ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009)

Little is ever heard, though, about the risks of drinking and walking, which can be just as dangerous, said trauma surgeon Dr. Thomas Esposito at Loyola University Health System in Maywood.

"Alcohol impairs your physical ability to walk and to drive," Esposito said. "It impairs your judgment, reflexes and coordination. It's nothing more than a socially acceptable, over-the-counter stimulant/depressant."

A trauma surgeon for more than 20 years, Esposito has witnessed the tragic aftermath of drunken walking professionally and personally. Several years ago, Esposito's cousin of his opted to walk instead of driving home from a party where he had been drinking.

"A driver, who I don't believe was intoxicated, did not see him and hit him and he was killed," said Esposito, who is also professor of surgery and chief of the division of trauma, surgical critical care and burns in the department of surgery, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. "They found him on the side of the road on New Year's Day."

In 2005, the journal Injury Prevention reported that New Year's Day is more deadly for pedestrians than any other day of the year. From 1986 to 2002, 410 pedestrians were killed on New Year's Day. Fifty-eight percent of those killed had high blood alcohol concentrations.

Alcohol also plays a significant role in the deaths of pedestrians throughout the year, according to information from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. In 2007, their research found that "37 percent of fatally injured pedestrians 16 and older had blood alcohol concentrations at or above 0.08 percent." Of those killed at night, 54 percent had high blood alcohol levels.

During the period from July 2008 to June 2009, of the 86 patients ages 16 and older who were treated at Loyola after being struck by cars, 18 were found to have some level of alcohol in their system. Of that number, 14 had blood alcohol concentrations at or above 0.08 percent, the legal definition for impaired driving in Illinois.

"If they had been driving and were stopped by police, they would have been arrested for driving under the influence," Esposito said.

Esposito added that the number doesn't include the people who suffer injuries in their homes from unintentional causes and violence after drinking.

"It's not just walking outside. All the time we see people who have been drinking that have fallen down the stairs or tripped at home and injured themselves. Others have decided to pick a fight using a knife or with someone holding a gun," Esposito said.

If you drink and plan to walk on New Year's Eve or any other day of the year, you have to take special care, Esposito said. Don't wear dark clothing at night that can make it difficult for drivers to see you. Walk solely on the sidewalks and cross at designated crossings. Also, it's a good idea to walk in a group, which is easier for drivers to spot, and try to walk with at least one person who has not been drinking, a designated chaperone or escort.

Drivers need to take extra care when in locations where people drink, such as areas with large numbers of bars, since intoxicated pedestrians have slower reflexes and can be unpredictable, Esposito said. People throwing parties in which alcohol is consumed have an equal obligation to watch over their guests who are walking home as they do with the ones who may be driving.

"You have to be able to assess someone's perceived ability to safely get from one place to the other," Esposito said. "If their mode of transportation is a car, you do things to prevent them from driving. If that mode of transportation is their legs, then you either drive them or make them stay at home."

Even if a guest who is walking and who has been drinking is staying on the premises, you should be aware that they can trip and fall down the stairs, Esposito said.

"So you don't want to send them up to the second-story bedroom," Esposito said.

Unfortunately, Esposito said his cousin took none of those precautions. He was wearing dark clothing, was alone and walking in the street when he was hit.

"His death has had a devastating effect on the family, especially on his parents," Esposito said. "They required a lot of professional, psychological support and they really have never been the same, especially around the holidays."

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2009)

The discovery also offers hope to those who cannot have children because of low sperm counts. Although the research was conducted in mice, a similar effect is likely to obtain in other mammals, such as humans.

"This study provides a new opportunity to identify how androgens control sperm production, which could provide new insight for the development of new treatments for male infertility and perhaps new male contraceptives," said Michelle Welsh, Ph.D., co-author of the study, from the Centre for Reproductive Biology at The Queen's Medical Research Institute in Edinburgh, UK.

To make this discovery, Welsh and colleagues performed studies in two groups of mice. The first group of mice was normal, but the second group of mice was missing a gene from the peritubular myoid cells in the testis. This gene that was missing codes for the androgen hormone receptor, and when missing, sperm production was significantly decreased when compared to the normal group. The result was infertility.

"Although 'the pill' arguably has been liberating for women since its development in the 1960s, a similar birth control drug for men has been elusive," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "Not only does this research pinpoint androgenic hormones and their cellular receptors as prime targets for the development of new birth control drugs, but it promises to speed the development of new agents to boost sperm production."

ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2010) — Three Iowa State University physicists who took winter trips to the Large Hadron Collider for meetings and experimental work are starting to see real data from the planet's biggest science experiment.

Finally.

The multibillion-dollar collider made international news on Sept. 10, 2008, when it sent its first beam of protons around 17 miles of underground tunnel near Geneva, Switzerland. But breakdowns in the machine's high-current electrical connections forced a complete shutdown for more than a year of repairs and tests.

Physicists from around the world cheered on Nov. 20, 2009, when the collider once again sent protons racing through its tunnel. Three days later the machine recorded its first proton-proton collisions. And on Nov. 30 it set a new world record when it accelerated two beams of protons to a total energy of 2.36 trillion electron volts.

