Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture gives too much credit to cannons

Napoleon Wasn’t Defeated by the Russians - Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture gives too much credit to cannons. - History has taught us that Napoleon, in his invasion of Russia in 1812, marched into Moscow with his army largely intact and retreated only because the citizens of Moscow burned three-fourths of the city, depriving the army of food and supplies. The harsh Russian winter then devastated the army as it retreated. The Russians’ victory, commemorated by Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, was one of the great upsets of military history.

But no one recognized the truly great power in this war.

"Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow" Painting by Adolph Northen/Wiki Commons.

In Vilnius, Lithuania, during the winter of 2001, workers were digging trenches for telephone lines and demolishing the old Soviet barracks that had stood for decades. A bulldozer scraped-up something white, so the operator hopped down and, to his surprise, saw the skull and other bones of a human being. Another worker later claimed that “the things just kept coming out of the ground—there were thousands of them.” Eight years earlier, a grave had been found with the remains of 700 people killed by the Soviet Committee for State Security, commonly known as the KGB. Could this be one of those secret places where the KGB disposed of its victims? Or could it be one the mass burials of Jews murdered by the Nazis?

When archeologists from the University of Vilnius arrived, they found that the bodies were stacked three deep in V-shaped trenches that were apparently dug as defensive positions. It appeared that the skeletons were the remains of soldiers. Two thousand skeletons were excavated, along with belt buckles with regimental numbers on them. Along with the finds were 20-franc coins dating from the early 1800s. It finally dawned on the scientists what they had found: the remains of Napoleon’s Grande Armée. Napoleon had led 600,000 men into Russia with the intent of conquering the country; of these, only about 30,000 survived, and of that number, it is said that fewer than 1,000 were ever able to return to duty.

What incredible circumstances could have caused the defeat of one of the greatest armies on the European continent, led by one of the greatest generals of all time? Surprisingly, it wasn’t enemy soldiers or the normal privations soldiers experience that devastated Napoleon’s army. Most of his soldiers were battle-hardened young men, so they should have been able to tolerate the cold, hunger, long marches, and fatigue. No, it was a microscopic organism that wreaked havoc and annihilated Napoleon’s army and his grand plans for conquest. A microbe called typhus, spread by a scourge of lice.

Napoleon initially had no real reason to invade Russia. During the Battle of Friedland in June of 1807, Napoleon’s army defeated the Russian army, and on July 7, 1807, France and Alexander I of Russia signed the Treaties of Tilsit, which made the two countries allies (and, among other things, prohibited Russia from doing business with Britain). Surprisingly, Napoleon did not take any land from Russia or request war reparations. By early 1812, Napoleon controlled most of the land between Spain and Russia. However, England controlled the seas, and Napoleon wanted India, which was then an English colony. Napoleon’s only hope of taking India was to take it by land, which meant controlling Russia.

Since the Treaty of Tilsit, France and Russia had been tense allies. Russia had been violating the treaty by trading with England, and Napoleon, finally fed up, used this as an excuse to invade Russia. In June, 1812, Napoleon’s army assembled in eastern Germany. With magnificent fanfare, Napoleon reviewed his troops on the west bank of the Niemen River on June 22, 1812. Napoleon’s engineers built a pontoon bridge over the river and the army entered Russian-controlled Poland the next day. Things were going well—the summer, though hot and dry, made marching over the roads easy. The supply columns stayed slightly ahead of the soldiers, so food was readily available, and the soldiers were in good health. Though military hospitals were established along the route to Poland in Magdeburg, Erfurt, Posen, and Berlin, there was little need for their services. The army reached Vilnius in four days, meeting no resistance from Russian troops.

Poland is where things started going badly for Napoleon. He found the region filthy beyond belief. The peasants were unwashed, with matted hair and ridden with lice and fleas, and the wells were fouled. Since the army was now in enemy territory, the supply trains had to move to the rear. The roads were soft with loose dust or were deeply rutted from the spring rains; the supply trains lagged farther and farther behind the main body of soldiers, and it became difficult to provide food and water. The army was so huge that it was nearly impossible to keep military formation intact, and the greater part of the army dissolved into straggling, sprawling mobs. Many of the soldiers pillaged the homes, livestock, and fields of the local peasants. Nearly 20,000 army horses died from lack of water and fodder on the way to Vilnius. The homes of the peasants were so filthy that they seemed to be alive with cockroaches. The typical battlefield diseases of dysentery and other intestinal diseases began to appear, and though new hospitals were set up in Danzig, Königsberg, and Thorn, they were unable to deal with the large numbers of sick soldiers sent back to the rear.

But Napoleon’s problems were just beginning.

Several days after crossing the Nieman, a number of soldiers began to develop high fevers and a red rash on their bodies. Some of them developed a bluish tinge to their faces and then rapidly died. Typhus had made its appearance.

Typhus had been present in Poland and Russia for many years, but it had gotten worse since the Russian army had devastated Poland while retreating from Napoleon’s forces. A lack of sanitation combined with the unusually hot summer made an ideal environment for the spread of lice. Typhus is caused by the organism Rickettsia prowazekii. It would be an entire century after the 1812 campaign before scientists realized that typhus is found in the feces of lice.

The typical French soldier was dirty and sweaty and lived in the same clothes for days; this is the perfect environment for lice to feed on his body and find a home in the seams of his clothing. Once the clothes and skin of the soldier were contaminated with lice excrement, the smallest scratch or abrasion would have been enough for the typhus germ to enter the soldier’s body. To compound the problem, the soldiers were sleeping in large groups in confined spaces for safety; they were concerned that the Russians would attack or the Poles would retaliate. This closeness allowed the lice to jump quickly to soldiers who were not infested. Only a month into the campaign, Napoleon lost 80,000 soldiers who were either incapacitated or had died from typhus. Under military surgeon Baron D.J. Larrey, the army’s medical and sanitary measures were the finest in the world, but no one could have coped with the scale of the epidemic. An eyewitness account gives details of one soldier’s experience with a lice infestation:

Bourgogne went to sleep on a reed mat and was soon awakened by the activities of the lice. Finding himself literally covered with them, he stripped off his shirt and trousers and threw them into the fire. They exploded like the fire of two ranks of infantry. He could not get rid of them for two months. All of his companions swarmed with lice; many were bitten and developed spotted fever (typhus).

