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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 11, 2014 at 10:01am

Migraines respond to great expectations
Meds and placebos both fight pain better when patients anticipate getting active drug
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/migraines-respond-great-expecta...
When it comes to pain, what migraine-headache sufferers think about their pills’ identities matters nearly as much as whether or not those pills contain active medication, a new study suggests.

Migraine meds labeled as placebos dull headache pain less effectively than the same pills identified either as the real deal or as possibly a genuine drug, say neuroscientist Rami Burstein of Harvard Medical School and his colleagues. Placebo pills given to migraine patients worked the same way, easing headache pain better when labeled as definitely or possibly containing active medication, the researchers report in the Jan. 8 Science Translational Medicine.

Placebo pills mislabeled as the migraine drug Maxalt provided close to as much pain relief as Maxalt mislabeled as a placebo. Overall, though, Maxalt eased migraine pain better than placebos did.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 11, 2014 at 9:56am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 11, 2014 at 9:11am

Q. If global warming exists then how is there a January 2014 North American polar vortex?
A. Well, actually it is the global warming that has caused the January 2014 polar vortex descent on North America.

Let me explain. First of all, global warming is a global event, whereas January 2014 North American Polar Vortex is a local temperature drop. Even if it has affected a large territory, it is in fact counter-balanced by a way more warm weather on the North Pole, so that the overall, the North Hemisphere is still warmer than usual.

Here is a visual image of more or less what is going on right now (actually what was going on in the late November, except that now the temperatures are way lower):
As you can see, the cold air from the north pole is pouring down onto the Canada and US territory, leading to a lower temperature in the USA, but a higher temperature in Europe/England/Norway/Siberia, but especially on the North Pole.

Now, the air from the North Pole doesn't usually pour down to the south, because it is contained by circular winds around the North Pole. These winds are due to the fact that the earth rotates on itself and are generated by the so-called Coriolis effect:

To displace the cold air from the North Pole so that it goes down, something has to destabilize it and push it out of it's place. More precisely, the only thing that would be able to do it is a huge convective force rising from a warm water and into the cold air. Pretty much in the same way the convective force creates the hurricanes:

Usually, this convective force doesn't exist on the North Pole, because of a huge sheet of ice, that protects the cold air from warm water and avoids convection. However, with global warming, this is less and less true. This is particularly untrue this year: according to NASA, in 2013 the Arctic Sea Ice Minimum is Sixth Lowest on Record). Thus this year this protection is particularly thin and and this protection is right now very thin. Coupled with the Gulfstream bringing up lots of warm water from equator, this leads to a massive convective cell over Arctic, leading to a cold air warming up over (relatively) warm thin ice and pushing out the masses of cold air over it to the regions where such warming does not occur, i.e. Canada, USA and Siberia.

Just like this:

http://www.quora.com/January-2014-North-American-Polar-Vortex/If-gl...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 11, 2014 at 8:29am

A New Method to Measure Consciousness Proposed

It's an important new tool for doctors, but what is it actually measuring?
Leonardo Da Vinci, in his Treatise on Painting (Trattato della Pittura), advises painters to pay particular attention to the motions of the mind, moti mentali. “The movement which is depicted must be appropriate to the mental state of the figure,” he advises; otherwise the figure will be considered twice dead: “dead because it is a depiction, and dead yet again in not exhibiting motion either of the mind or of the body.” Francesco Melzi, student and friend to Da Vinci, compiled the Treatise posthumously from fragmented notes left to him. The vivid portrayal of emotions in the paintings from Leonardo’s school shows that his students learned to read the moti mentali of their subjects in exquisite detail.

Associating an emotional expression of the face with a “motion of the mind” was an astonishing insight by Da Vinci and a surprisingly modern metaphor. Today we correlate specific patterns of electrochemical dynamics (i.e. “motions”) of the central nervous system, with emotional feelings. Consciousness, the substrate for any emotional feeling, is itself a “motion of the mind,” an ephemeral state characterized by certain dynamical patterns of electrical activity. Even if all the neurons, their constituent parts and neuronal circuitry remained structurally the same, a change in the dynamics can mean the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness.

