Dog Poop
Cities around the world are getting tough on dog poop, because they have got a lot of it. The city of Chicago alone, for instance, deals with over 68 million pounds of dog poop annually. Dog poop is not only stinky, but it’s bad for the environment: it adds toxins to the watershed, the soil, and the air. Research shows that about 38% of dog owners don’t pick up their dog’s waste, and city officials are starting to get creative about dealing with the offenders.This high-tech innovation is reducing offensive waste by over 80% where it’s in use. Companies like Poo Prints offer a comprehensive system of DNA cheek swabs for pets that can be matched with 99% accuracyto offending waste. Of course, it requires obtaining the DNA sample from the dog in the first place, which makes it most effective in condo associations and apartment communities. Cities in Spain and England are hiring private dog doo detectives to track down offenders. A private eye roams town looking for owners who refuse to scoop, snaps their photo, and passes the information along to officials. Offenders are slapped with hundreds of dollars in fines. In Madrid, which already levels hefty $1700 fines for not scooping poop, officials are considering requiring community service for repeat offenders. One Spanish town is so fed up with its poop problem that the town council is mailing un-scooped poop back to the owner. And in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and on the hiking trail systems of Corvallis, Oregon, stink-averse citizens are spray painting uncollected poops in neon shades to draw attention to the offense.
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World-wide Rise in Abortions
One in four pregnancies ends in an abortion each year, global estimates from the World Health Organization and Guttmacher Institute suggest. The report in the Lancet said 56m induced abortions take place annually - higher than previously thought. Researchers acknowledge rates have improved in many rich countries but warn this masks no change in poorer areas over the past 15 years. Experts are calling for new approaches to contraceptive services. Scientists say the annual number of abortions worldwide increased from 50 million a year between 1990-1994 to 56 million a year between 2010-2014.The rise in numbers is mostly seen in the developing world driven in part by population growth and by a desire for smaller families. Their calculations show that while the number of abortions per person has stayed stagnant in many poorer areas, in richer areas it fell from 25 to 14 per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Researchers point out that abortion rates were similar across countries - regardless of whether terminations are legal or not. They argue that laws banning abortions do not limit the number of terminations and can instead lead people to seek illegal abortions that can be unsafe. The report goes on to highlight areas such as Latin America where one in three pregnancies ends in abortion higher than any other region in the world. And, the study says there was a slight increase in abortion rates in Western Europe - which researchers suggest could be linked to an increase in women migrating from Eastern Europe and further afield. It is possible that some are not aware of the contraceptive services available or come from countries where abortion rates are higher in general, researchers say. Dr. Bela Ganatra of the World Health Organization said, "The high rates of abortion seen in our study provide further evidence of the need to improve and expand access to effective contraceptive services. Investing in modern contraceptive methods would be far less costly to women and to society than having unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions." But the study suggests the solution is not as simple as improving access to contraceptives. Many women said they chose not to use contraceptives because they were worried about side effects, felt stigmatized or thought there was a low risk they would become pregnant.
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Dreaming Brain Rhythms Lock In Memory
Disrupting brain activity in sleeping mice, specifically during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase, can stop the animals remembering things they learned that day, a study suggests. It is the clearest evidence to date that REM sleep is critical for memory. By switching off certain brain cells, the researchers silenced a particular, rhythmic type of brain function without waking the mice. If they did this during REM sleep, the mice failed subsequent memory tests. The research is reported in the journal, Science. REM sleep is the phase during which, at least in humans, dreams take place but the question of whether it is important for settling new memories has been difficult to answer. Recent studies have tended to focus on deep, non-REM sleep instead, during which brain cells fire in various patterns that reflect memory consolidation and "re-play" of the day's experiences. During REM sleep, while our eyes flicker and our muscles relax, exactly what the brain is doing is something of a mystery. But it is a type of sleep seen across the animal kingdom, in mammals and birds and even lizards. Especially in animals, REM phases can be quite fleeting. This and other complications have made it difficult to test what effect such sleep has. Simply waking up humans or animals when they enter the REM phase, for example, causes stress and other problems that can confound any memory tests. So, Dr Sylvain Williams from McGill University in Canada working with colleagues at the University of Bern, Switzerland, decided to meddle directly with the sleeping brain. "What we did was we used a technique, in mice, to solely disrupt REM sleep activity," Dr Williams told BBC News. Using the system known as "optogenetics", he and his colleagues were able to control a particular population of brain cells in the mice, just by shining light through a tiny, implanted optical fiber. Whenever they switched on the light, they drastically reduced a particular rhythm in the brain, called "theta oscillations". And if that disruption was delivered during a mouse's REM sleep, there were consequences. "Disrupting the activity only during REM sleep, and not other sleep, basically obliterates consolidation and memory formation," Dr Williams said. For example, if it was shown one brand new object and one that it had seen the day before, the mouse would thoroughly investigate both, instead of concentrating - like a normal mouse would - on the unfamiliar one. So, it seems that REM sleep is crucial, in some cases, for laying down new memories. Dr Williams said this arguably poses more questions than it answers.
