Revealed: Why females are promiscuous

For females (Animals), sex can be traumatic. In some insects, insemination involves wounding females and infecting them with dangerous microbes. In many other species, mating reduces females' lifespans.

Given that in most species, a single mating is generally enough to fertilize all a female's eggs, she has little incentive to mate again. And yet in many species, females mate multiple times with different males. 

Researchers at the University of East Anglia found that in inbreeding populations the female becomes more promiscuous to screen out sperm from genetically incompatible males.

In a study of flour beetles, the team found the breeding success of females in regular populations was identical, whether mating with one male or five. 

However, when they conducted the same tests with an inbred population, females mating with just one male showed a 50% reduction in the number of surviving offspring produced, the Daily Mail reported. "Polyandry" - where a female's eggs are fertilized by multiple fathers - is the norm in most species, from chimpanzees to chickens, the scientists said.

The results, they said, showed that females possess mechanisms that allow them to filter in the genetically most compatible sperm to produce more viable offspring. The team then deliberately created "genetic bottlenecks" of inbred beetles and found that after 15 generations the females began to mate more frequently and with more partners. Lead researcher prof Matthew Gage said: "By generating inbred populations, we were able to create real risks of high genetic incompatibility between reproducing males and females, and expose the mechanisms that females possess to promote fertilisation by the most compatible males and their sperm.

"These exciting results show how this common but paradoxical mating pattern can evolve if females use it to avoid reproducing with genetically incompatible males."

According to Gage, how females filter the most compatible sperm is still a mystery.

Are we descended from Outer Space: Are we Aliens!!

Cosmic Ancestry is a new theory pertaining to evolution and the origin of life on Earth. It holds that life on Earth was seeded from space, and that life's evolution to higher forms depends on genetic programs that come from space. (It accepts the Darwinian account of evolution that does not require new genetic programs.) It is a wholly scientific, testable theory for which evidence is accumulating. 

The first point, which deals with the origin of life on Earth, is known as panspermia — literally, "seeds everywhere." Its earliest recorded advocate was the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras, who influenced Socrates. However, Aristotle's theory of spontaneous generation came to be preferred by science for more than two thousand years. Then on April 9, 1864, French chemist Louis Pasteur reported his experiment disproving spontaneous generation as it was then held to occur. In the 1870s, British physicist Lord Kelvin and German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz reinforced Pasteur and argued that life could come from space. And in the first decade of the 1900s, Swedish chemist and Nobel laureate Svante Arrhenius theorized that bacterial spores, propelled through space by light pressure, were the seeds of life on Earth.

Starting in the 1970s, British astronomers Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe rekindled interest in panspermia. By careful spectroscopic observation and analysis of light from distant stars they found new evidence, traces of life, in the intervening dust. They also proposed that comets, which are largely made of water-ice, carry bacterial life across galaxies and protect it from radiation damage along the way. One aspect of this research program, that interstellar dust and comets contain organic compounds, has been pursued by others as well. It is now widely accepted that space contains the "ingredients" of life. This development could be the first hint of a huge paradigm shift. But mainstream science has not accepted the hard core of modern panspermia, that whole cells seeded life on Earth. 

 

