Bird decline not caused by gray squirrels
Bird decline not caused by gray squirrels
LONDON (UPI) -- Invasive gray squirrels are not responsible for the 40-year decline of some bird populations in Britain, orthinologists said
The report from the British Trust for Ornithology contradicts the widely held view that gray squirrels have significantly depleted some woodland bird species because they eat eggs and kill and eat baby birds
Researchers studied the gray squirrel's impact on 38 bird species throughout Britain and found the squirrels suppressed bird populations in some local areas, but did not cause widespread harm or lasting damage
Blackbirds and collared doves were found to have thrived despite nest attacks from invasive gray squirrels and native red squirrels, the researchers said in a recent issue of the Journal of Ornithology
Britain has more than 2 million gray squirrels and about 160,000 red squirrels. Gray squirrels have proven harmful to red squirrel populations because the grays spread a form of pustular dermatitis that does not affect grays, but can kill red squirrels within a week of infection, the BBC reported Friday
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Weather cooperates with whale watchers
Weather cooperates with whale watchers
DEPOE BAY, Ore. (UPI) -- The first few weeks of 2010 have been some of the best in years for whale watching from California to Washington, wildlife officials say
Whale-watchers at 24 sites in Oregon and one site each in Washington and California have spotted nearly 1,000 whales heading south to winter feeding grounds near Baja California, Mexico
That's nearly three times as many whales as were spotted during sightings in 2005, when calm weather allowed for similar sightings, said Morris Grover, head of the Whale Watching Center in Depoe Bay, Ore
About 18,000 grays and 1,100 humpbacks began the southern migration, led by pregnant females, in late December to be in Baja by February
"There are just so many whales going by, it is just stunning," Grover told The (Portland) Oregonian in a story published Tuesday
The females will give birth in the warmer waters of Baja and fatten their calves on 55 percent milk before starting north for Alaska about early March
Whale milk "makes our shakes look like diet drinks," Grover said
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Cardiovascular risk linked to HIV
Cardiovascular risk linked to HIV
BOSTON (UPI) -- Relatively young men with longstanding HIV infection may be at greater risk for heart attack or stroke, U.S. researchers say
Researchers at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital used angiography to find coronary atherosclerosis in 59 percent of the human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients -- compared with only 34 percent of controls. Five of the HIV-positive participants had critical blockages -- something seen in none of the controls -- and were referred to cardiologists for treatment
"It appears that both traditional and non-traditional risk factors are contributing to atherosclerotic disease in HIV-infected patients," Dr. Janet Lo, the study's author, said in a statement
In the study, published in the journal AIDS, Lo and colleagues used both standard computed tomography scans, which shows calcium deposits, and a CT angiography -- showing non-calcified arterial plaques -- to examine 110 men ranging in ages from 18-55 with no symptoms of cardiovascular disease
Seventy-eight of the participants were HIV infected and 32 were uninfected controls. Both groups had low-levels of traditional cardiovascular risk factors. The HIV-positive participants had longstanding infection, were generally healthy and receiving anti-retroviral therapy
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You can't always catch up from sleep loss
You can't always catch up from sleep loss
BOSTON (UPI) -- A good night's sleep cannot make up for chronic sleep deprivation, which has a snowball effect hurting a person's ability to stay alert, Boston researchers say
People may think they're OK because their body's daily circadian rhythm hides the effects of chronic sleep loss, the study in Science Translational Medicine journal says
But after sleeping six hours a night for two to three weeks, people's motor skills, reaction times, capacities to focus and other abilities are 10 times worse than after staying awake a single night, Harvard Medical School neurologist and sleep medicine specialist Daniel Cohen said
The study is "almost scary" because it shows that a large societal segment, including doctors, paramedics, police officers and truckers, "may be at high risk of committing catastrophic errors, particularly in the middle of the night and the early morning hours," University of Chicago sleep researcher Eve Van Cauter tells USA Today
The study at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital looked at the number of consecutive hours study participants were awake, their number of days or weeks of chronic sleep deprivation and how they reacted at different times of day -- three factors combined that determine how well people perform, the researchers say
The research suggests "it takes longer to recover from sleep debts than has been believed," University of Pennsylvania sleep studies Professor David Dinges tells the newspaper
It also shows people's sleep regulation is actually at least two separate processes acting on different time scales -- a short-term process causing performance to decline with each hour awake and a long-term component building over weeks of too-little sleep
The short-term process can be rapidly overcome with a good night's sleep. The researchers say they don't know how many nights of good sleep it takes to recover from the longer-term component
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Size of brain region linked to performance
Size of brain region linked to performance
