sábado, 21 de junho de 2014

White Bread May Actually Build Strong Bodies One Way

 

The guts of white bread eaters appear to contain more Lactobacillus, a type of bacteria that wards off digestive disorders. Karen Hopkin reports 

Jun 20, 2014 |By Karen Hopkin
You can beat on Wonder Bread all you want. [Audio of
CHOW.com columnist James Norton: “You can make a completely credible pillow out of this stuff.”]
But it just keeps bouncing back—because despite its nutritional bad reputation, white bread appears to boost the growth of good gut bacteria. That’s according to a paper in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. [Adriana Cuervo et al.,
Pilot Study of Diet and Microbiota: Interactive Associations of Fibers and Polyphenols with Human Intestinal Bacteria]
In recent years, white bread has been shunned as a glutenous slab that lacks the health benefits of whole wheat. But this new study suggests there’s more to the story.
The researchers were looking at the effects of foods on the types of microbes that live in our intestines. They gathered data on the diets of 38 healthy adults and then analyzed the bacteria present in the subjects’ stool samples. Hey, it’s for science.
Turns out that volunteers who ate white bread had more Lactobacillus, a type of bacteria that wards off digestive disorders. Seems the starch and fibers in this sandwich staple are good for these germs.
But before you make your lunch, another recent study showed that
eating white bread is associated with obesity. So you should take all these findings with a pinch of salt. But not too much salt—especially if you have high blood pressure.
—Karen Hopkin

Sharp Demonstrates Ultra-Efficient Solar Cells

 

New technology could be twice as efficient at converting sunlight to electricity.

Why It Matters

Solar cells are still relatively inefficient at converting light to electricity, one of the biggest reasons solar can’t compete with fossil fuels.

The best solar cells convert less than one-third of the energy in sunlight into electricity, although for decades researchers have calculated that exotic physics could allow them to convert far more. Now researchers at Sharp have built a prototype that demonstrates one of these ideas. If it can be commercialized, it would double the amount of power a solar cell can generate, offering a way to make solar power far more economical.

The researchers figured out a way around a bothersome phenomenon: when sunlight strikes a solar cell, it produces some very high-energy electrons, but within a few trillionths of a second, those electrons shed most of their energy as waste heat.

The Sharp team found a way to extract these electrons before they give up that energy, thereby increasing the voltage output of their prototype solar cell. It’s far from a practical device—it’s too thin to absorb much sunlight, and for now it works only with a single wavelength of light—but it’s the first time that anyone has been able to generate electrical current using these high-energy electrons. In theory, solar cells that exploit this technique could reach efficiencies over 60 percent.

The approach is one of several that could someday break open the solar industry and make fossil fuels expensive in comparison. High-efficiency solar cells would lower the cost of installation, which today is often more expensive than the cells themselves.

Exploiting exotic physics requires both understanding the behavior of certain materials and figuring out how to make them with high precision (see “Capturing More Light with a Single Solar Cell” and “Nanocharging Solar”). The Sharp device relies on the ability to make high-quality, nanometers-thick layers of semiconducting materials (such as gallium arsenide), which create a shortcut for high-energy electrons to move out of the solar cell.

Another way to achieve ultra-high efficiencies now is by stacking up different kinds of solar cells (see “Exotic, Highly Efficient Solar Cells May Soon Get Cheaper”), but doing so is very expensive. Meanwhile, MIT researchers are studying the transient behavior of electrons in organic materials to find inexpensive ways to make ultra-efficient solar cells.

Each of the alternative approaches is at an early stage. James Dimmock, the senior researchers who developed the new device at Sharp, says he expects that his technique will initially be used to help boost the efficiency of conventional devices, not to create new ones.

MIT Technology Review

10 Things Runners Should Stop Doing

 

Common Running Mistakes to Avoid

By Christine Luff

Updated June 19, 2014

As runners, there are plenty of things we can do to improve our performance, such as eating healthy and getting plenty of sleep. But what about those bad habits -- the things we do that sabotage our efforts? Here are some common pitfalls many runners fall into -- and how to avoid them.

