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May 31, 2012

Using Technology to Reinvent Government

The big economic question in much of the world today is usually framed as the fight between advocates of austerity and advocates of growth. But another way to view the debate is as a contest between those who think that 21st-century government can be effective and those who don’t.

Indeed, some of America’s most outspoken capitalists have begun to fight the “Buffett Rule,” which would set a minimum tax level for millionaires, and other calls to raise taxes for those at the very top, with the argument that money is best left in the bank accounts of the superrich because they are more effective at using it than the state is.

“I’m a job creator. I’m one of the guys who can help us out. I’m a Silicon Valley guy who can invent and create,” T.J. Rodgers, chief executive of Cypress Semiconductor, told me. “If you tax me more, I will either give less to charity or I will fund venture companies less, or I will sell the stock in my own company or other companies I own, like Intel and Google. I will do one of those three things to return the money to the government.”

Are toxic chemicals putting your family at risk?

Imagine if every time you went to the pharmacy, shopping for medications was a complete guessing game. What if drug makers weren't required to disclose ingredients in their products or prove their safety, leaving you without a way to determine whether what you're buying is safe for you and your family? You would live in fear that the medicine you purchased to make your child feel better could actually harm them.

It's a frightening scenario, and one that we would never accept.

Yet, because of our outdated and broken toxic chemicals law, that is precisely the situation with the consumer products we use every day. These products -- from baby bottles and shampoo to car seats and sofas -- contain tens of thousands of untested chemicals.

Are you feeling sleepy? Here's why...

Inside your head, located somewhere between the eyes, is a tiny piece of brain tissue made up of no more than 20,000 cells. If the brain was the size of the UK, the body clock, or suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN for short), would be the size of a small village in Derbyshire. But don’t let its size fool you: this mysterious internal mechanism controls… well, pretty much everything. It regulates our sleep cycles, our hormones, the performance of our organs, and even our cognitive processes.

Professor Till Roenneberg, who works at the Institute of Medical Psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, has dedicated himself to discovering how the body clock works. He found that it responds to the light of the sun. In his new book, Internal Time, Roenneberg describes experiments in which people are locked in underground bunkers, deprived of sunlight. Their body clocks go haywire; they begin to imagine that their days are much longer than they actually are; they stay awake several hours more than usual, and then sleep for ages. Interestingly, most blind people have functioning body clocks, because the eye can send information about light to the body clock, even if it can’t see it. As Roenneberg points out, people without eyes are in the same position as those locked in bunkers.

But Roenneberg, who might be the world’s foremost authority on body clocks, is very worried that a terrible thing is happening to them. The modern world is sending them out of whack. In fact, he explains, we are torn between two types of clocks – the real clocks in our brains, and the clocks we put on our wrists, on our walls, in our pockets, and on our bedside tables. These are not so real. Roenneberg calls them “social clocks”. And in the battle between the clocks, the fake clocks are winning.

Nanotechnology: A fab result

FOR half a century, the essence of progress in the computer industry has been to do more with less. Moore’s law famously observes that the number of transistors which can be crammed into a given space doubles every 18 months. The amount of data that can be stored has grown at a similar rate. Yet as components get smaller, making them gets harder and more expensive. On May 10th Paul Otellini, the boss of Intel, a big American chipmaker, put the price of a new chip factory (known as a fab) at around $10 billion.

Happily for those that lack Intel’s resources, there may be a cheaper option—namely to mimic Mother Nature, who has been building tiny devices, in the form of living cells and their components, for billions of years, and has thus got rather good at it. A paper published in Small, a nanotechnology journal, sets out the latest example of the technique. In it, a group of researchers led by Sarah Staniland at the University of Leeds, in Britain, describe using naturally occurring proteins to make arrays of tiny magnets, similar to those employed to store information in disk drives.

The researchers took their inspiration from Magnetospirillum magneticum, a bacterium that is sensitive to the Earth’s magnetic field thanks to the presence within its cells of flecks of magnetite, a form of iron oxide. Previous work has isolated the protein that makes these miniature compasses. Using genetic engineering, the team managed to persuade a different bacterium—Escherichia coli, a ubiquitous critter that is a workhorse of biotechnology—to manufacture this protein in bulk.

May 30, 2012

A High Price for Healthy Food

Healthy eating really does cost more.

That’s what University of Washington researchers found when they compared the prices of 370 foods sold at supermarkets in the Seattle area. Calorie for calorie, junk foods not only cost less than fruits and vegetables, but junk food prices also are less likely to rise as a result of inflation. The findings, reported in the current issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, may help explain why the highest rates of obesity are seen among people in lower-income groups.

The scientists took an unusual approach, essentially comparing the price of a calorie in a junk food to one consumed in a healthier meal. Although fruits and vegetables are rich in nutrients, they also contain relatively few calories. Foods with high energy density, meaning they pack the most calories per gram, included candy, pastries, baked goods and snacks.

The survey found that higher-calorie, energy-dense foods are the better bargain for cash-strapped shoppers. Energy-dense munchies cost on average $1.76 per 1,000 calories, compared with $18.16 per 1,000 calories for low-energy but nutritious foods.

The first chemical circuit developed

The Organic Electronics research group at Linköping University previously developed ion transistors for transport of both positive and negative ions, as well as biomolecules. Tybrandt has now succeeded in combining both transistor types into complementary circuits, in a similar way to traditional silicon-based electronics.

An advantage of chemical circuits is that the charge carrier consists of chemical substances with various functions. This means that we now have new opportunities to control and regulate the signal paths of cells in the human body.

Mathematicians can conjure matter waves inside an invisible hat

Invisibility, once the subject of magic or legend, is slowly becoming reality. Over the past five years mathematicians and other scientists have been working on devices that enable invisibility cloaks -- perhaps not yet concealing Harry Potter, but at least shielding small objects from detection by microwaves or sound waves.

A University of Washington mathematician is part of an international team working to understand invisibility and extend its possible applications. The group has now devised an amplifier that can boost light, sound or other waves while hiding them inside an invisible container.

"You can isolate and magnify what you want to see, and make the rest invisible," said corresponding author Gunther Uhlmann, a UW mathematics professor. "You can amplify the waves tremendously. And although the wave has been magnified a lot, you still cannot see what is happening inside the container."

Egyptian Teenager Invents New Space Propulsion System Based On Quantum Physics

Precocious young physicist Aisha Mustafa just patented a new system that could propel spacecrafts to the final frontier without using a drop of fuel.

In short her system taps one of the odder facets of quantum theory, which posits that space isn't really a vacuum. It's really filled with particles and anti-particles that exist for infinitesimally small periods of time before destroying each other. Mustafa thinks she can harness them to create propulsion, resulting in space craft that need little-to-no fuel to maneuver around in space. Fast Company reports:

May 29, 2012

Why women prefer weaker men

While physically imposing men hold a certain appeal, women long ago evolved to value qualities like loyalty and generosity over bulging muscles and a strong jawline.

This is because men who lacked the ability to compete physically with their peers compensated by providing better for their spouses in order to buy their affection, researchers said.

The rise of the Beta male began at an early stage of human evolution when our ancestors lived in large social groups where the most dominant men had access to the most women.

Lower-ranking men had to develop another strategy for obtaining a mate, and did so by devoting themselves to one woman and providing her with all the food and protection she needed.

This led women to value a generous and devoted partner over a promiscuous stronger man, laying the first foundations for monogamous family life, researchers from Tennessee university said.

New Study from UK Think Tank Shows How Big Government Undermines Prosperity

It seems I was put on the planet to educate people about the negative economic impact of excessive government. I must be doing a bad job, because the burden of the public sector keeps rising.

But hope springs eternal. To help make the case, I’ve cited research from international bureaucracies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and European Central Bank. Since most of those organizations lean to the left, these results should be particularly persuasive.

I’ve also cited the work of academic scholars from all over the world, including the United States, Australia, and Sweden. The evidence is very persuasive that big government is associated with weaker economic performance.

Computer program can read human expressions better than humans can

Can you tell the difference between a genuine smile and one masking frustration? We aren't always conscious of the expressions we make in certain situations, which puts us at a disadvantage to computer programs that understand our facial expressions better than we do.

Ehsan Hoque, a graduate student in MIT's Affective Computing Group, led a new study designed to improve the way computers read and understand human faces. The team placed volunteers in front of webcams and asked them to act out various emotions, from delight to frustration. Then subjects were asked to fill out an online form designed to elicit frustration (darn thing kept deleting their data when they hit "Submit") while the webcam recorded their expressions. When asked to act out frustration, 90 percent of the subjects did not smile, but when provided with that obnoxious data-erasing form, 90 percent of them did smile.

Night Shift Might Boost Women's Breast Cancer Risk: Study

Women who work the night shift more than twice a week might be increasing their risk for breast cancer, Danish researchers find.

Moreover, the risk appears to be cumulative and highest among women who describe themselves as "morning" people rather than "evening" people, the researchers say.

"About 10 to 20 percent of women in modern societies have night shift work," said lead researcher Johnni Hansen. "It might therefore be one of the largest occupational problems related to cancer."

Bluefin tuna record Fukushima radioactivity

Pacific Bluefin tuna caught off the coast of California have been found to have radioactive contamination from last year's Fukushima nuclear accident.

The fish would have picked up the pollution while swimming in Japanese waters, before then moving to the far side of the ocean.

Scientists stress that the fish are still perfectly safe to eat.

However, the case does illustrate how migratory species can carry pollution over vast distances, they say.

Amazon in danger as Brazil moves forward with bill, critics say

The legislation, influenced by the agricultural lobby, would reduce the amount of vegetation that must be preserved and weaken environmental penalties.

The Brazilian government is pressing forward with controversial legislation that critics say will lead to widespread destruction of the Amazon rain forest.

After months of heated discussion, President Dilma Rousseff on Monday presented a final version of the bill that was heavily influenced by the country's powerful agricultural lobby.

