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.

Controlled dreams:
Scientists led by psychologist Ursula Voss of J.W. Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, built on lab studies in which research volunteers in the REM (rapid-eye movement) stage of sleep experienced a lucid dream, as they reported when they awoke. Electroencephalograms showed that those dreams were accompanied by telltale electrical activity called gamma waves.

Those brain-waves are related to executive functions such as higher-order thinking, as well as awareness of one's mental state. But they are almost unheard of in REM sleep.

Voss and her colleagues therefore asked, if gamma waves occur naturally during lucid dreaming, what would happen if they induced a current with the same frequency as gamma waves in dreaming brains?

When they did, via electrodes on the scalp in a technique called transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), the 27 volunteers reported that they were aware that they were dreaming. The volunteers were also able to control the dream plot by, say, throwing some clothes on their dream self before going to work. They also felt as if their dream self was a third party whom they were merely observing.

Voss does not foresee a commercial market in lucid-dreaming machines. Devices currently sold "do not work well," she said in an interview, and those that deliver electrical stimulation to the brain, like the one in her study, "should always be monitored by a physician."

But if the results hold up, the technique might help people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, who often have terrifying dreams in which they re-play the traumatic experience. If they can dream lucidly, they might be able to bring about a different outcome, such as turning down a different street than the one with the roadside bomb or ducking into a restaurant before the rapist attacks them.

"By learning how to control the dream and distance oneself from the dream," Voss said, PTSD patients could reduce the emotional impact and begin to recover.
Post a comment

Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition
Researchers have found that the elevated carbon dioxide levels of 2050 could lead to lower levels of micronutrients and protein in staple crops.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13179...

What Makes Congress’s Latest Effort to Curb Science Funding So Dangerous?
A bill making its way through the House Science, Space and Technology Committee would set the country’s science agenda by favoring certain disciplines
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-makes-congress-s-lat...

Assemblage Time Series Reveal Biodiversity Change but Not Systematic Loss
The extent to which biodiversity change in local assemblages contributes to global biodiversity loss is poorly understood. We analyzed 100 time series from biomes across Earth to ask how diversity within assemblages is changing through time. We quantified patterns of temporal α diversity, measured as change in local diversity, and temporal β diversity, measured as change in community composition. Contrary to our expectations, we did not detect systematic loss of α diversity. However, community composition changed systematically through time, in excess of predictions from null models. Heterogeneous rates of environmental change, species range shifts associated with climate change, and biotic homogenization may explain the different patterns of temporal α and β diversity. Monitoring and understanding change in species composition should be a conservation priority.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6181/296.abstract

Environmental conditions may impact bird migration
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/05/14/environmental.condition...

Tiny earthquakes may follow groundwater loss
Tiny earthquakes may follow groundwater loss because of over use
As humans drain aquifers in the state’s Central Valley, the land — free of water weight — flexes upward, lifting the surrounding mountain ranges and possibly triggering tiny earthquakes, researchers suggest May 14 in Nature.

It’s the first time scientists have linked the region’s extensive groundwater pumping to mountain uplift and seismic activity, says geophysicist Kristy Tiampo of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada.
and people say men are not responsible for all this mess:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/tiny-earthquakes-may-follow-gro...

Scientists have discovered that children who are given antibiotics before their first birthday have an increased risk of developing asthma.

UK researchers examined data from the Manchester Asthma and Allergy Study (MAAS) which has followed over 1000 children from birth to 11 years.

Antibiotics are routinely given to children to treat respiratory infections, ear infections, and bronchitis.

The study's findings are believed to be the first to show that children with wheezing who were treated with an antibiotic in the first year of life were more than twice as likely as untreated children to experience severe wheeze or asthma exacerbations and be hospitalized for asthma.

Of particular interest was that these children also showed significantly lower induction of cytokines which are the bodies' key defence against virus infections such as the common cold. The researchers also identified two genes in the 17q21 region that were associated with an increased risk of early life antibiotic prescription.

Water extraction for human use boosts California quakes

Extracting water for human activities is increasing the number of small earthquakes being triggered in California.

A new study suggests that the heavy use of ground water for pumping and irrigation is causing mountains to lift and valleys to subside.

The scientists say this depletion of the water is increasing seismic activity along the San Andreas fault.

They worry that over time this will hasten the occurrence of large quakes.

The report has been published in the journal Nature.

Few consumers realise that many cosmetic products, such as facial scrubs, toothpastes and shower gels, now contain many thousands of microplastic beads which have been deliberately added by the manufacturers of more than 100 consumer products over the past two decades.

Plastic microbeads, which are typically less than a millimetre wide and are too small to be filtered by sewage-treatment plants, are able to carry deadly toxins into the animals that ingest them, including those in the human food chain such as fish, mussels and crabs, scientists said.

While many people have assiduously tried to recycle their plastic waste, cosmetics companies have at the same time been quietly adding hundreds of cubic metres of plastics such as polyethylene to products that are deliberately designed to be washed into waste-water systems – one estimate suggests that, in the US alone, up to 1,200 cubic metres of microplastic beads are washed down the drains each year.

Scientists and environmentalists have started lobbying the industry to stop using plastic microbeads in exfoliant skin creams and washes, but with limited success – a relatively small number of firms have publicly agreed to phase them out, and even then have given themselves several years to do so.
These can persist in the environment for more than 100 years, and have been found to contaminate a wide variety of freshwater and marine wildlife.
Originally, the cosmetics industry used natural ingredients such as ground-up apricot kernels, crushed walnut shells and dried coconut as skin exfoliants – gentle abrasives that can remove dirt and dead layers of cells.

However, at some point in the late 1990s some companies quietly switched to plastic microbeads and the practice quickly spread to other firms and now includes most skin scrubs, polishes and soaps, even when they are not sold as skin exfoliants,

Microbeads, which are often labelled simply as "PE", "PP" or "PMMA" in the product ingredients, are now found in more than 100 toiletries and cosmetics. They are made by companies ranging from the big chemicals giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and Unilever, and supermarket chains such as Sainsbury's, Tesco and Marks and Spencer, to high-end cosmetics firms such as Clarins and L'Oréal.

Richard Thompson, professor of marine biology at Plymouth University, said that plastic microbeads washed into waste water are a needless source of contamination given that there are viable alternatives which have already been used to do much the same job in terms of skin exfoliation.
Microplastic beads may also lead to the transfer of chemical contaminants into the animals that ingest the plastic. This is in addition to the physical damage done by the plastic itself. sometimes it's difficult to predict their effect until it begins to happen.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/exclusive-tiny-plastic-ti...

Sleeping pills increase the risk of cardiovascular events in heart failure patients by 8-fold, according to research from Japan. The study was presented today at the Heart Failure Congress 2014, held 17-20 May in Athens, Greece. The Congress is the main annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. Dr Masahiko Setoguchi said: "Sleeping problems are a frequent side effect of heart failure and it is common for patients to be prescribed sleeping pills when they are discharged from hospital. They also have other comorbidities and may be prescribed diuretics, antiplatelets, antihypertensives, anticoagulants and anti-arrhythmics.
The researchers retrospectively examined the medical records of 111 heart failure patients admitted to Tokyo Yamate Medical Center from 2011 to 2013. Information was collected on the presence of coexisting cardiovascular and other medical conditions, medications administered during hospitalization and those prescribed at discharge, laboratory test results, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram and chest radiographic data and vital signs at admission and discharge.

Study participants were followed up for 180 days after they were discharged from hospital. The study endpoint was readmission for heart failure, or cardiovascular related death.
Multivariate analysis showed that HFpEF patients who were prescribed sleeping pills were at eight times greater risk of rehospitalisation for heart failure or cardiovascular related death than HFpEF patients who were not prescribed sleeping pills (hazard ratio [HR]=8.063, p=0.010).
Dr Setoguchi said: "Our study clearly shows that sleeping pills dramatically increase the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with HFpEF. The finding was consistent across univariate and multivariate analyses. Given that many heart failure patients have difficulty sleeping, this is an issue that needs further investigation in larger studies."
- http://www.escardio.org/Pages/index.aspx

Scientists discover how to turn light into matter

After an 80-year-long quest, British scientists have discovered how to turn light into matter. Scientists G Breit and John A Wheeler suggested in 193 4 the simplest method of turning light into matter — by smashing together only two particles of light (photons ), to create an electron and a positron. But has never been observed in a lab and past experiments to test it have required the addition of massive high-energy particles.

Physicists from Imperial College London have cracked the theory in the college's Blackett Physics Laboratory. The experiment would recreate a process that was critical in the first 100 seconds of the universe, also seen in gamma ray bursts — the biggest explosions in the universe and one of physics' greatest unsolved mysteries.

The collider experiment has two key steps. First, the scientists would use an extremely powerful high-intensity laser to speed up electrons to just below the speed of light. These electrons would be fired at a slab of gold to create a beam of photons a billion times more energetic than visible light. The next stage involves a tiny gold can called a hohlraum. Scientists would fire a high-energy laser at the inner surface of this can, to create a thermal radiation field, generating light similar to the light emitted by stars.

The photon beam from the first stage of the experiment would be directed through the centre of the can, causing the photons from the two sources to collide and form electrons and positrons.Itwouldthen be possible to detect the formation of the electrons and positronswhen they exitedthecan.

Professor Steve Rose from the department of physics, Imperial College, said, "When Breit and Wheeler proposed the theory, physicists said that they never expected it be shown in the lab. Today we prove them wrong. What was so surprising to us was the discovery of how we can create matter directly from light using the technology that we have today in the UK."

This'photon-photon collider',which wouldconvertlightdirectly into matter using technology, would be a new type of high-energy physics experiment.

http://phys.org/news/2014-05-scientists-year-quest.html

Radio signals skew birds’ internal navigation

Migrating birds might lose their way when exposed to the electromagnetic noise from radio signals and electronic devices, researchers have found.

Birds that fly north or south with the seasons rely on Earth’s magnetic field to sense where they’re going. Even birds placed in windowless rooms will try to fly in their preferred migratory direction.

But when researchers placed European robins in wooden huts on the University of Oldenburg campus in densely populated northwestern Germany, the birds were unable to orient themselves.

Suspecting that electromagnetic signals were confounding the robins’ magnetic compasses, the researchers moved them to electrically grounded, aluminum-screened huts that blocked noise between 50 kHz and 5 MHz. The birds regained their sense of direction.

The researchers repeated the experiments during migrating seasons for seven years, before publishing in the journal Nature.

Organisations that fund agricultural research for development often see initiatives that work with local expertise as unscientific, and this pervasive view is stifling collaboration with other development actors, experts say.

Working with local farmers, NGOs and civil society is vital to ensure that advances in ‘hard science’ truly boost development, attendees of the first annual meeting of Agrinatura — an alliance of European institutions that work on agricultural research for development — heard last week (5-7 May) in Austria. Some said funders should do more to support such efforts.

Many scientists involved in funding decisions prize focused research

But this can sideline local knowledge and collaboration with social science

It may also suit agribusinesses more than smallholder farmers

Peer reviewers ‘harming alliances with local expertise’
http://www.scidev.net/global/funding/news/peer-reviewers-local-expe...

UK’s Science Media Centre lambasted for pushing corporate science
The influential media centre has inspired a range of others around the world

But researchers say it offers a biased, industrial-science view of issues

The findings could help avoid similar pitfalls if any developing world centre is set
http://www.scidev.net/global/journalism/feature/uk-s-science-media-...

Massive dose of measles vaccine clears woman's cancer
US doctors claim to have wiped out a woman's advanced blood cancer with a massive dose of the measles vaccine, enough to inoculate 10 million people.
The woman was part of a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic demonstrating that cancer cells can be killed with injections of a genetically-engineered virus through a process known as virotherapy.

