In the United Kingdom the government previously offered loft insulation & Cavity wall insulation as part of our environmental initiative. The cavity wall insulation was introduced to houses that were built in the 1920’s, as they were made with the external walls having two layers with a tiny gap ‘cavity’ between them.

The benefits of having this installed in your home were to save energy, which in theory helped reduce the amount of carbon monoxide emissions from the home and in turn keeping the warmth within the home where it is needed most. Carbon monoxide being one of the biggest causes to climate change in the world.

While offering this to the older homes in the country they also provided the free loft insulation grant. This would further reduce the amount of carbon monoxide emissions and would help reduce home owner’s yearly bills. This is the idea that Australia have taken on board.

With the Australian government adopting this program and offering free insulation to the Australian residents, it will help reduce the amount of green house gases that escape our homes. The Australian government are offering a $1200 government insulation rebate for free loft & ceiling insulation to those that are eligible.

Companies like Bradford insulation offer Australians various types of insulation including rock wool, fibre glass batts, eco wool and even a hybrid fibreglass foil insulation.

In the United Kingdom they were insulating the homes to keep the heat in. In Australia the government are providing the insulation grant to achieve the opposite and keep homes cool in the summer and warmer in the winter. With this the residents are saving money on there yearly home gas & electric bills.

It is great to see that the Australian government has adopted the insulation grant as a result they are helping the economy by creating more jobs and reducing carbon monoxide emissions. But after this grant was announced the Australian government did mention an increase in energy bills of up to 40%. If only more countries would adopt this process we would be getting closer to making more of a difference.

The study also showed significant differences in the frequency of sexual activity, as well as sexual desire and satisfaction, among racial groups of middle-aged and elderly women. Study results appear in the June 24, 2009 online version of the “Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.”

In the study of nearly 2,000 women, aged 45 to 80 years old, 43 percent reported at least moderate sexual desire, and 60 percent had been sexually active in the previous three months. Half of all sexually active participants described their overall sexual satisfaction as moderate to high. More than one quarter of women aged 65 years or older remained moderately or highly interested in sex, and more than one third of women in this age group had been sexually active in the past three months.

Among sexually inactive women in the entire group, the most common reason was lack of interest in sex (39 percent), followed by lack of a partner (36 percent), physical problem of partner (23 percent) and lack of interest by partner (11 percent). Only nine percent were inactive from personal physical problems.

Sexual activity was defined as any activity that was arousing, including masturbation.

“Our findings indicate that a substantial portion of women are interested and engaged in sexual activity as they age,” said lead author Alison Huang, MD, assistant professor in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “Clinicians should consider a woman’s overall health when addressing concerns about sexual inactivity. However, treatment directed solely at improving women’s sexual functioning, such as medications, may not substantially affect their activity if partner issues also are not addressed.”

The U.S. population is becoming increasingly diverse and older, as the first wave of baby boomers is turning 65 years old. Researchers evaluated multiple dimensions of sexual functioning among a racially and ethnically diverse group of middle-aged and older women who self–identified demographic characteristics, medical history, medication use and health habits. More than half the women in the overall study were of non-white ethnicity — 20 percent were African American, 18 percent were Latina, and 19 percent were Asian – and over two-thirds of participants were married or living as married.

African American women were more likely than white women to report at least moderate desire but less likely to report weekly sexual activity, and sexually active Latinas were more likely than white women to report at least moderate sexual satisfaction.

“To date, research has focused rather narrowly on the physical factors that contribute to women’s sexual response, and very little analysis has explored sexual function among racially and ethnically diverse women. Further work is needed to understand the differences in self-reported sexual functioning by race, and how they change as women age. Ultimately, this information should help guide clinicians in discussing sexual problems with women of diverse backgrounds,” said Huang.

With thanks to Eurekalert

“We found that monkeys looking at faces perceive an illusion, the Thatcher effect, that humans experience,” said Robert Hampton of Emory University’s Department of Psychology and Yerkes National Primate Research Center. “This powerful perceptual effect shows that face perception depends on detection of the relations among features in a face, not just on detection of the collection of individual features.”

The discovery means that primates have probably perceived faces in essentially the same way for 30 million years or more, he said.

The Thatcher effect refers to the impaired ability to recognize changes in the relations among features in upside-down versus right-side-up faces. (The phenomenon is so named because it was first shown with the image of Margaret Thatcher.) In demonstrating the effect, scientists manipulate the image of a face so that the eyes and mouth are upside down relative to the rest of the face.

“Surprisingly,” Hampton said, “when the image of a face so modified is presented upside down, most people do not think it looks particularly odd. But when viewed right-side up, it looks awful.” It shows that when we look at faces normally, we are especially sensitive to the relations among features. When faces are upside down, however, we process the image more as a collection of features, with less emphasis on their relations to one another.

