Science Simplified!

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2014 at 7:03am

A study found that up to half of 2 year olds were picky eaters. Food choosiness isn’t just a way for a kid to drive a parent mad. Pickiness actually makes sense: When kids are bombarded with new and unusual foods, sticking with safe, familiar choices is a good way to avoid eating something dangerous.
''Prevalence of picky eaters among infants and toddlers and their caregivers’ decisions about offering a new food''
http://www.journals.elsevierhealth.com/periodicals/yjada/article/S0...
Taste preferences start in the womb. Fetuses slurp up amniotic fluid, seasoned with whatever mom just ate. (You’re welcome for the seasoned amniotic fluid imagery.) These flavors, such as carrots or garlic, tap into the fetus’s taste system, which begins to form in the first trimester. The more exposure to a certain taste, the more a baby is to eventually like it. Babies whose mothers drank a lot of carrot juice while pregnant and breastfeeding preferred carrot-flavored cereal, for instance.
Familiarity breeds yum, in this case. And I was amazed when I saw just what familiarity means to young kids. Some recent work suggests that to get kids used to a certain flavor, that food should be offered and tasted anywhere from six to 14 times. That’s a whole lot of tasting. And lots of parents don’t have that kind of patience. Most parents reported giving their kids a new food three to five times before giving up. Only 6 to 9 percent of parents kept offering a new food six to 10 times.

This kind of intense exposure can transform a reviled food into a familiar one, making the kid more likely to eat it. One study had parents give their child a tiny taste of one of six raw vegetables (carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, green peppers or red peppers) every day for 14 days. After this intense tasting exposure, kids were more likely to eat the veggie, the researchers found.

''If your kid hates broccoli, try, try again
Repeated exposure to foods may be the antidote to picky eating''
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/growth-curve/if-your-kid-hates-bro...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2014 at 5:59am

Stress alters children's genomes

Poverty and unstable family environments shorten chromosome-protecting telomeres in nine-year-olds.
Growing up in a stressful social environment leaves lasting marks on young chromosomes, a study of African American boys has revealed. Telomeres, repetitive DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes from fraying over time, are shorter in children from poor and unstable homes than in children from more nurturing families.
http://www.nature.com/news/stress-alters-children-s-genomes-1.14997

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2014 at 5:57am

Link between pesticides and Parkinson disease:
Aldehyde dehydrogenase variation enhances effect of pesticides associated with Parkinson disease

http://www.neurology.org/content/82/5/419.abstract
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/parkinsons-disease-and-pe...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2014 at 5:52am

After more than six decades, estimates of global species richness have failed to converge, remain highly uncertain, and in many cases, are logically inconsistent. Convergence in these estimates could be accelerated by adaptive learning methods where the estimation of uncertainty is prioritised and used to guide future research.
http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/abstract/S0169-5347%28...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2014 at 5:50am

Absence (of Weight) Makes the Heart Grow Rounder
After prolonged periods in microgravity, astronauts' hearts became more spherical, according to scans done on the International Space Station.
When astronauts float weightless in space, their muscles don't need to work as hard as on Earth. Muscles therefore atrophy during a long mission, which can cause trouble when space travelers return home. But what happens to that most vital of muscles, the heart?

To find out, 12 astronauts learned how to do ultrasound scans of their hearts. Then they recorded the organ's shape before, during and after a stint on the International Space Station. The scans showed that while in microgravity the astronauts' hearts deformed into more spherical shapes. Back on Earth, they stretched back into their usual elongated forms. The work was presented at the annual scientific session of the American College of Cardiology. [Chris May et al, Affect of Microgravity on Cardiac Shape: Comparison of Pre- and In-Flight Data to Mathematical Modeling]

Knowing how weightlessness changes the heart could help mission planners prevent long-term damage to astronauts’ cardiovascular systems due to long space voyages. Astronauts on the space station already perform specific exercises to keep their weight-bearing muscles toned. Similarly well-designed workouts might keep hearts both in shape—and in the right shape.
http://www.scientificamerican.com

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2014 at 5:33am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 8, 2014 at 8:51am

Science Writing: An Examination into Sourcing Habits
A research study that looks at where science writers get their information from, and why they choose these sources over others.
http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=121217&type=mem...
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/25GF795

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 8, 2014 at 8:25am

Loneliness Impacts DNA Repair
Social stress takes a toll on chromosomes, affects aging
Humans experiencing high levels of social stress and deprivation have shorter telomeres.