1. Stop running in the wrong shoes.

Wearing the wrong type of running shoes for your feet and running style can lead to running injuries. If you've never had a running gait analysis done, go to a running specialty store, where they can do one and recommend the right running shoes for you. You also need to make sure you're wearing the right size shoes -- you should get shoes that are at least half a size bigger than your street shoe size. Your feet swell when you run so it's good to have some extra room in the toe box to avoid black toenails and blisters.
Also see:
How to Find the Right Running Shoes
What Not to Wear Running

2. Stop ignoring pain.

Some runners assume they're invincible and push through a run despite some pain that's not going away. Don't make the mistake of thinking that missing a few runs will ruin your training or prevent you from reaching a goal or finishing a race. Pain is a signal from your body that something is wrong and rest is usually the best treatment. Taking some time off from running when an injury is in its early stages will prevent more time off later. If you push through it, the injury will most likely get worse.
Also see:
7 Steps for Running Injury Prevention
How to Self-Treat Running Injuries

3. Stop giving yourself a license to eat whatever you want.

I'm not guilty of this all the time but, often after long runs or a big mileage week, I find myself going a bit overboard at meals. I justify some junk food binging by telling myself how many miles I've run. This is an easy way for runners to gain weight, despite all the exercise they're doing. Keep track of your exercise and calorie intake in a journal -- you'll get a better picture of how many calories you're actually burning and taking in. And tracking everything will make you think twice before eating lots of high-calorie, high-fat foods after runs.
Also see:
Why Am I Not Losing Weight By Running?

4. Stop saying, "I'm not a real runner."

This quote from Bart Yasso always makes me chuckle: "I often hear someone say I'm not a real runner. We are all runners, some just run faster than others. I never met a fake runner." Like Yasso, I frequently hear people say they're not real runners, and some of them have been running and racing for years. You don't need to sub-7:00 miles or run marathons to be a real runner. If you run regularly -- no matter what pace or distance -- you can proudly call yourself a runner.
Also see:
When Did You First Call Yourself a Runner?
You Know You're a Runner When...

5. Stop skipping your warm-up.

I sometimes skip or rush my warm-up, usually because I'm short on time or I'm just eager to get started with the meat of my workout. But neglecting my warm-up often results in developing a side stitch or feeling tight during my first couple of speed intervals. No matter what type of run you're doing, it's important to warm-up beforehand to get the blood flowing and your muscles warmed up for exercise. A warm-up can be a 5-minute brisk walk or slow jog, or warm-up exercises such as marching in place, jumping jacks, knee lifts, or butt kicks.
Also see:
Video: How to Warm Up Before Running

6. Stop running without hydrating.

I know runners who won't drink water while running because they think they'll get a side stitch. And then there are those who avoid the water stops during races because they don't want to waste time. If you're running longer than 30 minutes, you really need to hydrate during your run to avoid the effects of dehydration. The current fluid recommendations for runners say that they should "obey your thirst" and drink when their mouth is dry and they feel the need to drink.
Also see:
Running & Hydration

7. Stop running on an empty stomach.

While some runners can get away with not eating at all before a run of any distance, you'll run stronger if you eat something before. Ideally, you want to try to eat something at least 90 minutes before running, so you have time to digest your food, you're fueled for your run, and you're not starving during your run. But that obviously doesn't work for everyone, especially morning runners. If you run in the morning and your run is for under an hour, you can get away with not eating before. But you still need to make sure you're hydrated before you start running. Drink at least 6-8 ounces of water when you first wake up. You could drink a sports drink before your run so you know you're at least getting some calories.
If you're running longer than an hour or doing an intense speed workout, and you're running in the morning, it's best to force yourself to wake an hour and a half early or more for a small meal. Eating a 300-500 calorie breakfast of mostly carbs will ensure you're not running on fumes. Some examples of good pre-workout fuel include: a banana and an energy bar; a bagel with peanut butter; or a bowl of cold cereal with a cup of milk. If you're eating less than an hour before your run, aim for a light, 200-300 calorie snack such as toast with peanut butter or a cup of yogurt. If you're running long and you really don't have time or your stomach gets upset if you eat before running, try eating something small, such as an
energy gel, about 30 minutes into your run.

8. Stop comparing yourself to other runners.

There's always going to be someone who can run faster or longer than you. Don't drive yourself crazy by comparing yourself to them or being discouraged because you can't do that. Instead, think about how much progress YOU have made so far. This quote from Amby Burfoot, 1968 winner of the Boston Marathon, sums it up best: "In running, it doesn't matter how fast or slow you are relative to anyone else. You set your own pace and you measure your own progress. You can't lose this race because you're not running against anyone else. You're only running against yourself, and as long as you are running, you are winning."

9. Stop getting stuck in a rut.

Do you run the same flat, 3-mile loop every day at the same pace? Switching up the elevation, distance, and pace of your runs will not only help you prevent boredom, you can also improve your running by adding some hill running, a tempo run, and a long run once a week.
Also see:
Get Out of a Running Rut

10. Stop expecting a PR in every race.

When you first start racing, it's not too difficult to keep improving and set a new personal record (PR) every time you race. But you'll eventually reach a plateau when it becomes increasingly harder to shave time off your best times. And putting pressure on yourself to keep getting faster and faster can suck all the fun out of running and racing. While it's fine to set goals for certain races and work hard to achieve, it's also important to be realistic and make sure your goals match your abilities and training efforts. And, to relieve some of that pressure, you may want to pick a couple of races every year that you just do for fun and run without any expectations. Theme races are great to do just for fun and with a group of friends.

