What's Going On...

Bad Blogger! Oops, my bad!

Hey guys! Sorry about my erratic posting behavior. I haven't really figured out my new schedule. There are lots of reasons behind my current state of affairs and since I do like to keep Potspoon! more science related, if you wish to know what is going on, please read my current ramblings at Roogoodoo. To better understand what that post is all about, click on the tab above marked Bipolar Disorder. As many of you know, mental health is not something I take for granted and I hope my ramblings and sporadic posts about it help people... or in the very least, let them know they are not alone!

Keep learning!

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Plastic found in nine percent of 'garbage patch' fishes

ScienceDaily (2011-07-01) -- The first scientific results from an ambitious voyage led by a group of graduate students from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego offer a stark view of human pollution and its infiltration of an area of the ocean that has been labeled as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

Read more here.

Credit: J. Leicther

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Yum Yum Strawberies are Healthy!

I love strawberries. A lot. They are yummy and sweet and refreshing and juicy... and pretty darned healthy, too. Besides just having a bunch of good vitamins and being great jams, strawberries are appearing to be beneficial in another way: boosting red blood cells.

The boost they get is in how responsive they are to anti-oxidants. Oxitative stress (the "oxi" you are trying to "anti") is associated with various diseases.

The study was done by Spanish and Italian researchers. Subjects were given 1/2 kilogram of berries a day or roughly the equivalent of one pound. That's a lot of berry. The pound was spread throught the day and this was done for two week. The results? Blood plasma had increased antioxidant capacity and red blood cells resisted fragmentation.They are now doing the studies with a quarter to half that amount: average strawberry consumption.

How delicious! What a yummy study in which to participate. You can read more at ScienceDaily.

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New Mammals Discovered

Here we are: in the Philippines, again. Luzon, again. Like last time, we are finding more critters, too! This time, seven species of mammal. Mice. All very genetically different; some only found on ONE mountain. This increased the number of known mammals (excluding bats) from 42 to 49. They increased mammalian integration by 17%!

Where were these mice all this time? Apparently they are very shy and liked to hide. They aren't pests and prefer to eat earthworms and bugs and seeds.

A Dr. Scott Steppan, head of one of the labs conduction the DNA part of the survey, said,

"The Philippines is an ideal place to study the evolution of animal diversity, even better than the famous Galapagos Islands. These animals have been evolving in the Philippine archipelago for millions of years."

Do you think we, as humans, have made the mistake of assuming a place like Panama is a biodiversity hotspot because it actually is, or is it because that is where everyone does research?

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Debate!: Childhood Allergies

Bailey Jane and Piper Jaimes in their favorite spot: the kitchen.

My gal pal, Bailey and her partner in crime and cuteness Piper, have this great blog called Foodie Patoodie!  (love the use of exclamation points in titles, by the way) where she actually got some heat for giving her 10+ month old baby a PB&J for the first time. This, coupled with my obnoxious obsession with teaching people, made me realize how misinformed... and slightly paranoid... a lot of people are. So, I blog. Hey, any excuse to update this thing, right?

First off: I am not denying that childhood allergies exist. I AM saying that they aren't as prevalent as you would think and a lot of contributing factors to the ones that do have allergies. Now on to the studies!

Some info on Allergies:

While it is true that approximately one in five Americans have allergies, only about 2.5% of Americans have food related allergies. Allergies are your immune systems abnormal response to a harmless substance (like a flower) causing varying reactions from sneezes to rashes.

When a person is exposed to an allergen, a few things happen. First, the body produces antibodies. The antibodies produced attempt to contain the allergen. Then through a serious of really complicated chemical reactions, you get histamines in your blood and you react. WebMD does a great job of explaining the really scientific jargon, but you know me... I don't wanna scare you off that fast!

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Area 51 Revealed... finally

Ok, so yes I am a geek. I even went to Roswell and all that fun stuff, but Area 51 documents are becoming unclassified and many old vets of the site are coming forward to talk, finally.

Tonight at 10 pm EST, you can watch them talk. On National Geographic Channel, you can watch the new documentary, Area 51 Declassified.  Am I excited? Oh, yes! Will I get to watch it? Probably not. My house has it, but the cable goes in and out (yay island living) and even though it is behaving, chances are I will miss it. Friends houses with satellite instead? They aren't nerds like me. No NatGeo (shame).

I WILL buy the DVD though: make no mistake.

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News Snippets

As most of you know, science happens all the time, and usually I was really good at reporting all the fun science news. Then I got busy, then I got lazy (Twitter makes sharing stories to darn easy), then busy again... but who cares??? I have a blog to write! Who says all the post have to be long and amazing?!?!

Here are some stories that I have found to be interesting these past few days:

• Sixty Second Science did a podcast about sugar being able to flush out microbes. Sugar actually helps antibiotics work more effectively in chronic infections.
• There was a great video showing chimpanzees exhibiting what humans would consider "mourning behaviors" and, of course, was posted to National Geographic. What do you think? Are they just unusually quiet and curious or does it seem like mourning?
• Elevated levels of radiation were found in seaweed near the "injured" nuclear plant in Japan.
• Locally, one guys stupid laziness caused an island wide (two islands actually) power outage. Fantastic.
• Whales in the West Indies have West Indian accents. It's true. Studies have shown that whales have regional accents and dialects!

So go and read... You might learn something!

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