Volunteer May Help You Live Longer

Observation from a large systematic review and meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter Medical School shows that volunteering may be good for your health.

Volunteering can improve mental health and help you live longer, finds the study which is published in the open access journal BWC Public Health. The research pools and compares data from multiple experimental trials and longitudinal cohort studies.

Some observational evidence points to around a 20 per cent reduction in mortality among volunteers compared to non-volunteers in cohort studies. Volunteers also reported lower levels of depression, increased life satisfaction and enhanced well-being, although the findings have yet to be confirmed in trials.

The systematic review was led by Dr Suzanne Richards at the University of Exeter Medical School, and was supported by the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care in the South West Peninsula (NIHR PenCLAHRC).

Worldwide, the prevalence of adult volunteering varies with estimates of 22.5 per cent in Europe, 36 per cent in Australia and 27 per cent in the USA. Volunteers commonly cite altruistic motives for their habit -- 'giving something back' to their community, or supporting an organisation or charity that has supported them. Volunteering can also be used to gain work experience or to widen social circles, but its effects may go far deeper.

Previous reviews have highlighted supposed health benefits, including increased longevity, improved quality of life, reductions in stress and hospitalisation, but these tend to be based on narrative, rather than comparative evidence. Richards and colleagues pool data from 40 papers which reported data from 9 experimental trials and 16 cohort studies to arrive at their conclusions.

How Exercise Can Help Us Sleep Better

Many people believe exercise has relationship with better sleep, but there often are complaints about exercise. Some they exercise to the point of exhaustion, but they would not sleep better that night.This attracts a scientist and she decided to examine more closely the relationship between exercise in the day and sleep in the night.What she and her colleagues found was published in The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

The researchers randomly assigned their volunteers either to remain inactive or to begin a moderate endurance exercise program, consisting of three or four 30-minute exercise sessions per week, generally on a stationary bicycle or treadmill, that were performed in the afternoon. This exercise program continued for 16 weeks.

At the end of that time, the volunteers in the exercise group were sleeping much more soundly than they had been at the start of the study. They slept, on average, about 45 minutes to an hour longer on most nights, waking up less often and reporting more vigor and less sleepiness. But had the novice exercisers experienced immediate improvements in their sleep patterns

Boring deep into the data contained in the exercising group’s sleep diaries and other information for the new study, Dr. Baron discovered that the answer to both questions was a fairly resounding no. After the first two months of their exercise program, the exercising volunteers (all of them women) were sleeping no better than at the start of the study. Only after four months of the program had their insomnia improved.

They also rarely reported sleeping better on those nights when they had had an exercise session. And perhaps most telling, they almost always exercised for a shorter amount of time on the days after a poor night’s sleep.

In other words, sleeping badly tended to shorten the next day’s workout, while a full-length exercise session did not, in most cases, produce more and better sleep that night.

How Sleep Helps Brain Learn Motor Task

We have figured out that sleep is conducive to memory of waking status. When it comes to learning tasks, sleep also helps the brain consolidate what we’ve learned. However, it is not clear that what goes on in the brain to make that happen for different kinds of learned tasks. A new study shows the brainwave frequencies and brain region associated with sleep-enhanced learning of a sequential finger tapping task similar to typing, or playing piano.

In a sleep lab on Brown's campus researchers use now using caps of EEG sensors in studies of how the brain works to consolidate learning visual tasks. Here graduate student Aaron Berard models the cap.Specifically, the results of complex experiments performed at Massachusetts General Hospital and then analyzed at Brown show that the improved speed and accuracy volunteers showed on the task after a few hours sleep was significantly associated with changes in fast-sigma and delta brainwave oscillations in their supplementary motor area (SMA), a region on the top-middle of the brain. These specific brainwave changes in the SMA occurred during a particular phase of sleep known as "slow-wave" sleep.

Scientists have shown that sleep improves many kinds of learning, including the kind of sequential finger-tapping motor tasks addressed in the study, but they haven't been sure about why or how. It's an intensive activity for the brain to consolidate learning and so the brain may benefit from sleep perhaps because more energy is available or because distractions and new inputs are fewer, said study corresponding author Yuka Sasaki, a research associate professor in Brown's Department of Cognitive, Linguistic & Psychological Sciences.

"Sleep is not just a waste of time," Sasaki said.

The extent of reorganization that the brain accomplishes during sleep is suggested by the distinct roles the two brainwave oscillations appear to play. The authors wrote that the delta oscillations appeared to govern the changes in the SMA's connectivity with other areas of the cortex, while the fast-sigma oscillations appeared to pertain to changes within the SMA itself.

Quantum Teleportation: Transfer of Flying Quantum Bits at the Touch of a Button

Many years ago attempts were made by scientists to teleport photons or other light particles. Because experiments failed to achieve communication effect, it is believed that the transportation of photonic quantum bits is not compatible with convention techniques. Recently researchers in Tokyo and Mainz have managed to teleport photonic qubits with extreme reliability.

"Discrete digital optical quantum information can now be transmitted continuously -- at the touch of a button, if you will," explained Professor Peter van Loock of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). As a theoretical physicist, van Loock advised the experimental physicists in the research team headed by Professor Akira Furusawa of the University of Tokyo on how they could most efficiently perform the teleportation experiment to ultimately verify the success of quantum teleportation. Their findings have now been published in the journal Nature.

Quantum teleportation involves the transfer of arbitrary quantum states from a sender, dubbed Alice, to a spatially distant receiver, named Bob. This requires that Alice and Bob initially share an entangled quantum state across the space in question, e.g., in the form of entangled photons. Quantum teleportation is of fundamental importance to the processing of quantum information (quantum computing) and quantum communication. Photons are especially valued as ideal information carriers for quantum communication since they can be used to transmit signals at the speed of light. A photon can represent a quantum bit or qubit analogous to a binary digit (bit) in standard classical information processing. Such photons are known as 'flying quantum bits'.

The first attempts to teleport single photons or light particles were made by the Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger. Various other related experiments have been performed in the meantime. However, teleportation of photonic quantum bits using conventional methods proved to have its limitations because of experimental deficiencies and difficulties with fundamental principles.

What makes the experiment in Tokyo so different is the use of a hybrid technique. With its help, a completely deterministic and highly reliable quantum teleportation of photonic qubits has been achieved. The accuracy of the transfer was 79 to 82 percent for four different qubits. In addition, the qubits were teleported much more efficiently than in previous experiments, even at a low degree of entanglement.

Entanglement 'on demand' using squeezed light

The concept of entanglement was first formulated by Erwin Schrödinger and involves a situation in which two quantum systems, such as two light particles for example, are in a joint state, so that their behavior is mutually dependent to a greater extent than is normally (classically) possible. In the Tokyo experiment, continuous entanglement was achieved by means of entangling many photons with many other photons. This meant that the complete amplitudes and phases of two light fields were quantum correlated. Previous experiments only had a single photon entangled with another single photon -- a less efficient solution.