The update to the country's 1965 Forestry Code would reduce both the amount of vegetation landowners must preserve and the future penalties paid for those who currently flout environmental laws. After valuable wood is sold, much of the land in deforested areas ends up being cleared for grazing cattle and agriculture.

Hormone replacement therapy warning sounded

An analysis by a federal task force finds that hormone replacement therapy's risks may outweigh the benefits for women who are past menopause and healthy but hoping to ward off dementia, bone fractures or heart disease.

Women who are past menopause and healthy should not use hormone replacement therapy in hopes of warding off dementia, bone fractures or heart disease, says a new analysis by the government task force that weighs the risks and benefits of screening and other therapies aimed at preventing illness.

The recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force does not necessarily apply to women who use hormone replacement therapy to reduce menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. The balance of harm and benefits for that use is expected to be addressed soon in a report by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Commonly used painkillers may protect against skin cancer

A new study suggests that aspirin and other similar painkillers may help protect against skin cancer. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings indicate that skin cancer prevention may be added to the benefits of these commonly used medications.

Previous studies suggest that taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, which include aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen, as well as a variety of other nonprescription and prescription drugs, can decrease an individual's risk of developing some types of cancer. Sigrún Alba Jóhannesdóttir, BSc, of Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, and her colleagues looked to see if the medications might decrease the risk of the three major types of skin cancer: basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and malignant melanoma.

May 28, 2012

Postgraduate students are being used as 'slave labour'

Postgraduate research students are increasingly being used as 'slave labour' to cut teaching costs at universities across the UK, a London conference heard yesterday.

They warned teaching conditions were getting dramatically worse as academic cuts bite and universities are under mounting pressure to cut costs.

PhD students – occupying the precarious first rung on the academic career ladder – are the most vulnerable group amongst teaching staff, working on short-term contracts and increasingly pressured into working for free. Ever more aspiring academics are being used as cheap substitutes for more experienced but expensive senior lecturers. Academics warned that undergraduate students being asked to pay a total of £27,000 in tuition fees for their degrees are becoming more vociferous about being taught by junior academic staff. In one incident a heated dispute arose between students and PhD teaching staff over the marking of essays.

Mysterious, Invisible Dark Matter Exists! New Research Confirms

In April, astronomers with the European Southern Observatory led by Christian Moni-Bidin of the University of Concepcion in Chile raised eyebrows by suggesting that our cosmic neighborhood is empty of the extra mass needed to hold the galaxy together. But researchers Jo Bovy and Scott Tremaine from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, have submitted a paper claiming that the results reported by Moni Biden et al are “incorrect”, and based on an “invalid assumption” of the motions of stars within — and above — the plane of the galaxy.

The most popular current theories say that dark matter is a hitherto undetected particle called a WIMP (weakly interacting massive particle. But several underground detectors searching for the elusive WIMPs have come up empty, or with conflicting results. If the galaxy is so full of dark matter, why hasn't it been detected yet?

The ESO team, led by Christian Moni Bidin of the Universidad de Concepción in Chile, mapped over 400 stars near our Sun, spanning a region approximately 13,000 light-years in radius to estimate the mass of matter – visible and dark – in the sun's local neighborhood. . Their report identified a quantity of material that matched what could be directly observed: stars, gas, and dust… but no dark matter. “Our calculations show that it should have shown up very clearly in our measurements,” Bidin had stated, “but it was just not there!”

Epic Breakthrough: Insight into How Matter Formed in the Universe

An international collaboration of scientists has reported in landmark detail the decay process of a subatomic particle called a kaon – information that may help answer fundamental questions about how the universe began. The research used breakthrough techniques on some of the world’s fastest supercomputers to expand on a 1964 Nobel Prize-winning experiment. A new generation of IBM supercomputers now being installed will allow scientists to calculate the decay in even greater detail.

“This calculation brings us closer to answering fundamental questions about how matter formed in the early universe and why we, and everything else we observe today, are made of matter and not anti-matter,” says Thomas Blum, associate professor of physics at the University of Connecticut, a co-author of the paper.

When the universe began, did it start out with more particles of matter than anti-matter? That is the way the question was framed by another co-author, Taku Izubuchi of the RIKEN BNL Research Center and Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, NY. Or, he asked, were the two symmetrical and was there another mechanism that resulted in more matter than anti-matter?

Stanford team turns DNA into a hard drive

Silicon-based computers are fine for typing term papers and surfing the Web, but scientists want to make devices that can work on a far smaller scale, recording data within individual cells. One way to do that is to create a microscopic hard drive out of DNA, the molecule that already stores the genetic blueprints of all living things.

Stanford University bioengineer Drew Endy is a pioneer in the field of synthetic biology, which aims to turn the basic building blocks of nature into tools for designing living machines. This week, members of his lab reported in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences that they had figured out a way to turn DNA into a rewriteable data storage device that can operate within a cell. He spoke with The Times about the research.

May 25, 2012

Beetroot juice could help musicians hold breath

Taking a shot of concentrated beetroot juice could help divers and swimmers hold their breath for up to 11 per cent longer and enable musicians and singers to sustain notes for a greater length of time, a study suggests.

The juice helps the body perform more efficiently because it contains high levels of nitrate, which once inside the body is broken down into a compound called nitric oxide.

This helps our muscles to perform to the same level as normal while using up less oxygen, meaning each breath can keep us going for longer, scientists explained.

The Indian obsession with fairer skin sinks to a new low

THE Indian obsession with fair skin has always been a distasteful phenomenon. The fairness cream industry is gigantic, with men as well as women lathering these silly potions on their faces to make their skin a few shades lighter.

Pregnant women in rural areas believe they will give birth to light-skinned babies if they consume lots of ''white'' dairy products such as milk, cream, yoghurt, and butter. Dark models and actresses struggle for work as their skin isn't regarded as desirable.

Now an Indian company has taken this bizarre self-hating obsession to a new level with a ''feminine'' hygiene product that not only promises to keep a woman's genitalia ''fresh'' but also lighten the skin around the vagina.

Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return?

Although there is an urban legend that the world will end this year based on a misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar, some researchers think a 40-year-old computer program that predicts a collapse of socioeconomic order and massive drop in human population in this century may be on target.

Remember how Wile E. Coyote, in his obsessive pursuit of the Road Runner, would fall off a cliff? The hapless predator ran straight out off the edge, stopped in midair as only an animated character could, looked beneath him in an eye-popping moment of truth, and plummeted straight down into a puff of dust. Splat! Four decades ago, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer model called World3 warned of such a possible course for human civilization in the 21st century. In Limits to Growth, a bitterly disputed 1972 book that explicated these findings, researchers argued that the global industrial system has so much inertia that it cannot readily correct course in response to signals of planetary stress. But unless economic growth skidded to a halt before reaching the edge, they warned, society was headed for overshoot—and a splat that could kill billions.

Physicists set new record for graphene solar cell efficiency

Doping may be a no-no for athletes, but researchers in the University of Florida's physics department say it was key in getting unprecedented power conversion efficiency from a new graphene solar cell created in their lab.

Graphene solar cells are one of industry's great hopes for cheaper, durable solar power cells in the future. But previous attempts to use graphene, a single-atom-thick honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms, in solar cells have only managed power conversion efficiencies ranging up to 2.9 percent. The UF team was able to achieve a record breaking 8.6 percent efficiency with their device by chemically treating, or doping, the graphene with trifluoromethanesulfonyl-amide, or TFSA. Their results are published in the current online edition of Nano Letters.

"The dopant makes the graphene film more conductive and increases the electric field potential inside the cell," said Xiaochang Miao, a graduate student in the physics department. That makes it more efficient at converting sunlight into electricity. And unlike other dopants that have been tried in the past, TFSA is stable -- its effects are long lasting.

Beam Me Up: 'Tractor beams' of light pull small objects towards them

'Tractor beams' of light that pull objects towards them are no longer science fiction. Haifeng Wang at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute and co-workers have now demonstrated how a tractor beam can in fact be realized on a small scale.

Tractor beams are a well-known concept in science fiction. These rays of light are often shown pulling objects towards an observer, seemingly violating the laws of physics, and of course, such beams have yet to be realised in the real world. Haifeng Wang at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute and co-workers have now demonstrated how a tractor beam can in fact be realized on a small scale. "Our work demonstrates a tractor beam based only on a single laser to pull or push an object of interest toward the light source," says Wang.

Based on pioneering work by Albert Einstein and Max Planck more than a hundred years ago, it is known that light carries momentum that pushes objects away. In addition, the intensity that varies across a laser beam can be used to push objects sideways, and for example can be used to move cells in biotechnology applications. Pulling an object towards an observer, however, has so far proven to be elusive. In 2011, researchers theoretically demonstrated a mechanism where light movement can be controlled using two opposing light beams -- though technically, this differs from the idea behind a tractor beam.

May 24, 2012

Exercise Is Healthy, but Does It Make You Live Longer?

As 10,000 baby boomers a day turn 65, health officials are bracing themselves for a tsunami of chronic ills, from arthritis to osteoporosis. Yet a growing body of evidence shows that regular exercise can delay or prevent many age-related ailments, even among longtime couch potatoes.

"There's compelling data that older individuals participating in exercise programs show dramatic improvement in function and abilities," says Cedric Bryant, chief science officer for the American Council on Exercise in San Diego. In fact, experts suggest that many ills once attributed to normal aging are now being viewed as a result of chronic inactivity.

Does Health Care's Profit Motive Hurt More Than it Helps?

The profit motive in health care can be a very bad thing.

The incentive to maximize financial gain -- and not always at the benefit of patients -- can bring us too many surgeries and not enough primary care providers. At its worst, it can lead to massive fraud and abuse.

But it can also spark positive changes -- or so the architects of the federal health reform law hoped.

