Friday 16 August 2013

Consumption of Soft Drinks Contributes to Behavioral Problems in Children



Soft drinks are consumed by individuals of all ages, including very young children. Although soft drink consumption is associated with aggression, depression, and suicidal thoughts in adolescents, the relationship had not been evaluated in younger children.

A new study published in The Journal of Pediatrics finds that aggression, attention problems, and withdrawal behavior are all associated with soft drink consumption in young children.

The researchers assessed approximately 3,000 5-year-old children enrolled in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study in the U.S. Mothers reported their child's soft drink consumption and completed the Child Behavior Checklist based on their child's behavior during the previous two months. The researchers found that 43% of the children consumed at least 1 serving of soft drinks per day, and 4% consumed 4 or more.

In order to evaluate the relationship between the sugared drinks and behavior problems, the researchers adjusted for several factors that can influence behavior, including their mothers’ depression, children’s diets, intimate partner violence and paternal incarceration. Even after this adjustment, the scientists found a significant relationship between more soda consumption and aggressive behaviors that included destroying other people’s belongings, getting into fights and physically attacking others. Children who drank 4 or more soft drinks per day also had increased attention problems and withdrawal behavior compared with those who did not consume soft drinks.

The researchers noted that a child's aggressive behavior score increased with every increase in soft drinks servings per day. Although this study cannot identify the exact nature of the association between soft drink consumption and problem behaviors, limiting or eliminating a child's soft drink consumption may reduce behavioral problems.

Why Some People Remember Their Dreams and Others Rarely Do?



Dreams have always held a strange fascination but scientists have so far unraveled many of the mysteries surrounding it.
It is a known fact that everyone dreams during sleep, but not everyone recalls the exciting, dangerous and at times scary things they did when they wake up and scientists aren't sure why some people remember more than others.

However, a new study suggests that there are distinct differences in brain function between people who remember their dreams and those who don't.

The research also suggests that people who are better at remembering their dreams wake up more often during the night, and respond more strongly to the sound of their own name--both when they're asleep and when they're awake.
To find out, researchers used electroencephalography (EEG) to record the electrical activity in the brains of 36 people while the participants listened to background tunes, and occasionally heard their own first name. The brain measurements were taken during wakefulness and sleep. Half of the subjects were low recallers, meaning they only remember a dream once or twice a month, and half were high recallers, meaning they remember their dreams almost every day.

When asleep, both groups showed similar changes in brain activity in response to hearing their names, which were played quietly enough not to wake them.
However, when awake, high recallers showed a more sustained decrease in a brain wave called the alpha wave when they heard their names, compared with the low recallers.

These findings indicate that there are differences in brain functioning between people who remember their dreams and those who don't. But one isn't necessarily better than the other. One of the researchers claim it is not a good or bad functioning, it’s just a different way of processing information and that those different ways seem to facilitate--or de-facilitate--dream production or memory.

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Is Nigeria’s Space Programme Useless?


A Nigerian engineer at work on one of the country's satellites developed in a British laboratory

Nigeria was in the news recently after British politicians criticized their government for subsidizing Nigeria’s space programme, a nation where 70 percent of people live below the poverty line despite being an oil-rich country.  
Nigeria’s first astronauts are being trained to join Russian, Chinese or American missions within the next two years under the country’s space programme. It is believed to have already received £300m of the £1.14bn in foreign aid earmarked for it over the five years of the coalition government in the UK.
Nigeria's National Space Research & Development Agency (NASRDA) launched its first orbiter, NigeriaSat-1, in 2003. The roughly $13 million cost was paid for by the Nigerian government, but it was built by Surrey Space Technology (SST) in the UK and launched from a Russian spaceport.
The spacecraft was equipped with high-resolution optical and infrared cameras.
NewScientist magazine published an article, How Nigeria has been using its satellites, and in it explained some the usefulness of Nigeria’s satellites. According to the article, Nigeria’s satellites support food production in the region and disaster relief around the world – including helping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the US.
NigeriaSat-1 lasted until 2012, four years longer than expected. It was succeeded by NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X, which both launched in 2011 carrying similar instruments. These satellites were also made at SST, with Nigerian engineers helping to build the latter. Apart from its environmental mission, it is believed that the satellites' high-resolution images of the country will help Nigeria review electoral boundaries ahead of its general elections in 2015.
The NigeriaSats are also part of the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation, coordinated by SST. This network of satellites includes Chinese, Spanish and UK spacecraft that can provide rapid images from space when environmental disasters strike.
In 2005 NigeriaSat-1 was the first satellite to send back pictures of the east coast of the US following Hurricane Katrina. And the orbiter contributed images to aid workers following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Nigeria provides disaster-related imagery for free, but the country generates income from the satellites by selling other image data.
NASRDA also commissioned a Chinese-built communications satellite, NigComSat-1, that launched from China in 2007. The satellite lost power a year later and was replaced in 2011 by NigComSat-1R, which is currently providing broadcast and internet services in Nigeria.

