Millions of americans smoke MARIJUANA, despite the specter of fanatical drug laws that have sent many gentle pot smokers up the river. But - what's a responsible stoner to do?

For 33 years, Seattle lawyer Jeff Steinborn has been defending people accused of drug crimes.

First: MAINTAIN CAUTIOUS HABITS. (Be paranoid!)

In independent tests, a new world record efficiency of 10.7 percent was achieved for the company's latest tandem organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells ... and 15 percent may be just a few years away.

Organic solar cells are cheaper to produce, lighter and more flexible than traditional silicon-based solar cells, and therefore have a wider range of applications.

The downside is that the efficiency rate of OPV cells is still much lower than inorganic solar cells, which are around 15 - 20 percent efficient (though that number is growing).

The organic solar tandem cells developed by Heliatek incorporate small organic molecules called oligomers, which are deposited into the thin layers of solar film using a low temperature, roll-to-roll vacuum process.

“This enables us to literally engineer the cell architecture to systematically improve efficiency and lifetime.” Says Dr. Martin Pfeiffer, co-founder and CTO of Heliatek.

In tests conducted by accredited testing facility SGS, the efficiency of the OPV cell was measured in standard testing conditions which resulted in the record 10.7 percent efficiency on 1.1 cm˛.

The technology also performed well in low light and high temperatures of up to 80 degrees Celsius. The results at low light showed that the OPV cell’s efficiency not only remained constant, but actually increased. The efficiency was 15% higher at an irradiation of 100 W/m˛, compared with the efficiency measured at 1000 W/m˛. The tests also found that when efficiency was measured at high temperatures it remained constant.

These measurements are surprising when compared to inorganic solar cells, which lose 15 to 20 percent efficiency when exposed to elevated temperatures.

Heliatek says these findings add up to a higher harvesting factor under real life conditions than crystalline and thin film solar technologies.

“Thanks to the close cooperation between our research teams in chemistry and physics, we are now on our path to achieving 15 percent efficiency within the next few years,” says CEO of Heliatek, Thibaud Le Séguillon.

The company’s first roll-to-roll manufacturing line in Dresden which is due to go into production in late 2012.

Source: Gizmag - via zeitnews.org

"What we see in other animals is that when females are scarce, males become more competitive. They compete more for access to mates," says Vladas Griskevicius, an assistant professor of marketing at the Carlson School and lead author of the study. "How do humans compete for access to mates? What you find across cultures is that men often do it through money, through status and through products."

To test their theory that the sex ratio affects economic decisions, the researchers had participants read news articles that described their local population as having more men or more women. They were then asked to indicate how much money they would save each month from a paycheck, as well as how much they would borrow with credit cards for immediate expenditures. When led to believe women were scarce, the savings rates for men decreased by 42 percent. Men were also willing to borrow 84 percent more money each month.

In another study, participants saw photo arrays of men and women that had more men, more women, or were neutral. After looking at the photographs, participants were asked to choose between receiving some money tomorrow or a larger amount in a month. When women were scarce in the photos, men were much more likely to take an immediate $20 rather than wait for $30 in a month.

According to Griskevicius, participants were unaware that sex ratios were having any effect on their behavior. Merely seeing more men than women automatically led men to simply be more impulsive and want to save less while borrowing more to spend on immediate purchases.

"Economics tells us that humans make decisions by carefully thinking through our choices; that we're not like animals," he says. "It turns out we have a lot in common with other animals. Some of our behaviors are much more reflexive and subconscious. We see that there are more men than women in our environment and it automatically changes our desires, our behaviors, and our entire psychology."

"The Financial Consequences of Too Many Men: Sex Ratio Effects on Savings, Borrowing, and Spending" will be published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Co-authors of the study include Joshua Tybur (VU University Amsterdam), Joshua M. Ackerman (M.I.T.), Andrew Delton and Theresa Robertson (University of California, Santa Barbara), and Andrew E. White (Arizona State University).

Sex Ratios Affect Expectations of Women

While sex ratios do not influence the financial choices women make, they do shape women's expectations of how men should spend their money when courting. After reading a news article informing women that there are more men than women, women expected men to spend more on dinner dates, Valentine's gifts, and engagement rings.

