Family planning, healthier economies

SUBMITTED BY JULIA ROSS 

Countries like South Korea and Thailand have seen similar demographic formulas work to their advantage in recent decades:  falling fertility rates lead to burgeoning adult working populations lead to greater economic productivity.

How did they harness these changes to create engines of growth? According to speakers at a World Bank panel on “Realizing the Demographic Dividend ,” greater investments in health, family planning, and gender equality paved the way, followed by further investments in education, youth development, and job creation.When Thailand launched a national family planning policy in the 1960s, “the dividend to the economy turned out to be larger than expected,” said H.E. Thirachai Phuvanatnaranubala,
Minister of Finance for Thailand. Women were able to access education, leave rural areas, and take jobs in manufacturing and services. Eventually, women decided to delay having children, he said, and the economy benefited from an expanded workforce.

Bank Vice President for Human Development Tamar Manuelyan Atinc, who chaired the panel, further emphasized the link between gender equality and demographic change, expanding on a key theme  of this year’s Annual Meetings.
“Issues of women’s empowerment are intricately linked to access to family planning,” she said. “Women don’t always have the negotiating power within the household to avail themselves of contraception.”

Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said reducing the price of modern contraceptive tools is key to spurring economic development, and is a focus of her foundation’s work.  “There are 215 million women who would like access to contraception and don’t have it,” she said. “There are 75 million unintended pregnancies--that has huge economic impact.”

U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Raj Shah urged Ministers of Finance to invest in reducing child deaths through immunizations and malaria prevention efforts, promote girls’ education and support family planning programs, to achieve greater economic growth.

At a time when the global population is about to hit 7 billion, Shah noted, “every country is searching aggressively for sustainable growth strategies.”

Gates reinforced Shah’s message online after the event, Tweeting : “The investment case for family planning is clear.”
 

Some Brain Wiring Continues to Develop Well Into Our 20s

Sample tracts at two time points. Tracts are shown at two time points for several individuals. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Alberta)

Science Daily  — The human brain doesn't stop developing at adolescence, but continues well into our 20s, demonstrates recent research from the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta.

"This is the first long-range study, using a type of imaging that looks at brain wiring, to show that in the white matter there are still structural changes happening during young adulthood," says Lebel. "The white matter is the wiring of the brain; it connects different regions to facilitate cognitive abilities. So the connections are strengthening as we age in young adulthood."It has been a long-held belief in medical communities that the human brain stopped developing in adolescence. But now there is evidence that this is in fact not the case, thanks to medical research conducted in the Department of Biomedical Engineering by researcher Christian Beaulieu, an Alberta Innovates -- Health Solutions scientist, and by his PhD student at the time, Catherine Lebel. Lebel recently moved to the United States to work at UCLA, where she is a post-doctoral fellow working with an expert in brain-imaging research.The duo recently published their findings in the Journal of Neuroscience. For their research they used magnetic resonance imaging or MRIs to scan the brains of 103 healthy people between the ages of five and 32. Each study subject was scanned at least twice, with a total of 221 scans being conducted overall. The study demonstrated that parts of the brain continue to develop post-adolescence within individual subjects.The research results revealed that young adult brains were continuing to develop wiring to the frontal lobe; tracts responsible for complex cognitive tasks such as inhibition, high-level functioning and attention. The researchers speculated in their article that this may be due to a plethora of life experiences in young adulthood such as pursing post-secondary education, starting a career, independence and developing new social and family relationships.An important observation the researchers made when reviewing the brain-imaging scan results was that in some people, several tracts showed reductions in white matter integrity over time, which is associated with the brain degrading. The researchers speculated in their article that this observation needs to be further studied because it may provide a better understanding of the relationship between psychiatric disorders and brain structure. These disorders typically develop in adolescence or young adulthood.

"What's interesting is a lot of psychiatric illness and other disorders emerge during adolescence, so some of the thought might be if certain tracts start to degenerate too soon, it may not be responsible for these disorders, but it may be one of the factors that makes someone more susceptible to developing these disorders," says Beaulieu.

"It's nice to provide insight into what the brain is doing in a healthy control population and then use that as a springboard so others can ask questions about how different clinical disorders like psychiatric disease and neurological disease may be linked to brain structure as the brain progresses with age."

The research conducted by Beaulieu and Lebel was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet).

Particles Appear to Travel Faster Than Light: OPERA Experiment Reports Anomaly in Flight Time of Neutrinos

The OPERA experiment observes a neutrino beam from CERN 730 km away at Italy's INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory. (Credit: Copyright INFN)

Science Daily — Scientists with the OPERA experiment, which observes a neutrino beam from CERN 730 km away at Italy's INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory, are presenting surprising new results (in a seminar at CERN on Sept. 23, 2011) that appear to show neutrinos traveling faster than light.

