The LOTUS C-01 Superbike Brings Some Serious Motorcycle Pron To The Table - republishing -

 

While we like to share all of the seriously cool looking supercar news with you it isn’t very often that we get to add to our car pr0n love with some awesome looking superbike pr0n. Today however we do have some amazing looking images of a new motorcycle courtesy of British carmaker Lotus. It’s called the Lotus C-01 and Kodewa; the same people who built the Lotus Le Mans car, have been sourced for the build. They are teamed up with German concept designer Daniel Simon – the talent behind Tron:Legacy – who will be building the gorgeous looking carbon fiber, and titanium constructed body. As with supercars there is no price mentioned at this point and there will only be 100 of these motorcycles built. All you bike lovers may now commence drooling.

Famous Men and Their Motorcycles - republishing -

 

by Brett & Kate McKay on April 10, 2013 · Few things have captured the passion, the sometimes obsession, of men like the motorcycle. There’s no mystery as to why this is. Motorcycles represent a peculiar combination of several manly elements: danger, speed, singular focus, solitude, mechanics, noise, and physical skill. Many famous men were motorcycle enthusiasts; they combined their passion for things like acting, music, and adventure, with a love for bikes. Motorcycles were a perfect outlet for their zeal for life; riding the open road with the wind in their faces left them invigorated and inspired. Today we take a look at the relationship ten famous men had with their motorcycles. T.E. Lawrence “A skittish motorbike with a touch of blood in it is better than all the riding animals on earth, because of its logical extension of our faculties, and the hint, the provocation, to excess conferred by its honeyed untiring smoothness.” -TE Lawrence T.E. Lawrence, aka “Lawrence of Arabia” was a passionate motorcyclist and a devotee of the Brough Superior. Brough Superiors were considered the “Rolls Royce of Motorcycles” and Lawrence had his custom-made; short of stature at 5’5, he ordered his bikes with a smaller back wheel to accommodate his height. Lawrence owned seven Brough Superiors during his lifetime, referring to them as his Boanerges (sons of Thunder), and calling each George (the first was George I, the last George VII). In 1935, while riding George VII and awaiting delivery of George VIII, Lawrence swerved to avoid hitting two boys on bicycles, was thrown over the handlebars, and died a week later from his injuries at age 46. Lawrence loved to ride his bikes fast and hard; he was likely going around 100 mph, the bike’s top speed, at the time of the accident. Marlon Brando “It still pleases me to be awake during the dark, early hours before morning when everyone else is still asleep. I’ve been that way since I first moved to New York. I do my best thinking and writing then. During those early years in New York, I often got on my motorcycle in the middle of the night and went for a ride–anyplace. There wasn’t much crime in the city then, and if you owned a motorcycle, you left it outside your apartment and in the morning it was still there. It was wonderful on summer nights to cruise around the city at one, two, or three A.M. wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a girl on the seat behind me. If I didn’t start out with one, I’d find one.” -Marlon Brando Before he became famous, Brando cruised the streets of NYC on his bike, and in the coming decades, whenever his fame started to feel oppressive, he’d get on his motorcyle and simply head out into the Southwest, riding through the desert for miles on end. In the iconic film, The Wild One,  Brando rode a 1950 Triumph 6T Thunderbird. Bob Dylan In 1966, Bob Dylan’s career was going full throttle; several of his albums had gone gold and platinum, he was touring the world, and he was soon to publish a novel. His schedule and impending commitments were brutal. Success was crashing over him like a wave, a wave that perhaps would have drowned him if a mysterious motorcycle accident had not intervened. While tooling along near his Woodstock, NY home, Dylan apparently crashed his 1964 Triumph Tiger 100 and suffered an injury to his vertebrae. While he was not taken to a hospital, he enjoyed a long convalescence; he did not return to touring for almost a decade. The accident provided Dylan with a way to slow down his life. He would later say: “When I had that motorcycle accident … I woke up and caught my senses, I realized that I was just workin’ for all these leeches. And I didn’t want to do that. Plus, I had a family and I just wanted to see my kids.” Clark Gable While this seems to be a posed press photo, Clark Gable did indeed ride a motorcycle, a 1934 Harley Davidson RL to be exact. Hunter S. Thompson “But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin and no room for mistakes. It has to be done right . . and thats when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that the fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are the wind and the dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it  . . . howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica . . . letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge . . . The Edge  . . . ” – Hunter S. Thompson, Hells Angels Writer Hunter S. Thompson earned his motorcycling chops the hard way: by riding his BSA A65 Lightning for a year with the Hell’s Angels. His experience  riding with (and getting stomped by) the gang became the book,  Hells Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga. Clint Eastwood While Eastwood was only an occasional rider in his personal life, he rode motorcycles as part of several of his films. In Coogan’s Bluff, for example, he chases an escaped criminal through Central Park while astride a Triumph Bonneville. Charles Lindbergh As a boy, Charles Lindbergh had a keen fascination for the mechanical workings of machines generally and for internal combustion engines in particular. When he was in high school, he ordered a twin-cylinder 1920 model Excelsior “X” motorcycle through the local hardware store. Lindbergh was a shy and quiet young man, but he rode his bike fast, hard, and, as his classmates remembered it, rather recklessly. “I loved its power and speed,” he admitted. On the way to town, Lindbergh would tear through a path that ran past a power plant, through a thicket of bushes, and along the steep banks of the Mississippi River. As an observer remembered, “it seemed like he wanted to see how close to the edge he could get without plunging in.” The owner of the plant became so concerned that he closed off the trail. But the future pilot was as cool on that bike as he was behind the controls of a plane; he never had an accident. Buddy Holly In 1958, coming off a tour and flush with success, Buddy Holly and the Crickets decided to spend some of their hard earned money on new motorcycles. They flew to Dallas and started shopping the local bike stores. But the owners, unaware of who these young lads were, treated them dismissively; the owner of the Harley dealer practically pushed them out the door. But they found what they were looking for at Ray Miller Triumph Motorcycle Sales, where each man picked out one of the latest models: Buddy chose an Ariel Cyclone, J.I. picked a Trophy, and Joe B. decided on a Thunderbird. The guys then headed back to Lubbock on the bikes, but not before stopping by the Harley dealer to show off their new rides. James Dean Hope for teenage nerds everywhere. James Dean on his first real motorcycle. Pre-smoldering angst. Of course the “Rebel Without a Cause” had a thing for motorcycles. He got his first real motorcycle at age 15, a 1947 CZ 125-cc. He was the only kid in his small town in Indiana with his own motorcycle, and he rode it full throttle, losing two teeth in a fall. The locals called him “One Speed Dean.” And that one speed was “wide open.” When he dropped out of college to pursue acting, he traded his beloved CZ for a Royal Enfield 500cc vertical twin. But he wouldn’t hold onto that bike for long. While home in Indiana on break from working on a play in NYC, Dean decided to ride his Royal Enfield all the way back to the Big Apple. But when it broke down along the way, he traded it in for an Indian Warrior TT. When Dean arrived back in New York, he had the bike serviced at a shop…where Steve McQueen worked as a mechanic. Later, wanting to emulate Marlon Brando, Dean bought a Triumph TR5 Trophy, the last bike he rode before he died. Steve McQueen There is perhaps no famous man we associate more with motorcycles than the King of Cool, Steve McQueen. Before Steve McQueen made it big as an actor, he would compete in–and win–weekend motorcycle races on the first bike he owned–a used Harley. Even when Hollywood success came calling, acting gigs always had to compete against his passion for motorcycles. McQueen amassed a collection of over 100 motorcycles, his favorites being vintage Indians. When the weight of celebrity grew too stifling, McQueen would grab one of those Indian bikes and tear out of Tinseltown and onto the open road. McQueen loved off-road racing as well, and raced the Triumph’s TR6 in everything from the Baja 1000 to the prestigious International Six Days Trial. The TR6 also famously makes an appearance in The Great Escape. In that film, McQueen performed many of his own stunts; however, contrary to popular belief, it was not McQueen who jumped his bike over the barbed wire fence in that iconic scene. Because of insurance concerns, Bud Ekins was called in to make the leap.