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (UPI) -- The size of a region in the cerebral cortex influences a person's motor skills and ability to adapt to changing environments, scientists in Illinois said
Researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, used video games to test how healthy adults learned and performed quickly changing tasks. The participants' brains were analyzed with high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging
The results showed nearly 25 percent of the variability in achievement could be predicted by measuring the volume of three areas of the brain: the caudate nucleus and the putamen in the dorsal striatum and the nucleus accumbens in the ventral striatum
Those areas of the cerebral cortex influence how the brain works when it is trying to learn a complex task, said Kirk Erickson, a University of Pittsburgh professor of psychology who worked on the study in Illinois
"We can use information about the brain to predict who is going to learn certain tasks at a more rapid rate," Erickson said, adding such information could be useful in treating disability or dementia and in education where longer training periods are required for some students
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Qeysar Aminpour
Qeysar Aminpour
Soft and soundless
Like a floating feather in wind
Like a shadow you walk after me
You gather my notebooks , pencils and books
That are scattered on the floor
From the small carpet
Without permitting the dust of any noise
Lay upon the moments of my poem writing
Your comfort of presence wafts the sweet smell of fancy
Over my ecstasu - like reclusion
Tranlated by - Mehdi Afshar
دکتر قیصر امین پور
آرام و بی صدا
مثل پری شناور در باد
یا مثل سایه
پشت سرم راه می روی
و دفتر و مداد و کتابم را
که در کف اطاق پراکنده اند
از روی فرش کوچک مان جمع می کنی
بی آنکه گرد هیچ صدایی
بر لحظه سرودن من سایه افکند
آرامش حضور تو عطر خیال را
بر خلسه وار خلوت من می پراکند
Sunflowers could provide food and fuel
Sunflowers could provide food and fuel
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (UPI) -- Determining the genetic makeup of sunflowers will lead to species that can be used for food and fuel, scientists in Canada said
A joint venture between Genome Canada, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy, and France's National Institute for Agricultural Research aims to create a reference genome for sunflowers within four years
The sunflower -- the world's largest plant family -- contains 24,000 species of food crops, medicinal plants, horticulture plants and noxious weeds. The sunflower genome is 3.5 billion letters long, slightly larger than the human genome
Once the genetic makeup is known, sunflower species could be crossbred to produce a plant that grows up to 15 feet tall with stalks up to 4 inches in diameter while producing high-quality seeds, said project leader Loren Rieseberg of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver
"The seeds would be harvested for food and oil, while the stalks would be utilized for wood or converted to ethanol," Rieseberg said. "As a dual-use crop it wouldn't be in competition with food crops for land
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Cellphone use fights Alzheimer's
Study: Cellphone use fights Alzheimer's
TAMPA, Fla. (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say they're surprised to discover radiation from cellphones may protect against and
even reverse Alzheimer's disease
The researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, led by University of South Florida neuroscientist Gary Arendash, said exposing old Alzheimer's mice to electromagnetic waves from cellphones erased brain buildups of a harmful protein known as beta amyloid and eliminated memory problems typical of Alzheimer's
The radiation also prevented beta amyloid buildup in younger Alzheimer's mice, the researchers said in a study funded in part by the National Institute on Aging and published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
In fact, exposing normal mice to cellphone radiation for two hours a day over seven to nine months actually improved their cognitive abilities compared with so-called control mice tested in a parallel experiment for comparison, Arendash and colleagues said
The highly controlled study let researchers isolate the effects of cellphone exposure on memory from other lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise, the researchers said
It involved 96 mice, most of which were genetically altered to develop beta amyloid plaques and memory problems mimicking Alzheimer's disease as they aged
"It surprised us to find that cellphone exposure, begun in early adulthood, protects the memory of mice otherwise destined to develop Alzheimer's symptoms," Arendash said. "It was even more astonishing that the electromagnetic waves generated by cellphones actually reversed memory impairment in old Alzheimer's mice"
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Scientists say Sierras are 50M years old
Scientists say Sierras are 50M years old
BERKELEY, Calif. (UPI) -- The Sierra Nevadas, the mountains on the California-Nevada border, are more than twice as old as previously believed, a group of geologists says
Researchers from Yale University and the Berkeley Museum of Paleontology argue the mountains were at their current height 50 million years ago, the Los Angeles Times reports. Previously, the Sierras had been believed to be about 20 million years old
Michael Hren, who led the study while he was at Yale, said the scientists were able to analyze the chemistry of the surface of leaves that grew on the mountainsides 50 million years ago. They found some leaves had a higher proportion of deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen, on their surface and assumed those grew at lower elevations because water drops containing deuterium would tend to fall first as clouds moved up
Hren said the mountains then overlooked a warmer, lusher world
"This is a time period where there would have been crocodiles in Wyoming," Hren said
