Stirile zilei - News of the day

New research suggests that at least one in seven home kitchens would fail the sort of health inspection restaurants commonly undergo. The study, carried out in Los Angeles County, California, concluded that just 61 percent of home kitchens would receive an A or B grade on such a screening and that at least 14 percent would fail. In contrast, 98 percent of restaurants in that area receive a B or higher. The results were based on an online survey asking respondents about things like fridge temperature and food preparation and storage practices. Experts believe the results are not representative of all households and that the percentage of home kitchens that would pass such an inspection is actually lower than estimated. Discuss

US researchers say the severity of multiple sclerosis (MS) may change with the seasons, citing brain scans of patients showing higher levels of disease activity in the spring and summer. It is not clear why changes in weather should have this sort of effect, but it does have significant implications for researchers studying effectiveness of drug treatments for MS. Clinical trials assessing a new medication's effectiveness often last between six and 12 months. Thus, with medications for MS, the time of year in which such a trial is carried out may impact the results. Discuss

According to researchers, teenagers who sleep less than eight hours a night on weeknights eat more fatty foods and snacks than their better-rested peers, particularly if they are girls. It is unclear why sleeping less might prompt teens to have poorer eating habits, but it has been shown that getting too little sleep lowers the body's production of the appetite-regulating hormones leptin and ghrelin, which can make a person feel hungrier and fuel cravings for high-calorie snacks. Over time, these bad eating habits can lead to weight gain and obesity. Discuss

Omega-3 fatty acids are thought to help promote heart health by preventing the formation of blood clots and reducing the risk of coronary heart disease, however, a new study suggests that low doses of omega-3 fatty acids do not provide additional benefits to heart attack survivors taking standard medications for their heart conditions. The patients in the study given a margarine enriched with omega-3 oils had the same risk of a second heart attack as those who did not supplement their diet with added omega-3s.

The US birth rate dropped 2.6 percent last year to its lowest level in at least a century, and experts are attributing this to the economic downturn. This is the second consecutive year that the birth rate has declined and a stark contrast to 2007, when more babies were born in the US than any other year in the nation's history and when the current recession began. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the birth rate also dropped as people, unsure about their economic futures, postponed having children. When the economy improved, the birth rate increased, and experts expect that the same will be true today. Discuss

More and more school-age athletes in the US are ending up in the emergency room with concussions. Between 1997 and 2007, emergency room visits for concussions sustained in organized youth sports more than tripled for 14- to 19-year-olds and doubled among those ages 8 to 13. Because their brains are still developing, young athletes may be more vulnerable to lasting damage, such as learning difficulties, memory problems, and chronic headaches, from these injuries. Doctors therefore caution parents and coaches against encouraging young athletes to "tough out" such injuries, recommending instead that they be examined by a medical professional. Discuss

More and more people ages 50 and older are joining social networks. Over the past year, the number of older adults using sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn has nearly doubled. Ten percent of Internet users over 50, meanwhile, say they use Twitter or other status update services. Most have been introduced to social networking by their children, and many use the sites primarily to keep in touch with family and friends. Unfortunately, because they are new to social networks, older adults are more likely to fall victim to scams. Discuss

The number of people with diabetes mellitus in the US is increasing, as is the number facing diabetic retinopathy, a diabetes-related eye disorder. Nearly 30 percent of US diabetics over the age of 40 were found in a recent study to have diabetic retinopathy, and four percent were affected severely enough that their vision is threatened. The rate of patients affected with the disorder was nearly 40 percent higher than estimates dating back about two decades, while the rate of those with vision-threatening cases was more than two and a half times higher. It is unclear whether the new data indicate a rise in prevalence or simply improved diagnostic methods. Discuss

Researchers have identified two parts of the brain linked to severe anxiety in young monkeys, and they suspect that these same brain areas are involved in the development of anxiety disorders in children. The anxiety-ridden monkeys showed heightened activity in both the amygdala, an almond-shaped brain structure associated with the processing of emotions, and the anterior hippocampus, a brain area associated with memory. If the same is true for humans, then monitoring those areas of children's brains could help experts understand anxiety disorders better and develop treatments for them. Discuss

Israeli scientists have reported early success with an "electronic nose" device that can detect several forms of cancer through a simple breath test. Chemical variations in the breath allow the sensor to distinguish between the healthy and the cancer-stricken as well as determine what type of cancer it is detecting—lung, breast, bowel, or prostate. Researchers hope the technology will make it easier and cheaper to diagnose cancer early, even before tumors are visible on conventional scans, such as X-rays. Discuss