"When there's a scarcity of women, women felt men should go out of their way to court them," adds Griskevicius.

In a male-biased environment, men also expected they would need to spend more in their mating efforts.

Population Data Supports Research Findings

In addition to conducting laboratory experiments, the researchers reviewed archival data and calculated the sex ratios of more than 120 U.S. cities. Consistent with their hypothesis, communities with an abundance of single men showed greater ownership of credit cards and had higher debt levels.

One striking example was found in two communities located less than 100 miles apart. In Columbus, Ga., where there are 1.18 single men for every single woman, the average consumer debt was $3,479 higher than it was in Macon, Ga., where there were 0.78 single men for every woman.

Research Implications for Marketers and Society

Whereas previous research has found that merely seeing an attractive woman in advertising would make a man more aggressive or make a man more interested in conspicuously consuming, "The Financial Consequences of Too Many Men" study suggests it may not be that simple. According to the findings, whether a woman is alone or surrounded by many or few men can have a great impact on the reaction it elicits.

Griskevicius says the effects of sex ratios go beyond marketing and influence all sorts of behavior. He cites other studies showing the strong correlation between male-biased sex ratios and aggressive behavior.

"We're just scratching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to financial behavior," says Griskevicius. "One of the troubling implications of sex ratios for the world in general is that it's about more than just money. It's about violence and survival."

Source: University of Minnesota - via ZeitNews.org

“In order to behave efficiently, you want to process relevant sensory information as fast as possible, but relevance is determined by your current situation,” said Joy Geng, assistant professor of psychology at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain.

For example, a flashing road sign alerts us to traffic merging ahead; or a startled animal might cue you to look out for a hidden predator.

When concentrating on a specific task, it’s helpful to reconfigure brain networks so that task-relevant information is processed most efficiently and external distractions are reduced, Geng found.

Geng and co-author Nicholas DiQuattro, a graduate student in psychology, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study brain activity in volunteers carrying out a simple test. They compared their results to mathematical models to infer connectivity between different areas of the brain. The study appeared in the Dec. 7 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

The subjects had to look for a letter “T” in a box and indicate which way it faced by pressing a button. They were also presented with a “distractor”: another letter T in a box, but rotated 90 degrees.

The distractor was either similar in appearance to the target, or brightened to be more attention-getting.

Subjects did better in trials with an “attention-getting” distractor than a less obvious one, and lit up specific areas of the brain accordingly.

The new work shows that the brain doesn’t always “ramp up” to deal with the situation at hand, Geng said. Instead, it changes how traffic moves through the existing hard-wired network -- rather like changing water flow through a network of pipes or information flow over a computer network -- in order to maximize efficiency.

Source: UC Davis - via ZeitNews.org

It’s an important step forward in the effort to build the future ITER reactor.

Scientists have achieved a milestone: they have managed to stop the growth of instabilities inside a nuclear fusion reactor. How? Here’s a look at this energy source, which despite being challenging to control, is nevertheless extremely promising.

Nuclear fusion is an attempt to reproduce the energy of the Sun in an Earth-based reactor system. When gas is heated to several million degrees, it becomes plasma. Sometimes in the plasma, an instability will appear and grow large enough to perturb the plasma, making it vibrate despite the presence of the magnetic field in which it is contained. If the plasma touches the walls of the reactor, it will cool rapidly and create large electromagnetic forces within the structure of the machine.

The challenge is to reduce the instabilities deep within in the interior of the plasma so that they don’t amplify, while at the same time allowing the reactor to continue to function normally. Thus it is necessary to work within the specific configuration of these fusion reactors, where the plasma is strongly confined by a magnetic field. By adjusting an antenna that emits electromagnetic radiation, physicists from EPFL’s Center for Research in Plasma Physics were able to quench the instabilities when they appear, in the precise region where they are forming, and without perturbing the rest of the installation.