How Is Your Sleep Health? - republishing -

 

Just because you don’t have insomnia doesn’t mean sleep's doing its job for you. When you come across yet another magazine piece about sleep disorders, you pass it by. You know lots of people who have sleep problems—but as far as you’re concerned, you don’t. You don’t lie awake for hours hoping for some shut-eye, or wake up in the middle of the night, or find it really hard to sleep on a schedule that works with the rest of your life. Great! Congratulations! But… Not having a particular problem is not at all the same thing as being healthy. We know that when it comes to our general health, just because you're not in bad shape physically doesn’t mean you're in good shape. Good is at least one or two steps beyond so-so or okay. That’s true for health, it’s true for diet, it’s true for energy level and mood. And it’s definitely true for sleep. This point is brought home in a recent issue of the scientific journal Sleep. The author is Daniel Buysse, MD, a top authority in the field of sleep medicine. He raises the point that sleep medicine—a field that goes back at least 30 years—has focused on disorders, diseases, and their treatment. Of course this effort has been momentous, as anyone who has tried to deal with a sleep problem will gratefully agree. But what is needed in addition is a positive frame of reference that gives us a way to know how well we are doing. KEYS TO HEALTHY SLEEP What makes for a healthy sleep pattern, one that reinforces good general health? Dr. Buysse suggests that five simple questions can give you a sense of where you stand: Do you fall asleep easily and get back to sleep easily if something wakes you during the night? Do you sleep between six and eight hours a night? Do you stay awake and alert during your waking day, without dozing? Is your sleep schedule appropriate to your lifestyle (for most of us, this means sleeping during the nighttime)? Do you feel you typically get a “good night’s sleep”? Researchers can get objective answers to most of these questions by observing someone in a sleep lab. But as a rule, that isn’t really necessary. Practically all of us are able to say whether our personal answer to each question is Rarely/Never, Sometimes, or Usually/Always. And that is enough to give us a general idea of our current state of sleep health, but most importantly, a target to aim for—being able to say Usually to every question. If you fall short of that, like so many of us, what can you do about it? To answer that question, we need to understand something of the basics of sleep itself. MECHANISMS OF ACTION The most widely accepted physiological understanding of sleep involves the joint action of two independent brain processes. We want them both to be in sync. The first is sleep pressure. From the moment we wake up, our bodies start building up a need to sleep again. Once we do go to sleep, this need starts to recede. The second process is the circadian cycle, which rises and falls across the twenty-four hour day, under the control of the inner clock. When these two reinforce each other, the result is healthy sleep. But the more they come into conflict, the more our sleep health declines. The good news is that both sleep pressure and the circadian cycle can be brought under our control. Getting on a regular sleep/wake schedule helps ensure that sleep pressure builds to its high point at bedtime. We detail the ways to adjust the circadian cycle in our paperback guide, Reset Your Inner Clock. For example, if you expose yourself to bright light during the hours shortly before bedtime, it can overwhelm the clock’s sleep signal and make it harder to fall asleep. But if you cut down on light exposure—and especially light in the blue-ish part of the spectrum—you can avoid this interference. Holding back on television and computer use during the evening hours is one simple but effective step toward sleep health. How you arrange your nighttime and morning environment is just as important. Put together the ingredients, and you can rate yourself Usually—or even Always—on the positive side of the sleep equation. Michael and Ian are co-authors of the 2013 Penguin paperback, Reset Your Inner Clock. They invite you to follow them on Twitter for news updates, opinions, and challenging Q-and-A’s. If you want to stay on top of body-clock matters, light therapy, and more — and take advantage of confidential, online self-assessments of inner clock time, depression, and seasonality — you should become part of the nonprofit Center for Environmental Therapeutics community. Email PTuser@cet.org so we can stay in contact.

