How to grow old gracefully

Exercise, optimism and preventive care can cut risk of chronic diseases

U.S. residents might be living longer these days, but more and more Americans have chronic diseases, such as diabetes, which decrease their lifespan and boost medical costs. Some 133 million adults — almost half the adult population — have some type of chronic health condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With such staggering statistics, you might think illness and impairment are synonymous with aging.

But experts say old age need not be marked by disease and disability. Older adults can take action, even well into their 60s and 70s, to reduce the risk of developing chronic disease and avoid injury.

"I think the old myth was somehow after age 60, 65, there's just nothing you can do anymore," said Margaret Moore, a public health advisor for the CDC's Healthy Aging Program. But really, "there are lots of things you can do to improve your function [and] your health well into older age," she said.

Among the beneficial behaviors: Exercise, stretching, preventative measures such as flu shots and disease screening, and even a generally optimistic outlook on life.

"There's certainly going to be some changes that occur with getting older," Moore said, "but it doesn’t have to mean disability, it doesn’t have to mean disease."

Staggering statsThe number of U.S. adults aged 65 and over living with certain chronic conditions has increased in recent years. 

Rising rates of chronic disease have been mirrored by rising rates in obesity, which is known to be a major risk factor for heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Since the 1960s, the number of overweight men aged 65 to 74 has increased from 10.4 percent to 33.0 percent in 2003-2006. And the number of overweight women has gone up from 23.2 percent to 36.4 percent in that period.

Our nation as a whole is suffering from an obesity epidemic, with about two-thirds of the population being overweight or obese, according to the CDC.

Foremost: exerciseIf there's one step you could take to improve your health and help you steer clear of chronic disease, it's exercise, experts say. And it really is never too late to start.

"I have known patients who have started exercising in their 70s and reaped great benefits from it," said Carmel B. Dyer, a geriatrician and director of the Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

Exercise helps control your weight, lower your blood pressure, and strengthen your muscles, which in turn make you less likely to fall. And more muscle mass helps you metabolize drugs more like a young person, Dyer said, which means the drugs will be cleared from the body more effectively.

Physical activity has also been linked to a decreased risk of dementia, she said.

If you can keep your weight down, you'll decrease your risk of diabetes, which affects about 23.3 million Americans, as well as certain types of arthritis, which hinders activity for about 19 million Americans, according to the CDC.

As a nation, we could do better when it comes to exercise — in 2006-2007, about one-third of adults over 65 said they had no leisure time physical activity in the past month, according to CDC statistics.

But older adults need not join a gym, or suffer through rigorous workouts. Instead, more mild activities, such as walking, gardening, or anything to keep moving would be sufficient, CDC's Moore said.

And a "healthy weight" doesn't necessarily have to be what you weighed when you were in your 20's, according to Dyer.

"You want to exercise enough so that you're not obese, but not too thin, so you have reserve. But you don't have to become so fanatical about it that you have to get down to your college weight," she said.

Stretching is also important, Dyer said. Your muscles tend to shorten and stiffen if you aren't as active, and stretching activities such as yoga, will help improve your flexibility.

"You wouldn’t think that five minutes of stretching in the morning would be all that helpful to you in old age, but it's extremely helpful," she said.

Another key: preventionPreventive measures, such as getting a yearly flu shot, and screening for breast, cervical and colorectal cancers are also important for growing old gracefully.

Judging from statistics, Americans don't have a stellar record when it comes to getting these services. Only about one-quarter of adults aged 50 to 65, and less than 40 percent of those over 65 are up to date with them, the CDC says.

Keeping an eye on other disease indicators, such as high blood pressure and the early stages of diabetes, can also make a difference in terms of the degree of disability people experience later in life, Moore said.

"While you might not actually prevent the disease, you can prevent the disability that would come from not treating the disease promptly enough," she said.

There are even steps you can take to reduce the severity of arthritis, the nation's most common disability affecting about 46 million U.S. adults, about 50 percent of which are over the age of 65.

Staying educated about the disease, avoiding further joint injury, and keeping physically active are among the tips for managing arthritis.

