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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 6, 2013 at 6:23am

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=poor-choices-finan...
Poor Choices: Financial Worries Can Impair One’s Ability to Make Sound Decisions

New research suggests causative link between income level and cognitive function

The findings are detailed in the August 30 issue of Science.

New work by a team of psychologists and economists supports the notion that humans have limited bandwidth for decision-making. And the capacity to make choices can take a hit once that cognitive load becomes too heavy. The research, based on experimental data collected on people with varying levels of self-reported income in rural India and a New Jersey shopping mall, concludes simply that at least short-term financial stress can max out our mental reserves on par with the level of impairment that results from pulling an all-nighter.

Alternative issues that demand attention, such as calorie counting in a diet, also could reduce cognitive abilities. The difference with money, however, is that one can end a diet anytime; not so with financial stress.

These new results also support other research on an overlapping area of study—an emerging field called self-control, says Kathleen Vohs, a consumer behavior expert at the University of Minnesota who published an accompanying commentary piece on the findings in the same issue of Science.* Self-control studies look at the finite ability of individuals to overcome urges and make decisions. They posit, in a similar vein, that when individuals are faced with many decisions that demand trade-offs—such as a scarcity of food, time or money—and do not have a chance to recover from the resulting brain drain, self-control can tank. That depletion, in turn, could lead to decision-making patterns that impede one’s ability to improve their lot in life, she says. “Because the poor must overcome more urges and make difficult decisions more often than others, they are more likely to overeat, overspend and enact other problematic behaviors,” she wrote.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 6, 2013 at 6:14am

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=computer-game-play...
Computer Game-Playing Shown to Improve Multitasking Skills

A new study reveals, despite polarized opinion about brain-training packages, that playing a 3-D race car-driving video game reduced cognitive decline in subjects aged 60-85

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2013 at 6:50am

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927024813003127
An artificial vasculature for adaptive thermal control of windows

Benjamin D. Hattona, b, 1,
Ian Wheeldona, 2,
Matthew J. Hancockd,
Mathias Kollea, b,
Joanna Aizenberga, b,
Donald E. Ingbe
Highlights

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We demonstrate the fabrication of flexible, transparent microfluidic layers for window or solar panel cooling.
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Experimental evaluation of cooling rates for fluidic layers as a function of flow rate, temperature.
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Heat transfer model to evaluate the experimental results, and design scaled up implementation.
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Optical absorption measurements, as a function of fluidic composition and color change.
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Incorporating fluidic flow is a means to develop adaptive solar and window technologies.

Abstract

Windows are a major source of energy inefficiency in buildings. In addition, heating by thermal radiation reduces the efficiency of photovoltaic panels. To help reduce heating by solar absorption in both of these cases, we developed a thin, transparent, bio-inspired, convective cooling layer for building windows and solar panels that contains microvasculature with millimeter-scale, fluid-filled channels. The thin cooling layer is composed of optically clear silicone rubber with microchannels fabricated using microfluidic engineering principles. Infrared imaging was used to measure cooling rates as a function of flow rate and water temperature. In these experiments, flowing room temperature water at 2 mL/min reduced the average temperature of a model 10×10 cm2 window by approximately 7–9 °C. An analytic steady-state heat transfer model was developed to augment the experiments and make more general estimates as functions of window size, channel geometry, flow rate, and water temperature. Thin cooling layers may be added to one or more panes in multi-pane windows or as thin film non-structural central layers. Lastly, the color, optical transparency and aesthetics of the windows could be modulated by flowing different fluids that differ in their scattering or absorption properties.
Graphical abstract

A transparent, bio-inspired, convective cooling layer for building windows and solar panels has been developed to help reduce heating by solar absorption. The windows contain a vasculature network of millimeter-scale, fluid-filled channels. The design maintains a continuous flow of water to directly cool the window surface or change the optical absorption.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2013 at 6:31am

http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=biotechs-first-m...
Biotech’s First Musical Instrument Plays Proteins Like Piano Keys [Slide Show]

A biophysicist and composer have banded together to create a music box that turns biology into sound

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2013 at 6:30am

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pds.3482/abstract
Number of antigens in early childhood vaccines and neuropsychological outcomes at age 7–10 years

Shahed Iqbal1,*,
John P. Barile2,
William W. Thompson3,
Frank DeStefano1

ABSTRACT
Purpose

Concerns have been raised that children may be receiving too many immunizations under the recommended schedule in the USA. We used a publicly available dataset to evaluate the association between antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides from early childhood vaccines and neuropsychological outcomes at age 7–10 years.
Methods

