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n2doc's JournalThe Good (City) Life: Why New York's Life Expectancy Is the Highest in the Nation
Most of us take for granted that urban dwellers are more stressed than country dwellers. Hey, it's even proved by science! Not only that, their day-to-day existence is polluted, crime-ridden, and filled with hedonistic temptations. So they must have lower life expectancies, right? Wrong. In fact, the latest data from the Bureau of Vital Statistics shows New York City—my hometown—has the highest life expectancy in the country. Babies born in 2009 can expect to live a record 80.6 years. That's almost three years longer than a decade ago, and more than two years longer than the current national average of 78.2 years.
Mayor Bloomberg is attributing the good news to policy: anti-smoking and anti-obesity campaigns, higher taxes on cigarettes, and calorie-count requirements for fast food restaurants. The city has also expanded testing and treatment of people with HIV and upped the quality of obstetric and pediatric care. But once you look past the press releases, there are far more wide-ranging reasons for why New Yorkers are lasting longer.
First, we don't spend our entire lives in cars. We walk everywhere. With narrow streets, an abundance of stores, and a dearth of parking, the city is practically designed to make us walk. Before we get on the subway, we walk there, and after we arrive at our stop, we climb numerous flights of stairs. We also walk faster than the average American; in a recent study, New Yorkers were ranked as the fastest pedestrians in the country. To some, that's a sign that we're rude and obnoxious. To scientists, it's a sign we're going to live longer.
Our old people also have it much better than the elderly in bucolic settings. The essentials—food, medicine, laundromats, parks—are usually mere blocks from their homes. The hospital is likely a shorter distance away, too. High population density means a plethora of neighbors who can look after each other. When people live on top of each other, the likelihood of social isolation plummets—and the age of death rises.
more
http://www.good.is/post/the-good-city-life-why-new-york-s-life-expectancy-is-the-highest-in-the-nation/
The Dizzying Science of Hangovers
Before you ingest enough alcohol to make your head spin this New Year's, fill your head with scientific knowledge about what booze actually does to your body. Apparently, that stuff goes just about everywhere—even into the structures and fluids of your inner ears. Armed with only a white board and science, one YouTube user explains how your ears trick hungover you into believing that your head is spinning around and around, even when it's just lying pathetically on the couch, attempting to chart the quickest path to carbohydrates.
Here's how it works: The semi-circular canals of your inner ear are outfitted with a fluid called endolymph and a gelatinous structure called the cupula. Together, they interact with one another to send messages to your brain about how your head is moving through space. When you rotate your head, inertia causes the movement of the fluid to lag behind the more solid cupula, and your brain understands that you're spinning in circles. But the system isn't perfect: When pilots take particularly long turns, for example, that fluid eventually overcomes inertia and catches up; when the plane levels out, the pilot's ears can make it feel like the plane is still turning even when it's flying steady.
Drunk people are kind of like sad, confused pilots on the ground: When they ingest too much alcohol, the fluid in their inner ears plays tricks on them, too. Because "alcohol diffuses into different parts of your body at different speeds," the booze tends to build up more quickly in your inner ear's gelatinous cupula than it does in the surrounding canal fluid. And because alcohol is lighter than water, the cupula wants to float in the denser fluid, unmooring your center of gravity and making your brain believe that it's accelerating toward one side. Over time, the alcohol will diffuse into the fluid, too, stopping the spinning sensation. But later on—say, when you're waking up to a splitting hangover—the alcohol will begin to exit the cupula faster than it does the surrounding fluid, and you'll feel the same spinning sensation, this time in the opposite direction.
How do you stop spinning? You can drink some hair-of-the-dog in the morning to temporarily stabilize the functioning of the inner ear—and postpone the dizzying sensation for a few hours. Or, you can rely on other senses: Keep your eyes open, focus on something that's not moving, and put your feet on the ground to stabilize you. Then, have the sense to not drink so much next time.
http://www.good.is/post/the-dizzying-science-of-hangovers/
How Mollusk Blood Could Cure Cancer
The giant keyhole limpet’s hemolymph carries a protein that is the essential component of a new cancer vaccine. Keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) carries oxygen in limpet blood. It is an unusually large protein—near virus size—and contains many epitopes, which trigger our body to produce antibodies. When doctors inject KLH into the human bloodstream, it provokes a powerful immune response. If markers for a certain cancer are attached to KLH, the immune system can be stimulated to attack them. Unlike some synthetic alternatives, KLH is nontoxic. Researchers use the protein in cancer vaccines to “break tolerance,” says Frank Oakes, the CEO of Stellar Biotechnologies, which grows limpets in a business park for aquaculture next to the Pacific Ocean in Port Hueneme, California. “Your body tolerates the cancer cell because the body believes it is a part of you,” he says.
Breaking tolerance can also be used to treat addiction. Down the coast from Stellar’s lot, in La Jolla, scientists at Scripps Research Institute used KLH to make a vaccine that cuts out the euphoric effects of a heroin high. In their experiment, researchers gave addicted rats a cocktail of heroin-like molecules attached to KLH. Like the cancer vaccine, the protein provoked an immune response to suppress the high. Later, given the option to self-administer heroin, most rats stopped using the drug. Human trials are under way for a similar KLH-based vaccine to treat addiction to nicotine and cocaine.