"The entanglement of photons functioned very well in the Tokyo experiment -- practically at the press of a button, as soon as the laser was switched on," said van Loock, Professor for Theory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at Mainz University. This continuous entanglement was accomplished with the aid of so-called 'squeezed light', which takes the form of an ellipse in the phase space of the light field. Once entanglement has been achieved, a third light field can be attached to the transmitter. From there, in principle, any state and any number of states can be transmitted to the receiver. "In our experiment, there were precisely four sufficiently representative test states that were transferred from Alice to Bob using entanglement. Thanks to continuous entanglement, it was possible to transmit the photonic qubits in a deterministic fashion to Bob, in other words, in each run," added van Loock.

Earlier attempts to achieve optical teleportation were performed differently and, before now, the concepts used have proved to be incompatible. Although in theory it had already been assumed that the two different strategies, from the discrete and the continuous world, needed to be combined, it represents a technological breakthrough that this has actually now been experimentally demonstrated with the help of the hybrid technique. "The two separate worlds, the discrete and the continuous, are starting to converge," concluded van Loock.

Vitamin D supplementation does not seem to reduce blood pressure in patients with hypertension

Mikes D. Witham, Ph.D., of the university of Dundee, Scotland, United kingdom, and colleagues write a paper on vascular health in older patients with isolated systolic hypertension which is a common type of high blood pressure. In the paper observations show that Vitamin D supplementation does not appear to improve blood pressure or become the marker which indicate blood health.

Vitamin D supplementation does not appear to improve blood pressure or markers of vascular health in older patients with isolated systolic hypertension (a common type of high blood pressure), according to a study by Miles D. Witham, Ph.D., of the University of Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom, and colleagues.

A total of 159 patients (average age 77 years) with isolated systolic hypertension participated in the randomized clinical trial. Patients were randomly assigned to either the vitamin D group or the matching placebo group, and received supplementation every three months for one year. Researchers measured difference in office blood pressure, 24-hour blood pressure, arterial stiffness, endothelial function, cholesterol level, insulin resistance, and b-type natriuretic peptide level during the 12 month study period.

No significant treatment effect was seen for average office blood pressure, and no significant treatment effect was evident for any of the secondary outcomes (24-hour blood pressure, arterial stiffness, endothelial function, cholesterol level, glucose level, and walking distance), according to study results.

"It is still possible, however, that vitamin D supplementation could have beneficial effects on cardiovascular health via non-blood pressure effects, and ongoing large randomized trials are due to report on this in the next few years," the study concludes.

Electrical Signatures of Consciousness in the Dying Brain

The “near-death experience” reported by cardiac arrest survivors worldwide whose visions and perceptions are realer than real in the “near-death experience” may be grounded in science, according to research at the University of Michigan Health System.

Whether and how the dying brain is capable of generating conscious activity has been vigorously debated.

But in this week's PNAS Early Edition, a U-M study shows shortly after clinical death, in which the heart stops beating and blood stops flowing to the brain, rats display brain activity patterns characteristic of conscious perception.

"This study, performed in animals, is the first dealing with what happens to the neurophysiological state of the dying brain," says lead study author Jimo Borjigin, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology and associate professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School.

"It will form the foundation for future human studies investigating mental experiences occurring in the dying brain, including seeing light during cardiac arrest," she says.

Approximately 20 percent of cardiac arrest survivors report having had a near-death experience during clinical death. These visions and perceptions have been called "realer than real," according to previous research, but it remains unclear whether the brain is capable of such activity after cardiac arrest.

"We reasoned that if near-death experience stems from brain activity, neural correlates of consciousness should be identifiable in humans or animals even after the cessation of cerebral blood flow," she says.

Researchers analyzed the recordings of brain activity called electroencephalograms (EEGs) from nine anesthetized rats undergoing experimentally induced cardiac arrest.

Within the first 30 seconds after cardiac arrest, all of the rats displayed a widespread, transient surge of highly synchronized brain activity that had features associated with a highly aroused brain.

Furthermore, the authors observed nearly identical patterns in the dying brains of rats undergoing asphyxiation.

"The prediction that we would find some signs of conscious activity in the brain during cardiac arrest was confirmed with the data," says Borjigin, who conceived the idea for the project in 2007 with study co-author neurologist Michael M. Wang, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neurology and associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the U-M.

"But, we were surprised by the high levels of activity," adds study senior author anesthesiologist George Mashour, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of anesthesiology and neurosurgery at the U-M. " In fact, at near-death, many known electrical signatures of consciousness exceeded levels found in the waking state, suggesting that the brain is capable of well-organized electrical activity during the early stage of clinical death.­­­"

The brain is assumed to be inactive during cardiac arrest. However the neurophysiological state of the brain immediately following cardiac arrest had not been systemically investigated until now.

The current study resulted from collaboration between the labs of Borjigin and Mashour, with U-M physicist UnCheol Lee, Ph.D., playing a critical role in analysis.

"This study tells us that reduction of oxygen or both oxygen and glucose during cardiac arrest can stimulate brain activity that is characteristic of conscious processing," says Borjigin. "It also provides the first scientific framework for the near-death experiences reported by many cardiac arrest survivors."

Loan debt shapes college lifestyle, which college students experience

Study shows that students with experiences of being debt-free are likely to live the “play hard” lifestyle, while students who are or were in debt may be not so much engaged in academic-trumping activities during college years.

Sociologist Daniel Rudel said this is one of the first studies to examine how student loan debt affects students' college experiences. He and colleague Natasha Yurk, also a graduate student in the Department of Sociology in IU Bloomington's College of Arts and Sciences, found "real and significant differences in experiences," with students falling fairly easily into one of three categories.

• Play hard.

Students without loan debt appeared most likely to live a lifestyle characterized by relatively little time studying but also characterized by a rich social life. Students tended to be much more involved in extracurricular activities and spent more time partying, developing relationships and networks that could last long after college.

• Disengaged students.

Some students with debt appeared to see it as a liability that kept them from partaking in campus life. They spent relatively little time on campus activities, including studying.

• Serious students.

Some students with debt appeared to accept the challenge and responsibility of the debt. They studied more than the other two categories of students, worked but also participated in extracurricular activities to prepare themselves for a good job after graduation. These students did not party much.

"These patterns could affect the social connections and networking students develop in college, where these relationships can lead to friendships, employment, marriage partners and other benefits," Rudel said.

Rudel and Yurk discussed their study, "Responsibility or Liability? Student Loan Debt and Time Use in College," in New York at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the American Sociological Association's 108th annual meeting.

The researchers examined data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, housed in the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. Students interviewed from 1999 to 2003 attended one of 28 selective U.S. institutions: nine liberal arts colleges, 14 private research universities, four public research universities and one historically black college.

Rudel said college and university staff might want to consider whether their programs address challenges students face as they manage their financial obligations. Many people, in general, might not be aware of what college really is like for students with loan debt.

"We aren't saying what college students should or should not be doing," Rudel said. "But the lifestyles of students with debt diverge from the script people have of what college should be like."

A terrifying robot shows you the emotions slime mold can't express

Do you imagine a robot is able to smile or cry? The question may be the expectation of scientists. However, a computing scientist show his trial of this.

