Oldest Footprint August 27, 2007
Posted by Mrs Weird Scientist in Environment, Evolution, Human Body, Think About It.1 comment so far
When you’re at the beach, you’ve probably left footprints in the sand. They are temporary little dents that let you leave your mark, even if only for a short while. But imagine if your footprint was preserved and then found millions of years later? That’s what happened recently, when archaeologists in Egypt found what they believe may be the world’s oldest footprint.
It’s All About Mud
In this case, it really is! The footprint was imprinted in mud, which then turned to stone. The outline was preserved in the stone and was found in the Siwa oasis in the western desert. It is thought that the footprint may be 2 million years old! Other experts are projecting that it may even beat that figure and surpass the 3 million year old skeleton found in Ethiopia, an extinct Australopithecus afarensis hominid that was discovered in 1974.
Up until now, the earliest known human activity that has been found in Egypt only dated to 200,000 years ago. So, this new discovery is a really exciting one! In fact, the oldest footprints or handprints related to humans were found in volcanic rocks at Roccamofina in Italy and these were dated to approximately 350,000 years ago. The discovery still has to be officially dated and verified by independent scientists, but so far, it’s looking like a very exciting find for Egypt!
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Checking Out Kids’ Blood Pressure August 21, 2007
Posted by Mrs Weird Scientist in Diseases, Human Body, Nutrition and Health, Obesity, Think About It.add a comment
When most of us think about high blood pressure – hypertension – we think of it as being a problem found in adults. Not so! Hypertension is also a problem for youth and it’s mostly related to the growing number of kids and teens who are obese.
Tell Me More
Your blood pressure is the pressure exerted by your blood against vessel walls as your heart pumps. When your heart contracts, it moves blood into vessels – increasing pressure – and when your heart relaxes, blood pressure lowers. Your blood pressure also fluctuates from minute to minute. It’s affected by lots of stuff such as exercise, rest, diet, and posture.
Undiagnosed Hypertension
A study performed by Dr. Matthew Hansen and other researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland looked at over 14,000 young people aged 3 to 18. The results, which were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed a total of 507 cases of hypertension. One really worrying feature of the study was that 376 of those 507 cases were previously undiagnosed, even though patients had received at least three medical check-ups.
Dangers Of Hypertension
One of the scary things about high blood pressure is that it often goes undiagnosed, especially in youth. When blood pressure is high, the heart and arteries have a much heavier workload. All of this extra pumping by the heart as well as the strain on the arteries can be exhausting! Over time, the heart and arteries won’t work as well as they should, which can lead to organ damage – particularly the kidneys. There often aren’t any noticeable symptoms of hypertension, which can also make it tough to diagnose in the first place.
Better Diagnosis
Researchers suggested that changes needed to be made to electronic medical recording, so that doctors could identify the patients who were most at risk. This means doctors can perform regular check-ups and monitoring. If a patient is found to have hypertension, treatment can start right away to prevent problems down the road.
Good News
Is there really good news? Yep, there sure is! Despite the severe effects that can occur from untreated hypertension, those who do obtain early treatment can usually lead full and active lives. Also good news is that a healthy lifestyle can help to prevent future complications associated with hypertension. Lifestyle changes like adding in more fruits and vegetables, lowering salt intake and exercising regularly can really make a difference. In fact, these sorts of beneficial lifestyle choices can also work well in kids and teens who don’t have hypertension. By taking care of yourself, you can help to prevent ever getting hypertension. It’s not too early to start now!
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A School Full Of Drugs August 20, 2007
Posted by Mrs Weird Scientist in Alcohol and Illegal Drugs, Easy As Pie, Human Body, Nutrition and Health, Psychology and Behavior.add a comment
The presence of drugs in schools isn’t anything new, but the scope of the problem appears to be a lot bigger than initially suspected. A United States (U.S.) survey looked at attitudes on substance abuse. It was concluded that millions of teens across the country are students at ‘drug infested schools,’ where they regularly see drugs used, sold and stored on school grounds.
High School Students
The study was performed by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. The survey involved 1,063 students aged 12 to 17 years and 550 parents. It found that 31 percent of high school students – more than 4 million – have seen illegal drug use, drug dealing and high or drunk students at least once a week at school. On top of that, the number of students who go to schools where drugs are used, kept or sold has gone up 39 percent since 2002. In fact, 20 percent of that jump happened from 2006 to 2007. That’s quite a scary leap!
Middle School Students
The study also found that 9 percent – over 1 million – middle school students have seen their peers partake in drug-related activities at least once a week at school. Similar to high school students, there has also be an increase in the number of middle school students who go to schools where drugs are used, kept or stored. How much of an increase? It’s a huge one – 63 percent. As with the high school students, a big chunk of that jump happened between 2006 and 2007, where an increase of 35 percent was seen.
What Do Parents Think?
Ironically, only 11 percent of the parents surveyed think drugs are the biggest concern for their teens. On the other hand, twice as many teens said that drugs are their biggest worry. That’s a huge difference and I wonder to myself – what is it that parents are missing on this issue?
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HIV Does More Than Mess With Your Immune System August 19, 2007
Posted by Mrs Weird Scientist in Diseases, Human Body, Stem Cells, Think About It.add a comment
You’ve probably already heard of the human immunodeficiency virus, also referred to as HIV. It’s a disease that is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, semen and vaginal fluid. HIV infects cells in your immune system and can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). There is no cure and immune system failure occurs from secondary infections – things as seemingly minor as a common cold – because the body simply doesn’t have the tools to fight the infection.
HIV And Dementia
We’ve known for decades now that HIV damages a person’s immune system and we’ve even known that it can cause a certain type of dementia. A decline in a person’s cognitive functioning – beyond the normal decline that occurs with aging – is what constitutes dementia. Researchers knew that an HIV protein called gp120 was causing the loss of mature brain cells.
Gp120 Causes More Problems
A new study, however, is showing that gp120 causes even more damage. The work is being led by Stuart Lipton of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in San Diego, California. Not only does it destroy mature brain cells, but it also slows down the division of neural progenitor cells. What are those? These are a type of adult stem cell. If you’re not familiar with adult stem cells or you’ve forgotten my recent stem cell primer, you can read about what stem cells are and where they come from. These neural progenitor cells are believed to be very important in learning and memory, so by slowing them down, gp120 can really wreck havoc with a person’s mental functioning. To check this out, researchers exposed the neural progenitor cells in rats to the gp120 protein. What happened? It’s not good. The result was that 15 percent of the neural progenitor cells stopped dividing.
Finding Out About This Stuff Is Important
By finding out which parts of the body – such as the brain – the gp120 protein influences, scientists can then try to identify the enzymes that are affected. Under laboratory conditions, Lipton and his colleagues were able to stop the action of the enzymes, so the gp120 protein would not work! This means that the neural progenitor cells can hopefully get a kick-start to divide again. The study and results were published in Cell Stem Cell.
Prevent And Treat
With HIV and AIDS threatening the health and lives of enormous numbers of people around the world, preventing transmission of HIV is vital. Also important are studies such as this one, which helps us learn about how HIV can affect other systems in the human body, so we can find new treatments. It’s definitely not the cure that we all dream of finding, but it is an important step in fighting the disease.
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Hip Hip Hooray August 18, 2007
Posted by Mrs Weird Scientist in Easy As Pie, Science and Politics.add a comment
I couldn’t think of a more eloquent title than hip hip hooray for this blog entry. I realize that my readers are scattered around the world, but this blog entry is particularly relevant to my readers in the United States (U.S.). Why am I cheering? Well, the U.S. just got a very hefty cash boost for science education. How hefty? Try 33 billion dollars!
New Legislation
On the 9th of August, President George Bush signed legislation to do a number of very ace things over the next three years! These include the recruitment of thousands of new teachers, updating the skills of those already teaching and also providing initiatives to encourage science loving kids to start up careers in research. Better yet, the legislation also plans for major increases to the National Science Foundation’s annual 4.7 billion dollar research budget.
Science Education
While I don’t hide the fact that I am not generally a supporter of President Bush, I do support this new legislation and I appreciate the recognition of how important science education is for youth. So, although this is uncommon for me, I will offer another not-so-eloquent comment by giving an excited word up to President Bush!
