Rejection Of Estrogen Therapy Kills Thousands.

NEW HAVEN - According to Yale researchers, the widespread rejection of estrogen therapy during the last decade may have led to nearly 50,000 unnecessary deaths.

Hormone replacement therapy fell out of favor after a 2002 federally funded study found that it led to an increase in breast cancer, heart disease and stroke.

But Yale researchers say estrogen only therapy can save lives for post-menopausal women who have had hysterectomies.

They say the danger was for women who still had their uteruses who took estrogen combined with another hormone.

Chimpanzees and orangutans remember distant past events.

Chimpanzees and orangutans were able to remember past events when presented with sensory reminders, a new study shows.

Both species found where a useful tool was hidden three years after performing a task only four times.
They were also able to recall a unique event two weeks later. 

The team say their work, published in Current Biology, shows memory for past events is not unique to humans. 

Chimps and orangutans were presented with two boxes in different rooms, one of which had useful tools, the other useless ones. In order to get a reward they had to successfully retrieve the useful tools.

Three years later, without witnessing them being hidden, they retrieved the useful tools correctly.
Instant recollection 
It has been well established in humans that sensory cues like songs and smells can help transport our minds back to the past.

The team, led by Gema Martin-Ordas of Aarhus University, Denmark, used the same principle. They found that cues - keeping the experimental set up the same - triggered the apes' memories.
 

They observed that 90% of the apes who experienced the event three years earlier found the tool in the correct location almost instantly.

"Our data, and other emerging evidence, keep challenging the idea of non-human animals being stuck in time," said Dr Martin-Ordas.

"We show not only that chimpanzees and orangutans remember events that happened two weeks or three years ago, but also that they can remember them even when they are not expecting to have to recall those events at a later time.

"What this shows is that the episodic memory system in humans is not as unique as we thought it was, as we share features with non-human primates." 

This could mean the capacity to remember past event could have evolved before humans were present, she told BBC News.
"I think it's important to know who we are and what makes us unique. Learning about what other species can do gives us a more comprehensive picture about humans."

Conscious replay Michael Corballis from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who was not involved with the work, said the study moves us significantly closer to showing that chimpanzees and orangutans have human-like episodic memory "in defiance of what some of us have maintained".

But while humans can recall what, where and when something happened, the apes were missing the "when" component, he added.

"There is no indication that the animals remembered when the earlier event occurred. This is not to say the animals had no inkling of this, and in any case we humans are often hazy about the locations of events in time.
"My guess is that great apes, and perhaps even rats, have episodic memories similar to our own, probably less rich and detailed, but similar in essence."

The authors of the work note there is no way of telling whether or not the animals had a conscious recollection of these past events. 

But Dr Corballis said this could be overly pessimistic, as previous studies of activity in the hippocampus of rats "do seem to provide evidence of conscious replay of event".

Mars' atmosphere destroyed by 'catastrophic' event four billion years ago.

An analysis of data returned by the Curiosity rover, which landed on the planet a year ago, suggests there was a major upheaval which could have been caused by volcanic eruptions or a massive collision which stripped away the atmosphere. 

The rover has returned its first measurements of the makeup of gases, including argon, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, in the Martian atmosphere. 

The results, published in two parallel studies in the journal Science, allow scientists to better understand how the Martian climate changed, and understand whether it ever had the right conditions for life. 

Dr Chris Webster at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, lead author on one of the studies, said the data enabled direct comparisons with the Earth’s climate. 

“As Mars became a planet and its magma solidified, catastrophic outgassing occurred while volatiles were delivered by impact of comets and other small bodies”, Dr Webster said.

 

“Our Curiosity measurements are – for the first time – accurate enough to make direct comparisons with measurements done on Earth on meteorites using sophisticated large instrumentation that gives high accuracy results.” 

The team believe a major event destroying the atmosphere must have happened around four billion years ago. 

The different ratio of two forms of the gas argon on Mars and Earth suggests some huge event changed their relative amounts, the scientists said. 