Slime mold can already behave in ways that are surprisingly intelligent, but what if it smiled like us and cried like us — or, at least, like a horrifying facsimile of us? An installation at London's Living Machines conference provides a fascinating, disturbing answer. As reported by New Scientist, computing researcher Ella Gale has created a link between slime mold "emotions" and a humanoid face. Gale let slime mold ooze across an environment full of both food and electrodes. The electrodes captured signals as the mold either headed towards food or shied away from light, producing a log of how the loosely affiliated cells communicate with each other. Since slime mold possesses a kind of decentralized, low-level intelligence — a mass of mold can even form memories — that's not too far from studying the workings of a simple brain.

Gale turned her electrical signals into sound, and with the help of her colleagues, she split the recordings into different sections based on what the mold was doing and how strong the related signals were. Then, she gave various reactions labels: mold heading towards food could be experiencing "joy," while a highly agitated response to light could be "anger." As a last step, she set a robotic head to display these emotions as the recording was played.

It's not really clear that this would let anyone actually see how slime mold is feeling in real time, though Gale has done similar previous work. After all, recording a session of slime mold movement won't necessarily produce anything you could tie to a single action. And even if it did, saying a slime mold is "happy" obviously doesn't mean it feels anything of the sort. However, this mad artistic science does turn our abstract understanding of slime mold as intelligent into something much more personal. It also manages to evoke some of the most primal terrors lurking in the heart of man: welcome to your new nightmare, full of slimy doppelgängers.

From the Verge

The Importance of Humor Research

Humor is as old as humanity. Seeing humor as a kind of psychological action, humor is a very common and frequent event. And considering that chimps and other primates laugh, humor has likely been around even longer than that. In comparison, psychological research on humor is just getting cracking.

Previously some scientists tried to look into it, but they didn’t have the scientific tool to get the job done. Martin Seligman, the father of the positive psychology movement even deems a good sense of humor to be one of 24 characteristics associated with well-being, yet the hugely influential field of happiness research has largely ignored the topic.

By examining humor's antecedents, we will also better understand (and harness) humor's many benefits.

But humor has physical benefits, too. Laughter - especially a hearty laugh - has been shown to benefit your circulation, lungs and muscles (especially those around the belly area). Humor also helps people deal with pain and physical adversity. Hollywood even made a movie, Patch Adams, about the benefits of humor in clinical settings.

Humor appears to help people's psychological and physical well-being - for example, helping folks cope with stress and adversity. Humor even seems to help people grieve: Dacher Keltner and colleagues found that people who spontaneously experienced amusement and laughter when discussing a deceased spouse showed better emotional adjustment in the years following the spouse's death.

New way to treat anxiety

Scientist from Vanderbilt University found that chemically modified inhibitors of the COX-2 enzyme relieve anxiety behavoirs in mice by activation natural “endocannobinoids” without gastrointestinal side effects.

Endocannabinoids are natural signaling molecules that activate cannabinoid receptors in the brain, the same receptors turned on by the active ingredient in marijuana.

These receptors are also found in the gastrointestinal system and elsewhere in the body, and there is evidence that they play a role in wide range of physiological and pathological processes, in addition to modulating stress and anxiety.

If the “substrate-selective” COX-2 inhibitors developed at Vanderbilt also work in humans without side effects, they could represent a new approach to treating mood and anxiety disorders, the researchers conclude in a paper to be posted online Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Clinical trials of some of these potential drugs could begin in the next several years, said Lawrence Marnett, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology and the paper’s co-senior author with Sachin Patel, M.D., Ph.D.

The Vanderbilt scientists are pursuing other potential applications of activating endocannabinoids by substrate-selective COX-2 inhibition, including relieving pain, treating movement disorders, and possibly preventing colon cancer.

“The door is really wide open,” said Patel, assistant professor of Psychiatry and of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics. “We’ve just scratched the surface.”

Aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) relieve pain and inflammation by blocking either or both of the cyclooxygenase (COX) enzymes, which produce pro-inflammatory prostaglandins.

It has been known for several years that COX-2 inhibition also activates endocannabinoids.

Because the “substrate selective” inhibitors developed at Vanderbilt increase endocannabinoid levels in the mouse without blocking prostaglandin production, “we think (they) will not have the gastrointestinal and possibly cardiovascular side effects that other NSAIDs do,” said Marnett, University Professor and Mary Geddes Stahlman Professor of Cancer Research.

“We thought we knew everything there was to know about (COX-2 inhibitors) until about five years ago when we discovered the substrate selective inhibition,” he added. The approach used by the Vanderbilt team “is a really powerful way to help design the next generation of drugs.”

via my science academy

Camping could help your sleeping

In the modern world, efficiency and competitiveness becoming first tune of our life, many have sleeping trouble.Researchers suggest a camp outdoors. A new study by researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder, shows that a week of camping may reset the body's biological clock, allowing it to fall asleep easier at night.

Previous studies have shown that nighttime exposure to the light from TV, computers, tablets, even the tiny blinking light on cell phone chargers can reduce melatonin levels, which can cause sleep disturbances. Kenneth Wright, lead author of the study, published in Current Biology, thought that by increasing a person's exposure to natural light by letting them go camping (and taking away all their gadgets), they would naturally fall into a more "natural" sleep cycle that closer corresponded with sunrise and sunset.

It worked: During the first few days of camping, test subjects tended to fall asleep around midnight and woke up around 8 AM. A week later, most people were falling asleep by 10 PM and waking up at 6 AM. Subjects reported feeling more awake and alert during the morning, which he says is more conducive to a standard 9-5 job schedule. Over the course of the study, participants were exposed to four times more natural light than they were while going about their normal lives.

"We were interested in determining how much our exposure to light has changed and how modern electrical lighting patterns have altered the timing of our internal clock," Wright said. "If people spend more time indoors shielded from natural light, this will likely contribute to later bed and wake times."

While it's not easy for everyone to disconnect for a week (or to stay out in the wilderness for that amount of time), Wright says that the key to the study was the exposure to natural light, not the actual act of camping. That means that forcing yourself to get out of bed and outside as early as you can in the morning might eventually lead to shifts in your biological clock.

"We used camping to ask a question about how much modern electrical lighting patterns have influenced the timing of our internal clock," he said. "One way to shift the internal clock earlier and achieve earlier bed and wake times is to increase the time you spend outside in the morning and also to reduce your exposure to electrical lighting at night."

That, unfortunately, means you probably shouldn't be scanning through Motherboard articles when you can't sleep. Save that for when you're at the office.

Oalib via Motherboard

What does your handwriting say about you?

Recently the National Pen Company in the U.S announced their research about handwriting suggesting personal personalities and creates graphic references for the personal traits links to handwriting.

People with small handwriting tend to be shy, studious and meticulous, whereas outgoing people who love attention will have larger handwriting.
People with small handwriting tend to be shy, studious and meticulous, whereas outgoing people who love attention will have larger handwriting.

The type of looping created by the letters 'l' and 'e' can suggest a person's nature, for example, wide loops means someone is relaxed and spontaneous as well as open minded. People who write narrow loops tend to be skeptical of others and may restrict themselves from certain activities, which causes feelings of tension

If the dot of a letter is situated high above the base it suggests the writer has a great imagination. If the dot is close to the base, they are organised and empathetic. Procrastinators tend to dot their 'i's and 'j's to the left of the base letter, while child-like personality types will draw their dots as circles Long crosses on 't's suggests someone who is determined and enthusiastic, but also stubborn. Short crosses tend to be written by someone who is lazy.