From theory to practice

The physicists first conducted simulations to verify the extent to which specific radiation frequencies and locations of application would suppress the growth of instabilities. Then they carried out tests to confirm their calculations. The beauty of their approach is that they were able to use antennas that are used as part of the system to heat the plasma, and that are already present in the Joint European Torus (JET), the largest reactor currently in use. Surprisingly, the simulations and the tests showed that heating and instability suppression can be combined, by aiming the radiation slightly off-center in the plasma.

The next step will be to add a detector system that will make it possible to neutralize instabilities in real time over longer time periods. These improvements can then be implemented in the ITER fusion reactor, currently in development in Southern France.

Source: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne - via ZeitNews.org

In ognuno di noi si cela una fabbrica di armi potentissime, potenzialmente imbattibili contro tutti i tipi di tumore. Si chiama sistema immunitario ed è la miglior difesa di cui il nostro organismo può disporre. Solo che non sempre le armi a disposizione sono sufficienti contro i nemici da combattere. Per questo un gruppo di ricercatori del San Raffaele di Milano, insieme a Telethon e a colleghi internazionali, hanno lavorato assieme per sviluppare una tecnologia in grado di aiutare il sistema immunitario nella lotta contro le leucemie. A distanza di poco tempo gli scienziati hanno messo a punto una nuova tecnica di immunoterapia cellulare adottiva, definita TCR gene Editing, in grado aiutare il nostro organismo ad attaccare e sconfiggere più efficacemente i tumori del sangue.

Questo nuovo metodo si rivelato efficace in pazienti con alcuni tipi di tumore, anche in stadio avanzato. L’ immunoterapia cellulare adottiva si basa sul presupposto che il sistema immunitario sia la risposta contro il cancro. Gli scienziati italiani non sono gli unici ad averlo capito. Negli ultimi decenni infatti sono stati condotti diversi studi clinici sperimentali basati sulla somministrazione a pazienti con tumori di cellule del sistema immunitario, chiamati linfociti T, alcuni dei quali sono in grado di riconoscere ed eliminare le cellule tumorali. Non esiste però un solo tipo di linfocita T, ma tante diverse cellule del sistema immunitario specifiche per un determinato antigene, ovvero un piccolo frammento di proteina. Ogni linfocita T riconose e attacca, quindi, tanti tipi di antigeni virali o fungini.

Grazie a questa loro specializzazione, abbiamo un’arma automatizzata in grado di riconoscere il suo nemico, per esempio un virus, e di attaccarlo. A conferire alle cellule questa specificità, è una molecola che si trova sulla superficie del linfocita T. Si tratta del cosiddetto recettore dei linfociti T ( TCR), composto da due catene legate tra loro. Ogni linfocita esprime un solo tipo di TCR, diverso da quello degli altri linfociti T presenti nello stesso individuo. I linfociti che riconoscono antigeni tumorali possono attaccare le cellule tumorali. Purtroppo sono molto rari e spesso non bastano per eliminare il tumore.

Con la nuova tecnica messa a punto dai ricercatori italiani, in uno studio pubblicato su Nature Medicine, la TCR gene Editing possiamo generare rapidamente un numero elevato di linfociti T specifici per un determinato tumore. La procedura è un’evoluzione della TCR Gene Transfer, la tecnica che permette di generare in laboratorio i linfociti anti-tumorali tramite il trasferimento genico, nei linfociti T di un paziente, dei geni di un TCR anti-tumorale, preventivamente isolato dai rari linfociti anti-tumorali.

Tuttavia, i linfociti tumore-specifici prodotti con questa tecnica differiscono da quelli naturali poiché presentano due diversi tipi di TCR, quello endogeno (presente già prima del trasferimento genico) e quello esogeno, anti-tumorale che è stato introdotto tramite la manipolazione genetica.

La presenza di due TCR diversi sulla stessa cellula comporta sia problemi di efficacia che di sicurezza. Il TCR anti-tumorale deve infatti competere con quello endogeno per accedere alla membrana cellulare e dunque per poter riconoscere il tumore. I linfociti generati con la TCR Gene Transfer sono dunque meno efficaci rispetto ai rari linfociti anti-tumorali che originano naturalmente.