Has it? The jury's still out on some of ObamaCare's most sweeping reforms, but a recent story on new financial incentives for end-of-life care shows the mixed blessings of the profit motive.


Read more: http://www.californiahealthline.org/road-to-reform/2012/does-health-cares-profit-motive-hurt-more-than-it-helps.aspx#ixzz1vniU5CIi

The New Economics of Happiness

Economists can measure unemployment, GDP growth, and housing prices. But do they know how to measure happiness? If they did, what would we even do with the results?

Each year, the OECD produces the Better Life Index, a comprehensive report on the well-being of advanced countries based on a long list of factors, including income, housing, and life satisfaction. In the 2012 survey released this week, Australia took the top spot. The U.S. finished third.

Does that mean Australia is objectively the best place to live in the world? Absolutely not. Even the architects of the index would tell you that the "good life" is utterly subjective, and different people have different values. If you equally measure income and work-life balance (two real metrics in the OECD study), you assume that everybody in the world values money and down-time the same. In the real world, some people like smaller houses, some prefer long vacations, and some choose to work in banking because they like having money and don't care for down-time.

Big step toward quantum computing: Efficient and tunable interface for quantum networks

While several building blocks for a quantum computer have already been successfully tested in the laboratory, a network requires one additonal component: a reliable interface between computers and information channels. In the current issue of the journal Nature, physicists at the University of Innsbruck report the construction of an efficient and tunable interface for quantum networks.

May 23, 2012

Brain Tapeworms Cause Neurocysticercosis, A Creepily Common Parasitic Disease (PHOTO)

You've heard of disgusting, 20-foot-long tapeworms living inside peoples' intestines, but it turns out their larvae are even more horrific, and they could be eating holes in your brain right now, undetected.

Brain tapeworms, or Neurocysticercosis, are a parasitic disease of the nervous system, and Discover Magazine had an interesting (and vomit-inducing) expose on the problem this week.

Basically, brain tapeworms -- larvae that can attach themselves to the cranium in the form of large white cysts -- are the result of a wrong turn. The larvae are accustomed to traveling through a pig's bloodstream and attaching themselves to its muscles. But when a human eats undercooked pork, there's a chance he or she could be eating undercooked tapeworm larvae as well.

16 Year Old Schoolboy cracks age-old maths problem

A 16-year-old schoolboy has solved a mathematical problem which has stumped mathematicians for centuries, a newspaper report said. The boy put the historical breakthrough down to “schoolboy naivety.”

Shouryya Ray, who moved to Germany from India with his family at the age of 12, has baffled scientists and mathematicians by solving two fundamental particle dynamics problems posed by Sir Isaac Newton over 350 years ago, Die Welt newspaper reported on Monday.

Ray’s solutions make it possible to now calculate not only the flight path of a ball, but also predict how it will hit and bounce off a wall. Previously it had only been possible to estimate this using a computer, wrote the paper.

Ray first came across the old problem when his secondary school, which specializes in science, set all their year-11 pupils a research project.

Chimps' personalities are like people's, study says

"[Chimpanzees] have the same social problems that we do, they want to make friends and find mates and sort of gain position within their society," says team member Mark Adams, a researcher who conducted the research while studying for his PhD at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Dr Alexander Weiss, senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, who also worked on the study, agrees that chimpanzee personality is "highly similar" to that of humans.

Researchers categorise human personality into five "dimensions", sometimes known as "the big five", he explains.

"Those dimensions are neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness."

'The Demise of Guys': How video games and porn are ruining a generation

Is the overuse of video games and pervasiveness of online porn causing the demise of guys?

Increasingly, researchers say yes, as young men become hooked on arousal, sacrificing their schoolwork and relationships in the pursuit of getting a tech-based buzz.

Every compulsive gambler, alcoholic or drug addict will tell you that they want increasingly more of a game or drink or drug in order to get the same quality of buzz.

Phthalates in PVC floors taken up by the body in infants

A new study at Karlstad University in Sweden shows that phthalates from PVC flooring materials is taken up by our bodies. Phthalates are substances suspected to cause asthma and allergies, as well as other chronic diseases in children. The study shows that children can ingest these softening agents with food but also by breathing and through the skin.

Phthalates are a group of chemical compounds that occur in construction materials and a great number of common consumer goods such as toys, cleaning solvents, packaging, etc. Phthalates are suspected of disrupting hormones and may be related to several chronic diseases in children, like asthma and allergies, as shown in earlier studies. Flooring materials using softened PVC contain phthalates and have previously been shown to be a significant source of phthalates in indoor dust. This new study was designed to investigate whether flooring materials using PVC and other housing-related factors, together with other individual factors, can be tied to the uptake of phthalates by infants.

May 22, 2012

Learn French, Canada, it’s good for you!

Beyond this, scientists have already figured out that bilingualism is actually good for the “little grey cells,” as the famously smart and bilingual Hercule Poirot would say. People who learn two languages tend to have “thicker” brains, which leads to more positive outcomes in healthy aging and cognitive functions. More recently, Canadian neurologists found groundbreaking evidence that bilingualism may even delay the onset of Alzheimer’s.

If bilingualism can improve our brains and keep us lucid longer, why haven’t we been able to harness that opportunity in an officially bilingual country? As English becomes the global language of the 21st century, people all over the world are rapidly becoming bilingual and, presumably, smarter and healthier, boosting their global comparative advantage. Why can’t Canadians do the same, learning both English and French as a matter of course and, at the same time, strengthening our national character?

This is not as much of a pipe dream as it sounds. The real reasons for our blockade against bilingualism in Canada have to do with institutional structures, cultural effects and political choices.

What baboons can teach us about social status

Turns out it's not bad being top dog, or in this case, top baboon.

A new study by University of Notre Dame biologist Beth Archie and colleagues from Princeton and Duke Universities finds that high-ranking male baboons recover more quickly from injuries and are less likely to become ill than other males.

Archie, Jeanne Altmann of Princeton and Susan Alberts of Duke examined health records from the Amboseli Baboon Research Project in Kenya. They found that high rank is associated with faster wound healing. The finding is somewhat surprising, given that top-ranked males also experience high stress, which should suppress immune responses. They also found that social status is a better predictor of wound healing than age.

"In humans and animals, it has always been a big debate whether the stress of being on top is better or worse than the stress of being on the bottom," said Archie, lead researcher on the study. "Our results suggest that, while animals in both positions experience stress, several factors that go along with high rank might serve to protect males from the negative effects of stress."

Science Fiction Barely Ahead of Space Exploration Reality

Science and space exploration have caught up to science fiction in many ways, producing marvels beyond the imaginings of the visionary writers of the past. Yet there are staples of science fiction that current technology is still leagues away from attaining, and which some doubt can ever be achieved.

"'Beyond the solar system' is too far away," said Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the "Red Mars" trilogy and the upcoming "2312" (being released May 22 by Hachette Books' Orbit imprint). "It's a joke and a waste of time to think about starships or inhabiting the galaxy. It's a systemic lie that science fiction tells the world that the galaxy is within our reach."

However, NASA itself has said the idea is worth pursuit and has teamed with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to sponsor the 100 Year Starship project to spur scientists to look into it.

Drinking, drugs and risky sex go together

Doctors know that drinking, drugs and risky sex go together in young people — and a new study suggests loud music should be added to that list.

In the report from The Netherlands, researchers found that teens and young adults who spent a lot of time listening to loud music — already risky because of the long-term chance of hearing loss — were also more likely to smoke marijuana, binge drink and have sex without a condom.

"I think they've really shown that sex and drugs go with rock and roll," said Dr. Sharon Levy, head of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Boston Children's Hospital who wasn't involved in the new study

Braingasm: How Porn "Shuts Down" Women's Brains

“Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets,” said Andy Warhol. It seems America agrees: adult entertainment is an estimated $10 billion dollar industry in the U.S., though the ethics of capturing and manufacturing sexual desire on screen have been debated for decades. Criticisms abound, ranging in tone and degree of plausibility from you'll go blind! to larger questions of whether watching porn is linked to violent behavior, sexism, or a lack of self-actualization. ("He's just not that into anyone," quipped a New York Magazine article on the supposedly low libido of the Internet generation).

But what really goes on in a brain-on-porn? In a recent study conducted at the University of Groningen Medical Center performed PET scans on the brains of 12 pre-menopausal women, measuring differences in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the primary visual cortex as the women watched three videos. One video was a documentary on Caribbean marine life, and the other two were "women-friendly" porn films depicting foreplay, manual stimulation, oral sex, and vaginal intercourse.

The researchers found that viewing pornography lead to a decrease in the amount of blood sent to the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual stimuli. This is, of course, the exact opposite of what happens when we watch television or read a blog. Unlike with the blog or the TV show, the brain doesn't take in all of the visual details of a sex scene, and the more explicit the video, the less blood is sent to the visual cortex. (Looks like there's something to the "you'll go blind" threat, afterall.)

The Glow-In-The-Dark Kitty

Cat owners might find a glow-in-the-dark kitty to be fairly useful—you’ll never trip over the cat at night again—but the Mayo Clinic scientists who created this glowing cat had a bigger goal in mind: fighting AIDS.

The substance that makes the cat glow is a version of the green fluorescent protein that lights up the crystal jelly, a type of jellyfish that lives off the West Coast of the United States. Years ago scientists realized that the gene for GFP is a perfect marker when they insert another new gene into an organism. By inserting a version of GFP along with their gene of choice, they could easily see if they were successful because the organism would glow. Since the technique was first developed, researchers have made many glowing animals, including pigs, mice, dogs, even fish you can buy in the pet store.

First Bose-Einstein condensate of erbium: Quantum condensate of the thirteenth kind

Francesca Ferlaino's research team at the University of Innsbruck is the first to successfully create a condensate of the exotic element erbium.

