Issues With Texting!

Studies have showed that people who text alot can get chronic muscle pains. Texting has the same affect as typing at the computer.  There was a survey sent out asking people to send no message, one to twenty-one, and twenty-one plus messages. Then they were told to point out on a scale how much the pain was. The more the people texted, the higher the pain. But they couldn’t link the two together until they do studies for computer typing too. Texting has the same effect as typing on the computer. And people who thumb text alot have been known to get texting elbow. When texting you sit in the same position as when typing. The only difference is you may be using your thumbs instead of your four fingers.

Does texting have anything to do with pain? Or is it all in there head?

Do you get chronic pain from texting for a long time?

I got this information from http://www.livescience.com/health/091116-texting-pain.html

Posted on November 16th by Andrea Thompson

Women Removing a Healthy Breast After a Diagnosis of Cancer

              The number of women opting for surgery to remove the healthy breast after a cancer diagnosis in one breast is rising,even though there is a lack of evidence that surgery can improve survival. The amount of women that choose to have both breasts removed because of a strong family history of cancer is low and changed little in the last decade.Prophylactic mastectomy which is the removal of a noncancerous breast, is one method for reducing a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. There is little information available on the prevalence of prophylactic mastectomy for preventing breast cancer among high-risk women or on the prevalence of the surgery to prevent tumors in the healthy breast among women whose cancer is only in one breast. In New York state between 1995-2005 using mandated statwide hospital discharge data from the state cancer registryshow that 6,275 female New York residents who went with  prophylactic mastectomies. 81 % of those women had been diagnosed with cancer in one breast, and 19% had no personal history with breast cancer. Over the 11- year study period the prevalence of these contralateral mastectomies more than doubled. Before  a female should really think about it and have counseling about the benefits and risks before they have the prophylactic mastectomy of the other breast.

How do you feel about the prophylactic mastectomy? Is it a good or bad thing?

If you were in the situation or knew someone in the situation what would you do or what   advice would you give the person ?

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prophylactic-mastectomy/WO00060

Researchers Spawn a New Breed of Robotic Fish.

Why Do Animals, Especially Males, Have So Many Different Colors?

The color of a male helps increase the ability to attract mates. The color helps them distinguish males of their own species, who are rivals, from those of other species, who are not. Just as there could be selection against mating with the wrong species, there can also be selection against fighting with the wrong species. Fish are another species that do this.When species are found in the same location, they do a better job of telling apart males of their own species from males of the other species than they do in places where they do not occur together. If there is no reason for two species to interact aggressively with each other then you would expect evolution to favor the ability for them to tell the difference by, for example, an exaggeration in the initial difference in color between them.

Some damselflies species also differ more in coloration where they occur together than where they occur alone, but “this finding can be explained either by selection against mating with the wrong species or selection against fighting with the wrong species.In future research, we hope to learn what proportion of species can tell the difference between members of their own species and members of other species and whether they respond more strongly to their own species in a competitive context.

Do You think that animals go for a specific color? Light, Dark, Red, Blue. Why?

Why do you think they are attracted to colors of their mate?

Luminescent Living Lanterns!

Hormones Give Lantern Sharks the Glow

By Rachel Erhenberg

How would you like to glow? Wouldn’t that make you stick out. Well for the lantern shark, its the exact opposite and it is used for camoflauge.  Scientists have recently discovered the very first animal with bioluminescent abilities that are controlled by hormones. They have narrowed down melatonin, prolactin and alpha-MSH, as the three hormones acting as an on and off switch for the Lantern Shark. In all animals with luminescent abilities before this one,  it has been triggered by nerve cells. However, in the past sharks with this ability that don’t have a direct link between their glowing and their nerve cells have just been assumed that nerve cells were still used. This new discovery may shed some light on how it is really controlled.

Melatonin, a hormone used to controll sleep in humans, was shown to cause long lastng glowing patches on the skin of these sharks. Since this is sensitive to light, when the shark dives deeper into darker waters it will change the color. Prolactin, which plays a large role in reproduction in humans, caused a quicker shine, and may be used to signal other sharks or to find a mate. The third  hormone, alpha-MSH, is responisble for turning off the shine caused be the other two hormones.