On July 28, three of Napoleon’s officers raised concerns with him that the fight with the Russians was becoming dangerous. The loss of troops from disease and desertion had reduced his effective fighting strength to about half. Adding to this difficulty, the problem of finding provisions in hostile territory was becoming daunting. Napoleon listened to their arguments and agreed to end the campaign, but only two days later, he changed his mind and told his generals: “The very danger pushes us on to Moscow. The die is cast. Victory will justify and save us.”

So Napoleon and his sick, weary soldiers continued on. Smolensk fell to Napoleon on Aug. 17, and Valutino fell quickly after that. The Russians retreated as the French advanced, drawing Napoleon deeper into Russian territory. Napoleon had split his army into three parts. By Aug. 25, Napoleon had lost 105,000 of his main army of 265,000, leaving just 160,000 soldiers. Within two weeks, typhus had reduced the army to 103,000.

Gen. Mikhail Kutusov of the Russian forces set up a defensive position in Borodino, about 70 miles west of Moscow. On Sept. 7, French forces engaged the Russians. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. Napoleon then marched into Moscow, but it was a Pyrrhic victory; only approximately 90,000 French soldiers remained. Napoleon expected the Russians to surrender; however, the citizens of the city simply left Moscow to Napoleon. Three-fourths of the city had been burned by the time Napoleon’s army arrived and there was no food or other provisions for them. Fifteen thousand reinforcements joined Napoleon in Moscow, but of those, 10,000 died of disease. With the Russian winter rapidly approaching, Napoleon had no choice but to retreat back to France. Napoleon and the remains of his army stumbled into Smolensk, hoping to find food and shelter. Arriving on Nov. 8 during the bitter cold, Napoleon found the hospitals already crowded with sick and injured. Discipline was deteriorating, and the final blow came when Napoleon found that the supplies he had hoped were waiting for him had been consumed by reserve and communication troops. Leaving Smolensk on Nov. 13, the army arrived in Vilnius on Dec. 8. Only 20,000 soldiers remained that could be considered fit enough to fight. Having heard of an impending coup d’etat in France by Gen. Claude François de Malet, Napoleon left Gen. Joachim Murat in charge and hastened to Paris. Murat refused to make a stand in Vilnius—he left his guns and the booty obtained in Moscow to the advancing Russians and retreated back toward the Nieman, crossing on Dec. 14 with fewer than 40,000 men, mostly incapacitated. So ended Napoleon’s great dream of reaching India through Russia.

Many of the dead soldiers were buried in defensive trenches that were dug during the retreat. It was in one of these trenches that, almost two centuries later, construction workers found the remains of Napoleon’s Grande Armée.

Didier Raoult from the Université de la Méditerranée in Marseille, France analyzed the dental pulp of 72 teeth taken from the bodies of 35 of the soldiers found in Vilnius. The pulp from seven soldiers included the DNA from Bartonella quintana, an organism responsible for trench fever, another louse-borne disease that was common during World War I. The DNA from three soldiers contained the sequences from R. prowazakii, which causes epidemic typhus. Overall, 29 percent of the remains had evidence of R. prowazkii or B. quintana infection, implying that a major contributing factor to Napoleon’s defeat was lice.

Most Americans are familiar with the ending of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, commissioned by Russia to celebrate Russia’s defeat of Napoleon. The musical score ends with the sounds of cannons booming and bells pealing; however, if Tchaikovsky wanted to accurately record the sound of Napoleon’s defeat, one would only hear the soft, quiet sound of lice munching on human flesh. An organism too small to be seen by the human eye had changed the course of human history. ( slate.com )

Blog : Creative Styles

Post : Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture gives too much credit to cannons

READ MORE - Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture gives too much credit to cannons

Secrets of long life sought in DNA of the elderly

Secrets of long life sought in DNA of the elderly - George Eberhardt turned 107 last month, and scientists would love to know how he and other older folks like him made it that far. So he’s going to hand over some of his DNA.

He’s one of 100 centenarians taking part in a project announced Wednesday that will examine some of the oldest citizens with one of the newest scientific tools: whole-genome sequencing, the deciphering of a person’s complete collection of DNA.

Scientists think DNA from very old healthy people could offer clues to how they lived so long. And that could one day lead to medicines to help the rest of us stay disease-free longer.

By the time you reach, say, 105, “it’s very hard to get there without some genetic advantages,” says Dr. Thomas Perls, a geriatrics expert at Boston University.

Perls is helping find centenarians for the Archon Genomics X Prize competition. The X Prize Foundation, best known for a spaceflight competition, is offering $10 million in prize money to researchers who decipher the complete DNA code from 100 people older than 100. The contest will be judged on accuracy, completeness and the speed and cost of sequencing.

The contest is a relaunch of an older competition with a new focus on centenarians, and it’s the second sequencing project involving the elderly to be announced this month.

Genome pioneer J. Craig Venter says the centenarian project is just a first step in revealing the genetic secrets of a long and healthy life.

“We need 10,000 genomes, not 100, to start to understand the link between genetics, disease and wellness,” said Venter, who is co-chairing the X Prize contest.

The 107-year-old Eberhardt of Chester, New Jersey, played and taught tennis until he was 94. He said he’s participating in the X Prize project because he’s interested in science and technology. It’s not clear his genes will reveal much. Nobody else in his extended family reached 100, and he thinks only a couple reached 90, he said in a telephone interview.

So why does he think he lived so long? He credits 70 years of marriage to his wife, Marie. She in turn cites his “intense interest in so many things” over a lifetime, from building radios as a child to pursuing a career in electronics research.

But scientists believe there’s more to it, and they want to use genome sequencing to investigate. Dr. Richard Cawthon of the University of Utah, who is seeking longevity genes by other means, says it may turn up genetic features that protect against multiple diseases or that slow the process of aging in general.

