Sony barely mentioned pricing with their PlayStation Move motion controller, only noting that the combo pricing with PlayStation Eye and a game will cost less than $100. But by our back-of-the-envelope calculations, the experience is going to be really expensive. More »
Joan Shapiro tapped by medical school Bizjournals.com After 20 years with St. Joseph's, Shapiro will oversee the medical school's research program. She will remain on the research faculty at St. Joseph's and ... |
An extensive study conducted on school children in Western Canada has proved that immunizing kids and adolescents goes a long way towards protecting the entire community from communicable diseases like the flu, thanks to a phenomenon known as “herd immunity.”
The findings come at a time when vaccine phobia is one of our largest public health concerns, with many parents worrying that immunizing kids can lead to adverse side affects. A recent survey revealed that one in four U.S. parents think that vaccines might cause autism, probably due in part to a 1998 paper published in the journal The Lancet that wrongly linked autism to vaccines–that paper has since been refuted, and fully retracted by the journal.
Now, scientists have more evidence that vaccines provide a public health benefit. Researchers studying youngsters in 49 remote Hutterite farming colonies in Canada found that giving flu shots to almost 80 percent of a community’s children created a herd immunity that helped protect unvaccinated older people from illness. As children often transfer viruses to each other first and then pass them along to grown-ups, the study provided solid proof that the best way to contain epidemics like the recent H1N1 outbreak is to first vaccinate all the kids. By immunizing the most germ-friendly part of the herd first, you indirectly protect the rest of the community, scientists say.
This is not the first time that scientists have found evidence that herd immunity can help protect the unvaccinated, but it’s the most definitive study on the subject yet. Researchers say this is the first such study to be conducted in such remote and isolated communities (the Hutterites‘ religious beliefs keep them separate from mainstream society), which reduced the chance that subjects could contract flu from other passing sources. Scientists say the new study provides “incontrovertible proof” that the shots themselves — rather than luck, viral mutations, hand-washing or any other factor — were the crucial protective element [The New York Times].
The study, published in The Journal of American Medical Association, focused on Hutterite farming colonies in Western Canada, where the people live in rural isolation in clusters of about 160 people. Though Hutterites drive cars and tractors, they shun radio and TV and each colony lives like a large joint family–eating together, going to a Hutterite school, and owning everything jointly.
In 25 of the colonies that joined the study, the scientists took school kids aged 3 to 15 years old and gave them flu shots in 2008. In 24 other colonies, the kids got placebo shots. In 2009, the researchers found that more than 10 percent of all the adults and children in colonies that received the placebo had had laboratory-confirmed seasonal flu. Less than 5 percent of those in the colonies that received flu shots had [The New York Times].
The study found that by vaccinating the kids against influenza, almost 60 percent of the larger community was granted “herd immunity” and protected against the illness. Carolyn Bridges, an expert in influenza epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the study implies that giving flu shots only to schoolchildren would protect the elderly just as well as giving flu shots to the elderly themselves. The C.D.C. would never recommend that, she cautioned, “Because you still should vaccinate high-risk people” [New York Times].
The Hutterite study’s findings are in line with a previous study conducted in 1968, in Tecumseh, Michigan. In that study, flu expert Arnold Monto vaccinated almost 85 percent of the town’s schoolchildren during flu season. At the end of season, the town had only a third as many flu cases as nearby Adrian, Mich., which received no shots. There were far fewer cases of flu in all age groups [New York Times].
Related Content:
80beats: The Lancet Retracts 1998 Paper That Linked Vaccinations to Autism
Bad Astronomy: While the Anti-Vax Movement Strengthens, Their Arguments Only Get Weaker
Bad Astronomy:Antivaxxers and the media
Bad Astronomy:An unvaccinated child has died from a preventable disease
Bad Astronomy:Antivax kills.
Bad Astronomy: Hospital workers fired for refusing vaccinations
Image: iStockPhoto
The Casio G'zOne Brigade is not a messaging phone you'd want to meet in a dark alley. It's shock resistant. It's water resistant. And like a great kung fu master, its outer strength is matched only by its inner fortitude. More »
I have installed a micro hydro turbine(1KW) with Induction Generator (a motor rated 2.2KW,240V-Delta,930 rpm) it's generating 210 V,45Hz at 560watt load. Presently I have connected this power to separate Lighting load (560 Watt) What happen if I synchronize this power with State Electricity Supply
Usually it's frustrating to see a kickass video with no background info. This time, I don't care. I don't even want to know how or why someone made a Passat 4x4. I just want to watch that sucker churn. More »
Little Helene. Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Here’s one of the small moons of Saturn we don’t get to see too much of, named Helene. Helene is pretty small as moons go, only 20 miles across. Cassini did a pass at just a bit more than 1,300 miles and that is about as close as the spacecraft has come to the little moon. The moon is a little off center, it’s not easy getting these shots sometimes. The moon appears very bright because it is bathed in reflected light from Saturn. There are other images, but they need to be processed by the Cassini team before they can be used, you can see them in the raw images section of the Cassini site (linked below), and you will understand what I am talking about. I included an image from 2007 which you can see by clicking the image above AND there is going to be another flyby in April so hopefully the angles will be better. Still a good picture though.
