Science News SciGuru.com

---

• Meditation reduces loneliness
• Plants exhibit a wide range of mechanical properties, engineers find
• Shelling Out Evidence: NIST Ballistic Standard Helps Tie Guns to Criminals
• Girls with ADHD more prone to self-injury, suicide as they enter adulthood
• Butter Flavoring Ingredient in Microwave Popcorn, Is a Respiratory Hazard
• New system could predict solar flares, give advance warning

Meditation reduces loneliness Posted: 14 Aug 2012 04:27 PM PDT Many elderly people spend their last years alone. Spouses pass and children scatter. But being lonely is much more than a silent house and a lack of companionship. Over time, loneliness not only takes a toll on the psyche but can have a serious physical impact as well.   Feeling lonely has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, depression and even premature death. Developing effective treatments to reduce loneliness in older adults is essential, but previous treatment efforts have had limited success.   read more

Plants exhibit a wide range of mechanical properties, engineers find Posted: 14 Aug 2012 04:09 PM PDT From an engineer’s perspective, plants such as palm trees, bamboo, maples and even potatoes are examples of precise engineering on a microscopic scale. Like wooden beams reinforcing a house, cell walls make up the structural supports of all plants. Depending on how the cell walls are arranged, and what they are made of, a plant can be as flimsy as a reed, or as sturdy as an oak. read more

Shelling Out Evidence: NIST Ballistic Standard Helps Tie Guns to Criminals Posted: 14 Aug 2012 12:41 PM PDT Thanks to a new reference standard developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), law enforcement agencies will have an easier time linking the nearly 200,000 cartridge cases recovered annually at U.S. crime scenes to specific firearms. read more

Girls with ADHD more prone to self-injury, suicide as they enter adulthood Posted: 14 Aug 2012 11:58 AM PDT Girls with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – and their families – often look forward to the likely decline in visible symptoms such as fidgety or disruptive behavior as they mature into young women. Study finds ADHD symptoms in girls go undercover as they enter adulthood read more

Butter Flavoring Ingredient in Microwave Popcorn, Is a Respiratory Hazard Posted: 14 Aug 2012 11:01 AM PDT The ingredient 2,3-pentanedione (PD), used to impart the flavor and aroma of butter in microwave popcorn, is a respiratory hazard that can also alter gene expression in the brain of rats.  Manufacturers started using PD when another butter flavoring, diacetyl, was found to cause bronchiolitis obliterans, a life-threatening and nonreversible lung disease in workers who inhaled the substance.  New research on PD with implications for “popcorn workers’ lung” is published in The American Journal of Pathology and indicates that acute PD exposure has respiratory toxici read more

New system could predict solar flares, give advance warning Posted: 14 Aug 2012 10:54 AM PDT Researchers may have discovered a new method to predict solar flares more than a day before they occur, providing advance warning to help protect satellites, power grids and astronauts from potentially dangerous radiation. The system works by measuring differences in gamma radiation emitted when atoms in radioactive elements "decay," or lose energy. This rate of decay is widely believed to be constant, but recent findings challenge that long-accepted rule. read more

You are subscribed to email updates from Science News from SciGuru.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610