http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Georgia Tech City and Regional Planning Professor Brian Stone publishes a paper in the December edition of Environmental Science and Technology that suggests policymakers need to address the influence of global deforestation and urbanization on climate change, in addition to greenhouse gas emissions. http://www.physorg.com/news177139558.html Space & Earth Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:00:01 EST news177139558 (AP) -- Amazon's Kindle can read books aloud, but if you're blind it can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two universities say they will shun the device until Amazon changes the setup. http://www.physorg.com/news177140017.html Electronics Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:50:01 EST news177140017 Do you speak English as a second language well, but still have trouble understanding movies with unfamiliar accents, such as Brad Pitt's southern accent in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds? In a new study, published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE, Holger Mitterer (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics) and James McQueen (MPI and Radboud University Nijmegen) show how you can improve your second-language listening ability by watching the movie with subtitles -as long as these subtitles are in the same language as the film. Subtitles in one's native language, the default in some European countries, may actually be counter-productive to learning to understand foreign speech. http://www.physorg.com/news177139830.html Medicine & Health Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:40:02 EST news177139830 The science section of The New York Times contained an unusual article on Tuesday. The story about a huge floating garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean was not written by a Times reporter but by a freelance journalist whose expenses were paid by hundreds of donors in an experiment in "crowd-funded" journalism. http://www.physorg.com/news177140096.html Technology Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:35:24 EST news177140096 As African nations are poised to undergo the highest increase in the rate of tobacco use among developing countries, nearly 90 percent of people on the continent remain without meaningful protection from secondhand smoke, according to a new report released at a regional cancer conference today. http://www.physorg.com/news177139590.html Medicine & Health Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:27:21 EST news177139590 (PhysOrg.com) -- Were dinosaurs endothermic (warm-blooded) like present-day mammals and birds or ectothermic (cold-blooded) like present-day lizards? The implications of this simple-sounding question go beyond deciding whether or not you'd snuggle up to a dinosaur on a cold winter's evening. http://www.physorg.com/news177138663.html Biology Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:12:21 EST news177138663 The Universe's infant galaxies enjoyed rapid growth spurts forming stars like our sun at a rate of up to 50 stars a year, according to scientists at Durham University. http://www.physorg.com/news177138435.html Space & Earth Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:08:17 EST news177138435 High levels of workplace exposure to Bisphenol-A may increase the risk of reduced sexual function in men, according to a Kaiser Permanente study appearing in the journal Human Reproduction. http://www.physorg.com/news177138050.html Medicine & Health Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:06:35 EST news177138050 (PhysOrg.com) -- Hours of analysing snoring sounds have paid off for a group of researchers from The University of Queensland and Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital. http://www.physorg.com/news177103046.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:20:05 EST news177103046 Adobe Systems, known for its Photoshop editing program and Acrobat document software, announced on Tuesday it was cutting some 680 jobs worldwide, about nine percent of its workforce. http://www.physorg.com/news177102314.html Technology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:40:02 EST news177102314 (PhysOrg.com) -- Electronic devices can't work well unless all of the transistors, or switches, within them allow electrical current to flow easily when they are turned on. A team of engineers has determined why some transistors made of organic crystals don't perform well, yielding ideas about how to make them work better. http://www.physorg.com/news177103252.html Nanotechnology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:37:05 EST news177103252 Depression must be understood on both a biological and psychological level, says Robert Sapolsky. http://www.physorg.com/news177102087.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:30:02 EST news177102087 Amazon.com on Tuesday released free software that lets people read the online retail titan's electronic Kindle books on personal computers. http://www.physorg.com/news177102297.html Technology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:30:01 EST news177102297 (PhysOrg.com) -- In the last three decades, childhood obesity in the United States has become a massive public-health problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control, between 1980 and 2006 the percentage of obese teenagers in the United States grew from 5 to 18, while the percentage of pre-teens suffering from obesity increased from 7 to 17. Such children often become overweight adults, leaving themselves especially susceptible to heart illness, Type 2 diabetes, strokes, and some forms of cancer. http://www.physorg.com/news177098327.