Protective features of a centenarian’s DNA can even overcome less-than-ideal lifestyles, says Dr. Nir Barzilai of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. His own study of how centenarians live found that “as a group, they haven’t done the right things.”

Many in the group he studied were obese or overweight. Many were smokers, and few exercised or followed a vegetarian diet. His oldest participant, who died this month just short of her 110th birthday, smoked for 95 years.

“She had genes that protected her against the environment,” Barzilai said. One of her sisters died at 102, and one of her brothers is 105 and still manages a hedge fund.

Earlier this month, Scripps Health of San Diego announced a different genome project involving the elderly. The Scripps Wellderly Study will receive the complete genomes of 1,000 people age 80 and older from a sequencing company.

A complete genome reveals not only genes but also other DNA that’s responsible for regulating genes. It’s “the full monty,” showing DNA elements that are key for illness and health, says Dr. Eric Topol, who heads the Wellderly Study.

Participants in that study have an average age of 87 and range up to 108, and they’ve never had diabetes, heart disease or cancer, or any neurological disease.

“Why are these people Teflon-coated?” Topol asked. “Why don’t they get disease?“

The ability to turn out lots of complete genomes is “the new-new thing” in trying to find out, he said.

“There’s been too much emphasis on disorders per se and not enough on the people who are exceptionally healthy,” to learn from their genomes, Topol said. “Now we have the powerful tools to do that.” ( arabnews.com )

READ MORE - Secrets of long life sought in DNA of the elderly

Swedish town eyes digital age with Arctic data centre

Swedish town eyes digital age with Arctic data centre - Perched near the Arctic Circle, the Swedish town of Luleaa hopes that a massive data centre for US social networking giant Facebook will launch the vibrant industrial region into the digital age as a European data traffic hub.

"The digital industry will be an important addition to our town," Mayor Karl Petersen told AFP.

With a population of 74,000, Luleaa has long been home to Sweden's thriving steel industry, with one of the world's leading producers, SSAB, based there. It is also a key hub for the mining and pulp and paper sectors.

In October, Facebook announced it had chosen the Swedish town for its first European data centre, and third globally, in large part because of its "suitable climate for environmental cooling (and) clean power resources."

A reindeer is seen near the village of Vuollerim, Lapland province, west of the coastal city of Luleaa, in 2010. Perched near the Arctic Circle, the Swedish town of Luleaa hopes that a massive data centre for US social networking giant Facebook will launch the vibrant industrial region into the digital age as a European data traffic hub. (AFP Photo/Jonathan Nackstrand)

The icy region, located on the same latitude as Fairbanks, Alaska, was especially attractive due to its climate, "since cooling (computer) servers is a major issue for data centres," Facebook said.

The company is expected to pump between three and five billion kronor (326-543 million euros, $440-734 million) into the data centre, creating 300 new construction jobs for the next few years and then 50 to 60 permanent jobs, Petersen said.

"This is the biggest single investment in Luleaa since the steel plant was built in 1940," he added.

He hopes the data centre will put Luleaa on the map, attracting other businesses to the region dubbed the "Node Pole."

"Talks are already underway" with a few companies, he said.

"Facebook is one of the world's biggest brand names ... Awareness about the town of Luleaa will increase and that means a lot.

"We have a very modern steel industry, we're a very industrial town and we have the Luleaa University of Technology. So we have a lot of competence and research here," Petersen said.

In Sweden's sparsely-populated far north, "we're a big town with a lot to offer and a varied labour market ... Our local economy is doing well, we have a strong birth rate and new people moving here all the time," Petersen said.

One of the main reasons Facebook selected Luleaa was that the data centre could run primarily on renewable hydropower.

The Lule river that runs through the town supplies Sweden with nine percent of its electricity and has proved a stable energy source for the town's industries for decades.

The data centre will consist of three server buildings each covering an area of around 28,000 square metres (300,000 square feet).

The first building is already under construction and is expected to open for business in mid-2013. ( AFP )

READ MORE - Swedish town eyes digital age with Arctic data centre

Nuclear Overreactors

Nuclear Overreactors - Let's cool the political meltdown over Japan's damaged nuclear power plants - Less than a year ago, a drilling rig exploded off the coast of the United States, killing 11 workers and pouring 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. No natural disaster caused this tragedy. It was entirely man-made. President Obama halted deep-water drilling but lifted the moratorium less than six months later. On Friday, while fielding questions about Japan's nuclear reactors, he proudly noted that his administration, under new, stricter rules, had "approved more than 35 new offshore drilling permits."

That's how we deal with tragedies in the oil business. Accidents happen. People die. Pollution spreads. We don't abandon oil. We study what went wrong, try to fix it, and move on.

Quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Futaba, Japan

Contrast this with the panic over Japan's reactors. For 40 years, they've quietly done their work. Three days ago, they were hit almost simultaneously by Japan's worst earthquake and one of its worst tsunamis. Not one reactor container has failed. The only employee who has died at a Japanese nuclear facility since the quake was killed by a crane. Despite this, voices are rising in Europe and the United States to abandon nuclear power. Industry analysts predict that the Japan scare, like Chernobyl, will freeze plant construction.

Let's cool this panic before it becomes a political meltdown.

Early reports said four Japanese plants were in trouble. Now it appears only two were disabled. Early reports said three employees had radiation sickness. Now we're hearing only one is sick, and even in that case, the radiation dose appears relatively low. Two reactor buildings exploded, but these were explosions of excess hydrogen, not nuclear fuel, and neither of them ruptured the inner containers that encase the reactor cores. Some radiation has leaked, but according to measurements outside the plants, the amount so far is modest. Any leak is bad, and the area of contamination, even at low rates, will probably spread. Japan needs our sympathy and our help. But let's not exaggerate the crisis.

In advanced countries like Japan and the United States, nuclear plants are built to standards no drilling rig can touch. If a sensor, cable, or power source fails, another sensor, cable, or power source is available. Containers of steel or concrete envelop the reactors to prevent massive radiation leaks. Chernobyl didn't have such a container. Three Mile Island did. That's why Three Mile Island produced no uncontrolled leakage or injuries.

