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Sound recordings can help detect obstructive sleep apnoea

September 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Melbourne, Sept 11 (ANI): Australian scientists have come up with a non-invasive screening tool for detecting obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA).

Snoring is a very early symptom of sleep apnoea, however, monitoring the changes in pitch, frequency and other characteristics of the snores can help detect OSA.

Biomedical engineer and co-researcher Dr Udantha Abeyratne, of the University of Queensland have developed a non-contact method of screening patients suspected of OSA, which could eventually be used at home.

Abeyratne says the device records the sounds of a person’s snoring, which “is a very early symptom of sleep apnea.”

Currently, the only way to diagnose a person with OSA is to have them spend a night at a sleep centre or hospital, hooked up to a machine that monitors their sleep continuously.

“There are very long waiting lists to come into the hospital and get tested,” ABC Online quoted Abeyratne as saying.

He said compared to the traditional method of diagnosing OSA, the sound recordings method is 90pct accurate.

Abeyratne hopes the technology will be available for use in people’s homes in the next three to five years. (ANI)

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Laser cooling may be used to create “exotic” states of matter

September 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 9 (ANI): In a new study, scientists have determined that the technique of laser cooling could be used to create “exotic” states of matter.

According to a report in National Geographic News, in a new technique, Martin Weitz and Ulrich Vogl of the University of Bonn in Germany used a laser to bring the temperature of dense rubidium gas far below the normal point at which the gas becomes a solid.

Previous research had been able to use lasers to quickly “supercool” only very diluted gases.

But, “here’s a case where you shine a laser on something and it actually cools down, and not just a handful of atoms, but a macroscopic object,” said Trey Porto, a physicist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s laser-cooling group.

The process could be used to create fascinating new states of matter, according to the study authors.

“For example, if you can very quickly cool water much lower than zero Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), where it would normally turn to ice, exotic crystalline and glassy states of matter would be predicted,” Weitz said.

The new technique could also be used in cooling mechanisms to boost the efficiency of some stargazing equipment, he added.

“If you could cool thermal cameras that look at the stars, they may have less noise and be more sensitive,” he said.

Since a laser’s color is linked to its intensity, the new technique is based on using a red laser in which the frequency has been adjusted so that the beam affects the atoms only when they collide with each other.

Weitz and Vogl shone this laser beam into gaseous rubidium atoms in a high-pressure “atmosphere” of argon.

In the experiment, the rubidium gas fell from 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 degrees Celsius) to almost 536 degrees Fahrenheit (280 degrees Celsius) within mere seconds.

Much more research needs to be done before the laser-cooling process can be used in real-world applications, study co-author Weitz cautioned.

But, NIST’s Porto said the work already represents a major departure from traditional cooling of diluted gases, which are currently used for studying quantum effects or preparing gas samples for atomic clocks.

“I think the really amazing thing is that you can even get cooling in this regime, because it’s a really dense gas and a very different mechanism,” Porto said.

“Traditional cooling powers are so tiny. To cool a physical object by a measurable degree with a laser is amazing,” he added. (ANI)

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Soon, a portable optical atomic clock

September 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Berlin, September 4 (ANI): In a new research work, a team of scientists has shown how optical atomic clocks in the future might become more compact and even portable, maybe even travel to space.

The research was done by scientists from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Braunschweig, Germany.

Optical clocks like the strontium clock in the PTB could be the atomic clocks of the future; some of them though are already ten times more precise and stable than the best primary caesium atomic clocks.

Nowm they might also become more compact and even portable, maybe in the future even travel to space.

PTB scientists have shown how some fundamental difficulties, which a more simple set-up had previously hindered, could be avoided.

They already have a practical application in mind: the clock could help to determine geographical heights even more exactly than before.

An optical clock is so exact because its “pendulum” swings so quickly.

The “pendulum” of a caesium atomic clock swings even more quickly: that is, that microwave radiation which can bring about a spin change in each electron of a caesium atom.

Precisely the microwave frequency at which this effect is largest defines the second. An optical atomic clock works with the still higher frequency of optical radiation – that is with an even faster pendulum.

As the movement of the atoms leads to very large frequency shifts through the Doppler effect, in the best of these clocks, the atoms are slowed down to a hundredth of the speed of a pedestrian in a first preparation step with the aid of laser cooling.

As the movement of the atoms leads to very large frequency shifts through the Doppler effect, in the best of these clocks the atoms are slowed down to a hundredth of the speed of a pedestrian in a first preparation step with the aid of laser cooling.

In a lattice clock, a further step then follows in which the atoms are held in potential wells.