Diane Erwin, another author of the study, said the research also provides new tools for working out the shape of ancient landscapes
The study was published in the journal Geology
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Sea lions depart Fisherman's Wharf
Sea lions depart Fisherman's Wharf
SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) -- Nearly 1,700 sea lions have disappeared within weeks after living for nearly two decades at San Francisco's Fisherman''s Wharf, authorities said
"It's hard to say why they've departed," said Joe Cordero, a biologist with the U.S. Marine Fisheries Service. "As to when and if they come back, no one can say. It's puzzling "
On Oct. 23, about 1,700 of the federally protected sea lions were counted on the docks of Pier 39, barking and shoving each other to the amusement of tourists. On Nov. 21, volunteers counted 927 sea lions at Pier 39 and a week later there were just 20, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday
Scientists have found no fluctuation in food supply or water temperature -- two factors that would make the sea lions relocate, said Jeff Boehm, executive director of the California Marine Mammal Center
While tourists are unhappy about the departure, many others are not. The big beasts had been known to bite swimmers, bump kayakers and climb on to docks and harass fishermen and dock workers
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Pesticide runoff impacts salmon recovery
Pesticide runoff impacts salmon recovery
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Reducing pesticide runoff from farms and homes could speed the recovery of wild salmon populations in the western United States, biologists said
Even short-term, seasonal exposure to pesticides may limit the growth and size of wild salmon, whose numbers have been declining for years, said David Baldwin of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Baldwin's team used existing data on the impact of common pesticides on salmon to devise a computer model that calculated productivity and growth rate
One scenario predicted that salmon not exposed to pesticides would see a 523-percent increase in numbers over 20 years when compared with salmon exposed to pesticide levels found today in rivers and basins, NOAA said in a release Friday
Pesticides have been found to reduce the activity of acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme in the salmon brain that causes them to feed less when exposed to pesticides
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Celebrex may affect low-dose aspirin use
Celebrex may affect low-dose aspirin use
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (UPI) -- U.S. researchers suggest celecoxib or Celebrex may keep low-dose aspirin from limiting blood clots
Researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor say their study used biochemical measurements and X-ray crystallography to discover Celebrex binds to COX-1 -- an enzyme that promotes clotting -- and slows aspirin's COX-1-blocking action
"There are many people who take low-dose aspirin, perhaps as many as half of men over the age of 50. If they are also prescribed Celebrex for arthritis or other pain, our results suggest that the Celebrex will probably interfere with the aspirin's action," senior author William Smith said in a statement
"The greatest risk is having people take Celebrex who are taking aspirin for cardiovascular problems that are known to be mitigated by aspirin, including patients with unstable angina or those at risk for a second heart attack"
Smith also finds more clumping of platelets -- the initial stage of clotting -- in blood from animals given Celebrex and low-dose aspirin than in animals given only low-dose aspirin
Should this effect hold true in humans, it will be important to determine if a balance in dose and/or dose regimens could allow both the aspirin and Celebrex to be effective, Smith says
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Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams
Singer-songwriter, musician
photographer
Read about Bryan Adams
Crypt searched for Caravaggio's bones
Crypt searched for Caravaggio's bones
PORTO ERCOLE, Italy (UPI) -- A crypt in the Tuscan town of Porto Ercole, Italy, could contain the 400-year-old bones of artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, anthropologists said
A team from Bologna University and Ravenna University planned to use infrared scanners, CAT scans, DNA analysis and carbon dating to solve the mystery of where Caravaggio, a master of chiaroscuro lighting, was buried, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Friday
The crypt in Porto Ercole was the mostly likely of eight possible burial sites, said Caravaggio expert Maurizio Marini. Local church records said Caravaggio died in the town in 1610
On Wednesday, the anthropologists began sorting through 30 to 40 sets of bones in the crypt to separate out those belonging to men around the age of 40 who might have died in the 17th century
Likely candidates were to be taken to the anthropology department in Ravenna for further tests, including DNA bone sampling to be compared with that of male descendants of Caravaggio's brother, ANSA reported
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Emily Dickinson
Three Series, Complete
by Emily Dickinson - Section 2 of 24
VII
ALMOST!
Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered through the village,
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low,
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.
VIII
I've heard the hunter tell;
'T is but the ecstasy of death,
And then the brake is still.
The smitten rock that gushes,
The trampled steel that springs;
A cheek is always redder
Just where the hectic stings!
Mirth is the mail of anguish,
In which it cautions arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And "You're hurt" exclaim!
IX
The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
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