Cars without Drivers
Meet Boss – the car that can drive itself! It has 18 sensors, including a three dimensional laser and onboard computers that connect to GPS and mapping software. When it comes to knowing the rules of the road, Boss rarely makes a mistake.
http://www.livescience.com/common/media/video/player.php?aid=33025
HIV Infection Prematurely Ages the Brain
HIV infection or the treatments used to control it are prematurely aging the brain, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California-San Diego have found.The graying of the AIDS patient community makes this infection’s effects on the brain a significant source of concern.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100122102441.htm?
Worldwide Nitrogen Deficit Constrains Carbon Dioxide Uptake by Plants
Limits on available nitrogen constrain how much plants can grow. This in turn affects the amount of carbon dioxide plants can absorb, which affects the global climate. The amount of nitrogen plants require to store additional carbon and found that a substantial deficit of nitrogen exists for plants in most areas of the world. They argue that most climate models that do not take into account nitrogen have overestimated carbon uptake and therefore underestimated predicted global warming.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121164209.htm?
Past Decade the Warmest Since 1880
Except for a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s, Earth’s surface temperatures have increased since 1880. The last decade has brought the temperatures to the highest levels ever recorded. The graph shows global annual surface temperatures relative to 1951-1980 mean temperatures.
http://www.livescience.com/environment/warmest-decade-100123.html?
How to Live Your Life Twice: Psychologist Busts a Myth and Offers Tips to Counter a Mid-Life Crisis
Elliot Jacques coined the term “mid-life crisis” 40 years ago, when the average lifespan was 70 and “mid-life” came at age 35. Individuals could expect their quality of life to decline from that point forward, Jacques argued, so some extreme reactions to encroaching mortality were to be expected, such as having extra-marital affairs and buying a Corvette.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121140335.htm
A Computer Per Student Leads to Higher Performance Than Traditional Classroom Settings
A dozen years into the “1 to 1″ computing movement’s push to pair every schoolchild and teacher with a laptop, studies show the students in these programs outperformed their peers in traditional classrooms, according to researchers.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121171415.htm
US Birth Weights on the Decline
The study analyzed data on birth weight, maternal and neonatal characteristics, obstetric care and other trends from the National Center for Health Statistics Natality Data Sets, looking at 36,827,828 U.S. babies born at full-term between 1990 and 2005. Birth weight — a combination of fetal growth and length of gestation — was recorded in grams. The causes of this decline remain unclear. In addition to declines in birth weight, average gestation length among these full-term births also dropped by more than two days.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121171413.htm?
First Oral Bacteria Found Linking a Mother and Her Stillborn Baby
An Internet search in 2008 led a friend of a mother, who had just delivered a stillborn baby, to Han’s research lab — one of the few in the world working on understanding the role variations of the oral bacteria, Fusobacterium nucleatum, have on pre-term labor and stillbirths. During the 35-year-old mother’s pregnancy (her first), she told Han she experienced excessive gum bleeding, a symptom of pregnancy-associated gingivitis. Approximately 75 percent of pregnant women experience gum bleeding due to the hormonal changes during pregnancy.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121171411.htm
Human Running Speeds of 35 to 40 Mph May Be Biologically Possible
The newly published evidence identifies the critical variable imposing the biological limit to running speed, and offers an enticing view of how the biological limits might be pushed back beyond the nearly 28 miles per hour speeds achieved by Bolt to speeds of perhaps 35 or even 40 miles per hour.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100122102843.htm