19 May 1995: two scientists at Cal Poly showed that bacteria can survive without any metabolism for at least 25 million years; probably they are immortal. 24 November 1995: The New York Times described bacteria that can survive radiation much stronger than any that Earth has ever experienced. 7 August 1996: NASA announced fossilized evidence of ancient life in meteorite ALH 84001 from Mars. 27 October 1996: geneticists showed evidence that many genes are much older than the fossil record would indicate. Subsequent studies have strengthened this finding. 29 July 1997: a NASA scientist announced evidence of fossilized microscopic life forms in a meteorite not from any known planet. Spring, 1998: a microfossil that was found in a meteorite and photographed in 1966, was recognized by a Russian microbiologist as a magnetotactic bacterium. Fall, 1998: NASA's public position on life-from-space shifted dramatically. 4 January 1999: NASA officially recognized the possibility that life on Earth comes from space. 19 March 1999: NASA scientists announced that two more meteorites hold even stronger fossilized evidence for past life on Mars. 26 April 2000: the German team operating the mass spectrometer on NASA's Stardust mission announced the detection of very large organic molecules in space. Nonbiological sources for organic molecules so large are not known. 19 October 2000, a team of biologists and a geologist announced the revival of bacteria that are 250 million years old, strengthening that case that bacterial spores can be immortal. 13 December 2000: a NASA team demonstrated that the magnetosomes in Mars meteorite ALH 84001 are biological. June 2002: Geneticists reported evidence that the evolutionary step from chimps to humans was assisted by viruses. 2 August 2004: Very convincing photos of fossilized cyanobacteria in a meteorite were reported by a NASA scientist. 25 January 2005: J. Craig Venter endorses panspermia. 10 May 2007: E. O. Wilson endorses panspermia. 18 April 2008: Richard Dawkins endorses panspermia. 7 April 2009: Stephen Hawking endorses panspermia. 2 May 2009: Freeman Dyson speaks favorably about panspermia.

Men fall for 'Miss Right' after just a single date

Men are men. They fall for " Miss Right" after just a single date, says a new study. Researchers have found that men fall in love more easily than women - most males reckon they know whether or not it's "the real thing" after a single date while females wait until at least the sixth date before making their mind up.
Staggeringly, nearly one in four men said they believed in "love at first sight" and knew whether a girl was "the one" within seconds

The study also revealed a large percentage of men claim to have loved someone who didn't love them back. Men were also more likely to say "I love you" first and were also more likely than women to pine after their first love.
Both sexes agreed their first love was the one they took longest to get over and one in four said they didn't think they would ever fully recover from the heartbreak their first love caused them.
Men were also more likely to regret splitting up with their first girlfriend.
Women were more likely to be happy with the decisions they have made and more realistic about how happy they were in the first place, the findings revealed. Although women were more likely to try and track their ex-partner down over the internet and keep track on him and who he is dating.

Full Moon!! New Moon! Does Moon effect the Human Minds! or the Human Hearts!!

Across the centuries, many a person has uttered the phrase “There must be a full moon out there” in an attempt to explain weird happenings at night.

 Indeed, the Roman goddess of the moon bore a name that remains familiar to us today: Luna, prefix of the word “lunatic.” Greek philosopher Aristotle and Roman historian Pliny the Elder suggested that the brain was the “moistest” organ in the body and thereby most susceptible to the pernicious influences of the moon, which triggers the tides. Belief in the “lunar lunacy effect,” or “Transylvania effect,” as it is sometimes called, persisted in Europe through the Middle Ages, when humans were widely reputed to transmogrify into werewolves or vampires during a full moon.

Following Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, some contemporary authors, such as Miami psychiatrist Arnold Lieber, have conjectured that the full moon’s ­supposed effects on behavior arise from its influence on water. The human body, after all, is about 80 percent water, so perhaps the moon works its mischievous magic by somehow disrupting the alignment of water molecules in the nervous system.
 

But there are at least three reasons why this explanation doesn’t “hold water,” pardon the pun. First, the gravitational effects of the moon are far too minuscule to generate any meaningful effects on brain activity, let alone behavior. As the late astronomer George Abell of the University of California, Los Angeles, noted, a mosquito sitting on our arm exerts a more powerful gravitational pull on us than the moon does. Yet to the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports of a “mosquito lunacy effect.” Second, the moon’s gravitational force affects only open bodies of water, such as oceans and lakes, but not contained sources of water, such as the human brain. Third, the gravitational effect of the moon is just as potent during new moons—when the moon is invisible to us—as it is during full moons.