Can Antidepressants Make You Feel Worse?

 

By Nancy Schimelpfening

Updated June 19, 2014

Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.

While antidepressants are quite effective at relieving depression, it is possible that some patients -- in particular young people -- may temporarily feel worse when they first begin taking an antidepressant or when they make changes in their dosage.

In October 2004, the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) issued what is known as a "black-box" warning stating that certain antidepressants, when used in young people 24 years old and under, could increase their risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors.  However, the FDA noted that there was no association found between antidepressant use and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in adults over the age of 24.  In addition, antidepressants actually appeared to reduce the risk in adults aged 65 and older.

This black box warning -- which is the most serious type of warning that can be issued regarding a prescription medication -- was ordered following a thorough review of all available clinical trials, including unpublished ones, regarding the use of antidepressants in children and adolescents.

The study included a total of 24 short-term trials of nine different antidepressants used in over 4,400 child and adolescent patients.  In addition, there were 295 short-term trials of 11 different antidepressants involving 77,000 adult patients.

While the risk of suicidality varied between drugs, the pattern of seeing increased suicidality in young people remained true for almost all drugs studied.

It should be noted that no suicides actually occurred among the young people studied.  Although there were some suicides among the adults studied, the numbers were too few for any conclusions to be drawn about whether the antidepressants used were a causal factor.  It must borne in mind that depression is also a known risk factor for suicide and cannot be ruled out in these cases.

The black box warning further suggests that patients of all ages should be monitored closely when they begin treatment with an antidepressant.  They should be watching for any signs of worsening depression, increased suicidality or changes in behavior.  In addition, families and other caregivers should be instructed to contact the patient's physician or other appropriate medical professional in the event that any problems occur.

In particular, the FDA recommends that a healthcare provider be contacted if you -- or a person who you are caring for -- experience any of the following:

  • Thoughts of suicide or death
  • Suicide attempts
  • New or worsening depression
  • New or worsening anxiety
  • New or worsening irritability
  • Feelings of agitation or restlessness
  • Panic attacks
  • Problems with sleeping
  • Aggression, anger or violence
  • Impulsiveness
  • Extreme increases in activity or talking (signs of mania)
  • Any other unusual changes in mood or behavior

While a black box warning might cause some to feel concerned, they should be aware that the benefits to be obtained from treating depression with an antidepressant greatly outweigh the risks in the majority of cases.  Untreated depression is quite serious and is much more likely to lead to suicide than an antidepressant is.  The warning is simply provided so that people can be aware of this potential effect and take appropriate measures to get help if they do begin to feel worse.

Theories of Sleep

 

By Kendra Cherry (about.com)

Sleep has been the subject of speculation and thought since the time of the early Greek philosophers, but only recently have researchers discovered ways to study sleep in a systematic and objective way. The advent of new technology such as the electroencephalograph (EEG) has allowed scientists to look at and measure electrical patterns and activity produced by the sleeping brain.

While we can now investigate sleep and related phenomena, not all researchers agree on exactly why we sleep. A number of different theories have been proposed to explain the necessity of sleep as well as the functions and purposes of sleep.

The following are three of the major theories that have emerged:

Repair and Restoration Theory of Sleep:

According to the repair and restoration theory of sleep, sleeping is essential for revitalizing and restoring the physiological processes that keep the body and mind healthy and properly functioning. This theory suggests that NREM sleep is important for restoring physiological functions, while REM sleep is essential in restoring mental functions.

Support for this theory is provided by research that shows periods of REM sleep increase following periods of sleep deprivation and strenuous physical activity. During sleep, the body also increases its rate of cell division and protein synthesis, further suggesting that repair and restoration occurs during sleeping periods.

Recently, researchers have uncovered new evidence supporting the repair and restoration theory, discovering that sleep allows the brain to perform "housekeeping" duties.

In an October 2013 issue of the journal Science, researchers published the results of a study indicating that the brain utilizes sleep to flush out waste toxins. This waste removal system, they suggest, is one of the major reasons why we sleep."The restorative function of sleep may be a consequence of the enhanced removal of potentially neurotoxic waste products that accumulate in the awake central nervous system," the study's authors explain.

Earlier research had uncovered the glymphatic system, which carries waste materials out of the brain. According to one of the study's authors, Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, the brain's limited resources force it to choose between two different functional states: awake and alert or asleep and cleaning up. They also suggest that problems with cleaning out this brain waste might play a role in a number of brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

Evolutionary Theory of Sleep:

Evolutionary theory, also known as the adaptive theory of sleep, suggests that periods of activity and inactivity evolved as a means of conserving energy. According to this theory, all species have adapted to sleep during periods of time when wakefulness would be the most hazardous.

