Why Men Die Younger

“A man’s life, a miserable life: men get sick sooner and die sooner.” This grim picture was painted by the organizers of the first World Congress on Men’s Health, held in Vienna, Austria. They were alarmed, reports the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, by the fact that men die, on average, five years earlier than women.

Why do men die younger? For one thing, they are more likely to smoke or drink excessively. Overeating and lack of exercise are other major risk factors—70 percent of middle-aged men are said to be overweight. Moreover, many suffer from the stress of trying to balance work and family. And men are less likely to go to a doctor when they are sick or to seek preventive health care. Summing it up, Siegfried Meryn, one of the congress organizers, said: “Medically, men are indeed worse off.”

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Good Music Can Be Good Medicine

“Among the reasons for the existence of music in virtually every culture [is] its ability to elicit and maintain human health and well-being,” says the book Principles and Practice of Stress Management. When we are singing, notes another reference, our entire body resounds and vibrates. In turn, gentle vibrations help tissues relax and dilate, which may help to reduce pain.

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Oxygen-Starved Eyes

Some contact-lens wearers may be starving their eyes of oxygen, reports The Globe and Mail. “Vascularization occurs when the cornea [the eye’s transparent cover] can’t get the oxygen it needs through surface contact with the air and begins growing blood vessels to compensate.” Impaired vision or even blindness can result.

Dr. Raymond Stein, chief of ophthalmology at a Toronto hospital, says that the “worst scenario is when a patient fails to take care of his or her lenses and does not come in for follow-up.” Optometrists encourage patients to consult an eye-care professional to make sure that they have the right contact lenses for their particular eyes and then to follow the recommended wear schedule and lens-care instructions.

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Know Your Hair

Do you know how many hairs your scalp contains? On the average, about 100,000. An individual hair continues to grow for only two to six years, not endlessly. It then falls out, and after an interval a new hair starts to grow from the same pore. The life cycle of an individual hair is called a hair cycle. Because of this cycle, even if one does not have a hair problem, some 70 to 100 hairs fall out naturally every day.

What causes the variety we observe in hair color? The World Book Encyclopedia explains: “The color of hair is determined largely by the amount and distribution of a brown-black pigment called melanin.” Melanin is a biological pigment that is found in hair, skin, and eyes. The greater the amount of the pigment, the darker the hair will be. As the amount of melanin lessens, the hair color varies from black to brown or rust or blond. If hair contains no melanin at all, it looks shiny white.

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The World’s Largest Seed

Many years ago, when an unusually large seed washed ashore on islands of the Maldives and Indonesia, it captured the human imagination. Myths circulated about its origin. Some thought it came from an underwater tree. Thus, it was given the name Coco De Mer, or sea coconut. It was even believed to be the forbidden fruit that was eaten by Adam in the garden of Eden. However, the truth was finally discovered in the middle of the 18th century. This mysterious seed had come from a type of palm tree found only in the Seychelles, a small group of islands in the Indian Ocean.

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“Talking” Plants

Researchers at the Institute for Applied Physics at the University of Bonn, Germany, have developed laser-driven microphones that can “listen” to plants. The microphones pick up sound waves produced by ethylene gas, which is given off by plants when they are under stress. Bonn University scientist Dr. Frank Kühnemann says: “The more a plant is subjected to stress, the louder the signal we get on our microphone.”

In one case an apparently healthy cucumber “was virtually shouting,” according to readings. “A closer study showed that it had developed mildew, yet the symptoms were not visible.” In fact, mildew takes eight or nine days to form visible spots, and only then can farmers detect the problem. “By eavesdropping on plants,” says The Times of London, “it should be possible to develop an early-warning system to detect pests and disease. Knowing the stress level of fruit and vegetables can also be an aid in efficient storing and transporting.”

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The Power of a Smile

Although it lasts only a moment, the memory may stay with you all your life. Its value is immense, but nobody is so poor that he cannot share it or so rich that he does not need it. What are we talking about? A smile.

A smile is produced by a muscular contraction in which the eyes brighten and the corners of the mouth curve slightly upward expressing satisfaction. During the first few weeks after birth, a baby smiles, and this, of course, delights the proud new parents. These early smiles are known as reflex, or involuntary, smiles. Experts explain that this kind of smile appears often during dreaming and seems to be related to internal feelings and activity of the central nervous system. Even when we are adults, this reflex smile may still occur after a meal or while we are listening to music.

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Strange New Organism Discovered

Scientists at the University of Regensburg, Germany, have discovered an interesting microbe on the volcanic ocean floor north of Iceland. It thrives only in scalding-hot, oxygen-free water that is rich in sulfur, notes the newsmagazine Der Spiegel. The bacteria owe their name, Nanoarchaeum equitans, or primitive riding dwarf, to the fact that they live on the surface of a much bigger organism named Ignicoccus, or fireball, on which they seem to depend for growth.

With a diameter of just 400 nanometers, the microbes are so small that, according to the report, “over six million would fit on the point of a needle.” They are also unique in that their DNA does not even contain 500,000 base pairs. “Thus the primitive dwarf is the creature with the smallest known genome,” says Der Spiegel.

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First Light Pollution Law

The Czech Republic is the first country with a law prohibiting light pollution, notes the Berliner Morgenpost. The law, known as the Protection of the Atmosphere Act, came into force on June 1, 2002. It has found wide support among astronomers and also the population in general. The law defines light pollution as “every form of illumination by artificial light that is dispersed outside the areas it is dedicated to, particularly if directed above the level of the horizon.”

Citizens and organizations are obliged to reduce stray light, which impedes observation of the night sky, by using shielded light fixtures. Even prior to June 1, the use of such fixtures in downtown Brno had markedly reduced stray light. “The improvement is spectacular,” said Czech astronomer Jan Hollan.

