Working rotating night shifts could literally be killing you

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Women who regularly work night shifts are at greater risk of death resulting from lung cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD), an international team of researchers report in the latest edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The authors of this new paper reviewed data from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), a study of nearly 75,000 registered American nurses, and found that those working rotating night shifts for five or more years appeared to have a modest increase in all-cause and CVD-related death.

Furthermore, those working 15 or more years of rotating night shift work also appeared to have a modest increase in lung cancer mortality. The authors said that their findings add to the mounting evidence that rotating night shift work can adversely affect a person’s health and longevity.

As they pointed out in a statement Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified night shift work as a probably carcinogen in 2007 due to the way is disrupts a person’s circadian rhythms. Sleep and the circadian system, they said, play a key role in cardiovascular health and antitumor activity, and there is “substantial biological evidence” that working the night shift can enhance the development of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

In their research, the authors analyzed more than two decades of follow-up data and found that working night shifts for over five years was associated with increases in the risk of all-cause and CVD-related deaths.

They found an 11-percent increase in all-cause mortality for women with six to 14 years or more than 15 years of rotating night shift work. Cardiovascular-related morality appeared to increase by 19 percent and 23 percent for those groups, respectively, and those who worked nights for at least 15 years faced a 25 percent increased risk of lung cancer, the study authors found.

The NHS, which was based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, started in 1976 and involved more than 120,000 US female nurses between the ages of 30 and 55. Each participant answered biennial follow-up questionnaires, and night shift information was first collected in 1988. More than 85,000 nurses responded to those inquiries, according to the researchers.

Women with pre-existing cardiovascular issues and cancers other than non-melanoma skin cancer were excluded, leaving nearly 75,000 women that were included in the analysis. Rotating night shift work was defined as working at least three nights per month in addition to days and evenings during the same month, and each woman was asked how many years they had worked those schedules (1-2, 3-5, 6-9, 10-14, 15-19, 20-29 or more than 30 years).

Dr. Eva S. Schernhammer, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, called the study “one of the largest prospective cohort studies worldwide with a high proportion of rotating night shift workers and long follow-up time. A single occupation (nursing) provides more internal validity than a range of different occupational groups, where the association between shift work and disease outcomes could be confounded by occupational differences.”

“These results add to prior evidence of a potentially detrimental relation of rotating night shift work and health and longevity,” she added. “To derive practical implications for shift workers and their health, the role of duration and intensity of rotating night shift work and the interplay of shift schedules with individual traits (e.g., chronotype) warrant further exploration.”

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What makes black widow venom so poisonous?

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

An in-depth analysis of the black widow spider’s genetics, protein expression and venom content has revealed exactly how and why these deadly arachnids have become so extremely toxic.

As part of the research, Dr. Jessica Garb of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and a team of colleagues from the US and the UK have discovered that the most potent neurotoxins present in the venom of the black widow are known as latrotoxins.

Those latrotoxins, which were named after the group of widow spiders known as Latrodectus, include “a devastatingly debilitating chemical” known as alpha-latrotoxin, the researchers said in a statement Tuesday. This substance can hijack the body’s own internal communication system by affecting the electrical and chemical signaling capabilities of its victim’s nervous system.

“If you got bitten by a black widow, alpha-latrotoxin would travel to the pre-synaptic regions of your neurons: this is the juncture right between the synapse of one neuron and your muscle cells or another neuron, and it inserts itself into the membrane,” said Garb, who presented her team’s research at the annual conference of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology.

“This causes all of the neuron’s vesicles to dump out their neurotransmitters. And that’s really what’s painful,” she added. In other words, this chemical causes a victim’s nerve cells to release off of their chemical signals at once, causing an immense amount of pain in the process.

Alpha-latrotoxin has long been the topic of study by spider biologists and neuroscientists, as it can help them learn more about how neurons function. Until recently, the latrotoxins were believed to be a small group of proteins. However, Garb’s research had revealed that they are actually a far larger group than expected, and are even found in the common house spider.

While house spiders are related to the black widows, their venom is typically believed not to be toxic to people. The difference in the potency of their respective poisons, the researchers said, is likely a case of the production of the toxins, but not the genetic ability to do so.

“It’s not just about the numbers of these latrotoxins, but their relative expression,” said Garb. Even though common house spiders possess the genes for multiple latrotoxins, they appear to produce them at far lower levels in their venom in comparison to black widows. However, the researchers explained that genetics still play a key role in the evolution of venom.

“The house spider genome is a great resource for us, because we can now get the full landscape of what’s in the genome of one of these spiders,” Garb explained. “There has been a lot of lineage-specific evolution of this latrotoxin family, and the set of latrotoxins in house spider venom appears to be quite distinct from those in black widow venoms.”

By studying more than one species of spider, the study authors were able to compare latrotoxin genes among species that, while closely-related, vary in venom functionality and toxicity. They found that the latrotoxin genes among spiders, while clearly related, are highly divergent.

Essentially, they found that instead of having latrotoxin genes that have evolved slowly over an extended period of time, the black widows have genes that have been duplicating and changing over a relatively short period of time. This has contributed to the potency of their venom.

The sudden appearance of multiple latrotoxins probably allowed the spiders to pursue a variety of different types of prey, including small mammals and reptiles that it otherwise would not have been able to eat, the study authors said. It is even possible that the webs of black widows changed along with their venoms, becoming strong enough to trap these larger types of prey.

By milking venom from the black widow spiders, Garb and her associates also found that it is actually made up of several different types of toxins. In addition to neurotoxins, the venom also contained chemicals that helped those toxins reach their targets within the victim’s body.

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Does posting selfies make you a psychopath?

Written By: John Hopton

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Christopher Pilny

John Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Just when men thought it was cool to start taking pride in their appearance, it turns out that doing so could mean we are a narcissist, a psychopath or both. Well, if we take enough pride to post regular selfies on social media that is – and these days that applies to quite a lot of us.
According to research from Ohio State University, men who posted more online photos of themselves than others scored higher on measures of narcissism and psychopathy. Accusations of narcissism may sound a little embarrassing, but not surprising. But being told you might be a psychopath? That’s a little worrying.
Men who were prone to editing their selfies before posting scored higher not only in narcissism but in self-objectification too, a measure of how much they prioritize their appearance in life. The absence of psychopathy from that group is of little consolation, because it is simply explained by the fact that psychopaths are so impulsive and keen to get their selfie in front of the world that they have no time for editing. They are no less vain, just less patient.
“It’s not surprising that men who post a lot of selfies and spend more time editing them are more narcissistic, but this is the first time it has actually been confirmed in a study,” said Jesse Fox, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at The Ohio State University.
“The more interesting finding is that they also score higher on this other anti-social personality trait, psychopathy, and are more prone to self-objectification,” she added.
Narcissism, according to Ohio State, is marked by a belief that you’re smarter, more attractive and better than others, but with some underlying insecurity. Psychopathy involves a lack of empathy and a disregard for others, and a tendency toward impulsive behavior. However, before treatment is sought, it may be comforting to know that the results don’t mean that men who post a lot of selfies are necessarily narcissists or psychopaths, just that there’s a link between the two things. The men in the study all scored within the normal range of behavior, but had higher than average levels of the anti-social traits.
Fox conducted the study with Margaret Rooney, a graduate student at Ohio State. Their results are published online in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. The sample included 800 men from age 18 to 40 who completed an online survey asking about their photo posting behavior on social media. The participants also completed standard questionnaires for anti-social behaviors and for self-objectification.
“We know that self-objectification leads to a lot of terrible things, like depression and eating disorders in women,” Fox said. However, little study of self-objectification in heterosexual men has ever taken place.
“With the growing use of social networks, everyone is more concerned with their appearance. That means self-objectification may become a bigger problem for men, as well as for women,” she added.
Follow-up research suggests the same findings will also apply to women. Women who post more selfies also show higher levels of narcissism and psychopathy, and self-objectification plays a larger role with women which apparently would be expected, according to the experts at Ohio State.
“We are all concerned with our self-presentation online, but how we do that may reveal something about our personality,” Fox concluded.
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Protecting South African rhinos with space telescope technology

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A record-number of rhinos were killed by poachers in 2014, but the creatures could soon be getting a new ally in their fight for survival – the European Space Agency (ESA).

According to Reuters reports, at least 1,020 rhinos were killed in South Africa as of November, already surpassing the previous high of 1,004 that was set just one year beforehand. Experts say that the final tally is expected to hit at least 1,200, a nearly 400 percent increase since 2010.

As of February 2013, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported that there were slightly more than 5,000 critically-endangered black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) and about 20,000 near-threatened white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum) living in Africa. Now, a new technique that uses space telescope technology could help rangers protect these creatures.

Students from Cranfield University in the UK are using high-resolution imaging technology originally developed by the ESA for use in space telescopes, mounting it to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and using it to help rangers in their efforts to protect African rhinos.

“Our proposal intends to develop lightweight and autonomous UAVs for observing in two main sectors: wildlife conservation, and search and rescue,” said Idriss Sisaid, who along with fellow students Enrique Garcia Bourne and Edward Anastassacos won the ESA Technology Transfer Program Office’s 2014 Space Solutions University (S2UN) Challenge.

Using optical imaging and curved image field mapping technology patented by the European space organization, their Horus project was able to produce aerial imagery in real time, and at a lower cost than existing alternatives. Their technique, which is installed on UAVs, could monitor large areas and help rangers know where poachers are hunting rhinos and other animals.

“ESA patent 561 presented us with a platform technology to produce inherently high-quality, non-distorted and wide-angle images. When applied to UAVs, this allows far greater coverage and improved performance when compared to UAVs with more traditional cameras,” said Bourne.

The Horus project also allows for quicker responses to incidents, the agency explained. When emergency situations arise, the UAV can scan large areas and immediately provide response teams with detailed information which they can quickly act upon. Likewise, it provides constant coverage over vast swaths of land to continually combat poaching-related activities.

“In providing rangers and non-governmental organizations with this crucial monitoring ability at limited cost, Horus could boost effectiveness and efficiency,” the ESA said. “The team is now assessing how best to develop their idea… with the objective of turning it into a viable business.”

“Our success in ESA’s Challenge is the first step of the project,” said Anastassacos. “Continued development of the imaging system based on the ESA’s patent will bring us one step closer to the prototyping phase. We look forward to seeing our idea take flight.”

Their work could prove to be vital in what conservationists believe will be an important year ahead for the South African rhino species.

“2015 will be key, possibly the most significant yet in the battle to save the world’s iconic animals,” Richard Thomas, spokesman for the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, told Reuters. “If the resources now being directed at this fail to put a big dent in the poaching figures, we need to find out what went wrong and why and amend our approach.”

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Pollutants responsible for Taj Mahal’s yellowing identified

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

The white marble that has helped make India’s Taj Mahal such an iconic structure has been turning yellowish brown in recent years, and now researchers have discovered the cause – black carbon and brown carbon resulting from the burning of trash, fuels and other materials.

Writing in a recent edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, scientists from Georgia Tech, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Archaeological Survey of India found that these pollutants are responsible for the grime that has forced workers to apply a clay mask to the structure every few years.

In a statement, the American Chemical Society (which publishes the journal in which the new paper appears) said that the findings “could help inform efforts to protect the mausoleum and other surfaces from pollution.”

The authors of the study note that Indian officials have tried to reduce the effects of these airborne pollutants on the archaeological wonder by limiting nearby traffic and placing strict limits on local industrial emissions. Even so, the domes and minarets at the Taj Mahal have continued to collect soot, yet there had been no research into the pollutants responsible.

Michael H. Bergin, a professor at the Georgia Tech Schools of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Sachchida Nand Tripathi, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and adjunct Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology, and their colleagues set out to change that.

They analyzed particles in the air and on marble samples near the main dome at the Taj Mahal over the course of several months to find out what was causing it to appear yellow. Using a novel method they developed, the researchers estimated how those speck reflected light and altered the building’s color.

Specifically, they collected samples of ambient particulate matter and found that they contained relatively high concentrations of light-absorbing particles capable of potentially discoloring the Taj Mahal’s marble surfaces. The substances they found included black carbon and brown carbon (also known as light-absorbing organic carbon) and dust.

“Analyses of particles deposited to marble surrogate surfaces at the Taj Mahal indicate that a large fraction of the outer Taj Mahal surfaces are covered with particles that contain both carbonaceous components and dust,” the study authors wrote.

“We have developed a novel approach that estimates the impact of these deposited particles on the visible light surface reflectance, which is in turn used to estimate the perceived color by the human eye,” they added. Their results indicated that “deposited light absorbing dust and carbonaceous particles,” including black carbon and brown carbon from the combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, were responsible for the landmark’s surface discoloration.

Specifically, UPI reports indicate that approximately 30 percent of the pollutants on the marble surface of the Taj Mahal were organic carbon released by the burning of trash. Roughly three percent were black carbon, which is typically found in automobile exhaust – a surprising find, since motor vehicles are not allowed within 500 meters (1,640 feet) of the landmark.

“Overall, the results suggest that the deposition of light absorbing particulate matter in regions of high aerosol loading are not only influencing cultural heritage but also the aesthetics of both natural and urban surfaces,” Bergin, Tripathi and their colleagues wrote. They believe that their findings could be used to address the chronic yellowing and improve overall air quality.

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Yoke your oxen: Oregon Trail and 2,000 other MS-DOS games added to internet archive

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

The folks at the Internet Archive are add it again, further hampering humanity’s attempts at productivity by adding more than classic 2,000 MS-DOS games to a growing software library that already includes Atari 2600, ColecoVision and arcade video games.

According to the Washington Post, over 2,400 classic MS-DOS titles have been added to the Archive’s Software Library, including The Oregon Trail, Castle Wolfenstein, Prince of Persia, Leisure Suit Larry, the Bard’s Tale, the Carmen Sandiego series and many others.

The website allows interested gamers to play instantly directly through their web browsers, KUSA News in Denver explained. However, the curators of the archive note that the programs could have some bugs in them, and they are asking for feedback from the online community.

“I really worked hard to have only fully-functioning programs up, or at least, programs that gave viable, useful feedback,” software curator Jason Scott explained earlier this week in a blog post. “Some of them will still fall over and die, and many of them might be weird to play in a browser window, and of course you can’t really save things off for later… But on the whole, you will experience some analogue of the MS-DOS program, in your browser, instantly.”

“Enjoy the games,” he added. “Play a few programs, note how you get around to things, and talk about what works and what doesn’t work for you. There’s a feedback button – use it. The goal is that you will be able to do everything you can do with the old interface with the new, but that you’ll have so much more happening on the new one.”

Scott also said that most of the titles will remain in the archive, while others will eventually be pulled, changed or replaced. He added that the no-plugin-required, play-in-browser interface is unique and that getting things up and running has required a lot of effort – effort that wouldn’t be worth it unless the gaming community tries out the game and offers their feedback.

While PC World calls it “the most consumer-friendly way to use DOSBox so far,” the website also pointed out the elephant in the room: will gaming companies allow the library to stay intact? While some of the MS-DOS titles qualify as abandonware, and are thus in an emulation-related grey area, others are still being marketed by companies that could pursue legal action.

Thus far, 4D Prince of Persia has been the most downloaded title, with more than 81,000 copies having been enjoyed as of early Thursday morning. The original Prince of Persia is second with over 79,000 downloads, followed by Stunts with over 60,000 and Wolfenstein 3D and Lemmings 2 – The Tribes, each of which has been downloaded more than 38,000 times thus far.

“The MS-DOS project is likely to see similar popularity to the console experiment,” the Washington Post said. “Although this isn’t the first time some of these games have made it into a playable browser format, the Internet Archive’s undertaking is an unprecedented work of interactive preservation.”

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Hubble revisits iconic Pillars of Creation site

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

In honor of its upcoming 25th anniversary, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the site where it captured one of its most iconic images, the three giant columns of cold gas known as the “Pillars of Creation.”

Hubble originally photographed the butte-like structures in 1995, revealing previously unseen details of the gas columns that were bathed in ultraviolet light from a nearby cluster of massive young stars a region of the Eagle Nebula (M16).

According to the Space Telescope Science Institute, the original image of the “Pillars of Creation” went on to become so popular that it appeared in movies and television shows, as well as on t-shirts, pillows and even postage stamps. Now, as it prepares to mark its silver anniversary of service, Hubble as returned to the scene to capture even better images of the location.

The new images are sharper and wider, the Institute says, and have pillars have been photographed in both visible light and near-infrared light. The infrared view makes the pillars appear as “eerie, wispy silhouettes seen against a background of myriad stars,” because it penetrates all but the densest regions of gas and dust surrounding the pillars.

The new images are being officially unveiled at this year’s annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), taking place this week at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, and reveals newborn stars hidden amongst the pillars.

“I’m impressed by how transitory these structures are,” said Paul Scowen of Arizona State University, who was one of the leaders of the original Hubble observations at the Eagle Nebula. “They are actively being ablated away before our very eyes. The ghostly bluish haze around the dense edges of the pillars is material getting heated up and evaporating away into space.”

“We have caught these pillars at a very unique and short-lived moment in their evolution,” he added. The infrared image indicates that the reasons that the pillars exist is because the ends of them are dense, shadowing the gas below them and creating the long, column-like structures.

The gas located in between the pillars was blown away long ago by ionizing winds from the central star cluster located above the pillars, the Institute explained. At the top edge of the left pillar, a gaseous fragment has been heated up and is flying away from the structure. The finding underscores the “violent nature of star-forming regions,” they added.

“These pillars represent a very dynamic, active process,” said Scowen. “The gas is not being passively heated up and gently wafting away into space. The gaseous pillars are actually getting ionized (a process by which electrons are stripped off of atoms) and heated up by radiation from the massive stars. And then they are being eroded by the stars’ strong winds (barrage of charged particles), which are sandblasting away the tops of these pillars.”

When he and ASU colleagues Jeff Hester used Hubble to make the initial observations of the Eagle Nebula in 1995, the pillars had only been seen in ground-based images lacking the detail of those captured by the telescope. While the processes that take place are not unique to the nebula, at a distance of 6,500 light-years, it is the closest, most dramatic area of such activity.

Scowen recalled that he and Hester were amazed by the detail of the pictures, which allowed them to see features of the pillars for the first time. Among the first things that jumped out to them in 1995 were the streamers of gas floating away from the columns, which helped settle a debate about what impact nearby massive stars would have on gas in stellar nurseries.

“There is only one thing that can light up a neighborhood like this: massive stars kicking out enough horsepower in ultraviolet light to ionize the gas clouds and make them glow,” he explained. “Nebulous star-forming regions like M16 are the interstellar neon signs that say, ‘We just made a bunch of massive stars here.’ This was the first time we had directly seen observational evidence that the erosionary process, not only the radiation but the mechanical stripping away of the gas from the columns, was actually being seen.”

