The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard
Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking
Students retain information better with pens than laptops
Writing notes by hand may lead to deeper understanding of lecture material, study suggests

Abstract

Taking notes on laptops rather than in longhand is increasingly common. Many researchers have suggested that laptop note taking is less effective than longhand note taking for learning. Prior studies have primarily focused on students’ capacity for multitasking and distraction when using laptops. The present research suggests that even when laptops are used solely to take notes, they may still be impairing learning because their use results in shallower processing. In three studies, we found that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand. We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/22/0956797614524581

Beware of False or Misleading Claims for Treating Autism
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/UCM394800...
“There is no cure for autism,” the bulletin states. “So products or treatments claiming to ‘cure’ autism do not work as claimed. The same is true of many products claiming to ‘treat’ autism. Some may carry significant health risks.”

“Autism Speaks and its many partners are working diligently to find treatments for autism that are safe and effective,” comments developmental pediatrician Paul Wang, Autism Speaks senior vice president and head of medical research. “We know that parents often are desperate to find help for their children. It’s tragic when unscrupulous companies take advantage of these families by pushing so-called treatments that are not only ineffective, but may be costly and dangerous.”

Technique traces DNA direct to your ancestor's home 1,000 years ago
A new ground breaking technique has been developed which can locate the village your ancestors lived 1,000 years ago and hence trace back DNA formation.

Previously scientists had been able to link DNA formation to within a 700 km area which in a continent like Europe is very unreliable.

The Geographic Population Structure (GPS) tool created by Eran Elhaik from the University of Sheffield and Tatiana Tatarinova from the University of Southern California works similarly to a satellite navigation system.

The new technique has been 98% successful in locating worldwide populations to their right geographic regions down to their village and/ or island of origin.

The breakthrough has massive implications for life-saving personalized medicine, advancing forensic science and for the study of populations whose ancestral origins are under debate such as African Americans, Roma gypsies and European Jews.

Genetic admixture occurs when individuals from two or more previously separated populations interbreed. This results in the creation of a new gene pool representing a mixture of the founder gene pools.

Elhaik said, "What we have discovered here is a way to find not where you were born but where your DNA was formed up to 1,000 years ago by modelling these admixture processes. What is remarkable is that we can do this so accurately that we can locate the village where your ancestors lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago — until now this has never been possible."

Such processes were extremely common in history during migrations and invasions. When the Vikings invaded Britain and Europe in the 11th century and settled with locals some of them formed a new Viking-Anglo-Saxon gene pool but some married other Vikings and maintained their original gene pool allowing GPS to trace their Scandinavian origins.

Discovery of a certain genotype might indicate the potential for a genetic disease and suggest that diagnostic testing be done. Also as scientists learn more about personalized medicine there is evidence that specific genotypes respond differently to medications — making this information potentially useful when selecting the most effective therapy and appropriate dosage.

To demonstrate how accurate GPS predictions are, Elhaik analyzed data from 10 villages in Sardinia and over 20 islands in Oceania. The team was able to place a quarter of the residents in Sardinia directly to their home village and most of the remaining residents within 50km of their village.

The results for Oceania were no less impressive with almost 90% success of tracing islanders exactly to their island.

Tatarinova has now developed a website making GPS accessible to the public. "To help people find their roots, I developed a website that allows anyone who has had their DNA genotyped to upload their results and use GPS to find their ancestral home," Tatarinova said.

Fiber's ability to curb appetite may come from gut molecules traveling to and acting on the brain, not the gut alone. As mice digest fiber, their guts release a molecule called acetate that appears to influence appetite suppression chemicals sent from the brain, researchers report April 29 in Nature Communications. The finding could open up new possibilities for weight management, the scientists say. It's unclear exactly how the gut-made acetate influences the brain chemicals that regulate appetite, and it's unknown wheather the amount of fiber given to the mice in the study would be part of a realistic diet.

A new study shows how the mammalian brain can distinguish the signal from the noise. Brain cells in the primary auditory cortex can both turn down the noise and increase the gain on the signal. The results show how the brain processes sound in noisy environments, and might eventually help in the development of better voice recognition devices, including improvements to cochlear implants for those with hearing loss. Not to mention getting Siri to understand you on a chaotic street corner.
''Mechanisms of noise robust representation of speech in primary auditory cortex''
the auditory system maintains a robust representation of speech in noisy and reverberant conditions by preserving the same statistical distribution of responses in all conditions. Reconstructed stimulus from population of cortical neurons resembles more the original clean than the distorted signal. We show that a linear spectrotemporal receptive field model of neurons with a static nonlinearity fails to account for the neural noise reduction. Although replacing static nonlinearity with a dynamic model of synaptic depression can account for the reduction of additive noise, only the combined model with feedback gain normalization is able to predict the effects across both additive and reverberant conditions.
Abstract

Humans and animals can reliably perceive behaviorally relevant sounds in noisy and reverberant environments, yet the neural mechanisms behind this phenomenon are largely unknown. To understand how neural circuits represent degraded auditory stimuli with additive and reverberant distortions, we compared single-neuron responses in ferret primary auditory cortex to speech and vocalizations in four conditions: clean, additive white and pink (1/f) noise, and reverberation. Despite substantial distortion, responses of neurons to the vocalization signal remained stable, maintaining the same statistical distribution in all conditions. Stimulus spectrograms reconstructed from population responses to the distorted stimuli resembled more the original clean than the distorted signals. To explore mechanisms contributing to this robustness, we simulated neural responses using several spectrotemporal receptive field models that incorporated either a static nonlinearity or subtractive synaptic depression and multiplicative gain normalization. The static model failed to suppress the distortions. A dynamic model incorporating feed-forward synaptic depression could account for the reduction of additive noise, but only the combined model with feedback gain normalization was able to predict the effects across both additive and reverberant conditions. Thus, both mechanisms can contribute to the abilities of humans and animals to extract relevant sounds in diverse noisy environments.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/17/1318017111

When E. coli cells aren't hanging out in a crowd, the rate at which their genes mutate to resist the antibiotic rifampicin increases up to threefold. The finding shows that the microbes' ability to develop antibiotic resistance depends on a gene that helps the bacterial cells communicate. Manipulating this type of crosstalk among bacterial cells may provide a way to slow the pervasive emergence of antibiotic resistance, researchers suggest April 29 in Nature Communications.