Persistent critics have disagreed with this conclusion, pointing to a few positive findings that emerge in scattered studies. Still, even the handful of research claims that seem to support full-moon effects have collapsed on closer investigation. In one study published in 1982 an author team reported that traffic accidents were more frequent on full-moon nights than on other nights. Yet a fatal flaw marred these findings: in the period under consideration, full moons were more common on weekends, when more people drive. When the authors reanalyzed their data to eliminate this confounding factor, the lunar effect vanished.

Perhaps full moon would be a wonderful romantic time with your loved one for sure.

Sex!! Orgasm! Relationship & Monogamy: Science of Orgasm

For men it is quick, easy and ESSENTIAL FOR REPRODUCTION.
For women, it is slow, difficult and PURELY FOR PLEASURE.
Yet despite such differences, it brings the sexes together and is the basis of the monogamy that distinguishes us from other animals

By virtue of a series of devilishly clever evolutionary tricks, or perhaps due to sheer happenstance shaped by cultural factors, women and men have quite different sexual desires, different sexual experiences and different sexual aims. They do not actually need one another to enjoy orgasm. Yet since prehistory, these two very different tribes have continued to seek out one another's company and spend their lives broadly together, centring a large part of their shared existence on an activity - sexual intercourse - of which they have a very different experience.



It is axiomatic that women fall in love first and discover lust later, while men fall in lust and only subsequently learn to love.
Indeed, it is a close-run thing whether the most striking disparity between the male and female yearning for orgasm is emotional or physical.

The orgasmic spasm lasts a few seconds to a minute at the most, but is accompanied by intense physiological activity. Genitals swell with blood, the pulse races, muscles contract involuntarily. Some people's mouths open. Others' faces contort. Many women's toes curl. In men, big toes often stiffen as their little toes twist. Both partners' feet may arch and shake. Sweat typically surfaces on both participants' brows, the heart pumps frantically, and breathing becomes fast and shallow. Both partners' nostrils may flare and seem to heat the air as it surges through them. With climax, each partner is clenched by contractions at consistent 0.8 second intervals. The human sexual summit is a paroxysm of pleasure. A warm glow envelops the waist and chest. The toes relax.

The emotions, too, generally go into a seismic convulsion. A mist of goodwill, wellbeing and lazy relaxation temporarily obscures reality. Both men and women may laugh or cry, or become uncommonly ticklish, although all these reactions are less common for men on the basis that they tend to show their feelings less anyway. Both sexes may experience a burst of creative thought since orgasm produces a near lightning storm in the right, creative-thinking side of the brain. Biological duty fulfilled, there normally follows a lengthy period of exhaustion, rest, and - frequently - sleep. 
  

All of this has a good deal to do with oxytocin, the "hormone of love" as it has been called. Oxytocin is a neurotransmitter synthesised by the hypothalamus at the base of the brain and stored in the posterior pituitary, from where it pulses out when required, which is during sexual activity and in childbirth, after which it prompts the desire to nuzzle and protect infants. Oxytocin induces feelings of love and altruism, warmth, calm, bonding, tenderness and togetherness, of satisfaction during bodily contact, sexual arousal and sexual fulfilment. It is during orgasm in both men and women that oxytocin floods through our bloodstream. Oxytocin released by female orgasm helps women lie still for a while afterwards. This increases the likelihood of conception, as well as making it probable that women will seek further coitus because they enjoyed it so much

Oxytocin is nature's sugar-coating to disguise the bitter pill of reproduction, the chemical basis for our capacity and longing for romantic attachment. It is the molecule that for 100,000 years or more has made us want to have sex face-to-face, adoring one another, and to live in permanent, monogamous couples 

 

Are Girls Attracted to Smarter Boys: Evolution of Brain by Sexual Selection

Humans have evolved as the most dominant and intelligent species on this planet earth. Once upon a time few million years ago they lived in caves & forests. Gradually they evolved to communicate by verbal tones & gestures. The human population was on the horizon to distinguish themselves from the rest of the species that exists on this planet.

They started living in community, built small huts. They had get together, they sung, they danced and even they played music and now the humans have built the sky scrapers touching the sky, the machines to dig the earth down beyond the sea bed and flying machines to orbit around the earth.

All these fine skills & analytics require advanced brain function of insight & cognition. The brain has evolved drastically from other species. Now the question...why did it evolve so drastically and distinctively.

HANDICAP THEORY

Before I explain why, lets see the physiological aspects of the Brain.
Weight: 1400 G Approx.

Oxygen: 20% utilization

Glucose: 40% utilization
Physiologically brain is a very expensive organ utilizing more glucose and oxygen.

ITS A COSTLY WASTE FOR AN ORGAN TO SURVIVE.

An Example: The peacock's tail. 

The peacock's tail is bright and colorful. The brightest and colorful peacock will be chosen by the peahen for mating (Bright and colorful feathers reflect the good health of the peacock) with an intention to have a healthy progeny.

But the long tail hinders the flight ability of the peacock and more prone to be hunted easily by predators.

 ITS A COSTLY WASTE FOR AN ORGAN TO SURVIVE. 

The bottom line SURVIVAL OF THE SEXIEST IN SEXUAL SELECTION among peacocks.

Evolution of brain is implied as evolution of intelligence. The higher motor functions, thought process, insight, soft skills contribute to be a good musician, a good writer, a scientist, a knowledge worker.

Man developed these qualities basically to interact and to impress his partner during the primitive age by playing music, dancing, verbal conversation ultimately converging to selection of a smart mate for a smarter progeny: 

The bottom line SURVIVAL OF THE SMARTEST IN SEXUAL SELECTION among humans.

So guys get smarter to attract girls.

The Origin of HIV

The origin of AIDS and HIV has puzzled scientists ever since the illness first came to light in the early 1980s. For over twenty years it has been the subject of fierce debate and the cause of countless arguments, with everything from a promiscuous flight attendant to a suspect vaccine programme being blamed. So what is the truth? Just where did AIDS come from?
The first recognised cases of AIDS occurred in the USA in the early 1980s (more about this period can be found on our History of AIDS page). A number of gay men in New York and California suddenly began to develop rare opportunistic infections and cancers that seemed stubbornly resistant to any treatment. At this time, AIDS did not yet have a name, but it quickly became obvious that all the men were suffering from a common syndrome.
The discovery of HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, was made soon after. While some were initially resistant to acknowledge the connection (and indeed some remain so today), there is now clear evidence to prove that HIV causes AIDS. So, in order to find the source of AIDS, it is necessary to look for the origin of HIV, and find out how, when and where HIV first began to cause disease in humans.

The 'hunter' theory

 The most commonly accepted theory is that of the 'hunter'. In this scenario, SIVcpz was transferred to humans as a result of chimps being killed and eaten or their blood getting into cuts or wounds on the hunter. Normally the hunter's body would have fought off SIV, but on a few occasions it adapted itself within its new human host and became HIV-1. The fact that there were several different early strains of HIV, each with a slightly different genetic make-up (the most common of which was HIV-1 group M), would support this theory: every time it passed from a chimpanzee to a man, it would have developed in a slightly different way within his body, and thus produced a slightly different strain.

An article published in The Lancet in 2004, also shows how retroviral transfer from primates to hunters is still occurring even today. In a sample of 1099 individuals in Cameroon , they discovered ten (1%) were infected with SFV (Simian Foamy Virus), an illness which, like SIV, was previously thought only to infect primates. All these infections were believed to have been acquired through the butchering and consumption of monkey and ape meat. Discoveries such as this have led to calls for an outright ban on bushmeat hunting to prevent simian viruses being passed to humans.

The oral polio vaccine (OPV) theory

 Some other rather controversial theories have contended that HIV was transferred iatrogenically (i.e. via medical interventions). One particularly well-publicised idea is that polio vaccines played a role in the transfer.