"Once you have arthritis, staying physically active can help reduce the pain you get, and the symptoms; that's counterintuitive, but well documented that it does help," said Charles Helmick, who helps lead the CDC's Arthritis Program.

Optimism Churchgoing and a generally sunny outlook on life have also been linked to longer, healthier lives.

For instance, one 2006 study found that regular church attendance can add 1.8 to 3.1 years to your life. However, scientists are still unsure about why churchgoing extends life, or if other factors could be at play.

Decreased stress levels, from spiritual activities such as meditation, may be partly responsible for the religious benefits, Dyer said.

A slew of studies also suggest that optimistic people live longer, and are less likely to develop certain chronic conditions, such as heart disease.

For example, a 2004 study including about 1,000 men and women found that those who described themselves as optimistic had a 55 percent lower risk of death overall, and a 23 percent lower risk of death from heart failure than pessimists.

A more recent study on some 97,000 postmenopausal women had similar findings. Optimistic women in the study had a 14 percent lower risk of dying from any cause, and a 9 percent lower risk of developing heart disease.

 

Fish oil doesn't benefit the brain, study shows

two-years study of people in their 70s didn't find any cognitive change

Fish oil may be good for your heart, but it doesn't seem to help preserve your smarts, a new two-year study shows.

"This is an important finding because a lot of people are taking fish oil in the hopes that it will be good for their cognitive function," Dr. Alan D. Dangour of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, one of the study's authors, told Reuters Health. But he didn't rule out the possibility that taking fish oil for a longer period of time might have beneficial effects.

Numerous studies have shown that people who eat more fish have better mental function, and are less likely to develop dementia. "The problem with a lot of these studies of course is there are lots of reasons why people eat more fish," Dangour pointed out.

To better answer the question of whether fish oil, in and of itself, benefits the brain, Dangour and his team randomly assigned 748 men and women in their 70s — none of whom had any dementia or other impairment of mental function — to take 200 milligrams of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) plus 300 mg docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) every day for two years or a placebo capsule containing olive oil. EPA and DHA are the two main omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil.

Neither group showed any change in cognitive function over the 24-month trial, as measured by a battery of tests of mental function they took at the beginning and end of the study. The percentage of people who died or dropped out was similar in both groups.

"We can clearly say that after two years there's no evidence for a benefit" in terms of cognitive function, Dangour said. He and his colleagues note in their report that theirs is the largest and longest randomized controlled trial to date investigating omega-3s and mental function in older people.

This doesn't mean that people might benefit their brains by taking fish oil capsules for longer than two years, he added. But, he said, "There's no good evidence at the moment from randomized controlled trials that it's good for cognitive function."

 

Vitamin E may be new boon for liver disease

Supplement could aid common disorder, but routine use still isn't advised

LOS ANGELES - People with a common, obesity-related liver disease that has no known treatment got a surprising benefit from vitamin E pills, researchers reported Wednesday.

It appears to be the first time that a vitamin supplement has been shown to help treat a major ailment not caused by a nutrient deficiency. However, doctors warned that this does not mean people should automatically take vitamin E since some research suggests it might raise the risk of other problems.

The latest study tested it for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Fat buildup can cause the liver to become inflamed and scarred over time and in severe cases, to fail.

The disease usually develops in people who are middle-aged and overweight or obese. Up to 5 percent of Americans have the most serious form of it, and as many as 20 percent have fat in their livers but no organ damage.

In the study published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, 247 adults with advanced fatty liver disease were randomly assigned to take a high dose of vitamin E (800 international units), the diabetes drug Actos or dummy pills for nearly two years.

The vitamin and drug were tested because earlier research suggested liver cell deterioration and insulin resistance might be involved in the development of the disease.

Vitamin E boosted liver function 43 percentBiopsies before and after treatment showed that liver function improved in 43 percent of those in the vitamin E group compared with 19 percent in the placebo group.

"In all honesty, I was surprised," said the lead researcher, Dr. Arun Sanyal of Virginia Commonwealth University. "A vitamin has not been previously used to cure a serious disease" that is not caused by a deficiency.

