A frequent sign of the maturity of a spiral galaxy is the formation of a ribbon of stars and gas that slices across the nucleus, like the slash across a "no smoking" sign.

In a landmark study of more than 2,000 spiral galaxies from the largest galaxy census conducted by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers found that so-called barred spiral galaxies were far less plentiful 7 billion years ago than they are today, in the local universe.

The study's results confirm the idea that bars are a sign of galaxies reaching full maturity as the "formative years" end. The observations are part of the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS).

The age of your housing plan may influence your risk of obesity, according to a new study from the University of Utah. Neighborhoods built before 1950 tend to offer greater overall walkability as they more often were designed with the pedestrian in mind, while newer neighborhoods often were designed to facilitate car travel.

The study in the September issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, linked the body mass index (BMI) of nearly a half million Salt Lake County residents to 2000 Census data. The study found that residents were at less risk of being obese or overweight if they lived in walkable neighborhoods; more densely populated, more friendly to pedestrians and have a range of destinations for pedestrians.

Accurate measurement of thermal performance is crucial if legislation aimed at producing dramatic reductions in CO2 emissions is to be successful. The UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is offering construction companies a way of meeting this mandate.

Two factors are making the need for accurate measurement of the thermal performance of building products ever more important. Firstly, the Code for Sustainable Homes published by the Department for Communities and Local Government in 2006 set a target of producing zero carbon homes by 2016. The second is the draft Climate Change Bill with its declared intention of setting a legal framework for ensuring a specific reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 and a 60% reduction of 1990 levels by 2050. This will result in a constant stream of legislation and regulations aimed at minimising energy use in new buildings.

According to research conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention one in three Americans age 65 and older fall. Recent findings by experts at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel, found that Ritalin improves cognitive impairments in seniors, which may greatly contribute to a decrease in falls.

The findings may be a step into the treatment of falls within the senior population, but Prof. Jeffrey M. Hausdorff, of Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University isn’t counting chickens before they hatch. “While the notion of treating fall risk with a pill is an intriguing concept it is not likely to be a silver bullet solution, and it is still too early to recommend Ritalin on a wide scale basis,” he said.

In 2005, the CDC analyzed 16,000 deaths in the elderly population in which unintentional falls were the fundamental cause of death making it among the top ten leading causes of death in senior citizens, a statistic that holds true today.

By the age of 18 years, two in every five South African schoolboys report being forced to have sex, mostly by female perpetrators. A new study, reported in International Journal for Equity in Health, reveals the shocking truth about endemic sexual abuse of male children that has been suspected but until now only poorly documented.

Some 28% of victims said a non-family member or teacher was the perpetrator. Another 28% had been forced by a fellow student, while 20% had been abused by a teacher and 18% by an adult family member.

Until 2007, forced sex with males in South Africa did not count as rape but as ‘indecent assault’, a much less serious offense.

In Optimizing The University - Why We Need a New Educational Model for a New Century I discussed some of the issues facing post-secondary science education.

In particular, that piece focused on how changing student demographics, modern faculty responsibilities and the new knowledge gained from advanced assessment techniques showed us that we need to fix fundamental aspects of science education if students are to receive the high quality education that is becoming increasingly important to individual and societal success.

Regular readers know that I have long predicted the current price of oil and that we are now moving through Peak Oil These subjects were included in my “Forecast for 2008”

To quote from that January 9, 2008 column:

“In 2008, gas will, for a period of time reach $4 on the national level. A year ago I predicted that oil would rise above $80. Three months ago I predicted that the price would rise to $100 and that the trading range for oil will be $80 – 125 a barrel for the next year…but there could be several situations that could drive the price above $125.”

Tired of your bulky microscope? Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have developed a super-compact high-resolution microscope, small enough to fit on a finger tip.

This "microscopic microscope" operates without lenses but has the magnifying power of a top-quality optical microscope, can be used in the field to analyze blood samples for malaria or check water supplies for giardia and other pathogens, and can be mass-produced for around $10.

"The whole thing is truly compact--it could be put in a cell phone--and it can use just sunlight for illumination, which makes it very appealing for Third-World applications," says Changhuei Yang, assistant professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at Caltech, who developed the device, dubbed an optofluidic microscope, along with his colleagues at Caltech.

Penn State researchers have used computed tomography (CT) technology to virtually glue newly-discovered skull fragments of a rare extinct lemur back into its partial skull, which was discovered over a century ago. Alan Walker, Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology and Biology at Penn State, and Research Associate in Anthropology Timothy Ryan, led the research.

The different fragments of this lemur's skull are separated by thousands of miles, with the partial skull in Vienna and the pieces of frontal bone in the United States. The result of the digital manipulation is a nearly complete skull of Hadropithecus stenognathus, which is one of only two known skulls for this species.

A fish-heavy diet has gotten another endorsement, this one saying that a lifetime of eating tuna, sardines, salmon and other fish appears to protect Japanese men against clogged arteries, despite other cardiovascular risk factors.

The research, published in the August 5, 2008, issue of Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), suggests that the protection comes from omega-3 fatty acids found in abundance in oily fish. In the first international study of its kind, researchers found that compared to middle-aged white men or Japanese-American men living in the United States, Japanese men living in Japan had twice the blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids—a finding that was independently linked to low levels of atherosclerosis.