Inoltre, poiché ogni TCR è formato da due catene, i linfociti prodotti esprimono quattro diverse catene che possono appaiarsi in modo scorretto formando nuovi TCR con specificità imprevedibili che possono riconoscere e danneggiare tessuti sani del paziente, provocando reazioni di autoimmunità.

Con la nuova tecnica, la TCR Gene Editing, i ricercatori hanno superato i limiti, mettendo a punto una procedura attraverso la quale è possibile, sostituire il TCR endogeno con il TCR anti-tumorale, generando un numero elevato di linfociti che esprimono alti livelli del solo TCR anti-tumorale. Questa tecnologia consente dunque di produrre, potenzialmente per ogni paziente, linfociti T efficaci e sicuri quanto quelli anti-tumorali naturali.

Questo è stato possibile grazie all’utilizzo di Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFN), molecole artificiali in grado di riconoscere sequenze specifiche di dna (scelte a priori dagli scienziati) e di provocare tagli nella sua doppia elica. Questo taglio nel dna provocato dalle ZFN interrompe l’informazione genetica e rende la cellula incapace di produrre la proteina codificata dal gene colpito dalle ZFN. L’editing del dna con le ZFN è stato applicato alla terapia genica per la prima volta dal gruppo di Luigi Naldini, direttore dell’ Istituto San Raffaele Telethon per la Terapia Genica che ha partecipato a quest’ultimo studio,  ed è stato riconosciuto come metodo dell’anno alla fine del 2011 dalla rivista Nature.

Ora ai ricercatori non resta che preparare questa tecnica all’uso clinico. “Il passo successivo per questa strategia innovativa per l’immunoterapia del cancro, ancora in fase preclinica, è la produzione di reagenti e protocolli utilizzabili in contesto clinico”, dice Chiara Bonini coordinatrice del nuovo studio e responsabile dell’Unità di Ematologia Sperimentale dell’IRCCS San Raffaele. I ricercatori, inoltre, sperano che questa nuova tecnica possa offrire risposte importante anche per altri tipi di tumore, oltre alle leucemie.

Fonte: Wired.it

In the study, "Is Discrimination an Equal Opportunity Risk? Racial Experiences, Socio-economic Status and Health Status Among Black and White Adults," the authors examined data containing measures of social class, race and perceived discriminatory behavior and found that approximately 18 percent of blacks and 4 percent of whites reported higher levels of emotional upset and/or physical symptoms due to race-based treatment.

"Discriminatory behavior very well may be a 'missing link' in the analysis of racial and ethnic health disparities," Bratter said. "It's important to acknowledge and study its impact on long-term health.

Unlike most of the research on this topic, Bratter and Gorman's study examines the health risks of discrimination among both whites and blacks, as opposed to just blacks. Their analysis was based on data from the 2004 wave of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, an ongoing collaborative project between U.S. states and territories and the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This racially comparative focus is important because we examine whether discrimination is equally harmful to the health status of black and white adults – or whether experiencing discrimination is disproportionately harmful to either black or white adults," Gorman said. "For example, since, on average, black adults typically experience more health risks in their social and personal environment than white adults (including higher poverty and lower-quality medical insurance), they may be especially vulnerable to negative health effects as a result of racial discrimination."

A greater number of blacks report poor health due to discrimination, and the study did find that black-white disparities in health are shaped in part by the differential exposure of blacks to the harmful effects of discrimination. However, Bratter and Gorman also show that while perceiving discrimination exacerbates some of the economic-based health risks more typically experienced by black adults, patterns differ for white adults. Regardless of social-class position, white adults who perceive unfair treatment relative to other racial groups in either workplace or health care settings report poorer health.

"A relatively small proportion of white adults report unfair treatment that is race-based, but those who do say their health status is harmed more than blacks who report the same experiences," Gorman said.

Both Bratter and Gorman hope that their research will raise awareness about the impact racial discrimination has on health and wellness.

"Ultimately we hope that practitioners and researchers in the medical field recognize the dual contribution of social class and interpersonal treatment in shaping health outcomes among persons of all racial populations," Bratter said.

This study appeared in the September 2011 edition of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior and was funded by Rice University.

