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November 28, 2012

Compound found in rosemary protects against macular degeneration in laboratory model

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leicester scientists print human genome in 130 books

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

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

November 27, 2012

Autism: Traffic pollution linked, study suggests

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

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

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

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

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

November 26, 2012

Metamaterials manipulate light on a microchip

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

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

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

Climate change evident across Europe, confirming urgent need for adaptation

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

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

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

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

Drained wetlands give off same amount of greenhouse gases as industry

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

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

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

November 23, 2012

Chemical "Soup" Clouds Connection between Toxins and Poor Health

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

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

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

Transforming 'noise' into mechanical energy at nanometric level

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Star Trek classroom: Next generation of school desks

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

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

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

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

November 22, 2012

Paleontologists find 6.5-foot tall penguin fossils in Antarctica

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

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

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

Cartilage made easy with novel hybrid printer

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

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

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

Toxic Chemicals in Fashionable Clothing

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

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

November 21, 2012

Early death link to muscle power

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

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

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

November 20, 2012

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

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

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

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

Quantum cryptography done on standard broadband fibre

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alcohol provides protective effect, reduces mortality substantial

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

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

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

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

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

New Smell Discovered "olfactory white"

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

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

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

Greenhouse gases hit record high

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sweat glands play major role in healing human wounds

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

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

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

November 16, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

Beating the dark side of quantum computing

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

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

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

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

November 15, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

Theorists bridge space-time rips

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

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

November 12, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

November 6, 2012

How your brain likes to be treated at revision time

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

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

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

Low vitamin D levels linked to longevity, surprising study shows

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For self-healing concrete, just add bacteria and food

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swine Flu Vaccine May Be Linked to Rare Nerve Disorder

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

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

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

November 5, 2012

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

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

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

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

Quantum Mystery of Light Revealed by New Experiment

Is light made of waves, or particles?

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

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

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

November 2, 2012

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

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

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

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