moonbuggy

‘Russian men are risking death by drinking aftershave and cleaning agents, a study has suggested.

UK researchers estimated that half of all deaths in working age men in the country are due to hazardous drinking.

The products, which also include herbal tinctures sold in pharmacies, are widely available, cheap and contain up to 97% alcohol, the Lancet study says.

It was found that they contain very few toxins but are deadly simply because of the extreme alcohol levels.

Russian men have an “exceptionally low” life expectancy of 59 years, compared with 72 years for women.’

‘Telling apart relatives from strangers is crucial in many animal species, helping them to share precious resources or avoid inbreeding. Now it seems that plants can perform the same trick.

Plants have already been shown to compete with others — of their own kind or of another species — when sharing space. For example, they sometimes choose to invest more energy in sprouting roots when they have nearby competition for water and nutrients.

Now, Susan Dudley and Amanda File of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, have shown that plants grown alongside unrelated neighbours are more competitive than those growing with their siblings — ploughing more energy into growing roots when their neighbours don’t share their genetic stock.’

‘A new report puts Google in last place when it comes to privacy protection. Despite recent moves to anonymize server logs and other pro-privacy gestures, Privacy International called the company “an endemic threat to privacy.”

Only Google earned the dismal “black” color bar from the group, which has just issued a report on Internet privacy that took six months to assemble [..]. The current report is preliminary; final results will be released in September.

The report rated top Internet companies on privacy issues and distilled the various results into a single color bar. Microsoft was two ranks up from Google, earning a curry-colored “serious lapses” rating. Amazon scored one level higher with its yellow “notable lapses” rank, and eBay did even better, earning a coveted blue bar. No company earned a top mark, however.’

‘More than a million animals, including elephants, buffaloes, ostriches, lions, giraffes and a rare type of stork, have been unexpectedly seen living and migrating across Southern Sudan, where no surveys of wildlife had been conducted for the past 25 years due to civil war in the region.

Decades of war wrought significant damage to the region, along with excessive hunting, desertification of the land and periodic droughts, so wildlife numbers were declining in the stricken country. Based on observations in other war-torn nations, conservationists thought the wildlife in Southern Sudan would be wiped out, but it wasn’t.

Officials told scientists they had seen herds of animals in the region.

“Although we were telling people that wildlife was still present in southern Sudan, nobody believed us,” said Maj. Gen. Alfred Akwoch, undersecretary of the Ministry of the Environment, Wildlife Conservation and Tourism for the government of Southern Sudan.’

‘With more than a billion people now sharing just 100 surnames, Chinese authorities are considering a landmark move to try to end the confusion, state media reported Tuesday.

Current Chinese law states that children are only allowed take the surname from either their mother or father, but the lack of variety means there are now 93 million people in China with the family name Wang. [..]

Under a new draft regulation released by the ministry of public security, parents will be able to combine their surnames for their children, a move that could open up 1.28 million new possibilities, the China Daily reported.’

‘New research shows that Australian children are becoming more anxious about themselves and the future of the planet.

The Australian Childhood Foundation survey of 600 children shows that more than half are scared there will not be enough water in the future.

The report also showed that more than a third of children were anxious about terrorism, were worried that one day they will have to fight in a war, and one in four believed the world will end before they reached adulthood.

The head of the foundation, Dr Joe Tucci, says this insecurity could have consequences for society.’

‘Most people know that nerves work by passing electrical currents from cell to cell. But you might be surprised to learn that no one knows exactly how anesthetics stop nerves from carrying pain signals.

That’s why two scientists believe that we really don’t know how nerves work after all.

According to their controversial theory, electricity is just a side effect of how nerves really operate: by conducting high-density waves of pressure that resemble sound reverberating through a pipe. [..]

The theory has not been well received. [..]’

‘Middle School student Kyleray Katherman had a hunch something was amiss with the school’s drinking fountain water. And right he was.

For an English assignment, he tested the bacteria content at four water fountains and one toilet to challenge a ban on students from bringing bottled water to class. It seems some were using it to sneak in alcohol.