In the current study, Hampton and his colleagues showed monkeys pictures of monkey faces until they became “bored,” as indicated by a loss of interest in the images. They then showed them digitally manipulated faces, with the eyes and mouth upside down relative to the rest of the face. When the manipulated faces were shown upright, the monkeys took notice and began studying the pictures again. In contrast, upside-down faces held no new interest and the monkeys continued to ignore them as if nothing were amiss.

The findings offer the first demonstration that a non-human primate species shows the Thatcher effect. “This direct evidence of configural face perception in monkeys, collected under testing conditions that closely parallel those used with humans, indicates that perceptual mechanisms for individual recognition have been conserved through primate cognitive evolution,” the researchers said.

Source

“In the last decade or so, we’ve come to realize that the mouse is really similar to humans,” said Wolfgang Enard of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “The genes are essentially the same and they also work similarly.” Because of that, scientists have learned a tremendous amount about the biology of human diseases by studying mice.

“With this study, we get the first glimpse that mice can be used to study not only disease, but also our own history.”

Enard said his team is generally interested in the genomic differences that set humans apart from their primate relatives. One important difference between humans and chimpanzees they have studied are two amino acid substitutions in FOXP2. Those changes became fixed after the human lineage split from chimpanzees and earlier studies have yielded evidence that the gene underwent positive selection. That evolutionary change is thought to reflect selection for some important aspects of speech and language.

“Changes in FOXP2 occurred over the course of human evolution and are the best candidates for genetic changes that might explain why we can speak,” Enard said. “The challenge is to study it functionally.”

For obvious reasons, the genetic studies needed to sort that out can’t be completed in humans or chimpanzees, he said. In the new study, the researchers introduced those substitutions into the FOXP2 gene of mice. They note that the mouse version of the gene is essentially identical to that of chimps, making it a reasonable model for the ancestral human version.

Mice with the human FOXP2 show changes in brain circuits that have previously been linked to human speech, the new research shows. Intriguingly enough, the genetically altered mouse pups also have qualitative differences in ultrasonic vocalizations they use when placed outside the comfort of their mothers’ nests. But, Enard says, not enough is known about mouse communication to read too much yet into what exactly those changes might mean.

Although FoxP2 is active in many other tissues of the body, the altered version did not appear to have other effects on the mice, which appeared to be generally healthy.

Those differences offer a window into the evolution of speech and language capacity in the human brain. They said it will now be important to further explore the mechanistic basis of the gene’s effects and their possible relationship to characteristics that differ between humans and apes.

“Currently, one can only speculate about the role these effects may have played during human evolution,” they wrote. “However, since patients that carry one nonfunctional FOXP2 allele show impairments in the timing and sequencing of orofacial movements, one possibility is that the amino acid substitutions in FOXP2 contributed to an increased fine-tuning of motor control necessary for articulation, i.e., the unique human capacity to learn and coordinate the muscle movements in lungs, larynx, tongue and lips that are necessary for speech. We are confident that concerted studies of mice, humans and other primates will eventually clarify if this is the case.”

Do personal traits predict success in school? If so, which dimension of one’s outward appearance can tell the most about academic achievement? The answers to these questions are found in a new study by researchers from the University of Miami Health Economics Research Group. The study is the first to demonstrate that non-cognitive traits play an important role in the assignment of grades in high school.

Economists have examined the role that beauty plays on the type of employment, earnings, productivity and the likelihood of politicians being elected to office, and have wondered if “beauty premiums” and “plainness penalties” in the labor market come from an accumulation of differences in attention and rewards received from teachers throughout the school years. Findings from this peer-reviewed study titled: “Effects of Physical Attractiveness, Personality and Grooming on Academic Performance in High School” will be published in the next issue of Labour Economics.

The study offers a new perspective in an area of research that until now was almost exclusively focused on adults. It examines the effect of three personal characteristics–physical attractiveness, personality and grooming–on students’ grade point averages (GPA) in high school. The primary objective is to determine which aspects of these non-cognitive personal traits are more strongly linked to academic achievement, said Michael T. French, professor of health economics in the UM College of Arts and Sciences and one of the authors of the study.

“Several studies in the literature have found that physical attractiveness is significantly related to labor market earnings for men and women. Thus, we were somewhat surprised to find that physical attractiveness was not the most important non-cognitive predictor of grades,” French said. “Instead grooming and personality were stronger predictors of academic success in high school for boys and girls, respectively.”