Japan's plants were designed to withstand quakes and tsunamis, but not a combination of this magnitude. At the affected facilities, the quake knocked out the primary cooling systems, and the tsunami wiped out the backup diesel generators. Then a valve malfunction thwarted efforts to pump water into one of the reactors. Everything that could go wrong did.

Despite this, the reactor containers have held firm. The explosions around them have blown outward, relieving pressure, as designed. Meanwhile, plant operators, deprived of their primary and secondary power sources for cooling the cores, have tapped batteries and deployed alternate generators. To relieve pressure, they've released vapor. And in some cases, they've pumped seawater and boric acid into the reactors, destroying them to protect the public. Cooling systems are back online at two previously impaired reactors, and a backup pump has averted cooling problems at a third plant.

The reactor where the crisis began, Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1, is one of Japan's oldest. It was two weeks from its 40-year expiration date when the quake hit. Similar plants in the United States have been upgraded to ensure that in the event of power failure, water can still be pumped in to cool them. And nuclear plants are indisputably getting safer. Since 1990, worker radiation exposure and automatic reactor shutdowns worldwide have declined by a factor of three. According to an analysis last year by the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, plants being constructed by today's standards are 1,600 times safer than early nuclear plants, in terms of the predicted frequency of a large radiation leak. Even if a reactor core is damaged, as in Japan, the NEA report notes that today, "the probability of a release to the environment is about ten times less than that of core damage," thanks to improvements in fuel, circuits, and containment.

If Japan, the United States, or Europe retreats from nuclear power in the face of the current panic, the most likely alternative energy source is fossil fuel. And by any measure, fossil fuel is more dangerous. The sole fatal nuclear power accident of the last 40 years, Chernobyl, directly killed 31 people. By comparison, Switzerland's Paul Scherrer Institute calculates that from 1969 to 2000, more than 20,000 people died in severe accidents in the oil supply chain. More than 15,000 people died in severe accidents in the coal supply chain—11,000 in China alone. The rate of direct fatalities per unit of energy production is 18 times worse for oil than it is for nuclear power.

Even if you count all the deaths plausibly related to Chernobyl—9,000 to 33,000 over a 70-year period—that number is dwarfed by the death rate from burning fossil fuels. The OECD's 2008 Environmental Outlook calculates that fine-particle outdoor air pollution caused nearly 1 million premature deaths in the year 2000, and 30 percent of this was energy-related. You'd need 500 Chernobyls to match that level of annual carnage. But outside Chernobyl, we've had zero fatal nuclear power accidents.

That doesn't mean we can ignore what has happened in Japan. Precisely because nuclear accidents are so rare, we have to study them intensely. Each one tells us what to fix in the next generation of power plants. The most obvious mistake in Japan was parking the diesel generators in an area low enough to be flooded by a quake-driven tsunami. The batteries that backed up the generators weren't adequate, either. They lasted only eight hours, and power outage fallback plans at U.S. reactors are even shorter. Moreover, this is the second time an advanced nuclear facility has had to vent radioactive vapor (Three Mile Island was the first). Maybe it's time to require filtration systems that scrub the vapor before it's released.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut says we should "put the brakes" on nuclear power plant construction until we figure out what went wrong in Japan. Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts wants a moratorium on new reactors in "seismically active areas" while we study the problem. That's fine. But let's not block construction indefinitely while we go on mindlessly pumping oil. Because nuclear energy, for all its risks, is safer. ( slate.com )

READ MORE - Nuclear Overreactors

Firstborn Children More Likely To Develop Food Allergies

Firstborn Children More Likely To Develop Food Allergies, Study Says - New Research Indicates 'Birth Order Effect' a Factor in Development of Allergies

From watching "The Brady Bunch," it's clear to see that the eldest girl, Marsha, gets the most attention. But according to a new study, she also might get the most allergies.

Birth order, thought by some to determine everything from romantic compatibility to IQ score, may be the reason your oldest child is allergic to peanuts and your younger children are not.

According to a new study, older children are more likely to suffer from food allergies than their younger siblings. The results indicate the "birth order effect" occurs specifically in food allergies, as compared with other types of allergies.

Among study participants, the prevalence of food allergies was 4 percent in firstborn children, 3.5 percent in second-born children, and 2.6 percent in those born later.

Kara Corridan, the Health Editor at Parents magazine, said the study is too preliminary to get "too excited about this." It may be reassuring to parents whose first child has an allergy.
For parents, raising a child with a food allergy puts them "in a club they really don't want to be a part of," Corridan said. Food allergies can sometimes be life-threatening, and parents may have to monitor everything their child eats and touches in all environments. "Even if there's a small fraction of a chance that younger children don't have [food allergies], that would be great," she said.

Firstborns were also more likely to have allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis -- conditions that affect the nose and mouth, respectively -- than their younger siblings.

The study's authors say that multiple pregnancies may cause changes in the womb that help build the immune systems of the second and third children. Another contributing factor may be the "hygiene hypothesis:" in preparing for their firstborn to come home, parents may hyper-sterilize their environments. By the time babies 2 and 3 come around, there are more germs, and the younger siblings may develop stronger immune systems.

"The more you are exposed to an allergen, the more likely it is you'll be immune to it," Corridan said. The connection between birth order and allergies had been established by earlier studies, she said, but this study is the first that breaks the connection down by allergic condition.

Birth order does not seem to affect a child's likelihood to develop asthma or atopic dermatitis, a type of eczema.

The study surveyed 13,000 children ages 7 to 15. The researchers compared the incidence of each allergic disease with birth order. The survey also asked parents whether their children experienced wheezing, eczema or food allergies before age 1 -- and researchers saw the same trend: the prevalence of allergies was higher in firstborn children.

Birth Order Can Be An Indicator For Behavioral Characteristics

The findings were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in San Francisco on March 20.