These are created through the intensive light field of a laser. Several tens of thousands of strontium atoms are trapped in this so-called optical lattice.

The results of the investigation have shown how the optical lattice has to be dimensioned and how many atoms may be stored in it to operate a very accurate lattice clock also with strontium-88.

A clock is now being built on this basis that is more compact and more transportable than the previous lattice clocks. (ANI)

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Single gene behind essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease identified

September 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 2 (ANI): A single gene promotes development of essential tremor in some patients and Parkinson’s disease in others has been identified by an international team of researchers.

In a study report published in Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, Mayo Clinic researchers in Florida and their collaborators worldwide note that patients with essential tremor shake when they move, while those with Parkinson’s disease shake when they are at rest.

They further state that a variant in LINGO1, a gene involved in neuronal survival, is the first proven evidence of a common genetic component in the development of both disorders.

Analysing their findings, the researchers have come to the conclusion that mutations in this gene are potentially responsible for five percent of patients with Parkinson’s disease, and five percent of patients with essential tremor.

Lead researcher Dr. Carles Vilarino-Guell, of Mayo Clinic, said: “There is a mutation in the gene that must be causing or contributing to Parkinson’s disease in some people and essential tremor in others.”

He, however, added that that did not mean that people with essential tremor have an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

The findings are intriguing because “although essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease are considered to be different diseases, researchers have been arguing for a long time about whether essential tremor is a milder, preliminary form of Parkinson’s disease, and they have been looking for the genetic connection between these disorders,” he said.

“Now we know LINGO1 is the first gene identified,” he added.

The scientists have yet to identify any specific mutation or mutations on LINGO1 responsible for either disorder.

“The easiest explanation is that there are two separate and clearly distinct mutations in the gene contributing to the disorders. But because this gene doubles the risk of developing either disease and it is found at the same frequency in both diseases, it is possibly the same mutation,” Dr. Vilarino-Guell said.

“Both diseases are also affected by environmental factors, and that may influence which disorder a person would be more likely to develop,” he added. (ANI)

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Swedish snuff doesn’t increase multiple sclerosis risk

September 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 1 (ANI): Unlike cigarettes, Swedish snuff doesn’t increase a person’s risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), finds a new study.

“While tobacco cigarettes increased a person’s risk of developing MS, our research found that using Swedish snuff was not associated with an elevated risk for MS,” said study author Dr Anna Hedstrom, of the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

“These results could mean that nicotine is not the substance responsible for the increased risk of MS among smokers,” she added.

During the study, the researchers examined 902 people diagnosed with MS and 1,855 people without MS in Sweden between the ages of 16 and 70.

It showed that in women who smoked, the risk for developing MS was nearly one and a half times higher than in women who did not smoke.

In men, the risk was nearly two times higher in those who smoked compared to those who did not smoke.

This was the case even in people who only smoked moderately.

However, those who used Swedish snuff for more than 15 years were 70 percent less likely to develop MS than those who had never used any type of tobacco.

There was no significant effect of snuff-taking for less than 15 years, a period during which other adverse consequences of taking snuff, including head-and-neck cancer, would become evident.

“Taking snuff, however, may have other harmful effects, and our findings should not be interpreted to mean that Swedish snuff is recommended to prevent disease,” said Hedstrom.

“More research is needed to better understand the mechanisms behind the findings.

“Theories are that smoking may raise the risk of MS by increasing the frequency and persistence of respiratory infections, or by causing autoimmune reactions in genetically susceptible people,” she added.

The study appears in journal Neurology(r), the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. (ANI)

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Novel method to make safer human stem cells uses just one gene

August 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Aug 29 (ANI): Inching closer to curing diseases like Parkinson’s using cells generated from a patient’s own body, researchers have successfully reprogrammed human nerve cells back to an embryo-like state by using just a single gene.

It is known that embryonic stem cells are pluripotent – they can develop into any of the body’s cell types.

But such cells are not available in large numbers, as they can only be harvested from a donated egg or embryo, and, for ethical reasons, most countries have laws restricting their use.

In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka and his colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan successfully made mouse cells pluripotent by reprogramming skin cells into a state like embryo cells.

They did so by using retroviruses to insert four genes – known as “factors” – into the cells’ DNA.

They repeated the trick a year later with human cells.

However, using genes and retroviruses in this way increases the risk of the cell becoming cancerous, not just because tinkering with DNA has that effect, but also because two of the four factors are known to cause cancer.

In a bid to make these promising cells in a safe way, Hans Scholer’s team at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany, has been working to achieve pluripotency using fewer factors.

