Laughter Is Indeed Good Medicine

From Live Science:

Nobody can say if laughter is the best medicine, but it certainly seems to help. So suggests a new but very small study of diabetes patients who were given a good dose of humor for a year.

Researchers split 20 high-risk diabetic patients —all with hypertension and hyperlipidemia (a risk factor for cardiovascular disease)— into two groups. Both groups were given standard diabetes medication. Group L viewed 30 minutes of humor of their choosing, while Group C, the control group, did not. This went on for a year of treatments.

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Discover Interview The Man Who Found Quarks And Made Sense Of The Universe

From Discover Magazine:

Murray Gell-Mann had a smash success with particles, notorious dustups with Feynman, and a missed opportunity with Einstein.

It is no accident that the quark—the building block of protons and neutrons and, by extension, of you and everything around you—has such a strange and charming name. The physicist who discovered it, Murray Gell-Mann, loves words as much as he loves physics. He is known to correct a stranger’s pronunciation of his or her own last name (which doesn’t always go over well) and is more than happy to give names to objects or ideas that do not have one yet. Thus came the word quark for his most famous discovery. It sounds like “kwork” and got its spelling from a whimsical poem in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. This highly scientific term is clever and jokey and gruff all at once, much like the man who coined it.

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Shuttle Dodges Space Junk Risk

Photo from National Geographic

From Wired Science:

Despite the recent rash of space-debris problems, the risk that the space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope will have a catastrophic collision with space junk and micrometeoroids won't exceed NASA guidelines.

NASA said Thursday the new orbital debris risk for STS-125 had fallen to 1 in 221. A couple of precautionary maneuvers -- in particular coming into a lower, less crowded orbit on the 10th day of the mission and using Hubble as a shield -- reduced the spaceship's chance of getting hit with a stray paint chip or metal bolt.

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New Bird Flu Cses Suggest The Danger Of Pandemic Is Rising

Chickens for sale in Cairo: Most bird-flu victims in Egypt this year are children. Reuters

From The Independent:

Infections in Egypt raise scientists' fears that virus will be spread by humans.

First the good news: bird flu is becoming less deadly. Now the bad: scientists fear that this is the very thing that could make the virus more able to cause a pandemic that would kill hundreds of millions of people.

This paradox – emerging from Egypt, the most recent epicentre of the disease – threatens to increase the disease's ability to spread from person to person by helping it achieve the crucial mutation in the virus which could turn it into the greatest plague to hit Britain since the Black Death. Last year the Government identified the bird-flu virus, codenamed H5N1, as the biggest threat facing the country – with the potential to kill up to 750,000 Britons.

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Scientists Compete To Build Best Living Machine

American scientist and entrepreneur Craig Venter Photo: REUTERS

From The Telegraph:

Scientists from around the world are to compete in a competition to build the best machine using only parts from living organisms.

More than 100 genetic engineering laboratories will compete using the microscopic components found inside biological cells.

The organisers of the competition, which is now in its sixth year, hope that useful technology will be created from these basic building blocks of life.

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Ocean Dead Zones Likely To Expand: Increasing Carbon Dioxide And Decreasing Oxygen Make It Harder For Deep-sea Animals To Breath

Photo: A new study by marine chemists at MBARI suggests that deep-ocean animals such as this owlfish (Bathylagus milleri) may suffer as carbon dioxide increases and oxygen concentrations decline in the deep sea. (Credit: Copyright 2001 MBARI)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 18, 2009) — New calculations made by marine chemists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) suggest that low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean could expand significantly over the next century. These predictions are based on the fact that, as more and more carbon dioxide dissolves from the atmosphere into the ocean, marine animals will need more oxygen to survive.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide are increasing rapidly in the Earth's atmosphere, primarily because of human activities. About one third of the carbon dioxide that humans produce by burning fossil fuels is being absorbed by the world's oceans, gradually causing seawater to become more acidic.

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Jet Lag Caused By Out-Of-Synch Brain

From Live Science:

The droopy-eyed jet lag that comes after a cross-country plane trip could be caused by two groups of cells at the base of the brain falling out of synch, a new study suggests.

The body has a built-in time-keeping system, known as a circadian rhythm, that helps us keep track of when it's time to eat, sleep, wake up and perform other body functions. This system is partly governed by the cycle of day and night.

Changing time zones or working the late shift can throw off the body's sense of timing because it changes the timing of our exposure to light.

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Titanium Reveals Explosive Origins Of The Solar System

Photo: The same ratio of two varieties of titanium has been found in a range of meteorites, hinting that the cloud of gas and dust that formed the solar system was well-mixed before the first solids formed (Illustration: NASA)

From New Scientist:

The solar system emerged from a well-blended soup of dust and gas despite being cobbled together from the remains of multiple exploded stars, new meteorite measurements suggest.

Meteorites form a fossil record of the conditions that existed when they formed. By looking at the chemical makeup of some rocks, evidence has mounted in recent years that sun and the rest of the solar system formed from a cloud of debris blasted away from a number of supernovae.

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Blind To Be Cured With Stem Cells

From Times Online:

BRITISH scientists have developed the world’s first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years’ time.

The treatment involves replacing a layer of degenerated cells with new ones created from embryonic stem cells. It was pioneered by scientists and surgeons from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital.

This week Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical research company, will announce its financial backing to bring the therapy to patients.

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Why Leaves Turn Red

From Live Science:

Scientists have long wondered if the red color of fall leaves was more than just a sign of death. The process of turning leaves to brilliant colors requires energy, but doesn't seem to benefit the trees.

Some have suggested that fall colors act as sunscreen and keep trees from freezing. In 2001, British evolutionary biologist William Hamilton suggested the color might ward off bugs that would otherwise feast on the tree.

Hamilton looks to be on to something, a new study suggests. And the methodology is cool:

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Do 'Vicious' Dogs Learn From Their Owners?

From New Scientist:

ARE you right to trust your instincts if you cross the street when you encounter a snarling pit bull with an equally forbidding owner? A new study suggests that the owners of so-called "vicious" dogs commit more crimes than those who do not own such a dog.

Laurie Ragatz and her colleagues at the University of West Virginia in Morgantown examined whether owners of vicious dogs - those classed by the American Kennel Club as breeds with a high risk of causing injury to humans - were different in personality and behaviour to others. Their online questionnaire of 758 students, 563 of whom owned dogs, revealed owners of vicious dogs were significantly more likely to admit crimes such as vandalism, illegal drug use and fighting than other dog owners and those without dogs

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Newly Discovered Iron-Breathing Species Have Lived In Cold Isolation For Millions Of Years

A cross-section of Blood Falls showing how micorbial communities survive. (Credit: Zina Deretsky / NSF)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2009) — A reservoir of briny liquid buried deep beneath an Antarctic glacier supports hardy microbes that have lived in isolation for millions of years, researchers report April 17 in the journal Science.

The discovery of life in a place where cold, darkness, and lack of oxygen would previously have led scientists to believe nothing could survive comes from a team led by researchers at Harvard University and Dartmouth College. Their work was funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, and Harvard's Microbial Sciences Initiative.

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The Hunt For Another Earth Begins: Nasa's New Telescope Scours Space For Life-Supporting Planets

The Kepler telescope pictures the eight-billion-year-old star cluster NGC 6791, 13,000 light years from Earth. It will focus on the 'Goldilocks' zone - an orbital band where temperatures are not too hot and not too cold, but just right to allow the existence of watery oceans, lakes and rivers

From The Daily Mail:

These are the first incredible pictures captured by Nasa's new telescope, preparing to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

Kepler's first image reveals a vast star field in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

One fascinating picture is ablaze with stars filling the telescope's entire field of view, while two others zoom in on targeted stars and clusters.