Monica Grady, professor of planetary sciences at The Open University, who did not write the studies, told The Guardian: “It’s really great that two separate studies using different instruments and techniques have given the same composition. 

“These findings reverse the results from the Phoenix mission and clear up some confusion over the composition of the Martian atmosphere.” 

According to a study of rock samples published last month, Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere more than a billion years before Earth. 

Rocks collected from the surface of the Gusev crater by Nasa's Spirit rover were found to contain five times as much nickel as Martian meteorites found on Earth. 

This suggests that the surface rocks, which are at least 3.7 billion years old, formed in an oxygen-rich environment while the meteorites, aged between 180 million and 1.4 billion years, did not. 

Dr Paul Mahaffy from Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre, who was the lead author on the other paper, said further analysis needed to be done before humans could be put on Mars. 

“From a practical standpoint we need to know the composition [of the atmosphere] today, and how it is changing, so that we can prepare for the eventual arrival of human explorers.”

Google and Microsoft earnings disappoint.

Two of the world's biggest technology companies, Google and Microsoft, have badly missed earnings expectations for the second quarter.

Google reported profits of $9.7bn (£6.4bn), up 16% from a year ago but less than analysts were expecting.
Microsoft made $4.5bn in the second quarter, but announced that it would take a $900m charge relating to poor sales of its Surface tablet.

Shares in both companies fell by more than 4% in after-hours trading.

Declining PC sales - which recently saw their longest slide in five years - have hurt Microsoft's efforts to boost its business with the sale of its Windows 8 operating software.

Last week, the company also announced that it would cut the price of its Surface tablet amid sluggish sales.
More mobile
 
While Google's profits were up by more than 16% since last year, the company missed analyst expectations.
The main driver of Google's profits - advertising revenue - was up 15%.

More of Google's advertising revenues is coming from mobile adverts, which are cheaper. 
 
While the company has been adapting, the change has hurt Google's bottom line. 

Chief executive Larry Page said that adapting to mobile was a challenge the company was embracing.

"The shift from one screen to multiple screens and mobility creates tremendous opportunity for Google," he said.

On a conference call to discuss earnings, Mr Page mentioned the company's revamped AdWords programme, which has been well-received.

Ohio's unemployment rate increases to 7.2 percent for June; about 413,000 were unemployed.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Officials say Ohio's unemployment rate rose to 7.2 percent in June with a loss of 12,500 jobs, the second largest of any state that month.

The state's unemployment rate had remained at 7 percent for the previous two months.

The U.S. Department of Labor released the data on Thursday. Unemployment rates increased in 28 states in June, partly because more Americans began searching for work and not all of them got jobs. The government doesn't count people as unemployed unless they are actively looking for work.

The number of unemployed workers in Ohio in June was almost 413,000, up by about 8,000 compared to May. The state's rate in June 2012 was 7.3 percent.

Ohio's rate has consistently remained below the nation's rate, which was 7.6 percent last month.

Unleashing the undead: Virus tracker program lets Jamboree Scouts turn others into ‘zombies'

Participants at the Boy Scouts of America’s National Jamboree are turning each other into virtual creepy crawlies by the thousands this week.

It’s part of an educational game Virginia Tech researchers designed to show how disease spreads.
The Virus Tracker combines technology with the age-old game of tag. At the 10-day Jamboree, Scouts can earn points by “infecting” other players through a “virus” on bar-coded labels that are attached to their Scout IDs. Codes can be activated at scanning stations or by smartphones that have downloaded the Virus Tracker app. Individuals and troops that amass the most points each day win.

The goal is to stay human.
Colin Slavin, 15, whose Scout troop is based in Germantown Hills, Ill., called the chance to turn other Scouts into zombies “really cool.”

Players can sign up when they visit the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute’s tent at The Cloud, a technology area at the Jamboree where Scouts also learn about robotics, engineering, computer science and mobile communications.

Slavin heard about the virus program from other Scouts and had to try it for himself Thursday.
After filling out a brief computer survey, he tagged four other people before his brief rampage was stopped by an approaching thunderstorm, which forced officials to shut down the system.

