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Sea Dead Zones Could Expand Due To Global Warming, Say Danish Researchers

Sea Dead Zones Could Expand Due To Global Warming, Say Danish Researchers

Jan 25 2009 | comment(s)

Dead zones are low-oxygen areas in the ocean where higher life forms such as fish, crabs and clams are not able to live.   In shallow coastal regions, for examples, dead zones can be caused by runoff of excess fertilizers from farming.

A team of Danish researchers is projecting that unchecked global warming would lead to a dramatic expansion of low-oxygen areas zones in the global ocean by a factor of 10 or more.

Whereas some coastal dead zones could be recovered by simply controlling fertilizer usage, expanded low-oxygen areas caused by global warming might remain for many years. The findings are reported in a paper 'Long-term ocean oxygen depletion in response to carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels' in Nature Geoscience. 
DNA 'Hotspots' Are Genetic Marker For Psoriasis, Say Researchers

DNA 'Hotspots' Are Genetic Marker For Psoriasis, Say Researchers

Jan 25 2009 | comment(s)

Psoriasis affects some 7.5 million people in the United States, causing sore, itchy patches of red, scaly skin. In many cases psoriasis is not only disfiguring; between 10 and 30 percent of patients develop psoriatic arthritis, a painful inflammation of the joints. Current treatments, including different types of immunosuppressive agents, aren't always effective, and they can cause serious side effects. 

Psoriasis has a strong genetic component; a child with two affected parents has a 50 percent chance of developing it; siblings have a three- to six-fold risk. But the genes responsible for psoriasis haven't yet been completely understood. 
The Death of Long Term Memory

The Death of Long Term Memory

Jan 24 2009 | comment(s)

This fascinating article at Scientific American, about human and animal consciousness, contains the following passage:

"In humans, the short-term storage of symbolic information—as when you enter an acquaintance’s phone number into your iPhone’s memory—is associated with conscious processing."
Not The Same Study Section: How The Truth Comes Out

Not The Same Study Section: How The Truth Comes Out

Jan 24 2009 | comment(s)

In the latest Vanity Fair is a brilliant piece of journalism, Goodbye to All That: An Oral History of the Bush White House by Cullen Murphy and Todd Purdum. In a fun, easy-to-read format, it tells some basic truths I had never read before. Here are two examples:

Matthew Dowd, Bush’s pollster and chief strategist for the 2004 presidential campaign:

When Abu Ghraib happened, I was like, We’ve got to fire Rumsfeld. Like if we’re the “accountability president,” we haven’t really done this.
A Mathematician a Cheerleader for Science?

A Mathematician a Cheerleader for Science?

Jan 24 2009 | comment(s)

In a Times News Review interview, Marcus du Sautoy, our new Oxford University Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, says:
I became a mathematician and not a scientist because science often goes wrong .... You do an experiment 100 times and you get the same result. You do it for the 101st time and something different happens. No one would be my lab partner at school because all my experiments went wrong. Maybe I’m a bad choice for this job.
Don't call it

Don't call it "Darwinism"

Jan 24 2009 | comment(s)

For those of you who still are not reading Evolution: Education and Outreach, here's another reason to check it out.

Girls With ADD - Why It Is So Often Missed

Girls With ADD - Why It Is So Often Missed

Jan 24 2009 | comment(s)

When thinking of a child with ADD, most people will picture an easily-distracted hyperactive child... long on energy, and short on attention span.  And although that is sometimes the case, that description accurately describes only a portion of children diagnosed with ADD - and very rarely describes the behavior of girls with the condition.

Dynamic Systems - Contexts Of Interaction Show Soccer Is The Same Across Decades

Dynamic Systems - Contexts Of Interaction Show Soccer Is The Same Across Decades

Jan 24 2009 | comment(s)

When comparing players in baseball, it's difficult to cross even modern 'eras' because conditioning and strategies have changed.   6'2" shortstops are relatively common now but unheard of even 30 years ago.   Likewise, American football has undergone strategic shifts that are easily recognizable, with the West Coast Offense less in vogue but a 3-4 defense coming back into popularity as compared to 20 years ago.
This Arabian Prince Has An Idea To Save The Environment

This Arabian Prince Has An Idea To Save The Environment

Jan 24 2009 | comment(s)

New research by an Arabian prince could see the millions of date stones disposed of in Saudi Arabia each year instead used to decrease air and water pollution.  Abdulrahman Bandar Al-Saud, 34, is studying for a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast’s School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.

His research is based on the premise that date stones can be used to develop activated carbon with a high adsorption capacity.   Activated carbon is a form of the element that has been processed to make it extremely porous with a very large surface area available for adsorption.
Polish, Italian Languages Closer To Getting A Babel Fish

Polish, Italian Languages Closer To Getting A Babel Fish

Jan 24 2009 | comment(s)

European researchers say they have developed the most advanced spontaneous language understanding (SLU) system ever devised for both Polish and Italian languages.  That's because it is also the first one, according to the Luna project behind the work.