European Extremely Large Telescope gets final go-ahead

 

An artist's impression of the E-ELT (ESO/L. Calçada) The ESO has given its European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) the final green light, allowing construction to go ahead at the Chilean site. The telescope is expected to take around a decade to complete, with the final installation expected to facilitate discoveries in fields such as galaxy composition and exoplanets. Construction of the E-ELT was preliminarily confirmed in June 2012, but with the proviso that 90 percent of the required funding (more than €1 billion or around US$1.3 billion) for the project be secured before main construction could begin. With the accession of Poland to the ESO, that line has now been crossed, and 11 of the 14 member states voted in favor of going ahead with project earlier this week (the remaining three members were absent and are expected to continue to support the project). While work on the telescope itself was unable to begin until now, an exception was made for the groundbreaking ceremony, which took place in June of this year. Civil works, such as the construction of an access road, were also permitted to go ahead at the site. The contract for the telescope’s main structure and dome construction – the largest ever from the ESO – will be awarded in late 2015. An image of the E-ELT site as taken from ESO's Paranal Observatory in November 2014, showing site itself in the top left and the under-construction road stretching across the shot (ESO/J. Girard) The E-ELT site is located in Chile’s Atacama Desert, 20 miles (36 km) from the existing Very Large Telescope (VLT), which itself has been instrumental in many important discoveries and observations. These include the mysterious alignment of quasars and the ceasing of star formation in galaxy clusters. The 39-meter aperture optical and infrared telescope is expected to vastly expand our knowledge in a number of areas – studying planets around other stars, the distribution of dark matter and dark energy throughout the Universe, and more. One of its key aims will be to track down and study Earth-like planets, searching for places where life could exist. While 90 percent of the required funds have been obtained, 10 percent of the project cost has been shifted to a second stage, which will include the construction of an adaptive optics system and parts of the main mirror. The telescope will however be functional at the end of the first phase of the construction process. Source: ESO

Superconducting coil to slash costs and improve efficiency of direct-drive wind turbines

 