The OPERA result is based on the observation of over 15000 neutrino events measured at Gran Sasso, and appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light, nature's cosmic speed limit. Given the potential far-reaching consequences of such a result, independent measurements are needed before the effect can either be refuted or firmly established. This is why the OPERA collaboration has decided to open the result to broader scrutiny. The collaboration's result is available on the preprint server arXiv (http://arxiv.org/list/hep-ex/new).

"This result comes as a complete surprise," said OPERA spokesperson, Antonio Ereditato of the University of Bern. "After many months of studies and cross checks we have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement. While OPERA researchers will continue their studies, we are also looking forward to independent measurements to fully assess the nature of this observation."

"When an experiment finds an apparently unbelievable result and can find no artefact of the measurement to account for it, it's normal procedure to invite broader scrutiny, and this is exactly what the OPERA collaboration is doing, it's good scientific practice," said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. "If this measurement is confirmed, it might change our view of physics, but we need to be sure that there are no other, more mundane, explanations. That will require independent measurements."

In order to perform this study, the OPERA Collaboration teamed up with experts in metrology from CERN and other institutions to perform a series of high precision measurements of the distance between the source and the detector, and of the neutrinos' time of flight. The distance between the origin of the neutrino beam and OPERA was measured with an uncertainty of 20 cm over the 730 km travel path. The neutrinos' time of flight was determined with an accuracy of less than 10 nanoseconds by using sophisticated instruments including advanced GPS systems and atomic clocks. The time response of all elements of the CNGS beam line and of the OPERA detector has also been measured with great precision.

"We have established synchronization between CERN and Gran Sasso that gives us nanosecond accuracy, and we've measured the distance between the two sites to 20 centimetres," said Dario Autiero, the CNRS researcher who will give this afternoon's seminar. "Although our measurements have low systematic uncertainty and high statistical accuracy, and we place great confidence in our results, we're looking forward to comparing them with those from other experiments."

"The potential impact on science is too large to draw immediate conclusions or attempt physics interpretations. My first reaction is that the neutrino is still surprising us with its mysteries." said Ereditato. "Today's seminar is intended to invite scrutiny from the broader particle physics community."

The OPERA experiment was inaugurated in 2006, with the main goal of studying the rare transformation (oscillation) of muon neutrinos into tau neutrinos. One first such event was observed in 2010, proving the unique ability of the experiment in the detection of the elusive signal of tau neutrinos.

The seminar will be webcast at http://webcast.cern.ch.

Oldest operating car 1884 La Marquise

The La Marquise automobile, built in 1884 by De Dion, Bouton & Trépardoux, will grace the auction block in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on October 6, 2011. This automobile is considered the oldest road-going original car in the world.

The steam-powered Victorian machine was consigned by RM Auctions for its annual Hershey auction. It is estimated to be worth a whopping $2 million to $2.5 million.

The oldest running car in the world! Named "La Marquise" after the Count de Dion's mother, this 127-year-old automobile had single-family ownership for 81 years and currently has only four owners. La Marquise was even a participant in the first automobile race in 1887. To be offered in Hershey on Friday, October 7, 2011, this historically significant motor car is undoubtedly an opportunity to be noticed by serious collectors. For more information, please visit rmauctions.com.

A New Generation of Green Wheels

A gallery of electric and hybrid vehicles on display at the  International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany.

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Prototype and production hybrids and electric cars debuted this week at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany. Car manufacturers showed off sportier designs—and some outlandish models.

The i8, shown here, is BMW's first plug-in hybrid sports car. It can reach 62 miles per hour in 4.6 seconds, has a top speed of 155 mph, and can achieve 87 miles per gallon. It weighs 3,200 pounds. A version of the car will probably be on sale by the end of 2013.

Credit: Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung

The Audi Urban concept car looks like a cross between a go-cart and a space capsule. The 1,058-pound electric car requires passengers to climb in through the top; it houses a 7.1-kilowatt-hour battery and takes about 17 seconds to get to 60 mph.

Credit: Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung

The RAK e (pronounced “Rack-ee”) has a lithium-ion battery that yields 62 miles per charge, and a top speed of 74 mph. The tiny two-seat design (reported weight is just 836 pounds) is targeted at young drivers.

Credit: Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung

The Ford Evos is not meant to go into production, but the company says the design will inform the development of future vehicles appearing as soon as 2012. 

The plug-in hybrid shows the potential for cars to connect to the cloud and use social-networking tools and other sources of information. Ford envisions future cars tapping into a user’s calendar and prepping the cabin with whatever music the user was previously listening to.

Credit: Ford

The Lexus 2013 GS450h hybrid sedan is a faster, more energy-efficient version of Lexus’s previous hybrid. It can reach 60 mph in 5.6 seconds, and the company touts its high-performance sports-car-like handling.

Credit: Lexus

VW’s Nils electric, a single-seat concept car, is an exercise in “micromobility.” The Nils, which can reach 60 mph in 11 seconds, has a top speed of 80 mph and a range of 40 miles. At 1,015 pounds, it has a 5.3k-watt-hour lithium-ion battery that can be charged in two hours. Backed by the German government, the model is aimed at individual commuters who travel a dozen or so miles to work.

Credit: Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung

The Mercedes and Daimler AG Smart was developed in collaboration with chemical company BASF. 

The electric concept car's transparent roof is made of solar panels that supply energy for climate control and the sound system. Plastic wheels make the car lighter, and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDS) inside the car supply low-power energy. An infrared-reflective film material developed by BASF also helps keep the inside of the car cool.

Credit: Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung

Taking Touch beyond the Touch Screen

In touch: The spacecraft on this tablet's screen can be controlled by maneuvering the toy on the table next to it.
Credit: Credit: Intel

COMPUTING

Taking Touch beyond the Touch Screen

A prototype tablet can sense gestures, and objects placed next to it.

• BY DUNCAN GRAHAM-ROWE

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A tablet computer developed collaboratively by researchers at Intel, Microsoft, and the University of Washington can be controlled not only by swiping and pinching at the screen, but by touching any surface on which it is placed.

Finding new ways to interact with computers has become an important area of research among computer scientists, especially now that touch-screen smart phones and tablets have grown so popular. The project that produced the new device, called Portico, could eventually result in smart phones or tablets that take touch beyond the physical confines of the device.

"The idea is to allow the interactive space to go beyond the display space or screen space," says Jacob Wobbrock, an assistant professor at the University of Washington's Information School, in Seattle, who helped develop the system. This is achieved with two foldout cameras that sit above the display on either side, detecting and tracking motion around the screen. The system detects the height of objects and determines whether they are touching the surrounding surface by comparing the two views captured by the cameras. The approach make it possible to detect hand gestures as well as physical objects so that they can interact with the display, says Wobbrock.

In one demonstration, software tracks a small ball as it moves across the surface the tablet sits on. As the ball strikes the side of the tablet, a virtual ball appears on-screen following the same trajectory, as if the physical ball had entered the device. In this way the ball can be used to score on-screen goals. In another demonstration, the angle of a toy spaceship placed on the table next to the tablet controls the angle of a virtual spaceship onscreen, allowing the user to shoot down "asteroids."

Wobbrock says the same approach would work on smart phones and other pocket-sized devices. "As devices continue to shrink, they compromise the screen space. But with Portico you can reclaim the surrounding area for interactivity," he says.

With the tablet, Portico increases the usable area sixfold, says Daniel Avrahami a senior researcher at Intel Labs Seattle, who came up with the idea for Portico, and led its development, with help from Shahram Izadi at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. For a 12-inch tablet, "that's the equivalent of a 26-inch screen," says Avrahami, who will present the work in October at the ACM User Interface, Software and Technology Symposium in Santa Barbara, California.

Eventually, says Wobbrock, it may be more practical, especially from a commercial standpoint, to use clip-on cameras instead of foldout ones, which tend to break more easily. But he also notes that the entire display might be replaced with a fold-up frame containing both cameras and a pico projector to produce the image on the surface below.

Eva Hornecker, a lecturer specializing in human-computer interaction at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland, says there is growing interest in using cameras to detect hand gestures and objects among researchers.

"The problem with touch screens is you can't detect anything that's happening over the surface," Hornecker says. However, she notes that allowing interaction beyond the screen could introduce new challenges such as how to provide feedback so the user knows where the interactive area starts and ends.

How Pathogens Fight Drugs

Death on a chip: This microfluidics chip consists of over 1,000 chambers, with nutrients circulating along half of the perimeter (artificially colored yellow here) and an antibiotic solution circulating along the other half (colored red). The resulting gradient, from habitable to toxic, proves fertile ground for bacterial evolution.
Credit: Robert Austin and Quicen Zhang

BIOMEDICINE

How Pathogens Fight Drugs

"Death galaxy" chip shows bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance at a surprising pace.

• FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2011
• BY LAUREN GRAVITZ

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When attacked with antibiotics, bacteria can mutate rapidly in order to survive—it's what makes, for instance, the staph infection MRSA so dangerous. New research suggests that such bacterial evolution occurs even faster, and in a more predictable fashion, than anyone thought. Using a novel type of microfluidics chip, researchers have shown that bacteria can develop antibiotic resistance in less than 10 hours.