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A Farm Without Animals August 15, 2007
Posted by Weird Science Writer in Environment, Human Body, Technology, Think About It.2 comments
When Kelsey Abbott first heard that two students had created a new kind of farm – one with no animals – she set out to investigate just what sorts of tricks they had up their sleeves. She was surprised to find out that this was actually a farm for people!
Credit: This very futuristic graphic is courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – School of Architecture and Planning.
Remember Old McDonald and his farm? He had a cow (with a moo-moo here and a moo-moo there) and a pig (with an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there) and every other animal that could make a fun noise. Farming has come a long way since Old McDonald’s days. Now, there are wind farms, wave farms and soon there will be the Crowd Farm!
The Crowd Farm
James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk, two architecture graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, just won an international award for their plan to create a Crowd Farm. The Crowd Farm would convert the energy of footsteps into another form of energy – electricity. If one person took just one step in the Crowd Farm, it could power two 60-watt light bulbs for one second. That’s not very impressive, but if everyone within a crowd of people (let’s say 28,527 people) took one step, it would make enough electricity to power a moving train for one second. Remember, that’s only one step. If all those people kept walking, they could keep the train moving.
How Does It Work?
In the Crowd Farm, people would walk across a special floor made up of blocks that depress slightly when they’re stepped on. I asked James if people would feel the difference when they walked on the Crowd Farm floor instead of a normal floor. He replied:
We all walk on different sorts of surfaces every day, and we’re remarkably adept at dealing with them all. Dress shoes vs. running shoes, concrete vs. soft earth; each of these has a different feel. We don’t see the Crowd Farm as being too far from the sorts of materials we’re accustomed to walking on.
When people walk on the Crowd Farm floor, the blocks will rub against each other and produce power through a concept called a dynamo. James explained:
Basically, a dynamo is a means of taking kinetic energy – movement – and turning it into electrical energy. You can think of it as the opposite of a ceiling fan – instead of using electricity to turn the rotor, you’re the one turning the rotor, which in turn generates energy.
If people could produce all this power just by walking, could they produce even more power by running? And if so, could you make a basketball court out of the Crowd Farm floor and have it power the entire arena? Not quite.
Sure – the amount of force that acts on the flooring will impact the amount of energy that can be produced. A basketball court would be tough, because those ten people playing would have to work impossibly hard to produce that much. But, if you used it at the exits and harnessed the energy of 17,000 people leaving Madison Square Garden, for example, you can start to get somewhere.
Why Is This So Cool?
You may have heard of climate change – it’s also called global warming. We’re supposed to have some greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, which trap the sun’s heat to keep the Earth warm. But now we have too many greenhouse gases. They’re keeping too much heat close to the Earth. Where are the extra greenhouse gases coming from? One-third of the global warming pollution in the United States (U.S.) comes from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil. And get this – coal and oil account for about 97% of the electricity in the U.S.!
If we can reduce the amount of fossil fuels we’re pumping into the atmosphere, we can help to fight global warming. Of course, we need electricity to do all sorts of things, like read this blog. So, how can we reduce fossil fuels? One way is through sustainable or renewable energy. Many people are switching to wind power or solar power. James and Thaddeus hope to harness the power of the crowd.
The Crowd Farm won’t be able to power entire cities, but James and Thaddeus hope it will make people think about their energy use.
We all imagine that walking is a graceful and economical process, but in a lot of ways, it’s very inefficient. Crowd Farming certainly isn’t the easiest way to harvest energy and it has definite limits, but there are specific sorts of situations where you can have a dense enough crowd to make a meaningful contribution. We see it as a means of provoking people to think about energy and their individual role in its use and production, but it could never be the next great energy source.
What Can You Do To Save Energy?
What? Your parents won’t let you install a Crowd Farm in your house? Don’t worry, it wouldn’t work anyway, unless you live with thousands of other people. Instead, here are a few things you can do to reduce energy use in your family:
- Some things, like cell phone and ipod chargers use energy whenever they’re plugged in, so if you’re not charging your phone or ipod, unplug the charger.
- Always remember to turn off the lights when you leave a room.
- Walk or bike rather than taking the bus or getting a car ride to your destination.