Dr Shahriar Hossain is developing a wind turbine that uses a magnesium diboride superconducting coil Conventional offshore wind turbines are expensive and complicated pieces of machinery – in a large part because of their complex and maintenance-intensive gearboxes. Dr Shahriar Hossain from the University of Wollongong (UOW) in Australia is looking to slash production costs and drastically improve efficiency replacing these gearboxes with a superconducting coil. Wind turbine gearboxes connect the low-speed shaft, which is turned by the rotation of the blades, to the high-speed shaft that drives the generator, increasing the rotational speed of the low-speed shaft from around 30-60 rpm to the rotational speed required by the generator to produce electricity – which is usually around 1,000-1,800 rpm. To avoid the cost, maintenance and efficiency-loss problems associated with the use of gear boxes, Dr Hossain, a materials scientist from the UOW's Institute of Superconducting and Electronic Materials with funding by the Australian Research Council in 2013 under the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) scheme, is developing a magnesium diboride superconducting coil made from magnesium and boron that he says is very cheap and easy to manufacture and would allow wind turbines to operate with no gearbox at all. Unlike a conduction loop made of conventional copper wire that loses about seven to 10 percent of energy due to resistance when an electric current is sent into it, a superconducting loop would have no loss of energy as it has no electrical resistance. This would allow the current to circulate indefinitely, even after the power is cut off. When we reached out to Dr Hossain to ask about the problems surrounding the low temperatures required for the superconductors to work, he admitted this is the most challenging part of developing the system around the magnesium diboride superconducting coil. To address the problem he plans to use off-the-shelf cryocoolers to cool the rotating components of the system in a two-stage process. The first crycooler will drop the temperature to -218° C (-360° F), while the second will then lower it further to -253° C (-424° F). Dr Hossain says that in comparison to well-established niobium-based superconductors, his magnesium diboride-based superconductors have achieved very high critical current density. Despite this two cryocooler arrangement, Dr Hossain says it will still be cheaper than using high temperature superconductors (HTS), which can exhibit superconductivity at temperatures as high as -135° C (-211° F), but cost around AUD$25 (US$21) a meter. Dr Hossain's US industry partner, Hyper Tech Research, predicts that magnesium diboride coil will cost just $1 (US$0.85) a meter to manufacture by 2015. Additionally, unlike niobium-based low temperature superconductors (LTS) that require increasingly pricey liquid helium to operate, Dr Hossain says the cryocooler system will run with ambient temperature helium gas supplied by compressors and entering into the rotor and returning through a rotary coupling in a closed loop. Dr Hossain says that 10 MW-class wind turbines will require up to 200 km (124 mi) of superconducting coil to generate electricity, with each HTS-based coil costing between AUD$3 to $5 million (US$2.5 to $2.4 million) to manufacture. However, he claims that the same length of magnesium diboride superconducting coil would cost just AUD$180,000 (US$153,000), with that figure expected to drop significantly. "Australia desperately needs sustainable energy sources," says Dr Hossain. "Wind is cheap, clean and we can get it day and night and on rainy and sunny days. And considering Australia has more than 35,000 km of coastline, there is ample room for offshore wind farms. With industry support, we could install superconducting offshore wind turbines off the coast of Australia in five years, no problem." Source: University of Wollongong

New model to detect aggressive driving

 

Boosting new behavior patterns could prevent a significant percentage of accidents. Researchers from the UPM have developed a system capable of detecting patterns of reckless driving behavior with non intrusive methods for the driver. A group of researchers from the High School of Telecommunications Engineering of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) has shown that is possible to detect an aggressive driving behavior by just monitoring external driving signals such as the speed or acceleration, since the aggressiveness works as a linear filter on these signals. This model was validated with empirical data under real driving situations with rates exceeding 92%. Traffic accidents annually produce 1.3 million fatalities and 50 million injuries worldwide. They are currently the main cause of death among young adults between 15-29 years old. Apart from these deaths, traffic accidents cause high economic cost due to property damage and medical expenses, amongst others, estimated at around half a billion Euros per year. The 70% of these accidents are related to human factors and reckless driving which is the result of an excessive or inappropriate speed. Boosting new behavior patterns could prevent a significant percentage of accidents. One way to promote these behavior changes of drivers it can be the monitoring and characterization of their driving in order to detect inappropriate driving situations and early warn at risk of accident. The early research works in this field were mainly based on the characterization through intrusive methods by monitoring physiological signals such as heart rate, breathing and stress level. These methods, though effective, are less appropriate because can produce discomfort to the driver and represent an additional cause of distraction. The question is, can we efficiently characterize the driving through non intrusive methods and that are not perceived by the driver? A group of researchers for the Applied Mathematics for Information Technology and Communications Department of the High School of Telecommunications Engineering of UM has found the answer. Thanks to this research, they have shown that is possible to detect a reckless driving behavior by just monitoring driving external signals, such as velocity and acceleration. The key is that aggressiveness performs like a linear filter on these signals: scaling its probability distribution and modifying its average value, standard deviation and dynamic range. The model was empirically verified under real driving situations at UPM facilities. They tested its validity and its generality for diverse driving signals, different drivers and types of roads. The results showed a success rate of 92% for detecting reckless driving behavior from driving signals. In the future, this real time reckless driving system for early detection will be integrated into smartphones, significantly contributing to increase safety on the roads.