A comparison of the 1995 and 2014 images allowed researchers to notice that a narrow jet-like feature that may have been ejected from a newly forming star was been growing longer. This jet, which resembles a stream of water coming from a garden hose, has expanded to cover an additional 60 billion miles and is travelling at speeds of roughly 450,000 miles per hour.

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Students develop eco-friendly flame retardant

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Guided by a materials science professor at Stony Brook University, a team New York students has developed a patent-pending, environmentally-friendly flame retardant that they claim is five-times stronger than currently commercially available products.

Miriam Rafailovich, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Co-Director of the Program in Chemical and Molecular Engineering at Stony Brook, guided an undergrad at the university and a pair of high school students as they developed the sustainable method of rending wood used in construction flame retardant using natural materials.

The research, which took place at the Garcia Center for Polymers at Engineered Interfaces at Stony Brook as part of the Garcia Research Scholar Program, has already drawn interest from multiple firms looking to license the technique, Rafailovich said in a statement Monday.

The Garcia Research Scholar Program provides high school students and teachers the chance to work with the faculty and staff at the university’s polymer science and technology lab. Research on the flame retardant was initiated by Tehila Stone, a former member of the program.

Noah Davis, a senior at Earl L. Vandermuelen High School on Long Island involved in the research, explained that he has long been interested in math and science, and that his passion for these fields led him “to look for research programs over the summer. I learned about the Garcia Program, and the focus on polymer-based engineering immediately drew my interest.”

Rafailovich said that the students “were the primary drivers in this work,” and that she “guided them in addressing the pertinent questions,” while high school student and team member Daniel Kim said that program “was the optimal choice for access to a quality lab and great mentorship.”

The team began their work with a basic 2×4 from Lowe’s, and went on to engineer a compound that impregnated the natural structure of the wood. They said that this compound formed a wood-plastic composite that exceeds UL 94 V-O criteria for the safety of flammability, and is also capable of extinguishing a flame without decomposing into toxic byproducts.

“What interested me the most was that it could be used to safeguard homes and buildings. The idea that the world can really benefit from flame retardant wood was my greatest motivation for this project,” Kim explained. The research also involved Dr. Marcia Simon, a professor in the university’s department of oral biology and pathology and director of the Living Skin Bank.

“The students chose to use resorcinol bis(diphenyl phosphate) (RDP), which the EPA has declared a preferred substitute for halogenated flame retardants,” she said. “Preliminary data in our laboratory confirms that when RDP is reacted with cellulose, or clays… it is safe and non-cytoxic. Although the finished product is safe, in vitro tests suggest that the unreacted RDP liquid, used in industrial plants, can be cytotoxic and should be handled with care.”

Rafailovich said she was pleased that the young students were able to have the opportunity to conduct this type of research, adding that “a great deal of innovation is possible if we encourage students to explore their ideas.” She said that these students tended to be more “in-tune” with current developments in the field of consumer science, but that they likely lacked the tools and the know-how to fully explore their ideas.

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Wind rushes through Milky Way at 2 million miles per hour

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A titanic eruption took that took place at least two million years ago forced gases and other materials outward at speeds of up to two million miles per hour, and astronomers are just now witnessing the aftermath of the explosion thanks to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

Lead researcher Andrew Fox of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and his colleagues report that they have observed billowing clouds of gas that are approximately 30,000 light-years both above and below the plane of our galaxy.

This structure, which was discovered five years ago as a gamma-ray glow on the sky in the direction of the galactic center, have since been observed in X-rays and radio waves as well, the study authors explained. Recently, however, Hubble was used to measure the composition and velocity of the mysterious loves for the first time.

Fox’s team, who will be publishing a paper detailing their findings in The Astrophysical Journal Letters as well as presenting them at this year’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle, will now attempt to calculate the mass of the material that is being blow out of the Milky Way, which could help them determine the exact cause of this phenomenon.

Scientists have developed two possible origins for the bipolar lobes: the eruption of the supermassive black hole at its center, or a firestorm of star birth taking place in roughly the same region. While astronomers have spotted composed of streams of charged particles called gaseous winds emanating from the cores of other galaxies, the fact that a similar event is taking place in our own galaxy is giving them a unique, up-close view of the fireworks.

“When you look at the centers of other galaxies, the outflows appear much smaller because the galaxies are farther away. But the outflowing clouds we’re seeing are only 25,000 light-years away in our galaxy,” Fox explained. “We have a front-row seat. We can study the details of these structures. We can look at how big the bubbles are and can measure how much of the sky they are covering.”

These giant lobes are known as Fermi Bubbles, since they were initially detected using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and the researchers explain that the discovery of the high-energy gamma rays indicates that the energized gas in being forcefully launched into space as the result of a violent event taking place in the core of the galaxy.

In an attempt to learn more about these outflows, Fox and his colleagues used Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) to probe the ultraviolet light from a distant quasar located behind the base of the northern bubble. Information about the velocity, composition, and temperature of the expanding gas inside the bubble is imprinted on that light, and only COS can detect it.

Using the spectrograph, they were able to measure that the gas on the near side of the bubble is moving towards Earth, while the gas on the far side is travelling away from our planet. It also indicated that the gas is travelling from the galactic center at approximately two million miles per hour, or three million kilometers per hour.

“This is exactly the signature we knew we would get if this was a bipolar outflow. This is the closest sightline we have to the galaxy’s center where we can see the bubble being blown outward and energized,” said co-author Rongmon Bordoloi, also of the Space Telescope Science Institute.

The COS observations also include the first-ever measurements of the composition of material being swept up into the gaseous cloud. The instrument was able to detect silicon, carbon, and aluminum, which indicates that the gas is enriched in the heavy elements produced inside stars and represents the fossil remnants of star formation.

The Hubble spectrograph also measured the temperature of the gas at approximately 17,500 degrees Fahrenheit, which is far cooler than most of the super-hot gas in the outflow, believed to be at about 18 million degrees Fahrenheit. Fox explained that the observations indicate the cooler gas, possibly interstellar gas in our galaxy’s disk, was being swept up into the hot outflow.

“This is the first result in a survey of 20 faraway quasars whose light passes through gas inside or just outside the Fermi Bubbles,” the Institute said in a statement. “An analysis of the full sample will yield the amount of mass being ejected. The astronomers can then compare the outflow mass with the velocities at various locations in the bubbles to determine the amount of energy needed to drive the outburst and possibly the origin of the explosive event.”

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Fibromyalgia

Being Comfortable with Fibromyalgia

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Published Date: January 8, 2015 Last Edited: January 8, 2015

Is it really possible to be comfortable with fibromyalgia? Not really, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make yourself as comfortable as possible. Suffering from fibromyalgia is a hard thing to get through with all of the chronic pain throughout your body, and becoming comfortable will be difficult. But by choosing the right clothes and bedding among other times, you should hopefully be able to comfort yourself as much as you can in the day and night.

Pillows and Bedding

You need to sleep comfortably at night. Even for people who don’t suffer from fibromyalgia, this is critically important. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll be more likely to develop the flu or cold, will be unable to produce antibodies, increase your chances of developing heart disease, and will make any current chronic pains or diseases you have considerably worse.

Anyone who has suffered from fibromyalgia will tell you that waking up in the morning is equal to enduring the worse pain. You have a loss of balance, you’re tired and stiff, and the fibromyalgia symptoms flare up the most. If you don’t want to feel in this way in the morning in addition to getting a good night’s sleep, there are some things you should know about bedding.

Many mattresses and bedding materials produced today are permeated with fire retardant chemicals. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the makers for most bedding materials probably didn’t have fibromyalgia patients in mind. The fibers on fire retardant materials can aggravate your skin, and pads such as pillows with synthetics will only deliver the same results.

A fibromyalgia patient should sleep on bedding and pillows that give support to the fibromyalgia pressure points (located primarily on the neck, chest, shoulders, elbows, lower back, and knees). This will regulate your body temperature and result in no chemicals irritating you. But what kind of material should you use?

The answer is wool that is both organic and natural. This differs from synthetic materials that are not natural and not breathable. Organic wool has natural fibers that will allow your skin to breathe while also keeping you warm. When used as a bedding material, it will prevent skin irritation.

Though organic and natural wool is probably your best bet, excellent alternatives are cashmere, alpaca, silk, or cotton. All of these materials are very soft and natural. Your body temperature will adjust to them and your pressure points will be supported. The only thing to watch out for is to make sure that you aren’t allergic to any of the materials.

Clothing

Anyone can get hot and cold during the day, but it’s an even bigger issue for patients with fibromyalgia. This is because the internal temperatures of fibromyalgia patients aren’t the same thing as everyone else. For example, whereas a person without fibromyalgia may only be swearing a long sleeve shirt for protection from some chills, a patient with fibromyalgia may have a full jacket or coat on.

Patients with fibromyalgia have to be very careful about control their temperature. They should lawyer accordingly and put on and take off certain layers throughout the day. For example, start out with a simple T-shirt, and then add a sweatshirt, then a jacket, and then a coat when you get cold. When you begin to feel warm, peel off a lawyer.

Fibromyalgia patients can swell throughout the day. As a result, your clothes should never be tight. Wear clothes that are either loose or can stretch. This will ensure that you’re as comfortable as possible when it comes to wearing clothes.

In addition to being particular about the clothes during the way you wear, you should also be conscientious about the pajamas or nightwear you put on as well. While having proper bedding is important, so is having proper nightwear. For instance, you should not wear heavy pajamas. Even for instances where you feel very cold at night, heavy pajamas will make you noticeably uncomfortable. Go for light pajamas that allow your skin to breathe. In order to stay warm, simply use plenty of blankets. Following the clothing rule, you can add or take off layers of blankets as you see ft during the night. It’s a whole lot easier to pull off or on a blanket instead of having to change pajamas in the night.

Last but not least, when it comes to clothes, you’ll need a good pair of shoes. Considering that you use your feet to get around every day and your feet are carrying all of the weight, you need a good pair of shoes to support that weight. Any problems that develop in your feet can lead to a multitude of problems, such as poor posturing and aching in your body. Purchase a pair of shoes that are properly fitted and that feel very comfortable. A type of shoe that seems to work well for many people with fibromyalgia is slip-ons.

Decrease the Weight You Carry

An additional tip that you should pay close attention to is to decrease the amount of weight you carry every day. Whether it’s a purse, a backpack or a suitcase, decrease the weight. Yes, it’s convenient to carry everything you need with you. But carry a lot of weight around puts a lot of strain and stress on your body and will do nothing to alleviate the pain that comes with fibromyalgia symptoms. On the contrary, it will likely make the pain worse. Poor balance, posturing and neck cramps are just a few of the things that can develop with carrying a lot of weight around.

To lessen the weight you carry, only take your essentials with you. Things you can do without should be kept in your car so you can take a short trip over when you need them. Hopefully during work, you’ll be allowed to go to your car whenever you need to.

Further reading

A new nonpharmacological method in fibromyalgia: the use of wool:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19388862

Clothes and Bedding for Fibromyalgia:

http://www.fibromyalgia-symptoms.org/clothes.html

Record-breaking black hole outburst recorded

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 7, 2015 Last Edited: January 7, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

After years of watching, astronomers have recorded the largest-ever flare in X-rays from the supermassive black hole located at the center of the Milky Way, and their discovery brings the scientific community one step closer to understand how black holes behave.

The event was detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and observed by a research team led by Amherst College astronomy professor Daryl Haggard last September. Haggard and her colleagues presented their findings at this year’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), held this week at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.

Supermassive black holes are the largest type of black holes, and one can be found in every galaxy, the researchers explained. The one at the center of the Milky Way is called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, and they believe that it contains roughly 4.5 million times the mass of our Sun.

Sgr A* has been repeatedly observed by scientists working with Chandra since the US space agency’s telescope was first launched over 15 years ago. Haggard and her colleagues originally had been using Chandra to determine if the supermassive black hole would consume parts of a gas cloud known as G2.

“Unfortunately, the G2 gas cloud didn’t produce the fireworks we were hoping for when it got close to Sgr A*. However, nature often surprises us and we saw something else that was really exciting,” the professor explained.

Her team detected a megaflare – an X-ray outburst that was 400 times brighter than usual, and nearly three times brighter than the previous record holder. That event took place in September, and was followed about a month later by a second enormous X-ray flare – one that was 200 times brighter than Sgr A* in its quiet state.

The astronomers have two main ideas about what could be causing the supermassive black hole to erupt so spectacularly. The first is that its gravity has torn apart a few asteroids and ventured too close, and that the debris would become extremely hot and produce X-rays before completely disappearing across the event horizon, or its point of no return.

“If an asteroid were torn apart, it would go around the black hole for a couple of hours – like water circling an open drain – before falling in,” explained co-principal investigator Fred Baganoff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “That’s just how long we saw the brightest X-ray flare last, so that is an intriguing clue for us to consider.”

If that theory proves true, it would mean that Haggard, Baganoff and their associates had discovered evidence of the largest asteroid ever to be torn apart by Sgr A*. The second theory suggests that the magnetic field lines within the material flowing towards the Sgr A* are packed unusually tightly, which means that they could interconnect and reconfigure themselves.

When this happens, their magnetic energy is converted into the energy of motion, heat and the acceleration of particles, which could have produced a bright X-ray flare. These types of flares have been seen on the Sun, and the flares from the supermassive black hole could well have a similar pattern of brightness to these solar events, the researchers explained.

“At the moment, we can’t distinguish between these two very different ideas,” Haggard said. “It’s exciting to identify tensions between models and to have a chance to resolve them with present and future observations.”

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Paul Revere, Samuel Adams time capsule opened

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 7, 2015 Last Edited: January 7, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A time capsule sealed by American founding fathers Paul Revere and Samuel Adams over two centuries ago was opened Tuesday by officials at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The capsule, according to the History Channel, was discovered by workers repairing a leak at the cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House last month, was a 10-pound brass box found to contain two dozen coins, five newspapers and a handful of other items.

Conservator Pamela Hatchfield and her colleagues also found a seal from the Massachusetts commonwealth and a title page from the commonwealth’s colony records within the container, according to Discovery.com. The contents, the website added, were not all that big of a surprise, as the time capsule had previously been extracted and opened in 1855.

At that time, the original cowhide capsule was replaced with the brass box, and new items, including coins from the 1800s, were added to the cache. It was then mortared into the State House cornerstone, where it was recovered during a seven hour process in December. The box was then transported to the museum, where it was X-rayed and examined.

Officials at the museum and the Massachusetts Archives opened it during a press conference on Tuesday, some 220 years after it was originally stashed for posterity. Among those on hand at the event were Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and other dignitaries, who media reports state witnessed as the screws were removed from the corners of the brass box.

The container, which had turned green with age, also included a series of tools, including a porcupine and a dental pick that belonged to Hatchfield’s grandfather, the History Channel said. It weighed 10 pounds and was slightly smaller than a cigar box (5.5 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches).

According to CNN.com, it took the museum staff more than an hour to remove all of the objects contained within the brass box. At the bottom of the container was an inscribed rectangular plate made of silver that was museum director Malcolm Rogers believes was made by Revere.

“Though we knew a little bit about what was in the box, it was a moment of extraordinary excitement as this brass container just the size of a cigar box was slowly opened with surgical precision, and you suddenly found yourself in the presence of history,” he said, adding that the inscribed silver plate “was the treasure at the end.”

Michael Comeau, executive director of the Massachusetts Archives, read the plate’s inscription to the crowd on hand. “This cornerstone of a building intended for the use of the legislative and executive branches of the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was laid by his Excellency Samuel Adams, Esquire, governor of the said Commonwealth,” he said.

Museum conservators will now work on preserving the contents, which the History Channel said will likely be put on display there later on this year. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said that the capsule itself will eventually be returned to the building’s cornerstone, but noted that it is not certain if any new objects will be added to it beforehand.

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Cosmic impact didn’t kill off mammoths, new evidence suggests

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 7, 2015 Last Edited: January 7, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers from the University of California, Davis have found new evidence discrediting a controversial theory that a cosmic impact caused a thousand-year period of cold that coincided with the extinction of mammoths and other massive creatures.

Peter Thy, a project scientist in the UC Davis Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and his colleagues studied rock soil droplets from northern Syria and found that they were probably formed by Stone Age house fires and not from a nearly 13,000 year old cosmic impact.

Some scientists believe that the Younger Dryas cold period, which took place 10,800 BC and 9,500 BC, was caused when a comet or meteorite struck North America. However, in research published online in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Thy and his fellow researchers found evidence that contradicted an impact-related theory for this prolonged period of cold climate.

The researchers analyzed siliceous scoria droplets, porous granules typically associated with melting, from four different locations in northern Syria that date back at least 10,000 years ago. They then compared those findings to similar scoria droplets previously believed to have resulted from the aforementioned cosmic impact at the very beginning of the Younger Dryas.

They found that the composition of the droplets was related to the local soil, and not to soil from other continents, as would have been expected from an intercontinental impact. Furthermore, the texture of the droplets, thermodynamic modeling and other analyses revealed that the scoria was formed by short-lived heating events of modest temperatures.

If those droplets had been caused by a large impact event, they would have been formed in temperatures that were intensely high. Finally, the samples collected from various archaeological sites spanned a period of 3,000 years. Had a comet or asteroid impact been responsible, the scoria droplets would have been connected by a single date, according to Thy.

“There is no evidence to suggest that siliceous scoria droplets result from very high temperature melting of soil and are the result of a cosmic event,” the study authors wrote. In a statement, Thy added that the impact catalyst theory “is out… there’s no way that can be done.”

House fires were the actual source of the scoria droplets, the researchers said. The region of Syria where the soil originated was associated with early agricultural settlements along the coast of the Euphrates River. Most of the sites included mud-brick structures, and some of those show signs of intense fire and melting, indicating that they formed when fires burned buildings made out of local soil and straw.

While the research indicates that a cosmic impact what not responsible for killing off the mammoths, it does not explain what the catalyst for that event and the prolonged period of frigid conditions that followed might actually be, said Science World Report. That will require additional research, the website added.

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Where the heck is Philae?

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 7, 2015 Last Edited: January 7, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Efforts to discover the exact location of the Rosetta mission’s Philae lander have proven unsuccessful, and European Space Agency scientists fear that the probe might have become covered by dust falling back onto the surface of the comet it currently calls home.

Philae, which successfully landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) last November, bounced twice before finally coming to rest in an unknown location. The lander was able to return a collection of data before shutting down after its battery ran out of power, leaving ESA personnel to try to hunt for the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack.

According to BBC News, researchers believe they have a fairly good idea as to where the probe should be, but attempts to pinpoint its exact location have not been fruitful. Most recently, their attempts to use instruments on the Rosetta orbiter to locate Philae revealed no trace of it.

