Quirky Science

A bulk superconductor levitated by a permanent magnet. Photo Courtesy: University of Cambridge

New superconductor world record set

A world record that has stood for more than a decade has been broken by a team led by University of Cambridge engineers, harnessing the equivalent of three tonnes of force inside a golf ball-sized sample of material that is normally as brittle as fine china.
The Cambridge researchers managed to 'trap' a magnetic field with a strength of 17.6 Tesla -- roughly 100 times stronger than the field generated by a typical fridge magnet -- in a high temperature gadolinium barium copper oxide (GdBaCuO) superconductor, beating the previous record by 0.4 Tesla. The results were published in the journal Superconductor Science and Technology.
Superconductors are materials that carry electrical current with little or no resistance when cooled below a certain temperature.

Sensitive? Emotional? Empathetic?
It could be in your genes

The areas in color represent some of the regions of the brain where greater activation occurs in HSPs compared to non-HSPs. Photo Courtesy: science daily

Do you jump to help the less fortunate, cry during sad movie scenes, or tweet and post the latest topics and photos that excite or move you? If yes, you may be among the 20 percent of our population that is genetically pre-disposed to empathy, according to Stony Brook University psychologists Arthur and Elaine Aron. In a new study published in Brain and Behavior, Drs. Aron and colleagues at the University of California, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Monmouth University found that Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of brains provide physical evidence that the "highly sensitive" brain responds powerfully to emotional images.
Dr. Aron believes the results provide further evidence that HSPs (Highly Sensitive People) are generally highly tuned into their environment. He said the new findings via the fMRI provide evidence that especially high levels of awareness and emotional responsiveness are fundamental features of humans characterized as HSPs.

Why some experimental forms of 'The Pill for Males' will never rise to the occasion

It appears that 'The Pill' for men will have to wait a while longer. A new research study published in the June 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal  involving mice shows that a previously developed male hormonal oral contraceptive method (i.e. via testosterone) is unable to stop the production and/or release of sperm. Scientists demonstrated that the male contraception approach by testosterone has an inherent problem -- spermatogenesis does not stop. They found that that administering increasing doses of testosterone to infertile mutant mice did allow sexual function to return at a certain dosing threshold, however spermatogenesis also returned at that dose.
"Our research in mice explains why the efficacy of male hormonal contraception is not as effective as expected and it provides clues on how to improve the method," writes  Ilpo Huhtaniemi, a researcher involved in the work from the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at the Imperial College of London in London, UK.

One in 10 deaths among working-age adults in US due to excessive drinking

Excessive alcohol use accounts for one in 10 deaths among working-age adults ages 20-64 years in the United States, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published June 26 in Preventing Chronic Disease.. Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths per year from 2006 to 2010, and shortened the lives of those who died by about 30 years. These deaths were due to health effects from drinking too much over time, such as breast cancer, liver disease, and heart disease; and health effects from drinking too much in a short period of time, such as violence, alcohol poisoning, and motor vehicle crashes.

Photo Courtesy: science daily