Flash
kbonham | December 21, 2011This entry is cross posted from the the SITN Flash, a bimonthly publication written and edited by Harvard graduate students. You can find my piece, as well as archives of previous articles written by many graduate students at the Science in the News website.
In 1985, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) began tracking the prevalence of obesity in the United States. Since then, a clear trend has emerged: obesity is on the rise. The maps below compare obesity levels across the United States in 2004 and 2008:
It's clear that the number of people with obesity is growing, and has been as long we…
kbonham | October 28, 2011Last month, I linked to an article written by Harvard graduate student Laura Strittmatter about Resveratrol, a compound in red wine that had been linked to anti-aging effects in studies on rodents. Recently, a paper was published in Nature calling that research into question. This isn't a problem in science - this is how it's supposed to work. New research examines previous claims, and strengthens the case or knocks it down. Either way, we win.
In that spirit, Laura picked through the new paper and brings us a special edition of the Flash:
A recent article in the journal Nature calls into…
kbonham | September 15, 2011The latest Science in the News Flash is up, and it examines the anti-aging research surrounding the molecule resveratrol, which is present at low concentrations in red wine:
If resveratrol were able to mimic the lifespan-extending effects of caloric restriction in people without requiring such an extreme diet, it would be very popular, especially if it gives people an excuse to drink more wine! However, to consume enough resveratrol to benefit from the life-extending effects seen in yeast, the average person would have to drink 1000 bottles of wine per day, an endeavor with consequences that…
kbonham | September 1, 2011And speaking of milestones, the Harvard Science in the News Flash - a student written and student edited writing series just posted their 100th article:
Sleep clears the mind: How sleep prepares the brain for new learning
Despite the fact that sleep is essential to our health, its function and what makes it necessary have remained mysterious. Over the years, scientists have accumulated data showing that sleep, or the lack thereof, affects the brain. Most of this work focused on the idea that sleep is important for consolidating newly formed memories. However, evidence is now building that…
kbonham | January 4, 2011I rely on my phone to keep track of time - I tend to lose/break or cover watches in chalk, but my phone is pretty reliable. But how does it know the time, and how to people keep track of the passing seconds? Find out in this month's SITN Flash.
Last month, the Flash was spintronics, but the latest is atomic clocks:
While atomic clocks are technologically more complicated than the average timepiece, their operating principle is more or less the same - time is kept by precisely measuring the frequency of a signal. Frequency expresses how often a periodic signal repeats itself. In a grandfather…