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We’re Sorry This Is Late … We Really Meant To Post It Sooner: Research Into Procrastination Shows Surprising Findings:

A University of Calgary professor in the Haskayne School of Business has recently published his magnum opus on the subject of procrastination — and it’s only taken him 10 years. Joking aside, Dr. Piers Steel is probably the world’s foremost expert on the subject of putting off until tomorrow what should be done today. His comprehensive analysis of procrastination research, published in the recent edition of the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Bulletin, presents some surprising conclusions on the subject, such as:
* Most people’s New Year’s resolutions are doomed to failure
* Most self-help books have it completely wrong when they say perfectionism is at the root of procrastination, and
* Procrastination can be explained by a single mathematical equation
“Essentially, procrastinators have less confidence in themselves, less expectancy that they can actually complete a task,” Steel says. “Perfectionism is not the culprit. In fact, perfectionists actually procrastinate less, but they worry about it more.”

Milk Eliminates Cardiovascular Health Benefits Of Tea, Researchers Warn:

Research published online in European Heart Journal has found that the protective effect tea has on the cardiovascular system is totally wiped out by adding milk.

Healthy Eating Is At A Supermarket Near You:

Supermarket “grocery store tours” could be the key to healthier lifestyles and prevent chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease (CHD) concludes a study published in the Health & Fitness Journal. Although healthy eating advice is generally well understood, it isn’t always easy to put into practice. To address this, researchers at the University of Bristol’s Department of Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences arranged for practical nutrition-education sessions ‘with a difference’ to ta

New Study Sheds Light On ‘Dark States’ In DNA:

Chemists at Ohio State University have probed an unusual high-energy state produced in single nucleotides — the building blocks of DNA and RNA — when they absorb ultraviolet (UV) light.

Tumor-suppressor Gene Is Critical For Placenta Development:

An important cancer-related gene may play a critical role in the development of the placenta, the organ that controls nutrient and oxygen exchange between a mother and her fetus during pregnancy, and perhaps in miscarriages. Those conclusions come from a new study of the retinoblastoma (Rb) gene in mice. In humans, this gene, when mutated, raises the risk of a rare cancer of the eye called retinoblastoma. Two decades ago, it was identified as the first tumor-suppressor gene, a class of genes that protects cells from becoming cancerous. It has since been shown to be inactivated in many cancers.

Plants Point The Way To Coping With Climate Change:

Roses flowering at Christmas and snow-free ski resorts this winter suggest that climate change is already with us and our farmers and growers will need ways of adapting. Scientists studying how plants have naturally evolved to cope with the changing seasons of temperate climates have made a discovery that could help us to breed new varieties of crops, able to thrive in a changing climate. The importance of the discovery is that it reveals how a species has developed different responses to different climates in a short period of time.

How Fish Species Suffer As A Result Of Warmer Waters:

Ongoing global climate change causes changes in the species composition of marine ecosystems, especially in shallow coastal oceans. This applies also to fish populations. Previous studies demonstrating a link between global warming and declining fish stocks were based entirely on statistical data. However, in order to estimate future changes, it is essential to develop a deeper understanding of the effect of water temperature on the biology of organisms under question.

How Trees Manage Water In Arid Environments:

Water scarcity is slowly becoming a fact of life in increasingly large areas. The summer of 2006 was the second warmest in the continental United States since records began in 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Moderate to extreme drought conditions were evident in about 40 percent of the country.

Saving Endangered Whales At No Cost:

By comparing the productivity of lobster fishing operations in American and Canadian waters of the Gulf of Maine, researchers have identified ways in which cost-saving alterations in fishing strategies can substantially reduce fishing-gear entanglements of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. The findings appear in the January 9th issue of the journal Current Biology, published by Cell Press, and are reported by Ransom Myers of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, along with colleagues there and at the University of Rhode Island, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the University of New Hampshire.

Did We ‘Kill’ Martian Microbes? New Analysis Of Viking Mission Points To Life On Mars:

We may already have ‘met’ Martian organisms, according to a paper presented Sunday (Jan. 7) at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle. Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University and Joop Houtkooper of Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany, argue that even as new missions to Mars seek evidence that the planet might once have supported life, we already have data showing that life exists there now–data from experiments done by the Viking Mars landers in the late 1970s.