Two patients in the study received a single intravenous dose of an engineered measles virus (MV-NIS ) that is selectively toxic to myeloma plasma cells. Stacy Erholtz, 49, from Minnesota, was one of the two patients in the study who received the dose last year, and after ten years with multiple myeloma, she has been clear of the disease for over six months now.

"It was the easiest treatment by far with very few side effects", say the researchers

Surgical Infections Fly under the Radar at Outpatient Clinics
Outpatient surgeries at freestanding medical centers are growing in popularity, but for all their promise, gaps in tracking superbugs and other infections fuel concern
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/under-the-knife-where-inf...

New Meta-analysis Confirms: No Association between Vaccines and Autism

Analysis of 10 studies involving more than 1.2 million children reaffirms that vaccines don’t cause autism; MMR shot may actually decrease risk
A meta-analysis of ten studies involving more than 1.2 million children reaffirms that vaccines don’t cause autism. If anything, immunization was associated with decreased risk that children would develop autism, a possibility that’s strongest with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

The report appears online in the journal Vaccine as an “uncorrected proof.” This means that it has passed through peer review and been accepted for publication, but may still undergo proof-reading changes.
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367

http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/new-meta-analysis-...

Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

As government financing of basic science research has plunged, private donors have filled the void, raising questions about the future of research for the public good.
To show that private science has roots in the first gilded age, though, is not to dismiss Americans’ perceptions that there is something new in the way science is now being funded. Unlike their early-20th-century predecessors, for example, philanthropists today are targeting particular fields themselves and bypassing traditional intermediaries such as trustees, federal actors, and research experts. On the one hand, these intermediaries can be perceived as an unnecessary and time-consuming bureaucratic hurdle that not only stands in the way of donors’ passionate inspirations, but also stalls innovation and avoids risk-taking. On the other hand, their presence can facilitate informed decision-making and serve as a democratizing element, ensuring that several groups of Americans besides the private-sector elite have a say in the course and development of American science.
https://news.yahoo.com/way-wrong-way-privatize-science-121500191.html
One important distinction, however, exists between these two earlier philanthropists and the philanthropists funding private science today. With the Carnegie Institution and the NRC, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller had invested in building up American science as a holistic unit and leaving it up to foundation trustees, federal actors, and their expert advisers to decide which particular fields and projects to support. By contrast, it seems that philanthropists today are invested in deciding for themselves which particular strands of research in American science are worthy of their funds. As the Times journalist Broad reminds us: “[T]he new science philanthropy is personal, antibureaucratic, inspirational.”

The question is whether we—as Americans—welcome this new model of private science as is, or whether we find something valuable in its older form. More specifically, we need to ask ourselves whether we welcome a world where individual philanthropists decide for themselves which research fields in American science to fund. This contemporary model might encourage funders’ enthusiasm, clear the way for innovation, and encourage risk-taking, but at the very cost of silencing the voices of American trustees, research experts, and policymakers. This second model is perhaps more expedient than the first, but also less democratic.

Such a conversation should not lead us to bemoan one period of private science and celebrate another; but rather, to think critically about the model of private science that we would like to see take shape in the 21st century.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/science/billionaires-with-big-ide...

Diverse gene pool critical for tigers' survival: Stanford scholars
Increasing tigers' genetic diversity – via interbreeding and other methods – and not just their population numbers may be the best solution to saving this endangered species, according to Stanford research.
a new research by Stanford scholars shows that increasing genetic diversity among the 3,000 or so tigers left on the planet is the key to their survival as a species. That research shows that the more gene flow there is among tiger populations, the more genetic diversity is maintained and the higher the chances of species survival become. In fact, it might be possible to maintain tiger populations that preserve about 90 percent of genetic diversity. The research focused on the Indian subcontinent, home to about 65 percent of the world's wild tigers. The scientists found that as populations become more fragmented and the pools of each tiger subspecies shrink, so does genetic diversity. This loss of diversity can lead to lower reproduction rates, faster spread of disease and more cardiac defects, among other problems."Genetic diversity is the basis for adaptation."
The results showed that for tiger populations to maintain their current genetic diversity 150 years from now, the tiger population would have to expand to about 98,000 individuals if gene flow across species were delayed 25 years. By comparison, the population would need to grow to about 60,000 if gene flow were achieved immediately. Neither of these numbers is realistic, considering the limited size of protected tiger habitat and availability of prey, among other factors, according to the researchers.