In smaller fish, the luminescent ability is almost instantanious, since it is caused by nerves. But, in these sharks it is slower and less finely controlled.

How would you like to glow?

How do you think being able to glow can actually camoflauge the sharks?

Solar-Powered Sea-Slugs

A sea-slug is a creature that acts like a plant and it uses solar-power to survive under the water. This tiny little slug has plastids which gets energy from the sun and creates it as food but this slug is different from others plants it also eats alga; it cuts the alga and sucks the cytoplasm out and also uses it for food. The slug needs alga for something else as well, it needs it for photosynthesis to occur.

Do you think if creatures or animals could make there own food we would have more than we have now?

What do you think this really is a plant or a slug?Why?

Addicted to video games

Original Writer: Ewen Callaway

Originally Posted on: New Scientist

In this article, scientists asked fifteen willing advocates to advert there attention from video games to get an MRI while answering some questions. While they were asking the advocates these questions they were checking to see the scans of brain waves. Looking at these scans scientists agreed on the fact that they try and compare their real lifes with their virtual characters. The reason they do this is because they make a character that they want themselves to be and be able to achieve anything. It is pretty much a morale boost for some people.

Are you addicted to video games?

Do you think this is a good waste of time when you are bored?

Do You Talk As Polite As The Whales?

I read the article “Whales Are Polite Conversationalists” published by the American Institute of Physics,on October 26,2009,  and I thought it was quite interesting. It said, few of marine biologist at the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center developed a tool that spots rhythms in a crowd of mammals in an ocean. They had a meeting with the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and suggested that whales tend to not over lap their calls with other whales. Natalia Sidoravskaia  from university of Louisiana at Lafayette says, ” In other words, whales are polite listeners; they do not interrupt each other.”

So, Do you think you talk as polite as the whales?

Why do you think they are polite when talking?

Chocolate Reduces Stress?

Evidence is showing that eating dark chocolate every day can reduce stress. They took people who rated themself with high stress levels to begin with the lower levels of stress levels everyday for 2 weeks. They ate 40 grams of dark chocolate daily( little less then a hersheys bar)

Doctors took blood plasma and urine samples from the participents at the beginning, middle, and ending of this 2 week process. At the end there was lower levels of stress hormones, cortisol and catecholamines in the ending samples.

There was only 30 people in the research and more tests are needed to be done. There is certain stuff in chocolate  like such as antioidant called polyphenols that can have helpful benifits. Chocolate contains sugar and fat so its not always good for you. As Clara Moskowitz said “it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.”

Do you think Chocolate helps lower stress?

Do you think if they did more tests and they were accurate that more people would take this serious?

original artical by Clara Moskowitz

Sea Urchins reveal medical mysteries

Scientists and medics are discovering that ancient sea urchins can help us to understand diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and and muscular dystrophy. Scientists also find that sea urchins and humans have more than 7,000 of the same genes. Scientists are saying that the sea urchins may be able to  help solve some of their most difficult and deadly problems.

Sea urchins can help us solve Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, muscular dystrophy, and other cancer-related problems. They may even be able to help solve the problem of infertility.  When you compare a sea urchin’s amino acid sequences to a human’s, quite a few are a perfect match.

Sea urchins are one of the few invertebrates on our branch of the evolutionary tree, sharing more genes with humans than fruit flies and worms. But the weird thing is, sea urchins don’t have eyes, ears, or a nose, but they have the genes humans have for vision, hearing, and smelling.

1. why do scientists think sea urchins may be able to help us one day?

2. do you agree with the scientists? why or why not?

3. why are sea urchins so much like us, even though they don’t look like it?

Sprinters Have Longer Toes and Achilles Tendons

Through the many and many years, evolution has made some remarkable adaptations. For one is the sprinter’s toes. Scientists at Penn State University have found that for runners who ace the 100-yard dash, the thrill of victory may spring from the ankles and the feet.

When it all starts, sprinters launch with a burst of acceleration. That initial velocity in (in some part) depends on the length of their toes. The scientists examined the feet of a dozen collegiate sprinters and a dozen non-athletes of a similar height. They measured foot length and used ultrasound imaging to watch Achilles tendons in action. In these examinations they found 2 things.

