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Thread: SCIENCE-NEWS for Commoner.

  1. #1
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    SCIENCE-NEWS for Commoner.

    We can post and discuss on the day to day SCIENCE-NEWS as learnt from any authentic- Journal Reports, Magazines and such other media Messages.

    But let us make it in as BRIEF & SIMPLE Language as possible...

    ... INTERESTING and understandable enough by any commoner

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    Solar Outbursts Protected Early Earth

    The early sun produced powerful x-ray emissions that may have helped to ensure the survival of our planet, scientists say. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest that violent x-ray flares, which reached temperatures of 100 million kelvins, may have rocked the surrounding disk from which planets formed and prevented Earth from rapidly spiraling into the sun and being destroyed.

    An international team of astronomers focused Chandra on the Orion Nebula for 13 days, resulting in one of the instrument's deepest observations yet. Located 1,500 light-years from Earth, the Orion Nebula provides a way for scientists to study how our sun behaved in its early years: of this stellar nursery's more than 1,000 stars imaged by Chandra, 27 of them are prototypes of the young sun.

    Over the study period, which was equivalent to looking at the young sun for nine months, the team detected 41 large x-ray flares thousands of times larger than any modern-day solar flares detected.

    The findings indicate that around 4.5 billion years ago, our sun experienced a flare each week, on average. The activity has since died down, with solar flares now occurring on the order of once a year.
    Most INVALUABLE TREASURE is.. Time.
    Spend it MEANINGFULLY Spread effectively.

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    Early humans followed the coast

    From:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4543767.stm

    When the first modern humans evolved in Africa, they lived mainly on meat hunted from animals. But by 70,000 years ago, they had switched to a marine diet, largely shellfish.

    The new research suggests they moved along the coasts of the Arabian peninsula into India, Indonesia and Australia about 65,000 years ago. An offshoot later led to the settlement of the Middle East and Asia about 30 to 40,000 years ago.

    The data comes from studies by two teams of scientists on the DNA of native people living in Malaysia and on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands between India and Burma.

    Scientists can estimate how closely related we are by studying the DNA of the energy producing parts of the cell, our mitochondria.

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    I like this thread and would like to take more active part in it; but I am going away on a professional trip for 5 weeks. I would like to suggest some topics like Simpson's Paradox in Statistics, Bernoulli's paradox in Fluid dynamics (useful in various contexts including how to build roofs which are not easily blown off), and tricks to watering plants in dry areas (like one-sided watering). I hope that some others will take more active part. Regards,
    Swarup

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    I would like to mention one reference (there must be plenty of such books). In the seies "Science for Every One" published by Mir, there is one called "Physical paradoxes" by V.N.Lange. Some of these can be adopted to the Indian context. There must be more books in the series. Many of these books are distributed in India by People' Publishing House and are usually cheap. Regards,
    Swarup

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    ASK THE EXPERTS: What causes Headaches?


    Dawn A. Marcus, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s department of anesthesiology, explains.

    When experiencing a severe, throbbing headache, a person often places his hands on both sides of his head and claims, "It feels like my brain is pushing to get out, so it feels better to hold it in." This sensation gives a false impression that the brain itself is enlarging and causing the pain sensation. Interestingly, brain tissue does not feel pain in the same way skin or other organs do. Because the brain is encased in a hard, protective covering, it has not developed to respond to touch or pressure sensations like other, more exposed parts of our bodies have. Indeed, a brain surgeon can actually cut brain tissue in an awake patient without the patient feeling the knife.

    Head pain instead occurs because of activation or irritation of structures that do sense pain: skin, bone or neck joints, sinuses, blood vessels or muscles. When a person has a brain tumor, pain is usually a late symptom to develop--brain tumors generally only cause pain when they have grown large enough to damage bone or stretch blood vessels or nerves. Neck problems may also result in head pain, with pain from the neck and back of the head often radiating over the top of the head to an eye. Sinus infection or inflammation (usually occurring as part of an allergy reaction), however, is an uncommon cause of recurring headaches. Interestingly, Roger Cady and Curtis Schneider of the Headache Care Center in Springfield, Mo., have shown that 25 to 30 percent of migraine sufferers report nasal symptoms during their typical migraine episodes, and nearly 98 percent of people who believed they had sinus headaches were actually experiencing a migraine.

    The most common types of chronic headaches are the migraine and tension-type varieties. A migraine is an intermittent headache, usually occurring between once a month and twice a week, with each episode lasting eight to 12 hours. Migraine is often experienced as a one-sided, throbbing head pain that limits activities and may be associated with nausea and sensitivity to lights, noises and smells. Tension-type headaches may occur more frequently, and the pain-- typically a dull pressure pain on both sides of the head that does not limit activities--sometimes lasts several days. Both of these kinds of headache occur in response to exposure to internal or external triggers, such as hormonal changes, sleep deprivation, fasting or stress. Exposure to these triggers prompts the brain to signal pain centers that produce a variety of chemical messengers, including serotonin and norepinephrine, which cause expansion of meningeal blood vessels surrounding the brain. This expansion results in increased blood flow, and blood vessels on the side of the head can become more prominent and tender. As the blood vessels swell they stretch the nerves that surround them, causing these nerves to send signals to the trigeminal system, an area of the brain that relays pain messages for the head and face. Activation of the trigeminal system most commonly causes pain around the eye and cheek, creating the false perception of "sinus" pain. The trigeminal system also sends messages to the hypothalamus, an area of the brain involved in food cravings, and to the upper part of the cervical spinal cord, which may result in muscle spasms in the neck.