But what kind of motion is it? What are the patterns of electrical activity that correspond to our subjective state of being conscious, and why? Can they be measured and quantified? This is not only a theoretical or philosophical question but also one that is of vital interest to the anesthesiologist trying to regulate the level of consciousness during surgery, or for the neurologist trying to differentiate between different states of consciousness following brain trauma.

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-new-method-to-measure-c...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 11, 2014 at 8:26am

Effect of Gravitational Focusing on Annual Modulation in Dark-Matter Direct-Detection Experiments

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v112/i1/e011301

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 11, 2014 at 8:05am

Competition Between Coral, Seaweed Occurs On A Chemical Level
Scientists investigating the chemical warfare that takes place on Fijian coral reefs have discovered that one species of seaweed increases its production of noxious anti-coral compounds when placed in contact with reef-building corals.

The study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show that as this seaweed competes chemically with the corals, its growth slows. The seaweed becomes more attractive to herbivorous fish, which boost their consumption of the skirmishing seaweed by 80 percent.

The findings are the first to demonstrate that seaweeds can boost their chemical defenses in response to competition from corals. Whether such responses are common or rare, however, will take further study with a broader range or seaweeds and corals.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113042729/seaweed-chemical-wa...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 11, 2014 at 8:03am

Study dispels theories of Y chromosome's demise
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/01/09/study.dispels.theories....!+Science+News+-+Popular%29

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 11, 2014 at 8:00am

New clues to how bacteria evade antibiotics
Scientists have made an important advance in understanding how a subset of bacterial cells escape being killed by many antibiotics. Cells become "persisters" by entering a state in which they stop replicating and are able to tolerate antibiotics. Unlike antibiotic resistance, which arises because of genetic mutations and is passed on to later generations, this tolerant phase is only temporary, but it may contribute to the later development of resistance.

In a new study in the journal Science, researchers from the MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection at Imperial College London have succeeded in visualising persister cells in infected tissues for the first time, and have identified signals that lead to their formation.

Virtually all bacterial species form subpopulations of persisters that are tolerant to many antibiotics. Persisters are likely to be a cause of many recurrent infections, but little is known about how they arise.

The team developed a method for tracking single cells using a fluorescent protein produced by the bacteria. They showed that Salmonella, which causes gastroenteritis and typhoid fever, forms large numbers of non-replicating persisters after being engulfed by immune cells called macrophages. By adopting this non-replicating mode, Salmonella survives antibiotic treatment and lingers in the host, accounting for its ability to cause recurrent infections.

The researchers also identified factors produced by human cells that trigger bacteria to become persisters.

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/01/09/new.clues.how.bacteria....

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 10, 2014 at 6:30am

Blame slow jet stream for US deep freeze not Polar Vortex!
As temperatures fell in North America, some blamed a mysterious polar vortex, but this is a system of winds in the stratosphere that spins around the Arctic and Antarctic during their respective winters, many kilometres above the weather. There is nothing unusual about the polar vortex, according to the UK Met Office. Instead, cold Arctic air has reached North America thanks to a weakened jet stream – the continent's atmospheric conveyor belt.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24824?cmpid=NLC|NSNS|2014-0109-GLOBAL&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNS&#.Us9aq_vngb4

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 10, 2014 at 6:27am

GPS satellites suggest Earth is heavy with dark matter
GPS is handy for finding a route, but it might be able to solve fundamental questions in physics too. An analysis of GPS satellite orbits hints that Earth is heavier than thought, perhaps due to a halo of dark matter.

Dark matter is thought to make up about 80 per cent of the universe's matter, but little else is known about it, including its distribution in the solar system. Hints that the stuff might surround Earth come from observations of space probes, several of which changed their speeds in unexpected ways as they flew past Earth. In 2009, Steve Adler of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, showed how dark matter bound by Earth's gravity could explain these anomalies.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129503.100?cmpid=NLC|NSNS|2014-0109-GLOBAL&utm_medium=NLC&utm_source=NSNS&#.Us9Z0Pvngb4

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