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Carbon Monoxide — The Silent Killer

Every year about 50 people in Britain die of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by faulty home heating appliances. “After asbestos, carbon monoxide is the most common single cause of poisoning at work and in the home,” reports London Hazards Centre Trust. What is carbon monoxide?

Carbon monoxide is a gas that is formed when incomplete combustion occurs, whether in an automobile engine or in heating appliances that burn coal or other fossil fuels, especially gas. It is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. So how does it kill?

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Timepiece - The Science Behind the Machine

Horology—the science that involves the making of machines that indicate time—is among the oldest of the scientific crafts. The “heart” of these machines is the escapement. This regulates the rate at which the power driving the machine is released. When this power is allowed to escape only in small amounts and at regular intervals, periods of time can be measured. No one knows exactly when the first all-mechanical clock was invented, but a milestone was reached about the year 1500, when portable timepieces were first made.

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The World’s First Photographer

French physicist Joseph-Nicéphore Niepce possibly started his quest to make permanent photos as early as 1816. But his real breakthrough came when he was experimenting with lithography and came across a light-sensitive substance called bitumen of Judaea. Sometime in the mid-1820’s, he put a bitumen-coated pewter plate in a camera obscura facing a window of his estate and exposed it for eight hours. Not even the most inexperienced of today’s amateur photographers would be proud of the blurry picture of a building, a tree, and a barn that resulted, but Niepce had reason to be. His picture was most likely the first permanent photograph ever taken!

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Deafness From Headsets

Research by Australia’s National Acoustic Laboratory revealed that even normal use of personal stereo headsets can cause latent ear damage, reports The Courier-Mail of Brisbane. Researcher Dr. Eric LePage said that young people are reluctant to take such warnings seriously. “They can repeatedly expose themselves to very loud sounds or music for years and they judge that it has no effect,” he said.

One survey showed that warnings “had little impact until people actually started suffering deafness,” the paper said. The new research confirms German studies indicating that about one quarter of military recruits there aged 16 to 24 have already damaged their hearing by listening to loud music and that “almost 10 percent of students aged 16 to 18 had lost so much hearing that they had problems understanding some normal conversation.”

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Longevity, Is the Secret in Okinawa?

The islands of Okinawa, Japan, were estimated to have nearly 740 centenarians in 2006—90 percent of whom were women—out of a population of 1.3 million. This represents about 50 centenarians for every 100,000 people, according to the Okinawa Centenarian Study, headed by Dr. Makoto Suzuki. In most developed lands, the ratio is thought to be between 10 and 20 per 100,000.

The ongoing study, said to be “the longest continuously running centenarian study in the world,” found that “an unusual number of centenarians [were] in extraordinarily healthy shape.” To find out why, Suzuki and his team examined the lifestyle and genetics of over 900 centenarians, as well as many other Okinawans in their 70’s or older. The researchers found that the subjects tended to be lean and fit, that their arteries were clean, and that they had remarkably low rates of cancer and heart disease. And of those in their late 90’s, fewer had dementia than comparable populations in other developed lands. The secret?

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First Aid at Funerals

A defibrillator has been issued to gravediggers at a cemetery in Australia. The purpose? To resuscitate grief-stricken mourners who suffer cardiac arrest, reports the Sydney Sun-Herald. “Funerals are risky places for heart attacks,” explains Sisenanda Santos, a spokeswoman for the St. John Ambulance service, which is supervising the program.

“People are in large groups, they are distressed, and they are often overdressed for hot days.” The defibrillator is programmed with recorded instructions to the user and administers an electric shock to restart the distressed person’s heart only if the device detects the distinctive signs of cardiac arrest.

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The Seagull’s Leg

A seagull does not freeze even while standing on ice with bare feet. How does this creature conserve its body heat? Part of the secret is in what are called countercurrent heat exchangers.

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Robots, How Far Have They Come?

Robots are no longer confined to the factory. They now come equipped with such things as voice-recognition software, gyroscopes, wireless data communication, Global Positioning Systems, and a range of sensors including those for heat, force, ultrasound, chemicals, and radiation. More powerful and versatile than ever, robots are performing tasks that were viewed as impossible just a few years ago. Consider some examples.

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Long Lived Whale

When indigenous Alaskan hunters killed a bowhead whale in 2007, they found lodged in it the point and fragments of an old harpoon. These were identified as “parts of an exploding lance made in New Bedford [Massachusetts, U.S.A.] in the late 1800s,” says The Boston Globe.

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Less Sleep, More Colds

“People who sleep fewer than seven hours a night are nearly three times as likely to get a cold than people who average eight or more hours of sleep,” says a report from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. And those who stay awake “as little as 8 percent of the time they [are lying] in bed [are] five-and-a-half times more likely” to catch a cold than those who sleep more soundly.

“Although sleep’s relationship with the immune system is well-documented, this is the first evidence that even relatively minor sleep disturbances can influence the body’s reaction to cold viruses,” said Sheldon Cohen, the study’s lead author. “It provides yet another reason why people should make time in their schedules to get a complete night of rest.”

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Paper as Strong as Iron

Researchers at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology have developed a method of producing paper from wood cellulose that preserves the natural strength of its fibers. The normal mechanical processing of wood pulp in papermaking damages its tiny cellulose fibers and greatly reduces their strength.

But the Swedish team succeeded in breaking down the pulp with enzymes and then gently separating its cellulose fibers in water, using a mechanical beater. When the undamaged fibers are drained, they bond into networks, producing sheets of paper with a yield strength greater than cast iron and almost as great as structural steel.

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