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Category Archives: News
Studies: Disrupted Sleep Cycles & Dopamine Linked; Craving “High-Calorie Food” & Obesity Are Result
From a NeuroscienceNews.com online release article (01/02/20):
During the years 1976 through 1980, 15% of U.S. adults were obese. Today, about 40%of adults are obese. Another 33% are overweight.
“But, of course, food is now abundant, and our next meal is as close as the kitchen, or the nearest fast-food drive-through, or right here on our desk. Often, these foods are high in fats, sugars, and therefore calories, and that’s why they taste good. It’s easy to overconsume, and, over time, this takes a toll on our health.”
In a study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, Güler and his colleagues demonstrate that the pleasure center of the brain that produces the chemical dopamine, and the brain’s separate biological clock that regulates daily physiological rhythms, are linked, and that high-calorie foods – which bring pleasure – disrupt normal feeding schedules, resulting in overconsumption. Using mice as study models, the researchers mimicked the 24/7 availability of a high-fat diet, and showed that anytime snacking eventually results in obesity and related health problems.
2020: Major Books, Films And Music From 1924 Enter U.S. Public Domain
From Duke Law “Center For The Study of the Public Domain”:
On January 1, 2020, works from 1924 will enter the US public domain, where they will be free for all to use and build upon, without permission or fee. These works include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, silent films by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and books such as Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young. These works were supposed to go into the public domain in 2000, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.
Films
- Buster Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr. and The Navigator
- Harold Lloyd’s Girl Shy and Hot Water
- The first film adaptation of Peter Pan
- The Sea Hawk
- Secrets
- He Who Gets Slapped
- Dante’s Inferno
Books
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain- E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
- Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… (the first volume of his “Parade’s End” tetralogy)
- Eugene O’Neill, Desire Under the Elms
- Edith Wharton, Old New York (four novellas)
- Yevgeny Zamyatin, We (the English translation by Gregory Zilboorg)
- A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young
- Hugh Lofting, Doctor Dolittle’s Circus
- Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Ant Men
- Agatha Christie, The Man in the Brown Suit
- Lord Dunsany (Edward Plunkett), The King of Elfland’s Daughter
Music
- Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin
- Fascinating Rhythm and Oh, Lady Be Good, music George Gershwin, lyrics Ira Gershwin
- Lazy, Irving Berlin
- Jealous Hearted Blues, Cora “Lovie” Austin (composer, pianist, bandleader) (recorded by Ma Rainey)
- Santa Claus Blues, Charley Straight and Gus Kahn (recorded by Louis Armstrong)
- Nobody’s Sweetheart, music Billy Meyers and Elmer Schoebel, lyrics Gus Kahn and Ernie Erdman
(Only the musical compositions referred to above are entering the public domain. Subsequent arrangements, orchestrations, or recordings of those compositions, such as Yuja Wang’s performance of Rhapsody in Blue, might still be copyrighted. You are free to copy, perform, record, or adapt Gershwin’s composition, but may need permission to use a specific recording of it.)
Politics: Mark Shields And David Brooks On The Week In Washington (PBS)
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s political news, including the U.S. military’s killing of elite Iranian general Qassam Soleimani and its potential repercussions and how fundraising and polling numbers are stacking up for 2020 Democrats a month before the Iowa caucuses.
Health And Aging: U.S. Will Need 33,000 Geriatricians By 2025, Only Has 7,000 Now
From a New York Times online article:
If one geriatrician can care for 700 patients with complicated medical needs, as a federal model estimates, then the nation will need 33,200 such doctors in 2025. It has about 7,000, only half of them practicing full time. (They’re sometimes confused with gerontologists, who study aging, and may work with older adults, but are not health care providers.)
Geriatrics became a board-certified medical specialty only in 1988. An analysis published in 2018 showed that over 16 years, through academic year 2017-18, the number of graduate fellowship programs that train geriatricians, underwritten by Medicare, increased to 210 from 182. That represents virtually no growth when adjusted for the rising United States population.
“It’s basically stagnation,” said Aldis Petriceks, the study’s lead author, now a medical student at Harvard.