Rather than taking the conventional approach of testing the bacteria in a test tube, Robert Austin, a biophysicist at Princeton University, designed a microfluidics chip to simulate the complex chemical environments that bacteria experience in the real world. The chip contains over 1,000 tiny hexagonal chambers, each one a microhabitat connected to others by long, slim corridors. 

Austin flowed nutrients around one side of the chip and a solution of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin around the other. The solutions diffused into the inner hexagons through nano-sized slits, building a landscape of different ecologies. "I call it the 'death galaxy'—a galaxy of different environments designed to be very stressful," Austin says. "And the question is, if we apply very high levels of antibiotics to this funny world, would we see the rapid evolution of resistance?"

Austin and colleagues began to see resistant strains emerge within five hours. After 10 hours, the resistant strains  were populating even the most Cipro-saturated chambers.

The researchers also discovered that the evolution occurred predictably. Every time they ran the experiment, they got the same result, with the same four resistance-conferring mutations emerging over and over again. "It's surprising that it happens so quickly and in such a logical and repeatable manner," he says.

If Austin's chip can help researchers understand how bacteria develop resistance and predict the changes they will undergo, it could be invaluable in antibiotic development. Says Susan Rosenberg, a geneticist specializing in bacterial and cancer cell evolution at Baylor University, in Houston, "We're in an evolutionary arms race against pathogenic bacteria. But if we understand how they become resistant, we might think about designing smarter drugs, ones that attack the process of resistance acquisition instead of just changing antibiotics when resistance happens." 

Patterned evolution: Bacteria labeled with a green fluorescent protein were placed on the chip. As they evolved greater resistance to the antibiotic, they colonized outward, toward increasing concentrations of antibiotic and nutrient, in distinct patterns.
Credit: Robert Austin and Quicen Zhang

The chip has other potential applications as well. It might be used to improve strains of beneficial bacteria that degrade pollutants. Cancer research could likely make use of it too. Tumor cells can develop rapid resistance to chemotherapy, much as bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. "The mechanism they've identified may also be a mechanism of change in cancer, and it could lead to tests to identify resistance before you even start administering drugs," says Anna Barker, director of Arizona State University's Transformative Healthcare Networks, who specializes in complex systems like cancer.

Cancer is indeed where Austin is headed next: he is already adapting his death galaxy for cancer cells. "Breast cancer and multiple myeloma are both existing in complex microenvironments," he says, "and my hope is that they might be most susceptible to my approach."

EU Is Overrating Biofuels Benefits

Feedstock: Rapeseed, which is commonly used to make biofuel in Europe.
Credit: Creative Commons from Felix Abraham.

ENERGY

EU Is Overrating Biofuels Benefits

New report suggests an error in estimates of greenhouse gas emissions.

• BY MIKE ORCUTT

Audio »

A scientific committee of the European Union has published a report arguing that EU policies favoring biofuels are based on a "serious" error in calculating the overall greenhouse gas emissions associated with the fuels. The result, says the committee, is an underestimation that could have "immense" climate-related consequences.

The policies, which include the EU's emissions trading system and renewable energy targets, do not adequately take into account the effects of land-use changes, the committee argues. It concludes that as a result, biofuels are often considered carbon-neutral when they may actually be adding carbon to the atmosphere.

Under the current rules, if an energy source is derived from plants, the greenhouse gas emissions from its combustion are considered equal to the carbon the plants took from the atmosphere as they grew, and thus do not count. Similar reasoning has led many governments around the world to view biofuels as carbon-neutral and to promote biofuel production and use in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, however, many in the scientific community have disputed the premise, pointing out that it fails to take into account increases in emissions that result from changes in land use associated with growing crops for fuel.

Some of the current EU policies, in particular those aimed at encouraging the production and use of biofuels for transportation, do attempt to account for direct land-use changes. But this calculation "is highly uncertain and ends up being based on very coarse estimates," says John DeCicco, a senior lecturer at the University of Michigan, who studies energy use and transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions. Too often, the policies assume that simply planting biofuel crops will increase the amount of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere.

None of the EU policies count indirect land-use effects, which are often convoluted and hard to track. For instance, consider a wheat field that is converted to energy crops. Land elsewhere might in turn be converted into farmland to replace the wheat and meet demand for food—possibly through the clearing of more forest or grassland.

Ultimately, questions about how biofuels affect climate boil down to whether there is a net addition of biomass, and thus carbon absorption, says Timothy Searchinger, a lecturer on international public affairs at Princeton University whose work the EU committee cites in the new report. "If you want an excuse to ignore the carbon emitted from tailpipes, figure out if it was offset by something else," Searchinger says. "What happened to reduce the carbon in the air?"