Cot danger
Sudden infant death syndrome and breathing difficulties in premature babies could be influenced by conditions in the womb. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have found that a chemical receptor in the brain normally associated with the development of learning and memory, also affects the development of the respiratory system. Exposure to substances which affect this receptor could cause problems with the breathing reflex. The researchers warn in the current issue of the journal of Neuroscience that pregnant women should avoid prolonged exposure to alcohol and some common anaesthetic and analgesic drugs, since these substances impair the receptor's performance.
Sleep lab
If you take less than five minutes to fall asleep at night, you're sleep deprived. But the World Health Organisation, and the Australian Sleep Research Institute are working on it. Participants in their joint project are to keep a snooze diary for a week, detailing sleeping hours, afternoon naps and how often they wake up in the night. The sleep research institute claims that modern western lifestyles and the prevalence of artificial lighting are interfering with our natural sleep patterns. Lack of sleep can significantly impair motor skills, in some cases producing similar effects to alcohol. It has caused innumerable road accidents as well as catastrophes like the Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez and Challenger space shuttle disasters.
Sixth sense
"Some might say there is less evidence for superstrings than there is for ESP and at least we can try to replicate paranormal phenomena in the laboratory." So says Bernard Carr, a cosmologist at the London's Queen Mary and Westfield College. This month's Physics World magazine contains a report from a meeting to discuss "rational perspectives on the paranormal". A physicist from the University of Athens told the meeting that the power of thought can influence electrical noise stored as random 0s and 1s in a computer's memory. Conventional statistics ruled out any paranormal effects but an "alternative" statistical approach "appeared to suggest' that people could trigger runs of particular sets of numbers in the data.
It ain't heavy...
This week the American Physical Society heard that the earth is lighter than previously thought. New measurements by physicists at the University of Washington shave off 8 trillion metric tons, reducing it to a mere 5,972 trillion metric tons. The new calculations were based on measurements from what sounds like upmarket kitchen equipment. The torsion balance measures the gravitational effects of four stainless steel weights on a gold-coated Pyrex plate.