Last year, they did this with the two factors that do not cause cancer, and now they have simplified the recipe further, doing it with just one.

“Remarkably, it turns out that three of these four essential factors are already expressed in human neural stem cells – although not in skin cells – so we only needed to add one factor, OCT4,” New Scientist quoted Boris Greber, a member of the team, as saying.

He said that the cells from neural tissue are much easier to reprogram than skin cells, and are less prone to mutations.

It is much harder to get a sample of neural stem cells than skin cells, as it can be done via extracting the cells from the dental pulp of teeth, said Greber.

Inserting even one gene into the chromosome of a cell still permanently modifies its DNA, which is why the new method will remain a lab tool instead of being allowed in the clinic.

However, the researchers are hoping that it will help them improve methods for producing embryonic stem cells.

“Ideally, we will be able to find a chemical that does the same job of expressing the factor without the need for a gene,” said Greber.

Earlier this year, researchers in California managed just that when they reprogrammed mouse fibroblasts using a cocktail of proteins.

That technique did not involve inserting genes, and, thus, shouldn’t raise the cancer risk. But that was far less efficient.

“Without stable intervention using viruses, the frequency of reprogramming goes down and you have to wait a long time. We don’t have the perfect method yet,” said Greber.

The study has been published in the journal Nature. (ANI)

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New Cytotron treatment effective in treating cancer patients in Bangalore

August 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Bangalore, Aug 28 (ANI): The new Cytotron treatment that includes use of radio frequency, high power non-ionizing, non-thermal electromagnetic waves instead of high frequency radiation has emerged as a popular therapy for cancer patients in Bangalore.

Developed by Rajah Vijay Kumar of India in 1987, the Cytotron device helps in tissue regeneration, degeneration and repair for the purposes of treating several chronic or degenerative diseases such as cancer and arthritis.

The treatment modality is non-invasive, painless and free from side effects.

Clinical test have shown that Cytotron is very effective in curing certain conditions such as a damaged knee by regenerating the cartilage tissue.

Dr. Nayar of Ojus Health Care, Bangalore, said that Cytotron treated patients have survived for a longer period than patients treated by other methods.

“When there is hardly any chance of survival after one year, those kind of patients have been taken for the clinical trials and from that we found that as against the expected 0-5 per cent may be surviving after one year. We got a very interesting and encouraging result of may be up to 50 per cent in different series. So 40-50 per cent to even may be little more per cent of people are able to survive year or more,” said Dr. Nayar.

Dr. Nayar also said that the treatment is safe and healthy cells are not affected in any way.

“This is something, which is very unique. It’s safe. It’s absolutely harmless and with this machine, we can target it to the exact depth in the body tissue,” said Dr. Nayar.

One such success story of Cytotron treatment is that of Abraham, a surgeon-cum-cancer patient.

Abraham, who is a patient of arthritis, has been undergoing the treatment for the past 15 days. He said that he has found improvement in his conditions and is now able to walk without any pain.

“I felt the difference, the swelling came down and the pain also reduced. I felt some sort of relief in that one. So the actual duration day told 21 days, so after 15 days of treatment, it’s comfortable and my all the symptoms got relieved. I am finding improvement in my condition,” said Abraham.

Doctors consider Cytotron as a useful method to treat cancer. By Shweta ANI)

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Now, an intelligent system to help the elderly avoid forgetting everyday tasks

August 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 28 (ANI): Scientists at the University of Granada (UGR) have announced the creation of a system that uses Artificial Intelligence techniques to help elderly people, or those with special needs, avoid forgetting certain everyday tasks.

The researchers have revealed that their system uses sensors distributed in the environment to detect people’s actions, and mobile devices to remind them.

Suppose, say the researchers, an elderly lady who is about to go to bed goes into her room, sits down on the bed, takes off her slippers, and turns off the light.

According to them, before she gets into bed, a small alarm will go off, and a mobile device will remind her that she has forgotten to take her tablets.

“It is a prototype which, in a non-intrusive manner, facilitates the control of the activity of people with special needs and increases their independence,” said Maria Ros Izquierdo, from the Higher Technical School of Computer Engineering of the UGR.

The system recognizes the everyday actions of the users by means of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) labels. These labels are discreetly placed on the objects that the individuals touch most often, in such a way that, when they do so, a signal is sent to a computer or mobile device situated in the house itself or at an assistance centre some distance away.

To compile a list of actions-such as remembering to take the keys or the mobile phone before leaving home-the activities of the people are assessed with Artificial Intelligence techniques.

