Jan. 30, 2013 ? Comforting a friend or relative in distress may be a more hard-wired behavior than previously thought, according to a new study of bonobos, which are great apes known for their empathy and close relation to humans and chimpanzees. This finding provides key evolutionary insight into how critical social skills may develop in humans.
The results are published in the online journal PLOS ONE.
Researchers from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, observed juvenile bonobos at the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo engaging in consolation behavior more than their adult counterparts. Juvenile bonobos (ages 3 to 7) are equivalent to preschool or elementary school-aged children.
Zanna Clay, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Emory's Department of Psychology, and Frans de Waal, PhD, director of the Living Links Center at Yerkes and C.H. Candler Professor of Psychology at Emory, led the study.
"Our findings suggest that for bonobos, sensitivity to the emotions of others emerges early and does not require advanced thought processes that develop only in adults," Clay says.
Starting at around age two, human children usually display consolation behavior, a sign of sensitivity to the emotions of others and the ability to take the perspective of another. Consolation has been observed in humans, bonobos, chimpanzees and other animals, including dogs, elephants and some types of birds, but has not been seen in monkeys.
At the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary, most bonobos come as juvenile or infant orphans because their parents are killed for meat or captured as pets. A minority of bonobos in the sanctuary is second generation and raised by their biological mothers. The researchers found bonobos raised by their own mothers were more likely to comfort others compared to orphaned bonobos. This may indicate early life stress interferes with development of consolation behavior, while a stable parental relationship encourages it, Clay says.
Clay observed more than 350 conflicts between bonobos at the sanctuary during several months. Some conflicts involved violence, such as hitting, pushing or grabbing, while others only involved threats or chasing. Consolation occurred when a third bonobo -- usually one that was close to the scene of conflict -- comforted one of the parties in the conflict.
Consolation behavior includes hugs, grooming and sometimes sexual behavior. Consolation appears to lower stress in the recipient, based on a reduction in the recipient's rates of self-scratching and self-grooming, the authors write.
"We found strong effects of friendship and kinship, with bonobos being more likely to comfort those they are emotionally close to," Clay says. "This is consistent with the idea that empathy and emotional sensitivity contribute to consolation behavior."
In future research, Clay plans to take a closer look at the emergence of consolation behavior in bonobos at early ages. A process that may facilitate development of consolation behavior is when older bonobos use younger ones as teddy bears; their passive participation may get the younger bonobos used to the idea, she says.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Emory University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Zanna Clay, Frans B. M. de Waal. Bonobos Respond to Distress in Others: Consolation across the Age Spectrum. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (1): e55206 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0055206
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
GAINESVILLE - Both the parade and the reception for the Gainesville High School state football championship team will be rescheduled, according to Gainesville School Superintendent Dr. Merriane Dyer.
In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Dyer said that the school system is working with the Department of Transportation and the Gainesville Planning Office to reschedule the parade.
Also, the basketball games between GHS and Heritage High School set for tonight have been rescheduled for Thursday at 6 and 7:30 p.m., according to GHS Athletics Director Wayne Vickery.
Meanwhile, all Hall County after school practices have also been cancelled.
While you're waiting for the celebration to be rescheduled, you can relive the excitement of the historic 2012 season, including a magical night in the Class AAAAA championship game in Atlanta, by watching our Access North Georgia.com presentation of "Gainesville: The Championship."
To watch this special video, produced by Scott McIntyre and Access North Georgia sports editor Morgan Lee, simply scroll down and click "play."
Gainesville: The Championship from WDUN TV on Vimeo.
? Copyright 2013 AccessNorthGa.com
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits last week stayed in a range consistent with job growth and incomes rose in December by the most in eight years, mildly positive signs for a still-fragile economy.
The data suggests points to some underlying momentum in the economy despite a surprise contraction in gross domestic product during the fourth quarter, which largely came from temporary factors.
Last week, initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 38,000 to 368,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
The increase follows a week where new claims were at their lowest in five years and still points to an economy where employers are adding jobs, albeit at a lackluster pace.
"It's still consistent with modest employment growth," said Sam Bullard, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected claims to increase to 350,000.
Claims have been very volatile this month, dropping sharply in the week ended January 12 and maintaining the trend in the following week. That was largely because the model used by the department to smooth out the seasonal variations has been unusually generous during the first three weeks of January.
The four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of labor market trends, gained 250 to 352,000, suggesting a steady improvement in labor market conditions.
Last week's claims data has no bearing on January's employment report, which is scheduled for release on Friday, as it falls outside the survey period.
Prices for U.S. 30-year Treasuries pared gains, while S&P 500 futures, which were flat to negative before the data, rose a little.
Employers are expected to have added 160,000 jobs to their payrolls in January after an increase of 155,000 in December. The unemployment rate is seen holding steady at 7.8 percent.
In a separate report, the Commerce Department said American incomes rose 2.6 percent last month. That was the biggest increase since December 2004 and well above analysts' expectations for a 0.8 percent gain.
However, much of the increases in personal incomes over the last two months have been due to special dividends and accelerated bonuses to beat tax increases that were due to begin this month.
The big rise in incomes suggests total consumer spending power entered the new year on a stronger footing, even if the gains may not have been distributed evenly throughout the workforce.
The economy faces the threat of across-the-board spending cuts scheduled for March, as well as the possibility the government might default later this later year and trigger another recession.
After-tax income climbed 2.7 percent in December, the strongest since May 2008, while consumer spending rose 0.2 percent, just below the pace expected by analysts in a Reuters poll.
Excluding the one-time factors that boosted incomes in December, after-tax income rose 0.4 percent.
Planned layoffs at U.S. firms fell in December for the first time in four months, while the overall job-cut total in 2012 was the lowest since 1997, a third report showed on Thursday.
Employers announced 32,556 job cuts last month, the second lowest monthly total of 2012 and down 43 percent from 57,081 in November, according to the report from consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
(Additional reporting by Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
Jan. 30, 2013 ? Hydro?gen has tremen?dous poten?tial as an eco-friendly fuel, but it is expen?sive to pro?duce. Now researchers at Prince?ton Uni?ver?sity and Rut?gers Uni?ver?sity have moved a step closer to har?ness?ing nature to pro?duce hydro?gen for us.