Guess which was cleaner? It wasn’t the water fountains.

He then asked students where they would prefer to get their water. That wasn’t the fountains, either.

Classmates, teachers, administrators and board members said they had no idea.’

‘Contrary to the conventional wisdom, scientists have found that logging big dead trees after a wildfire and planting young ones makes future fires worse, at least for the first 10 or 20 years while the young trees create a volatile new source of fuel.

The findings by scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University raise questions about the long-standing practice of salvage logging on national forests at a time when global warming is expected to increase the size and numbers of wildfires and the annual cost of fighting them is running around $1 billion. [..]

They suggested that the large stands of closely packed young trees created by replanting are a much more volatile source of fuel for decades to come than the large dead trees that are cut down and hauled away in salvage logging operations.’

‘Scientists working to build a life form from scratch have applied to patent the broad method they plan to use to create their “synthetic organism”.

Dr Craig Venter, the man who led the private sector effort to sequence the human genome, has been working for years to create a man-made organism.

But constructing a primitive microbe from a kit of genes is a daunting task.

Dr Venter says, eventually, these life forms could be designed to make biofuels and absorb greenhouse gases.

The publication of the patent application has angered some environmentalists.’

‘The US military is developing a robot with a teddy bear-style head to help carry injured soldiers away from the battlefield.

The Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot (BEAR) can scoop up even the heaviest of casualties and transport them over long distances over rough terrain.

New Scientist magazine reports that the “friendly appearance” of the robot is designed to put the wounded at ease. [..]

While the existing prototype slides its arms under its burden like a forklift, future versions will be fitted with manoeuvrable hands to gently scoop up casualties.

The Bear is controlled remotely and has cameras and microphones through which an operator sees and hears.’

‘The green blood came as a bit of a shock to Dr. Alana Flexman and her colleagues when they tried to put an arterial line into a patient about to undergo surgery in Vancouver’s St. Paul’s Hospital. [..]

As surgical staff prepared the man for the middle-of-the-night emergency operation, Flexman and a colleague attempted to insert a line into a wrist artery.

Arterial lines are used to monitor blood pressure during an operation; any blood that flows when the line is inserted into the artery should be vivid red, the sign it has been oxygenated in the heart.

But in this case, which occurred in October 2005, it was not.’

‘A study in which teetotal Spanish nuns drank a regular half-liter of beer showed that beer may help reduce cholesterol levels, a group financed by the Spanish Beer Makers’ Association said on Thursday.

The study also showed that the beer did not need to contain alcohol or to be drunk in large quantities to be good for you.

The “magic” ingredient is hops.

“Hops, one of the basic components of beer, may provide benefits … in reducing levels of total cholesterol and triglycerides,” the Centre for Information on Beer and Health said in a statement.

The experiment did not appear to have won many new beer fans among the teetotal Cistercian nuns who took part, chosen on the basis of their steady lifestyle and balanced diet.’

‘A clean-cut vision of a future freed from the rat’s nest of cables needed to power today’s electronic gadgets has come one step closer to reality.

US researchers have successfully tested an experimental system to deliver power to devices without the need for wires.

The setup, reported in the journal Science, made a 60W light bulb glow from a distance of 2m (7ft).

WiTricity, as it is called, exploits simple physics and could be adapted to charge other devices such as laptops. [..]

Measurements showed that the setup could transfer energy with 40% efficiency across the gap.’

‘A major advance in understanding the genetics behind several of the world’s most common diseases has been reported.

The landmark Wellcome Trust study analysed DNA from the blood of 17,000 people to find genetic differences.

They found new genetic variants for depression, Crohn’s disease, coronary heart disease, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 and 2 diabetes.

The remarkable findings, published in Nature, have been hailed as a new chapter in medical science.

It is hoped they will pave the way for research into new treatments and genetic tests.’

‘Marine scientists in Canada and abroad are puzzled by bizarre photographs that appear to show the skeleton of a large mammal jutting out of an iceberg that recently drifted past Newfoundland’s east coast.