Telomeres are the protective caps at the end of chromosomes which are the best indicators of biological age (cell age) as against chronological age.

Scientists say the length of telomeres is crucial in deciding biological age - long ones indicate healthy ageing, short ones indicate some form of irreparable damage.

Several studies suggest that telomere shortening is accelerated by stress but until now no studies examined the effects of social isolation on telomere shortening.

To test whether social isolation accelerates telomere shortening, Denise Aydinonat, a doctorate student at the Vetmeduni Vienna conducted a study using DNA samples that she collected from African grey parrots during routine check-ups.

African greys are highly social birds, but they are often reared and kept in isolation from other parrots. She and her collaborators compared the telomere lengths of single birds versus pair-housed individuals with a broad range of ages (from 1 to 45 years).

The telomere lengths of older birds were shorter compared to younger birds, regardless of their housing.

But the important finding of the study was that single-housed birds had shorter telomeres than pair-housed individuals of the same age group.

Dustin Penn from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at the Vetmeduni Vienna said, "This study is the first to examine the effects of social isolation on telomere length in any species."

Penn and his team previously conducted experiments on mice which were the first to show that exposure to crowding stress causes telomere shortening. He points out that this new finding suggests that both extremes of social conditions affect telomere attrition.

There is extensive scientific evidence showing the strong correlation between the percentage of short telomeres and the risk of developing diseases associated with ageing, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and Alzheimer's.

In turn, lifestyle habits (nutrition, obesity and exercise) are increasingly being shown to impact telomere length.

Telomeres shorten with each cell division, and once a critical length is reached, cells are unable to divide further. Although cellular senescence is a useful mechanism to eliminate worn-out cells, it appears to contribute to aging and mortality.
http://www.vetmeduni.ac.at/

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 8, 2014 at 8:23am

Social stress takes a toll on chromosomes, affects aging
Humans experiencing high levels of social stress and deprivation have shorter telomeres.

Telomeres are the protective caps at the end of chromosomes which are the best indicators of biological age (cell age) as against chronological age.

Scientists say the length of telomeres is crucial in deciding biological age - long ones indicate healthy ageing, short ones indicate some form of irreparable damage.

Several studies suggest that telomere shortening is accelerated by stress but until now no studies examined the effects of social isolation on telomere shortening.

To test whether social isolation accelerates telomere shortening, Denise Aydinonat, a doctorate student at the Vetmeduni Vienna conducted a study using DNA samples that she collected from African grey parrots during routine check-ups.

African greys are highly social birds, but they are often reared and kept in isolation from other parrots. She and her collaborators compared the telomere lengths of single birds versus pair-housed individuals with a broad range of ages (from 1 to 45 years).

The telomere lengths of older birds were shorter compared to younger birds, regardless of their housing.

But the important finding of the study was that single-housed birds had shorter telomeres than pair-housed individuals of the same age group.

Dustin Penn from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at the Vetmeduni Vienna said, "This study is the first to examine the effects of social isolation on telomere length in any species."

Penn and his team previously conducted experiments on mice which were the first to show that exposure to crowding stress causes telomere shortening. He points out that this new finding suggests that both extremes of social conditions affect telomere attrition.

There is extensive scientific evidence showing the strong correlation between the percentage of short telomeres and the risk of developing diseases associated with ageing, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and Alzheimer's.

In turn, lifestyle habits (nutrition, obesity and exercise) are increasingly being shown to impact telomere length.

Telomeres shorten with each cell division, and once a critical length is reached, cells are unable to divide further. Although cellular senescence is a useful mechanism to eliminate worn-out cells, it appears to contribute to aging and mortality.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 8, 2014 at 6:07am

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