"Since genetic variability is the raw material for future evolution, our results suggest that without interbreeding sub-populations of tigers, the genetic future for tigers is not viable," said co-author Uma Ramakrishnan, a former Stanford postdoctoral scholar in biology and current researcher at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India.

Because migration and interbreeding among subspecies appear to be "much more important" for maintaining genetic diversity than increasing population numbers, the researchers recommend focusing conservation efforts on creating ways for tigers to travel longer distances, such as wildlife corridors, and potentially crossbreeding wild and captive tiger subspecies.

"This is very much counter to the ideas that many managers and countries have now - that tigers in zoos are almost useless and that interbreeding tigers from multiple countries is akin to genetic pollution," said Hadly. "In this case, survival of the species matters more than does survival of the exclusive traits of individual populations," says the report.

Understanding these factors can help decision-makers better address how development affects populations of tigers and other animals, the study noted.

Iconic symbols of power and beauty, wild tigers may roam only in stories someday soon. Their historical range has been reduced by more than 90 percent. But conservation plans that focus only on increasing numbers and preserving distinct subspecies ignore genetic diversity, according to the study. In fact, under that approach, the tiger could vanish entirely.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/april/tigers-genetic-diversity-0...

Biomechanics of ants: New Research: The neck joints of ants could withstand loads of about 5,000 times the ant's body weight, and that the ant's neck-joint structure produced the highest strength when its head was aligned straight, as opposed to turned to either side.
"The design and structure of this interface is critical for the performance of the neck joint. The unique interface between hard and soft materials likely strengthens the adhesion and may be a key structural design feature that enables the large load capacity of the neck joint."
The simulations confirmed the joint's directional strength and, consistent with the experimental results, indicated that the critical point for failure of the neck joint is at the neck-to-head transition, where soft membrane meets the hard exoskeleton. The neck joint [of the ant] is a complex and highly integrated mechanical system. Efforts to understand the structure-function relationship in this system will contribute to the understanding of the design paradigms for optimized exoskeleton mechanisms.
'' Scientists study biomechanics behind amazing ant strength''
https://www.osc.edu/press/scientists_study_biomechanics_behind_amaz...

Training The Immune System To Target Brain Cancer
By exploiting the fact that many brain tumors harbor cytomegalovirus, scientists have used the patient’s immune system to target brain cancer.
Scientists have made headway in the treatment of the aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) with the use of immunotherapy. This study was published in the journal Cancer Research.
Researchers developed a technique to modify the patients’ T-cells in the laboratory, effectively “training” them to attack the virus, and then returned them to the patient’s body while keeping them on chemotherapy. It is thought that the killer T-cells destroy the cancer cells along with the virus-infected cells.
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2014/05/07/0008-547...

Scientists Uncover How EBV Hides
A new study has shown that the Epstein-Barr virus flies below the immune system’s radar by restricting the production of the protein EBNA1.
Epstein-Barr virus infects more than 90 percent of the world’s population and is linked to a number of cancers including Burkitt’s lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There are currently no vaccines to prevent EBV and other herpes virus-associated cancers.
http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/v10/n5/full/nchembio.1479.html

Dustup emerges over gravitational waves discovery

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dustup-emerges-over-gravitation...

Backlash to Big Bang Discovery Gathers Steam
Physicists cast doubt on a landmark experiment’s claim to have observed gravity waves from the big bang
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/backlash-to-big-bang-disc...