Anyways, Helene is notable because it is what is known as a Trojan moon, meaning it is gravitationally tied to a larger moon, in this case, Dione, and Helene stays 60 degrees (400,000km/250,000 miles) ahead of the larger moon.
One of the big questions is: how did this moon come to be gravitationally tied to Dione, maybe it blown off another in an impact. Another is: is the moon’s leading edge coated with material from the “E” ring.
Have a look at the press release here.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
The giant montane pitcher plant is a botanical predator, ruthlessly luring in prey and feasting on its victims–except when it’s not. Researchers have discovered that the carnivorous plant is mighty adaptable; when there’s no prey around, it thrives just fine on the poop of a tree shrew that lives in Borneo’s mountains.
The pitcher plant is the world’s largest meat-eating plant; in low altitudes it feeds on ants, small insects, and possibly even small rodents. The plant entices its prey with tasty nectar, and when the animals lose balance and drop into the fluid-filled pitcher, they’re drowned and ingested.
But in Borneo’s higher altitudes, there aren’t enough gullible and clumsy insects to keep the plant alive. So, evolutionary forces pressured the plant to tweak its design a bit to entice the tree shrew to pay it a visit and poop into it.
The BBC describes the unique toilet-shaped plant:
N. rapah pitchers have huge orifices, but they also grow large concave lids held at an angle of about 90 degrees away from the orifice. The inside of these lids are covered with glands that exude huge amounts of nectar. Most importantly, the distance from the front of the pitcher’s mouth to the glands corresponds exactly to the head to body length of mountain tree shrews.
The shrew perches on the plant to lick nectar from the “lid” and on most occasions it poops into the conveniently positioned toilet bowl to mark its territory. Scientists have yet to determine if the nectar has some sort of laxative qualities to it.
The feces collect at the bottom of the plant and when it rains, the nutrients get flushed into the plant, where the nitrogen and phosphorous in the poo get absorbed as plant food. This toilet bowl system is so effective that the plant satisfies almost all its nutritional needs from the shrew feces.
Jonathan Moran, one of the scientists who studied the relationship between the plant and the shrew, suggests that both parties evolved to sustain each other through a process called “mutualism.” For the shrew, the pitcher plant’s nectar is a rich source of sugar in the mountains; for the plant, the shrew’s feces is food.
You can listen to Moran explain the unique relationship in a radio program, CBC’s “Quirks and Quarks” here. And here’s a video of the tree shrew plopping into the pitcher plant for a quick snack.
Related Content:
80beats: Real-Life Killer Tomatoes? Carnivorous Plants May Be All Around Us
80beats: Tiny Tree Shrews Live on Alcohol, but Never Get Drunk
DISCOVER: The Plants That Eat Animals
DISCOVER: Flesh-Eating Plants follows a botanist to Borneo in search of the rarest pitcher plant
Image: Chi’en Lee
The BBC is reporting that a previously unknown potential impact crater has surfaced in the Congo. This region was heavily forested, hiding the crater, but recent widespread deforestation has revealed the ancient impact scar.
Obviously, I’m conflicted about this.
If this is an impact crater (it has not yet been confirmed), it’s about 40 km (25 miles) across, making it one of the largest seen on the Earth. We haven’t been hit by a big asteroid in a long time, and erosion has erased most of the impact craters. There’s a picture of the crater on that link above, and the crater is obviously very old.
It’s fascinating to know that such a large feature can be hidden at all, but it’s sad indeed on how it got uncovered. I can hope no one would be so crass as to suggest we should continue to deforest our planet in hopes of finding more treasures, but I have seen far worse things suggested to support unrestrained mining, drilling, and polluting. I’m glad something good came of this horrific practice, but all things told, I think I’d rather it had remained tucked away among thousands of square kilometers of trees.
Tip o’ the Whipple Shield to Ted Judah.
When Jason first played with JooJoo's tablet, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a 1.6GHz Intel Atom in the device's BIOS. Via the FCC, now we know for sure: It's based on the Atom processor, and as predicted, Nvidia's Ion. More »
Can anyone tell me where I can get good field manuals and parts lists for this equipment? These cabinets are European made and I've had no luck with my Dantherm Distributor here in the US or from Ericesson either. The parts list they sent me do not list all the parts and they are very vague at the l
If a motor is not having name plate details how we can find out its rated speed.Is there any method to find the speed.