“It is not necessary to use cameras or microphones, and the devices which are used do not entail any technological complications for users, nor do they modify their daily routines,” said Ros.

To evaluate the novel system, the university team have also designed an intelligent space called ‘Tagged World’, which simulates the rooms of a house, with sensors embedded in the environment helping to recognize the behaviour of its occupants.

The researchers monitored each user so as to obtain an individualized database. They later verified with a test the reliability of the system and the degree of intrusion felt by the participants.

“The system does not modify the life of the users, but does positively modify that of the people who look after them,” indicated Ros, who recalled that elderly people or those with special needs often reject the aid of others and demand more independence.

The researcher believes that the new system may help to achieve this objective.

A research article describing the new system has been published in the Expert Systems with Applications magazine. (ANI)

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Some Aussie frogs raise pitch of love songs to counter traffic noise

August 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 26 (ANI): Some Aussie frogs often raise their pitch as they serenade their partners, in order to counter traffic sounds, according to a study.

Kirsten Parris, an ecologist at the University of Melbourne, says that one species of frog in Melbourne is changing the pitch of its love song to be heard above the roar of the road.

For the study, Parris visited many urban ponds and pools inhabited by frogs, measuring traffic noise, which is, unfortunately, at the same low frequencies as many frog mating calls.

But, for the onomatopoeic ‘pobblebonk’ (Limnodynastes dumerilii), she found that a call that could originally be heard by a female 800 metres away might only carry 98 metres above 60 decibels of traffic noise, an average value for Melbourne.

She has also discovered that the southern brown tree frog (Litoria ewingii) seems to be compensating for the traffic noise by increasing the pitch of its calls1 (listen to before and after calls).

Parris suggested that installing noise barriers at strategic points around a road could help urban frogs to hear each other.

She further said that creating habitats where they thrive – such as ponds with sloping rather than steep sides – would also make sense.

“Cities provide some of the last habitat for a range of frog species around the world. So if we only worry about conserving frogs and their habitats outside cities, some of these frogs may well go extinct,” she said.

She added: “Some frog species are very sensitive to environmental changes”, but “others are quite adaptable and can persist in urban habitats if we gave them a bit of help”.

However, Kris Kaiser, an ecology graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, has put forward a note of caution on the subject of these amphibians’ adaptability.

“Frogs, unlike birds, are thought to have the frequency of their calls somewhat constrained by their anatomy. There is often a relationship between body size and frequency of call,” he said.

Thus, he claimed that the creatures’ ability to compensate for traffic noise may be limited.

The study was presented at the International Congress of Ecology in Brisbane. (ANI)

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Soon, soundwaves may help find early dental decay

August 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 25 (ANI): Aussie researchers are developing a tool that can use sound waves to identify early stages of tooth decay by measuring the mineral content of teeth.

Tooth decay begins by acid-forming bacteria eating away at the enamel, causing minerals to leach from it, softening, and weakening the tooth.

Sometimes dentists can identify this demineralisation by seeing a change in the colour of the tooth, or by looking at x-rays.

They also use sharp probes that test the hardness of the enamel, and find where the rot has set in, but all such probes can be painful and cause unnecessary damage to the teeth.

But PhD researcher David Hsiao-Chuan Wang, from the University of Sydney, and colleagues are now developing a less invasive new technique to measure mineral content of teeth, using sound waves generated by laser pulses.

“We want to be able to be able to quantify mineral content of the dental enamel,” ABC Online quoted Wang as saying.

He added: “We can keep the laser power below a damaging threshold.”

Laser pulses aimed at the tooth set up a series of high frequency sound waves (ultrasound) that travel through the enamel surface, penetrating it to different depths.

As a soundwave moves through a demineralised part of the tooth, it changes its speed, which can be detected.

Each soundwave penetrates to different depths of the enamel, depending on its wavelength, enabling a profile of the tooth to be built up, showing where decay has begun.

The researchers first tested the system on different known materials, before testing it on extracted human tooth.

They still have to test the system on teeth in patients, but firstly they need to develop a convenient handheld device and obtain ethics permission to trial it in humans.

Wang said that a prototype of the hand-held device could be ready in two years.

Professor Ian Meyers of the Australian Dental Association has said that testing the technique in the mouth is important, as saliva affects the property of teeth enamel.

Meyers also said that when decay was detected early, fillings could be avoided by either stopping the demineralisation through better oral care.

Otherwise, it could also be possible to re-mineralise the tooth by using products specifically designed for this purpose.

He said that the new technique could add to the range of tools available for dentists to identify early stages of decay, as long as it is affordable

Wang has estimated that the new tool would cost “below 50,000 dollars”, and complement rather than replace conventional methods.