In his book, The River, the journalist Edward Hooper suggests that HIV can be traced to the testing of an oral polio vaccine called Chat, given to about a million people in the Belgian Congo, Ruanda and Urundi in the late 1950s. To be reproduced, live polio vaccine needs to be cultivated in living tissue, and Hooper's belief is that Chat was grown in kidney cells taken from local chimps infected with SIVcmz. This, he claims, would have resulted in the contamination of the vaccine with chimp SIV, and a large number of people subsequently becoming infected with HIV-1.

Many people have contested Hooper's theories and insist that local chimps were not infected with a strain of SIVcmz that is closely linked to HIV. Furthermore, the oral administration of the vaccine would seem insufficient to cause infection in most people (SIV/HIV needs to get directly into the bloodstream to cause infection - the lining of the mouth and throat generally act as good barriers to the virus).⁶ 

In February 2000 the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia (one of the original manufacturers of the Chat vaccine) announced that it had discovered in its stores a phial of polio vaccine that had been used as part of the program. The vaccine was subsequently analysed and in April 2001 it was announced that no trace had been found of either HIV or chimpanzee SIV.A second analysis confirmed that only macaque monkey kidney cells, which cannot be infected with SIV or HIV, were used to make Chat. While this is just one phial of many, it means that the OPV theory remains unproven.The fact that the OPV theory accounts for just one (group M) of several different groups of HIV also suggests that transferral must have happened in other ways too, as does the fact that HIV seems to have existed in humans before the vaccine trials were ever carried out.

The contaminated needle theory 

The colonialism or 'Heart of Darkness' theory, is one of the more recent theories to have entered into the debate. It is again based on the basic 'hunter' premise, but more thoroughly explains how this original infection could have led to an epidemic. It was first proposed in 2000 by Jim Moore, an American specialist in primate behaviour, who published his findings in the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.

During the late 19th and early 20th century, much of Africa was ruled by colonial forces. In areas such as French Equatorial Africa and the Belgian Congo, colonial rule was particularly harsh and many Africans were forced into labour camps where sanitation was poor, food was scarce and physical demands were extreme. These factors alone would have been sufficient to create poor health in anyone, so SIV could easily have infiltrated the labour force and taken advantage of their weakened immune systems to become HIV. A stray and perhaps sick chimpanzee with SIV would have made a welcome extra source of food for the workers. 

“SIV could easily have infiltrated the labour force and taken advantage of their weakened immune systems”

Moore also believes that many of the labourers would have been inoculated with unsterile needles against diseases such as smallpox (to keep them alive and working), and that many of the camps actively employed prostitutes to keep the workers happy, creating numerous possibilities for onward transmission. A large number of labourers would have died before they even developed the first symptoms of AIDS, and those that did get sick would not have stood out as any different in an already disease-ridden population. Even if they had been identified, all evidence (including medical records) that the camps existed was destroyed to cover up the fact that a staggering 50% of the local population were wiped out there.

One final factor Moore uses to support his theory, is the fact that the labour camps were set up around the time that HIV was first believed to have passed into humans - the early part of the 20th century.

The conspiracy theory 

Some say that HIV is a 'conspiracy theory' or that it is 'man-made'. A recent survey carried out in the US for example, identified a significant number of African Americans who believe HIV was manufactured as part of a biological warfare programme, designed to wipe out large numbers of black and homosexual people. Many say this was done under the auspices of the US federal 'Special Cancer Virus Program' (SCVP), possibly with the help of the CIA. Linked in to this theory is the belief that the virus was spread (either deliberately or inadvertently) to thousands of people all over the world through the smallpox inoculation programme, or to gay men through Hepatitis B vaccine trials. While none of these theories can be definitively disproved, the evidence given to back them up is usually based upon supposition and speculation, and ignores the clear link between SIV and HIV or the fact that the virus has been identified in people as far back as 1959.

Why do we Dream?

Many people believe their dreams simply do not have any meaning. They think their dreams are only a reflection of the problems, worries and desires they have when they are awake, and that they should not be taken seriously - just like the fantasies they have sometimes - and are only a product of their imagination.

From ancient times, the human being has been interested in the meanings of dreams, and in each civilization this interest has had a different result. Today, at least some people understand that unlike fantasies, our dreams are not produced by our own conscience, and that they have an important meaning that we have to learn to interpret. Their meaning is intrinsically related to our internal psychic world.

In the years before Christ, people believed that they could predict the future through the message contained in their dreams, and many of them actually made true predictions by interpreting their dreams. This power is inexplicable, something that is only possessed by those who are privileged with the talent of dream interpretation. Hence, nothing precise was understood concerning this, and so, their knowledge was not transmitted to the next generations. With time and the loss of the civilizations with rich cultures that were ruined by the stronger ones (through their violence and dominance), this knowledge disappeared completely among the different concepts of reality, as the human being was developing his world

Scientists then started to examine the reactions of their patients during the period when they were sleeping and dreaming. They discovered that there are times, in deeper sleep, that we have more dreams, and that our eyes move even when we are sleeping, because they follow the dream’s images.

However, nothing has yet been clearly explained or proven regarding dreams, and people still do not give them any importance, even if they believe that their dreams may bear some kind of meaning.

The first scientific explanation of dream content was given by Sigmund Freud, who considered them to be wish fulfilment. His psychology is based on the human desire for constant pleasure and sexual satisfaction. He was right about many points, but there were many others he did not consider.

Further, Alfred Adler appeared and showed to the world that the human being is not only moved by the constant desire for pleasure, but in fact his main desire is that of power, since the basic purpose of his life is to elevate his Ego. He was also right in many ways, but he did not consider many other factors either.
  
Carl Jung was the third great mind in the psychological world. He started his career as a student of Freud, but later abandoned his mentor and created his own method. He tried to understand the human psyche as a whole, capturing the hidden meaning that exists in the prediction of dreams, as well as translating the dream’s symbols so that he could have an image of what was happening in a patient’s mind.

Many other psychologists after Jung developed their own theories about dream interpretation, most of them also correct in many ways (because dreams do show us many things), but only Carl Jung understood the complete meaning that dreams possess. They contain not only very important information about each person’s psychic sphere, but are also a source that gives us important information about the external world.

Coffee, Research, Cancer!! Health! Whatever Just sip it!!!

                                                

 

COFFEE: TO DRINK OR NOT TO DRINK

Cons

Coffee is a central nervous system stimulator that gives the adrenals a kick and causes production of the stress handling hormone adrenalin and the production of more cortisol resulting in short term benefits of heightened awareness / alertness and more energy, but long term may result in a crash after each consumption to lower levels of energy than previously thereby necessitating another cup and another cup, etc. Thus, it may be addictive and ultimately may result in adrenal exhaustion.
•Even though coffee has never been conclusively linked to cancer, it does contain acknowledged carcinogens such as caffeine and other chemicals produced by the high heat of roasting such as creosote, pymdine, tars, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
• Caffeine interferes with adenosine, a brain chemical that normally has a calming effect.
• Cortisol levels are raised which in turn results in constriction of the blood vessels, harder pumping of the heart and higher blood pressure. (Constriction of blood vessels is also a benefit, see the next section.)
• The liver in fetuses and newborns cannot metabolize caffeine, so it remains in the body for up to four days stimulating the nervous system resulting in irritability and sleeplessness.
• Coffee has been associated with low birth weight, birth defects, miscarriages, premature birth, inability to conceive, and sluggish sperm.
• Many of the chemicals in coffee and decaf irritate the stomach lining causing an increase of stomach acid leading to digestive disorders.
• Coffee, including decaf, has high amounts of vitamin K, which affects coagulability of the blood – bad for people at risk of heart attack, stroke and blood clots.
• Decreases quality of sleep.
• Caffeine may cause problems with blood sugar control after meals for type 2 diabetics.
• Coffee excites more rapid peristaltic movements of the intestines resulting in shorted transit times and less absorption of nutrients.
• Coffee hampers the absorption of essential minerals and vitamins such as magnesium, zinc, iron, potassium, and B’s.
• Coffee contributes to caries in the teeth.
• Coffee stimulates more frequent urination and subsequent loss of various vitamins and minerals such as B, C, calcium, iron and zinc.
• Caffeine may aggravate osteoporosis by leaching calcium from the bones.
• Caffeine may increase intraocular pressure in persons with glaucoma.
• Coffee may interfere with proper levels of homocysteine and cholesterol by inhibiting vitamins folate, B12 or B6.
• Coffee is one of most heavily pesticide sprayed crops.
• Caffeine aggravates stress in people who drink it every day.