Pictures that Philae took of its surroundings before it entered idle mode revealed that it came to rest in a dark ditch, which limited its sunlight and kept its battery from adequately charging. The ESA believed that it is located near the “head” of the duck-shaped 67P/C-G, the BBC said.

“The orbiting Rosetta satellite photographed this general location on 12, 13 and 14 December, with each image then scanned by eye for any bright pixels that might be Philae,” the British news organization added. However, “no positive detection was made” during those scans.

The ESA fears that the lander is completely obscured by the overhanging cliff face depicted in its early photographs, the Daily Mail said. Furthermore, dust kicked up by the actual landing and the comet’s own movement could have fallen back to the surface, covering Philae in the process.

“Even if they cannot locate it, scientists are confident the little probe will eventually make its whereabouts known,” BBC News said. “As 67P moves closer to the Sun, lighting conditions for the robot should improve, allowing its solar cells to recharge the battery system.”

Rosetta mission scientists previously indicated that Philae could wake up as early as February, but more realistically it will remain idle until after Easter. Officials said that they are hopeful that communications with the probe could be re-established by May or June, and that Philae will be able to distribute enough power to its instruments to fully resume operations by September.

“The lighting conditions on the comet will only change gradually as it moves closer to the sun,” professor John Zarnecki, a planetary scientist at the Open University, the chair of the ESA’s Solar System Exploration Working Group and a member of the Rosetta mission team, told the Daily Mail on Monday.

“If Philae is indeed under a cliff as we suspect, then the lighting conditions will have to be right before we can see it,” he added. “Dust settling on the lander could not only make it harder to spot but may also pose a problem for powering Philae back up as it gets closer to the sun by stopping the solar panels from working properly.”

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Mass Utahraptor grave may prove pack-hunting hypothesis

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 7, 2015 Last Edited: January 7, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A nine-ton block of sandstone recovered from a Utah mountain in late 2014 contained an astonishing cache of six Utahraptor specimens, making it the largest fossil find of this feather-covered predator to date.

The Utahraptor, which National Geographic said resembles “a pumped-up version” of the Velocipator of Jurassic Park fame, and has the trademark large sickle claw on each second toe, may have hunted their prey in packs like wolves. This follow may prove this hypothesis true.

“If the dinosaurs died together, they might provide some long-sought evidence of group hunting,” the website explained. “The densely packed dinosaurs (in some places, fossils are stacked three feet thick) may have died at different times as they blundered into quicksand, or perhaps they died together in a social supper gone horribly wrong.”

The remains were excavated as part of a decade-plus long effort led by Utah state paleontologist James Kirkland. According to the Daily Mail, a total of six specimens have been recovered from the rock, including a 16-foot long adult, four juveniles and a baby, and there may be more.

Included among the fossils already recovered include never-before-seen bones that is altering their understanding of the dinosaur’s anatomy. Kirkland explained that they now believe that young Utahraptors were about the size of a turkey, that the adults were more heavily muscled.

He was first told about the site by a geology student in 2001 after that student discovered what originally appeared to be a human arm bone amongst early Cretaceous rocks in Utah. The bones appeared to be contained in a sandstone blob that would once have been quicksand, and after looking at the bone, Kirkland found that it was not human, but part of a dinosaur foot.

Additional work at the site revealed more fossils. By chipping off smaller pieces of the block, he and his colleagues found the remains of the six dinosaurs, including a baby that would have been only three feet long from snout to tail, National Geographic said. The site also contained remains of a beaked, bipedal herbivore called an iguanodont, which may have been their prey.

Kirkland believes that the iguanodont may have accidentally entered the quicksand, and its struggles (as well as its smell) likely attracted the predatory Utahraptors. Once they arrived on the scene, one after another would have tried to dine on the stranded dinosaur, only to become trapped in the quicksand themselves, thus attracting others also looking for an easy meal.

“We believe it’s going to be the first example of dinosaurs trapped in quicksand en masse in the fossil record,” he told Nat Geo. To investigate the idea, however, he and his colleagues first had to remove the massive sandstone block. “We didn’t want to take out a nine-ton block,” he said, “but every time we tried to cut in, we kept hitting legs and vertebral columns.”

They ultimately were able to transport them to the Salt Lake City’s Department of Natural Resources with the help of heavy machinery, and they will now attempt to determine if the block is representative of a pack of Utahraptors, or a group of individual predators that all happened to become trapped in the quicksand individually.

According to University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz, Jr., “if the skeletons show some interweaving,” with arms and legs tangled together, that would “be a good clue” that they were hunting as a pack. In addition, the degree to which each of the bones were damaged by sun and weather exposure prior to burial could indicate if they became trapped at the same time.

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CES: Chat with People Power CEO Gene Wang

Written By: Christopher Pilny

Published Date: January 7, 2015 Last Edited: January 7, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Mark Lee Rollins for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

I’m not going to call this an “interview” because it wasn’t an interview. I sat down for a late lunch of delicious pulled pork. Said hello and spoke briefly with a couple seated next to me. After they left, a gentleman sat next to me. And we chatted. Good, old-fashioned, face-to-face, person-to-person conversation. No tweeting, no texting, no emoticons; we actually displayed emotion.

After he took a hefty draught from his ice-cold lemonade, we said hello as we munched our way through lunch. Sated a bit, we asked each other what each was doing at CES.

I gave a short history of my recent career changes, and how I’m now a tech writer (nerd) for redOrbit, as well as explaining what redOrbit is and represents. Now you could have knocked me over with a feather when I learned with whom I was speaking.

Gene Wang is Chaiman and CEO of People Power. I have to admit, I didn’t recognize the name People Power, initially; and you may not know either. But after Gene spoke passionately about what they’re doing, I remembered reading about one of their products.

Every day, across the globe, more than 1 million smartphones are set side for a newer model. And by “set-aside,” I mean that many of these devices are still fully functional. So what do you do? People Power offers their Presence app, which turns an iPhone into a security camera.

They also have Presence Pro for Android devices, which does whole-home energy monitoring and smart plug control. This allows you to manage electric use from a smartphone or tablet.

Gene gave some examples where people – using their newly repurposed iPhone as a security camera, discovered unusual things that happen when they are away, such a the dog walker who helps themselves to your prescription medications!

We also spoke about California beer and wines, family and other pleasantries. Besides a business card, Mr. Wang also gave me a CD of their music, as People Power is also a band.

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Fibromyalgia

Learning How to Work with Fibromyalgia

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Published Date: January 7, 2015 Last Edited: January 7, 2015

Fibromyalgia is very complex, painful and fatiguing. Unfortunately, doctors and medical researchers have yet to uncover what the cure to it is. As a result, current sufferers of fibromyalgia have to learn how to cope with it, and part of coping with fibromyalgia is learning how you can work with it.

Fibromyalgia and the Economy

Studies have shown that fibromyalgia does hurt the economy; medical bills for fibromyalgia patients are higher, and employers have to spend more money for each fibromyalgia medical claim. As a result, it makes the most sense for both the employer and the employees who have fibromyalgia to find a way that will allow the employee to work productively in a good work environment.

How Does Fibromyalgia Affect Work Performance?

You can’t let fibromyalgia get the better of you to poorly affect your work performance. The most difficult times that you are likely to experience during work are while studying or focusing hard on something, and when you’re working in high intensity or in a quickly paced work environment. In both circumstances, the symptoms of fibromyalgia will flare up, and these are the instances that you have to control. Trying taking things simply and slowly.

Specific types of fibromyalgia that can affect you in the work place include brain fog, which means that memory problems will make it difficult to focus on tasks at work. Something that goes hand in hand with this is fatigue, and it’s probably what causes the brain fog. Beyond that, fatigue will slow you down and cause confusion. Try to get as much sleep at night as possible.

The most obvious symptom of fibromyalgia, pain, is what will affect a patient the worse in the workplace. You’ll feel pain for extended periods of time and apparently for no reason. It can happen anywhere in the body, and the intensity will vary from sharp and quick to dull and extended.

Anxiety is another symptom that a sufferer in the workplace will face. Anxiety is made worse by consistent exhaustion and pain. All in all, anxiety will most negatively affect someone in the workplace when needing to work in groups with co-workers.

A lowered immune system could be devastating to a patient when a virus or another illness is finding its way through the workplace. Since fibromyalgia patients tend to have a worse immune system, it’s not only easier to catch an illness, it’s more difficult to recover from it as well.

Last but not least, if you’re suffering from fibromyalgia, you’ve likely been prescribed with a number of different medications. Taking the time to take the medications or having to go out to your car to do obviously takes away time to work.

Monitoring Your Symptoms

While all of these symptoms can obviously make working more difficult, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn how to control them. Keep on the lookout for which symptoms negatively affect your work performance the most and why, and record your findings. You may be surprised to learn that a pattern has developed. Maybe even different areas of the office give you more pain. You can then find ways to manage these symptoms, such as taking a quick drinking, walking around the office space to get some water, or stretching.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself when monitoring your symptoms: do you feel the most pain after waking up in the morning or while you are working? Do you feel relief when you come home after work to relax? Does eating give you any other pain? While at work, do you feel the most pain either in the morning or in the afternoon?

Managing your Symptoms

Once you have begun to monitor your fibromyalgia symptoms, you can then work on managing them. Part of managing your symptoms effectively is to build a routine to manage them. A routine will reduce the amount of energy and stress you spend at work, and will allow you to complete your tasks without hindrance. For example, don’t be afraid to take a few short breaks at work each day. Set a routine, such a short break after every hour. You can also perform exercises to help you during the lunch break; taking the time to stretch will go a very long ways. While this routine can’t be overly strict, as you’ll feel better and worse depending on each day, having a routine in the first place will lead to be more productivity.

You’ll also have to plan on being flexible at work too. If your manager or boss understands your condition and allows it, they may allow you to arrive later or leave earlier, providing that you work a fair amount of hours each week. If it’s at all possible, you could see if you could work from home if it’s more comfortable. If all of your work is done on the computer and the internet anyway, then working from home should be a viable option. By working at home, you can rest when you need to, set the temperature of your home, and exercise whenever the need arises.

An alternative to these options would be to consider moving to a part time job. Yes, a part time job does mean less income, so unless you’re married or otherwise have somebody else who can support you, but if you need the time to focus on managing your fibromyalgia symptoms, it’s certainly a viable option.

Lastly, try to avoid painful tasks such as picking up heavy items or standing in the same spot for an extended time, and reduce the amount of energy you spend. Place items where they can be easily reached and consider re-organizing your workspace. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from your co-workers when you need it, even if it’s for a very simple task, and don’t be afraid to say “no” to a request from another co-worker if you don’t think you’re up to it.

Further reading

Fibromyalgia: Work and Disability:

http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/guide/fibromyalgia-work-and-disability

How to Manage Fibromyalgia at Work – 5 Essential Tips:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Fibromyalgia-at-work

Researchers capture, control atoms for quantum computing

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 6, 2015 Last Edited: January 6, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

The amazing field of quantum computing makes it possible for developers to break records for data processing, improve cyber security and create improved radar, space and aircraft system, but before that can happen, atoms need to be held and read without disappearing.

Now, researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen have developed a method that used a trap to capture atoms along an ultra-thin glass fiber, where those atoms can be controlled. Their results have been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The research was conducted in the Institute’s quantum optics laboratory, an underground facility that is located in an area where it will not be affected by vibrations from motor vehicle traffic. In this laboratory, the researchers conducted ultrasensitive experiments with quantum optics.

“We have an ultra-thin glass fiber with a diameter of half a micrometer (a hundred times smaller than a strand of hair),” explained Jürgen Appel, an associate professor in the Quantop research group at the Niels Bohr Institute. Cesium atoms are captured along this glass fiber, cooled down to almost absolute zero (100 micro Kelvin or negative 273 degrees Celsius) and held there.

When light is transmitted through the glass fiber threat, it will move along the surface because the fiber is thinner than the light’s wavelength, the researchers explained. As a result, strong interactions take place between the light and the atoms secured above the surface of the fiber.

“We have developed a method where we can measure the number of atoms,” Appel said. “We send two laser beams with different frequencies through the glass fiber. If there were no atoms on the fiber, the speed of light would be the same for both light beams.”

“However, the atoms affect the two frequencies differently and by measuring the difference in the speed of light for the two light beams on each side of the atoms’ absorption lines, you can measure the number of atoms along the fiber,” he added. “We have shown that we can hold 2,500 atoms with an uncertainty of just eight atoms.”

The study authors said that the results are “fantastic,” and said that without this technique, a researcher would have to use resonant light (or light that is absorbed by the atoms). They would then scatter photons, which would force atoms out of the trap. The new method allows them to measure and control the atoms so that just 14 percent are ejected from the trap and lost.

“Our resolution is only limited by the natural quantum noise (the laser light’s own minimal fluctuations) so our method could be used for so-called entangled states of atoms along the fiber,” Appel concluded. “Such an entangled system with strongly interacting atoms and light is of great interest for future quantum computer networks.”

According to Michael Schirber of the American Physical Society (APS), this minimally invasive technique can control the number of atoms with a degree of uncertainty that is nearly a factor of 10 less than other methods. Atoms trapped in optical lattices like this could be used to help create extremely precise atomic clocks and quantum computers, he added.

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Female smokers should quit during their periods, study says

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 6, 2015 Last Edited: January 6, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Women who are trying to kick the smoking habit as part of a New Year’s resolution should pay special attention to their menstrual cycle, experts from the University of Montreal and the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal claim in a recently-published study.

As associate professor Adrianna Mendrek and her colleagues explained in research published last October in the Psychiatry Journal, more males than females tend to smoke cigarettes, but it typically takes women and girls less time to become dependent on the products after first using them. Women also tend to have more problems quitting the habit, the authors said.

Mendrek’s team believes that one of the reasons that women appear to crave cigarettes more than men is the influence of hormonal fluctuations across their menstrual cycles. So they set out to examine potential gender-related differences in functional neuroanatomy of craving, and to see if there was any correlation between the desire to smoke cigarettes and a woman’s period.

“Our data reveal that incontrollable urges to smoke are stronger at the beginning of the follicular phase that begins after menstruation,” she explained Sunday in a statement. “Hormonal decreases of estrogen and progesterone possibly deepen the withdrawal syndrome and increase activity of neural circuits associated with craving.”

As a result, it could be easier for women to overcome abstinence-related withdrawl symptoms after ovulation (during the mid-luteal phase), when they have elevated estrogen and progesterone levels, Mendrek said. However, she added that psycho-social factors cannot be excluded, as the women who took part in the study were specifically asked about their menstrual cycle phases.

Mendrek’s team recruited 34 men and women, each of whom smoked at least 15 cigarettes each day, and had them fill out questionnaires and undergo MRI brain scans. The MRIs were taken as the subjects looked either at neutral pictures or images than made them want to smoke.

Female participants were scanned twice (once at the beginning of the follicular phase of their menstrual cycle and then again at the mid-luteal phase), and their estrogen and progesterone levels were also measured.

While the authors found no significant gender-related differences in their neuronal circuits, they did find that activation patterns varied considerably in the women over the course of their menstrual cycles. Specific regions of their frontal, temporal and parietal cortex revealed greater activation during the follicular phase, while limited activation was recorded in the hippocamp during the luteal phase.

While previous research discovered gender-related differences in rats, with females becoming addicted more quickly than males and willing to work harder for equal doses of nicotine. Those observations led Mendrek and her associates to conclude that human females may also face a higher risk of addiction, and that sex hormones could be the reason why.

However, they explained that in humans, it is difficult to determine these things because each case is unique in terms of tobacco use, personal history, personality, environment and social situation. In particular, Mendrek noted that “stress, anxiety and depression” were likely the most important factors to take into consideration.

Ultimately, though, she said that the new research indicates that “taking the menstrual cycle into consideration could help women to stop smoking,” adding that she hopes that her team’s findings will encourage scientists to focus more on biology when developing research protocols. Doing so “should enable us to better target treatment according to the smokers profile,” she noted.

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Science

Snake expert: Should babies play with pythons?

Written By: Lisa Powers

Published Date: January 6, 2015 Last Edited: January 6, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Lisa Powers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

One of the latest viral videos shows a baby girl playing with a 13-foot Burmese python while her father films, claiming he made the video to show people that snakes are great animals.

“To those of you who might see this as irresponsible or dangerous, please don’t judge me based on fear or something you don’t understand,” he asserted. “Snakes can be and are loving animals. If you research the facts there are 95 per cent more dog attacks than snakes. My daughter was absolutely in no danger.”

Snakes are indeed great animals and are all too often portrayed negatively in the media. They are one of the few animals that most people love to hate. But after reviewing the comments posted by people who have viewed the video, it does not seem to be doing anything more than stirring up more hatred for both the snakes and the snake lovers and putting the child at risk.

While the obvious danger is the unpredictability of the snake biting the child (and yes, this is far less likely to happen than the family dog biting the child), the harm caused to the child if the snake started to constrict would be even more harmful and harder to stop if it occurred.

There are also other risks involved. Although this snake looks to be in very good health, it could potentially pass on a deadly illness to the child. Salmonella enterica is a bacterium that can occur in reptiles, amphibians and other animals and can be transferred to humans where it can cause the illness salmonellosis.

There is no way to tell if a snake has Salmonella just by looking at it; perfectly healthy-looking animals can have it and never become sick or show signs of illness. Simple hygiene can reduce or eliminate the risk of infections in humans. In fact, humans are far more at risk at contracting salmonellosis from the foods we bring into our homes than from pet snakes when proper hygiene is observed. Most people recover without treatment, but it can be deadly for certain at risk groups.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have released this warning regarding pet reptiles and amphibians:

“Don’t let children younger than 5 years of age, older adults, or people with weak immune systems handle or touch amphibians or reptiles, or anything in the area where they live and roam, including water from containers or aquariums.”

As to the claims of the man about snakes being loving animals, while it is hard to prove whether or not a reptile can feel love towards humans, many do recognize specific people and even seem to enjoy interacting with their owners.

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Fibromyalgia

Meditation for Fibromyalgia

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Published Date: January 6, 2015 Last Edited: January 6, 2015

If you suffer from fibromyalgia, you’re already very well aware of how difficult it can be to deal with- especially when you have a flare-up of your symptoms. The symptoms related to fibromyalgia, such as fatigue and chronic pain, can make it quite difficult to get through your day.

Often, these symptoms can have some majorly negative effects on your mood- leaving you feeling like there is no hope, or worse, leaving you feeling severely depressed. So, if you’re beginning to feel stressed out by your fibromyalgia, consider trying meditation in order to restore a sense of calmness and vitality to your life.

What exactly is meditation?

People who suffer from fibromyalgia are using meditation techniques more and more to manage their symptoms of fibromyalgia- and it also improves their mood. Meditation helps people to quite/calm their minds, lower their stress levels, and get rid of their worries- at least for a short time.