First, the sprinters have longer toes. This could give them an advantage by allowing them to maintain maximum contact with the ground as they push off the starting block. Second, their Achilles tendons have less leverage. That might sound bad, but it actually allows their leg muscles to produce greater force.

So next time you see a 100-yard sprinter take off, remember: his toes are a big part of such an amazing feat.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=good-sprinters-have-long-toes-09-11-05

1. How do YOU think having less leverage in the Achilles tendon is good?
2. Do you think this is in just sprinters or in all athletes ? (swimmers, body builders)

Babies May Cry In Their Mother’s Tongues

Research is being done on how babies communicate. Scientists say that babies cry in melody to what they heard while in the womb. Early signs of melody crying shows that they have developed a form of language at a young age. At ages 3 months and on they produce vowel sounds demonstrated by adults. They know how to cry in order to get what they need. Fluent speakers of this melody, change pitch and rhythm can show anger or happiness. German babies pitches moved from high to low instead of low to high like French babies. Mothers may have tended to babies differently in France as to Germany causing the differences in the language melodies.

Do you believe this is true?

Don’t all babies have their own melodies at which they cry?

By: Bruce Bower

Web Edition: Thursday, November 5th, 2009

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49195/title/Newborn_babies_may_cry_in_their_mother_tongues

No more ice in the Northern Hemisphere?

   David Barber of Canada’s Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, did an exploration of the northern hemisphere searching for multiyear ice, but found only “rotten ice“. All of the ice covering the Northern Passage, is all melting at a very fast rate, opeinging up slowly. Ships and boats will like this because it will be an easier way to pass through as a shortcut. Scientists on the other hand are not to thrilled. The multiyear ice is melting at an extremely high rate and this isn’t making life any eaiser for all the wildlife that survive on ice. The ice is melting so fast in fact that in 2007-08, it was recorded as third lowest on record. Barber and many other scientists are fretting that the by 2030, there will be no ice remaining on the North Pole. (Scientists link higher Arctic temperatures and melting sea ice to the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.)

By David Ljunggren     Thu Oct 29, 2009

What do you think Humans as a race could have done to help prevent this 10 years ago?

Do you think all the ice will be gone by 2030 like Barber?

What do you think will happen in the next few years with this situation?

Magnetic Leaves.

The scientist who first noticed the magnetic leaf was from Europe. Pollution was believed to make the leaves magnetic. What was found was a pollution called particulate matter. Harmful particles of pollution to humans are sticking onto to these leaves. Metallic pollutants such as iron oxides (from diesel exhausts) was a compound found in the particulate matter. What captures the pollution is the wavy and bumpy surfaces on the leaves. The pollution captured onto the leave may grow into the leave or just stay on the surface. Where the busiest roadways are is the most likely spot to have these magnetic leaves. There was an experiment done by Bernie Housen to find out if there was a difference in the leaves from a rural area and a busy city. This experiment proved that along bus routes it was two to eight times more magnectic to those in quieter streets. Also what was found is that leaves in busy cities were ten times more magnetic then the ones in rural areas. These leaves were annouced to be a way to monitor the pollution.

Have you ever thought that leaves can become magnetic?

Are the leaves an efficiant way to monitor our pollution?

Why do you think this is possible?

Don’t avoid your dairy products!

    Are you lactose intolerant and consume absolutely no dairy products?  Though you are lactose intolerant the consumption of dairy products is necessary for your body. Studies show that to receieve many essential vitamins, we must consume some kind of dairy product. There are so many products now that are manufactured without lactose. By us eating or drinking these products we are allowing are bodies to still have key componets of milk without actually having it.

     Recent studies have been done on the amount of lactose intolerant people in the world. The number has dropped from recent studies done years prier. Most of the worlds lactose intolerant patients are African-American. Though there are still other races with the problem. The studies though are done by people just reporting that they are lactose intolerant. So the studies accuracy and guarantee are not reliable.  Theresa Nicholas of the Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine says that the more accurate the studies, the more medical professionals are able to help those who are lactose intolerant.

