Focus

Here's a tidbit from John Tierney's NYT Findings column, "Ear Plugs to Lasers - The Science of Concentration":

...
When something bright or novel flashes, it tends to automatically win the competition for the brain’s attention, but that involuntary bottom-up impulse can be voluntarily overridden through a top-down process that Dr. Desimone calls “biased competition.” He and colleagues have found that neurons in the prefrontal cortex — the brain’s planning center — start oscillating in unison and send signals directing the visual cortex to heed something else.
...
“It takes a lot of your prefrontal brain power to force yourself not to process a strong input like a television commercial,” said Dr. Desimone, the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at M.I.T. “If you’re trying to read a book at the same time, you may not have the resources left to focus on the words.”
...

Here are some tips from the author of "Rapt,” a guide to the science of paying attention, Winifred Gallagher.

Ms. Gallagher advocates meditation to increase your focus, but she says there are also simpler ways to put the lessons of attention researchers to use. Once she learned how hard it was for the brain to avoid paying attention to sounds, particularly other people’s voices, she began carrying ear plugs with her. When you’re trapped in a noisy subway car or a taxi with a TV that won’t turn off, she says you have to build your own “stimulus shelter.”

She recommends starting your work day concentrating on your most important task for 90 minutes. At that point your prefrontal cortex probably needs a rest, and you can answer e-mail, return phone calls and sip caffeine (which does help attention) before focusing again. But until that first break, don’t get distracted by anything else, because it can take the brain 20 minutes to do the equivalent of rebooting after an interruption. (For more advice, go to nytimes.com/tierneylab.)

Happyhour Gene Determines Sensitivity to Alcohol

From NewScientist:

A newly identified gene called happyhour makes fruit flies sensitive to booze. Drugs that mimic the effects of the gene may offer a new treatment against alcohol abuse, researchers say. Read more...

Mockingbirds Can Remember Threatening People

From NewScientist:

Terreform: Growing Houses

The solution to our environmental problems is going to require some out of the box thinking. This is one of the most interesting ideas I have seen in quite a while (check out the website at terreform.org):

Could We Have Prevented HIV/AIDS

And can we prevent the next epidemic?

Flying Bionic Penguins

Green Porno: Snail

Now for a little fun:

Corn Ethanol No Better Than Petroleum

Here's another nugget regarding alt. energy (SciAm.com):

Corn Ethanol Will Not Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

I've posted on this topic before, check out Beyond Fossil Fuels, Duckweed, Renewable Energy to the Rescue, Water vs. Energy, A Note on Biofuels and Alternative Biofuels.

Beyond Fossil Fuels

I want to direct your attention to a series that started today on SciAm.com. I am super busy with the end of school and trying to find a job, so I don't have any time to discuss it, but check it out:

Beyond Fossil Fuels
A survey of executives at companies engaged in energy alternatives to fossil fuels reveals some of the challenges facing the industry

The Fountain of Youth Flows With Heavy Water

Bed Bugs an Increasing Problem

Bed bugs have always been somewhat of a mythical creature to me. Probably because because of the little rhyme recited every night by my parents as they tucked me in: "Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite. And if they do, get out your shoe, and beat them 'til they're black and blue." (The second line wasn't recited by my parents, but learned later from peers at school.)

Anyway, I have never taken this warning particularly seriously, but there may now be reason to heed the warning with a little more care. Check it out (from 60 Second Science):

Federal environmental regulators are hosting the first-ever "bed bug summit" to discuss emerging infestations of the insects around the country.

At the behest of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), some 300 people gathered in Arlington, Va., yesterday and today to swap ideas about how to get rid of the critters, whose bites make up to half of victims itchy with hives. While there's no official count of how many people are bitten, cities including New York, Chicago, Boston and Cincinnati have reported growing bed bug problems, which experts blame in part on declining use of pesticides amid concerns about their health effects. Read more...

New Breed of Cancer Vaccine Shows New Promise

Seattle bio-tech company Dendreon has announced that it's anti-cancer vaccine, Provenge, prolongs the lives of prostate cancer patients. 500 patients for who no other therapies were effective participated in the study, but the exact results have not been released (leading to some suspicion regarding the truth of the claim).

While most vaccines rely on prevention, provenge works by targeting immune cells/molecules to established tumors. Many believe this type of vaccine could be less toxic and more effective than chemotherapy or radiation, and when used in conjunction with chemo, the results appear to be synergistic.

However, while preliminary results are certainly promising, the FDA has been reluctant to approve Provenge - inciting outcry and criticism by many cancer-patient advocates. Maybe these latest results will help (when the details are finally released - and if the claims are true).