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Sex Education For Immigrants
An illustration from a German government website meant as a tutorial for immigrants on the role of sex in German culture, shows a couple in bed together. The site cost $136,000 to create. Photo courtesy of the German Federal Center for Health Education
With a heavy dose of their typical bluntness, the German government created a website dedicated to teaching the influx of Middle Eastern immigrants the ins and outs of sex literally and figuratively in German culture. In some places, the site offers advice on how to interact with, and be respectful of, gays and lesbians and members of the opposite sex. In other places, the site is a de facto instruction manual for how to have sex in different ways and in different positions. The site is adorned with cartoon illustrations of various sex acts that are equally graphic and clinical. One section deals explicitly with young people trying to lose their virginity. It offers a helpful tip for the big night: "Make sure that no one can disturb you." It goes on to describe the various sensations and emotions people have when losing their virginity. The site, which cost the German Federal Center for Health Education $136,000 to create, is intended to help bridge the gap between the typically reserved Middle Eastern attitudes about sex and the more open German approach, where public nudity is not uncommon and frank conversations about sex are the norm. While the website might make more prudish Americans giggle or blush, the issue of sexual norms has, at times, been anything but a joke in Germany as tens of thousands of Middle Eastern refugees have struggled to integrate themselves into German society. A rash of sexual assaults, some allegedly committed by asylum seekers, were reported across the country on New Year's Eve. Public pools in Munich have had to post cartoon signs warning men not to grope women in swimsuits. In Bavaria, the local government has begun offering classes for Middle Eastern men on how to properly approach and converse with German women so as not to be offensive.
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Exercise May Reduce The Risk Of Cancer
Exercise may significantly reduce your risk for many types of cancer, including some of the most lethal forms of the disease, a large review suggests. Working out for even a couple of hours a week appears to shrink the risk of breast, colon and lung cancer, said researchers who looked at 1.4 million adults. "Those are three of the four major cancers that affect Americans today," said Marilie Gammon. She is a professor of epidemiology with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Public Health. Cancer risk appears to continue to decline as a person racks up hours of physical activity with no apparent upper plateau said study lead author Steven Moore, an investigator with the U.S. National Cancer Institute. "The more activity, the more the benefit," Moore said. "As people did more, their risk continued to lower." It should be noted, however, that the study only found an association between exercise and reduced cancer risk. It did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship. In the study, regular exercise wound up being linked to a reduced risk of 13 cancers in all, the researchers said. The others were leukemia, myeloma and cancers of the esophagus, liver, kidney, stomach, endometrium, rectum, bladder, and head and neck. Current federal guidelines for exercise (150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity) are aimed at heart health but also serve well for cancer prevention, Moore said. Moderate-intensity exercise involves pursuits such as brisk walking or tennis, while vigorous intensity exercise involves heart-pumping activities such as jogging or swimming laps, according to the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. For this study, Moore and his colleagues focused on leisure-time physical activity performed outside work or household chores. Prior research has linked exercise to reduced risk of breast and colon cancer, but no study has attempted to look at the effect of physical activity on many different types of cancer, Moore said. The researchers pooled data from 12 U.S. and European studies to create a database of 1.4 million adults, aged 19 to 98. They then examined whether self-reported physical activity made a difference in risk of 26 cancers. Exercise was associated with a reduced risk for half of the cancers considered by the investigators, and that reduction remained significant for nearly all, even after accounting for factors such as obesity and smoking history. Overall, a higher level of physical activity was associated with a 7 percent lower risk of total cancer, the researchers reported. The findings were published online May 16 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.