. It is, however, known that toxoplasmosis in the brain can be fatal in people with depleted immune defence and in fetuses, which can be infected through the mother. Because of this risk, pregnant women are recommended to avoid contact with cat litter trays.

New antidepressant acts very rapidly and is long lasting

A first-of-its-kind antidepressant drug discovered by a Northwestern University professor and now tested on adults who have failed other antidepressant therapies has been shown to alleviate symptoms within hours, have good safety and produce positive effects that last for about seven days from a single dose.

The novel therapeutic targets brain receptors responsible for learning and memory -- a very different approach from existing antidepressants. The new drug and others like it also could be helpful in treating other neurological conditions, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety and Alzheimer's disease.

The results of the phase IIa clinical trial were presented today (Dec. 6) at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in Hollywood, Fla.

Also this week a paper reporting some of the background scientific research that provided the foundation for the clinical development of GLYX-13 was published by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

The compound, called GLYX-13, is the result of more than two decades of work by Joseph Moskal, research professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and director of the University's Falk Center for Molecular Therapeutics.

December 5, 2012

Women can tell a cheating man just by looking at them - study

Women can tell with some accuracy whether an unfamiliar male is faithful simply by looking at his face, but men seem to lack the same ability when checking out women, according to an Australian study published on Wednesday.

In a paper that appeared in the journal Biology Letters, the researchers found that women tended to make that judgement based on how masculine-looking the man was.

"Women's ratings of unfaithfulness showed small-moderate, significant correlations with measures of actual infidelity," wrote the team, led by Gillian Rhodes at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

"More masculine-looking men (were) rated as more probable to be unfaithful and having a sexual history of being more unfaithful."

Attractiveness was not a factor in the women making the link.

December 4, 2012

Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Living in Mothers’ Brains

The link between a mother and child is profound, and new research suggests a physical connection even deeper than anyone thought. The profound psychological and physical bonds shared by the mother and her child begin during gestation when the mother is everything for the developing fetus, supplying warmth and sustenance, while her heartbeat provides a soothing constant rhythm.

The physical connection between mother and fetus is provided by the placenta, an organ, built of cells from both the mother and fetus, which serves as a conduit for the exchange of nutrients, gasses, and wastes. Cells may migrate through the placenta between the mother and the fetus, taking up residence in many organs of the body including the lung, thyroid muscle, liver, heart, kidney and skin. These may have a broad range of impacts, from tissue repair and cancer prevention to sparking immune disorders.

We all consider our bodies to be our own unique being, so the notion that we may harbor cells from other people in our bodies seems strange. Even stranger is the thought that, although we certainly consider our actions and decisions as originating in the activity of our own individual brains, cells from other individuals are living and functioning in that complex structure. However, the mixing of cells from genetically distinct individuals is not at all uncommon. This condition is called chimerism after the fire-breathing Chimera from Greek mythology, a creature that was part serpent part lion and part goat. Naturally occurring chimeras are far less ominous though, and include such creatures as the slime mold and corals.

Diabetes prevalence 20 percent higher in countries with higher availability of high fructose corn syrup, analysis finds

A new study by University of Southern California (USC) and University of Oxford researchers indicates that large amounts of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) found in national food supplies across the world may be one explanation for the rising global epidemic of type 2 diabetes and resulting higher health care costs.

The study reports that countries that use HFCS in their food supply had a 20 percent higher prevalence of diabetes than countries that did not use HFCS. The analysis also revealed that HFCS's association with the "significantly increased prevalence of diabetes" occurred independent of total sugar intake and obesity levels.

The article, "High Fructose Corn Syrup and Diabetes Prevalence: A Global Perspective," is published in the journal Global Public Health.

"HFCS appears to pose a serious public health problem on a global scale," said principal study author Michael I. Goran, professor of preventive medicine, director of the Childhood Obesity Research Center and co-director of the Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute at the Keck School of Medicine at USC. "The study adds to a growing body of scientific literature that indicates HFCS consumption may result in negative health consequences distinct from and more deleterious than natural sugar."

November 28, 2012

Compound found in rosemary protects against macular degeneration in laboratory model

Herbs widely used throughout history in Asian and early European cultures have received renewed attention by Western medicine in recent years. Scientists are now isolating the active compounds in many medicinal herbs and documenting their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. In a study published in the journal Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Stuart A. Lipton, M.D., Ph.D. and colleagues at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) report that carnosic acid, a component of the herb rosemary, promotes eye health.

Age-related macular degeneration likely has many underlying causes. Yet previous studies suggest that the disease might be slowed or improved by chemicals that fight free radicals -- reactive compounds related to oxygen and nitrogen that damage membranes and other cell processes.

Lipton's team first discovered a few years ago that carnosic acid fights off free radical damage in the brain. In their latest study, Lipton and colleagues, including Tayebeh Rezaie, Ph.D. and Takumi Satoh, Ph.D., initially investigated carnosic acid's protective mechanism in laboratory cultures of retinal cells.

The researchers exposed the cells growing in the dish to hydrogen peroxide in order to induce oxidative stress, a factor thought to contribute to disease progression in eye conditions such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. They found that cells treated with carnosic acid triggered antioxidant enzyme production in the cells, which in turn lowered levels of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (cell-damaging free radicals and peroxides).

How infidelity helps nieces and nephews: Men may share more genes with sisters' kids than cheating wife's kids

A University of Utah study produced new mathematical support for a theory that explains why men in some cultures often feed and care for their sisters' children: where extramarital sex is common and accepted, a man's genes are more likely to be passed on by their sister's kids than by their wife's kids.

The theory previously was believed valid only if a man was likely to be the biological father of less than one in four of his wife's children -- a number that anthropologists found improbably low.

But in the new study, University of Utah anthropology Professor Alan Rogers shows mathematically that if certain assumptions in the theory are made less stringent and more realistic, that ratio changes from one in four to one in two, so the theory works more easily.

In other words, a man's genes are more likely to be passed by his sisters' children if fewer than half of his wife's kids are biologically his -- rather than the old requirement that he had to sire fewer than a quarter of his wife's kids, according to the study published online Nov. 28 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Scientists Have Found A Way To Generate Electricity From The Human Body

Turning the human body into a power station sounds like a zany plotline from the Matrix movies, but scientists are starting to take seriously the idea that one way to stem climate change might be to harvest tiny amounts of energy in the form of the body’s heat, movement, metabolism and vibrations.

