Mine Injuries May Rise Right after Daylight Saving Time
Don't forget to move your clocks forward this weekend.
And then don't forget to be more careful in the days after you adjust your clocks,
because a recent study found that the hour of lost sleep was related to increased job-related injuries.
Probably because sleepy workers were less alert.
The work appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Organizational behavioral psychologists Christopher Barnes and David Wagner analyzed reports filed with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health about injuries that took place in mines.
The study looked at all reports between 1983 and 2006.
And they found that compared with other days, more injuries happened on the Monday after daylight saving time went into effect, and the injuries were more severe.
Survey data found that people sleep on average 40 minutes less on the Sunday night right after the time change.
The data also revealed that on Mondays after the switch to standard time, when we gain an hour of sleep, there's no significant differences in sleep or injuries.
So enjoy that extra hour of sunlight in the evening. Carefully.
Astronaut Sounds Alarm on Asteroids
If a big asteroid with Earth's name on it were to reach us unimpeded, well, we could go the way of the dinosaurs.
So a group of astronauts is advising the U.N. on a plan to protect the planet.
This is taking responsibility for the survival of life on planet Earth.
Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart on October 25th, at a discussion of the issue at New York's American Museum of Natural History,
... its dinosaur skeletons a reminder of the danger of being unprepared.
Last week, the General Assembly approved a preliminary set of asteroid defense measures.
For example, a system for nations to share info about incoming space rocks.
And a coordinated mission to deflect any asteroids found to be on a collision course with Earth.
The biggest problem right now institutionally is ... no government in the world today has explicitly assigned the responsibility for planetary deflection to any of its agencies.
NASA does not have an explicit responsibility to deflect an asteroid, nor does any other space agency.
Ultimately, the Earth's nations must work together to combat this extraterrestrial threat.
Because when it comes to space rocks, they are definitely out there.
How Computers Affect Our Movement
For most people, learning to use a computer mouse comes quickly.
Our brains match hand movements with the cursor on the screen.
Now we know that this connection can be easily generalized to other kinds of computers and mouse movement.
... like how some saxophone players can switch seamlessly to a clarinet.
Scientists had seasoned computer users and novices move a cursor while their hand was hidden from view.
Experienced users quickly generalized what they learned about the cursor's movement to perform other kinds of functions with that cursor.
Novices took longer to catch on. Not too surprising.
But then the researchers had a second group of novices use a mouse to play a video game for two hours a day.
In just two weeks they were able to generalize their mouse skills to rival experienced computer users.
For instance they could control other mouse types, and do it on different Macs and PCs, with different kinds of screens.
The study is in the journal Current Biology.
The researchers say this study shows how using a mouse can affect the neural representation of our movements, ...
... and how natural it can feel.
Apparently, our long history of tool use comes in ... handy.
Huh? Appears to Be Universally Understood
What's the most universal utterance in languages across the globe?
Huh? —Correct! —Huh? —That's right. —HUH? —Exactly.
Because a new study finds that everybody around the world does indeed say huh?
The finding is in the journal PLOS One.
The researchers were exploring linguistic tools people use to assure fluid communication.
In this case, they were looking for an interjection that signals that a listener missed something,
then prompts the speaker to repeat or rephrase the original statement.
In other words, something that works like the English word Huh?
So they eavesdropped on nearly 200 conversations in 10 different tongues, from Italian to Icelandic.
And they found that, in language after language, a word that sounds a lot like huh? gets the job done.
For example. Eh? Eh? Eh? It's short and sweet so it's likely to stop the speaker before the listener gets too lost.
And it sounds like a question so it warrants a response.
The sound appears not to be innate.
Babies don't use it before they say mama.
But most five-year-olds are masters of "huh?" No matter where they come from.
Global Warming Freezes Penguin Chicks
Life isn't easy for a penguin chick.
There's a lot to worry about: predators, having enough food, and now the changing climate.
Researchers spent nearly thirty years tracking chicks at Punta Tombo, the world's largest colony of Magellanic penguins.
They found that increased rainfall and extreme heat due to climate change are killing chicks.
The study is in the journal PLOS ONE.
Down-covered chicks are too big to receive parental protection from the elements,
but are not old enough to have grown protective waterproof feathers.
So they get soaked to the skin during rainstorms and die of hypothermia.
Their downy feathers do them a disservice during heat waves too,
since they can't go for a swim to cool off until their waterproof feathers grow in.
Chicks not getting enough food are even more susceptible to the elements, as they lack the fuel to maintain their body temperature.
Storms during breeding season are already on the rise, and are expected to keep increasing.