Children aged 7–10 years from four managed care organizations underwent standardized tests for domain-specific neuropsychological outcomes: general intellectual function, speech and language, verbal memory, attention and executive function, tics, achievement, visual spatial ability, and behavior regulation. Vaccination histories up to 24 months of age were obtained from medical charts, electronic records, and parents' records. Logistic regressions and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to determine associations between total antigens up to 7, 12, and 24 months and domain-specific outcomes.
Results

On average, children (N = 1047) received 7266, 8127, and 10 341 antigens by ages 7, 12, and 24 months, respectively. For adjusted analyses, increase (per 1000) in the number of antigens was not associated with any neuropsychological outcomes. Antigen counts above the 10th percentile, compared with lower counts, were also not associated with any adverse outcomes. However, children with higher antigen counts up to 24 months performed better on attention and executive function tests (odds ratio for lower scores = 0.51, 95% confidence interval = 0.26, 0.99). Similar results were found with SEM analysis (b = 0.08, p = 0.02).
Conclusions

We did not find any adverse associations between antigens received through vaccines in the first two years of life and neuropsychological outcomes in later childhood. Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2013 at 6:29am

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=vaccinated...
Vaccinated Kids Show No Long-Term Ill Effects

No measurable increase in risk for neurological conditions could be found in a large cohort of preadolescent children who had been vaccinated on schedule when infants.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2013 at 6:07am

http://www.quora.com/Airplanes/Can-an-airplanes-exit-door-be-opened...
Can an airplane's exit door be opened in mid-flight? If so, how much effort would it take?
Read the replies by clicking on the link

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2013 at 6:03am

Q:What is it like living on Earth after living in space?
R: by Garrett Reisman, Former NASA Astronaut
First of all, the food is much better here on Earth. And taking showers and going to the bathroom are much easier to do here too.

But you do go through a strange adaptation process when you return to Earth. The first thing you notice is that everything seems really heavy. After 95 days on the International Space Station, I returned to Earth in the Space Shuttle Discovery. I took off my helmet and it felt like I was holding the anchor of the U.S.S. Nimitz in my hand. Oh great, I thought, how am I ever going to brush my teeth - the brush will be too heavy!

The next thing you notice is that your vestibular system is all messed up. Just sitting up took a lot of concentration. After about 15 minutes I was able to stand, but I would have keeled right over if there weren't a lot of things to hold onto in the middeck of Discovery.

You see, your brain is remarkably adaptable. After just a few days in space it figures out that your inner ear is producing nothing but garbage signals and so the brain turns the gains of those signals way down in its Kalman filter and cranks up the gains on your visual sensors, the eyes. Then all is well, until you come back to Earth. Now you need your inner ear sensor again, but the brain is still filtering it out. Gradually the brain re-calibrates, but it takes a while.

For me the process went pretty quickly. We don't know why, but anecdotally I can tell you that short and stocky people re-adapt more quickly than tall and lanky folks. This was only the second time in my life that being short came in handy. (The first time being during limbo contests at Bar Mitzvahs in New Jersey in the early 80s.)

After about an hour, I was able to walk around the Shuttle on the runway at the Kennedy Space Center and I was even able to go out to a local bar with my crewmates and I managed to eat half a cheeseburger and half a beer. On my second flight, STS-132, which was only about 2 weeks in duration, we went to the same bar and I had a whole cheeseburger and a whole glass of beer. So when people ask me what was the difference between a long-duration spaceflight and a short-duration spaceflight, I have a quantifiable answer: a half-cheeseburger and a half-beer!

Source: http://www.quora.com/Astronauts/What-is-it-like-living-on-Earth-aft...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 4, 2013 at 7:32am

http://www.asianscientist.com/in-the-lab/curry-ingredient-inspired-...
Curry Ingredient Helped Design Cancer Drugs
Researchers have combined features from an anti-nausea drug with a common South Asian kitchen spice to create more potent cancer drugs.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 4, 2013 at 7:31am

http://www.asianscientist.com/in-the-lab/pan-asian-wave-consumer-st...
Asian Consumers Still Very Traditional: Survey
A new study finds that traditional values continue to hold sway among Asia’s consumers, who value the family, believe in hard work, and are financially conservative.
Even as personal incomes have increased exponentially, in tandem with the region’s economic growth, a new study finds that traditional values continue to hold sway among Asia’s consumers – and companies would do well to appeal to these values in building their brands in the region.

The inaugural Pan-Asian Wave Consumer Study: Asian Marketing Trends and Consumer Insights, conducted by the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI) at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, has found that Asian consumers value the family, believe in hard work, and are financially conservative. They desire respect for the tremendous progress they have made, and yet shun flashy expressions of wealth.

ACI’s inaugural study for the Asian region polled almost 7,000 consumers from ten key economies in the region, in an extensive investigation of their needs, values, priorities, and beliefs. The six-month-long study was conducted in 14 languages, and received sponsorship from Blackberry, Coca-Cola, DBS Bank and Unilever.

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