courriel 228

University of Oxford

An apple a day keeps the heart doctor away

The 150-year-old proverb « an apple a day keeps the doctor away » stands the test of time, say Oxford University researchers.

Lead researcher Dr Adam Briggs of the British Health Foundation Health Promotion Research Group at Oxford University says: 'The Victorians had it about right when they came up with their brilliantly clear and simple public health advice.

The researchers calculated that an apple a day for all adults, aged 50 and over, in the United Kingdom, would prevent around 8 500 deaths from heart attacks and strokes every year.

See more at:  http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2013/131218.html

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UCLA University of California, Los Angeles

Los Angeles. neighborhoods show striking differences in transit-related air pollution

Noxious particulate concentrations highest near Santa Monica Airport

 UCLA researchers pitted four Los Angeles neighborhoods head-to-head to compare their air pollution levels and found that while more affluent neighborhoods generally fared better, the Mar Vista community near the Santa Monica Airport scored worse for ultrafine particle pollutants than freeway-laced downtown and Boyle Heights and far worse than neighboring portions of West Los Angeles.

Researchers used an emissions-free electric vehicle filled with instruments to measure real-time air pollutant concentrations in residential areas of Boyle Heights, downtown, West Los Angeles and the Mar Vista neighborhood known as North Westdale. During typical daytime weather patterns, the North Westdale community is immediately downwind of the Santa Monica Airport.

See more at http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-researchers-discover-striking-249623.aspx

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University Concordia, Montréal

Tips on dining etiquette

Dining etiquette workshops, part of the Backpack to Briefcase series, can help students make a good impression.

Emily Campbell and Jonah Aspler, from Concordia's Department of Journalism, report how dining etiquette workshops can help students make a good impression. A video at http://www.concordia.ca/alumni-friends/cunews/offices/vpdersg/aar/2013/12/tips-on-dining-etiquette.html?

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Florida international university, Miami

Researchers predict environmental factors will imperil banana production by 2060

In the next 50 years, approximately 50 percent of conventional plantations in Central and South America are predicted to become unsuitable for the production and export of bananas.

This is a claim made by FIU biological sciences researchers Brian Machovina ’91, MS ’94 and Kenneth Feeley in their study titled, “Climate change driven shifts in the extent and location of areas suitable for export banana production.”

The researchers used global climate projections for the year 2060 and species distribution modeling (SDM) to predict the geographical shifts and map areas predicted to be suitable for commercial banana production. They found climate change, deforestation and lack of water availability will cause banana plantations currently found in areas suitable for production to shift to other countries. Countries such as Mexico, Ecuador and Peru will gain suitable cultivation areas while other countries will lose suitable areas, including Honduras and Colombia. In fact, it is estimated that Colombia will lose an estimated 62 percent of its cultivation areas.

See more at: http://news.fiu.edu/2013/12/researchers-predict-environmental-factors-will-imperil-banana-production-by-2060/72044

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University of Princeton

Researchers demonstrate new way to sustain high-performance fusion plasmas

A multinational team led by Chinese researchers in collaboration with U.S. and European partners has successfully demonstrated a novel technique for suppressing instabilities that can cut short the life of controlled fusion reactions. The team, headed by researchers at the Institute of Plasma Physics in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), combined the new technique with a method that the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has developed for protecting the walls that surround the hot, charged plasma gas that fuels fusion reactions.

 The record-setting results of the tests, conducted on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in Hefei, China, could mark a key step in the worldwide effort to develop fusion as a clean and abundant source of energy for generating electricity. "This is a very good example of multinational collaboration on EAST," said ASIPP Director Jiangang Li. "I very much appreciate the effort of our collaborators."

See more at: 

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S38/60/84K06/index.xml?section=topstories

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Northeastern university, Boston, Massachusetts

The potential pandemic

What would happen if haz­ardous bio­log­ical research acci­den­tally escaped the lab? Alessandro Vespig­nani, a North­eastern pro­fessor and world-​​renowned sta­tis­tical physi­cist, con­ducted a com­pu­ta­tional exper­i­ment to find out.