Saturday 10 August 2013

Picture of the Day: Trees With Ears



Ever heard the saying that the walls have ears? Perhaps the correct thing to say should be “the trees have ears” according to these pictures. The ‘ear’ shown in the picture is the fungus Auricularia auricula-judae. It is also known as Jelly Ear, Wood Ear, Jew’s Ear and other common names. The species was first described in 1753.

The fruiting body is distinguished by its noticeably ear-like shape and brown coloration; it grows upon wood, especially elder. Its specific epithet (auricula-judae) is derived from the belief that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from an elder tree; the common name "Judas's ear" eventually became "Jew's ear", while today "jelly ear" and other names are sometimes used. The fungus can be found throughout the year in temperate regions worldwide, where it grows upon both dead and living wood.

In the West, A. auricula-judae was used in folk medicine as recently as the 19th century for complaints including sore throats, sore eyes and jaundice. Today, the fungus is a popular ingredient in many Chinese dishes, such as hot and sour soup, and also used in Chinese medicine. It is also used in Ghana, as a blood tonic. Modern research into possible medical applications has variously concluded that A. auricula-judae has antitumor, hypoglycemic, anticoagulant and cholesterol-lowering properties.

Rare Condition: Growing Old Before Growing Up



Imagine a child of ten years looking like an eighty-year-old. It doesn’t even end there. This child also shows other signs associated with old age like growth failure, shrunken or wrinkled face, baldness, loss of eyebrows and eyelashes amongst other symptoms. It may sound far-fetched but that is exactly what some children with a condition known as Progeria suffer from.

Progeria is an extremely rare genetic disease of childhood characterized by dramatic, premature aging. Symptoms resembling aspects of aging are manifested at a very early age. The word Progeria comes from the Greek words "pro" meaning "before" or "premature", and "gēras" meaning "old age".

There are different forms of the condition but the classical type is the Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS). Progeria was first described in 1886 by Jonathan Hutchinson.  It was also described independently in 1897 by Hastings Gilford and the condition was later named after them.

Prevalence
There is a reported incidence of Progeria of approximately 1 in every 4 to 8 million newborns. Currently, there are 80 known cases in the world and approximately 140 cases have been reported in medical history. Both boys and girls run an equal risk of having Progeria and it appears to affect children of all races equally.

Signs and Symptoms
Children with Progeria are born looking healthy. When they are about 10 to 24 months old, features of accelerated aging start to appear. Signs of Progeria may include:
  • Growth failure
  • Loss of body fat
  • Loss of hair
  • Skin starts to look aged
  • Stiffness in the joints
  • Hip dislocation
  • Generalized atherosclerosis (cardio and heart disease)
  • Stroke
Children who suffer from Progeria are genetically susceptible to premature, progressive heart disease. Nearly all Progeria patients die from heart disease. They commonly experience cardiovascular events, such as hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, enlarged heart and heart failure - conditions linked to aging.

Causes
90% of children with Progeria have a mutation on the gene that encodes Lamin A, a protein that holds the nucleus of the cell together. It is believed that the defective Lamin A protein makes the nucleus unstable. This instability seems to lead to the process of premature aging among Progeria patients.
Progeria appears to occur without cause - it is not seen in siblings of affected children. In extremely rare cases more than one child in the same family may have the condition.

Is Progeria hereditary?
Experts do not believe that Progeria is hereditary. They say it is due to a rare gene change which happens purely by chance. A non-twin sibling runs the same risk of having Progeria as any other child from another family. In about 1 in every 100 cases of HGPS the syndrome is passed down to the next generation within the same family.

Prognosis
As there is no known cure, few people with progeria exceed 13 years of age. At least 90% of patients die from complications of atherosclerosis, such as heart attack or stroke.

Treatment
No treatments have been proven effective. Most treatment focuses on reducing complications (such as cardiovascular disease) with heart bypass surgery or low-dose aspirin. Children may also benefit from a high-energy diet.
A type of anticancer drug, the farnesyltransferase inhibitors (FTIs), has been proposed, but their use has been mostly limited to animal models.

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