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Monday, February 23, 2015

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Daydreaming Your Stress Away Will Probably Backfire

"What you do on Monday really makes a difference for how you feel on Tuesday," study author Shevaun Neupert, an associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University, said in a statement. Meanwhile, "problem analysis" and "plan rehearsal" didn't seem to affect wellbeing the following day.

Utah Suicides Linked to Air Pollution

Altogether, the findings suggest that suicide "is a preventable outcome, and air pollution could be a modifiable risk factor," said Amanda Bakian, an epidemiologist at the University of Utah and the leader of the new study. Unsurprisingly, mental illness plays a huge role — at least 90 percent of people who die by suicide have a diagnosable mental disorder, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).

Whole Diet Approach to Child Nutrition Urged by Pediatricians

New guidelines released today by a leading U.S. pediatrician's group urge a more practical, commonsense approach toward nutrition to help improve children's diets and health, both in school and at home. In the paper, the doctors focus on promoting a healthy overall diet, and using only a little bit of sugar, fat and salt to make healthy foods more appealing to kids. "Parents should look for every opportunity to make small, simple improvements in the nutritional value of the foods and drinks they provide children, in school and out," said Dr. Robert Murray, one of the statement's lead authors and a professor of nutrition at The Ohio State University. 1.Choose a mix of foods from the five food groups: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lower-fat dairy products and quality proteins, such as lean meats, fish, eggs, beans, nuts and seeds.

Children Have Fewer Allergies When Families Do Dishes by Hand

Doing dishes the old-fashioned way — by hand — might help curb a modern-day problem: rising rates of childhood allergies, a new study suggests. Researchers in Sweden found that children living in families that hand-washed their dishes were about 40 percent less likely to develop allergies compared with kids in homes that used a dishwasher, said study researcher Dr. Bill Hesselmar, an allergist at the University of Gothenburg Department of Pediatrics. The researchers said they suspect that hand-washing dishes doesn't get them as clean as the dishwasher does, which is actually a good thing because it can help protect against allergies by exposing family members to more bacteria. Under an idea known as the "hygiene hypothesis," some health researchers think that increased exposure to microbes during early life may stimulate children's immune systems, and that this stimulation may help reduce the risk that a child will develop allergies, the researchers wrote in their study, published online today (Feb. 23) in the journal Pediatrics.

Cities Birth More Thunderstorms Than Rural Areas

Atlanta may not be for you, as scientists recently found such hot-and-humid metros in the Southeast can birth more summer thunderstorms than rural areas. There were nearly 26,000 thunderstorms detected between 1997 and 2013. The was a 5 percent greater chance that thunderstorms would pop up over Atlanta compared with the city's surrounding rural areas, the researchers found.

5 Things a Man's Finger Length Says About Him

Is your index finger shorter than your ring finger? Men with short index fingers and long ring fingers tend to be nicer toward women, according to a new study, to be published in the March issue of the journal Personality and Individual Differences. Men with small digit-ratios (shorter index fingers relative to ring fingers) engaged in roughly a third more agreeable behaviors toward women, and a third fewer quarrelsome ones, than men with large digit-ratios, the reports showed. Previous research has found that this "2D:4D" ratio — the ratio of the length of the second digit (the index finger) to that of the fourth digit (the ring finger) — reveals the amount of male hormones, mainly testosterone, a person is exposed to in the womb.

Penguins Are Well Dressed, But Have Poor Taste

Despite their tuxedo style, when it comes to enjoying food, penguins have poor taste, a new study finds. These flightless birds can't taste the savoriness of fish or the sweetness of fruit, because over the course of evolution, they have lost the ability to taste all but salty and sour flavors. Many birds, such as chickens and finches, lack the receptors for sweet taste, but they can still taste bitter and umami. "Penguinseat fish, so you would guess that they need the umami receptor genes, but for some reason they don't have them," Jianzhi "George" Zhang, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Michigan and co-author of the study published yesterday (Feb. 16) in the journal Current Biology, said in a statement.

Mexican Wolf Population Now Tops 100 in US

Once driven to the brink extinction in the United States, the population of Mexican wolves has doubled in the past five years. There were at least 109 wild Mexican wolves, or lobos, in the Southwest in 2014, up from 83 in 2013, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced Friday (Feb. 13). In 2010, there were just 50 Mexican wolves in the wild. The 2014 total also included 38 wild-born pups that survived through the end of the year, FWS officials said in a statement.

