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Infants With Flat Head Syndrome At Risk For Developmental Delay - Study

Infants With Flat Head Syndrome At Risk For Developmental Delay - Study

Feb 15 2010 | comment(s)

Infants averaging six months of age who exhibited positional plagiocephaly (flat head syndrome) had lower scores than typical infants in observational tests used to evaluate cognitive and motor development, according to a new study in Pediatrics. Positional or deformational plagiocephaly may occur when external forces shape an infant's skull while it is still soft and malleable, such as extended time spent lying on a hard surface or in one position. Researchers say the findings suggest that babies with plagiocephaly should be screened early in life for possible motor and cognitive delays.
Urbanization, Global Trade Drive Deforestation, Study Says

Urbanization, Global Trade Drive Deforestation, Study Says

Feb 15 2010 | comment(s)

 A new study of  most of the world's tropical land area indicates that urbanization and globalized agricultural trade have become the primary drivers of tropical deforestation, in stark contrast to the assumptions of some scientists that fast-growing urbanization and the efficiencies of global trade might eventually slow or reverse tropical deforestation. The new study appeared recently in Nature Geoscience.

Deforestation has been a rising concern in recent decades, especially with the recognition that it may exacerbate climate change. Studies in the late 20th century generally matched it with growing rural populations, as new roads were built into forests and land was cleared for subsistence agriculture.
Are Your Kids Overweight? Blame It On Product Placement

Are Your Kids Overweight? Blame It On Product Placement

Feb 15 2010 | comment(s)

It seems that everything except the causes of childhood obesity receive blame for childhood obesity. While common sense and plenty of research indicate that parents and social setting are the primary influences on children's eating habits, the effort to pin the problem on food manufactures never ends. Recently, the authors of a study in Pediatrics continued the charade by suggesting that product placement in movies may bear some of the responsibility for the expanding waistlines of America's Children.
Common Chromatin Proteins Link Multiple Cognitive Disorders

Common Chromatin Proteins Link Multiple Cognitive Disorders

Feb 15 2010 | comment(s)

Previously unrelated disorders which all cause complex defects in brain development and function are linked by a common underlying mechanism. Rett syndrome (RTT), Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS), Alpha-Thalassemia mental Retardation, and X-linked syndrome (ATR-X) have each been linked with distinct abnormalities in chromatin, the spools of proteins and DNA that make up chromosomes and control how genetic information is read in a cell.

The new research, appearing in Developmental Cell, helps to explain why these different chromatin abnormalities all interfere with proper gene expression patterns necessary for normal development and mature brain function.
My Bummy Valentine

My Bummy Valentine

Feb 15 2010 | comment(s)

It’s Valentine Day, and children everywhere celebrated friendship and love by giving cards and candy to their friends. In what alien observers must consider one of the most bizarre human customs, these same children were asked to draw lewd pictures of human private parts. You don’t think you or your children participated in this custom? Take a look a the figure below…

valentines heart as human rump
Constraints On The Higgs Mass From The Muon Anomaly

Constraints On The Higgs Mass From The Muon Anomaly

Feb 14 2010 | comment(s)

One of the positive side-effects of preparing a seminar is being forced to get up-to-date with the latest experimental and theoretical developments on the topic. And this is of particular benefit to lazy bums like myself, who prefer to spend their time playing online chess than reading arxiv preprints.

It happened last week, in the course of putting together a meaningful discussion of the state of the art in global electroweak fits to standard model observables, and their implications for the unknown mass of the Higgs boson: by skimming the hep-ph folder I found a very recent paper by a colleague in Padova, which I had shamefully failed to notice in the last couple of careless visits.
Parachute jump from 36 km above the earth.

Parachute jump from 36 km above the earth.

Feb 14 2010 | comment(s)

The highest jump ever made was by Joseph Kittinger in 1960--31 km. This year, astronaut Felix Baumgartner will attempt a 36 km jump, and there is talk about Michael Fournier attempting a 40 km jump. According to medical director Jonathan Clark (via Science magazine, subscription required), jumps from this height have a variety of health risks, including nitrogen bubbling from the blood, sweat freezing on the skin, and spinning while falling -- leading to a brain hemorage.
Squid On The Radio

Squid On The Radio

Feb 14 2010 | comment(s)

Oh yeah, and my adivsor was totally on NPR yesterday, check it out. In terms of press coverage, we are so lucky that we work with charismatic, edible megafauna.

A Model for Human Communications of the Future

A Model for Human Communications of the Future

Feb 14 2010 | comment(s)

The opening sentence of Wikipedia's article on the man seems fairly encompassing:
Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was a writer, public speaker, philosopher, psychonaut, ethnobotanist, art historian, and self-described anarchist, anti-materialist, environmentalist, feminist, platonist and skeptic.
Rhubarb May, Or May Not, Fight Cancer

Rhubarb May, Or May Not, Fight Cancer

Feb 14 2010 | comment(s)

Rhubarb May, Or May Not, Fight Cancer

Current news reports about cancer-fighting chemicals in rhubarb may lead some people to think that eating a lot of rhubarb is a good idea.  Bad move!  Rhubarb is widely renowned as a laxative!