“It was real easy,” Slavin said. “It’s like, ‘Yep, you’re infected. I got you. I win.’ It’s just like a large, incredibly different (game of) tag.”

Kristy Collins, VBI’s education program manager for grades K-through-12, said about 3,000 of the estimated 30,000 Scouts at the Jamboree have participated so far. The labels are waterproof, enabling Scouts to participate even when they’re doing other activities, such as rafting or learning how to SCUBA dive.

Some of the participants’ gamer tags have included names like “B1ack.Plague” and “blaime.the.zombie.”
It’s not the first time technology and the undead have banded together. In 2005, the Humans vs. Zombies tag game was made popular at Goucher College in Maryland. It quickly spread to college campuses and communities nationwide. That version uses socks, foam-dart guns and red or green bandanas and requires reporting “tagged” zombies on a website.

The Virus Tracker system has been used twice before at the USA Science and Engineering Festival. This week marks the first time the Virus Tracker app has been used and the first time the institute has been to the Scouts Jamboree, Collins said.

Researchers are using data collected at the Jamboree to create an “infection tree” to show how individual Scouts spread the zombie virus within their population. The data will show how diseases such as the flu can become pandemics.

At times, “vaccines” are sent out through the system to turn the zombies human again if the Scouts answer an epidemiology question correctly. The Virus Tracker keeps count of things such as the number of infected and inoculated participants. Scouts without access to smartphones can still register by computer at the tent and distribute labels to other Scouts, thereby “infecting” them with the “virus.”

“The first thing everybody says is ‘is it real?’” Collins said. “And we say, no it’s not real. We’re not giving you the flu. We kind of laugh about that.”

The Scouts are then invited to help spread the zombie virus.
“And then they’re like, ‘yeah, man, I really do!” Collins said.

Brain ultrasound to help treat depression, anxiety.

Sending ultrasound waves to specific areas of the brain can alter patients' moods, a new study has found.

The discovery by University of Arizona researchers has led them conduct further investigations with the hope that this technique could one day be used to treat conditions such as depression and anxiety.

Dr. Stuart Hameroff, professor emeritus of the UA's departments of anesthesiology and psychology and director of the UA's Center for Consciousness Studies, is lead author on the first clinical study of brain ultrasound.

Hameroff became interested in applying ultrasound to the human brain when he read about a study by colleague Jamie Tyler at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, who found physiological and behavioral effects in animals of ultrasound applied to the scalp, with the waves passing through the skull.

Hameroff knew that ultrasound vibrates in megahertz frequencies at about 10 million vibrations per second, and that microtubules, protein structures inside brain neurons linked to mood and consciousness, also resonate in megahertz frequencies. Hameroff proposed testing ultrasound treatment for mood on human brains.

"I said to my anesthesiology colleagues, 'we should try this on chronic pain patient volunteers'," he said.

His colleagues respectfully suggested he try it on himself, first. Hameroff acquiesced.

After 15 seconds with an ultrasound transducer, a standard ultrasound imaging device, placed against his head, Hameroff felt no effect.

"I put it down and said, 'well, that's not going to work.' And then about a minute later I started to feel like I'd had a martini," he said.

His mood was elevated for the next hour or two, Hameroff said.

Aware that his experience could be a placebo effect, an imagined effect derived from his expectation to feel a change, Hameroff set out to properly test the treatment with a clinical trial.

With research committee and hospital approval, and patient informed consent, Hameroff and his colleagues applied transcranial ultrasound to 31 chronic pain patients at The University of Arizona Medical Center-South Campus, in a double blind study in which neither doctor nor subject knew if the ultrasound machine had been switched on or off.

Patients reported improvements in mood for up to 40 minutes following treatment with brain ultrasound, compared with no difference in mood when the machine was switched off.

The researchers confirmed the patients' subjective reports of increases in positive mood with a Visual Analog Mood Scale, or VAMS, a standardized objective mood scale often used in psychological studies.

The discovery may open the door to a possible range of new applications of ultrasound in medicine.