Uncontrollable chuckles ‘can signal underlying illnesses’

April 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

New York, Apr 16 (ANI): Laughing or crying at inappropriate moments, or out of context to one’s circumstances, can signal underlying illnesses like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

An MSNBC.com report cites an example of a naval aviator student who would break out into hysterical laughter during odd moments. He would also laugh in his sleep in the middle of the night. Later, it turned out, that he was suffering from a rare form of epileptic episode called gelastic seizure, reports the New York Daily News.

According to Robert Provine, author of “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation” and a psychology professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, tagging ill-timed outbursts of laughing or crying an involuntary emotional expression disorder isn’t quite right.

“All laughter is uncontrollable in the sense that we don’t laugh, or cry, on command,” he says. “Laughter is really unconsciously controlled. We go through life making these uncontrollable utterances.”

“We can try to stop laughing since it can get us into trouble when we laugh at the wrong time,” Provine says. “But it’s very hard to produce convincing laughter on command.” (ANI)

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Soon, software to detect early signs of dementia

August 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Aug 27 (ANI): For older people, using computer could provide a warning that they may be experiencing the subtle early signs of dementia, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, say the first signs of age-related cognitive problems, or a degenerative condition like Alzheimer’s, might be detectable using software that monitors telltale variations in an individual’s typing patterns, reports New Scientist.

Lisa Vizer and colleagues from UMBC say that warnings of a possible cognitive dysfunction could improve diagnosis and treatments in time to minimize or delay serious impairment.

The researchers knew that an individual’s typing rhythm is distinctive and reasonably stable over time, but that it can change when we are under temporary stress.

They wanted to determine if the mental stress of a cognitive or physical condition would also be detectable. So they hired 24 volunteers with an average of 12 years’ experience of typing.

After having them perform a number of keyboard exercises, such as writing emails on any topic they liked, they undertook either mental mathematics tasks to stress them cognitively, or intense physical exercise to stress them physically.

Subjects then retook the keyboard tests and their performances were compared by looking at factors such as how long each keystroke took, word lengths and vocabulary used.

The researchers found that that cognitive stress led to more changes in keystroke characteristics, and physical stress more linguistic ones.

Vizer says that if the monitoring software could detect a typing pattern, which indicates deterioration over a long period, it may suggest to the user to consider seeing a doctor.

The study has been published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. (ANI)

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NASA scientist makes first full assessment of Africa’s mangrove forests

August 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, August 21 (ANI): A NASA scientist has made what is believed to be the first full assessment of the African continent’s mangrove forests.

Environmental scientist Lola Fatoyinbo of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) developed and employed a method that can be used across the continent, overcoming expensive, ad hoc, and inconsistent modes of ground-based measurement.

“We’ve lost more than 50 percent of the world’s mangrove forests in a little over half a century; a third of them have disappeared in the last 20 years alone,” said Fatoyinbo, whose earlier study of Mozambique’s coastal forests laid the groundwork for the continent-wide study.

“Hopefully, this technique will offer scientists and officials a method of estimating change in this special type of forest,” she added.

Mangroves are the most common ecosystem in coastal areas of the tropics and sub-tropics.

The swampy forests are essential, especially in densely-populated developing countries, for rice farming, fishing and aquaculture (freshwater and saltwater farming), timber, and firewood.

Some governments also increasingly depend on them for eco-tourism.

The large, dense root systems are a natural obstacle that helps protect shorelines against debris and erosion.

Mangroves are often the first line of defense against severe storms, tempering the impact of strong winds and floods.

These coastal woodlands also have a direct link to climate, sequestering carbon from the atmosphere at a rate of about 100 pounds per acre per day, which is comparable to the per acre intake by tropical rainforests (though rainforests cover more of Earth’s surface).

“To my knowledge, this study is the first complete mapping of Africa’s mangroves, a comprehensive, historic baseline enabling us to truly begin monitoring the welfare of these forests,” said Assaf Anyamba, a University of Maryland-Baltimore County expert on vegetation mapping, based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Fatoyinbo’s research combines multiple satellite observations of tree height and land cover, mathematical formulas, and “ground-truthing” data from the field to measure the full expanse and makeup of the coastal forests.

Her measurements yielded three new kinds of maps of mangroves: continental maps of how much land the mangroves cover; a three-dimensional map of the height of forest canopies across the continent; and biomass maps that allow researchers to assess how much carbon the forests store.