Support for this theory comes from comparative research of different animal species. Animals that have few natural predators, such as bears and lions, often sleep between 12 to 15 hours each day. On the other hand, animals that have many natural predators have only short periods of sleep, usually getting no more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep each day.

Information Consolidation Theory of Sleep:

The information consolidation theory of sleep is based on cognitive research and suggests that people sleep in order to process information that has been acquired during the day. In addition to processing information from the day prior, this theory also argues that sleep allows the brain to prepare for the day to come.

Some research also suggests that sleep helps cement the things we have learned during the day into long-term memory. Support for this idea stems from a number of sleep deprivation studies demonstrating that a lack of sleep has a serious impact on the ability to recall and remember information.

Final Thoughts:

While there is research and evidence to support each of these theories of sleep, there is still no clear-cut support for any one theory. It is also possible that each of these theories can be used to explain why we sleep. Sleeping impacts many physiological processes, so it is very possible that sleep occurs for many reasons and purposes.

What Is Meditation?

 

By Kendra Cherry  (about.com)

There are a number of different things that people can do to alter their states of consciousness, from practicing hypnosis to using psychoactive drugs to taking a nap. While some methods (like drug use) can be harmful, others (including hypnosis, sleep, and meditation) can have a positive impact on health. Meditation is also a consciousness-changing technique that has been shown to have a wide number of benefits on psychological well-being.

Question: So what exactly is meditation?

Answer:

Meditation can be defined as a set of techniques that are intended to encourage a heightened state of awareness and focused attention.

Some key things to note about meditation:

  • Meditation has been practiced in cultures all over the world for thousands of years
  • Nearly every religion, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, has a tradition of using meditative practices
  • While meditation is often used for religious purposes, many people practice it independently of any religious or spiritual practices
  • Meditation can also be used as a psychotherapeutic technique
  • There any many different types of meditation

Types of Meditation

Meditation can take on many different forms, but there are two main types: concentrative meditation and non-directive meditation.

How do these two forms of meditation differ?

  • "In all types of concentrative meditation, there is an attempt to restrict awareness by focusing attention on a single object. The practitioner attempts to ignore other stimuli in the environment and focus complete attention on the object of meditation. Attention is focused in a non-analytical, unemotional way, in order to directly experience the object of meditation, which can be located in either the external or the internal environment. Examples of the object include the breath, a mantra, a single word, or specific sounds."
    (Shapiro, Schwartz, & Santerre, 2002)
  • "In nondirective meditation practices, a relaxed focus of attention is established by effortless, mental repetition of a short sequence of syllables, which may either be a traditional mantra or a non-semantic meditation sound. Whenever the meditator becomes aware that the focus of attention has shifted to mainly being occupied with spontaneously occurring thoughts, images, sensations, memories, or emotions, attention is gently and non-judgmentally redirected to the repetition of the meditation sound. The aim of the practice is to increase the ability to accept and tolerate stressful and emotional experiences as a normal part of meditation as well as everyday life."
    (Xu, et al., 2014)

The Effects of Meditation

Research has shown that meditation can have both physiological and psychological effects. Some of the positive physiological effects include a lowered state of physical arousal, reduced respiration rate, decreased heart rate, changes in brain wave patterns, and lowered stress.

Some of the other psychological, emotional, and health-related benefits of meditation include:

  • Increased self-awareness
  • Better stress management skills
  • Improved emotional well-being
  • Better management of symptoms of conditions including anxiety disorders, depression, sleep disorders, pain issues, and high blood pressure
  • Improvement in working memory and fluid intelligence
  • Changes in different aspects of attention

Consciousness is often likened to a stream, shifting and changing smoothly as it passes over the terrain. Meditation is one deliberate means of changing the course of this stream, and in turn, altering how you perceive and respond to the world around you. While experts do not yet fully understand exactly how meditation works, research has clearly demonstrated that meditative techniques can have a range of positive effects on overall health and psychological well-being.

Ingenious Apartment: Creative Space Saving Solutions

 

ergonomics-apartment-london

Big cities are home to exceptional residences. Due to the limitation of space to build, the creativity of architects is booming. They come up with all kind of projects and creative solutions to the lack of space and the need for modern design. This stylish apartment in London is a perfect example of just that: ergonomics and contemporary interior.
When you walk in the rather small home, you are instantly amazed by the hanging bedroom. More of a bed than a room, the designers showed much ingenuity when they decided to suspend a king size mattress on a steel board over the living area. With the clever use of a narrow staircase to the rooftop and a glass panel in the ceiling, they gave the much needed feeling of space when you climb (literally!) up in bed.

ergonomics-apartment-london-1

All inches of the apartment have been given a purpose. The before-mentioned staircase doubles as a blackboard, right next to the office corner. The double closet has a bookshelf side oriented to the big simple sofa. A lounger was placed in the middle of the room to hint at the economy of space made. This concept is found throughout the house.
The minimalistic look of the white painted and wood decorated kitchen is contrasted by the open bathroom area. Sharing the same floor with the dining table, a classic white and black bathtub is just a curtain away from the salt and shaker, and one small step of distance from a simple yet big shoe rack. A bright blue half-wall separates the creativity of this area from the ingenuity of the main living room. It’s definitely one of those designs that you wish you could apply to your home right away.

