Snippets From Science

• Massage therapy not only relaxes the body, but new evidence indicates it may also boost the immune system. Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles found that 45 minutes of either light touch or Swedish massage resulted in marked physiological changes. Blood samples from volunteers showed lower levels of cortisol, a hormone elevated by stress. There was also an increase in certain white cells called lymphocytes. These cells play a key role in the immune response. (The Week, October 8, 2010)

• A problem with “wind energy” is that there are times when the wind doesn’t blow. Coastlines bordering the ocean, however, are almost always swept by sea breezes. Researchers at the University of Delaware analyzed wind patterns at 11 sites along the east coast of the U.S., from Maine to Florida. They found that offshore wind turbines, if wired together, could guarantee a steady source of power for all the states along the eastern coastline. Of course, all this is theoretical, for no offshore turbines presently exist along this shoreline, although several have been proposed. The key, according to the researchers, is to link all such wind turbines together to assure that some of them are always available to capture wind energy, regardless of wind conditions along the grid. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, April 5, 2010)

• Early onset Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), which usually appears before the age of 50, is linked to a dominant genetic trait inherited from only one parent. The good news, if you can call it that, is that less than one percent of the 28-30 million AD cases worldwide are of the early onset type. Late onset AD symptoms usually don’t appear until after age 65. The drugs developed to treat AD have not been effective, and now researchers believe that the disease pathology begins well before memory loss occurs. The hope is that new techniques to detect the disease before symptoms are observable may provide an opportunity to begin treatment many years before there is extensive loss of neurons required for normal brain function. (G. Stix, Scientific American, June, 2010)

• The ability of homing pigeons, and perhaps other birds, to orient themselves as if they had their own GPS systems, is probably due to tiny compass needles located in their heads. Near the base of the upper beak in homing pigeons there is a tiny piece of tissue that contains crystals of magnetite, an iron-containing compound – the same compound of which compass needles are made. These magnetic crystals are clustered together and appear to orient themselves with respect to the earth’s magnetic field. Nerve cells associated with the crystals appear to convey information to the brain for interpretation. During occasional magnetic “storms,” where the earth’s polarity is briefly disrupted, homing pigeons become confused and lose their ability to sense direction. (Walcott et al, Science, Sept. 7, 1979; Davis, Alaska Science Nuggets, 2008, University of Alaska Press; other sources)