In one form of the technology, experts are turning to piezoelectricity, which means “electricity resulting from pressure”. In a piezoelectric material, small amounts of power are generated when it is pushed out of shape. As an extraordinary example of what’s now possible with these materials, the heart itself could be used to power an artificial pacemaker. Though these devices require only tiny amounts of power – one millionth of a watt – their batteries typically run out after a few years. But as Dr Amin Karami at the University of Michigan says, a pacemaker that harvests the energy of the heartbeat itself might operate for a lifetime. In a recent address to the American Heart Association in Los Angeles, he pointed out that a sliver of a piezoelectric ceramic one hundredth of an inch thick, powered by vibrations in the chest cavity, is able to generate almost 10 times the power required to operate a pacemaker.

Fast forward to the past: NASA technologists test 'game-changing' data-processing technology

The new technology is an analog-based microchip developed with significant support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Instead of relying on tiny switches or transistors that turn on and off, producing streams of ones and zeroes that computing systems then translate into something meaningful to users, the company's new microchip is more like a dimmer switch. It can accept inputs and calculate outputs that are between zero and one, directly representing probabilities, or levels of certainty.

"The technology is fundamentally different from standard digital-signal processing, recognizing values between zero and one to accomplish what would otherwise be cost prohibitive or impossible with traditional digital circuits," Pellish said.

The processor's enhanced performance is due to the way the technology works, he explained. While digital systems use processors that step through calculations one at a time, in a serial fashion, the new processor uses electronic signals to represent probabilities rather than binary ones and zeros. It then effectively runs the calculations in parallel. Where it might take 500 transistors for a digital computer to calculate a probability, the new technology would take just a few. In other words, the microchip can perform a calculation more efficiently, with fewer circuits and less power than a digital processor -- attributes important for space- and power-constrained spacecraft instruments, Pellish said.

Leicester scientists print human genome in 130 books

Scientists at the University of Leicester have printed the whole of the human genome to show just how much information it takes to make up one human body.

They say it has taken 130 book volumes, which would take 95 years to read.

November 27, 2012

Autism: Traffic pollution linked, study suggests

The possibility that autism is linked to traffic pollution has been raised by researchers in California.

Their study of more than 500 children said those exposed to high levels of pollution were three times more likely to have autism than children who grew up with cleaner air.

However, other researchers said traffic was a "very unlikely" and unconvincing explanation for autism.

The findings were presented in the Archives of General Psychiatry journal.

Data from the US Environmental Protection Agency were used to work out levels of pollution for addresses in California.

November 26, 2012

Metamaterials manipulate light on a microchip

Using a combination of the new tools of metamaterials and transformation optics, engineers at Penn State University have developed designs for miniaturized optical devices that can be used in chip-based optical integrated circuits, the equivalent of the integrated electronic circuits that make possible computers and cell phones.

Controlling light on a microchip could, in the short term, improve optical communications and allow sensing of any substance that interacts with electromagnetic waves. In the medium term, optical integrated circuits for infrared imaging systems are feasible. Further down the road lies high-speed all-optical computing. The path forward requires some twists on well-known equations, and the construction of structures smaller than the wavelength of light.

Light bends naturally as it crosses from one material to another, a phenomenon called refraction that can be seen in the way a stick seems to bend in water. Illusions, such as mirages in the desert or the shimmer of water on the road ahead on a hot day, are caused by a difference in the refractive index of layers of warmer and cooler air. The new field of transformation optics (TO) uses this light-bending phenomenon in a rigorously mathematical way by applying the 150-year-old Maxwell equations describing the propagation of light onto structures known as metamaterials, artificial constructs with custom-designed refractive indexes. The most famous applications of metamaterials are cloaking devices and perfect lenses, but those are just the tip of the optical iceberg.

Climate change evident across Europe, confirming urgent need for adaptation

Climate change is affecting all regions in Europe, causing a wide range of impacts on society and the environment. Further impacts are expected in the future, potentially causing high damage costs, according to the latest assessment published by the European Environment Agency this week.

The report, 'Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012' finds that higher average temperatures have been observed across Europe as well as decreasing precipitation in southern regions and increasing precipitation in northern Europe. The Greenland ice sheet, Arctic sea ice and many glaciers across Europe are melting, snow cover has decreased and most permafrost soils have warmed.

Extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods and droughts have caused rising damage costs across Europe in recent years. While more evidence is needed to discern the part played by climate change in this trend, growing human activity in hazard-prone areas has been a key factor. Future climate change is expected to add to this vulnerability, as extreme weather events are expected to become more intense and frequent. If European societies do not adapt, damage costs are expected to continue to rise, according to the report.

Some regions will be less able to adapt to climate change than others, in part due to economic disparities across Europe, the report says. The effects of climate change could deepen these inequalities.

Drained wetlands give off same amount of greenhouse gases as industry

"We note that drained wetlands which have been forested or used for agricultural purposes are a significant potential source of greenhouse gases of a magnitude that is at least comparable with the industrial sector's greenhouse gas emissions in Sweden."

Emissions from these drained wetlands can be reduced, but that involves rewetting the land -- resulting in a negative impact on forestry production. According to the researchers, compromises may be necessary.

"As long as wetlands remain wet, only methane is given off," says Ã…sa Kasimir Klemedtsson from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Gothenburg. "However, for more than a hundred years land has been drained for agriculture and forestry, producing large quantities both carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide."

November 23, 2012

Chemical "Soup" Clouds Connection between Toxins and Poor Health

From plastics to flame retardants, the ubiquitous chemicals of our daily lives have raised public health concerns like never before. Inside the Beltway, however, data-crunching scientists are often no match for industry lobbyists and corporate lawyers. The exception, no doubt, is Linda Birnbaum, the toxicologist who leads, two little-known scientific agencies, the National Institute of Environmental Health Services (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP).

Last April, Birnbaum sat inside a Capitol Hill conference room packed with poker-faced chemical industry executives ready for a showdown. The NTP had recently issued its report on carcinogens—a sort of name-and-shame list of chemicals on which no company wants to find its products. Charles Maresca of the Small Business Administration—taking a stand for the maligned styrene industry—argued that the report was "based on inaccurate scientific information" and faulty peer review.

North Carolina congressman Brad Miller (D) was unimpressed. He took the microphone and described Birnbaum's resume of more than 700 publications in public health, toxicology and environmental science. Removing his black reading glasses, he glanced at Maresca, and delivered the fatal blow with relish: "And you're a lawyer. Isn't that right?"

Transforming 'noise' into mechanical energy at nanometric level

A team of researchers at the Freie Universität Berlin, co-ordinated by José Ignacio Pascual*, have developed a method that enables efficiently using the random movement of a molecule in order to make a macroscopic-scale lever oscillate.

In nature, processes such as the movement of fluids, the intensity of electromagnetic signals, chemical compositions, etc., are subject to random fluctuations which normally are called 'noise'. This noise is a source of energy and its utilisation for undertaking a task is a paradigm that nature has shown to be possible in certain cases.