The birth order effect has been studied in several other areas of children's lives; literature has indicated firstborns excel at school and science, while younger siblings tend to be more exploratory and take more risks.

Dr. Frank Sulloway, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, has studied the birth order effect. He said examining children's behavior compared with their birth order opens up the issue of family niches and family dynamics.

"When the firstborn comes along, there are no younger siblings and they've got 100 percent of parental attention," he said. "It seems to be reflected not only in IQ differences ... but firstborns essentially do things that the parents value."

So it makes sense that firstborns score 3 points higher than their younger siblings on IQ tests. Twenty-one of the first 23 American astronauts to fly in space were firstborn, along with a disproportionate number of our nation's presidents and CEOs.

"The good story about younger siblings is they diversify in other ways," Sulloway said. "Younger siblings are always looking for alternative niches to explore and to exploit as a way of getting back some of that parental investment and attention they may have otherwise lost."

While more Nobel Prize winners for science are firstborns, more winners of the Nobel Prize for literature are younger siblings, Sulloway said. Younger siblings are also 50 percent more likely to play dangerous sports.

Sulloway said it's important to keep in mind that most birth order effects are "fairly modest in size," and that there are other contributing factors that influence human behavior and personality development.

"You just have to keep in mind that there are a lot of different things that are influencing behavior, and birth order is just one player in that whole complex process of how we become who we become," Sulloway said." ( abcnews.go.com )

READ MORE - Firstborn Children More Likely To Develop Food Allergies

New planet may be habitable

New planet may be habitable - Astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting a red-dwarf star called Gliese 581, located 20 light years from Earth in the constellation Libra, that might have liquid water on its surface.

If they’re right, this would be the first planet found outside our solar system that would be capable of sustaining life — or at least life as we know it.

The discovery was announced today in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal by Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at U.C. Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution in Washington.

It was based on 11 years’ worth of observations through the HIRES spectrometer at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

From NASA, which funded the research along with the National Science Foundation:

The spectrometer allows precise measurements of a star’s radial velocity (its motion along the line of sight from Earth), which can reveal the presence of planets. The gravitational tug of an orbiting planet causes periodic changes in the radial velocity of the host star. Multiple planets induce complex wobbles in the star’s motion, and astronomers use sophisticated analyses to detect planets and determine their orbits and masses.

…The new planet designated Gliese 581g has a mass three to four times that of Earth and orbits its star in just under 37 days. Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet with a definite surface and enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere.

Vogt and Butler actually found two new planets orbiting Gliese 581, which brings the total to six so far.

But the “g” planet that the astronomers are excited about orbits the star in the “Goldilocks” zone — a distance that’s not too close and not too far, but just right for sustaining water.

Gliese 581g does not rotate on its axis like Earth, so half the planet is always dark and half is always light, but water could exist on the border between the two halves, the astronomers say.

Also, even though the g planet’s orbit is much shorter than Earth’s — 37 days compared to 365 days, shorter even than Mercury’s orbit — it shouldn’t be unduly hot because, as a red dwarf, Gliese 581 is much cooler than the sun.

Here’s an interesting video from NASA on the discovery:

READ MORE - New planet may be habitable

Solution to killer superbug found in Norway ( 3 )

Solution to killer superbug found in Norway ( 2 ). In 2001, the CDC approached a Veterans Affairs hospital in Pittsburgh about conducting a small test program. It started in one unit, and within four years, the entire hospital was screening everyone who came through the door for MRSA. The result: an 80 percent decrease in MRSA infections. The program has now been expanded to all 153 VA hospitals, resulting in a 50 percent drop in MRSA bloodstream infections, said Dr. Robert Muder, chief of infectious diseases at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System.

"It's kind of a no-brainer," he said. "You save people pain, you save people the work of taking care of them, you save money, you save lives and you can export what you learn to other hospital-acquired infections."

Pittsburgh's program has prompted all other major hospital-acquired infections to plummet as well, saving roughly $1 million a year.

"So, how do you pay for it?" Muder asked. "Well, we just don't pay for MRSA infections, that's all."

---

Beth Reimer of Batavia, Ill., became an advocate for MRSA precautions after her 5-week-old daughter Madeline caught a cold that took a fatal turn. One day her beautiful baby had the sniffles. The next?

"She wasn't breathing. She was limp," the mother recalled. "Something was terribly wrong."

MRSA had invaded her little lungs. The antibiotics were useless. Maddie struggled to breathe, swallow, survive, for two weeks.

"For me to sit and watch Madeline pass away from such an aggressive form of something, to watch her fight for her little life - it was too much," Reimer said.

Since Madeline's death, Reimer has become outspoken about the need for better precautions, pushing for methods successfully used in Norway. She's stunned, she said, that anyone disputes the need for change.

"Why are they fighting for this not to take place?" she said.

----

Martha Mendoza is an AP national writer who reported from Norway and England. Margie Mason is an AP medical writer based in Vietnam, who reported while on a fellowship from The Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. ( washingtonpost.com )

READ MORE - Solution to killer superbug found in Norway ( 3 )

Solution to killer superbug found in Norway ( 2 )

Solution to killer superbug found in Norway ( 2 ). Forty years ago, a new spectrum of antibiotics enchanted public health officials, quickly quelling one infection after another. In wealthier countries that could afford them, patients and providers came to depend on antibiotics. Trouble was, the more antibiotics are consumed, the more resistant bacteria develop.

Norway responded swiftly to initial MRSA outbreaks in the 1980s by cutting antibiotic use. Thus while they got ahead of the infection, the rest of the world fell behind.

In Norway, MRSA has accounted for less than 1 percent of staph infections for years. That compares to 80 percent in Japan, the world leader in MRSA; 44 percent in Israel; and 38 percent in Greece.

In the U.S., cases have soared and MRSA cost $6 billion last year. Rates have gone up from 2 percent in 1974 to 63 percent in 2004. And in the United Kingdom, they rose from about 2 percent in the early 1990s to about 45 percent, although an aggressive control program is now starting to work.