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Can we see the arrow of time? Algorithm can determine, with 80 percent accuracy, whether video is running forward or backward


Researchers have developed a new algorithm that can, with roughly 80 percent accuracy, determine whether a given snippet of video is playing backward or forward.

Einstein's theory of relativity envisions time as a spatial dimension, like height, width, and depth. But unlike those other dimensions, time seems to permit motion in only one direction: forward. This directional asymmetry -- the "arrow of time" -- is something of a conundrum for theoretical physics.

But is it something we can see?

An international group of computer scientists believes that the answer is yes. At the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition this month, they'll present a new algorithm that can, with roughly 80 percent accuracy, determine whether a given snippet of video is playing backward or forward.

"If you see that a clock in a movie is going backward, that requires a high-level understanding of how clocks normally move," says William Freeman, a professor of computer science and engineering at MIT and one of the paper's authors. "But we were interested in whether we could tell the direction of time from low-level cues, just watching the way the world behaves."

By identifying subtle but intrinsic characteristics of visual experience, the research could lead to more realistic graphics in gaming and film. But Freeman says that that wasn't the researchers' primary motivation.

"It's kind of like learning what the structure of the visual world is," he says. "To study shape perception, you might invert a photograph to make everything that's black white, and white black, and then check what you can still see and what you can't. Here we're doing a similar thing, by reversing time, then seeing what it takes to detect that change. We're trying to understand the nature of the temporal signal."

Word perfect

Freeman and his collaborators -- his students Donglai Wei and YiChang Shih; Lyndsey Pickup and Andrew Zisserman from Oxford University; Changshui Zhang and Zheng Pan of Tsinghua University; and Bernhard Schölkopf of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany -- designed candidate algorithms that approached the problem in three different ways. All three algorithms were trained on a set of short videos that had been identified in advance as running either forward or backward.

The algorithm that performed best begins by dividing a frame of video into a grid of hundreds of thousands of squares; then it divides each of those squares into a smaller, four-by-four grid. For each square in the smaller grid, it determines the direction and distance that clusters of pixels move from one frame to the next.

The algorithm then generates a "dictionary" of roughly 4,000 four-by-four grids, where each square in a grid represents particular directions and degrees of motion. The 4,000-odd "words" in the dictionary are chosen to offer a good approximation of all the grids in the training data. Finally, the algorithm combs through the labeled examples to determine whether particular combinations of "words" tend to indicate forward or backward motion.

Following standard practice in the field, the researchers divided their training data into three sets, sequentially training the algorithm on two of the sets and testing its performance against the third. The algorithm's success rates were 74 percent, 77 percent, and 90 percent.

One vital aspect of the algorithm is that it can identify the specific regions of a frame that it is using to make its judgments. Examining the words that characterize those regions could reveal the types of visual cues that the algorithm is using -- and perhaps the types of cues that the human visual system uses as well.

The next-best-performing algorithm was about 70 percent accurate. It was based on the assumption that, in forward-moving video, motion tends to propagate outward rather than contracting inward. In video of a break in pool, for instance, the cue ball is, initially, the only moving object. After it strikes the racked balls, motion begins to appear in a wider and wider radius from the point of contact.

Probable cause

The third algorithm was the least accurate, but it may be the most philosophically interesting. It attempts to offer a statistical definition of the direction of causation.

"There's a research area on causality," Freeman says. "And that's actually really quite important, medically even, because in epidemiology, you can't afford to run the experiment twice, to have people experience this problem and see if they get it and have people do that and see if they don't. But you see things that happen together and you want to figure out: 'Did one cause the other?' There's this whole area of study within statistics on, 'How can you figure out when something did cause something else?' And that relates in an indirect way to this study as well."

Suppose that, in a video, a ball is rolling down a ramp and strikes a bump that briefly launches it into the air. When the video is playing in the forward direction, the sudden change in the ball's trajectory coincides with a visual artifact: the bump. When it's playing in reverse, the ball suddenly leaps for no reason. The researchers were able to model that intuitive distinction as a statistical relationship between a mathematical model of an object's motion and the "noise," or error, in the visual signal.

