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London residents get smog alerts - by text message

The city of London, with funding from the European Space Agency, has launched AirTEXT, which delivers air pollution alerts and health advice via SMS text messages.

Science study of sales tactics - how we get fooled into buying

What would large women think if a dress sold for lower cost to women of smaller sizes?

Common sense says this would turn them off.

But swimmers react well to items claimed to improve speed if they know the product is given away free to Olympic swimmers.

If you perceive the person getting the good deal as being smarter than you, you are okay with it. You are even more likely to pay full price.

'Smart' Fiber Flushes Cholesterol, Study Finds

Tailor-made dietary fiber may be able to flush artery-clogging cholesterol from the body and lower the risk of heart disease, according to a new study by University of Guelph researchers.

The study found that a fiber-rich plant extract from a legume grown in India can reduce cholesterol in pigs. The results were published in the March issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

Although the study relied on animal models, the researchers say the result would most likely be the same in people and they hope further studies by human nutritionists will provide confirmation.

Dinosaur extinction didn't cause the rise of present-day mammals, claim researchers

A new, complete 'tree of life' tracing the history of all 4,500 mammals on Earth shows that they did not diversify as a result of the death of the dinosaurs, says new research published in Nature today.

The study was undertaken in the UK by scientists at Imperial College London and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). It contradicts the previously accepted theory that the Mass Extinction Event (MEE) that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago prompted the rapid rise of the mammals we see on the earth today.

Sorry dinosaurs, mammals would have taken over even if you lived

It is a natural history tale that every third grader knows: The dinosaurs ruled the Earth for hundreds of millions of years, until an asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula and triggered a mass extinction that allowed the ancestors of today’s mammals to thrive.

The asteroid part of the story may still hold true, but a new study challenges the notion that a mass extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago played a major role in the dominance of today’s mammals.

Groundbreaking Canadian asthma study

A new report published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) shows that patients treated with bronchial thermoplasty, the first non-drug treatment for asthma, demonstrated an overall improvement in asthma control.

Clues to gene expression in cystic fibrosis will guide research

Genetics tests could help provide cystic fibrosis (CF) patients with targeted treatment in future, pilot study authors suggest. Results from a French clinical trial published today in BMC Medicine show how a small percentage of CF sufferers with a rare genetic stop mutation responded positively to gentamicin treatment.

Fashion is predictable, research says, but fashionistas are not

Well, almost predictable. The changes are consistent and occur at a predictable rate but because they are random, no one can predict exactly which new fashions will replace the old ones.

Huh?

“It’s like American Idol,” said Dr Alex Bentley, a Lecturer in the Anthropology Department at Durham University. “We can predict the steady production of new winners from programme to programme, but the randomness means we can’t forecast the particular winners themselves.”

Impact of exercise on body fat is different for boys and girls

The impact of exercise on body fat differs for boys and girls, suggests research published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Recommendations on exercise to curb the rising tide of obesity in children have tended to take a unisex approach, say the authors.

Electron storage added to molecular package that converts light to chemical energy

The Virginia Tech chemistry research group that has been creating molecular complexes that use solar energy to produce hydrogen from water has added an additional capacity to their supramolecule.

Why does a biological clock tick?

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Vanderbilt University has analyzed the simplest known biological clock and figured out what makes it tick. The results of their analysis are published in the March 27 issue of the journal Public Library of Science Biology.

Evolutionary Medicine Meeting will advance a new scientific discipline

The good news: improved health care is reducing occurrences of intestinal parasites worldwide. The bad news: at the same time, rates of asthma are increasing worldwide. The link between these trends? Evolution – human evolution. The human immune system has evolved in the constant presence of intestinal parasites. The immune system is designed to react to these parasites – in their absence, the immune system overreacts to simple allergens, resulting in asthma. Its evolved state is mismatched to modernity.

Evolution paradox - why some people are more attractive than others - explained?

Researchers believe they have solved a mystery that has puzzled evolutionary scientists for years ... if 'good' genes spread through the population, why are individuals so different?

The so-called 'lek paradox', that sexually-selecting species like humans should have much less individuality than is the case, has been seized upon by creationists as an argument that Darwin's theories are fundamentally flawed.

Scary science - could pregnant mother's Atkins Diet impact son's future sperm count?

A mother’s high beef consumption while pregnant was associated with lower sperm counts in her son, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Rochester.

Giving platinum a golden boost for hydrogen fuel cells

Platinum might outweigh gold in the jewelry market, but as part of an ongoing effort to produce efficient and affordable fuel cells, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are studying how gold atoms might enhance the value of the pricier metal. Specifically, they're looking for ways to use gold to prevent the destruction of platinum in the chemical reactions that take place in fuel cells.