The research led by José Ignacio Pascual and published in Science, focused on a molecule of hydrogen (H2). The researchers placed the molecule within a very small space between a flat surface and the sharp point of an ultra-sensitive atomic force microscope. This microscope used the periodic movement of the point located at the end of a highly sensitive mechanical oscillator in order to 'feel' the forces that exist at a nanoscale level. The molecule of hydrogen moves randomly and chaotically and, when the point of the microscope approaches it, the point hits the molecule, making the oscillator or lever move. But this lever, at the same time, modulates the movement of the molecule, resulting in an orchestrated 'dance' between the point and the 'noisy' molecule. "The result is that the smallest molecule that exists, a molecule of hydrogen, 'pushes' the lever, that has a mass 1019 greater; ten trillion time greater!," explained José Ignacio Pascual.

Why older people struggle to read fine print: It's not what you think

Unique research into eye-movements of young and old people while reading discovers that word recognition patterns change as we grow older.

Psychologists from the University of Leicester have carried out unique eye tests to examine reading styles in young and old people -- and discovered for the first time that the way we read words changes as we grow older.

The team from the School of Psychology used an innovative method of digitally manipulating text combined with precise measures of readers' eye movements. This provides novel insights into how young and older adults use different visual cues during reading.

Their results have been published in the journal Psychology and Aging.

The researchers conducted experiments that used very precise measures of readers' eye movements to assess how well they read lines of text that had been digitally manipulated to enhance the salience of different visual information. For instance, sometimes the text was blurred and other times the features of the individual letters were sharply defined.

Star Trek classroom: Next generation of school desks

Researchers designing and testing the 'classroom of the future' have found that multi-touch, multi-user desks can boost skills in mathematics.

New results from a 3-year project working with over 400 pupils, mostly 8-10 year olds, show that collaborative learning increases both fluency and flexibility in maths. It also shows that using an interactive 'smart' desk can have benefits over doing mathematics on paper.

Using multi-touch desks in the new classroom, the children were able to work together in new ways to solve and answer questions and problems using inventive solutions. Seeing what your friends are doing, and being able to fully participate in group activities, offers new ways of working in class, the researchers say.

The 'Star Trek classroom' could also help learning and teaching in other subjects.

November 22, 2012

Paleontologists find 6.5-foot tall penguin fossils in Antarctica

Argentine experts have discovered the fossils of a two-meter (6.5 foot) tall penguin that lived in Antarctica 34 million years ago.

Paleontologists with the Natural Sciences Museum of La Plata province, where the capital Buenos Aires is located, said the remains were found on the icy southern continent.

“This is the largest penguin known to date in terms of height and body mass,” said researcher Carolina Acosta, who noted that the record had been held by emperor penguins, which reach heights of 1.2 meters (4 feet) tall.

Cartilage made easy with novel hybrid printer

The printing of three-dimensional tissue has taken a major step forward with the creation of a novel hybrid printer that simplifies the process of creating implantable cartilage.

The printer has been presented Nov. 22, in IOP Publishing's journal Biofabrication, and was used to create cartilage constructs that could eventually be implanted into injured patients to help re-grow cartilage in specific areas, such as the joints.

The printer is a combination of two low-cost fabrication techniques: a traditional ink jet printer and an electrospinning machine. Combining these systems allowed the scientists to build a structure made from natural and synthetic materials. Synthetic materials ensure the strength of the construct and natural gel materials provide an environment that promotes cell growth.

Toxic Chemicals in Fashionable Clothing

Some of the world’s best known fashion retailers are selling clothing contaminated with hazardous chemicals that break down to form hormone-disrupting or cancer-causing chemicals when released into the environment, finds a report issued today by Greenpeace International in Beijing.

Greenpeace International’s investigation report, “Toxic Threads – The Big Fashion Stitch-Up,” covers tests on 141 clothing items and exposes the links between textile manufacturing facilities using hazardous chemicals and the presence of chemicals in final clothing products.

November 21, 2012

Early death link to muscle power

Swedish experts who tracked more than a million teenage boys for 24 years found those with low muscle strength - weaker leg and arm muscles and a limp grip - were at increased risk of early death.

The team behind the BMJ study believe muscle strength reflects general fitness, which would explain the link.

Experts stress the findings do not mean muscle building makes you live longer.

November 20, 2012

Super-efficient solar-energy technology: ‘Solar steam’ so effective it can make steam from icy cold water

Rice University scientists have unveiled a revolutionary new technology that uses nanoparticles to convert solar energy directly into steam. The new "solar steam" method from Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics is so effective it can even produce steam from icy cold water. The technology's inventors said they expect it will first be used in sanitation and water-purification applications in the developing world.

Rice University scientists have unveiled a revolutionary new technology that uses nanoparticles to convert solar energy directly into steam. The new "solar steam" method from Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is so effective it can even produce steam from icy cold water.

Details of the solar steam method were published online November 19 in ACS Nano. The technology has an overall energy efficiency of 24 percent. Photovoltaic solar panels, by comparison, typically have an overall energy efficiency around 15 percent. However, the inventors of solar steam said they expect the first uses of the new technology will not be for electricity generation but rather for sanitation and water purification in developing countries.

Quantum cryptography done on standard broadband fibre

The "uncrackable codes" made by exploiting the branch of physics called quantum mechanics have been sent down kilometres of standard broadband fibre.

This "quantum key distribution" has until now needed a dedicated fibre separate from that used to carry data.

The technique, reported in Physical Review X, shows how to unpick normal data streams from the much fainter, more delicate quantum signal.

It may see the current best encryption used in many businesses and even homes.

The quantum key distribution or QKD idea is based on the sharing of a key between two parties - a small string of data that can be used as the basis for encoding much larger amounts.

Certainly in a corporate environment it's already affordable, and as time goes on I'm sure we'll see the technology get cheaper”

Tiny, faint pulses of laser light are used in a bid to make single photons - the fundamental units of light - with a given alignment, or polarisation. Two different polarisations can act like the 0s and 1s of normal digital data, forming a means to share a cryptographic key.

Alcohol provides protective effect, reduces mortality substantial

Injured patients were less likely to die in the hospital if they had alcohol in their blood, according to a study from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health -- and the more alcohol, the more likely they were to survive.

"This study is not encouraging people to drink," cautions UIC injury epidemiologist Lee Friedman, author of the study, which will be published in the December issue of the journal Alcohol and is now online.

That's because alcohol intoxication -- even minor inebriation -- is associated with an increased risk of being injured, he says.

"However, after an injury, if you are intoxicated there seems to be a pretty substantial protective effect," said Friedman, who is assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at UIC.

"The more alcohol you have in your system, the more the protective effect."

New Smell Discovered "olfactory white"

Scientists have discovered a new smell, but you may have to go to a laboratory to experience it yourself.