About 1 percent of people in developed countries carry MRSA on their skin. Usually harmless, the bacteria can be deadly when they enter a body, often through a scratch. MRSA spreads rapidly in hospitals where sick people are more vulnerable, but there have been outbreaks in prisons, gyms, even on beaches. When dormant, the bacteria are easily detected by a quick nasal swab and destroyed by antibiotics.

Dr. John Jernigan at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they incorporate some of Norway's solutions in varying degrees, and his agency "requires hospitals to move the needle, to show improvement, and if they don't show improvement they need to do more."

And if they don't?

"Nobody is accountable to our recommendations," he said, "but I assume hospitals and institutions are interested in doing the right thing."

Dr. Barry Farr, a retired epidemiologist who watched a successful MRSA control program launched 30 years ago at the University of Virginia's hospitals, blamed the CDC for clinging to past beliefs that hand washing is the best way to stop the spread of infections like MRSA. He says it's time to add screening and isolation methods to their controls.

The CDC needs to "eat a little crow and say, 'Yeah, it does work,'" he said. "There's example after example. We don't need another study. We need somebody to just do the right thing."

---

But can Norway's program really work elsewhere?

The answer lies in the busy laboratory of an aging little public hospital about 100 miles outside of London. It's here that microbiologist Dr. Lynne Liebowitz got tired of seeing the stunningly low Nordic MRSA rates while facing her own burgeoning cases.

So she turned Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn into a petri dish, asking doctors to almost completely stop using two antibiotics known for provoking MRSA infections.

One month later, the results were in: MRSA rates were tumbling. And they've continued to plummet. Five years ago, the hospital had 47 MRSA bloodstream infections. This year they've had one.

"I was shocked, shocked," says Liebowitz, bouncing onto her toes and grinning as colleagues nearby drip blood onto slides and peer through microscopes in the hospital laboratory.

When word spread of her success, Liebowitz's phone began to ring. So far she has replicated her experiment at four other hospitals, all with the same dramatic results.

"It's really very upsetting that some patients are dying from infections which could be prevented," she says. "It's wrong."

Around the world, various medical providers have also successfully adapted Norway's program with encouraging results. A medical center in Billings, Mont., cut MRSA infections by 89 percent by increasing screening, isolating patients and making all staff - not just doctors - responsible for increasing hygiene.

In Japan, with its cutting-edge technology and modern hospitals, about 17,000 people die from MRSA every year.

Dr. Satoshi Hori, chief infection control doctor at Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, says doctors overprescribe antibiotics because they are given financial incentives to push drugs on patients.

Hori now limits antibiotics only to patients who really need them and screens and isolates high-risk patients. So far his hospital has cut the number of MRSA cases by two-thirds. ( washingtonpost.com )

READ MORE - Solution to killer superbug found in Norway ( 2 )

Solution to killer superbug found in Norway ( 1 )

Solution to killer superbug found in Norway ( 1 ) -- Aker University Hospital is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pressure monitors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bedsheets dropped in a corner.

Look closer, however, at a microscopic level, and this place is pristine. There is no sign of a dangerous and contagious staph infection that killed tens of thousands of patients in the most sophisticated hospitals of Europe, North America and Asia this year, soaring virtually unchecked.

The reason: Norwegians stopped taking so many drugs.

Twenty-five years ago, Norwegians were also losing their lives to this bacteria. But Norway's public health system fought back with an aggressive program that made it the most infection-free country in the world. A key part of that program was cutting back severely on the use of antibiotics.

Now a spate of new studies from around the world prove that Norway's model can be replicated with extraordinary success, and public health experts are saying these deaths - 19,000 in the U.S. each year alone, more than from AIDS - are unnecessary.

"It's a very sad situation that in some places so many are dying from this, because we have shown here in Norway that Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can be controlled, and with not too much effort," said Jan Hendrik-Binder, Oslo's MRSA medical adviser. "But you have to take it seriously, you have to give it attention, and you must not give up."

The World Health Organization says antibiotic resistance is one of the leading public health threats on the planet. A six-month investigation by The Associated Press found overuse and misuse of medicines has led to mutations in once curable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, making them harder and in some cases impossible to treat.

Now, in Norway's simple solution, there's a glimmer of hope.

---

Dr. John Birger Haug shuffles down Aker's scuffed corridors, patting the pocket of his baggy white scrubs. "My bible," the infectious disease specialist says, pulling out a little red Antibiotic Guide that details this country's impressive MRSA solution.

It's what's missing from this book - an array of antibiotics - that makes it so remarkable.

"There are times I must show these golden rules to our doctors and tell them they cannot prescribe something, but our patients do not suffer more and our nation, as a result, is mostly infection free," he says.

Norway's model is surprisingly straightforward.

• Norwegian doctors prescribe fewer antibiotics than any other country, so people do not have a chance to develop resistance to them.
• Patients with MRSA are isolated and medical staff who test positive stay at home.
• Doctors track each case of MRSA by its individual strain, interviewing patients about where they've been and who they've been with, testing anyone who has been in contact with them.

Haug unlocks the dispensary, a small room lined with boxes of pills, bottles of syrups and tubes of ointment. What's here? Medicines considered obsolete in many developed countries. What's not? Some of the newest, most expensive antibiotics, which aren't even registered for use in Norway, "because if we have them here, doctors will use them," he says.

He points to an antibiotic. "If I treated someone with an infection in Spain with this penicillin I would probably be thrown in jail," he says, "and rightly so because it's useless there."

Norwegians are sanguine about their coughs and colds, toughing it out through low-grade infections.

"We don't throw antibiotics at every person with a fever. We tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel better," says Haug.

Convenience stores in downtown Oslo are stocked with an amazing and colorful array - 42 different brands at one downtown 7-Eleven - of soothing, but non-medicated, lozenges, sprays and tablets. All workers are paid on days they, or their children, stay home sick. And drug makers aren't allowed to advertise, reducing patient demands for prescription drugs.

In fact, most marketing here sends the opposite message: "Penicillin is not a cough medicine," says the tissue packet on the desk of Norway's MRSA control director, Dr. Petter Elstrom.

