Sleep duration and cardiac death link seen in study
US team found relevant data how sleeping very little may cause bad impact in our heart. Among 58,044 men and women 45 years of age or older without heart disease at study entry, those who slept 5 hours or less or 9 hours or more, were significantly more likely to die from cardiovascular disease over the next several years than people who logged7 hours a night. These findings back the results of other studies that have suggested how long people sleep may be a key predictor of their heart disease risk. Most research on sleep duration and heart disease has been in Western populations, aside from three studies in Japan, the researchers note.
To investigate, the researchers looked at people participating in the Singapore Chinese Health Study. The study participants, who were ethnic Chinese living in Singapore, were enrolled between1993 and 1998, and followed through the end of 2006. During that time, 1,416 people died of heart disease. 35 of the study participants said they got 7 hours of sleep a night. People who slept for 5 or less or 9 or more hours were more likely to have several different heart disease risk factors than those who slept for 7 hours, such as smoking and eating fewer fruits and vegetables and more fat and cholesterol. But even after the researchers adjusted the data to account for these risk factors, they found that people who slept 5 hours or less were 57% more likely to die of heart
disease. Some investigators have suggested that sleeping longer may indicate underlying poor health.
Sleep duration
Mineral points
Mineral points to Martian water suitable for life
Scientists said: mineral evidence for a water environment capable of supporting life has been discovered on Mars. Deposits of carbonate, formed in neutral or alkaline water, were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Carbonate is formed when water and carbon dioxide mix with calcium, iron or magnesium. It dissolves quickly in acid, so its discovery counters the theory that all water on Mars was at one time acidic. Carbonates on Earth like chalk or limestone sometimes preserve organic material, but scientists have found no such evidence on Mars. The 3.6 billion year old carbonate was discovered in bedrock at the edge of a 930 mile wide (1,490-km-wide) crater.
Carbonate previously had been found in minuscule amounts in soil samples provided by the Phoenix Mars Lander, Martian dust and Martian meteorites on Earth. But this is the first time scientists have found a site where carbonate formed. The deposits are about the size of football fields and are visible in images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The deposits appear to be limited, but the neutral or alkaline water environment may once have been more widespread, said Scott Murchie, a scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Phyllosilicates, which form under similar conditions to carbonate but do not dissolve in acidic environments, are abundant on Mars.
Shocking study
Shocking study finds most will torture if ordered
Scientists mentioned that some things never change as they had replicated an experiment in which people obediently delivered painful shocks to others if encouraged to do so by authority figures. Seventy percent of volunteers continued to administer electrical shocks or at least they believed they were doing so even after an actor claimed they were painful. The found is validation
of the same argument if you put people into certain situations, they will act in surprising, and maybe often even disturbing ways. In an experiment in which volunteers were asked to deliver electric "shocks" to other people if they answered certain questions incorrectly. The experiment surprised psychologists & no one has tried to replicate it because of the distress suffered by many of the volunteers who believed they were shocking another person. It was a very stressful experience for many of the participants. That is the reason no one can ethically replicate the experiment today. The experiment, by stopping at the 150 volt point for the 29 men and 41 women in his experiment. Scientists measured how many of his volunteers began to deliver another shock when prompted by the experiment's leader but instead of letting them do so, stopped them.
At 1 point, researchers brought in a volunteer who knew what was going on and refused to administer shocks beyond 150 volts. Despite the example, 63% of the participants continued administering shocks past 150 volts. The experiment found no differences among his volunteers, aged 20 to 81, and carefully screened them to be average representatives of the U.S. public. Although one must be cautious when making the leap from laboratory studies to complex social behaviors such as genocide, understanding the social psychological factors that contribute to people acting in unexpected and unsettling ways is important.
Late night festive meals
Late night festive meals won't make you fat
Think twice about blaming sweets for your out-of-control children this festive season, and those added pounds might not be due to an ill-advised late-night meal. As for an aspirin to cure a hangover? Forget it.
That's the advice of 2 researchers seeking to debunk some common medical myths that crop up during the holidays but have little scientific backing.
Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine wrote in the British Medical Journal: "In the pursuit of scientific truth, even widely held medical beliefs require examination or re-examination."
The pair combed through previous scientific studies and searched the Web for evidence to support or refute common beliefs such as one tagging poinsettia plants as toxic. Many parents think sugar from sweets, chocolates and other sources makes children hyperactive but research shows this is not the case. Rather, the link is most likely in the parents' minds, the researchers said. Regardless of what parents might believe, however, sugar is not to blame for out-of-control little ones- the researchers wrote.
People fret over the holidays about putting on the pounds after so many festive meals. But eating late at night does not pose a problem when it comes to gaining weight, according to the studies the researchers reviewed.