    Once the full headache pathway is activated, it becomes more difficult for headache treatments to work effectively. Recent work led by Rami Burstein of Harvard University in both rats and humans has consistently shown that headache medications need to be taken early in a headache episode in order to be effective. Migraine patients often notice that their headaches begin with a throbbing sensation followed by increased skin sensitivity. This increased skin sensitivity, called allodynia, may take the form of scalp tenderness, "painful" hair or pain associated with hair brushing or wearing earrings or glasses. Once allodynia has occurred, headache treatments are much less effective. Carefully recording headache symptoms in a diary can provide a good estimate of when allodynia usually occurs and can help an individual determine when medications should be taken to offer the most relief
    .
    [/b]

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sudhaama

    ASK THE EXPERTS: What causes Headaches?


    Dawn A. Marcus, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s department of anesthesiology, explains.

    When experiencing a severe, throbbing headache, a person often places his hands on both sides of his head and claims, "It feels like my brain is pushing to get out, so it feels better to hold it in." This sensation gives a false impression that the brain itself is enlarging and causing the pain sensation. Interestingly, brain tissue does not feel pain in the same way skin or other organs do. Because the brain is encased in a hard, protective covering, it has not developed to respond to touch or pressure sensations like other, more exposed parts of our bodies have. Indeed, a brain surgeon can actually cut brain tissue in an awake patient without the patient feeling the knife.

    Head pain instead occurs because of activation or irritation of structures that do sense pain: skin, bone or neck joints, sinuses, blood vessels or muscles. When a person has a brain tumor, pain is usually a late symptom to develop--brain tumors generally only cause pain when they have grown large enough to damage bone or stretch blood vessels or nerves. Neck problems may also result in head pain, with pain from the neck and back of the head often radiating over the top of the head to an eye. Sinus infection or inflammation (usually occurring as part of an allergy reaction), however, is an uncommon cause of recurring headaches. Interestingly, Roger Cady and Curtis Schneider of the Headache Care Center in Springfield, Mo., have shown that 25 to 30 percent of migraine sufferers report nasal symptoms during their typical migraine episodes, and nearly 98 percent of people who believed they had sinus headaches were actually experiencing a migraine.

    The most common types of chronic headaches are the migraine and tension-type varieties. A migraine is an intermittent headache, usually occurring between once a month and twice a week, with each episode lasting eight to 12 hours. Migraine is often experienced as a one-sided, throbbing head pain that limits activities and may be associated with nausea and sensitivity to lights, noises and smells. Tension-type headaches may occur more frequently, and the pain-- typically a dull pressure pain on both sides of the head that does not limit activities--sometimes lasts several days. Both of these kinds of headache occur in response to exposure to internal or external triggers, such as hormonal changes, sleep deprivation, fasting or stress. Exposure to these triggers prompts the brain to signal pain centers that produce a variety of chemical messengers, including serotonin and norepinephrine, which cause expansion of meningeal blood vessels surrounding the brain. This expansion results in increased blood flow, and blood vessels on the side of the head can become more prominent and tender. As the blood vessels swell they stretch the nerves that surround them, causing these nerves to send signals to the trigeminal system, an area of the brain that relays pain messages for the head and face. Activation of the trigeminal system most commonly causes pain around the eye and cheek, creating the false perception of "sinus" pain. The trigeminal system also sends messages to the hypothalamus, an area of the brain involved in food cravings, and to the upper part of the cervical spinal cord, which may result in muscle spasms in the neck.

    Once the full headache pathway is activated, it becomes more difficult for headache treatments to work effectively. Recent work led by Rami Burstein of Harvard University in both rats and humans has consistently shown that headache medications need to be taken early in a headache episode in order to be effective. Migraine patients often notice that their headaches begin with a throbbing sensation followed by increased skin sensitivity. This increased skin sensitivity, called allodynia, may take the form of scalp tenderness, "painful" hair or pain associated with hair brushing or wearing earrings or glasses. Once allodynia has occurred, headache treatments are much less effective. Carefully recording headache symptoms in a diary can provide a good estimate of when allodynia usually occurs and can help an individual determine when medications should be taken to offer the most relief
    .
    [/b]
    Wow, all that to explain a simple "headache." How about three simple words: excessive nerve compression?

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    Yesterday, reading a book review unrelated to science, I came across the following which is new to me.
    It seems that most people when they hear their recorded voices for the first time cannot recognize their voices. The reason, apparently, is that when one hears oneself speaking, he/she hears through the throat rather than though ears.
    I do not know whether this is true or not; may be somebody can comment on this.
    Swarup

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    Simpson's Paradox

    I am recycling a message that I posted in a Telugu site a few months ago about Simpson's paradox:
    For those who do not know (like me recently) I will quicly sketch an example of the paradox. This is supposed to have happenned in the University of Melbourne, but I do not have the actual numbers. The Universitity realized in the 80's that the proportion women academic staff in the total academic staff is less than the Govt. guidelines. Over a period of ten years they increased the proportion of women in every teaching category: tutor, lecturer, reader and professor. After ten years, they found to their horror that even though they increased the proportion of women in every category, in the total academic staff the proprtion of women decreased.
    Once one knows this, anybody can work out examples to see that this can happen. So, it seems that one has to be careful with some claims of supposed statistics in newspapers. You can find more examples by google search.

    Swarup

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    MIT has named two minor stars in the solar system after two coimbatore convent girls for their contribution to science. something to be proud about.--

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