How Gut Bacteria Help Make Us Fat and Thin
Intestinal bacteria may help determine whether we are lean or obese
Adults who do daily battle with obesity, the main causes of their condition are all too familiar: an unhealthy diet, a sedentary lifestyle and perhaps some unlucky genes. In recent years, however, researchers have become increasingly convinced that important hidden players literally lurk in human bowels: billions on billions of gut microbes.

New evidence indicates that gut bacteria alter the way we store fat, how we balance levels of glucose in the blood, and how we respond to hormones that make us feel hungry or full. The wrong mix of microbes, it seems, can help set the stage for obesity and diabetes from the moment of birth.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-mak...

A slow heartbeat in athletes is not so funny
Changes in the ‘funny channel’ of heart’s pacemaker may be behind sinus bradycardia
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/slow-heartbeat-athletes...

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing-part1
Dongshan He, Dongfeng Gao, Qing-yu Cai
(Submitted on 4 Apr 2014)

An interesting idea is that the universe could be spontaneously created from nothing, but no rigorous proof has been given. In this paper, we present such a proof based on the analytic solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation (WDWE). Explicit solutions of the WDWE for the special operator ordering factor p=-2 (or 4) show that, once a small true vacuum bubble is created by quantum fluctuations of the metastable false vacuum, it can expand exponentially no matter whether the bubble is closed, flat or open. The exponential expansion will end when the bubble becomes large and thus the early universe appears. With the de Broglie-Bohm quantum trajectory theory, we show explicitly that it is the quantum potential that plays the role of the cosmological constant and provides the power for the exponential expansion of the true vacuum bubble. So it is clear that the birth of the early universe completely depends on the quantum nature of the theory.

Comments: The problem of singularity can be avoided naturally as the universe can be spontaneously created from nothing
Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
Journal reference: Phys. Rev. D 89, 083510 (2014)
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.89.083510
Cite as: arXiv:1404.1207 [gr-qc]
(or arXiv:1404.1207v1 [gr-qc] for this version)
Submission history
From: Qing-Yu Cai [view email]
[v1] Fri, 4 Apr 2014 10:09:09 GMT (9kb)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1404.1207

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing-part 2

According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, quantum fluctuations in the metastable false vacuum – a state absent of space, time or matter – can give rise to virtual particle pairs. Ordinarily these pairs self-annihilate almost instantly, but if these virtual particles separate immediately, they can avoid annihilation, creating a true vacuum bubble. The Wuhan team’s equations show that such a bubble has the potential to expand exponentially, causing a new universe to appear. All of this begins from quantum behavior and leads to the creation of a tremendous amount of matter and energy during the inflation stage. (Note that as stated in this paper, the metastable false vacuum has “neither matter nor space or time,” but is a form of wavefunction referred to as “quantum potential.” While most of us wouldn’t be inclined to call this “nothing,” physicists do refer to it as such.)
This description of exponential growth of a true vacuum bubble corresponds directly to the period of cosmic inflation resulting from the Big Bang. According to this proof, the bubble even stops expanding – or else it may continue to expand at a constant velocity – once it reaches a certain size. Nevertheless, this is a very different version of inflation than those proposed by Guth, Linde and others, in that it doesn’t rely on scalar fields, only quantum effects. Still, this work dovetails well with that of the BICEP2 team, both discoveries having significant implications for our understanding of the universe and our future should they stand up to further inquiry.

This description of exponential growth of a true vacuum bubble corresponds directly to the period of cosmic inflation resulting from the Big Bang. According to this proof, the bubble even stops expanding – or else it may continue to expand at a constant velocity – once it reaches a certain size. Nevertheless, this is a very different version of inflation than those proposed by Guth, Linde and others, in that it doesn’t rely on scalar fields, only quantum effects. Still, this work dovetails well with that of the BICEP2 team, both discoveries having significant implications for our understanding of the universe and our future should they stand up to further inquiry.