Another myth is a mistaken belief that most body heat escapes through the head, putting undue importance on woolen hats when temperatures drop, they wrote. If this were true, humans would be just as cold if they went without trousers as if they went without a hat.
And for revelers confident they have the trick to prevent or cure a hangover, the researchers say moderation is the only way to escape that pounding headache. From aspirin to bananas to Vegemite and water, Internet searches present seemingly endless options for preventing or treating alcohol hangovers. No scientific evidence, however, supports any cure or effective prevention for alcohol hangovers.
Right help
Right help key to quit success for women smokers
According to experts from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Female smokers who want to kick the habit face different challenges than men, but with the right help they can be just as successful. Research suggests women may be more likely than men to relapse after quitting, in an analysis of 3,000 people treated at the Mayo Clinic center found no difference between men and women in the ability to stay smoke free 6 months later. Women report more troublesome symptoms of withdrawal such as depression, irritability, anxiety and lethargy than men do, smoking can be more of a reaction to negative emotions for women than it is for men and women may also have less faith in their ability to quit.
Croghan noted in an interview: "Treatment specialists can actually adjust the behavioral intervention to fit those kinds of issues to help her move along." One of the most important keys to quitting smoking is to get professional help, which is often covered by health insurance.
The fact that nicotine patches and similar smoking cessation aids are now available over the counter may give the impression that people don't need assistance, but these medications were actually designed to be an adjunct to counseling, they pointed out.
"I would encourage people who do want to use over-the-counter pharmaceutical aids to at least get some kind of counseling in there, whether it's a tobacco quit line, a self-help manual, or just going to a physician to talk," Croghan advised.
Along with professional help, there are 3 more key steps to smoking cessation success, Set a quit date or timeframe; choose some type of pharmaceutical smoking cessation aid; and get support from at least one friend or family member or even an online connection.
People should try not to get discouraged if they try to quit and fail, he adds in the newsletter; smokers typically make four to six attempts before they succeed. People need to realize that if they have a relapse, they can learn from it.
Phoenix
NASA is still not sure whether its Phoenix lander has found a place where life could have existed on Mars. But scientists working with the US space agency, computer models they have been using to predict what the weather would be like on the Red Planet are wrong, and more accurate models would give a better picture of its past.
Speaking at the opening day of the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco,
Phoenix mission scientists laid out the early harvest from five months of robotic operations on the northern polar region of Mars.
Analyzing ice and soil samples for organic material, a process that is still under way, the Phoenix science team collected daily weather reports, information considered critical to learning if the planet could have supported water long enough for life to evolve.
Phoenix saw dusty summer days slip into cloudy fall, replete with ground fog, snow and frost. Global climate models that are running on Mars would not predict this but the polar region is going to force us to make changes.
More accurate computer models would give scientists a clearer picture of what happened in Mars' past, particularly when the planet's axial tilt, or obliquity, was greater than it is now. Without a large moon for stabilization, Mars' polar regions periodically shift off axis by more than 35 degrees. During those times, the sun would rise higher in the sky above the Martian poles, making for warmer summers.
Scientists are trying to determine if there was ever a period of time when it would have been warm enough for water, considered a key ingredient for life as we know it. If the scientists can update these global circulation models and we can understand better about the polar weather, then they can look back in time to see if liquid water was ever a dominant influence on this soil in this location.
Scientists had problems delivering soil samples into Phoenix's tiny ovens for analysis because the soil turned out to be rather clumpy, not dry and dusty like the soil at sites where other probes have landed. Though frustrating, the discovery also spurred new questions about how water is moving through the ice, soil and atmosphere.
Six new gene mutations linked to obesity
Study finds six new gene mutations linked to obesity
Researchers founded 6 new gene mutations linked to obesity and they point to ways the brain and nervous system control eating and metabolism.
Dr. Alan Guttmacher, Acting director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said: "Today's findings are a major step forward in understanding how the human body regulates weight." This study essentially doubles in one fell swoop the number of known and replicated genetic factors contributing to obesity as a public health problem. These findings are a major step forward in understanding how the human body regulates weight.
They found variations in six genesn TMEM18, KCTD15, GNPDA2, SH2B1, MTCH2 and NEGR1 were strongly associated with a height to weight ratio known as body mass index or BMI.
One of the most notable aspects of these discoveries is that most of these new risk factors are near genes that regulate processes in the brain. This suggests that to develop better means of combating obesity, including using these discoveries as the first step in developing new drugs, we need to focus on the regulation of appetite at least as much as on the metabolic factors of how the
body uses and stores energy. Nearly a third of US adults are considered obese with a BMI of 30 or more. Obesity is associated with more than 100,000 deaths each year in the US population and trends are similar in many other countries.
Dr. Eric Green, the genome institute's said: We know that environmental factors, such as diet, play a role in obesity, but this research further provides evidence that genetic variation plays a significant role in an individual's predisposition to obesity.