 In 2011, scientists suc­cess­fully engi­neered a lethal avian flu virus to be trans­mis­sible between birds as well as mam­mals and pos­sibly humans. The novel virus, a genet­i­cally engi­neered vari­a­tion of H5N1 avian influenza, sparked an enor­mous debate among both the research com­mu­nity and the public about how to manage such research and whether it should even be car­ried out at all.

That’s where North­eastern stepped in. “We thought it was impor­tant to pro­vide some hard num­bers to the debate,” said Alessandro Vespig­nani, a world-​​renowned sta­tis­tical physi­cist and the Stern­berg Family Dis­tin­guished Uni­ver­sity Professor.

 See more at http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2013/11/potential-pandemic/

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University of Alberta Canada

Exercise, diet and lifestyle changes can prevent diabetes in people at high risk

Study shows that preventive benefits of healthy behaviour begin early and last for years.

 People at high risk of developing diabetes can prevent its onset if they exercise, improve their diet and make one other lifestyle change such as seeking counselling or quitting smoking, according to recently published findings from medical researchers at the University of Alberta.

Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry researcher Christina Korownyk and her team, which included the Alberta Research Centre for Health Evidence, published their findings in the peer-reviewed Annals of Internal Medicine. Their results confirm similar findings by other groups.

“This is reassurance for those who are at risk of developing diabetes that there is good evidence to support comprehensive lifestyle interventions in preventing diabetes,” she said. “The benefits begin early on, within the first year, and lasted for years after the interventions ended.”

 See more at: http://news.ualberta.ca/newsarticles/2013/november/exercise-diet-lifestyle-changes-can-prevent-diabetes-in-people-at-high-risk

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Utah State university, Logan

Space Dynamics Lab Sensor Launched

Two Miniature Orbital Temperature References instruments — MOTRs — built by Utah State University Research Foundation’s Space Dynamics Laboratory were successfully launched Nov. 25 and are heading to the International Space Station.

The instruments will test a technology critical for maintaining accurate calibration of the space-based temperature sensors used for many satellite programs.

The MOTR instruments were carried in the Progress 53 cargo vehicle which lifted off on a Soyuz rocket at 1:53 (MST) Nov. 25 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station Nov. 29 when the MOTR instruments will undergo further testing.

“This launch is a key milestone in a several-year effort for the MOTR team and for SDL,” said Gail Bingham, SDL’s project scientist for the MOTR mission. “This is a first step in space qualifying a critical technology for improving our understanding of the Earth’s environment and on long term space missions.”

 See more at:  http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=53433

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University of Washington, Seattle

Study: Greenhouse gas might have warmed early Mars enough to allow liquid water

The mystery of how the surface of Mars, long dead and dry, could have flowed with water billions of years ago may have been solved by research that included a University of Washington astronomer.

There is evidence that Mars had water at its surface 3.8 billion years ago or before, but scientists are divided on how that might have happened, especially since the sun was about 30 percent fainter back then, thus less able to melt water ice on Mars.

Earlier efforts with computer models to simulate a warm, wet Mars using only carbon dioxide and water have not been successful. Now, researchers at Pennsylvania State University and the UW have published a paper arguing that the presence of a third ingredient alters that outcome, strengthening the greenhouse effect — where heat energy from sunlight is trapped in the atmosphere — enough to warm the surface and allow liquid water.

See more at: 

http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/11/25/study-greenhouse-gas-might-have-warmed-early-mars-enough-to-allow-liquid-water/

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Standford University, California

High-energy gamma ray burst could re-shape astrophysics theories, Stanford scientists say

Stanford physicists played a key role in monitoring and analyzing the brightest gamma ray burst ever measured, and suggest that its never-before-seen features could call for a rewrite of current theories.

This past April, an incredibly bright flash of light burst from near the constellation Leo. Originating billions of light years away, this explosion of light, called a gamma ray burst, has now been confirmed as the brightest gamma ray burst ever observed.

Astronomers around the world were able to view the blast in unprecedented detail and observe several aspects of the event for the first time ever. The data could lead to a rewrite of standard theories of how gamma ray bursts work.

See more at: 

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/november/gamma-ray-burst-112113.html

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