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 Western Canada's Glaciers Could Vanish by 2100 Read More » Key to Longevity Is Kindness, World's Oldest Person Said The world's oldest person, an Arkansas woman named Gertrude Weaver, died at age 116 on Monday, according to news reports. Weaver had something in common with the woman who now holds the title of the world's oldest person: both attributed their longevity to exercise, as well as a compassionate spirit. Weaver held the title of the world's oldest person for only five days, after Misao Okawa, a Japanese woman who lived to be 117, died last Wednesday (April 1). Now, the world's oldest living person is Michigan woman Jeralean Talley, who is closely followed by Susannah Mushatt Jones of New York City and Emma Morano of Italy, all of whom are 115,USA Today reported. Read More »11 Weight-Loss Programs After 1 Year: Which Work? Among commercial weight-loss programs, Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig show the strongest evidence that they can help dieters keep weight off for at least 12 months, a new study suggests. Researchers found that after one year, Jenny Craig participants lost an average of 4.9 percent more weight, and people enrolled in Weight Watchers lost an average of 2.6 percent more weight than people who either dieted on their own, were given printed advice about weight loss or received a few sessions of health education and behavioral counseling. The study showed that for the majority of commercial weight-loss programs out there, researchers don't know whether or not they work, said lead author Dr. Kimberly Gudzune, a weight-loss specialist and an assistant professor of medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. In this review study, the researchers looked for published studies on weight-loss programs that were rigorous, long-term randomized controlled trials, which are considered the highest-quality data to evaluate whether a program works. Read More »Near-Death Experiences: What Happens in the Brain Before Dying Scientists studied the heart and brain activity of rats in the moments before the animals died from lack of oxygen, and found that the animals' brains sent a flurry of signals to the heart that caused irrevocable damage to the organ, and in fact caused its demise. "People naturally focus on the heart, thinking that if you save the heart, you'll save the brain," said study co-author Jimo Borjigin, a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. Read More »Some Popular Supplements Still Contain Untested Compound A number of supplements marketed for weight loss and improved athletic performance contain a synthetic compound that is similar to the drug amphetamine, and that compound has not been tested in people, according to a new study. What's more, the Food and Drug Administration has known about the presence of this drug in supplements for two years, but still has not warned consumers about the issue or acted to take the supplements off the market, according to the study. The FDA "did a lot of hard work to figure out this brand-new designer stimulant was in supplements … and then failed to inform the public," said Dr. Pieter Cohen, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the new study. The FDA told Live Science that the agency does not have "a specific safety concern at this time" about these supplements. Read More »Robotic glove could help stroke survivors By Jim Drury A robotic glove designed to help stroke sufferers regain movement in their hands and rebuild their muscles has been developed as part of a collaborative project in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. The device is called SCRIPT (Supervised Care and Rehabilitation Involving Personal Tele-robotics), and has been developed by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire and a team of European partners. Double stroke survivor Shani Shamah, a former financial services worker, wasn't one of those involved, but she has twice used the device to help provide feedback to SCRIPT co-ordinator Dr Farshid Amirabdollahian, who devised the glove. Shamah was not expected to survive her injuries after a second stroke within a matter of days in April 2013 left her with bleeding on the brain. Read More »Why Dangerous Sinkholes Keep Appearing Along the Dead Sea Read More » 'Extinct' No Longer? Brontosaurus May Make a Comeback Read More » Space Apps Challenge Lets Nonscientists Solve Real-World Problems Read More » New Technique Shines Light on Titan, Largest Moon of Saturn (Photo) Read More » 1 in 3 Breast Cancer Patients Interested in Genetic Testing One in three women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer may want genetic testing, to see whether they are at risk for other types of cancer, or to look at the likelihood that a family member could develop cancer, according to a new study. In the study, researchers surveyed 1,536 women who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2007. The scientists found that 35 percent of the women expressed a strong desire to undergo genetic testing. "Our findings suggest a marked unmet need for discussion about genetic risk," study author Dr. Reshma Jagsi, an associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Michigan Medical School, said in a statement. Read More »More Teens Using Long-Term Birth Control More U.S. teens are using long-term forms of birth control that they don't have to remember every day, but these methods are still relatively uncommon, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2013, among teens seeking birth control, 7.1 percent used intrauterine devices (IUDs) or birth control implants , whereas just 0.4 percent of these teens used one of these methods in 2005, the study found. Use of these methods varied widely by state: In 2013, nearly 26 percent of teens seeking birth control in Colorado used IUDs or implants, compared to just 0.7 percent in Mississippi. Because these methods, known as long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), are the most effective types of birth control for teens, more efforts are needed to increase access to them, the CDC says. Read More »Jeff Bezos' rocket company to begin suborbital test flights this year Read More » New aluminum battery for smartphones can be charged in a minute The researchers, who detailed their discovery in the journal Nature, said the new aluminum-ion battery has the potential to replace lithium-ion batteries, used in millions of laptops and mobile phones. Besides recharging much faster, the new aluminum battery is safer than existing lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames, they added. A team lead by chemistry professor Hongjie Dai at Stanford University in California made a breakthrough by accidentally discovering that graphite made a good partner to aluminum, Stanford said in a statement. A prototype aluminum battery recharged in one minute, the scientists said. Read More »Scientists restore the good name of Brontosaurus By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paleontologists are restoring the good name of Brontosaurus more than a century after it was deemed scientifically invalid and the famous dinosaur was reclassified as another genus called Apatosaurus. They unveiled on Tuesday an exhaustive analysis of Brontosaurus remains, first unearthed in the 1870s, and those of closely related dinosaurs, determining that the immense, long-necked plant-eater was not an Apatosaurus and deserved its old name back. Paleontologist Emanuel Tschopp of Portugal's Universidade Nova de Lisboa cited important anatomical differences including Apatosaurus possessing a wider neck than Brontosaurus and being even more massively built. "The differences between Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus are numerous enough to revive Brontosaurus as a separate genus from Apatosaurus," Tschopp said. Read More »Scientists restore the good name of Brontosaurus Read More » | ||||
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Tuesday, April 7, 2015
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