Ultracold quantum gases have exceptional properties and offer an ideal system to study basic physical phenomena. By choosing erbium, the research team led by Francesca Ferlaino from the Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Innsbruck, selected a very exotic element, which due to its particular properties offers new and fascinating possibilities to investigate fundamental questions in quantum physics.

"Erbium is comparatively heavy and has a strongly magnetic character. These properties lead to an extreme dipolar behavior of quantum systems," says Ferlaino. Together with her research group, she found a surprisingly simple way to deeply cool this complex element by means of laser and evaporative cooling techniques. At temperatures close to absolute zero, a cloud of about 70,000 erbium atoms forms a magnetic Bose-Einstein condensate.

Rewritable DNA memory shown off

Researchers in the US have demonstrated a means to use short sections of DNA as rewritable data "bits" in living cells.

The technique uses two proteins adapted from bacteria to "flip" the DNA bits.

Though it is at an early stage, the advance could help pave the way for computing and memory storage within biological systems.

A team reporting in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences say the tiny information storehouses may also be used to study cancer and aging.

The team, from Stanford University's bioengineering department, has been trying for three years to fine-tune the biological recipe they use to change the bits' value.

May 18, 2012

'Bad' Fat May Hurt Brain Function Over Time

Women who eat a lot of "bad" saturated fat may hurt their overall brain function and memory over time, Harvard University researchers report.

In contrast, eating more "good" monounsaturated fat improved brain function and memory, suggesting that fats may have the same effect on the brain as they do on the heart, the researchers added.

"Making changes and substitutions in one's diet to eat fewer saturated fats and consume more monounsaturated fats might be a way to help prevent cognitive decline in older people," said lead researcher Dr. Olivia Okereke, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "This is important because cognitive decline affects millions of older people. So, this is a promising area of research."

Chemists merge experimentation with theory in understanding of water molecule

Water is the most abundant and one of the most frequently studied substances on Earth, yet its geometry at the molecular level -- the simple two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, and how they interact with other molecules, including other water -- has remained somewhat of a mystery to chemists.

Most understanding at that level is theoretical, requiring the use of supercomputers to make innumerable calculations over periods of weeks to make educated guesses as to the arrangements and structure of water clusters before they form into liquid water or ice.

But a new study, using experimentation with a highly advanced spectrometer for molecular rotational spectroscopy, has removed some of the mystery and validates some very complex theory involving the way water molecules bond. It is published in the May 18 issue of the journal Science.

Emotionally intelligent people are less good at spotting liars

People who rate themselves as having high emotional intelligence (EI) tend to overestimate their ability to detect deception in others. This is the finding of a paper published in the journal Legal and Criminological Psychology on18 May 2012.

Professor Stephen Porter, director of the Centre for the Advancement of Psychological Science and Law at University of British Columbia, Canada, along with colleagues Dr. Leanne ten Brinke and Alysha Baker used a standard questionnaire to measure the EI of 116 participants.

These participants were then asked to view 20 videos from around the world of people pleading for the safe return of a missing family member. In half the videos the person making the plea was responsible for the missing person's disappearance or murder.

May 17, 2012

Internet usage patterns may signify depression

In a new study analyzing Internet usage among college students, researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have found that students who show signs of depression tend to use the Internet differently than those who show no symptoms of depression.

Using actual Internet usage data collected from the university's network, the researchers identified nine fine-grained patterns of Internet usage that may indicate depression. For example, students showing signs of depression tend to use file-sharing services more than their counterparts, and also use the Internet in a more random manner, frequently switching among several applications.

The researchers' findings provide new insights on the association between Internet use and depression compared to existing studies, says Dr. Sriram Chellappan, an assistant professor of computer science at Missouri S&T and the lead researcher in the study.

Graphite enters different states of matter in ultrafast experiment

For the first time, scientists have seen an X-ray-irradiated mineral go to two different states of matter in about 40 femtoseconds (a femtosecond is one quadrillionth of a second).

Using the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford, Stefan Hau-Riege of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and colleagues heated graphite to induce a transition from solid to liquid and to warm-dense plasma.

Ultrafast phase transitions from solid to liquid and plasma states are important in the development of new material-synthesis techniques, in ultrafast imaging, and high-energy density science.

By using different pulse lengths and calculating different spectra, the team was able to extract the time dependence of plasma parameters, such as electron and ion temperatures and ionization states.

Coffee linked to lower risk of death

Researchers have some reassuring news for the legions of coffee drinkers who can't get through the day without a latte, cappuccino, iced mocha, double-shot of espresso or a plain old cuppa joe: That coffee habit may help you live longer.

A new study that tracked the health and coffee consumption of more than 400,000 older adults for nearly 14 years found that java drinkers were less likely to die during the study than their counterparts who eschewed the brew. In fact, men and women who averaged four or five cups of coffee per day had the lowest risk of death, according to a report in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The research doesn't prove that coffee deserves the credit for helping people live longer. But it is the largest analysis to date to suggest that the beverage's reputation for being a liquid vice may be undeserved.

Being Obese May Make Job Search Tougher

It was the small square photo clipped to an applicant's resume that most influenced whether a woman would be hired. But there was a hidden catch: The pictures showed the same six women both before and after weight-loss surgery.

The end result: The "employers" in the study rated these six women more poorly when their photos were taken when they were obese.

For the research, published recently in the International Journal of Obesity, the 95 raters actually were New Zealand under graduate students who weren't aware that weight bias was the real focus of the study.

"Clearly, these were not actual employers," said study co-author Janet Latner, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii. "But they are people who will enter the workforce, and the underlying prejudice that they're displaying could ultimately affect their decisions regarding future colleagues."

7 Unexpected Ways Facebook Is Good for You

While many may argue that social media networks only distract employees, research shows the opposite may be true.

Research from Keas.com found that a 10-minute Facebook break makes employees happier, healthier and more productive.

The study examined workers in three groups: one that was allowed no breaks, one that was allowed to do anything but use the Internet and one that was allowed 10 minutes to use the Internet and Facebook. The Facebook group was found to be 16 percent more productive than the group that was not allowed to use the Internet and nearly 40 percent more productive than the group that was allowed no breaks.

May 16, 2012

Chemicals in environment 'damaging male fertility'

New evidence has emerged that suggests chemicals routinely found in the environment could be damaging fertility in some men.

Researchers tested sheep that had been exposed to chemicals such as cosmetics, detergents and pollutants.

They found "abnormalities that could result in low sperm counts in 42% of the animals".

Astrophysicists Zero In On Gravity Theory

Most people take gravity for granted. But for University of Pennsylvania astrophysicist Bhuvnesh Jain, the nature of gravity is the question of a lifetime. As scientists have been able to see farther and deeper into the universe, the laws of gravity have been revealed to be under the influence of an unexplained force.

By innovatively analyzing a well-studied class of stars in nearby galaxies, Jain and his colleagues—Vinu Vikram, Anna Cabre, and Joseph Clampitt at the University of Pennsylvania and Jeremy Sakstein at the University of Cambridge—have produced new findings that narrow down the possibilities of what this force could be. Their findings, published on the Arxiv, are a vindication of Einstein's theory of gravity. Having survived a century of tests in the solar system, it has passed this new test in galaxies beyond our own as well.

In 1998, astrophysicists made an observation that turned gravity on its ear: the universe's rate of expansion is speeding up. If gravity acts the same everywhere, stars and galaxies propelled outward by the Big Bang should continuously slow down, like objects thrown from an explosion do here on Earth.

20% 'Fat Tax' Needed to Fight Obesity

It's a proposition some might find hard to swallow: a 20-percent tax on unhealthy food to improve the health of the nation.

Yet such a tax — spread across the food chain from manufacturer to consumer, coupled with changes in food policy to spur production of healthier food — is needed to reverse the pandemic of obesity and chronic diseases, researchers say.

Two articles published online today (May 15) in the British Medical Journal describe this course of action. These opinion pieces come one week before the 65th World Health Assembly, to convene on May 21 to 26 in Geneva, where diet-related diseases will be the primary topic.

Sulfur finding may hold key to Gaia theory of Earth as living organism

Is Earth really a sort of giant living organism as the Gaia hypothesis predicts? A new discovery made at the University of Maryland may provide a key to answering this question. This key of sulfur could allow scientists to unlock heretofore hidden interactions between ocean organisms, atmosphere, and land -- interactions that might provide evidence supporting this famous

The Gaia hypothesis -- first articulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970s -- holds that Earth's physical and biological processes are inextricably connected to form a self-regulating, essentially sentient, system.

One of the early predictions of this hypothesis was that there should be a sulfur compound made by organisms in the oceans that was stable enough against oxidation in water to allow its transfer to the air. Either the sulfur compound itself, or its atmospheric oxidation product, would have to return sulfur from the sea to the land surfaces. The most likely candidate for this role was deemed to be dimethylsulfide.

May 15, 2012

Watching the 'birth' of an electron: Ionization viewed with 10 attosecond resolution

A strong laser beam can remove an electron from an atom -- a process which takes place almost instantly. At the Vienna University of Technology, this phenomenon could now be studied with a time resolution of less than ten attoseconds (ten billionths of a billionth of a second). Scientists succeeded in watching an atom being ionized and a free electron being "born." These measurements yield valuable information about the electrons in the atom, which up until now hasn't been experimentally accessible, such as the time evolution of the electron's quantum phase -- the beat to which the quantum waves oscillate.

The time span of ten attoseconds (10*10^(-18) seconds) is so short that any comparison to everyday timescales fails. The ratio of ten years to a second is 300 million to one. Dividing a second by the same factor takes us to the incredibly short time scale of three nanoseconds -- in this period, light travels one meter. This is the time scale of microelectronics. Again dividing this tiny period of time by a factor of 300 million, we arrive at about ten attoseconds. This, is the timescale of atomic processes. It is the order of magnitude of an electron's period orbiting the nucleus. In order to measure or to influence these processes, scientists have been striving to access these timescales for years.