Excessive regulations turning scientists into bureaucrats
Scientists and institutions pinpointed regulations they believe are ineffective or inappropriately applied to research, and audit and compliance activities that take away research time and result in university over-regulation.
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/05/01/excessive.regulations.t...

Antimicrobial agents incorporated into edible films applied to foods to seal in flavor, freshness and color can improve the microbiological safety of meats, according to researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. Using films made of pullulan -- an edible, mostly tasteless, transparent polymer produced by the fungus Aureobasidium pulluns -- researchers evaluated the effectiveness of films containing essential oils derived from rosemary, oregano and nanoparticles against foodborne pathogens associated with meat and poultry.

The results demonstrate that the bacterial pathogens were inhibited significantly by the use of the antimicrobial films, said Catherine Cutter, professor of food science. She hopes that the research will lead to the application of edible, antimicrobial films to meat and poultry, either before packaging or, more likely, as part of the packaging process.

In the study, which was published online in the April issue of the Journal of Food Science, researchers determined survivability of bacterial pathogens after treatment with 2 percent oregano essential oil, 2 percent rosemary essential oil, zinc oxide nanoparticles or silver nanoparticles.
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/05/01/antimicrobial.edible.fi...

Decoding the chemical vocabulary of plants
Plants spend their entire lifetime rooted to one spot. When faced with a bad situation, such as a swarm of hungry herbivores or a viral outbreak, they have no option to flee but instead must fight to survive. What is the key to their defense? Chemistry. Thanks to this ongoing conflict, plants have evolved into amazing chemists, capable of synthesizing tens of thousands of compounds from thousands of genes. These chemicals, known as specialized metabolites, allow plants to withstand transient threats from their environment. What's more, some of the same compounds benefit humans, with more than a third of medicinal drugs derived from plant specialized metabolites.

Understanding how plants evolved this prodigious chemical vocabulary has been a longstanding goal in plant biology. A team of Carnegie scientists led by Seung Yon Rhee and Lee Chae undertook a large-scale comparative analysis of plant genomes to investigate how specialized metabolism evolved. Their findings, as reported in Science, have major implications for the way scientists search for novel beneficial metabolites in plants.
Collectively, these properties represent a distinct signature of specialized metabolic genes that offers an innovative strategy for the discovery of novel specialized metabolites from various plant species. Such discoveries could have wide-ranging implications for many research fields, including agriculture, biotechnology, drug discovery, and synthetic biology.

"Despite our reliance on plant compounds for health and well-being, we know very little about how they are produced or the true extent of their diversity in nature," says Rhee. "We hope that our findings will enable researchers to use these signatures as a tool to discover previously unknown specialized metabolites, to investigate how they benefit the plant, and to determine how they might benefit us."
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/05/01/decoding.chemical.vocab...
Source: Carnegie Institution

Watch the Earth From Space, Live!
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/2014/05/01/watch...

“The Improbability Principle” – The Book
Why is it that incredibly unlikely phenomena actually happen quite regularly and why should we, in fact, expect such things to happen? Here, in this highly original book – aimed squarely at anyone with an interest in coincidences, probability or gambling – eminent statistician David Hand answers this question by weaving together various strands of probability into a unified explanation, which he calls the improbability principle.

This is a book that will appeal not only to those who love stories about startling coincidences and extraordinarily rare events, but also to those who are interested in how a single bold idea links areas as diverse as gambling, the weather, airline disasters and creative writing as well as the origin of life and even the universe.

http://improbability-principle.com/the-improbability-principle-the-...

Elephant Seals Reveal Anti-Inflammatory Secrets of Carbon Monoxide
The gas appears to protect the deep-diving seals from cell damage after periods of restricted blood flow
Blood samples from elephant seals may help to explain how carbon monoxide — a poison — can stop inflammation, researchers have found.

The seals routinely dive to depths of 500 metres and stay underwater for 25 minutes at a time, surfacing for just a few minutes between plunges1. During these forays, blood flow to nonessential tissues and organs is restricted, but the tissues are not damaged. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, suggest that high levels of carbon monoxide in the seals' blood has a protective effect — echoing laboratory research on rats and mice that has found the gas has anti-inflammatory properties and can lead to better outcomes after organ transplant.
http://www.nature.com/news/deep-diving-seals-reveal-secrets-of-carb...

New Super-Heavy Element 117 Confirmed by Scientists

Atoms of a new super-heavy element — the as-yet-unnamed element 117 — have reportedly been created by scientists in Germany, moving it closer to being officially recognized as part of the standard periodic table.

Researchers at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research, an accelerator laboratory located in Darmstadt, Germany, say they have created and observed several atoms of element 117, which is temporarily named ununseptium.

Element 117 — so-called because it is an atom with 117 protons in its nucleus — was previously one of the missing items on the periodic table of elements. These super-heavy elements, which include all the elements beyond atomic number 104, are not found naturally on Earth, and thus have to be created synthetically within a laboratory.
http://www.livescience.com/45289-superheavy-element-117-confirmed.html

How bacteria exploit proteins to trigger potentially lethal infections
New research by scientists at the University of York sheds light on how bacteria exploit human proteins during infections. A research team led by Professor Jennifer Potts, a British Heart Foundation Senior Research Fellow in York's Department of Biology, studied how Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause life-threatening human infections, attach to two proteins fibronectin and fibrinogen found in human blood.

The human proteins play important roles in clot formation and wound healing and the bacteria appear to exploit them during the process of infection.
- Journal of Biological Chemistry

How Ancient Egyptians Moved Massive Pyramid Stones
The ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids may have been able to move massive stone blocks across the desert by wetting the sand in front of a contraption built to pull the heavy objects, according to a new study.

Physicists at the University of Amsterdam investigated the forces needed to pull weighty objects on a giant sled over desert sand, and discovered that dampening the sand in front of the primitive device reduces friction on the sled, making it easier to operate. The findings help answer one of the most enduring historical mysteries: how the Egyptians were able to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of constructing the famous pyramids.

To make their discovery, the researchers picked up on clues from the ancient Egyptians themselves. A wall painting discovered in the ancient tomb of Djehutihotep, which dates back to about 1900 B.C., depicts 172 men hauling an immense statue using ropes attached to a sledge. In the drawing, a person can be seen standing on the front of the sledge, pouring water over the sand, said study lead author Daniel Bonn, a physics professor at the University of Amsterdam.
"Egyptologists thought it was a purely ceremonial act," Bonn told Live Science. "The question was: Why did they do it?"

Bonn and his colleagues constructed miniature sleds and experimented with pulling heavy objects through trays of sand.

When the researchers dragged the sleds over dry sand, they noticed clumps would build up in front of the contraptions, requiring more force to pull them across.

Adding water to the sand, however, increased its stiffness, and the sleds were able to glide more easily across the surface. This is because droplets of water create bridges between the grains of sand, which helps them stick together, the scientists said. It is also the same reason why using wet sand to build a sandcastle is easier than using dry sand, Bonn said.

But, there is a delicate balance, the researchers found.

"If you use dry sand, it won't work as well, but if the sand is too wet, it won't work either," Bonn said."There's an optimum stiffness."

The study, published April 29 in the journal Physical Review Letters, may explain how the ancient Egyptians constructed the pyramids.

Is Lead Poisoning one of the reasons for the Down fall of Ancient Rome?
It is now universally accepted that utilization of lead for domestic purposes and water distribution presents a major health hazard. The ancient Roman world was unaware of these risks. How far the gigantic network of lead pipes used in ancient Rome compromised public health in the city is unknown. Lead isotopes in sediments from the harbor of Imperial Rome register the presence of a strong anthropogenic component during the beginning of the Common Era and the Early Middle Ages. They demonstrate that the lead pipes of the water distribution system increased Pb contents in drinking water of the capital city by up to two orders of magnitude over the natural background. The Pb isotope record shows that the discontinuities in the pollution of the Tiber by lead are intimately entwined with the major issues affecting Late Antique Rome and its water distribution system.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/16/1400097111

http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2014/04/scienceshot-did-lead...

MERS is a respiratory virus, known initially as novel coronavirus (CoV). Until now, it has largely been confined to the Middle East, having been first discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012. One possibility is that camel meat or raw camel milk might be one route of transmission. fruit bats are increasingly thought to be the reservoir for MERS—specifically, the Egyptian tomb bat.
SARS (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus), which is a cousin to MERS, caused a major worldwide epidemic in 2003, infecting more than 8000 and killing almost 10%. SARS caused major infections in China, Hong Kong and Toronto, among others, before being contained by unprecedented multinational cooperation and careful infection control, within only about a year. SARS was linked to live animal markets, and specifically to civets.

Animals are often the hidden source of outbreaks, known as zoonoses.

Young blood may reverse ageing : Researchers think it may contain natural chemicals that turn back the clock to rejuvenate the ageing brain
Scientists have shown that an infusion of young blood can reverse signs of ageing. Although the experiment was conducted on laboratory mice, the next step could involve a study of elderly humans.
In the study, blood from three-month-old mice was repeatedly injected into 18-month-old mice near the end of their natural life span. The "vampire therapy" improved the performance of the elderly mice in memory and learning tasks. Structural, molecular and functional changes were also seen in their brains.

Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, the US team led by Dr Tony Wyss-Coray, from Stanford University, said: "Our data indicate that exposure of aged mice to young blood late in life is capable of rejuvenating synaptic plasticity and improving cognitive function.

"Future studies are warranted in aged humans and potentially those suffering from age-related neurodegenerative disorders."
Evidence was seen of new connections forming in the hippocampus, a brain region vital to memory and sensitive to ageing.

Ageing mice given eight infusions of young blood over three weeks improved their performance in mental tests. Infusions of blood from other elderly mice had no effect.

What caused the changes is still unknown, but it appears to involve activation of a protein called Creb in the hippocampus that helps regulate certain genes.

The scientists wrote: "One possibility is that introducing 'pro-youthful' factors from aged blood can reverse age-related impairments in the brain, and a second possibility is that abrogating pro-ageing factors from aged blood can counteract such impairments.These two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, warrant further investigation, and may each provide a successful strategy to combat the effects of ageing."

Dr Eric Karran, from the dementia charity Alzheimer's Research UK, described the results as "interesting", but added that the study "does not investigate the type of cognitive impairment that is seen in Alzheimer's disease".

Put science before emotion over radioactive waste
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/columnists/put-science-before-emoti...

Odors define us, yet the scientific zeitgeist is that we don’t communicate through pheromones—scents that influence behavior. A new study challenges that thinking, finding that scent can change whether we think someone is masculine or feminine.

Humans carry more secretion and sweat glands in their skin than any other primate. Yet 70% of people lack a vomeronasal organ, a crescent-shaped bundle of neurons at the base of each nostril that allows a variety of species—from reptiles to nonprimate mammals—to pick up on pheromones. (If you’ve ever seen your cat huff something, he’s using this organ.) Still, scientists have continued to hunt for examples of pheromones that humans might sense.

Two strong candidates are androstadienone (andro) and estratetraenol (estra). Men secrete andro in their sweat and semen, while estra is primarily found in female urine. Researchers have found hints that both trigger arousal—by improving moods and switching on the brain’s “urge” center, the hypothalamus—in the opposite sex. Yet to be true pheromones, these chemicals must shape how people view different genders.

That’s exactly what they do, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing report online today in Current Biology.
http://bcove.me/qupsica9
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/05/man-or-woman-trust-your-...

Some e-cigarettes deliver a puff of carcinogens
Electronic cigarettes appear to be safer than ordinary cigarettes for one simple — and simply obvious — reason: People don't light up and smoke them.

With the e-cigarettes, there is no burning tobacco to produce myriad new chemicals, including some 60 carcinogens.

But new research suggests that, even without a match, some popular e-cigarettes get so hot that they, too, can produce a handful of the carcinogens found in cigarettes and at similar levels.

A study to be published this month in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research found that the high-power e-cigarettes known as tank systems produce formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, along with the nicotine-laced vapour that their users inhale. The toxin is formed when liquid nicotine and other e-cigarette ingredients are subjected to high temperatures, according to the study. A second study that is being prepared for submission to the same journal points to similar findings.

The long-term effects of inhaling nicotine vapour are unclear, but there is no evidence to date that it causes cancer or heart disease as cigarette smoking does. Indeed, many researchers agree that e-cigarettes will turn out to be much safer than conventional cigarettes, an idea that e-cigarette companies have made much of in their advertising. The website for Janty, a company that manufactures popular tank systems, says the benefits of e-cigarettes include having "no toxins associated with tobacco smoking."

Nonetheless, the new research suggests how potential health risks are emerging as the multibillion-dollar e-cigarette business rapidly evolves, and how regulators are already struggling to keep pace. While the Food and Drug Administration last month proposed sweeping new rules that for the first time would extend its authority to e-cigarettes, the FDA has focused largely on what goes into these products — currently, an unregulated brew of chemicals and flavourings — rather than on what comes out of them, as wispy plumes of flavoured vapour.
This finding suggests that in certain conditions," e-cigarettes "might expose their users to the same or even higher levels of carcinogenic formaldehyde as tobacco smoke.

How volcanoes erupt: Using friction experiments, University of Liverpool scientists have shown that frictional melting plays a role in determining how a volcano will erupt.
Volcanologists from the University of Liverpool have discovered how lava dome volcanoes erupt. This could help develop methods on predicting how volcanoes will act.

The process of frictional melting determines how the volcano will erupt. The speed of the lava rise and how much friction it creates is determined by this process. Within the lava dome the magma and rocks melt as they rub together by the intense heat. This creates a method called ‘stick-slip’ when the magma adheres to the rocks and stops moving upward until pressure builds — when enough pressure builds up, the magma moves upward again. This process continues until the magma reaches the mouth of the volcano in an eruption.

By studying the stick-slip process, a research team, led by University of Liverpool volcanologist Dr. Jackie Kebdrick, has conducted experiments that could help predict eruptions.

The researchers analyzed lava collected from Mount St. Helens in the United States and the Soufriere Hills volcano in Montserrat. Remnants of pseudotachylyte, which is a cooled friction melt, were found. The study also revealed the process takes place in the conduit leading to the top of the volcano before its eruption.

“The closer we get to understanding the way magma behaves, the closer we will get to the ultimate goal: predicting volcanic activity when unrest begins. Whilst we can reasonably predict when a volcanic eruption is about to happen, this new knowledge will help us to predict how the eruption will behave. With a rapidly growing population inhabiting the flanks of active volcanoes, understanding the behaviour of lava domes becomes an increasing challenge for volcanologists.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113137915/volcanic-eruption-p...

Making sense of at which direction and at what speed a car is moving may not be possible without the interpretation of the brain, but processing of some of these information starts right at the retinas of the eyes.

Researchers have now explained how the various types of cells in the retina are wired to help the eyes detect the direction and speed of moving objects.

"The wiring diagram represents only a tiny proportion of the total number of connections on the retina," said Sebastian Seung, a computational neuro scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.

To understand how cells are wired together in the retina, the researchers analysed high-resolution electron microscope images of a mouse retina with the help of nearly 2,200 members of EyeWire, an online 'citizen-science' game set up to help with brain-mapping efforts.
To understand how cells are wired together in the retina, the researchers analysed high-resolution electron microscope images of a mouse retina with the help of nearly 2,200 members of EyeWire, an online 'citizen-science' game set up to help with brain-mapping efforts.

Players traced the pathways through the layers of cells to create a high-resolution wiring diagram of part of the retina.

The reconstructed map showed that while one type of bipolar cell (that transmit signals from the photoreceptors to the ganglion cells) connects to the amacrine cells (responsible for 70 percent of input to retinal ganglion cells) filaments close to the cell body, another does do so farther away along the length of the filaments.

The bipolar cells that connect closer to the starburst amacrine cell bodies are known to relay their messages with a time delay, whereas the others transmit their immediately, the researchers discovered.

Because of the lag in the first type of connection, signals that hit two nearby locations on the retina at two slightly different times - as would happen when an object moves across the visual field - could reach the same amacrine-cell filament at the same time.

According to the researchers, the following could help explain how the retina detects motion: The amacrine cell might fire only when it receives this combined information, signalling that something is moving in the direction of the filament.

Stimuli not moving in the direction of the filament would produce impulses that reach the amacrine cell at different times, so that it would not fire.

The study appeared in the journal Nature.

Are we ready for contact with extraterrestrial intelligence?
The SETI project scientists are known for tracking possible extraterrestrial signals, but now they are also considering sending messages from Earth telling of our position. A researcher from the University of Cádiz (Spain) questions this idea in view of the results from a survey taken by students, revealing the general level of ignorance about the cosmos and the influence of religion when tackling these matters. The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project is an initiative that began in the 70s with funding from NASA, but that has evolved towards the collaboration of millions of Internet users for the processing of data from the Arecibo Observatory (Puerto Rico), where space tracking is carried out.

Now the members of this controversial project are trying to go further and not only search for extraterrestrial signs, but also actively send messages from Earth (Active SETI) to detect possible extraterrestrial civilisations.. Astrophysicists, such as Stephen Hawking, have already warned of the risk that this implies for humanity, since it could favour the arrival of beings with more advanced technology and dubious intentions.
The ethical and sociological implications of this proposal have been analysed by the neuro-psychologist Gabriel G. de la Torre, professor at the University of Cádiz and participant in previous projects such as Mars 500 or space psychology topical team project financed by the European Space Agency, who wonders: "Can such a decision be taken on behalf of the whole planet? What would happen if it was successful and 'someone' received our signal? Are we prepared for this type of contact?"
The results, published in the journal 'Acta Astronautica', indicate that, as a species, humanity is still not ready for trying to actively contact a supposed extraterrestrial civilisation, since people lack knowledge and preparation. For this reason, SETI researchers are recommended in this study to look for alternative strategies.