New Sea Dragon Species Flaunts Ruby-Red Skin

For the first time in 150 years, researchers have found a new species of sea dragon, a marine creature with "unusual red coloration," according to a new study. Scientists discovered the new species, Phyllopteryx dewysea, while they were studying ways to protect the two known species of sea dragons — the orange-tinted leafy sea dragon and the yellow-and-purple common sea dragon — both of which are native to Australian waters. During their work at the Western Australian Museum, they came across a pregnant male sea dragon, carrying dozens of babies, with ruby-red coloring. The sea dragon had been caught in 2007, off the remote Recherche Archipelago near Australia's southern coast.

New Residents: Dolphins Swam into Mediterranean 18,000 Years Ago

Bottlenose dolphins moved into the Mediterranean, once too salty to harbor much marine life, at the end of the last ice age about 18,000 years ago, a new study finds. "It is quite likely that the bottlenose dolphin hasn't actually been in the Mediterranean for long, in terms of the evolutionary time frame," said Andre Moura, one of the study's researchers and a lecturer of life science at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom. During the last ice age, the Mediterranean was saltier and shallower than it is today, making it a difficult place for marine creatures to live, the researchers said. When fish and other sea creatures moved in, hungry bottlenose dolphins quickly followed, Moura said.

Line of Cocoa: Is Chocolate Snorting Safe?

In a bizarre new trend in certain circles, people are snorting chocolate powder through their noses with the aid of a machine. The man behind the "chocolate shooter" is Belgian chocolatier Dominique Persoone. "You load it like a gun, putting very little chocolate mix on the machine … Then, you push, and pfffff! The chocolate blows in your nose," Persoone told Live Science.

World View Makes Record-Setting Parafoil Flight from Near Edge of Space

A private company that aims to send tourists to the edge of space in a balloon broke a record Friday, flying a parafoil higher than anyone has before. The Arizona-based company World View sent the parafoil 102,200 feet (31,151 meters) into the air during a test flight Friday (Feb. 20), according to representatives with the organization.

Stephen Hawking Praises 'Theory of Everything' Oscar Winner

Famed British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking took to Facebook last night to congratulate actor Eddie Redmayne for winning the best actor Oscar at the 2015 Academy Awards for "The Theory of Everything," a biopic about Hawking's life and his debilitating illness. Hawking had previously congratulated Redmayne on winning a Golden Globe award for the role.

Predawn Military Rocket Launches Visible from US East Coast Tuesday

As part of an undisclosed project by the Department of Defense (DoD), three Terrier-Oriole suborbital rockets are scheduled to launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, between 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT) and 4:30 a.m. EST (0930 GMT) on Tuesday (Feb. 24). According to a news release from NASA, the rockets will reach altitudes that should make them visible from southern New Jersey down to the north-east corner of North Carolina. All three rockets are scheduled to launch within a one minute window on Tuesday morning. The DoD will not broadcast the launches or provide specific launch times, according to NASA.

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Sunday, February 22, 2015

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Astronauts Complete First of Three Spacewalks

Two NASA astronauts are safely back inside the International Space Station today (Feb. 20) after successfully completing the first of three scheduled spacewalks planned to prep the outpost for the arrivals of commercial spacecraft carrying astronauts in the coming years. Barry "Butch" Wilmore, commander of Expedition 42, and flight engineer Terry Virts successfully completed three scheduled tasks and an extra "get ahead" task during today's spacewalk, with no problems. Today's excursion was Virt's first career spacewalk, and Wilmore's second. Just over an hour into the spacewalk Virts noted to Wilmore, "I feel great man, I feel good! Definitely easier than the pool." (Virts is referring to the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) at Johnson Space Center: a massive swimming pool where astronauts train for work in microgravity). The spacewalk was predicted to take around six-and-a-half hours.

Attention Bradley Cooper: Oscar-Nominated Guys Face Divorce Risk

Sure, it's the most prestigious award that Hollywood has to offer, but that coveted Oscar statue might also be a bad omen for some of the actors who receive it, a new study suggests. Male Oscar winners are three times as likely as other actors to get a divorce during their first year of marriage, the study found. "We always think about status and moving up as something good, but we also observed all the misery that comes with certain dramatic increases in status," Michael Jensen, a strategy professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and the study's lead author, told Live Science. For decades, there's been a superstition circulating around Hollywood that winning an Oscar can actually destroy an actor or actress's career.