People conceived during Dutch famine have altered regulation of growth genes

 

December 3, 2014 Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health Individuals conceived in the severe Dutch Famine may have adjusted to this horrendous period of World War II by making adaptations to how active their DNA is. Genes involved in growth and development were differentially regulated, according to researchers. Extensive research on the DNA of these children shows that the regulatory systems of their growth genes were altered, which may also explain why they may be at higher risk for metabolic disease in later life. Individuals conceived in the severe Dutch Famine, also called the Hunger Winter, may have adjusted to this horrendous period of World War II by making adaptations to how active their DNA is. Genes involved in growth and development were differentially regulated, according to researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center, Harvard University, and Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. During the winter of 1944-1945 the Western part of The Netherlands was struck by a severe 6-month famine. During this Hunger Winter the available rations provided as low as a quarter of the daily energy requirements. Children conceived -- but not born -- during the famine were delivered with a normal birth weight. Extensive research on the DNA of these Hunger Winter children shows that the regulatory systems of their growth genes were altered, which may also explain why they appear to be at higher risk for metabolic disease in later life. Decades later growth genes seemed different "The different setting of the growth genes may have helped the Hunger Winter children to withstand the Famine conditions as compared with their unexposed siblings, but these changes may likewise be unfavorable for their metabolism as adults," said Leiden University principal investigator Dr. Bas Heijmans. For example, the altered settings were associated with LDL cholesterol at age 60, according to the authors. The research team in Leiden compared the DNA of the Hunger Winter children, now aged 60, at 1.2 million CpG methylation sites comparing them with same-sex siblings not exposed to famine. They were able to see how the genes were differentially regulated in the Hunger Winter children, as compared with their siblings with a similar genetic and familial background. Groups of genes involved in growth and development showed a different gene activity setting. The Hunger Winter children were all approximately 60 years of age when they gave blood for DNA research. It was at this point in time that their growth genes seem altered for life. "The potential for a gene to become active is mainly determined in the crucial weeks after fertilization. This master regulatory system that determines which genes are on and which are off is called epigenetics and can be compared to a sound technician making adjustments during a recording to get that perfect sound. Environmental factors during development can make a lasting imprint on this system," noted Dr. Heijmans. The authors point out that a wealth of past epidemiological studies suggests that early development is important for later health. "Thanks to the willingness of the Hunger Winter children and their families to contribute to our studies, we can pin- point which phases of development are especially sensitive to the environment. We are currently extending our inquiries not only to those conceived during the famine, but also to those exposed during other gestation periods. A lot of important things are happening in the womb about which we know quite little in humans," says co-author Dr. Elmar W. Tobi. "These findings are exciting and provide tremendous opportunities for epidemiologists," said L.H. Lumey, MD, associate professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and senior author who collected the analyzed blood samples. "Looking at the human genome we see systematic changes in gene regulation during early human development in response to the environment. The epigenetic revolution has given us the tools to investigate these changes and look at the impact for later life." Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: Elmar W. Tobi, Jelle J. Goeman, Ramin Monajemi, Hongcang Gu, Hein Putter, Yanju Zhang, Roderick C. Slieker, Arthur P. Stok, Peter E. Thijssen, Fabian Müller, Erik W. van Zwet, Christoph Bock, Alexander Meissner, L. H. Lumey, P. Eline Slagboom, Bastiaan T. Heijmans. DNA methylation signatures link prenatal famine exposure to growth and metabolism. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 5592 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6592

Nutrition, safety key to consumer acceptance of nanotech

 