The team, led by Prince?ton chem?istry pro?fes?sor Annabella Sel?l?oni, takes inspi?ra?tion from bac?te?ria that make hydro?gen from water using enzymes called di-iron hydro?ge?nases. Selloni's team uses com?puter mod?els to fig?ure out how to incor?po?rate the magic of these enzymes into the design of prac?ti?cal syn?thetic cat?a?lysts that humans can use to pro?duce hydro?gen from water.
In this lat?est paper, Sel?l?oni and co-authors present a solu?tion to an issue that has dogged the field: the cat?a?lysts designed so far are sus?cep?ti?ble to poi?son?ing by the oxy?gen present dur?ing the reac?tion. By mak?ing changes to the cat?a?lyst to improve the sta?bil?ity of the struc?ture in water, the researchers found that they had also cre?ated a cat?a?lyst that is tol?er?ant to oxy?gen with?out sac?ri?fic?ing effi?ciency. What is more, their arti?fi?cial cat?a?lyst could be made from abun?dant and cheap com?po?nents, such as iron, indi?cat?ing that the cat?a?lyst could be a cost-effective way of pro?duc?ing hydrogen.
Sel?l?oni and her team con?ducted their research in sil?ico -- that is, using com?puter mod?el?ing. The goal is to learn enough about how these cat?a?lysts work to some?day cre?ate work?ing cat?a?lysts that can make vast quan?ti?ties of inex?pen?sive hydro?gen for use in vehi?cles and elec?tric?ity production.
The team included Patrick Hoi-Land Sit, an asso?ciate research scholar in chem?istry at Prince?ton; Roberto Car, Princeton's Ralph W. *31 Dornte Pro?fes?sor in Chem?istry, and Mor?rel H. Cohen, a Senior Chemist at Prince?ton and Mem?ber of the Grad?u?ate Fac?ulty of Rut?gers Uni?ver?sity. Sel?l?oni is Princeton's David B. Jones Pro?fes?sor of Chemistry.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Princeton University. The original article was written by Cather?ine Zan?donella.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
P. H.- L. Sit, R. Car, M. H. Cohen, A. Selloni. Oxygen tolerance of an in silico-designed bioinspired hydrogen-evolving catalyst in water. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1215149110
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Funny Real Estate Video | Realtor tries to record video | Front Street Brokers - Boise Real Estate - Boise Homes For Sale Find us on Google+
Information provided by IMLS is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. IMLS data is for personal, non-commercial use only and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing.
Early trials using mobile technology including text messaging and apps lack rigor and show mixed results
By Lucas Laursen
SMS messages in Africa provide reminders to patients to take antiretroviral drugs, reducing HIV virus counts. Image: Flickr/The Reboot
Health care via mobile technology is still in its infancy. Of 75 trials in which patients used mobile tech, such as text messaging and downloadable apps, to manage a disease or adopt healthier behaviors, only three showed reliable signs of success, according to a systematic survey. In an accompanying survey of medical personnel who used smart phones and other devices, to help deliver care, the same team found more success: 11 of 42 trials had positive, reliable results.
Yet mobile device-aided health care, called mHealth, attracts a lot of attention and dollars, as U.S. National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins wrote last year in Scientific American. In 2012 venture capital firms invested more than $900 million in mHealth, according to a report by Mobile Health Market News.
?There?s a lot of enthusiasm for [mHealth] but [its effectiveness] wasn?t very clear,? says epidemiologist Caroline Free of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in England, the lead author of the reviews. In 2011, for example, the World Health Organization found that only 12 percent of mobile health initiatives included an evaluation.
So Free and colleagues conducted the reviews, which appear in PLoS Medicine, she says, to ?put us in the position of knowing exactly in which areas there was good evidence where the evidence was promising.? That information could help investors and researchers make better decisions about how to identify, improve and promote the best mobile health treatments.
In the first review, the team identified 334 relevant mHealth trials in seven medical databases. Most of the trials used text messaging to interact with patients, although some interacted through dedicated applications, downloadable audio and video or the Web. Only 75 of those trials included a control group, which allows researchers to compare experimental interventions with doing nothing.
Of the 75 controlled trials, 26 sought to change patient behavior by methods that included increasing exercise and 49 sought to help patients manage diseases medically such as by taking pills on time. That may not seem like many studies, but medical doctor Rahul Chakrabarti at Monash University in Australia, co-editor of the Journal of Mobile Technology in Medicine, calls it the most comprehensive meta-analysis of mHealth evidence to date.
The bad news is that most trials had weak designs, such as failing to randomize participants in the control group and the experimental group. Others relied on participants to self-report the results, but such methods can be unreliable. Free says such trials should use biochemical tests, instead. In some cases, it?s too early to tell whether a result, such as smaller waist size, would last long enough to improve participants? health. Most trials also neglected the developing world, where mobile phones have the most potential to improve access to health care. ?This does not undermine the outcomes,? Chakrabarti says, ?but shows that going forward, there is a clear need for improved methodology.?
There were a few promising, reliable trials: For instance, receiving text messages helped smokers quit in one trial that did verify its results with biochemical tests. Reminders also helped diabetics stick to their treatments in another trial. In the only successful developing-world trial, in Kenya, SMS reminders to take antiretroviral drugs helped reduce HIV virus counts.
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Just over a week into his second term, President Barack Obama took his fight for immigration reform to the West on Tuesday and pushed Congress to quickly find a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented residents.
But as Obama praised a bipartisan immigration plan during a speech in Las Vegas, disagreement emerged between the White House and Republicans that underscored the difficulty of resolving an emotive issue that has long defied a legislative fix.
"I'm here today because the time has come for common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform," Obama said at a high school. "The time is now. Now is the time."
