Last year more people died than usual. In this new report, it is shown that life expectancy has declined due to rising fatalities.

In the last 2 decades, the life expectancy for the US citizens has been rising slowly. This was not the case in 2015 when scientists observed a decline in life expectancy. This hasn’t happened for more than 20 years. The last time when the life expectancy declined for Americans was in 1993.

This is happening due to the fact that more and more diseases appear and people are getting more sensitive. Viruses like Zika and Ebola are killing a lot of people. There are also other conditions that affect people and declined life expectancy.

Last year, more people died than usual. In this new report, it is shown that life expectancy has declined due to rising fatalities. These were caused by stroke, heart diseases, drug overdose, and diabetes. These conditions are common in the US and a lot of people are affected by them.

The death rate has considerably risen in the last year. This is not a good sign for US citizens. Doctors warn people to take better care of themselves, to eat healthily and to take their treatments. They are giving these pieces of advice in order to increase the life expectancy, at least to get it to the usual level.

Last year a study found a new cause of death for middle-aged US citizens. Researchers called it “diseases of despair” and it includes alcoholism, suicide, and overdose. Researchers also mentioned that it is concerning because more and more people are suffering from these diseases of despair.

Despite the fact that medicine has evolved a lot over the years, it is not enough to save everybody. More diseases are being discovered and people are being stressed and depressed.  Some people believe that depression can’t be a cause of death but anxiety and depression can lead to suicide which is one of the top leading causes of death in the US.

The death rate in 2015 increased by 1.2% and it is the first time this has happened since 1999. Last year more than 2.5 million people died and almost 50% of them died from cancer or heart diseases. In order to decrease the death rate people need to eat healthier, to exercise, and to take better care of themselves.

Image source: Wikipedia

Water confined in nanotubes turns solid at boiling temperature.

One of the very few scientific things we learn about the world around us as children is that when the starts to boil it evaporates and becomes a gas. However, a new discovery can change this fact by using nanotubes which can turn boiling water into ice.

A team of researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a paper in the journal Nature Nanotechnology revealing their new discovery which apparently changes even some of the most basic certainties we had about water.

Scientists previously discovered that when a small quantity of water remains confined in small space, the freezing and boiling points can change by 10 degrees Celsius. However, researchers took this experiment one step above and trapped water in carbon nanotubes which can only contain a few molecules of water. During this experiments, they discovered much to their surprise that the initial phenomenon was drastically altered. When the trapped water reached the normal boiling point, instead of evaporating it turned solid into ice.

According to Michael Strano, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT as well as the lead author of the study, the fact that confining a fluid to a nanocavity can actually distort its phase behavior to such a degree was more surprising than anyone anticipated.

The nanotubes served as an extremely small pipe which was left open at both ends and had water at each opening. They observed the behavior of water using vibrational spectroscopy and discovered that even just a small different in the diameter of each carbon nanotube could lead to different freezing and boiling points for the confined water.

Although the water becomes solid, researchers did not observe the crystalline structure specific to ice and thus are resisting the idea of calling the current state of water in nanotubes as ice. However, the solid but non-ice water still maintains the unique thermal and electrical properties of ice. Another benefit is that the structure inside the nanotubes remains stable even at the room temperature, at which ice would begin to melt.

This discovery, besides being somewhat mind-bending, also can have several applications such as developing ice-filled wires which would prove to be much cheaper and less resource-demanding that the current materials we use.

What do you think about this new discovery?

Image source: Wikimedia

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet shows signs of collapse.

Although the Antarctic Ice Sheet was previously thought not to be as affected by climate change as the Artic, scientists have now revealed that a glacier which bounds the West Antarctic Ice Sheet shows signs of collapse from inside out.

One of the largest bodies of ice in the Antarctica, the Pine Island Glacier is showing the first signs of wear caused by the increase in global temperatures.  Back in 2015, a large part of the iceberg measuring 225 square miles, broke off from the glacier and started to drift away.

Now, while testing a new imaging software, researchers found that the large break off started around 20 miles inland instead at happening on the edge of the glacier, where normally the structure is the weakest. Scientists believe that this is evidence of deep rift beneath the surface caused by the warming of the ocean. Additionally, the speculate that it only lead to more often and greater breaks in the next years.

The leader of the research team and the main author of the study published this Monday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Ian Howat, has emphasized the unusual fact that the rift happened in the center of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and then propagated towards the edges. He speculates that the main cause of this phenomenon is the fact that a crevasse has been melted at the bedrock level of the glacier because of increased temperature of the ocean.

