ABC News: 50-Pound Face Tumor: One Man's Nightmare

 

By DAN CHILDS
ABC News Medical Unit
Jan. 11, 2008

To see the face of 32-year-old Huang Chuancai is to witness a rare genetic condition in its most terrible form.

Chinese doctors say Huang, of China's southern Hunan province, suffers from a disease known as neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder of the nervous system that primarily affects the development and growth of neural cell tissues.

For many of its sufferers, the disease means abnormal growth of these tissues and, as a result, facial disfigurement. But Huang's case could well be the most extreme case of such disfigurement in the world today.

Before surgical intervention, 50 pounds of tumor tissue had pulled and twisted Huang's face into a distorted form, nearly unrecognizable as human. According to wire reports, doctors found that the heavy mass that droops from his head and face had deformed his backbone, stunting his growth. The tumor had totally covered his left eye, while his left ear hung down to his shoulder, and his right ear and jaw were completely engulfed.

Now, after more than two decades of suffering the horrific advance of his tumor, Huang is recovering from a second round of surgery on Monday to remove the massive growth. The initial operation, which took place last July, was a risky one-and-a-half-hour procedure that removed the largest of Huang's tumors, which weighed about 33 pounds.

While many more operations will be needed to remove all the excess tissue, Huang is reportedly hopeful that the treatments will allow him to lead a more normal life.

"I hope that when my illness is cured, I can go back home and have a nice spring festival with my family," he told Reuters.

Unfortunately, plastic and cosmetic surgeons say, it is highly unlikely that the surgeries will result in a normal appearance.

There is "zero chance of [Huang] looking normal, since the muscles, nerves, eye, bone and sometimes brain can be involved," notes Dr. Henry Kawamoto, clinical professor of plastic surgery at UCLA and director of the university's craniofacial clinic.

"I doubt that this patient will look 'normal' as suggested by [past media coverage]," agrees Park Avenue plastic surgeon Dr. Darrick Antell. "The patient would certainly be substantially better, but the degree of the problem is so large that 'normal' is unlikely in my opinion."

ABC News: 50-Pound Face Tumor: One Man's Nightmare

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Why four little letters mean so much

It's rude, it's obscene and it may even be like hitting someone in the face without damaging your knuckles – it's swearing.

According to psychologists, yelling 'f**k off' is a powerful form of assault, especially if the intended victim cannot avoid hearing you.

A US research team also suggested swearing evolved as a way to emotionally injure someone without getting into a fight.

'It's a substitute for physical violence,' said psychologist Dr Timothy Jay. 'From an evolutionary point of view, it's an advantage for us to be able to say “f**k you” from across the street.'

He believes swearing is also a form of social bonding. 'In the locker room, the guy who doesn't swear is a weirdo,' said Dr Jay.

He has heard 10,000 people swear in public, with the f-word and sh*t making up half of US curses.

Meanwhile, British linguist Tony McEnery admires the f-word's ability to be inserted into words such as 'absolutely', as in 'abso-f**king-lutely'.

To make a good swear word, say experts, it has to be frowned upon, be insulting and have a powerful sound. That's why the f-word works so well.

Despite efforts by moral crusaders to stamp out swearing, the scientists say it is hard-wired into people's brains.

Some hospital patients have been able to say only swear words after a stroke.

At one point, French poet Charles Baudelaire could say only 'Cré nom', meaning 'God damn'. His nurses sent him home and asked for an exorcism

Quoted from http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=80579&in_page_id=34&ito=newsnow:

Why four little letters mean so much | Metro.co.uk

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Monkeys and college students equal at mental math?

 

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Monkeys performed about as well as college students at mental addition, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a finding that suggests nonverbal math skills are not unique to humans.

The research from Duke University follows the finding by Japanese researchers earlier this month that young chimpanzees performed better than human adults at a memory game.

Prior studies have found non-human primates can match numbers of objects, compare numbers and choose the larger number of two sets of objects.

"This is the first study that looked at whether or not they could make explicit decisions that were based on mathematical types of calculations," said Jessica Cantlon, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at Duke, whose work appeared in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Biology (www.plosbiology.org).

"It shows when you take language away from a human, they end up looking just like monkeys in terms of their performance," Cantlon said in a telephone interview.

Her study pitted the monkey math team of Boxer and Feinstein -- two female macaque monkeys named for U.S. senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California -- with 14 Duke University students.

"We had them do math on the fly," Cantlon said.

The task was to mentally add two sets of dots that were briefly flashed on a computer screen. The teams were asked to pick the correct answer from two choices on a different screen.

The humans were not allowed to count or verbalize as they worked, and they were told to answer as quickly as possible. Both monkeys and humans typically answered within 1 second.

And both groups fared about the same.

Cantlon said the study was not designed to show up Duke University students. "I think of this more as using non-human primates as a tool for discovering where the sophisticated human mind comes from," she said.

The researchers said the findings shed light on the shared mathematical abilities in humans and non-human primates and shows the importance of language -- which allows for counting and more advanced calculations -- in the evolution of math in humans.

"I don't think language is the only thing that differentiates humans from non-human primates, but in terms of math tasks, it is probably the big one," she said.

As for the teams, both were paid. Boxer and Feinstein got their favorite reward: a sip of Kool-Aid soft drink. As for the students, they got $10 each -- enough for a beer or two.

(Editing by Sandra Maler)

Monkeys and college students equal at mental math? | Oddly Enough | Reuters

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Music makes children brainier, more agile, expert stresses

Hamburg, Germany - Not only does it soothe the savage beast, but music also makes unruly children calmer while at the same time honing their facilities for cognitive skills and physical coordination, according to a leading expert. A mother's soft lullaby, granddad's whistling or granny's humming in the kitchen or the dulcet tones of father singing in the shower - all of these seemingly innocuous musical activities serve to help an infant not only in acquiring linguistic skills, but also in learning how human beings interact on a social level.

