Scientists explain chocolate cravings

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071012/ap_on_he_me/diet_chocolate_craving

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Fri Oct 12, 4:34 AM ET

 

WASHINGTON – If that craving for chocolate sometimes feels like it is coming from deep in your gut, that’s because maybe it is.

A small study links the type of bacteria living in people’s digestive system to a desire for chocolate. Everyone has a vast community of microbes in their guts. But people who crave daily chocolate show signs of having different colonies of bacteria than people who are immune to chocolate’s allure.

That may be the case for other foods, too. The idea could eventually lead to treating some types of obesity by changing the composition of the trillions of bacteria occupying the intestines and stomach, said Sunil Kochhar, co-author of the study. It appears Friday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Proteome Research.

Kochhar is in charge of metabolism research at the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. The food conglomerate Nestle SA paid for the study. But this isn’t part of an effort to convert a few to the dark side (or even milk) side of cocoa, Kocchar said.

In fact, the study was delayed because it took a year for the researchers to find 11 men who don’t eat chocolate.

Kochhar compared the blood and urine of those 11 men, who he jokingly called “weird” for their indifference to chocolate, to 11 similar men who ate chocolate daily. They were all healthy, not obese, and were fed the same food for five days.

The researchers examined the byproducts of metabolism in their blood and urine and found that a dozen substances were significantly different between the two groups. For example, the amino acid glycine was higher in chocolate lovers, while taurine (an active ingredient in energy drinks) was higher in people who didn’t eat chocolate. Also chocolate lovers had lower levels of the bad cholesterol, LDL.

The levels of several of the specific substances that were different in the two groups are known to be linked to different types of bacteria, Kochhar said.

Still to be determined is if the bacteria cause the craving, or if early in life people’s diets changed the bacteria, which then reinforced food choices.

How gut bacteria affect people is a hot field of scientific research.

Past studies have shown that intestinal bacteria change when people lose weight, said Dr. Sam Klein, an obesity expert and professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.

Since bacteria interact with what you eat, it is logical to think that there is a connection between those microbes and desires for certain foods, said Klein, who wasn’t part of Kochhar’s study.

Kochhar’s research makes so much sense that people should have thought of it earlier, said J. Bruce German, professor of food chemistry at the University of California Davis. While five outside scientists thought the study was intriguing, Dr. Richard Bergman at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, had concerns about the accuracy of the initial division of the men into groups that wanted chocolate or were indifferent to it.

What matters to Kochhar is where the research could lead.

Kochhar said the relationship between food, people and what grows in their gut is important for the future: “If we understand the relationship, then we can find ways to nudge it in the right direction.”

Scientists reveal secrets of Levitation

Yahoo news has this interesting article on http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/britainsciencelevitation

Here’s the bottomline:

 ”At the moment, in practice it is only going to be possible for micro-objects with the current technology, since this quantum force is small and acts only at short ranges.”

“For now, human levitation remains the subject of cartoons, fairytales and tales of the paranormal.”

Their research was to be published in the New Journal of Physics.

The Lights Out Datacenter, Myth or Reality

There’s a great article on lights out Datacenter on GridApp System’s site: http://www.gridapp.com/ga_july07_nl/ga_nl_LTR2.htm

The Lights Out Datacenter, Myth or Reality?
by Rob Gardos, CEO

Welcome to the Lights Out Datacenter, where all your administration dreams come true.  The intelligence baked into your hardware and software has now obviated the need for any human involvement.  And we know those humans are trouble!  Between the feedings, burpings, and diaper changes it’s a wonder they can get anything done.  Thankfully, my big automation vendor [insert many familiar names here] has assured me that their product does everything: deployment, instantaneous recovery, automated tuning, predictive capacity allocation, making you breakfast, tucking you in at night, etc.  I love the guarantees from sales and marketing folk!

But beyond this fantasy what actual value can we derive from the hype? While we’re a long way from a Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic computer taking over all control of our systems, there have been a variety of exciting products released that bring us one step closer to the Lights Out Datacenter.  While I do not plan on endorsing any specific product, here are some words of advice when looking at automation offerings.

Avoid at all costs the solution that has evolved from the giant monitoring application.

Monitoring thousands of different devices is hard.  Companies have spent years building comprehensive monitoring solutions that are extremely complex and — for the most part — functional.  These companies have decided that monitoring is synonymous with workflow automation.  While the marketing literature may agree with this, the product surely does not.  If you have some giant monitoring solution from some giant company and believe it can handle this, think again.  If your objective is to waste some time and not spend additional money on software, then I’m sure you will succeed.  If it is to move your organization closer to self-management and efficiency you will fail.

Avoid the solution from the underlying application vendor you are looking to automate.

Duh!  If you think that this vendor is going to be objective and handle your inevitably heterogeneous infrastructure… you must be smoking something.  And of course this vendor probably makes a lot more money on the underlying application than the automation software.  Where do you think their resources will go?

Avoid the single-solution approach.

We all prefer a one-throat-to-choke situation, but the reality is that technology is specialized.  One solution will simply not work. Your best bet is to find a small number of vendors that can work together to get you what you want.  Be wary of the salesperson that says we can do that (especially if they’re getting commission on the PO, not on the payment.)

So if you’re walking around your Lights Out Datacenter, I recommend bringing a flashlight for the trip.  If you succumb to any of the pitfalls above you better bring a caseload of batteries because you’ll be walking in the dark for decades.

Water “not necessarily” basis for life

I found this on google sci/tech news: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22033976-401,00.html

EXTRATERRESTRIAL life may well be so weird we would not immediately recognise it, space experts said yesterday.

Scientists looking for alien life should be seeking the unfamiliar as well as the familiar, they said.

NASA’s current approach to “follow the water” is logical assuming alien life is comparable to that on Earth – based on water, carbon and DNA – but the “life as we know it” approach could easily miss something exotic, the US National Academy of Sciences panel advised.

“The purpose of this whole report was to be able to look for life on other planets and moons with an open mind … and not maybe miss some other life form because we are looking for some obvious life form,” said John Baross, professor of oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle, who chaired the committee.

The US space agency commissioned the report from the National Research Council.

The panel of biochemists, planetary scientists, geneticists and other experts considered all possible ways life can arise and exist.

Recent discoveries of extremophiles – organisms living in conditions of heat, cold and dark and using chemicals once thought incompatible with life – have changed ideas of where life can survive.

Prof Baross said lab experiments also showed water did not necessarily have to be the basis for life.

It might be possible for a living organism to use methane, ethane, ammonia or even more bizarre chemicals.

“We had some discussion about how weird to make this because there are so many concepts out here.

“There are so many theories about what life is and what could be a living system.”

NASA and other groups are looking hard for extraterrestrial life.

Telescopes search for spectral signatures from other planets that might suggest water is on the surface.

Robots on Mars are seeking evidence of water, past or present.

“We wanted to actually think outside of that box a little bit and at least try to articulate some of the other possibilities besides water-carbon life.”

They suggested NASA should return to some of the more promising places in our own solar system to look for evidence of life, such as Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus, and even steamy Venus.

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