Mediterranean
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - An international team of researchers has determined key structural features of the largest known virus, findings that could help scientists studying how the simplest life evolved and whether the unusual virus causes any human diseases.
A review of previously published studies suggests that vegetable and nut intake and a Mediterranean dietary pattern appear to be associated with a lower risk for heart disease, according to a report published in the April 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Summary
Information about science and technology in ancient India are given.
The internet links for additional information are also provided.
1. INTRODUCTION
Men of older generation used to say that all knowledge is
there in the Vedas. Anyone who hears such words will have
the first reaction that it is an over confident statement.
New tracking and observing technologies are giving marine conservationists a fish-eye view of conditions, from overfishing to climate change, that are contributing to declining fish populations, according to a new study.
The water levels in the Dead Sea - the deepest point on Earth - are dropping at an alarming rate with serious environmental consequences, according to Shahrazad Abu Ghazleh and colleagues from the University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany.
Did a catastrophic flood of biblical proportions drown the shores of the Black Sea 9,500 years ago, wiping out early Neolithic settlements around its perimeter?
The severe droughts and forest fires of recent years underline Mediterranean Europe's continuing vulnerability to desertification -- 300 000 square kilometres of territory are currently affected, threatening the livelihoods of 16.5 million Europeans. A new satellite-based service is set to provide a continuous monitoring of regions most at risk. ESA's DesertWatch project involves the development of a desertification monitoring system for the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in support of responsible regional and national authorities.
Experiments carried out by scientists in Spain on experimentally induced breast cancer tumours in laboratory rats show that an excess of certain fats in the diet, commonly known as omega-6, accelerates breast cancer, increasing the malignancy of the disease. The research team has identified four genes, one which has a completely unknown function, whose expression may be involved in this effect caused by dietary lipids. More extensive research into these genes is required to discover whether the mechanism discovered works in the same way in human breast cancer. The authors of the study emphasise the importance of a moderate consumption of fats although some of them, such as blue fish and olive oils, have been shown to be beneficial to health. These oils are common elements in the Mediterranean diet.
In a new study researcchers have demonstrated that a Mediterranean-style diet had beneficial effects on endothelial (a layer of flat cells lining the closed internal spaces of the body, including the blood vessels) function and in reducing vascular inflammatory markers in patients with the metabolic syndrome. The metabolic syndrome consists of several factors that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Recent estimates indicate that the metabolic syndrome is highly prevalent in the United States, with an estimated 24 percent of the adult population affected.
Europeans who enjoy the Mediterranean's warm climate should thank Antarctica for their good fortune. Climate modelling by Australian scientists reveals that Antarctica's icy sea currents allow the balmy Gulf Stream to dictate warm weather conditions over much of the North Atlantic.
New studies show that figs and figs extracts may be effective at inhibiting the survival and growth of harmful microbes in food. For years, trees throughout Europe and the Mediterranean have been cultivated and fig extracts have been used to fight various ailments such as constipation, bronchitis, mouth disorders and wounds. Externally, they are found in the latex used in ridding patients of warts.
A team of California scientists made headlines four years ago when it reported finding one of the largest insect colonies in the world - a 600-mile-long subterranean network of Argentine ants stretching from Northern California to the Mexican border. According to the researchers, this ''supercolony'' is made up of billions of closely related workers - all direct descendants of a small group of Argentine ants that were accidentally introduced into California more than a century ago. But new studies by Stanford University scientists are raising serious doubts about the existence of a single supercolony running through the Golden State. The Stanford team questions the notion that Los Angeles ants are descended from the same founding population as San Francisco ants, which live 400 miles away.
The Mediterranean Sea was a desert, millions of years ago. In contrast, the Sahara Desert was once a lush, green landscape dotted with lakes and ponds. Evidence of this past verdancy lies hidden beneath the sands of Egypt and Libya, in the form of a huge aquifer of fresh groundwater. An international team of geologists and physicists has found that this groundwater has been flowing slowly northward -- at about the rate grass grows -- for the past million years.
Deep convection, or mixing, of ocean waters in the North Atlantic, widely thought to occur in only the Labrador Sea and the Mediterranean, may occur in a third location first proposed nearly 100 years ago by the explorer and oceanographer Fridtjof Nansen. The findings, reported this week in the journal Nature, may alter thinking about the ocean's overturning circulation that affects earth's climate.
