air 3.air.00023 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire. Global warming predicted for the coming decades may decrease heating bills in some parts of the United States. Ironically, the extra electricity needed for air conditioning could result in increased emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide. http://www.soulcast.com/Louis3J3Sheehan/

The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, which traps heat at Earth's surface, has been on the rise for more than 150 years, largely because of the burning of fossil fuels. Some computer simulations suggest that by the end of this century, the global average temperature could be as much as 3.4°C higher than it is now, says David J. Erickson III, a climate modeler at the Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratory. http://www.soulcast.com/Louis3J3Sheehan/

To look at the near-term effects of such global changes in the United States, Erickson and his colleagues ran computer predictions of regional climate changes, population changes, and the patterns of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.

Their model suggests that between 2003 and 2025, energy use in northeastern states will drop because of warmer winters but increase in the South and West with increased air conditioning. Overall energy use for the country during this period would be about 1 percent less than consumption in a no-warming scenario, but carbon dioxide emissions would increase about a half a percent.

The boost in the greenhouse gas would result from air conditioners running on electricity primarily from coal-fired power plants, a power source that's less efficient than sources used to heat most buildings. The team reports its results in an upcoming Geophysical Research Letters. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

radon 33.rad.220 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Measuring radon with testing kits that sit in a house for just a few days can yield misleadingly low values in summer, a new study finds.http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.INFO

Alabama maintains a statewide database of 36,000 domestic measurements of radon, a radioactive gas emitted by rocks in soil. Although these data revealed some geographical hot spots, radon readings in such areas were often unexpectedly low if testing had occurred in summer.http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.INFO

To investigate a possible seasonal bias, James L. McNees of the Alabama Department of Public Health in Montgomery and Susan H. Roberts of the Alabama Radon Education Program at Auburn University offered free radon-test kits to state residents whose homes had recently undergone summer testing.http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN.INFO

Of the 186 homes resampled in winter, 63 percent exhibited higher radon values than they had in summer. Indeed, 27 percent of these homes revealed air concentrations more than five times the 4-picocuries-per-liter federal guideline for taking remedial action. The researchers report their findings in the July Health Physics.

The Environmental Protection Agency recommends measuring radon over an entire year. However, because many people test for radon only when they put their homes on the market, several-day testing has become common.

McNees and Roberts suspect that the summer-radon effect traces to fairly constant temperatures in air-conditioned homes. Normally, they say, temperature differentials would prompt warmer air to rise into the attic, drawing radon-laden air into the home from the soil below it.

down 44.dow.3330 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Day three of the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting offered news about Down syndrome and sleep cycles

Melatonin and moonlight

Moonlight may interrupt astronauts’ sleep cycles by messing with their melatonin, a new study shows.

Sleep cycles are regulated by the type and amount of light that people encounter. When a person goes to sleep, the hormone melatonin circulates through the body to maintain a drowsy state. But if a light comes on, the body’s melatonin levels drop, causing the person to wake up. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us




Astronauts are notoriously bad sleepers, says Benjamin Warfield of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. They average just four to six hours of sleep a night when they’re on a mission and amass a huge sleep deficit. But no one knew how moonlight might be affecting this chronic lack of sleep.

To figure it out, the researchers built a piece of equipment they call the Moonlight Machine — a complicated series of lights, mirrors, lenses, and filters — to mimic light conditions on the moon. Subjects sat inside the Moonlight Machine between 2 and 3:30 a.m., a time when melatonin levels in the body are normally high. The researchers found that melatonin levels were diminished after moonlight exposure. The team’s next step is to repeat the experiments at all points during the night. Ultimately, Warfield would like to design visors and window blocks that could regulate the amount of moonlight for astronauts. “We’re really excited to see where this goes,” says Warfield. The team plans to begin studying how the lighting conditions on Mars might affect the human sleep cycle. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us




These kinds of studies aren’t just important for sweetening astronauts’ dreams. Understanding how different kinds of light influence the body could lead to new ways to treat diseases like seasonal affective disorder and insomnia. Astronauts have a lot of problems to deal with, but a lack of sleep should not be one of them, says Warfield. — Laura Sanders

Four genes possible culprits for early Alzheimer’s in people with Down syndrome

Four genes may help explain why people with Down syndrome are particularly at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, new research has shown. Down syndrome is a genetic disease caused by inheriting an extra copy of chromosome 21. People who have the disease are likely to get Alzheimer’s — a debilitating brain disease that normally affects only the elderly — in their 30s and 40s.

In the 1920s, the life expectancy of a person with Down syndrome was around nine years, says Ralf Schmid of Duke University in Durham, N.C., author of the new study. But today, improved healthcare allows many more people with Down syndrome to survive into middle age. Doctors examining these older patients saw that many of them were succumbing to the debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s at much earlier ages than regular patients. “It’s well established that the majority of Down syndrome kids will get Alzheimer’s,” says Schmid. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us




A critical region of chromosome 21 is known to be responsible for Down syndrome because, when a third copy of the chromosome is present, its genes produce proteins at excessive levels. Schmid and his colleagues added genes from that region to rat neurons. Four of those genes caused early death of the neurons, suggesting that those genes may be responsible for the early neurodegeneration of Alzheimer’s in Down syndrome patients. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

stars 883.sta.44 Louis J. Sheehan

Brittle stars may end up with less star power as greenhouse gases change ocean chemistry.

As human activity increases concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air, ocean chemistry is changing, says Hannah L. Wood of Plymouth Marine Laboratory in England. The pH of seawater, now around 8.1, is dipping closer to the acidic side, changing the supplies of various forms of carbon that sea creatures like corals and brittle stars need to form the hard parts of their bodies. http://louis3j3sheehan3esquire.wordpress.com/

In a lab test, the pink brittle star Amphiura filiformis still managed to capture the carbon and calcium it needs to regenerate arms in lowered pH water, Wood says. “That’s against the trend” of earlier predictions, she says. Biologists had expected trouble for calcifying marine life as seawater pH declines.

“There’s a trade-off,” Wood says. The brittle star’s new arms grew with extra calcification but also had less muscle. In water adjusted to pH 7.7, which a gloomy scenario predicts for the oceans as soon as 2100, the brittle star arms had one-fifth to one-quarter of their usual brawn. http://louis3j3sheehan3esquire.wordpress.com/

In the modified seawater, brittle stars nearly doubled their oxygen use. “It’s the equivalent of us breathing heavily,” Wood says.

“The main message is we need to look beyond calcification,” she says. The study will appear in an upcoming Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“The most significant aspect here, I think, is that the increased calcification rates may come at a cost to other processes,” says Gretchen Hofmann of the University of California, Santa Barbara. “We need to look more deeply into an organism’s physiology to really get the whole picture.”