Vitamin deficiency has been blamed for a range of health problems from rickets and osteoporosis from a lack of vitamin D to scurvy from not enough vitamin C.

Study participants on the diabetes drug Actos also improved, but to a lesser degree and with a drawback: gaining 10 pounds on average, which remained even after they stopped taking the drug. Four people who took vitamin E developed diabetes, but the study was too small to determine if the vitamin played any role.

The National Institutes of Health was the study's main sponsor. A U.S. subsidiary of Japan-based Takeda Pharmaceutical provided the drug and California-based supplement maker Pharmavite supplied the vitamin E capsules. Sanyal, the lead researcher, has received consulting fees from Takeda and other drug companies.

Liver expert Dr. Sammy Saab at the University of California, Los Angeles, believes vitamin E could potentially become the initial treatment for advanced cases of the liver problem.

"For patients who are really at risk of progressive liver disease, I think it's worthwhile. For the vast majority who just have fatty liver, I'm not sure it will help them at all," said Saab, who had no role in the study.

 

What women eat may affect kids, grandkids

While cancer victims usually blame themselves — I shouldn't have smoked, should have eaten better, should have exercised — or the cruelty of chance, they may now have a new scapegoat: Grandma.

Eating poorly during pregnancy can increase your children's and your grandchildren's risk of cancer, even if they themselves eat healthily, a new study on rats suggests.

The risk associated with high-fat diets, especially those high in omega-6 fatty acids, "can be passed from one generation to another without any further exposure," said lead researcher Sonia de Assis of Georgetown University. 

While done in rats, the diets used by the study mirrored some typical American eating habits, and so the researchers suspect the results could hold for humans as well.

The research was presented last week at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting in Washington D.C.

During the study, some pregnant rats were fed a diet high in omega-6 fat while others received standard fare. After the babies were delivered, all the mothers, their children and their eventual grandchildren ate healthy moderate-fat diets.

Granddaughters of the rats that gobbled excess fat during pregnancy had a 30-percent greater chance of developing breast cancer than those with grandparents who ate healthfully. When only one grandmother, on either the mother's or father's side, had indulged, the granddaughter's disease risk was 19-percent higher.

For the high-fat diet, the study used a chow that was 43-percent fat, predominantly from omega-6 rich vegetable oil. Most recommendations for a healthy diet include keeping fat intake at 25 to 30 percent, de Assis told LiveScience, "but with fast foods and everything, a lot of people eat more than that each day."

Fat gone rogueThis should not imply that fat causes cancer — many fats are quite good for you, after all. But it is more bad news for omega-6 fatty acids, found in corn oil and most non-grass-fed meats.

Omega 6s, while essential to a healthy diet, should be balanced with omega 3s. The optimum ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 is likely between 4:1 to 1:1, but in the typical American diet the ratio is more like between 20 and 16:1. This imbalance has previously been linked to a host of health problems, including depression, infertility, heart disease and, yes, cancer.

In the new study, the researchers theorize the increased cancer risk might be a result of the epigenetic effects of omega-6 fats. (Epigenetics refers to the idea that even if genes themselves aren't altered, how they function can change.) Omega 6s may indirectly turn off genes that slow cell apoptosis (normal cell death). Cells can then proliferate and lead to tumors, which are essentially a bundle of multiplying cells gone wild.

Somehow, the fat must also be affecting the "germ line," the pathways that lead to viable sperm and eggs, for the effect to be crossing multiple generations.

DNA is not in the driver's seat
Epigenome, which literally means "on top of the genome," refers to all the factors that control how a gene is expressed. The new study potentially adds to the growing body of research suggesting the epigenome may be at the root of many health problems.

"People think there is nothing you can do (about your disease risk)," said researcher Rod Dashwood of Oregon State University, who gave a lecture on epigenetics at the Experimental Biology 2010 conference in Anaheim, Calif. "But you are not just what your genes are." (Dashwood has conducted separate research from de Assis.)

Rather, you are your genes under the influence of your epigenome, which, during critical periods, is shaped by your environment, your lifestyle, your life experience — and those of your immediate ancestors.