Looking at GPA as a function of a long list of individual, familial, school, and environmental characteristics that are likely to affect academic performance, the researchers were able to make several significant observations, including:

* Physical attractiveness has a positive effect on GPA for both genders, but only when considered alone.
* When physical attractiveness is considered along with grooming and personality, the positive effect of physical attractiveness on high school GPA turns negative for both genders.
* For male students, grooming delivers the biggest overall effect on GPA.
* For female students, personality is positively related to GPA.
* Physical appearance can be a way for adolescents to either rebel or accept adult’s standards. However, whether the student is a “rebel” or a “conformist” does not have a significant independent effect on GPA.
* The findings suggest that some degree of teacher bias is present in favor of, or against certain types of students.
* All else equal, Hispanics and African Americans have lower GPAs than whites and girls have higher GPAs than males.
* Students living with a mother who attended college, those that live in a two-parent household and those attending a small school have higher GPAs than those in different circumstances.
* Receiving public assistance is negatively associated with GPA.

In conclusion, the study posits that students may be able to “trade-off” different personal characteristics to improve academic achievement and that this trend may affect future success in college, the labor market and family formation.

The University of Miami’s mission is to educate and nurture students, to create knowledge, and to provide service to our community and beyond. Committed to excellence and proud of the diversity of our University family, we strive to develop future leaders of our nation and the world. www.miami.edu

San Diego, October 28, 2008 – Childhood obesity can lead to type 2 diabetes, asthma, hypertension, sleep apnea and emotional distress. Obese children and youth are likely to be obese as adults, experience more cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and stroke and incur higher healthcare costs. In an article published in the December 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers report that children living in inner city neighborhoods with higher "greenness" experienced lower weight gains compared to those in areas with less green space.

Researchers from the University of Washington, Indiana University-Purdue University and Indiana University School of Medicine followed more than 3800 children, predominantly African-American and poor, aged 3-16 over a two-year period. Using satellite imaging data to measure vegetation coverage, the investigators found that higher greenness was significantly associated with lower body mass index (BMI) changes in those children. In previous studies of adults, residential density tended to predict physical activity levels, with highly urban environments leading to more walking, less driving and lower BMI. The current study did not find this correlation for children.

Children and youth in urban environments may be active in a wider variety of open spaces (e.g., yards, parks, vacant lots) and less likely to constrain activity to streets and sidewalks. Greenness might indicate proximity to parks, playfields or other open spaces that promote either physical activity or increased time spent outdoors in active play.

Writing in the article, Janice F. Bell, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor in the department of Health Services at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, and co-investigators state, "This study's findings align with previous research linking exposure to green landscapes with health improvements. Among adults, greenness is associated with less stress and lower BMI, improved self-reported health and shorter post-operative recovery periods. Among children and youth, the positive health effects of green landscapes include improved cognitive functioning and reduced attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Ideally, future research in this area will be multidisciplinary – involving city planners, architects, geographers, psychologists and public health researchers – and will consider the ways children live and play in urban environments."

In a commentary published in the same issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Nick Wareham, MBBS, PhD, of the Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, England, writes, "Previous research on factors associated with physical activity in children has used mostly cross-sectional designs and few prospective studies have been published. In addition, studies have focused mostly on individual biological or psychological factors, with little emphasis, until recently, on collective determinants such as the physical environment. By focusing on environmental determinants in a longitudinal study in children, the study by Bell et al makes an important contribution to the existing literature."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-10/ehs-gnm102608.php

        WASHINGTON (Sept. 22, 2008)—Veteran astronaut and planetary scientist Tom Jones and noted planetary geologist Ellen Stofan join forces and use the latest space technology to reveal astonishing new insights into the dynamic stories of Earth and its celestial neighbors. PLANETOLOGY: UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM (National Geographic Books, ISBN: 978-1-4262-0121-9, Nov. 18, 2008, $35 hardcover) presents compelling new images of Earth—many captured by space shuttle and space station crew members—and remarkable scenes of alien surfaces beamed home by our far-ranging robotic probes, from the international fleet of spacecraft on and around Mars to the Cassini Saturn mission. These striking images, viewed side by side, show us the powerful forces that have shaped our own planet, and inform humanity’s age-old quest for other worlds like our own.

      PLANETOLOGY contains remarkable visual evidence of the natural processes that have shaped the varied planetary landscapes in our solar system: searing lava plains, windswept deserts, active volcanoes, jagged mountains, majestic glaciers and stark impact craters.  Readers discover the details behind the solar system’s largest volcano, Mars’ "dry ice" polar caps, and the on-going threat of comet and asteroid collisions with Earth.

      A comprehensive new portrait of the solar system unfolds in PLANETOLOGY. The authors bring a fresh approach to the study of space science and illustrate clearly how discovery of dramatic features of other planets give us crucial information about our own. Engaging text, highlighted with personal experiences from space flights and robotic exploratory missions, make this book just as absorbing as it is informative.