Spontaneous language understanding is far more advanced than the traditional interactive voice response (IVR) systems that people may already be familiar with. In traditional IVRs, the user is required to answer questions with specific words or short sentences proposed by the systems.

But with SLU, language systems are designed to respond to spontaneous speech: real conversations between people that include the sentence fillers and pause words like ‘um’ and ‘er’.
God and Government

God and Government

Jan 23 2009 | comment(s)

Conservatives "cling to their guns and god" and Liberals cling to their "good will" and government
Snarge On The Runway: Birdstrikes, Airplanes And Why We Don't Put Screens In Front Of Engines

Snarge On The Runway: Birdstrikes, Airplanes And Why We Don't Put Screens In Front Of Engines

Jan 23 2009 | comment(s)

Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger's heroic Hudson River landing was a good reminder that a twenty pound bird at 200 miles per hour is not so different from a bowling ball shot from a cannon. The results range from minor dents to Flight 1549's disabled engines to the damage below: double-lapped, 1/16” reinforced aluminum totally blown through, and feathers clear to the cockpit.
FDA OK's Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy

FDA OK's Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy

Jan 23 2009 | comment(s)

Here's some good news:

The ultimate goal for the use of GRNOPC1 is restore spinal cord function by injecting hESC-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells directly into the patient’s injured spinal cord.
MINOS, Neutrinos And Iron Mines

MINOS, Neutrinos And Iron Mines

Jan 23 2009 | comment(s)

Half a mile underground is probably the last place you might expect to be able to observe atmospheric phenomena. If you knew about the MINOS experiment, however, you might think otherwise. MINOS, which stands for Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search, was built to detect particles originating far away but of terrestrial origin.

Recently, researchers have noticed that the detectors at MINOS occasionally detect particles from the atmosphere, and that these detections correlate with weather patterns in the high atmosphere.
Was The Danube The Location Of The Noah's Ark Flood?

Was The Danube The Location Of The Noah's Ark Flood?

Jan 23 2009 | comment(s)

Did a catastrophic flood of biblical proportions occur, as stated in the story of Noah's Ark?    If so, it may have been the shores of the Black Sea that were drowned 9,500 years ago, wiping out early Neolithic settlements around its perimeter.
How Bees Sees Can Teach Us About Computerized Facial Recognition

How Bees Sees Can Teach Us About Computerized Facial Recognition

Jan 23 2009 | comment(s)

Imaging systems, artificial intelligence and computer programs for facial recognition could get a boost by  work from Dr. Adrian Dyer of Monash University,  one of Australia's leading bee experts - he says his latest research shows that honeybees can learn to recognize human faces even when seen from different viewpoints.

The findings show that despite the highly constrained neural resources of the insects (their brains are 0.01 per cent the size of the human brain) their ability has evolved so that they're able to process complex visual recognition tasks.
Caloric Restriction Only Extends Life Of Obese Mice - Study

Caloric Restriction Only Extends Life Of Obese Mice - Study

Jan 23 2009 | comment(s)

A recent theory of aging says that caloric restriction may do the trick but the research is inconsistent; the mice in the most promising studies were weaned that way, something unlikely to happen in human children.    New research says even those studies may not be entirely accurate and that for lean mice – and therefore lean humans, if prior mouse studies were to be taken at face value  – caloric restrictions as an anti-aging strategy may be a pointless, frustrating and even dangerous exercise.

But for fat mice, dieting makes sense and will extend life, the researchers say.   That goes for people as well.
Facial Features Influence How We Hear Too

Facial Features Influence How We Hear Too

Jan 23 2009 | comment(s)

The movement of facial skin and muscles around the mouth plays an important role not only in the way the sounds of speech are made, but also in the way they are heard according to a study by scientists at Haskins Laboratories, a Yale-affiliated research laboratory. 

"How your own face is moving makes a difference in how you 'hear' what you hear," said first author Takayuki Ito, a senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories.

When, Ito and his colleagues used a robotic device to stretch the facial skin of "listeners" in a way that would normally accompany speech production they found it affected the way the subjects heard the speech sounds. 
Hydrogenated Oils Without The Trans Fats

Hydrogenated Oils Without The Trans Fats

Jan 23 2009 | comment(s)

To prolong the shelf life of foods, manufacturers often add hydrogen to natural oils, a process called hydrogenation. But hydrogenation also results in the production of trans fats, which have adverse health effects such as raising bad cholesterol and increasing the risk for coronary heart diseases.   Trans fats are found in vegetable shortenings, some margarines, crackers, cookies and snacks. Health authorities worldwide recommend that people reduce their consumption of trans fats.

UC Riverside chemists have designed a catalyst  (a substance that accelerates a chemical reaction) that allows hydrogenated oils to be made while minimizing the production of trans fats.
Evolution By Redneck Selection

Evolution By Redneck Selection

Jan 22 2009 | comment(s)

Do you enjoy hunting or eating seafood?  If so, then you are an agent of detrimental evolutionary change.

In the past, I've never thought about how my hunting hobby shapes the evolution of the organism I harvest.