The smell is dubbed "olfactory white," because it is the nasal equivalent of white noise, researchers report today (Nov. 19) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Just as white noise is a mixture of many different sound frequencies and white light is a mixture of many different wavelengths, olfactory white is a mixture of many different smelly compounds.
In fact, the key to olfactory white is not the compounds themselves, researchers found, but the fact that there are a lot of them.

Greenhouse gases hit record high

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record high in 2011, the World Meteorological Organization has said.

In its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin released on Tuesday, the organisation said that carbon dioxide levels reached 391 parts per million in 2011.

The report estimates that carbon dioxide accounts for 85% of the "radiative forcing" that leads to global temperature rises.

Other potent greenhouse gases such as methane also reached record highs.

The carbon dioxide levels appear to have been rising at a level of two parts per million each year for the last 10 years - with the latest measure being 40% higher than those at the start of the industrial revolution.

The WMO estimates that 375 billion tonnes of carbon have been released into the atmosphere since 1750, and that about half of that amount is still present in the atmosphere.

Sweat glands play major role in healing human wounds

As poor wound healing from diabetic ulcers and other ailments takes heavy toll on healthcare costs, U-M findings pave way for new efficient therapies.

It turns out the same glands that make you sweat are responsible for another job vital to your health: they help heal wounds.

Human skin is rich with millions of eccrine sweat glands that help your body cool down after a trip to the gym or on a warm day. These same glands, new University of Michigan Health System research shows, also happen to play a key role in providing cells for recovering skin wounds -- such as scrapes, burns and ulcers.

November 16, 2012

Classroom entrepreneurs almost twice as likely to run own business, study suggests

Running a business while still at school or university almost doubles your chances of being your own boss later in life, according to new research carried out by Kingston University's Business School.

The report shows that teenagers who get the chance to set up and run a real business in the classroom are almost twice as likely (42 per cent) to become company owners than those who have not (26 per cent).

Dr Rosemary Athayde from Kingston Business School discovered the findings after conducting a series of in-depth surveys and interviews with 371 people who attended Young Enterprise programmes between 1962, when the charity was founded, and now.

The Young Enterprise programme enables 30,000 fifteen to nineteen year olds each year to run their own real companies for twelve months with help from expert business mentors. Students have to set up business bank accounts and work with industry insiders, with Young Enterprise insurance minimising any financial risk.

Beating the dark side of quantum computing

A future quantum computer will be able to carry out calculations billions of times faster than even today's most powerful machines by exploit the fact that the tiniest particles, molecules, atoms and subatomic particles can exist in more than one state simultaneously. Scientists and engineers are looking forward to working with such high-power machines but so too are cyber-criminals who will be able to exploit this power in cracking passwords and decrypting secret messages much faster than they can now.

Now, Richard Overill of the Department of Informatics at King's College London is working in the field of digital forensics to develop the necessary tools to pre-empt the cyber-criminals as quantum computing becomes reality. Writing in the Int. J. Information Technology, Communications and Convergence, Overill explains that while quantum computing is in its infancy, as with earlier technological leaps once the nuts and bolts are in place, it will be adopted rapidly by computer scientists and others eager to utilise its enormous potential.

The technologies that will underpin quantum computing will be quite esoteric to the non-specialist and include laser-excited atomic ion traps using beryllium or calcium atoms, bulk liquid-phase and solid-phase nuclear magnetic resonance, as well superconducting solid-state circuits operating at liquid helium temperatures. Of course, the semiconductor, silicon chip technology underpinning current supercomputers is perhaps just as esoteric although seems more familiar to us now.

Nevertheless, it is not the complexities of the technology that is important but what it will allow computer users to do such as solving logistics problems by overlaying all possible solutions and allowing quantum mechanics to find the optimal route, for instance. Or creating encryption keys that could never be cracked by a conventional computer. And, as Overill warns, providing those intent on cracking passwords and such to apply computational brute force with immeasurable efficiency. Such power might be wielded by crime fighters and criminals alike.

November 15, 2012

In financial ecosystems, big banks trample economic habitats and spread fiscal disease

Like the impact of an elephant herd grazing on grassland, multinational banks shape the financial environment to an extent that far outweighs their small number. And like a contagious person on a transnational flight, when these giant, interconnected banks succumb to financial ills, they are uniquely positioned to infect wide swaths of the financial system.

Researchers from Princeton University, the Bank of England and the University of Oxford applied methods inspired by ecosystem stability and contagion models to banking meltdowns and found that large national and international banks wield an influence and potentially destructive power that far exceeds their actual size.

When a large bank -- defined as having various holdings and extensive connections -- falters widespread financial loss and a virulent drop in confidence can quickly consume a financial system, the researchers report in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Systems like those in the United States in which a few banks hold most of the assets amplify these effects.

As a result, the capital that current regulations require large banks to maintain should not be based solely on its own risk, but also on the institution's systemic importance, the researchers suggest. This would mean that large banks maintain capital that not only surpasses that of smaller regional and local banks, but also is proportionally larger than the bank's slice of the financial pie. Additionally, requiring such hefty reserves could discourage banks from becoming "too big to fail," the researchers write.

Theorists bridge space-time rips

Could an analysis based on relatively simple calculations point the way to reconciling the two most successful — and stubbornly distinct — branches of modern theoretical physics? Frank Wilczek and his collaborators hope so.

The task of aligning quantum mechanics, which deals with the behaviour of fundamental particles, with Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which describes gravity in terms of curved space-time, has proved an enormous challenge. One of the difficulties is that neither is adequate to describe what happens to particles when the space-time they occupy undergoes drastic changes — such as those thought to occur at the birth of a black hole.

November 12, 2012

Weekly soft drink consumption bubbles up knee osteoarthritis; especially in men

Sugary soft drink consumption contributes not only to weight gain, but also may play a role in the progression of knee osteoarthritis, especially in men, according to new research findings presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Knee osteoarthritis is caused by cartilage breakdown in the knee joint. Factors that increase the risk of knee osteoarthritis include obesity, age, prior injury to the knee, extreme stress to the joints, and family history. In 2005, 27 million Americans suffered from osteoarthritis, and one in two people will have symptomatic knee arthritis by age 85.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Tufts Medical Center in Boston, and Brown University in Providence, R.I., looked at data on 2,149 participants in a multicenter osteoarthritis study. Participants were determined to have knee OA by X-ray. At the beginning of the study, each participant's soft-drink consumption, not including sugar-free drinks was measured using a Food Frequency Questionnaire. The researcher followed up with the participants 12, 24, 36 and 48 months later to track their OA progression as measured by joint space change in their medial knee compartments. Body mass index (also called BMI) was also measured and tracked and data for men and women were analyzed separately.