He said that the ultrasound technique would be particularly useful in research, especially in evaluating the effectiveness of remineralisation treatments.

The study has been published in the journal Optics Express. (ANI)

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‘Invisibility cloak’ metamaterials could shrink cellphones antennas

August 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Aug 22 (ANI): An international team of physicists have revealed that metamaterials, which are currently being used to make real-life invisibility cloaks, may soon shrink cellphone antennas, leading to smaller gadgets.

The new metamaterial antennas could be tuned to a range of different frequencies as required.

It could be tuned to work efficiently across a small frequency range, and retuned to a different band for roaming.

Tom Driscoll at the University of California, San Diego along with Dimitri Basov and collaboraters from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and ETRI in the Republic of Korea developed the new “frequency-agile” design by attaching a thin film of vanadium dioxide to a gold metamaterial structure.

They found that applying a voltage to the film alters the frequency at which the gold metamaterial interferes with light waves, tuning it to a new “setting”.

This occurs because voltage causes nanoscale “puddles” of conducting vanadium metal to form within the insulating vanadium dioxide.

They interact with the design’s electrical properties and alter the metamaterial’s tuning.

“The effect continues after the electrical current is gone because the metal puddles, once formed, will not readily disappear without some cause,” New Scientist quoted Driscoll as saying

He added that there is evidence to suggest the effect should last for months or more.

“Metamaterials are often narrowband, but at least with this scheme one could adapt the material to new frequencies,” said Ulf Leonhardt, a metamaterial researcher at the University of St Andrews in the UK.

That removes an obstacle to the wider use of metamaterial antennas. Such antennas would be attractive because they could help to shrink the size of cellphones.

Driscoll said that a tunable metamaterial antenna would allow a wireless gadget to work “outstandingly well” at the frequencies used in one country, but also carry the option of retuning for use abroad.

The findings appear in journal Science Express. (ANI)

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Teens exposed to too much alcohol advertising on cable TV

August 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 21 (ANI): A new US study has revealed that ads for beer, spirits and ‘alcopop’ are frequently aired when more teens were watching television.

This is the first study to demonstrate an association between ad placement and teen cable TV viewership.

“Alcohol advertisers have pledged to avoid audiences made up of more than 30 percent underage viewers – such as children’s programming,” said David H. Jernigan, director of the Centre on Alcohol Marketing and Youth and an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“However, many other shows have adolescent appeal. This research suggests that ads are aimed at groups that include a disproportionate number of teens and that the alcohol industry’s voluntary self-monitoring is not working to reduce adolescent exposure to ads,” he added.

The study showed that audiences with a higher percentage of youth between the ages of 12 and 20 were exposed to a higher frequency of alcohol ads, even after accounting for other factors that might explain ad placement decisions.

Each 1-percentage-point increase in adolescent viewership was associated with a 7-percent increase in beer ads, a 15-percent increase in spirits ads and a 22-percent increase in ads for low-alcohol refreshers/alcopops – flavored alcoholic beverages that taste similar to juice or soda.

However, wine ads decreased by 8 percent with each 1-percentage-point increase in adolescent viewership.

This finding suggests that alcohol advertisers can, in fact, successfully avoid adolescent audiences.

“This study did not examine whether alcohol advertisers are intentionally overexposing adolescents,” said lead study author Dr. Paul J. Chung, assistant professor of pediatrics at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA and a senior natural scientist at the RAND Corp.

“The alcohol industry has consistently denied actively targeting teens, and our study isn’t designed to test that claim. However, the ultimate effect of their advertising strategies, intentional or not, appears to be greater exposure than might be expected if adults were the sole targets of ads,” he added.

The study appears online in American Journal of Public Health. (ANI)

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Climate change could deepen poverty in developing countries

August 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 20 (ANI): A new study has determined that climate change could deepen poverty in developing countries.

In the study, a team led by Purdue University researchers examined the potential economic influence of adverse climate events, such as heat waves, drought and heavy rains, on those in 16 developing countries.

Urban workers in Bangladesh, Mexico and Zambia were found to be the most at risk, as the cost of food drives them into poverty.

“Extreme weather affects agricultural productivity and can raise the price of staple foods, such as grains, that are important to poor households in developing countries,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, the associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and interim director of Purdue’s Climate Change Research Center.

“Studies have shown global warming will likely increase the frequency and intensity of heat waves, drought and floods in many areas. It is important to understand which socioeconomic groups and countries could see changes in poverty rates in order to make informed policy decisions,” he added.

