Which Occupations Have the Highest Divorce Rates?

Most people think that policemen have the highest divorce rates, but actually, it's not true. In fact, law enforcement officers are about three times less likely to divorce than dancers and choreographers, bartenders andmassage therapists. According to the U.S. census, only about 15% of law enforcement officers are divorced, but almost half of all dancers, bartenders and massage therapists are. The law enforcement positions with the highest divorce rate are, surprisingly, fish and game wardens.

Other facts on divorce and occupation:

Other occupations with high divorce rates include casino workers, telephone operators and nurses. Though it's not certain, it is thought that the stress of such jobs leads to a higher divorce rate.
The occupations with the lowest divorce rates are agricultural and nuclear engineers, clergy and optometrists.
Married couples working in the same occupation are more likely to divorce than those working in different professions.

What Is the World's Largest City?

The world's largest city by surface area is Hulunbuir, China, which is more than 100,000 square miles (about 250,000 square km) in area. To put it in perspective, that's bigger than 42 out of 50 American states. This is almost double the size of the next largest city of Jiuquan, also in China. The largest city outside of China is Altamira, Brazil, which is about 60,000 square miles (about 160,000 square km) in area.

More facts on super-sized cities:

The cities with the largest populations are Shanghai, Mumbai, Karachi, Delhi and Istanbul, all of which have populations of about 13 million people.

There are many contenders for the smallest city in the world, but most agree that it's either Hun, Croatia, with a population of 23; or Vatican City, which measures less than a fifth of a square mile (about a third of a square km).

The largest city in the U.S. by area is Yakutat City and Borough, Alaska, which is about 10,000 square miles (about 25,000 square km) in area. It is the eighth-largest city in the world by area. The largest U.S. city by population is New York, which has a population of about 8 million people.

Smoking cigarettes damages 323 different human genes

It's not exactly news that smoking cigarettes is bad for you, but this latest danger is a doozy: smoking damages your genome. The largest genetic study of smoking ever has identified over 300 genes that are negatively affected by cigarettes.

The study looked at white blood cells from over a thousand people in the hopes of isolating specific genes whose expression was altered by smoking cigarettes. It's just one of many studies being undertaken as part of the San Antonio Family Heart Study, which has spent years examining health issues in the Texas city's Mexican American community, but this particular test is probably the most ambitious.


Research leader Jac Charlesworth explains what they found and why it's significant:

'Previous studies of gene expression as influenced by smoking have been seriously limited in size with the largest of the in vivo studies including only 42 smokers and 43 non-smokers. We studied 1,240 individuals, including 297 current smokers. Never before has such a clear link between smoking and transcriptomics [effects on gene expression] been revealed, and the scale at which exposure to cigarette smoke appears to influence the expression levels of our genes is sobering.'



The genetic effects observed fit into a variety of categories that correlate well with the known physical effects of smoking, such as decreased immune response, cell death, increased risk of cancer, metabolism of foreign particles, and natural killer cell signaling. Taken as a whole, the study points out just how deep the damage of smoking goes.


As Charlesworth puts it: 'Our results indicate that not only individual genes but entire networks of gene interaction are influenced by cigarette smoking. It is likely that this observed effect of smoking on transcription has larger implications for human disease risk, especially in relation to the increased risk of a wide variety of cancers throughout the body as a result of cigarette smoke exposure'

Source:Amazing news blog 

Microneedles may make getting flu shots easier

One day your annual flu shot could come in the mail. At least that's the hope of researchers developing a new method of vaccine delivery that people could even use at home: a patch with microneedles.

Microneedles? That's right, tiny little needles so small you don't even feel them. Attached to a patch like a Band-Aid, the little needles barely penetrate the skin before they dissolve and release their vaccine.

Researchers led by Mark Prausnitz of Georgia Institute of Technology reported their research on microneedles in Sunday's edition of Nature Medicine.

The business side of the patch feels like fine sandpaper, he said. In tests of microneedles without vaccine, people rated the discomfort at one-tenth to one-twentieth that of getting a standard injection, he said. Nearly everyone said it was painless.

Some medications are already delivered by patches, such as nicotine patches for people trying to quit smoking. That's simply absorbed through the skin. But attempts to develop patches with the flu vaccine absorbed through the skin have not been successful so far.


In the Georgia Tech work, the vaccine is still injected.
But the needles are so small that they don't hurt and it doesn't take any special training to use this kind of patch.