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:20:09 EST news177098327 (PhysOrg.com) -- Last Thursday, the day after the New York Yankees won their first World Series of the 21st century, MIT Institute Professor Barbara Liskov, the 2008 recipient of the Turing Award - frequently called the Nobel Prize for computer science - delivered the first lecture of the 2009 Dertouzos Lecture Series. http://www.physorg.com/news177097345.html Technology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:20:04 EST news177097345 Twitter on Tuesday linked to LinkedIn, letting people share updates and tweets between the hot microblogging service and the career-oriented online social networking website. http://www.physorg.com/news177101856.html Technology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:10:03 EST news177101856 (PhysOrg.com) -- University of Toronto researchers continue to uncover the mysteries of space. But even the best astronauts in the world are stymied if the spaceship doesn't launch. When the countdown stops, it is often because a hydrogen leak has been detected. One small malfunction in the sensing device can mean millions of dollars lost. http://www.physorg.com/news177096977.html Nanotechnology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:10:02 EST news177096977 (PhysOrg.com) -- Dan Schnur, director of the College's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, analyzes the findings from the first of six USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences/Los Angeles Times statewide public opinion polls. http://www.physorg.com/news177100878.html Other Sciences Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:10:02 EST news177100878 Despite a current suggestion that patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome be positioned lying face down while receiving mechanical ventilation, study results indicate that this positioning does not significantly lower the risk of death compared to similar patients positioned lying face up during ventilation, according to a study in the November 11 issue of JAMA. http://www.physorg.com/news177100073.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:00:01 EST news177100073 Autism affects 1 in 150 children today, making it more common than childhood cancer, juvenile diabetes and pediatric AIDS combined. Despite its widespread effect, autism is not well understood and there are no objective medical tests to diagnose it. Recently, University of Missouri researchers have developed a pupil response test that is 92.5 percent accurate in separating children with autism from those with typical development. In the study, MU scientists found that children with autism have slower pupil responses to light change. http://www.physorg.com/news177100281.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:50:01 EST news177100281 (AP) -- Microsoft's newest computer operating system has survived its first few weeks on the market without needing any security fixes. http://www.physorg.com/news177100043.html Technology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:40:06 EST news177100043 (PhysOrg.com) -- It sounds like a classic horror story -- eyeless, mouthless worms lurk in the dark, settling onto dead animals and sending out green "roots" to devour their bones. In fact, such worms do exist in the deep sea. They were first discovered in 2002 by researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, who were using a robot submarine to explore Monterey Canyon. But that wasn't the end of the story. After "planting" several dead whales on the seafloor, a team of biologists recently announced that as many as 15 different species of boneworms may live in Monterey Bay alone. http://www.physorg.com/news177100746.html Biology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:39:38 EST news177100746 (PhysOrg.com) -- Although often seen as an inconsequential feature of digital technologies, one's self-representation, or avatar, in a virtual environment can affect the user's thoughts, according to research by a University of Texas at Austin communication professor. http://www.physorg.com/news177100524.html Other Sciences Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:36:03 EST news177100524 The Congo Basin -- with its massive, lush tropical rain forest -- was far different 150 million to 200 million years ago. At that time Africa and South America were part of the single continent Gondwana. The Congo Basin was arid, with a small amount of seasonal rainfall, and few bushes or trees populated the landscape, according to a new geochemical analysis of rare ancient soils. http://www.physorg.com/news177100413.html Space & Earth Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:34:10 EST news177100413 (PhysOrg.com) -- The simple school textbook is used by states to mould loyal citizens, according to a new study. http://www.physorg.com/news177100164.html Other Sciences Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:30:52 EST news177100164 The small-molecule inhibitor nutlin-3 may be a viable treatment option for neuroblastoma patients with wild-type p53 activity, according to a new study published online November 10 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. http://www.physorg.com/news177098545.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:30:01 EST news177098545 (PhysOrg.com) -- Cell-culture studies looking into how compounds in cinnamon extract affect brain cells are being conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. The researchers have reported findings that the compounds studied prevented isolated brain cells from swelling, one of the many abnormal conditions resulting from traumatic brain injury and stroke due to impaired blood flow to the brain. http://www.physorg.com/news177098493.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:20:07 EST news177098493 Lipid assessment in vascular disease can be simplified by measuring either total and HDL cholesterol levels or apolipoproteins, without the need to fast and without regard to triglyceride levels, according to a study in the November 11 issue of JAMA. http://www.physorg.com/news177096805.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:20:05 EST news177096805 (PhysOrg.com) -- Sydney's native bush rats were unintended victims of a campaign to exterminate foreign black rats during a plague epidemic in 1900, according to new research by scientists who plan to reintroduce the native rats into bushland around Sydney's harbourside suburbs. http://www.physorg.com/news177096686.html Biology Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:20:02 EST news177096686 With an eye to small-town health professionals as well as to the people training students to practice medicine beyond metropolitan settings, Dartmouth's Department of Community and Family Medicine is unveiling the Handbook for Rural Health Care Ethics. http://www.physorg.com/news177096304.html Medicine & Health Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:10:03 EST news177096304