Meditation involved focusing on breathing or specific words, sounds, or objects to lull the individual into an altered level of consciousness. Meditation facilitates feelings or rest and relaxation and can teach people how to focus their minds on the positive things instead of their trials and tribulations.

Meditation has been around for many, many years and has been used by many, many different cultures. It’s not exactly clear where meditation truly began, however early practices of it can be traced to the Eastern World and India. There are lots of different types of meditation, including mindfulness, concentration, and transcendental. For the most part, all types of meditation have the same exact goal- to bring a person to a state of mental clarity and extreme calm. Meditation has also been used by some to facilitate healing on a spiritual level.

Benefits of Meditation

There are lots of benefits of meditation, both physical and mental- as long as it is practiced on a regular basis. Some of the physical benefits of meditation include the following:

Decreased pulse
Reduction in the activity of the nervous system
Lowered heart rate
Reduction in blood pressure

Some of the mental benefits provided by meditation include the following:

Reduced feelings of depression
Increase in memory capacity
Reduction in anxious feelings
Fewer mood swings
Increase in feelings of vitality and vigor

Meditation Helps Fibromyalgia Sufferers

In recent years, meditation has been proven to be extremely effective at reducing the levels of stress and other symptoms of fibromyalgia. If you are suffering from fibromyalgia, you should be aware that meditation can go a long way in reducing your fatigue and making improvements in your sleep patterns. Meditation has also been proven to reduce your levels of pain, as well as decreasing the levels of cortisol in your body. Cortisol is a hormone that your body produces when you’re under stress.

One study took seventy-seven individuals with fibromyalgia and found that when they practiced meditation every day, most of their symptoms of fibromyalgia were improved drastically. In fact, around fifty-one percent of them reported that they noticed at least a moderate, if not extreme improvement in the symptoms they were experiencing. Another study regarding meditation and the symptoms of fibromyalgia showed that practicing meditation actually decreased the amount of muscle pain, depression, sleeplessness, and achiness that individuals with fibromyalgia experienced.

Various Types of Meditation

Individuals suffering from the symptoms of fibromyalgia have found that practicing meditation on a regular basis has actually greatly reduced their symptoms. However, is there a “right” way to practice meditation? If so, what is it? As mentioned previously, there are three main types of meditation, including mindfulness, concentration, and transcendental.

Mindfulness meditation

First of all, there is mindfulness meditation. This type of meditation is considered to be the most effective form of meditation. Additionally, it is very easy and very enjoyable to do. Start by sitting in the most comfortable position you can and then allow your eyes to gaze in a downward direction. Slowly soften your gaze, but don’t close your eyes completely. Allow your mind to soak in all of the details of your surroundings, including the smells, images, and sounds. However, don’t allow yourself to judge anything or focus on anything in particular. Instead, simply focus on allowing yourself to enjoy each and every aspect of your surroundings and the sensations they elicit. Basically, accept your surroundings for what they are and what they are offering you. Do this once each day, spending about twenty minutes doing it.

Concentration Meditation

This type of meditation is actually one of the simplest forms. When you’re practicing concentration meditation, you focus all of your attention on a specific object. This can be a statue, a candle, a flower, or whatever you choose. You’ll start by sitting in an upright position, with your shoulders in alignment with your hips. You should make sure that the object you’re focusing (or concentrating) on is in your line of sight, but not too far away. Allow your eyes and your attention to center on the object itself. As you’re trying to focus on that object, you may find that random thoughts will pop into your mind. When you notice these thoughts, very gently pull your attention away from the thought and back onto the object. You should aim to do this twice a day for ten minutes each time.

Transcendental Meditation

The third and final type of meditation for fibromyalgia is transcendental. This particular form of fibromyalgia has many who practice it and it is excellent to promote sleep, inner peace and rest. Many times, it has been put together with religious worship in order to deepen the individual’s faith. You should start by sitting in a comfortable position and simply close your eyes. In your head (or out loud, if you prefer), you will repeat a specific sound- known as a mantra- over and over. The sound should have no meaning, but should be soothing to you. Each time you say it, it should become quieter and quieter until it is just you at peace, alone with your thoughts. You should practice this type of meditation twice daily, for fifteen minutes each time.

Further reading:

Mindfulness Meditation Helps Fibromyalgia Patients:

http://healthhub.brighamandwomens.org/mindfulness-meditation-helps-fibromyalgia-patients#sthash.Xcnv7C11.dpbs

Meditation for Relief of Chronic Pain:

http://www.chronicbodypain.net/meditation-for-relief-of-chronic-pain

Meditation: http://www.fibromyalgia-symptoms.org/fibromyalgia_meditation.html

Undersea drones mapping Antarctic ice algae

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 6, 2015 Last Edited: January 6, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

An Aarhus University-led team of researchers are developing and testing underwater drones capable of mapping the distribution of ice algae on the underside of Antarctic sea ice.

Lars Chresten Lund Hansen, Brian Sorrell and PhD student Bibi Ziersen of the Denmark university, along with colleagues from Australia and New Zealand, are working in the frigid conditions at the southernmost continent, sending their torpedo-shaped robot through a three-meter by one-meter hole in the ice in order to map what lies underneath the frozen water.

The 2.5-meter-long underwater drone is ready to be launched through the hole in the sea ice. (Credit:Lars Chresten Lund Hansen)

“The drone was actually designed to study the sea bed and map factors such as sediment types, but our Australian colleagues modified the drone so that it now looks up towards the bottom of the sea ice and measures the light coming through the ice with a radiometer,” Lund Hansen, an associate professor at Aarhus University, explained in a statement Monday.

Ice algae on the underside of the ice can absorb light at certain wavelengths, the researchers said, and the radiometer on the drone can measure the amount of light that is absorbed. Based on those measurements, scientists can calculate the amount of algal biomass beneath the ice, which allows them to determine where the algae are located and how many there are.

The new drone is given a pre-programmed course, and as it travels, it maps the distribution of ice algae over large areas where such investigations had previously been impossible. Measurements obtained by the drone can be compared to those taken using conventional methods, a process that involves ice cores being drilled out and algae being scraped off of their underside.

Chlorophyll measurements reveals the total number of algae there and are then compared to those obtained using the robot’s radiometer. The goal is to understand which factors regulate the distribution of the algae, as there are some indications that the rough texture of the underside of the sea ice plays a key role in its algal colonization, the researchers explained.

There are thin plate-like ice crystals protruding five to 10 centimeters out of the bottom of some of the ice, they added. Those crystals are wedged between one another, forming a surface large enough to provide a good habitat for the diatoms that comprise most of the ice algae community.

While the Antarctic is completely white in color above the ice, there is far more color located beneath it, as these diatoms are greenish-brown and can grow into large colonies that can come together in sheet-like formations on the underside.

“Ice algae are an important component of the Antarctic ecosystem,” the university said. “They begin to grow under the ice as soon as the Sun emerges in early spring, and survive on the small amount of sunshine that penetrates the compact layers of ice.”

“They are also the year’s first producers of food for krill and other zooplankton in the food chain,” it added. “They get life going so to speak under the ice, where small creatures can frolic in the hanging garden and feast on the algae and bacteria associated with algal life.”

Sorrell reports that the ice algae account for as much as 20 percent of the primary production in the Antarctic sea-ice area, and are especially important because they utilize weak light in spring when there are no other producers that can provide food and energy to other creatures.

The researchers call the initial data provided by the underwater drone “promising,” and said that they plan to expand the project to Arctic locations in the upcoming field season. Station North in Greenland or north of Svalbard on the research vessel R/V Lance are among the locations being considered for that expansion, they added.

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Super-Earths capable of maintaining oceans of liquid water

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 6, 2015 Last Edited: January 6, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

One of the key factors in the search for life on other worlds is a planet’s ability to sustain liquid water, and researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have for the first time revealed that this possibility exists on the type of planets known as super-Earths.

Super-Earths, which are extrasolar planets that have a mass higher than Earth’s but one well below that of smaller gas giants such as Uranus and Neptune, could support oceans similar to those found on our planets for billions of years once they were established, the CfA researchers said Monday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

“When people consider whether a planet is in the habitable zone, they think about its distance from the star and its temperature,” lead author Laura Schaefer explained in a statement. “However, they should also think about oceans, and look at super-Earths to find a good sailing or surfing destination.”

While water covers 70 percent of the planet we call home, it actually makes up a small percentage of the overall bulk of the planet, the CfA researchers explain. The Earth is primarily made of rock and iron, and only about one-tenth of it is water.

However, liquid H2O isn’t just found on the Earth’s surface, as research has shown that there is several oceans’ worth of water contained in the mantle as well, they noted. That water was pulled underground by plate tectonics and subduction of the seafloor, and if not for the H2O returning to the surface through volcanism, the planet’s oceans would essentially vanish.

This planet-wide recycling process helps the Earth maintain its oceans, so Schaefer and her colleagues turned to computer simulations to see if similar processes would also take place on super-Earths. They found that planets between two and four times the mass of Earth did an even better job of establishing and maintaining massive bodies of water than our homeworld.

In fact, the CfA research team found that the oceans of super-Earths would persist for a period of at least 10 billion years unless they were boiled away from an evolving red giant star.

However, on the largest of the planets that were studied (five times the mass of Earth), it took longer for the oceans to form – approximately one billion years, to be exact, due to a thicker crust and lithosphere that delayed the start of volcanic outgassing. This discovery suggests that the research for life should focus primarily on older super-Earths, Schaefer said.

“It takes time to develop the chemical processes for life on a global scale, and time for life to change a planet’s atmosphere. So, it takes time for life to become detectable,” said study co-author Dimitar Sasselov, also from the CfA.

“This also suggests that, assuming evolution takes place at a similar rate to Earth’s, you want to search for complex life on planets that are about five and a half billion years old, a billion years older than Earth,” the Harvard-Smithsonian center added.

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The secret vocal cues of flirting

Written By: Eric Hopton

Published Date: January 6, 2015 Last Edited: January 6, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Eric Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

When it comes to corny pick-up lines and geeky flirting strategies, science doesn’t seem to favor the smooth operator with her, or his, routine phrases–this, according to a new study out of the University of Stirling.

Researchers found that certain “paralingual” features of the human voice can give the speaker’s game away and let the listener pick up on that sexual attraction that the “flirter” thought was hidden.

It’s all down to changes in the pitch and modulation of the voice and, for the determined flirter, there’s more bad news. There may be nothing you can do about it. The vocal cues that lift your chances of success, or blow them out of the water, are often instinctive and unconscious. These are very subtle cues. We are not aware of them, either while speaking or listening, but they affect our responses just the same.

The research findings are published in the journal Evolution & Human Behaviour under the title “Vocal modulation during courtship increases proceptivity even in naive listeners.” During their research, lead author, Juan David Leongómez and his colleagues found that when heterosexual men, for instance, flirted with a beautiful woman, their voices changed.

First, the voices got deeper. The team discovered that “Men’s minimum pitch was lower when responding to attractive than unattractive women”.

Secondly, the men’s voices suddenly became more variable in pitch when the speaker entered flirt mode. During “verbal courtship” then men unconsciously put on the deep masculine voice but do a bit of surreptitious and ultra-subtle “singing”. We might not hear it but it’s a little like the love-sick songbird on top of a post, warbling to attract a mate. The best singers get the best birds, according to ornithological experts.

The researchers tried to rule out any linguistic effect by testing both native male English and Czech speakers in their experiments. They also allowed for any effects from speech content.

The study recognized that we already know how speakers modulate their voice when talking to infants and babies, but said that “we know little about subtle variation in acoustic parameters during speech in adult social interactions.” Previous tests of the perception of such variations have, they say, been hindered by the listeners’ understanding of “semantic content” as those studies usually confined speech to the enunciation of standard sentences, which affected their validity.

Also, “paralinguistic modulation” in one language may be a result of certain parameters which are specific to that language. The University of Stirling team tried to avoid these problems by “recording speech directed to attractive or unattractive potential partners or competitors”, and then testing the responses by “naive listeners” in both English and Czech.

Subsequent analysis of acoustic parameters found that “men’s voices varied F₀ (fundamental frequency) most in speech towards potential attractive versus unattractive mates, while modulation of women’s F₀variability was more sensitive to competitors, with higher variability when those competitors were relatively attractive”. Both men’s and women’s voices varied most when responding to attractive individuals.

The vocal modulation may be subtle and unconscious but, to be effective, it must be detectable to achieve proceptivity (a positive response) towards the speaker. The study showed that “speech directed towards attractive individuals was preferred by naive listeners of either language over speech by the same speaker to unattractive individuals, even when voices were stripped of several acoustic properties by low-pass filtering, which renders speech unintelligible”.

In other words – it’s the way you tell it, not what you say, that really counts. Serious flirters, it seems need to get their vocal modulating down tight.

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Stars reveal age through spin rate

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 6, 2015 Last Edited: January 6, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Stars reveal how old they are through their spin rate, and just as we humans slow down as we grow older, so do the massive, luminous balls of plasma found in space, according to research published Monday in the journal Nature.

As part of their research, Soren Meibom of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and his colleagues collected period measurements for 30 low-mass (cool) stars in a 2.5 billion year old cluster known as NGC 6819. The ages of these stars can be difficult to determine because traditional dating techniques rely on stellar properties that change little with age.

However, since the rotation rates of all low-mass stars decrease “substantially” as the stars grow older, the study authors explained that this information could be used to reliably determine their ages through a process known as gyrochronology, which was first proposed in 2003.

“Our goal is to construct a clock that can measure accurate and precise ages of stars from their spins. We’ve taken another significant step forward in building that clock,” Meibom, whose team also presented their findings Monday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Washington DC, explained in a statement.

The CfA researchers claim that their work marks the first application of these observations to stars more than one billion years old, and towards our 4.6-billion-year-old Sun. Being able to determine the ages of stars serves as the basis for understanding how astronomical phenomena that involve them and their companions occur over time, they added.

Being able to determine how old stars are is especially important when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial life outside of our solar system. the study authors said. Since life on Earth took such a tremendous amount of time to reach its current level of complexity, finding a reliable way to discern their ages could help in the search for planets orbiting stars at least as old as our Sun.

The spin rate of a star depends on its age because it slows down steadily with time, similar to a top spinning on a table, the researchers explained. The spin also depends upon the star’s mass, as larger, heavier ones tend to spin faster than their smaller, lighter counterparts.

Meibom and his colleagues have discovered that there is actually a close mathematical relationship between a star’s mass, spin, and age, and that by measuring the first two, they can calculate the third. This constitutes the principles of gyrochronology, a term derived from the Greek words gyros (rotation), chronos (time/age), and logos (study).

Using gyrochronology, the researchers said that they were able to work out the ages of individual stars in NGC 6819 to within 10 percent, said co-author Sydney Barnes from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Germany.

In order to measure a star’s rotation, astronomers first look for changes in brightness caused by dark spots on its surface. With distant stars, they do this by watching for the star to dim slightly when a sunspot appears, then grow brighter once that spot rotated out of view. These difficult measurements were made using data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, the study authors noted.

Meibom’s team has previously used gyrochronology to study a cluster of billion-year-old stars, and their new research significantly expands the age range to which the technique can be applied by using stars in the 2.5-billion-year-old NGC 6819 cluster.

“Older stars have fewer and smaller spots, making their periods harder to detect,” Meibom said.

He and his colleagues examined stars that weight 80 percent to 140 percent as much as the Sun, and were able to measure the spins of 30 stars with periods ranging from 4 to 23 days. For the sake of comparison, the Sun currently has a 26 day spin cycle, they noted. The eight stars in NGC 6819 that were most similar to our sun had an average spin period of 18.2 days.

These findings imply that the Sun’s period was about that value about two billion years ago, when it was 2.5 billion years old. The authors then evaluates several current computer models that calculated stellar rotation rates based on mass and ages, and determined with of those simulations best matched their observations.

“Now we can derive precise ages for large numbers of cool field stars in our Galaxy by measuring their spin periods,” Meibom said. “This is an important new tool for astronomers studying the evolution of stars and their companions, and one that can help identify planets old enough for complex life to have evolved.”

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Climate change may not affect lizards after all

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: January 5, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Experts have long predicted that warming temperatures will be a veritable death sentence for most types of lizards, but the scientists behind a recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) study have found one species that has adapted quite nicely.

The lizard in question is the brown anolis lizard (also known as the brown anole), a native of Cuba and the Bahamas that researchers from Dartmouth College and University of Virginia have found to be surprisingly resilient to the increased heat resulting from global climate change.

According to the Washington Post, the study authors report that the two-degree increase in temperatures expected to occur during the rest of the century will likely have an adverse effect on most types of lizard, but the brown anole shows that the creatures are capable of adapting.

The researchers took male lizards from the cooler, forested end of a Bahamian island to a peninsula that provided little respite from the heat. Much to their surprise, they found that nearly one-fourth of the lizards were able to withstand an environment two degrees warmer than their native habitats, evolving and adapting to their conditions.

The lizards that were able to survive found a way to quickly catch prey, digest it, and quickly escape predators through what the newspaper described as “a sort of micro-evolution” event. This discovery challenges the idea that lizards will be unable to adapt over the course of several generations in order to tolerate what is expected to be a rapidly warming climate.

Ryan G. Calsbeek, an associate professor at Dartmouth and a co-author of the study, told the Post that he and his colleagues were “blown away” by the findings, which they said proves that scientists don’t yet know enough about the biology of some types of creatures to effectively predict what will happen to those species as temperatures grow warmer all over the world.

“The prediction is that these animals are hosed. If the climate warms a couple of degrees as climate scientists predict, we can kiss these animals goodbye,” Calsbeek said. This study suggests that there could be “some salvation for them,” explaining that he is not 100 percent convinced that lizards will be able to survive, that that it is possible that they could adapt.

“We’re not saying climate change isn’t a huge problem with massive negative consequences,” he explained. However, their research reveals that scientists could observe “some potential positive outcomes” in response to climate change, and some “very negative outcomes” in other instances.

The study was led by Michael L. Logan, a doctoral candidate at Dartmouth when the research was conducted, and co-authors included Calsbeek and University of Virginia associate professor Robert M. Cox. The trio captured 100 lizards in a forested area of Eleuthera and transplanted them to a harsher, hotter region of the same island, and found that 22 of them adapted to their new conditions far more quickly than they could have anticipated.

“What I think this work demonstrates is that, as scientists, we need to consider all the avenues that a species can adapt to in its climate,” said Logan. “They can deal with temperatures in their same life span. We see that many species do have more resilience to a situation than what we give them credit for. We should see how they respond even to these incredibly rapid shifts.”