Is Einstein’s speed limit theory right?

In the past 100 years, Albert Einstein’s assertion that there’s an ultimate speed limit – the speed of light – is widely accept and withstood countless tests. But recently some argue that that is not absolutely right. Postdoc Michael Hohensee and graduate student Nathan Leefer from University of California, Berkeley again cheched whether some particles break this law.

The team’s first attempt to test this fundamental tenet of the special theory of relativity demonstrated once again that Einstein was right, but Leefer and Hohensee are improving the experiment to push the theory’s limits even farther – and perhaps turn up a discrepancy that could help physicists fix holes in today’s main theories of the universe.

The team’s first attempt to test this fundamental tenet of the special theory of relativity demonstrated once again that Einstein was right, but Leefer and Hohensee are improving the experiment to push the theory’s limits even farther – and perhaps turn up a discrepancy that could help physicists fix holes in today’s main theories of the universe.

Hohensee, Leefer and Dmitry Budker, a UC Berkeley professor of physics, conducted the test using a new technique involving two isotopes of the element dysprosium. By measuring the energy required to change the velocity of electrons as they jumped from one atomic orbital to another while Earth rotated over a 12-hour period, they determined that the maximum speed of an electron – in theory, the speed of light, about 300 million meters per second – is the same in all directions to within 17 nanometers per second. Their measurements were 10 times more precise than previous attempts to measure the maximum speed of electrons.

The UC Berkeley physicists and colleagues at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who provided crucial theoretical calculations, published their results this week in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Oalib

Solitary confinement causes psychology problems

Prisoners in solitary confinement almost spend all day in solitary units with no contacting with others. Because solitary confinement is wildly adopted at the discretion of prison administration, many inmates spend years, even decades, cut off from any real social interaction.

Inmates who are sent to solitary are not all the “worst of the worst”, like rapists and murders who continue their violent way even behind bars. But in fact many are placed in solitary for nonviolent offenses, and some are not even criminals, having been arrested on immigration charges. Others are thrown into isolation cells “for their own protection” because they are homosexual or transgendered or have been raped by other inmates.

Whatever the reasons, such extreme isolation and sensory deprivation can take a severe, sometimes permanent, toll on emotional and mental health. Researchers have found that prisoners in solitary quickly become withdrawn, hypersensitive to sights and sounds, paranoid, and more prone to violence and hallucinations. Craig Haney, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has documented several cases of individuals with no prior history of mental illness who nonetheless developed paranoid psychosis requiring medical treatment after prolonged solitary confinement. As damaging as the consequences are for otherwise healthy adults, they are even worse for adolescents, whose brains are still in their final stages of development, and the mentally ill, who already struggle to maintain a solid grasp on reality. About half of all prison suicides occur in isolation cells.

The mystery of molecules control through potassium channels

The mystery how the functions of potassium ion channels transform from inactivate state into activate state has been unveiled. This discovery will have various affections ranging from fundamental biology to the design of pharmaceuticals

The findings were published online July 28 in Nature.

"Our research clarifies the nature of this previously mysterious inactivation state. This gives us better understanding of fundamental biology and should improve the rational design of drugs, which often target the inactivated state of channels" said Benoît Roux, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Chicago.

Potassium channels, present in the cells of virtually living organisms, are core components in bioelectricity generation and cellular communication. Required for functions such as neural firing and muscle contraction, they serve as common targets in pharmaceutical development.

These proteins act as a gated tunnel through the cell membrane, controlling the flow of small ions into and out of cells. After being activated by an external signal, potassium channels open to allow ions through. Soon after, however, they close, entering an inactive state and are unable to respond to stimuli for 10 to up to 20 seconds.

The cause of this long recovery period, which is enormously slow by molecular standards, has remained a mystery, as structural changes in the protein are known to be almost negligible between the active and inactivated states -- differing by a distance equivalent to the diameter of a single carbon atom.

To shed light on this phenomenon, Roux and his team used supercomputers to simulate the movement and behavior of every individual atom in the potassium channel and its immediate environment. After computations corresponding to millions of core-hours, the team discovered that just 12 water molecules were responsible for the slow recovery of these channels.

They found that when the potassium channel is open, water molecules quickly bind to tiny cavities within the protein structure, where they block the channel in a state that prevents the passage of ions. The water molecules are released slowly only after the external stimulus has been removed, allowing the channel to be ready for activation again. This computer simulation-based finding was then confirmed through osmolarity experiments in the laboratory.

"Observing this was a complete surprise, but it made a lot of sense in retrospect," Roux said. "Better understanding of this ubiquitous biological system will change how people think about inactivation and recovery of these channels, and has the potential to someday impact human health."

oalib via ScienceDaily

Overweight students are less likely to be accepted to university than their thinner counterparts

A long time preparation is the key to enter universities, and now American scientists believe how much you weigh could influence whether you are accepted.

Researchers at Bowling State University found that overweight students, especially girls, are less likely to get into university than thinner students.

The group of psychologists studied almost a thousand applications for postgraduate courses and found that academics favoured thin candidates in face to face interviews.

However, there was no significant difference in success rates when conversations were carried out over the phone or when credentials were assessed remotely.

Psychologist Jacob Burmeister and colleagues at the university asked 97 applicants for psychology graduate programmes at more than 950 universities in the US whether they had an interview in person or on the phone, and whether or not they received an offer.

Dr Burmeister said: 'When we looked at that we could see a clear relation between their weight and offers of admission for those applicants who had had an in person interview.

'The success rate for people who had had no interview or a phone interview was pretty much equal, but when in-person interviews were involved, there was quite a bit of difference, even when applicants started out on equal footing with their grades, test scores and letters of recommendation.'
The study, which was published in the journal Obesity, also suggested the weight bias was stronger for female applicants.

Oalib

World’s first flying bicycle was made

Almost every child in his or her childhood dreams of driving a vehicle down the street, over your house and past the sky. Well, that fantasy can be reality with the invention of the Paravelo flying bicycle.

A pair of flight enthusiasts, John Foden, 37, and Yannick Read, 42, have devised a two-wheeled bike -- christened the XploreAir Paravelo -- that transforms into an aircraft. The British inventors say it is the world's first fully functional flying bicycle.

The machine can travel at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour on the road and 25 miles per hour in the air, reaching altitudes of up to 4,000 feet.

"The Wright brothers were former bicycle mechanics so there's a real connection between cycling and the birth of powered flight that is recaptured in the spirit of the Paravelo," says so-creator John Foden.

The flying bicycle looks like a conventional bike connected to a lightweight trailer, which houses a giant fan, fuel for the contraption's engine and the flexible fold-away wing. Both the airframe and bike are made from aircraft grade aluminum.

The bicycle can be disconnected from its trailer for inner city use, then docks to form a 'para-trike' for take-off. In order to fly, the bike and trailer are fastened together, the wing is unfurled and an electric starter fires the biofuel-powered 249cc motor. Tired Tour de France competitors might want to consider this option before taking on a particularly daunting hill climb.

The Paravelo needs a long stretch of open ground, clear of obstructions for takeoff. Once airborne, it can stay in the air for up to three hours. Once it's in the air, the flying bicycle's inventors say that it controls like a conventional fan-powered paraglider.

The fan can also be detached entirely from its housing and strapped directly onto your back. Worn like this, no license is required to fly it in many countries -- including the U.S. and the UK -- but the United States Powered Paragliding Association strenuously recommends proper training.

So unless you have done it before, jumping off the closest cliff in your new Paravelo is not recommended.

The bicycle is small enough to be taken on public transport, and the entire vehicle can be stowed in a garage or carried up stairs and stored at home.

Oalib via CNN

Arguments on designation of big nonbanks to be SIFIs

Normally a policy just published is controversial because a variety of people beneficially involved. But this list which has not been actually a policy attracts wide attention among people.

Recently AIG and Prudential, two insurers confirmed they are designated as “systemically important financial institutions” (SIFIs) by the new Financial Stability Oversight Council, a regulatory department. And so did GE Capital, the big group GE’s financial arm. These firms and perhaps others, have joined America’s largest banks and clearinghouses in being labeled as “SIFIs”. These on the list of being designated SIFIs will be regulated by the Fed and subjected to tougher capital and operational requirements. Jack Lew, the treasury secretary, said the designations would “protect taxpayers, reduce risk in the financial system, and promoted financial stability."This signals because they are thought to be significant to effect America’s economy, they should get special attention. Some are worried about it. Putting these institutions in the charge of the Fed will inevitably undermine their ability to innovate, says Peter Wallison, a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. And joining the group of entities perceived to be too big to fail means they will enjoy an implicit government guarantee. That will put them at a funding advantage against smaller companies, he says, and imply that their products are government-backed, a huge help for insurers in particular.

Oalib

Malpractice claims should not hold up in court

Analysis about patients suing doctors for malpractice may improve information management system.

A study shows that the most common reason patients give for their doctors is a delay or failure to diagnose a disease.

The study reviewed information on medical malpractice claims against primary care doctors in the United States, Australia, France and Canada and found that the most frequently missed disease were cancer and heart attacks in adults and meningitis in children.

The second most common reason for a lawsuit was medication errors, such as prescription-related errors or adverse drug reactions.

Although the majority of the medical malpractice claims should not hold up in court, understanding malpractice suits can help doctors identify situations that may result in adverse events for patients, as well as systems that can be put into place to help prevent errors from happening.

Ultimately the study analyzing malpractice claims can contribute to improving the quality of medical practice. For example the doctor who received malpractice claims might talk it to other doctors.

The new study may also help identify areas of medicine that may benefit from better risk management systems, such as computer systems that let doctors check what medications a patient is already taking before prescribing another drug.

by Oalib

Material with record-breaking surface area was made

Material with record-breaking surface area was made

A new material with world record-breaking surface area and other properties has been synthesized by researchers from Uppsala University, Sweden, which was thought to be impossible. The magnesium carbonate material was formed in an unexpected way and the results have been published in PLOS ONE.

For the past 100 years, it has been claimed in the scientific literature that magnesium carbonate with disordered form is extremely hard to make.

"A Thursday afternoon in 2011, we slightly changed the synthesis parameters of the earlier employed unsuccessful attempts, and by mistake left the material in the reaction chamber over the weekend. Back at work on Monday morning we discovered that a rigid gel had formed and after drying this gel we started to get excited," says Johan Goméz de la Torre.

The magnesium carbonate material that has been given the name Upsalite is foreseen to reduce the amount of energy needed to control environmental moisture in the electronics and drug formulation industry as well as in hockey rinks and ware houses. It can also be used for collection of toxic waste, chemicals or oil spill and in drug delivery systems, for odor control and sanitation after fire.

Lock-in effect may not exist

Today a researcher put on his blog that the fact underwater borrowers have been locked out of moving to new jobs may be not true. It is highly recognized that the housing market has had a lot to do with the size and stubborn nature of the Great Recession. A lock-in effect for underwater borrowers was used to explain the inner relationship. A lock-in effect is the phenomenon that people could not move because homeowners are underwater borrowers and unwilling to face the costs. He said in fact , being underwater might lead people to feel liberated from their houses.

He argued with a done paper by by Yuliya Demyanyk, Dmytro Hryshko, María José Luengo-Prado, and Bent E. Sørensen that the most locked in homeowners are those that have only a small amount of equity in their houses. Those with lots of equity are more likely to move to another city than those with little equity when their local economies receive a positive employment shock, and very slightly less likely to move when their local economies received a negative shock. But those with negative equity are more likely to move under all circumstances. Perhaps such people feel like they have nothing to lose, so they might as well move.

Perceiving a 4 year old body leads to child’s memory

Mel Slater of the University of Barcelona in Spain and his team did a experiment in which they put 30 people in a virtual reality environment in the body of a 4-year-old child. They thought they had the body of a 4-year-old child. For example, they believed they were tall as the child. The virtual body moving in sync with movements of the real body, could be viewed from a first-person perspective and in a mirror in the virtual reality environment. In the virtual environment all objects are bigger than they actually were, but they judged their body to be as a 4-year-old child.

It suggests that we reference our own body size to judge the size of the environment we are in. The researchers also has shown that these illusion may has the same effect on higher-level cognitive process, like memory of childhood.

The team’s previous research shows that when a person acquires a body type they have never experienced, social and cultural expectations often influence how they relate to the new body.

Things we experience in a virtual landscape can also have profound effects on our behaviour in the real world: in a separate study by researchers at Stanford University in California, giving people superhero powers in a virtual environment made them behave in a more helpful manner in real life.

The researchers say that brain imaging studies would help them to understand the reorganisation that occurs when assimilating a new body. The motivation springs from a project looking at how to embody people in child-sized robots. "We thought we ought to look at the consequences of that first," says Slater.

What contribute to air pollution responsible for more than 2 million deaths each year

Climate changes are the central issues when people argue air pollution. New study suggested that a changing climate can strengthen the effects of air pollution and increase death rates, but this is a small effect and only accounts for a small proportion of current deaths related to air pollution.

The study has been published on 12 July, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters.

The study showed that around 2.1 million deaths are caused each year by human-caused increases in fine particulates matter (PM2.5) and 470,000 because of human-caused increases in ozone. And many of these deaths are assumed to happen in East Asia and South Asia, where population is high and air pollution is severe.

Based on the study, the number of these deaths that can be attributed to changes in the climate since the industrial era is, however, relatively small. It estimates that a changing climate results in 1500 deaths due to ozone and 2200 deaths related to PM2.5 each year.

Climate change affects air quality in many ways, possibly leading to local increases or decreases in air pollution. For instance, temperature and humidity can change the reaction rates which determine the formation or lifetime of a pollutant, and rainfall can determine the time that pollutants can accumulate.

Higher temperatures can also increase the emissions of organic compounds from trees, which can then react in the atmosphere to form ozone and particulate matter.

Asian Origins of Native American Dogs Confirmed by DNA

Native American dogs were thought to have been extinct because early Europeans brought diseases to them. According to recent research that traces these breeds to ancient Asia orgins and they are preserved and they are thriving.