"Experiments have shown that unborn babies in the womb appear to relax in response to certain music and also that they seem to recognize this music after birth," says Professor Michael Schulte- Markwort, head of child psychology at Hamburg's University Hospital in Germany.

"From the outset, music helps the language centres in the brain to develop so that children who have been exposed to music at an early age tend to learn to speak earlier than those who are born into non- musical homes," he says.

"Music also helps in the development of motor skills while at the same time reducing tension," says Dr Schulte-Markwort.

"Learning the tunes and lyrics to songs also aids in developing memory skills for other tasks," he adds.

Rhythm and dancing also skills young muscles in coordination so that musical children are healthier and better coordinated than children whose parents never teach them to sing and dance and play a simple drum or other instrument.

"Children develop a feel for musical tones and associate certain tone patterns with certain rhythms," he points out.

"As soon as they learn to walk, they also begin to move rhythmically in time to musical stimuli and thus automatically begin to dance. Good and attentive parents naturally encourage their offspring to sing and dance rhythmically," he adds.

"That is why pre-schoolers should engage in games involving rhythmic movement and dancing, games that encourage children to clap in time with the beat or to beat out the rhythm on simple percussion instruments such as bells and chimes and little drums," says Schulte- Markwort.

Age five or six is ideal for teaching children to play a musical instrument because their minds are most receptive to learning the skills involved.

"If they have already been exposed to music and to rudimentary instruments, then at about age five or six they will think of learning to play an instrument as a kind of a game," he says.

"We are not talking about the violin or bassoon, which involve very fine motor skills, and we are also not talking about tedious piano lessons which bore young minds. But instead we are talking about simple flutes and other instruments which produce a melodic sound easily and enjoyably," he says.

"It is important to remember the fun factor. Singing, dancing and playing musical instruments must first and foremost be fun for children," he stresses.

Quoted from http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/159814.html:

Music makes children brainier, more agile, expert stresses : Health

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Brain 'irrelevance filter' found

Scientists believe they have located a new brain area essential for good memory - the "irrelevance filter".

People who are good at remembering things, even with distractions, have more activity in the basal ganglia on brain scans, the Swedish team found.

The work in Nature Neuroscience could help explain why some people are better at remembering things than others.

Clinically, it could also aid the understanding of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The ability to hold information in the mind so that it is immediately accessible is known as working memory.

We use working memory all of the time - for example, when doing a simple maths calculation in our head or recalling a telephone number.

There will be many brain regions that filter irrelevant information, so it is too early to tell if these findings will have a bearing on conditions such as ADHD John Duncan Medical Research Council scientist

Working memory is important because it gives a mental workspace in which we can hold information whilst mentally engaged in other relevant tasks, which is crucial for learning.

Its capacity is limited and seems to vary from person to person.

These variations are not just due to having a larger or smaller memory store, but also due to differences in how effectively irrelevant items are kept out of memory, the Karolinksa Institute researchers believe.

Distracters

Dr Torkel Klingberg and colleague Fiona McNab used a special brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track what was happening in the brains of 25 healthy volunteers.

The volunteers were asked to perform a computer-based task that required them to respond to target visual images, with or without distractions.

A noise informed subjects when an upcoming visual display would contain irrelevant distracters along with the targets.

When this cue occurred, neural activity increased in the basal ganglia and the prefrontal cortex before the visual display appeared, suggesting the brain was preparing to "filter out" the upcoming distracters.

Also, greater activity in a specific part of the basal ganglia - the globus pallidus - correlated with less unnecessary storage in another part of the brain, the posterior parietal cortex, which is sensitive to the amount of information held in memory.

The team is currently investigating methods of improving attention and working memory in children with ADHD and monitoring any changes with fMRI.

Medical Research Council scientist John Duncan said: "This is very interesting work and gives a window on important parts of the brain.

"The basal ganglia are very strong candidates for involvement in brain disorders where people have difficulty with attentional control.

"But there will be many brain regions that filter irrelevant information, so it is too early to tell if these findings will have a bearing on conditions such as ADHD."

Quoted from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7132829.stm:

BBC NEWS | Health | Brain 'irrelevance filter' found

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Kangaroo farts could ease global warming

AUSTRALIAN scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, researchers say.

Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide, livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries.

"Fourteen per cent of emissions from all sources in Australia is from enteric methane from cattle and sheep,'' said Athol Klieve, a senior research scientist with the Queensland Government.

"And if you look at another country such as New Zealand, which has got a much higher agricultural base, they're actually up around 50 per cent,'' he said.

Researchers say the bacteria also makes the digestive process much more efficient and could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers.

"Not only would they not produce the methane, they would actually get something like 10 to 15 per cent more energy out of the feed they are eating,'' said Mr Klieve.

Even farmers who laugh at the idea of environmentally friendly kangaroo farts say that's nothing to joke about, particularly given the devastating drought Australia is suffering.

"In a tight year like a drought situation, 15 per cent would be a considerable sum,'' said farmer Michael Mitton.

But it will take researchers at least three years to isolate the bacteria, before they can even start to develop a way of transferring it to cattle and sheep.

Another group of scientists, meanwhile, has suggested Australians should farm fewer cattle and sheep and just eat more kangaroos.

The idea is controversial, but about 20 per cent of health-conscious Australians are believed to eat the national symbol already.

"It's low in fat, it's got high protein levels it's very clean in the sense that basically it's the ultimate free range animal,'' said Peter Ampt of the University of New South Wales's institute of environmental studies.

"It doesn't get drenched, it doesn't get vaccinated, it utilises food right across the landscape, it moves around to where the food is good, so yes, it's a good food.''

It might take a while for kangaroos to become popular barbecue fare, but with concern over global warming growing in the world's driest inhabited continent, Australians could soon be ready to try almost anything to cut emissions.

 

Quoted from http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22879895-13762,00.html:

Kangaroo farts could ease global warming | NEWS.com.au

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'Beer fridges' present a gassy problem

Getting rid of vintage “beer fridges” – secondary fridges which many North American and Australian homes boast – could have a significant impact on household greenhouse gas emissions, suggests a new study.

