November 22, 2006, 5:03 AM CT

How Many Cubs Does A Black Bear Have?

Litter size ranges from 1 to 4 young, averaging from 1.4 in Arkansas to 3.0 in Pennsylvania. First litters may be small, sometimes a single cub. Two or 3 cubs are typical thereafter. Five-cub litters are uncommon; extraordinary litters of 6 cubs have been reported in Manitoba and Pennsylvania. Average litter sizes in 2 Massachusetts study areas were 2.0 and 3.0. Two 5-cub litters have been reported in Massachusetts, once in the den and another in the field. Field observations are probably valid, as natural adoption of cubs is rare.

The sex ratio at birth is usually 1:1. However, the sex of cubs is related to the mother's weight and to litter size. The number of males is usually higher with heavier mothers, but lower as litter size increases. In one Minnesota study, 82% of single litters were male, while only 52% of 3-cub litters were males. One exceptional Massachusetts sow, 13 yrs old and 175 lbs., produced a litter of 5 male cubs.

During the denning period, sows may produce more than 50 lbs. of milk, metabolized from body fat. This milk is rich in fat and protein and nearly twice as high in kilocalories (per 100 ml) than either human or cow milk. Cubs may weigh up to 9 pounds by den emergence. Massachusetts cubs normally reach 13 to 20 lbs. by early July.

References: Alt 1980, Alt 1984b, Clark 1991, Elowe 1987, Hock and Larson 1966, Kolenosky and Strathearn 1987a, McDonald and Fuller 1998, Noyce and Garshelis 1994, Rowan 1947.........

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November 22, 2006, 4:54 AM CT

FTC Halts Unlawful Spyware Operations

Defendants involved with operations that secretly downloaded spyware that changed settings on consumers' computers, have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that their practices violated federal law. The settlements bar secret software downloads in the future, bar the operators from exploiting security vulnerabilities to download software, and bar misrepresentations. In addition, the operators will give up a total of $50,000 in ill-gotten gains.

In October 2005, the FTC charged that Odysseus Marketing, Inc. and its principal, Walter Rines, lured consumers to their Web sites by advertising bogus free software, including a program called Kazanon that purportedly allowed consumers to engage in anonymous peer-to-peer file sharing. According to the FTC, the bogus software was bundled with spyware and other unwanted software. The agency alleged that the defendants also distributed their spyware by exploiting security vulnerabilities in the Internet Explorer Web browser. The FTC charged that the defendants' spyware intercepted and replaced search results provided to users who queried popular Internet search engines, and barraged consumers with pop-up and other Internet ads. The FTC also charged that the defendants' software captured consumers' personal information such as their first and last names, addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, and Internet browsing and shopping histories, and transmitted that information to the defendants' Internet servers. Consumers were unable to locate or uninstall the defendants' spyware through reasonable means, according to the FTC.........

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November 22, 2006, 4:22 AM CT

New Year Without Putting On Pounds

Your leftover Halloween candy is almost gone from your cupboards, and the holiday season with all its sweet temptations has begun.

However, all those holiday parties and office gatherings laden with scrumptious food and drink don't have to mean the end of your weight loss plan. It's still possible to enjoy the bounty and not feel deprived of your favorite holiday dishes, says Connie Diekman, director of University Nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis.

"The first rule of thumb for eating at holiday gatherings," Diekman says, "is never go to the party hungry. Have a little something healthy before you go - a piece of fruit, half a sandwich or a glass of milk. Be sure when you arrive you aren't overly hungry".

Then when you arrive at the party, Diekman suggests doing a survey of the situation and figure out how you want to approach the buffet table, if there is one.

"Plan on getting your food off the buffet table and then moving away from the table to eat," she says. "Use a plate, and don't stand at the table and pick at the food. Seeing what is on the plate begins the process of realizing how much food is enough for you".