Physicists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, shut down the collider on Dec. 16 to prepare for even higher energy collisions later this year.

"The data look just beautiful," said Soeren Prell, an Iowa State associate professor of physics and astronomy.

Prell has been looking at the first data recorded with the ATLAS experiment's silicon pixel detector. The pixel detector is the innermost part of ATLAS, one of two giant, general purpose detectors at the collider. ATLAS will measure the paths, energies and identities of the particles created when protons or lead ions collide at unprecedented energies. The pixel detector uses 80 million pixels to make precise measurements as close to the particle collisions as possible.

Prell said the pixel detector is already sending physicists fairly clean data with very little background noise. But, he said, physicists still have to work to make sure the pixel detector is properly aligned and calibrated. It has a resolution down to 10 millionths of a meter and so it has to be just as precisely aligned.

The detector's data also has to be distributed to physicists around the world for study and analysis. Jim Cochran, an associate professor of physics and astronomy, is the ATLAS experiment's analysis support manager for the United States. It's his job to make sure researchers have the data they need for their analyses.

And, so far, the experiment's analysis system has been able to keep up with the data. But that's going to be a bigger challenge when the collider is turned back on in February and begins running at higher energies and much higher collision rates.

"One of the concerns I've had is whether we'll be able to handle the data loads we're expecting," Cochran said. "We have to have our computing systems optimized so we can do it. We've already had 700,000 collision events, and that's nothing compared to what's coming."

That's just one of the reasons Chunhui Chen, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, is telling people that big, new, Nobel-winning physics from the Large Hadron Collider won't happen right away. There's just too much data to collect, distribute and analyze.

But, "This is a very big moment," said Chen, who's working on the ATLAS experiment's pixel detector and the ATLAS trigger system that recognizes and records interesting collision events. "Potentially, we'll be able to see some new physics."

That could include the Higgs boson, a particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. The model theorizes that space is filled with a Higgs field and particles acquire their masses by interacting with the field. Detection and study of the Higgs could answer basic questions about why matter has mass and how particles acquire mass.

Physicists also hope the higher energies made possible by the Large Hadron Collider could answer big physics questions about matter and antimatter, dark matter, supersymmetry, extra dimensions, a grand unified theory or perhaps something entirely unexpected.

"One hundred years ago physicists discovered special relativity and quantum mechanics," Chen said. "We know our understanding of physics is incomplete. We don't know what's beyond our understanding. And so this is going to be a long research program. It will take years of dedicated study to really unearth the secrets of the universe."

ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2009) — Here's another reason to eat your broccoli: UCLA researchers report that a naturally occurring compound found in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables may help protect against respiratory inflammation that causes conditions like asthma, allergic rhinitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Published in the March edition of the journal Clinical Immunology, the research shows that sulforaphane, a chemical in broccoli, triggers an increase of antioxidant enzymes in the human airway that offers protection against the onslaught of free radicals that we breathe in every day in polluted air, pollen, diesel exhaust and tobacco smoke. A supercharged form of oxygen, free radicals can cause oxidative tissue damage, which leads to inflammation and respiratory conditions like asthma.

"This is one of the first studies showing that broccoli sprouts — a readily available food source — offered potent biologic effects in stimulating an antioxidant response in humans," said Dr. Marc Riedl, the study's principal investigator and an assistant professor of clinical immunology and allergy at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

"We found a two- to three-fold increase in antioxidant enzymes in the nasal airway cells of study participants who had eaten a preparation of broccoli sprouts," Riedl said. "This strategy may offer protection against inflammatory processes and could lead to potential treatments for a variety of respiratory conditions."

The UCLA team worked with 65 volunteers who were given varying oral doses of either broccoli or alfalfa sprout preparations for three days. Broccoli sprouts are the richest natural source of sulforaphane; the alfalfa sprouts, which do not contain the compound, served as a placebo.

Rinses of nasal passages were collected at the beginning and end of the study to assess the gene expression of antioxidant enzymes in cells of the upper airways. Researchers found significant increases of antioxidant enzymes at broccoli sprout doses of 100 grams and higher, compared with the placebo group.

The maximum broccoli sprout dosage of 200 grams generated a 101-percent increase of an antioxidant enzyme called GSTP1 and a 199-percent increase of another key enzyme called NQO1.

"A major advantage of sulforaphane is that it appears to increase a broad array of antioxidant enzymes, which may help the compound's effectiveness in blocking the harmful effects of air pollution," Riedl said.

According to the authors, no serious side effects occurred in study participants receiving broccoli sprouts, demonstrating that this may be an effective, safe antioxidant strategy to help reduce the inflammatory impact of free radicals.

Riedl notes that more research needs to be done to examine the benefits of sulforaphane for specific respiratory conditions. It is too early to recommend a particular dosage.