Beer fridges are additional fridges that are generally used to keep beer and other drinks cold on top of a household’s primary fridge for food. One in three Canadian households has a second fridge, many of which are ageing, energy-guzzling models, according to Denise Young, a researcher at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Young suggests that getting rid of older models, in Canada at least, would have an impact on energy usage. Her study analyses industry data and the results of a national survey to look at the environmental effects of having beer fridges in Canada.

"People need to understand the impact of their lifestyles," says Joanna Yarrow, director of Beyond Green, a sustainable development consultancy in the UK. "Clearly the environmental implications of having a frivolous luxury like a beer fridge are not hitting home. This research helps inform people – let's hope it has an effect".

 

High demands

The survey that Young analysed was commissioned by Natural Resources Canada and suggests that 30% of households have two or more refrigerators. About 20% of secondary fridges are older models that are kept after the household buys a newer model as their primary refrigerator.

Having a second fridge for cooling drinks means more demand for electricity, and this demand is even worse when the second fridge is an older model.

The Canadian Appliance Manufacturers Association estimates that typical 1985 refrigerator models use 1060 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy per year, while a 1975 model uses 1580 kWh per year. In contrast, more recent and energy-efficient models can use as little as 380 kWh per year.

The survey shows that in 2003 about 65% of beer fridges were more than 10 years old. About 30% were at least twice that age.

Using the survey's information on the distribution of beer fridges and the data on energy consumption, Young calculated that the 65% of beer fridges that are 10 years or older consume 1165.7 million kWh of energy each year – roughly equivalent to the annual consumption of 100,000 average US suburban homes.

By abandoning beer fridges altogether, Canada's 11.5 million households could save 3500 million kWh each year, says Young.

 

Class divide

Young also found that low-income families were less likely to retire their old refrigerators to the garage to store drinks after buying a new model. She says this is probably because these households find the cost of running an additional fridge (up to $150 per year) too high.

She concludes that middle- to high-income families should be targeted by campaigns to remove old secondary refrigerators. Existing schemes encourage people to buy new more energy-efficient fridges by offering financial bonuses for each purchase – sometimes with a cash-back offer for handing in older fridges.

Young warns, however, that "these financial incentives may also induce a household to purchase a new unit earlier than they would have otherwise done so", which can actually encourage people to keep a second fridge.

Instead, Young supports government-run "round-ups" offering to pick up and dispose of old refrigerators. A 2006 study commissioned by the Ontario Power Authority showed that such programmes have been successful in the past, especially when they are boosted by information on how much money and energy can be saved by getting rid of the beer fridge.

But environmental effect of beer fridges depends on the source of electricity. "In Canada, there are major regional differences," notes Young. "In places where hydroelectric power is used, the greenhouse gas emissions are negligible. In places where coal or natural gas are used, the impacts can be substantial."

She calculates that a 1975 fridge in British Columbia – where most electricity comes from hydropower – is responsible for a negligible increase in emissions. But the same fridge in Alberta, where electricity is primarily generated from natural gas and coal, would be responsible for 1.4 tons of greenhouse gases every year.

 

Quoted from http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12975-beer-fridges-present-a-gassy-problem.html:

'Beer fridges' present a gassy problem - earth - 28 November 2007 - New Scientist Environment

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Honey, I doomed the universe

ASTRONOMERS may have unwittingly hastened the end of the Universe by simply looking at it, according to a theory reported in the latest edition of New Scientist.

The novel idea is being aired by two US physicists, who attack the notion that the universe, believed to have been created in the "Big Bang'' some 13.7 billion years ago, will go on, well, forever.

In fact, the poor old cosmos is in a rather delicate state, they say.

Until recently, a common idea was that the energy unleashed in the Big Bang happened when a "false vacuum'' - a bubble of high energy with repulsive gravity - broke down into a safe, zero-energy "ordinary'' vacuum.

But recent evidence has emerged that places a cosmic question-mark over this cosy thought.

For one thing, cosmologists have discovered that the Universe is still expanding.

And, they believe, a strange, yet-to-be-detected form of energy called dark energy pervades the universe, which would explain why the sum of all the visible sources of energy fall way short of what should be out there.

Dark energy, goes the thinking, is a result of the Big Bang and is accelerating the universe's expansion.

If so, the universe is not in a nice, stable zero-vacuum state but simply another "false vacuum'' state that may abruptly decay again - and with cataclysmic consequences.

The energy shift from the decay would destroy everything in the universe, "wiping the slate clean", says Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

The good news is: the longer the universe survives, the better the chance that it will mature into a stable state. We are just beyond the crucial switching point, Mr Krauss believed.

The bad news is: the quantum effect, a truly weird aspect of physics that says whenever we observe or measure something, we reset its clock.

Mr Krauss and colleague James Dent pointed to measurements of light from supernovae in 1998 that provided the first evidence of dark energy.

These measurements might have reset the decay clock of the "false vacuum'' back to zero, back before the switching point and to a time when the risk of catastrophic decay was greater than now, said Mr Dent and Mr Krauss.

"Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life expectancy of the universe,'' said Mr Krauss.

"We may have snatched away the possibility of long-term survival for our universe and made it more likely it will decay.''

The report says the claim is contested by other astrophysicists and adds reassuringly: "The fact that we are still here means this can't have happened yet.''

Quoted from http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22801758-5005962,00.html:

AdelaideNow... Honey, I doomed the universe

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Attack Plane Taranis Can Fly Without Pilot

Pilotless Plane Can Launch Own Attacks

By Geoff Meade
Defence correspondent
Updated:09:31, Friday November 02, 2007

 

It sounds like something straight out of a Terminator film script.

Future air battles may be fought by robots with minimum human input.

Attack plane has no pilot

 

The Ministry of Defence is spending £124m developing a prototype of Britain's first unmanned fighter-bomber.

Named Taranis after the Celtic god of thunder, the sinister bat-wing shape will be the size of one of the Red Arrows' Hawk display jets. Its range will be intercontinental.