These are just a few easy (and free!) things you can do to reduce your family’s energy use (and the electric bill!). The National Resources Defense Council has some nifty tips for reducing energy consumption. P.S. If your computer use is done for the day, don’t forget to log off and shut it down when you’re finished reading this blog!
Kelsey Abbott is a marine biologist and freelance writer in Maine. She drinks tap water from a wide assortment of Nalgene bottles and bike bottles. She also picks up her dog’s poop with biodegradable plastic bags!
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Fear The Squirrel August 13, 2007
Posted by Mrs Weird Scientist in Animals, Evolution, Rattlesnakes, Squirrels, Technology, Think About It.2 comments
That cute, furry squirrel you see scurrying around actually has an effective defense mechanism in place to ward against predators. But worry not about crossing a squirrel’s path, because it’s not just any predators. It’s rattlesnakes! Even more interesting is that it’s an invisible weapon. Well, not too invisible given that modern technology allows us to view this very special weapon against rattlesnakes. So just what is this special weapon? It’s heat! A hot tail, that is.
Watch Out For The Tail
Californian ground squirrels heat up their tails and then swish them at the rattlesnakes. The rattlesnake has a cool infrared sensing organ that detects this heat and movement, which then throws the rattlesnake off guard. Other squirrels can’t see this heat, but the rattlesnakes sure can.
The Battle
It was already known that Californian ground squirrels waved their tails at rattlesnakes. However, graduate student Aaron Rundus and his supervisor Donald Owings of the University of California, Davis, were curious to learn more about how these two creatures interact. So, Rundus used an infrared camera and set off to investigate the battles between rattlesnakes and squirrels. He captured footage of the squirrel’s tail in action after it was confronted by a rattlesnake.
A really interesting thing to note is that when the squirrel was confronted by a gopher snake, its tail did not heat up, although it did swish around. Gopher snakes don’t have the infrared detection organ that rattlesnakes use to detect heat.
Credit: Both videos are from New Scientist.
Is The Squirrel Alone?
Another fascinating part of this research is that other animals may use similar weapons to fend off predators. It could only be a matter of time now until scientists find out about other animals who use heat – maybe even through more sophisticated measures – to protect themselves.
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Scared To Be At School August 12, 2007
Posted by Mrs Weird Scientist in Easy As Pie, Human Body, Nutrition and Health, Obesity, Psychology and Behavior.add a comment
For some kids, going to school is a scary thing. Not because the work is hard or they detest a certain subject, but because they are teased for being overweight. This dread and fear of going to school can cause absenteeism. Worse still, a new study is showing just how much school overweight kids are missing compared to kids within a normal weight range. The results were supported by the National Institutes of Health and were published in the journal Obesity.
Weight And School Attendance
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University wanted to find out how weight affected school attendance. They looked at more than one thousand 4th, 5th and 6th graders. You may have heard of the body mass index (BMI). It’s a simple and general way to measure body fat based on weight and height. You can find out your BMI on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. The website has a BMI calculator for kids and teens or adults. Researchers compared kids with a BMI in the overweight range to those in the normal range. The verdict? Overweight kids were absent approximately 20 percent more often than kids who were of normal weight.
Common Indicators
There are already four indicators of absenteeism in schools – age, gender, race and socioeconomic status. This new research, however, is now adding a fifth one to the mix – obesity. In fact, BMI was a stronger indicator of absenteeism compared to the traditional indicators.
Health Problems
Given all of the media attention to obesity, most of us are now familiar with the health problems that stem from obesity, such as heart disease and diabetes. But even though kids aren’t likely to be experiencing these kinds of health problems just yet, they are still dealing with other damaging aspects of bullying. The social stigma of being overweight can be brutal, which may then lead to fear and ultimately, absenteeism. Also worrying are the effects of so much missed school because absenteeism can impact grades as well as the potential for future education. Comments by Andrew Geier, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania University, were provided in a press release:
At this young age, children are not necessarily experiencing the health problems that will likely confront them later in life unless serious intervention takes place. However, they are missing school at a greater rate than their peers, setting themselves up for the negative fallout that accompanies absenteeism. What’s keeping them from school, more than heath issues, is the stigma and the bullying that accompanies being overweight. Future research should explore this additional, very damaging side effect of being overweight.