Are you lactose intolerant? If you are how do you feel about eating or drinking milk products? If you aren’t lactose intolerant  what else do you think doctors or professionals could do to help those who are?

Babies’ Language Learning Starts From The Womb.

We all learn to talk eventually, but can the learning process begin in the womb? Scientific studies are finding that babies in the womb might be learning a language when they’re in their last trimester of pregnancy. It has been shown that babies in the womb respond to music and voices of people around them. They respond best to the voices they hear the most, such as the mother’s voice.

Scientists say that babies have a different cry when they come from families with different languages. For example, studies show that babies will cry with the tonal qualities of the language they have heard while in the womb. German babies cry on a falling melody while French babies cry on a rising melody due to the different qualities of the languages they have heard.

What kind of testing do you think they should do to look into this more?

Do you think that babies learning in the womb might have a great impact on the way humans are evolving?

Rats and Eating Disorders?

Today there is alot of eating disorders but can this be explaned by using rats? Scientist are wondering the same question. They are looking at one spacific disorder a binge diet. They use rats to see if mabe they can possibly explain the reason for binge dieting. Scientists have discovered that in a way they can. Rats have a basolateral amygdala and when you deactivate it the rat will search for food but will not eat it.“Understanding how this circuit in the brain works may provide insight into the exact networks and chemicals in our brain that determine the factors influencing our feeding habits.”said Matthew Will, assistant professor of psychological sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science.

They think that rats basolateral amygdala is the main source of their binge dieting. When their oploids release (Which are pleasure chemicals)it can lead to euphoria, into the brains which causes non hungry rats to eat. They think mabe or close to the same problem is happening to us. “Humans have more programming to start and continue eating than to stop eating.” says Will. If this problem is solved with rats they may beable to get more of a idea with the way we eat and help our society control binge dieting.

Do you think that this study will eventually help americans beable to control the way they eat?

Whats your opinion on the way they are doing research, do you think there are more and better ways to do this kind of research?

Do you think that a binge diet is even really a disorder to the point they need to use test rats to see a way to fix it?

Do you think using rats is a accurate way to find out ways to quite binge dieting?

Eating Licorice During Pregnancy Affecting Child’s IQ and Behavior?

Eating Licorice in Pregnancy May Affect a Child’s IQ and Behavior

October 7,2009

A result of a study of eight children whose mothers ate excessive licorice during their pregnancy did not perform as well as other children in cognative tests. These children were also shown to have poor attention spans and show disruptive behavior such as ADHD. It is thought that a component in licorice called glycyrrhizin may impair the placenta, allowing stress hormones to cross from the mother to the baby. High levels of such hormones, known as glucocorticoids, are thought to affect fetal brain development and have been linked to behavioral disorders in children.

Professor Jonathan Seckl, from the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Cardiovascular Science, said: “This shows that eating licorice during pregnancy may affect a child’s behavior or IQ and suggests the importance of the placenta in preventing stress hormones that may affect cognitive development getting through to the baby.”Women who ate more than 500mg of glycyrrhizin per week – found in the equivalent of 100g of pure licorice – were more likely to have children with lower intelligence levels and more behavioral problems.

The research followed on from a study which showed that licorice consumption was also linked to shorter pregnancies. Laboratory studies have also shown a link between the placenta not working to prevent stress hormones from passing through to the fetus, as well as a link to cardiac and metabolic disorders and behavioral problems in later life.

How do you think pregnant mothers could still enjoy this treat without harming their infant?

How mush licorice is to much?

Ants are caring insects!

In the animal kingdom animals rescuing eachother is uncommen. However ants will risk themselves to save a kinsmen. Studies done by Elise Nowbahari the University of Paris North and Karen L. Hollis of Mount Holyoke in South Hadley, Massuchusets have shown that in a natural environment ants trapped under sand and debris were help out of their predicament by fellow ants from the same colony. The same test showed that the ants would not help ants from a different colony or other insect species. This shows that ants have a high cognitive complexity. This also shows that ants have some base level of caring associated with colony members since they themselves could become trapped. Original Site

Do you think humans could take a page from the ants?

Why do you think the ants do this?