It can carry bombs, missiles and canon. And, for the first time, it will be capable of shooting down other aircraft.

"This is a machine able to think for itself," said Chris Allam, project director at BAE Systems' top secretworks at Salmesbury, near Preston in Lancashire.

"It's a new generation of UAV (unmanned air vehicles). It won't need a pilot on the ground with a joystick. It will be assigned an area to operate in and then will acquire and track targets autonomously."

The prospect raises obvious fears. What if the deadly machine turned on its creators?

That's science fiction say the designers. "At no time will the machine be able to take the decision to release a weapon. That will always require human authorisation."

Although that may reassure flesh and blood pilots, there is strong lobbying for unmanned aviation.

A conventional fast jet costs £40,000 an hour to operate. Drones can be cheaper and - because no life is at stake - more expendable.

"They're valuable for operations that are dull - such as protracted surveillance - dirty, operating in a contaminated environment or dangerous, where there's heavy anti-aircraft fire," explained aviation writer Jon Lake. "But their sensors are far inferior to a human being's whose eye can take in detail in an instant."

I was the first TV journalist to be allowed inside the factory to see the first metal being cut on the prototype.

The builders are justly proud of a project which restores Britain to the premiership of aerospace innovation. It should fly within two years and could be operational in ten.

The French are developing a similar weapon, whilst America is building a solar-powered plane to stay aloft for a year.

This really could be the rise of the machines.

Quoted from http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1291122,00.html?f=rss:

Attack Plane Taranis Can Fly Without Pilot |Sky News|UK News

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Device created for 'red wine headache'

By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Writer

Thu Nov 1, 11:02 PM ET

BERKELEY, Calif. - The effects are all too familiar: a fancy dinner, some fine wine and then, a few hours later, a racing heart and a pounding headache. But a device developed by University of California, Berkeley, researchers could help avoid the dreaded "red wine headache."

Chemists working with NASA-funded technology designed to find life on Mars have created a device they say can easily detect chemicals that many scientists believe can turn wine and other beloved indulgences into ingredients for agony.

The chemicals, called biogenic amines, occur naturally in a wide variety of aged, pickled and fermented foods prized by gourmet palates, including wine, chocolate, cheese, olives, nuts and cured meats.

"The food you eat is so unbelievably coupled with your body's chemistry," said Richard Mathies, who described his new technology in an article published Thursday in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

Scientists have nominated several culprits for "red wine headache," including amines like tyramine and histamine, though no conclusions have been reached. Still, many specialists warn headache sufferers away from foods rich in amines, which can also trigger sudden episodes of high blood pressure, heart palpitations and elevated adrenaline levels.

The detector could prove useful to those with amine sensitivity, said Beverly McCabe, a clinical dietitian and co-author of "Handbook of Food-Drug Interactions," a book cited by the article for its descriptions of the effects of amines on the brain.

The prototype — the size of a small briefcase — uses a drop of wine to determine amine levels in five minutes, Mathies said. A startup company he co-founded is working to create a smaller device the size of a personal digital assistant that people could take to restaurants and test their favorite wines.

The researchers found the highest amine levels in red wine and sake and the lowest in beer. For now, the device only works with liquids.

Mathies suggests the device could be used to put amine levels on wine labels.

"We're aware of the consumer demand for information. But that has to be tempered by the manner in which wine is made," said Wendell Lee, general counsel for the Wine Institute, a California industry trade group.

   

Quoted from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071102/ap_on_he_me/wine_test;_ylt=AjejD23s7v4PYcUuF9vW9Xus0NUE:

Device created for 'red wine headache' - Yahoo! News

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Beer after sport 'is good for the body'

By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent

Last Updated: 5:01pmGMT01/11/2007

A beer after playing a game of football, a long run, or a strenuous round of golf can be good for the body, scientists say.
Kevin Pietersen relaxes with a cold beer after a hard game of cricket

In a rare piece of good news for those who like a pint, Spanish researchers say beer can help someone who is dehydrated retain liquid better than water.

Prof Manuel Garzon, of Granada University, also claimed the bubbles in beer help to quench the thirst and that its carbohydrate content can help to replace lost calories.

Prof Garzon asked a group of students to do strenuous exercise in temperatures of around 40ºC (104ºF). Half were given a pint of beer, while the others received the same volume of water.

Prof Garzon, who announced the results at a press conference in Granada beneath a banner declaring "Beer, Sport, Health", said the hydration effect in those who drank beer was "slightly better".

Juan Antonio Corbalan, a cardiologist who worked formerly with Real Madrid football players and Spain's national basketball team, said beer had the perfect profile for re-hydration after sport.

He added that he had long recommended barley drinks to professional sportsmen after exercise.

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Previous studies have shown most alcoholic drinks have a diuretic effect – meaning they increase the amount of liquid lost by the body through urination.

Dr James Betts, an expert on nutrition and metabolism at Bath University, said a moderate amount of beer might be just as good as water at helping the body retain liquid, but that he doubted it could be any better.

Dr Betts said: "If you are dehydrated to start with following exercise, a beer, as opposed to a spirit, probably does not have a high enough concentration of alcohol to induce a diuretic effect."

  

Quoted from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/01/scibeer101.xml:

Beer after sport 'is good for the body' - Telegraph

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Can food really turn you on?

 

By Jane Black , Tango Magazine (www.tangomag.com)

The other day, when I told my boyfriend, Sean, that I was going to be doing a little research on aphrodisiacs, he was surprisingly keen to help out.

"I'll buy the bacon," he said.

"Bacon is not an aphrodisiac," I said.

"Wanna bet?" he challenged.

Sean loves bacon - and, come to think of it, it did seem to put him in the mood for love. (On reflection, I realized that I had unconsciously begun incorporating it into more and more meals, wrapping thin strips around chunks of cod and adding crispy bits to pasta sauces.)

But can food produce sexual desire? Or, to put it another way, do aphrodisiacs actually exist?

