Futurity.org » Cornell University

Stress raises kids’ risk for teen obesity

Susan Kelley-Cornell — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:08:06 +0000

CORNELL (US) — The more ongoing stress children are exposed to, the greater the odds they will become obese by adolescence, researchers report.

Nine-year-old children who were chronically exposed to such stressors as poverty, crowded housing, and family turmoil gain more weight and were significantly heavier by age 13 than they would have been otherwise, the Cornell University study found.

The reason, environmental psychologist Gary Evans and his co-authors suggest, is that ongoing stress makes it tougher for children to control their behavior and emotions—or self-regulate. That, in turn, can lead to obesity by their teen years.

Portable device to detect disease in 30 minutes

Bill Steele-Cornell — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:03:46 +0000

CORNELL (US) — Researchers are developing a small detector designed to quickly identify pathogens such as tuberculosis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and HIV.

Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University, has devised a method of “amplifying” very small samples of pathogen DNA, RNA, or proteins using synthetic DNA. His colleague Edwin Kan, professor of electrical and computer engineering, designed a computer chip that quickly responds to the amplified samples targeted by Luo’s method.

Jump or not jump: Why we chicken out

Shilo Rea-Carnegie Mellon — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:08:44 +0000

CARNEGIE MELLON (US) — Whether it’s investing in stocks, bungee jumping, or speaking in public, why do we often plan to take risks but then back down when the moment of truth arrives?

This “illusion of courage” is one example of an “empathy gap”—that is, our inability to imagine how we will behave in future emotional situations, argue researchers in a new paper in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.

Bitter orange trees taste yucky to bugs

John Carberry-Cornell — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:08:43 +0000

CORNELL (US) — Orange trees engineered to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of bugs may protect Florida’s $9 billion citrus industry from a deadly bacterial disease.

Scientists engineered the trees to provide a natural resistance to the Asian citrus phyllid, the insect responsible for spreading the deadly bacterial disease huanglongbing—also known as citrus greening because it causes perpetually immature green fruit that tastes bitter, medicinal, and sour.

Glider fleet to track fish in real time

Stacey Shackford-Cornell — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:19:01 +0000

CORNELL (US) — A flotilla of solar-powered ocean gliders that can travel up to 12 miles a day may make it possible for scientists to track ocean changes as they happen.

The Wave Gliders are expected to improve and greatly reduce the costs of fish and marine mammal surveys, which currently depend on manned research vessels.

Tiny planet triplets orbit dwarf star

Deborah Williams-Hedges-Caltech — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:55:59 +0000

CALTECH (US) — Astronomers have discovered the three smallest confirmed planets ever detected outside our solar system.

The trio of new planets that are smaller than Earth and appear rocky, orbit a single star too closely to be in its habitable zone—the ring-shaped region around a star where the temperature is mild enough for liquid water, and possibly life, to exist.

Kids got broccoli blues? Add more color

Susan Lang-Cornell — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:48:14 +0000

CORNELL (US) — Parents of picky eaters take note: Children are most attracted to plates that have a wide variety of foods and colors.

For a new study, published in the journal Acta Paediatrica, researchers presented 23 preteen children and 46 adults with full-size photos of 48 different combinations of food on plates that varied by number of items, placement of entrée, and organization of the food.

‘Time cloak’ makes event vanish

Bill Steele-Cornell — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:50:04 +0000

CORNELL (US) — Researchers have demonstrated a “temporal cloak”—albeit on a very small scale—in the transport of information by a beam of light.

The trick is to create a gap in the beam of light, have the hidden event occur as the gap goes by and then stitch the beam back together, says Alexander Gaeta, professor of applied and engineering physics at Cornell University.

Compound halts foodborne bugs

Krishna Ramanujan-Cornell — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:15:11 +0000

CORNELL (US) — Researchers have found a compound that is safe for mammals but stops the foodborne bacteria Listeria in its tracks.

In a year when cantaloupe tainted with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes killed 30 people, Cornell University researchers’ discovery of a compound that controls this deadly bacteria—and possibly others—is great news.

Shearing forces yield stringy surprise

Steve Koppes-Chicago — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:41:09 +0000

U. CHICAGO / CORNELL (US) — Microscopic spheres form strings in surprising alignments when suspended in a viscous fluid and sheared between two plates, say researchers.

The findings will affect the way scientists think about the properties of such wide-ranging substances as shampoo and futuristic computer chips.