So climate change will likely pose a challenge not only in Magellanic penguins, but other seabirds as well.
It'll be sink or swim.
Morning Light Exposure Tied to Lower Weight
Light might make you a light weight—in a good way.
It's been known that bright light in the morning(Cock Crow) can reduce appetite and body weight.
But that fact did not prove that light has a direct effect on weight.
Early morning exposure to light could just be a marker for a regular sleep cycle, which is also associated with a healthy body weight.
The question was thus whether light exposure was associated with weight regardless of sleep patterns.
To find out, researchers had 54 adults record their diet and sleep for a week.
The subjects also wore sensors that monitored the timing and intensity of their light exposure.
And independent of sleep habits, the participants' body weight corresponded to when they saw the light,
... even dim light, with just half the intensity of sunlight on a cloudy day.
The study is in the journal PLOS ONE.
So early to bed and early to rise appears to indeed make you healthy.
Jury's still out on whether it also makes you wealthy and wise.
Kettles Stop Whistling in the Dark
British physicist Lord Rayleigh is best known for his discovery of argon and for explaining, in 1871, why the sky is blue.
But he also puzzled over this.
Rayleigh knew that a kettle makes that sound when steam jets through the hole in a thick lid that has a gap in the middle.
He speculated that the jet becomes unstable inside that gap, setting up an acoustic feedback loop within the gap.
But he couldn't prove it.
Now two engineers at Cambridge University claim to have solved the puzzle and proved Rayleigh wrong.
The work is in the journal Physics of Fluids.
The engineers found that a kettle actually whistles in two distinct ways.
It starts off with air vibrating in the gap between the layers of the lid, like when you do THIS and THIS.
But as the pressure builds, vortices of steam peel off from the jet exiting the lid.
Each vortex creates sound waves at a frequency that depends on the length of the spout and the pressure inside it.
Rising temperature means rising pressure, which produces a rising whistle which means it's time for tea.
Secondhand Smoke Exposure Doubled Asthmatic Kids' Hospital Readmissions
If your child has asthma, it's a good idea to put your smokes away.
Now a study finds that asthmatic children exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to make repeat trips to the ER with breathing problems.
Researchers scoured data from 619 children admitted to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center for breathing issues in 2010 and 2011.
The research team found that if the kids' saliva tested positive for markers of nicotine exposure, ...
... the children were about twice as likely to be readmitted over the next year for future breathing issues.
In total, about 17 percent of the kids in the study winded up being admitted to the hospital again in the next twelve months.
The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.
The saliva of children brought to the hospital for asthma or wheezing revealed that about 80 percent had been exposed to tobacco smoke.
Many caregivers claimed that their kids were not in the presence of smoke.
But the saliva and blood tests on the children suggested otherwise.
So if you wanna protect your child, it's time to stop blowing smoke.
Different Brain Regions Handle Different Music Types
(Vivaldi) versus (the Beatles) . Both great.
But your brain may be processing the musical information differently for each.
That's according to research in the journal NeuroImage.
For the study, volunteers had their brains scanned by functional MRI as they listened to two musical medleys containing songs from different genres.
The scans identified brain regions that became active during listening.
One medley included four instrumental pieces and the other consisted of songs from the B side of Abbey Road.
Computer algorithms were used to identify specific aspects of the music, which the researchers were able to match with specific, activated brain areas.
The researchers found that vocal and instrumental music get treated differently.
While both hemispheres of the brain deal with musical features, the presence of lyrics shifts the processing of musical features to the left auditory cortex.
These results suggest that the brain's hemispheres are specialized for different kinds of sound processing.
A finding revealed by what you might call instrumental analysis.
Bedroom TV Linked to Kid Weight Gain
Parents, it's time to get the TV out of your kids' bedroom.
About 60 percent of all teenagers' bedrooms in the U.S. include a TV set.
Now research suggests that the mere presence of that TV in the bedroom is linked with weight gain,
... regardless of how long a youngster's eyes are glued to the small screen.
The finding comes from phone surveys of more than 6,000 kids across the country that probed for details on height, weight and television practices.
Even when the researchers controlled for factors including age, sex, socioeconomic status, video game playing and parenting style their discovery was confirmed:
a bedroom TV was clearly linked with heavier weight.
The study is in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
The jury is still out on why the link exists.
The researchers suggest the weight gain could stem from sleep disruption since shorter sleep times are associated with putting on pounds.
Another trigger could be increased exposure to junk food ads targeting kids.
Limiting TV time requires consistent oversight.
But simply moving the TV from the bedroom is an easy fix.
It'll burn some calories too.