“Beyond density or geographical size of the forests, the measurements get to the heart of the structure, or type, of mangroves,” explained Fatoyinbo. (ANI)

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Ozone layer will recover in future, predict scientists

April 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 11 (ANI): A new research by NASA scientists has suggested that the ozone layer might recover in the future, thanks to the changing climate and atmospheric circulation.

According to the scientists, Earth’s ozone layer should eventually recover from the unintended destruction brought on by the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and similar ozone-depleting chemicals in the 20th century, since greenhouse gases are changing the dynamics of the atmosphere.

Previous studies have shown that while the buildup of greenhouse gases makes it warmer in troposphere – the level of atmosphere from Earth’s surface up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) altitude – it actually cools the upper stratosphere – between 30 to 50 kilometers high (18 to 31 miles).

This cooling slows the chemical reactions that deplete ozone in the upper stratosphere and allows natural ozone production in that region to outpace destruction by CFCs.

But, the accumulation of greenhouse gases also changes the circulation of stratospheric air masses from the tropics to the poles, according to NASA scientists.

In Earth’s middle latitudes, that means ozone is likely to “over-recover,” growing to concentrations higher than they were before the mass production of CFCs.

In the tropics, stratospheric circulation changes could prevent the ozone layer from fully recovering.

“Most studies of ozone and global change have focused on cooling in the upper stratosphere,” said Feng Li, an atmospheric scientist at the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, and lead author of the study.

“But, we find circulation is just as important. It’s not one process or the other, but both,” he added.

The findings are based on a detailed computer model that includes atmospheric chemical effects, wind changes, and solar radiation changes.

Working with Richard Stolarski and Paul Newman of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, Li adapted the Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry-Climate Model (GEOS-CCM) to examine how climate change will affect ozone recovery.

The team inserted past measurements and future projections of ozone-depleting substances and greenhouse gases into the model.

Then, the model projected how ozone, the overall chemistry, and the dynamics of the stratosphere would change through the year 2100.

Though the concentration of chlorine and other ozone-depleting substances in the stratosphere will not return to pre-1980 levels until 2060, the ozone layer over middle latitudes is predicted to ecover to pre-1980 levels by 2025. (ANI)

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NASA’s early warning system predicted outbreak of deadly virus in northeast Africa

February 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 18 (ANI): A new study by NASA scientists has determined that an early warning system, more than a decade in development, successfully predicted the 2006-2007 outbreak of the deadly Rift Valley fever virus in northeast Africa.

Rift Valley fever is unique in that its emergence is closely linked to interannual climate variability.

Utilizing that link, researchers used a blend of NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration measurements of sea surface temperatures, precipitation, and vegetation cover to predict when and where an outbreak would occur.

The research team included Assaf Anyamba, a geographer and remote sensing scientist with the University of Maryland Baltimore County and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The final product, a Rift Valley fever “risk map,” gave public health officials in East Africa up to six weeks of warning for the 2006-2007 outbreak, enough time to lessen human impact.

The first-of-its-kind prediction is the culmination of decades of research.

During an intense El Nino event in 1997, the largest known outbreak of Rift Valley fever spread across the Horn of Africa.

About 90,000 people were infected with the virus, which is carried by mosquitoes and transmitted to humans by mosquito bites or through contact with infected livestock.

The 1997 outbreak provoked the formation of a working group, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System, to see if predictions of an outbreak could be made operational.

The link between the mosquito life cycle and vegetation growth was first described in a 1987 Science paper by co-authors Kenneth Linthicum of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Compton Tucker of NASA Goddard.

Then, a subsequent 1999 Science paper described link between the disease and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Building on that research, Anyamba and colleagues set out to predict when conditions were ripe for excessive rainfall, and thus an outbreak.

They started by examining satellite measurements of sea surface temperatures.

One of the first indicators that ENSO will bring an abundance of rainfall is a rise in the surface temperature of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean and the western equatorial Indian Ocean.

But perhaps the most telling indicator of a potential outbreak is a measure of the mosquito habitat itself.

The researchers used a satellite-derived vegetation data set that measures the landscape’s “greenness.”

The final product is a risk map for Rift Valley fever, showing areas of anomalous rainfall and vegetation growth over a three-month period. (ANI)

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