No, your antibodies are not better than vaccination: An explainer

In context: Aza Raskin is widely credited for the creation of the infinite scrolling mechanism that's been implemented on social media, and he's been open about how it has regrettably turned into something that keeps people glued to their phones and leads to addictions, distraction, polarization, radicalization, and disinformation. Apple CEO Tim Cook agrees with this notion, and says the company wants people to use its devices for creating and connecting with friends and family.

One of the hotly-debated topics of these past few years is social media and how it has conditioned people into spending hours on end glued to their devices. Apps like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and others are crafted in a way that encourages you to engage with an endless string of content that is algorithmically sorted to fit your preferences or favorite personalities and organizations.

During an interview with Bustle, Tim Cook expressed his support of Shine -- an app that's designed to help users tackle social stigma around mental health issues, both in their personal life as well as at work. Cook believes apps like Shine are powerful examples of how technology can be used to improve the quality of people's lives.

Image credit: Claudio Scotto

The Apple CEO was also asked to weigh in on the recent reports about how Facebook and Instagram impact young people's mental health. He says that's one of the reasons Apple developed features like Screen Time, but the time spent using social media apps is only one component, the other being what you're doing.

Cook explained that "we want people to do things with their devices, like the photography exhibit [that he enjoyed earlier that day], or connecting with family and friends with FaceTime. Not endless, mindless scrolling." He's a strong proponent of the idea that "technology should serve humanity and not the other way around."

Online and technology addiction are high up on Apple's priority list of things to solve, and the company believes it can do more to prevent them on its devices. At the same time, it's researching ways for the iPhone to monitor for common mental health conditions and possibly even detect early warning signs.

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The company said that a "configuration change" had impacted users globally.

It added that the incident was not related to the outage that saw its products taken offline for over six hours earlier this week.

Its Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Workplace products had been affected, it said.

"We're so sorry if you weren't able to access our products during the last couple of hours," the company said it a statement on Friday evening. "We know how much you depend on us to communicate with one another. We fixed the issue - thanks again for your patience this week."

Earlier, web monitoring group Downdetector said that for a relatively short period of time on Friday there was an avalanche of messages from users reporting problems with Instagram.

Some of them immediately took to Twitter and other social media platforms to complain about the second Instagram disruption and share memes on the issue.

On Monday, Facebook - which owns WhatsApp and Instagram - blamed an internal technical issue for the major outage which not only affected the firm's services, but also employees' work passes and email.

The services were down from about 16:00 GMT until around 22:00 on Monday.

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Kristina A. Theis, Ph.D., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues analyzed combined National Health Interview Survey data from 2016 to 2018 to update national prevalence estimates for arthritis and arthritis-attributable activity limitation (AAAL) among U.S. adults.

The researchers found that arthritis was reported by an estimated 58.5 million adults aged 18 years or older (23.7 percent), while AAAL was reported by 25.7 million (10.4 percent overall; 43.9 percent among those with arthritis). Adults with physical limitations, few economic opportunities, and poor overall health had the highest prevalence of both arthritis and AAAL. Groups for which half or more reported having arthritis included respondents aged 65 years and older (50.4 percent), adults who were unable to work or disabled (52.3 percent), and adults with fair/poor self-rated health (51.2 percent), joint symptoms in the past 30 days (52.2 percent), activities-of-daily-living disability (54.8 percent), or instrumental activities-of-daily-living disability (55.9 percent).

"Because population aging and other contributing factors (e.g., obesity) are expected to sustain these trends, public health, medical, and senior and other service systems face substantial challenges in addressing the needs of adults with arthritis, who already account for nearly one quarter of U.S. adults," the authors write.

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The study, published Friday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, adds to the recent body of research suggesting health benefits associated with fasting.

Study author Rami Al-Jafar and his research team evaluated 85 participants between the ages of 29 and 61 from five mosques in London, measuring their systolic (the top number) and diastolic (the bottom number) blood pressure before Ramadan and again right afterward.

In addition, they asked the participants to keep food diaries for three days before and during Ramadan.

After adjusting for variables such as age and gender, they detected an average reduction of 7.29 mmHg in systolic blood pressure and 3.42 mmHg in diastolic blood pressure in the days after Ramadan.

The results held true for healthy people, as well as those with high blood pressure and diabetes.

"Most of the prior studies have been conducted in countries where the participants belong to the same race, eat the same kind of food and share the same culture," said Al-Jafar, a doctoral student in epidemiology at Imperial College of London. "Our study had diverse participants from different cultures eating different types of foods, so it was the first study we can describe as community-based."

"This means the effect of Ramadan fasting on blood pressure is not due to other variables," he added, noting that some people consumed more food overall during Ramadan but still had lower blood pressure after the holiday.

The researchers included their London study in an analysis of 33 studies conducted in countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, totaling 3,213 participants. People in those studies also had lower blood pressure after fasting for Ramadan.

But according to Krista Varady, a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois, the study doesn't necessarily mean that fasting during Ramadan results in longer-term health benefits.

"If you look, the majority of studies that have followed people post-Ramadan, you see that people drop a little bit of weight during Ramadan, but when they start eating normally again, their weight and blood pressure returns to baseline," said Varady, who was not involved in the new research.

"You definitely get some cardio-metabolic benefits, but none of that is sustained."

In addition to the temporary nature of the dietary change, Al-Jafar noted there are key differences between fasting during Ramadan and other types of fasting, such as intermittent fasting, which includes alternate-day fasting and regular time-restricted feeding.

In 2019, two preliminary studies presented at the AHA's Scientific Sessions conference showed intermittent fasting had benefits in extending life span and reducing heart failure in people being evaluated for heart disease. The participants in those studies were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons, who typically fast one Sunday each month for up to 24 hours.

Ramadan fasting during daylight hours is compulsory for Muslims, and consuming any liquid also is prohibited. There are exemptions for the elderly, pregnant and breastfeeding women, travelers and the ill. Many cultures also reduce working hours, but that was not the case in the London study, Al-Jafar said.

Why does fasting lead to lower blood pressure? The researchers speculate it's a result of a metabolic change that happens after eight to 12 hours of fasting when the body begins burning ketones rather than glycogen.

Prior studies suggest calorie restriction can improve cardiovascular risk factors, as well as insulin sensitivity.

Temporarily fasting is a safe and effective way to temporarily lower blood pressure, Al-Jafar said, though further research is needed to determine if regular fasting may be an effective way to lower high blood pressure on a longer-term basis.

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Even more troubling is that the poll of 1,110 respondents aged 18 and older also found that nearly 1 in 4 of those at high risk for flu-related complications said they don't intend to get a flu shot, The New York Times reported.

Overall, 61% of respondents agreed that vaccination provides the best protection against the flu, but 44% said they either didn't intend to get a shot or were unsure whether they would get one.

The survey was commissioned by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

Overall vulnerability to flu could be higher in the United States this year due to "relaxed COVID-19 mitigation strategies, increased travel and the reopening of schools," the foundation's medical director, Dr. William Schaffner, told the Times.

The severity of the upcoming flu season is unclear, but other respiratory infections have already returned, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a Thursday news briefing to release the survey data.

She noted that because last year's flu season was so mild, people don't have the natural immunity to the flu they might have gained if they'd gotten sick, the Times reported.

Everyone age 6 months and older should get a flu shot, Walensky advised.

"The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, and the risk of both flu and COVID-19 circulating could put additional strain on hospitals and frontline health care professionals," she warned.