"Genes only account for 5 to 10 percent of the familial risk of breast cancer," said de Assis, by way of illustration. Something inherited in the epigenome could account for the rest.

When it rains, buffalo have more sons

Findings may be evidence of so-called sex-ratio genes in large mammals

Something strange happens when it rains in Kruger National Park in South Africa: Buffalo mothers give birth to more sons. Now, scientists think they know why — it's in their genes.

The results from a new study suggest that certain genes in male buffalos distort the genetic material in their sperm so that they father only sons. And these genes are "turned on" when there's plenty of grass to chow down on, as happens during the rainy season.

However, there appears to be a few systems in play so that overall, the proportion of males to females tends to even out. For one thing, the males with these sex-distorting genes are usually less fertile than other males. Another possibility is that a different set of genes, triggered by the dry season, influence the resulting brood so that there's slightly more females. 

If true, the findings would be the first evidence of so-called sex-ratio genes in large mammals. These genes have so far only been observed in insects, such as files, and in rodents.

The findings suggest that sex-ratio genes might be present in more animals than scientists have suspected, and perhaps even in humans, according to study researcher Pim van Hooft of Wageningen University in The Netherlands.

"I think it's not unique for the buffalo," van Hooft said.

Sex genes
Sex-ratio genes are located on the chromosomes that determine an animal's gender. Chromosomes are packets of DNA inside a cell's nucleus. In buffalo and people, one pair of chromosomes, called the X and Y chromosomes, are considered sex chromosomes. 

Each parent provides one sex chromosome to the offspring, with males giving either an X or Y and females giving only X chromosomes. Offspring with XX become female and those with XY become males.

Sex-ratio genes are malicious, however. They work by either killing or disabling the opposite sex chromosome. So if they are lurking on the Y chromosome, they kill off the X, meaning the father's sperm will contain only Y chromosomes, so he'll only produce male offspring. And if they're on the X chromosome, the opposite happens. Sex-ratio genes are thought to carry out their attack during spermatogenesis, or the formation of male sperm.

"Because the males have a distorted sex-ratio [gene] in their sperm, you get a distorted sex ratio at birth," van Hooft said.

Too much diversity
Van Hooft examined blood samples collected from buffalo during 1998. Because the samples included the age of the animal, he was able to go back in time, looking at the genetics of buffalo that varied in ages from 0 to 15 years.

What he found was quite strange. The amount of genetic variation on the Y chromosome was surprisingly different between buffalo of different ages, even if they were only a year apart. It was as if there were two different types of Y chromosomes, and the ratio of these Y-chromosome types fluctuated from season to season, and also from year to year.  

Normally, you would expect buffalo that were so close together in age to have very similar Y chromosomes, van Hooft said. After all, it's the same parent generation producing the kids for quite a few years, and shifts in the population genetics just don't happen that fast.

He also saw that the number of males and females born during each season was slightly skewed. During the rainy season, the ratio of males to females was about 53-to-48, so if there were 100 buffalo babies born, 53 would be male and 48 female on average. The reverse was seen in the dry season, with relatively more females born.

Van Hooft reasoned that sex ratios were at play, and that they were triggered by environmental conditions, which in turn affected the sperm.

"Apparently, these sex-ratio genes are triggered by the body condition, or the semen quality," van Hooft told LiveScience.

Here's what could be happening:Some sex-ratio genes are turned on by the wet season, causing some male buffalo in the population to produce only sons. This increases the proportion of males in the population, and the Y chromosomes from those males would be overrepresented.

During the dry season, a different set of sex-ratio genes could be turned on, ones that had the opposite effect. The final result is an increase in females, along with a fluctuation in Y chromosome types.

 

Landslide buries cars, cuts highway in Taiwan

Heavy rains preceded slide; hundreds of workers digging for victims

TAIPEI, Taiwan - An official says rescuers are searching for travelers in three cars buried by a massive landslide when a hillside collapsed in northern Taiwan.

Firefighter Tang Cheng-yu says the Sunday landslide buried a portion of a three-lane highway in rubble about the size of two soccer stadiums.

A motorist first reported the accident in Keelung. He said he made a sharp turn to narrowly escape the massive mud cascading down in front of his car.

Tang says hundreds of workers are digging around the clock with bulldozers Monday but have yet to locate the cars.

He says the landslide followed days of rain. News reports say four people are believed to have been buried in the cars.

 

Connect with nature via pedal power

Take a bike tour through Cajun country or across Iowa

Don Wilson describes himself as an "old guy," but every spring he hops on his bike to pedal 200 miles in four days through the heart of French Louisiana on a trip called Cycle Zydeco.

Wilson, 65, chats with other riders while rolling through Cajun and Creole country. Organizers offer local music, dancing and food to the 350 people in the group at campsites every night.

Like thousands of other bicyclists who take part in nonprofit trips that can cover hundreds of miles in a few days or a week, Wilson enjoys visiting new places under his own power.

"You get to see the country in a way that you'd never get to see it by car or by bus or by any other form of transportation," said Wilson, a commercial real estate broker who lives in Maryland but has ridden Cycle Zydeco six times. "You just feel more connected to nature maybe."

The 9-year-old Cycle Zydeco, which is put on by the Lafayette Convention & Visitors Commission and other sponsors, is just one of dozens of nonprofit bicycle trips that have sprung up in recent years.

The trips are aimed at steering active visitors to local areas and capturing a market of retirees who have the time and interest to participate in what is often a rolling party.

The largest and oldest of the rides is the seven-day RAGBRAI, the (Des Moines) Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, which takes 10,000 cyclists about 500 miles around Iowa's rolling hills every July.

Smaller trips, modeled on RAGBRAI's formula of camping and nightly entertainment, have sprung up all around the country. They offer an affordable, if sometimes demanding, vacation.

"The Zydeco ride is flat unless the wind blows," said Wilson. "They have a condition they call the Cajun Alps. It feels like you're climbing mountains with a 25-mile per hour wind in your face."

A low-cost vacationThe rides are relatively low-cost because most offer camping, although participants can choose to stay in nearby motels if they're available. The seven-day Bike Ride Across Nebraska, or BRAN, covers 480 miles and costs just $140, including camping, baggage transport, a support wagon and a tour guide. Riders pay for their meals. Cycle Zydeco costs $350 including meals, and RAGBRAI is $140, with riders buying their own meals.

Many of the rides are fundraisers. BRAN, a community service project of the Omaha Northwest Rotary Club, awards scholarships to Nebraska high school graduates. RAGBRAI supports local Iowa nonprofits and returns some money to the communities the ride passes through. The 7-year-old Ride Idaho, also organized by a nonprofit organization, supports cycling in Idaho and also returns money to the communities the riders visit.

Tour organizers rarely close roads for their riders, but usually choose less-traveled routes and employ local police to warn drivers that riders are ahead. People travel around the country to sample the new routes of their favorite rides year after year, said Vickie Backman, who organizes BRAN.

"We usually have 35 or 37 states represented, and I know someone is coming from Sweden this year," said Backman. Some riders have participated in BRAN tours every year for 30 years, she added.

In northern North Dakota, a local Job Development Association started the three-day Bike the Border ride in 2004 to attract visitors to the rural region near Canada, said director Barb Otto. The 200-mile ride, in June, is open to 100 riders and costs just $75, excluding food.

"It's definitely not a speed thing for the majority," said Otto. "You'll get a few of the young guys who want to see how fast they can do it, but it's basically a fun weekend."

Cruising alongDavid Harrenstein, executive director of the National Bicycle Tour Directors Association in Minnesota, said he has no data on whether the number of nonprofit bike tours is growing, "but I can tell you that it's not shrinking," he said. "Especially with the whole green movement, and people trying to be healthy and live longer, organized bicycle tours seem to be holding their own in terms of popularity."

If you go Organized bicycle rides can be found all over the world. Some are run by for-profit bicycle tour companies and include four-star meals; others are run by small local nonprofits and offer bare-bones amenities. A good list of U.S., and some Canadian, rides, can be found at the also leads bike tours and offers an extensive network of routes and maps.

Various studies, including surveys by bike retailers, bike advocacy groups and government transportation agencies, suggest that commuting by bike, participation in competitive biking events and recreational bike riding are on the rise.

While a 2006 study by the Outdoor Industry Foundation found that just 27 percent of bike riders in the U.S. are age 45 or older, Harrenstein said the average age of participants in the long-distance nonprofit bike rides is about 50.

Winona Bateman, spokeswoman for the Adventure Cycling Association, which promotes bike travel and leads bike tours, said the average participant in her group's trips is also about 50. She speculated that younger riders are more likely to commute to work by bike, but "maybe they haven't gotten into the more organized stuff yet."

 

Kicking the habit improves smokers’ arteries

Many who quit gain weight, but study shows they still see health benefit

A year after kicking the habit, smokers' arteries showed signs of reversing a problem that can set the stage for heart disease, according to the first big study to test this.

The improvement came even though smokers gained an average of 9 pounds after they quit, researchers found. Their levels of so-called good cholesterol improved, too. 

"A lot of people are afraid to quit smoking because they're afraid to gain weight," said the study's leader, Dr. James Stein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison cardiologist.

The new research shows these people gain a health benefit even though they pick up pounds that hopefully can be shed once they've gotten used to not smoking, he said.

Smoking is one of the top causes of heart disease, and about one third of smoking-related deaths in the U.S. are due to heart disease. A heart attack often motivates longtime smokers to give it up.

Quitting is known to lower the risk of developing or dying of lung cancer. This is the first major clinical trial to show it quickly improves artery health. Results were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and presented at the group's annual conference on Monday.

In the study, 1,500 smokers were given one of five methods to help them quit — nicotine patches; nicotine lozenges; the drug bupropion, sold as Wellbutrin and Zyban; or a combination of patches and lozenges or the drug and lozenges. A sixth group received a dummy treatment.

After one year, 36 percent had quit, and it made no difference which method they used, Stein said.

Before the study started and one year after smokers quit, doctors did ultrasound tests to see how well blood vessel linings relaxed and handled blood flow. Hardening of the arteries is an early step to heart disease. Using a tourniquet, they stopped blood flow in the forearm for a few minutes, then measured how a major artery responded when the flow was restored.

"It's a valid test" and is considered a good sign of how healthy the heart arteries are, said Dr. Alfred Bove, a Temple University heart specialist and president of the cardiology group.

Doctors found that artery function improved 1 percent in the quitters.

"That may not sound like much," but research shows that translates to a 14 percent lower risk of developing heart disease, Stein said.

"It's a small improvement at one year. The question is, do these folks keep getting better?" Bove said.

The study is continuing another two years to give an answer, Stein said.

London-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC provided smoking cessation medicines for that part of the study, and several authors have research funding from the company. Federal government grants paid for the artery study.

 

Common snipe 'flies the flag' in search for love

High-speed video has revealed for the first time how male common snipes - a species of wading bird - generate their distinctive drumming mating calls.

A team of UK researchers found the birds' tail feathers "flapped like a flag" in the wind, something that had not been seen before.

When attempting to attract a potential mate, the males perform a dive to create the drumming noise.

The findings appear in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Drag show

"The exciting thing was that the video revealed that the tail feather actually flaps backwards and forwards," said co-author Roland Ennos, from the University of Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences.

The tail feather has special adaptations, which means its acts just like a flag blowing in the wind, which has not been seen before," he told BBC News.

Dr Ennos said that people previously thought the feathers were particularly strong to generate the sound during courtship displays.

"Most tail feathers are rigid, so would be stiff in the wind in order to provide aerodynamic lift."

But, he explained, the snipes' (Capella gallinago gallinago) "special line of weakness" in its feathers resulted in drag, and actually slowed the birds down.

"Therefore, by going fast and making a lot of noise, the bird is showing prospective mates how fit it is."

The males have a "special tail feather that it can stick out", Dr Ennnos said.

"The feathers have a weakened hinge region in their rear vane. The birds dive to increase their speed and make a more attractive higher-pitched sound."