Pros
• There are scientific studies that refute most if not all of the above listed negative effects.
• Many of the old studies showing the bad effects of coffee may be attributed to not taking into account whether the person also smoked. In addition, coffee drinkers before 1975 used unfiltered and percolated coffee. After 1975, the filters for preparing coffee removed most of the chemicals, like terpenes, that cause elevations in homocysteine and cholesterol resulting in better results. Also, early Finnish studies when people still drank boiled coffee had higher risk of rheumatoid arthritis. Later studies using coffee preparations other than boiled did not show an associated rheumatoid arthritis risk.
• Caffeine increases intellectual activity when fatigued or bored.
• Caffeine speeds up fat metabolism during exercise while conserving glycogen and glucose thereby maintaining brain activity and reducing hunger.
• Caffeine prevents crystallization of cholesterol and reduces risk of development of gallstones.
• Coffee has a protective effect against cirrhosis of the liver.
• Coffee has shown a protective effect against colon cancer likely due to enhanced colonic activity of the colon and antimutagenic components in coffee.
• Coffee may lower the incidence of Parkinson’s disease due to high anti-oxidant activity.
• The theophylline in coffee may be protective against asthma.
• Coffee has four times the anti-oxidants of Green Tea, makes an excellent anti-depressant, and enhances performance and memory.
• Caffeine dilates the arteries of the brain and may counter migraines. (Caffeine is also a cause of migraines.)
• The FDA considers caffeine to be “Generally Recognized as Safe.”
• Coffee may reduce the incidence of kidney stones by increasing the flow of urine and decreasing its concentration.
• Coffee lessens the incidence of bladder cancer in smokers due to its diuretic effect.
• Minerals like magnesium and antioxidants may contribute to coffee being shown to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.
• Coffee has the ability to reduce the release of histamine from mast cells thereby having anti-allergic properties. 

God!! Should i stop drinking coffee now or should drink more coffee!! Forget all science...just sip it.

Science of Land Slide

Hill Slope

Heavy Rain

Detachment of soil bed from rock bed

Land Slide

Landslides are a form of mass movement, a term used to describe any sort of gravity-induced movement of sediment down a slope. Mass movements can occur slowly over a period of years, or they can happen in a matter of minutes. A mass movement can be as small as some rocks and debris you kick down a small incline or as big as the 1980 landslide set off by the eruption of Mount St. Helens.
­There are many different kinds of mass movements categorized by the type of material involved, the way it is moved and how fast it moves­. However, with any mass movement, a soil layer is separated to some degree from the underlying bedrock. Soil is the relatively loose mixture of worn-down rock, minerals, air, water and decayed organic matter that covers the ground. Bedrock is the more stable, solid layer of rock underneath.

Can Science Measure the Process of Ageing

 

Telomeres are bits of “junk DNA” at the end of chromosomes that protect your real DNA every time a cell divides. What happens is that, due to how cells divide, the very last bit of a chromosome can’t be copied 100% - a little bit gets cut off. It was thought that, as cell divide, the telomeres get shorter each time, until, they are gone. At that point, the “real DNA” cannot be copied anymore and the cell simply ages and no longer replicates.

