Short Science, July 20, 2014
Mutant worms generated at a lab at the University of Texas may provide a way to stop people from becoming intoxicated after drinking alcohol, a study released on Wednesday said.
Mutant worms generated at a lab at the University of Texas may provide a way to stop people from becoming intoxicated after drinking alcohol, a study released on Wednesday said. The research could lead to new drugs to help people going through alcohol withdrawal or even prevent them from feeling the effects of a night of hard drinking, scientists say. Reuters
US physicists have compressed diamond to a density greater than lead, a technical feat that yields insights into the secrets of giant planets. Diamond is the hardest, strongest form of carbon on earth and the least compressible material known. A tiny synthetic sample of it was bombarded with 176 laser beams, creating pressure waves that progressively squeezed it to nearly four times its normal density, scientists reported in the journal . In the 20-nanosecond operation, the diamond was exposed to pressure of five terapascals, equivalent to 50 million times the pressure of the atmosphere at earth's surface, or 14 times the pressure at its core. Scientists used the world's largest laser, a two-megajoule device housed at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The exploit, equivalent to simulating pressures at the core of Saturn, should help astrophysicists fine- tune estimates of the process that make stars and giant planets, formed by strong gravitational pressures that crushed their atoms together. More than 1,000 planets have been discovered outside our solar system, many of them far bigger than Jupiter, the biggest planet of our star system. AFP
The question of whether organic foods are more nutritious than their conventionally grown counterparts remains a topic of heated scientific debate. has published research that disputed the notion that organic foods are essentially no more healthy than conventional foods. After reviewing 343 studies on the topic, researchers in Europe and the US concluded that organic crops and organic-crop-based foods contained higher concentrations of antioxidants on average than conventionally grown foods. The researchers also found that conventional foods contained greater concentrations of residual pesticides and the toxic metal cadmium. "This shows clearly that organically grown fruits, vegetables and grains deliver tangible nutrition and food safety benefits," said study co-author Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University's Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources. "The first and foremost message is that people need to eat more fruits and vegetables … whether it's organic or conventional," he added. Los Angeles Times