New form of brain plasticity: How social isolation disrupts myelin production

Animals that are socially isolated for prolonged periods make less myelin in the region of the brain responsible for complex emotional and cognitive behavior, researchers at the University at Buffalo and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine report in Nature Neuroscience online.

The research sheds new light on brain plasticity, the brain's ability to adapt to environmental changes. It reveals that neurons aren't the only brain structures that undergo changes in response to an individual's environment and experience, according to one of the paper's lead authors, Karen Dietz, PhD, research scientist in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

The paper notes that changes in the brain's white matter, or myelin, have been seen before in psychiatric disorders, and demyelinating disorders have also had an association with depression. Recently, myelin changes were also seen in very young animals or adolescents responding to environmental changes.

"This research reveals for the first time a role for myelin in adult psychiatric disorders," Dietz says. "It demonstrates that plasticity in the brain is not restricted to neurons, but actively occurs in glial cells, such as the oligodendrocytes, which produce myelin."

November 6, 2012

How your brain likes to be treated at revision time

If you're a student, you rely on one brain function above all others: memory.

These days, we understand more about the structure of memory than we ever have before, so we can find the best techniques for training your brain to hang on to as much information as possible. The process depends on the brain's neuroplasticity, its ability to reorganise itself throughout your life by breaking and forming new connections between its billions of cells.

So what's the best way to revise? Here are seven top tips to get information into your brain and keep it there.

Low vitamin D levels linked to longevity, surprising study shows

Low levels of vitamin D may be associated with longevity, according to a study involving middle-aged children of people in their 90s published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"We found that familial longevity was associated with lower levels of vitamin D and a lower frequency of allelic variation in the CYP2R1 gene, which was associated with higher levels of vitamin D," writes Dr. Diana van Heemst, Department of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands, with coauthors.

Previous studies have shown that low levels of vitamin D are associated with increased rates of death, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, allergies, mental illness and other afflictions. However, it is not known whether low levels are the cause of these diseases or if they are a consequence.

To determine whether there was an association between vitamin D levels and longevity, Dutch researchers looked at data from 380 white families with at least 2 siblings over age 90 (89 years or older for men and 91 year or older for women) in the Leiden Longevity Study. The study involved the siblings, their offspring and their offsprings' partners for a total of 1038 offspring and 461 controls. The children of the nonagenarians were included because it is difficult to include controls for the older age group. The partners were included because they were of a similar age and shared similar environmental factors that might influence vitamin D levels.

Scientists discover how to make time pass faster (or slower)

A new understanding of how the brain processes time could one day allow scientists to tweak an individual's sense of timing.

New research suggests timekeeping in the brain is decentralised, with different neural circuits having their own timing mechanisms for specific activities.

Not only does it raise the possibility of artificially manipulating time perceptions, but the finding could also explain why our sense of time changes in different conditions - such as when we are having fun or are under stress.

For self-healing concrete, just add bacteria and food

Like living bone, concrete could soon be healing its own hairline fractures – with bacteria in the role of osteoblast cells. Worked into the concrete from the beginning, these water-activated bacteria would munch food provided in the mix to patch up cracks and small holes.

Concrete reinforced with steel forms the skeleton of many buildings and bridges. But any cracks in its gritty exterior make it vulnerable: "Water is the culprit for concrete because it enters the cracks and it brings aggressive chemicals with it," says Henk Jonkers of Delft University of Technology in Delft, the Netherlands. These chemicals degrade both concrete and steel.

Locating and patching cracks in old concrete is a time-consuming business, but rebuilding concrete structures is expensive. Jonkers thinks the solution is to fight nature with nature: he suggests combating water degradation by packing the concrete with bacteria that use water and calcium lactate "food" to make calcite, a natural cement.

Laser the size of a virus particle: Miniature laser operates at room temperature and defies the diffraction limit of light

A Northwestern University research team has found a way to manufacture single laser devices that are the size of a virus particle and that operate at room temperature. These plasmonic nanolasers could be readily integrated into silicon-based photonic devices, all-optical circuits and nanoscale biosensors.

Reducing the size of photonic and electronic elements is critical for ultra-fast data processing and ultra-dense information storage. The miniaturization of a key, workhorse instrument -- the laser -- is no exception.

"Coherent light sources at the nanometer scale are important not only for exploring phenomena in small dimensions but also for realizing optical devices with sizes that can beat the diffraction limit of light," said Teri Odom, a nanotechnology expert who led the research.

Swine Flu Vaccine May Be Linked to Rare Nerve Disorder

The H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine was associated with a small but significant risk for developing a rare nervous disorder called Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS), say doctors in a report detailed in the July 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The study, conducted in Quebec, rekindles the still-controversial connection between Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) and the 1976 swine flu outbreak, which halted that year's flu vaccination program in the United States. It also raises questions about vaccines for flu strains originating in swine.

This latest analysis, led by Philippe De Wals of Laval University, Quebec City, Canada, followed 4.4 million residents vaccinated against the H1N1 "swine flu" in late 2009. Over the next six months, 25 people who received the vaccine developed GBS. Across the Quebec province, however, another 58 people who were not vaccinated also developed GBS.

November 5, 2012

Dude, can you see ... it? Crude test may help trim fat

Fellas, you're chillingly aware, no doubt, of what goes down when cold water contacts your most precious appendage: "shrinkage."

Now, some obesity watchdogs are worried that you may be too plump to see your own private parts, a.k.a: "blockage."

This fall, British health advocates surveyed 1,000 U.K. males and found that 33 percent of guys between 35 and 60 years old possess guts so rotund, their bellies form a full eclipse of their genitalia when the men stand and take a gander down south. This blubbery blind spot leaves such men more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, colon cancer, heart disease and other health problems, recent research has shown. The group WeLoveOurHealth.co.uk conducted the poll.

Quantum Mystery of Light Revealed by New Experiment

Is light made of waves, or particles?

This fundamental question has dogged scientists for decades, because light seems to be both. However, until now, experiments have revealed light to act either like a particle, or a wave, but never the two at once.

Now, for the first time, a new type of experiment has shown light behaving like both a particle and a wave simultaneously, providing a new dimension to the quandary that could help reveal the true nature of light, and of the whole quantum world.

The debate goes back at least as far as Isaac Newton, who advocated that light was made of particles, and James Clerk Maxwell, whose successful theory of electromagnetism, unifying the forces of electricity and magnetism into one, relied on a model of light as a wave. Then in 1905, Albert Einstein explained a phenomenon called the photoelectric effect using the idea that light was made of particles called photons (this discovery won him the Nobel Prize in physics).

November 2, 2012

Premium gas in regular-fuel cars not cleaner, expert says

Cars that use regular fuel but are filled with so-called cleaner premium gas could be harming the environment, says at least one Canadian auto expert.