'This is the cost of being human': The same gene that allowed modern humans to evolve speech may have caused autism

Genes in in the human brain that only recently evolved - allowing us to speak and make complex decisions - are missing in some people with autism and learning disabilities.

‘This is the cost of being human,’ said Nenad Sestan, associate professor of neurobiology, at Yale's Kavli Institute for Neuroscience.

‘The same evolutionary mechanisms that may have gifted our species with amazing cognitive abilities have also made us more susceptible to psychiatric disorders such as autism.’

Looks matter more than reputation when it comes to trusting people with our money

Our decisions to trust people with our money are based more on how they look then how they behave, according to new research from the University of Warwick.

In a paper recently published in the PLoS One journal, researchers from Warwick Business School, the University College London and Dartmouth College, USA, carried out a series of experiments to see if people made decisions to trust others based on their faces.

They found people are more likely to invest money in someone whose face is generally perceived as trustworthy, even when they are given negative information about this person's reputation.

The team used a computer algorithm to create a set of 20 pairs of faces at opposing ends of the trustworthiness scale. This computer software modifies the apparent trustworthiness of faces by altering their features. The researchers were able to experimentally manipulate the unfakeable features (those related to shape of the face) that make a face look trustworthy or untrustworthy. These 40 faces were then used in a series of trust games with human

Censorship of 16th-Century Big Thinker Erasmus Revealed

More than 400 years before modern-day governments tried shutting down blogs or blocking tweets, two people tasked with censoring a sometimes-critic of the Catholic Church in Renaissance Europe took to their duties in very different ways: one with great beauty, the other with glue and, it appears, a message.

Now, two books, housed at separate libraries at the University of Toronto, illustrate two unusual approaches censors took when dealing with the same author, Erasmus.

Born in Rotterdam around 1466, Erasmus was a prolific writer who sought out wisdom in ancient Greek and Latin texts. His writings, mass produced thanks to the printing press, were at times critical of the Catholic Church.

By the time he died in 1536 the church was breaking apart, with splinter groups known as Protestants coming into conflict with the Catholics. English king Henry VIII was one of the most famous examples of a Protestant, creating a Church of England separate from church authorities in Rome.

Microbes Use 'Hearts' Card Game Trick to Freeload

Whether you are trying to improve your hand in a card game or improve your chances of surviving in a microbial soup, sometimes it pays to get rid of something.

A new theory, named for the card game Hearts and detailed in the March/April issue of the journal mBio, seeks to explain how some microbes simplify themselves by freeloading on their neighbors.

For example, common marine microbes, including Prochlorococcus, lack the ability to produce an enzyme thought to be the primary defense against hydrogen peroxide, a corrosive chemical formed when sunlight hits the surface of the ocean.

So how do these microbes survive? It appears they benefit from the work of their neighbors, which produce this enzyme and keep hydrogen peroxide levels under control.

The microbes in question benefit from giving up the ability to produce this enzyme because it requires iron, an element that can be in short supply in marine waters.

May 14, 2012

Dalai Lama alleges China tried to poison him

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says China trained female Tibetan agents to kill him by putting poison in their hair and scarves, which he might touch during a blessing.

"We received some sort of information from Tibet," he told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper in broken English. "Some Chinese agents training some Tibetans, especially women, you see, using poison the hair poisoned, and the scarf poisoned — they were supposed to seek blessing from me, and my hand touch … I don't know whether 100 per cent correct or not. There is no possibility to cross-check."

China, which has ruled Tibet since 1950, said the accusations weren't worth rebutting, adding that the Dalai Lama generally spreads false information.

"The Dalai always wears religious clothes while carrying out anti-China separatist activities in the global community, spreading false information and deceiving the public," China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a routine daily news briefing.

Be wary of the American Psychiatric Association

The American Psychiatric Association (from which I resigned in protest, some time ago) is at it again—making up, then retracting, new diagnoses that their committees generate and debate. It's as if though those committees have some sort of microscope trained on humanity, identifying new pathologies and yelling, “Voila! We have found another illness! Behold the mind malady on the slide!”

In this case, while preparing to publish its big seller (and huge profit center), the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM-V)—organized psychiatry’s compendium of known psychiatric illnesses—the powers that be at the APA have decided to remove from its latest revision of the manual a few diagnoses they thought they would include: “attenuated psychosis syndrome” and “mixed anxiety depressive disorder.” They are, however, sticking with their notion of jettisoning from the DSM-V, the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, while picking up one they call, “Autism Spectrum Disorder.”


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/05/14/be-wary-american-psychiatric-association/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fhealth+%28Internal+-+Health+-+Text%29#ixzz1urSJ99mZ

Trendy haircuts could result in lazy eyes, expert warns

Trendy haircuts that obscure one eye could have some long-term heath hazards, according to an optometrist.

Andrew Hogan, an executive member of Optometrists Association Australia, warned amblyopia -- the medical term for lazy eye -- could result from obstructed vision caused by hair.

"If a young [person] has a fringe covering one eye all the time, that eye won't see a lot of detail," Hogan said.

"And if it happens from a young age, that eye can become amblyotic."

Is Monogamy Ridiculous?

Our bodies, minds and sexual habits all reflect a highly sexual primate. Research from primatology, anthropology, anatomy and psychology points to the same conclusion: A nonpossessive, gregarious sexuality was the human norm until the rise of agriculture and private property just 10,000 years ago, about 5 percent of anatomically modern humans' existence on Earth.

The two primate species closest to us lend strong -- if blush-inducing -- support to this vision. Ovulating female chimps have intercourse dozens of times per day, with most or all of the willing males, and bonobos famously enjoy frequent group sex that leaves everyone relaxed and conflict-free.

The human body tells the same story. Men's testicles are far larger than those of any monogamous or polygynous primate, hanging vulnerably outside the body where cooler temperatures help preserve standby sperm cells for multiple ejaculations. Men sport the longest, thickest primate penis, as well as an embarrassing tendency to reach orgasm when the woman is just getting warmed up. These are all strong indications of so-called sperm competition in our species' past.

Women's pendulous breasts, impossible-to-ignore cries of sexual delight, or "female copulatory vocalization" to the clipboard-carrying crowd, and capacity for multiple orgasms also validate this story of prehistoric promiscuity.

"But we're not apes!" some might insist. But we are, in fact. Homo sapiens is one of four African great apes, along with chimps, bonobos and gorillas.

"OK, but we have the power to choose how to live," comes the reply. This is true. Just as we can choose to be vegans, we can decide to lead sexually monogamous lives. But newlyweds would be wise to remember that just because you've chosen to be vegan, it's utterly natural to yearn for an occasional bacon cheeseburger.

May 11, 2012

Why the euro is doomed to fall apart: it was an incredibly stupid idea in the first place

The euro is doomed to fall apart: no, not because I'm some nasty man in UKIP but because the basic idea was such a terrible one. Our chart above (from JP Morgan Asset Management, which you can see more easily by clicking here) shows just how terrible it was. It would, in economic terms, have been better to have a new currency for all countries beginning with the letter M than for the eurozone. Or for all countries that have the 5th parallel North passing through them.

Yes, of course, we all know, the euro is the bright new dawn, the vital step in stopping Germany from invading France. Again. No one seems to have noticed it that they managed it last time and having experienced the place seem to have no desire at all to go back. So this might not be a problem that needs a solution.

Easy Useless Economics

A few days ago, I read an authoritative-sounding paper in The American Economic Review, one of the leading journals in the field, arguing at length that the nation’s high unemployment rate had deep structural roots and wasn’t amenable to any quick solution. The author’s diagnosis was that the U.S. economy just wasn’t flexible enough to cope with rapid technological change. The paper was especially critical of programs like unemployment insurance, which it argued actually hurt workers because they reduced the incentive to adjust.

O.K., there’s something I didn’t tell you: The paper in question was published in June 1939. Just a few months later, World War II broke out, and the United States — though not yet at war itself — began a large military buildup, finally providing fiscal stimulus on a scale commensurate with the depth of the slump. And, in the two years after that article about the impossibility of rapid job creation was published, U.S. nonfarm employment rose 20 percent — the equivalent of creating 26 million jobs today.

So now we’re in another depression, not as bad as the last one, but bad enough. And, once again, authoritative-sounding figures insist that our problems are “structural,” that they can’t be fixed quickly. We must focus on the long run, such people say, believing that they are being responsible. But the reality is that they’re being deeply irresponsible.

Study offers fat people $3.5K to eat fast food every day

Washington University in St. Louis has the gastronomic deal of the century for fast-food freaks: They can eat to their artery-hardened heart's content all the pizza, tacos and bacon-swathed burgers they can handle every day for three months -- and walk away (assuming they still can) with $3,500. There's a catch, though: They have to be at least 30 pounds overweight to begin with and must gain 5 percent of their body weight during the obesity study, which is being done in hopes of figuring out why some overweight people get diabetes and develop cardiovascular problems while others do not. Along with the monetary benefit, once participants gain the required weight, they'll be entered into a weight-loss program to lose it.

Insight: America's hatred of fat hurts obesity fight

One night when Lynn McAfee was 5 years old, her psychologically troubled mother left her at the side of a road as punishment for a now forgotten infraction.

In the minutes before her mother's car returned, the terrified girl looked toward the nearby houses on the suburban Philadelphia street and wondered if she should walk over and ask for help.

"But I didn't," said McAfee, 62, who is now the director of medical advocacy for the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination. "I didn't think anyone would want a fat child."

The stigmatization of obesity begins in preschool: Children as young as 3 tell scientists studying the phenomenon that overweight people are mean, stupid, ugly and have few friends. It intensifies in adulthood, when substantial numbers of Americans say obese people are self-indulgent, lazy and unable to control their appetites. And it translates into poorer job prospects for the obese compared with their slim peers.

