No shortage of neo-Earths
One of astronomy’s current goals is to determine the number of sun-like stars that have an earth-like planet. Now, a new guesstimate from the University of California – Berkeley published in Science puts that number at a very high 1-in-4. To arrive at the 1-in-4 figure, UC Berkeley astronomers Andrew Howard and Geoffrey Marcy chose […]
Noise doubles heart disease risk
A persistently noisy workplace more than doubles an employee’s risk of serious heart disease, suggest new findings in the journalOccupational and Environmental Medicine. The researchers base their findings on a sample of more than 6,000 employees, aged from 20 upwards, who had been part of the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between […]
Gender-bending pollutants’ impact quantified
A four year study from the UK has shown that the effects of hormone-like pollutants are very damaging to fish populations, reducing their reproductive performance by up to 76 percent. Led by the universities of Exeter and Brunel, the new study has important implications for understanding the impacts of these chemicals on ecosystem health and […]
New Arctic shipping routes will accelerate warming
As the Arctic Ocean warms and ice-packs retreat, new routes will open up which will likely prove irresistible to shipping companies. A Northwest Passage and Northeast Passage through the Arctic Ocean would provide a distance savings of about 25 percent and 50 percent, respectively, with coincident time and fuel savings. But these new trade routes […]
Love the pain away
Passionate, intense feelings of love can provide amazingly effective pain relief, claims a new Stanford University School of Medicine study which compares the physiological effects of love to painkillers or drugs such as cocaine. “When people are in this passionate, all-consuming phase of love, there are significant alterations in their mood that are impacting their […]
Depression caused by brain inflammation?
Chronic depression is an adaptive, reparative neurobiological process gone wrong, say two University of California, San Diego, researchers. They suggest that the debilitating mental state originates from ancient mechanisms used by the body to deal with physical injury, such as pain, tissue repair and convalescent behavior. The researchers hope their study, published in Neuroscience and […]
One-way Mars missions mooted
Fancy watching the sun rise over Olympus Mons? Or perhaps taking a stroll across the vast plains of the Vastitas Borealis? The only catch is you can never return to Earth. In a paper published in the Journal of Cosmology, scientists Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies contend that while a manned mission to Mars and […]
Uh-oh, placebo
Modern medicine is based on what is considered the strongest possible evidence: the placebo-controlled trial. But placebos vary widely in their formulation and a paper published in the Annals of Internal Medicine calls into question the lack of any kind of standard in placebo formulation and also the appropriateness of drug companies providing their own […]
New optics capture exoplanet 63 million light years distant
New optical technology has allowed an international team of astronomers to obtain images of the exoplanet known as Beta Pictoris b in the Beta Pictoris system, some 63 million light years away. The discovery, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, is a result of an international collaboration involving the University of Arizona (UA), Steward Observatory, the […]
Lighten up to get heavy
Exposure to light at night may lead to weight gain, even without changes in food intake and physical activity levels, according to new research conducted with mice. The researchers found that mice exposed to a relatively dim light at night over eight weeks had a body mass gain that was about 50 percent more than […]