A CBC Marketplace investigation found many Canadian drivers are paying more for premium gas, believing it's better for their cars and the environment. But Marty Stanfel says unless you own a high-performance car, premium gas could be hard on the wallet as well as the Earth.

"It’s actually hurting the environment," said Stanfel, an instructor at the Canadian Automotive and Trucking Institute. "Whether or not you’re cleaning your valves and cleaning the inside of the engine, I couldn’t say that’s true. But I do think you’re hurting the environment now by running the premium fuel in a regular-fuelled car."

October 31, 2012

Buddhist monk is the world's happiest man

Tibetan monk and molecular geneticist Matthieu Ricard is the happiest man in the world according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin. The 66-year-old’s brain produces a level of gamma waves - those linked to consciousness, attention, learning and memory - never before reported in neuroscience.

The monk, molecular geneticist and confidant of the Dalai Lama, is passionately setting out why meditation can alter the brain and improve people's happiness in the same way that lifting weights puts on muscle.

"It's a wonderful area of research because it shows that meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree but it completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are," the Frenchman told AFP.

Ricard, a globe-trotting polymath who left everything behind to become a Tibetan Buddhist in a Himalayan hermitage, says anyone can be happy if they only train their brain.

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson wired up Ricard's skull with 256 sensors at the University of Wisconsin four years ago as part of research on hundreds of advanced practitioners of meditation.

The scans showed that when meditating on compassion, Ricard's brain produces a level of gamma waves -- those linked to consciousness, attention, learning and memory -- "never reported before in the neuroscience literature", Davidson said.

Transforming America by redirecting wasted health care dollars

The respected national Institute of Medicine estimates that $750 billion is lost each year to wasteful or excessive health care spending. This sum includes excess administrative costs, inflated prices, unnecessary services and fraud -- dollars that add no value to health and well-being.

If those wasteful costs could be corralled without sacrificing health care quality, how might that money be better spent?

In a study published in the current online edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Frederick J. Zimmerman, professor and chair of the department of health policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and colleagues outline some of the myriad ways that $750 billion could benefit Americans.

"If cut from current health care expenditures, these funds could provide businesses and households with a huge windfall, with enough money left over to fund deficit reduction on the order of the most ambitious plans in Washington," Zimmerman said. "The money could also cover needed investments in transportation infrastructure, early childhood education, human capital programs, rural development, job retraining programs and much more. And it could transform America with little to no reduction in the quality of, or access to, health care actually provided."

Agriculture and food production contribute up to 29 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions

Feeding the world releases up to 17,000 megatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, according to a new analysis released October 30 by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). But while the emissions "footprint" of food production needs to be reduced, a companion policy brief by CCAFS lays out how climate change will require a complete recalibration of where specific crops are grown and livestock are raised.

Together, Climate Change and Food Systems (published in the 2012 Annual Review of Environment and Resources) and Recalibrating Food Production in the Developing World: Global Warming Will Change More Than Just the Climate (published by CCAFS), shed new light on the intertwining evolutions of climate change and the world's food system and their potential impact on humanity's relationship with food.

"Climate Change mitigation and adaptation are critical priorities. Farmers around the world, especially smallholder farmers in developing countries, need access to the latest science, more resources and advanced technology. This research serves as an urgent call for negotiators at the upcoming United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha," said Bruce Campbell, CCAFS's program director.

October 29, 2012

The Island Where People Forget to Die

In the ensuing months, something strange happened. He says he started to feel stronger. One day, feeling ambitious, he planted some vegetables in the garden. He didn’t expect to live to harvest them, but he enjoyed being in the sunshine, breathing the ocean air. Elpiniki could enjoy the fresh vegetables after he was gone.

Six months came and went. Moraitis didn’t die. Instead, he reaped his garden and, feeling emboldened, cleaned up the family vineyard as well. Easing himself into the island routine, he woke up when he felt like it, worked in the vineyards until midafternoon, made himself lunch and then took a long nap. In the evenings, he often walked to the local tavern, where he played dominoes past midnight. The years passed. His health continued to improve. He added a couple of rooms to his parents’ home so his children could visit. He built up the vineyard until it produced 400 gallons of wine a year. Today, three and a half decades later, he’s 97 years old — according to an official document he disputes; he says he’s 102 — and cancer-free. He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move home to Ikaria.

New Ultra Thin Dissolvable Electronics Developed

Miniature, completely biocompatible, electronic instruments that can harmlessly disintegrate into their surroundings after working for a certain amount of time, have been constructed by biomedical engineers from Tufts University.

This discovery of "transient electronics", a new group of silk-silicon devices that function for a specific amount of time followed by disintegration, pave the path for medical implants that never need to be surgically removed. It could also be a potential milestone for compostable consumer electronics and environmental monitoring devices.

Fiorenzo Omenetto, professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts School of Engineering and a senior and corresponding author of these findings published Science says:

"These devices are the polar opposite of conventional electronics whose integrated circuits are designed for long-term physical and electronic stability. Transient electronics offer robust performance comparable to current devices but they will fully resorb into their environment at a prescribed time, ranging from minutes to years, depending on the application."

'Frankenstorm' Full Moon: Hurricane Sandy's Impact Amplified by Lunar Event

The full moon of October may go unseen along the U.S. East Coast due to Hurricane Sandy, but its effect on the storm will be felt. The full moon's tidal effects on Earth will amplify the storm's already large waves, making them a bigger flooding danger than normal, NASA says.

"Very rough surf and high and dangerous waves are expected to be coupled with the full moon," NASA spokesman Rob Gutro explained in the agency's hurricane status report Sunday (Oct. 28). "The National Hurricane Center noted that the combination of a dangerous storm and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters."

The National Hurricane Center said that "Sandy [is] expected to bring life-threatening storm surge flooding to the Mid-Atlantic coast including Long Island Sound and New York Harbor, winds expected to be near hurricane force at landfall," according to Gutro's update.

Titan supercomputer debuts: Computer churns through more than 20,000 trillion calculations each second

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory has just launched a new era of scientific supercomputing with Titan, a system capable of churning through more than 20,000 trillion calculations each second -- or 20 petaflops -- by employing a family of processors called graphic processing units first created for computer gaming. Titan will be 10 times more powerful than ORNL's last world-leading system, Jaguar, while overcoming power and space limitations inherent in the previous generation of high-performance computers.

Titan, which is supported by the Department of Energy, will provide unprecedented computing power for research in energy, climate change, efficient engines, materials and other disciplines and pave the way for a wide range of achievements in science and technology.

The Cray XK7 system contains 18,688 nodes, with each holding a 16-core AMD Opteron 6274 processor and an NVIDIA Tesla K20 graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerator. Titan also has more than 700 terabytes of memory. The combination of central processing units, the traditional foundation of high-performance computers, and more recent GPUs will allow Titan to occupy the same space as its Jaguar predecessor while using only marginally more electricity.

October 26, 2012

The Link Between Crime And Opiates

Nearly every aspect of society is affected by drug abuse and addiction. It puts a strain on local, state and national economies, drives up healthcare costs, endangers lives, splits up families and stretches the criminal justice system to its limit.

The main threat in this day and age is opiates – in the form of prescription painkillers and heroin. These drugs have changed the very face of drug addiction. Everyday people are getting dependent. Good people. Professional people. Young people. Older people.

For many people, the story goes like this: Someone takes a prescription painkiller for an injury or illness. A tolerance builds, requiring more of the drug. Physical dependence develops. A person increases his or her consumption of the drug. Psychological dependence may set in, meaning the person could develop addiction.

Many people end up switching from prescription painkillers to heroin. Its cheaper on the street and oftentimes, more readily available. And it provides the same effects such as relief of physical, psychological and emotional pain. They both have the ability to dull the senses and numb unwanted feelings.

October 25, 2012

Living power cables discovered: Multicellular bacteria transmit electrons across relatively great distances

A multinational research team has discovered filamentous bacteria that function as living power cables in order to transmit electrons thousands of cell lengths away.

The Desulfobulbus bacterial cells, which are only a few thousandths of a millimeter long each, are so tiny that they are invisible to the naked eye. And yet, under the right circumstances, they form a multicellular filament that can transmit electrons across a distance as large as 1 centimeter as part of the filament's respiration and ingestion processes.

The discovery by scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark and USC will be published in Nature on October 24.

"To move electrons over these enormous distances in an entirely biological system would have been thought impossible," said Moh El-Naggar, assistant professor of physics at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and co-author of the Nature paper.

Aarhus scientists had discovered a seemingly inexplicable electric current on the sea floor years ago. The new experiments revealed that these currents are mediated by a hitherto unknown type of long, multicellular bacteria that act as living power cables

Why Men and Women Can't Be "Just Friends"

Can heterosexual men and women ever be “just friends”? Few other questions have provoked debates as intense, family dinners as awkward, literature as lurid, or movies as memorable. Still, the question remains unanswered. Daily experience suggests that non-romantic friendships between males and females are not only possible, but common—men and women live, work, and play side-by-side, and generally seem to be able to avoid spontaneously sleeping together. However, the possibility remains that this apparently platonic coexistence is merely a façade, an elaborate dance covering up countless sexual impulses bubbling just beneath the surface.

New research suggests that there may be some truth to this possibility—that we may think we’re capable of being “just friends” with members of the opposite sex, but the opportunity (or perceived opportunity) for “romance” is often lurking just around the corner, waiting to pounce at the most inopportune moment.

Science reveals the power of a handshake

New neuroscience research is confirming an old adage about the power of a handshake: strangers do form a better impression of those who proffer their hand in greeting.

A firm, friendly handshake has long been recommended in the business world as a way to make a good first impression, and the greeting is thought to date to ancient times as a way of showing a stranger you had no weapons. Now, a paper published online and for the December print issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience on a study of the neural correlates of a handshake is giving insight into just how important the practice is to the evaluations we make of subsequent social interactions.

The study was led by Beckman Institute researcher Florin Dolcos and Department of Psychology postdoctoral research associate Sanda Dolcos. They found, as they wrote, that "a handshake preceding social interaction enhanced the positive impact of approach and diminished the negative impact of avoidance behavior on the evaluation of social interaction."

Their results, for the first time, give a scientific underpinning to long-held beliefs about the important role a handshake plays in social or business interactions. Sanda Dolcos said their findings have obvious implications for those who want to make a good impression.

Caffeine Levels in Energy Drinks May Be Higher Than Advertised

Energy drinks may contain more caffeine than their labels claim, according to a new report.

Researchers at Consumer Reports purchased cans of 27 popular energy drinks and shots online and at stores in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, and tested the caffeine levels in three samples of each product.

Caffeine levels in the drinks ranged between 6 and 242 milligrams per serving, and some containers contained more than one serving, they found.

By comparison, an 8-ounce cup of coffee generally contains about 100 mg of caffeine; eight ounces of cola contains about 25 mg.

The researchers found that 16 of the products listed a specific amount of caffeine on their labels. However, their own tests showed that five of these products — Arizona Energy, Clif Shot Turbo Energy Gel, Nestlé Jamba, Sambazon Organic Amazon Energy and Venom Energy — contained at least 20 percent more caffeine than stated. One sample, of Archer Farms Energy Drink Juice Infused, contained about 70 percent less caffeine than was listed on the label.

October 24, 2012

Are schizophrenia and autism close relations?

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), a category that includes autism, Asperger Syndrome, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder, are characterized by difficulty with social interaction and communication, or repetitive behaviors. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Management says that one in 88 children in the US is somewhere on the Autism spectrum -- an alarming ten-fold increase in the last four decades.

New research by Dr. Mark Weiser of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Sheba Medical Center has revealed that ASD appears share a root cause with other mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. At first glance, schizophrenia and autism may look like completely different illnesses, he says. But closer inspection reveals many common traits, including social and cognitive dysfunction and a decreased ability to lead normal lives and function in the real world.

Studying extensive databases in Israel and Sweden, the researchers discovered that the two illnesses had a genetic link, representing a heightened risk within families. They found that people who have a schizophrenic sibling are 12 times more likely to have autism than those with no schizophrenia in the family. The presence of bipolar disorder in a sibling showed a similar pattern of association, but to a lesser degree.

Summer babies less likely to be CEOs

Sauder School of Business researchers at the University of British Columbia have found that a person's date of birth can affect their climb up the corporate ladder.

he Sauder study shows that only 6.13 per cent of an S&P 500 CEO sample was born in June and only 5.87 per cent of the sample was born in July. By comparison, people born in March and April represented 12.53 per cent and 10.67 per cent of the sample of CEOs.

"Our findings indicate that summer babies underperform in the ranks of CEOs as a result of the 'birth-date effect,' a phenomenon resulting from the way children are grouped by age in school," says Sauder Finance Prof. Maurice Levi, co-author of the study to appear in the December issue of the journal Economics Letters.

In the United States, cut-off dates for school admission fall between September and January. The researchers determined that those CEOs in the sample born between June and July were the youngest in their class during school, and those in March and April were the oldest. This takes into account children born in months close to the cut offs who were held back or accelerated.

Grandma gets credit for humans' long lives

Do you like living past the age of 20 or so? Thank Grandma.

