Dear Reader ,
Here is your customized Phys.org Newsletter for January 6, 2013:
Spotlight Stories Headlines
- Study reveals ordinary glass's extraordinary properties- Toyota, Audi driverless demos will pull up to CES
- A new phase in reading photons: Photodetector beats the quantum limit by a factor of four
- Astrophysicists find wide binary stars wreak havoc in planetary systems
- Genetic mystery of Behcet's disease unfolds along the ancient Silk Road
- Google maps New Year's resolutions around the world
- Study: Most-used diabetes drug works in different way than previously thought
- The pain puzzle: Uncovering how morphine increases pain in some people
- From the Amazon rainforest to human body cells: Quantifying stability
- A new approach to assessing future sea level rise from ice sheets
- Study finds important factor in fat storage and energy metabolism
- Celestial flybys set to thrill
- Strong genetic selection against some psych disorders
- New study defines the long-sought structure of a protein necessary for cell-cell interaction
Space & Earth news
Tehran air pollution leaves 4,460 dead: health official
Air pollution in Tehran has left 4,460 people dead in a year, an Iranian health official said in reports Sunday, with another sounding the alarm over high dose of carcinogens in domestically-made petrol.
Fiennes Antarctic winter crossing bid a trip into 'unknown'
Adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes on Sunday said his bid for the world's first Antarctic winter crossing, with no option of rescue, was a trip into the unknown despite his multiple record expeditions.
Celestial flybys set to thrill
Astronomers are gearing up for thrills this year when Earth gets buzzed by two rogue asteroids and two comets, including a wanderer last seen by the forerunners of mankind.
A new approach to assessing future sea level rise from ice sheets
Future sea level rise due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could be substantially larger than estimated in Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, according to new research from the University of Bristol.
Astrophysicists find wide binary stars wreak havoc in planetary systems
An international team of astrophysicists has shown that planetary systems with very distant binary stars are particularly susceptible to violent disruptions, more so than if they had stellar companions with tighter orbits around them.
Technology news
Iran designing software for controlled social media access (Update)
Iran is designing "intelligent software" that would give citizens restricted and controlled access to banned social networking sites, local media on Sunday quoted police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi Moghadam as saying.
Experts okay restart of worrisome Belgian nuclear plants
Scientific experts have greenlighted the restart of two Belgian nuclear power plants despite signs of micro-cracks in reactor vessels, the daily Le Soir said Saturday.
An Italian teacher who kills celebrities on Twitter
Fidel Castro, Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope Benedict XVI—Italian Tommasso Debenedetti has killed them all in fake tweets aimed at exposing shoddy journalism that have earned him global notoriety.
Google maps New Year's resolutions around the world
Google is letting people peg their New Year's resolutions to an online map and see what promises others around the world have set out to keep in 2013.
Toyota, Audi driverless demos will pull up to CES
(Phys.org)—While the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas starting January 8 will be full of mobile-computing gadgetry next week, autonomous driving demonstrations will also capture visitors' attention, and will raise awareness that autonomous driving technologies are to shape the future of road transport, sooner than later. Toyota has delivered a video clip that shows a self-drive prototype with gear on its grille and on its roof, ahead of CES.
Medicine & Health news
Memory-loss tourist puzzles Austrian police
Austrian police have made an appeal to the public for help over a tourist thought to be German languishing in the country for the past seven weeks who has lost his memory and has no identification papers.
Swine flu kills Jordanian: health minister (Update)
The H1N1 influenza strain known as swine flu killed a 26-year-old Jordanian man on Sunday, Health Minister Abdullatif Wreikat said on Sunday.
Your medical chart could include exercise minutes
(AP)—Most people know the usual vital signs, like blood pressure, temperature and pulse. But what about exercise?
Tips to avoid dry skin during winter
(HealthDay)—Throughout the winter, excessive hand washing to prevent the spread of germs can leave skin extremely dry and itchy. Drinking coffee and alcoholic beverages can also lead to dehydration and dry skin, experts say, but proper skin care and hydration can prevent skin from chapping or cracking.
Most unaware of out-of-pocket costs for prostate cancer tx
(HealthDay)—Most patients with localized prostate cancer know little about the out-of-pocket expenses (OOPE) of the different treatments, and would not have chosen a different treatment even if they had known the actual OOPE of their treatment, according to a study published in the December issue of Urology.
E-mail prompts improve code status documentation
(HealthDay)—For patients with advanced lung cancer, prompting oncologists via e-mail successfully improved both the rate and timing of outpatient code status documentation in patients' electronic health records, according to research published online Jan. 2 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
CDC: Influenza activity increasing across the U.S.
(HealthDay)—Flu season descended on the United States early and hard this winter, with significant increases in flu activity observed over the past month, according to an update issued Jan. 4 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Poll: Few Americans know all the risks of obesity
Heart disease and diabetes get all the attention, but what about the many other ways obesity can damage your health?
Strong genetic selection against some psych disorders
(HealthDay)—Different evolutionary mechanisms likely support the persistence of various psychiatric disorders, according to a study published in the January issue of JAMA Psychiatry.
Study finds important factor in fat storage and energy metabolism
As part of their ongoing research on the physiologic factors that contribute to the development of obesity, Joslin Diabetes Center scientists have identified a cell cycle transcriptional co-regulator – TRIP-Br2 – that plays a major role in energy metabolism and fat storage. This finding has the potential to lead to new treatments for obesity. The study is being published today ahead of print by Nature Medicine.
Study: Most-used diabetes drug works in different way than previously thought
A team, led by senior author Morris J. Birnbaum, MD, PhD, the Willard and Rhoda Ware Professor of Medicine, with the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, found that the diabetes drug metformin works in a different way than previously understood. Their research in mice found that metformin suppresses the liver hormone glucagon's ability to generate an important signaling molecule, pointing to new drug targets. The findings were published online this week in Nature.
The pain puzzle: Uncovering how morphine increases pain in some people
For individuals with agonizing pain, it is a cruel blow when the gold-standard medication actually causes more pain. Adults and children whose pain gets worse when treated with morphine may be closer to a solution, based on research published in the January 6 on-line edition of Nature Neuroscience.
Genetic mystery of Behcet's disease unfolds along the ancient Silk Road
Researchers have identified four new regions on the human genome associated with Behcet's disease, a painful and potentially dangerous condition found predominantly in people with ancestors along the Silk Road. For nearly 2,000 years, traders used this 4,000-mile network linking the Far East with Europe to exchange goods, culture and, in the case of the Silk Road disease, genes. National Institutes of Health researchers and their Turkish and Japanese collaborators published their findings in the Jan. 6, 2013, advance online issue of Nature Genetics.
Biology news
Dog days of winter: Keeping pets safe, warm
(HealthDay)—With the arrival of winter, dog owners need to be aware of how to keep their canine friends comfortable and safe, an expert says.
One year later, lone gray wolf still prowling Calif.
(AP)—He doesn't like busy Interstate 5 or eating cattle, at least so far. He gets along with his distant cousins the coyotes, likes to swim and roams a lot—an awful lot—around the northernmost reaches of California.
German convicted of smuggling Galapagos iguanas
A court in Ecuador has convicted a German tourist of trying to smuggle four threatened iguanas out of the Galapagos Islands in his luggage, authorities said Sunday.
New study defines the long-sought structure of a protein necessary for cell-cell interaction
Scientists know that cells in all higher organisms cells need to bind to each other for the development, architecture, maintenance and function of tissues. Mysteries have remained, however, about exactly how cells manage this feat.
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