Neighborhood Greenness & Reduction In Chronic Diseases

Greenness or vegetative presence may be effective in promoting health in older populations, particularly in poor neighborhoods, possibly due to increased time outdoors, physical activity, or stress mitigation, say researchers.

Credit: © zhu difeng / Fotolia

A new study of a quarter-million Miami-Dade County Medicare beneficiaries showed that higher levels of neighborhood greenness, including trees, grass and other vegetation, were linked to a significant reduction in the rate of chronic illnesses, particularly in low-to-middle income neighborhoods. Led by researchers at the University of Miami Department of Public Health Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine, and the School of Architecture, the study showed that higher greenness was linked to significantly lower rates of diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol, as well as fewer chronic health conditions.

WELCOME to arc ekpo be's Blog : Cross River State Superhighway Work Stopage: Ayade Vs FG

WELCOME to arc ekpo be's Blog : Cross River State Superhighway Work Stopage: Ayade Vs FG

Cross River State Superhighway Work Stopage: Ayade Vs FG

Governor Ben Ayade

Below are excerpts of a speech made by Cross River State Governor, Professor Ben Ayade to a team of UN REDD consultants in Calabar on the facts and fiction of the superhighway.

FG Stops Work On Cross River State 260km Superhighway

Work has stopped on this superhighway

In a move that will take many aback, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) has dragged the Cross River State Government to the Federal High Court in Calabar seeking an order to stop any further construction work on the proposed 260km superhighway without carrying out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

Flexible Camera

Columbia Engineering researchers have developed a novel sheet camera that can be wrapped around everyday objects to capture images that cannot be taken with one or more conventional cameras. They designed and fabricated a flexible lens array that adapts its optical properties when the sheet camera is bent. This optical adaptation enables the sheet camera to produce high quality images over a wide range of sheet deformations. Credit: Columbia Computer Vision Laboratory, 2016/Columbia Engineering

A team led by Shree K. Nayar, T.C. Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia Engineering, has developed a novel sheet camera that can be wrapped around everyday objects to capture images that cannot be taken with one or more conventional cameras.

Students And Makers Of children's 3-D Printed Prosthetics

A team of Rice University engineering students has developed a testing suite to validate 3-D printed prosthetics for children with congenital partial hands. From left: Rachel Sterling, Amber Wang, Nicolette Chamberlain-Simon, Michaela Dimoff and Nirali Desai. Credit: Jeff Fitlow

Those who make 3-D printed prosthetic hands may come to rely on a printed palm Rice University students developed to help ensure that children get the most out of the devices.

Toyota And Clemson University Students

Toyota has unveiled a concept car at this year's SAE International convention that was designed by student's at Clemson University. The car, called a uBox, was part of a two year project at Clemson called Deep Orange designed to give engineering students an immersive experience. The car was completely designed, engineered and hand built by grad students learning from both professors at the university and experts from Toyota.

When Two Elephants Fight.....The Lagos-Calabar Rail Project

ABUJA—The Senate, yesterday, gave what it described as a final warning to the presidency on its dealings with the legislative branch of government, affirming that it would no longer tolerate the presidency blaming the legislature for its failures.

How NMRC’s Mortgage Refinancing Works

The Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) was established to bridge the funding cost of residential mortgages and promote the availability as well as the affordability of good housing to Nigerians. It will achieve this by providing increased liquidity in the mortgage market through mortgage and commercial banks.

CBN To Partner With Investors

Central Bank Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, has said that the apex bank is ready to partner with investors and industrialists committed to the backward integration programme of the Federal Government.

Revoke Overdued Undeveloped Plots- President, NIESV

The Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers has condemned a situation where landed properties are left idle for years without them being developed and used for fruitful purposes that can aid economic growth.

Mass Housing,The Wayout

It is no longer news that Nigeria has about 17 million housing deficit and that 68 million of its citizens are living in indecent houses. In the face of this lack, the current government is working to ensure that Nigerians are properly housed.

Mararaba/Nyanya: A tale of two slums

Mararaba and Nyanya are two ghettos situated on the northeastern gateway to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. Although both communities have merged into one large urban slum, Nyanya is strictly part of the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) while Mararaba falls within the jurisdiction of the government of Nasarawa State.

EMIEW3 Robot On Duty In Customer Service Role

EMIEW3

(Tech Xplore)—

EMIEW3—the name does not easily roll off the tongue but it is the name of a people-friendly robot. Hitachi showed the robot along with its associated customer service platform earlier this month. The red and white cutie was designed to be helpful to customers, for providing service and guidance at public facilities as well as stores.