He recognizes his country is "unique in the world and best in the world" when it comes to MRSA. Less than 1 percent of health care providers are positive carriers of MRSA staph.

But Elstrom worries about the bacteria slipping in through other countries. Last year almost every diagnosed case in Norway came from someone who had been abroad.

"So far we've managed to contain it, but if we lose this, it will be a huge problem," he said. "To be very depressing about it, we might in some years be in a situation where MRSA is so endemic that we have to stop doing advanced surgeries, things like organ transplants, if we can't prevent infections. In the worst case scenario we are back to 1913, before we had antibiotics." ( washingtonpost.com )

READ MORE - Solution to killer superbug found in Norway ( 1 )

20 proven benefits of exercise

20 proven benefits of exercise. A 30-minute walk every day can do more for your long-term health than all the efforts of a dozen doctors and their medication.

Not only does exercise improve your health, even if you have already been diagnosed with something, but it can go a long way to prevent the onset of several life-threatening conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

And exercise can make you look great – younger, fitter and thinner. Who needs any more convincing?

We have scrutinised the medical journals. Here's a summary of the proven health benefits of exercise:

1. It's good for your heart

"Even a moderate amount of exercise helps your heart," says Dr William Kraus, associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Centre, in an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine. "Some exercise is better than none and more is better than less."

Exercise reduces LDL cholesterol, the kind that clogs arteries. It also reduces your blood pressure, relieving stress on your heart; improves your insulin sensitivity; improves heart muscle function; and blood flow and diminishes the chances of developing blood clots. These findings have been corroborated by a host of studies over the years.

2. Exercise promotes weight loss

Research has shown that to manage weight, you should exercise energetically for at least 30 minutes a day. You can also do an hour of intensive exercise every second day if this fits into your schedule more easily. Be consistent and be regular. Do those one-hour exercise sessions three to four times every week, not just one week a month, and you will achieve the result you desire - to lose weight and keep it off, says Dr Ingrid van Heerden, registered dietician.

3. Exercise prevents osteoporosis

Exercise, together with a healthy calcium intake, builds strong bones. Weight-bearing exercises, like running, walking and weight-lifting, help lower your odds of getting osteoporosis as you grow older, according to experts.

Ideally, you should start when you're young, but it's never too late to pick up the habit. Even a brisk walk can help, say metabolic disease specialists.

4. Exercise lowers high blood pressure

Exercise is good for your blood pressure - no matter your age, weight, race or gender. And it really doesn't matter whether you get exercise from a brisk walk, a fast run or a few laps in the pool; the results are equally good.

The studies on which these findings were based used "aerobic" exercise - activities that increase heart rate and improve the body's ability to use oxygen. Most of the studies involved participating in one or more aerobic activity for 20 - 30 minutes per session, several times a week.

On average, exercise helped study participants reduce systolic (top number) pressure by nearly 4 mm Hg, and diastolic (bottom number) pressure by slightly more than 2.5 mm Hg. But experts caution that those with extremely high blood pressure should not rely on exercise alone to control hypertension.

5. Exercise is an excellent de-stressor

It's general knowledge: exercise counters stress and depression. But exactly how and why does this work?

Exercise acts as a temporary diversion to daily stresses and it improves self-esteem. Increased core temperature during exercise may lead to reduced muscle tension and favourable alterations in brain neurotransmitters. Mood improvements may also occur due to the increased secretion of endogenous (internal) opiates, e.g. endorphins. Psychological changes may occur because of changes in norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin, all hormones which can affect mood and anxiety levels.

6. Exercise prevents colds

One doesn't automatically associate regular exercise with a reduction in the number of colds people get. But researchers from the University of Carolina found that people who exercised regularly were 23% less likely to get colds than those who exercised less. And if those who exercised got colds, the symptoms disappeared more quickly than in the study participants who did little exercise.

Health experts believe that exercise spikes the immune system for a few hours each day, helping to ward off colds. Thirty minutes of brisk walking is enough to make you reap the benefits of exercise.

7. Exercise reduces the severity of asthma

Many people who suffer from exercise-induced asthma, understandably try to avoid exercise. But sports medicine specialists say it's possible for asthmatics to continue exercising if they use preventive medications wisely and avoid certain triggers that exacerbate attacks. Exercise-induced asthma can be made worse by cold, dry air or air containing high levels of pollen or pollutants. The extra effort made to stay fit pays off in fewer or milder asthma attacks overall and a need for less medication.

Experts recommend swimming as one of the best exercises for people with asthma.

8. Exercise reduces diabetic complications

Lifestyle factors have a huge impact on certain conditions – and diabetes is one of them. Exercise can help to reduce your insulin requirements, lower your cholesterol levels and high blood pressure, and in the long term can reduce the development of heart disease and stroke. This is important because diabetics have a higher risk of developing heart and circulatory problems. Exercise can also promote weight loss, improve circulation and reduce stress levels (raising your glucose level).

9. Exercise promotes a healthy pregnancy

Although exercise might be risky in some cases, the benefits of exercising during pregnancy generally far outweigh the risks and some women can even exercise up until the third trimester. Relaxation exercises, Kegel exercise that strengthen the pelvic muscles and back exercises are all important for pregnant women.

10. Exercise plays a role in preventing cancer

At least 35% of all cancer deaths may be related to overweight and lack of activity, the Seattle Cancer Research Centre has found. Exercise is believed to speed the passage of food through the colon, thereby reducing the amount of time that any toxins are in contact with the body. Overweight people also tend to have more insulin, which promotes the growth of tumours. For women, exercise reduces the level of oestrogen, a hormone linked to breast cancer.

11. Exercise has anti-ageing effects

Exercise enhances blood flow to the brain, possibly reducing risk of stroke. It also improves reasoning and memory.

Regular exercise arouses the brain and slows down degeneration of the central nervous system, which leads to slower reaction times and poorer coordination.

Exercise also increases strength and size of muscles and improves lung function. Regular exercise can reduce body fat and lower the risk of chronic lifestyle diseases in the elderly. Recent literature suggests that the greatest threat to health is not the aging process itself, but rather inactivity.