This study seems to strengthen the findings of other similar studies which suggested that the West Antarctica Ice Sheet could collapse in the next century. As Antarctica contains more than 50 percent of the world’s fresh water in the form of ice, its melting would mean a potential rise in sea level of up to 10 feet. Such a drastic increase from Antarctica alone could prove devastating for many coastal cities in the US and around the world.

Scientists have clearly stated that the melting of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet is now inevitable, the only question remains is when it will happen. Studying the early signs of the rift could help us better understand when a catastrophic breakdown of the ice sheet is likely to happen. Unfortunately, we would not be able to stop it in any way.

Image credit: NASA

SpaceX has been awarded a new NASA contract.

After the mysterious explosion of its Falcon 9 rocket on the launch which also managed to damage a Facebook communications satellite, SpaceX was in a crisis. Many of its customers have expressed concerns about the company, while its competitors sought to exploit SpaceX’s misfortune to their advantage. However, it seems that Elon Musk’s company is still in the game as it has recently managed to win a new NASA contract.

The contract involves the launch of a NASA satellite meant to survey the planet’s surface water as well as taking high-resolution measurements of the oceans. The launch is scheduled for April 2012 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The satellite will be deployed into orbit using the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The overall cost of the NASA’s latest endeavor known as the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission will be around $112 million. This includes the spacecraft processing, the launch service as well as various other types of support besides the services offered by SpaceX.

At this point, there are no details regarding the specific amount SpaceX was awarded for the contract. NASA went on record on to state that this is competition and procurement sensitive information, and as such could not be publicly disclosed.

This newest mission is the latest contract awarded to SpaceX by NASA after in 2014 it awarded a $3.1 billion contract with the purpose of developing a crew capsule which will be used to transport astronauts back and forth between Earth and the International Space Station.

Since the company’s accident back in September, SpaceX was affected by a decrease in their customers’ confidence. The newly awarded NASA contract is sure to restore some faith in the company’s capacity to pull through the situation and address the problems it faced. SpaceX’s President, Gwynne Shotwell, expressed that the company is excited to deliver the critical science payload into orbit while also appreciating the ongoing partnership with NASA and the confidence they have put in SpaceX as a launch provider.

Although lose a few of its customers after the accident, mainly due to the urgency of various projects which the company could not deliver on, Elon Musk stated that they could resume launches as soon as December.

Image source: Wikimedia

The astronaut crew of the Shenzhou 11 mission has successfully returned to Earth.

After a month-long mission aboard what will soon become China’s own space station, the Shenzhou 11 astronauts have returned to Earth. The reentry module successfully landed in Mongolia, on November 18. This was China’s longest manned mission to date.

The mission involved the Shenzhou 11 commander Jing Haipeng and the flight engineer Chen Dong. They are able to return home without any problems after living in the orbit of the Earth aboard China’s Tiangong 2 orbital laboratory. The mission initially started on October 17^th, with the crew being launched aboard the Long March 2F rocket.

The mission was of major importance to China. First, with its successful completion the country has demonstrated that it has required capabilities to support the extensive stays of its astronauts in space. Second, the mission was another step forward for China and its attempts to eventually build its own permanent space hub for astronauts.

The Shenzhou 11 together with Tiangong 2 consisted of testing key technologies required by China’s future endeavors like sending a larger space station module into orbit which will be built in the coming years until 2022.

In regards to the specifics of the Shenzhou 11 mission, the astronauts were required to live in the “experiment cabin” of the space laboratory for 30 days, where they conducted experiments and other types of research. Their daily schedule involved working eight hours every day for six days a week, testing various spacecraft operations as well as performing studies on the human physiology as well as plant growth.

Before they departed for Earth, the astronauts deployed a small satellite into orbit, the BanXing 2 developed by China’s Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology. The satellite will take high-resolution pictures of the Tiangong 2 laboratory. Also, the astronauts took part in a video conference with media outlets and with China’s president, Xi Jinping.

China is already planning to start the selection of the next generation of their astronauts in 2017. They will select candidates mostly from their space engineers, air force pilots as well as other from technical staff in related fields. However, the country’s next mission involves sending the Tianzhou unmanned cargo ship to the lab in orbit in April 2007. The mission is meant to test the autonomous transfer of fuel between the spacecraft.

Photo Credit: Ren Junchuan / Xinhua

Scientists have improved the photosynthesis of plants for higher yields.

Making sure that all people have something to eat at the end of the day seems like a daunting task right now. However, it may soon become an impossible one given the current growth of Earth’s population. Scientists think that they may increase the yields of crops by improving the photosynthesis process.

Another agricultural revolution may be close than we thought. After scientists were able to enhance plants to produce higher yields and resist harsher conditions and various pests, now they are trying to surpass their previous success by boosting the photosynthesis process, through which plants produce energy.

