Break Out The Face Masks: Swine Flu Has Mutated

With all the hysteria concerning H1N1 aka swine flu, prepare for people to start barricading themselves in their houses:

Chine has detected 8 cases if swine flu mutation, according to a health official.

Luckily, the strain found by China has an "isolated spread in the mainland" and is still susceptible to drugs and preventable by vaccine. Other information about the mutated strain--cases or deaths associated, where it was found, etc. has not been released.

The World Heath Organization (WHO) announced last week they were looking into a variant of the flu that may have caused two deaths and a severe case in Norway. This mutation isn't new--it has been found all over the world and in both mild and severe cases. However, Norway's Institute of Public Health announced this mutation may cause more severe disease by effectively infecting the deeper tissues in the airway.

The evolution and therefore mutation of viruses is not unusual. Viruses replicate incredibly fast and can infect many people easily. They must also be continuously evolving to stay ahead of the host cells. In particular RNA viruses have a high rate of mutation because they lack a way to correct any mutations. DNA replication has an enzyme that can go back, find and correct mutations that might have occured. To give you an sense of mutation rates, here are some stats according to Wikipedia (so take it with a grain of salt?):

-Eukaryotes (ex: humans, plants, animals) -.0010 to .00001 per base per generation

-Bacteria- .00000001 per base per generation

-DNA viruses (ex herpes virus, smallpox virus, human papillomavirus-HPV)- .000001 to .00000001 per base per generation

-RNA viruses (hepatitis, HIV, influenza, Norwalk virus)-.001 to .00001 per base per generation

Al Gore Stands Up For Climate Change

Al Gore, champion for climate change, decides to change the way he is promoting a greener future:

We should all start being a little green crazy.

O...M..G..-Comatose Man Was Actually Conscious For 23 years

Imagine being completely paralyzed in your body but fully conscious. You can hear everything going around you but you have no way to signal to the outside world that you are awake. This man did that (or rather nothing) for 23 years.

The man was involved in a 1983 car crash and diagnosed as being in a coma. Initial brain scans failed to pick-up his conscious brain activity. Both his family and caregivers attempted to communicate with him, but eventually gave up and assumed his vegetative state was permanent. Over the years, the doctors used the internationally used Glasgow Coma Scale to assess his condition. It tests eye, verbal and motor assessments to determine brain function, however, doctors still failed to miss signs his brain was fully functioning. Just three years ago, doctors used a "state of the art scanning system" that detected his consciousness.

Steven Laureys, a neurologist in Belgium says that of 44 diagnosed comatose patients he examined, 18 showed responses to communication. In about 40% of vegetative cases, closer examination shows a certain level of consciousness. He has also published a paper on the misdiagnoses of vegetative states.

This is not only TERRIFYING for the patient to be considered unresponsive by the outside world, but shines a new perspective on the decision for people who are considered comatose and are taken off life support. Eep.

It is coming people..

image source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/science/03tier.html

For those of you who know me.. I am paranoid by a few things that are maybe slightly irrational. One: China controls the weather.. and may one day use it to control the world. Two: We make no sense if every reaction wants to achieve Entropy. Three, and most importantly for today, we are going to put ourselves in a matrix (UNLESS WE ARE ALREADY IN ONE!?). Okay.. point of today's entry is that Intel has announced that by 2020 chips in our brains will control computer.. not keyboards and computer mice (is that the plural of this kind of mouse?). The article is found here.

Basically, Researchers at Intel's research lab in Pittsburgh are attempting to decode brain waves and tagging them to meaning so someone could surf the Internet by the power of thought. The brain is too complicated for that you say? Well.. it does work the same way a computer does in many ways.. just a series of inputs and consequential outputs. The article details that when a person thinks about a bear or hears a bear growl.. similar brain waves and brain activity occurs. The chip would be surgically implanted and it would harness the power of your brain waves.

Sounds cool? But let us think about this for a minute. Pros.. education would be a Montessori school of wondrous exploration for the next generation. The concept that a child could explore every thought is intriguing and would produce a lot of very gifted people. Second, it would be absurd how much faster you could research something. For me.. I am a visual learner, and if I could just imagine what I was thinking of instead of verbalizing.. I would be in good business.
Cons.. this is a surgery plugging you into the Internet at all times. I like turning the computer off and reading.. if you had a surgery, I wonder if it would feel the same turning the computer off. Second, You think kids have no attention span? When there is so much information out there to explore and free TV online.. could you ever really focus on one thing? I am not sure I could. Third, there is equally as much bad information available to consume someone life online that is not productive.. deliciously trashy celebrity gossip.. crazy people's new religions.. etc. Would people ever come outside for the light of day.. the list goes on.

The article does bring up a good point that years ago if you said everyone would have a cell phone on them all the time, you would be looked at strangely and not conceive it as true. Cell phones are basically tiny computers with the iPhone's and g1's in the world. It is unavoidable to stop progress, and it may be inevitable to avoid embracing curiosity of a machine-human intelligence combination.. but I want to make mistakes and over sleep! I don't want to be a machine. Maybe I am alone. Here are some more articles for those interested. One, Two, and Three.

"Scientific concepts depicted with photos of everyday objects"

Taken directly from boingboing.net

Lee sez, "Kevin Van Aelst, who photographs household objects to explain basic life processes. He uses gummy worms for DNA, clothes for the heart and other things you'd find around the house."

While the depictions of information--such as an EKG, fingerprint, map or anatomical model--are unconventional, the truth and accuracy to the illustrations are just as valid as more traditional depictions. This work is about creating order where we expect to find randomness, and also hints that the minutiae all around us is capable of communicating much larger ideas.

Kevin Van Aelst (Thanks, Lee!)

Are You Hurting? Think of Someone You Love

In a recent study, women who held their boyfriend's hand while being subjected to "moderately painful heat stimuli" reported feeling less pain. The women were given the stimuli while holding their boyfriend's hand, a ball or a male stranger's hand.

In a second test, women were pained again, but while being shown a picture of a chair, a stranger or their boyfriend. Once again, those who were shown pictures of their boyfriends said they felt less pain.

As the article suggests:

The study was small, however, and more research would be needed to confirm the findings and figure out exactly what's going on. The results are detailed in the November 2009 issue of the journal Psychological Science.

Eisenberger and colleagues say the study suggests practical advice: If you're going through a stressful or painful experience, and you don't have a loved one handy, at least find a photo.

Jellyfish Don't Like Japan

Huge swarms of the Nomura jellyfish are threatening the livelihood of Japanese fisherman. These nasty suckers can grow up to 6ft in diameter and weigh up to 450 lbs and look like evil red-orange jello blobs. They easily get snagged in fishing nets and kill the little catch these fisherman are able to bring in.

This massive swarm is not local only to Japan, but is occurring thousands of miles off its coast. It has shut down desalination plants in the Middle East and Africa, killed off fishing industries and piss off beachgoers. This invasion used to be an every 40-yr occurance, but has slowly evolved into an annual event.

Why, you ask? Jellyfish steroids? Jelly take over? 2012 prophecy? Attack on Godzilla?

No..global warming. Warming of the oceans has allowed the jellyfish to spread and breed. Pollution also has increased the amount of plankton in the water, which provides even more food for these gelatinous bastards.

In Japan, these pests have cost the fishing industry upwards of ~$300 billion where upwards of 500 million of jellies have capsized boats from their weight in the nets and reduced daily catches by 30%.

Although scientists have shown a correlation between water temps and jellyfish population booms, there are other limiting factors such as food, currents and the temperature getting too high. One population decreased in the Bering Sea although there were record highs.

"Humans Still Evolving as Our Brains Shrink "

There has been debate on whether or not humans are still evolving. The short answer, is yes we are, stupid.

Some changes are:

• The human brain is shrinking. Using skull measurements, it shows that the brain has been getting smaller in the last 5,000 years--about 150 cubic cm, or "roughly 10%." This is true regardless of the population measured. Researchers theorize this is because of societal differences such as a movement away from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and more specialization use of our brains. Basically, maybe we don't need all those extra brain space.
• Humans have evolved some defenses against malaria. Malaria is caused by a parasite that is spread by mosquitoes, enters the bloodstream and infects red blood cells. One defense is sickle cell anemia, which deforms the cells and prevents parasitic infection. Interestingly, an Indian-Pakistani version has also evolved.
• A lot of people are lactose intolerant, but lactose tolerance only evolved about 7,500 yrs ago in Europe so that we could take advantage of non-human milk. Also, some genes have shown to allow resistance to type II diabetes.
• More analysis has shown that there has been many changes in our genome in the last 40,000 yrs. This may have be in response to our change in diet that used to be based on hunter-gatherers.

