Sugar-sweetened beverages (fruit drinks,soda) are associated with higher blood pressure levels in adults, according to a report in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.

In the International Study of Macro/Micronutrients and Blood Pressure (INTERMAP), for every extra sugar-sweetened beverage drunk per day participants on average had significantly higher systolic blood pressure by 1.6 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) and diastolic blood pressure higher by 0.8 mm Hg. This remained statistically significant even after adjusting for differences in body mass, researchers said.

Early in the formation of the Earth, some forms of the element chromium separated and disappeared deep into the planet's core, according to a new study in Science.

The team studied a class of meteorites called chondrites, which are leftovers from the formation of the solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago.    By making very accurate measurements of chromium isotopes in the meteorites compared to Earth rocks and comparing them to theoretical predictions, the researchers were able to show for the first time that lighter isotopes of chromium preferentially go into the core.   From this the team inferred that some 65 percent of the missing chromium is most likely in the Earth's core.

All At Sea With The Vikings

The Vikings had an expression - hafvilla - which indicates a state of being at sea and having no sense of direction.  There are two modern English phrases that cover this situation: 'all at sea', and 'without a clue'.



In order to more fully understand the Viking sagas we must learn, not what the Old Norse words mean as translated multiple times down the ages, but what the original words meant to a Viking.

North and South

Okay, we all knew that cats manipulate women more than men but now science has confirmed it.   An article in Behavioural Processes says cats gravitate toward women and it isn't just because they are easier to bilk food from.  No, cats are even more devious than we previously believed.

You probably want to slap people who tell you they have pets when you ask if they have children - and, I confess, I have gotten dirty looks when people have asked me if I have pets and I tell them I instead have children, which are 'just like' pets - but the social bond that crazy cat lady has with her cats actually is like what people have with their children, say the researchers.

Evolution has no moral compass.  We all know that.  And it has no guiding hand.  For that reason, says Christian de Duve, professor emeritus at the Catholic University of Louvain and Nobel laureate (Medicine or Physiology 1974), we may be doomed.

And to get his point across to all sides, he uses an Original Sin metaphor.   

Up to 12 percent of Americans may get Alzheimer's disease, current statistics say.  In the quest to prevent Alzheimer's, or at least make it manageable like diabetes, a group of researchers are working on a nasally-delivered vaccine that promises to protect against Alzheimer's.  Bonus: It may help prevent strokes also.

The new vaccine repairs vascular damage in the brain by using the body's own immune system and, in addition to its prophylactic effect, it can work even when Alzheimer's symptoms are already present, according to the paper in Neurobiology of Aging.

SKIPTON, England, March 1, 2011 - Grotty old beds could be behind a growing epidemic of 'toxic sleep'. 

 A new Sleep Council survey just in time for National Bed Month shows nearly half of us are getting just six hours sleep or less a night. And an alarming four out of five people complain of disturbed or inadequate - 'toxic' - sleep. 

The survey was conducted online by Pollab Ltd between January 26 - 27 2011. 1,030 UK adults (aged 16+) were questioned, the sample being broadly representative of the UK population and demographically broken down by age, gender, region and marital status.

News story on a traveler with measles moving around the US: "More than 10 million people are infected with measles worldwide each year,and the disease is the leading cause of vaccine-preventable deaths in small children. Outbreaks are more common in Europe than in the United States, and most U.S. cases come from transatlantic travelers. U.S. law requires that any cases of measles be reported to public health authorities.

One of the subtleties of the human condition is that if you like or support someone or something, you can understand the nuances of what words mean differently than if you do not.   If you are a fan of WikiLeaks, for example, the ends justify the means and how they obtain information is unimportant whereas if you are a fan of the climate researchers behind the so-called ClimateGate, the fact that the emails about them were stolen is most important.    And if those researchers are cleared of scientific misconduct you say they are cleared.

George Best - An Elizabethan Climate Scientist

whosoeuer could finde out in what proportion the Angle of the Sunne beames heateth, and what encrease the Sunnes continuance doeth adde thereunto, it might expresly be set downe, what force of heat and cold is in all regions.
George Best, written between 1578 and 1584.

Image courtesy NASA: http://researchpark.arc.nasa.gov/...