Unfortunately, the approach works only if the object's motion can be described by a linear equation, and that's rarely the case with motions involving human agency. The algorithm can determine, however, whether the video it's being applied to meets that criterion. And in those cases, its performance is much better.

Equations reveal rebellious rhythms at the heart of nature


Illustration of neurons (stock image). "Because oscillations occur in myriads of systems in nature and engineering, these results have broad applicability," said Professor Aneta Stefanovska, of a recent study that uses equations to reveal the hidden complexities of the human body.

Physicists are using equations to reveal the hidden complexities of the human body.

From the beating of our hearts to the proper functioning of our brains, many systems in nature depend on collections of 'oscillators'; perfectly-coordinated, rhythmic systems working together in flux, like the cardiac muscle cells in the heart.

Unless they act together, not much happens. But when they do, powerful changes occur. Cooperation between neurons results in brain waves and cognition, synchronized contractions of cardiac cells cause the whole heart to contract and pump the blood around the body. Lasers would not function without all the atomic oscillators acting in unison. Soldiers even have to break step when they reach a bridge in case oscillations caused by their marching feet cause the bridge to collapse.

But sometimes those oscillations go wrong.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications , scientists at Lancaster University report the possibility of "glassy states" and a "super-relaxation" phenomenon, which might appear in the networks of tiny oscillators within the brain, heart and other oscillating entities.

To uncover these phenomena, they took a new approach to the solution of a set of equations proposed by the Japanese scientist Yoshiki Kuramoto in the 1970s. His theory showed it was possible in principle to predict the properties of a system as a whole from a knowledge of how oscillators interacted with each other on an individual basis.

Therefore, by looking at how the microscopic cardiac muscle cells interact we should be able to deduce whether the heart as a whole organ will contract properly and pump the blood round. Similarly, by looking at how the microscopic neurons in the brain interact, we might be able to understand the origins of whole-brain phenomena like thoughts, or dreams, or amnesia, or epileptic fits.

Physicists Dmytro Iatsenko , Professor Peter McClintock, and Professor Aneta Stefanovska, have reported a far more general solution of the Kuramoto equations than anyone has achieved previously, with some quite unexpected results.

One surprise is that the oscillators can form "glassy" states, where they adjust the tempos of their rhythms but otherwise remain uncoordinated with each other, thus giving birth to some kind of "synchronous disorder" rather like the disordered molecular structure of window glass. Furthermore and even more astonishingly, under certain circumstances the oscillators can behave in a totally independent manner despite being tightly coupled together, the phenomenon the authors call "super-relaxation."

These results raise intriguing questions. For example, what does it mean if the neurons of your brain get into a glassy state?

Dmytro Iatsenko, the PhD student who solved the equations, admitted the results posed more questions than they answered.

"It is not fully clear yet what it might mean if, for example, this happened in the human body, but if the neurons in the brain could get into a "glassy state" there might be some strong connection with states of the mind, or possibly with disease."

Lead scientist Professor Aneta Stefanovska said: "With populations of oscillators, the exact moment when something happens is far more important than the strength of the individual event. This new work reveals exotic changes that can happen to large-scale oscillations as a result of alterations in the relationships between the microscopic oscillators. Because oscillations occur in myriads of systems in nature and engineering, these results have broad applicability."

Professor Peter McClintock said: "The outcome of the work opens doors to many new investigations, and will bring enhanced understanding to several seemingly quite different areas of science."

How does a soccer ball swerve? Smoothness of a ball's surface, in addition to playing technique, is a critical factor


How does a soccer ball swerve? The smoothness of a ball’s surface — in addition to playing technique — is a critical factor.

It happens every four years: The World Cup begins and some of the world's most skilled players carefully line up free kicks, take aim -- and shoot way over the goal.

The players are all trying to bend the ball into a top corner of the goal, often over a wall of defensive players and away from the reach of a lunging goalkeeper. Yet when such shots go awry in the World Cup, a blame game usually sets in. Players, fans, and pundits all suggest that the new official tournament ball, introduced every four years, is the cause.

Many of the people saying that may be seeking excuses. And yet scholars do think that subtle variations among soccer balls affect how they fly. Specifically, researchers increasingly believe that one variable really does differentiate soccer balls: their surfaces. It is harder to control a smoother ball, such as the much-discussed "Jabulani" used at the 2010 World Cup. The new ball used at this year's tournament in Brazil, the "Brazuca," has seams that are over 50 percent longer, one factor that makes the ball less smooth and apparently more predictable in flight.

"The details of the flow of air around the ball are complicated, and in particular they depend on how rough the ball is," says John Bush, a professor of applied mathematics at MIT and the author of a recently published article about the aerodynamics of soccer balls. "If the ball is perfectly smooth, it bends the wrong way."