Ew, Antarctica is Dirty: Antarctic Lakes Full of Viruses

Alcami and his colleagues analyzed DNA from viruses found in water samples collected fromAntarctica's Lake Limnopolar, a surface lake on Livingston Island. They found nearly 10,000 species, including some small DNA viruses that had never before been identified. In total, the viruses were from 12 different families, some of which may be completely new to science, the researchers suggest.

The results reveal this Antarctic lake supports a virus community that's more diverse than most aquatic environments studied in the world so far — a surprising find considering that the polar region is generally thought to have low biological diversity due to the extreme environmental conditions. The scientists speculate the newly discovered viruses may have adapted specifically to thrive in such harsh conditions.

The team also found the community of viruses changed dramatically depending on the season. When the lake was ice-covered in the spring, the liquid water under the ice was inhabited by mostly small viruses, but in the summer months when the ice melted, the lake was home to mostly larger viruses.

"It looks like a completely different lake in summer," Alcami said. The scientists think the shift might be due to an increase in algae in the summertime, which the larger viruses infect.

The researchers hope to figure out whether any of the viruses are unique to Antarctica. If so, that would shed light on whether microbial life evolved independently in Antarctica, which has been isolated for millions of years, or they were introduced there more recently.

PLUTO SPEAKS OUT: I'm a planet, damn it!

From the culturelab blog on New Scientist:

Pluto

Greetings, planet Earth. It's Pluto. Remember me? Ever since your astronomers had their "big meeting" in 2006, I've heard Earth dwellers saying I'm not a planet anymore, and I'm fed up.

At least I'm getting some respect in journalist Alan Boyle's new book, The Case for Pluto - a lot more than from some other authors I won't mention (you know who you are, Neil deGrasse Tyson). It's a great account of my place in history and culture, the science of the solar system, and the rough ride I've been getting recently.

Best of all, he's sympathetic to my cause and gives me credit for my planety features: I'm big enough for my own gravity to make me round and I have an atmosphere.

Still, one positive portrayal can't make up for all the criticism I get from Earth. I may be on the small side, but is that any reason to pick on me? Compared to Jupiter, you're small too, Earth! You say I can't be in the planet club because I haven't cleared my orbit of other objects.

Ok, sure, Neptune does cross my path from time to time. But look at all the asteroids in Earth's neighbourhood. I heard one of them crashed into you just the other day, and I hope it hit you in the eye!

If you're looking for an object that doesn't fit in, take a look in the mirror, Earth. You're the only solar system body whose surface is covered in liquid water. And you have a huge concentration of oxygen in your atmosphere - way more than any other solar system body.

While we're at it, let's talk about longevity, a topic I'm glad to see Boyle raises in his book. When the sun goes red giant in a few billion years, guess who's going to get burned to a crisp? That would be you, Earth. Meanwhile, I'll still be out here, keeping it real.

Planetarily yours,

Pluto (as told to David Shiga)

Cancer + Marraige = "Women More Loyal When Cancer Strikes"

A recent study showed that marriages affected by cancer and multiple sclerosis show a divorce rate of about 12%, which is the same as the normal population.

However there was a discrepancy between the genders-women patients had a rate of 21% whereas men were 3%.

The study was done on 515 patients (about evenly split between the sexes) that were grouped by diagnosis-214 malignant primary brain tumor, 193 solid tumor unrelated to the central nervous system and 108 with multiple sclerosis. In all 3 types of disease, women consistently showed a higher divorce rate.

Researchers suggest women are more adaptable and committed to the role of caregiver than men.

"Part of it is a sense of self-preservation, and in men that seems to operate very highly and they don't feel this codependence, this requirement to nurture their significant other who has this life-threatening illness," said study researcher Dr. Marc Chamberlain, director of the neuro-oncology program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), "but rather decide what's best for me is to find an alternative mate and abandon my fatally flawed spouse."

However, it seems that divorce is counterintuitive to what is best for the patient. Patients either divorced or separated had a higher rate of hospitalization, were less likely to look for alternative treatments, participate in clinical trials, complete treatment and more likely to die at home.

I Can Grow You A Penis-"Artificial Penis Tissue Proves Promising in Lab Tests"

Recent studies have shown that it may be possible to grow artificial penis tissue that one day could "enhance their normal penises, rather than repairing any damage."

However, scientists want the technology to help people with penile cancer, abnormalities, and traumatic injury.

The problem of reconstructing a penis, is that for something that seems to have an on/off switch, is that it is an incredibly complex organ. The tissue and skin cannot simply be replace, the intricate intracellular reactions must be restored for full penile glory.

Researches took smooth muscle and epithelial cells from erectile tissue of rabbit penises and allowed them to grow. Afterwards, the cells were injected onto a scaffold made from rabbit penises that had their cells removed. These scaffolds were then implanted onto 12 rabbits with tissue development with blood vessels forming a month later. Tests show that full function was restored with proper blood pressure, flow and drainage in the new organ. In future human applications, researches may not use decellularized penises, but instead materials such as collagen as a scaffold instead.

Rabbits were shown to have a healthy appetite to...act like rabbits when introduced to females and successfully impregnated a few.

"Male Sabertoothed Cats Were Pussycats Compared to Macho Lions"

We remember sabertoothed tigers as being badass. I mean they had to be, they had awesome fangs and it had a Power Ranger!

However, science might be telling us that TV lied to us. Analysis of fossils of sabertoothed tigers and American lion may suggest that the tiger wasn't as aggressive as we thought.

As discussed in an earlier post, sexual dimorphism is common in many species. In the case of the prehistoric American lion, males were much bigger than females. However, tigers appeared to be the same size regardless of sex. Since neither cat exists today, how did scientists figure this out?

Fossils. And teeth. Although, you can easily sort fossils into groups based on size you have to consider that the animal grows over time. A bone from a young male could be the same size as an older females. Instead, researchers x-rayed the lower teeth and jaw of American lions and sabertooths. As the cats grow, their hollow teeth become filled with dentin, giving an estimated age.

By plotting tooth cavity diameter and jaw length for both species, it was obvious that the size fell into two groups, regardless of age. There was clear evidence for sexual dimorphism--that the bigger teeth were male and the smaller ones were female. However, the tigers sizes were only based on age--that "males were indistinguishable from their mates."

What does that mean?

Well, there needs to be a evolutionary reason for having bigger males. Bigger males can compete and battle better than smaller ones for resources and females. So if the American lion had big males, then they were more aggressive in competition. Scientists theorized that the lions had 1-2 male-dominated groups of females. The sabertooth tiger, instead shows no real difference in size, suggesting that the males and females existed more equally with no reason for aggression.

Duke University (2009, November 5). Male Sabertoothed Cats Were Pussycats Compared To Macho Lions. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 5, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105121050.htm

Watch Your Mouth Around Preggos--THE UNBORN CAN HEAR YOU

Don't all crying babies sound alike? Annoying??

It seems that those ear-splitting screams and coos can be a different melodies that are similar to the language that they were exposed to in womb during their last trimester. A new study published today online in Cell Biology suggests that a baby's cries are indicative of elements of the language they picked up and is part of language development.

It turns out that newborns are able to distinguish between different languages and pitch changes by relying on the melody. Fetuses are able to memorize sounds heard from the last trimester. As expected, newborns prefer their mother's voice over all other voices and can "perceive emotional content of messages" as conveyed through tone and pitch.

Thirty French and 30 German babies, 3-5 days old had their cries analyzed. It turned out the infants' cries were melodically different based on the language they were exposed to. Although earlier studies showed that infants can match vowel sounds from adult speakers when they are 12 weeks old, this type of control is not physically possible earlier. Infants may only be able imitate the melody of the ambient language which is theorized as a way for them to bond to their mothers.

Cell Press (2009, November 5). Babies' Language Learning Starts From The Womb.ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 5, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091105092607.htm

China Can Make Snow At Will....Hey, Can You Send Some Flakes Over Here??

(Note: The above picture IS NOT China.)

Unlike so many here on the East Coast who hate the cold weather, I love it (minus the cold/flu season that accompanies it). I love the brisk weather and not sweating my (imaginary) balls off all the time. However something that tends to be disappointing season after season is the lack of any decent snow.

Well, seems China has decided not to wait around for some, it's went out and made its own.

On November 1st 2009, Beijing experienced it's first snowfall of the season which according to scientists, was the product of cloud seeding. IF that's true, then China has succeeded in producing real results in a experiment to solve drought conditions in certain parts of the country.

Clouds form around a condensation nuclei, some kind of particle such as dust that has been swept high into the cold parts of the atmosphere. At these lower temps, water condensates on and around the nuclei, forming clouds. No particles = no clouds = no percipitation.

Scientists in China have been experimenting with cloud-seeding, which artificially introduce condensation nuclei into the atmosphere. They used silver iodide introduced into the atmosphere, which quickly induces cloud formation because of their charge. Another advantage to this chemical is as the water bonds to the growing cloud, heat is released, drawing further moisture from the ground.

Did this actually work this time? Who knows. All we definitely know is that the storm was 11hrs long and bad enough to disrupt air travel. Also, let's not piss off the Chinese, we have enough tornadoes and freak storms over here let's not add random snow to it.

TV Possibly linked to Childhood Aggression

I guess some kids can't handle their cartoons.

TV exposure in three year olds seem to have an increased risk of aggressive behavior. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV for children under 2, although television is the second media most children between 0 and 3 yr olds are exposed to.

This large study included 3,128 children and their parents, in 20 large U.S cities born between 1998 and 2000.

Parents were then interviewed when their child was born, at 1 year and at 3 years. At 3 years, they were also asked about how much TV their child watch as well as the household's average use. Aggression was determined on a 15-item scale. Risk factors and demographic informations were also included.

The results showed about 65% of moms said their 3yr old watched at least 2hrs of TV and was overall exposed to 5.2 hrs of household TV use a day. After accounting for other factors, direct and indirect TV exposure was significantly associated with childhood aggression.

"One explanation that could link both child and household TV measures with aggression involves the parenting environment," the authors write. Households with higher rates of TV use may have fewer restrictions on children's viewing habits such as exposure to unregulated television content. Increased household television use may also affect daily routines such as eating and communication patterns and may decrease time spent on other activities.

Your Face Is Too Angry

Keeping with the face trend here, research shows a link between facial width-to-height ration (WHR) and aggression.

The WHR measures from the right and left cheeks and the distance from the upper lip to mid-brow bone. The change between the sexes in WHR occurs during puberty, when males develop a greater ratio.

Research has shown people with higher WHR have more aggression than in those with smaller WHR. This has been supported by studies of hockey players--greater WHRs earned more penalty points per game.

Psychologists wanted to know if people can predict aggression based on faces alone. Volunteers rated faces of people who were already assessed for hostile behavior after looking at them for 2000milliseconds or 39milliseconds.

Surprisingly, volunteers were highly correct in guessing the assessed aggressive people and corresponded with those with high WHR.

"Men's brains are wired for attraction to sexually dimorphic faces" "

Sexual dimorphism isn't as dirty as you think it sounds. It refers to the differences the sexes of the same species. For example, male peacocks are much more colorful than their female counterparts.

In humans, sexually dimorphic male faces have broad jaws and forehead and more pronounced brow ridge. Female faces have a tapered chin, larger lips and narrower forehead.

In a Harvard study, participants were asked to rate the attractiveness of faces that were altered to be more masculine or feminine. This study also included lesbian and gay participants.

The results showed:

• Gay men prefer highly masculine males faces rather than feminine males faces
• Type of male faces found attractive by gay men did not agree with the types of male faces straight women thought were attractive
• Gay men and straight men also did not agree on which male faces were attractive
• Straight women like more masculine male faces than lesbians
• Lesbian preferred more slightly masculine female faces than straight men and women

Previous research has shown women prefer more masculine males faces during ovulation, suggesting an evolutionary connection to human sexual dimorphism. Also, women's attractions are much more complicated then men as it depends on contraception use, self-perceptions, ovulation and sex drive.

The conclusion from this study is that men, regardless of orientation, prefer sexually dimorphic faces synoynmous with the gender they attracted to--gay men like masculine male faces and straight men like feminine female faces.