In recent years, researchers ahave uncovered a host of reasons for people to remain physically active as they age, ranging from better brain function to improved immune responses. Now a new study points to yet another benefit: a link between moderate exercise and decreased inflammation of damaged skin tissue.
Scientists analysing data gathered by the Cassini spacecraft have confirmed the presence of heavy negative ions in the upper regions of Titan’s atmosphere. These particles may act as organic building blocks for even more complicated molecules and their discovery was completely unexpected because of the chemical composition of the atmosphere (which lacks oxygen and mainly consists of nitrogen and methane). The observation has now been verified on 16 different encounters and findings will be published in Geophysical Research Letters on November 28.
Fewer than one in three middle-class families in America is financially secure, and the remaining majority are either borderline or at high risk of falling out of the middle class altogether, according to a new study published this week by Demos and the Institute for Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis University. By a Thread: The New Experience of America’s Middle Class is the first comprehensive report to measure economic stability across the American middle class. Based on national government data, By a Thread is the first in a series of reports and briefing papers that will utilize the new “Middle Class Security Index” developed by the non-partisan policy center Demos and IASP/Brandeis.
A team of researchers from NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Science Foundation and the British Antarctic Survey unveiled a newly completed map of Antarctica today that is expected to revolutionize research of the continent’s frozen landscape. The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica is a result of NASA’s state-of-the-art satellite technologies and an example of the prominent role NASA continues to play as a world leader in the development and flight of Earth-observing satellites.
Using laser light to stir an ultracold gas of atoms, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Joint Quantum Institute (NIST/University of Maryland) have demonstrated the first “persistent” current in an ultracold atomic gas — a frictionless flow of particles. This relatively long-lived flow, a hallmark of a special property known as “superfluidity,” might help bring to the surface some deep physics insights, and enable super-sensitive rotation sensors that could someday make navigation more precise. The researchers report this feat in an upcoming Physical Review Letters.
Staring for the equivalent of every night for two weeks at the same little patch of sky with ESO’s Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers has found the extremely faint light from teenage galaxies billions of light years away. These galaxies, which the research team believes are the building blocks of normal galaxies like our Milky Way, had eluded detection for three decades, despite intensive searches.
Millions of gallons of hazardous waste resulting from the nation’s nuclear weapons program lie in a remote location in southeastern Washington state called Hanford. Beneath this desert landscape about two million curies of radioactivity and hundreds of thousands of tons of chemicals are captured within the stratified vadose zone below which gives rise to complex subsurface flow paths. These paths create uncertainties about where the contaminants go and what happens to them. With the mighty Columbia River bordering much of the site, where these nuclear wastes migrate, their composition and how fast they are traveling are of vital importance to both people and the environment.
Watching media violence significantly increases the risk that a viewer or video game player will behave aggressively in both the short and long term, according to a University of Michigan study published today in a special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. The study, by L. Rowell Huesmann, reviews more than half a century of research on the impact of exposure to violence in television, movies, video games and on the Internet.
Help a designer to figure out if an idea could become reality
A terrific first-person account in The Independent (UK) of a woman having her stomach removed to avoid an even worse cancer-related fate:
As when a loud noise wakes you unexpectedly in the night, I awoke startled, initially unaware of the world and the time that had passed. I’d been dreaming. Seconds passed, and the reality of my surroundings became clear to me. Like someone wiping the mist from a steamed-up window, my mind played catch-up and I remembered that I was in hospital; that I had spent the last few hours having my stomach completely removed.</blockquote
A new study provides the first evidence that people with higher body mass index (BMI) may have a greater response to ozone than leaner people. Short-term exposure to atmospheric ozone has long been known to cause a temporary drop in lung function in many people. This is the first study in humans to look at whether body weight influenced how much lung function falls after acute ozone exposure. Ozone is formed in the atmosphere in the presence of sunlight from other pollutants emitted from vehicles and other sources. Exposure occurs when people inhale air containing ozone.
Using a computer model simulation, Haruichi Washimi, a physicist at UC Riverside, has predicted when the interplanetary spacecraft Voyager 2 will cross the “termination shock,” the spherical shell around the solar system that marks where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed.
Two studies have found that people infected with HIV in Thailand die from the disease significantly sooner than those with HIV living in other parts of the world. According to the researchers, the shorter survival time measured in the studies suggests that HIV subtype E, which is the most common HIV subtype in Thailand, may be more virulent than other subtypes of the virus. Both studies are published in a special issue of the journal AIDS, the offical journal of the International AIDS Society.
An MIT research team’s latest finding suggests that stem cell therapies for the brain could be much more complicated than previously thought. In a study published in the Public Library of Science (PloS) Biology on Nov. 13, MIT scientists report that adult stem cells produced in the brain are pre-programmed to make only certain kinds of connections—making it impossible for a neural stem cell originating in the brain to be transplanted to the spinal cord, for instance, to take over functions for damaged cells.
Biodiesel can be manufactured from any product containing fatty acids, such as vegetable oil or animal fats. The report, “The greenhouse and air quality emissions of biodiesel blends in Australia,” assesses the emission levels and environmental impacts of biodiesel produced from sources including used cooking oil, tallow (rendered animal fat), imported palm oil and canola.
Fear of looking unattractive can be a stronger motivation for keeping people going to the gym than the hope of looking good, a study says. Researchers at the University of Bath, UK, interviewed 281 male and female undergraduates and got half to imagine a physically unattractive version of themselves they feared they might turn into. They then asked this group to either imagine a scenario in which they dramatically failed to keep to a fitness programme or one in which they dramatically succeeded.
U.S. institutions awarded a record number of science and engineering (S&E) doctorates in the academic year ending in June 2006, charting their fourth consecutive annual increase and a 6.7 percent increase over 2005. According to new data released by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), institutions awarded 29,854 S&E doctorates with biological sciences, computer sciences, mathematics, chemistry, social sciences and engineering reaching all time highs.
Premenopausal women with even mild depression have less bone mass than do their nondepressed peers, a study funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), shows. The level of bone loss is at least as high as that associated with recognized risk factors for osteoporosis, including smoking, low calcium intake, and lack of physical activity.