      Tom Jones is a planetary scientist, author, pilot and veteran NASA astronaut. He flew on four space shuttle missions and led three space walks to help his crew install the centerpiece of the International Space Station. He has written “Hell Hawks!,” “Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir” and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to NASA.” Ellen Stofan is a planetary geologist who has studied volcanic and tectonic features on Venus, Mars, Titan, and Earth. While at NASA, she was Chief Scientist on the New Millennium Program and is currently Senior Research Scientist at Proxemy Research, and Honorary Professor of Earth Sciences at University College London.

10. The Nacirema Tribe – The Nacirema were supposedly a tribe of people living in North America, as described by Horace Miner in his anthropological paper, published in 1956. It was actually a satire of everyday American life. (”Nacirema” is “American” spelled backward.)

9. The Disappearing Blonde Gene – Every generation or so, an alarm is sounded over the belief that natural blondes will soon go the way of the dodo.

8. “Say No to Cake” – In 1995, British faux news show Brass Eye conducted an “investigative report” on a street drug they invented called “cake,” claiming it affected an area of the brain called “Shatner’s Bassoon.” Members of the media lashed out against cake, and the British government even took the matter to Parliament.

7. Alien Autopsy – English cameraman Ray Santilli claimed to own footage of an alien autopsy performed after the 1947 Roswell Incident. FOX aired a portion of it, but in 2006, Santilli ‘fessed up to the hoax.

6. The Turk – It was nearly impossible to beat this chess-playing automaton of 1770, heralded as the next great venture into technology. It was even toured across Europe. Unfortunately, the Turk was discovered to be a chess whiz in a robotic-type suit.

5. The Fiji Mermaid (aka “Feejee Mermaid”) – This artifact in P.T. Barnum’s museum was advertised as a gorgeous topless siren, but was actually the mummified corpse of an ape sewn to a fish.

4. Rabbit Mother – In 18th-century England, Mary Toft convinced doctors she had given birth to 16 rabbits. A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets [sic] was written by King George’s surgeon about her case. People stopped serving rabbit stew. Once the hoax was discovered, the medical community suffered great embarrassment.

3. El Chupacabra – This savage chicken-eater was actually a hairless wolf.

2. Archaeoraptor – This creature was the supposed “missing link” between dinosaurs and birds.

1. Piltdown Man – The supposed “missing link” between humans and apes, the Piltdown man proved to be a deliberate attempt at paleontological fraud.

S

The risk that wind turbines pose to birds is well known and has dogged debates over wind energy. In fact, several studies have suggested the risk to bats is greater. In May 2007, the US National Research Council published the results of a survey of US wind farms showing that two bat species accounted for 60% of winged animals killed. Migrating birds, meanwhile, appear to steer clear of the turbines.

Why bats – who echolocate moving objects – are killed by turbines has remained a mystery until now. The research council thought the high-frequency noise from the turbines’ gears and blades could be disrupting the bats’ echolocation systems.

In fact, a new study shows that the moving blades cause a drop in pressure that makes the delicate lungs of bats suddenly expand, bursting the tissue’s blood vessels. This is known as a barotrauma, and is well-known to scuba divers.

"While searching for bat carcasses under wind turbines, we noticed that many of the carcasses had no external injuries or no visible cause of death," says Erin Baerwald of the University of Calgary in Canada.
Internal injuries

Baerwald and colleagues collected 188 dead bats from wind farms across southern Alberta, and determined their cause of death. They found that 90% of the bats had signs of internal haemorrhaging, but only half showed any signs of direct contact with the windmill blades. Only 8% had signs of external injuries but no internal injuries.

The movement of wind-turbine blades creates a vortex of lower air pressure around the blade tips similar to the vortex at the tip of aeroplane wings. Others have suggested that this could be lethal to bats, but until now no-one had carried out necropsies to verify the theory.

Baerwald and her colleagues believe that birds do not suffer the same fate as bats – the majority of birds are killed by direct contact with the blades – because their lungs are more rigid than those of bats and therefore more resistant to sudden changes in pressure.

Bats eat nocturnal insects including agricultural pests, so if wind turbines affected their population levels, this could affect the rest of the local ecosystems. And the effects could even be international. "The species being killed are migrants," says Baerwald. "If bats are killed in Canada that could have consequences for ecosystems as far away as Mexico."
Windy day

One solution could be to increase the minimum wind speed needed to set the blades in motion. Most bats are more active in low wind.

The study was funded by a number of bat conservation groups together with energy companies with a financial interest in wind energy, such as Shell Canada and Alberta Wind Energy.

Journal reference: Current Biology (vol 18 p R696)