Could dark matter be an effect of massive amounts of matter moving thru the energy that permeates space, similar to voltage being induced in a moving conductor by a magnetic field? Matter warps space time, much as a conductor warps magnetic lines.It must require force of some type to move thru spac
A niche market, yes, but when you reach a certain age and the idea of going on a cycling-and-camping holiday in a foreign country appeals, you've got to consider how to transport your bike over. More »
The theory of general relativity: It works. OK, it’s not exactly Earth-shattering news that Albert Einstein’s century-old idea works in real life. That’s been shown over and over. But what had been difficult for researchers to do until now was verify the theory on truly massive scales beyond the solar system, that of whole galaxies and clusters of galaxies. This week in Nature, Reinabelle Reyes and colleagues report that they did it, and that Einstein was proven correct once more.
While the find is a nice coup for Reyes’ team, its importance goes beyond just reaffirming the great scientists of yesteryear with yet another “Einstein was right” story. The existence of dark matter and dark energy is based on the assumption that Einstein’s gravity is affecting galaxies billions of light-years from Earth in the same way that it affects objects in our solar system [National Geographic]. However, if the study had shown that general relativity needed a slight adjustment at vast distances (like the nudge Einstein himself provided to Newton’s physics), that could have altered prevailing ideas about dark matter and energy. This research indicates those pesky ideas may be here to stay [Space.com].
Reyes’ approach combined the study of galaxies’ gravitational lensing (how much they bend the light from surrounding galaxies), their velocities, and how and where they formed clusters. All of these measurements combined created a system to test theories of gravity independent of particular parameters in the theories [Space.com]. What they found closely matched what you’d predict under general relativity. They tested two alternative gravitational theories, too. One, called tensor-vector-scalar (TeVeS), gave results beyond the study’s margin of error. Another, called f(R), didn’t work as well as general relativity. But it fell within the margin of error, so the scientists say it will take more research to disprove it.
Meanwhile, as the spirit of general relativity is reaffirmed in the pages of Nature, the pages upon which Einstein formulated the theory are going on display in Jerusalem. Elsa, his wife, gave the pages to Hebrew University, and they are currently part of 50th anniversary festivities at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Each of the 46 pages, labored over between November 1915 and their publication in May 1916, has its own case, each lighted dimly in a room that has been darkened to protect the paper. There on Page 1 is the now familiar title in German: “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity” [The New York Times].
However, if you need more Einstein and can’t make the trip to Israel, check out his mustachioed mug on the cover of the April DISCOVER issue, on newsstands this week.
Related Content:
80beats: A Gamma Ray Race Through the Fabric of Space-Time Proves Einstein Right
80beats: Neutron Stars Prove Einstein Right (Again)
DISCOVER: Einstein’s 23 Biggest Mistakes
DISCOVER: Einstein, Inc.: In death, he mastered the science of making money
DISCOVER: Score Another Win For Albert Einstein
All DISCOVER Magazine Einstein stories
Image: Ferdinand Schmutzer
hi friends,
WHAT IS THE IDEAL TIME FOR CATCH OF SIGNAL AT ANNOUNCER ?
11 ms is good ?
No one knows exactly how much Google plans to invest in its ISP business, but its reputation as cash giant alone has cities from Anchorage, Alaska, to Sarasota, Florida battling to become the search giant's new test market. More »
I want to see the transmit and return signals that the meter is generating, but I am having trouble finding an output that would give me the amplified return signal. Are there any outputs available on the basic meter that would let me see the amplified return signal?
NASA Dives Into Its Past to Retrieve Vintage Satellite Data, Science (subscription)
"Last month, researchers working out of an abandoned McDonald's restaurant on the grounds of NASA Ames Research Center recovered data collected by NASA's Nimbus II satellite on 23 September 1966. The satellite soared over Earth in a polar orbit every 108 minutes, taking pictures of cloud cover and measuring heat radiated from the planet's surface, and creating a photo mosaic of the globe 43 years ago. The resulting image is the oldest and most detailed from NASA's Earth-observing satellites. It's also the latest success story in what researchers call techno-archaeology: pulling data from archaic storage systems. Once forgotten and largely unreadable with modern equipment, old data tapes are providing researchers with new information on changes in the surfaces of Earth and the moon."
"... They cleaned, rebuilt, and reassembled one drive, then designed and built equipment to convert the analog signals into an exact 16-bit digital copy. "It was like dumpster diving for science," says Cowing, co-team leader at LOIRP. In November 2008, the team recovered their first image: a famous picture of an earthrise taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 on 23 August 1966. The team's new high-resolution version was so crisp and clear that it revealed many previously obscured details, such as a fog bank lying along the coast of Chile."
