Showing posts with label sun. Show all posts

Friday, January 4, 2013

NOT ALONE? - Our galaxy contains 100 billion planets: Study - INDIA




	Contrary to previous belief, the latest research by astronomers suggests star systems with planets are actually the norm across the cosmos. Times of India WASHINGTON: Our galaxy contains at least 100 billion planets - approximately one for every star - and many of them could harbour life, a new study claims. Contrary to previous belief, the latest research by astronomers suggests star systems with planets are actually the norm across the cosmos. Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology made their estimate while analysing planets orbiting a star called Kepler-32 - planets that are representative of the vast majority of planets in our galaxy, NASA said. "There are at least 100 billion planets in the galaxy, just our galaxy," said John Johnson, assistant professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech and co-author of the study. "That's mind-boggling," said Johnson in a statement. "It's a staggering number, if you think about it. Basically, there's one of these planets per star," added Jonathan Swift, lead author of the study. One of the fundamental questions regarding the origin of planets is how many of them there are. Like the Caltech group, other teams of astronomers have estimated that there is roughly one planet per star, but this is the first time researchers have made such an estimate by studying M-dwarf systems, the most numerous population of planets known. The planetary system in question, which was detected by NASA's Kepler space telescope, contains five planets. Two of the planets orbiting Kepler-32 had previously been discovered by other astronomers. The Caltech team confirmed the remaining three, then analysed the five-planet system and compared it to other systems found by Kepler. M-dwarf systems like Kepler-32's are quite different from our own solar system. For one, M dwarfs are cooler and much smaller than the Sun. Kepler-32, for example, has half the mass of the sun and half its radius. The radii of its five planets range from 0.8 to 2.7 times that of Earth, and those planets orbit extremely close to their star. The whole Kepler-32 system fits within just over a tenth of an astronomical unit (the average distance between Earth and the Sun) - a distance that is about a third of the radius of Mercury's orbit around the Sun. The fact that M-dwarf systems vastly outnumber other kinds of systems carries a profound implication, according to Johnson, which is that our solar system is extremely rare.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

BUENA VIDA - Primavera para el amor - ARGENTINA

El clima cálido y la exposición al sol aumentan los estímulos y el deseo. Médicos y psicólogos dicen que estar enamorado mejora la salud y la capacidad para hacerle frente al estrés. Un remedio que no se vende bajo receta.

El bienestar, la estabilidad, la certidumbre, la seguridad y la compañía que configura la pareja aumentan la resistencia frente al estrés.

Los días cálidos invitan a salir y divertirse. La primavera es una de las estaciones preferidas de los poetas que le escriben al amor. Pero, ¿la llegada de esta estación modifica el comportamiento emocional? Lo que la ciencia sabe es que el aumento de la temperatura, los días más largos y la exposición a la luz solar aumentan los estímulos, especialmente los que entran por los ojos y por la nariz, influyen en el erotismo y, previo paso por el sistema nervioso central, provocarían una mayor predisposición a la erección y el deseo.

Estar enamorado y ser correspondido, lo sabe cualquiera que lo haya experimentado, es un estado en el que hasta los más escépticos sienten que todo está bien y que la felicidad es posible. Esa sensación tiene explicaciones diversas que varían de acuerdo a la teoría desde la que se la mire. Pero tanto la psicología, como la medicina y la neurobiología coinciden en el diagnóstico: una persona "enamorada" es una persona más sana que aquellas que no sienten amor, en cualquiera de sus variantes.

“Hay que diferenciar el amor del enamoramiento, que es la etapa más fascinante, el enamorado se siente poderoso, y está como hechizado”, explica la psicoanalista Lila Isacovich, directora del Area Asistencial de la Fundación Buenos Aires. “El amor no sólo es saludable, es indispensable y necesario, si no, uno cae en la melancolía y en la depresión. Cuando por momentos el amor decae nos sentimos desgraciados. Uno soporta la vida porque hay amor”, agrega.

Sin ansiedad

“Enamorarse es una de las condiciones más deseadas por el ser humano. El estado de enamoramiento es uno de los más placenteros, no es casualidad que se dedique un día al año para recordar a San Valentín, protector de los enamorados, para que vele por el porvenir del romance y por ese ser que ha sido buscado y encontrado en la vida”, señala la licenciada Gabriela Martínez Castro, psicóloga y directora del Centro de Estudios Especializados en Trastornos de Ansiedad (CEETA).

