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Eating More Protein is Associated with Weight Loss
May 14, 2013 08:44 AM - Editor, Justmeans
At some point in our lives, we have been on some kind of diet or other. There is the 'cabbage soup diet'; '5:2 diet'; and then high protein diets such as Atkins, Zone and South Beach, etc. Some people turn to higher-protein diets to lose weight, because some studies suggest that higher-protein diets help people better control their appetites and calorie intake. Diets with 30 per cent protein are now considered "reasonable" and the term "high protein diet" is now reserved for diets with over 50 per cent protein.
Nature is Good for your Health!
May 14, 2013 06:31 AM - Richard J Dolesh, The Ecologist
A walk in the park can calm and restore you. This is something we take for granted in parks and recreation, because we have known it to be true ever since we started spending time in nature. But new research reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine now provides scientific proof that walking in nature and spending time under leafy shade trees causes electrochemical changes in the brain that can lead people to enter a highly beneficial state of "effortless attention." The UK researchers state with some justifiable academic stuffiness that "..happiness, or the presence of positive emotional mindsets, broadens an individual's thought-action repertoire with positive benefits to physical and intellectual activities, and to social and psychological resources."
Makran Earthquakes
May 13, 2013 05:20 PM - Andy Soos, ENN
Earthquakes happen but where they may happen as well as when is a matter to be studied. Earthquakes similar in magnitude to the 2004 Sumatra earthquake could occur in an area beneath the Arabian Sea at the Makran subduction zone which is just south of Pakistan, according to recent research published in Geophysical Research Letters. The research was carried out by scientists from the University of Southampton based at the National Oceanography Center Southampton (NOCS), and the Pacific Geoscience Centre, Natural Resources Canada.
Web tool tracks insecticide-resistant malaria mosquitoes
May 13, 2013 05:06 PM - Calvin Otieno, SciDevNet
An online mapping system to track insecticide resistance in malaria-causing mosquitoes around the world has been launched. The free interactive website identifies places in more than 50 malaria-endemic countries where mosquitoes have become resistant to the insecticides used in bed nets and indoor sprays. IR Mapper was launched last month (25 April) by Vestergaard Frandsen, a Swiss firm that makes disease-control products, and the KEMRI/CDC research and public health collaboration based in Kenya.
Levi Strauss Creates Sustainable Jeans
May 13, 2013 09:18 AM - Lisa Marie Chirico, Triple Pundit
Move over rivets, it's plastic bottles that make a pair of Levi's 501 jeans unique now. Iconic brand Levi Strauss and Co. is participating in the effort to drive consumers to think about recycling in a new light with the introduction of their limited-edition Waste
Of Slugs and Worms
May 13, 2013 09:06 AM - Andy Soos, ENN
Worms live underground and slugs above ground. Yet they may affect one another in ways not obvious. The lowly earthworm, well known for conditioning and improving soil, is great at protecting leaves from being chomped by slugs, suggests research in BioMed Central’s open access journal BMC Ecology. Although they lurk in the soil, they seem to protect the plants above ground. Increasing plant diversity also decreases the amount of damage slugs do to individual plants.
ISS Ammonia Leak Repaired on Spacewalk
May 13, 2013 06:15 AM - IAN O'NEILL, Discovery News
During an unscheduled spacewalk on the space station's exterior on Saturday morning, NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy carried out the mother of all plumbing jobs: They detached a suspect ammonia pump, replaced it with a spare and watched for any further ammonia leakage. The emergency spacewalk was carried out in response to a troubling ammonia coolant leak that was discovered on Thursday. The coolant is used to maintain the temperature of the vast solar arrays the space station uses to generate electricity for its systems. But after nearly four hours of extravehicular activity, Marshburn and Cassidy reported seeing "no snow" (i.e. no ammonia flakes) as a replacement Pump and Flow Control System (PFCS) box was switched on and ammonia was pumped around the solar array at full pressure. No trace of the phantom ammonia leak was spotted by the spacewalkers' cameras nor the ever watchful mission managers in Houston, Texas.
Happy Mother's Day
May 12, 2013 06:44 AM - Ari Pineda, Program Assistant, Wildscreen USA , ARKive.org
Today is Mother's Day in the US and is a chance to honor and give thanks to mothers, both human and those of the animal variety! In nature, mothers come in all shapes and sizes and are equipped with a wide range of different parenting styles. We've selected a handful of moms with unique and fascinating methods for raising their babies from keeping little ones close for years to kicking them right out of the nest before they can even fly! Furry and ginormous, American bison mothers live with their young in hierarchical herds led by one dominant female. Within three hours of being born, the newborn calves are able to run about but are guarded closely by many of the herds' mothers who will charge any intruders. Talk about safety in numbers!
CO2 Levels Top 400 ppm at Hawaii Monitoring Station
May 11, 2013 07:38 AM - Roger Greenway, ENN
CO2 levels have been increasing relatively steadily for more than 50 years. On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since measurements began in 1958. Independent measurements made by both NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have been approaching this level during the past week. It marks an important milestone because Mauna Loa, as the oldest continuous carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement station in the world, is the primary global benchmark site for monitoring the increase of this potent heat-trapping gas. Carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning and other human activities is the most significant greenhouse gas (GHG) contributing to climate change. Its concentration has increased every year since scientists started making measurements on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano. The rate of increase has accelerated since the measurements started, from about 0.7 ppm per year in the late 1950s to 2.1 ppm per year during the last 10 years.
When the Moon was Active
May 10, 2013 04:02 PM - Editor, ENN
The Moon appears a dead world. Once it was geologically active. New evidence from ancient lunar rocks suggests that the moon's own magnetic dynamo -- a molten, convecting core of liquid metal that generated a strong magnetic field -- lasted 160 million years longer than originally estimated and was continuously active until well after the final large surface impacts. Lawrence Livermore scientist William Cassata and a group of international collaborators analyzed two rocks gathered during the Apollo 11 mission and found that they were magnetized in a stable and surprisingly intense magnetic field. The study of these slowly cooled, unshocked rocks demonstrates that the moon had a core dynamo as late as a mere 3.55 billion years ago.