Hungry Duck

 

Not Too Smart

 

Walking After Eating Lowers Diabetes

Sometimes it can be difficult to get in the full 150-minutes of moderate-intensity activity every week. Between meetings and making dinner, or cleaning the kitchen and preparing for presentations, movement can sometimes take a back seat. 

But, new research found that just two minutes of walking (yes, really!) can have a positive impact on your blood sugar levels and potentially ward off type 2 diabetes.

A meta-analysis of seven studies, published in the journal Sports Medicine, examined the impact of sitting for long periods of time compared to either light-intensity walking or standing on cardiometabolic health markers.

Study participants were either placed in a walking or standing group and were instructed to walk or stand for two to five minutes every 20 to 30 minutes over the course of one day. Two of the seven studies included participants with and without diabetes. 

The remaining five included participants without any history of diabetes. Researchers found that even these few minutes of slow walking were enough to create a drop in blood sugar levels.

Specifically, walking within 60 to 90 minutes after eating (when blood sugar levels are at their peak) was associated with more gradual changes in blood sugar levels compared to sitting or standing. 

This is important for those with prediabetes or another type of diabetes looking to avoid dramatic blood sugar swings.

Researchers measured heart health through systolic blood pressure (the higher number that represents the force at which the heart pumps blood around the body), postprandial glucose (a measure of glucose in your bloodstream within four hours of eating a meal), and insulin (the hormone that regulates blood sugar).

The study did not find any significant influence on insulin or blood pressure. Additionally, the research found standing also helped lower blood sugar levels, but not to the same degree as walking.  READ MORE...

Geese

 

Europe Faces Historic Drought

Water levels in rivers across Europe are dropping in the historic drought, revealing “hunger stones” 

carved with centuries-old warnings of famine and hardship. PETR DAVID JOSEK AP

Water levels have dropped in major rivers across Europe as the region suffers under a historic drought. In those dry riverbeds, centuries-old warning messages have emerged, locals report. 

The “horrifying” boulders are known as “Hungersteine,” or “Hunger Stones,” local German reporter Olaf Koens said in an Aug. 11 tweet. 

One of these stones is embedded in the Elbe River, which runs from the mountains of Czechia through Germany to the North Sea, POLITICO journalist Aitor Hernández-Morales tweeted the same day.

The stone, dating back to a drought in 1616, is once again visible in the dry riverbed, Hernández-Morales said. The warning reads, “Wenn du mich seehst, dann weine” – “If you see me, weep.” 

“Hunger stones” like this one were used as “hydrological landmarks” across central Europe, NPR reported when the stones last surfaced during a 2018 drought.

These stones are “chiselled with the years of hardship and the initials of authors lost to history,” a team of Czech researchers wrote in a 2013 study. “The basic inscriptions warn of the consequences of drought. 

It expressed that drought had brought a bad harvest, lack of food, high prices and hunger for poor people.” The stones commemorate historic droughts, the researchers said.  READ MORE...

Sleeping Cats

 

Ignition in a Fusion Experiment

A major breakthrough in nuclear fusion has been confirmed a year after it was achieved at a laboratory in California.

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL's) National Ignition Facility (NIF) recorded the first case of ignition on August 8, 2021, the results of which have now been published in three peer-reviewed papers.

Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the Sun and other stars: heavy hydrogen atoms collide with enough force that they fuse together to form a helium atom, releasing large amounts of energy as a by-product. Once the hydrogen plasma "ignites", the fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining, with the fusions themselves producing enough power to maintain the temperature without external heating.

Ignition during a fusion reaction essentially means that the reaction itself produced enough energy to be self-sustaining, which would be necessary in the use of fusion to generate electricity.

If we could harness this reaction to generate electricity, it would be one of the most efficient and least polluting sources of energy possible. No fossil fuels would be required as the only fuel would be hydrogen, and the only by-product would be helium, which we use in industry and are actually in short supply of.  READ MORE...

Fawn

 

Hot Moose

 

Never Do This When Mowing Your Yard

A GARDENING expert has revealed the biggest mistakes you can do when mowing the lawn - and one could even encourage the growth of weeds and moss.

With the UK having experienced a sizzling hot Spanish summer and a few heatwaves with temperatures reaching 40.3C, it might be tempting to mow the dry grass to achieve a more neat-looking garden.

However, a gardening expert has warned fellow enthusiasts to resist the temptation to give your lawn a trim during ''dry spells''.

Speaking to The Express, Kate Turner, a gardening expert from Miracle-Gro, revealed the most common mistakes and the ''worst thing to do'' when it comes to mowing.

“The most important thing is, if you’re mowing, raise your mower blades so they’re up high.

“Also, if we’ve got dry spells like we’ve got at the moment, I’d stop mowing.

“Lift your mower blades up. The worst thing you can do is scalp your lawn because it looks horrible.

“That encourages weeds and moss to grow in your lawn.

“And don’t leave it for months and then give it a really good mow.

“Have a regular mowing routine and that just helps it thicken up.”  READ MORE...

Water Trucking

 

Stimulating Hair Growth

A team at the University of California, Irvine, has identified a signaling molecule that 

potently stimulates hair growth.

SCUBE3 has been found to be a potential therapeutic option for treating androgenetic alopecia.

A signaling molecule known as SCUBE3, which was discovered by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, has the potential to cure androgenetic alopecia, a prevalent type of hair loss in both women and men.

The research, which was recently published in the journal Developmental Cell, uncovered the precise mechanism by which the dermal papilla cells, specialized signal-producing fibroblasts found at the bottom of each hair follicle, encourage new development. Although the critical role dermal papilla cells play in regulating hair growth is widely established, the genetic basis of the activating chemicals involved is little understood.

“At different times during the hair follicle life cycle, the very same dermal papilla cells can send signals that either keep follicles dormant or trigger new hair growth,” said Maksim Plikus, Ph.D., UCI professor of developmental & cell biology and the study’s corresponding author.

“We revealed that the SCUBE3 signaling molecule, which dermal papilla cells produce naturally, is the messenger used to ‘tell’ the neighboring hair stem cells to start dividing, which heralds the onset of new hair growth.”


For mice and humans to effectively develop hair, the dermal papilla cells must produce activating chemicals. Dermal papilla cells malfunction in people with androgenetic alopecia, drastically lowering the typically plentiful activating chemicals. 

For this study, a mouse model with excessive hair and hyperactivated dermal papilla cells was created. This model will help researchers learn more about the regulation of hair growth.  READ MORE...

Away We Go

 

Subsurface Water on Mars

An artist illustration of the InSight lander on Mars. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is designed to give the Red Planet its first thorough check-up since it formed 4.5 billion years ago. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Physics connects seismic data to properties of rocks and sediments.

A new analysis of seismic data from NASA’s Mars InSight mission has uncovered a couple of big surprises.

The first surprise: the top 300 meters (1000 feet) of the subsurface beneath the landing site near the Martian equator contains little or no ice.

“We find that Mars’ crust is weak and porous. The sediments are not well-cemented. And there’s no ice or not much ice filling the pore spaces,” said geophysicist Vashan Wright of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. 

Wright and three co-authors published their analysis on August 9, 2022, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.“These findings don’t preclude that there could be grains of ice or small balls of ice that are not cementing other minerals together,” said Wright. “The question is how likely is ice to be present in that form?”

The second surprise contradicts a leading theory about what happened to the water on Mars. It is believed the red planet may have harbored oceans of water early in its history. Many experts suspected that much of that water became part of the minerals that make up underground cement.  READ MORE...

Follow me Lads

 

Controlling the Masses

I live in a conservative state so almost everyone around me is of the same conservative mentality...  and, I would suspect the same is true of those living in a liberal state.

However...  my basic foundation is liberal in that I am not really in favor of people owning guns and I believe that women have the ultimate right to decide how they want to treat their bodies as far as abortion is concerned.