In population level studies, researchers have shown that older people have shorter telomeres. Eventually, the cells with shorter telomeres can no longer replicate and, taken over time and lots of cells, tissue damage and the dreaded “signs of aging” can show up. Most cells can replicate about 50 times before the telomeres are too short. Some believe that telomeres are the “secret to longevity” and there are circumstances in which the telomeres will not shorten. Cancer cells, for example, don’t die (which is the main problem) because they switch on an enzyme called telomerase, which adds to the telomeres when cells divide. Some cells in your body need to do this (stem cells and sperm cells, for example) because they need to replicate more than 50 times in your lifetime

A blood test that can show how fast someone is aging - and offers the tantalizing possibility of estimating how long they have left to live - is to go on sale to the general public in UK later this year.
The controversial test measures vital structures on the tips of a person's chromosomes, called telomeres, which scientists believe are one of the most important and accurate indicators of the speed at which a person is aging.
Scientists behind the £435 test said it will tell whether a person is biologically aging, as measured by the length of their telomeres, and is older or younger than their actual chronological age, as measured by years since birth.
The scientists, however, do not yet believe they can narrow down the prediction to calculate the exact number of months and years a person has yet to live. They do not yet believe the information could be used to calculate the exact number of years a person has left to live, but several studies have indicated that individuals with shorter-thannormal telomeres are likely to die younger than those with longer telomeres.
In addition to concerns about how people will react to a test for how old they really are, some scientists are worried that telomere testing may be hijacked by unscrupulous organizations trying to peddle unproven anti-aging remedies and other fake elixirs of life.
The results of the tests might also be of interest to companies offering life-insurance policies or medical cover that depend on a person's lifetime risk of falling ill or dying prematurely.

However, there is a growing body of respectable scientific opinion that says testing the length of a person's telomeres could provide vital insights into the risk of dying prematurely from a range of age-related disorders , from cardiovascular disease to Alzheimer's and cancer.

Malaria Parasites Protect their Territory in the Body

The malaria parasite can ensure it keeps a host body all to itself by preventing further malarial infections, according to international researchers

The parasite initially reproduces in the liver and moves into the blood. A study on mice, published in Nature Medicine, showed the parasite can trigger iron deficiency in the liver and therefore prevent more infections.
An expert said the research was "very cool and very interesting", and improved understanding of infection.
The researchers were looking at super-infections, when a patient already infected with malaria is infected with another batch of malaria parasites.



Protecting turf

In experiments on mice, researchers showed that parasites in the blood were able to stimulate the production of the hormone hepcidin, which regulates iron levels.

Hepcidin,  the 25-amino acid peptide  is secreted by the liver, which seems to be the "master regulator" of iron metabolism. Hepcidin inhibits iron transport by binding to the iron channel ferroportin, which is located on the basolateral surface of gut enterocytes and the plasma membrane of reticuloendothelial cells. Inhibiting ferroportin shuts off the iron transport out of these cells which store iron. Ferroportin is also present on enterocytes and macrophages. By inhibiting ferroportin, hepcidin prevents enterocytes of the intestines from secreting iron into the hepatic portal system, thereby functionally reducing iron absorption. The iron release from macrophages is also prevented by ferroportin inhibition, therefore the hepcidin maintains iron homeostasis
This reduced the level of iron in the liver, preventing other malaria parasites from reproducing in the organ.

Dr Hal Drakesmith, from the Weatherall Institute at Oxford University, who was part of the research team, said: "Now that we understand how malaria parasites protect their territory in the body from competitor parasites, we may be able to enhance this natural defence mechanism to combat the risk of malaria infections."
Malaria is often accompanied by anaemia, which is treated with iron supplements.
In this study, mice given iron supplements were more susceptible to additional infections.
Dr Drakesmith said: "We may need to look again at the advisability of iron supplementation programmes in malaria-endemic regions, as possible increased risk of infection may need to be weighed against benefits."
Dr Rita Tewari, a malaria researcher at the University of Nottingham, said: "It's very cool and very interesting.
"It tells us a bit more about the mechanism of malaria infection and gives us some sort of tool, this molecule hepcidin, that you can manipulate which can affect infection."