GOLLYGEE!

Theme by Anders Norén

Date: 11.20.2012

11.20.2012

using birds to monitor pollution

Sparrows

Birds can help us keep track of overall pollution levels as a lot of pollution can show up in their eggs. From Nature:

Nesting birds that feed on insects that hatch in lake or stream-bed sediments may make good biomonitors for pollution, says Thomas Custer of the US Geological Survey’s Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. That’s because any contamination in the sediment will make its way into the birds and into their eggs and young.

An example, says Custer, is the tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor), which still showed “significant quantities” of toxic chemicals called polychlorinated biphenols in its eggs and chicks seven years after remediation efforts started at a former capacitor-manufacturing plant in Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge in southern Illinois1. The findings “prompted further sediment removal”, he says.

Please check the source link for more.

11.20.2012

an occasional drink is okay during pregnancy?

According to five paper from Danish researchers, it just might be. The work appeared in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology back in June.  An exerpt from the news release:

he definition of a drink in these papers comes from the Danish National Board of Health, which states one standard drink is equal to 12 grams of pure alcohol.
However, the amount of alcohol in a standard drink varies significantly from country to country. In the UK the volume of alcohol in a drink is measured in units and one unit of alcohol is defined as 7.9 grams.

1,628 women took part in the studies. The average maternal age was 30.9 years, 50.1% were first-time mothers, 12.1% were single and 31.4% reported smoking during pregnancy.

The papers looked at the effects of alcohol on IQ, attention span, executive functions such as planning, organisation, and self-control in five year old children.

Overall, the papers found that low to moderate weekly drinking in early pregnancy had no significant effect on neurodevelopment of children aged five years, nor did binge drinking. Focusing on children’s IQ and executive functions, no differences in test performance were observed between children whose mothers reported 1-4 or 5-8 drinks/week per week in pregnancy compared to children of abstaining mothers. However one finding showed that high levels of alcohol, intake of 9 or more drinks per week, was associated with lower attention span amongst five year olds…

I’d recommend not taking the risk. No matter what the study says.

11.20.2012

an electromagnetic cure for cancer

The podcast of This American life that aired this past weekend offered an interesting glimpse into the world of cancer research. A pair of researchers, one a professor at Thomas Jefferson University and the other a music teacher, were studying whether pulsing sound waves could selectively kill cancer cells. The collaboration started off great but things started to go down hill.
One of the things that was interesting to see was how beginning researchers often get excited by preliminary data and think they’ve hit the jackpot. They don’t realize how critical the controls are. Nor do they realize how much effort it takes to reproduce and validate the experimental results. I have to admit the tedious work involved in validating results is part of what drove me out of the lab.