Crows know familiar human voices

Crows recognise familiar human voices and the calls of familiar birds from other species, say researchers.

The ability could help the intelligent birds to thrive in urban environments; using vocal cues from their human and avian neighbours to find food or be alerted to potential threats.

The team used recordings of human voices and jackdaw calls to test the birds' responses.

Bedroom Eyes Make Guys Look Sketchy

Beware the bedroom eyes, guys — new research suggests that a heavy-lidded, seductive gaze makes you seem less trustworthy to both men and women.

The study finds that guys with an open, normal gaze are preferred for a long-term relationship by women and as a business partner or neighbor by men. Women and men alike perceived the eyes-half-closed look as an attempt to secure a fling rather than a long-term relationship.

"A lot is conveyed in a glance," study researcher Daniel Kruger, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, told LiveScience.

Is Your Alarm Clock Making You Fat?

In the industrialized world, a conflict between two opposing forces — biology and the alarm clock — is helping to make people fat, new research suggests.

A discrepancy between the natural timing of sleep and work or school schedules leads to sleep deprivation, since people forced into schedules unnatural to them don't get enough sleep. And survey data indicates people with larger discrepancies are more likely to carry extra weight, according to the researchers.

"We are biological beings, and we have a biological clock, and what society — and I don't mean the bad guys, I mean all of us — is ignoring is the biological clock," said study researcher Till Roenneberg of the University of Munich. "We think we can do whatever we want with the social clock."

May 10, 2012

Ancient Mayan workshop for astronomers discovered

Archaeologists have found a small room in Mayan ruins where royal scribes apparently used walls like a blackboard to keep track of astronomical records and the society's intricate calendar some 1,200 years ago.

The walls reveal the oldest known astronomical tables from the Maya. Scientists already knew they must have been keeping such records at that time, but until now the oldest known examples dated from about 600 years later.

Astronomical records were key to the Mayan calendar, which has gotten some attention recently because of doomsday warnings that it predicts the end of the world this December. Experts say it makes no such prediction. The new finding provides a bit of backup: The calculations include a time span longer than 6,000 years that could extend well beyond 2012.

Sleep loss from 'social jetlag' tied to obesity

A mismatch between when our internal clock wants us to wake up and when the alarm clock rings to get people to work and school on time could be fuelling obesity, a European study suggests.

Tight work schedules and a hectic social calendar structure modern societies. The result is "social jetlag" — a syndrome related to the mismatch between the body's internal clock and the realities of our daily schedules that makes people sleepy.

Social jetlag means most people feel like they are working the early shift. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)
In Thursday's online issue of the journal Current Biology, researchers in Germany analyzed sleep, height, weight, age and sex data submitted by 65,000 Europeans.

"Beyond sleep duration, social jetlag is associated with increased body mass index," a measure of overweight and obesity, Professor Till Roenneberg of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Munich and his co-authors concluded.

Role of Meditation in Brain Development Gains Scientific Support

IN 1969, Katherine Splain, then a student at the College of New Rochelle, saw the dark side of drug use among her peers. So she sought a different — and legal — path on her inward journey.

“I had read that meditation was actually another way of achieving the kind of ‘high’ that you might experience if you did drugs,” said Ms. Splain, who is now 63.

She heard about a class in meditation being offered near the school, decided to visit and was impressed with the students she met. “There wasn’t a lot of peace in the world in 1969, but these people seemed very much at peace,” she recalled. “I said, ‘This looks good to me.’ ”

Forty-three years, one retirement and a second career later, Ms. Splain, who lives in Massapequa, N.Y., and goes by the first name Surabhi, is still practicing. And like many other meditators, she says she believes that it has not only expanded the boundaries of her consciousness, but that it has also had beneficial effects on her brain.

Pot Belly Boosts Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death: Study

A "spare tire" around the midsection raises the odds of sudden cardiac death in obese people, a new study finds.

A larger waist-to-hip ratio matters even more than body-mass index when it comes to sudden cardiac death risk, said study researcher Dr. Selcuk Adabag, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Body-mass index is a measure of weight relative to height used to determine normal weight and obesity.

Obesity, a moderate risk factor for sudden cardiac death, and apple-shaped bodies often go hand in hand.

Testosterone-fueled infantile males might be a product of Mom's behavior

By comparing the testosterone levels of five-month old pairs of twins, both identical and non-identical, University of Montreal researchers were able to establish that testosterone levels in infancy are not inherited genetically but rather determined by environmental factors.

"Testosterone is a key hormone for the development of male reproductive organs, and it is also associated with behavioural traits, such as sexual behaviour and aggression," said lead author Dr. Richard E. Tremblay of the university's Research Unit on Children's Psychosocial Maladjustment. "Our study is the largest to be undertaken with newborns, and our results contrast with the findings gained by scientists working with adolescents and adults, indicating that testosterone levels are inherited."

Why (Some) Scientists Avoid the Public

Though 58 percent of the scientists surveyed in the study reported engaging in some sort of public outreach, 31 percent said their universities were a major barrier in communicating their research. The few scientists who said they wished to dedicate their entire careers to public outreach reported facing disapproval from their peers.

"The best way you can do it is to keep your mouth shut and keep going until you finish. If [mentors] realize that you don't want to become them [university professors] eventually, well, then they'll basically not give you enough to work with — enough resources or time or investment on their part for you to finish your Ph.D.," said one respondent, a physics graduate student. "It's medieval."

Chronic cocaine use triggers changes in brain's neuron structure

Chronic exposure to cocaine reduces the expression of a protein known to regulate brain plasticity, according to new, in vivo research on the molecular basis of cocaine addiction. That reduction drives structural changes in the brain, which produce greater sensitivity to the rewarding effects of cocaine.

The finding suggests a potential new target for development of a treatment for cocaine addiction. It was published last month in Nature Neuroscience by researchers at the University at Buffalo and Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

"We found that chronic cocaine exposure in mice led to a decrease in this protein's signaling," says David Dietz, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, who did the work while at Mt. Sinai. "The reduction of the expression of the protein, called Rac1, then set in motion a cascade of events involved in structural plasticity of the brain -- the shape and growth of neuronal processes in the brain. Among the most important of these events is the large increase in the number of physical protrusions or spines that grow out from the neurons in the reward center of the brain.

May 9, 2012

Self-worth needs to go beyond appearance, experts say

Women with high family support and limited pressure to achieve the 'thin and beautiful' ideal have a more positive body image. That's according to a new study looking at five factors that may help young women to be more positive about their bodies, in the context of a society where discontent with appearance is common among women.

Babies' brains benefit from music lessons, even before they can walk and talk

After completing the first study of its kind, researchers at McMaster University have discovered that very early musical training benefits children even before they can walk or talk.

They found that one-year-old babies who participate in interactive music classes with their parents smile more, communicate better and show earlier and more sophisticated brain responses to music.

The findings were published recently in the scientific journals Developmental Science and Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

"Many past studies of musical training have focused on older children," says Laurel Trainor, director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind. "Our results suggest that the infant brain might be particularly plastic with regard to musical exposure."

May 8, 2012

Weird! Quantum Entanglement Can Reach into the Past

Spooky quantum entanglement just got spookier.

Entanglement is a weird statewhere two particles remain intimately connected, even when separated over vast distances, like two die that must always show the same numbers when rolled. For the first time, scientists have entangled particles after they've been measured and may no longer even exist.

If that sounds baffling, even the researchers agree it's a bit "radical," in a paper reporting the experiment published online April 22 in the journal Nature Physics.

"Whether these two particles are entangled or separable has been decided after they have been measured," write the researchers, led by Xiao-song Ma of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the University of Vienna.

Military Wants Computers Doing Our Homework

Imagine if you could ask Google to write a report based on information from relevant Wiki or article links — all from a simple question entered into Google's search engine. That scenario represents the military's vision for a computer system capable of helping overworked military staff members prepare a multitude of intelligence reports for officers and generals.

The military already uses updated Wiki pages and Internet search engines to help write reports, but its intelligence and operations staff still "spend large amounts of time preparing reports and briefings," according to the U.S. Navy. The Navy envisions a futuristic computer system that understands the meaning behind questions regarding a person, place or thing, and can compile a report based on its own Internet or database searches.

The Best Country for Raising Kids? Report Says It's Not the United States

Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom rounded out the top 10 on the Mother's Index; the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Sudan, Chad, Eritrea, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Yemen, and Afghanistan were also in the bottom 10.

"In the United States, mothers face a one in 2,100 risk of maternal death -- the highest of any industrialized nation," the report points out. "Only three developed countries -- Albania, Moldova, and the Russian Federation -- perform worse than the United States on this indicator."

In Save the Children's 13th State of the World's Mothers Report, released today, the United States ranks 25th out of 165 countries overall. That's up six spots from its 31st place showing last year, largely thanks to improvements in education rates for girls, Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children told Yahoo! Shine in an interview.

Long commutes may be bad for health

Long commutes to work, particularly more than 10 miles, may be hazardous to health and are associated with increased weight, bigger waistlines and poorer heart and lung fitness, according to a new study.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, who studied nearly 4,300 commuters, found that people who traveled 10 miles to work were more likely to have high blood pressure and workers commuting 15 miles had a greater risk of being obese and not getting enough exercise.

"The main finding is that the study was the first to show that long commutes can take away from exercise and are associated with higher weight, lower fitness levels and higher blood pressure, and all of these are strong predictors of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers," Christine Hoehner, the lead researcher of the study, said in an interview.

The electronic 'Pavlov's Dog'

Is it possible to design neural circuits with electronic devices to mimic learning? At this crossroad between neurobiology, material science and nanoelectronics, scientists from the University of Kiel are collaborating with their colleagues from the Research Center Jülich. Now, they have succeeded in electronically recreating the classical "Pavlov's Dog" experiment. "We used memristive devices in order to mimic the associative behaviour of Pavlov's dog in form of an electronic circuit," explains Professor Hermann Kohlstedt, head of the working group Nanoelectronics at the University of Kiel.