The six pictures show what looks like a brown rib cage and spinal column, slightly bent, sticking out of a crust of ice.

But researchers throughout Canada, Greenland and Norway are unable to determine the origin of the skeleton, said Garry Stenson, a marine mammal scientist with the federal Fisheries Department.

“It’s definitely unusual,” Stenson said Monday. “It’s not something that I’ve encountered before.”‘

‘Yesterday, someone found my blog by searching Google for the following phrase: “Is it safe to have your dog lick your vagina?” I fear that this poor soul didn’t find the answer she was looking for on my site, so I wanted to help her out in case she stops by again. And since I don’t know her name, I’m just going to come up with a handy mnemonic to remember it.

So, dear Dog Fucker, the simple answer to the question “Is it safe to have your dog lick your vagina?” is, of course, yes.’

‘Scientists say they have discovered a new gene linked with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

People with a damaged copy of the gene, GAB2, may be at four times increased risk of developing dementia, Neuron journal reports.

Experts said the latest findings were some of the most significant to emerge since the discovery of the ApoE4 Alzheimer’s gene.

Late-onset Alzheimer’s affects one in 10 people over 65 and half of over 85s.

The researchers, from 15 institutions including the Institute of Neurology in London, analysed the DNA of 1,411 people and found GAB2 influenced the risk of dementia among those with APOE4.’

‘Dutch researchers are trying to grow pork meat in a laboratory with the goal of feeding millions without the need to raise and slaughter animals.

“We’re trying to make meat without having to kill animals,” Bernard Roelen, a veterinary science professor at Utrecht University, said in an interview.

Although it is in its early stages, the idea is to replace harvesting meat from livestock with a process that eliminates the need for animal feed, transport, land use and the methane expelled by animals, which all hurt the environment, he said.

“Keeping animals just to eat them is in fact not so good for the environment,” said Roelen. “Animals need to grow, and animals produce many things that you do not eat.”‘

‘Developed by a team of researchers at Universiti Malaya (UM) for the past two years, a tablet containing walnut extract has shown potential as a local alternative to Viagra.

One of the researchers, UM Faculty of Medicine Physiology Department lecturer Prof Dr Kim Kah Hwi, said that so far 40 volunteers had tried the tablet and responded positively.

On its efficacy, Prof Kim said the new pill was comparable to Viagra and he claimed that it was safer as well, although a person would have to consume about 3.3kg of walnuts for the same effect as one tablet. [..]

Prof Kim said the active ingredient was arginine, an amino acid that is absorbed into the body and converted into nitric oxide.

“This enlarges blood vessels and enhances blood flow to the penis,” he said, adding that the walnuts were sourced from China because they were cheaper there.’

‘New ways of turning heat into sound waves – and then into electricity – may be the next step toward a practical new source of alternative energy.

Scientists have known for decades that they can turn heat into sound using simple devices called acoustic heat engines. But this week a team of University of Utah researchers plan to show they’ve succeeded in miniaturising and optimising the devices, which then turn the sound into usable electricity.

If true, the advance could open the door to super-efficient power plants, cars, and computers, as well as a new generation of solar cells.

Acoustic heat engines usually use a copper plate to conduct heat to a high-surface-area material like glass wool, which then heats the surrounding air. The movement of the hot air generates a single frequency sound wave, rather like a flute. And this in turns vibrates a piezoelectric electrode, producing voltage.’

‘Research reported this week by three different groups shows that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic state in mice. The race is now on to apply the surprisingly straightforward procedure to human cells.

If researchers succeed, it will make it relatively easy to produce cells that seem indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells, and that are genetically matched to individual patients. There are limits to how useful and safe these would be for therapeutic use in the near term, but they should quickly prove a boon in the lab.

“It would change the way we see things quite dramatically,” says Alan Trounson of Monash University in Victoria, Australia. Trounson wasn’t involved in the new work but says he plans to start using the technique “tomorrow”. “I can think of a dozen experiments right now — and they’re all good ones,” he says.’

‘About 26,000 people are killed every year by the 100 million land mines believed to be scattered around the world. [..]

