A selection of reading for your pleasure…

• Help astronomers figure out the universe! Well galaxies, really. More at Galaxy Zoo.
• Speaking of galaxies, check out Hubble’s galaxy photo gallery. There is a lot to see there - not just galaxies.
• How do you fit a curve to some data points? If you have political motives, like this, otherwise, do not do it this way!
• The EU recently recommended that Red 2G, known as E128, should not be used in food (also see the BBC). So what are E numbers? The UK Food Standards Agency explains it all.
• Two projects for all Darwin fans and researchers out there: The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online and Darwin Correspondence Project, both from Cambridge University in the UK. Dig in folks!

• Can you answer these science questions? They’re really basic, you know.
• Something hurting? Try Mayo Clinic’s online Symptom Checker. Essentially a questionnaire, it has a database of the most common illnesses and associated symptoms. By matching your description of the symptoms to its data, it displays a list of the most common causes of these symptoms. Of course, this does not sub for going to a doctor. Let me repeat: if you’re hurting, go to a doctor.
• A very useful resource: the online General Chemistry Glossary is exactly what it says it is. Never again be lost by the meaning of ‘zero point energy’.
• We’ve talked about Pi before, but how do we calculate it to millions of digits accuracy? We use a formula, like Ramanujan’s formula.

Another exciting week in science. Here is a quick round-up.

• How do you make transparent electronic paper (e-paper)? Why, with transparent transistors of course. The transistors are made of single “nanowires,” or tiny cylindrical structures that were assembled on glass or thin films of flexible plastic.
• Electronics and biology are becoming better friends. To develop selective measurement techniques for diagnostics, drug research, and the detection of poisons, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried/Munich have created a bioelectronic hybrid system. The new system does not kill or damage the cell, allowing for better measurements. Their test was using serotonin.
• What are the effects of cigarette taxes? A new study found that cigarette taxes do reduce smoking but can lead to bootlegging. Lead researcher Dr Donna Shelley noted, "Although interest in quitting was high among the smokers interviewed, bootleggers created an environment in which discounted cigarettes were easier to access than cessation services." This just shows that any public health policy needs to be approached from multiple angles for it to be effective.
• Still on smoking, it turns out that second-hand smoke leads to elevated levels of carcinogens in people. The research showed that nonsmoking restaurant and bar employees absorb a potent carcinogen -not considered safe at any level- while working in places where they had to breathe tobacco smoke from customers and co-workers. The carcinogen, NNK, is found in the body only as a result of using tobacco or breathing secondhand smoke.
• Finally, another smoking-related find, but this one offers hope: What Happens to Your Body if You Stop Smoking Right Now shows the timeline of events that your body goes through once you stop smoking. Hint: the effects start in 20 minutes!

Some random interesting readings around the web…

• How do people die? To Treat the Dead: new research into how people actually die with a very (very!) surprising discovery. I’ll research this a bit more and hopefully blog about it properly in due course.
• Learn from the best! How Drug Reps Influence Doctors: in the ‘too easy’ department, a critical look at how pharmaceutical companies’ reps influence the behavior of doctors to make them prescribe their drugs. Scientific American has some more commentary.
• Still with the industry theme, another paper asks Does Industry Sponsorship Undermine the Integrity of Nutrition Research?. A very good question and an excellent read.
• How long can a scientific experiment run for? Get the scoop on decades-long work.
• Finally, psychologists talk about the art of the mentally ill.

Till next time…

A new blogSci feature.

While procrastinating keeping up with scientific breakthroughs, I come across several little interesting tidbits that I note but never get round to fully posting about. So I decided to blog about them, but instead of dedicating a full post for each little thing, I’ll just collect them all in one go.

This will be a regular feature here, and the collections will be called ‘newscis’, which is supposed to be the clever derivation of ‘news of science’ to rhyme with ‘blogSci’.

So without further ado, the first newsci roundup:

• What’s in a tear? Scientists are surprised when they identify the components of tears.
• Why aren’t airlines fighting emission controls? It’s all about money, really.
• Where do sloths get their name from? Well, they don’t move much, even in the pursuit of science!
• Yorkshiremen out of Africa. A very cool genetic study finding African-specific Y-chromosome markers deep in the north of England. Just shows how intermixed human populations can be.
• What happens to water when it touches a hydrophobic surface? The science has been elusive, but now synchrotron x-ray reflectivity measurements reveal all.

[tags]science news[/tags]