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CO2, EPA, Politics, And All That

From Watts Up With That?:

In a stunning act of political kowtowing, the EPA caved to special interest groups and politics and declared CO2 a “dangerous pollutant”, even though it is part of the natural cycle of life. Now the gloves come off and the real fight begins during the 60 day public comment period. If you’ve never stood up to “consensus” before, now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. See instructions below for submitting public comment. - Anthony

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Video: How The International Space Station Was/Is Being Built

WNU Editor: The following link shows an excellent flash video of how the International Space Station was built .... from start to where it will be finished.

The link is HERE.

Revealed: Antarctic Ice Growing, Not Shrinking

From The Australian:

ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast.

Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth's ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilisation of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.

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Key to Happiness: Location, Location, Location

A San Diego sunset is not a cure for depression, but it can't hurt. Image credit: Dreamstime

From Live Science:

I am boarding a plane headed to San Diego, Calif., from my home town of Ithaca, New York, and pondering the recent announcement that where one lives is connected to the incidence of Frequent Mental Distress (FMD).

As I take off my down coat (yes, it's April, but we just had snow), discard my galoshes, and roll up the sleeves of my flannel shirt, I am thinking hard about the researchers from San Diego who presumably averted their gaze from the pounding surf before their office windows long enough to analyze surveys on mental health from the Centers for Disease Control to discover that people who live on, say, Hawaiian beaches have fewer bouts of stress, depression and emotional problems than people who live in the misty hollows of Appalachia.

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RNA Used To Reprogram One Cell Type Into Another

Rat neuron with a micropipette inserting mRNAs directly onto the cell. After laser photoporation the mRNA goes into the cell and the TIPeR-induced changes in cell phenotype are initiated. (Credit: Chia-wen Wu, PhD and James Eberwine, PhD University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2009) — For the past decade, researchers have tried to tweak cells at the gene and nucleus level to reprogram their identity. Now, working on the idea that the signature of a cell is defined by molecules called messenger RNAs, which contain the chemical blueprint for how to make a protein, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, School of Arts and Sciences and School of Engineering have found another way to change one cell type into another.

By simply flooding one cell type, a nerve cell, with the an abundance of a specific type of messenger RNA (mRNA) from another cell type, the investigators changed a neuron into an astrocyte-like cell, a star-shaped brain cell that helps to maintain the blood-brain barrier, regulates the chemical environment around cells, responds to injury, and releases regulatory substances.

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Early Warning Clue For Dementia

From BBC:

Heightened activity in an area of the brain that deals with memory may give a subtle early warning of dementia decades later, UK research suggests.

It was known that carrying a rogue version of a gene called ApoE4 raised the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Now researchers have linked the same mutation with raised activity in an area of the brain called the hippocampus in people as young as 20.

The study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

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Is Fringe's Genetic Monster Possible?

(Photograph by Craig Blankenhorn/FOX)

From Popular Mechanics:

In last night's episode of Fringe, "Unleashed," a genetically generated monster terrorizes Boston—and mad scientist Walter Bishop, son Peter and FBI agent Olivia Dunham must find the transgenic animal, a gila monster-wasp-bat hybrid that activists had let loose from an animal testing facility. The creature—which had physical characteristics of all the animals it was spliced together from—mostly kills people with its massive claws and prodigious fangs, but its real drive is to infect people with its larvae to create more monsters. PM spoke with geneticists to find out just how close science is to creating a Fringe-style supermonster.

When a car-full of dead college students—their bodies mangled by an animal "not indigenous to the area," according to the local coroner—it's not long before Walter pinpoints a transgenic animal as the culprit. "It's an animal creation, an organism made up of the genes of many species," he explains. "It's accelerated Darwinism!" Bishop, of course, had worked on such animals during his heyday, but none of his creations had survived. "It's possible, in theory," he says. "You would have to solve many problems," like stopping gene rejection similar to what people experience when their bodies reject donor organs.

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