Air Travel: Electric Planes From “Eviation” Could Be Flying In UK In 2 Years
Electric planes could soon fly commuters from city to city, a transport minister has disclosed. George Freeman, minister for transport and innovation, told The Telegraph’s “Chopper’s Brexit Podcast” that there was “a whole opportunity for short-haul transport at low altitude” that the country was yet to grasp.
In an episode of 2020 predictions, Mr Freeman said: “This will be the year where we begin to see a whole new world of low level aviation, Velocopters, electric planes. We already run the world’s first commercial electric plane service and Boris and I have been looking at how we can develop UK leadership in electric plane technology.” Mr Freeman said the planes could take eight passengers and fly at 2,500ft and could be used for “short hops between cities that take you an hour or two in the car, pumping out carbon monoxide.”
“At the moment the electric plane seats eight. But you know what the aerospace industry is like – eight soon becomes 18, and that soon becomes 28. We are determined to lead in the revolution of clean transport.”
To listen to the podcast in full, head here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/…
2020 Auto Trends: “VinFast” Electric Cars From Vietnam Will Start At $17K
Even in the U.S., VinFast faces stiff competition from Toyota, Ford and Hyundai. VinFast hopes its low prices — starting at $17,000 — will give it an edge.
Top New Science Podcasts: Latest Trends In Research, Carnivorous Plant Traps
We start our first episode of the new year looking at future trends in policy and research with host Joel Goldberg and several Science News writers. Jeffrey Mervis discusses upcoming policy changes, Kelly Servick gives a rundown of areas to watch in the life sciences, and Ann Gibbons talks about potential advances in ancient proteins and DNA.
In research news, host Meagan Cantwell talks with Beatriz Pinto-Goncalves, a postdoctoral researcher at the John Innes Centre, about carnivorous plant traps. Through understanding the mechanisms that create these traps, Pinto-Goncalves and colleagues elucidate what this could mean for how they emerged in the evolutionary history of plants.
Studies: New Protein Therapy Improves Cardiac Function, Scar Formation After Heart Attack
From a New Atlas online article (Jan 1, 2020):
“This is an entirely new approach with no current treatments able to change scar in this way,” says Associate Professor James Chong who led the research. “By improving cardiac function and scar formation following heart attack, treatment with rhPDGF-AB led to an overall increase in survival rate in our study.”
The research centers on a protein therapy called recombinant human platelet-derived growth factor-AB (rhPDGF-AB), which had previously been shown to improve heart function in mice that had suffered a heart attack. In a new study aimed at bringing the treatment closer to human trials, a team set out to discover if it produced similar results in large animals, namely pigs.
The researchers from the Westmead Institute for Medical Research (WIMR) and the University of Sydney found that when pigs that had suffered a heart attack received an infusion of rhPDGF, it did indeed prompt the formation of new blood vessels in the heart and led to a reduction of potentially fatal heart arrhythmia.
Top Science Podcasts: Soles And Calluses, Far Side Of The Moon & Nobel Prize Winner Q&A (Nature)
The podcast team share some of their highlights from the past 12 months: A sole sensation, The make up of the far side of the Moon, Growth Mindset, ‘Manferences’ and Q&A with Nobel Prize winner John Goodenough.
In this episode:
00:33 A sole sensation
A study of people who do and don’t wear shoes looks into whether calluses make feet less sensitive. Nature Podcast: 26 June 2019; Research article: Holowka et al.; News and Views: Your sensitive sole
08:56 The make up of the far side of the Moon
Initial observations from the first lander to touch down on the far side of the Moon. Nature Podcast: 15 May 2019; Research article: Li et al.
15:43 Growth Mindset
How a one hour course could improve academic achievement. Nature Podcast: 07 August 2019; Research article: Yeager et al.
27:44 ‘Manferences’
Nature investigates the prevalence of conferences where most of the speakers are male. Nature Podcast: 11 September 2019; News Feature: How to banish manels and manferences from scientific meetings
34:02 Q&A with Nobel Prize winner John Goodenough
We talk to John Goodenough, who was jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in the development of the lithium-ion battery. Podcast Extra: 09 October 2019
Boomers Daily 