Smartphone apps and pregnancy
You might not want to depend on your smartphone app alone to help you avoid or achieve pregnancy, say the authors of a new study, after reviewing nearly 100 fertility apps. The findings, published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine , found that many apps do not employ evidence-based methodology. Success using fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs) depends on many factors, including the ability to accurately make and classify daily observations. But the authors say relying solely on an FABM app may not be sufficient to avoid pregnancy. For the review, more than 95 apps were identified on iTunes, Google, or Google Play. Of these, 55 were excluded from evaluation because they either had a disclaimer prohibiting use for avoiding pregnancy or did not claim to employ an evidence-based FABM.
The future of safe drug delivery
Engineers have made a breakthrough in developing silk ‘micro-rockets’ that can be used safely in biological environments. By using an innovative 3D inkjet printing method, researchers from Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield, U.K., have developed devices that have the potential to be used in the human body in applications such as drug delivery and locating cancer cells. The rockets are just 300 microns in length and 100 microns in diameter, the thickness of a single human hair, and create their own thrust, allowing them to ‘swim’ through any bio fluid containing the fuel. This new technique allows researchers to use safer, non-toxic materials, meaning the micro-rockets will not cause harm or injure any living tissue or biological environment. This is a significant development as previous devices have been expensive, to produce, are complicated to manufacture, or less friendly to the biological environment they are placed in.
New light on ‘hobbit’ demise
Crucial new evidence reveals modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) were likely using fire at Liang Bua 41,000 years ago, narrowing the time gap between the last hobbits ( Homo floresiensis ) and the first modern humans at this site on the Indonesian island of Flores. Homo floresiensis was affectionately dubbed ‘the hobbit’ for her tiny one-metre stature. The research, led by the University of Wollongong Australia (UOW) and Indonesia’s National Research Centre for Archaeology — and published in the Journal of Archaeological Science on June 30 — is among the earliest evidence of modern humans in Southeast Asia. The findings reveal something rather unexpected: physical evidence of fire places that were used between 41,000 and 24,000 years ago, most likely by modern humans for warmth and/or cooking. “We now know that the hobbits only survived until around 50,000 years ago at Liang Bua. We also know that modern humans arrived in Southeast Asia and Australia at least 50,000 years ago, and most likely quite a bit earlier. This new evidence, which is some of the earliest evidence of modern human activity in Southeast Asia, narrows the gap between the two hominin species at the site,” says lead author Dr. Mike Morley, a research fellow and geoarchaeologist at UOW.
Demystifying Science
What is a cloudburst?
A cloudburst — usually accompanied by thunderclouds — is a sudden, aggressive and copious downpour within a small radius of area. While it lasts for a short period of time it is capable of flooding the entire area and causing massive damage. The phenomenon occurs when vertically formed clouds move higher. As the clouds move up, due to a rapid decrease in the temperature, or an excess of electrostatic induction, or lightning, it results in thunderclouds that remain trapped inside the cloud. The water molecules get denser and condensed but do not leave the cloud due to an excess of electroforces. The clouds, now concentrated with water, move higher and get heavier, which results in heavy precipitation. A rainfall rate equal to or greater than 100 mm per hour is a cloudburst. However, different definitions are used.
Cloudbursts can occur not only in the monsoon seasons but also during March to May which is known for severe convective weather activities. Unlike cyclones, forecasting a cloudburst is quite difficult due to the very dynamics of rapid developing cloud cover.