'Secret Sauce' For Personalized, Functional Insulin-producing Cells

Salk scientists have created successful patient-derived pancreatic beta cells able to respond to sugar (glucagon, blue) and produce insulin (red) accordingly. These cells (nuclei, blue) could be transplanted back into patients for a potential new diabetes therapy. Credit: Salk Institute

Salk scientists have solved a longstanding problem in the effort to create replacement cells for diabetic patients. The team uncovered a hidden energy switch that, when flipped, powers up pancreatic cells to respond to glucose, a step that eluded previous research. The result is the production of hundreds of millions of lab-produced human beta cells—able to relieve diabetes in mice.

Multifaceted Quality Improvement & Routine Care In ICUs

Implementation of a multifaceted quality improvement intervention with daily checklists, goal setting, and clinician prompting did not reduce in-hospital mortality compared with routine care among critically ill patients treated in intensive care units (ICUs) in Brazil, according to a study appearing in the April 12 issue of JAMA.

Decrease In Air Pollution & Children's Respiratory Symptoms

Decreases in ambient air pollution levels over the past 20 years in Southern California were associated with significant reductions in bronchitic symptoms in children with and without asthma, according to a study appearing in the April 12 issue of JAMA.

Physicians & FDA Approval Standards

In a study appearing in the April 12 issue of JAMA, Aaron S. Kesselheim, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and colleagues surveyed internists and specialists to examine their knowledge about Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval standards and perceptions of the "breakthrough therapy" designation.

Mathematics, Language & Brain

An fMRI image with yellow areas showing increased activity. Credit: Wikipedia/ CC BY 3.0

(Medical Xpress)—A pair of researchers with Université Paris-Sud and Université Paris-Saclay has found via fMRI human brain studies that the neural networks used to process mathematics are different from those that are used to process language. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Marie Amalric and Stanislas Dehaene describe experiments they conducted with volunteers willing to undergo fMRI scans while engaging in various tasks and what they found as a result.

Type 2 Diabetes & Liver Disease Risk

People with type 2 diabetes are at greater risk of serious liver disease than those without the condition, research has shown.

Researchers warn that hospital admissions and deaths caused by liver disease are likely to rise if cases of type 2 diabetes continue to increase at current rates.

Moon & Earth's Magnetic Field

The gravitational effects associated with the presence of the Moon and Sun cause cyclical deformation of the Earth's mantle and wobbles in its rotation axis. This mechanical forcing applied to the whole planet causes strong currents in the outer core, which is made up of a liquid iron alloy of very low viscosity. Such currents are enough to generate the Earth's magnetic field.

Credit: © Julien Monteux and Denis Andrault

The Earth's magnetic field permanently protects us from the charged particles and radiation that originate in the Sun. This shield is produced by the geodynamo, the rapid motion of huge quantities of liquid iron alloy in the Earth's outer core. To maintain this magnetic field until the present day, the classical model required the Earth's core to have cooled by around 3,000 °C over the past 4.3 billion years. Now, a team of researchers from CNRS and Université Blaise Pascal[1] suggests that, on the contrary, its temperature has fallen by only 300 °C. The action of the Moon, overlooked until now, is thought to have compensated for this difference and kept the geodynamo active. Their work is published on 30 march 2016 in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Busy Spacecraft And Experiment Schedule On Space Station

Spacecraft berthed to ISS. Credit: ESA/NASA

With less than two months left aboard the International Space Station, ESA astronaut Tim Peake has been exceptionally busy with experiments and arriving spacecraft. Tonight, the third supply vessel for the space laboratory in three weeks will be launched and Tim will be at the helm to berth it on Sunday.

Video: Space Mission Overview

http://phys.org/news/2016-04-video-principia-mission.html

Slovakia First Ever Satellite Into Space

Slovakia is gearing up to launch its first satellite into orbit with the aim of demonstrating the country's ability to carry out scientific experiments in space. The pocket-sized, one-unit CubeSat, named skCUBE, is currently slated for liftoff in June atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The central European state is one of the last countries on the continent to have its own satellite.

Weighing about 2.2 lbs. (1 kg), skCUBE is a 4-inch (10-centimeter) cube that will carry an on-board computer, a communications system and a small camera to conduct experiments when orbiting Earth. The main goal of this project is to demonstrate that Slovakia is capable of highly sophisticated space research.

Central Nervous System Inflammation

Credit: Shutterstock 

Scientists have long known that the central nervous system (CNS) has a remarkable ability to limit excessive inflammation in the presence of antigens or injury, but how it works has been unclear. Now, Yale researchers have identified a mechanism that offers this new insight into this protective effect. The findings were described in the April 8 journal of Science Advances.