Tue, 12/02/2014 - 10:08am Matt Shipman, News Services, North Carolina State Univ. New research from North Carolina State Univ. and the Univ. of Minnesota shows the majority of consumers will accept the presence of nanotechnology or genetic modification (GM) technology in foods—but only if the technology enhances the nutrition or improves the safety of the food. “In general, people are willing to pay more to avoid GM or nanotech in foods, and people were more averse to GM tech than to nanotech,” says Dr. Jennifer Kuzma, senior author of a paper on the research and co-director of the Genetic Engineering in Society Center at NC State. “However, it’s not really that simple. There were some qualifiers, indicating that many people would be willing to buy GM or nanotech in foods if there were health or safety benefits.” The researchers conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,117 U.S. consumers. Participants were asked to answer an array of questions that explored their willingness to purchase foods that contained GM tech and foods that contained nanotech. The questions also explored the price of the various foods and whether participants would buy foods that contained nanotech or GM tech if the foods had enhanced nutrition, improved taste, improved food safety or if the production of the food had environmental benefits. The researchers found that survey participants could be broken into four groups. Eighteen percent of participants belonged to a group labeled the “new technology rejecters,” which would not by GM or nanotech foods under any circumstances. Nineteen percent of participants belonged to a group labeled the “technology averse,” which would buy GM or nanotech foods only if those products conveyed food safety benefits. Twenty-three percent of participants were “price oriented,” basing their shopping decisions primarily on the cost of the food—regardless of the presence of GM or nanotech. And 40% of participants were “benefit oriented,” meaning they would buy GM or nanotech foods if the foods had enhanced nutrition or food safety. “This tells us that GM or nanotech food products have greater potential to be viable in the marketplace if companies focus on developing products that have safety and nutrition benefits—because a majority of consumers would be willing to buy those products,” Kuzma says. “From a policy standpoint, it also argues that GM and nanotech foods should be labeled, so that the technology rejecters can avoid them,” Kuzma adds. The paper is published online in the Journal of Agricultural Economics. Source: North Carolina State Univ.

6 Ways Your Bedroom May Be Sabotaging Your Sleep - republishing -

 

How to make your bedroom more conducive to sleep Let’s face it: we all know that sometimes, getting ourselves (or our kids) into bed is only half the struggle when it comes to falling asleep. Lying there, or tossing and turning as the minutes turn into hours while sleep continues to eludes us can be really frustrating, and no help when the alarm goes off the next morning and we can barely get going. There can be lots of reasons why people have difficulty falling or staying asleep, and I’ve addressed many of them in previous posts as well as in my book One of them, often overlooked, is the quality of the sleep environment itself. Namely: how conducive your bedroom is to falling asleep. Here are a number of things to look for in your, or your child’s bedroom, which may be interfering with your ability to fall asleep at night: Too much light. Bright light, especially in the evening, has a very powerful awakening effect on the brain. Make sure the bedroom lights are dim, or better yet turned off completely. If you read before going to bed, use a low-wattage lamp. If a night light is needed, use the lowest wattage you can find (no more than 7 watts) and make sure that the light it casts does not shine directly on the bed. In the summer months, when trying to go to sleep (or to put younger kids to bed) before the sun has set, consider using light-blocking shades or curtains. Too many distractions. Televisions , computers, iPads, video games are problematic not only because of the light they case, but because of their content, which can rile up the brain just as you’re trying to calm it down.  And while falling asleep to soothing music can be very helpful to some, not all music is soothing. I’ve met teens with difficulty initiating sleep who never made the connection between the heavy metal they listened to in bed at night and why it was taking them so long to fall asleep. Pets. Whether it’s a dog who snuggles up and leaves you little room to stretch out, or a cat that’s constantly moving about, your pet may be causing more of your sleep problems than you realize. If you’re not convinced, consider videotaping the bed one night and watching what happened over the course of the night. Too much stress. Taking computers, homework, or work into bed is an especially big no-no, because it can generate stress that lingers even after the task is complete, and the computer turned off and the notebooks put away. It’s important to keep the bed for sleep (and sex, when appropriate), and not to allow negative associations to develop between the bed and unpleasant or stress-generating tasks which can then interfere with sleep. Clocks. Even though the stress they produce is a direct continuation of point #4, they bear special mention. Nothing is more anxiety-producing than watching the minutes tick by as you lie in bed and can’t fall asleep. “Oh no, it’s been half an hour, and I’m still awake… Now it’s been thirty-five minutes and I still haven’t fallen asleep.” Most of us need an alarm to wake up in the morning, but that doesn’t mean that the clock has to face the bed. Move it out of arms-reach and out of sight. For example: put the clock on a dresser across the room and facing the wall. That will make it much less tempting to look at. Noise.  Thin walls, snoring bed partners, or family members watching TV in the den can all make it harder to fall asleep. Sometimes this is easy to fix, but not always. If that’s the case, consider foam earplugs, or a fan or white noise machine to mask the sound Good luck, and good night! Dennis Rosen, M.D. Help your child get a great night's sleep with the new book: Successful Sleep Strategies for Kids (a Harvard Medical School Guide)