The team used data from the late 20th century and projections for the late 21st century to develop a framework that examined extreme climate events, comparable shocks to grain production and the impact on the number of impoverished people in each country.

“The occurrence and magnitude of what are currently the 30-year-maximum values for wet, dry and hot extremes are projected to substantially increase for much of the world,” said Diffenbaugh.

“Heat waves and drought in the Mediterranean showed a potential 2700 percent and 800 percent increase in occurrence, respectively, and extreme rainfall in Southeast Asia was projected to potentially increase by 900 percent,” he added.

In addition, Southeast Asia showed a projected 40 percent increase in the magnitude of the worst rainfall; central Africa showed a projected 1000 percent increase in the magnitude of the worst heat wave; and the Mediterranean showed a projected 60 percent increase in the worst drought.

A statistical analysis was used to determine grain productivity shocks that would correspond in magnitude to the climate extremes, and then the economic impact of the supply shock was determined.

Future predicted extreme climate events were compared to historical agricultural productivity extremes in order to assess the likely impact on agricultural production, prices and wages.

According to Thomas Hertel, a distinguished professor of agricultural economics and co-leader of the study, “Food is a major expenditure for the poor and, while those who work in agriculture would have some benefit from higher grains prices, the urban poor would only get the negative effects.” (ANI)

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Low-income kids having sex as young as 12

August 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 18 (ANI): A new US study has revealed that low income kids are likely to experience their first sexual intercourse at the tender age of 12.

The research involving 1,000 low-income families showed that one in four children between the ages of 11 and 16 reported having sex, with their first sexual intercourse experience occurring at the average age of 12.77.

“So if 12 years was the average age here, that meant that some kids were starting at 10 or younger,” said Brenda Lohman, an Iowa State University associate professor of human development and family studies (HDFS).

“A handful of kids reported having sex as early as 8 or 9. We know from our follow-up interviews that one boy who reported having sexual intercourse for the first time at age nine had fathered four children by the time he was 18.

“Those people who say that kids don’t have sex at that young of age should think again,” the expert added.

The findings also revealed that more boys reported their first sexual intercourse at younger ages than girls.

The boys also had nearly 10 percent higher frequency of intercourse than girls.

“Definitely the age is the most shocking thing about this study,” she added.

The study appears online in the Children and Youth Services Review. (ANI)

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Scientists come a nano-step closer to weighing a single atom

July 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Melbourne, July 28 (ANI): In a new study, a team of scientists has understood how nanoparticles lose energy, thus coming a key step closer towards producing nanoscale detectors for weighing any single atom.

In this study, the team from the University of Melbourne, Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials in Illinois and the University of Chicago synthesized and studied tiny gold rods with a width 5000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair.

According to Professor John Sader from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne, in the same way as a classroom ruler decreases its frequency of vibration when an eraser is attached, nanomechanical mass sensors work by measuring their change in vibration frequency as mass is added.

The sensitivity of such nanomechanical devices is intimately connected to how much energy they displace.

So, researchers needed to understand how damping (loss of energy) is transferred both to the fluid surroundings and within the nanostructures.

It has not previously been possible to determine the rate at which vibrations in metal nanoparticle systems are damped, because of significant variations in the dimensions of the particles that have been studied – which masks the vibrations.

However, by studying a system of bipyramid-shaped gold nanoparticles with highly uniform sizes and shapes, the researchers overcame this limitation.

“Previous measurements of nanomechanical damping have primarily focused on devices where only one- or two-dimensions are nanoscale, such as long nanowires.

Our measurements and calculations provide insight into how energy is dissipated in devices that are truly nanoscale in all three-dimensions,” said Professor Sader.

Illuminating these bipyramidal nanoparticle systems with an ultra-fast laser pulse, set them vibrating mechanically at microwave frequencies.

These vibrations were long-lived and for the first time damping in these nanoparticle systems could be interrogated and characterized.

Moreover, the researchers separated out the portion of damping that is due to the material itself and that surrounding liquid for which they developed a parameter-free theoretical model that quantitatively explains this fluid damping.

Such ultrasensitive measurements could ultimately be used in areas such as medical research and diagnostics, enabling the detection of minuscule disease-causing agents such as viruses and prions at the single molecule level. (ANI)

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College students less likely to drink if they know peers’ actual habits

July 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 10 (ANI): While peer pressure is known to play a vital role in alcohol misuse among college students, a new study has shown that when the students learn that they are mistaken about the actual normal drinking habits of their peers, they tend to drink less often.

The study has shown that much of that peer influence is the result of incorrect perceptions.