By the "wrong way," Bush means that two otherwise similar balls struck precisely the same way, by the same player, can actually curve in opposite directions, depending on the surface of those balls. Sound surprising?

Magnus, meet Messi

It may, because the question of how a spinning ball curves in flight would seem to have a textbook answer: the Magnus Effect. This phenomenon was first described by Isaac Newton, who noticed that in tennis, topspin causes a ball to dip, while backspin flattens out its trajectory. A curveball in baseball is another example from sports: A pitcher throws the ball with especially tight topspin, or sidespin rotation, and the ball curves in the direction of the spin.

In soccer, the same thing usually occurs with free kicks, corner kicks, crosses from the wings, and other kinds of passes or shots: The player kicking the ball applies spin during contact, creating rotation that makes the ball curve. For a right-footed player, the "natural" technique is to brush toward the outside of the ball, creating a shot or pass with a right-to-left hook; a left-footed player's "natural" shot will curl left-to-right.

So far, so intuitive: Soccer fans can probably conjure the image of stars like Lionel Messi, Andrea Pirlo, or Marta, a superstar of women's soccer, doing this. But this kind of shot -- the Brazilians call it the "chute de curva" -- depends on a ball with some surface roughness. Without that, this classic piece of the soccer player's arsenal goes away, as Bush points out in his article, "The Aerodynamics of the Beautiful Game," from the volume "Sports Physics," published by Les Editions de L'Ecole Polytechnique in France.

"The fact is that the Magnus Effect can change sign," Bush says. "People don't generally appreciate that fact." Given an absolutely smooth ball, the direction of the curve may reverse: The same kicking motion will not produce a shot or pass curving in a right-to-left direction, but in a left-to-right direction.

Why is this? Bush says it is due to the way the surface of the ball creates motion at the "boundary layer" between the spinning ball and the air. The rougher the ball, the easier it is to create the textbook version of the Magnus Effect, with a "positive" sign: The ball curves in the expected direction.

"The boundary layer can be laminar, which is smoothly flowing, or turbulent, in which case you have eddies," Bush says. "The boundary layer is changing from laminar to turbulent at different spots according to how quickly the ball is spinning. Where that transition arises is influenced by the surface roughness, the stitching of the ball. If you change the patterning of the panels, the transition points move, and the pressure distribution changes." The Magnus Effect can then have a "negative" sign.

From Brazil: The "dove without wings"

If the reversing of the Magnus Effect has largely eluded detection, of course, that is because soccer balls are not absolutely smooth -- but they have been moving in that direction over the decades. While other sports, such as baseball and cricket, have strict rules about the stitching on the ball, soccer does not, and advances in technology have largely given balls sleeker, smoother designs -- until the introduction of the Brazuca, at least.

There is actually a bit more to the story, however, since sometimes players will strike balls so as to give them very little spin -- the equivalent of a knuckleball in baseball. In this case, the ball flutters unpredictably from side to side. Brazilians have a name for this: the "pombo sem asa," or "dove without wings."

In this case, Bush says, "The peculiar motion of a fluttering free kick arises because the points of boundary-layer transition are different on opposite sides of the ball." Because the ball has no initial spin, the motion of the surrounding air has more of an effect on the ball's flight: "A ball that's knuckling … is moving in response to the pressure distribution, which is constantly changing." Indeed, a free kick Pirlo took in Italy's match against England on Saturday, which fooled the goalkeeper but hit the crossbar, demonstrated this kind of action.

Bush's own interest in the subject arises from being a lifelong soccer player and fan -- the kind who, sitting in his office, will summon up clips of the best free-kick takers he's seen. These include Juninho Pernambucano, a Brazilian midfielder who played at the 2006 World Cup, and Sinisa Mihajlovic, a Serbian defender of the 1990s.

And Bush happily plays a clip of Brazilian fullback Roberto Carlos' famous free kick from a 1997 match against France, where the player used the outside of his left foot -- but deployed the "positive" Magnus Effect -- to score on an outrageously bending free kick.

"That was by far the best free kick ever taken," Bush says. Putting on his professor's hat for a moment, he adds: "I think it's important to encourage people to try to understand everything. Even in the most commonplace things, there is subtle and interesting physics."

Lopwood, brushwood make high-grade charcoal


In comparison with other fossil fuels, charcoal emits low levels of sulphur and nitrogen oxides. This would result in lower local air pollution.

When the forestry machines have finished extracting timber, what is left are tops and branches -- waste which cannot be used. However, according to researchers, it is possible to turn these heaps of lopwood into high-quality charcoal.

Branches, tops, lopwood and brushwood that are left in felled areas after the timber has been extracted are now set to become more than just an irritation to hikers and berry-pickers. The aim is to turn these heaps of lopwood into the purest possible biocarbon. That's charcoal, to you and me.