After years on the back burner, immigration reform has suddenly looked possible as Republicans, chastened by Latino voters who rejected them in the November election, appear more willing to accept a thorough overhaul.
Action on immigration was sidelined by economic issues and healthcare reform during Obama's first term but it is part of an ambitious liberal agenda the Democratic president laid out last week in his second inaugural address. That agenda also includes gun control, gay rights and fighting climate change.
Hispanic voters were crucial in winning Nevada for Obama in November and the crowd at the high school was supportive.
"Si se puede," yelled some, using a Spanish phrase that harked back to Obama's 2008 "Yes we can" campaign slogan. Some in the audience were brought to tears when he talked about the difficulties some immigrants have experienced.
In Washington, however, differences quickly emerged between what Obama would like and the proposals by the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" senators, whose plan is heavy on border security.
Obama pushed for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants that is faster than the one the Senate group proposed.
Rather than emphasize border security first, he would let undocumented immigrants get on a path to citizenship if they first undergo national security and criminal background checks, pay penalties, learn English and get behind those foreigners seeking to immigrate legally.
"We all agree that these men and women should have to earn their way to citizenship. But for comprehensive immigration reform to work, it must be clear from the outset that there is a pathway to citizenship," he said.
For Republicans, this is a sticking point. The Gang of Eight plan envisions first taking steps to toughen security along the U.S.-Mexican border before setting in motion the steps illegal immigrants must take to gain legal status.
That difference was enough to raise concerns among Republican lawmakers who are trying to frame a package that can pass the Republican-led House of Representatives.
RUBIO "CONCERNED"
A Hispanic Republican, Senator Marco Rubio, complained that Obama's speech neglected border security and left the impression that "he believes reforming immigration quickly is more important than reforming immigration right."
"I am concerned by the president's unwillingness to accept significant enforcement triggers before current undocumented immigrants can apply for a green card," he said. "Without such triggers in place, enforcement systems will never be implemented and we will be back in just a few years dealing with millions of new undocumented people in our country."
Republicans will likely oppose any immigration plan that doesn't put border security first.
"This provision is key to ensuring that border security is achieved, and is also necessary to ensure that a reform package can actually move through Congress," said newly elected Senator Jeff Flake of the border state of Arizona.
In addition, Obama made no mention of creating a temporary guest worker program geared to the low-skilled, labor-intensive agricultural industry. Labor unions do not yet support such a program.
Another point of contention is expected to be whether same-sex couples are granted the same benefits as heterosexual couples under immigration reform - something the White House says Obama will insist upon but which the Senate group did not deal with.
Obama's speech in Nevada, coming a little more than a week after his second inauguration, reflects the growing clout of Hispanic voters, as does Republican willingness to move on the issue.
The president said that if Congress is unable to act in a timely fashion, he will propose immigration legislation of his own and "insist that they vote on it right away."
Immigration reform could give Obama a landmark second-term legislative achievement, but the White House is mindful that success on such a divisive issue will require a delicate balancing act.
The last major attempt at an immigration overhaul was done by Republican President George W. Bush in 2007. It collapsed in Congress. Obama did not follow through with a promise to seek an overhaul in his first term, fearing a repeat of the earlier debacle.
"We can't allow immigration reform to get bogged down in an endless debate. We've been debating this a very long time. So it's not as if we don't know technically what needs to get done," Obama said.
Republicans who saw their presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, receive only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in the election loss to Obama are adamant that steps must be taken to draw more Hispanics to their party's ranks.
This could be a slow process to change hearts and minds.
"I don't know about voting for them (the Republicans) yet but they definitely are starting to talk about things we want to hear," said Maxima Guerrero, 22, a community college student in Phoenix. Originally from Morelos, Mexico, she was brought to the United States at age five.
In addition to dealing with Republican demands, Obama needs to watch his left flank, where unions worry about temporary workers' programs.
And the American Civil Liberties Union warned against an erosion of rights under plans to tighten the employment verification system that determines whether a worker is in the United States legally.
"While there are components of the Senate plan that provide millions of aspiring citizens the legal status they deserve to live, work, and raise their families free of fear, others, such as mandating E-Verify and continued wasteful and unnecessary spending on the border, raise serious civil liberties concerns," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director.
(additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton in Washington and Tim Gaynor in Phoneix Writing by Steve Holland, Editing by Alistair Bell and Doina Chiacu)
After hitting a seven-year low of $6.22 this past summer, shares of Research in Motion (RIMM) have rebounded and climbed more than 100% in the past six months. The company that was previously written off by Wall Street investors has seen a significant boost in recent months as anticipation grows for its BlackBerry 10 operating system. But while a number of analysts have voiced their support for RIM, not everyone is convinced.
[More from BGR: Apple?s 128GB iPad shows the world exactly what Apple does best]
Jan Dawson of Ovum explained, per Benzinga, that RIM continues to ?face the twin demons of consumer-driven buying power and a chronic inability to appeal to mature market consumers,? and he believes BlackBerry 10 won?t change this. The analyst said that due to a strong user base of 79 million subscribers and profitability still in the black, the company will remain for years to come. He was quick to note, however, that its glory days are in the past and ?it is only a matter of time before it reaches a natural end.?
[More from BGR: Apple unveils new 128GB iPad]
Dawson previously wrote that RIM?s strategy seems to be focused on building the best devices for current BlackBerry users ?rather than something that will necessarily win converts from other platforms.?
?The points of differentiation RIM has focused on in teasers for the new platform confirm this ? better multitasking, productivity, email, contacts and calendar applications and so on, rather than a better gaming, content consumption or social networking experience,? he said.
Shares of RIM are down more than 6% on Monday, a day before the company is set to unveil its BlackBerry 10 operating system.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed President Barack Obama's choice of five-term Sen. John Kerry to be secretary of state, with Republicans and Democrats praising him as the ideal successor to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The vote Tuesday was 94-3. One senator ? Kerry ? voted present and accepted congratulations from colleagues on the Senate floor. The roll call came just hours after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved the man who has led the panel for the past four years.
Kerry could be sworn in as early as Wednesday. A welcoming ceremony is planned at the State Department on Monday.
Obama tapped Kerry, 69, the son of a diplomat, decorated Vietnam veteran and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, to succeed Clinton, who is stepping down after four years. The Massachusetts Democrat, who had pined for the job but was passed over in 2009, has served as Obama's unofficial envoy, smoothing fractious ties with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"Sen. Kerry will need no introduction to the world's political and military leaders and will begin Day One fully conversant not only with the intricacies of U.S. foreign policy, but able to act on a multitude of international stages," said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who will succeed Kerry as committee chairman.
Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the panel's top Republican, called Kerry "a realist" who will deal with unrest in Egypt, civil war in Syria, the threat of al-Qaida-linked groups in Africa and Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Kerry, a forceful proponent of climate change legislation, also will have a say in whether the United States moves ahead on the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, a divisive issue that has roiled environmentalists.
Voting against Kerry were three Republicans ? Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas. Absent from the vote were Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and John Hoeven, R-N.D.
"Sen. Kerry has a long history of liberal positions that are not consistent with a majority of Texans," Cornyn said in a statement. The senator is up for re-election next year and could face a tea party challenge.
Kerry's smooth path to the nation's top diplomatic job stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment for Obama's other national security nominees ? Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary and John Brennan to be CIA director.
Hagel, the former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska, faces strong opposition from some of his onetime GOP colleagues who question his support for reductions in the nuclear arsenal and cuts in defense spending. Lawmakers also have questioned whether he is sufficiently supportive of Israel and strongly opposed to any outreach to Iran.
Democrats have rallied for Hagel, and he has the announced support of at least a dozen members in advance of his confirmation hearing on Thursday. Six Republicans have said they would vote against him, with some opposing Obama's choice even before the president's announcement.
Brennan faces questions from the GOP about White House leaks of classified information and from Democrats about the administration's use of drones.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., threatened to block the nomination of both men until he gets more answers from the Obama administration about the assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Graham, who earlier this month signaled he would delay Brennan's pick, said in an interview Monday night with Fox News' "On the Record" the he would "absolutely" block Hagel unless Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testifies about the attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Clinton testified for more than five hours last Wednesday before the House and Senate, but that wasn't sufficient for Graham.
"Hillary Clinton got away with murder, in my view," he said. "She said they had a clear-eyed view of the threats. How could you have a clear-eyed of the threats in Benghazi when you didn't know about the ambassador's cable coming back from Libya?"
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters Tuesday that a hearing with Panetta on Libya is planned though the date is uncertain. Graham welcomed that news and said he would not thwart a committee vote on the nomination.
"Happy as a clam. News to me," said Graham, who met with Hagel for 20 minutes on Tuesday.
Pentagon spokesman George Little said Panetta had not responded yet to the request but that the department has been forthcoming with information. He insisted that the Hagel confirmation process move as quickly as possible.
Two former chairmen of the committee ? Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia and Republican John Warner of Virginia ? plan to introduce Hagel, according to officials close to the confirmation process. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the committee has not formally made an announcement.
As a White House emissary, Kerry has tamped down diplomatic fires for Obama. He also has stepped ahead of the administration on a handful of crises. He joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as an early proponent of a more aggressive policy toward Libya, pushing for using military forces to impose a "no-fly zone" over Libya as Moammar Gadhafi's forces killed rebels and other citizens. He was one of the early voices calling for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down as revolution roiled the nation two years ago.
During his tenure, Kerry has pushed for reducing the number of nuclear weapons, shepherding a U.S.-Russia treaty through the Senate in December 2010, and has cast climate change as a national security threat, joining forces with Republicans on legislation that faced too many obstacles to win congressional passage.
He has led delegations to Syria and met a few times with President Bashar Assad, now a pariah in U.S. eyes after months of civil war and bloodshed as the government looks to put down a people's rebellion. Figuring out an end-game for the Middle East country would demand all of Kerry's skills.
The selection of Kerry closes a political circle with Obama. In 2004, it was White House hopeful Kerry who asked a largely unknown Illinois state senator to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic convention in Boston, handing the national stage to Obama. Kerry lost that election to President George W. Bush. Four years later, Obama was the White House hopeful who succeeded where Kerry had failed.
___
Follow Donna Cassata on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/DonnaCassataAP
President Barack Obama hailed the Senate's bipartisan immigration framework at a major speech on that topic this afternoon in Nevada, but threatened to send his own alternative legislation to Capitol Hill if Congress fails to act.
Economic analysis finds penicillin, not "the pill," may have launched the sexual revolutionPublic release date: 28-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Beverly Clark beverly.clark@emory.edu 404-712-8780 Emory University
PThe rise in risky, non-traditional sexual relations that marked the swinging '60s actually began as much as a decade earlier, during the conformist '50s, suggests an analysis recently published by the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
"It's a common assumption that the sexual revolution began with the permissive attitudes of the 1960s and the development of contraceptives like the birth control pill," notes Emory University economist Andrew Francis, who conducted the analysis. "The evidence, however, strongly indicates that the widespread use of penicillin, leading to a rapid decline in syphilis during the 1950s, is what launched the modern sexual era."
As penicillin drove down the cost of having risky sex, the population started having more of it, Francis says, comparing the phenomena to the economic law of demand: When the cost of a good falls, people buy more of the good.
"People don't generally think of sexual behavior in economic terms," he says, "but it's important to do so because sexual behavior, just like other behaviors, responds to incentives."
Syphilis reached its peak in the United States in 1939, when it killed 20,000 people. "It was the AIDS of the late 1930s and early 1940s," Francis says. "Fear of catching syphilis and dying of it loomed large."
Penicillin was discovered in 1928, but it was not put into clinical use until 1941. As World War II escalated, and sexually transmitted diseases threatened the troops overseas, penicillin was found to be an effective treatment against syphilis.
"The military wanted to rid the troops of STDs and all kinds of infections, so that they could keep fighting," Francis says. "That really sped up the development of penicillin as an antibiotic."
Right after the war, penicillin became a clinical staple for the general population as well. In the United States, syphilis went from a chronic, debilitating and potentially fatal disease to one that could be cured with a single dose of medicine.
From 1947 to 1957, the syphilis death rate fell by 75 percent and the syphilis incidence rate fell by 95 percent. "That's a huge drop in syphilis. It's essentially a collapse," Francis says.
In order to test his theory that risky sex increased as the cost of syphilis dropped, Francis analyzed data from the 1930s through the 1970s from state and federal health agencies. Some of the data was only available on paper documents, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) digitized it at the request of Francis.
For his study, Francis chose three measures of sexual behavior: The illegitimate birth ratio; the teen birth share; and the incidence of gonorrhea, a highly contagious sexually transmitted disease that tends to spread quickly.
"As soon as syphilis bottoms out, in the mid- to late-1950s, you start to see dramatic increases in all three measures of risky sexual behavior," Francis says.
While many factors likely continued to fuel the sexual revolution during the 1960s and 1970s, Francis says the 1950s and the role of penicillin have been largely overlooked. "The 1950s are associated with prudish, more traditional sexual behaviors," he notes. "That may have been true for many adults, but not necessarily for young adults. It's important to recognize how reducing the fear of syphilis affected sexual behaviors."
A few physicians sounded moralistic warnings during the 1950s about the potential for penicillin to affect behavior. Spanish physician Eduardo Martinez Alonso referenced Romans 6:23, and the notion that God uses diseases to punish people, when he wrote: "The wages of sin are now negligible. One can almost sin with impunity, since the sting of sinning has been removed."
Such moralistic approaches, equating disease with sin, are counterproductive, Francis says, stressing that interventions need to focus on how individuals may respond to the cost of disease.
He found that the historical data of the syphilis epidemic parallels the contemporary AIDS epidemic. "Some studies have indicated that the development of highly active antiretroviral therapy for treating HIV may have caused some men who have sex with men to be less concerned about contracting and transmitting HIV, and more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors," Francis says.
"Policy makers need to take into consideration behavioral responses to changes in the cost of disease, and implement strategies that are holistic and longsighted," he concludes. "To focus exclusively on the defeat of one disease can set the stage for the onset of another if preemptive measures are not taken."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Economic analysis finds penicillin, not "the pill," may have launched the sexual revolutionPublic release date: 28-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Beverly Clark beverly.clark@emory.edu 404-712-8780 Emory University
PThe rise in risky, non-traditional sexual relations that marked the swinging '60s actually began as much as a decade earlier, during the conformist '50s, suggests an analysis recently published by the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
"It's a common assumption that the sexual revolution began with the permissive attitudes of the 1960s and the development of contraceptives like the birth control pill," notes Emory University economist Andrew Francis, who conducted the analysis. "The evidence, however, strongly indicates that the widespread use of penicillin, leading to a rapid decline in syphilis during the 1950s, is what launched the modern sexual era."
As penicillin drove down the cost of having risky sex, the population started having more of it, Francis says, comparing the phenomena to the economic law of demand: When the cost of a good falls, people buy more of the good.
"People don't generally think of sexual behavior in economic terms," he says, "but it's important to do so because sexual behavior, just like other behaviors, responds to incentives."
Syphilis reached its peak in the United States in 1939, when it killed 20,000 people. "It was the AIDS of the late 1930s and early 1940s," Francis says. "Fear of catching syphilis and dying of it loomed large."
Penicillin was discovered in 1928, but it was not put into clinical use until 1941. As World War II escalated, and sexually transmitted diseases threatened the troops overseas, penicillin was found to be an effective treatment against syphilis.
"The military wanted to rid the troops of STDs and all kinds of infections, so that they could keep fighting," Francis says. "That really sped up the development of penicillin as an antibiotic."
Right after the war, penicillin became a clinical staple for the general population as well. In the United States, syphilis went from a chronic, debilitating and potentially fatal disease to one that could be cured with a single dose of medicine.
From 1947 to 1957, the syphilis death rate fell by 75 percent and the syphilis incidence rate fell by 95 percent. "That's a huge drop in syphilis. It's essentially a collapse," Francis says.
In order to test his theory that risky sex increased as the cost of syphilis dropped, Francis analyzed data from the 1930s through the 1970s from state and federal health agencies. Some of the data was only available on paper documents, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) digitized it at the request of Francis.
For his study, Francis chose three measures of sexual behavior: The illegitimate birth ratio; the teen birth share; and the incidence of gonorrhea, a highly contagious sexually transmitted disease that tends to spread quickly.
"As soon as syphilis bottoms out, in the mid- to late-1950s, you start to see dramatic increases in all three measures of risky sexual behavior," Francis says.
While many factors likely continued to fuel the sexual revolution during the 1960s and 1970s, Francis says the 1950s and the role of penicillin have been largely overlooked. "The 1950s are associated with prudish, more traditional sexual behaviors," he notes. "That may have been true for many adults, but not necessarily for young adults. It's important to recognize how reducing the fear of syphilis affected sexual behaviors."
A few physicians sounded moralistic warnings during the 1950s about the potential for penicillin to affect behavior. Spanish physician Eduardo Martinez Alonso referenced Romans 6:23, and the notion that God uses diseases to punish people, when he wrote: "The wages of sin are now negligible. One can almost sin with impunity, since the sting of sinning has been removed."
Such moralistic approaches, equating disease with sin, are counterproductive, Francis says, stressing that interventions need to focus on how individuals may respond to the cost of disease.
He found that the historical data of the syphilis epidemic parallels the contemporary AIDS epidemic. "Some studies have indicated that the development of highly active antiretroviral therapy for treating HIV may have caused some men who have sex with men to be less concerned about contracting and transmitting HIV, and more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors," Francis says.
"Policy makers need to take into consideration behavioral responses to changes in the cost of disease, and implement strategies that are holistic and longsighted," he concludes. "To focus exclusively on the defeat of one disease can set the stage for the onset of another if preemptive measures are not taken."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Secret Service says one of its canines fell to its death at a New Orleans fundraiser where Vice President Joe Biden was speaking.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan says the dog was doing a security sweep Saturday of a parking garage next to the Ritz-Carlton. That's where Biden was attending a fundraiser for Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's re-election campaign.
The Secret Service said the death was a tragic accident. Law enforcement officials aren't releasing the name or gender of the dog.
The Secret Service in the past has exclusively used Belgian Malinois dogs, which are known for being good workers and for adapting well to new environments. The specially trained canines can be used to detect explosives and firearms.
The Spring market is starting early this year and it?s looking to be a strong market. The inventory is low at the moment, there?s pent up demand and there are plenty of buyers out there looking. It?s still a buyer?s market, but it?s starting to shift now. Soon, more and more homes will be on the market and those trying to sell will need to stay ahead of the competition. One of the best ways to do so is to make your home look its very best. A home staging expert can be a home seller?s greatest ally as they can best tell you how to best maximize your assets.
What is a home stager?
?A home stager is someone who comes in to show your home in its best light. It?s a process of making your home look better for the buyers who are looking at it,? explains Stephanie Barnes a Realtor with ?Fingelly Real Estate, Southport, Connecticut. ?It became popular to hire a stager when the market started its downturn and homes were having a hard time selling. People were looking for ways to compete in the marketplace.? Barnes continues to tell us that home staging is still very popular and is a model that should be continued to be followed whether in an up or down-market. Your real estate company can help you locate a stager or you can do so on your own. A few agencies will provide one for you for an additional fee.
What can I expect when a home stager comes to my house?
A home stager will come to your home for a consult, take an inventory of your home and everything in it. Some charge for that consult and some don?t. With the information gathered the home stager will meet with you, the home owner, and go over the findings. The home owner can then hire the stager to make all the necessary changes, or do so on his own. In this market many people would like to, but do not have the luxury of hiring a home stager. The following suggestions from Barnes will help you, the seller, stage your own home so that you can best represent all the wonderful characteristics of your own home.
Staging our living areas.
According to Barnes, there?s one general rule you should apply to each room. ?You want to show it?s mainstream functionality. If you have an awkward or small space and want to show more functionality than what?s there, you may want to consider turning a dining room into an office.? Something like that, Barnes states, shows really well. ?In a living room you want to show off the size. ?People think more is more when it comes to living rooms,? says Barnes. ? You also want to bring in the most light, you want to pull couches and drapes from windows and you want to show flow in a room.
Artwork should be displayed in a way that is tasteful but not too revealing of your life and lifestyle.? Again, she stresses the idea is to appeal to the masses. You want to create an almost generic, clean and appealing Pottery Barn-like appearance. You do not want buyers glued to your Picasso or family pictures. This is distracting and when the tour is over, the potential buyer ends up fixated on the Picasso or the family photos and remembers nothing about your home. ?Whether your home is formal or casual?it needs to be able to be set up in a way where people can imagine themselves, their family, their friends, clients, bosses? You want to picture where people will be sitting and entertaining.?
People have moved away from wanting to fix up houses. More and more want homes that are turn key and ready to move in. This is why the Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware-like decor works so well. They?re very neural and they appeal to the masses. What?s more is that they can always be added upon and enhanced.
Staging our dining rooms.
?Dining rooms are great as they offer one place for people to sit and eat, yet they are often not a highly utilized room in a house so to show it you need to get in the mindset of what the masses are looking for,? says Barnes. It?s a lifestyle choice and decision. ?Generally for each room, you want to stay as mainstream as possible because most people have a very hard time visualizing.? We need to think about those who cannot see past the clutter to appreciate the wide expanse of windows, the particularly nice crown moulding and the little details that might go unnoticed. Barnes best compares it to a retail shop.
?Whoever puts out the best displays moves their inventory fastest. It?s no different when it comes to selling your home.? When you stage your home for selling, you are, to a certain extent, undecorating from the way you live. When you live in your home, you want your home to best represent you, but when you?re looking to sell your home, you need to re-dcorate, or un-decorate, to allow someone else to envision living in your space. This is where stagers come in handy, explains Barnes. ?They have the ability to represent your home and to know what will work and won?t work for show.?
Other ideas for showing dining rooms include converting them into offices, playrooms, or ?a quiet living area off of the noisiness of the room that?s being utilized with the big couch and the TV.? Barnes suggests to ?think outside the box a little bit with the dining space ? ?depending on how you?re marketing it,? she reaffirms how important it is to ?know your crowd.? A young couple looking for their starter home might welcome the dining room for entertaining purposes while a family with young children may welcome a playroom or second living space.
Staging our master bedrooms.
According to Barnes ?a master bedroom with a bathroom, with both a tub and shower is what everybody wants,? but decor absolutely comes into play here. Barnes suggests removing anything loud and jazzy and going with white. ?White is clean and simple and what?s what buyers are looking for.? She reitterates that ?it?s not about your tastes and your style. The idea of staging your bedroom is to do it in such a way that others can imagine themselves in that space too, a highly private and personal space.?
She then suggests to ?white it out. Realtors will tell you this constantly.? She suggests switching to white duvets and white towels and to make the space seem more hotel-like than private. If the bedroom has carpeting, Barnes strongly advises getting it steam cleaned. Cleanliness is most important. Remove heavy curtains and drapes. If you have no privacy issues, leave the windows empty, otherwise Barnes suggests hanging some bamboo shades.
Staging our guest rooms.
Guest rooms can be touted as guest rooms and can even be combined with an office. If you use your guest room and are planning on using the guest room as one of the features of your home, you can showcase it much in the same way you would the master bedroom. Barnes mentions the throw pillows and white bedding once more. By showing the room as a combined office/bedroom, you are then maximizing the space in your home. Barnes states that ?once again this depends on the house and the size of the house, and as with the other rooms you need to scale it to your demographic. You need to create the space for people in your price-range.?
Staging our children?s rooms.
Children?s bedrooms should be staged much like the rest of the house. The rooms should be as clean and as clutter-free as possible. This may mean tucking some dolls, stuffed animals or toys into some neat bins or other storage area. Barnes believes that like the other rooms in the home, children?s rooms too should be neutral, ?Colors are subjective,? she adds, ?and should really be repainted if they are very bright.? She adds that ?these may be the rooms to paint first, should a home need repainting, noting that smaller rooms are easier and less expensive to paint.?
Staging bathrooms.
The bathrooms should all be as clean and tidy as possible. All personal products such as hair brushes, razors, toothbrushes should be put away and out of sight. Pretty soaps can be placed by the sink and the linens, suggests Barnes, ?should all be white.? Barnes also likes the idea of creating a ?spa-like environment.?
Don?t forget to stage the outside of your home too!
?The outside of your home and curb appeal is staging? says Barnes. ?It?s the first impression someone gets when they are coming to your house. They take in whatever is on the curb and they start looking very carefully once they come through the front door.? Make sure hedges are trimmed and tidy.
Make sure leaves have been swept up and put away. Make sure you?ve done your fall clean up or your spring clean up. ?You want your house to show the best it possibly can and if you can?t hire a home stager, your realtors, at this point, have heard enough feedback to know how to help you,? but Barnes believes that stagers are a ?great idea because you?re bringing in a third party who is objective. Often realtors won?t want to say anything you may find insulting.We?re not trying to tell you that you?re doing it wrong or that your taste is bad. No one is trying to criticize you. Realtors know what you need to do, but want to keep their relationship with you.?
Once you?ve heard your stager?s advice it needs to be implemented. A staged home is a home that wants to be sold. It?s sending a message that the sellers are ready and eager to do business, whereas a home that has not been properly staged suggests that the sellers are not ready and could by chance be very difficult. ?A staged home sends a very loud message,? concludes Barnes.
A special thank you to Stephanie Barnes of?Fingelly Real Estate, Southport CT, for her expertise and wisdom.
The results from Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Jay Ratliff's blood test show he had a blood alcohol content of 0.16, exactly double the .08 legal limit for intoxication in Texas.
When Jay Ratliff was given a blood test following his recent wreck, he was found to have a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.16.
Robert Wilonsky of dallasnews.com reports that the results of Jay Ratliff's blood alcohol test, taken shortly after he crashed his Ford F-150 early Tuesday, show a blood-alcohol level of .16 or twice the legal limit, according to Grapevine Police Department.
For lack of a better term, that is seriously drunk. To give you an idea of how much he had to consume, I used an online BAC calculator. Plugging in Ratliff's listed weight of 303 from the DallasCobwoys.com roster, I discovered that he would have had to consume 16 beers or shots of liquor over a three hour period to reach that level. The level of intoxication is affected by the weight and gender of the individual, the time elapsed since they drank, and the strength and quantity of the beverage involved, so there are a lot of variables. For instance, if he had only been drinking for two hours, he would have reached the same level with just over 14 drinks.
However you look at it, that is a huge amount of alcohol to consume. It would be hard to argue that Ratliff gave any thought to his actions or the consequences if he was drinking at the rate of a six-pack an hour. The team has released a statement from Calvin Hill, of the player development program (and former star running back from the Tom Landry era):
We know that one incident is too many.
The critical goal is to effect the decision making process in the hours before the wrong decision is made.
It is a bit of an admission that, despite the recent history of the team, the message clearly has not gotten across.
Now the team faces the question of what will happen. While there has been no shortage of cries for Ratliff to be dismissed because of this, recent NFL history shows that this is not something that automatically ends a career. The New York Giants tackle David Diehl was involved in a very similar crash in early June of last year - and he was even more intoxicated that Ratliff, with a BAC of .182. Yet he was able to play in the regular season, starting nine games despite hearings that continued at least into September. No matter how the situation offends and even appalls many, legally and by precedent, Ratliff could likely get another chance to play.
Ganassi Racing team drivers, from front left, Scott Pruett; Charlie Kimball; Memo Rojas, of Mexico; and Juan Pablo Montoya, driving the car, of Colombia, arrive in Victory Lane after winning the Grand-Am Series Rolex 24 hour auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Ganassi Racing team drivers, from front left, Scott Pruett; Charlie Kimball; Memo Rojas, of Mexico; and Juan Pablo Montoya, driving the car, of Colombia, arrive in Victory Lane after winning the Grand-Am Series Rolex 24 hour auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Scott Pruett drives the Ganassi Racing BMW Riley as he maintains the lead during the final hours of the Grand-Am Series Rolex 24 hour auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Driver Scott Pruett walks through his pit stall after a turn driving in the Grand-Am Series Rolex 24 hour auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Memo Rojas, of Mexico, in the Ganassi Racing BMW Riley (01) passes a GT series car in a horseshoe turn during the Grand-Am Series Rolex 24 hour auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Scott Dixon, of New Zealand, drives the Ganassi Racing BMW Riley through the infield course during the Grand-Am Series Rolex 24 hour auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? Humbled a year ago when both its cars failed to make the podium, Chip Ganassi Racing returned to the Rolex 24 at Daytona determined to pick up another victory watch.
An eyebrow-raising lineup change that involved Juan Pablo Montoya showed just how serious the team was about winning, and it delivered Sunday with its fifth win in 10 appearances in the prestigious sports car race. The victory was the fifth for lead driver Scott Pruett, tying Hurley Haywood's record for wins in the twice-around-the-clock race at Daytona International Speedway.
The winning team of three-time defending Grand-Am drivers Pruett and Memo Rojas, along with Montoya and IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball, making his Rolex debut, beat the Max Angelelli-led VelocityWW team by almost 22 seconds for the victory.
It was Montoya who closed out the win, driving the final stint and waging a strong battle in the final hour with defending champion AJ Allmendinger. Ganassi's No. 01 BMW Riley had a clear horsepower advantage, and once Montoya got past Allmendinger, the win was his for the taking.
But the Ganassi team figured it was four laps short on fuel, and Montoya needed to build a lead of at least 40-seconds to hold off Angelelli and Allmendinger when he was forced to stop for gas. The Colombian did it by turning laps close to qualifying pace, and breezed to his third Rolex victory.
Montoya's other two wins were with Pruett on the No. 01 car in 2007 and 2008, but he spent the last three years driving for the No. 02 Ganassi "star car" and came away empty-handed each time. When the Ganassi cars were left off the Rolex podium last season for the first time since 2005, team management went to work on the cars and setting up a lineup that gave them two chances to win.
Montoya admitted he thought the switch was "a weird move," but owner Chip Ganassi and team manager Mike Hull insisted it wasn't a demotion for the driver who has been stuck in a lengthy slump in his full-time NASCAR job.
Clearly the pressure is on Montoya to perform this year, the final year of his contract with Ganassi, and he stepped up Saturday and Sunday as the No. 01 team had to balance out Kimball's inexperience. It was the first time racing in a car with a roof on it for Kimball, who has diabetes and uses his fight with the disease as his platform.
The Chevrolet team of Angelelli, defending IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay and Jordan Taylor finished second for team owner Wayne Taylor ? redemption after an engine failure 22 minutes in last year's event ended the team's day.
Defending race winner Michael Shank Racing twice came back from seven laps down to finish third in a Ford. It was a disappointing finish for team owner Shank, but a moral victory considering the hole the team clawed out of to make it to the podium.
Allmendinger, racing at Daytona for the first time since NASCAR suspended him for failing a random drug test hours before the July race here, teamed with fellow NASCAR driver Marcos Ambrose, IndyCar driver Justin Wilson and Grand-Am regulars John Pew and Ozz Negri for the finish.
Ambrose was added to last year's winning lineup after Negri broke his leg a month ago during offseason training, but Negri was able to return to the car this weekend for limited driving duties a mere six days after his cast was removed.
Audi Sport Customer Racing won the GT class in an Audi R8 with drivers Filipe Albuquergue, Oliver Jarvis, Edoardo Mortara and Dion von Moltke.
?Combining economy, environment, performance: the challenge of alternative fuels?
Are you interested in?learning more about opportunities offered by biofuels in the transport sector while?networking? You are welcome to join the?industrialists conference on ?The use and the future of alternative fuels in the transport sector ?. This event?will be?held on Thursday, February 7th?2013 at 6pm at the Salon Deloitte. Subscriptions are madatory.
For more information please click on the following link.
Note: This conference will be held in French only.
Along with the new year comes a new set of hackintosh builds from expert hackintosher tonymacx86, including a budget mini system for under $500, riskier Intel Xeon machines for a lot more, and everything in between.
As usual, every build comes with a set of recommendations as well as upgradeable options like graphics cards, RAM, SSDs, and more. One of the greatest, more recent additions to the build lists is the TP-LINK 802.11n Wi-Fi card, allowing trouble-free wireless access on any hackintosh. If this is your first time, or you just need help getting your build together, be sure to check out our always up-to-date guide to building a hackintosh for help. It includes a step-by-step walkthrough in addition to links to other resources to help you troubleshoot more specific issues.
Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide January 2013 | tonymacx86
Jan. 24, 2013 ? In 1901 the star GK Persei gave off a powerful explosion that has not stopped growing and astonishing ever since. Now a team of Spanish and Estonian astronomers has reconstructed the journey of the emitted gas in 3D which, contrary to predictions, has hardly slowed down its speed of up to 1,000 km/s after all this time.
Thanks to the images captured from the Isaac Newton Telescope and the Nordic Optical Telescope in La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain), a European team of astronomers has constructed a three dimensional map of the remnant of a nova, or in other words, what was left of the star after its explosion. The results have just been published in the Astrophysical Journal.
The protagonist of this story is the star GK Persei situated at 'just' 1,300 light years away from Earth. It is also known as Nova Persei 1901 because a strong thermonuclear eruption occurred on its surface on the 21st February 1901. On that day astronomers observed how its brightness suddenly increased to such an extent that it became one of the brightest stars in the skies.
The surprising thing is that the explosion created remaining material made up of gaseous knots, which become visible in 1916. "From then the visual spectacle has been similar to that of a firework display seen in slow motion," claims Miguel Santander, researcher at Spanish National Observatory and coauthor of the study.
After patient work to gather images, the team was able to measure the movements of more than 200 knots as well as the radial velocity using the Doppler effect, which allows to determine if they are getting closer or moving further away from us. In this way the 3D map of the nova was created and its dynamic was analysed.
"Such data are rarely available in astrophysics because as a general rule apparent expansion or, in other words, in the layout of the sky, the majority of objects cannot be seen," outlines another of the authors, Romano Corradi, from the Astrophysics Institute of the Canary Islands.
An unexpected result
In any case, the main result of this work "is that the gas seems to be moving further away in a ballistic or free manner and is hardly slowing down, contrary to what was thought in previous studies," comments the lead author of the investigation, Tiina Liimets of the Tartu Observatory in Estonia.
Until now it was thought that the gas from the explosion would slow down "significantly" due to the large quantity of matter in its path that the star has expelled previously. However, its speed has remained between a range of 600 and 1000 kilometres per second.
Long before the explosion in 1901, more than one hundred thousand years ago, GK Persei had already undergone a massive transformation from a red giant to a white dwarf. This process expelled its external layers forming a planetary nebula, which is a giant gas cloud within which the nova is now growing in 3D.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Plataforma SINC, via AlphaGalileo.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
T. Liimets, R.L.M. Corradi, M. Santander-Garc?a, E. Villaver, P. Rodr?guez-Gil, K. Verro, I. Kolka. A three-dimensional view of the remnant of Nova Persei 1901 (GK Per). Astrophysical Journal, December 2012
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 28-Jan-2013
Share ] 
Along with the new year comes a new set of hackintosh builds from expert hackintosher tonymacx86, including a budget mini system for under $500, riskier Intel Xeon machines for a lot more, and everything in between.