During its courtship display, the male climbed to an altitude of about 50m (165 feet) before diving at about 40 degrees with its two outer tail feathers extended.

The researchers found that when the male birds reached a speed of 50km/h (31mph), the outer feathers produced an audible sound.

The feathers continued to produce the sound until the bird reached speeds of more than 86km/h (53mph).

All of a flutter

The team reported that the drumming was created by an "aeroelastic flutter", a self-feeding, potentially destructive vibration.

Dr Ennos said it was an aeroelastic flutter that caused the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge in the US to famously wobble and collapse in November 1940, just a few months after it opened.

The team decided to investigate how the snipes created the drumming sound after reading research by US researchers, who also used high-speed video to show that a species of hummingbird produced its chirping call with feathers, not vocally.

"In order to measure the frequency of sound that the feather made, we simply stuck a feather in a wind tunnel," said Dr Ennos. "But to capture the footage, that was more tricky.

"The wind tunnel was very dark and we could not get enough light. So we put the feather in front of a hair dryer and filmed it when it was fluttering."

He said the findings could be used to shed light on how different species of snipe produce different pitched calls.

"Some species do have narrower tail feathers, and these have higher pitched calls. Our findings could help to explain this."

Bowel cancer test could save many lives,

Not all polyps will turn into cancer

A brief one-off screening test could prevent thousands of people dying from bowel cancer every year, a study published in the Lancet suggests.

There are now calls for the test to be rolled out across the UK after results from 200,000 people aged 55-64 found it cut deaths by 43% over 10 years.

Cancer Research UK described the results from the Imperial College, London, study as a "rare breakthrough".

Independent advisers will consider the test, the Department of Health says.

The independent bowel cancer screening committee will discuss whether it would be cost-effective to incorporate the procedure - known as sigmoidoscopy - into the UK's screening programmes.

Scientists from Imperial College, London, who carried out the research, argue the costs would be outweighed by the savings generated through reducing the incidence of the disease, the UK's second biggest cancer killer.

Simple test

Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK Harpal Kumar explains how the test works

The current screening method for bowel cancer looks for traces of blood in the stools, one of the key symptoms of colorectal cancer. If this is found, the patient is referred for further investigation.

This test - using a flexible scope little wider than a pen to find and remove polyps, the precursors to cancer - is believed to reduce the death rates from the disease by 25% for those who use it.

But by finding and removing polyps - the mainly symptomless growths which can become cancerous - a sigmoidoscopy could stop the disease developing in the first place in the lower bowel.

Two thirds of colorectal cancers occur here.

Easier to conduct than a colonoscopy, which is not suitable for the general population because it requires sedation and can be a lengthy process because the entire bowel must be examined, a sigmoidoscopy can be carried out by a nurse and does not require any pain relief. Laxatives are taking in advance to clear the bowel.

A one-off examination of over 40,000 men and women aged between 55 and 64 in which any polyps were detected and removed reduced the number of cases of the disease by one third, and deaths by 43%, when compared with a group who received no intervention.

They were followed for an average of 11 years, and lead researcher Professor Wendy Atkin said the results showed people would only need one test in a lifetime.

Combined with the existing blood test to detect any cancers developing further up the colon, "thousands of lives could be saved", she said.

Some 16,000 people die from bowel cancer every year. If the results of this study were extrapolated, about 3,000 would be saved.

Researchers calculate that one life would be saved for every 400 people screened, which compares favourably with breast cancer screening - where the figures are 500 mammograms for every life saved. The main cost would be recruiting the specialist nurses needed to carry out the examination.

"We don't often use the word breakthrough, but there is a tremendous opportunity to use this procedure to push bowel cancer back down the league table of cancer cases in the UK," said Harpal Kumar, head of Cancer Research UK, which helped fund the research.

"Cancer Research UK is calling on the next government to add the test to the existing national bowel screening programme as one of its first priorities.

"Such a programme, backed by all UK governments, would save thousands of lives, whilst also saving the NHS money."

Bowel Cancer UK has also called for the test to be added to the existing screening programme.

And Professor Jon Rhodes, of the British Society of Gastroenterology, described the results as "very exciting".