Google Droid vs. iPhone

Article: Google Droid is here: Can it go toe-to-toe with Apple’s iPhone?

Author: Larry Greenemeier

Posted: Nov 6, 2009

vs.

     Google has just come out with its new “droid” .  And they are wondering, will it be any competition for the iPhone.  The reviews suggest: “If  you were to put these two in a ring together it would end up like the first Rocky movie.”  The droid doesn’t kill the iPhone but it does offer a credible alternative. 

     On price the two are pretty much a toss-up.  With the droid at $200 and the iPhone running between $100 and $300 depending on the model.  As for entertainment its the iPhone.  The iPhone offers iTunes whereas the droid offers nothing of the kind.  The droid wins on phone network, customizability, GPS navigation, speaker, physical keyboard, removable battery and openness (free operating system, mostly uncensored app store). The iPhone wins on “simplicity, refinement, thinness, design, Web browsing, music/video synching with your computer, accessory ecosystem and quality/quantity of the app store.”Troy Wolverton’s bottom line: “I still think it comes up short against the iPhone, but I also think the Droid is probably the best smart-phone choice out there other than Apple’s iconic gadget.”

What do you think is the better choice of phone?

Would you ather have the Droid or the iPhone?

Do you think that the droid will sell as well as the iPhone has?

Antimatter

Signature Of Antimatter Detected In Lightning

By: Ron Cowen

Friday, November 6th, 2009

 The Fermi Gamma -Ray Space Telescope, designed to scan the heavens thousands to billions of light-years beyond the solar system, has picked  up a shocking vibe  from Earth. it has detected17 gamma-ray flashes affiliated with Earthly storms, some of the flashes contained a surprising signature of antimatter, during its first 14 months of operation.

Fermi recorded gamma-ray emissions of a particular energy that could have been produced only by the decay of energetic positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons, during 2 recent lightning storms. The observations are the first of their kind for lightning storms.

“It’s a surprise to have found the signature of positrons during a lightning storm”, said Michael Briggs of the University of Alabama in Huntsville announcing the puzzling findings November 5 at the 2009 Fermi Symposium. The17 flashes Fermi detected occurred just before, during and immediately after lightning strikes, as tracked by the World Wide Lightning Location Network.

“During lightning storms previously observed by other spacecraft, energetic electrons moving toward the craft slowed down and produced gamma rays. The unusual positron signature seen by Fermi suggests that the normal orientation for an electric field associated with a lightning storm somehow reversed”, Briggs said. Modelers are now working to figure out how the field reversal could have occurred. But for now, he said, “the answer is up in the air”.

“Recording gamma-ray flashes — which have the potential to harm airplanes in storms — isn’t new. The first were found by NASA’s Compton Gamma-ray Observatory in the early 1990s. NASA’s RHESSI satellite, which primarily looks at X-ray and gamma-ray emissions from the sun, has found some 800 Earthly gamma-ray flashes”, Briggs noted.

Do you think we should be messing around with antimatter? Why/why not?

Do you think this research is a waste of resources? Why/why not?

Saving seahorses from extinction

Marine biologists are worried that regular harvesting of wild seahorses may threaten them with extinction, so they started breeding them in aquariums.  This requires a three-step water filtration process which includes feeding them three times a day have a careful temperature and water chemestry monitoring. One researcher is worried about their depletion so he is studying ways to help them survive. Seahorses mate for life, the male gives birth  and, must eat constantly in order to survive so many Wild seahorses are dissappering. Marine biologists like Katherine Bernabes are conserned for the health of them because they are being sold on black market, being made into Asian medicine, kept in aquariums, their costal habitat is disappearing, and pollution is killing them off. around twenty millon seahorses are being traded globally each year and its depleation their natural stock. Bernabeo’s goal is to breed a substainable amount of seahorses native to Long Island sounds as an alternative to depleating seahorses in the world. Bernabeo carefully nomitors the seaborses. “I have to make sure they are allways full, they’re happy and let nature take its coarse,” she said. She wants to breed more seahorses, hoping to save them from extinction (when no more individuals of a species can be found anywhere on earth). Many animals have been classified as on the endangeredspeicieslist because their populations are close to becoming extinct. If one anmal relies on another for its foodor protection,it could become part of the extinct chain. Possibly the most famous extinction was atthe end of the Cretaceous period(around 65 milion yerars ago) when most of the speicies on earth were believed to be wiped out by a large astroids impaction earth. All nonbird like dinosaurs went extinct. To know more check out their website at http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0210-saving_seahorses.htm.