Walensky also raised alarms about a decline in the flu vaccination rates among young children, to 59 percent from 64 percent the year before. In the 2019-2020 season, she said, 199 children died from the flu, about 80 percent of whom were not vaccinated.

This year's overall U.S. flu vaccination rate of about 52% is similar to last year's, but there's a "disparity gap" between whites (56%) and Blacks (43%), Walensky noted.

The survey did suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a positive effect on behaviors that could help reduce the spread of the flu. Nearly half of the respondents said the pandemic has made them more likely to stay home from work or school if they're sick, and 54% said they would wear a mask at least sometimes during the flu season, the Times reported.

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[Also:  Read an informative article: Sharp flu rebound expected after lifting of COVID distancing measures.  Thanks.]

For more than three decades, Abdulrazak Gurnah has been writing with a quiet and unwavering conviction about those relegated to the forgotten corners of history. Born in Zanzibar in 1948, Gurnah fled political oppression and settled in England at the age of 18. The author of numerous short stories and essays, as well as 10 novels, he has dedicated his writing career to examining the many ways that human beings can find themselves in exile: from their homes, families and communities and, perhaps most importantly, from themselves. His novels unfold in the intimate spaces created by families, companions and friendships: those spaces that are nurtured by love and duty yet rendered vulnerable by their very nature. In book after book, he guides us through seismic historic moments and devastating societal ruptures while gently outlining what it is that keeps those families, friendships and loving spaces intact, if not fully whole.

Many of his books, including his first novel, Memory of Departure (1987), grapple with betrayals and broken promises on the part of the state or those in power, and focus on people who leave home in search of better lives. His second novel, Paradise, which was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker prize, is set just before the first world war and is a heartfelt – and heartbreaking – exploration of the costs of German colonialism and political aggression. In hindsight, it feels like a precursor to his latest novel, Afterlives (2020), which opens in the midst of a 1907 uprising against German colonisers and unfolds to offer us psychologically complex characters who, over generations and through transitions from German to British rule, struggle to maintain their families and communities in a small coastal town in mainland Tanzania.

The Last Gift (2011) and By the Sea (2001), which was longlisted for the 2002 Booker prize and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times book prize in fiction, imagine the lives of refugees trying to make their homes in England. Through these books, Gurnah questions the meaning of belonging and whether one can ever truly leave the past behind.

Each of Gurnah’s novels focus on the stories of those who might not have made it into the archives or the documents that would make them memorable to the larger world. But these shopkeepers, homemakers, askaris – local soldiers serving in colonial armies - students and refugees all matter to him and in the course of his writing, he makes them meaningful and complicated, and reminds us that every single one is worthy of remembrance.

In recent years, as a series of humanitarian crises has forced desperate people to risk their lives in the hope for greater stability and a better future in Europe, Gurnah’s work has gained greater resonance and importance. In a 2001 essay in the Guardian, he wrote: “The debate over asylum is twinned with a paranoid narrative of race, disguised and smuggled in as euphemisms about foreign lands and cultural integrity.”

Gurnah’s novels insist on stripping this “paranoid” narrative of its power, not by shouting over the debates but by offering that steady, relentless, unflinching voice that soon becomes the only sound one hears.

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So what happened this time around? For a whopping five-hours-plus, people read news, according to data Chartbeat gave us this week. (And they went to Twitter; Chartbeat saw Twitter traffic up 72%. If Bad Art Friend had been published on the same day as the Facebook outage, Twitter would have literally exploded, presumably.)

At the peak of the outage — around 3 p.m. ET — net traffic to pages across the web was up by 38% compared to the same time the previous week, Chartbeat found.

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One particular structure is the large cylindrical tomb of first-century noblewoman Caecilia Metella. New research from MIT scientists and colleagues published in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society shows that the quality of the concrete of her tomb may exceed that of her male contemporaries' monuments because of the volcanic aggregate the builders chose and the unusual chemical interactions with rain and groundwater that accumulate over two millennia.

Lead co-authors of the study Admir Masic, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, and Marie Jackson, research associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, teamed up to understand the mineral composition of the ancient concrete structure.

"Understanding the formation and processes of ancient materials can inform researchers of new ways to create durable, sustainable building materials for the future," says Masic. "The tomb of Caecilia Metella is one of the oldest structures still standing, offering insights that can inspire modern construction."

A curiously cohesive concrete

Located on an ancient Roman road also known as the Appian Way, the tomb of Caecilia Metella is a landmark on the Via Appia Antica. It consists of a rotunda-shaped tower that sits on a square base, in total about 70 feet (21 meters) tall and 100 feet (29 m) in diameter. Built about 30 BCE, at the transformation of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, led by Emperor Augustus, in 27 BCE, the tomb is considered one of the best-preserved monuments on the Appian Way.

Caecilia herself was a member of an aristocratic family. She married into the family of Marcus Crassus, who formed a famous alliance with Julius Caesar and Pompey.

"The construction of this very innovative and robust monument and landmark on the Via Appia Antica indicates that she was held in high respect," says Jackson "and the concrete fabric 2,050 years later reflects a strong and resilient presence."

The tomb is an example of the refined technologies of concrete construction in late Republican Rome. The technologies were described by the architect Vitruvius while the Tomb of Caecilia Metella was under construction. Building thick walls of coarse brick or volcanic rock aggregate bound with mortar made with lime and volcanic tephra (porous fragments of glass and crystals from explosive eruptions), would result in structures that "over a long passage of time do not fall into ruins."

Vitruvius's words are proven true by the many Roman structures standing today, including Trajan's Markets (built between 100 and 110 AD, more than a century after the tomb) and marine structures like piers and breakwaters.

What the ancient Romans couldn't have known, though, is how crystals of the mineral leucite, which is rich in potassium, in the volcanic aggregate would dissolve over time to beneficially remodel and reorganize the interface between volcanic aggregates and cementitious binding matrix, improving the cohesion of the concrete.

"Focusing on designing modern concretes with constantly reinforcing interfacial zones might provide us with yet another strategy to improve the durability of modern construction materials," says Masic. "Doing this through the integration of time-proven 'Roman wisdom' provides a sustainable strategy that could improve the longevity of our modern solutions by orders of magnitude."

Linda Seymour '21, who participated in this study as a Ph.D. student in the Masic lab at MIT, investigated the microstructure of the concrete with scientific tools.

"Each of the tools that we used added a clue to the processes in the mortar," Seymour says. Scanning electron microscopy showed the microstructures of mortar building blocks at the micron scale. Energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry showed the elements comprising each of those building blocks. "This information allows us to explore different areas in the mortar quickly, and we could pick out building blocks related to our questions," she says. The trick, she adds, is to precisely hit the same building block target with each instrument when that target is only about the width of a hair.

The science behind a uniquely strong substance

In the thick concrete walls of Caecilia Metella's tomb, a mortar that contains volcanic tephra binds large chucks of brick and lava aggregate. It is similar to the mortar used in the Markets of Trajan 120 years later. The glue of the Markets of Trajan mortar consists of a building block called the C-A-S-H binding phase (calcium-aluminum-silicate-hydrate), along with crystals of a mineral called strätlingite.

But the tephra the Romans used for the Caecilia Metella mortar was more abundant in potassium-rich leucite. Centuries of rainwater and groundwater percolating through the tomb's walls dissolved the leucite and released the potassium into the mortar. In modern concrete, an abundance of potassium would create expansive gels that would cause microcracking and eventual deterioration of the structure.

In the tomb, however, the potassium dissolved and reconfigured the C-A-S-H binding phase.

"The X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy techniques allowed us to explore how the mortar had changed," says Seymour. "We saw C-A-S-H domains that were intact after 2,050 years and some that were splitting, wispy, or otherwise different in morphology. X-ray diffraction, in particular, allowed an analysis of the wispy domains down to their atomic structure. We see that the wispy domains are taking on this nano-crystalline nature," she says.

The remodeled domains "evidently create robust components of cohesion in the concrete," says Jackson. In these structures, unlike in the Markets of Trajan, there's little strätlingite formed.

Stefano Roascio, the archeologist in charge of the tomb, notes that the study has a great deal of relevance to understanding other ancient and historic concrete structures that use Pozzolane Rosse aggregate.

"The interface between the aggregates and the mortar of any concrete is fundamental to the structure's durability," says Masic. "In modern concrete, the alkali-silica reactions that form expansive gels may compromise the interfaces of even the most hardened concrete."

"It turns out that the interfacial zones in the ancient Roman concrete of the tomb of Caecilia Metella are constantly evolving through long-term remodeling," Masic says. "These remodeling processes reinforce interfacial zones and potentially contribute to improved mechanical performance and resistance to failure of the ancient material."

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The 180-billion-rupee ($2.4-billion) deal marks the end of a lengthy effort to privatise the heavily-indebted flag carrier that according to the government has eaten up 1.1 trillion rupees ($14.7 billion) in public money since 2009.

The airline was founded in 1932 with the first flight piloted by Tata's eponymous chairman himself JRD Tata, flying mail and passengers in a single-propeller de Havilland Puss Moth from Karachi to Bombay, as the city was known then.

Tata Air offered a slice of the high life with Bollywood actresses in its adverts and at one point commissioning Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali to design its ashtrays.

The airline was nationalised in the 1950s and in the decades that followed the "Maharaja of the Skies" became synonymous with the hopes and ambitions of the newly independent country.

"Welcome back, Air India," Tata's patriarch chairman emeritus Ratan Tata tweeted on Friday, while admitting it "would take considerable effort to rebuild" the company.

The airline at one time "gained the reputation of being one of the most prestigious airlines in the world. Tatas will have the opportunity of regaining the image and reputation it enjoyed in earlier years," he said.

No frills, no profits

In the 1990s Air India began to struggle with competition on domestic and international routes from Gulf carriers and no-frills airlines, and the firm started amassing huge losses and debts.

Successive Indian governments tried to privatise the company but its debts and New Delhi's insistence on retaining a stake put off would-be buyers.

Finally last year Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, seeking to sell of a raft of state assets, agreed to take bids for the entire company but to retain some of what the airline owes.

Under the deal announced Friday, Tata will take on around a quarter of Air India's dues of 615 billion rupees, while the remainder will be transferred to a special-purpose vehicle.

Big bet

Tata Group, one of India's biggest and oldest companies, employs over 800,000 people in 100 countries.

Founded in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata, the "Father of Indian industry", Tata owns Jaguar Land Rover, software giant TCS, Tata Steel as well as interests in chemicals, hospitality, consumer goods and communications.

Its subsidiaries include 29 listed entities including software giant TCS, Jaguar Land Rover-parent Tata Motors, Tata Steel and others, which have a combined market capitalisation of over $250 billion.

Buying back India's biggest international airline—domestically IndiGo is number one—is part of ambitious plans.

Tata owns 51 percent in Indian airline Vistara—Singapore Airlines holds the remaining 49 percent—as well as an 84-percent stake in AirAsia India, all of which Tata will now try to bring together.

Air India comes with a fleet of around 120 aircraft in addition to 4,400 domestic and 1,800 international landing and parking slots at domestic airports, and 900 slots at airports overseas.

Air India operates 50 percent of all international flights from India.

Mark D Martin from Martin Consulting, an aviation consultancy, said that Tata should be able to swallow the additional debt.

"The transition from traditional to modern by the Tatas has been something of a case study and they've done a very good job. So, I don't think they'll have a problem with handling Air India," Martin told AFP.

"They've got deep pockets, they're well-positioned and they are very strategic in their approach. You won't find anyone better than the Tatas when it comes to turning around businesses."

Apart from Air India, the government also plans to raise billions of dollars through the privatisation of Bharat Petroleum and a major insurer.

In August, New Delhi said it was seeking to lease state-owned assets to the private sector to raise six trillion rupees to repair public finances battered by the pandemic and fund new infrastructure.

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But while you might think you should rest your back if it hurts, being active can actually help relieve your pain and protect you from getting back pain again in the future. This is because our spines are designed to move, bend and lift, which keeps our bones and soft tissues strong and supple.

Regular movement and exercise can help improve and restore strength, endurance and flexibility, and help us recover more quickly from a bout of acute low back pain. This is why staying physically active is one of the most consistent and widely recommended ways of managing low back pain.

Why physical activity works

Although exercise and physical activity are widely recommended for people in pain, researchers are still examining how and why it works, and what dose is best for pain relief.

The traditional view of how exercise helps relieve pain has focused on how exercise impacts the structures surrounding the spine—for example, by increasing the strength of the muscles in the spine and abdomen. While these ideas are supported in part by research, they don't explain fully why exercise can relieve back pain.

There's growing evidence suggesting that exercise leads to beneficial changes to certain functions in the nervous system, including in the brain. Essentially, exercise directly influences how we experience pain by decreasing our sensitivity to potentially damaging stimuli. This phenomenon is known as exercise-induced hypoalgesia.

In research on pain-free adults, a single bout of high-intensity aerobic exercise (such as cycling or running for 15 minutes) is able to trigger these pain relief effects for approximately 30 minutes afterwards.

These pain-relieving effects are underpinned by several interacting mechanisms—most notably the release of the body's naturally-produced pain relief agents, such as endocannabinoids, adrenaline, noradrenaline, endorphins and serotonin—within the nervous system and via the circulatory system. These chemicals signals not only help to reduce pain directly, but have the added benefit of improving mood. This is an important benefit as the experience of pain is known to be influenced directly by one's thoughts and feelings and by our perceived control over pain.

Another key mechanism thought to be involved in exercise-induced hypoalgesia involves the formation of new and helpful connections within the nervous system, a process called neuroplasticity. These structural changes in the nervous system operate over slower time scales than the chemical alterations that happen as a result of exercise-induced hypoalgeisa, but are thought to lead to a decrease in pain associated with movement over time.

While the search to establish the exact mechanisms that underpin exercise-induced hypoalgesia continue, the good news is that exercising even despite pain helps to activate these pain-relieving effects.

Get moving

Thankfully, there's no specific type of exercise or activity needed to alleviate low back pain. The combination of physical activity (the cumulative amount of movement we get daily) and exercise—regardless of the type—can be helpful.

But this doesn't mean you should just start running or lifting weights expecting it to cure back pain. It's important to tailor what you do to your current abilities and build up intensity gradually to avoid injury. Most importantly, do things you enjoy and are likely to stick with—this will better help alleviate pain, and hopefully prevent it from coming back.

There are also plenty of simple ways you can move more daily by interspersing short bouts of activity throughout your day—such as walking up and down your stairs a few times every couple of hours. Try to reduce the time spent in one position, or even consider a standing desk.

Back pain is rarely caused by something serious. Typically, it's the result of simple sprains or strains and will settle within a few weeks. Staying active and exercising are the best things that we can do—and are typically recommended over opting for injections or surgery. Even if your back pain is persistent and lasts a few months or more, increasing physical activity and exercising is one the best ways to manage it.

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The authors examined more than 3,000 studies investigating smart device exposure and myopia in children and young adults aged between three months old and 33 years old.

After analyzing and statistically combining the available studies, the authors revealed that high levels of smart device screen time, such as looking at a mobile phone, is associated with around a 30% higher risk of myopia and, when combined with excessive computer use, that risk rose to around 80%.

The research comes as millions of children around the world have spent substantial time using remote learning methods following the closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Bourne, Professor of Ophthalmology in the Vision and Eye Research Institute at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said:

"Around half the global population is expected to have myopia by 2050, so it is a health concern that is escalating quickly. Our study is the most comprehensive yet on this issue and shows a potential link between screen time and myopia in young people.

"This research comes at a time when our children have been spending more time than ever looking at screens for long periods, due to school closures, and it is clear that urgent research is needed to further understand how exposure to digital devices can affect our eyes and vision. We also know that people underestimate their own screen time, so future studies should use objective measures to capture this information."

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As a result, you might notice your ears feeling more sticky or waxy. Is this common? And what happens to our ears when we wear earphones?

Although wireless earphones are fairly new to the market, there is a large amount of research investigating the long-term use of hearing aids, which in many cases, have a similar mechanism. From this research, it appears prolonged use of in-ear devices can cause problems with earwax.

What does earwax do?

The production of earwax (also known as cerumen) is a normal process in humans and many other mammals. There should always be a thin coating of wax near the opening of the ear canal.

This wax is a waterproof and protective secretion. This acts to moisten the skin of the external ear canal and works as a protective mechanism to prevent infection, providing a barrier for insects, bacteria, and water. Wet earwax is brown and sticky, whereas the dry type is more of a white color.

In fact, earwax is such a great barrier, in the 1800s there were reports of it being used as an effective balm for chapped lips!

Earwax is a naturally occurring substance produced in the external portion of the ear canal. It is created by the secretions of oil glands and sweat glands released by the hair follicles, which then traps dust, bacteria, fungi, hairs and dead skin cells to form the wax.

The external ear canal can be thought of as an escalator system, with the wax always moving towards the outside, preventing the ears from becoming filled with dead skin cells.

This migration of earwax is also aided by natural jaw movements. Once the earwax reaches the end of the ear, it simply falls out.

Credit: Shutterstock

How earphones might affect this system

The ear is self-cleaning and best performs its function without interruption. However, anything that blocks the normal progression of earwax moving outside can cause issues.

Normal use of in-ear devices don't often cause a problem. But prolonged earphone use, such as if you leave them in all day, could:

• compress the earwax, making it less fluid and harder for the body to naturally expel

• compact the earwax to the extent the body induces inflammation. This results in white blood cells migrating to the area, increasing the number of cells in the blockage

• impact air flow and stop wet earwax drying out. When earwax retains its stickiness for prolonged periods of time, it encourages build-up

• trap sweat and moisture in the ears, making them more prone to bacterial and fungal infections

• create a barrier to the earwax's natural expulsion, which ends up stimulating the secretory glands and increasing earwax production

• reduce overall ear hygeine, if the pads of the earbuds are not cleaned properly, or contaminated with bacteria or infectious agents

• damage your hearing if the volume is set too high.

If the build-up accumulates, excessive earwax can cause hearing problems, along with other symptoms such as pain, dizziness, tinnitus, itching, and vertigo.

If you need to listen for a prolonged period of time, using over-ear headphones may help a little. These offer a small amount of extra airflow compared to the in-ear earphones and earbuds. However, this is not as good as leaving the ears open to the outside air, and an accumulation of earwax can still occur.

As they sit outside the ear canal, over-ear headphones are also less likely to cause any earwax compaction, or introduce bacteria or pathogens to the ear canal.

Nothing smaller than your elbow

In most cases, the best way to control earwax is to leave it alone. It is not recommended to use cotton buds frequently, as this can force earwax back into the ear canal. The longstanding advice is not to put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear—in other words, don't put anything in there!

Some traditional methods, such as olive oil drops or ear candles, may also have adverse effects and are not helpful.

If your have ear wax or related hearing concerns, your family doctor will have a range of treatment options to assist, and can also direct you to the correct health service if it requires longer-term management.

Initially, they will look into your ear with a special instrument (otoscope) and see the extent of any blockage or dysfunction.

In the meantime, the ear has a wonderful process of self-cleaning, and we should do our best to let this occur naturally. In most cases earphones are fine, but it might still be helpful to stay aware of how long you spend wearing them. Finally, be sure to always keep the volume at safe levels.

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According to a study by the Techniker Krankenkasse, 23 percent of people in Germany frequently suffer from stress. This condition not only puts a strain on the well-being of those affected, but it is also linked to a number of physiological diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and psychological disorders such as depression, one of the world's leading causes of disease burden (Global Burden of Disease Study, 2017).

Therefore, effective methods are being sought to reduce everyday stress in the long term. One promising option is mindfulness training, in which participants train their cognitive and social skills, including attention, gratitude and compassion, through various meditation and behavioral exercises. Various studies have already shown that even healthy people feel less stressed after a typical eight-week training program. Until now, however, it has been unclear how much the training actually contributes to reducing the constant burden of everyday stress. The problem with many previous studies on chronic stress is that the study participants were usually asked to self-assess their stress levels after the training.

However, this self-reporting by means of questionnaires could have distorted the effects and made the results appear more positive than they actually were.

The reason for such a bias: The participants knew they were training their mindfulness, and a reduction in stress levels was a desired effect of this training. This awareness alone has an impact on subsequent information. "If you are asked whether you are stressed after a training session that is declared as stress-reducing, even addressing this question can distort the statements," explains Lara Puhlmann, doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and first author of the underlying publication, which has now appeared in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. Factors such as social desirability and placebo effects played a role here. Unlike pharmacological studies, for example, in which the study participants do not know whether they have actually received the active substance or not, so-called blinded studies are not possible in mental training. "The participants know that they are ingesting the 'antidote,'" says Puhlmann. "In mindfulness research, we are therefore increasingly using more objective, i.e. physiological, methods to measure the stress-reducing effect more precisely."

The concentration of cortisol in hair is considered a suitable measure of exposure to prolonged stress. Cortisol is a hormone that is released when we are confronted with an overwhelming challenge, for example. In that particular situation, it helps put our body on alert and mobilize energy to overcome the challenge. The longer the stress lasts, the longer an increased concentration of cortisol circulates around our body—and the more it accumulates in our hair. On average, hair grows one centimeter per month. To measure the study participants' stress levels during the 9-month training, the researchers, in cooperation with the working group of Clemens Kirschbaum at the University of Dresden, analyzed the amount of cortisol every three months in the first three centimeters of hair, starting at the scalp.

The mental training itself was developed as part of a large-scale longitudinal study on the effects of mental training, the ReSource project, led by Tania Singer, scientific director of the Social Neuroscience Research Group. This 9-month mental training program consisted of three 3-month sessions, each designed to train a specific skill area using Western and Far Eastern mental exercises. The focus was either on the factors of attention and mindfulness, on socio-affective skills such as compassion and gratitude, or on so-called socio-cognitive skills, in particular the ability to take perspective on one's own and others' thoughts. Three groups of about 80 participants each completed the training modules in different order. The training lasted up to nine months, 30 minutes a day, six days a week.

Less stress, less cortisol

And it really showed: After six months of training, the amount of cortisol in the subjects' hair had decreased significantly, on average by 25 percent.

In the first three months, slight effects were seen at first, which increased over the following three months. In the last third, the concentration remained at a low level. The researchers therefore assume that only sufficiently long training leads to the desired stress-reducing effects. The effect did not seem to depend on the content of the training. It is therefore possible that several of the mental approaches studied are similarly effective in improving the way people deal with chronic everyday stress.

In an earlier study from the ReSource project with the same sample, the researchers had investigated the effects of training on dealing with acute stressful situations. In this study, the participants were placed in a stressful job interview and had to solve difficult maths problems under observation. The results showed that people who had undergone socio-cognitive or socio-affective training released up to 51 percent less cortisol under stress than those who had not been trained. In this case, they did not measure the amount of cortisol in the subjects' hair, but instead acute cortisol surges in their saliva. Overall, the researchers conclude that training can improve the handling of acute particularly stressful social situations as well as chronic everyday stress. "We assume that different training aspects are particularly helpful for these different forms of stress," says Veronika Engert, head of the research group "Social Stress and Family Health" at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.

"There are many diseases worldwide, including depression, that are directly or indirectly related to long-term stress," explains Puhlmann. "We need to work on counteracting the effects of chronic stress in a preventive way. Our study uses physiological measurements to prove that meditation-based training interventions can alleviate general stress levels even in healthy individuals."

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"Recent" is relative—the samples are roughly two billion years old.

Chang'e-5 represented a major step forward for China's lunar program, as it was the first of the country's missions to return samples to Earth. Now the results of dating the samples are in, and it's clear that while the deposits are old, they're young enough to be a bit of an oddity.

To the Moon and back

China has now successfully landed several probes and rovers on the lunar surface as part of a larger exploration program. Chang'e 5 represented the next step, as it had a drill to obtain subsurface samples and a return vehicle that could take them back to Earth. The spacecraft successfully landed almost two years ago, and a few weeks later, it returned roughly 2 kilograms of rock to Earth from the Moon.

 

China has the benefit of decades of knowledge gained since the Apollo missions, along with a greater theoretical understanding of the Moon's formation. And it carefully chose Chang'e 5's landing site, a large volcanic deposit called the Oceanus Procellarum, thought to be one of the younger areas of the Moon's surface. But "younger" covers a lot of ground, as estimates based on its crater count ranged from 3.2 billion years old down to just 1.2 billion.

 

Getting a precise age on the deposit would provide a number of benefits. To begin with, the Moon presents a "clock" for the cratering of our entire Solar System. It's the only place where we can match crater counts to ages obtained from rock samples; we then use those numbers to put ages on other bodies based on their crater counts. The date range for the Chang'e 5's landing site includes periods for which we don't have dates from radioactive decay.

 

In addition, understanding when the Moon was volcanically active to produce large deposits like the Oceanus Procellarum can help us craft more accurate models of the Moon's formation and evolution. Volcanic activity requires heat, and that heat comes from a combination of the body's formation and its composition, which will include radioactive isotopes that produce additional heat.

Marking time

The samples used for the new study were remarkably small: two cubes, each about three to four millimeters per side. Yet that tiny volume held a remarkable mix of minerals (clinopyroxene, plagioclase, olivine, quartz, cristobalite, and ilmenite all make appearances). The bulk composition is consistent with other volcanic deposits on the Moon, however, and most of the differences between the two samples can be ascribed to the rate at which they cooled.

 

The research team, representing a large international collaboration, used lead isotopes to estimate dates for multiple sites within each sample. (Volcanic rocks often contain materials that solidified at different time points and therefore can produce a range of ages.) The results indicate that one of the samples was 1.893 ± 0.280 billion years old and 1.966 ± 0.059 billion years old. Combining all the data from both samples produces an age of 1.963 ± 0.059 billion years.

 

In good news, all of the uncertainty ranges overlap. And while radioactive dating can be skewed by some factors, there's no indication that those factors are in play here. There's no sign of contamination by other material, either present at the eruption site or emplaced there by nearby impacts.

 

The overall composition matched well with remote sensing done both from orbit and by the hardware that China landed. So overall, the evidence argues that the entire Oceanus Procellarum was likely to be deposited about two billion years ago.

Implications

When it comes to the Solar System's crater clock, the new date for the Oceanus Procellarum rules a few proposed chronologies out, as it indicates fewer impacts since its formation than those chronologies would have predicted. Other models are consistent with the date, however, so the data doesn't call for major revisions.

 

The bigger surprise is in explaining the evolution of the Moon. The age "implies that nearly 2,000 cubic kilometers of basaltic magma erupted near the landing site almost 1 billion years later than the emplacement of any previously measured lunar basalts." If these dates represent the deposit as a whole, the Moon had a more active volcanism than we might otherwise expect.

 

In other areas of the Moon, younger volcanic deposits are associated with elements like potassium and thorium, which provide heat through radioactive decay. The presence of these elements seemed suggestive, as it could indicate that higher radioactivity provided the heat needed to keep things molten later. The samples obtained by Chang'e 5 also have higher levels of these radioactive elements but not higher than other volcanic deposits, so the idea that there's a linear relationship between radioactivity and age of volcanism doesn't hold up.

 

We're therefore left with a fair bit of uncertainty about how the Moon managed to support such large-scale eruptions so late in its history. Smaller-scale eruptions clearly went on later, caused by local variations in areas where hot material was trapped. But it's not clear whether these processes could support something like the Oceanus Procellarum eruptions.

 

Science, 2021. DOI: 10.1126/science.abl7957  (About DOIs).

Lunar samples returned by Chang’e-5 tell of recent volcanism

Being able to stand on one leg is linked to increased levels of physical activity and decreased risk of falls and is associated with both quality and length of life. Around 37.3 million falls per year worldwide are severe enough to require medical attention.

The inability to balance on one leg for 20 seconds or longer is linked in otherwise healthy people to an increased risk of small blood vessel damage in the brain and reduced ability to understand ideas. You are less likely to be able to stand on one leg without a wobble if you have a multitude of medical conditions such as Parkinson's disease, stroke or Alzheimer's disease).

Pregnancy, menopause, the diagnosis of disease and retirement can also alter our strength and balance and ability to stay upright, mostly because of the way these affect our ability and motivation to engage in regular physical activity.

Sitting or reclining while awake is associated with lower muscle strength, risk of falls and physical function, sometimes irrespective of the amount of moderate or vigorous intensity physical activity you do. People who sit for prolonged periods are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, higher waist circumference and obesity.

Why standing on one leg matters

Data shows that the time people can stand on one leg changes for men and women at different ages—and an inability to hit those target times for your age group can highlight health problems.

The human body, when standing upright, is inherently unstable. We have a very small base of support relative to our height and width. When in good health we rely on our central and peripheral nervous system to integrate all the information coming in from our balance senses (eyes, inner ears and feedback from muscles and joints). We then engage the right muscles (feet, ankle, leg and core muscles, sometimes even the arm muscles) at the right time to make the necessary adjustments to our posture to stay upright.

The more physically active we are, the more likely we are to have good balance and of course the wider physical, psychological and social benefits of being regularly active are well known.

Other health problems can also affect our physical activity and are characterized by stooped posture and worsened balance, such as depression and osteoporosis, leading to an increased risk of falls and fracture. A stooped posture makes standing on one leg more difficult.

Should I start standing on one leg?

You can improve your ability to stand on one leg at any age, and improve your balance. It's more challenging if you have a neurological condition, but studies have shown improvements in balance following exercise in many conditions and it is known to reduce falls in many others. In the UK around one in three adults over 65 and half of people over 80 will have at least one fall a year. A recent Public Health England report suggests that lack of activity in older adults because of the social restrictions during the pandemic could lead to 110,000 more older people falling this year.

You can test your own balance here and have a try at some simple balance exercises. You are more likely to have improved confidence in performing physical activity, and getting more active can help lengthen and improve quality of life.

Standing on one leg can be made much more challenging if you close your eyes while doing it. This is worth practicing as it helps with our long-term balance and reduces the risk of falling over. With our eyes open the body becomes lazy and relies on our vision to help keep us balanced. If you take out vision, it gets the other senses working better. Most people can only do this for a short time compared to when they keep their eyes open. Have something close by to hold on to. You will improve over time.

For the over 70s, there's also evidence to show standing on each leg for one minute three times a day can help improve hip bone mineral density. Stronger hip bone mineral density means if you do fall you are less likely to fracture.

And on that note, do I stand on one leg? Yes, when I am cleaning my teeth morning and evening, alternating from one leg to another at least twice. If I am feeling bold I try one round of the teeth with my eyes closed. That, I might add, I am starting to find more difficult—I must practice more.

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Anonymous commentators who use social media to vilify and bully have become the latest battleground between Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government and U.S. tech giants. The government wants social media users to be required to identify themselves.

Australia passed laws this year that oblige Google and Facebook to pay for journalism. Australia also defied the tech companies by creating a law that could imprison social media executives if their platforms stream violent images.

Morrison said platforms that do not reveal the identities of people who post defamatory comments should be held liable for those comments.

"Cowards who go anonymously on to social media and vilify people, and harass them, and bully them, and engage in defamatory statements, they need to be responsible for what they're saying," Morrison said.

"Social media has become a coward's palace where people can just go on there, not say who they are, destroy people's lives and say the most foul and offensive things to people, and do so with impunity," he added.

His comments come as Australian state and territory governments are rushing to rewrite their defamation laws after the High Court last month set a precedent for the internet age, ruling that media outlets can be held liable for defamatory comments posted by third parties on their Facebook pages.

The court didn't rule on whether Facebook was also liable because the platform wasn't being sued.

The precedent applies to the administrators of all Facebook pages, including governments. The Tasmania state government has blocked comments from its social media sites, and the U.S. news organization CNN has excluded Australians from its Facebook page.

Communications Minister Paul Fetcher said on Wednesday the national review of defamation laws will likely examine whether Facebook should be liable for users' posts.

Facebook said in a statement it supported "modernization of Australia's uniform defamation laws and hopes for greater clarity and certainty in this area."

Morrison said the need for platforms to identify commentators was an objective that his government would be "leaning even further into."

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Common chemicals can often work better than pricey metal catalysts.

Nobel awarded for making common, cheap chemicals into catalysts

"While most of the world's focus appropriately remains on the COVID-19 pandemic, the fact remains that health care spending in the US continues to grow at unsustainable rates" said Niall Brennan, president and CEO of HCCI. "Unit price increases continue to drive increases in spending. Hospital prices increased by almost 31% from 2015-2019, leading to a 14.4% increase in spending despite a 12.5% decline in hospital utilization."

Despite recent increases in use, changes in the mix of services, and demographic shifts, rising prices remain the primary driver of spending growth between 2015 and 2019—responsible for nearly two-thirds of total per-person spending growth.

The report examines four groups of health care services. Of the four major categories, outpatient visits saw the highest spending increase from 2015 to 2019 (31.4%). Other notable trends include:

• Professional services.
• Spending per person increased 14.8% over 5 years.

• Prices increased 10.5% while the utilization of professional services increased 3.9% over 5 years.

• Inpatient spending.

• Spending per person on inpatient admissions rose 14.4% between 2015 and 2019, though the 2019 spending growth was lower than previous years due to declining utilization.

• Prices for inpatient admissions grew 30.8% over 5 years, the highest price increase of any service category.

• Outpatient
• Increases in prices and use led to a 31.4% increase in spending over 5 years.

• Prices increased 22.5% while the utilization increased 7.3% over 5 years.

• Prescription Drugs
• Spending on prescription drugs increased 28.4% over 5 years.

• Prescription drugs was the only service category that saw utilization grow faster than prices from 2015 to 2019. Point-of-sale prices for prescription drugs increased 13.0% while utilization increased 13.6% over five years.

Out-of-pocket spending increased $91 per person over 5 years. Half of the out-of-pocket spending in 2019 was for professional services. Study authors stressed that the analysis does not consider other potential out-of-pocket costs related to health care.

Methodology. Since 2011, HCCI has tracked, independently analyzed, and reported health care spending, utilization, and prices each year in its Health Care Cost and Utilization Report, using deidentified claims data of people up to age 65 with employer-sponsored health insurance. HCCI analyzed data from more than 2.5 billion medical and prescription drug claims for approximately 55 million individuals annually between 2015 and 2019. Claims data come from CVSHealth/Aetna, Humana, and Blue Health Intelligence—representing one-third of the employer-sponsored insured population. Measures of drug spending reflect discounts negotiated from the wholesale price of drugs but do not include manufacturer rebates that are provided through separate transactions. Thus, drug prices reflect the point-of-sale prices. Nationally, Black and Hispanic populations are underrepresented in employer-sponsored insurance. The racial and ethnic distribution of the population in HCCI's data is similar to the national employer-sponsored insurance population, as such health care spending and use among these individuals are likely under-represented in the findings in this report.

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Fox News reported, The Case Breakers, a team of more than 40 detectives, journalists and military intelligence officers, believes the killer is responsible for a murder hundreds of miles away that was never linked to him previously.

The Zodiac committed at least five murders across the San Francisco Bay area in the late 60s.

The Zodiac Killer gave the the name to himself in a series of taunting letters that he mailed to regional newspapers. Some of the letters included cryptograms. Two remain unsolved to this day. One was cracked in 1969 and another in 2020.

The Case Breakers via Fox News

Gary F. Poste has been identified as the infamous Zodiac Killer by The Case Breakers, which investigates cold cases.

The Case Breakers say they have identified the Zodiac Killer as Gary Francis Poste, who passed away in 2018.

According to Fox News, the team's years of digging uncovered new forensic evidence and photos from Poste's darkroom. Including an image that features scars on the forehead of Poste that match scars on a sketch of the Zodiac, the team said.

Other clues include deciphering letters sent by the Zodiac that revealed him as the killer, said Jen Bucholtz, a former Army counterintelligence agent who works on cold cases. In one note, the letters of Poste's full name were removed to reveal an alternate message, she told Fox News.

"So you've got to know Gary's full name in order to decipher these anagrams," Bucholtz said. "I just don't think there's any other way anybody would have figured it out."

For the full story, and more evidence from the Case Breakers, visit Fox News.

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For more than 2,000 years, scientists thought the atom was the smallest particle possible. Then, they discovered that it has a nucleus made up of protons and neutrons surrounded by electrons. After that, they found that the protons and neutrons themselves have a complex inner world full of quarks and antiquarks held together by a superglue-like force created by gluons.

"Protons along with neutrons constitute over 99 percent of the visible universe, meaning everything from galaxies and stars to us," said Yong Zhao, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. "Yet, there is still much we do not know about the rich inner life of protons or neutrons."

Zhao has co-authored a paper on an innovative method for calculating the quark and gluon structure of a proton traveling at the speed of light. The name of the team's creation is large-momentum effective theory, LaMET for short, which works jointly with a theory called lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD).

The proton is tiny—about 100,000 times smaller than an atom, so physicists often model it as a point with no dimensions. But these new theories can predict what's happening within the speed-of-light proton as though it were a body of three dimensions.

The concept of momentum is vital to not only LaMET but physics in general. It equals the speed of an object times its mass.

More than a half century ago, Zhao explained, a simple quark model by physicists Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig uncovered some of the inner structure of the proton while at rest (no momentum). From that model, scientists pictured the proton as consisting of three quarks and predicted their essential properties, such as electric charge and spin.

Later experiments with protons accelerated to close to the speed of light demonstrated that the proton is even more complex than originally thought. For example, it contains uncountable particles that interact with one another—not just three quarks bound by gluons. And the gluons can briefly turn into quark-antiquark pairs before they destroy each other and become a gluon again. Particle accelerators like that at DOE's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory produced most of these results.

"When you accelerate the proton and collide it with a target, that's when the magic happens in terms of revealing its many mysteries," Zhao said.

About five years after the simple quark model rocked the physics community, a model proposed by Richard Feynman pictured the proton traveling at near the speed of light as a beam carrying an infinite number of quarks and gluons moving in the same direction. He called these particles "partons." His parton model has inspired physicists to define a set of quantities that describe the 3D proton structure. Researchers could then measure these quantities in experiments at particle accelerators.

Earlier calculations with the best available theory at the time (lattice QCD) produced some illuminating details about the distribution of quarks and gluons in the proton. But they had a serious shortcoming: They could not accurately distinguish between fast- and slow-moving partons.

The difficulty was that lattice QCD could only calculate the properties of the proton that do not depend on its momentum. But applying Feynman's parton model to lattice QCD requires knowing the properties of a proton with infinite momentum, which means that the proton particles must all be traveling at the speed of light. Partially filling that knowledge gap, LaMET provides a recipe for calculating the parton physics from lattice QCD for large but finite momentum.

"We have been developing and refining LaMET over the last eight years," said Zhao. "Our paper summarizes this work."

Running on supercomputers, lattice QCD calculations with LaMET are generating new and improved predictions about the structure of the speed-of-light proton. These predictions can then be put to the test in a new one-of-a-kind facility called the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). This facility is being built at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory.

"Our LaMET can also predict useful information about quantities that are extraordinarily difficult to measure," said Zhao. "And with powerful enough supercomputers, in some cases, our predictions could even be more precise than possible to measure at the EIC."

With deeper understanding of the 3D quark-gluon structure of matter using theory and EIC measurements, scientists are poised to reach a far more detailed picture of the proton. We will then be entering a new age of parton physics.

This research was published in Reviews of Modern Physics in an article titled "Large-Momentum Effective Theory." Besides Zhao, authors include Xiangdong Ji (University of Maryland), Yizhuang Liu (Jagiellonian University), Yu-Sheng Liu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and Jian-Hui Zhang (Beijing Normal University).

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This new finding, from research led by Imperial scientists, improves our understanding of the conditions around Earth that contribute to 'space weather', which can impact our technology from communications satellites in orbit to power lines on the ground.

The Sun releases a stream of charged particles called the solar wind. On the Earth's surface, we are protected from this barrage by the magnetosphere—a bubble created by the Earth's magnetic field.

When the solar wind hits the magnetosphere, waves of energy are transferred along the boundary between the two. Scientists thought the waves should ripple in the direction of the solar wind, but the new study, published today in Nature Communications, reveals some waves do just the opposite.

Standing waves

Previously, lead researcher Dr. Martin Archer, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, and his colleagues established the magnetosphere's boundary vibrates like a drum. When a drumstick-like pulse from the solar wind strikes the very front of our magnetospheric bubble, waves race toward Earth's magnetic poles and get reflected back.

The latest work considers the waves that form across the entire surface of the magnetosphere, using a combination of models and observations from NASA's THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) satellites.

The researchers found when solar wind pulses strike the magnetosphere, the waves that form not only race back and forth along Earth's field lines, but also travel against the solar wind.

Movie of the simulation results at the equator (left) and noon meridian (right). The boundary of the magnetosphere (black) moves due to surface waves, which compresses (red) or rarefies (blue) the magnetosphere. The oscillations have also been converted into accompanying audio. Credit: Imperial College London

The team used models to illustrate how the energy of the wind coming from the Sun and that of the waves going against it could cancel each other out, creating 'standing waves' that involve a lot of energy but appear to go nowhere.

Dr. Archer said: "It's similar to what happens if you try walking up a downwards escalator. It's going to look like you're not moving at all, even though you're putting in loads of effort."

These standing waves can persist longer than those that travel with the solar wind. That means they're around longer to accelerate particles in near-Earth space, leading to potential impacts in regions like Earth's radiation belts, aurora, or ionosphere.

The researchers also say that standing waves may occur elsewhere in the universe, from the magnetospheres of other planets to the peripheries of black holes.

Waves of sound

The researchers also translated the electromagnetic signals from the THEMIS satellites into audio, allowing us to listen to the sounds of the waves traveling across the magnetospheric boundary.

Dr. Archer added: "While in a simulation we can see what's going on everywhere, satellites can only measure these waves where they are giving us only time-series, wiggly lines. This sort of data is actually best suited to our sense of hearing than sight, so listening to the data can often give us a more intuitive idea of what's going on.

"You can hear the deep breathing sound of the standing surface waves persist throughout, rising in volume as each pulse hits. Higher pitched sounds, associated with other types of waves, don't last nearly as long."

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The science field is rife with awards, with each being given to recognize exceptional work done by a group or individual—the most notable of course, are the Nobel prizes. In this new effort, the researchers wondered what impact, if any, winning awards has on certain science topics. Do more physicists flock to particle physics, for example, if teams such as those at the Large Hadron Collider receive prizes (and attention) for their work in finding proof of the Higgs Boson?

To find out, the trio looked at hundreds of scientific prizes and their impact on over 11,000 science topics. In so doing, they found a clear pattern—the topic of research by prize winners typically became more popular. They found that on average, prize-winning topics led to 40% more papers being written about them along with a 33% increase in citations, within ten years of them being awarded, compared to non-prize-winning topics. The researchers also found that when scientists working on a given topic won a prize, retention rates for other scientists working on the same topic rose by approximately 55%—and they also gained approximately 37% more new scientists than non-prize-winning topics.

The researchers also found that prize-winning topics tend to attract so-called "star scientists"—scientists who make up the top 5% of those who are highly cited by others in their field. Overall, they found a 47% increase in the number of star scientists working on the newly prized topics. They also found that funding increases in popular fields did not appear to account for the changes that they saw in the topics that had won prizes—and because of that suggest that increasing funding to attract more interest in certain topics likely would not work as hoped.

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According to the 2012 National Health Interview Survey, it is estimated that 7.8 percent of American adults, almost 19 million people, take fish oil supplements.

Recent research led by Christine M. Albert, MD, MPH, a professor of Cardiology and chair of the Department of Cardiology in the Smidt Heart Institute, suggested neither vitamin D nor the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil prevent the development of atrial fibrillation. However, other clinical trials conducted outside of Cedars-Sinai pointed to an elevated risk of developing atrial fibrillation in patients treated with omega-3 fatty acids, causing confusion among clinicians and patients alike.

To further explore the potential reasons for differences between the results of these studies, Albert and team performed a meta-analysis, which combines the results of multiple scientific studies. This analytical comparison between studies suggested that the risk of developing atrial fibrillation is dependent on the dose of omega-3 fatty acids.

Although there's strong evidence that omega-3 fatty acids can significantly reduce blood triglyceride levels and arthritis pain, most experts agree it's best to get omega-3 fatty acids from eating fish several times a week.

"Our goal was to bring clarity, answers and actionable information to the broader medical field and to patients," said Albert, the Lee and Harold Kapelovitz Distinguished Chair in Cardiology. "In this instance, the results suggest that there may not be a straightforward answer to, 'Is fish oil good or bad for atrial fibrillation?' but instead, the answer may depend on the dose."

Key highlights from the research study include:

• Data was reviewed from 81,210 patients enrolled in seven clinical trials, including one conducted at Cedars-Sinai. The average age of patients enrolled in these trials was 65 and 39% were women.

• Out of these patients, 72.6% were in clinical trials testing less than or equal to one gram of omega-3 fatty acids per day and 27.4% were enrolled in clinical trials testing more than one gram of the supplement per day.

• Patients who took more than one gram per day of omega-3 fatty acids had a 49% increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation, compared to just 12% of patients who took one gram or less of the supplement per day.

Treatment Recommendations

Now armed with this information, Albert has recommendations for clinicians, researchers and patients.

If clinicians offer high-dose omega-3 fatty acid supplements, Albert says they should first discuss the potential risk of developing atrial fibrillation, and patients should be informed about the potential signs and symptoms of the condition so an early diagnosis can be made and coupled with appropriate treatment.

Researchers, Albert says, should systematically monitor patients for atrial fibrillation and related adverse outcomes to better define risk-to-benefit ratios in studies examining the effects of omega-3 fatty acid supplements.

"For patients, the risk of developing atrial fibrillation appears to be relatively small for those taking one gram or less of fish oil per day," said Albert. "Taking more than one gram of fish oil per day is something you should only do following your doctors' advice."

The study, which combined previously published results, was unable to determine whether there are patients that might be more susceptible to developing atrial fibrillation when taking fish oil.

The risk of developing atrial fibrillation increases with age and is more common in men than in women. In addition to age and gender, additional risk factors include high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, heart failure, heart valve defects, obesity and diabetes.

The condition is also more likely to happen during an infection or right after surgery. Stress, caffeine and alcohol may also set off attacks. People who do a lot of repeated vigorous endurance exercises, such as running marathons, can also develop atrial fibrillation. How fish oil may alter the risk of atrial fibrillation in marathon runners or in individuals with other risk factors remains unknown. 

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"It's not time travel, but we're modeling the past in a way that gives us access to the lived experience of Christian worship in the 17th century, which was a central part of life in England at that time," says John Wall, one of the leaders of the Virtual St. Paul's Cathedral Project and a professor of English at NC State. The project, which involved experts in disciplines from literature to acoustic engineering, was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"This project, and others like it, make the past available to us in new ways," Wall says. "I can read a worship service, but hearing those services performed as if I were in St. Paul's cathedral in the 1620s is a completely different experience. It's a dramatic way of helping us understand the past, and the art, music, architecture, and literature that have come down to us from that time."

To understand the value of the Virtual St. Paul's Cathedral Project, it's important to remember the role that the church played in 17th century England. People were legally obligated to attend church every Sunday and on holy days. And every church in England had the same readings and services on the same days. While the style may have differed, most people would have been experiencing fundamentally the same church services regardless of where they were in England.

In short, this aspect of religious life was a shared experience for the entire nation, and understanding that context can help us understand art, literature and the broader history of the period.

People may also be interested in the project because it is visually striking.

What St. Paul's looked like

While a St. Paul's Cathedral still stands in London, it is not the same St. Paul's Cathedral that Londoners would have known in the early 17th century. The St. Paul's that churchgoers attended in the 1620s was burned to the ground during the Great Fire of London in 1666. That made creating a detailed visual model of the cathedral as it once stood a tricky undertaking.

The leader of the project's visual team is David Hill, head of NC State's School of Architecture. Hill, and a dozen current and former students in NC State's College of Design, created breathtaking visual models of St. Paul's, its churchyard, and all of the buildings that surrounded the cathedral in the early 17th century.

The visual modeling team drew on a variety of materials for recreating St. Paul's: archaeological evidence; written accounts; and contemporary paintings, engravings and drawings. Where evidence was scant, such as a dearth of visual descriptions of some outbuildings, the team created buildings that were representative of what one would expect to see in that place and time.

Ultimately, the visual modelers created a host of images, allowing visitors to: tour the churchyard around St. Paul's; tour the cathedral itself; see panoramic views in all directions from various points inside the cathedral; take a flying video tour of the cathedral; and take a virtual reality tour of the space.

A separate team ensured that St. Paul's sounds as good as it looks.

What St. Paul's sounded like

Here's an example of why scholars care what St. Paul's sounded like. We have copies of sermons that were given during the 17th century, many of which addressed political issues as well as spiritual ones. However, we don't know how many people in the cathedral would actually have been able to hear those sermons.

Were the sermons really written for all of the churchgoers? Were they written for a smaller audience of elites who might be sitting closer to the pulpit? Were they written primarily for those who might receive a written copy? Understanding the aural environment can help us answer those questions—and many others.

Much of the acoustic modeling work was done under the leadership of Yun Jing, a former engineering professor at NC State who is now based at Penn State.

Jing and an NC State engineering graduate student named Julius Elo created open-source software called I-Pack Simpa that was used to make acoustic models that accurately simulate how sound traveled through various parts of the cathedral. These models, in turn, allow users to understand what a service sounded like from various places in the cathedral, as well as the role ambient noise played in affecting one's experience of the service.

To create the actual sounds of a church service, the Virtual St. Paul's Cathedral Project team drew on the talents of an international collection of actors, singers and musicians. Standing in for the Choir of St Paul's in the 1620's was the Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge University, under the direction of Choirmaster Richard Pinel.

Specifically, the performers recreated worship services for Easter Sunday, March 28th, 1624, which was a festival occasion; as well as the more ordinary services that were conducted on Tuesday, Nov. 27, 1625. Recreated services include Bible readings, prayers, canticles and anthems performed by choir and organ; and two sermons, one by Lancelot Andrewes, then Bishop of Winchester, and another by John Donne, Dean of St Paul's from 1621 to 1631.

The future of this glimpse into the past

Anyone is free to explore the project, which can be found in its entirety here. But Wall has reason to think it will be of particular interest to period scholars.

The Virtual St. Paul's Cathedral Project builds on an earlier effort, led by Wall and Hill, that focused on recreating one specific sermon that was given in the churchyard of St. Paul's. That project, called the Virtual Paul's Cross Project, drew praise for advancing our understanding of the sermon (which was given by Donne) by placing it in context with the surroundings in which it was delivered.

The broader nature of the Virtual St. Paul's Cathedral Project means there is more scope for scholars to work with—raising a number of ways in which it might inform how we view (or hear) things that have passed to us from the 17th century to the 21st.

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