Researchers published a study in the journal Science, in which they detail how they can increase the productivity of plants by increasing the levels of three proteins essential to photosynthesis. In their experiments, scientists saw an increased yield of 14 to 20 percent in genetically modified tobacco plants compared to those unmodified.

Researchers were able to identify the key proteins of photosynthesis after years of computational analysis as well as laboratory and field experiments. Their findings were based on tobacco because it can be easily modified. As of yet, scientists are not capable of determining with absolute certainty how increasing the levels of proteins in other plants will affect their yields. However, they are very confident that it will increase the yields in plants as the process they are improving is the same in all plant life.

As such, scientists are hard at work at replicating their findings in other food crops. It remains to be seen, how the enhanced photosynthesis will affect plants from which we use the seeds or fruits rather than its leaves, in the case of the tobacco plant.

The study was conducted as part of a program known as Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology located in Illinois. The research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The research grant was awarded with the stipulation that all the improvements of agricultural products will be licensed in a way so that the technology is freely available to farmers, especially those in less developed countries.

What do you think about improving the photosynthesis process of plants? Would you have any issues with this type of plants?

Image source: Pixabay

Scientists have discovered the roundest object ever seen.

The idea that planets or stars like the Earth and the Sun are perfectly round is a common misconception. They tend to appear round from most perspectives, however, a close analysis revealed that the Earth is flatter at the poles than at the equator. Now, scientists claim to have identified the roundest object ever discovered in space.

The roundness of a cosmic object is not the first thing scientists look at when a new one is discovered. Nonetheless, they claim that a star, located 5,000 light-years away from Earth, is the closest thing to a perfect sphere they have ever seen. Most objects are bulged at the equator because of the centrifugal force and the fast they spin around their own axis the bigger the bulge.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research discovered the star known as Kepler 11145123. They studied the star’s natural oscillations using NASA’s Kepler Space telescope over an extensive period of 51 months, from 2009 to 2013.

Laurent Gizon, working for both the Planck Institute and the University of Gottingen in Germany, together with his team of researchers, managed to use the data provided by telescope through their relentless observations, to calculate the size of the star. They used a technique known as asteroseismology which allows astronomers to probe the inside layers of stars similar to how geologists use quakes to study the planet’s insides.

After an extensive study, they determined that the difference between the equatorial and polar diameter of the star is only 3.7 miles. This is very surprising result considering that the star is twice as wide as our sun, having a diameter of 1.86 million miles. The star compensates its size by rotating three times more slowly than the sun. Additionally , the magnetic environment of the star is also what contributes to its status as the roundest object ever discovered in the universe.

Scientists aren’t certain that the star will be able to keep its shape forever. They plan to continue studying even more cosmic objects using the same technique. In order to learn more about how the rotation and magnetic fields of a planet or star affects its shape.

Image credit: Laurent Gizon et al. and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany. Illustration by Mark A. Garlick.

Glacier National Park has ceased boating because of a mussel invasion.

If you have planned a boating excursion in the Glacier National Park in the upcoming days, then you should cancel it. Representatives of the park have issued a statement regarding the prohibition of all boating for a temporary period. The decision was made in order to prevent further spreading of mussels and to determine the exact source of the invasion.

This is the first time that the Montana waters of the Glacier National Park were required to deal with a mussel invasion. Fortunately, they were quick to detect the mussel invasion and have already taken action to prevent its spreading while investigating the source. Lauren Alley, one of the representatives of the Park, pointed out that the dangers of mussel invasions. If they manage to infest all the waters of the Park, then they will take the necessary steps to prevent it from spreading to other regions of the country.

One measure to stop their prevention is to temporarily prohibit boating on the lake. The mussels and their larvae can stick to the boat, and if they’re not properly washed away after leaving, they will most surely spread to wherever the boat will be used next.

Fortunately for the Glacier National Park, the infestation was contained only to the Tiber Reservoirs. Nonetheless, all the waters of the park must be investigated if there is even a slight chance of them being infested. The Park representatives have stated their willingness to work will other organizations to quickly address this problem.

One new way to tackle the problem and to quickly find mussel sources is to employ the service of specially trained dogs. The animals can detect them even when they are as small as a seed. Park representatives are hoping that with the help of dogs they can find the mussels more quickly and solve this ecological crisis.

If you’re not familiar with mussels, then know that they are an invasive species in inland lakes. They tend to disrupt the food chain of the lake as they feed on microscopic organism, affect populations of fish in the process. Another major impact of mussels is that they may increase human and wildlife exposure to organic pollutants, which they accumulate in their tissues and release them in their pseudofeces in the lakes.

Image source: Wikimedia