"This pilot study demonstrates that the knowledge of the general public of a certain education level about the cosmos and our place within it is still poor. Therefore, a cosmic awareness must be further promoted -- where our mind is increasingly conscious of the global reality that surrounds us -- using the best tool available to us: education," De la Torre emphasised. "In this respect, we need a new Galileo to lead this journey."

It was deduced from the questionnaires, which will soon be available to everyone on line, that university students and the rest of society lack awareness on many astronomical aspects, despite the enormous progress of science and technology. It also revealed that the majority of people consider these subjects according to their religious belief and that they would rely on politicians in the event of a huge global-scale crisis having to be resolved.

"Regarding our relation with a possible intelligent extraterrestrial life, we should not rely on moral reference points of thought, since they are heavily influenced by religion. Why should some more intelligent beings be 'good'?," added the researcher, who believes that this matter should not be monopolized by a handful of scientists: "In fact, it is a global matter with a strong ethical component in which we must all participate."
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/05/06/are.we.ready.contact.wi...

Each time a human cell divides, it must first make a copy of its 46 chromosomes to serve as an instruction manual for the new cell. Normally, this process goes off without a hitch. But from time to time, the information isn't copied and collated properly, leaving gaps or breaks that the cell has to carefully combine back together. Researchers have long recognized that some regions of the chromosome,called "fragile sites," are more prone to breakage and can be a breeding ground for human cancers. But they have struggled to understand why these weak spots in the genetic code occur in the first place.

A comprehensive mapping of the fragile sites in yeast by a team of Duke researchers shows that fragile sites appear in specific areas of the genome where the DNA-copying machinery is slowed or stalled, either by certain sequences of DNA or by structural elements. The study, which appears May 5 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could give insight into the origins of many of the genetic abnormalities seen in solid tumors.
In this study, researchers wanted to find the link between the copier malfunction and its genetic consequences on a genome-wide scale. First, he knocked down the levels of DNA polymerase in yeast cells to ten-fold lower than normal. Then he used microarray or "gene chip" technology to map where segments of DNA had been rearranged, indicating that a fragile site had once been there.

After finding those fragile sites, his laboratory spent more than a year combing through the literature for any recurring themes among the genomic regions they had uncovered. Eventually they showed that the fragile sites were associated with sequences or structures that stalled DNA replication, esoteric entities such as inverted repeats, replication termination signals, and transfer RNA genes.
In addition these fragile sites created a surprisingly unstable genome, resulting in a chaotic milieu of rearrangements, duplications and deletions of pieces of DNA or even the gain or loss of entire chromosomes.
"It has been known for a long time that many cancer cells have an abnormal number of chromosomes, and many different chromosome rearrangements have been observed in various tumor cells. It is likely that there are many different causes of chromosome instability in cancer cells. The current work suggests that those chromosomal rearrangements observed at fragile sites and found in solid tumors may be due to breaks from perturbed replication."

-http://duke.edu/

Gender may contribute to recovery time after concussion
A study of concussion patients using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) found that males took longer to recover after concussion than females did. Results of the study, which show that DTI can be used as a bias-free way to predict concussion outcome, are published online in the journal Radiology.
"Diffusion tensor imaging is the first imaging technique that shows abnormalities associated with concussion, because it is able to see white matter tracts at a microscopic level."
The DTI scans revealed that compared to the female mTBI patients, the male mTBI patients had significantly decreased UF FA values.
''Sex Differences in White Matter Abnormalities after Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Localization and Correlation with Outcome ''
http://pubs.rsna.org/doi/abs/10.1148/radiol.14132512

Taking notes longhand will help you remember information better than typing them out, according to new research from a pair of psychologists from Princeton University and UCLA.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, compared how well more than 300 students retained information after taking notes on 15-minute TED Talks either by hand or with a laptop. Across three different experiments, the researchers found that taking notes with a laptop can be detrimental to learning. Both groups performed about the same when recalling facts from the lectures half an hour later, but longhand note-takers were much better at recalling concepts.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3029713/the-best-way-to-remember-someth...

Facial Expressions Aren’t As Universal As Scientists Have Thought
For nearly half a century, social scientists have operated under the assumption that all basic human emotions are universally recognizable. Countless cross-cultural experiments—not to mention a few television shows—have both directly and implicitly referenced the notion that every person on earth expresses facial emotion in the same way. Regardless of cultural context, we can all interpret happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust in the expressions of the people around us.

Led by Northeastern University’s Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett and her post-doctoral researcher Maria Gendron, the new study shows that facial emotional recognition isn’t universal at all, and that previous studies pointing to universal expressions used methods that were highly dependent on context. In reality, a person’s ability to correctly register the emotion on another’s face hinges entirely on how those emotions are presented.
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/facial-expressions-arent-univ...

Age- and diet-associated metabolome remodeling characterizes the aging process driven by damage accumulation
Aging is thought to be associated with increased molecular damage, but representative markers vary across conditions and organisms, making it difficult to assess properties of cumulative damage throughout lifespan. We used nontargeted metabolite profiling to follow age-associated trajectories of >15,000 metabolites in Drosophila subjected to control and lifespan-extending diets. We find that aging is associated with increased metabolite diversity and low-abundance molecules, suggesting they include cumulative damage. Remarkably, the number of detected compounds leveled-off in late-life, and this pattern associated with survivorship. Fourteen percent of metabolites showed age-associated changes, which decelerated in late-life and long-lived flies. In contrast, known metabolites changed in abundance similarly to nontargeted metabolites and transcripts, but did not increase in diversity. Targeted profiling also revealed slower metabolism and accumulation of lifespan-limiting molecules. Thus, aging is characterized by gradual metabolome remodeling, and condition- and advanced age-associated deceleration of this remodeling is linked to mortality and molecular damage.
http://elifesciences.org/content/3/e02077

Surgeons Try Cold Cutting for Critically Injured
A clinical trial tests whether induced hypothermia can allow surgeons to save critically wounded patients who would not survive surgery at normal temperatures

A new combination of immunotherapies seems to work better than anyone had expected. Therapies that target the tumor with immunotherapies that boost a patient’s own defenses.”

Yawning cools the brain?
Common belief is that yawning helps to increase the oxygen supply. However, previous research has failed to show an association between yawning and blood oxygen levels. New research by a team of researchers led by Psychologist Andrew Gallup of SUNY College at Oneonta, USA now reveals that yawning cools the brain. Sleep cycles, cortical arousal and stress are all associated with fluctuations in brain temperature, Yawning subsequently functions to keep the brain temperature balanced and in optimal homeostasis. According to this theory, yawning should also be easily manipulated by ambient temperature variation, since exchange with cool ambient air temperature may facilitate lowering brain temperature. Specifically, the researchers hypothesized that yawning should only occur within an optimal range of temperatures, i.e., a thermal window.
While most research on contagious yawning emphasizes the influence of interpersonal and emotional-cognitive variables on its expression, this report adds to accumulating research suggesting that the underlying mechanism for yawning, both spontaneous and contagious forms, is involved in regulating brain temperature. In turn, the cooling of the brain functions to improve arousal and mental efficiency. The authors of this study suggest that the spreading of this behavior via contagious yawning could therefore function to enhance overall group vigilance.
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/05/07/yawning.cool.brain

Why Indian party manifestoes are silent on science
How committed are Indian political parties on science and research? Not much, if one is to go by their manifestoes.
http://www.mizonews.net/nation/why-indian-party-manifestoes-are-sil...

(IANS) How committed are Indian political parties on science and research? Not much, if one is to go by their manifestoes.

Even as the curtains come down on the election campaign, a report in 'Nature' magazine has noted that two of the three main political parties make "scant mention of science in their manifestoes".

And on that evidence, it concludes that Indian science will not get the boost it needs to become internationally competitive.

"Unfortunately, in the value system of both the government and our society at large, science is not at the top - in fact, it may be at the bottom," C.N.R. Rao, chairman of the Indian Scientific Advisory Council to the prime minister, has been quoted as saying in the report.

While the Congress party manifesto promises a spend of at least two percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) on science and technology if elected to power, scientists say this is not sufficient keeping the rapid pace of research and development in countries like China and South Korea.

"We have still not crossed 1 percent for over two decades now, whereas others, such as (South) Korea, China are rapidly moving towards, or have already moved to, 3 percent and beyond in the same period," R.A. Mashelkar, former director general of the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, was quoted as saying.

The BJP, according to the report, has devoted the most space to science and technology, health, energy and environment in its manifesto.

"It promises to set up world-class centres for nanotechnology, brain research and thorium-reactor technology for India's nuclear-power programme," the Nature report said.

The new entrant Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) manifesto is largely silent on science and technology. However, it does focus on management of natural resources such as coal and minerals, the report said.

India currently contributes no more than 1 percent of the top 1 percent of global research, Rao noted.

"If India can make careful investments in particular areas of scientific research, it will be able to compete with countries such as China and South Korea in terms of patents acquired and high-quality publications produced," he maintained.
https://in.news.yahoo.com/why-indian-party-manifestoes-silent-scien...

Regenerating plastic grows back after damage
llinois researchers have developed materials that not only heal, but regenerate. The restorative material is delivered through two, isolated fluid streams (dyed red and blue). The liquid immediately gels and later hardens, resulting in recovery of the entire damaged region.
Illinois researchers have developed materials that not only heal, but regenerate. Until now, self-repairing materials could only bond tiny microscopic cracks. The new regenerating materials fill in large cracks and holes by regrowing material.
Such self-repair capabilities would be a boon not only for commercial
goods – imagine a mangled car bumper that repairs itself within minutes of an accident – but also for parts and products that are difficult to replace or repair, such as those used in aerospace applications.

The regenerating capabilities build on the team’s previous work in developing vascular materials. Using specially formulated fibers that disintegrate, the researchers can create materials with networks of capillaries inspired by biological circulatory systems.

“Vascular delivery lets us deliver a large volume of healing agents – which, in turn, enables restoration of large damage zones,” said Sottos, a professor of materials science and engineering. “The vascular approach also enables multiple restorations if the material is damaged more than once.”

For regenerating materials, two adjoining, parallel capillaries are filled with regenerative chemicals that flow out when damage occurs. The two liquids mix to form a gel, which spans the gap caused by damage, filling in cracks and holes. Then the gel hardens into a strong polymer, restoring the plastic’s mechanical strength.

“We have to battle a lot of extrinsic factors for regeneration, including gravity,” said study leader White, a professor of aerospace engineering. “The reactive liquids we use form a gel fairly quickly, so that as it’s released it starts to harden immediately. If it didn’t, the liquids would just pour out of the damaged area and you’d essentially bleed out. Because it forms a gel, it supports and retains the fluids. Since it’s not a structural material yet, we can continue the regrowth process by pumping more fluid into the hole.”

The team demonstrated their regenerating system on the two biggest classes of commercial plastics: thermoplastics and thermosets. The researchers can tune the chemical reactions to control the speed of the gel formation or the speed of the hardening, depending on the kind of damage. For example, a bullet impact might cause a radiating series of cracks as well as a central hole, so the gel reaction could be slowed to allow the chemicals to seep into the cracks before hardening.

The researchers envision commercial plastics and polymers with vascular networks filled with regenerative agents ready to be deployed whenever damage occurs, much like biological healing. Their previous work established ease of manufacturing, so now they are working to optimize the regenerative chemical systems for different types of materials.

“For the first time, we’ve shown that you can regenerate lost material in a structural polymer. That’s the kicker here,” White said, “Prior to this work, if you cut off a piece of material, it’s gone. Now we’ve shown that the material can actually regrow.”

http://news.illinois.edu/news/14/0508plastic_ScottWhite_JeffryMoore...