“El estado de enamoramiento debería ser uno de los más gratificantes, el ánimo es óptimo, la creatividad se incrementa, aumenta la motivación por el cuidado personal, incluyendo el cuidado físico, aunque esto se pueda transformar en un problema para las personas ansiosas que confunden los síntomas muy comunes del enamoramiento con un cuadro de ansiedad”, advierte . Cómo distinguirlos: los síntomas del amor enriquecen la vida, los de los trastornos de ansiedad, por el contrario, la complican e incapacitan.

El cerebro y sus circuitos

Los efectos del amor también se ven en las neuronas. “Hay estudios que sugieren que en el amor se activan los sistemas de recompensa del cerebro y se desactivan los circuitos cerebrales responsables de las emociones negativas y de la evaluación social”, aporta el doctor Facundo Manes, director de INECO y del Instituto de Neurociencias de la Fundación Favaloro.

“El bienestar, la estabilidad, la certidumbre, la seguridad y la compañía que configura la pareja aumentan la resistencia frente al estrés”, dice, por su parte, el doctor Daniel López Rosetti, presidente de la Sociedad Argentina de Medicina del Estrés.

“El amor, en términos bursátiles, es una buena inversión, porque la resiliencia (la capacidad de sobreponerse a situaciones adversas) mejora en las situaciones en que las personas se sienten queridas. Si se pudiera recetar cápsulas de amor, los médicos las indicarían”, concluye, romántico.

La salud del vínculo

Una investigación publicada en el Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine demuestra que los hombres casados desarrollan menor nivel de ateroesclerosis que los solteros.

“La tranquilidad y la estabilidad emocional disminuyen el nivel de estrés y generan menor formación de ateroesclerosis”, explica el estudio. ¿Qué ocurre con las mujeres? “Se comprobó que quienes desarrollan menor nivel de ateroesclerosis son aquellas que manifestaron vivir una relación de pareja feliz. Así, se interpretó que en los hombres importa más el status (‘estar casado’), mientras que en las mujeres es central que sea un vínculo satisfactorio”.

Otro estudio, realizado entre más de 500 mil parejas formadas por mayores de 65 años, mostró cuánto daña la salud la viudez: el riesgo de muerte aumentó hasta un 21% en los hombres que enviudaron y hasta el 17% en las mujeres.

Monday, June 4, 2012

HEALTH - FRANCE

Two new promising treatments against aggressive skin cancer

The Monde.fr with AFP . 04.06.2012 at 10: 54 • updated 04.06.2012 at 10: 54

La forte progression des cancers de la peau en France s'explique par l'évolution des habitudes d'exposition au soleil et aux UV artificiels. — The strong growth of the France skin cancers is explained by the evolution of the exposure to sunlight and artificial UV patterns. | AFP/ALAIN JOCARD

After more than three decades without new treatment for advanced melanoma, laboratories are developing these last years of the effective weapons against the aggressive cancer of the skin, which the last two were unveiled Monday 4 June in the United States. These two new officers, the Dabrafenib and the Trametinib, both produced by the British pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, are anti-cancer precision targeting of tumor specific mechanisms.
DECREASE IN THE RISK OF PROGRESSION OF TUMOR
The Trametinib neutralizes a protein called MEK, which contributes to the growth of cancer. The Dabrafenib prevents it gene mutant BRAF to produce a protein that boosts the progression of melanoma, cancer has the highest in the world. Patients in the study with the Trametinib experienced a median time of 4.8 months during which their cancer has not progressed compared to a month and a half in the group subject to standard chemotherapy, is a reduction of 55% of the risk of spread of the tumor.
These patients also saw their risk of dying decreased by 46% compared to those treated with chemotherapy, said Dr. Caroline Robert, head of the Department of Dermatology at the Institute Gustave-Roussy in Villejuif, who led this clinical trial of phase 3 in which 322 patients participated. "The Trametinib will probably become another treatment of first line for treating advanced melanoma", predicted, confident.
The second clinical trial with the Dabrafenib showed a decline of 70% of the risk of progression of melanoma in participants compared to those treated with standard chemotherapy (5.1 months compared with 2.7 months). 250 Participants in this study of phase 3, of which 187 have been treated with the Dabrafenib, had not been previously treated and suffered from an inoperable melanoma, said Dr. Axel Hauschild, Professor of Dermatology at the University Hospital of Keil in Germany, the principal investigator. Overall survival data are not yet sufficiently complete, he added. In addition, Dr. Hauschild said that patients in the Dabrafenib Group had serious side effects of the skin.