When you do fill your plate, keep in mind that two thirds of the food on it should come from whole grains, fruits and vegetables, Diekman points out. The remaining third can be meats, sauces, and high-fat and high-calorie foods. "Try to concentrate on loading up on those things that are going to fill you up as opposed to the high-calorie, empty foods".........

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November 21, 2006, 8:33 PM CT

The Smell Of Money

It's not hard to recall the pungent scent of a handful of pocket change. Similar smells emanate from a sweat-covered dumbbell or the water emerging from an old metal pipe. Yet no one has been able to identify the exact chemical cause of these familiar odors.

Now, scientists supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) MUSES award and the UFZ Environmental Research Center in Gera number of have shown that these odor molecules come not from the penny or the pipes, but from metal-free chemicals erupting into the air when organic substances like sweat interact with the metallic objects.

The researchers--Andrea Dietrich, Dietmar Glindemann, Hans-Joachim Staerk and Peter Kuschk, all from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg--published their findings in the Oct. 20, 2006, Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

"We are the first to demonstrate that when humans describe the 'metallic' odor of iron metal, there are no iron atoms in the odors," said Dietrich. "The odors humans perceive as metallic are really a body odor produced by metals reacting with skin".

Because the makeup of byproduct molecules depends on which organic substances are reacting, the scientists believe the findings could help identify problem odors in potable water or aid doctors searching for disease markers in sweat or other body fluids.........

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November 21, 2006, 5:17 AM CT

Does student achievement spur national economic growth?

Educational policy discourse supports the idea that increases in science and mathematics achievement correlate to nation-wide economic gains. However, a thought-provoking new study from the American Journal of Education challenges the perceived causal links between educational achievement and economic growth. Francisco O. Ramirez (Stanford University) and his co-authors find that without the so-called "Asian Tigers," the correlation diminishes and all but disappears.

"This is a striking finding that calls into question the disproportionate attention (and envy) focused on those few countries with the very highest achievement scores," write the authors. "It is clear that education and its reforms are everywhere seen in light of their supposed economic effects. It is also clear that the areas of education given the most attention as relevant to economic goals have been science and mathematics, the new keys to economic growth".

Comparing national GDP data with international standardized test scores over two twenty-year periods (1970-1990 and 1980-2000), the scientists observed that countries with high science and math scores do tend to grow somewhat more rapidly than other countries - but not when Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan are removed from the analysis, or in an analysis of the last two decades. Additionally, "Moving from the 'middle of the pack' to the top provides less of an economic boost," the authors write.........

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November 20, 2006, 5:12 AM CT

Monarch Butterfly Migration And Forest Restoration

USDA Forest Service (FS) research in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas suggests that decades of fire suppression have reduced the area's food supply for migrating monarch butterflies-and that restoration efforts that include prescribed burning can reverse this trend. Craig Rudolph and Ron Thill, research ecologists with the FS Southern Research Station (SRS), along with SRS ecologists Charles Ely, Richard Schaefer and J. Howard Williamson, report their findings in the latest issue of the Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society.

Every fall, masses of monarch butterflies migrate across eastern North America to remote sites in central Mexico-a long flight fuelled only by nectar from flowers still blooming on the way. In recent years, there have been concerns about the continued health of monarch populations, and of the migration itself, as land use change has altered both breeding habitat and migratory pathways.

Studies have focused on food availability for larvae, pesticides, and loss of overwintering sites in Mexico as possible threats. Less attention has been paid to how landscape-level changes affect the availability of the butterfly's preferred nectar sources along their migratory routes. In September and October, large numbers of monarchs pass through the Ouachita Mountains, a largely forested area in Arkansas and Oklahoma where fire suppression, logging, and pine production practices have altered forest structure, leading to a drastic reduction in the quality and abundance of the flowering plants the butterflies rely on for nectar.........

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November 20, 2006, 5:06 AM CT

Adolescent Girls More Active if Neighborhoods Have Parks

Adolescent girls who live within half a mile of a public park are significantly more physically active than other girls, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists have found.