Freezing Time - femtosecond - One millionth of a billionth (10-15) of a second

What can happen in a femtosecond? One millionth of a billionth (10-15) of a second—it’s a time scale that’s almost impossible to grasp. In 1 femtosecond light travels a distance much less than the thickness of a human hair, even less than the diameter of a bacterium. Give it an entire second, and light travels from the Earth to the Moon. Yet much of the chemistry vital for life punches a femtosecond time clock. The making and breaking of atomic bonds during every reaction in chemistry and biology passes through a transition state, which can be thought of as the moment at which the bond decides if it will break or reform. Movement of the surrounding atomic environment over a few femtoseconds has an equal probability of nudging atoms to form new products or of returning them to their original configuration. Because it is so short-lived, the transition state has always been a mystery to scientists who wanted to understand its role in the action of enzymes, the essential catalysts of life.

How cannabis use during adolescence affects brain regions associated with schizophrenia

New research from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) published in Nature's Neuropsychopharmacology has shown physical changes to exist in specific brain areas implicated in schizophrenia following the use of cannabis during adolescence. The research has shown how cannabis use during adolescence can interact with a gene, called the COMT gene, to cause physical changes in the brain.

The COMT gene provides instructions for making enzymes which breakdown a specific chemical messenger called dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps conduct signals from one nerve cell to another, particularly in the brains reward and pleasure centres. Adolescent cannabis use and its interaction with particular forms of the COMT gene have been shown to cause physical changes in the brain as well as increasing the risk of developing schizophrenia.

May 7, 2012

We're Number ... 2? Are Americans in Denial About the Country's Decline?

Politicians in the United States must ritualistically assert that the United States is and always will be the world's leading economic, military and political power. This chant may help win elections in a country where respectable people deny global warming and evolution, but it has nothing to do with the real world.

Those familiar with the data know that China is rapidly gaining on the United States as the world’s leading economic power. According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China’s economy is currently about 80 percent of the size of the U.S. economy. It is projected to pass the United States by 2016.

Training immune system to fight cancer comes of age

More than 100 years after researchers first explored the potential to harness the body's immune system to fight cancer, the field's leading doctors see the concept finally proving itself on a large scale in the next year or two.

Two drugs based on immunotherapy are already available and have met with mixed results. Bristol-Myers Squibb's Yervoy has been hailed as a major breakthrough for treatment of melanoma since its approval last year, while Dendreon Corp's Provenge prostate cancer vaccine has been hampered by management missteps and doctors' reluctance to adopt the difficult-to-administer therapy after two years on the market.

Why the age of quantum computing is nearer than you think

Tech-buffs, investors, IT industrialists, and boffins alike eagerly await the day when the science of quantum computing yields practical technology. Physicists of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ), recently published research that, they believe, has brought that pivotal day closer.

For many years, physicists have sought to create an information network far superior to today's by exploiting quantum phenomena. The team of German researchers have constructed the first vital component of such a network: a link between two atomic nodes over which information can be received, sent, and stored using a single photon. Successful exchanges of information recently took place in Garching, Germany, between two MPQ labs connected by a 60-meter fiber-optic cable. Though only a prototype, this rudimentary network could be scaled up to more complex and distanced quantum networks. The team reports their research in Nature.

Magnetic bacteria may be building future bio-computers

Magnet-making bacteria may be building biological computers of the future, researchers have said.

A team from the UK's University of Leeds and Japan's Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used microbes that eat iron.

As they ingest the iron, the microbes create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those in PC hard drives.

The research may lead to the creation of much faster hard drives, the team of scientists say.

Secretive Blue Origin Reveals New Details of Spacecraft Plans

The curtain of secrecy is being raised by Blue Origin, a private entrepreneurial space group designing both suborbital and orbital vehicles.

Backed by Amazon.com mogul Jeff Bezos, the Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin group has completed wind tunnel testing of its next-generation craft, simply called the "Space Vehicle." It would transport up to seven astronauts to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station. Though the company has been stingy on public information in the past, new details of the recent work have been released.

Scientists 'switch off' brain cell death

Scientists have figured out how to stop brain cell death in mice with brain disease which could provide a deeper understanding of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

British researchers writing in the journal Nature say they have found a major pathway leading to brain cell death in mice with prion disease, the mouse equivalent of Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease (CJD).

They then worked out how to block it, and were able to prevent brain cells from dying, helping the mice live longer.

The finding, described by one expert as "a major breakthrough in understanding what kills neurons", points to a common mechanism by which brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and CJD damage the nerve cells.

Did a Copying Mistake Make Humans So Smart?

A copyediting error appears to be responsible for critical features of the human brain that distinguish us from our closest primate kin, new research finds.

When tested out in mice, researchers found this "error" caused the rodents' brain cells to move into place faster and enabled more connections between brain cells.

When any cell divides, it first copies its entire genome. During this process, it can make errors. The cell usually fixes errors in the DNA. But when they aren't fixed, they become permanent changes called mutations, which are sometimes hurtful and sometimes helpful, though usually innocuous.

May 4, 2012

Smog-eating tiles gobble up air pollution

Can the roof of your house help you breathe easier by reducing the amount of harmful pollutants from urban air?

"Yes," claims John Renowden, vice president of technology at Boral Roofing, a U.S. company that has introduced a line of roof tiles that they say have pollution-busting properties.

Based near Los Angeles, the most ozone-polluted city in the U.S., according to 2012 rankings by the American Lung Association, the company says its "Smog-Eating Tiles" improve air quality by neutralizing smog-forming nitrogen oxides released by most vehicles (read more about smog in our fact box).

The tiles are coated with titanium dioxide, a photocalyst that can oxidize harmful air pollutants emitted in the burning of fossil fuels. When exposed to natural light, the titanium dioxide breaks down nitrogen oxides in the air and turns them into harmless calcium nitrate.

The Enemy Within

The United States is a bit like a 375-pound, middle-aged man with a heart condition walking down a city street at night eating a Big Mac. He's sweating profusely because he's afraid he might get mugged. But the thing that's going to kill him is the burger.

Since the end of the Cold War, America has been on a relentless search for enemies. I don't mean a search in the sense of ferreting them out and defeating them. I mean that America seems to have a visceral need for them.

Simulating reality: Less memory required on quantum computer than on classical computer, study shows

Simulations of reality would require less memory on a quantum computer than on a classical computer, new research from scientists at the University of Bristol, published in Nature Communications, has shown.

The study by Dr Karoline Wiesner from the School of Mathematics and Centre for Complexity Sciences, together with researchers from the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore, demonstrates a new way in which computers based on quantum physics could beat the performance of classical computers.

When confronted with a complicated system, scientists typically strive to identify underlying simplicity which is then articulated as natural laws and fundamental principles. However, complex systems often seem immune to this approach, making it difficult to extract underlying principles.

Odd Ways the Mind Warps Time

Time, arguably our most precious nonrenewable resource, has a slippery nature in our minds. Sometimes it flows quickly. In other situations, it trickles at an unbearably slow pace. And, to the horror of many, it speeds as we age.

Why should something as reliable as a ticking clock be perceived with such inconsistency? Claudia Hammond, science author and broadcaster, explores this question in her new book, "Time Warped" (Canongate Books Ltd, 2012), out today (May 3).

She presented some of her findings at the British Psychology Society Annual Conference here in April, where she won the Society's Public Engagement and Media Award.

Low oxygen levels could drive cancer growth, research suggests

Low oxygen levels in cells may be a primary cause of uncontrollable tumor growth in some cancers, according to a new University of Georgia study. The authors' findings run counter to widely accepted beliefs that genetic mutations are responsible for cancer growth.

If hypoxia, or low oxygen levels in cells, is proven to be a key driver of certain types of cancer, treatment plans for curing the malignant growth could change in significant ways, said Ying Xu, Regents-Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and professor of bioinformatics and computational biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

The research team analyzed samples of messenger RNA data-also called transcriptomic data-from seven different cancer types in a publicly available database. They found that long-term lack of oxygen in cells may be a key driver of cancer growth. The study was published in the early online edition of the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology.

Lightning signature could help reveal the solar system's origins

Every second, lightning flashes some 50 times on Earth. Together these discharges coalesce and get stronger, creating electromagnetic waves circling around Earth, to create a beating pulse between the ground and the lower ionosphere, about 60 miles up in the atmosphere. This electromagnetic signature, known as Schumann Resonance, had only been observed from Earth's surface until, in 2011, scientists discovered they could also detect it using NASA's Vector Electric Field Instrument (VEFI) aboard the U.S. Air Force's Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite.

'Missing link' gene found that triggered leap in intelligence two million years ago - and separated man from the apes

It is a question that has long puzzled scientists. What made our ancestors break away from apes and advance so dramatically?

Now researchers believe they may have explained the missing link – a duplicated gene.

Researchers believe that a copy of gene SRGAP2, which appeared in ‘ape men’ around 2.5million years ago, helped our brain cells move faster and make more connections – enabling the brain to become more complex.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2138861/Missing-link-gene-triggered-leap-intelligence-million-years-ago--separated-man-apes.html#ixzz1tubbHgPQ

Beehive Glue Stops Prostate Cancer in Mice

Researchers at the University of Chicago found that a compound made in honeybee hives seems to stop the spread of prostate cancer cells in mice.

The compound, called caffeic acid phenethyl ester or CAPE, is made from propolis, the resin honeybees use to patch holes in their hives. The product has been known and used for centuries as a natural remedy for teeth and skin, as well as a defense against viruses and bacteria.

When the researchers fed CAPE to mice that had early stages of the human form of prostate cancer, it seemed to stop the cancer in its tracks.

“Their tumors simply stopped growing,” said Richard Jones, the study’s author and a cancer researcher at the University of Chicago. “When we stopped feeding the mice CAPE, their tumors returned.”

