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POPSScience of Search: How to Make Out, or Levitate How-to searches also reveal our aspirations. Comprising 12% of the instructional searches were those questions geared towards self improvement: how to "lose weight," "gain weight," "make money," and, for those truly in search of instant gratification, "make money fast." On the darker side, over 9.5% of the searches were for illicit or illegal activities, with marijuana use figuring high on the list ("how to grow marijuana," "grow pot," "grow weed") but also some very concerning questions: "how to commit suicide," "how to make meth," even "how to make a bomb." We apparently feel comfortable enough with our computers and the Internet to query just about anything. Search continues to grow in importance as we sift through the mountain of information available to us. As the growth of "how to" searches increases, its clear that we are turning to search engines as sources of knowledge and insight into getting things done.
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POPSDark, Perhaps Forever - Clueless about the universe Whatever proposal is eventually selected, the dark energy satellite will return a tidal wave of data about the universe and its weird denizens, both visible and invisible. This data is likely to transform astronomy in unpredictable ways, but there is no guarantee that it will nail the mystery of dark energy. “We really need new theory, and we have none,” Dr. Krauss said.
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POPSThink Yourself Healthy by Appreciating the Exercise You Already Do To illustrate with just one of the outcomes they measured, the average weight of those in the intervention group reduced from 145.5 lbs to 143.72 lbs. Over the same period the control group showed no significant change. For those of you working metric-style that's 66.14 kg down to 65.33 kg. That's like dropping a bag of sugar. In four weeks. With no additional exercise.
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POPSAlmonds boost weight loss According to Wien, “The weight-loss benefits of eating almonds came as something of a surprise, since the study was originally designed to evaluate the cholesterol-lowering effects of almonds. As it turned out, the dieters who ate almonds lost more weight than would be expected if they were taking prescription diet pills.”
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POPSWaste From Gut Bacteria Helps Host Control Weight Humans, like other animals, have a large and varied population of beneficial bacteria that live in the intestines. The bacteria break up large molecules that the host cannot digest. The host in turn absorbs many of the resulting small molecules for energy and nutrients. "The number of bacteria in our gut far exceeds the total number of cells in our bodies," said Dr. Yanagisawa. "It's truly a mutually beneficial relationship. We provide the bacteria with food, and in return they supply energy and nutrients," he explained.
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POPSRubens was right? Overweight People Live Longer? Not dying today basically just means you'll die later. (Citation: The Onion, Our Dumb Century: US Mortality Rate Holding Steady at 100%) So I would be really interested in seeing how they crunch the numbers on "Death Rates." How they account for things like age and inevitability. For instance, aren't most really old people under-weight? As life goes on, most of the people I've seen either bloat up (Marlon Brando) or wither away (George Burns) so it would seem unlikely that the people who are at the time in their life where dying is a reality might be merely overweight. What we need is statistics tracking death rates based on a person's weight at a give age, such as 15, 25 or 45, that way we can see how life-long weight may affect a person's life expectancy. Seems like this is more skewing of the numbers to try to convince Americans they can have their cake and eat a lot of it too. On the other hand, it can't hurt to be jolly!
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POPSPregnant? Backache? It could be worse It could be worse rarely seems like much consolation, but one example of the difference the back adaptations, is that half way through a pregnancy the weight can shift to be carried by the back in the same way a man can't carry a beer gut of the same weight (Luckily beer is reputed to be an excellent remedy for back ache-either you stop feeling any pain, or you have to lie down and take some weight off.)
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POPSVelociraptor Claws Made for Climbing more: The new study found that the claws had a high "failure stress" threshold, "suggesting that Velociraptor would have been able to support its weight on a small contact area while climbing," the researchers write. And it could have perched, much like a modern bird in a tree, they figure. That doesn't mean Velociraptor wasn't fearsome. The claws of these extinct creatures could have served to capture prey, too. "The geometry of dromaeosaur claws would have caused the claw to rotate as it was pushed deeper into prey," the scientists write. A rachet-like ligament would have helped get the claw in deep, they speculate, allowing the dinosaur to use its body weight "to lock the claws passively and allowing the jaws to dispatch the prey."
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POPSHuman Obesity Genes Revealed Based On Fly Experiments As De Luca reports, "We found one variant to be associated with weight and lean mass in both ethnic groups. This variant was also associated with height, total fat mass and HDL-cholesterol, but only in European American women. A different variant was associated with triglyceride levels and HDL-cholesterol in African American women." The use of flies in a study of human obesity may seem strange, but according to De Luca "Insects store fat like mammals do, as lipid droplets accumulated in the fat body, the functional equivalent of both mammalian liver and white adipose tissue". She adds that, "Drosophila share many components of fat biosynthesis, degradation and regulation with humans, including many of those implicated in diabetes and obesity".
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