|  Americans' Mental Health is Latest Victim of Changing Climate (Op-Ed)  | She writes regularly for the National Science Foundation, Climate Nexus, Microbe Magazine, and the Washington Post health section, and she is an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. Cimons contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. For months after Hurricane Sandy sent nearly six feet of water surging into her home in Long Beach, N.Y. — an oceanfront city along Long Island' s south shore — retired art teacher Marcia Bard Isman woke up many mornings feeling anxious and nauseated. What Isman is experiencing is one of the little-recognized consequences of climate change, the mental anguish experienced by survivors in the aftermath of extreme and sometimes violent weather and other natural disasters.
| Read More » Philip Seymour Hoffman: Why Heroin Is So Deadly A heroin overdose seems to be what ended actor Philip Seymour Hoffman's life yesterday (Feb. 2), just like the lives of many before him. Although news reports say the police are still investigating the circumstances surrounding Hoffman's death, the likely involvement of heroin brings up the question of why the substance so deadly. So when you're taking heroin, you're not 100 percent sure what you're getting," said Dr. Scott Krakower, a psychiatrist at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y., who specializes in drug addiction counseling. Another reason heroin takes many victims is that it can be injected, Krakower said. Read More » Black Death Likely Altered European Genes  | The Black Death of the 14th century may be written into the DNA of survivors' descendants, new research finds. The study reveals that Roma people (sometimes known as gypsies, although this is considered a derogatory term) and white Europeans share alterations to their genetic code that occurred after the Roma settled in Europe from northwest India 1,000 years ago. "We show that there are some immune receptors that are clearly influenced by evolution in Europe and not in northwest India," said study leader Mihai Netea, a researcher in experimental internal medicine at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands. "India did not have the medieval plague, as Europe had," Netea told Live Science.
| Read More » Mosquito Sperm Have 'Sense of Smell'  | Mosquitoes use scent-detecting molecules known as odorant receptors in their antennae. They found odorant receptors on the whiplike tails of the mosquitos' sperm. "We know these molecules are very powerful tools for responding to chemical signals from the environment, but this work shows these molecules can also be co-opted to respond to chemicals inside the organism," said study author Laurence Zwiebel, a molecular biologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. In other words, molecules used in one part of the body can be co-opted or diverted for a role elsewhere in the body.
| Read More » Added Sugar May Boost Risk of Heart Disease, Death Many Americans consume too much added sugar, a habit that not only increases the risk of obesity, but may also increase the risk of dying from heart disease, a new study suggests. The World Health Organization recommends limiting calories from added sugar to less than 10 percent of your daily total. What's more, people who consumed between 17 and 21 percent of their daily calories from added sugar were nearly 40 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease over a 14-year period than those who consumed about 8 percent of their daily calories from added sugar, the study found. People who drank seven or more sugar-sweetened beverages (such as soda) per week — a common source of added sugar — were about 30 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease during the study than those who drank one or fewer sugar-sweetened beverages per week. Read More » The Most Religious US State Is ...  | Once again, Mississippi reigns as the most religious U.S. state, with 61 percent of its residents classified as "very religious," according to the results of a Gallup survey released Monday (Feb. 3).
| Read More » Strange Saturn Vortex Swirls in Amazing NASA Photo  | An amazing new photo of Saturn's north pole puts the planet's odd hexagon-shaped jet stream and dazzling rings on display. NASA's Cassini spacecraft exploring Saturn and its moons snapped the photo — which NASA released today (Feb. 3) — as the probe flew 1.6 million miles (2.5 million kilometers) above the ringed planet. Cassini took its newest view of Saturn's polar vortex on Nov. 23, 2013, though the image itself was just released today. The hexagonal vortex is about 20,000 miles (30,000 km) across and is a jet stream made up of 200 mph winds (322 km/h) surrounding a huge storm, NASA officials have said.
| Read More » Heat Wave Deaths May Triple by the 2050s They found that by the 2050s, the number of heat-related deaths in England and Wales could surge by 3.5 times its current number, to around 2,000 deaths yearly in these regions, according to the study published today (Feb. 3) in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Exposure to hot weather can bring about hyperthermia, a condition in which a person's body absorbs more heat than it dissipates, resulting in dangerously high body temperatures that require medical attention. Every year, about 650 Americans die from hyperthermia — a death toll greater than that of tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The elderly and people with underlying medical conditions are at higher risk of dying from hyperthermia. Read More » Godspeed the John Glenn: Navy Christens Ship for 1st American to Orbit Earth  | John Glenn's first impression upon seeing the U.S. Navy ship that will sail bearing his name was that it looked "like somebody forgot to finish it." "I thought it looked like kids playing with a LEGO set and they forgot to finish the whole thing up," the retired Marine, NASA astronaut and U.S. senator said Saturday (Feb. 1) at the christening ceremony for the USNS John Glenn. "This MLP will serve as our platform in the ocean: a large, stable platform that can stage and facilitate the delivery of vehicles and equipment, personnel and supplies between the sea base and the restricted access locations ashore," Lt. General John Toolan, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force's commanding general, said at the naming ceremony, which was held at General Dynamics' NASSCO (National Steel and Shipbuilding Company) shipyard in San Diego, Calif. "For the United States of America, I christen this ship the 'USNS John Glenn.' May God bless this ship and all who sail in her," Lyn Glenn said just before breaking a bottle of champagne against the ship's hull.
| Read More » 'Fossilized Rivers' Reveal Clues About Disappearing Glaciers  | An amazing landscape left behind by melting ice sheets offers clues to the future of Greenland's shrinking glaciers, a new study suggests. Canada was once buried beneath miles of ice, similar to the way Greenland is today. Called the Laurentide Ice Sheet, this massive ice cap covered all of Canada and parts of the northern United States 15,000 years ago. When the Laurentide Ice Sheet started melting, the retreating ice left behind a record of its demise, such as the eskers, still visible on the Arctic tundra.
| Read More » Strange, Hypervelocity Stars Get Ejected from Milky Way  | A new class of fast-moving stars are on their way out of the Milky Way, scientists say. Unlike most other known hypervelocity stars, the 20 sunsize stars are not exiting after interacting with the black hole in the heart of the galaxy, a massive body whose gravitational influence usually provides the kick needed to escape, the new study found. "These new hypervelocity stars are very different from the ones that have been discovered previously," the study's lead author Lauren Palladino, of Vanderbilt University, said in a statement. Palladino discovered 20 potential hypervelocity stars while using a massive stellar census, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, to map the path of sunlike stars in the Milky Way.
| Read More » Woman's IVF Prevented Fatal Brain Disorder in Her Children A woman whose genes put her at high risk for a rare brain disorder was able to avoid passing on the condition to her children through a special in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure, according to a new report of the case. The woman, a 27-year-old in the United States, had undergone genetic testing that showed she had inherited a gene that put her at risk for Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker (GSS) syndrome, a rare and fatal brain disorder seen in only a few families in the world. To have children, the woman and her husband used IVF, an assisted-reproduction technique in which eggs from the mother are fertilized in a laboratory. But before implanting the embryos in the uterus, doctors took an extra step and screened the embryos for the GSS genetic mutation. Read More » Tiny Numbers Can Predict Sizes of Objects in the Universe  | Just a few numbers could be used to predict the sizes of objects large and small in the universe, researchers say. The paper, published Jan. 27 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that a handful of fundamental constants, such as the speed of light or the charge of an electron, could predict everything from the tallest potential mountain on a planet, to a neutron star's size, to how humans walk. "What we wanted to do is bring together the physical argument that shows that numbers that are usually used in the context of laboratory experiments, or things in the small, can inform even the largest things in our universe," said study co-author Adam Burrows, a physicist at Princeton University. Everything in the universe obeys the fundamental laws of nature, and a few physical constants crop up in many of the laws.
| Read More » The North Star Polaris Is Getting Brighter  | The North Star has remained an eternal reassurance for northern travelers over the centuries. But recent and historical research reveals that the ever-constant star is actually changing. "It was unexpected to find," Scott Engle of Villanova University in Pennsylvania told SPACE.com. Engle investigated the fluctuations of the star over the course of several years, combing through historical records and even turning the gaze of the famed Hubble Space Telescope onto the star.
| Read More » Pompeii-like Eruption Fossilized Dinos in Death Poses  | A mass grave in a Chinese lakebed contains the extremely well-preserved fossils of dinosaurs, mammals and early birds, but the cause of the animals' death has long puzzled scientists. "What we're talking about in this case is literal charring, like somebody got put in the grill," said George Harlow, a mineralogist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, one of the researchers of the study detailed today (Feb. 4) in the journal Nature Communications. In other words, Harlow told Live Science, "They got fried." [See Images of the 'Animal Pompeii' in China] An ancient ecosystem known as the Jehol Biota existed in northern China about 120 million to 130 million years ago, consisting of dinosaurs, mammals, early birds, fish, lizards and other creatures.
| Read More » Dramatic Sun Storm, Partial Solar Eclipse Spied by NASA Spacecraft (Video)  | A NASA satellite has captured stunning views of a partial solar eclipse and a stormy eruption on the sun as seen from space, two amazing events that occurred on the same day last week.. The space agency's sun-watching Solar Dynamics Observatory saw the dual phenomena on Jan. 30, as this video of the solar flare and partial solar eclipse shows. During the solar eclipse, called a lunar transit, the moon took two and a half hours to cross —the longest transit ever recorded by the satellite. The crisp silhouette of the moon creeps in front of the sun starting at 8:31 a.m. EST (1331 GMT), creating a partial solar eclipse from SDO's viewpoint.
| Read More » Mars Rover Curiosity Poised at Edge of Red Planet Dune (Photo)  | A new photo from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the car-sized robot at the lip of a small Martian sand dune, debating whether or not to drive over the obstacle on its way to a huge Red Planet mountain. In the Mars views from Curiosity, a 3-foot-high (1 meter) dune separates the rover from a valley that may provide a relatively smooth route to the foothills of Mount Sharp, the rover's ultimate science destination. Curiosity's handlers are studying the new photo — a mosaic composed of images snapped on Jan. 30 — as they map out the 1-ton rover's next steps. The Curiosity team is seeking out more forgiving terrain for the rover, whose six wheels have accumulated an increasing amount of wear and tear over the last few months.
| Read More » Ultrathin, Flexible Sensor Could Improve Health-Monitoring Tech  | An ultrathin, flexible pressure sensor that has touch sensitivity almost like humans' could pave the way for artificial skin. Pressure sensors are used in all kinds of applications, including touch screens, wearable technology and even in aircraft and cars. Unlike current pressure sensors, which rely on semiconductor material, "this approach is low-cost and doesn't require lithography or expensive equipment, and it does not need a clean room," said study co-author Wenlong Cheng, a nanomaterials researcher at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. The new sensor, described today (Feb. 4) in the journal Nature Communications, could one day be used as artificial skin for heart-rate monitors or other body sensors.
| Read More » FDA Launches 1st Campaign Against Youth Smoking The Food and Drug Administration is launching its first national campaign to prevent and reduce smoking among young people, the agency announced today. "The Real Cost" campaign, which includes posters and TV ads, is targeted to kids ages 12 to 17, and aims to reduce the number of teens who become regular smokers, according to the FDA. "We know that early intervention is critical, with almost nine out of every 10 regular adult smokers picking up their first cigarette by age 18," FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg said in a statement. Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, accounting for more than 440,000 deaths each year. Read More » Cold-Weather Benefit: Shivering May Count As Exercise Shivering triggers a response in muscles similar to that of exercise, new research suggests. If this same response could be activated by a drug, then scientists could one day develop medicines that could amp up energy expenditure, without requiring people to break a sweat — or a shiver, said study co-author Dr. Francesco Celi, an endocrinologist at Virginia Commonwealth University. A hormone called irisin seemed critical in the process, but exactly how it was linked to energy expenditure wasn't clear. To find out, Celi asked seven healthy study participants to ride a bike as hard as they could, and measured their maximum oxygen uptake, or VO2 max. This allowed the researchers to calculate the participants' maximum energy expenditure. Read More » | |