BUT...  when it comes to fiscal responsibility, I believe that no one should be in debt, not individuals, not families, not the government, and certainly not business...  even though I do understand that almost all businesses use leverage to expand their companies.

Government should be small and provide only those services that are so stated in the constitution that they should provide...  and that's it!!!

• The US is well beyond that desire as we already have:
• public education
• public transportation
• public housing
• unemployment insurance
• welfare
• medicare
• social security

I don't believe that the wealthy should be responsible for paying for social programs for the rest of us...  although, I do believe that EVERYONE should pay their fair share of taxes and that no monies should be sheltered away from taxes in offshore bank accounts.

Our free market enterprise system will ALWAYS create winners and losers and the wealthy and the poor...  and, if our government does its job correctly, it will create a middle class between the two extremes... this is the way capitalism should work.

We will always have pockets of discontent in this country and we should not cater to their demands just because they bitch loudy.

Politicians should do what is right for the country, not for themselves or for their parties...  but that never happens in reality... and, that is why we have all the political fighting that is going on in this country today because the people are tired of all the bullshit.

At some point in time, our system will break down and the people will begin to fight themselves out of anger and frustration...  and, the only people that will be untouched by all of this are the WEALTHY...  who are the ones who orchestrated all this shit...

It is time that we voiced our concerns...

Flops

 

Oldest Known Ingredients for Metal

RESEARCHERS HAVE IDENTIFIED THE INGREDIENTS IN FORMULAE FOR METAL FROM THE OLDEST KNOWN TECHNICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA, THE KAOGONG JI.

The Kaogong ji, translated variously as the Record of Trades, Records of Examination of Craftsman, Book of Diverse Crafts or Artificers’ Record was written in China around the middle of the first millennium BC and is the oldest known technical encyclopaedia, detailing the methods used to make items such as swords and instruments, including six chemistry formulae for mixing bronze.

In a study published in the journal Antiquity, a team from the University of Oxford believe that they have identified Jin and Xi, previously thought to be copper and tin, two key components of bronze.

The study analysed the chemical composition of Chinese coins from the period the Kaogong ji was written, indicating that the coins were made by diluting copper with tin and lead to create the desired form of bronze by mixing two pre-prepared metal alloys: a copper-tin-lead alloy and a copper-lead alloy.

“These recipes were used in the largest bronze industry in Eurasia during this period,” said Dr Ruiliang Liu from the British Museum, “Attempts to reconstruct these processes have been made for more than a hundred years, but have failed.”

As well as shedding light on the enigmatic ancient recipe, this discovery also indicates ancient Chinese metallurgy was more complex than expected.  READ MORE...

Thirsty

 

Preventing Kidney Stones

Kidney stones illustration. Mayo Clinic researchers found that enriching diets with foods high in calcium and potassium may prevent recurrent symptomatic kidney stones.

Diets Higher in Calcium and Potassium May Help Prevent Recurrent Symptomatic Kidney Stones

Not only can kidney stones cause excruciating pain, but they also are associated with chronic kidney disease, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease. If you’ve experienced a kidney stone once, you have a 30% chance of having another kidney stone within five years.

Typically, doctors prescribe changes in diet to prevent recurrent symptomatic kidney stones. Unfortunately, there is little research available regarding dietary changes for those who have one incident of kidney stone formation versus those who have recurrent incidents.

Therefore, Mayo Clinic researchers designed a prospective study to investigate the impact of dietary changes. According to their results, enriching diets with foods high in calcium and potassium may prevent recurrent symptomatic kidney stones.

411 patients who had experienced first-time symptomatic kidney stones and a control group of 384 people participated in the study. Dietary factors were based on a questionnaire administered to the participants, all of whom were seen at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and Mayo Clinic in Florida between 2009 and 2018. 

The findings, which will be published today (August 1) in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, show that lower dietary calcium and potassium, as well as lower intake of fluids, caffeine, and phytate, are associated with higher odds of experiencing a first-time symptomatic kidney stone.  READ MORE...