use Perl

I'm ignoring the headlines quoted everywhere.

54 per cent of air passengers experience significant reduction in oxygen levels

«More than half of air travellers find that their oxygen saturation drops to a level at which many hospital patients would be prescribed extra oxygen, according to a paper in the May issue of Anaesthesia.»

«... so much [so] that they are at risk of deep vein thrombosis[.] The proportion of oxygen in the air breathed in on board an aircraft in flight falls from 21 per cent to as little as 15 per cent. As well as contributing to a dangerous thickening of the blood that can cause DVT, a drop in blood oxygen can impair mental performance, give passengers headaches and make them tired. People with heart disease are more likely to suffer angina and those with unhealthy lungs have a greater risk of becoming ill.»

«"The blood becomes thicker due to ankle swelling and people are often dehydrated because they don't drink enough and because of the dry air. ... We should be giving people with ill health more advice about things they can do, such as drinking more water when they fly, to avoid problems."»

- Something to worray about after you clear the TSA inspection.
- Anaesthesia abstract, ASA Conference paper abstract via Telegraph and EurekAlert

DNA solves mystery of Gibraltar's macaques

« In 1942, after Gibraltar's famous macaques dwindled to almost nothing, Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered their numbers to be replenished due to a traditional belief that Britain would lose Gibraltar if the macaques died out. The clandestine move was taken to bolster Britain's morale during WWII. Ever since, scientists have wondered where the macaques came from. Now, an analysis of mitochondrial DNA from 280 individuals reveals they came from Morocco and Algeria.»

- Nice to discuss a Churchill success amid all the Anzac day remembrances out at Gallipoli.
- to appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, via EurekAlert

Solar wind originates in coronal funnels

«The ESA/NASA SOHO spacecraft determines the origin of the fast solar wind in the magnetized atmosphere of the Sun. »
- Interesting. Looks like trumpets. I guess if it's going to blow it would have to come from trumpets, wouldn't it?
- Science, via EurekAlert

Living metals

«Using Synchrotron x-ray microbeams, a research team from the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart and the ESRF has been able to observe for the first time that the microscopic structure of a crystalline material fluctuates in time. The results are published today in Science Express with the title: Scaling in the Time Domain: Universal Dynamics of Order Fluctuations in Fe3Al. »
- What have they really measured here?
- Science, via EurekAlert

The blob, the very rare massive star and the two populations

«The nebula N214, is a large region of gas and dust located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, where massive stars are forming. Its main component, N214C is of special interest since it hosts a very rare massive star. Using ESO's NTT, astronomers from France and the USA studied in great depth this unusual region by taking the highest resolution images so far. They discovered an unusual blob and the existence of two distinct stellar populations. »
- Astronomy & Astrophysics via EurekAlert

Detection of Cosmic Magnification with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

«Galaxies are so massive that they not only can bend light from more distant objects, distorting their shapes, but can actually magnify their light, making objects appear just a bit brighter. This ability to make objects brighter, called cosmic magnification, is predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, but confirming it has eluded scientists. Now, astronomers at the University of Pittsburgh think they've finally pulled off that feat.»
- How much re-calibration will this require?
- arXiv paper, via Pitt.Post-Gaz or NYT