Researchers have found that the traditional favourite, like many red vegetables, contains cancer killing chemicals.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Eating baked rhubarb could help fight cancer, research suggests.
Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year

Feb 13 2010 | comment(s)

It's now almost Midnight in Moscow, so it's already tomorrow in China.  Therefore may I take this opportunity to wish all readers of Scientific Blogging . . .
The dismal mathematics of economics

The dismal mathematics of economics

Feb 13 2010 | comment(s)

Blackboard qualitative proofs of the "existence" of, say, an equilibrium between demand and supply - beloved of economists trained in the maths of the department of mathematics rather than the maths of the departments of physics or engineering - are meaningless because they don't tell how big is big.
Now being at present in woolly monkey mode, I could a tail unfold about this comparison between the mathematics of mathematics and the mathematics of physics, but that would distract from the main point.
Bloggy At The TED Conference In Long Beach

Bloggy At The TED Conference In Long Beach

Feb 13 2010 | comment(s)

Bloggy got to crash the TED conference in Long Beach, courtesy of Andrea Kuszewski, and she sent back these pics.

Andrea%20Kuszewski

Bloggy with Michael Shermer at TED
with famed skeptic Michael Shermer.

with cancer researcher Daniel Kraft
with cancer researcher Daniel Kraft.
Take A Quiz, Win A Book!

Take A Quiz, Win A Book!

Feb 13 2010 | comment(s)

Greg Critser's new book is out so to show him the love, we have a short quiz you can take and test your knowledge on aging. Get them all right first and you win a free copy. Eternity Soup - The Quiz To End Aging
Eternity Soup - The Quiz To End Aging

Eternity Soup - The Quiz To End Aging

Feb 13 2010 | comment(s)

Scientific Blogging fave Greg Critser has a new book out, Eternity Soup: Inside The Quest To End Aging(available at fine retailers everywhere, or at that link if you want us to make a nickel) and in celebration he has put together a short quiz to find out what you know.
The Pragma Hypothesis

The Pragma Hypothesis

Feb 13 2010 | comment(s)

The Pragma Hypothesis

A speculation on the possibility of the accurate prediction of future, hind-sight based, historical worldviews, and the application of such prediction to the current climate change debate.

Pragma - mass noun: the practical outcome of a decision-based action as viewed from a historical perspective.  Pragma is to science and politics as karma is to spirituality.

"This is not just some intellectual argument between people who think they know the answer, we are talking about the future of the globe.

...
Energy Policy Should Maximize Benefits of All Renewable Biomass

Energy Policy Should Maximize Benefits of All Renewable Biomass

Feb 13 2010 | comment(s)

Energy Policy Should Maximize Benefits of All Renewable Biomass February 12th, 2010 The new rule announced by EPA last week implementing the federal Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) takes a major step toward a clean energy future by including forest biomass as a feedstock for transportation fuels. However, any effort to maximize this plentiful source of low-cost, domestically produced biomass is hamstrung by a flawed legal definition that excludes an estimated 90 percent of the nation’s renewable biomass from private forests from the program.
Siberian Cranes - among the most endangered birds in the world - have skipped India this winter, say experts.

Siberian Cranes - among the most endangered birds in the world - have skipped India this winter, say experts.

Feb 13 2010 | comment(s)

When I was undergraduate student in 1963 the Bharatpur Kevladev Bird Sanctuary, Bhartpur was a reed swap stage ecological formation where some level of water stayed all around the year. Then came one year when for preventing cattle grazers and encroachers firing took place. Then came Panchana dam around one l hundred km upstream that prevented river inflow. Construction of dams, rampant encroachments, greed of tourist agencies who built hotels in the places not to be hotels ( in my openion) caused enormous pressure on ecosystem and it collapsed with some warnings of birds are coming or not coming years. The site was also recognised as Ramser site and enough debates were done Even some projects were submitted but alas there is no replacement of water .
All of science in 140 characters

All of science in 140 characters

Feb 13 2010 | comment(s)

Science spectrum hard->soft: Math->Physics(->Chemistry->Biology->Medicine->Psychology->Sociology) ->Modeling->Philosophy->Opinions
@skyday

**************
Alex
Every Friday as The Daytime Astronomer, Every Tuesday in The Satellite Diaries, via Twitter @skyday

Explaining Laminar Flow Biology Style

Explaining Laminar Flow Biology Style

Feb 12 2010 | comment(s)

When asked to justify the research I do, I always struggle a little to explain my dissatisfaction with the traditional descriptive, non-quantitative explanations of molecular biological systems. As a glance at a classic molecular cell biology textbook will easily demonstrate, molecular biologists have been tremendously successful with verbal or semi-quantitative explanations of what goes on inside the cell. And in any case, the complexity of the cell is extremely daunting for the would-be theoretical biologist.