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Recycling plastic without water now possible

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: January 5, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers from AK Inovex have developed a new technology that, unlike most conventional plastic recycling techniques, does not require the use of water and could also be used to process materials such as styrofoam, polystyrene and ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene).

The technology was developed by AK Invoex founder Marco Adame, and in a statement, officials there claim that it can process over 90 percent of plastic types without producing waste water. In addition, they claim that is can cut production cost by 50 percent without reducing the overall quality of the recycles plastic pellets by avoiding severe temperature changes.

Adame explained that the traditional process through which these recycled beads are obtained involve the washing and grinding of plastic containers. However, this type of plastic becomes hygroscopic, meaning that it retains moisture at a molecular level when it comes in contact with water, so it has to be dehydrated so that it can be crystallized.

This process requires applying heat at 180 degrees Celsius and then cooling the material with water. The new AK Inovex process, however, performs these steps without water, instead going directly to the formation of the recycled beads. As a result, the company said that 50 percent less energy consumption is used, and less physical space is required to perform the operation.

They also claim that the method produces better quality pellets and makes the recycling process more profitable. Adame said that AK Inovex currently has “a pending patent registration of the three technologies that integrate the development, which are responsible for cooling the plastic through contact with special walls and form the plastic beads.”

The company also said that the technology is advantageous because it can process any type of plastic, including styrofoam, polystyrene, PET and ABS. This is achieved because of a special piece for each type of material in the mechanism, they explained. Currently, it can produce two tons of plastic beads, but the team said that it is currently working on upping that to 10 tons.

Over the course of the next year, the company said that it want to add an ecological washing machine for plastics that uses a special biodetergent, which will further reduce the cost of the operations. These announcements were made by Adame during the 2014 Cleantech Challenge Mexico, a contest design to promote the development of green companies in that country.

During that event, he said that his company had gotten in contact with the ALINSA group, a manufacturer of environmentally friendly cleaning products using biodegradable chemicals. The two companies are reportedly looking to join forces on an ecological washing machine system that uses degradable plastic substances as a replacement for lye.

Last summer, researchers from India revealed a process in which some plastic polymers could be converted into liquid fuel. The low-temperature process used waste comprised of low-density polyethylene (LDPE), a common polymer used to make plastic bags, medical equipment and computer components, in order to develop a liquid fuel that could be an oil substitute.

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Disco clam’s spectacular light show explained

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: January 5, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

The unique underwater light show produced by the creature known as the “disco clam” could be an attempt by the invertebrate to scare off predators or attract prey, a new study claims.

The clam, Ctenoides ales, can be found in the dark caves of the Indo-Pacific Ocean, and while some lucky divers have experienced its flashy display, the reasons behind it are unknown. Now, however, University of California, Berkeley researchers may have solved the mystery.

Dive instructor and graduate student Lindsey Dougherty, who presented her findings at the 2015 annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida, said in a recent statement that she first became fascinated by the creatures when she saw their light show during a dive in Indonesia.

“It was on that trip I first saw the disco clam, and immediately fell in love,” she recalled. When she returned to the US, however, she was stunned to find out that it had not been explained why these clams produce their flashing display. She teamed up with UC-Berkeley professor Roy Caldwell and undergraduate student Alexandria Neibergall to learn more about the behavior.

Ctenoides ales is an active, filter-feeding mollusk that lives in small caves or crevices of the coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, the researchers explained. Because their light show is so bright, it was initially believed to be the result of bioluminescence (the production of light within the tissue), but more in-depth study has revealed that far more unusual mechanisms are at work.

Dougherty and her colleagues used high-powered transmission electron microscopy to study the disco clams, and found that the flashes are actually caused by specialized tissues that form a double layer. The tissue reflects light on one side but absorbs it on the other, and when the clam rapidly rolls and unfurls it, the reflected light gives the appearance of flashing, they explained.

The tissues are so reflective that they are capable of producing a flash using only the low levels of blue light discovered in the caves they called home, the study authors noted. It is believed that these clams are the only bivalve species to have evolved this type of structural coloration.

The UC-Berkeley researchers set out to discover why such a mechanisms to developed. They had three different hypotheses about the phenomenon: it may have evolved to help attract mates, to scare off predators or to attract prey. Each of these hypotheses were tested on live claims in laboratory conditions, as the team worked to find out if the clams responded with the flashing in the presence of other clams, predators or prey, and if they could see one another.

Dougherty and her colleagues examined the structure and proteins in the eyes of the clams using a powerful microscope, and found that the creatures likely cannot see well enough to see displays by other clams. As a result, they concluded that it is unlikely that the disco clams are visually attracted to each other, and that the flashing is probably used to attract or repel other creatures.

They then tested the effect of the flashing on predators such as octopi, snails or mantis shrimp. They conducted what are known as “looming trials,” during which the scientists moved a fake predator in the direction of the claims in order to gauge their reaction. They found that the flash rate nearly doubled, from just under 2 Hz to nearly 4 Hz, Dougherty said.

The researchers also detected elevated levels of sulfur, the key ingredient in sulfuring acid, in the tentacles of the clam. A peacock mantis shrimp attacking the disco clam also appeared to recoil from its tentacles and enter a catatonic state, they noted. These findings suggest that the creatures may be producing an acidic mucus in order to repel potential predators.

Finally, phytoplankton prey were introduced into the tank, and as the clam’s tentacles sensed the presence of a threat, there was a significant increase in flash rate. Many types of plankton are phototaxic and attracted to light, the researchers explained, though it is unclear if the prey of the disco clam can also see their flashing. That will be the topic of a future field study.

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Nanostructures allow bone and metal infusion

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: January 5, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A team of researchers from Mexico is working to domestically develop biomedical implants that featured nanostructures that allow compatibility with metal and human bone tissues and reduce that country’s reliance on implants that are manufactured abroad.

In fact, according to the Research Center for Advanced Materials (Cimav) Unit Monterrey, several such projects are in the works at the facility in northern Mexico. All of them share a single goal: conduct research and apply what they’ve learned to improve development of local biomedical implants through the development of novel materials and coating systems.

Cimav, which is part of the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) and located at the Park of Research and Technological Innovation (PIIT), is using these innovations to manufacture hip and knee implants, and ultimately plans to adapt their findings and apply them for use in dental implants as well.

Cimav scholar Ana Maria Arizmendi Morquecho and her colleagues are combining research that focuses on nanostructured materials with biocompatible and antibacterial properties. Their goal, she explained, is to find ways to improve the compatibility of a metal structure with the chemical composition of a person’s natural bone tissue and bone-related nanostructures.

“The biocompatibility is the ability of a material to be in contact with a living being without adverse effects, therefore represents one of the most important properties in the manufacture of a biomedical implant,” Arizmendi Morquecho explained. “Currently the knee and hip implants are complex systems made of titanium alloy substrates, which require a coating compatible with bone tissue and physiological fluids using nanotechnology; to achieve this intermediate coating deposition techniques of new synthesized materials are used.”

“We use a ceramic material which is compatible with the bone, in this case hydroxyapatite, which is used as a matrix and nanoparticles from other materials are used to reinforce it and provide improvements to the bicompatibility, joint wear and mechanical properties,” she added, noting that such materials need to be complex and functional since they have to be resistant to wear, possess improved mechanical properties and be compatible with the human body.

The Cimav researchers explained that, due to the complexity required for the knee implant system, the work has been broken down into multiple parts. One research team is focusing on the coating that will be used to join the metal substrate (titanium alloy) to the bone. They are also studying the polymeric biomaterials that will be in contact with the articulation, as well as how the entire structure will be compatible with fluids in the patient’s body.

“Each research is a graduate level thesis and participation of a multidisciplinary group of researchers that ultimately come together for the same product, a final component,” said Arizmendi Morquecho.

“The next stage of the project is to validate in vitro and in vivo synthesized material at a laboratory level, for which the link with other entities such as medical schools and academic institutions specialized in this type of testing is necessary,” she added. “It’s important to note that compatibility tests are standardized under sanitary policies and those entities are responsible for validation in our developments.”

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Rock discovered with 30,000 diamonds in it

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: January 5, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A rare golf-ball sized chunk of rock that contains over 30,000 diamonds could shed new light on the chemical processes that through which these metastable carbon allotropes form.

The rock, which was discovered in a diamond mine in northern Siberia, is believed to be one of just a few hundred recovered in which the diamond were still in their original setting from within the Earth, the researchers explained in a statement Monday.

After receiving the rock on load from the diamond company of Russia, ALROSA, University of Tennessee professor Larry Taylor and colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences studied it using a giant X-ray machine hoping to uncover clues about the gem’s origins.

Rachel Feltman of the Washington Post calls the rock “a geological rarity,” and while diamond can be worth thousands of dollars or more, each of the diamonds on the chunk of rock are less than a millimeter in size. This means that these particular diamonds only have value as a research subject, and the rock also contains speckles of red and green garnet and other minerals.

According to the researchers, scientists believe that diamonds form at depths of approximately 100 miles deep in the Earth’s mantle, and are then carried to the surface by special volcanic eruptions. However, most mantle rocks wind up crumbling during this process.

“It is a wonder why this rock has more than 30,000 perfect teeny tiny octahedral diamonds–all 10 to 700 micron in size and none larger,” Taylor explained. “Diamonds never nucleate so homogeneously as this. Normally, they do so in only a few selective places and grow larger. It’s like they didn’t have time to coalesce into larger crystals.”

He and his colleagues used the giant X-ray machine to analyze both the diamonds and their relationships with the other materials contained in the rock. In addition, they beamed electrons at the inclusions within the diamond to study the chemicals that were trapped inside.

They created both two-dimensional and three-dimensional images that revealed a relationship between different minerals. The presence of nitrogen within the diamond indicate that they were formed at higher-than-normal temperatures over longer-than-usual periods of time.

Furthermore, the images revealed the presence of carbon isotopes that are abnormal for this type of rock, indicating that it originally formed within the Earth’s crust. It was then withdrawn as the result of tectonic shifts, the study authors added, ultimately becoming the shiny rock it is today.

“These are all new and exciting results, demonstrating evidences for the birth mechanism of diamonds in this rock and diamonds in general,” said Taylor, who presented his team’s findings at the American Geophysical Union’s annual conference last December. A paper on the study is also scheduled for publication in the journal Russian Geology and Geophysics.

Research published last December revealed that diamonds can provide information about how carbon-bearing fluids move – a discovery that could provide information about how life on Earth began and what it might have looked like in its earliest stages.

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Fibromyalgia

Finding the Balance Between Motherhood and Fibromyalgia

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: January 5, 2015

Being a mother can definitely be a very joyous experience, but it can also be difficult if you have to deal with fibromyalgia while simultaneously raising your children.

Is it possible for you to raise your kids while also trying to cope with your fibromyalgia? The answer is yes, and we’ll go over some of the ways that any mother with fibromyalgia will be able to balance her chronic pain with her responsibilities as a parent.

Energy

The most challenging aspect of being a mother and living with fibromyalgia is that you’ll find it difficult to get the energy to handle both. You should be able to keep informing your family of how you feel so that they don’t expect too much or too little from you on any particular day.

If you’re feeling more energized today, let them know and maybe you as a family can do something fun. If you’ve never felt in so much pain before, lay down on the couch.

Spending Time with Your Kids

You should take your kids out whenever you feel great. But should you take them out when you feel bad and are trying to get through another lousy day? A good way to cope with this is to run on errands only for essentials when you don’t feel well, and to take your children out to the park when you do feel well so that you’re good days aren’t spent on getting things such as groceries.

In the event that your kids are dying to go out when you aren’t feeling well, you may have to alternative things to do, such as giving them an art project, a toy or a game of some kind. There’s nothing wrong in pushing things off when you feel bad, but remember not to make any promises that you can’t keep to your kids.

Multi-Tasking

In our culture today, multi-tasking seems to have been accepted as a part of daily life. Mothers especially have to learn to multi-task. Unfortunately, the more you multitask, the slower things will get done and the less organized you will be. You’ll become significantly less stressed out if you take things one step at a time.

This means taking breaks when you need them and focusing on getting one task done. Once that task is done, you can move on to the next. Yes, this is a challenge especially if you’re trying to juggle around a bundle of different responsibilities, and it’s even more of a challenge if you have children to care for. You have to learn to live without multitasking. But is this possible?

If your kids are old enough, you can give them certain chores. Not only does this free up time for you to focus on one task at a time and get the stress out, it teaches your kids responsibilities. Right now, all you may be focusing on is raising your kids, getting them fed properly, and work at your job. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you must try to get as much of the stress out as possible.

Additional Tips

Here are some additional tips that you can go over for trying to balance your fibromyalgia symptoms with motherhood.

1- The first tip is to get plenty of exercise. Yes, it is true that people with fibromyalgia do find difficulty in getting sufficient exercise due to the pain, but exercising is still a great way to energize your body and get your muscles to heal themselves. A major reason why you are in so much pain is due to your muscles, so exercising stimulates them. You also don’t need to put a lot of time into exercising each day. Twenty to thirty minutes of exercise per day will drastically improve your strength.

2- You should also a void smoking. This is because nicotine is bad to the muscles by decreasing blood flow to them, which in turn lowers the amount of oxygen your muscles receive and increases the pain that you feel.

3- If you haven’t looked into fibronomics, you probably should now. Fibronomics is not only useful for mothers, it is for mothers to be as well. Fibronomics is manipulating your body in order to minimize the pain as much as possible and result in being able to complete tasks more efficiently. There’s so much information related to fibronomics that we can’t go into all of it now, but it’s still something worth looking into.

4- Remember to get as much rest as you can. Fatigue is a common symptom of fibromyalgia, so getting the sleep at night that you need can be tough. Nonetheless, being rested will reduce your chances of developing illness and stress, and thus allow you to cope with your fibromyalgia better while raising your children. Another way to get plenty of stress is to schedule some time each day to your personal hobbies, such as listening to music or reading a book.

5- The last thing we’ll go over is coping with fibromyalgia while in a pregnancy. Most pregnant patients with fibromyalgia report feeling more pain towards the pregnancy’s end. This is because each factor that can cause pain all join together at that time. It will be very difficult for a mother-to-be to be able to get comfortable at this point.

In order to get as comfortable as possible, you can participate in a physical therapy program that will provide heat and massages to your lower back. An alternative would be to get trigger point injections, but you should carefully review this with your fibromyalgia doctor to make sure that it will have no negative effect on your pregnancy.

While suffering from fibromyalgia while late in your pregnancy will be difficult, just know that you’ve almost reached the end. With help from treatments and physical therapy, hopefully you can get as comfortable as possible.

Further reading:

Fibromyalgia: What You Need to Know:

http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/fibromyalgia-what-you-need-to-know-10/hot-topics

Supermom? Not Today: http://www.fibromyalgia-symptoms.org/fibro-and-parenting.html

Two Perspectives on Fibromyalgia and Motherhood – the Doctor and the Mother: http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=15240

2015 is going to be epic for space events

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: May 4, 2018

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

In terms of space travel and exploration, 2015 has a lot to live up to. After all, 2014 was the year in which humanity landed a probe on a comet, found yet more evidence suggesting that there had once been life on Mars, and continued key research projects both on Earth and among the stars.

On Tuesday, SpaceX will attempt to kick off this year’s launch season as its unmanned Dragon capsule looks to liftoff from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 6:20am. The spacecraft, which will be transporting cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), has a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather during its launch window, according to Florida Today.

The mission was originally scheduled to take place late last month, but was pushed back into the New Year after issues during a test-firing of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle’s engines. It will be the fifth resupply mission under SpaceX’s $1.6 billion contract with NASA, and will be transporting over 5,000 pounds of food, supplies and experiments to the ISS, the website added.

Afterwards, the focus turns to dwarf planets, according to Wired. Later this month, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will begin its approach to Pluto, and by July, it will be in position to obtain the best view ever of the world. Similarly, the Dawn spacecraft has already entered its approach phase around the Ceres, and will enter the dwarf planet’s orbit sometime in March.

One of last year’s biggest space successes, the Rosetta mission, will continue on into 2015 as the orbiter will continue to travel alongside Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, collecting data as it closely approaches the sun and then heads back out into deep space. The ESA mission team is also hopeful that the Philae lander will reactivate sometime early this year, after it receives enough sunlight to recharge its depleted battery. That could happen as early as Easter.

The MESSENGER spacecraft, which has orbited Mercury for nearly four years, is slated to end its mission in early 2015. According to Wired.com, the probe was expected to run out of fuel in March, but mission engineers were able to squeeze out enough propellant using helium to stretch the length of its service time by one more month. Once it runs out of gas, it will crash into the planet, capturing close-up data and pictures of Mercury’s surface along the way.

After making history with Rosetta and Philae, the ESA is back at it with the eLISA mission, which will feature the first space-based instrument to ever detect one of the most elusive phenomena in astronomy – the space-time ripples known as gravitational waves. The agency’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft will launch this year, the agency hopes that the data will provide new insight into the formation of galaxies, stellar evolution and the early universe.

Space.com has also compiled a list of 15 amazing space missions to watch in 2015 – a list that includes XCOR Aerospace’s continued work on its Lynx commercial space plane, the launch of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite in late January, a test flight of the European-developed reusable Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) spacecraft on February 11, and the Japanese Akatsuki spacecraft’s second attempt to enter orbit around Venus in November.

“NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station for a one-year stay in space on March 27,” the website added. “This will mark the first time an American has ever spent a continuous year in space, and it is the first-ever mission of this length attempted on the space station. Usually missions to the orbiting outpost last about six months.”

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Why we’re monogamous, based on mantis shrimp

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: January 5, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Humans aren’t the only ones who grow tired of the social scene and look to settle down with a mate in a secluded area. This, according to new research presented during the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida.

In the study, researchers from the University of California-Berkeley set out to investigate the practices of monogamy and biparental care of offspring. While natural selection suggests having a greater number of partners and a genetically diverse group of offspring would be most beneficial, some creatures still opt to settle down with a single partner to raise a family.

While single-partner families is rare in nature, experts have wondered why it even evolved at all. Dr. Molly Wright of UC-Berkeley explained that the most commonly discussed reason is a need for biparental care, meaning that both sexes tend to take care of their young.

These relationships tend to produce fewer or less genetically diverse offspring, but they often have a better chance to survive to maturity, she explained. While the trade off may make sense, scientists have only found evidence of it in a narrow range of creatures, including mammals.

Dr. Wright and her colleagues looked to investigate this phenomenon by looking at a unique type of monogamous creature, the mantis shrimp. These crustaceans, which are also known as stomatopods, have primarily been studies for their complex eyes and their claws, which are capable of delivering the fastest punches in the animal kingdom.

However, in a statement, she explained that the creatures also practice social monogamy. She and her colleagues said that they found that the stomatopods “were living at higher densities farther away from coral heads, and that wasn’t what we were expecting.”

What they anticipated was to see more burrows near the coral, where there is a greater abundance of the small fish and invertebrates upon which mantis shrimp feed. The fact that the shrimp seem to prefer living far away from their food source led Wright and her associates to discover that the corals where the prey live are also home to many of its predators.

Avoiding these dangerous creatures could be particularly important for socially monogamous mantis shrimp species, they said, because they have a less armored shell than some of their more promiscuous relatives.

Dr. Wright said that the results made her wonder what role that evading predators played in shaping the social monogamy and mating systems of the stomatopods. She and her colleagues tested two competing ideas to determine if avoiding predators might have been the true catalyst for the evolution of monogamy.

If biparental care evolved early in the monogamous mantis shrimp, either at the same time or just prior to the evolution of monogamy, then the classic hypothesis would apply to mantis shrimp. However, if social monogamy evolved along with a sedentary lifestyle designed to avoid predation, it would indicate that monogamy was linked to the desire of the mantis shrimp to avoid becoming prey.

They tested each idea by mapping life history traits onto an evolutionary history of mantis shrimps, and found that they went strongly against the classic hypothesis since biparental care evolved after social monogamy.

Based on those findings, Dr. Wright suggests that the shrimp would have been most vulnerable to predators when they ventured out to find a mate, so they opted instead to settle down with one partner in a safe place far away from the dangerous coral reefs.

“I generally try to be careful about what I say about human mating systems,” the professor said, it is easy to draw parallels to human marriage and the sedentary lifestyles of the mantis shrimp. She hopes that her research will eventually clarify how mating systems evolve in different species throughout the animal kingdom.

Liver cirrhosis more prevalent than previously thought

Written By: Brett Smith

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: January 5, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

As social attitudes around binge and habitual drinking have changed over the years, cirrhosis (of the liver) rates seem to have fallen.

However, a new study from researchers at Loyola University has found evidence of the alcoholism-linked condition being more prevalent than previously thought.

Published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, the new study found that cirrhosis affects over 630,000 Americans annually, more than previously thought, the researchers said. Also, 69 percent of those identified as potentially having the disease did not know it.

“Although some of these individuals may simply have forgotten or been confused about the question, this raises the possibility of a large number of undiagnosed cases of cirrhosis,” said study author Dr. Steven Scaglione, an assistant professor of medicine and public health sciences at Loyola.

Sadly, many of the cirrhosis cases were from preventable causes. Alcohol abuse, diabetes and hepatitis C accounted for over 50 percent of cases.

Cirrhosis is considered final-phase liver scarring. Signs and symptoms include jaundice, fatigue, internal bleeding, queasiness, swelling and confusion. However, many patients have zero symptoms. Cirrhosis can result in liver cancer and failure. In the United States, cirrhosis is the 12th leading source of death and the 5th leading source of death for patients between 45 and 54 years old.

Based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the new study was focused on finding out the rate of cirrhosis in the general population. The researchers determined a rate of about 0.27 percent, equal to 633,323 American adults. Previous estimates had found the number to be around 400,000.

The study team also saw that individuals with cirrhosis had a death rate of over 26 percent during a two-year period, as opposed to an 8.4 percent two-year fatality rate among adults without the disease. People with the disease also tended to be older, with men at greater risk than women. Disease rates were greater among poor people and those without a domestic partner. Rates dropped with increasing levels of education.

The study team noted that their work did have a few significant limitations. The process used to find out if participants in the survey had cirrhosis has not been vetted in the general population. Therefore, it’s possible the process may have erroneously classified some individuals with mild disease as cirrhosis sufferers. The study was also cross sectional, which means it took an overview of a representative group at a particular time, as opposed to tracking the population long term.

The researcher concluded that the true frequency of cirrhosis is likely greater than the study discovered, because the NHANES survey did not incorporate those who are incarcerated, immigrants and military veterans.

In December, Dr. Catherine Frenette, medical director of liver transplantation at Scripps Clinics in San Diego, told U-T San Diego that a liver transplant is a popular treatment for cirrhosis, but it isn’t the only treatment.

“Most people with cirrhosis don’t need a transplant,” she said. “And cirrhosis is not a death sentence.”

Frenette said treating the underlying cause, such as hepatitis C or alcoholism, can often lead to recovery because the liver is a “forgiving organ.”

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This robot will beat you at beer pong

Written By: John Hopton

Published Date: January 5, 2015 Last Edited: January 5, 2015

Christopher Pilny

John Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Robots have already begun to take us on at soccer, ping pong and Flappy Bird. Now they have turned to beer pong, and are set to challenge not only our dominance of the bar sport but our manliness too.
As this video from Empire Robotics shows, their Versaball robot puts in an absolutely flawless beer pong performance:

Following the news of the robot that can independently teach itself to cook just by watching YouTube, can we expect a future of droids hanging around bars trying to hustle? Learning beer pong on YouTube doesn’t sound as efficient as actually being there on the ground, so it may not be long before Versaball puts some drinkers’ noses out of joint.
Not content with just being better than us at beer pong, the robot does it with style. Rather than appearing as the geeky guy who is not really in his natural environment and joins in with jerky, awkward movements, Versaball picks up the ball and then smoothly rocks back into position, jutting its chest out as if to say: “Ahh, you ladies might wanna see this.”
Having crushed at beer pong with more swagger than all the jocks who are now stumbling around and telling their usually roughhouse buddies that they love them, Versaball can perform one more display of dominance. When one of the drunk a-holes knocks a girl’s drink over, Versaball will be straight over there to do its primary job of picking stuff up that we don’t want to.

Versaball technology avoids the complex designs needed to give robotic hands the required dexterity, and at the same time avoids potential damage by using a simple yet inspired system within the malleable green ball that constitutes its ‘gripper.’
In Empire Robotics’ words: “The green ball is filled with a sand like material. When air is pumped into the ball, the ball softens. The ball is then pushed against the target object. Pulling air out of the ball jams the sand like material together, causing the ball to harden. This transition from soft to hard creates the gripping forces.”
Being covered in a cut-resistant material, Versaball can pick up sharp objects such as broken glass and even be slashed with a knife without suffering damage. It can grip things tightly and securely by moulding its shape around them.
Empire Robotics will have a booth at CES 2015 in Las Vegas from January 6-9, where Versaball will take on top beer pong professionals (yep, such a thing exists) and champions, as well as any other challenger fancying their chances of not being publically shamed.
And just in case Versaball comes across as a thug with all its picking up broken glass and killing at bar sports, Empire Robotics would like the world to know that the robot is capable of a range of grip strengths, gently dealing with porous and delicate parts and avoiding the pinch marks left by other robotic gripping devices. With a softer side too, Versaball really could give male bar-goers of the world something to think about.
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Fibromyalgia

Does Fibromyalgia Affect Eye Sight?

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Published Date: January 4, 2015 Last Edited: January 4, 2015

For many of us, vision is one of our most valuable senses. It helps us to get to where we’re going and it helps us to see the world around us. That being said, it’s important that we understand issues that can cause our eye sight to become worsened or that can cause even more severe issues. Fibromyalgia is one of the many diseases that can cause us to have issues with our eye sight.

Why Does Fibromyalgia Affect Eye Sight?

It’s actually a very easy explanation. As you likely know, fibromyalgia affects the nervous system in a variety of ways. Of course, there’s still debate on exactly how it affects the nervous system and why it does such a thing, but at least we know that it does, in fact, affect it. Like the rest of your body, your eyes are attached to your nervous system. As time goes on, the fibromyalgia will start eating away at your nervous system. And, because of how your eyes are related to the nervous system, they will start to deteriorate over time as well.

There are a number of issues that you can have when it comes to your eye sight in relation to fibromyalgia. Your vision may start to become blurry or you will start to struggle with double vision and you can’t see straight. On top of that, you may also start to notice that, after extended periods of time, you start to get headaches because you’re straining your eyes so much.

You may need glasses, when you never actually needed them before. You may even feel pain in your eyes when you’re trying to look at the computer or trying to read words on a page. In the worst cases of fibromyalgia, you could end up going blind – if you’re getting care from your doctor, this should be able to be avoided.

On top of that, you may notice that your eyes become drier, which also adds to the pain that you’re feeling. It may be hard for you to touch around your eyes because the nerves just make everything hurt. All in all, your eyes can be greatly affected by the nerve issues related to fibromyalgia, which is why it’s important that you take care of them and try to prevent potential issues as much as you possibly can.

What Can We Do About It?

Of course, that brings up another question. What can we do in order to take care of our eyes properly? Can we actually prevent issues from happening, or are we stuck waiting until we lose our vision completely? Do we have to wait to get treatment from our doctor in order to stop the degeneration of our vision? Absolutely not! There are lots of things that we can do in order to take care of our vision and keep everything in order.

First, please make sure that you’re going to see an eye doctor (an ophthalmologist, which is a specialist) on a regular basis. For some fibromyalgia patients, that may be every 6 months, especially if you’ve already started to see problems with your vision. They can test and make sure that there aren’t any changes, and help you to be on medication if necessary. Also keep your other specialists in the loop and make sure that they are communicating with your eye doctor in order to ensure that you have as few problems as you possibly can.

If you are in bright light at all, consider wearing sunglasses on a regular basis. If you already do that, there are a few other things you can do as well. There are special glasses that you can wear when you’re at the computer and if you’re driving at night that can help reduce the strain on your eyes as well. They help reduce the amount of blue light that gets through to your eyes, thus helping you to reduce the strain on them; this also helps you to sleep better, so you get two benefits out of the same product.

Speaking of sleep, you also want to make sure that you’re getting enough sleep each night; it allows your eyes to rest and recuperate, and it helps to lessen the stress and damage that you may be experiencing because of your fibromyalgia. Just closing your eyes for a bit in the middle of the day can help rest and relax them as well.

In some cases, you may have to use drops in order to keep your eyes moist and healthy. This can be a huge help, especially if you are starting to notice pain and dry eyes as part of your symptom set. It can also help you if your doctor ends up prescribing glasses or contacts in order to help you see better.

Sometimes, people with fibromyalgia may not be able to wear glasses or contacts, mainly because everything hurts so much and it becomes too painful when they put the glasses on or the contacts into their eyes. Some people have gotten around it by using a magnifying glass to read (which helps reduce the strain and makes it easier to deal with). Others end up learning Braille so that they can more easily read and don’t even have to worry about straining their eyes anymore. Either way, that choice is up to you.

Eye sight issues are just one of the many problems that can come if we don’t work with a doctor in order to care for our fibromyalgia issues. Your eye sight does not have to get affected by fibromyalgia; appropriate treatment can help prevent a variety of potential issues. It’s important that we keep track of what is going on with our bodies in order to see whether or not there are further complications from the disorder. Whether your eye sight is starting to struggle or you need help with other fibromyalgia symptoms, consulting with your doctor or specialist will always be the best way to deal with the problems at hand.

Further reading

Fibromyalgia Eye Problems: http://www.chronicbodypain.net/fibromyalgia-eye-problems/

Fibromyalgia Issues for your eyes and vision: http://fibromyalgia-facts-fictions.com/FM-and-eyes.html

Robot learns to cook by watching YouTube

Written By: Eric Hopton

Published Date: January 4, 2015 Last Edited: January 4, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Eric Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Let’s jump forward in time a little. At some imagined point in the not too distant world, advances in robotics and artificial intelligence have seen massive growth. In almost every home, humans rely on robots to carry out everyday tasks. You have your favorite robot. Of course you do. It does everything it is programed to do – no complaints. It doesn’t even ask for pocket money. You have tweaked it as far as you can to adapt to your peculiar ways. But then you need it to do a new task that’s not part of its database – you need it to bake a muffin.
Can it do that? No, it needs to learn. You could send it back for reprograming but you can’t imagine life without it, even for a few days. You could buy an expensive downloadable fix from Amazoogle, but you are too mean and you still hate their tax arrangements. So you take the easy option. You plug it into You Tube and say “Hey, buddy, watch a few vids on making muffins and knock a few out as soon as you are ready.”
An hour later, you have your muffins. If that sounds far-fetched, the findings of a neat piece of recently published research might reassure you that one day you will get your AI muffin fix.
The study was carried out by scientists from the University of Maryland and NICTA in Australia. Their paper will be presented later this month at the 29th annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. The research involved teaching a “self-learning robot” how to improve its knowledge about fine-grained manipulation actions – like cooking skills – just by allowing it to watch demonstration videos.
The new robot-training system is based on recent advances in our understanding of “deep neural networks” in computer vision. A key element of the experiments was to teach the robot where and how to hold an object just from its appearance. A big obstacle was the fact that videos only present 2D information. While a human would naturally translate that into 3D conceptualization by recognizing that, for example, that elongated rounded shape is an egg, robots don’t have that ability to “infer”.
Also the robot had to learn to select which element of the video image it was supposed to model. It then had to learn how to associate specific actions like hand movements with particular objects. Breaking an egg is a good example.
The researchers developed a deep-learning system that combines object recognition with grasping-type recognition. The system they created is derived from recognition modules which are built on a “convolutional neural network” (CNN). This helps the robot to predict the best action to take by tapping into a large internal database.
To train their robot model, the researchers used data from 88 YouTube videos of people cooking. The team then generated commands for the robot to execute.
“We believe this preliminary integrated system raises hope towards a fully intelligent robot for manipulation tasks that can automatically enrich its own knowledge resource by “watching” recordings from the World Wide Web,” the researchers concluded.
The full paper, “Robot Learning Manipulation Action Plans by ‘Watching’ Unconstrained Videos” is available here (PDF).
That muffin-baking robot may not be so far away then. But, back to the future for a moment, what if those robots become foodie obsessives and you just can’t drag your favourite robot buddy away from watching endless repeats of Barefoot Contessa? Life is never easy, is it?
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Fibromyalgia

What can Provigil and Fibromyalgia Treatment options do for your life?

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Published Date: January 3, 2015 Last Edited: January 3, 2015

Provigil and fibromyalgia are two terms you are starting to hear mentioned together more frequently. Some people are surprised at how successful a stimulant drug can be with a chronic pain disorder, but fibromyalgia is much more complicated than that. It consists of a cluster of symptoms.

Why do people get fibromyalgia?

Science is also discovering more about why people develop fibromyalgia. It is no longer considered a “woman’s disease,” but can affect men too. It can be a result of a traumatic brain injury, stressful childhood or a likely inherited condition.

What are the most common symptoms?

People who suffer from fibromyalgia most commonly complain of an overall and pervasive pain in the joints, muscles and bones. They also suffer from fatigue, sleep disturbances, mood swings, depression, weakness and digestive issues. For years, fibromyalgia was not considered a definitive diagnosis. New methods testing for markers in proteins and changes in the brain structure have now elevated fibromyalgia into the classification of a recognized, and serious, chronic disease. There is no known cure for it, but much has been discovered about how to treat it.

How is it treated?

Fibromyalgia is treated with a full range of therapies that are inclusive of medications, alternative methods and lifestyle changes. There is no known cure for fibromyalgia, but much has become known about how to improve the quality of life of those who have the disease. Not every medication or treatment is going to work effectively for everyone, discovering the right balance of all of the treatments is something you and your doctor work together to find.

Can the treatments for some of the symptoms make others worse?

The problem with all treatments for fibromyalgia is that they all come with a side effect, or price. Even the all-natural treatments come with the cost of having to do them every day for the rest of your life – as well as having to make time to do them.

With some of the most common pain and sleep medications used to treat fibromyalgia, they come with side effects of drowsiness and cognitive clouding that can make life hard to manage. This is why more and more doctors are starting to prescribe Provigil for their patients who are suffering for fibromyalgia.

Why more doctors use Provigil for fibromyalgia

Provigil is being prescribed by more and more doctors to help those with fibromyalgia, but not as a primary medication. Primary medications are generally considered to treat first line symptoms – such as pain, sleep disturbance, and digestive disorders. These are considered to be first line symptoms because they impact your ability to maintain your life and physical health.

Secondary symptoms, such as fatigue, fibro fog and stiffness – are important, but not as detrimental to life functioning. Pain medications, sleep medications and anti-emetics are first line medications. Provigil is a secondary medication used to help those with fibromyalgia. It is a stimulant medication that is not used to combat fatigue so much as it is prescribed to combat the side effects of the pain medications and other medications that can add to the fibro fatigue too. It has also been shown to improve cognitive function in some people with fibromyalgia too.

What should you be aware of

Why Provigil is well tolerated and can bring some needed energy back into your life, there are some cautions associated with it. You should not take it if you are experiencing uncontrolled high blood pressure. You also need to talk to your doctor and your pharmacist about whether or not it will interact with any of the other medications you are on. You also need to pay attention to when you take Provigil and how it affects you in order to better understand how it cycles in release through your body.

If you take it too late in the day, it could keep you up at night and that will only increase your pain and fatigue. A careful trial of the medication, along with the use of symptom cards for the first 60 days can help you and your doctor define when it is best to use the medication.

Why would a stimulant be a good idea

One of the most common complaints that people have are the cognitive issues that come with fibromyalgia. People experience everything from confusion to memory loss to an increase of anxiety and depression. These cognitive issues are very real, but they may be a result of a number of different trigger points associated with fibromyalgia.

For one, there is a very real change in the brain that is now visible on CAT scans – along with other detectable changes in neuro brain chemicals and blood balances. There is also the cognitive issue that is going to get triggered from a loss of sleep and the stress of chronic pain.

Even if one of your symptoms is not the “fibro fog,” chances are the experience of the chronic pain will be enough to lower your cognitive levels too. Provigil can be just enough to let your metabolism start up again and overcome the natural cortisol hormones and other stress reducing hormones that depress the sympathetic nervous system and neuro-chemical balances. The stimulant properties can help to reduce the fatigue associated with fibromyalgia, but also the side effects of some of the other pain medications that can cause CNS depression.

The rest of the treatments that then become available to you

Adding in Provigil and fibromyalgia treatment can begin to open up more doors for you. Many people stop taking other medications to control their pain and other symptoms because they make them feel too tired. When you add that on top of the general fibromyalgia fatigue, life can look bleak. With Provigil, you can combat the fatigue associated with fibromyalgia, and that comes as a side effect of some of the most common and effective medications used to treat it.

Further reading:

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/329838-medication

http://www.rxlist.com/provigil-drug.htm

http://phoenixrising.me/treating-cfs-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-me/energy-ii/pharmaceuticals/treating-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-mecfs-central-nervous-system-stimulants-provigil

http://www.everydayhealth.com/fibromyalgia/fibromyalgia-painkillers-and-fatigue.aspx

HIV vaccines increase infection rates in primate study

Written By: Eric Hopton

Published Date: January 3, 2015 Last Edited: January 3, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Eric Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Research into the use of HIV vaccines in primates has discovered that the vaccines can “backfire” and result in even higher rates of infection. This unwelcome effect has been found in more than one clinical trial for HIV vaccines. The primate model study therefore suggests that vaccines should avoid viral target cells.

