Title: Bullying Starts Before School Years Begin, Study Finds
Category: Health News
Created: 8/25/2014 12:36:00 PM
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Title: Pot Belly Linked to Heavy Smoking
Category: Health News
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Title: Health Tip: Identify Bullying
Category: Health News
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Title: Scientists Unravel Secrets of People Who Naturally Suppress HIV
Category: Health News
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Title: A Mentally Challenging Job Could Help Ward Off Dementia
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2021 12:00:00 AM
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Title: Smoking Can Really Weaken the Heart
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2022 12:00:00 AM
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Title: Too Much TV Time May Really Harm Your Brain
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2022 12:00:00 AM
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Title: Monkeypox Cases May Finally Be Ebbing, With Declines Seen in Europe, WHO Says
Category: Health News
Created: 8/25/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/25/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: Are High-Tech Blood Pressure Monitors Really Worth It?
Category: Health News
Created: 8/16/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/16/2022 12:00:00 AM

BACKGROUND:Practice on fasting prior to extubation in critically ill patients is variable. Efficacy of fasting in reducing gastric volume has not been well established. The primary objective of this study was to assess the effect of 4 h of fasting on prevalence of empty stomach using gastric ultrasonography in critically ill subjects who are fasted for extubation. The secondary objectives were to evaluate the change in gastric volumes during 4 h of fasting and to determine factors associated with empty stomach after fasting.METHODS:This was a single-center, prospective, observational study on adult ICU subjects who were enterally fed for at least 6 h continuously and mechanically ventilated. Gastric ultrasound was performed immediately prior to commencement of fasting, after 4 h of fasting, and after nasogastric (NG) aspiration after 4 h of fasting. An empty stomach was defined as a gastric volume ≤ 1.5 mL/kg.RESULTS:Forty subjects were recruited, and 38 (95%) had images suitable for analysis. The prevalence of empty stomach increased after 4 h of fasting (25 [65.8%] vs 31 [81.6%], P = .041) and after 4 h of fasting with NG aspiration (25 [65.8%] vs 34 [89.5%], P = .008). There was a significant difference in median (interquartile range) gastric volume per body weight between before fasting and 4 h after fasting (1.0 [0.5–1.8] mL/kg vs 0.4 [0.2–1.0] mL/kg, P < .001). No patient factors were associated with higher prevalence of empty stomach after 4 h of fasting.CONCLUSIONS:Most mechanically ventilated subjects had empty stomachs prior to fasting for extubation. Fasting for 4 h further increased the prevalence of empty stomach at extubation to > 80%.

Exercise significantly alters human physiological functions, such as increasing cardiac output and muscle blood flow and decreasing glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and liver blood flow, thereby altering the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of drugs. In this study, we aimed to establish a database of human physiological parameters during exercise and to construct equations for the relationship between changes in each physiological parameter and exercise intensity, including cardiac output, organ blood flow (e.g., muscle blood flow and kidney blood flow), oxygen uptake, plasma pH and GFR, etc. The polynomial equation P = a_iHRⁱ was used for illustrating the relationship between the physiological parameters (P) and heart rate (HR), which served as an index of exercise intensity. The pharmacokinetics of midazolam, quinidine, digoxin, and lidocaine during exercise were predicted by a whole-body physiologically based pharmacokinetic (WB-PBPK) model and the developed database of physiological parameters following administration to 100 virtual subjects. The WB-PBPK model simulation results showed that most of the observed plasma drug concentrations fell within the 5^th–95^th percentiles of the simulations, and the estimated peak concentrations (C_max) and area under the curve (AUC) of drugs were also within 0.5–2.0 folds of observations. Sensitivity analysis showed that exercise intensity, exercise duration, medication time, and alterations in physiological parameters significantly affected drug pharmacokinetics and the net effect depending on drug characteristics and exercise conditions. In conclusion, the pharmacokinetics of drugs during exercise could be quantitatively predicted using the developed WB-PBPK model and database of physiological parameters.

G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) couple to heterotrimeric G proteins, comprised of α and β subunits, to convert extracellular signals into activation of intracellular signaling pathways. Canonically, GPCR-mediated activation results in the exchange of GDP for GTP on G protein α subunits (Gα) and the dissociation of Gα-GTP and G protein β subunits (Gβ), both of which can regulate a variety of signaling pathways. Hydrolysis of bound GTP by Gα returns the protein to Gα-GDP and allows reassociation with Gβ to reform the inactive heterotrimer. Naturally occurring mutations in Gα have been found at conserved glutamine and arginine amino acids that disrupt the canonical G protein cycle by inhibiting GTP hydrolysis, rendering these mutants constitutively active. Interestingly, these dysregulated Gα mutants are found in many different cancers due to their ability to sustain aberrant signaling without a need for activation by GPCRs. This review will highlight an increased recognition of the prevalence of such constitutively activating Gα mutations in cancers and the signaling pathways activated. In addition, we will discuss new knowledge regarding how these constitutively active Gα are regulated, how different mutations are biochemically distinct, and how mutationally activated Gα are unique compared with GPCR-activated Gα. Lastly, we will discuss recent progress in developing inhibitors directly targeting constitutively active Gα mutants.

New research shows that bystander CPR can substantially improve a person's odds of surviving a cardiac arrest while avoiding major brain damage, especially if given immediately.

In August, fellow reporter Jason Patinkin and I crossed on foot from northern Uganda into rebel-held South Sudan. Over the course of four days, we walked more than 40 miles through the bush, escorted by rebel soldiers, to shed light on one of the world’s most underreported conflicts.

Reporting on South Sudan’s war, which began in 2013, has always been a challenge due to the risk and logistical hurdles associated with accessing remote areas where fighting takes place. But over the past year, covering the war and its humanitarian fallout has become particularly difficult. Since the beginning of this year, South Sudan’s government has banned at least 20 foreign journalists in an apparent effort to silence reporters who had a track record of critically reporting on the government.

This systematic crackdown on the foreign press (South Sudanese journalists have long risked imprisonment and death for doing their work) coincided with two important developments. In November 2016, the United Nations warned that the violence being committed against civilians in the southern region of Equatoria risked spiraling into genocide. Then, in February, the UN declared a man-made famine, warning that 100,000 people were at risk of starving to death as a result of civil war.

Journalists seeking to cover these events were left with two equally unsavory options: self-censorship or a risky trip to rebel-held parts of the country. Only a handful of journalists have attempted the latter since fighting escalated in July last year. For us, this was our second embed with the rebels this year.

We set off from a town in northern Uganda at five in the morning, bouncing along a bumpy dirt track towards the South Sudan border. Crammed into our four-wheel drive were rebel commander Martin Abucha, a dual American and South Sudanese citizen who we planned to profile for our PBS NewsHour Weekend segment, a couple of guides, and several duffle bags stuffed with our tents, sleeping bags, emergency medical kits and provisions to last us four days.

Just as the sun began to rise above a distant range of hills that we aimed to cross later that day, our car came to a halt in front of a stream. Because of the rainy reason, it carried more water than usual. It was time to disembark and start walking, or “footing,” as South Sudanese tend to call it.

We took off our shoes and waded through the stream’s chilly waters. This was the first of a many rivers we’d have to cross along the way, either on foot or in small flimsy canoes dug out from tree trunks. Each time, we dreaded the idea of falling in with our camera gear.

The first part of our journey in northern Uganda felt very much like a hike through a national park. Passing beautiful landscapes and idyllic farming villages, one could almost forget we were headed into a war zone — but we were about to get a reality check.

We had just crossed into South Sudan when out of nowhere, two dozen armed men popped out of the tall grass and surrounded us at gunpoint.

“Stop! Who are you and where are you going?” a soldier called out in Juba Arabic from his hideout no more than 20 yards away, pointing his AK47 at us. Another one next to him had a rocket-propelled grenade propped on his shoulder, also unequivocally aiming it in our direction.

Instinctively, we threw our hands in the air and exchanged a baffled glance. Had we accidentally bumped into government soldiers? Or perhaps we had come onto the “wrong” rebels? Abucha’s group, called the Sudan People’s Liberation Army In Opposition, is the biggest but not the only armed group in Equatoria, an area rife with rival militia and bandits who exploit the security vacuum left by war.

To our relief, and only after Abucha answered a series of questions, this routine security check quickly gave way to a warm welcome. The platoon would be our escort for the next four days as we trekked to their base and to Loa, Abucha’s hometown.

Keeping up with the rebels was no easy task. Given the country’s pervasive lack of basic infrastructure, South Sudanese grow up walking for dozens of miles just to go about their daily lives. For sedentary Westerners, keeping the target pace of “two meters per second” (around five miles an hour) proved challenging amid 90-degree temperatures, all while filming and plowing our way through dense, itchy elephant grass.

The upside of the cumbersome terrain was that it kept us safe. During our four-day trip, we didn’t cross a single road, instead walking along a dizzying network of narrow bush paths the rebels seemed to know like the backs of their hands. An unwanted encounter with government troops, who tended to stick to roads and move around in vehicles as opposed to on foot, was highly unlikely.

The closest we got to government-controlled area was a visit to Loa, located just two kilometers away from a main road frequently patrolled by government soldiers. We couldn’t stay long, but the hour we spent on the ground offered us a glimpse into what villages must look like in many parts of Equatoria: burned mud huts, looted schools and clinics, fallow fields and – most strikingly – no civilians.

The war has had a devastating impact on South Sudanese communities like the one in Loa, but much of it has remained out of the limelight of international media. Our four-day venture into rebel-held South Sudan offered us a rare opportunity to report ground truths, and we are thankful for that.

The post Column: Why reporting from South Sudan is so difficult — and critically needed appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Kelley goes down the Sega Strategy Game Rabbit Hole. Chris becomes a doily shill. And Josh wants Sega to release Valkyria Chronicles as many times as it takes until people like it!

The post RPG Cast – Episode 629: “Legally Distinct Ghost Rider” appeared first on RPGamer.

Tragedy strikes Kelley on the Beetle core. Phil doesn't expect the balloon inquisition. Chris brings his standard issue cat. And you all get to just sit there and wonder when the next Persona will come out.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 653: “What Really Sank Sega?” appeared first on RPGamer.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was flabbergasted Wednesday by a surrogate’s defense of Donald Trump, calling his explanation for the former president’s bombastic statements literal “bulls---.”

On AC360, former California Lieutenant Gov. Abel Maldonado, a Republican, said that Trump’s recent comments calling for the military to “handle” Democrats were simply his way of expressing his inner New Yorker. “He’s a fighter,” Maldonado added.

The conversation began when Cooper brought up Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, who, alongside other military leaders, have begun to warn of the dangers of re-electing the former president. Milley has called Trump a “fascist to his core.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Relatives of Lyle and Erik Menendez spoke in an interview Wednesday about their long-running fears that the brothers had been abused for years before they killed their parents.

After a press conference in which they’d called for the imprisoned siblings’ freedom, the family members told Chris Cuomo on NewsNation about how their suspicions only deepened as time passed.

“Over the years we really did know that there was abuse at gut-level. But as time goes on and we all talked to each other more and more, it validates the fears and the gut-level reactions that we had,” the brothers’ cousin Karen VanderMolen-Copley told Cuomo. “That solidified the knowledge that the sexual abuse actually did occur, because that’s not something you want to believe, and then once you talk to each other it becomes more and more obvious.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Halo Infinite recently received a big update in the form of Delta Arena, a playlist that features recreations of Halo 2's most popular maps and a special third-person mode. The true highlight, though, is yet to come. And that's through an entirely different Halo game: The Master Chief Collection. Soon enough, you'll be able to play Halo 2's lost E3 demo on it, thanks to some lovely modders.

Read more

Great God Grove is, in a word, bonkers. I’ve stopped a small community from completing a blood ritual, played the role of matchmaker to a group of lonely hearts that involved organising a date with god, and plastered a statue with paint as part of a revolutionary movement to uplift the power of art. My time with GGG has been a pick n’ mix of colourful escapades, and together with its story of godly woes, striking art style, vacuum-based puzzle-solving, and nightmare-inducing puppet work, I’m now a die-hard LimboLane devotee.

Read more

The Steam Deck OLED – which is like a Steam Deck but better in almost every way – is getting a new, if potentially more smudge-susceptible Limited Edition. A successor to the translucent version that only went on sale in the US and Canada last year, the Steam Deck OLED: Limited Edition White offers both a snowy look and, for those of us outside North America, the chance to actually buy one. It’ll go on sale November 18th, in all the countries that the Steam Deck currently ships in.

Read more

The first generation of stars changed the course of cosmic history. Now, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, we have a real chance of spotting them

A radio signal detected in 1977, sometimes claimed as evidence for aliens, may have been caused by a laser-like beam of microwave radiation

A faint glow from all of the galaxies that have ever existed fills the cosmos, and NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has made the best measurement ever of just how faint it is

Researchers trained a polymer gel to play the computer game Pong by passing electric current through it and measuring the concentration of ions

A US standards agency has issued new guidance saying organisations shouldn’t require users to change their passwords periodically – advice that is backed up by decades of research

While quantum computers are still in their infancy, more and more people are training to become quantum software developers

Thanks to artificial intelligence, understanding animals may be closer than we think. But we may not like what they are going to tell us, says RSPCA chief executive Chris Sherwood

Joe Marler discussed his recent comments about the Haka, which sparked backlash.

Where’s your flying car? I’m sorry to say that I have no idea. But here’s something that is somewhat similar, in that it flies, transports things, and has “car” in the name: it’s a flying cart, called the Palletrone (pallet+drone), designed for human-robot interaction-based aerial cargo transportation.

The way this thing works is fairly straightforward. The Palletrone will try to keep its roll and pitch at zero, to make sure that there’s a flat and stable platform for your preciouses, even if you don’t load those preciouses onto the drone evenly. Once loaded up, the drone relies on you to tell it where to go and what to do, using its IMU to respond to the slightest touch and translating those forces into control over the Palletrone’s horizontal, vertical, and yaw trajectories. This is particularly tricky to do, because the system has to be able to differentiate between the force exerted by cargo, and the force exerted by a human, since if the IMU senses a force moving the drone downward, it could be either. But professor Seung Jae Lee tells us that they developed “a simple but effective method to distinguish between them.”

Since the drone has to do all of this sensing and movement without pitching or rolling (since that would dump its cargo directly onto the floor) it’s equipped with internal propeller arms that can be rotated to vector thrust in any direction. We were curious about how having a bunch of unpredictable stuff sitting right above those rotors might affect the performance of the drone. But Seung Jae Lee says that the drone’s porous side structures allow for sufficient airflow and that even when the entire top of the drone is covered, thrust is only decreased by about 5 percent.

The current incarnation of the Palletrone is not particularly smart, and you need to remain in control of it, although if you let it go it will do its best to remain stationary (until it runs out of batteries). The researchers describe the experience of using this thing as “akin to maneuvering a shopping cart,” although I would guess that it’s somewhat noisier. In the video, the Palletrone is loaded down with just under 3 kilograms of cargo, which is respectable enough for testing. The drone is obviously not powerful enough to haul your typical grocery bag up the stairs to your apartment. But, it’s a couple of steps in the right direction, at least.

We also asked Seung Jae Lee about how he envisions the Palletrone being used, besides as just a logistics platform for either commercial or industrial use. “By attaching a camera to the platform, it could serve as a flying tripod or even act as a dolly, allowing for flexible camera movements and angles,” he says. “This would be particularly useful in environments where specialized filming equipment is difficult to procure.”

And for those of you about to comment something along the lines of, “this can’t possibly have enough battery life to be real-world useful,” they’re already working to solve that, with a docking system that allows one Palletrone to change the battery of another in-flight:

One Palletrone swaps out the battery of a second Palletrone.Seoul Tech

“The Palletrone Cart: Human-Robot Interaction-Based Aerial Cargo Transportation,” by Geonwoo Park, Hyungeun Park, Wooyong Park, Dongjae Lee, Murim Kim, and Seung Jae Lee from Seoul National University of Science and Technology in Korea, is published in IEEE Robotics And Automation Letters.

If you wanted to return to GTA Trilogy, now might be the best time as the game has finally got an update after three years which makes it closer to the much better mobile version

Comet Nishimura (C/2023 P1) was discovered in August and is now whizzing by Earth, but finding it in the sky will be a challenge.

According to a report Tuesday, the league deliberately decided not to impose an immediate fine on San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa for wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat during a postgame television interview.

The annual Perseid meteor shower is set to peak on Sunday night into early Monday morning, giving stargazers the chance to see hundreds of meteors.

A stadium-sized asteroid is passing relatively close to Earth on Tuesday, NASA announced. Its distance from Earth and its massive size makes it a "potentially hazardous object."

Three people have been taken to hospital after a car mounted the pavement and smashed into a restaurant in Piccadilly Circus, the Metropolitan Police have said.

Dis-Ease by Mariam Ghani uses strong visuals and compelling interviews to argue that how we see and describe disease affects how we deal with it, says Simon Ings

The World Health Organization considers "gaming disorder" a condition, but researchers have now found that playing video games can boost well-being

Red and processed meat, and even poultry, seem to raise the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study of nearly 2 million adults, but not everyone is convinced

Dopamine was long thought to play a part in the placebo effect for pain relief, but a new study is questioning its true role

Male pattern baldness could soon be a thing of the past, with new hair loss treatments beginning to show tantalising results

Cases of prostate cancer are surging alarmingly around the world. Thankfully, we are developing more accurate tests that can catch the condition early

As more of us take up vaping and concerns rise about the long-term effects, we now have enough data to get a grip on the health impact – and how it compares to smoking

Diets that claim to control excess oestrogen or stress hormones are all the rage on Instagram and TikTok. They could be good for us, just not for the reasons claimed

The health benefits of fermented food and drink have long been touted, but firm evidence in favour of kombucha, sauerkraut and kefir is surprisingly elusive

Stocks have soared since Donald Trump was elected, but some say the run-up has more to do with bubbles than policy

Quantum computing is a devilishly complex technology, with many technical hurdles impacting its development. Of these challenges two critical issues stand out: miniaturization and qubit quality.

IBM has adopted the superconducting qubit road map of reaching a 1,121-qubit processor by 2023, leading to the expectation that 1,000 qubits with today’s qubit form factor is feasible. However, current approaches will require very large chips (50 millimeters on a side, or larger) at the scale of small wafers, or the use of chiplets on multichip modules. While this approach will work, the aim is to attain a better path toward scalability.

Now researchers at MIT have been able to both reduce the size of the qubits and done so in a way that reduces the interference that occurs between neighboring qubits. The MIT researchers have increased the number of superconducting qubits that can be added onto a device by a factor of 100.

“We are addressing both qubit miniaturization and quality,” said William Oliver, the director for the Center for Quantum Engineering at MIT. “Unlike conventional transistor scaling, where only the number really matters, for qubits, large numbers are not sufficient, they must also be high-performance. Sacrificing performance for qubit number is not a useful trade in quantum computing. They must go hand in hand.”

The key to this big increase in qubit density and reduction of interference comes down to the use of two-dimensional materials, in particular the 2D insulator hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). The MIT researchers demonstrated that a few atomic monolayers of hBN can be stacked to form the insulator in the capacitors of a superconducting qubit.

Just like other capacitors, the capacitors in these superconducting circuits take the form of a sandwich in which an insulator material is sandwiched between two metal plates. The big difference for these capacitors is that the superconducting circuits can operate only at extremely low temperatures—less than 0.02 degrees above absolute zero (-273.15 °C).

Superconducting qubits are measured at temperatures as low as 20 millikelvin in a dilution refrigerator.Nathan Fiske/MIT

In that environment, insulating materials that are available for the job, such as PE-CVD silicon oxide or silicon nitride, have quite a few defects that are too lossy for quantum computing applications. To get around these material shortcomings, most superconducting circuits use what are called coplanar capacitors. In these capacitors, the plates are positioned laterally to one another, rather than on top of one another.

As a result, the intrinsic silicon substrate below the plates and to a smaller degree the vacuum above the plates serve as the capacitor dielectric. Intrinsic silicon is chemically pure and therefore has few defects, and the large size dilutes the electric field at the plate interfaces, all of which leads to a low-loss capacitor. The lateral size of each plate in this open-face design ends up being quite large (typically 100 by 100 micrometers) in order to achieve the required capacitance.

In an effort to move away from the large lateral configuration, the MIT researchers embarked on a search for an insulator that has very few defects and is compatible with superconducting capacitor plates.

“We chose to study hBN because it is the most widely used insulator in 2D material research due to its cleanliness and chemical inertness,” said colead author Joel Wang, a research scientist in the Engineering Quantum Systems group of the MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics.

On either side of the hBN, the MIT researchers used the 2D superconducting material, niobium diselenide. One of the trickiest aspects of fabricating the capacitors was working with the niobium diselenide, which oxidizes in seconds when exposed to air, according to Wang. This necessitates that the assembly of the capacitor occur in a glove box filled with argon gas.

While this would seemingly complicate the scaling up of the production of these capacitors, Wang doesn’t regard this as a limiting factor.

“What determines the quality factor of the capacitor are the two interfaces between the two materials,” said Wang. “Once the sandwich is made, the two interfaces are “sealed” and we don’t see any noticeable degradation over time when exposed to the atmosphere.”

This lack of degradation is because around 90 percent of the electric field is contained within the sandwich structure, so the oxidation of the outer surface of the niobium diselenide does not play a significant role anymore. This ultimately makes the capacitor footprint much smaller, and it accounts for the reduction in cross talk between the neighboring qubits.

“The main challenge for scaling up the fabrication will be the wafer-scale growth of hBN and 2D superconductors like [niobium diselenide], and how one can do wafer-scale stacking of these films,” added Wang.

Wang believes that this research has shown 2D hBN to be a good insulator candidate for superconducting qubits. He says that the groundwork the MIT team has done will serve as a road map for using other hybrid 2D materials to build superconducting circuits.

Despite their often dangerous stings, these creatures create serene scenes as they float through the deep sea