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Could Eating Grapes Save You From Skin Cancer? Scientists Find Fruit Protects Against Premature Ageing

August 3, 2011 by ·

Grapes could protect against skin cancer and prevent premature ageing, research has revealed.

A study has shown that compounds found in the fruit protect cells from the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun – the  leading environmental cause of skin cancer.

UV rays increase the levels of reactive oxygen species – harmful molecules which damage the cells – in the skin.

Scientists from the University of Barcelona and the Spanish National Research Council have shown that substances called flavonoids extracted from grapes can prevent these from forming in cells exposed to UV rays. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Disease, Fruits & Vegetables, Health Care, Research & Study ·

Smartphones Are Taking Over People’s Lives As Users ‘Obsessively’ Check Their Devices, Scientists Warn

July 28, 2011 by ·

They are often hailed as an essential component of modern life.

But smartphones are taking over some people’s lives, according to a study that has identified repetitive and obsessive use of the devices.

Scientists have uncovered what they call ‘checking habits’, when users frequently look at the menu screen, news, email, contacts, and social applications on the device.

A typical checking lasts less than 30 seconds and involves opening the screen lock and accessing a single application.

The researchers, from Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, were surprised to find users engaging in checking behaviours throughout the waking hours. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business, Economy, Gadgets, Research & Study, Technologies ·

Miraculous! Dolphin Healing Powers May Help Humans

July 27, 2011 by ·

What miracles is Mother Nature hiding from us? Look no further than the bottlenose dolphin for a little bit of inspiration. At least that’s what a researcher at the Georgetown University Medical Center suggests.

Michael Zasloff has published a letter in the July 21 issue of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, in which he recounts several documented incidents of serious injuries to dolphins, presumably inflicted by sharks. These bites, some larger than a basketball, healed in weeks without leaving the dolphins disfigured, without causing them apparent pain, and without becoming visibly infected.

“If I saw this in a human being, I wouldn’t believe it,” Zasloff said. “It should awe us. You have an animal that has evolved in the ocean without hands or legs, which swims faster than we can, has intelligence that perhaps equals our social and emotional complexity, and its healing is almost alien compared to what we are capable of.” [See images of healing dolphins] [Read more...]

Filed Under: Environment, Research & Study, Wildlife ·

How Dairy Farms Contribute To Greenhouse Gas Emissions

July 26, 2011 by ·

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have produced the first detailed data on how large-scale dairy facilities contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases. This research was conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists at the ARS Northwest Irrigation and Soils Research Laboratory in Kimberly, Idaho.

ARS is USDA’s principal intramural scientific research agency, and these studies support the USDA priority of responding to climate change.

ARS soil scientist April Leytem led the year-long project, which involved monitoring the emissions of ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from a commercial dairy with 10,000 milk cows in southern Idaho. The facility had 20 open-lot pens, two milking parlors, a hospital barn, a maternity barn, a manure solid separator, a 25-acre wastewater storage pond and a 25-acre compost yard. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Environment, Global Warming, Research & Study ·

Global Warming Pause Linked To Sulfur In China

July 5, 2011 by ·

Scientists have come up with a possible explanation for why the rise in Earth’s temperature paused for a bit during the 2000s, one of the hottest decades on record.

The answer seems counterintuitive. It’s all that sulfur pollution in the air from China’s massive coal-burning, according to a new study.

Sulfur particles in the air deflect the sun’s rays and can temporarily cool things down a bit. That can happen even as coal-burning produces the carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming.

“People normally just focus on the warming effect of CO2 (carbon dioxide), but during the Chinese economic expansion there was a huge increase in sulfur emissions,” which have a cooling effect, explained Robert K. Kaufmann of Boston University. He’s the lead author of the study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate Change, Environment, Research & Study ·

Weight Loss Surgery May Cut Inflammation, Disease Risk

June 26, 2011 by ·

The health benefits of gastric bypass surgery may go beyond helping people lose weight, new research suggests.

The new study included 15 people who had gastric bypass surgery. Six months after surgery, the participants showed a decrease in proteins that cause inflammation associated with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and an increase in proteins that reduce such inflammation.

The study was released online in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of the journal Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases.

“We’re amassing evidence that weight loss is a very important part of changing the way the body’s systems work in people with high-risk diseases like diabetes and heart disease,” chief investigator Gary D. Miller, an associate professor at Wake Forest University, said in a university news release. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Health Care, Obesity, Research & Study ·

Oceans On Brink Of Catastrophe

June 23, 2011 by ·

Marine life facing mass extinction ‘within one human generation’ / State of seas ‘much worse than we thought’, says global panel of scientists

The world’s oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing.

The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine environment with a catastrophe “unprecedented in human history”, according to the report, from a panel of leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, Nature, Research & Study ·