Every day there is new news in the realm of science. New discoveries. New takes on old knowledge. The base of information and knowledge grows at a rate much too fast to keep up with all that is available.
Over the fold are some selections from my favorite science news site, e!Science News. Follow along for education and entertainment if you will.
It is a tie. The two dimmest stellar objects are a pair of brown dwarf stars shining with 1 millionth of the intensity of our sun.
Brown dwarfs are the misfits of the cosmos. They are compact balls of gas floating freely in space, but they are too cool and lightweight to be stars, and too warm and massive to be planets. The name 'brown dwarf' comes from the fact that these small, star-like bodies change colour over time as they cool, and thus have no definitive colour.
Who would have known if astronomers had not been looking so closely?
Having grown up on Hostess cupcakes and Twinkies I knew this one already. Sugar may be addictive. In a study of rats
Until now, the rats under study have met two of the three elements of addiction. They have demonstrated a behavioral pattern of increased intake and then showed signs of withdrawal. His current experiments captured craving and relapse to complete the picture.
I guess that means I have to give up some of my daily sugar intake. Darn.
For a long time people have known exercise suppresses appetite for a bit of time after the exercise period. Now comes news of an explanation for this phenomenon.
A vigorous 60-minute workout on a treadmill affects the release of two key appetite hormones, ghrelin and peptide YY, while 90 minutes of weight lifting affects the level of only ghrelin, according to a new study. Taken together, the research shows that aerobic exercise is better at suppressing appetite than non-aerobic exercise and provides a possible explanation for how that happens.
Now we need a way to make keyboarding an aerobic exercise form for those of too lazy to get out and be more active.
One that brought mixed emotions tells of the effects of a video game on "older" adults (60's and 70's). OUCH! That hurts to be called older, but on to the news.
A new study found that adults in their 60s and 70s can improve a number of cognitive functions by playing a strategic video game that rewards nation-building and territorial expansion.
Maybe somebody told Bush that and he used the world instead of the video game.
A man who keeps more than 300,000 fruit flies in his basement has made an important discovery in the realm of memory.
Bolduc has shown that genetically disrupting a specific gene called FMR1 in a fruit fly's brain will wipe out its long-term memory. Bolduc has also found a class of drugs that helps fruit flies with this disrupted gene to regain their memories. The news is significant for humans, because FMR1 may malfunction in people with intellectual disabilities like Fragile X syndrome, and there are currently no clinically available treatments.
Fragile X syndrome is the most common genetic abnormality in children. Those children may suffer memory difficulties and seizures. As this research proceeds there is hope for improvement or even one day a cure for the problem. This is a miracle indeed.
And there is lots more to be found on e!Science News and other science sites around the internet. The information extravaganza is wild and woolly and open to each and every one of us these days. Enjoy
NASA beauty pic of the day.
Cone Nebula, NASA, Public Domain
For lots more incredible pictures in the public domain see the NASA website.
Peace.