Source: EurekAlert - via ZeitNews.org

Using an optically trapped gold nanoparticle as their listening device, the team says they can now detect sounds made at the bacterial level or use their device to tune (or perhaps to test?) the minuscule MEMS machines of the future.

The nano-ear is pretty simple, considering that it relies on technology that has been laying around in the lab for decades now. Optical tweezers are laser devices that use light to trap or manipulate a small particle in a particular point in space by drawing the particle to the most intense point in the laser beam’s electric field. By trapping a gold nanoparticle in just such a optical trap and measuring the influence of various sound waves on that particle, the found that they can “listen” to very small vibrations.That means sound analysis at extremely low levels. The gold nanoparticle itself is just 60 nanometers (that’s 60 billionths of a meter, or roughly a thousand times smaller than a human hair), which makes it pretty sensitive to very small forces. The researchers used both a “loud” source--a tungsten needle glued to a speaker that vibrates at roughly 300 Hz--and a second source made up of bunches of other gold nanoparticles heated by a second laser to vibrate at just 20 Hz.

The nano-ear could hear them both loud and clear. The sound waves nudge the trapped gold nanoparticle in the same direction that the waves are propagating, allowing for precise measurement of the sound itself based on the particle’s motion. Experiments showed the nano-ear could detect vibrations down to about -60 decibels--or six orders of magnitude lower than human hears can. That means the device could be used to identify microorganisms or processes at the microscopic level by their sound signatures, or to help design and tune microelectrical mechanical systems.

Source: Popular Science - via ZeitNews.org

Despite the majority of children enjoying the subject at school and viewing scientists positively, fewer than 17 per cent are interested in pursuing a career in science, according to research from King’s College London, published today. Researchers also found that parents and children still see science careers as predominantly ‘for boys’.

The ASPIRES research team, led by Louise Archer, Professor of Sociology of Education at King’s, is tracking children’s science and career aspirations over five years, from ages 10 to 14. To date they have surveyed over 9000 primary school children and carried out more than 170 interviews of parents and children. After the age of 10 or 11 children’s attitudes towards science often start to decline, suggesting that there is a critical period in which schools and parents can do much to educate the next generation of the options available to them.

Professor Archer said: "Children and their parents hold quite complex views of science and scientists and at age 10 or 11 these views are largely positive. The vast majority of children at this age enjoy science at school, have parents who are supportive of them studying science and even undertake science-related activities in their spare time. They associate scientists with important work, such as finding medical cures, and with work that is well paid.

"Nevertheless, less than 17 per cent aspire to a career in science. These positive impressions seem to lead to the perception that science offers only a very limited range of careers, for example doctor, scientist or science teacher. It appears that this positive stereotype is also problematic in that it can lead people to view science as out of reach for many, only for exceptional or clever people, and ‘not for me’.

Professor Archer says the findings indicate that engaging young people in science is not therefore simply a case of making it more interesting or more fun. She said: "There is a disconnect between interest and aspirations. Our research shows that young people’s ambitions are strongly influenced by their social backgrounds – ethnicity, social class and gender – and by family contexts. More needs to be done to make science a conceivable career option for a broader range of pupils, such as incorporating explicit teaching about science-related career opportunities at Key Stage 3."

The research also showed that parents and children still see science careers as predominantly masculine and ‘for boys’. Interviews revealed most children still only recognise a very small number of ‘famous scientists’ who are overwhelmingly white men, with very few women and ethnic minority scientists identified.

The investigation found further evidence to suggest that families, teachers and schools play a part in creating gender patterns of subject choice.

Professor Archer said: 'For many girls – especially those from working class backgrounds – science careers did not fit with their interest, aptitudes and ideas of what constitutes ‘normal’ or desirable femininity. In our research parents of girls commented that a career in science was not very ‘sexy’, not very ‘glamorous’.

'We have found considerable evidence that children's interest in school science declines from the age of 10 onwards. The continued under-representation of girls and women in science is already well documented. Yet our research indicates that there is little or no gender distinction in attitudes towards science at age 10, suggesting that there is a critical period between the ages of 10 and 14 in which to engage students.'