Cotton balls help Darwin’s finches to help themselves

Insecticide-laced nest materials offer a simple fix for parasite infestation.
http://www.nature.com/news/cotton-balls-help-darwin-s-finches-to-he...

Electronics' noise disorients migratory birds

Man-made electromagnetic radiation disrupts robins' internal magnetic compasses.
Interference from electronics and AM radio signals can disrupt the internal magnetic compasses of migratory birds, researchers report today in Nature1. The work raises the possibility that cities have significant effects on bird migration patterns

http://www.nature.com/news/electronics-noise-disorients-migratory-b...

First life with 'alien' DNA

An engineered bacterium is able to copy DNA that contains unnatural genetic letters.

Scientists reported on Wednesday that they had taken a significant step toward altering the fundamental alphabet of life — creating an organism with an expanded artificial genetic code in its DNA.

The accomplishment might eventually lead to organisms that can make medicines or industrial products that cells with only the natural genetic code cannot.

The scientists behind the work at the Scripps Research Institute have already formed a company to try to use the technique to develop new antibiotics, vaccines and other products, though a lot more work needs to be done before this is practical.

The work also gives some support to the concept that life can exist elsewhere in the universe using genetics different from those on Earth. "This is the first time that you have had a living cell manage an alien genetic alphabet," said Steven A Benner, a researcher in the field at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Florida, who was not involved in the new work. But the research, published online by the journal Nature, is bound to raise safety concerns and questions about whether humans are playing God.

The new paper could intensify calls for greater regulation of the budding field known as synthetic biology, which involves the creation of biological systems intended for specific purposes.

"The arrival of this unprecedented 'alien' life form could in time have far-reaching ethical, legal and regulatory implications," Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, a Canadian advocacy organization, said in an email.

"While synthetic biologists invent new ways to monkey with the fundamentals of life, governments haven't even been able to cobble together the basics of oversight, assessment or regulation for this surging field."

Despite the great diversity of life on Earth, all species, from simple bacteria to human beings, use the same genetic code. It consists of four chemical units in DNA, sometimes called nucleotides or bases, that are usually represented by the letters A, C, G and T. The sequence of these chemical units determines what proteins the cell makes. Those proteins in turn do most of the work in cells and are required for the structure, function and regulation of the body's tissues and organs. The Scripps researchers chemically created two new nucleotides, which they called X and Y. They inserted an X-Y pair into the common bacterium E coli. The bacteria were able to reproduce normally, though a bit slowly, replicating the X and Y along with the natural nucleotides. In effect, the bacteria have a genetic code of six letters rather than four, perhaps allowing them to make novel proteins that could function in a completely different way from those created naturally.

"If you have a language that has a certain letters, you want to add letters so you can write more words and tell more stories," said Floyd E Romesberg, a chemist at Scripps who led the work.

http://www.nature.com/news/first-life-with-alien-dna-1.15179

Weight gain during pregnancy may protect babies from chemicals

Gaining more weight during pregnancy can substantially reduce a baby’s exposure to pesticides that have accumulated in a mother’s body, according to new research.
Pregnant women who don’t gain enough weight lose fat when the fetus grows. This releases fat-soluble chemicals such as DDT into the bloodstream, which reaches the fetus.

“This study suggests that sufficient weight gain during pregnancy may help to dilute certain chemicals that store in fat, reducing exposure to the fetus,” said Jonathan Chevrier, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal who did not participate in the research.

Exposure to persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, in the womb has been linked to developmental disorders and learning delays, reduced immune system function and changes in hormones.
For every pound of pregnancy weight gain, the researchers saw a 0.75 percent decrease in DDE in the cord blood and a 1.4 percent decrease in beta-HCH. For the average woman who gained about 31 pounds during pregnancy, that’s about a 22 percent decrease in DDE and a 42 percent decrease in beta-HCH.

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2014/may/weight-gai...

Birth of new brain cells might erase babies’ memories
New neurons may explain why adults can’t remember being infants
Infants’ memories may be wiped clean by the genesis of new brain cells, a study in rodents suggests. The findings offer an explanation for why people can’t recall memories from early childhood, a century-old mystery.
According tot eh researchers, new cells originated could be messing up brain circuits laid down by preexisting neurons. These cells reach out spindly fingers and link up with neighbors. Memories made using older links may be hard to call to mind when new links take over.

“Maybe forgetting is not a bad thing,” the researchers say. “Maybe it’s good to clear away some memories and forget some things that are not so important.”

The hippocampus might be something like a computer cluttered with files, says neuroscientist Richard Morris of the University of Edinburgh. “Every so often we all sit down and do a little tidy-up,” he says. “Maybe that’s what neurogenesis is all about. It’s the hippocampus’s very own spring cleaning system.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/birth-new-brain-cells-might-era...

The latest urban air quality database released by the World Health Organization (WHO) says that India ranks among the world's worst for its polluted air. Out of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, 13 are in India. The report reconfirms that most Indian cities are soon becoming death traps because of very high air pollution levels.

India appears among the group of countries with highest particulate matter (PM) levels. Also, its cities have the highest levels of PM10 and PM2.5 (particles with diameter of 10 microns and 2.5 microns) when compared to other cities. Delhi is among the most polluted cities in the world today.

Director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), Sunita Narain says: "This database confirms our worst fears about how hazardous air pollution is in our region. Last year, the Global Burden of Disease study pinned outdoor air pollution as the fifth largest killer in India after high blood pressure, indoor air pollution, tobacco smoking, and poor nutrition. About 620,000 early deaths occurred in India due to air pollution-related diseases in 2010."

Narain added that 18 million years of healthy lives are lost due to illness burden that enhances the economic cost of pollution. Half of these deaths have been caused by heart disease triggered by exposure to air pollution and the rest due to stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory track infection and lung cancer.