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Saturday, February 21, 2015

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Drunk on YouTube: Funny Videos Don't Tell the Whole Story

Videos of people falling over drunk are popular on YouTube, but such glimpses of inebriation do not show the negative consequences of drinking too much alcohol, a new study finds. In the study, the researchers watched 70 popular videos of drunkenness on YouTube, which had more than 300 million views combined. In addition, only 7 percent referred to alcohol dependence (such as withdrawal symptoms), but alcohol dependence is common among frequent heavy drinkers, the researchers said. "This is important because brand-name references are known to be particularly potent in terms of encouraging drinking," Dr. Brian Primack, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a statement.

Swamps, Simulations and Mad Drone Skills: Filming 'LIGO: Generations'

In 1915, Albert Einstein presented his theory of general relativity. He predicted that massive, compact, accelerating objects would cause ripples in the fabric of space-time — gravitational waves. One hundred years later, following more than two decades effort, the U.S. National Science Foundation's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) is nearly ready to come on-line in its search for cataclysmic events in distant galaxies. As a filmmaker, I have had the great fortune of producing two films about LIGO, and through those projects, come to a much deeper understanding of the science and human drive required to undertake such an effort.

Planck Satellite Brings Early Universe into Focus (Kavli Hangout)

Kelen Tuttle, writer and editor for the Kavli Foundation, contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. From its orbit 930,000 miles above Earth, the Planck satellite spent more than four years detecting the oldest light in the universe: the cosmic microwave background radiation. Just last week, Planck released new maps of the cosmic microwave background supporting the theory of cosmic inflation, which posits that the universe underwent a monumental expansion in the moments following the Big Bang. On Feb. 18 from 2:30 to 3:15 p.m. EST, George Efstathiou, Clement Pryke and Paul Steinhardt will answer your questions in a Google Hangout about the earliest light in the universe, what it can tell us about the theory of inflation, and what we can expect to learn about the very early universe in the coming decade.

Could This 'Thinking Cap' Help You Learn?

Charlie Heck, multimedia news editor at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Woodman approached NSF, and with their support, Woodman and his team at the university's Visual Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory tested their theory that electrical stimulation of the brain's medial-frontal cortex can boost learning and improve decision-making. NSF: What is the medial-frontal cortex and how does this thinking cap affect its function? Geoffrey Woodman: The cortex is the outer layer of the brain.

Anthony Anderson on the Power of Portrayals (Video)

It is tough to have a conversation about the importance of a support system. At the 2014 awards, Anderson was sporting a green ribbon pin, clearly visible in the video, created by Each Mind Matters and the California Mental Health Services Authority to further awareness of those issues.

It's Not Just Ice: 10 Tips to Avoid a Bad Fall

So many older adults are falling that it's now the leading cause of accidental death among the elderly. Nationally in 2012, 2.4 million non-fatal falls among older adults were treated in emergency rooms and more than 722,000 of these patients were hospitalized, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, I've seen that patients who have fallen before often develop a fear of falling, which puts them at an even higher risk of falling again.

Mars on Earth? What Life Is Like on the 'Red Planet'

Kellie Gerardi is the business development specialist for aerospace firm Masten Space Systems and the media specialist for the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a U.S. trade association advancing commercial human spaceflight. As a member of Mars Desert Research Station Crew 149, Gerardi contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. This is the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), one of the world's few analog Martian habitats, where a variety of national space agencies and scientists can simulate in situ resource utilization and analog Martian field research. Most recently, the prototype laboratory has brought together me, Belgian NASA Ames researcher Ann-Sofie Schreurs, Canadian educator Pamela Nicoletatos, American Medevac pilot Ken Sullivan, German trauma surgeon Dr. Elena Miscodan, American lawyer and locally-elected public official Paul Bakken, and Japanese microbiologist Takeshi Naganuma.

ADHD is the New Normal (Op-Ed)

In sparkly letters, the title read, "ADHD." The child by the poster, a cute, freckled redhead, was telling anyone and everyone about her ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). As a neurologist, I see my share of ADHD, as well as the purely attentional version, ADD (attention deficit disorder). Validated scales (such as Conners' scale and the Child Behavior Checklist) exist to help guide the evaluation and treatment of ADHD. Then what happens to their ADHD?