Removing mines and making them safe is relatively easy. Detecting them is difficult and risky. Conventional methods, using electronic mine detectors, heavy machines, sniffer dogs, or gentle probes into the ground using a sharp object, are time-consuming, costly — and dangerous. Sometimes, those searching for mines become victims themselves.

Now, a Danish company called Aresa Biodetection believes it has found a cheaper and safer method to find land mines by using a plant that changes color when it detects explosives in the soil. It has conducted tests using a genetically modified thale cress plant. The thale cress family includes the cress plant used often in salads and also the weeds that grow in sidewalk cracks.’

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‘A British resort town is deploying extra police during full moons, convinced of a link between the lunar cycle and violence. The vibrant seaside city of Brighton on England’s southern coast is adopting the new approach after reviewing crime statistics for the past year, Sussex police said Tuesday.

“Research carried out by us has shown a correlation between violent incidents and full moons,” the force said in a statement. “More officers will be out on the city’s streets during full moons over the summer months.”

Police inspector Andy Parr conducted an analysis of crime statistics that suggested more violent incidents happen during full moons.

In a paper published earlier this year, Michal Zimecki of the Polish Academy of Sciences claimed to have identified a link between lunar cycles and criminality.’

‘An alleged plot to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines at New York’s JFK airport had little chance of success, according to safety experts, who have questioned whether the plot ever posed a real threat.

US authorities said Saturday they had averted an attack that could have resulted in “unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction,” and charged four alleged Islamic radicals with conspiracy to cause an explosion at the airport.

But according to the experts, it would have been next to impossible to cause an explosion in the jet fuel tanks and pipeline. Furthermore, the plotters seem to have lacked the explosives and financial backing to carry out the attack.

John Goglia, a former member of National Transportation Safety Board, said that if the plot had ever been carried out, it would likely have sparked a fire but little else, and certainly not the mass carnage authorities described.’

Followup to JFK plotters courted backing for plot in Caribbean, South America.

‘Cardinal George Pell has warned Catholic politicians they face “consequences” in the life of the church should they vote for an “immoral” bill before the NSW Parliament to expand stem cell research.

In calling for a “no” vote, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney said he wasn’t threatening excommunication.

However, he didn’t rule out that their vote would disqualify them as church members or “loosen” their bonds with the church, which has taken a strong pro-life position on therapeutic cloning.

Catholic MPs would need to seriously think about taking Holy Communion, the key sacrament, Dr Pell said, and “were certainly doing the wrong thing”.’

‘Cane toads wiggle their toes to lure their young, then eat them up in an act of cannibalism, Australian researchers say.

They say the young toads move towards the adults, possibly mistaking the wiggling toes for a tasty morsel like an insect.

Instead the youngsters themselves end up as the tasty morsel.

But harnessing this cannibalistic behaviour may have some benefits, at least in Australia where cane toads are an invasive pest.

Scientists say it could be the key to getting cane toads to eat themselves out of existence.’

‘Astrophysicists have found a star-like object with a surface temperature just one tenth that of the Sun.

The cold object is known as a brown dwarf: a “failed” star that never achieved the mass required to begin nuclear fusion reactions in its core.

This one – called J0034-00 – is thought to have a surface temperature of just 600-700 Kelvin (up to 430C/800F).

It is the coldest solitary brown dwarf ever seen, according to the British team that discovered it.

This find further tests the boundary between high-mass gas planets and the smallest brown dwarfs. ‘

‘China unveiled its first national program aimed at combating global warming on Monday, but it’s modest in scope and offers few firm targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The 62-page report said China is taking steps toward improving energy efficiency over 2005 levels by as much as 20 per cent by the year 2010. It said a top priority was to tackle China’s own environmental problems.

China’s top economic planner said the country will not submit to any outside targets and won’t let its industrial development be hampered by any fight in the West against global warming.

“The consequences of restricting the development of developing nations will be much more serious than the consequences of global warming,” said Ma Kai, the minister heading the National Development and Reform Commission.’

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