The report, Ten Science Facts and Fictions: the case for early education about STEM careers, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, outlines ten key messages from the findings and makes recommendations for addressing the issues. A key proposal is to integrate science careers awareness into the curriculum. The report authors call for greater support to teachers and families to increase knowledge and awareness about the diversity of science careers and encourage increasing public understanding of how science qualifications can broaden young people’s post-16 options.

Professor Archer said: "We are not suggesting ‘careers advice’ at Key Stage 3. However, you can never start careers awareness too early. This research shows a pressing need to integrate an awareness of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers into the mainstream school curriculum.

"STEM subjects are vital for the economic and cultural life of the UK. Children in both primary and secondary schools in England tend to conceive of science as leading to an extremely limited range of careers. More children, and families, would benefit from understanding that science and mathematics have a strong exchange value in the education and labor market."

Nicola Hannam, Director, Education & Skills at the Science Council, welcomed the report. She said: "20 per cent of the UK workforce uses science skills to do their jobs and yet children have a very limited knowledge of the career possibilities science offers. We need to shine a light on the scientists hidden in areas such as food production, healthcare and retail. The ASPIRES research work helps us understand how to be more effective in doing that."

Professor Archer concluded: "This failure to engage young people, particularly girls, with pursuing scientific careers points to the need to develop a better understanding of why this is happening and to create a new vision of why careers in science matter, both within schools and in the wider context of society."

Source: King's College London

And the more urgent the issue, the more people want to remain unaware, according to a paper published online in APA’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology®.

“These studies were designed to help understand the so-called ‘ignorance is bliss’ approach to social issues,” said author Steven Shepherd, a graduate student with the University of Waterloo in Ontario. “The findings can assist educators in addressing significant barriers to getting people involved and engaged in social issues.”

Through a series of five studies conducted in 2010 and 2011 with 511 adults in the United States and Canada, the researchers described “a chain reaction from ignorance about a subject to dependence on and trust in the government to deal with the issue.”

In one study, participants who felt most affected by the economic recession avoided information challenging the government’s ability to manage the economy. However, they did not avoid positive information, the study said. This study comprised 197 Americans with a mean age of 35 (111 women and 89 men), who had received complex information about the economy and had answered a question about how the economy is affecting them directly.

To test the links among dependence, trust and avoidance, researchers provided either a complex or simple description of the economy to a group of 58 Canadians, mean age 42, composed of 20 men and 38 women. The participants who received the complex description indicated higher levels of perceived helplessness in getting through the economic downturn, more dependence on and trust in the government to manage the economy, and less desire to learn more about the issue.

“This is despite the fact that, all else equal, one should have less trust in someone to effectively manage something that is more complex,” said co-author Aaron C. Kay, PhD, of Duke University. “Instead, people tend to respond by psychologically ‘outsourcing’ the issue to the government, which in turn causes them to trust and feel more dependent on the government. Ultimately, they avoid learning about the issue because that could shatter their faith in the government.”

Participants who felt unknowledgeable about oil supplies not only avoided negative information about the issue, they became even more reluctant to know more when the issue was urgent, as in an imminent oil shortage in the United States, according the authors. For this study, 163 Americans, with a mean age of 32 (70 men and 93 women), provided their opinion about the complexity of natural resource management and then read a statement declaring the United States has less than 40 years’ worth of oil supplies. Afterward, they answered questions to assess their reluctance to learn more.

“Beyond just downplaying the catastrophic, doomsday aspects to their messages, educators may want to consider explaining issues in ways that make them easily digestible and understandable, with a clear emphasis on local, individual-level causes,” the authors said.

Another two studies found that participants who received complex information about energy sources trusted the government more than those who received simple information. For these studies, researchers questioned 93 (49 men and 44 women) Canadian undergraduate students in two separate groups.

The authors recommended further research to determine how people would react when faced with other important issues such as food safety, national security, health, social inequality, poverty and moral and ethical conflict, as well as under what conditions people tend to respond with increased rather than decreased engagement.

Source: American Psychological Association - via ZeitNews.org