So the raw material, known in the trade as brash, is now being put under the microscope. SINTEF Senior Researcher Øyvind Skreiberg isn't holding back. "This could revolutionise Norwegian bio-energy production," he says.

Four men, including professors from Hawaii and Hungary, and two SINTEF researchers, are gathered round a machine in a heat technology laboratory at Gløshaugen in Trondheim. This new acquisition is the only one of its kind in Norway, and is being used to analyse how biological material reacts to heat and pressure.

"We're trying to find the optimum conditions for making charcoal from forestry waste. What kinds of pressures and temperatures deliver the best result and the best possible quality? This machine allows us to check the critical conditions needed to produce high-quality charcoal," explains Skreiberg.

Reducing emissions Skreiberg is heading the BioCarb+ research project, which will spend four years not only creating high-grade charcoal from cheap forestry waste, but also developing profitable ways of manufacturing the new product.

"The brash left behind after felling contains enormous quantities of energy. But it's a low-value fuel, because it's made up of so many different things. This is why it's not used very much. If we can convert this cheap, easily available biomass into a high-quality, homogeneous fuel that is easy to handle, that would have major consequences in terms of the use of biofuel in Norway. It would also reduce emissions of greenhouse gases," says Skreiberg.

In comparison with other fossil fuels, charcoal emits low levels of sulphur and nitrogen oxides. This would result in lower local air pollution.

SINTEF Energy, which is running the project, is getting assistance from several international partners. Among them are professors Michael Jerry Antal from Hawaii and Gabor Varhegyi from Hungary. Antal has developed a special pressurised reactor for the production of charcoal, in which biomass is heated under pressure.

From one to thousands of units of energy This is all because charcoal can be used for much more than just grilling sausages on the barbecue. The manufacture of solar cells, for one thing. Several metallurgical companies have therefore joined the project as industrial partners. The process of converting silicon oxide (quartz) into pure silicon uses carbon as a reducing agent. Currently, the reducing agents used are fossil fuels such as coal and coke. However, if some of the fossil coal were to be replaced by charcoal, this would result in a considerable reduction in CO2 emissions from the manufacturing process. There would also be the environmental benefits of the solar cells themselves.

Skreiberg illustrates these with the following maths exercise. One biomass unit of energy in, results in thousands of units of energy out -- in the form of electricity produced by the solar cell during its lifetime.

"Elkem, one of our industrial partners, already uses a lot of charcoal. But this is imported from Indonesia. It is produced there using the old-fashioned method, with a low utilisation ratio of the energy in the timber used to make the charcoal. They are competitive only because of their low labour costs," says Skreiberg.

"If we could manufacture charcoal here, with a much better energy yield and of a higher quality, then it could be financially worthwhile”. Brash already has a market value, and it is lower than that of chips. Even stumps can be used. And we have plenty of resources. The forest grows again. Yet our domestic wood-processing industry is struggling. This innovation means that we may also be looking at making charcoal from broadleaved trees and trees of a quality that would normally be used to make paper.

Quality fuel The other important area of application would be as a fuel, in the form of briquettes, pellets or finely crushed powder.

"We can obtain a homogeneous product that is easy to handle and has a high energy density, providing even and stable combustion. That would help to make the energy installations using this type of fuel more profitable. We in our living rooms could use this kind of fuel in appliances like wood-burning stoves. However, it could also be used in small district heating centres or combined heat and power stations. Charcoal powder could easily replace oil in these installations at times of peak load," says Skreiberg. (Peak load is the portion of energy production from a bio-energy installation that cannot be covered by the plant's primary source of fuel on the coldest days. Editor's comment).

A new Norwegian industry? As well as developing the technology, the project is also analysing all the financial aspects involved in a potential manufacturing chain. This is because the aim of the work is to come up with a process that someone might invest in, preferably in Norway.

"By 2018, we will have studied the various parameters that influence the choice of an optimum production facility. The challenge will be to optimise the production of charcoal so that it will contain as much as possible of the biomass's energy. It must be of a quality that is good enough to use as a reducing agent in the metal industry and as a fuel. We also want to make use of by-products such as combustible gases and tars (bio-oils)," says Skreiberg.

Skreiberg hopes that an industrial company such as Elkem, which now uses imported charcoal, will get involved and finance a plant in Norway. That would increase sales of Norwegian forestry resources and would also increase the number of local jobs.

This kind of initiative is sorely needed, especially if we take into account the environmental targets adopted by the Norwegian parliament. Its white paper on climate said that there has to be a major focus on bio-energy, including a tripling of funds for research, combined with a target to double the use of bio-energy from 2008 levels by 2020. The research funding is in place, but we are still trailing behind the target of doubling the use of bio-energy.