Experts claim that Indian cities are witnessing a rapid increase in air pollution and untamed motorization. Cities need to curb pollution from all sources, but vehicles need special attention as they emit toxic fumes within our breathing zone. India needs urgent action to leapfrog vehicle technology and fuel quality, scale up public transport, reduce dependence on cars, and promote walking and cycling.

India is waiting for a decision on the emissions standards roadmap for vehicles and fuel quality from the Auto Fuel Policy Committee under the chairmanship of Saumitra Chaudhury, member, Planning Commission. This is expected to be announced soon, before the UPA II government is dissolved. The committee must respond effectively to the mounting evidences on worsening air quality and health damages associated with vehicular fumes.

CSE suggests that the entire country should leapfrog to Euro VI standards by 2020-21. All cities need to implement clean air action plan to curb pollution from all sources to meet clean air standards in a time bound manner. Also, government must inform people about the air quality on a daily basis and issue health alerts for especially children, elderly, and those suffering from respiratory and cardiac problems.
_WHO

How to make children emotionally strong:
An easy way to better prepare kids to handle anxiety and keep anxiety-related disorders at bay may lie in the school-based test anxiety interventions, a research said.

Anxiety problems are among the most common emotional difficulties youths experience, and are often linked to exposure to disasters.

"Test anxiety interventions may be a practical strategy for conducting emotion-focused prevention and intervention efforts because of a natural fit within the ecology of the school setting," said Carl Weems of University of New Orleans, US.

Showing students how to cope with test anxiety might also help them to handle their built-up angst and fretfulness about other issues.

"Anxiety intervention programmes that focus on academic matters fit well into the demands of the school routine, and do not carry the same stigma among youth as general anxiety programmes do," Weems noted.

The research group was among the first to study the effects of Hurricane Katrina on community mental health and anxiety among youth.

However, school-based test anxiety interventions should not be considered a first line approach to treating severe anxiety disorders such as PTSD, but could be employed to teach students how to handle anxious emotions, Weems cautioned.

The study appeared in the journal Prevention Science.

World's No. 1 pesticide brings honeybees to their knees, say scientists

A new study from Harvard implicates two neonicotinoid pesticides, imidacloprid and clothianidin, in the ongoing plague of honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder. Imidacloprid is the most widely used pesticide in the world, and both are approved by the EPA.
This week's report strongly indicates that two neonicotinoid insecticides that are widely used on crops can decimate honeybee colonies' winter survival rates, whether or not mites or parasites are present.

The two chemicals, imidacloprid and clothianidin, both block insects' central nervous systems, killing them by paralysis. Imidacloprid is the world's most widely-used insecticide, and has been registered for use in the US since the 1994; clothianidin was registered in 2003 by the US Environmental Protection Agency, which found that it had passed honeybee-specific toxicity tests.

These scientists studied the health of 18 bee colonies in central Massachusetts over a six-month period spanning the winter of 2012-2013. Six of the colonies were fed sugar spiked with sub-lethal doses of imidacloprid, six had theirs laced with clothianidin, and six less-unfortunate control colonies ate clean sugar, starting in October.

All of the colonies went about their apian routines in good form throughout the fall. But by late January, six of the 12 poisoned colonies experienced collapses with CCD-like symptoms, like en-masse disappearance and the presence of un-hatched young. Of the six control hives, only one failed to survive the winter, seemingly due to an infestation by Nosema Ceranae parasites.

"The honey bee clusters in the six surviving neonicotinoid treated colonies were very small, and were either without queen bees or had no brood," reports the study, suggesting the poisons harm the animals' abilities to raise and train new young. In contrast, the five surviving control hives replenished their populations quickly, as the winter gave way to spring.

According to the report, these results "reinforce the conclusion that sublethal exposure to neonicotinoids is likely the main culprit for the occurrence of CCD
The study comes amid a busy spring season for honey bee research. Last month a team of Kenyan biologists found that African honey bees seem be impervious to the pests, Varroa and Nosema, which plague honey bee populations in Europe, Asia, and the United States.

And earlier this week Brazilian scientists identified two substances in honeybees' brains, that appear to vary as the insects move through space and time, guiding their age-related division of labor.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0509/World-s-No.-1-pesticide-...

A new plant discovered in the Philippines has a bizarre ability — it can gobble up the poisonous metal nickel without suffering any damage. Scientists from the University of the Philippines, Los Banos found that the plant could accumulate up to 18,000ppm (parts per million) of the metal in its leaves, says Professor Edwino Fernando, lead author of the report published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. Such an amount is a hundred to a thousand times higher than in most other plants.

Air sampling vital to detect bioterrorism
Air and surface sampling could be vital to detecting biological terrorism and preventing potential loss of lives, according to an experiment.

"This experiment confirmed that a biological attack could be detected earlier using air sampling which means public health would have more time to respond," said Alexander Garza, an associate professor of epidemiology at Saint Louis University's college for public health and social justice in the US.

The researchers reviewed data from a series of experiments simulating a bioterrorism attack against the Pentagon.

In 2005 and 2009, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA), in order to simulate a deliberate attack, staged the release of a harmless bacteria that is biological similar to Bacillus anthracis — the bacteria that causes the disease anthrax.

They then evaluated the local response procedures to such an attack.

In conjunction with this exercise, the department of homeland security ran its own experiments to test the efficacy of an air and surface sampling system known as BioWatch in detecting these biological agents in the environment.

In the experiments, multiple quantity of benign material were released that included a small portion of the anthrax simulant.

The team collected samples of the air through several portable sampling units and had them analysed at specialized laboratories.

"We were able to detect the biological organisms released several kilometres from where the agent was originally released," Garza said.

"All of the modelling that had been done to date showed that air samplers should be able to detect these types of attack, what was missing was empirical evidence showing that these systems would work in real world conditions. We now have that evidence," Garza said.

Air sampling has been readily accepted for similar uses such as measuring for particulate matter, however, using it to detect bacteria in biological terrorism was a new concept instituted after the 9/11 attacks.

This type of sampling is now part of a sophisticated system used by the department of homeland security and the department of defence in the US.

The study appeared in the journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism.