Fact O' The Day

[Krandall]

"Trans-fat consumption shrinks the brain."


A study in the journal Neurology indicates that a diet high in trans fats not only impairs cognition in aging brains, it is also correlated with actual brain shrinkage. The research found that older people with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids performed better on cognitive tests than those with lower levels, while the reverse held true for trans fats. Fat levels and other nutritional benchmarks were responsible for an astounding 70% of the variation in cognitive scores.

[Krandall]

"Getting a cat for the first time as an adult can give you cat allergies."


Having a cat around in childhood makes you less likely to develop feline allergies, but apparently getting one in adulthood actually doubles your risk of developing them, according to a study in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Researchers examined 6,000 adults who started out not sensitive to cat dander and followed them for nine years, finding that about twice as many adults who acquired cats developed allergies as those who didn't own cats. The phenomenon was limited to adults who let their cats into their bedrooms.

[Krandall]

"Excess milk consumption increases the risk of prostate cancer."


According to a study outlined in the American Journal of Epidemiology, men who drink milk daily in adolescence and then quit drinking it later are three times as likely as those who don't drink milk to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. Researchers noted that the study was correlative, and does not necessarily imply direct causation (although the estrogen in cow's milk has been elsewhere linked to increased risk of prostate cancer). A related study conducted on a cellular level found that cow's milk increases the growth of prostate cancer cells by 30%.

[Krandall]

"Deeper-voiced men actually tend to be less fertile."


Men with deeper voices generally have higher levels of testosterone, and are therefore also associated with its other virile-seeming effects (more facial hair and increased muscle mass, for example). But according to a study published in the journal PLoS One, men with deeper voices may have lower-quality sperm than their higher-voiced counterparts. The study found that the sperm of deeper-voiced men scored lower on seven motility parameters (ratings of sperm's ability to reach an egg), meaning they had lower overall fertility.

[Krandall]

"Competition against daunting opponents makes your own performance worse."


A study by Northwestern University appearing in the Journal of Political Economy investigated 11 years of Tiger Woods' records against various PGA opponents, and found that the simple fact that they were facing Woods made them worse golfers. His opponents tended to play more conservatively when competing directly against him, taking shorter, safer shots. The economist Jennifer Brown estimates that the influence of this effect made Woods an extra $6 million overall.

[Peelz]

also, racing atv's against guys with really fast ones, makes you slower..I know this

[Krandall]

"Sex bolsters the immune system."


According to a study conducted at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, having sex a couple of times a week improves immune function. Researchers tested undergraduates for their levels of the antibody immunoglobulin A, which is crucial to resisting illnesses. Those who'd averaged sex less than once a week had slightly higher levels of the antibody than those who'd had none at all; sex twice a week led to a 30% increase. Those who'd had sex more than that, however, actually had lower levels of IgA than the abstainers.

[Krandall]

"A Nashville software developer has developed an app that functions as a visual breathalyzer."



The BreathalEyes App, developed by Xplor Apps, approximates a person's blood-alcohol content by monitoring his or her eye movements. Using a phone's camera, the app measures horizontal gaze nystagmus -- jerkiness in eye movement that becomes apparent at around .04% BAC (and a metric sometimes used by police to test sobriety). BreathalEyes is currently available for the iPhone 4 for 99 cents; an Android version is in the works.

[Peelz]

seriously cool.

[Krandall]

"Dutch designers are working on an iPad game that will be played by humans and pigs."


The "Playing With Pigs" project, a collaboration between research institutions in the Netherlands, has demonstrated an iPad concept app that involves a human touching the screen to project a ball of light on a large touchscreen in a pig pen. The pigs, drawn to the light, would then chase the ball around with their snouts. Human players would see a snout on their screens and try to move in harmony with the pigs. The pigs, if successful, are rewarded with bright, colorful stimuli. The app was precipitated by European laws, which require that pig farmers provide their intelligent livestock with toys or some other stimulating activity, reducing the animals' boredom (and therefore their aggression)

[Peelz]

"Dutch designers are working on an iPad game that will be played by humans and pigs."


The "Playing With Pigs" project, a collaboration between research institutions in the Netherlands, has demonstrated an iPad concept app that involves a human touching the screen to project a ball of light on a large touchscreen in a pig pen. The pigs, drawn to the light, would then chase the ball around with their snouts. Human players would see a snout on their screens and try to move in harmony with the pigs. The pigs, if successful, are rewarded with bright, colorful stimuli. The app was precipitated by European laws, which require that pig farmers provide their intelligent livestock with toys or some other stimulating activity, reducing the animals' boredom (and therefore their aggression)

wow. just wow. 

[Krandall]

"Some people are genetically able to taste fat more acutely than others."


One common recurring myth about the tongue is that it's segmented into specific areas that detect only one taste per area (sour, sweet, bitter and salty). The segmentation theory has been known to be false for decades: It was originally based on a psychologist's mistranslation of a century-old research paper. Furthermore, there is at least one other basic taste -- "umami," the taste of glutamate -- and research now indicates that humans can taste fat as well, with their sensitivity to the taste determined by the CD36 gene (and those less sensitive to it are likely to consume more of it). The research, conducted by the Washington University School of Medicine, was published in the Journal of Lipid Research.

[Krandall]

"Women are more attracted to a lack of stress than to a surplus of masculinity."


Some of the traits associated with testosterone (muscle mass, square jaws) are inarguably associated with attractiveness. A Scottish study from the University of Abertay Dundee indicates, however, that the presence of testosterone is actually less important to women judging attractiveness than the lack of cortisol, the stress hormone. Researchers compiled composite face images that illustrated traits corresponding to high and low testosterone, and to high and low cortisol; the high-testosterone face was not notably preferred over the low-testosterone face, but the low-cortisol face was seen as significantly more attractive than the high-cortisol face.

[Krandall]

"Your ethnicity influences where you look to recognize a person's face."


The "looking pattern" with which we recognize other people varies between cultures and ethnicities, according to a study conducted by by the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus and published in the journal PLoS One. Westerners look mostly in a triangular pattern, moving between the two eyes and then down to the mouth (a method, according to the authors, suited to populations whose features vary dramatically). Some Asian groups look instead at the center of the face, gathering information about the arrangement of facial features. The study also found that British-born Chinese people combined these approaches, fixating on the eyes or mouth -- suggesting that facial recognition is a variable, learned behavior.

[Krandall]

"Parasitic worms could potentially be used to treat lung injuries."


According to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine, intestinal parasites -- which cause millions of illnesses and deaths each year -- may someday be used to treat serious injuries caused by pneumonia and other diseases. Researchers at the New Jersey Medical School studied Nippostrongylus brasiliensis, a rodent parasite similar to hookworm. They found that a mouse's immune system produces an abundance of cytokines (crucial signaling proteins) to expel the parasites and promote healing of the lungs, which are often damaged by these parasites. If humans produce a comparable reaction then the parasites, or something designed to provoke the same immune reaction, could be used to treat acute lung injuries.