Interesting:

Why do humans cooperate in things as diverse as environment conservation or the creation of fairer societies, even when they don’t receive anything in exchange or, worst, they might even be penalized? This is a question that has puzzled academics for centuries, especially since in evolution the basis for the “survival of the fittest” is, after all, selfishness.

But in an article just published in the journal Nature, three Portuguese theoretical physicists develop a mathematical model capable of providing a way out from this conundrum through the introduction of social diversity - a ubiquitous characteristic of modern social networks - and suggesting that that the act of cooperation is dependent on one’s social context/ranking.

And in fact, when social diversity was taken into account the numbers of those cooperating increased in direct relation to the system diversity. Furthermore, cooperation, according to this model, spreads even faster when the act of cooperation is considered more important than the amount given, with these societies presenting also a much fairer distribution of wealth. This new mathematic model for society’s evolution is particularly interesting because not only it reveals a logic behind the large numbers of cooperators that we know exist in all human societies, but also it gives us a glimpse of the principles that can help “pushing” them into a better, fairer, path.

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I must start walking again. (Wish I lived in one of ten most walk-friendly cities: San Francisco (first), New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington D.C., Long Beach California, Los Angeles and Portland OR (tenth)—Baltimore is no. 12.) Look at this:

Scientists have long been puzzled by how the Masai can avoid cardiovascular disease despite having a diet rich in animal fats. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet believe that their secret is in their regular walking.

There is strong evidence that the high consumption of animal fats increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Many scientists have therefore been surprised that the nomadic Masai of Kenya and Tanzania are seldom afflicted by the disease, despite having a diet that is rich in animal fats and deficient in carbohydrates.

This fact, which has been known to scientists for 40 years, has raised speculations that the Masai are genetically protected from cardiovascular disease. Now, a unique study by Dr Julia Mbalilaki in association with colleagues from Norway and Tanzania, suggests that the reason is more likely to be the Masai’s active lifestyle.

Their results are based on examinations of the lifestyles, diets and cardiovascular risk factors of 985 middle-aged men and women in Tanzania, 130 of who were Masai, 371 farmers and 484 urbanites. In line with previous studies, their results show that the Masai not only have a diet richer in animal fat than that of the other subjects, but also run the lowest cardiovascular risk, which is to say that they have the lowest body weights, waist-measurements and blood pressure, combined with a healthy blood lipid profile.

What sets the Masai lifestyle apart is also a very high degree of physical activity. The Masai studied expended 2,500 kilocalories a day more than the basic requirement, compared with 1,500 kilocalories a day for the farmers and 891 kilocalories a day for the urbanites. According to the team, most Westerners would have to walk roughly 20 km a day to achieve the Masai level of energy expenditure.

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This is a good post, blowing big holes in many of the arguments used by climate change deniers. It includes some very nice graphs. Post begins:

The Australian continues to display its contempt for science, scientists and the scientific method. They’ve published this piece of AGW denial by David Evans. Last time I looked at Evans he was saying that new evidence since 1999 had changed his mind about global warming, with this new evidence including the fact that the world had cooled from 1940 to 1975. Apparently this was too silly even for the Australian, so he now offers us four alleged facts.

1 The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics.

This couldn’t be more wrong. Study the graphs below (from RealClimate). The left one shows the pattern predicted for doubling CO2, while the right one shows the pattern for a 2% increase in solar output.

Much more at the link. Read it all.

Dana Perino, you’ll no doubt recall, said that global warming would bring many benefits, including fewer health risks from cold weather. But today this from ThinkProgress:

“Climate change will pose ’substantial’ health threats including heat waves, hurricanes and pathogens in coming decades,” according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, “‘it is very likely’ that more people will die during extremely hot periods in future years, with the elderly, the poor and those in inner cities at the highest risk.”

I doubt that our species will ever learn that introducing foreign species leads to severe problems—rabbits, cane toads, and dogs into Australia, the starling and the English sparrow into the US, the zebra mussel into the Great Lakes (though it does seem to be cleaning the water), snakehead fish into domestic waterways, and now lionfish into the Caribbean. It’s almost as if humanity is deliberately destroying its environment.