Do you think that seahorses are on the top of a extinct chain?

Do  you think that seahorses are important?

Would you care if seahorses were extinct?

Will The Mars Rover Spirit ever get back home?

Mars rover plans its escape     By Katharine Sanderson   November 5, 2009

NASA is trying to free Spirit! Spirirt, one of the Mars Rovers, is plannig an escape from Mars. John Callas, a member of NASA’s station, says that this process will take months but they should be able to pull it out of the bag. Spirits mission was only supposed to be a three month trip, but ended up being a five year trip because Spirit ended up getting stuck in the soft sand of Mars, and has been stationed there ever since. Callas says that Spirit has 5 working wheels and one not. They could either pull off the “rescue” mission or spirits wheels could just spin, digging itself deeper into the soft sand.  Callas also said that the data base built into Spirit is having malfunctions and may have lost all the information collected.

Do YOU think that Spirit can get out?

Do you think NASA will have any information on Spirits data base?

Will we ever know if there really is life on other planets?          Any suggestions???   PLEASE COMMENT!!!

Magnetic Bird Eye-balls!!! Maybe a True Sixth Sense!

Is it instinct? Is it their beaks? Is it a phenomenon? No, bird’s eyes are responsible for navigation when migrating and not by sight, by magnetics. For many years it has been a mystery how birds manage to migrate every year. Past studies have concluded that a magnetic sensor in the birds beak is responsible to tell which way is north. However, recent studies have concluded that the birds eye-balls not their beaks are responsible for this magnetic compass. 

Researchers have proposed iron-based sensors in cells of the eyes of birds. Others have thought that light sensing cells in the eye also detect magnetic field in the poles of the Earth. Research has not shown how this works yet, but are looking into it in the future.

Researchers have tested this by severing or damaging different systems in the birds brain to test which system is responsible for this navigation. Henrik Mouritsen of University of Oldenburg in Germany, has suggested that the beak may play a different role in magnetic sensing and may be responsible for minor changes in magnetic fields, but navigation is still possible.

Knowing this can help us with the relocation of endagered birds, who often fly back to their original unsafe locations.

How could this knowledge help us “save” relocated birds?

Do you believe studies like these are important?

Can small earthquakes predict larger ones?

It is common belief that moderate-sized quakes can help predict where a big quake might hit next. But a new study, conducted by Mian Liu and Seth Stein, says that this belief may be false. Lui is a geophysicist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and Stein is from Northwestern University in Evanston. According to them, many of the moderate-sized quakes that happen away from the edges of tetonic plates could simply be aftershocks of larger earthquakes that happened along those same faults 10-100 years ago.

A lot of the larger quakes happen at the edges of tetonic plates, where much stress can be put on them as they scrape by each other. However, it is also possible for major quakes to occur along intercontinental fault zones, which can be thousands of kilometers from the edges of plates. Those quakes are much less common – making them much less predictable.

Using worldwide earthquake data, Liu and Stein found that when big quakes happened on the edges of tetonic plates, when the edges scrape past each other at an average of 10 millimeters per year, the aftershocks ended after about 10 years. When a major quake occured where faults passed each other at a few millimeters per year, the aftershocks lasted as long as a century. The longest chain of aftershocks (the longest lasting as long as a couple of centuries) happened when earthquakes struck intercontinental faults that moved slowly. The researchers guess that this is because the energy is stored up longer.

Here is a quote from an article written by Sid Perkins on sciencenews.org that I found interesting. They didn’t list a publishing date, so I’m not sure when it was written. “In midplate regions where repetitive cycles of earthquakes can take millennia to unfold, forecasting when and where the next big quake will occur is akin to predicting a full year’s weather based on watching conditions during one week in January…”

Do you think this is true?

What are your thoughts on aftershocks that happen as much as a century after the actual earthquake?