This is important work in the battle to tackle the continuing global HIV/AIDS epidemic. As a result of that global spread of HIV and AIDS, more than 30 million individuals worldwide have been infected. The need to develop a safe and effective HIV/AIDS vaccine is paramount. However, the development of an AIDS vaccine has proved to be a major problem and, to this day, it still presents a huge challenge for the scientific community due to some of the very specific aspects of HIV biology. These include the extreme genetic heterogeneity and structural plasticity of the virus and the ability of the virus to persist as integrated proviral DNA in an immunologically silent form (i.e., latent infection).

The new work was carried out by scientists at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University. The results propose a straightforward explanation for the backfire effect: vaccination itself may lead to an increase in the number of immune cells that serve as viral targets. In a primate model of HIV transmission, it was found that higher levels of viral target cells in gateway mucosal tissues were associated with an increased risk of infection.

The report, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes that, when vaccine researchers are evaluating potential HIV/AIDS vaccines, they may need to steer away from those that activate too many viral target cells in mucosal tissues.

“One of the reasons why it has been so difficult to make an AIDS vaccine is that the virus infects the very cells of the immune system that any vaccine is supposed to induce,” said senior author Guido Silvestri, chief of microbiology and immunology at Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

Silvestri is also a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. The first author of the paper is senior research specialist Diane Carnathan, PhD, and colleagues from the Wistar Institute, Inovio Pharmaceuticals and the University of Pennsylvania contributed to the study.

Much of the work that has been done on the HIV/AIDS vaccines effort has concentrated on developing vaccines that stimulate antiviral T cells. There are two main types of T cells, defined by the molecules which are found on their surfaces. One type, CD8, is known to be a marker for so-called “killer” cells, while another, CD4, is a marker for what are known as “helper” cells. The “CD4+” T cells are known to be primary targets for HIV and SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) infection. Other studies have suggested that “CD8+” T cells could have benefits in infection control.

Researchers in the current study immunized rhesus macaques with five different combinations of vaccines encoding SIV proteins found on the inside of the virus only. The scientists used what they termed a “reductionist approach”, an experimental strategy which examined the effects of cell-mediated immunity, without stimulating the production of neutralizing antibodies. The macaques were given an initial immunization which was then followed by two booster shots after 16 and 32 weeks. Next, the monkeys were exposed to repeated weekly low-dose intrarectal challenge with SIV. This was given up to 15 times for each animal. Results showed that this immunization regimen did not prevent SIV infection. Although all the immunized monkeys had detectable levels of circulating “killer” CD8+ T cells, the researchers found that there was no correlation between these cells and the prevention of infection.

Silvestri said that the most important finding was that the monkeys that became infected had higher levels of activated CD4+T cells in rectal biopsies before challenge. This is a major obstacle to the development an effective T-cell–based AIDS vaccine as the immunization may activate CD4⁺ T cells, possibly making them more susceptible to infection by HIV

“This study shows that if a vaccine induces high levels of activated CD4+ T cells in mucosal tissues, any potential protective effect of the vaccine may be hampered,” he added.

There are immense challenges facing the development of HIV vaccines. This work underlines the importance of pursuing vaccine concepts and products that elicit strong antiviral immune responses without increasing the number of CD4+ T cells in the portals of entry for the virus.

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Innate behavior determines how we steer a vehicle

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 3, 2015 Last Edited: January 3, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers from the Chalmers University of Technology have for the first time explained why people demonstrate a jerkiness while steering a motor vehicle, and their findings could result in improved safety systems that could correct dangerous movements before they even happen.

Ola Benderius, a Ph. D. student who has been developing models of driver steering behavior, and his colleagues explained that their research could make it possible to predict what drivers will do right as they start to turn the wheel. As a result, applications such as smarter anti-skid technology or systems to help fatigued drivers could be developed to make automobiles safer.

“Imagine a fatigued driver on the verge of running off the road,” explained Benderius, whose research has been published in the journal Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of America. “He or she suddenly wakes up and reflexively initiates a very large corrective maneuver, a potential misjudgment that can lead to something very dangerous.”

“Since we are now able to predict how far the driver is going to turn the wheel, the vehicle’s support systems can identify potential misjudgments and intervene, which means a serious accident, such as the car travelling into approaching traffic, can be avoided,” he added.

The research helps solve a mystery that dates back to 1947, when British researcher Arnold Tustin developed the first model for how a person steers towards a target. Tustin identified a continuous and linear-control behavior known as tracking within control theory.

Tracking within control theory states that when a vehicle is driven, it corresponds to the driver gently and continuously following the road with the steering wheel. It has been the predominant theory for driving a motor vehicle ever since. However, when comparing the linear model with actual data, some deviations become apparent – most notably, jerkiness in the steering signal.

While giving a lecture on the behavioral theory of reaching, Benderius and co-author Gustav Markkula came up with the idea for their new study. They explain that when people move their hands from one point to another to pick something up, there is a direct relationship between speed and distance. The further away the object is, the faster we reach for it.

In this phenomenon, the time for the movement winds up being the same, regardless of the distance. Benderius said that they immediately recognized the pattern from measured steering signals, and in what he calls “a bit of a eureka moment,” they set out to determine if this patterns of human behavior could also be applied to the act of driving.

Benderius analyzed over 1,000 hours of driving data, including 1.3 million steering corrections, and found that 95 percent of them correspondent with the reaching theory. He and Markkula found that steering is not linear when the driver follows the road, but when the driver turns the vehicle’s wheel according to the special reaching pattern.

“We were able to use the theory to explain what researchers had been trying to solve for a long time,” Benderius said. “This was the answer to the previously inexplicable jerkiness in the control signal. Rather than looking upon steering as continuously following the road, steering corrections seem to be applied in a very predetermined manner.”

“The control behavior has also proven to be very natural; I saw this in an earlier study where I examined driving behavior in 12 year olds and their parents,” he added.

With this knowledge, he was able to create a mathematical model which could explain most types of observed driving behaviors – meaning that driver response to different situations could be predicted before it occurs, and could result in the development of new safety devices.

“This might completely change how we regard human control of vehicles, crafts and vessels,” Benderius said. “I hope and believe that many researchers will utilize the findings and start to think in new ways.”

“Control behavior has traditionally been studied on the basis of control theory and technical systems,” he added. “If it is instead studied on the basis of neuroscience with focus on the human, an entire new world opens up. This could push the research field in an entirely different direction.”

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Levitation allows researchers to better study melted uranium

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 3, 2015 Last Edited: May 4, 2018

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers from Stony Brook University in New York have discovered a unique way to test whether or not the most commonly used fuel in nuclear reactors is safe: levitating it.

Uranium dioxide (UO2), which occurs naturally as the mineral uraninite, is the primary nuclear fuel component of fission reactors, the researchers explained. However, its high melting point (near 3140 Kelvin) makes studying its properties at, near or above this temperature very difficult.

Understanding molten UO2 is essential for understanding how the melt would interact with a nuclear reactor’s container materials, corresponding author Lawrie Skinner, a research scientist in the Mineral Physics Institute at Stony Brook University, and his colleagues explain in a paper published in a recent edition of the journal Science.

The concern during severe accidents, the researchers added, is the melting and the leakage of radioactive uranium dioxide as it corrodes through protective containment systems. Learning how the substance behaves at extreme temperatures in order to better predict its behavior in these types of events is crucial to improved safety and efficiency of this power source.

In the new study, which provides the first structure measurements of molten UO2, the researcher team “melted uranium dioxide and studied its structure using X-rays,” Skinner said.

“We also studied structural changes in hot, solid UO2 before melting,” he added. They discovered that, upon melting, the structure of uranium dioxide “goes from 8 oxygen atoms surrounding each uranium atom down to an average of 6.7 oxygen neighbors. This affects the predicted physical properties of the liquid, like its viscosity.”

Despite the fact that the behavior of UO2 upon melting is vital in extreme nuclear reactor incidence such as the 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the extreme temperatures required for testing had limited the investigation into this phenomenon. This prevented structural studies and an accurate understanding of inter-atomic interactions.

“In fact, before these findings, no experimental structure measurement of molten UO2 had been reported,” the university said in a statement. “While physical property measurements and molecular dynamics models did exist for molten UO2, they were often parameterized from solid-state properties and exhibited large differences in their melt structures.”

This uncertainty led to molten uranium dioxide models which exhibited different characterizations of viscosity, compressibility and other physical properties vital to determining the safety of a nuclear reactor. Skinner and his colleagues found that, by combining laser heating, sample levitation, and synchrotron X-rays, they were able to obtain the required measurements.

“Levitation of the sample was crucial,” the university explained. Since UO2 has such a high melting point, it can post “serious problems for traditional furnace heating methods.” Most types of container materials (including magnesium oxide and platinum) melt or become chemically reactive at those temperatures.

To prevent that from happening, the researchers levitated the uranium dioxide sample on a stream of Argon gas while heating it with a 400W continuous CO2 laser. Using this method prevented any solid contact with the sample, allowing it to maintain high chemical purity.

“In the future, we would like to investigate the atomic structure and properties of important U-containing compounds. This includes eutectic U-Zr-O, which forms in extreme accidents as the UO2 melts and reacts with its zirconium cladding,” said Skinner, whose research was supported by the US Department of Energy and the Argonne National Laboratory.

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Researchers develop cheaper, easier method of detecting trace estrogen

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 3, 2015 Last Edited: January 3, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A new, more sensitive method of detecting trace amounts of estrogen in small samples could improve research into cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions, according to research published in a recent edition of the journal Analytica Chimica Acta.

The technique, which was developed by scientists from the University of Texas at Arlington and colleagues from Palacký University in the Czech Republic, uses chromatography instrumentation and mass spectrometry to detect trace amounts of the hormone at less than 10 parts per trillion in a 100 microliter sample – equal to a drop of water in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Estrogen has been linked to everything from tumor growth to neuron loss in neurodegenerative conditions, but detecting minute amounts of it in blood and other types of biological fluid can be extremely challenging, the researchers said. This technique could make the process easier.

“This new method pushes the detection limit for estrogens to a level that is applicable to research, human health, medicine, and environmental analysis,” said co-author Jose Barrera, director of the Shimadzu Institute for Research Technologies at the Texas-based university.

“It is being instituted as a routine service for research means that all researchers now have the capability to more closely relate research model findings to human health and physiology,” he added. “This project represents the collaborative capability that the Shimadzu Institute possesses in helping augment groundbreaking research here at UT Arlington.”

Kevin Schug, Shimadzu Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry at UT Arlington and co-author of the new paper, explained that mass spectrometry and chromatography allow health researchers to separate, identify and quantify molecules in a complex mixture. The process requires using permanently charged reagent to selectively trap estrogen molecules, isolating them from the lipids and proteins that could keep them from being detected.

“We are dealing with extremely small quantities and there are a lot of things out there that look like estrogen,” Schug explained. “You have to have this ability to separate out these individual components and detect them accurately.”

Many current methods of detecting estrogen rely on the use of an antibody, a type of potein detection system, the researchers explained. However, those processes and others currently in use are less reliable, more time consuming and require a larger sample that the one used in the latest experiments. The authors said their technique can be completed in less than 25 minutes, including the time required to prepare the samples.

“Estrogens perform important biological functions not only in sexual development and reproduction, but also in modulating many other processes impacting health and diseases in human and animals,” said Palacký University scientist and co-lead author Jana Beinhauer, who spent nine months working at UT Arlington during the course of the research.

“The metabolically active estrogens exert strong biological activities at very low circulating concentrations. Therefore this research is very important for finding sensitive, efficient, fast, automated and simple method how to determine the trace estrogens in serum,” Beinhauer added.

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Storing data offshore won’t protect it from NSA, expert says

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 3, 2015 Last Edited: May 4, 2018

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Ever since Edward Snowden first blew the lid off the US National Security Agency’s data collection practices, Americans have been looking for a way to keep their information safe from prying eyes in the federal government.

Some tech companies, including Google, have explored the possibility of using floating data centers to move servers offshore. However, in a new article penned for TechCrunch, former Obama administration director of privacy and civil liberties and Brown University fellow Tim Edgar says that simply moving data centers offshore will not protect them from the NSA.

“The natural reaction of many citizens, companies and governments is to try to get their data out of the United States and out of the hands of American companies,” Edgar wrote, calling the idea “a seductive one, even for Americans.”

“This offshoring of data to avoid surveillance is not just an idle notion,” he continued. “As a privacy lawyer with experience in the intelligence community and the Obama White House, technology companies have asked me how they might pursue such a strategy. It turns out that shifting user data abroad or into the hands of foreign companies is a very poor way to combat American surveillance.”

While the NSA’s top brass have “stated quite openly their desire to collect everything American law permits,” Edgar explained that regulations governing what they do depends upon where they are collecting information. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), places stricter guidelines on data collected from domestic servers than from those located overseas, he noted.

“FISA requires an order from a federal court, albeit a special one that operates mainly in secret,” he explained. “By contrast, the NSA’s rules for collecting data from switches and servers overseas are governed not by a law, but by an executive order. There is no court oversight and far less intensive review… Shifting data away from the United States actually makes it more vulnerable to these broader forms of collection.”

Less than a month ago, reports surfaced that the NSA had spent several years monitoring both domestic and international cellphone carriers in an attempt to discover security vulnerabilities. The program, codenamed Auroragold, also detailed how the agency planned to secretly introduce new flaws into communications that they could tap into, but which also would have made the general public more susceptible to hackers in the process.

In light of those reports, as well as previous ones detailing how the NSA was collecting email and browsing information from millions of Americans, may have been obtaining personal information (including location and political affiliation) through mobile apps and was using malware to infect domestic computers, making sure that such information is beyond US borders might seem like a slam-dunk good idea. Edgar, however, disagrees.

“A company that shifts its data abroad should consider whether it is confident there is no way the world’s most sophisticated intelligence agency… would gain access to its data, at rest or in transit,” he wrote. “Even if the United States lacks that ability, one of its partners might… [and] storing data outside the United States does nothing to protect it against the world’s other major intelligence powers, such as China and Russia, or the myriad of criminal groups and hackers.”

“Far more important than where data is held is how it is secured. The answer, for too many companies and individuals, is that it is not secured at all, despite the availability of strong encryption,” Edgar added. “However, the technology industry is starting to change that.”

The iPhone 6, the latest smartphone from Apple, has built-in encryption features that allow users to keep stored information private from prying eyes, including those in the government, he said. Companies such as Virtru and AppRiver offer secure e-mail services, and some messaging firms are working to limit the amount of data they collect for both security and privacy reasons.

“Keeping that data in the United States provides greater legal protection than offshoring it,” Edgar said. “For good and for ill, there is only one global network. Isolating data from the United States is technically difficult – if not impossible – and counterproductive if the goal is to protect privacy. Reforming global surveillance will require major shifts towards transparency, accountability, and better privacy rules for the NSA and its partners.”

“The world’s citizens, companies and governments should continue to press the United States to reform its spying practices. Keeping data out of the United States is no answer. There is no easy substitute for reforming government surveillance,” he added.

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Fibromyalgia

Cushing’s Syndrome and Fibromyalgia – What’s The Link?

Written By: Fibromyalgia Treating

Published Date: January 2, 2015 Last Edited: January 2, 2015

Fibromyalgia causes our nervous system to do a lot of things it may not have otherwise. Some people hypothesize that it’s a genetic problem, while other researchers have other theories about the cause of the disease. The sensitivity that we have all over our body can make us susceptible to other health issues and disorders.

Cushing’s syndrome, which is a hormone disorder, is sometimes mistaken for fibromyalgia, and vice versa; in some cases, you may also end up getting it alongside of your fibromyalgia as well. Because of that, we’re going to take a quick look at how these two disorders are related.

How Does Cushing’s Syndrome Affect The Body?

If you’ve never heard of Cushing’s Syndrome, then here’s a quick overview. Basically, your body is getting way too much cortisol, which is a hormone that takes care of metabolism, blood pressure, and other bodily functions and systems that need to stay regular.

When we have too much of it, our internal organs and tissues can end up having a lot of damage, and areas that are inflamed could end up being a lot more painful than they would have been without it. Cushing’s Syndrome, essentially, makes everything go out of control.

Where does Cushing’s Syndrome come from? Sometimes, the kidneys, which are the organs that affect how much cortisol is being produced and how much is getting pushed out to the rest of the body. If you use Glucocorticosteroids, which are usually given to patients that have chronic diseases of the lungs and the immune system, you could end up having out of control cortisol. The adrenal gland, which is what affects cortisol and produces it, may also be inflamed or you could have a tumor in that area of the body. The tumor would end up putting pressure on the adrenal gland and causing it to secret more cortisol than it normally would.

Like fibromyalgia, there may also be some genetics involved in this as well. Since it’s with the hormones, and many hormonal problems start with something genetic, it’s definitely a distinct possibility. That being said, there is still research going on in this area and the actual genetic links are still yet to be found. It may be with the kidneys or the adrenal glands, or it just may be a predisposition toward Cushing’s Syndrome itself. Either way, it will be interesting to see how things move forward in that area of research.

How Does Cushing’s Syndrome Affect Fibromyalgia?

Okay, so now that we understand Cushing’s Syndrome a little better, why is it related to fibromyalgia at all? What is happening in the body that makes the two so connected and causes one or the other to actually take prominence and cause pain?

First off, Cushing’s Syndrome and fibromyalgia also get mixed up a lot of the time. The main reasons are because of several overlapping symptoms, including fatigue, muscle pain and weakness, and mental health issues (depression, etc). That being said, there are some things that definitely don’t overlap, and so you want to make sure to keep an eye out for them if you already have a fibromyalgia diagnosis.

These symptoms include high blood pressure (which is caused by the extra cortisol), acne and greasy skin, problems with your sex drive, and brittle and sensitive bones. All in all, Cushing’s Syndrome can make you pretty miserable, and it is hard to really get a grip on what is going on with your body if you’ve already got so much going on with fibromyalgia.

Of course, there are other symptoms that could come up as well. For example, weight gain is actually quite common when you’re dealing with Cushing’s Syndrome. Obesity occurs because of how much cortisol is going around, and the body really isn’t sure what it is supposed to do with it all. And, as you know, obesity can cause a lot of problems with fibromyalgia, because it makes it harder for you to move around and it can cause more strain and pain on your muscles.

So how do people treat Cushing’s Syndrome? There are a few ways. First off, if there are tumors associated with the Cushing’s Syndrome, then treatment for the tumors is necessary. Many times, these tumors are benign, so it’s not really a matter of whether it’s a problem with cancer or not (that being said, cancer does have to be treated appropriately if that is part of what is going on).

