If you can't balance on one leg for 20 seconds you are more likely to have small blood vessel damage in the brain and reduced cognitive function, even if you otherwise seem healthy, according to new research in Stroke.

The study consisted of 841 women and 546 men, average age of 67. To measure one-leg standing time, participants stood with their eyes open and raised one leg. The maximum time for keeping the leg raised was 60 seconds. Participants performed this examination twice and the better of the two times was used in the study analysis. Cerebral small vessel disease was evaluated using brain magnetic resonance imaging.

Though the U.S. government is touting claims that it has created an economic engine better than at any time in the 20th century, the reality is much different and a large part of the reason why Congress has lurched to the opposition party of U.S. President Barack Obama.

If people have been unemployed for so long they can no longer get unemployment benefits, the government frames it as that they went back to work. And we have been engaged in a culture war on business, everything from nuclear energy and natural gas to manufacturing of every kind.

You should not be surprised by the irregularity of a newborn infant's sleep patterns but by the age of six months, if the baby is not sleeping through the night, many parents wonder if something is wrong with their baby or their sleeping arrangements.

It helps parents to understand that "normal" sleep patterns for a child are somewhat broad, according to a new paper.

Researchers at the University of Guanajuato (UGTO), in middle Mexico, developed an extraction column which recovers metals companies use in their production processes; and thus avoid environmental pollution and lessen economic losses.

Using the principles of liquid-liquid technology, researchers have developed an extraction column which recovers metals companies use in their production processes and avoids both environmental pollution and lessen economic losses.

The technology is already at laboratory prototype stage and the creators are in the process of obtaining a patent. 


Credit: University of Guanajuato/Investigación y Desarrollo  

Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell and are summoned to fight infections or injury in any tissue or organ in the body, regardless of cellular and biochemical composition.

How do neutrophils, the body's all terrain vehicles, move in these confined spaces? 

A team from Brown University's School of Engineering and the Department of Surgery in the Warren Alpert Medical School collaborated find out. Their technique involved two hydrogel sacks sandwiched together with a minuscule space in between. Neutrophils could be placed in that space, mimicking the confinement they experience within tissue. Time-lapse cameras measure how fast the cells move, and traction force microscopes determine the forces the cells exert on the surrounding gel.

How people behave in a social network is somewhat mysterious, in the same way we can predict a presidential election with unprecedented accuracy but we can't predict how one person among the six percent of America that chooses a president will vote.

Decision-making often involves a confluence of opinions, decisions and behaviors of individuals influenced by their online networks, the same way they used to be shaped by their real-life networks.

A recent project set out to apply some math to help find some answers.

Ripple across social networks. Image credit: Laurel Papworth. Creative Commons