Muara Teweh! News

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer

Grandma may have been right about keeping a teakettle warming on the stove in winter to moisten the air. Studies of seasonal influenza have long found indications that flu spreads better in dry air. Now, new research being published Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, indicates that the key is the absolute humidity — which measures the amount of water present in the air, regardless of temperature — not the more commonly reported relative humidity.

Relative humidity varies depending on air temperature; absolute humidity doesn’t.

“The correlations were surprisingly strong. When absolute humidity is low, influenza virus survival is prolonged and transmission rates go up,” said Jeffrey Shaman, an Oregon State University atmospheric scientist who specializes in ties between climate and disease transmission Read more…

By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer

The largest study ever of multivitamin use in older women found the pills did nothing to prevent common cancers or heart disease. The eight-year study in 161,808 postmenopausal women echoes recent disappointing vitamin studies in men.

Millions of Americans spend billions of dollars on vitamins to boost their health. Research has focused on cancer and heart disease in particular because of evidence that diets full of vitamin-rich foods may protect against those illnesses. But that evidence doesn’t necessarily mean pills are a good substitute.

The study’s lead author, researcher Marian Neuhouser of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, offered this advice: “Get nutrients from food. Whole foods are better than dietary supplements,” Neuhouser said.

The study appears in Monday’s Archives of Internal Medicine.
Read more…

Since the start of the Iraq War in 2003 the number of overweight and obese US military has doubled, in keeping with the national trend but also due to the stress of deployment, a Pentagon study said.

“In the past decade among active military members in general, the percent of military members who experienced medical encounters for overweight/obesity has steadily increased; and since 2003, rates of increase have generally accelerated,” said the report published in January.

In 1998, the number of military personnel diagnosed overweight or obese stood at 25,652, or 1.6 percent of the entire armed forces. In 2003, it increased to 34,333 (2.1 percent), and from then to 2008 the number doubled to 68,786 (4.4 percent of the total).

A 2005 poll of the US military established that “stress and return from deployment were the most frequently cited reasons for recent weight gain,” the report said.

The US military has shown signs of overall exhaustion after years of deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read more…

Since the start of the Iraq War in 2003 the number of overweight and obese US military has doubled, in keeping with the national trend but also due to the stress of deployment, a Pentagon study said.

“In the past decade among active military members in general, the percent of military members who experienced medical encounters for overweight/obesity has steadily increased; and since 2003, rates of increase have generally accelerated,” said the report published in January.

In 1998, the number of military personnel diagnosed overweight or obese stood at 25,652, or 1.6 percent of the entire armed forces. In 2003, it increased to 34,333 (2.1 percent), and from then to 2008 the number doubled to 68,786 (4.4 percent of the total).

A 2005 poll of the US military established that “stress and return from deployment were the most frequently cited reasons for recent weight gain,” the report said.

The US military has shown signs of overall exhaustion after years of deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read more…

Since the start of the Iraq War in 2003 the number of overweight and obese US military has doubled, in keeping with the national trend but also due to the stress of deployment, a Pentagon study said.

“In the past decade among active military members in general, the percent of military members who experienced medical encounters for overweight/obesity has steadily increased; and since 2003, rates of increase have generally accelerated,” said the report published in January.

In 1998, the number of military personnel diagnosed overweight or obese stood at 25,652, or 1.6 percent of the entire armed forces. In 2003, it increased to 34,333 (2.1 percent), and from then to 2008 the number doubled to 68,786 (4.4 percent of the total).

A 2005 poll of the US military established that “stress and return from deployment were the most frequently cited reasons for recent weight gain,” the report said.

The US military has shown signs of overall exhaustion after years of deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read more…

Little is known about how rewards excite our brains, specifically as it relates to vision. Could it be that we see things differently if they have paid off before?

John Serences, assistant professor of psychology, who heads the Perception and Cognition Lab at University of California San Diego (UCSD), examined how value affects visual processing with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that indirectly measures neural activity.

The brain activity of subjects was recorded as they chose between red and green targets that varied in value across the experiment.

For example, selecting a target might yield 10 cents or nothing, potentially earning subjects making the “right” choices $10. The fMRI scans were conducted at UC Irvine.

Analysis revealed that rewards altered neural activation in many areas of the human visual system, including the very first visually responsive region of the brain, known as V1, which is associated with representing basic features such as edge orientations and colour, said a UCSD release.
Read more…

Europe is under a huge threat of flu outbreaks as a deadly ‘Australian’ strain spreads across Britain, say experts

According to the European Influenza Surveillance Scheme, the deadly strain that caused a severe epidemic and killed six children in Australia in last year is still spreading and is likely to exacerbate between January and March.

Britain, Bulgaria, Ireland and Spain are under ‘medium intensity’ flu attack, while in Portugal the strain has reached high intensity levels.

Flu levels have increased from 27 GP consultations about the disease per 100,000 of population in the first week of December to 68 consultations per 100,000.

“Moderate flu activity at this time of the season is normal and should not make us think that everything is over by Christmas,” the Telegraph quoted Professor Koos van der Velden, former chairman of EISS, as saying. Read more…