| Greenpeace wants Facebook center off coal fuel By ARTHUR MAX 2010-09-01T20:43:10ZAMSTERDAM (AP) -- Greenpeace said about 500,000 Facebook users have urged the world's largest online social network to abandon plans to buy electricity from a coal-based energy company for its new data center in the U.S.... hosted.ap.org |
Birdbooker Report 136 | GrrlScientist Compiled by an ardent bibliophile, this is a weekly report about nature, science and history books that have been newly published in North America and the UKBooks to the ceiling, Books to the sky,My pile of books is a mile high.How I love them! How I need them!I'll have a long beard by the time I read them. ~ Arnold Lobel [1933-1987] author of many popular children's books. Compiled by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, the Birdbooker Report is a long-running weekly report listing the wide variety of nature, natural history, ecology, animal behaviour, science and history books that have been newly released or republished in North America and in the UK. The books listed here were received by Ian during the previous week, courtesy of these various publishing houses. New and Recent Titles: Pyle, Robert Michael. Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year. 2010. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Hardbound: 558 pages. Price: $27.00 U.S. [Amazon UK: £15.76; Amazon US: $21.60]. SUMMARY: Part road-trip tale, part travelogue of lost and found landscapes, all good-natured natural history, Mariposa Road, tracks Bob Pyle's journey across the United States as he races against the calendar in his search for as many of the 800 American butterflies as he can find.Like Pyle's classic Chasing Monarchs [Amazon UK; Amazon US], Mariposa Road recounts his adventures, high and low, in tracking down butterflies in his own low-tech, individual way. Accompanied by Marsha, his cottonwood-limb butterfly net; Powdermilk, his 1982 Honda Civic with 345,000 miles on the odometer; and the small Leitz binoculars he has carried for more than thirty years, Bob ventured out in a series of remarkable trips from his Northwest home.From the California coastline in company with overwintering monarchs to the Far Northern tundra in pursuit of mysterious sulphurs and arctics; from the zebras and daggerwings of the Everglades to the leafwings, bluewings, and border rarities of the lower Rio Grande; from Graceland to ranchland and Kauai to Key West, these intimate encounters with the land, its people, and its fading fauna are wholly original. At turns whimsical, witty, informative, and inspirational, Mariposa Road is an extraordinary journey of discovery that leads the reader ever farther into butterfly country and deeper into the heart of the naturalist.IAN'S RECOMMENDATION: Fans of Pyle's other works should like this title. Thompson III, Bill. Identifying and Feeding Birds. 2010. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Paperback: 246 pages. Price: $14.95 U.S. [Amazon UK: £8.72; Amazon US: $10.76]. SUMMARY: This readable, friendly guide is intended for bird watchers and non–bird watchers alike—for anyone who wants to enjoy nature right in his or her own backyard.The longtime editor of Bird Watcher's Digest magazine and author of numerous books on birds, Bill Thompson III has been feeding and watching birds for forty years. He has tried everything, and here he shares what he's learned so that readers can avoid mistakes and skip right to successful bird feeding. He also debunks common myths about bird feeding: Does feeding birds stop them from migrating? Will birds starve if you leave your feeders empty after the birds have come to rely on them?In an easygoing and lighthearted style, seven chapters cover all the elements needed to attract birds to a backyard (food, water, shelter) and address special cases and problems (keeping bees out of the hummingbird feeder, preventing birds from flying into windows, and much more). The final chapter profiles the 130 species that are most common at backyard feeders in North America. No separate field guide is needed; it's all right here—everything a beginner needs to know to attract birds and then figure out what kind they are.IAN'S RECOMMENDATION: A good general introduction on these subjects, but the eastern bias will limit its usefulness in western North America. Ungar, Peter S. Mammal Teeth: Origin, Evolution, and Diversity. 2010. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 304 pages. Price: $95.00 U.S. [Amazon UK: £47.03; Amazon US: $77.69]. SUMMARY: In this unique book, Peter S. Ungar tells the story of mammalian teeth from their origin through their evolution to their current diversity.Mammal Teeth traces the evolutionary history of teeth, beginning with the very first mineralized vertebrate structures half a billion years ago. Ungar describes how the simple conical tooth of early vertebrates became the molars, incisors, and other forms we see in mammals today. Evolutionary adaptations changed pointy teeth into flatter ones, with specialized shapes designed to complement the corresponding jaw.Ungar explains tooth structure and function in the context of nutritional needs. The myriad tooth shapes produced by evolution offer different solutions to the fundamental problem of how to squeeze as many nutrients as possible out of foods. The book also highlights Ungar's own path—breaking studies that show how microwear analysis can help us understand ancient diets.The final part of the book provides an in—depth examination of mammalian teeth today, surveying all orders in the class, family by family. Ungar describes some of the more bizarre teeth, such as tusks, and the mammal diversity that accompanies these morphological wonders.Mammal Teeth captures the evolution of mammals, including humans, through the prism of dental change. Synthesizing decades of research, Ungar reveals the interconnections among mammal diet, dentition, and evolution. His book is a must read for paleontologists, mammalogists, and anthropologists.IAN'S RECOMMENDATION: I think dentists will like to read this book too! You can read the early Birdbooker Reports in the archives on my former ScienceBlogs site, and Ian now has his own website, The Birdbooker Report, where you can read his synopses about newly published science, nature and animal books.GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Study shows progress with stem cell alternative By MALCOLM RITTER 2010-09-30T16:06:38ZNEW YORK (AP) -- Scientists reported more progress Thursday with a method of creating stem cells without using embryos.... hosted.ap.org |
Love really is like a drug Love (or maybe lust) not only blocks pain, it also seems to stimulate the same parts of the brain as cocaineIntense spells of passion are as effective at blocking pain as cocaine and other illicit drugs, a team of neuroscientists say. Tests on 15 American students who admitted to being in the passionate early stages of a relationship showed that feelings for their partner reduced intense pain by 12% and moderate pain by 45%.In the study, researchers at Stanford University showed eight women and seven men photographs of their partners while delivering mild doses of pain to their palms with a hot probe. At the same time, the students had their brains scanned by a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine. At the end of each test, the students were asked to rate how much pain they felt.Feelings of love, triggered by a photo of their partner, acted as a powerful painkiller. Brain scans revealed that these feelings caused more activity in parts of the brain that are also triggered by morphine and cocaine. Looking at an image of an attractive friend rather than their partner had only a mild analgesic effect.The study went on to investigate whether distracting the students also reduced pain by giving them simple mental tasks, such as naming sports that do not involve a ball.The brain scans showed that while both love and distraction reduce pain, they appear to act on different pathways in the brain.Jarred Younger, who led the study published in Plos One, said: "With the distraction test, the brain pathways leading to pain relief were mostly cognitive. The reduction of pain was associated with higher, cortical parts of the brain."Love-induced analgesia is much more associated with the reward centres. It appears to involve more primitive aspects of the brain, activating deep structures that may block pain at a spinal level: similar to how opioid analgesics work."He added, "One of the key sites for love-induced analgesia is the nucleus accumbens, a key reward addiction centre for opioids, cocaine and other drugs of abuse. The region tells the brain that you really need to keep doing this."Younger's team recruited students in the first nine months of a relationship, when feelings of passion are at their most intense."We intentionally focused on this early phase of passionate love. We specifically were not looking for longer-lasting, more mature phases of the relationship. We wanted subjects who were feeling euphoric, energetic, obsessively thinking about their beloved, craving their presence," Sean Mackey, a co-author on the paper, said."When passionate love is described like this, it in some ways sounds like an addiction. We thought, maybe this does involve similar brain systems as those involved in addictions."NeuroscienceDrugsMedical researchPsychologyIan Sampleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Mind: A Fate That Narcissists Will Hate: Being Ignored The personality disorder will be discarded, along with four others, in the new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. feeds.nytimes.com |