KLH is too big and complicated to synthesize, so giant keyhole limpets still offer the best, most stable supply of the protein. Before extraction, Stellar employees move the limpets to tanks indoors. Researchers use a syringe to extract the limpet’s blood and then isolate KLH using a centrifuge. It takes about 16 weeks before the mollusk has fully recuperated and is ready for its next extraction. Limpets can also be harvested in the wild, but they die during the extraction process. There aren’t enough limpets in the sea to keep up this method.
More than a dozen vaccines that use KLH are in clinical trials, and a treatment for bladder cancer is now approved for use in Europe and Asia. Stellar currently has the capacity to make between one and two kilograms of KLH a year. But if a KLH cancer vaccine is FDA-approved, Oakes says it “will increase demand by orders of magnitude.”
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-11/how-mollusk-blood-could-cause-cancer
Whale Sperm Makes the Ocean Salty, Snooki Claims
From whale sperm to colon cleansers to the shape of a woman's foot when she has an orgasm, celebrities did not disappoint during 2011 with their penchant for peddling suspect science in the world's media.
In its annual list of what it considers the year's worst abuses against science, the Sense About Science (SAS) campaign named reality TV star Nicole Polizzi, Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann and American singer-songwriter Suzi Quatro as top offenders, with their dubious views on why the sea is salty, the risks of cervical cancer vaccines and the colon.
"I used to get a lot of sore throats and then one of my sisters told me that all illnesses start in the colon. I started taking a daily colon cleanser powder mixed with fresh juice every morning and it made an enormous difference," Quatro told the Daily Mail newspaper.
But SAS was keen to dispel such myths. It asked qualified scientists from various disciplines to comment on some of the worst celebrity science offences.
"The colon is very important in some diseases, but it certainly is not the cause of all illnesses," said Melita Gordon, a consultant gastroenterologist said in the review.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/28/whale-sperm-makes-ocean-salty-snooki-claims/
Police: Tampa Man Burns House So Mother, Wife Won’t Move In
Kent Perusse (credit: Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)
Home fire, Kent Perusse, Tampa crime, Tampa fires
TAMPA, Fla. (CBS Tampa) — Local authorities responding to distress calls arrived to a house in flames, the fire fully engulfing 5703 S MacDill Ave. as Kent Perusse, 48, allegedly resigned himself to watching it burn while he sat across the street on his neighbor’s lawn.
He said, “I did it, ” according to reports, and he allegedly did it for love — a love now over.
He told police he started the fire with gasoline because he didn’t want his mother, wife or daughter to move in.
Minutes earlier, witnesses told police Perusse calmly walked down his steps in socks and shorts, with a soot-smeared face and third-degree burns on his lower legs.
http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2011/12/29/police-tampa-man-burns-house-so-mother-wife-wont-move-in/#.Tv27GJu3aoU.gmail
Worst part is the dog. Hope the bastard gets a long time in prison....
Even a Caveman can....
Wash. man caught with pot-filled holiday gifts in CDA
by Associated Press
KREM.com
Posted on December 29, 2011 at 11:15 AM
COEUR d'ALENE, Idaho (AP) — A Washington state man faces felony marijuana trafficking charges after an officer found 3.3 pounds of marijuana wrapped up as Christmas gifts during a traffic stop in northern Idaho.
The Coeur d'Alene Press reports 36-year-old Jason Palmer of Springdale, Wash., was arrested Dec. 22 as he returned from a trip to Montana.
Kootenai County sheriff's officials say Palmer was stopped east of Coeur d'Alene because his vehicle was repeatedly changing lanes and following other drivers too closely. The officer said he smelled marijuana as he approached the vehicle.
The officer reported that Palmer said he was a medical marijuana cardholder and had a small amount of "medicine" in the vehicle — and the packages contained sweaters.
Palmer works at a hydroponics supply store in north Spokane.
http://www.krem.com/news/local/Wash-man-caught-with-pot-filled-holiday-gifts-in-CDA-136386293.html
Freak foam storm swamps seaside resort
by Andrew Gregory, Daily Mirror 30/12/2011
IT looks like a carwash gone out of control – and the truth really has got locals in a lather.
Drivers and walkers heading along the promenade at a popular Lancashire tourist spot were swamped by thick, dirty foam yesterday.
The oily bubbles were blown ashore after 90mph winds battered the resort of Cleveleys, near Blackpool.
In places the freak foam was almost 3ft deep, trapping residents in their homes and stranding drivers.
Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-world/2011/12/30/freak-foam-storm-swamps-seaside-resort-of-cleveleys-115875-23667046/
‘Dogs love marijuana’ says non-local vet
1:57 pm December 28, 2011, by George Mathis
For decades I have lived under the assumption that Scooby-Doo served merely as a warning to pets everywhere.
Turns out, the beloved lover of potentially illicit Scooby Snacks is rather typical of his species.
Dogs love marijuana, says non-local vet Jennifer Schoedler. “I’ve seen them eat the buds, plants, joints and marijuana in food.”
Schoedler made the surprise announcement in a Durango (Colorado) Herald article entitled “Vets see more dogs snarfing humans’ medical pot.”
more
http://blogs.ajc.com/news-to-me/2011/12/28/dogs-love-marijuana-says-non-local-vet/?cxntlid=thbz_hm
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