A new simulation suggests the rise of grandmothering explains why human life spans are so much longer than those of chimpanzees and other non-human apes. By taking a theoretical society with apelike life spans and adding grandmas, researchers were able to double everyone's length of life.

The findings, reported Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, support the grandmother hypothesis. This hypothesis aims to explain why human females, unlike other primates and mammals, outlive their reproductive years. Perhaps, the idea goes, grandmothers took on the duty of caring for their grandchildren, allowing their own children to have more offspring. Families where people lived long enough to grandmother thus would have had a genetic advantage, allowing longevity to spread through natural selection.

Flame retardant 'Firemaster 550,' used in infant-products, is an endocrine disruptor

The flame-retardant mixture known as "Firemaster 550" is an endocrine disruptor that causes extreme weight gain, early onset of puberty and cardiovascular health effects in lab animals, according to a new study spearheaded by researchers from North Carolina State University and Duke University.

Firemaster 550 is made up of four principal component chemicals and is used in polyurethane foam in a wide variety of products, ranging from mattresses to infant nursing pillows. The flame-retardant mixture was developed by Chemtura Corp., and was first identified by the research community in 2008. It was developed to replace a class of fire retardants being phased out of use because of concerns regarding their safety. This new study represents the first public data on whether Firemaster 550 has potential health effects.

In this pilot study, pregnant lab rats were assigned to three groups: a control group, which was not exposed to Firemaster 550; a "low-dose" group, which ingested 100 micrograms of Firemaster 550 once per day throughout pregnancy and nursing; and a "high-dose" group, which ingested 1,000 micrograms on the same schedule. These environmentally relevant doses are lower than the doses used in industry-funded studies. Researchers then evaluated the physiological outcomes of the exposure in both the mothers (called dams) and the offspring (called pups).

October 23, 2012

Your happiness could be contagious

Feeling inexplicably cheery today? Thank your friends. And your friends’ friends. And your friends’ friends’ friends.

New research shows that happiness isn’t just an individual phenomenon; we can catch happiness from friends and family members like an emotional virus. When just one person in a group becomes happy, researchers were able to measure a three-degree spread of that person’s cheer. In other words, our moods can brighten thanks to someone we haven’t even met.

“Especially in the United States, we’re very used to thinking of ourselves as rugged individuals. But even very small things that happen to us have big impacts on dozens and hundreds of other people,” says James Fowler, a University of California, San Diego, political scientist, who co-authored the study with Harvard University medical sociologist Nicholas Christakis. “The things that we do and the things that we feel are going to reverberate throughout our social network.”

TV, devices in kids' bedrooms linked to poor sleep, obesity

Children who bask in the nighttime glow of a TV or computer don't get enough rest and suffer from poor lifestyle habits, new research from the University of Alberta has shown.

A province-wide survey of Grade 5 students in Alberta showed that as little as one hour of additional sleep decreased the odds of being overweight or obese by 28 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively. Children with one or more electronic devices in the bedroom -- TVs, computers, video games and cellphones -- were also far more likely to be overweight or obese.

"If you want your kids to sleep better and live a healthier lifestyle, get the technology out of the bedroom," said co-author Paul Veugelers, a professor in the School of Public Health, Canada Research Chair in Population Health and Alberta Innovates -- Health Solutions Health Scholar.

Veugelers, director of the Population Health Intervention Research Unit that works with the Alberta Project Promoting active Living and healthy Eating (APPLE Schools), said the research is the first to connect the dots on the relationship between sleep, diet and physical activity among kids.

Exercise the body to keep the brain healthy, study suggests

People who exercise later in life may better protect their brain from age-related changes than those who do not, a study suggests.

Researchers found that people over 70 who took regular exercise showed less brain shrinkage over a three-year period than those who did little exercise.

Psychologists and Neuroimaging experts, based at the University of Edinburgh, did not find there to be any benefit to brain health for older people from participation in social or mentally stimulating activities.

Greater brain shrinkage is linked to problems with memory and thinking and the researchers say their findings suggest that exercise is potentially one important pathway to maintaining a healthy brain both in terms of size and reducing damage.

The researchers also examined the brain's white matter - the wiring that transmits messages round the brain. They found that people over 70 who were more physically active had fewer 'damaged' areas - visible as abnormal areas on scanning - in the white matter than those who did little exercise.

Additionally, the researchers from the University of Edinburgh found that the over-70s taking regular exercise had more grey matter - the parts of the brain with nerve cell bodies.

How highway bridges sing -- or groan -- in the rain to reveal their health: Just a drop of water can indicate the stability of a bridge

A team of BYU engineers has found that by listening to how a highway bridge sings in the rain they can determine serious flaws in the structure.

Employing a method called impact-echo testing, professors Brian Mazzeo and Spencer Guthrie can diagnose the health of a bridge's deck based on the acoustic footprint produced by a little bit of water.

Specifically, the sound created when a droplet makes impact can reveal hidden dangers in the bridge.

"There is a difference between water hitting intact structures and water hitting flawed structures," Mazzeo said. "We can detect things you can't see with a visual inspection; things happening within the bridge itself."

The study presents a more efficient and cost-effective method to address the mounting safety concerns over bridge corrosion and aging across the U.S. and beyond.

October 22, 2012

Rice agriculture accelerates global warming: More greenhouse gas per grain of rice

More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and rising temperatures cause rice agriculture to release more of the potent greenhouse gas methane (CH4) for each kilogram of rice it produces, new research published in this week's online edition of Nature Climate Change reveals.

"Our results show that rice agriculture becomes less climate friendly as our atmosphere continues to change. This is important, because rice paddies are one of the largest human sources of methane, and rice is the world's second-most produced staple crop," said Dr Kees Jan van Groenigen, Research Fellow at the Botany Department at the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, and lead author of the study.

Van Groenigen, along with colleagues from Northern Arizona University and the University of California in Davis, gathered all published research to date from 63 different experiments on rice paddies, mostly from Asia and North America. The common theme in the experiments was that they measured how rising temperatures and extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affect rice yields and the amount of methane that is released by rice paddies.

Children with mental health disorders more often identified as bullies

Children diagnosed with mental health disorders were three times more likely to be identified as bullies, according to new research presented Oct. 22 at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans.

Bullying is a form of youth violence defined as repetitive, intentional aggression that involves a disparity of power between the victim and perpetrator. A 2011 nationwide survey found 20 percent of U.S. high school students were bullied during the preceding 12 months. And while it is well-established that victims of bullying are at increased risk for mental health illness and suicide, few studies have investigated the mental health status of those who do the bullying.

In the study, "Association Between Mental Health Disorders and Bullying in the United States Among Children Aged 6 to 17 Years," researchers reviewed data provided by parents and guardians on mental health and bullying in the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, which included nearly 64,000 children.