The tumors need to be treated either way, so you may have to have some sort of surgery in order to make sure that they’re off of your adrenal glands. Other types of treatment for the tumors can include chemotherapy and radiation; these are used it the tumors are in an odd place or if intrusive surgery could end up causing more issues for you in the long run.

Last but not least, if you are using glucocorticosteroids as part of your treatment plan for other disorders, your doctor will have to take you off of them because they are part of the problem that is going on. The medicine switching could be a bit of a pain if you aren’t careful with it, but your doctor will keep track of any changes that you may be experiencing and will adjust so that you get the same relief that you got the with the prescriptions you were using before Cushing’s Syndrome started to become an issue.

Always make sure that you talk to your doctor if you see any additional symptoms with your fibromyalgia that you have never noticed before. It may be because there is another disease that is developing alongside of your fibromyalgia, or it may be because your fibromyalgia is flaring up. Either way, constant communication is vital in order to ensure that you stay healthy and are able to continue living as normal of a life as you possibly can with fibromyalgia.

Further reading:

Fibromyalgia: When It Hurts All Over: http://www.cushings-help.com/fibromyalgia.htm

Cushing Syndrome: http://www.healthline.com/health/cushing-syndrome#Overview1

Cushing’s Syndrome:http://www.fibromyalgia-symptoms.org/fibromyalgia_cushings.html

Tired? You may have a magnesium deficiency

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 2, 2015 Last Edited: January 2, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Fatigue or muscle cramps that are inhibiting your attempts to exercise could be due to an undiagnosed magnesium deficiency, Florida-based medical experts cautioned earlier this week.

“Magnesium is involved in over 300 biochemical reactions in your body,” Dr. Danine Fruge, associate medical director at the Pritikin Longevity Center in Miami, told CNN.com on Wednesday. “It affects everything from your heartbeat to your muscles to your hormones.”

Yet Fruge said that only one-fourth of US adults are getting the recommended daily amounts (RDA) of 310-320 milligrams for women and 400-420 milligrams for men, Likewise, the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) found that at least half of all Americans are not getting enough magnesium in their diets.

The condition is difficult to diagnose. Warning signs include a loss of appetite, nauseas and fatigue, but those ailments are also common symptoms of several other ailments. Magnesium deficiency manifests itself in three stages, depending on how much a person is lacking.

While symptoms can be minor to begin with, they can ultimately include tingling, cramping, numbness and contractions in the muscles and nerves as it grows more serious, the report said. At its most severe, magnesium deficiency can lead to seizures, abnormal heart rhythms, or changes in personality, and it can be difficult to diagnose using standard medical diagnostics.

The bulk of magnesium is found in a person’s bones or organs, with just one percent in the blood. As a result, a simple needle prick often cannot adequately determine if a patient as is deficient in the mineral. Instead, Fruge said that the diagnosis is typically made by examining a person’s lifestyle and by eliminating other possible causes of the symptoms.

Unlike most vitamin and mineral deficiencies, which can be corrected by adding certain foods or supplements to your diet, a lack of magnesium may have more to do with the foods you already consume, according to Fruge.

“It’s very easy to get enough magnesium. I think the reason so many people are deficient is because a lot of food and drink can make magnesium unavailable to their bodies,” she said, noting that soda, alcohol and caffeinated beverages such as coffee are the primary culprits.

“If you love sipping on soft drinks, you’ll be less likely to have adequate amounts of nutrients including magnesium in your diet, according to several studies,” CNN.com said. “And drinking alcohol doesn’t help, either. Consuming too much… can interfere with your body’s absorption of vitamin D, which aids magnesium absorption.”

Eating food high in refined sugars can cause a person’s body to excrete magnesium through the kidneys, Fruge added. If you believe you’re dealing with a deficiency of this mineral, she said that while taking supplements “will probably give you a boost… it’s best to focus on food” as a source of magnesium, since the body absorbs it differently from food than from supplements.

The doctor advises only using magnesium supplements under a doctor’s supervision, and to limit intake to 350 non-food milligrams of magnesium per day unless otherwise instructed by a doctor. The body has internal mechanisms to prevent it from overdosing on magnesium from food but not for supplements, and overdosing can cause a potentially deadly heart arrhythmia.

Good food sources of magnesium include spinach (one cup contains 157 milligrams) and cooked white beans (one cup contains 113 milligrams). One cup of squash and pumpkin seeds has 649 milligrams of magnesium, and other legumes, nuts, fish and whole grains are also good sources.

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Mari Velonaki: A female pioneer in robotics

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 2, 2015 Last Edited: January 2, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

When you think of breakthroughs in the field of robotics research, you can’t help but assume that nearly all of the work is being done in Japan. After all, it is a country that sent a pint-sized robot to the International Space Station, developed one capable of reading people’s emotions and even constructed a robot specifically designed to help aspiring dentists practice their craft.

Likewise, it has historically been a field dominated by males. According to BBC News, women are estimated to represent no more than one-fifth of the robotics researchers in the world – which is what makes Mari Velonaki such a trailblazer.

BBC News called Velonaki “a leader in the new and rapidly growing field of social robotics, the creation of robots for everyday use,” a field which reportedly accounts for 80 percent of growth in the industry since 2005. Velonaki, who has a background as an artist, has “thrown open” the doors of “the once male-only world of robotics,” the British media outlet added.

She is an associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, as well as director and founder of the Creative Robotics Lab (CRL), a cross-disciplinary research institute which examines human interactions with three-dimensional robotic agents, and co-director of the Centre for Social Robotics, which studies robots in places like hospitals and airports.

Velonaki’s bio indicates that she has worked as an artist and a researcher in the field of interactive installation art since 1995. She first expanded her work into the robotics in 2003, when she launched and led the work on the Australian Research Council art/science research project “Fish-Bird: Autonomous Interactions in a Contemporary Arts Setting.”

In October of this year, she and her CRL colleagues, along with experts from Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo, presented research which found that Australians placed more trust in robots than their Japanese counterparts.

“Our research aimed to measure and compare human trust, perception and attitudes towards an android robot in two different countries,” Professor Velonaki, who was voted one of the world’s top 25 women to watch in the field of robotics in 2014 by Robohub, said at the time.

The researchers recruited 111 people from Sydney and Tokyo and asked each of them to interact with a Geminoid-F android robot with the appearance of a young Japanese female. The android asked each individual to perform a pair of different tasks, and the study revealed that Australian participants were more open to interacting with the robot than those from Japan.

Despite her success in the field, Velonaki told BBC News that she was “the only woman” for a period of several years. “I didn’t have any female students,” the professor explained. “It’s great to have men and women. We have different things to offer… [women ask] different questions.”

Veolanki, 45, said that she moved from Switzerland to Australia two decades ago, where she completed a Ph. D. program in interface design and post-doctoral work at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics. She said that it was her relationship with her older cousin, a multiple sclerosis patient who had to use a wheelchair, that inspired her work on the Fish-Bird instillation.

Fish-Bird uses two wheelchairs, each of which are “programmed to respond to the behavior of people who come to view the art work,” the BBC said, “and to offer words of wisdom, often in the form of poetry, in short notes that pop out of a small printer built into each wheelchair.”

She has also toured galleries and museums with a petite porcelain-like humanoid female known as Diamandini, a five-foot tall robot modeled after a young adult female that also interacts with people.

“Diamandini has contributed to the scientific understanding of how the environment robots inhabit dictates how people respond to them, she says,” according to the BBC News report. “It is all in keeping with her driving philosophy that technology should be designed for people, not designed for the sake of technology.”

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Arise Sir Simon: “Doctor Viagra” knighted

Written By: Eric Hopton

Published Date: January 2, 2015 Last Edited: January 2, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Eric Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

All rise! A scientist often known as the “father of Viagra” has been given a Knighthood by the UK Government.

Dr. Simon Campbell began research into Viagra back in the 1980’s, during the 26 years he worked with the drug company Pfizer. It’s great to see anyone “standing up” for science.

The tradition of handing out titles as part of the UK’s New Year Honours List dates back to the 1890’s. The 2015 list gives science a boost by rewarding several leading scientists for their contributions including Knighthoods for Dr Campbell and YouTube science celebrity, “Mad Prof” Martyn Poliakoff.

Members of the public can nominate anyone for an honor for:

• Making a difference to their community or field of work
• Enhancing Britain’s reputation
• Long-term voluntary service
• Innovation and entrepreneurship
• Changing things, with an emphasis on achievement
• Improving life for people less able to help themselves
• Displaying moral courage and doing difficult things

So, it’s great to see science get in on the honours action and redOrbit sends its congratulations to this year’s successful science nominees.

When Doctor, now “Sir”, Campbell worked at Pfizer, his studies involved the search for new drugs to treat high blood pressure. One of his discoveries had an unexpected side effect and it hit the headlines in 1998 when it took the pharmaceutical industry by storm. By then it was known as Viagra. Campbell’s team found that the drug improved blood flow to the penis and it eventually went to market as a treatment for erectile dysfunction. Sadly, history doesn’t tell us just how this first came to light or under what circumstances the discovery was made.

But Dr Campbell likes to play down his role in the creation of Viagra. He told the BBC that, though he co-wrote the initial research proposal, there was no mention of erectile dysfunction. Initially, Viagra was aimed at treating angina and high blood pressure.

Other researchers later took over the chemistry. “I’m not on the Viagra patent,” said Dr Campbell told the BBC, perhaps a little ruefully given Viagra’s commercial success. “If you want, I would say I was the father of Viagra because I laid the seed and started the project. And I was there in New York, on my birthday in March 1998, when it was launched.”

Another scientist to pick up a knighthood is Professor Martyn Poliakoff. Though his main work is in pioneering research in the field of green and sustainable chemistry, Poliakoff is better known for being the brains behind his You Tube sensation, the crazy and wonderful “Periodic Table of Videos”. If you have never watched this wacky science, it has to be a “must see” collection.

The “Mad” Prof does come across as an almost quintessential eccentric mad scientist but there’s no knocking his credentials. He told the BBC that he was “excited and slightly overwhelmed” by the news of his knighthood.

Poliakoff is a pioneer chemistry professor at the University of Nottingham and first started his online video series in 2008. “We made 120 videos in five weeks,” he told BBC News. The “crazy” idea was to make short video for every chemical element. The series was a huge hit on You Tube and the Professor’s millions of fans begged him not to stop. The You Tube channel has now picked up over 80 million hits. For a science themed channel, that’s a fantastic success.

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RoboSimian preparing for DARPA Robotics Challenge finals

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 2, 2015 Last Edited: January 2, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

RoboSimian, an ape-like robot designed by the boffins at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is set to square off against up to 18 other mechanical competitors next June as part of the finals of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC).

The DARPA Robotics Challenge, created by the defense research group following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant accident in Japan, tasked some of the foremost robotics experts in the country to develop machines capable of performing disaster response-related tasks.

Unlike most robots, RoboSimian, which was named a finalist in January 2014, was built with four legs to increase its maneuverability over rough terrain. The robot finished fifth overall in a December 2013 challenge in which it and its competitors had to complete tasks such as opening doors and climbing ladders to measure if they could effectively aid rescue workers.

RoboSimian is headless but is covered with seven cameras which function as its eyes, CNN.com reported earlier this week. Instead of featuring a humanoid design, it features four identical limbs that double as both arms and legs, as well as wheels that allow it to coast on smooth terrain.

JPL selected RoboSimian as its final entry into the challenge, but that was not a given a month ago, according to officials at the laboratory. A second robot named Surrogate, which had been designed out of RoboSimian’s extra limbs in early 2014, was also being considered as the lab’s entry into the competition’s final stage.

Unlike the more ape-like RoboSimian, Surrogate was designed more like a human. It had an upright spine, two arms and a head. It stood 4.5 feet tall and weighed about 200 pound, had a flexible spine for addition manipulation capabilities and specialized in handling objects.

However, Surrogate moves on tracks, rendering it unable to take stairs or climb a latter. Since RoboSimian is better suited for travelling over complicated terrain, and is capable of climbing, the less-humanoid robot got the nod and was chosen to represent JPL at the DRC finals.

RoboSimian is slower than many of the other robots it will be squaring off against. CNN said that JPL’s Robotic Vehicles and Manipulators Group is working to improve its walking speed, but supervisor Brett Kennedy noted that its methodical speed was intentional.

“It is intentionally the tortoise relative to the other hares in the competition,” he explained. “We feel that a very stable and deliberate approach suites our technical strengths and provides a model for one vital element of the ‘ecosystem’ of robots that we expect to be deployed to disaster scenarios in the future.”

The software used to power RoboSimian was influenced by programs used to control the Mars rovers, and is designed to let robots work as autonomously as possible when it loses contact with human operators. They also worked to create a “professional” looking design instead or one that was “threatening or overly cute,” Kennedy said. “Basically, we wanted the perceptual equivalent of a St. Bernard.”

On June 5 and 6, that St. Bernard will travel to the Fairplex in Pomona, California for the DRC Finals. There, it and the other robots will attempt to complete a circuit of consecutive physical tasks with degraded communications between the robots and their operators, DARPA explained. The team that emerges victorious will be presented with a $2 million prize.

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Tropical forests absorb more CO2 than previously believed

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 2, 2015 Last Edited: January 2, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Good news for the environment: Tropical forests may be absorbing far more carbon dioxide than previously believed.
In fact, new NASA-led research indicates that tropical forests are absorbing an estimated 1.4 billion metric tons of the global 2.5 billion metric tons of CO2 being absorbed worldwide. That means that these forests are absorbing more than the boreal forests found in the north.
“This is good news, because uptake in boreal forests is already slowing, while tropical forests may continue to take up carbon for many years,” said David Schimel of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and lead author of a new paper published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Up to 30 percent of manmade carbon dioxide emissions are removed from the atmosphere by forests and other land vegetation during photosynthesis, the researchers explained. If that rate of absorption slowed down, it would cause the rate of global warming to speed up.
The new research “is the first to devise a way to make apples-to-apples comparisons of carbon dioxide estimates from many sources at different scales,” including computer simulations of various ecosystem processes, atmospheric models that run backwards to locate the sources of current concentrations, satellite images and experimental forest plot data, NASA said.
Schimel and his colleagues combined various types of analyses and determined the accuracy of the results based on their ability to reproduce independent, ground-based measurements. The models they determined to be the most accurate, the most trusted and the most verifiable were used to obtain the new estimate of tropical carbon absorption.
“Until our analysis, no one had successfully completed a global reconciliation of information about carbon dioxide effects from the atmospheric, forestry and modeling communities,” explained study co-author Joshua Fisher, also from JPL. “It is incredible that all these different types of independent data sources start to converge on an answer.”
Co-author Britton Stephens, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, said that determining which type of forest absorbed the greatest amount of carbon was “not just an accounting curiosity. It has big implications for our understanding of whether global terrestrial ecosystems might continue to offset our carbon dioxide emissions or might begin to exacerbate climate change.”
As more CO2 is added to the atmosphere as the result of human-caused emissions, forests all over the world are using it to grow more rapidly, thus reducing the amount that remains airborne, the researchers said. The effect, which is known as carbon fertilization, tends to be stronger at higher temperatures, meaning that it will typically be higher in tropical forests than boreal ones.
However, since climate change also decreases the amount of water available in some parts of the Earth, it can lead to more frequent and more damaging wildfires. This issue is compounded in the tropics, where people intentionally burn wood during deforestation. These fires not only halt carbon absorption by killing trees, but also release massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
For the past quarter of a century, most computer models of the climate have shown that the mid-latitude forests in the Northern Hemisphere absorb more carbon than tropical forests. Those findings were based on the understanding of global air flows and limited data suggesting that deforestation was causing tropical forests to release more CO2 than they were absorbing.
In the mid-2000s, however, Stephens used measurements of carbon dioxide made from aircraft to show that many of those simulations were not accurately representing flows of carbon above ground level. The new study used findings reported by other scientists since Stephens’ initial paper to compile regional and national data into a new global-scale database.
“What we’ve had up till this paper was a theory of carbon dioxide fertilization based on phenomena at the microscopic scale and observations at the global scale that appeared to contradict those phenomena,” Schimel said. “Here, at least, is a hypothesis that provides a consistent explanation that includes both how we know photosynthesis works and what’s happening at the planetary scale.”
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Exercise could improve balance, mobility in Parkinson’s patients

Written By: Chuck Bednar

Published Date: January 2, 2015 Last Edited: January 2, 2015

Christopher Pilny

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Even if it doesn’t reduce their risk of falling, Parkinson’s disease patients could benefit in other ways from balance and leg-strengthening exercises, according to research published Wednesday in the online edition of the American Academy of Neurology journal Neurology.

Such exercises could improve those individuals’ overall balance, ability to move around and quality of life, Dr. Colleen G. Canning of the University of Sydney and her colleagues found in a randomized, controlled trial involving 231 Parkinson’s patients.

As part of the study, each of those patients either received their usual treatment or participated in an exercise program of 40 to 60 minutes of balance and leg exercises three times per week over a period of six months. The exercise program was prescribed and monitored by a physical therapist and an average of 13 percent of them were supervised by a physical therapist.

According to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, the condition is a chronic and progressive movement disorder, meaning that symptoms will become worse over time. Nearly one million Americans currently live with the disease, whose cause is unknown. Presently, there is no cure for Parkinson’s, though medication and surgery can help manage the symptoms of the disease.

In a statement, Dr. Canning explained that falling is a common problem for people with the degenerative disorder, with 60 percent of them experiencing at least one every year and two-thirds of those falling on multiple occasions. The resulting injuries, as well as the limitation of activity and the fears of falling again can serious impact a person’s well-being, she noted.

Compared to a control group, the number of falls by participants who exercised was reduced in those with a less severe form of Parkinson’s disease. In fact, a 70 percent reduction in falls was reported in those individuals, but the same was not true of those with more severe disease.

“These results suggest that minimally supervised exercise programs aimed at reducing falls in people with Parkinson’s should be started early in the disease process,” Canning said. Overall, those who exercised performed better on tests of mobility and balance, had a reduced fear of falling and reported better overall mood and quality of life, the study authors said.

“This large effect was achieved with only 13 percent of exercise sessions supervised by a physical therapist,” she told HealthDay. “The results of our study suggest that early intervention for people with Parkinson’s disease should be extended to include minimally supervised balance and strengthening exercises as a falls-prevention strategy.”

She emphasized how essential it was to intervene early, because people should not be waiting until a patient has already fallen to begin an exercise program. However, it should be noted that the study only reported a correlation between exercise and falling among Parkinson’s patients. and did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the two.

The study focused on the minimal supervision approach usually used by physical therapists, and Canning said that additional research would be needed to determine if closer supervision could help prevent falls among more advanced Parkinson’s patients.

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