Episode 15: Radiothon Science News

Being lonely is leaving you cold
Last year Psychologists Chen-Bo Zhong and Geoffrey Leonardelli from the University of Toronto found that social exclusion literally make us feel cold. The researchers divided volunteers into two groups. One group recalled a personal experience in which they had been socially excluded—rejection from a club, for example. The other group recalled an experience where they were accepted. The researchers then made the volunteers estimate the room temperature. Those thinking about a socially isolating experience gave lower estimates of the temperature.
In a similar study by the same authors published in the September issue of Psychological Science last year the “unpopular” volunteers who were ostracized during a computer game were more likely than the others to want either hot soup or hot coffee. Their research suggests that warm chicken soup may be a coping mechanism for social isolation.

Spanish soup stops stress
In 2004 Tufts University in Boston found that volunteers eating a type of vegetable soup called gazpacho twice a day had lower stress-related molecules in their blood after just 7 days. Gazpacho is a, a Mediterranean-style cold soup of uncooked vegetables including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions, garlic, oil, and seasonings.

So why is it reducing stress molecules? Researchers reckon that it’s the vitamin C in the veggies doing the work. Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant, but this study suggested that the soup might do more than just reduce free radicals in the body. Vitamin C prevents the development of things in your body involved in abnormal inflammation and oxidative stress. After a week of consuming the soup consistently, the volunteers had a significant decrease in blood concentrations of prostaglandin E2, made during inflammation and influences immune responses. They also had less of a molecule called monocyte chemotactic protein-1, which has been found in high concentrations in artery-clogging plaques.

Vitamin C is also found in Brain tissue. Increased concentrations of vitamin C in cells of human brain tissue improve the function of lysosomes. Lysosomes break down and eliminate waste products. Scientists now know that the function of lysosomes decreases as people age.

Lets make some honey
Professor Tom Seeley of Cornell University, has discovered that animals that live in communities make decisions collective when it comes to new real estate, food hunting and decision makings. Seeley has been observing the behavioural patterns of honey bees and noted that when moving house, honey bees would send out older scouts to find a new home, and would indicate that it is a good sot by dancing over the spot followed by other bees coming to inspect the new property.

These decisions are not just for finding new homes but it is also used in things such as finding appropriate flowers and also many other life/death making decisions. These rituals are also observed in insects such as ants and locusts.

Trilobite Orgy
Researchers from the El Insituto de Geologia Economica in Spain have discovered that trilobites mated en masse and used its number for protection. This finding was published in the May edition of Geology, the paper describes the behaviours of these ancient creatures – thought to be related to lobsters and spiders. Fossil records and findings have indicated that these ancient animals would moult together similar ot that of horseshoe crabs and that mass moulting also could indicate that these animals mated en masse to for safety.

Fossils of trilobites are found en masse and usually under larger animals, with their old shells, which suggest that they may stick together as they are more vulnerable in their soft shell state.

Gay Marriage Bans Linked to rise in HIV Rate
In the US, it has been found that an intolerant society towards gay marriage, can raise HIV infection by about 4 in 100,000 people. The study used data from the General Social Survey (GSS) which tracked attitudes in America over the past 4 decades.

The overall data found that from 1970-1990 as tolerance increased, there was a 1 per 100,000 people decrease in HIV cases, and when laws were passed to allow gay marriage, there was a dip in the number of cases, by 4 in 100,000 people.

Mialon, the economist who did the study stated that “intolerance is deadly, Bans on Gay Marriage codify intolerance, causing more people to shift to underground sexual behaviours that carry more risk.

Logging online Prevents Teens from Logging OFF.
According to the University of Alberta researchers, teenagers aren’t going to councillors or calling the youth hotlines, but instead going online for emotional support. The University had set up an anonymous thread site, where teenagers could go onto talk about how they were feeling.

Volunteers monitored the site, leaving encouraging messages, and found that students were leaving encouraging messages for each other. The study also found that teenagers who previously logged onto the dite for support started writing support for others, and shows the power of an online community to be a meaningful peer-based support system.

Not edible, but soup news
The discovery of a salty, acidic soup that could have supported life on Mars was named Breakthrough of the Year by Science in 2004. The researchers from NASA, who discovered the breakthrough, used their soup-a finding to suggest that Mars was once a wet, warm place and could have been capable of supporting life billions of years ago. The Opportunity rover found a bedrock at Eagle crater on Meridiani Planum that suggests a cyclical wet-and-dry history. But four years later, in 2008 a new analysis of the Martian soup suggested that the water was too salty to support life as we know it.

New Galaxy on a feeding frenzy
Astronomers from the Carnegie Insitution for Science in Pasadena, California, have discovered a giant parcel of gas and stars that is about half the diameter of the milky way and is about 12.9 billion light years away from earth

This object is thought to have been formed about 800 million years after the big bang, which is estimated to be about 6% of the universes current age. The blob is at the stage of feeding frenzy, taking in gases around it. It is not certain whether this is a new galaxy or if the glowing object is gas heated by a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy.

No more whining
Low to moderate drinking of red wine reduces causes of mortality, says a new study from the University of Queensland. Researchers reviewed recent findings on polyphenols found in red wine. Data will be published in the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research; the review is also available at Early View. The breadth of benefits found in the mixture of bioactive compounds in red wine includes cancer prevention, protection of the heart and brain from damage, reducing age-related diseases such as inflammation, reversing diabetes and obesity.