May 3, 2012

The Majorana Fermion – Elusive Subatomic Particle Confirmed

Newly discovered Majorana particles are scientists’ best chance to create subatomic supercomputers that could store as many pieces of information as there are particles in the universe. The discovery was made by researchers in the Netherlands who say it could be applied to make today’s computer technology obsolete.

“The goal is actually to develop those nano-scale devices into little circuits and actually make something like a quantum computer out of it, so they have special properties that could be very useful for computation, a particural kind of computation which we call quantum computation, which would replace actually our current computers by computers that are much more efficient than what we have now.”

The Majorana fermion’s existence was first predicted 75 years ago by Italian Ettore Majorana. Probing the Majorana’s particles could allow scientists to understand better the mysterious realm of quantum mechanics. Other groups working in solid state physics are thought to be close to making similar announcements….heralding a new era in super-powerful computer technology. Were he alive today Majorana may well be amazed at the sophisticated computer technology available to ordinary people in every day life. But compared to the revolution his particle may be about to spark, it will seem old fashioned in the not too distant future.

America, Land of the Equals

America used to be Sweden: According to new research, the America of the Founding Fathers was “more egalitarian than anywhere else in the measurable world.”

That’s an important finding, and one that will surprise most Americans today. Both inequality and American exceptionalism are high on the national political agenda. One idea that brings those issues together is the belief that Americans have an exceptional cultural tolerance for income inequality. Unlike Europeans, the thinking goes, most Americans are confident that they are “soon to be rich.” As a result, the conventional wisdom has it, Americans in the middle look up to their 1 percent and are loath to tax them.

But historical research by the economists Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson shows that when it comes to inequality, this American exceptionalism is an inversion of the conditions that prevailed at the time of American Revolution. In that era, which is so often invoked in today’s political and social battles, the United States was the world’s most egalitarian society — and proud to be so.

Cab driving riskier than police work

A violent clash over the weekend between a Montreal taxi driver and his fares that resulted in a man being struck by the cab is an all-too common example of the many angry confrontations cabbies face on an almost daily basis, people in the profession say.

In fact, taxi drivers and police have the highest on-the-job risk of murder, according to a Statistics Canada study of occupation-related homicides from 2000 to 2010.

Of the two, the study says, taxi drivers were twice as likely as police officers to be a victim of homicide while working, which drivers say reflects the fact that they are seen as vulnerable targets.

Vitamins E, C no help against vision disorder

Taking vitamins E and C may do nothing to protect aging eyes from macular degeneration -- the leading cause of vision loss in older adults, a new clinical trial finds.

Researchers had been hoping the vitamins, both antioxidants, could shield against the tissue erosion that occurs in macular degeneration. The condition involves damage to the center of the retina, which makes it hard to see fine details.

Studies have found that people who get more antioxidants in their diet have a lower risk of macular degeneration. But that doesn't rule out other possible diet or lifestyle explanations behind the link.

And so far, clinical trials using vitamin E have come up empty.

Are You A Lazy Slacker? You May Have Been Born That Way

New brain research suggests lazy people could be naturally born that way.

Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the study was performed by a team of scientists from Vanderbilt University who found evidence which suggests a person’s willingness to work hard and make money are tied to specific chemicals in 3 areas of the brain.

The scientists also say these new studies could improve the treatment and research of Attention-Deficit Disorder, Depression and schizophrenia.

The Vanderbilt team used a brain mapping technique called positron emission tomography (or PETscan) to conduct their research. They found the typical “go-getters” who were willing to work hard for reward or monetary gain released a larger amount of dopamine in the areas of the brain associated with reward and motivation. Conversely, the brains of slackers released dopamine in a very different part of the brain: The area which plays a role in emotion and risk perception.

Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1aGcU)

The 'eye-borg': First successful implant of a 'bionic' eye could restore sight to the blind

Two blind men can see again for the first time in more than two decades after an implant of a 3mm 'bionic eye' microchip.

Doctors believe in time Chris James will be able to recognise faces, once his brain learns to see again.

Chris, from Wiltshire, said: 'I've always had that thought that one day I would be able to see again.'

Surgeons in Oxford, led by Professor Robert MacLaren, fitted the chip at the back of Chris' eye in a complex eight-hour operation last month.

Dark Matter Theories Challenged By Satellite Galaxy Discovery

A sprawling collection of galaxies and star clusters surrounding our own Milky Way is challenging long-standing theories on the existence of dark matter, the mysterious substance thought to pervade the universe.

The structure of satellite galaxies and star clusters around the Milky Way is so vast that it reaches across a million light-years – 10 times as wide as the Milky Way itself, according to astronomers at the University of Bonn in Germany, who made the discovery.

Existing dark matter theories fail to explain the arrangement of these cosmic objects, the scientists say.

"Our model appears to rule out the presence of dark matter in the universe, threatening a central pillar of current cosmological theory," said study team member Pavel Kroupa, a professor of astronomy at the University of Bonn. "We see this as the beginning of a paradigm shift, one that will ultimately lead us to a new understanding of the universe we inhabit."

May 2, 2012

How Geniuses Think | The Creativity Post

Academics also tried to measure the links between intelligence and genius. But intelligence is not enough. Marilyn vos Savant, whose IQ of 228 is the highest ever recorded, has not exactly contributed much to science or art. She is, instead, a question-and-answer columnist for Parade magazine. Run-of-the-mill physicists have IQs much higher than Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman, who many acknowledge to be the last great American genius (his IQ was a merely respectable 122).

Genius is not about scoring 1600 on the SATs, mastering fourteen languages at the age of seven, finishing Mensa exercises in record time, having an extraordinarily high I.Q., or even about being smart. After considerable debate initiated by J. P. Guilford, a leading psychologist who called for a scientific focus on creativity in the sixties, psychologists reached the conclusion that creativity is not the same as intelligence. An individual can be far more creative than he or she is intelligent, or far more intelligent than creative.

Over 25% of Japanese in twenties mull suicide

More than a quarter of Japanese in their twenties have thought about taking their own life, according to a survey released Wednesday, in a nation with one of the world's highest suicide rates.

The survey found that 28.4 of respondents in their twenties had contemplated suicide, the highest of any age group, while 36.2 percent of that group had considered taking their own life in the past year, according to the report.

"The data show that the younger people hesitate to talk to others, or cannot find anyone to talk to when they have a problem because of shallow relationships with others," said the survey conducted by Japan's Cabinet Office.

"They tend to suffer alone," it added.

Dark Matter May Collide With Atoms Inside You More Often Than Thought | Dark Matter Human Body Collisions

Invisible dark matter particles may regularly pass through our bodies, and dozens to thousands of these particles may be colliding with atoms inside us every year, according to a new calculation.

However, radiation from these impacts is unlikely to cause cancer, investigators added.

Dark matter is one of the greatest scientific mysteries of our time — an invisible substance thought to make up five-sixths of all matter in the universe. Scientists think it might be composed of things called weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, that interact normally with gravity but very weakly with all the other known forces of the universe.

Matters of the Brain: Why Men and Women Are So Different

A prevalent understanding, particularly in the 1980s, was that boys and girls are born cognitively the same. It was the way parents and society treated them that made them different.

Since then, a preponderance of research has called this belief into question. The majority of today's psychologists agree that some of the differences exhibited by male and female brains are innate.

"We do socialize our boys and girls differently, but the contribution of biology is not zero," said Diane Halpern, a professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College in California, who has been studying cognitive gender differences for 25 years. Halpern was a keynote speaker at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference here last Thursday (April 19).

May 1, 2012

Latin America Opens Up to Equality

Quietly and against the odds, women are stepping up the political ladder in Latin America, moving ahead of the United States when it comes to political empowerment and closely matching much of Western Europe.

The Latin America-Caribbean region, once a caldron of machismo and gender inequality, has jumped ahead on women’s advancement with more female heads of state and heads of government — five — than any other area globally and a higher percentage of female members of parliament (22.5 percent) than any region except Nordic Europe, according to the 2012 Women in Politics survey of the agency U.N. Women and the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Female leaders are no novelty in the region. But now, at the same time, there are Dilma Rousseff of Brazil and Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica, both first-time presidents; Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, in her second term; and Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago and Portia Simpson-Miller of Jamaica, the first female prime ministers of their island nations. And in Mexico this election season, Josefina Vázquez Mota, an economist, is the first woman to run for president under a major-party banner.

Potent protein heals wounds, boosts immunity and protects from cancer

Lactoferrin is an important iron-binding protein with many health benefits. The major form of this powerful protein, is secreted into human biofluids (e.g. milk, blood, tears, saliva), and is responsible for most of the host-defense properties. Because of the many beneficial activities associated with it, researchers are starting to use lactoferrin as a potential therapeutic protein. And, in contrast to many other therapeutic proteins, which need to be injected into patients, lactoferrin can be orally active. Lactoferrin is the subject of the upcoming June issue of the journal Biochemistry and Cell Biology.

The bright side of death: Awareness of mortality can result in positive behaviors

Contemplating death doesn't necessarily lead to morose despondency, fear, aggression or other negative behaviors, as previous research has suggested. Following a review of dozens of studies, University of Missouri researchers found that thoughts of mortality can lead to decreased militaristic attitudes, better health decisions, increased altruism and helpfulness, and reduced divorce rates.

About one baby born each hour addicted to opiate drugs in U.S.

About one baby is born every hour addicted to opiate drugs in the United States, according to new research from University of Michigan physicians.

"Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report which found that over the last decade sales for opiate pain relievers like OxyContin and Vicodin have quadrupled," says Stephen W. Patrick, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., lead author of the study and a fellow in the University of Michigan's Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine.

"Although our study was not able to distinguish the exact opiate used during pregnancy, we do know that the overall use of this class of drugs grew by 5-fold over the last decade and this appears to correspond with much higher rates of withdrawal in their infants."