I agree with that last part about future research. It’s important to investigate how being overweight not only affects school attendance, but also how it might impact future education, career and lifestyle. The more we learn and understand, the better we can find ways to address all of these factors related to obesity, particularly the social stigma. No child – including an overweight one – deserves to be bullied and sadly, the effects of bullying can harm many areas of a child’s life.
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Disappearing Humans August 11, 2007
Posted by Mrs Weird Scientist in Animals, Environment, Human Body, Think About It.2 comments
Have you ever imagined an Earth without humans? It’s an eerie thought but the intelligent and curious folks over at Scientific American magazine created a short film – The Earth Without Humans. The complementary full article is a long one but it’s definitely an engaging read. Much of the article involves an interview with Alan Weisman, who wrote The World Without Us.
In a way, you have to think about the Earth without humans to realize the impact we have now and would probably continue to have even if we ceased to exist. It’s interesting to watch the traces of human activity fading slowly over the years. I also think it’s scary but perhaps not surprising that the damage humans are doing to the world now would still linger long after we disappear. A scary thought indeed but maybe a good one as well because it can encourage us to be aware of how we impact the Earth while reminding us to make little changes. In fact, when I’ve finished reading my Scientific American or any of my other science magazines, that scary thought is what prompts a little voice in my head to say - Mina, remember to recycle the magazine.
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Total Eclipse August 10, 2007
Posted by Weird Science Writer in Easy As Pie, Eclipses, Space Exploration.1 comment so far
If you want to see next year’s eclipse, it’s going to require a lot more travel than you might expect! Lauren Tunnell reports on the newest tourist attraction.
Credit: All pictures kindly provided by Luc Viatour. These pictures were taken during the highly publicized eclipse in 1999. Wow!
Are you taking a vacation next summer? Where would you like to visit? Paris? Disneyworld? Would you like to visit someplace sunny? Scenic? Cosmopolitan? Or do you want to visit Siberia?
A Surprising Vacation
Yes, that’s right, Siberia – the frigid arctic land in eastern Russia. The Russian government used to send convicted criminals to Siberia as punishment, and yet in August of 2008 Siberia will become one of the hottest tourist sites on the planet.
Get Ready For The Eclipse
Why is everybody heading to Siberia? On August 1st, 2008, a total eclipse of the sun will be visible from Siberia. A total eclipse occurs when the moon passes in front of the sun and completely obscures it. Total solar eclipses are very rare! They happen only once approximately every eighteen months, and are only visible from a small area of the planet. Total eclipses that are visible in any one particular spot on Earth are centuries apart. Most people go through their lives without ever witnessing one. That, however, is changing as interest in eclipses continues to grow.
Eclipse Tourism
In our modern world of reliable, affordable global travel, more and more people are going to the eclipse rather than waiting for the eclipse to travel to them. It may be three hundred years before a total eclipse of the sun comes to your hometown, but in the meantime you can travel to an ideal spot to witness this natural phenomenon.
Eclipse Of 1999
An eclipse on August 11th, 1999, is generally believed to be the most viewed eclipse in history. Hoards of people traveled to Europe to witness the natural marvel. The extraordinary number of tourists who were drawn to this event sparked public awareness of the potential eclipse tourism market.
August 1st, 2008
The 2008 eclipse probably won’t top the one in 1999 as the most viewed in history. The 1999 eclipse had the advantage of appearing in France, Great Britain and other areas of the world that are already major tourist draws (even without eclipses!). Still, Siberia isn’t doing too badly as hotel rooms along the path of the eclipse are already starting to fill up. Also, the eclipse will be visible in some of the most populated areas of Siberia, including the largest city, Novosibirsk, which is the third largest city in all of Russia! Travel to the area should be far more convenient and comfortable than one would expect from the traditional images shown of Siberia. The eclipse will also be visible in parts of Canada and China, but in very isolated areas of these countries.
If You Can’t Make It
If you won’t be able to make the trip to Russia next year, there will be other opportunities for you to see an eclipse. A total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017 will be visible in much of the United States. Still, that’s a long way off so if you can manage to start planning now, a trip to see the eclipse in Siberia next summer might just be an exciting reality!
Lauren Tunnell is an educator and freelance writer living in Houston, Texas.
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