Science news

[sunnydale47]

A few tidbits from Science Daily.

Since we were just on the subject of how much better for babies breastfeeding is:

• "Babies fed exclusively with breast milk are less likely to be overweight children than babies fed only with formula, a study of U.S. babies showed."
• "Breastfed babies have lower blood pressure as children compared to their bottle-fed counterparts, possibly setting the stage for lower blood pressure in adulthood and a reduced risk of coronary death."

For geocachers or anyone who relies on GPS:

• "U.S. scientists say strong solar flares cause Global Positioning System receivers to fail ...  large solar flares expected in the next five years or so could produce massive outages of all GPS receivers on the day side of the Earth." (Of course the vital impact is on critical applications like aircraft guidance systems, but if you're having trouble finding that cache some day, don't worry, your GPS unit probably isn't broken.)

Make sure you brush and floss every day -- and get enough calcium!

• "Researchers found an increased risk of coronary heart disease for people below the age of 60 who have [loss of] the bone that holds the teeth in the mouth [due to] periodontal disease .... It was found that participants with coronary heart disease had an increase of periodontal disease indicators, including alveolar bone loss, clinical attachment loss and bleeding."
• "Adults who consume at least three servings of calcium each day ... have significantly lower rates of periodontal disease, a leading cause of tooth loss. Researchers ... found that men and women who had calcium intakes of fewer than 500 milligrams, or about half the [RDA], were almost twice as likely to have periodontal disease, as measured by the loss of attachment of the gums from the teeth. The association was particularly evident for people in their 20s and 30s."

For weather geeks:

• "U.S. scientists are proposing a new hurricane classification scale that measures what the big storms do when they hit land. ... [T]he proposed post-landfall Hurricane Classification System, or HCS ... categorizes hurricanes using six variables: open water storm surge, rainfall, duration of hurricane force winds, maximum sustained winds, gust score, and minimum central pressure."