Throat-Closing Ailment EoE is a Mystery That Must Be Solved (Op-Ed)

The condition is called eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), and while physicians like myself are learning more about it everyday, the cause remains unknown, and incidence continues to increase in the United States. Although no one is exactly sure what triggers EoE, the condition causes immune cells called eosinophils to inflame the esophagus. Most cases of EoE are connected to food allergies, so treatment and management includes tests to identify the allergen, elimination diets (where all foods suspected of causing problems are excluded and then reintroduced in a controlled manner), and medications. In most cases, the problems are triggered by the eight foods that cause about 90 percent of all food allergies in the United States: peanuts, tree nuts, cow's milk, eggs, wheat, soy, fish and shellfish.

Space Station Astronauts Taking Spacewalk Today: Watch It Live

Two NASA astronauts will perform a spacewalk outside the International Space Station today (Feb. 21) to begin outfitting the orbiting lab's docking ports to receive future private space taxis and people on Earth can watch the spacewalk live online. Barry Wilmore, commander of Expedition 42, and flight engineer Terry Virts are scheduled to exit the space station at about 7:10 a.m. EST (1210 GMT). Today's spacewalk is the first of three for Wilmore and Virts to prepare the station for the installation of new docking stations, which will allow the station to link up with future space taxis ferrying new crews to the orbiting lab. Today's excursion will mark Wilmore's second spacewalk and a career first for Virts.

Arctic Blast Blankets Eastern US in Ice and Snow (Photo)

An Arctic blast sweeping across the East Coast, from Canada south to Florida, left much of the country blanketed in ice and snow this week.

Rise of the Fembots: Why Artificial Intelligence Is Often Female

From Apple's iPhone assistant Siri to the mechanized attendants at Japan's first robot-staffed hotel, a seemingly disproportionate percentage of artificial intelligence systems have female personas. "I think there is a pattern here," said Karl Fredric MacDorman, a computer scientist and expert in human-computer interaction at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. One reason for the glut of female artificial intelligences (AIs) and androids (robots designed to look or act like humans) may be that these machines tend to perform jobs that have traditionally been associated with women. For example, many robots are designed to function as maids, personal assistants or museum guides, MacDorman said.

History Repeats Itself: Ancient Cities Grew Much Like Modern Ones

Before Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés destroyed the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan in 1521, he marveled at its impressive size and wealth. Tenochtitlan had boulevards, bustling markets, canals, courthouses and temples. Using archaeological data from the ruins of Tenochtitlan and thousands of other sites around it in Mexico, researchers found that private houses and public monuments were built in predictable ways. "We build cities in ways that create what I like to call social reactors," said Luis Bettencourt, who studies complex systems at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico.

Spacewalking astronauts rigging station for new U.S. space taxis

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - A pair of U.S. astronauts floated outside the International Space Station on Saturday to begin rigging parking spots for two commercial space taxis. Station commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore, 52, and flight engineer Terry Virts, 47, left the station's Quest airlock shortly before 8 a.m. EST to begin a planned 6-1/2-hour spacewalk, the first of three outings over the next eight days. The work will prepare docking ports for upcoming flights by Boeing Co and privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, which are developing capsules to ferry crew to and from the station, which flies about 260 miles (418 km) above the Earth. The United States has been dependent on Russia for station crew transportation since the space shuttle were retired in 2011.

Exclusive: Orbital explosion probe said to find debris in engine: sources

By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Last October's explosion of Orbital ATK Inc's Antares rocket may have been triggered when debris inadvertently left in a fuel tank traveled into the booster's main engine, two people familiar with investigations into the accident told Reuters. The sources said the preliminary findings suggest that a simple assembly mistake by Orbital ATK could have caused the explosion, which destroyed a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station. Orbital ATK on Friday acknowledged that so-called "foreign object debris" was one of more than a half dozen credible causes of the explosion, but said it was not "a leading candidate as the most probable cause of the failure." Orbital spokesman Barry Beneski said the company-led "accident investigation board," which includes officials from NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration, had not identified any evidence of mishandling of the flight hardware by Orbital.

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