People with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB), a potentially deadly genetic defect, suffer painful blisters on the skin, mouth, and throat because proteins that hold layers of skin together are absent. The slightest trauma can expose the body to infection and, in some cases, an aggressive form of cancer. Though there is currently no cure or treatment for epidermolysis bullosa, in recent trials, researchers partially cured several children with the genetic defect by giving them bone marrow transplants. The trial is believed to be the first to use bone marrow stem cells to treat something other than diseased or damaged marrow. Discuss

Belgian researchers say three biomarkers in spinal fluid can accurately diagnose Alzheimer's disease and predict which patients with memory problems will develop the degenerative brain disease. These biomarkers may even help identify early signs of the disease in people who seem otherwise healthy. By measuring proteins associated with the plaques and tangles that form in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's, researchers were able to accurately detect the condition in 90 percent of patients with the disease and 100 percent of people with memory impairments that would progress to Alzheimer's within five years. Discuss

Certain brain waves, known as sleep spindles, play a key role in blocking out sound during sleep, allowing people to stay asleep through a barrage of noises. Researchers tested this by recruiting 12 self-described sound sleepers to spend three nights in a lab. The first night, participants slept in quiet conditions, but on the following two nights, they were confronted with a variety of jarring sounds, including telephones ringing, jet engines roaring, and toilets flushing, after they had fallen asleep. Individuals who had the highest rates of spindles on the first night were less likely than others to be woken by the sounds presented on the noisy nights. Discuss

The fact that the colored squares on a Rubik's Cube have 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different possible configurations may come as little surprise to those who have spent many an hour puzzling over one; however, the knowledge that each configuration may be solved in 20 moves or less may. An international team using Google's computers to investigate millions of configurations determined that the so-called "God's number," or the fewest number of moves it would take an all-knowing being to solve the hardest configuration of a Rubik's Cube, is 20. In fact, only 300 million arrangements require a full 20 moves. The majority of solutions take between just 15 and 19 moves to solve. Discuss

Cut marks on 3.4-million-year-old animal bones uncovered in Ethiopia push back the earliest known use of stone tools by human ancestors by about 800,000 years. Electron microscope scans confirmed that the cut marks on the bones match marks that would have been left by stone blades. The tool use has been attributed to the only hominin species known to have populated the region at that time, Australopithec us afarensis, which was previously thought to be vegetarian. As such, the find also provides the earliest evidence for meat-eating among hominins. Discuss

A Chinese study suggests that teens who use the Internet excessively are about one and a half times more likely to develop depression than moderate Web users. Spending at least five to 10 hours a day online, being agitated when not in front of a computer, and having a reduced interest in social interaction are all signs of pathological Internet use. While a previous study found that depression might be a factor in causing Internet addiction, this study indicates that young people who were initially free of mental health problems but who surfed the Web in a pathological manner could develop depression as a consequence. Discuss

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, kills at least 15,000 people in the US each year, but it appears that efforts to prevent its spread—such as better hand-washing by medical professionals and testing patients for the infection upon hospital admission—are working. A federal study of the aggressive, drug-resistant infection found that, between 2005 and 2008, MRSA cases in nine major metropolitan areas dropped by almost 28% among hospitalized patients and 17% among people who were not hospitalized but acquired the infection following medical procedures like dialysis. Discuss

For the first time in the US, a genetically modified (GM) crop has been found growing in the wild, flourishing in the form of roadside weeds across North Dakota. The canola plants, engineered to be resistant to certain herbicides, apparently spread when seeds blow from fields or fall out of trucks carrying the crops to market. How problematic this might be is subject to debate, but critics of GM crops have long warned that it would be difficult to keep them from spreading with unwanted consequences. Indeed, the biotech canola has even been found growing wild in Japan, which merely imports the crop and does not grow it. Discuss

A new study finds that girls in the US are reaching puberty at earlier ages than they have in the past. The analysis adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the onset of puberty in girls is shifting earlier. Experts cannot say for certain what is behind the shift, but several factors are likely to blame, including increased rates of obesity and environmental chemicals that mimic the effects of estrogen. This trend is worrisome, as studies suggest that early puberty could slightly increase the risk of breast cancer. Furthermore, girls who develop early often become sexually active earlier than those who develop later and have a greater risk of depression. Discuss

Doctors in Scotland say that it is not necessary to wait to conceive again after suffering a miscarriage, finding instead that conceiving within six months offers the best chance for a healthy pregnancy. They followed nearly 31,000 women whose first pregnancy ended in miscarriage and who subsequently became pregnant between 1981 and 2000. Among those women who became pregnant again within six months of a miscarriage, 85% had a healthy baby. Just 73% of those who waited more than two years to get pregnant again had healthy babies. Discuss