The British Society of Gastroenterology would welcome the establishment of early pilot centres to establish further data on service delivery and uptake in routine NHS practice," he said.

Ancient building came with DIY instructions

Like IKEA furniture, symbols showed how the pieces slotted together 

Italian archeologists have unearthed the remains of a 6th century BC Greek temple-like building that came with detailed assembly instructions just like an “IKEA do-it-yourself furniture pack."

The elaborate structure was discovered at Torre Satriano, near the southern city of Potenza, in Basilicata, a region where local people mingled with Greeks who settled along the southern coast and in Sicily from the 8th century B.C. onwards.

Much like the instruction booklets of the Swedish home furnishings company, various sections of the luxury building were inscribed with coded symbols showing how the pieces slotted together. 

“So far we have uncovered a hundred inscribed fragments, all related to the roof assembly system. The inscriptions also reveal that the palace was built by Greek artisans coming from the Spartan colony of Taranto in Puglia,” Massimo Osanna, director of the archaeology school at Basilicata University, told Discovery News.  

Boasting an impressive colonnade at the entryway, the palace was richly decorated with terracotta friezes and featured at least two freestanding statues on the roof representing mythical creatures.

The sloping terracotta roof had red and black decorations and was designed to filter rainwater down the cymatums. These were panels with protruding drips to throw water off the structure.

Building instructions were present on both the cymatiums and the friezes.

“We found masculine ordinal numbers on the cymatiums and feminine ones on the friezes,” Osanna said.

According to the archaeologist, the decorative features of the temple-like structure are remarkably similar to ornamental features on another structure unearthed at a town nearby. This would suggest that the builders used the same mold.

“A taste for Greek styles among the local pre-Roman population might have prompted an industrious builder to produce DIY structures on the model of classical Greek buildings,” Osanna said.

 

Magnetic refuge found on Moon

A mini magnetic field has been detected on the surface of the moon

A miniature magnetic field has been imaged on the surface of the moon, making it a rare, minimally protective lunar refuge from some aspects of the harsh solar wind.

The magnetic region could be a great place to site a lunar base, since tomorrow's lunar colonists will not only need water , but some protection from the heavy radiation in the solar wind.

"You can think of it as kind of a mini umbrella," said Martin Wieser of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna, Sweden. "It will be effective for certain kinds of (space) weather.

But it is very weak in comparison to Earth's planet-wide magnetic field or even compared to the splotchy magnetospheres of Mars.

The 224-mile- (360-kilometer-) wide magnetosphere was detected by an instrument on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. The mini magnetosphere revealed itself by fewer hydrogen atoms scattering off the surface of the moon. Generally when the solar wind rams into the airless surface of the moon, some hydrogen atoms scatter back into space. Any place with fewer of these atoms rising up from the moon is likely to be shielded magnetically, explained Wieser and his colleagues in their paper published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The researchers also noticed that the dust inside the magnetically shielded zone is brighter than the surrounding areas, which might have something to do with the solar wind weathering that surface differently over the eons.

"I think this is a very exciting observation," said lunar researcher Jasper Halekas of the Space Science Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. "There have been a number of indications that theses things were taking place. (But) this is the first directed study that really tells you 'they are there.'"

The lunar magnetospheres are a lot like those on Mars, said Halekas, except that on Mars they are almost certainly the remnants of a global magnetic field that was created by the planet's core. A molten core dynamo on the moon is a bit less likely, however.

"It's still quite possible that there was a dynamo on the moon," said Halekas.

Another possibility is that the mini-magnetosphere was generated by large impacts on the direct opposite side of the moon. Exactly how this works is far from clear, but there does seem to be a correlation between large impact craters and magnetic anomalies at their antipodes, said Wieser. 

Ironically, the same magnetic shielding could make these the driest places on the moon. One mechanism believed to generate at least the ingredients for water on the moon are solar protons smacking into the surface, forming hydrogen atoms in the lunar soils. Inside a mini magnetosphere that is less likely to happen, Wieser noted.

Without water, maybe this isn't the best lunar real estate after all.