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Thank Your Mother For The Nature Of Nurture

Thank Your Mother For The Nature Of Nurture

Apr 01 2015 | comment(s)

When it comes to survival of the fittest, it's all about your mother, according to a study that analyzed 24 years' worth of data from a population of North American red squirrels in Canada's Yukon and measured maternal genetic effects in squirrel offspring.  

Conclusion: Adaptive success in squirrels is often hidden in the genes of their mother. Biologists have debated "nature vs. nurture" for decades. To what extent are we born a blank slate and how much of our destiny in life is written out for us in terms of our genetics?
Will We Ever Get Accurate Hurricane Forecasts?

Will We Ever Get Accurate Hurricane Forecasts?

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

WHOI
The biggest challenge facing climate models is similar to those facing economic ones - predicting the past is relatively easy, but predicting the future is far more of a challenge. In the United States, predicting hurricanes is less accurate than NCAA tournament pools, forecasters did not come close to predicting 15 in 2005 or 2 in 2013, but a team from the University of Arizona write in an upcoming Weather and Forecasting article that they are 23 percent less error prone - at predicting the past, anyway.
Calcium Absoprtion: Why Popular Antacids May Increase Chance Of Bone Fractures

Calcium Absoprtion: Why Popular Antacids May Increase Chance Of Bone Fractures

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Newly published research posits an explanation for why 100 million Americans estimated to be taking prescription and over-the-counter antacid and heartburn medications may be at an increased risk of bone fractures.

A new study in mice notes that stomach acid in the gastrointestinal tract plays an important role in helping the intestines absorb and transfer calcium to the skeletal system and so while the introduction of proton pump inhibitor-based antacids reduces the level of acidity in the stomach to bring relief to patients, that reduction also interrupts and even stops the gut from absorbing much needed calcium.

Iberian Lynx Threatened By Habitat Loss

Iberian Lynx Threatened By Habitat Loss

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Nearly half of the 36 species of felids that live in the wild in the world are at threat, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature advocacy group, and the main threat they all share in common is the loss and fragmentation of their habitat. That also limits the establishment of effective conservation strategies, according to a review of 162 articles related to Lynx pardinus, the Iberian lynx.

The Dangers And Benefits Of Cognitive-Enhancing Drug Use In Healthy People

The Dangers And Benefits Of Cognitive-Enhancing Drug Use In Healthy People

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

What are the harms and benefits of long-term use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by healthy individuals?

No one can say, but they are popular. There is growing ‘lifestyle use’ of cognitive-enhancing drugs – such as methylphenidate (Ritalin) and modafinil (Provigil) – by healthy individuals to improve concentration, memory, and other aspects of cognitive performance. But very little is known about the long-term effects of this non-medical use, say the authors.
NSA Transgender Tragedy and Major Media Insensitivity.

NSA Transgender Tragedy and Major Media Insensitivity.

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Recently two Transgender women were shot to death because they made a wrong turn and did not listen to or possibly did not understand the commands of the guards at the gate of the NSA.*  That was unfortunate.  The tragedy is in a day and age where the non PC complain that people are too PC and the PC proclaim that they are sensitive major media continue to identify those two as "men dressed as women".  With the notable exception of Reuters, all other media did not even mention the chance they were trans. 
YouTube And Spotify Portend The Death Of MP3

YouTube And Spotify Portend The Death Of MP3

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

In a recent survey 76% of young respondents listened to music from YouTube every day with Spotify coming in second. But YouTube is so popular for music listening and new music discovery that even active Spotify users still visited YouTube often to complement Spotify’s incomplete music selection. 

YouTube was also perceived as the most shareable music source by the students in their early 20s who participated in a recent Internet-based study.

Costa Rica And Panama Evolution Is A Clue To How Continents Formed

Costa Rica And Panama Evolution Is A Clue To How Continents Formed

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

The same processes that determined how continents were generated on Earth more than 2.5 billion years ago have continued within the last 70 million years - and they profoundly affect the planet's current life and climate.

A new study details how relatively recent geologic events , namely volcanic activity 10 million years ago in what is now Panama and Costa Rica, hold the secrets of the extreme continent-building that took place billions of years earlier. This provides new understanding about the formation of the Earth's continental crust, the masses of buoyant rock rich with silica, a compound that combines silicon and oxygen. 

The White House Plan To Combat Antibiotic Resistance

The White House Plan To Combat Antibiotic Resistance

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)


There has been much press lately about President Obama’s plan to address the growing crisis of antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. And I agree with many that there is much to like in the plan.  But I also find a number of key deficiencies that will lead us nowhere.


The goals of the plan are all laudable –

Green Energy Subsidies Surge To $270 Billion In 2014

Green Energy Subsidies Surge To $270 Billion In 2014

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Government subsidies for renewable energy rebounded strongly last year, registering a solid 17% increase after two years of declines. Major expansion of solar installations in China and Japan and government=backed investments in offshore wind projects in Europe helped propel green energy spending to $270 billion.

200th Anniversary Of Tambora Eruption - It Made 2010's Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Look Like A Sneeze

200th Anniversary Of Tambora Eruption - It Made 2010's Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Look Like A Sneeze

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

The 2010 eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull grounded thousands of air flights and spread ash over much of western Europe, yet it was puny compared to the eruption 200 years ago of Tambora, a volcano that probably killed more than 60,000 people in what is now Indonesia and turned summer into winter over much of the Northern Hemisphere.

2 New Species Of Primitive Fish Discovered

2 New Species Of Primitive Fish Discovered

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Saurichthys is a predatory fish characterized by a long thin body and a sharply pointed snout with numerous teeth. This distinctive ray-finned fish lived in marine and freshwater environments all over the world 252-201 million years ago during the Triassic period.

Proto-Clusters: Precursors Of Dense Galaxy Clusters Discovered?

Proto-Clusters: Precursors Of Dense Galaxy Clusters Discovered?

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Cosmologists may have discovered what could be the precursors of the vast clusters of galaxies that we see today. Galaxies like our Milky Way, with its 100 billion stars, are usually not found in isolation. 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang, many are in dense clusters of tens, hundreds or even thousands of galaxies. 
ID4 Gene Switch Might Tame Triple Negative Breast Cancers

ID4 Gene Switch Might Tame Triple Negative Breast Cancers

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Triple-negative breast cancers are around 15% of all breast cancers and they lack any of the three receptors (oestrogen, progesterone or HER2) that would make them responsive to targeted drugs.

Triple-negative breast cancer patients have a higher risk of disease recurrence and shorter survival than those with other breast cancers and tend to fall into two categories: those that succumb to their disease within 3-5 years, regardless of treatment; and those that remain disease free for longer than the average non-triple-negative breast cancer patient (at least 8 years post-diagnosis).  Survival prospects tend to be either very good or very bad because triple-negative breast cancers are two distinct diseases that likely originate from different cell types.

Get Some Sun: More Than A Third Of College Athletes Have Low Vitamin D

Get Some Sun: More Than A Third Of College Athletes Have Low Vitamin D

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Up to 1 billion people globally have insufficient or deficient vitamin D levels even though many western nations fortify milk with it. The reason is lack of sun exposure in some places but with a culture war on both sunshine and diet low vitamin D levels have become more common, even for elite college athletes, according to a new study. 

But don't be duped into buying supplements, you can get it from your diet. Just eat more fish.

The work found that more than one-third of Division I college athletes may have low levels of vitamin D, which is critical in helping the body to absorb calcium needed to maintain bone mass, and to minimize musculoskeletal pain and injury risk.

Climate Change Is Not Causing Extreme Winters

Climate Change Is Not Causing Extreme Winters

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has asked science journalists and political writers wearing a scientific beard to not attribute every weather event to climate change, it is still common to have every storm, drought and temperature to be listed as proof of climate change.

But that isn't science.  Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and ETH Zurich have instead shown that global warming actually tends to reduce temperature variability.
‘Kúl’, ‘Beibí’, ‘Plís’ And Their Threat To Icelandic Language

‘Kúl’, ‘Beibí’, ‘Plís’ And Their Threat To Icelandic Language

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Compared to most languages in the developed world, Icelandic is quite conservative. Formal German is almost useless in actual German society due to slang and informal terms, for example, while English has few rules but so many exceptions and colloquial phrases it can be difficult for tourists to understand eating in a restaurant.

Icelandic, by contrast, has a vocabulary well preserved in Old Norse roots and Icelanders want to keep it that way.  The purist tradition of preferring native words to foreign ones is thought to be connected to Iceland’s long process of liberation from Denmark, which was noticeable in the Icelandic language from the second half of the 19th century to some decades after the final independence in 1944.
Petrichor: How The Term For The Smell Of Rain Came To Be

Petrichor: How The Term For The Smell Of Rain Came To Be

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Australia’s CSIRO has come up with some pretty amazing inventions over the past 86 years of research, from polymer banknotes to insect repellent and the world-changing Wi-Fi. But we can also lay claim to something a little more esoteric – we actually invented a whole new word.

Volcanic Eruptions And Long-Term North Atlantic Climate Impact

Volcanic Eruptions And Long-Term North Atlantic Climate Impact

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

It is well established that particles emitted during major volcanic eruptions cool the atmosphere for two or three years  due to a 'parasol' effect that reflects sunlight.
Fighting Plagiarism In Scientific Papers

Fighting Plagiarism In Scientific Papers

Mar 31 2015 | comment(s)

Plagiarism is the most sincere form of flattery, they say (or rather, this is said of imitation). In arts - literature, music, painting - it can at times be tolerated, as an artist might want to take inspiration from others, elaborate on an idea, or give it a different twist. In art it is the realization of the idea which matters.