For many adults, getting the recommended number of hours of sleep each night is little more than a distant dream. To investigate the effects of sleep deprivation experienced by many people during the workweek, participants in a recent study were allowed only four hours of sleep a night for five nights in a row. On the following night, they were allowed up to ten hours of "recovery sleep." Researchers found that test scores, attention spans, reaction times, and fatigue levels improved after the "recovery sleep," however, some deficits still remained. Discuss

One of North America's most common bats may be driven to extinction in the northeastern US in as little as 16 years. A disease known as white-nose syndrome, caused by a fungus that grows on the nose, wing membranes, and ears of bats while they hibernate in caves and mines during the winter, is believed to have caused the deaths of 1 million little brown bats in North America already. Bats play a vital role in the control of insect populations, and this bat in particular has been known to eat its weight in insects in a night. The loss of these bats could result in increased insect populations that damage crops and spread disease. Discuss

Though recent moon missions have found water ice on the Moon's surface and evidence of water was reported in rocks brought back to Earth by Apollo astronauts in the late 1960s and early 1970s, scientists now believe that the Moon may actually be quite dry. A recent analysis of chlorine isotopes found in the Apollo samples revealed that the hydrogen content of lunar magma during the Moon's formation was actually quite low. Since hydrogen is a key element of water, it stands to reason that the Moon possesses relatively little water. Discuss

A longtime smoker who doctors suspected was suffering from a cancerous tumor of the lung turned out to have a very different—and unusual—problem: a pea plant sprouting in his lung. Apparently, the 75-year-old Massachusetts man had at one time eaten a pea that went down the wrong way and lodged in his lung, where it began to grow. The sprout ultimately caused him to suffer a collapsed lung. Doctors removed the half inch (1.25 cm) long pea plant, and the patient has since returned to eating peas. Discuss

A gene mutation that can make bacteria resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics has been found in UK hospitals. Although only about 50 cases involving these bacteria have been identified in the UK so far, experts fear the super-resistant strains could soon spread across the globe. Furthermore, there are worries that the superbug gene, known as NDM-1, could jump from one strain of bacteria to another. Many of those affected by the resistant bacteria in the UK had received treatment at hospitals in India and Pakistan, where the gene is believed to have evolved and is already widespread. Discuss

Men who face a lot of competition in finding a mate may have shorter life spans than those who do not. Researchers say that men who reach puberty in settings in which they outnumber women live an average of three months less than men from areas with more balanced gender ratios. Previous research has revealed links between gender ratio and longevity in animals but never before in humans. While the reason these men have a reduced life span is unclear, researchers suspect that biological factors, such as the added stress of finding a mate in a competitive environment, may be to blame. Discuss

Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the H1N1 swine flu pandemic officially over, a little more than a year after it began. This does not mean that the virus that caused the pandemic has disappeared, simply that it has now spread so widely that many people in all age groups have some immunity to the strain. Experts expect that the H1N1 virus will continue to circulate at relatively low levels, in much the same way as a seasonal influenza strain. Discuss

After 859 days and thousands of miles, former British army captain Ed Stafford became the first man known to have walked the entire length of the Amazon River. The trek, which he began on April 2, 2008, spanned some 4,000 miles (6,500 km) through three countries and brought him into contact with pit vipers, electric eels, anacondas, mosquitoes, and scorpions. Though he says he hopes his accomplishment will raise awareness of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and raise funds to protect it, Stafford also admits that he undertook the expedition "simply.because no one has done it before." Discuss

Women who gain too much weight during pregnancy have heavier babies, and heavier babies are more prone to obesity later in life. A study of more than 513,000 women and their 1.1 million infants found that women who gained more than 53 lb (24 kg) during the course of a pregnancy were more than twice as likely to have a high-birth-weight baby—defined as more than 8.8 lb (4 kg)—than women who gained only 18 to 22 lb (8 to 10 kg). In the US, more than a third of normal-weight women and more than half of overweight and obese women gain more weight during pregnancy than their doctors recommend. Discuss

A new, multicultural study found that women in China, the US, England, and Germany perceive a man wearing red or surrounded by the color as higher in status and more likely to climb the social ladder—and are therefore more sexually attracted to him. Authors say the effect this color has on women's perceptions is likely attributable to its use throughout history as a symbol of prosperity and elevated status. Men's perceptions of other men, meanwhile, appear to be unaffected by clothing color. Discuss