Many people think so. An online poll conducted by sex therapist Linda De Villers found that strawberries, ice cream, pasta and whipped cream are the four foods most commonly associated with lust. But according to Martha Hopkins, coauthor of "The New InterCourses: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook," there are no real aphrodisiacs.

"Still," she laughs, "whatever makes you groan when you eat it counts."

If you think about it, a greasy slab of cured pork belly is no odder than many other foods that have historically been considered aphrodisiacs: asparagus, artichokes, avocados, bananas, black beans, chili peppers, figs, licorice and pine nuts have all been hailed for their ability to arouse desire.

In renaissance Europe, women were forbidden to eat artichokes, which according to legend had been created when the Greek god Zeus transformed a young maiden into the spiky vegetable. As a result, they were prescribed to men to improve their bedroom performance.

Of history's most famous aphrodisiacs, only chocolate and oysters still hold claim to their sensual reputation.

While the physical suggestion of sex may be enough for some, modern research shows that some classic aphrodisiacs can stimulate desire - and increase performance. Oysters, for example, contain high levels of zinc, which has been associated with increased sexual potency in men.

The smell of food, too, can elicit sexual feelings, according to research by Alan Hirsch, the neurological director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. Having noticed that people who lost their sense of smell also had a diminished sexual appetite.

Men responded to all of the aromas. But the top spot went to a blend of pumpkin pie and lavender, which increased blood flow 40 percent of the time. Runners-up were doughnuts with black licorice (31.5 percent) and pumpkin pie with doughnuts (20 percent).

Women, in contrast, responded most to the blend of cucumber and licorice - two traditional aphrodisiacs - and the scent of baby powder. But perhaps more revealing were the three scents that turned women off: cherries, barbecued meat and men's cologne. So much for the thrill of the grill.

In the end, Sean was right. Aphrodisiacs are personal. He loves bacon, while my friend James can't think of anything sexier than Nutella, that thick chocolate-hazelnut spread that is "perfect for feeding each other," he says.

And for "InterCourses" author Hopkins, the sexiest food is grilled asparagus dipped in her French boyfriend's homemade mayonnaise. But, she adds, the greatest turn-on of all is when he cooks, and then does the dishes.

"If you think it's an aphrodisiac, it always works," Hopkins says. So pour the champagne, grill asparagus or feed your true love strawberries.

At my house, we'll be eating heart-shaped waffles and a (hearty) side of bacon.

SunJournal.com - Can food really turn you on?

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New Treatment Brings Patients Back From The Dead

PHILADELPHIA Doctors in Philadelphia are testing a revolutionary new treatment that is restoring life and bringing people back from the dead. CBS Station KYW-TV in Philadelphia Medical Reporter Stephanie Stahl has details.

During cardiac arrest, the heart stops beating. It's a trauma alert and people are often declared dead within minutes.

But now doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital are bringing people back from the dead.

Dr. Lance Becker and his team are challenging fate with breakthrough new treatments that could save hundreds of thousands of lives.

61-year-old Bill Bondar is living proof that people can be brought back from the dead.

"I didn't know I died, I didn't feel anything, I still don't believe it," Bill said.

"I looked at his face, and I was looking at a dead man," Bill's wife Monica said.

It happened just after the couple left a jam session. Bill collapsed outside their home, lifeless.

"That was the most frightening thing I ever saw in my life and I knew my husband was gone. He was gone," said Monica.

Paramedics were able to restart his heart, but that's just part of the battle. Cells continue to die, and there can be damage to vital organs like the brain, that could be fatal.

Bill ended up at Penn, where he got the new experimental treatment of chilled saline that's injected.

Cooling pads are then wrapped around a patient. The body temperature is normally 98 degrees, but cooling brings it down to 92 degrees. Doctors keep it there for about 24 hours. This process is called intentional hypothermia.

"It decreases cellular injury when the cells are deprived of oxygen, so with less injury we are able to do a better job of getting people back," said Dr. Becker.

A similar cooling therapy was used on Buffalo Bills football player Kevin Everett, after a devastating spinal cord injury. He's now able to move after getting a quick infusion of cold saline.

But Dr. Becker said the cooling therapy needs to be faster, so they're developing a slushy type saline that contains ice particles. It would be injected into the blood stream to quickly reduce body temperature.

"We really believe that that is going to save lives in a way that we haven't even seen," said Dr. Becker.

"I feel lucky," said Bill.

After being dead for a few minutes back in May, Bill along with Monica are now back to enjoying their boating life, with a whole new perspective.

"Our grasp on life is so tenuous. It's so fragile that it doesn't really matter what you worry about tomorrow because you might not have it. You have to live as if you're going to die tomorrow," said Monica.

Bill now has an internal defibrillator and is taking medications.

The experimental cooling treatment at HUP can only be used on certain patients. But doctors expect it will eventually become a critical standard of care for saving lives.

 

Quoted from http://wcco.com/health/health_story_271115428.html:

wcco.com - New Treatment Brings Patients Back From The Dead

 

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Radio burst from space mystifies astronomers

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Astronomers who stumbled upon a powerful burst of radio waves said on Thursday they had never seen anything like it before, and it could offer a new way to search for colliding stars or dying black holes.

They were searching for pulsars -- a type of rotating compacted neutron star that sends out rhythmic pulses of radiation -- when they spotted the giant radio signal.

It was extremely brief but very strong, and appears to have come from about 3 billion light-years away -- a light-year being the distance light travels in a year, or about 6 trillion miles.

"This burst appears to have originated from the distant universe and may have been produced by an exotic event such as the collision of two neutron stars or the death throes of an evaporating black hole," said Duncan Lorimer of West Virginia University and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Writing in the journal Science, Lorimer and colleagues said they were looking at old scans done by the Parkes radio telescope in Australia when they spotted the burst.

The burst appears to have lasted 5 milliseconds and may be the radio fingerprint of a single event such as a supernova or the collision of black holes, the astronomers said.

"This burst represents an entirely new astronomical phenomenon," Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University in Australia said in a statement.