New molecules to burst malaria's bubble

 

December 3, 2014 Australian National University Scientists have released details of a raft of new chemicals with potent anti-malarial properties which could open the way to new drugs to fight malaria. Over 200 million people contract malaria each year, and the parasite that causes the disease has become resistant to most of the drugs currently available. The papers show the malaria parasite has real Achilles heel, and we now have range of new ways to attack it. Dr Natalie Spillman. Scientists have released details of a raft of new chemicals with potent anti-malarial properties which could open the way to new drugs to fight the disease. A new paper in PNAS is the third published recently by a group at the Australian National University (ANU). The group has collaborated with scientists from around the globe to uncover potential ammunition in the fight against malaria. Over 200 million people contract malaria each year, and the parasite that causes the disease has become resistant to most of the drugs currently available. "The series of papers shows that the malaria parasite has a real Achilles heel, and describe a range of new ways to attack it," said Professor Kiaran Kirk, Dean of the College of Medicine, Biology and Environment and one of the scientists involved in the project. Dr Natalie Spillman, from the Research School of Biology at ANU studied the mechanism by which the parasites are killed. "The new molecules block a molecular salt pump at the surface of the parasite, causing it to fill up with salt," Dr Spillman said "This has the effect of drawing water into the parasite, causing it to swell uncontrollably and burst." Although the process of developing the new compounds into clinical drugs is complex and lengthy, Professor Kirk is optimistic the findings will lead to new treatments. "It's very early days, but these pump-blocking compounds have some of the most promising anti-malarial potential we've seen," he says. Aspects of the work were carried out with groups at Griffith University, Monash University and the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin. "This is a good example of a long-term, international drug development program in which Australian groups have played a key role," he said. Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by Australian National University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: María Belén Jiménez-Díaz, Daniel Ebert, Yandira Salinas, Anupam Pradhan, Adele M. Lehane, Marie-Eve Myrand-Lapierre, Kathleen G. O’Loughlin, David M. Shackleford, Mariana Justino de Almeida, Angela K. Carrillo, Julie A. Clark, Adelaide S. M. Dennis, Jonathon Diep, Xiaoyan Deng, Sandra Duffy, Aaron N. Endsley, Greg Fedewa, W. Armand Guiguemde, María G. Gómez, Gloria Holbrook, Jeremy Horst, Charles C. Kim, Jian Liu, Marcus C. S. Lee, Amy Matheny, María Santos Martínez, Gregory Miller, Ane Rodríguez-Alejandre, Laura Sanz, Martina Sigal, Natalie J. Spillman, Philip D. Stein, Zheng Wang, Fangyi Zhu, David Waterson, Spencer Knapp, Anang Shelat, Vicky M. Avery, David A. Fidock, Francisco-Javier Gamo, Susan A. Charman, Jon C. Mirsalis, Hongshen Ma, Santiago Ferrer, Kiaran Kirk, Iñigo Angulo-Barturen, Dennis E. Kyle, Joseph L. DeRisi, David M. Floyd, R. Kiplin Guy. ( )-SJ733, a clinical candidate for malaria that acts through ATP4 to induce rapid host-mediated clearance ofPlasmodium. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014; 201414221 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1414221111