(link to article about another alt. treatment with nanoparticles)

Image: T-cell

Source
Scientific American: 60 Second Science
New Hope For Cancer Vaccines
by Gary Stix

Rare Megamouth Shark Caught in the Phillipines

From SciAm.com:

On the morning of March 30, fishermen casting their nets in the Burias Pass, a centrally located channel in the Philippine archipelago, got the catch—not to mention surprise—of their lives: a megamouth shark so rare that some people still consider it a "cryptid", a creature that is seen so infrequently science can't confirm its existence.

That's likely an overstatement when it comes to the megamouth, first spotted in 1976 in waters near the Hawaiian island of Oahu. But, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) in Gainesville, which dubbed last month's catch "megamouth 41" (this being only the 41st observation of one of these sharks)—this is the eighth specimen snagged in the Pacific Ocean near the Philippines. Read more...

Like Loud Misic, Scared of Going Deaf - Fear No More

From SciAm.com:

Anti-Loudness Protein

Fans of club music and rock concerts who like the volume cranked up to 11 but want to save their hearing might someday pop a pill rather than plugging their ears. Scientists have pinpointed the biochemical mechanism in ears that works to limit damaging effects of loud sound. When a noise registers in the brain as too loud, the protein nAChR, located on sensory hair cells in the inner ear, kicks in to limit the ability of the hair cells to respond. Mice genetically altered to produce a more potent nAChR could not hear soft sounds, and they suffered less permanent damage to their hearing when scientists blasted 100-decibel noise at their ears. "We know some drugs can modify the protein," says Paul Fuchs of Johns Hopkins University, who published the findings in the January 20 PLoS Biology. "But we need to know more about specific amounts" before a sound-protecting drug can be made. So don't toss the earplugs yet.
--Kate Wilcox

Anatomically Normal Girl with Y Chromosome

This is quite amazing and could prove to be a significant finding for the field of developmental biology, and it might not have been discovered if it weren't for prenatal genetic screens. Check it out (from NewScientist):

A seven-year-old girl with a Y chromosome is providing new clues about a possible "master switch" of maleness.

The girl has the normal chromosome count – 46 – and should be male. Other children who have the male sex chromosome but do not appear to be boys have been found to have gene mutations that temper the Y chromosome's effects. However this child doesn't have ambiguous gonads, shrivelled testes or other developmental defects. She instead has a normal vagina, cervix and set of ovaries.

A team led by Anna Biason-Lauber, of University Children's Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, thinks the patient's normalcy is due to mutations in a poorly understood gene on chromosome 17 called CBX2.

The child's unique condition might not have been discovered were it not for tests performed before birth to check for major genetic defects, such as an extra copy of chromosome 21 that causes Down's syndrome. Those tests came up negative and indicated the child would be a boy.

Read more...

"Do Parents Matter?"

Sorry Mom and Dad, but I didn't say it. From SciAm.com:

Do Parents Matter?
A researcher argues that peers are much more important than parents, that psychologists underestimate the power of genetics and that we have a lot to learn from Asian classrooms.

In 1998 Judith Rich Harris, an independent researcher and textbook author, published The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out The Way They Do. The book provocatively argued that parents matter much less, at least when it comes to determining the behavior of their children, than is typically assumed. Instead, Harris argued that a child’s peer group is far more important. The Nurture Assumption has recently been reissued in an expanded and revised form. Mind Matters editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Harris about her critics, the evolution of her ideas and why teachers can be more important than parents.

If you have any interest in the nature/nurture debate, I suggest that you read the interview...

Duckweed: The Newest Alt. To Corn Ethanol

Duckweed is a small aquatic flower that can convert nutrients in waste into starch. And not only can it remediate polluted water, it is actually more productive than corn. According to researcher Jay Cheng, ""Based on our laboratory studies, we can produce five to six times more starch per unit of footage." Read more...(from Wired Science)

Green Porno: Fly

CT Scan Music Video

Inside The Jaymis: Squishy Bits Version from Jaymis on Vimeo.

Inside The Jaymis: Skeleton Animation - Wide Time from Jaymis on Vimeo.

Masturbation Relieves Hay Fever

From NewScientist:

Spring is here and with it come the woes of hay fever. Never fear, however, as there may be a quick and pleasurable treatment to clear those bunged noses, for guys at least – a well-timed ejaculation.

That's what Sina Zarrintan, a neurologist from the Tabriz Medical University in Iran proposes, anyway. The logic behind the proposal is based on the fact that the nose and the genitals are both connected to the same part of the nervous system that controls certain reflexes – the sympathetic nervous system.

A blocked nose is caused by swollen and inflamed nasal blood vessels, irritated by an infection or pollen in the air. But during ejaculation, the sympathetic nervous system constricts blood vessels across the body. That should soothe the swollen nasal blood vessels, freeing the airway for normal breathing, according to Zarrintan. Read more...