So two problems are solved right away — fear of needles, and disposal of leftover hypodermic needles.
"The goal has been a means to administer the vaccine that is patient friendly," Mark R. Prausnitz of Georgia Tech said in a telephone interview.

That means "not only not hurting or looking scary, but that patients could self-administer," he said, and people would be more likely to get the flu vaccine.
By developing needles that dissolve, there are no leftover sharp needles, especially important for people who might give themselves the vaccine at home, he said.

The patch, which has been tested on mice, was developed in collaboration by researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University, Prausnitz said. The researchers are now seeking funds to begin tests in people and, if all goes well, the patch could be in use in five years, he said.

Flu vaccination is recommended for nearly everyone, every year, and that's a big burden on the public health network, Prausnitz noted. Many people don't get the shot because it's inconvenient, but if they could get in the mail or at the pharmacy they might do so, he said.

The patch is placed on the skin and left for 5 minutes to 15 minutes, he said. It can remain longer without doing any damage, he said. In tests on mice, the miocroneedles delivered a correct dose of the flu vaccine.
The little needles are 650 microns (three-hundredths of an inch) in length and there are 100 on the patch used in the mouse study.

Asked if the term "microneedle" might still frighten some folks averse to shots, Prausnitz said he was confident that marketers would come up with a better term before any sales began.
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Source :arab news.com 

Electric current to the brain 'boosts maths ability

Applying a tiny electrical current to the brain could make you better at learning maths, according to Oxford University scientists.

They found that targeting a part of the brain called the parietal lobe improved the ability of volunteers to solve numerical problems.

They hope the discovery could help people with dyscalculia, who may struggle with numbers.
Another expert said effects on other brain functions would need checking.

The findings are reported in the journal Current Biology.

Some studies have suggested that up to one in five people have trouble with maths, affecting not just their ability to complete problems but also to manage everyday activities such as telling the time and managing money.

Neuroscientists believe that activity within the parietal lobe plays a crucial role in this ability, or the lack of it.
When magnetic fields were used in earlier research to disrupt electrical activity in this part of the brain, previously numerate volunteers temporarily developed discalculia, finding it much harder to solve maths problems.

Persistent benefits


The latest research goes a step further, using a one milliamp current to stimulate the parietal lobe of a small number of students.

The current could not be felt, and had no measurable effect on other brain functions.

As it was turned on, the volunteers tried to learn a puzzle which involved substituting numbers for symbols.

Those given the current from right to left across the parietal lobe did significantly better when given, compared to those who were given no electrical stimulation.

The direction of the current was important - those given stimulation running in the opposite direction, left to right, did markedly worse at these puzzles than those given no current, with their ability matching that of an average six-year-old.

The effects were not short-lived, either. When the volunteers whose performance improved was re-tested six months later, the benefits appear to have persisted.

There was no wider effect on general maths ability in either group, just on the ability to complete the puzzles learned as the current was applied.

Dr Cohen Kadosh, who led the study, said: "We are not advising people to go around giving themselves electric shocks, but we are extremely excited by the potential of our findings and are now looking into the underlying brain changes.

"We've shown before that we can induce dyscalculia, and now it seems we might be able to make someone better at maths, so we really want to see if we can help people with dyscalculia.

"Electrical stimulation is unlikely to turn you into the next Einstein, but if we're lucky it might be able to help some people to cope better with maths."

Dr Christopher Chambers, from the School of Psychology at Cardiff University, said that the results were "intriguing", and offered the prospect not just of improving numerical skills, but having an impact on a wider range of conditions.

He said: "The ability to tweak activity in parts of the brain, turning it slightly 'up' or 'down' at will, opens the door to treating a range of psychiatric and neurological problems, like compulsive gambling or visual impairments following stroke."
However, he said that the study did not prove that the learning of maths skills was improved, just that the volunteers were better at linking arbitrary numbers and symbols, and he warned that researchers needed to make sure other parts of the brain were unaffected.

"This is still an exciting new piece of research, but if we don't know how selective the effects of brain stimulation are then we don't know what other brain systems could also be affected, either positively or negatively."

Sue Flohr, from the British Dyslexia Association, which also provides support for people with dyscalculia, said the research was welcome.

She said: "It's certainly an under-recognised condition, but it can ruin lives.
"It makes it very hard to do everyday things like shopping or budgeting - you can go into a shop and find you've spent your month's money without realising it."

Source:BBC