Maura McLaughlin of West Virginia University said the event is probably not rare.

"We think there are probably many of these bursts every day that we are just not detecting because we don't have the right kind of surveys of the sky looking for them," McLaughlin said in a telephone interview.

While satellites are detecting x-ray and gamma-ray bursts with regular surveys of large portions of the sky, radiotelescopes generally focus on a very narrow field, she said.

"We are really not sure (what it is)," McLaughlin said.

"We think it has got to be some sort of catastrophic event happening in another galaxy -- like two stars colliding and merging or maybe a black hole. Something kind of exotic," she said.

It is, however, unlikely to be the extraterrestrial equivalent of "I Love Lucy" or other radio or television broadcast.

"It's much too bright. There is no way any civilization that we could possibly think of could create a thing so incredibly powerful," she said.

Quoted from Radio burst from space mystifies astronomers | Tech & Sci | Science | Reuters.com

 

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Parallel universe proof boosts time travel hopes

Science fiction looks closer to becoming science fact, reports Roger Highfield

Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists that sweeps away one of the key objections to the mind boggling and controversial idea.

The work has wider implications since the idea of parallel universes sidesteps one of the key problems with time travel. Every since it was given serious lab cred in 1949 by the great logician Kurt Godel, many eminent physicists have argued against time travel because it undermines ideas of cause and effect to create paradoxes: a time traveller could go back to kill his grandfather so that he is never born in the first place.

But the existence of parallel worlds offers a way around these troublesome paradoxes, according to David Deutsch of Oxford University, a highly respected proponent of quantum theory, the deeply mathematical, successful and baffling theory of the atomic world.

He argues that time travel shifts between different branches of reality, basing his claim on parallel universes, the so-called "many-worlds" formulation of quantum theory.

The new work bolsters his claim that quantum theory does not forbid time travel. "It does sidestep it. You go into another universe," he said yesterday, though he admits that there is still a way to go to find schemes to manipulate space and time in a way that makes time hops possible.

"Many sci fi authors suggested time travel paradoxes would be solved by parallel universes but in my work, that conclusion is deduced from quantum theory itself", Dr Deutsch said, referring to his work on many worlds.

The mathematical idea of parallel worlds was first glimpsed by the great quantum pioneer, Erwin Schrodinger, but actually published in 1957 by Hugh Everett III, when wrestling with the problem of what actually happens when an observation is made of something of interest - such as an electron or an atom - with the intention of measuring its position or its speed.

In the traditional brand of quantum mechanics, a mathematical object called a wave function, which contains all possible outcomes of a measurement experiment, "collapses" to give a single real outcome.

Everett came up with a more audacious interpretation: the universe is constantly and infinitely splitting, so that no collapse takes place. Every possible outcome of an experimental measurement occurs, each one in a parallel universe.

If one accepts Everett's interpretation, our universe is embedded in an infinitely larger and more complex structure called the multiverse, which as a good approximation can be regarded as an ever-multiplying mass of parallel universes.

Every time there is an event at the quantum level - a radioactive atom decaying, for example, or a particle of light impinging on your retina - the universe is supposed to "split" into different universes.

A motorist who has a near miss, for instance, might feel relieved at his lucky escape. But in a parallel universe, another version of the same driver will have been killed. Yet another universe will see the motorist recover after treatment in hospital. The number of alternative scenarios is endless.

In this way, the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics allows a time traveller to alter the past without producing problems such as the notorious grandfather paradox.

But the "many worlds" idea has been attacked, with one theoretician joking that it is "cheap on assumptions but expensive on universes" and others that it is "repugnant to common sense."

Now new research confirms Prof Deutsch's ideas and suggests that Dr Everett, who was a Phd student at Princeton University when he came up with the theory, was on the right track.

Commenting in New Scientist magazine, Prof Andy Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California, Davis, said of the link between probability and many worlds: "This work will go down as one of the most important developments in the history of science."

Quantum mechanics describes the strange things that happen in the subatomic world - such as the way photons and electrons behave both as particles and waves. By one interpretation, nothing at the subatomic scale can really be said to exist until it is observed.

Until then, particles occupy nebulous "superposition" states, in which they can have simultaneous "up" and "down" spins, or appear to be in different places at the same time.

According to quantum mechanics, unobserved particles are described by "wave functions" representing a set of multiple "probable" states. When an observer makes a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple options.

But the many worlds idea offers an alternative view. Dr Deutsch showed mathematically that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes. This work was attacked but it has now had rigorous confirmation by David Wallace and Simon Saunders, also at Oxford.

Dr Saunders, who presented the work with Wallace at the Many Worlds at 50 conference at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, told New Scientist: "We've cleared up the obscurities and come up with a pretty clear verdict that Everett works. It's a dramatic turnaround and it means that people now have to discuss Everett seriously."

Dr Deutsch added that the work addresses a three-century-old problem with the idea of probability itself, described by one philosopher, Prof David Papineau, as a scandal. "We didn't really know what probability means," said Dr Deutsch.

There's a convention that it's rational to treat it for most purposes as if we knew it was going to happen even though we actually know it need not. But this does not capture the reality, not least the 0.1 per cent chance something will not happen.

"So," said Dr Deutsch, "the problems of probability, which were until recently considered the principal objection to the otherwise extremely elegant theory of Everett (which removes every element of mysticism and double-talk that have crept into quantum theory over the decades) have now turned into its principal selling point."

 

Quoted from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/09/21/sciuni121.xml:

Parallel universe proof boosts time travel hopes - Telegraph

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Stinky? It's not his sweat, it's your nose

 

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - When it comes to a man's body odor, the fragrance -- or stench -- is in the nose of the beholder, according to U.S. researchers who suggest a single gene may determine how people perceive body odor.

The study, published online on Sunday in the journal Nature, helps explain why the same sweaty man can smell like vanilla to some, like urine to others and for about a third of adults, have no smell at all.

"This is the first time that any human odorant receptor is associated with how we experience odors," Hiroaki Matsunami of Duke University in North Carolina said in a telephone interview.

Matsunami and colleagues at Duke and Rockefeller University in New York focused on the chemical androstenone, which is created when the body breaks down the male sex hormone testosterone.

Androstenone is in the sweat of men and women, but it is more highly concentrated in men. How one perceives its smell appears to have a lot to do with variations in one odor receptor gene called OR7D4.

"It is well known that people have different perceptions to androstenone. But people didn't know what was the basis of it," Matsunami said.

To find out, researchers in Matsunami's lab tested sweat chemicals on most of the 400 known odor receptors used by the nose to sniff out smells and chemicals.

They found the OR7D4 gene reacted strongly with the sex steroid androstenone. Next, they tested whether variations in this gene had an impact on how people perceived the smell of androstenone in male sweat.

They took blood samples and sequenced the DNA of 400 people who participated in a smell perception test done in Leslie Vosshall's lab at Rockefeller.

What they found is slight genetic variations determine whether androstenone has a pungent smell, a sweet, vanilla-like smell or no smell at all.

The role of androstenone is not well understood in humans, but in pigs it sends a powerful sex signal that puts sows in the mood for love.

"It facilitates the courtship behavior in females," Matsunami said.

"There is some evidence published showing this chemical can modify the mood or hormone levels in humans," he said. "What we don't know is whether the receptor we found was in any way involved in this process."

He and colleagues will further study this aspect to understand how smelling these chemicals might affect human social and sexual behavior.

Stinky? It's not his sweat, it's your nose

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Mirror particles form new matter

By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Fragile particles rarely seen in our Universe have been merged with ordinary electrons to make a new form of matter.

Di-positronium, as the new molecule is known, was predicted to exist in 1946 but has remained elusive to science.

Now, a US team has created thousands of the molecules by merging electrons with their antimatter equivalent: positrons.

The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, is a key step in the creation of ultra-powerful lasers known as gamma-ray annihilation lasers.

"The difference in the power available from a gamma-ray laser compared to a normal laser is the same as the difference between a nuclear explosion and a chemical explosion," said Dr David Cassidy of the University of California, Riverside, and one of the authors of the paper.

"It would have an incredibly high power density."

As a result, there is a huge interest in the technology from the military as well as energy researchers who believe the lasers could be used to kick-start nuclear fusion in a reactor.

Mirror world

Di-positronium was first predicted to exist by theoretical physicist John Wheeler and its component atoms - positronium - were first isolated in 1951.

These short-lived, hydrogen-like atoms consist of an electron and a positron, a positively charged antiparticle.

Antiparticles are the mirror image of ordinary particles.

There is an antiparticle for each type of particle in the Universe. For example, a positively charged proton has a corresponding negatively charged antiproton.

Conventional thinking states that both antimatter and matter should have been created in equal quantities at the birth of the Universe.

The dominance of matter in our world is one of science's most enduring mysteries.

Antimatter only makes fleeting appearances in our Universe when high-energy particle collisions take place, such as when cosmic rays impact the Earth's atmosphere. They are also made in the lab in particle accelerators such as Europe's nuclear research facility, Cern.

These appearances are always short lived because antiparticles are destroyed when they collide with normal matter. The meeting leaves a trace, often as high energy x-rays or gamma-rays.

These emissions are used today in PET (positron emission tomography) scanners to study activity in the brain.

Short lives

The transient nature of antiparticles has made creating and studying di-positronium problematic.

"We've known about this molecule; we're not surprised that it exists but it's taken us more than 50 years to create it in the lab," said Dr Cassidy.

To make the molecule, Dr Cassidy and his team used a specially designed trap to store millions of the positrons.

A burst of 20 million were then focused and blasted at a porous silica "sponge".

"It's like having a trickle of water filling up a bath and then you empty it out and you get a big flush," said Dr Cassidy.

As the positrons rushed into the voids they were able to capture electrons to form atoms. Where atoms met, they formed molecules.

"All we are really doing is implanting lot of positrons into the smallest spot we can, in the shortest time, and hoping that some of them can see each other," said Dr Cassidy.

By measuring the gamma-rays that signalled their annihilation, the team estimated that up to 100,000 of the molecules formed, albeit for just a quarter of a nanosecond (billionth of a second).

Laser beam

Dr Cassidy believes that increasing the density of the positronium in the silicon would create an exotic state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).

BECs are usually produced by supercooling atoms so that they merge and begin to behave like one giant atom.

They have been used in many experiments such as the 2003 Harvard study in which scientists were able to trap light.

"At even higher densities, one might expect the material to become a regular, crystalline solid," wrote Professor Clifford Surko, of the University of Californian, San Diego, in an accompanying article.

Taking it one step further, scientists could use the spontaneous annihilation of the BEC, and the subsequent outburst of gamma-rays, to make a powerful laser.

"A gamma-ray laser is the kind of thing that if it existed people would find new uses for it everyday," said Dr Cassidy.

He highlighted an experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the US where scientists are using 196 lasers to heat a fuel target to try to kick-start nuclear fusion.

"Imagine doing that but you no longer need hundreds of lasers," he said.

Technorati Tags:Cool,Science,Universe

Earth Might Survive Sun’s Explosion

By DENNIS OVERBYE

What happens to planets when their stars age and die?

That’s not an academic question. About five billion years from now, astronomers say, the Sun will run out of hydrogen fuel and swell temporarily more than 100 times in diameter into a so-called red giant, swallowing Mercury and Venus and dooming life on Earth, but perhaps not Earth itself.

Astronomers are announcing that they have discovered a planet that seems to have survived the puffing up of its home star, suggesting there is some hope that Earth could survive the aging and swelling of the Sun.

The newly discovered planet is a gas giant at least three times as massive as Jupiter. It orbits about 150 million miles from a faint star in the constellation Pegasus known as V 391 Pegasi. But before that star blew up as a red giant sometime in the past and lost half its mass, the planet must have been about as far from its star as the Earth is to the Sun — about 90 million miles — the astronomers led by Roberto Silvotti of the Observatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy, calculated.

Dr. Silvotti said that the results showed that a planet at the Earth’s distance “can survive” the red giant and he hoped the discovery would spur searches for more like it. “With some statistics and new detailed models we will be able to say something more even to the destiny of our Earth (which, as we all know, has much more urgent problems by the way),” he said in an e-mail message.

He and his colleagues report their results in Nature on Thursday.

In an accompanying commentary in Nature, Jonathan Fortney of NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Sunnyvale, Calif., wrote, “This system allows us to start examining what will happen to planets around stars such as our own Sun as they too evolve and grow old.”

The star V 391Pegasi is about 4,500 light years away and is now about half as massive as the Sun, burning helium into carbon. It will eventually sigh off another shell of gas and settle into eternal senescence as a “white dwarf.” Meanwhile, the star’s pulsations cause it to brighten and dim every 6 minutes.

After studying the star for seven years, Dr. Silvotti and his colleagues were able to discern subtle modulations in the 6-minute cycle, suggesting that it was being tugged to and fro over a three-year period by a massive planet. “Essentially the observers are using the star as a clock, as if it were a G.P.S. satellite moving around the planet,” explained Fred Rasio, of Northwestern University, who was not involved in the research.

This is not the first time that a pulsing star has been used as such a clock. In 1992, astronomers using the same technique detected a pair of planets (or their corpses) circling the pulsar PSR1257+12.

And , today, X-ray astronomers from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced they had detected the remains of a star that had been whittled by radiation down to planetary mass circling a pulsar in the constellation Sagittarius. Those systems have likely endured supernova explosions.

The Pegasus planet has had to survive relatively less lethal conditions, although it must have had a bumpy ride over its estimated 10 billion years of existence. Alan Boss, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said “stellar evolution can be a wild ride for a planet that is trying to survive, especially inner planets like Earth.”

When our own Sun begins to graduate from a hydrogen-burning “main sequence” star to a red giant, two effects will compete to determine the Earth’s fate, the astronomers explain. On one hand, as the Sun blows off mass in order to conserve angular momentum, the Earth will retreat to a more distant, safer orbit. But at the same time tidal forces between the Earth and the expanding star will try to drag the planet inward where it could be engulfed. The latter effect, in particular, is difficult to compute.

As a result, said Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute, of the inner planets, “the Earth’s fate is actually the most uncertain because it is at the border line between being engulfed and surviving.”

A particularly dangerous time for Earth, Dr. Silvotti said, would be at the end of the red giant phase when the Sun’s helium ignites in an explosive flash. In the case of V 391 Pegasi, that explosion sent a large fraction of the star’s mass flying outward.

“This is another reason why the survival of a planet in a relatively close orbit is not trivial,” he said.

 

Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/science/space/12cnd-planet.html?ei=5090&en=2e3c30bc2beed102&ex=1347249600&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1189688477-s+T6k7PXPQeI1iKDt2Y1rg:

Earth Might Survive Sun’s Explosion - New York Times

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U.S. free of canine rabies virus

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal health experts declared a small victory against a fatal and untreatable virus on Friday, saying canine rabies has disappeared from the United States.

While dogs may still become infected from raccoons, skunks or bats, they will not catch dog-specific rabies from another dog, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

"We don't want to misconstrue that rabies has been eliminated -- dog rabies virus has been," CDC rabies expert Dr. Charles Rupprecht told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Rabies evolves to match the animals it infects, and the strain most specific to dogs has not been seen anywhere in the United States since 2004, Rupprecht said.

While the incubation period for rabies is as long as six years in humans, it is only six months in a dog.

"Even though we still live in a sea of rabies and even though we have rabies viruses circulating among raccoons and foxes and bats, the dog rabies virus, which is the most responsible for dog-to-dog transmission and which is still the greatest burden to humans ... it is that virus that has been eliminated."

Rabies kills 55,000 people a year globally, according to the World Health Organization. It is easily prevented with a vaccine, but many people do not realize they have been infected and once symptoms begin to show, it is almost impossible to treat.

Only one person -- a Wisconsin girl who was put into an intentional coma in 2004 -- has ever been known to have survived rabies infection.

Rupprecht said attempts to treat three victims in the United States and one in Canada have failed. The victims all died.

The virus can infect virtually all mammals, but like most viruses it evolves and can be "typed" genetically. Species-specific strains are well characterized for bats, raccoons and skunks for instance, as well as for dogs.

"A dog rabies is very different from a skunk rabies virus," Rupprecht said.

While cats are susceptible, Rupprecht said there is not a known rabies strain specific to domestic cats.

Mandatory vaccination has created what is known as herd immunity in U.S. dogs, Rupprecht said, and it will be vital to continue this to protect dogs -- and people -- from the virus.

"The elimination of canine rabies in the United States represents one of the major public health success stories in the last 50 years," CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said in a statement.

"However, there is still much work to be done to prevent and control rabies globally."

Canine rabies is still very common in many countries, including much of Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, India, China, the Philippines and elsewhere.

Some island nations such as Japan, New Zealand, Barbados, Fiji, Maldives, and Seychelles are rabies-free.

Greece, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Uruguay and Chile are also free of rabies.

Quoted from http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0741162020070907?pageNumber=2&rpc=92&sp=true:

U.S. free of canine rabies virus | U.S. | Reuters

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U.K. Approves Human-Animal Hybrids for Stem Cell Research

By Robert Hutton

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority approved the creation of human-animal hybrids for stem cell research.

The authority today gave the go-ahead to scientists at Newcastle University and King's College, London, who want to implant human genomes into animal eggs, a spokeswoman for the HFEA said in a telephone interview.

Officials gave an in-principle decision refusing to allow scientists to create ``hybrids'' or ``chimeras,'' the spokeswoman said. There are no applications currently to allow such work.

Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=a1oqWuDo2mHE&refer=uk:

Bloomberg.com: U.K. & Ireland

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