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Article posted Tuesday, December 22, 2009 11:54am

• A few women tennis players yell out a loud grunt, or UH!, when they hit the ball. Maria Sharapova may be the loudest of all, for her forehand shrieks have been measured at 101 decibels, about as loud as a jackhammer. Serena Williams is almost as loud. Is this a way to psych out opponents or does grunting really give the players a boost? Physical therapy researcher Dennis O’Connell discovered that by grunting, players could increase the speed of their serves by about 4.7 miles/hour and their forehand strokes by 4 miles/hour. According to O’Connell, the loud expulsion of air when one grunts during heavy muscle load may recruit more muscle fibers and generate more force. In other words, it may enhance maximum exertion. (The Week, September 18, 2009)

• It is a fact that emotional states affect the immune system. Sandra Levy of the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute found a patient’s “joy level” to be a significant predictor of survival time for women with recurrent breast cancer. Perceived social support and ability to cope with stress also played roles in keeping the immune system at a high level of readiness. (The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, by Pierce Howard, 1994)

• Recent research at Stanford University suggests that those who consider themselves highly adept at multitasking really aren’t efficient in their tasks. One of the two researchers who conducted the study said that high multitaskers are “suckers for irrelevancy” and “everything distracts them.” Left unanswered were questions such as, do multitaskers have trouble focusing, so they multitask to compensate? Does multitasking undermine one’s ability to concentrate? The take home message seems to be, “If you want to get more done, try doing less.” (Ophir and Nass, BBCnews.com, and The Week, Sept. 11, 2009)

• The Wandering Glider (Pantala flavescens) dragonfly is known to migrate over 2,000 miles. It flies from Southern India to Africa without stopping, passing over the Himalayas at 16,000 feet. A swarm of these amazing dragonflies have also been spotted out over the ocean about 200 miles from Nova Scotia. This strong-flying species of dragonfly is found around the globe, and they are regularly seen in Door County.

• Habitual tool use is considered to be a human trait, but in fact a numbers of non-human vertebrates fabricate tools. Chimpanzees are high on the list of non-human toolmakers, and a new one was recently added to the list by Jill Preutz and Paco Bertolani (Current Biology, March, 2007). They discovered spear making and use by chimps in Senegal, with the spears being used just as early man used them (by thrusting). Females and immature chimps made spears more often than adult males.

• If a dragonfly loses one of its four wings, can it still fly? Yes. Dragonflies vary their flight by coordinating the action of each wing by adjusting wing shape, stroke length, angle of attack, by stopping one or two wings, and even flaring the wings when landing. Will a dragonfly that loses its two wings on one side be destined to fly around in circles until it dies of starvation? No one knows.