Lionfish -- photo from Oregon State University

The invasion of predatory lionfish [click photo to enlarge - LG] in the Caribbean region poses yet another major threat there to coral reef ecosystems — a new study has found that within a short period after the entry of lionfish into an area, the survival of other reef fishes is slashed by about 80 percent.

Aside from the rapid and immediate mortality of marine life, the loss of herbivorous fish also sets the stage for seaweeds to potentially overwhelm the coral reefs and disrupt the delicate ecological balance in which they exist, according to scientists from Oregon State University.

Following on the heels of overfishing, sediment depositions, nitrate pollution in some areas, coral bleaching caused by global warming, and increasing ocean acidity caused by carbon emissions, the lionfish invasion is a serious concern, said Mark Hixon, an OSU professor of zoology and expert on coral reef ecology.

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I have not had fruit juice for a long time—well, since yesterday. But the only way that I drink fruit juice (virtually always pomegranate juice or cranberry juice) is to dilute it in a lot of water. What I’m drinking, in effect, is flavored water. Rather than the juice, I eat fruit—a lovely peach yesterday, along with a bowl of cherries.

But why avoid the juice of fruits? Slashfood explains here. From the post:

According to the study, eating an additional three servings of fruit per day can reduce the risk of developing diabetes by up to 18%. Similarly, a single serving of green, leafy vegetables can reduce the risk by 9%. However, just one daily serving of fruit juice can increase the risk of developing diabetes by 18%. This is highly significant; as the study’s analysts note, earlier suggestions that women can drink juice instead of eating fresh fruit may be dangerously incorrect. Similarly, substituting fruit juice for other beverages in an attempt to become more healthy may also seriously backfire.

More at the link.

Mirandi Hitti of WebMD offers some suggestions:

The latest star spouting a lean lifestyle isn’t a Hollywood celebrity with a wacky diet, extreme workout routine, or big-bucks trainer. It’s a state — Colorado.

Ever since 1990, Colorado has had the nation’s lowest percentage of obese adults. And on the CDC’s latest map of adult obesity prevalence, Colorado is the only state shaded in dark blue, because of its low percentage — 18.7% — of obese adults.

What’s up with that? What does Colorado know that the rest of the country doesn’t? And short of packing up the wagon and heading west, what can heftier states learn from Colorado?

Here are seven nuggets of Colorado’s weight wisdom, from James O. Hill, PhD, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Denver and co-founder of America on the Move, a nonprofit group focused on healthy lifestyles.

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Suemedha Sood of the Washington Independent:

In a surprising move last year, the Environmental Protection Agency fired the chairwoman of a chemical review panel six months after the panel took place. When Dr. Deborah Rice, a toxicologist for the Maine state health department, was thrown off a peer review panel at the request of the chemical industry, the EPA’s ethics were called into question.

The unusual circumstances have sparked a Congressional investigation by the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. After Congress began its investigation, the EPA decided to run its own — an internal study by the agency’s inspector general.

House Democrats, including the Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), have blasted the chemical industry lobby for wielding undue influence over EPA science. Yet, the chemical industry and the EPA stand by their joint decision to remove Rice from the panel.

The fired chairwoman sat down with The Washington Independent for her first extensive interview since her dismissal almost a year ago. In a series of telephone conversations, Rice told TWI that the circumstances surrounding her removal were unprecedented. She talked about how stunned she was to be dismissed, why the EPA’s actions were unexpected and what consequences this could have for children’s health.

Rice, 61, had worked for the EPA for four years before joining the Maine Dept. of Health and Human Services. In 2004, she had been awarded one of the EPA’s most prestigious scientific awards — the Scientific and Technological Achievement Award — for her “exceptionally high-quality research” on the toxicity of lead. Regarded as an expert in environmental toxicology, Rice was asked by the EPA to chair a February 2007 review panel on the fire retardant deca (or decabromodiphenyl ether). The five-member panel carried out a standard review of the chemical’s safety.

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UPDATE: More info here.

Maggie Fox reports for Reuters:

The United States fails on most measures of health care quality, with Americans waiting longer to see doctors and more likely to die of preventable or treatable illnesses than people in other industrialized countries, a report released on Thursday said.

Americans squander money on wasteful administrative costs, illnesses caused by medical error and inefficient use of time, the report from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund concluded.

“We lead the world in spending. We should be expecting much more in return,” Commonwealth Fund senior vice president Cathy Schoen told reporters.

The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation, created a 100-point scorecard using 37 indicators such as health outcomes, quality, access and efficiency.

They compare the U.S. average on these to the best performing states, counties or hospitals, and to other countries. The United States scored 65 — two points lower than in 2006.

One key measure is prevention of premature deaths from easily treated conditions such as asthma and heart attacks.

The United States fell from 15th to last among 19 industrialized nations on this measure from 2006 to 2008. The report estimated the U.S. health care system could save 100,000 lives if it matched Japan or France, the top performers.

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As you know, I donate blood to the local hospital at every opportunity, which is 3 times a year, two units each time. And now I can see why they want it. Stephanie Strom reports in the NY Times:

For 15 years, the American Red Cross has been under a federal court order to improve the way it collects and processes blood. Yet, despite $21 million in fines since 2003 and repeated promises to follow procedures intended to ensure the safety of the nation’s blood supply, it continues to fall short.

The situation has proved so frustrating that in January the commissioner of food and drugs attended a Red Cross board meeting — a first for a commissioner — and warned members that they could face criminal charges for their continued failure to bring about compliance, according to three Red Cross officials who attended the meeting and requested anonymity because Red Cross policy prohibits public discussion of its meetings with regulators.

“If fear is a motivator, we’re happy to help out in that way,” said Eric M. Blumberg, deputy general counsel at the Food and Drug Administration, though he declined to confirm what the commissioner, Andrew C. von Eschenbach, said at the meeting.

Some critics, including former Red Cross executives, have even suggested breaking off the blood services operations from the rest of the organization, as the Canadian Red Cross did a decade ago.

The problems, described in more than a dozen publicly available F.D.A. reports — some of which cite hundreds of lapses — include shortcomings in screening donors for possible exposure to diseases; failures to spend enough time swabbing arms before inserting needles; failures to test for syphilis; and failures to discard deficient blood.

In some cases, the lapses have put the recipients of blood at risk for diseases like hepatitis, malaria and syphilis. But according to the food and drug agency, the Red Cross has repeatedly failed to investigate the results of its mistakes, meaning there is no reliable record of whether recipients were harmed by the blood it collected.

Continue reading.

Tobacco companies rely for their success on continually addicting a new generation of smokers. Menthol is their means, as the article indicates. And note this, from the article’s conclusion:

Tobacco use is the largest preventable cause of death globally. According to the National Cancer Institute, in the U.S. smoking-related illnesses account for an estimated 438,000 deaths each year. An estimated 25.9 million men (23.9 percent) and 20.7 million women (18.1 percent) in the U.S. are smokers, according to the American Heart Association.

Read the whole thing:

Menthol cigarette brands have been rising in popularity with adolescents, and the highest use has been among younger, newer smokers. Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) explored tobacco industry manipulation of menthol levels in specific brands and found a deliberate strategy to recruit and addict young smokers by adjusting menthol to create a milder experience for the first time smoker. Menthol masks the harshness and irritation of cigarettes, allowing delivery of an effective dose of nicotine, the addictive chemical in cigarettes. These milder products were then marketed to the youngest potential consumers. The paper, “Tobacco Industry Control of Menthol in Cigarettes and Targeting of Adolescents and Young Adults,” appears in the online “First Look” section of the American Journal of Public Health in advance of publication in the September 2008 issue.

“For decades, the tobacco industry has carefully manipulated menthol content not only to lure youth but also to lock in lifelong adult customers,” said Howard Koh, Professor and Associate Dean for Public Health Practice at HSPH and a co-author of the paper.

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“Clean coal” is an oxymoron. Take this finding:

Children born after the closure of a coal-burning plant in China had 60 percent fewer developmental problems, a study released Monday suggests, giving ammunition to those who argue the country should embrace cleaner sources of energy.

Read the whole post.

Very interesting chart at Treehugger. The post there excerpts this op-ed by Benjamin Turon, which begins:

Those in the “peak oil” camp, who predict that we are about to run out of easily accessible petroleum, warn that the drop in global oil production will bring dire consequences. Writer James Howard Kunstler, and like-minded groups such as the Capital Region Energy Forum, predict the collapse of Western Civilization and the establishment of an “Amish Paradise.” Yet they forget history and underestimate the technology available to sustain our technological civilization.

First, much of technology is based on electricity, not oil! Computers, telecommunications, lights, industrial machinery, household appliances are electric; electricity can also cook our food and heat our homes. While the power grid needs to be expanded and modernized, North America has abundant energy resources — including coal, nuclear, hydro, tidal, wind, solar and geothermal — to keep us in electricity without depending on oil-run power plants.

There are also substitutes for oil in the many synthetic chemicals and materials that contribute to modern life. Glass, ceramics, metal and wood could substitute for plastic in many products, and much of those products can be recycled. Coal and biomass can also be used as feedstocks for plastics, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals.

We are not so much in an energy crisis as a transport crisis, a troika of increasing congestion, environmental degradation and energy shortages.

As global demand for transport and petroleum products grows as a result of population and economic growth, demand is beginning to exceed supply, leading to an inflationary spiral of prices that could cripple the economy.

The goal should be to switch our transportation from being powered by petroleum to electricity, because electric vehicles can utilize a variety of power sources, and use it more efficiently than internal-combustion engines. Electric vehicles won’t compete with the food supply, as do biofuels, and are more practical than using hydrogen fuel cells. Overall pollution would be reduced, including greenhouse gases.

Continue reading.

This is surprising:

Cognitive behaviour therapy is effective in treating the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a recent systematic review carried out by Cochrane Researchers. Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a potentially long-lasting illness that can cause considerable distress and disability. Some estimates suggest it may affect as many as 1 in 100 of the population globally. There is no widely accepted explanation for the disease and patients are currently offered a variety of different treatments. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) uses psychological techniques to balance negative thoughts that may impair recovery with more realistic alternatives. In treating CFS, these techniques are combined with a gradual increase in activity levels.

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Interesting—and makes me feel better about the baby back ribs planned for Saturday.

A two-year study led by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) reveals that low-carbohydrate and Mediterranean diets may be just as safe and effective in achieving weight loss as the standard, medically prescribed low-fat diet, according to a new study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. The study was conducted by BGU and the Nuclear Research Center in Dimona, Israel, in collaboration with Harvard University, The University of Leipzig, Germany and the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

In the two-year study, 322 moderately obese people were intensively monitored and were randomly assigned one of three diets: a low-fat, calorie-restricted diet; a Mediterranean calorie-restricted diet with the highest level of dietary fiber and monounsaturated/saturated fat; or a low-carbohydrate diet with the least amount of carbohydrates, highest fat, protein, and dietary cholesterol. The low-carb dieters had no caloric intake restrictions.

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Arthur Allen in the Washington Indpendent notes the latest celebrities to emerge in the vaccine wars:

Move over, Jenny McCarthy. The former Playboy playmate-turned vaccine basher has competition from a Hollywood newcomer, Amanda Peet. In a profile featured on the cover of this month’s Cookie magazine, Peet discloses that Dr. Paul Offit, inventor of an important rotavirus vaccine and public enemy number one of the anti-vaccination crowd, assuaged her anxieties over vaccination after the birth of her baby in 2007. She has fully vaccinated the tot, is quite happy about it, and says that parents who don’t vaccinate are “parasites.” Peet’s comment, and her decision to do a pro-vaccine promotional ad infuriated the vaccine skeptics, some of whom wrote menacing letters to Peet and her retinue. Has the public zeitgeist turned on the activists who, blaming vaccines for autism, urge parents to delay or avoid vaccinating their kids?

Recent reports indicating that we’re in the midst of the worst measles outbreak since at least 1997 haven’t helped. Some recent commentators (including me, in an upcoming issue of Mother Jones magazine) note that the decision not to vaccinate your kid has implications beyond the health of your own family. Also, while Handley and others are apoplectic at Offit for daring to stand up for vaccines while owning a patent on one (I’m shocked–shocked!–that someone is allowed to own their intellectual property!), fact is that Offit’s Rotateq vaccine seems to be doing some wonderful things for public health. A recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report shows that Rotateq, which Offit and his colleagues developed, and Merck produces, has prevented tens of thousands of cases of the painful and sometimes dangerous gastrointestinal disease. As a further annoyance to his critics, Offit has a book coming out in September that lays bare the legal, scientific and public relations campaigns behind the vaccines-cause-autism theory (full disclosure: I’m quoted in it).

Does it amaze you that celebrities are quoted as if they are scientists?

More signs of what’s coming. I do understand that many conservatives (and oil companies) don’t see any of this as a problem.

According to a new study, global warming could lead to larger changes in snowmelt in the western United States than was previously thought, possibly increasing wildfire risk and creating new water management challenges for agriculture, ecosystems and urban populations. Researchers, including a Purdue University professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, discovered that a critical surface temperature feedback is twice as strong as what had been projected by earlier studies.

The high-resolution climate model used by the team was better able to reproduce the complex topography of the western United States and capture details of the effect of snow cover on the climate system, as well as the historical record of runoff.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Geophysical Research Letters and are now available online at the journal’s Web site.

Noah Diffenbaugh, senior author of the paper and an associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue, said the influence of melting snow on regional climate is far greater than that of increased greenhouse gases alone.

“The heat trapping from elevated greenhouse gases triggers the warming, but the additional warming caused by the loss of snow is what really creates the big changes in surface runoff,” said Diffenbaugh, who also is a member of Purdue’s Climate Change Research Center. “Scientists have known about this general effect for years. The big surprise here is how much the complex topography plays a role, essentially doubling the threat to water resources in the West.”

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Encouraging:

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) researchers at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston believe they have uncovered the Achilles heel in the armor of the virus that continues to kill millions. The weak spot is hidden in the HIV envelope protein gp120. This protein is essential for HIV attachment to host cells, which initiate infection and eventually lead to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS. Normally the body’s immune defenses can ward off viruses by making proteins called antibodies that bind the virus. However, HIV is a constantly changing and mutating virus, and the antibodies produced after infection do not control disease progression to AIDS. For the same reason, no HIV preventative vaccine that stimulates production of protective antibodies is available.

The Achilles heel, a tiny stretch of amino acids numbered 421-433 on gp120, is now under study as a target for therapeutic intervention. Sudhir Paul, Ph.D., pathology professor in the UT Medical School, said, “Unlike the changeable regions of its envelope, HIV needs at least one region that must remain constant to attach to cells. If this region changes, HIV cannot infect cells. Equally important, HIV does not want this constant region to provoke the body’s defense system. So, HIV uses the same constant cellular attachment site to silence B lymphocytes - the antibody producing cells. The result is that the body is fooled into making abundant antibodies to the changeable regions of HIV but not to its cellular attachment site. Immunologists call such regions superantigens. HIV’s cleverness is unmatched. No other virus uses this trick to evade the body’s defenses.”

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Susan Allport, author of the book on Omega-3 promoted at the end of the first video, sent a link in a comment. The video is quite interesting, it has cute animals, and it shows a scientific experiment, so it’s worth watching, though I’ve not read her book. (It’s only fair: she probably hasn’t read mine. )

Watching that led to another omega-3 video:

And there are many more videos about omega-3.

Take a look:

A greener, less expensive method to produce hydrogen for fuel may eventually be possible with the help of water, solar energy and nanotube diodes that use the entire spectrum of the sun’s energy, according to Penn State researchers. “Other researchers have developed ways to produce hydrogen with mind-boggling efficiency, but their approaches are very high cost,” says Craig A. Grimes, professor of electrical engineering. “We are working toward something that is cost effective.”

Currently, the steam reforming of natural gas produces most of our hydrogen. As a fuel source, this produces two problems. The process uses natural gas and so does not reduce reliance on fossil fuels; and, because one byproduct is carbon dioxide, the process contributes to the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the carbon footprint.

Grimes’ process splits water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen, and collects the products separately using commonly available titanium and copper. Splitting water for hydrogen production is an old and proven method, but in its conventional form, it requires previously generated electricity. Photolysis of water solar splitting of water has also been explored, but is not a commercial method yet.

Grimes and his team produce hydrogen from solar energy, using two different groups of nanotubes in a photoelectrochemical diode. They report in the July issue of Nano Letters that using incident sunlight, “such photocorrosion-stable diodes generate a photocurrent of approximately 0.25 milliampere per centimeter square, at a photoconversion efficiency of 0.30 percent.”

“It seems that nanotube geometry is the best geometry for production of hydrogen from photolysis of water,” says Grimes.

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