Riedl recommends including broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables as part of a healthy diet.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Other study authors include Dr. Andrew Saxon of the Hart and Louis Lyon Laboratory, division of clinical immunology and allergy in the department of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Dr. David Diaz-Sanchez of the human studies division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A colossal centrifuge measuring about two meters in diameter is embedded in the floor in the cellar of the Department of Geosciences. It spins samples at 2800 rpm creating a radial acceleration of 3000 times the Earth's gravity. In full operation this centrifuge makes an infernal noise of 120 decibels. "That's about as loud as if you were standing underneath an airplane," says Max Schmidt, a professor from the Institute for Mineralogy and Petrology at ETH Zurich. The rim of the centrifuge reaches a speed of 850 km/h; if the machine is stopped by switching off the drive motor, it takes an hour to come to a standstill.

Globally unique

Schmidt joined ETH Zurich in 2001 with the idea of building a centrifuge in which, apart from increased acceleration, the temperature and pressure conditions characteristic of the Earth's interior could be used to influence a sample. He was aided by a mechanic, an electronics technician and a company that specializes in producing centrifuges for sugar production or launderettes. After about one and a half years, the first "rough version" of this globally unique centrifuge was put into operation and improved continually. Now Schmidt's research team has successfully used the centrifuge to determine the permeability of the asthenosphere -- the area in the Earth's upper mantle where the molten rock that feeds the volcanoes forms. The results were published in the science journal Nature.

The researchers simulated the asthenosphere's melt transport conditions using basaltic glass from the mid-ocean ridge to represent the molten rock. In the experiment, the mineral olivine, which makes up two thirds of the Earth's upper mantle, served as a matrix for the molten mass to flow through. They heated both to about 1300 degrees and exposed the mixture to a pressure of one gigapascal. The basaltic glass melted; based on the distance the molten mass covered through the olivine matrix when centrifuged at accelerations of 400 to 700g, the scientists were able to calculate the permeability directly by microscopically analyzing the samples prepared. This therefore enabled them to record specifically the constant which relates porosity (or melt volume) to permeability and that is important for thermo-mechanical models of melt transport.

Lava from the days of the Pharaohs

With a value of around ten, this constant is smaller by one and a half orders of magnitude than the value previously assumed for thermo-mechanical models. "Consequently, this also means that the magma speed in the mantle is one and a half orders of magnitude faster," says Schmidt, "as the models calculated by James Connolly, an assistant professor at the institute, reveal."

With such models, the flow behavior of magma melt in the basic tectonic areas of the Earth, such as on mid-ocean ridges upon which new oceanic crust forms, or on volcanically active tectonic plate margins -- so-called subduction zones. For Schmidt, it is therefore clear that the existing models need to be revised in light of the constants now established. The melt that forms at a depth of about 120 kilometers does not need tens to hundreds of thousands of years to reach the Earth's surface as was previously presumed; it only takes a few thousand years. "If a volcano erupts today, its magma did not form during the last ice age, but during the reign of the Pharaohs and around the birth of Christ," states Schmidt.

Balanced picture

This casts magmatism in a whole new light. Due to the rapid ascent, the melt interacts much less with the rock it penetrates. This means that the geochemical signals that bring the magma to the surface come from far greater depths: "We are looking deeper than previously assumed," says the mineralogist. For the scientist, the rapid ascent also fits better with the fact that volcanoes are only active for a few thousand years and the observation that geochemical signals in the magma suggested a much faster rise until now.

"Mike, if you want this, come get it," Russell said on the "Waddle & Silvy" show on ESPN 1000. "I'm out here in Calabasas (Calif.). You have the private jet, come on and fly out here.

"The second game can take place in Chicago. I'll fly out there. Let's make a nice, little challenge, have some fun with it and entertain once again."

During Jordan's speech on Friday, he said Russell told him in 1994 that he wanted to guard Jordan. During the 1998 NBA Finals, when Jordan's Chicago Bulls faced Russell's Utah Jazz, Jordan reminded Russell of his wish and said it was about to be realized. Russell was the defender Jordan shook before rising to take the clinching shot in Game 6.

"My response was after all this time I'm still on Mike's mind," Russell said. "I must have done something to leave a good impression, because he's still talking about me to this day, about giving me what I wanted.

"I challenged him [in 1994]. I got him out of retirement, and if I did, it was good for the game."

Russell said Jordan's recollection of the '94 challenge was correct.

"I think that's when he was doing baseball," Russell said. "I ran into him and was like, 'Hey man, why did you retire? I wanted to get a chance to stop you. Say I stopped the greatest.'

"He just smiled is all. Come '96, he said, 'Hey Russell, remember what you said to me?' I was like, 'Yeah.' He said, 'You're about to get your chance.' I got my chance. But when you break down every possession I was on him, I guarantee you I didn't get the bulk of all the points he had. I'm pretty sure I played better defense than anyone who played defense against him."

Russell, 39, said he's confident he could beat Jordan, 46.

"He likes challenges, so I'm challenging him once again," Russell said. "I'm always going to be forever tied to him, so why not give fans what they want again?"

And what would be at stake? "Put up our egos," Russell said. "Bragging rights."