The study observed that physical activity was higher for girls who lived within a mile of parks and showed highest levels among girls who lived less than one-half mile from a park, said Dr. Diane Catellier, a study investigator and research associate professor of biostatistics in the UNC School of Public Health. The scientists observed that girls only got about 114 minutes a week of intense physical activity outside of school hours, or about 16 minutes a day.

Dr. Deborah Cohen, a senior natural scientist at RAND Corporation and lead author of the study, said the U.S. surgeon general recommends that all children and adolescents get at least 60 minutes of exercise a day. "We still have a long way to go in encouraging girls to be active".

The results appear in the November 2006 issue of Pediatrics. The study was led by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization. Scientists from UNC-Chapel Hill, the University of Arizona, the University of South Carolina and San Diego State University participated. Funding was provided by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.........

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November 20, 2006, 5:02 AM CT

Confusion About Calories Is Nothing New

While enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family, most try to avoid thinking about the seemingly unending number of Calories they're consuming.

It probably never crosses their minds, however, to think about why food is measured in Calories.

James L. Hargrove, associate professor of foods and nutrition in the University of Georgia's College of Family and Consumer Sciences, said a number of nutritionists aren't even sure of the true origin of the Calorie (or why it's supposed to be capitalized).

"We all teach this unit, and nobody knows where it came from, not even the historians of nutrition," he said.

After this realization, Hargrove began studying the origins of the Calorie. He details his findings in a study would be reported in the recent issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

Formally, a Calorie is a measure of the amount of energy mandatory to heat one kilogram of water one degree Celsius. It was first used in engineering and physics, but eventually found its niche in nutrition, where it is used to measure the amount of energy food contains.

Hargrove observed that there's some controversy about who "invented" the Calorie. Some references show that two Frenchmen, P.A. Favre and J.T. Silbermann, invented the Calorie in 1852. Other texts state that a German physician, Julius Mayer, effectively invented the Calorie in a study he published in 1848.........

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November 19, 2006, 9:18 PM CT

Shocking Games

The English have an entire line of "Shocking" games (not even going to try and psychoanalyze that). First up, there's the popular "Shocking Liar" based on -- from what I can tell -- lie detector science. Warm up questions are used to regulate your readings. Ready? ZAP! It says you lied. The game measures the 'lie levels," using a sequence of five LEDs going from red to green. Seems you weren't close enough to the truth.

Then there's the "Shocking Arm Wrestling". Let me tell you from experience that the first couple of times it's funny, but no adult is going to want to be shocked three times.

For the masochistic, there's always the classic. Place your finger in one of the four chambers, push the button and await your fate.........

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November 16, 2006, 9:27 PM CT

Edible Food Wrap Kills Deadly E. Coli

Scientists have improved upon an edible coating for fresh fruits and vegetables by enabling it to kill deadly E. coli bacteria while also providing a flavor-boost to food. Composed of apple puree and oregano oil, which acts as a natural antibacterial agent, the coating shows promise in laboratory studies of becoming a long-lasting, potent alternative to conventional produce washes, as per a team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the University of Lleida in Spain.

The study comes on the heels of the recent deadly E. coli outbreak in spinach and amid growing concern by experts that some produce-cleaning techniques may not be effective in destroying E. coli. The study is scheduled for the Nov. 29 issue of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

"All produce-cleaning methods help to some degree, but our new coatings and films may provide a more concentrated, longer-lasting method for killing bacteria," says Research Leader Tara H. McHugh, Ph.D., a food chemist with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service in Albany, Calif. As the films are made of fruit or vegetable puree, they also provide added health benefits such as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, she says.

Scientists have known about the antimicrobial activity of plant-derived essential oils for some time, but McHugh says that her group is the first to incorporate them into a fruit- or vegetable-based edible food wrap for the purpose of improving food safety. Three years ago, she and her associates developed a similar edible food wrap, but without the antimicrobial properties.........

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