80% OF SKIN CANCER ARE MELANOMA
These clinical studies were presented to the 48^e Annual Conference of theAmerican Society of Clinical Oncology meeting this weekend in Chicago, where several other significant advances were announced, including against advanced breast and prostate cancer. So far the Zelboraf (Vemurafenib) of the Swiss laboratory Roche is only targeted therapy that has been authorized, in 2011, by the authorities of the drugs in the United States (FDA) and Europe to treat advanced melanoma. This treatment targets the gene mutant BRAF, present in half of metastasized melanoma.
"For three decades we have no new treatment for metastatic melanoma but now we are quickly catching up with us", said to the press Dr. Hauschild. In 2011, the FDA approved time two treatments for melanoma, Zelboraf of rock and Yervoy (Ipilimumab) of the U.S. laboratory Bristol-Myers Squibb, an antibody that stimulates the immune system; the next would be Dabrafenib. "The results of the clinical trial with the Dabrafenib represent a new advance against melanoma and establish one basis for other clinical studies to evaluate the role of the Dabrafenib in combination with other anticancer", found this doctor.
GlaxoSmithKline announced May 29 the start of a clinical trial of phase 3 combining the Dabrafenib and the Trametinib. For analysts from Citigroup, the success of the Dabrafenib and the Trametinib could steal the spotlight at the rock Zelboraf, which paved the way for these new anticancer. According to the World Health Organization, the skin cancer is 66 000 deaths per year in the world, of which about 80% are melanoma. M

Saturday, June 2, 2012

SCIENCE - BRAZIL / USA

Sun will survive the collision of the milky way

with Andromeda

Hubble data with simulation shows how shock will affect our cosmic neighborhood

Simulation shows how appears the night sky on Earth early in the merger of the milky way with Andromeda Galaxy, 4 billion years from now Nasa

RIO – Nasa Astronomers used the Hubble space telescope data to simulate a more extreme events that our cosmic neighbourhood will pass, the shock of the milky way with Andromeda Galaxy (M31), expected to happen in a 4 billion years. According to the models, the Solar System and Earth must survive the crash, but probably will be cast to a new region of space.

-Our findings are statistically consistent with a front collision between Andromeda and our Milky Way – Roeland van der Marel said, of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which manages the Hubble.

The simulation was possible after detailed data analysis on space telescope Andromeda movement. The Galaxy today is approximately 2.5 million light years away, but progresses rapidly toward the milky way due to mutual gravitational attraction. The oyster model still you will need other 2 billion years for the two galaxies will unite completely, leaving behind their formats spirals and becoming a huge elliptical galaxy.

-After almost a century of speculation about the future fate of the Andromeda Galaxy and the milky way, finally we have a clear scenario of how events will unfold over the next few billion years – told Tony Sohn, also of Sangmo STScI.

Although the galaxies into shock, the stars within them are so widely separated from the others that they should not impinge on the meeting. Despite this, they are thrown into new orbits around the new Galactic core and simulations indicate that our Solar system is likely to be released for further away from it than it is currently. To make things even more complicated, however, the Triangulum Galaxy (M33), Andromeda, dwarf companion will join the collision and probably merge to Andromeda-Milky Way Galaxy pair. There is still a small chance of M33 with the milky way collide before Andromeda.

Monday, May 28, 2012

SOCIETY / TECHNOLOGY - GERMANY

Was never as much solar power

40 Percent of nationwide electricity covered the Sun at the Whitsun Saturday afternoon. No country had ever so much solar power on the net.by Bernward Janzing

When the weather lifted not only floats off, but also the photovoltaic. Image: dapd

FREIBURG taz | The Whitsun weekend new values for the photovoltaic brought in Germany: on the Saturday the 1.1 million solar power systems in Germany produced according to the transmission system operator temporarily up to 22.2 gigawatt (million kilowatt). This is a new world record. No country on Earth had ever so much solar power on the net.

The Sun covered more than 40 percent of nationwide electricity at a total electricity consumption during this period in Germany of something over 50 gigawatts. In the South of Germany, at times even more than half of the need was covered by solar energy, in the network of EnBW the solar share on the Saturday even came up to 60 percent. Produced at the Pfingstsamstag - as well as on the day before - to approximately 190 million kilowatt hours of solar energy summed up over all day. That was more than even before ten years was produced throughout the year. Calculated over the full 24 hours each fifth kilowatt hour in the power supply from the Sun came to the Pfingstsamstag in Germany.

The holidays a phenomenon that there will regularly be in future showed on the electricity market in addition: the midday stream was the cheapest in the whole day due to the strong supply of solar energy. So the current cost only one-third of the evening and Nachtstroms at the Pentecost Sunday in the noon on the spot market for electricity exchange. So far, such a reversal of usual for decades Preisgefüges with cheap night and expensive day flow occurs only weekends low-consumption, but with further extension to photovoltaic systems the midday stream will be in a few years also on working days again and again the cheapest electricity.