12. Exercise promotes brain health

If you thought exercising your brain meant only doing a few crossword puzzles or learning a language, you may be wrong – rather put on your walking shoes and get moving. This was the finding of researchers from the University of Illinois.

Their study found that the brain responses in active seniors were comparable to those of young adults.

It is thought that exercise increases the flow of blood to the brain, just as it improves circulation to the heart and the rest of the body. Activity also stimulates the growth of nerve cells in the part of the brain involved in memory.

13. Exercise is great for your sex life.

The medical research points towards it: the fitter you are, the better your sex life is.

The reason seems to be two-fold: psychologically you feel better about yourself and more inclined towards sex, and physically, being fit improves libido, blood circulation and sexual functioning.

It has been said before that the brain may be the most important sexual organ. This is because stressed, anxious and depressed people are usually unable to enjoy a healthy sex life. Additionally, people with a bad body image do not feel good about their bodies and often avoid sex or are unable to truly enjoy it.

According to the American Council on Exercise (ACE), being physically active can be “a natural Viagra boost”. “Men and women who exercise regularly are going to have increased levels of desire. They’re going to have enhanced confidence, enhanced ability to achieve orgasm and greater sexual satisfaction,” says Cedric Bryant, the council’s chief exercise physiologist.

14. Exercise improves sleeping patterns

Relaxation exercises will help you to ease tension and relieve headaches, backaches and insomnia. Exercise releases the body's own painkillers, called endorphins, into your system. It also helps you to gain a sense of emotional wellbeing and a feeling of being more in control.

Exercise during the day promotes the onset and quality of sleep, according to the South African Memory Resource Centre. But you need to exercise at the right time: the ideal time for exercise is in the morning. Exercising late in the day can contribute to sleeplessness, because exercise causes an increase in your body's energy.

15. Exercise combats impotence

If you stop and think about it, it makes sense - increased circulation as a result of exercise should result in lower levels of impotence, as getting an erection is dependent on the efficiency of blood circulating to the penis.

"Losing weight, stopping smoking and doing more exercise are associated with better sexual health," says Dr Andrew McCullough, director of Male Sexual Health, Fertility and Microsurgery at New York University Medical Center in New York City. "We talk so much about treating, treating, treating. Here we're beginning to see an increasing body of evidence that we can modify the appearance of this by changing lifestyle."

16. Exercise helps prevent stroke

Need another reason to make good on that long overdue promise to get more exercise? It can dramatically cut your risk of stroke.

"Highly active" people had a 27 percent lower risk of having a stroke or dying if they had one, compared with sedentary folks. And people who were "moderately active" had a 20 percent lower risk.

These findings are based on a review of 23 international studies that appear in the October issue of the journal Stroke, the Associated Press reports.

Jogging 15 to 20 minutes a day most days would qualify as highly active. Brisk walks of 30 minutes a day on most days would qualify as moderate activity, the AP says.

17. Exercise is good for mind and soul.

In a synopsis on “Exercise, Fitness and Mental Health” (1990), sports psychologist D.R.Brown summarised the possible beneficial effects that exercise has on mental health. These include the following:

• Exercise may act as a temporary diversion to daily stresses.
• Exercise provides an opportunity for social interaction that may otherwise be lacking in an individual’s life.
• Exercise provides an opportunity for self-mastery. Increasing fitness or improving body composition and other health parameters may improve an individual’s self-esteem.
• Increased core temperature during exercise may lead to reduced muscle tension or alterations to brain neurotransmitters.
• Mood improvements may occur due to the increased secretion of endogenous (internal) opiates e.g. endorphins
• Psychological changes may occur due to alterations in norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin, all hormones which can affect mood and anxiety level.

18. Exercise improves oxygen and nutrient supply to all cells in your body.

An American study indicates that ‘80-plus-ers’ can dramatically improve their health by exercising a few times a week. If this is true for elderly people, it certainly is for the younger set as well.

Exercise improves the body's utilisation of oxygen, and lowers systolic blood pressure (high pressure is a dangerous condition common in elderly people).

Positive results were obtained from the 22 elderly people (80 years and older) who took part in the study at the Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Healthcare System in Michigan.

19. Exercise allows you to improve muscle strength, joint structure and joint function

Strengthening exercises increase not only muscle strength and mass, but also bone strength, and the body's metabolism.

A certain level of muscle strength is needed to function every day and do things such as walking and climbing stairs. Strengthening exercises increase this muscle strength by putting more strain on a muscle than it is normally accustomed to receiving. This increased load stimulates the growth of proteins inside each muscle cell that allow the muscle as a whole to contract.

Exercise can promote joint health for everyone, but particularly for people who suffer from arthritis. Arthritis is a general term for over 100 different conditions that cause pain, stiffness and often inflammation in one or more joints. Exercise can reduce some arthritis symptoms and improve joint mobility and strength.

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis. Normally, the two bones of a joint are cushioned with a strong flexible tissue called cartilage. In osteoarthritis, the cartilage deteriorates, causing pain and stiffness.

Cartilage doesn't have a blood supply; it relies on synovial fluid moving in and out of the joint to nourish it and take away waste products. Exercise helps this process.

20. Exercise helps to manage arthritis

Regular, intensive exercise for patients with rheumatoid arthritis builds muscle strength and aerobic capacity, improves the ability to do daily tasks and fosters a sense of well-being.

That's the conclusion of a study by Dutch researchers who tracked 300 people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for two years. About half the patients participated in a one-hour exercise regimen twice weekly; the rest received traditional treatment, including physical therapy, if prescribed by their physicians.

The findings, appearing in journal Arthritis & Rheumatism, suggest high-intensity exercise programmes can benefit many RA patients, says researcher Dr Thea Vlieland of Leiden University Medical Centre.

The positive effects on muscle strength and aerobic capacity could be translated into an improvement in the activities of daily living, and this is what really makes a difference in your life, Vlieland says. ( health24.com )

READ MORE - 20 proven benefits of exercise