The arrival of Europeans in the Americas has generally been thought to have led to the extinction of indigenous dog breeds; but a comprehensive genetic study has found that the original population of native American dogs has been almost completely preserved, says Peter Savolainen, a researcher in evolutionary genetics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

In fact, American dog breeds trace their ancestry to ancient Asia, Savolainen says. These native breeds have 30 percent or less modern replacement by European dogs, he says.

"Our results confirm that American dogs are a remaining part of the indigenous American culture, which underscores the importance of preserving these populations," he says.

Savolainen's research group, in cooperation with colleagues in Portugal, compared mitochondrial DNA from Asian and European dogs, ancient American archaeological samples, and American dog breeds, including Chihuahuas, Peruvian hairless dogs and Arctic sled dogs.

They traced the American dogs' ancestry back to East Asian and Siberian dogs, and also found direct relations between ancient American dogs and modern breeds.

"It was especially exciting to find that the Mexican breed, Chihuahua, shared a DNA type uniquely with Mexican pre-Columbian samples," he says. "This gives conclusive evidence for the Mexican ancestry of the Chihuahua."

May greed has an evolutionary advantage?

Religion and science have litter agreements, but they share this view: greed is not good for you. The definition of greed is that An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth. Greed tells you to think you have more than what you have got."Greed never allows you to think you have enough; it always destroys you by making you strive ever harder for more," Rabbi Benjamin Blech writes in "Taking Stock: A Spiritual Guide to Rising Above Life's Ups and Down."

Not many people think greed is good. But might it have some evolutionary advantage?

Paul Zak, , might understand. He talked about greed as part of a lecture series titled "Science and the Seven Deadly Sins" at the New York Academy of Sciences.

"The seven deadly sins are still deadly because they separate us from other people," he said. "They are all about putting 'me' first, and that is maladaptive for social creatures like us."

Zak , a neuroeconomist and professor at Claremont Graduate University has done studies that have manipulated brain chemistry in human beings to show that oxytocin causes people to be moral.

Zak said that his research suggests that people who are greedy have brains that work differently. "Their character traits are similar to those of psychopaths. They simply do not care about others the way most people do, and the dysfunctional processing of oxytocin in their brains appears to be one reason for this."

It's hard to find a positive slant on greed if you mean the moral aspect of greed.

Evidences show time of birth has relationship with health of babies

It seems to be unthinkable babies conceived at certain times of the year appear healthier than those conceived during other times. Now scientists have shown that the unimaginable phenomenon is actually true. And they may know why it happens.

Since the 1930s, researchers have noticed that children born in winter were more prone to health problems later in life: slower growth, mental illness, poor health status, and early death. Among the proposed explanations were diseases, harsh temperatures, and higher pollution levels associated with winter, when those expectant mothers and near-term fetuses might be most vulnerable. However, as economists looked at demographics, the picture got more complicated. Mothers who are nonwhite, unmarried, or lack a college education are more likely to have children with health and developmental problems. They are also more likely to conceive in the first half of the year. That made it hard to tease out the socioeconomic effects from the seasonal ones.

May is the most unfavorable time to get pregnant, study conducted by Economists Janet Currie and Hannes Schwandt finds. Babies conceived this month (and thus delivered in winter) were 13% more likely to be born premature, and their gestation time was almost a week below the average, Currie and Schwandt report.

"Healthy" Foods are not as they are labeled

People tend to choose larger portions of food if they are labeled as being “healthier”, even if they have the same number of calories, according to a new study.

That misconception can lead to people eating larger portions of so-called healthy foods, and therefore more calories.

whether health and nutrition claims had any influence on people choosing portion sizes of these foods? A study led by Barbara Livingstone, a professor at the University of Ulster, uncovered the question.

The researchers asked 186 adults to assess the appropriate portion sizes of foods. Given a bowl of coleslaw, the participants served themselves more of the coleslaw labeled “healthier” than the coleslaw labeled “standard.” For instance, obese men served themselves 103 grams of healthy coleslaw and 86 grams of standard coleslaw.

In reality, the healthy-labeled coleslaw had just as many calories—941 kilojoules (or 224 calories) for every 100 grams—as the “standard” coleslaw, which had 937 kilojoules (or 223 calories).

Additionally, people tended to underestimate how many calories were in a serving for the “healthier” coleslaw. The participants most often thought the “healthier” coleslaw contained 477 kilojoules, or 113 calories. In contrast, they were not far off in estimating the calories in the “standard” coleslaw.

Why one can not keep a secret

Unlike what we usually think about the brain, it doesn’t have one central driver. Instead, the brain consists of a lot of competing strength that are trying to drive the ship. In fact one is not one thing. In the brain, there are different political parties which form a parliament that decide what you do. This is why people often find it is hard to decide and cajole themselves and contract with themselves. It’s because these strengths are all trying to be in control.

This sheds light on a lot of issues about human behavior. One of them is about why one can’t keep a secret. You may say it could be a toaster or something like that. Maybe you need to take over rivals framework to understand what a secret is, which is that a part of your brain wants to tell something and another part of your brain doesn’t want to because of the social consequences of it. You need multiple parts of the brain that are in competition with one another. If all these different parts want to tell the story, then it’s just a good story. And if none of the parts want to tell it, then it’s just something you don't do. It’s that tension that you get from different populations in the brain, that's what constitutes a secret.

The math in the twelve-tone

First number the pitches in order from 0 to 11 to name the intervals of twelve in the circle with twelve referring dots. When you draw lines connecting the first and the last intervals of a serial, which are both minor thirds, you can have several parallel lines with arrows on them. If we don’t move the dots and rotate the lines by 180 degrees, the blue line between D and C# would end up being line from G# to G with the arrow pointing the other direction. The same thing is true for all the other lines. This is not an accident. It is the principle with triton of twelve-tone.

Study shows that an Avatar teaches you how to lose weight

A study, published in the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology recently looked into how that effect relates to weight loss--but used virtual people in place of real ones.

In the small study, women who watched virtual behaviors of themselves ended up exercising more in real-life, too.

It sounds pretty unbelievable, but the study suggests that watching virtual people work out could help you lose weight.

In psychology, there's a term "social cognitive theory." Part of that theory illustrates that when good things happen to people who behaved a certain way, observers are more likely to imitate that behavior, especially if the observer and the observed look alike. Seeing your twin sister drawing? Probably helpful. Watching movie stars do it? Maybe not so much.

The team of researchers made an avatar that looked like each woman in a group of eight. After that, the researchers had the women make a weekly clinic visit, where they watched a video of their avatar making healthy choices. One week the women saw the virtual person choosing the right portion size; another week the well-disciplined virtual person walked at an appropriate speed across a treadmill. After four weeks, the eight women lost a modest average of 3.5 pounds, which is about what you'd expect when adhering to standard dieting practices. 3.5 pounds might not sound that much, but the process could lead to more weight loss, larger studies have shown.

How to Learn a Language Quickly

Researches and simulations show that one can learn the meaning of words rapidly if he or she assume that every object has only one word.

Richard Blythe from the University of Edinburgh in the UK look into the problem. Small-scale lab tests have shown that children and adults use mutual exclusivity to determine word meaning. But researchers don’t know how effective this strategy is compared with others when dealing with hundreds or thousands of words.

To solve this question, Blythe and his colleagues used a physics analogy like others in the past. They assume word learning resembles some problems in nonequilibrium statistical physics, where a large number of entities (such as molecules and atoms) interact, and the probability distributions for certain states evolve over time. In language learning, a word like “cup” will start off with many confounders, and so the probability of “cup” meaning cup will be low. But over time this probability—and that of other word-meaning pairs—will grow to one, analogous to the system approaching equilibrium.

The researchers figure it out that the mutual exclusivity assumption is extremely effective.

Linda Smith, a cognitive scientist from Indiana University in Bloomington, says that mutual exclusivity is a common theme in brain studies. “Competition is how the brain works—in all domains, at all levels,” she says. If the brain forms an oassociatin between a word and an object, this will inhibit other words from forming a similar association with the same object. She expects some psychologists will take issue with the idea that learners retain a set of confounders for each word from one utterance to the next, but she says that similar kinds of ambiguity are included in theories of the brain’s memory retrieval.

Another perceptive in DNA expressing

Now there is one of the biggest challenges currently facing the fields of genomics and genetics, which Scientists from Australia and the United States bring into our concept of the three-dimensional structure of the genome.

DNA, roughly 3 metres is tightly folded into the nucleus of every cell in our body. This folding facilitates some genes to be ‘expressed’, or activated, while excluding others.

Genes consist of ‘exons’ and ‘introns’ the former being the sequences that code for protein and are expressed, and the latter being stretches of noncoding DNA in-between. As the genes are copied, or ‘transcribed’, from DNA into RNA, the intron sequences are cut or ‘spliced’ out and the remaining exons are strung together to form a sequence that encodes a protein. Depending on which exons are strung together, the same gene can generate different proteins.

Referring vast amounts of data from the ENCODE project*, Dr Tim Mercer and colleagues have examined the folding of the genome, finding that even within a gene, selected exons are easily exposed.

There will be new device to detect disease with drop of blood

Professor Eginald Farrow and his partners’ cutting-edge work with carbon nanotubes is the fore path to a new device, a prototype lab-on-a-chip that would someday enable a physician to detect disease or virus from just one drop of liquid, including blood.

The article entitled “Scalable nano-bioprobes with sub-cellular resolution for cell detection” will publish on July 15, 2013 but is available now online, describes how NJIT research professors Reginald Farrow and Alokik Kanwal, his former postdoctoral fellow, and their team have created a carbon nanotube-based device to noninvasively and quickly detect mobile single cells with the potential to maintain a high degree of spatial resolution.

In the article, the NJIT researchers evaluated three different types of cells using three different electrical probes. "It was an exploratory study and we don't want to say that we have a signature," Farrow added. "What we do say here is that these cells differ based on electrical properties. Establishing a signature, however, will take time, although we know that the distribution of electrical charges in a healthy cell changes markedly when it becomes sick."

Two Mutations produced an Evolutionary Leap 500 Million Years Ago

In a feat of "molecular time travel" the researchers resurrected and analyzed the functions of the ancestors of genes that play key roles in modern human reproduction, development, immunity and cancer. By re-creating the same DNA changes that occurred during those genes' ancient history, the team showed that two mutations set the stage for hormones like estrogen, testosterone and cortisol to take on their crucial present-day roles.

"Changes in just two letters of the genetic code in our deep evolutionary past caused a massive shift in the function of one protein and set in motion the evolution of our present-day hormonal and reproductive systems," said Joe Thornton, PhD, professor of human genetics and ecology & evolution at the University of Chicago, who led the study.

"If those two mutations had not happened, our bodies today would have to use different mechanisms to regulate pregnancy, libido, the response to stress, kidney function, inflammation, and the development of male and female characteristics at puberty," Thornton said.

The findings were published online June 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Understanding how the genetic code of a protein determines its functions would allow biochemists to better design drugs and predict the effects of mutations on disease. Thornton said the discovery shows how evolutionary analysis of proteins' histories can advance this goal, Before the group's work, it was not previously known how the various steroid receptors in modern species distinguish estrogens from other hormones.

The team, which included researchers from the University of Oregon, Emory University and the Scripps Research Institute, studied the evolution of a family of proteins called steroid hormone receptors, which mediate the effects of hormones on reproduction, development and physiology. Without receptor proteins, these hormones cannot affect the body's cells.

Thornton's group traced how the ancestor of the entire receptor family -- which recognized only estrogens -- evolved into descendant proteins capable of recognizing other steroid hormones, such as testosterone, progesterone and the stress hormone cortisol.

To do so, the group used a gene "resurrection" strategy. They first inferred the genetic sequences of ancient receptor proteins, using computational methods to work their way back up the tree of life from a database of hundreds of present-day receptor sequences. They then biochemically synthesized these ancient DNA sequences and used molecular assays to determine the receptors' sensitivity to various hormones.
Thornton's team narrowed down the time range during which the capacity to recognize non-estrogen steroids evolved, to a period about 500 million years ago, before the dawn of vertebrate animals on Earth. They then identified the most important mutations that occurred during that interval by introducing them into the reconstructed ancestral proteins. By measuring how the mutations affected the receptor's structure and function, the team could re-create ancient molecular evolution in the laboratory.

They found that just two changes in the ancient receptor's gene sequence caused a 70,000-fold shift in preference away from estrogens toward other steroid hormones. The researchers also used biophysical techniques to identify the precise atomic-level mechanisms by which the mutations affected the protein's functions. Although only a few atoms in the protein were changed, this radically rewired the network of interactions between the receptor and the hormone, leading to a massive change in function.

"Our findings show that new molecular functions can evolve by sudden large leaps due to a few tiny changes in the genetic code," Thornton said. He pointed out that, along with the two key changes in the receptor, additional mutations, the precise effects of which are not yet known, were necessary for the full effects of hormone signaling on the body to evolve.

via DailyScience 

Puya chilensis

Puya chilensis is a kind of plant in very large bromeliad, native to the mountains of Chile. Bromeliads are spiky, mostly tropical, commonly New-World plants, the best-known of which is probably the pineapple. But while the pineapple is delicious, Puya chilensis is a bit more harmful.

Most bromeliads have firm, hard leaves, but Puya chilensis is sort of an extreme sample. Its leaves look sort of like aloe leaves, but in between them are huge, sharp spines that jut out past them. Most plants that have spines, like cacti, use them for protection, but it's theorized that Puya chilensis actually uses them for hunting.

This plant is sometimes known as a "sheep-eating" plant, which is not, strictly speaking, accurate: it is not a carnivorous plant like the well-known pitcher plant or Venus flytrap, as it doesn't actually digest animal matter. Instead, scientists believe that the spikes trap animals with thick fur, like sheep, which then starve to death, fall to the ground, and decompose at the base of the plant, providing highly rich, localized food for the plant. It's gruesome as hell.

It's not a particularly rare plant; it's in the news now because for the first time, horticulturists in England have coaxed it to bloom, 15 years after planting it. They've been feeding it liquid fertilizer, because, says one of the horticulturists, "feeding it on its natural diet might prove a bit problematic.

Brain drain and brain circulation

According to an article, a brain drain or human capital flight is an emigration of trained and talented individuals ("human capital") to other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflicts, lack of opportunity, health hazards where they are living or other reasons. Spokesmen for the Royal Society of London coined the expression “brain drain” to describe the outflow of scientists and technologists to Canada and the United States in the early 1950s. Its counterpart is brain gain in the areas to which talent migrates. Brain drain can occur either when individuals who study abroad and complete their education do not return to their home country, or when individuals educated in their home country emigrate for higher wages or better opportunities. This phenomenon is perhaps most problematic for developing nations, where it is widespread. In these countries, higher education and professional certification are often viewed as the surest path to escape from a troubled economy or difficult political situation. Brain drain can be described as “soft brain drain” which is the non-availability of research results from a country where the study was carried out. This could be due to a publication of the findings in an international journal to which health practitioners from the study country have little access. This is different from the physical movement of persons from the developing countries to northern nations “hard brain drain2”. 

In the article published in Perspective, the author looked into the problem of brain drain and showed what caused it and how to avoid and improve it. It had been included into database of oalib: http://goo.gl/58bnF.

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Home messages affect fluency of speaking another language

Sometimes there are moments when people blurt out homeland languages while they are speaking with foreigners using foreign languages. Why they happen make people confused.

Shu Zhang, a Chinese native, teamed up with Columbia social psychologist Michael Morris and colleagues to figure out the problem. In a new study, they show that reminders of one’s homeland can hinder the ability to speak a new language. The findings could help explain why cultural immersion is the most effective way to learn a foreign tongue and why immigrants who settle within an ethnic enclave acculturate more slowly than those who surround themselves with friends from their new country.

Previous studies have shown that cultural icons such as landmarks and celebrities act like “magnets of meaning,” instantly activating a web of cultural associations in the mind and influencing our judgments and behavior, Morris says. In an earlier study, for example, he asked Chinese Americans to explain what was happening in a photograph of several fish, in which one fish swam slightly ahead of the others. Subjects first shown Chinese symbols, such as the Great Wall or a dragon, interpreted the fish as being chased. But individuals primed with American images of Marilyn Monroe or Superman, in contrast, tended to interpret the outlying fish as leading the others. This internally driven motivation is more typical of individualistic American values, some social psychologists say, whereas the more externally driven explanation of being pursued is more typical of Chinese culture.

Understanding how these subtle cultural cues affect language fluency could help employers design better job interviews, Morris says. For example, taking a Japanese job candidate out for sushi, although a well-meaning gesture, might not be the best way to help them shine.

“It’s quite striking that these effects were so robust,” says Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a developmental psychologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. They show that “we’re exquisitely attuned to cultural context,” she says, and that “even subtle cues like the ethnicity of the person we’re talking to” can affect language processing. The take-home message? “If one wants to acculturate rapidly, don’t move to an ethnic enclave neighborhood where you’ll be surrounded by people like yourself,” Morris says. Sometimes, a familiar face is the last thing you need to see.

Study shows that pesticide contamination kills up to 42 percent of water life

A study from US journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the first to compare regional biodiversity in polluted versus less polluted water presents Pesticides may kill off water insects and other small aquatic life by as much as 42 percent.

According to the study, freshwater invertebrates and aquatic insects were 42 percent less common in strongly contaminated areas in Europe compared to less polluted areas; and in Australia, a difference of 27 percent was found across regions.

The analysis involves in measurements of insecticides and fungicides, which are used often in agriculture and are typically well studied and heavily regulated.

However, little examination has been done to gauge their effect on the streams and rivers they end up in after it rains and the chemicals are washed off farmland and into watercourses.

“The current practice of risk assessment is like driving blind on the motorway,” said ecotoxicologist Matthias Liess, a study co-author.

Researchers said that Species that were particularly vulnerable to pesticides included dragonflies, stoneflies, mayflies and caddis flies.

The researchers warned that the threat pesticides pose to biodiversity has been underestimated, since experimental lab work and studies on artificial ecosystems often precede a pesticide’s market approval.

“The effects in Europe were detected at concentrations that current legislation considers environmentally protective,” said the study, calling for new approaches to better assess the ecological risks of pesticides.

Mystery of X-Ray Light from Black Holes Solved

According to a new study, astrophysicists from The Johns Hopkins University, NASA and the Rochester Institute of Technology did research that bridges the gap between theory and observation by demonstrating that gas spiraling toward a black hole inevitably results in X-ray emissions.

The paper suggests that as gas spirals toward a black hole through a formation called an accretion disk, it heats up to roughly 10 million degrees Celsius. The temperature in the main body of the disk is roughly 2,000 times hotter than the sun and emits low-energy or "soft" X-rays. However, observations also detect "hard" X-rays which produce up to 100 times higher energy levels.

Julian Krolik, professor of physics and astronomy in the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and his fellow scientists used a combination of supercomputer simulations and traditional hand-written calculations to uncover their findings. Supported by 40 years of theoretical progress, the team showed for the first time that high-energy light emission is not only possible, but is an inevitable outcome of gas being drawn into a black hole.

Breastfeeding benefits babies’ brains

Recently a new study by researchers from Brown University showed that breastfeeding improves brain development in infants.

Deoni, the research leader, and his team made experiments on 133 babies ranging in ages from 10 months to four years. All of the babies are the same in gestation times and socioeconomic statuses. The researchers divided the babies into three groups: those whose mothers reported they exclusively breastfed for at least three months, those fed a combination of breastmilk and formula, and those fed formula alone. The researchers compared the older kids to the younger kids to establish growth trajectories in white matter for each group.

The study showed that the exclusively breastfed group had the fastest growth in myelinated white matter of the three groups, with the increase in white matter volume becoming substantial by age 2. The group fed both breastmilk and formula had more growth than the exclusively formula-fed group, but less than the breastmilk-only group.

The study also looked at the effects of the duration of breastfeeding. The researchers compared babies who were breastfed for more than a year with those breastfed less than a year, and found significantly enhanced brain growth in the babies who were breastfed longer — especially in areas of the brain dealing with motor function.

People are likely to overestimate their accuracy of their judgments

In our daily life, we should make many judgments and we believe that these judgments are correct, even some are errors. These phenomenons called overprecison by scientists can have profound effects, increasing investors’ participation in investments, leading physicians to conclude quickly a diagnosis, even making people presenting dissenting views. Now, new research makes it acceptable that overprcision is a common and strong form of overconfidence driven, at least in part, by excessive certainty in the accuracy of our judgments

The new findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Research investigating overprecision typically involves asking people to put up with a 90% or above interval around a numerical estimate , such as the length of the Nile River -- but this doesn't always faithfully reflect the judgments we have to make in everyday life. We know, for example, that arriving 15 minutes late for a business meeting is not the same as arriving 15 minutes early, and that we ought to err on the side of arriving early.

Researchers design experiment that account for the asymmetric nature of many everyday judgments.

The results showed that participants adjusted their estimates in the direction of the anticipated payoff after receiving feedback about their accuracy, just as Mannes and Moore expected.

But they didn't adjust their estimates as much as they should have given their actual knowledge of local temperatures, suggesting that they were overly confident in their own powers of estimation.