“In the UK, young people are drinking earlier and heavier than ever before,” said co-author David Foxcroft of Oxford Brookes University, in England.

“Levels of alcohol consumption amongst 11- to 13 year-olds have almost doubled in the last 10 years or so,” he added.

The researchers say if a student believes that his or her peers drink heavily, it would likely influence the amount of alcohol the student personally drinks.

During the study, they placed students into either intervention or control groups.

Those in the intervention groups received personalized feedback about actual college students’ normal drinking habits, their own personal drinking profiles – quantity of alcohol consumed, calorie intake and money spent on alcohol – as well as the health risk factors involved in heavy drinking.

The interventions occurred in different ways: alone, either by mail or via the Web; or together with individual face-to-face or group counselling.

Interventions that occurred electronically reduced the students’ alcohol-related problems, drinking frequency, peak blood-alcohol content and drinking quantity.

The study showed that 62 percent of the students reported a reduction in alcohol-related problems.

In addition, 65 percent of the students reported that they were drinking less frequently.

“There were only a small number of good quality studies that we could draw on to make this somewhat tentative conclusion,” said Foxcroft.

“More research is definitely needed, especially in different settings. We don’t know, for example, how well Web feedback would work in the UK, where the drinking context and culture is quite different,” he added. (ANI)

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‘Invisibility cloaks’ come closer to reality

July 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 8 (ANI): A team of researchers at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) have come up with a device called a dc metamaterial, which makes objects invisible under certain light.

The device does so, according to the researchers, under very low frequency electromagnetic waves by making the inside of the magnetic field zero, but not altering the exterior field.

It, thus, acts an invisibility cloak, making the object completely undetectable to these waves, the researchers say.

Based on an initial idea of the British Ben Wood and John Pendry-the latter considered the father of metamaterials-the research is being hailed as a step forward in the race to create devices that can make objects invisible at visible light frequencies.

“The theoretical work provides the details for constructing a real dc metamaterial and represents another step towards invisibility,” says Alvar Sanchez, director of the research.

“Now comes a very important stage: building a prototype in the laboratory and applying this device to improving magnetic field detection technology,” he adds.

Recent scientific discoveries have suggested that artificial materials containing unique electric and magnetic properties, known as metamaterials, may make it possible to create cloaking devices.

The metamaterial designed by the research group at UAB consists in an irregular network of superconductors, which give materials specific magnetic properties that can create “invisible” areas in the magnetic field and in very low frequency electromagnetic fields.

The researchers say that their discovery can be applied to medical purposes, such as magnetoencephalographic or magnetocardiographic techniques that are used to measure the magnetic fields created by the brain or the heart, which in order to function properly need to shield out all other existing magnetic fields.

They also believe that their discovery can be used in other areas in which magnetic field detection is important, such as in sensors, or to prevent the magnetic detection of ships or submarines.

A research article on their work has been published in the journal Applied Physics Letters. (ANI)

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Cosmic ‘whips’ may be detected with gravitational waves

July 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 6 (ANI): A new research has determined that cosmic ‘whips’, which are topological defects in space-time larger than the observable universe, can be detected with the help of gravitational waves.

Many theories predict the existence of cosmic strings.

They say that space-time should have universe-sized snags called ‘cosmic strings’ running across it, but none have yet been found.

That could be because they broke into a tangle of smaller strings and beads soon after the big bang, say scientists.

The imprint of their extremely high gravity was expected to be seen in the cosmic microwave background – the radiation left over from the big bang – or as gravitational lenses that bend distant light towards us.

But, no convincing evidence has been seen.

Ben Shlaer of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and colleagues, told New Scientist that the lack of evidence could be because the strings were unstable and split into smaller and smaller pieces soon after they formed.

The first strings could have been gigantic closed loops or extremely large fragments that terminated in “beads”.

These beads would have been so-called monopoles – analogous to a magnet’s north or south pole without its partner.

As the strings broke, the team’s analysis shows that their split ends would have been capped off by more monopoles, eventually leading to a universe filled with fragmented strings with beads at their ends.

In an infant universe, these high-tension strings would have been whipping around, accelerating the massive beads to relativistic speeds.

These would have generated tight beams of gravitational waves, which could still be traveling through space-time.

“It’s possible that if you wait long enough, one of those highly focused bursts would hit the Earth, and that would cause one of our gravitational wave detectors to chirp,” said Shlaer.

The first cosmic strings were unstable and split into small pieces capped by monopoles.

Those detectors include the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory, which is currently being upgraded, and the upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.

“The possible frequency range of the waves is exceptionally large, “raising the hope of detection” of cosmic strings,” said theoretical physicist Henry Tye at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. (ANI)

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Novel genetic test improves pregnancy rates in older women

June 30, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 30 (ANI): Scientists from University of Oxford, UK claim to have developed a new less invasive genetic test that has found to greatly improve pregnancy rates in older women with failed attempts.

The new test, developed by Dr. Elpida Fragouli, examining chromosomes in human eggs a few hours after fertilisation can identify those that are capable of forming a healthy baby.

She said that her team’s work had already enabled seven ongoing pregnancies in a group of older women with a history of multiple failed IVF attempts.

“Out of 35 patients who had embryo transfers after the test, we achieved a pregnancy rate of 20pct, which is exceptional considering the extremely poor prognosis of the women involved.” she said.

“This represents a doubling of the usual pregnancy rate for women who fall into this category, which is otherwise, at best, under 10pct and, at worst, zero.

“To date, we have two live births from this group, and all the other women who became pregnant have maintained their pregnancies. The study is continuing, and we believe that we will achieve more pregnancies with the help of this technology in the future,” she added.

During the study, the scientists used the Comparative Genomic Hybridisation (CGH) technique to count the chromosomes in each egg.

It examines the fertilised eggs by looking at polar bodies, tiny cells that are a by-product of egg development. The chromosomes of polar bodies provide an indication of whether the corresponding egg is normal or abnormal; if the polar bodies have the wrong number of chromosomes, so does the egg.

The scientists studied 400 fertilised eggs generated by women with a very poor reproductive history and with an average age of 42 who were undergoing IVF because of being unable to conceive or to maintain a pregnancy.

They found that more than half of all the eggs produced by these women had chromosomal abnormalities, and therefore the resulting embryos were also chromosomally abnormal.

Some of the women had a tendency to produce eggs that were extremely abnormal and carried multiple chromosome errors.

This, according the scientists, could explain the poor reproductive history of these women.

“But where we could find fertilised eggs free of chromosomal abnormalities, the resulting embryos were also normal and their transfer to the mother led to pregnancies,” said Dr. Fragouli.

“Results suggest that the use of this technique will improve IVF success rates for poor prognosis patients. It is also likely to achieve a reduction in congenital abnormalities such as Down’s syndrome, as well as a reduction in the frequency of spontaneous miscarriage,” she added.

The findings were presented at 25th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. (ANI)

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Online newspaper archives can help trace changes in language usage

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 27 (ANI): Experts at Uppsala University in Sweden have shown that changes in language usage-which may make it possible to attain an entirely new degree of precision in dating-can be tracked by using gigantic newspaper archives.

The researchers used historical collections that included everything ever written in a dozen American and British newspapers since they started-which they could access because the material is available electronically these days-for the purpose of their study.

Together, according to them, the news and feature articles, editorials and commercial and classified advertisements contained in the archives comprise tens of billions of words.

In his dissertation in English linguistics, Donald MacQueen has examined the word million in English, especially how language usage shifted from the previously nearly totally dominant “five millions of inhabitants” to today’s “five million inhabitants”.

He says that the electronic collections of texts, which only recently became available, helped him pin down when and where the modern expression began to take over.

“When you study the occurrence of uncommon words in smaller corpora (text archives) of one or a few million words, you only get a few examples to analyse. These collections are much larger, and they have enabled me to obtain extremely reliable historical data for one year at a time. In this way I have been able to trace the shift with a precision that was not previously possible in linguistic studies,” he says.

He said that the study suggested that the modern construction took over in the American newspapers in the middle of the 1880s, and in the British The Times only in the mid 1910s.

The study also showed that the transitional period was shorter in The Times, he added.

These circumstances, according to MacQueen, indicate that usage in American newspapers influenced and accelerated the shift in the British newspaper.

MacQueen further revealed that the shift took place at the height of the British empire, and roughly when the US economy overtook the British for the first time.

“Another discovery I made, thanks to the huge amount of data, is that when the use of the two constructions began to be roughly equal in frequency, the newspapers chose quite simply to avoid using such constructions, writing numeral expressions instead. After World War II, when there was no longer any doubt which construction was the ‘right’ one, the newspapers reverted to writing number-word expressions again,” he says.

The dissertation also includes a comparison with languages like French and German, where the corresponding grammatical shift regarding the word million from being a noun to an ordinary number word has not yet taken place.

“But in the long perspective we can expect this change to occur in those languages as well. The shift is a universal phenomenon when it comes to number words,” says MacQueen. (ANI)

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