Feeling Tired? You May Be Less Likely To Get Hurt, Researcher Says:

Sleepiness and sleep deprivation have long been associated with an increased risk of injury. However, the results of a recent study by a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher suggest that this commonly accepted theory might not be true. In a study of more than 2,500 patients, Daniel Vinson, professor of community and family medicine, found that patients who reported feeling sleepy were, surprisingly, less likely to be injured. Patients who reported better sleep quality in the previous seven days also were less likely to be injured, but patients who reported getting more sleep in the 24 hours before an injury than they did in the previous 24 hours were found to have a higher risk of injury.
“It could be that people who feel sleepy change their behavior,” Vinson said. “If I’m feeling really tired, maybe I’ll stop driving, maybe I won’t play sports. If we’re changing what we’re doing when we’re feeling tired, that may be what lowers our risk of injury.”

Trusting Your Instincts Leads You To The Right Answer:

A UCL (University College London) study has found that you are more likely to perform well if you do not think too hard and instead trust your instincts. The research, published online in the journal Current Biology, shows that, in some cases, instinctive snap decisions are more reliable than decisions taken using higher-level cognitive processes. Participants, who were asked to pick the odd one out on a screen covered in over 650 identical symbols, including one rotated version of the same symbol, actually performed better when they were given no time at all to linger on the symbols and so were forced to rely entirely on their subconscious.

Getting Livestock Vaccines Past A Maternal Block:

Use of a virus linked to the common cold is among the novel approaches Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Iowa are using to bypass maternal defenses that thwart vaccination of very young livestock.

Age, Gender Major Factors In Severity Of Auto-accident Injuries:

Understanding the differences among drivers in different gender and age categories is crucial to preventing serious injuries, said researchers in a new study showing stark statistical differences in traffic-accident injuries depending on the gender and age of drivers.

Headaches Form Over A Possible New Form Of Aspirin:

New scientific insights into the packaging of molecules in solids may tempt jokesters to add a second line to that old medical axiom, “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.” Insiders familiar with an unfolding controversy about aspirin — more than 100 billion tablets of which are produced worldwide each year — might quip, “Well, doctor, should I take Form I or Form II?”

Imaging Pinpoints Brain Regions That ‘See The Future’:

Human memory, the ability to recall vivid mental images of past experiences, has been studied extensively for more than a hundred years. But until recently, there’s been surprisingly little research into cognitive processes underlying another form of mental time travel — the ability to clearly imagine or “see” oneself participating in a future event.

Renegade RNA: Clues To Cancer And Normal Growth:

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that a tiny piece of genetic code apparently goes where no bit of it has gone before, and it gets there under its own internal code. A report on the renegade ribonucleic acid, and the code that directs its movement, will be published Jan. 5 in Science.

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New Orleans Termites Dodge Katrina Bullet:

Tales of survival have been trickling out of New Orleans ever since Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. But few have focused on what might be considered the city’s most tenacious residents–its subterranean termites. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologists recently confirmed what many termite researchers and city officials were hoping against. Despite the high waters, winds and other havoc unleashed by Katrina over a year ago, the invasive Formosan subterranean termite is persisting in New Orleans.

Wetlands Curb Hog Hormones In Waste Water:

Constructed wetlands may help reduce hormones in wastewater from hog farms, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-led team reported recently in Environmental Science and Technology. Recently, hog-farm operators have begun incorporating constructed wetlands into their wastewater treatments to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus in the effluent so that it can be spread onto crop fields without causing environmental harm. But little, if any, research has investigated the system’s potential to diminish hormones that hogs excrete into wastewater.

‘Marathon Mice’ Elucidate Little-known Muscle Type:

Researchers report in the January issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press, the discovery of a genetic “switch” that drives the formation of a poorly understood type of muscle. Moreover, they found, animals whose muscles were full of the so-called IIX fibers were able to run farther and at higher work loads than normal mice could.

Doctors Neglect Insomnia In Older Patients, Study Finds:

The sleep problems of older people are often not addressed by their primary care physicians, even though treatment of those sleep disorders could improve their physical and mental health and enhance their quality of life. That’s the finding of new research from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. When patients 60 years and older visited their primary care doctors, physicians did not note sleep problems in the patients’ charts. This was significant because independent social workers, who interviewed those same patients after their doctors’ visits, learned that 70 percent of them had at least one sleep complaint and 45 percent said they had “difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or being able to sleep.”

Estrogen Curbs Appetite In Same Way As The Hormone Leptin:

Estrogen regulates the brain’s energy metabolism in the same way as the hormone leptin, leading the way to a viable approach to tackling obesity in people resistant to leptin, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the December 31 online issue of Nature Medicine. “We found that estrogen suppresses appetite using the same pathways in the brain as the adipose hormone leptin,” said lead author Tamas L. Horvath, chair and professor of Comparative Medicine and professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine.