It’s becoming tiresome hearing government ministers justify their cuts to renewable energy subsidies on the basis that industries must “stand on their own two feet” (Energy minister ‘open-minded’ about UK solar subsidy cuts, 20 October). Energy minister Andrea Leadsom’s assertion that “I don’t think anyone here would advocate an industry that only survives because of a subsidy paid by the billpayer” may sound vaguely reasonable if a) we didn’t have the tricky little problem of climate change to contend with, and b) other energy industries weren’t also subsidised. Your article rightly highlights the enormous subsidies for nuclear, but doesn’t mention those also being given to the fossil fuel industry.

According to the IMF, the UK will spend approximately £26bn on fossil fuel subsidies this year, factoring in new World Health Organisation estimates on harm to health from pollution exposure. By comparison, Department of Energy and Climate Change figures show the cost of supporting renewables in 2014-15 was £3.5bn, expected to rise to £4.3bn in 2015-16. Put another way, every UK citizen pays £412 in fossil fuel subsidies, and just £55 for renewables. How are we ever to wean ourselves off fossil fuels when government policy is so skewed in their favour?
Gwen Harrison
Scientists for Global Responsibility

• Two tests should dominate the energy supply debate but rarely do: the first is the need to move as rapidly as possible to a low-carbon-based generation system and the second is to develop and maintain supply to both domestic consumers and to industry. Most discussions have, however, been dominated by cost of generation and/or supply. The renewables market is heavily distorted by subsidies meaning that actual costs are considerably less than transparent. Arthur Neslen’s article on solar power (Moroccans build big in bold attempt to become solar superpower, 26 October) and your editorial on the same topic (also 26 October) do little to clarify this situation. The construction costs of solar power in Morocco are given as $9bn for some 560MW versus $38bn for the new power station at Hinkley for 3,240MW, which suggests that the cost argument against nuclear energy may not be as clear cut as has been stated. The Moroccan government has not disclosed the level of subsidies for consumers. The Guardian’s enthusiasm for new nuclear has been chilly to say the least (Hinkley Point C fails on cost and reliability but the show must go on, 21 September). This has generally hinged on the “strike” cost of £92.50 per MWhr for new nuclear which is around half the current wholesale cost: however, today’s costs are weighted heavily in favour of cheap gas and coal which fail any low-carbon test. Renewables for at least some of the time fail the supply test.

The UK government is attempting to meet both tests by building new nuclear: the cost (and any subsidies to the generating industry) have to be met either from general taxation or by higher prices for electricity. Neither is going to be popular, but clear cut (and cheaper) alternatives are not immediately apparent.
Dr Peter Baker
Prestwood, Buckinghamshire

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• There are two myths in your editorial First, you state that “subsidies for solar favour wealthier homes”. A quick tour around Newcastle, Gateshead and North Tyneside would show you that there are significant council and housing association programmes to alleviate fuel poverty in poor areas, with insulation improvements and solar panels on swaths of houses. There are also many community centres and schools that benefit from solar panels across the country.

Second, you quote the “cheaper but unloved onshore wind”. Your own survey in May 2014 showed 48% in favour of onshore wind and only 19% in favour of fracking. Some surveys have showed 80% backing wind power. The Tory government is using divisive tactics to make people see renewables as a lifestyle choice rather than a vital programme of development for our future. They have stuffed Decc with climate-change deniers focused on supporting the big six energy companies and their relentless burning of fossil fuels. Please be careful not to repeat the myths they generate to obscure the destruction they are perpetrating on us all.
Steve Emsley
Newcastle upon Tyne

• In the same way that the government have laid the blame on the poor and disadvantaged for the nation’s money problems, they are now insinuating that it solar panel users are responsible for our exorbitant energy prices (There’s outrage over steel, but we should be furious over solar power, 23 October). This after their feeble attempts to regulate the real villains – the big energy companies. I am a 70-year-old environmnentalist pensioner and borrowed to install the 4.9Kwh array on my roof because it is the right thing to do. I am guaranteed my feed-in tariff for the next 20 years should I make it until then, but I am still paying for the grid electricity I use plus the monthly standing charge to my energy company, so am not getting anything for nothing – except that which nature provides, which is free to us all to take advantage of. Instead of this government trying to destroy the aspirations of people like me they should be setting an example by having solar installed at the Palace of Westminster and all other government buildings. The return on their investments, which includes their energy-cost savings, would go a long way to help reduce the “deficit”.
Rob Parrish
Exeter, Devon

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• Patrick Barkham falls for the old tropes of conventional economic thinking (How solar power lost its shine, G2, 21 October). The global economy is based on the assumption that nature is infinite and thus can be exploited indefinitely without cost. Under this assumption, burning all available fossil fuel without regard to the pollution costs involved is entirely reasonable as, by inference, nature must have an infinite capacity to absorb that pollution. There was a level of human population and economic activity when that was a workable assumption but it is clearly not now and will become increasingly ridiculous as economic growth continues.

The feed-in tariff it is not a subsidy but rather an attempt to correct the perverse incentive to destroy the future livability of the planet that is inherent in conventional economics. A small charge is made on behaviour that is undesirable (using electricity produced from burning fossil fuel) and used as an incentive to encourage behaviour that is desirable (producing electricity from clean resources). That the money involved appears as government spending is a political choice, not an “economic reality”.

In the same way, “grid parity” between generation costs of solar and fossil fuelled electricity could quickly be achieved by making fossil fuel use pay for the pollution it causes (eg via a “carbon tax”).

“The economy’ is an important description of human activity and is subject to rules, regulation and social norms of what we consider to be a “good” use of resources. Climate change is forcing us to face up to the reality of a finite planet and how much “wealth” can be generated today at the expense of future generations. The row over the FIT is about much more than mere subsidy levels; it is a fundamental test of the government’s commitment to our children.
Harold Forbes
London

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/28/renewable-energy-and-the-politics-of-subsidies

October 28, 2015

The time change scheduled to start this Sunday as Canada switches back to Standard Time probably wouldn’t help people with sleep deprivation problems, according to John Fleetham, co-director of the UBC Hospital’s Sleep Disorders Program.

“It’s resetting your routine and the brain loves routine,” said Fleetham. “It’s been clearly shown that there are more accidents immediately after a time change.”

http://news.ubc.ca/2015/10/28/secrets-of-a-sound-sleep/

Another science-fiction idea realized
October 27, 2015

Holograms (3-D light fields) can be projected from a 2-dimensional surface to control objects. (credit: Asier Marzo, Bruce Drinkwater and Sriram Subramanian)

British researchers have built a working Star-Trek-style “tractor beam” — a device that can attract or repel one object to another from a distance. It uses high-amplitude soundwaves to generate an acoustic hologram that can grasp and move small objects.

The technique, published in an open-access paper in Nature Communications October 27, has a wide range of potential applications, the researchers say. A sonic production line could transport delicate objects and assemble them, all without physical contact. Or a miniature version could grip and transport drug capsules or microsurgical instruments through living tissue.

The device was developed at the Universities of Sussex and Bristol in collaboration with Ultrahaptics.

University of Sussex | Levitation using sound waves

The researchers used an array of 64 miniature loudspeakers. The whole system consumes just 9 Watts of power, used to create high-pitched (40Khz), high-intensity sound waves to levitate a spherical bead 4mm in diameter made of expanded polystyrene.

The tractor beam works by surrounding the object with high-intensity sound to create a force field that keeps the objects in place. By carefully controlling the output of the loudspeakers, the object can be held in place, moved, or rotated.

Three different shapes of acoustic force fields work as tractor beams: an acoustic force field that resembles a pair of fingers or tweezers; an acoustic vortex, the objects becoming trapped at the core; and a high-intensity “cage” that surrounds the objects and holds them in place from all directions.

Previous attempts surrounded the object with loudspeakers, which limits the extent of movement and restricts many applications. Last year, the University of Dundee presented the concept of a tractor beam, but no objects were held in the ray.

The team is now designing different variations of this system. A bigger version aims at levitating a soccer ball from 10 meters away and a smaller version aims at manipulating particles inside the human body.

Asier Marzo, Matt Sutton, Bruce Drinkwater and Sriram Subramanian | Acoustic holograms are projected from a flat surface and contrary to traditional holograms, they exert considerable forces on the objects contained within. The acoustic holograms can be updated in real time to translate, rotate and combine levitated particles enabling unprecedented contactless manipulators such as tractor beams.

Abstract of Holographic acoustic elements for manipulation of levitated objects

Sound can levitate objects of different sizes and materials through air, water and tissue. This allows us to manipulate cells, liquids, compounds or living things without touching or contaminating them. However, acoustic levitation has required the targets to be enclosed with acoustic elements or had limited maneuverability. Here we optimize the phases used to drive an ultrasonic phased array and show that acoustic levitation can be employed to translate, rotate and manipulate particles using even a single-sided emitter. Furthermore, we introduce the holographic acoustic elements framework that permits the rapid generation of traps and provides a bridge between optical and acoustical trapping. Acoustic structures shaped as tweezers, twisters or bottles emerge as the optimum mechanisms for tractor beams or containerless transportation. Single-beam levitation could manipulate particles inside our body for applications in targeted drug delivery or acoustically controlled micro-machines that do not interfere with magnetic resonance imaging.

references:
Asier Marzo, Sue Ann Seah, Bruce W. Drinkwater, Deepak Ranjan Sahoo, Benjamin Long, Sriram Subramanian. Holographic acoustic elements for manipulation of levitated objects. Nature Communications, 2015; 6: 8661 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9661 (open access)
related:
From science fiction to reality – sonic tractor beam invented

http://www.kurzweilai.net/holographic-sonic-tractor-beam-lifts-and-moves-objects-using-soundwaves

October 27, 2015

Schematic of electrode process design. (a) Components mixing under ultrasonic irradiation, (b) an optical image of the as-fabricated electrode made of silicon nanoparticles (SiNP), sulpher-doped graphene (SG), and polyacrylonitrile (PAN), (c) the electrode after sluggish heat treatment (SHT), (d) Schematic of the atomic-scale structure of the electrode. (credit: Fathy M. Hassan et al./Nature Communications)

Zhongwei Chen, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Waterloo, and a team of graduate students have created a new low-cost battery design using silicon instead of graphite, boosting the performance and life of lithium-ion batteries.

Waterloo’s silicon battery technology promises a 40 to 60 per cent increase in energy density (energy storage per unit volume), which is important for consumers with smartphones, smart homes, and smart wearables. It also means an electric car could be driven up to 500 kilometers (311 miles) between charges while reducing its overall weight.

The graphite bottleneck

The Waterloo engineers found that silicon anode materials are capable of producing batteries that store almost 10 times more energy than with graphite.

“As batteries improve, graphite is slowly becoming a performance bottleneck because of the limited amount of energy that it can store,” said Chen, the Canada Research Chair in Advanced Materials for Clean Energy and a member of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology and the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy.

The most critical challenge the Waterloo researchers faced in the new design was the loss of energy that occurs when silicon contracts and then expands by as much as 300 per cent with each charge cycle. The resulting increase and decrease in silicon volume forms cracks that reduce battery performance, create short circuits, and eventually cause the battery to stop operating.

To overcome this problem, Chen’s team along with the General Motors Global Research and Development Centre developed a flash heat treatment for fabricated silicon-based lithium-ion electrodes that minimizes volume expansion while boosting the performance and cycle capability of lithium-ion batteries.

“The economical flash heat treatment creates uniquely structured silicon anode materials that deliver extended cycle life to more than 2000 cycles with increased energy capacity of the battery,” said Chen.

Chen expects to see new batteries based on the design on the market next year.

Their findings are published in an open-access paper in the latest issue of Nature Communications.

Abstract of Evidence of covalent synergy in silicon–sulfur–graphene yielding highly efficient and long-life lithium-ion batteries

Silicon has the potential to revolutionize the energy storage capacities of lithium-ion batteries to meet the ever increasing power demands of next generation technologies. To avoid the operational stability problems of silicon-based anodes, we propose synergistic physicochemical alteration of electrode structures during their design. This capitalizes on covalent interaction of Si nanoparticles with sulfur-doped graphene and with cyclized polyacrylonitrile to provide a robust nanoarchitecture. This hierarchical structure stabilized the solid electrolyte interphase leading to superior reversible capacity of over 1,000 mAh g−1 for 2,275 cycles at 2 A g−1. Furthermore, the nanoarchitectured design lowered the contact of the electrolyte to the electrode leading to not only high coulombic efficiency of 99.9% but also maintaining high stability even with high electrode loading associated with 3.4 mAh cm−2. The excellent performance combined with the simplistic, scalable and non-hazardous approach render the process as a very promising candidate for Li-ion battery technology.

references:
Fathy M. Hassan, Rasim Batmaz, Jingde Li, Xiaolei Wang, Xingcheng Xiao, Aiping Yu & Zhongwei Chen. Evidence of covalent synergy in silicon–sulfur–graphene yielding highly efficient and long-life lithium-ion batteries. Nature Communications 6, Article number: 8597; DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9597 (open access)
related:
Waterloo researchers create technology to produce lighter, long-lasting batteries from silicon

http://www.kurzweilai.net/longer-lasting-lighter-lithium-ion-batteries-from-silicon-anodes

OTTAWA—Increasing greenhouse gas emissions continue to cause pervasive changes to the Earth’s climate, but a new expert panel has concluded that here in Canada, we already have the technology to put an end to ballooning emissions—we just need to implement it.
“The technologies needed to mitigate the effects of climate change already exist, are well-researched, and are constantly improving,” Keith Hipel, the panel’s co-chair, said. “Experience from around the world shows us which policies work best and under what circumstances.”

“In short, we know everything we need to know to move Canada toward a low-emission energy future. We simply need to start,” he added.

With the goal of assessing the technology and policy options for transitioning Canada to a low-emission energy system, the Council of Canadian Academies report was prepared for auto parts manufacturer, Magna International Inc.

Along with the report’s key finding that the technologies required for a low-emission energy system already exist, the panel identified low-emission electricity as the foundation of a greener energy system. With increasing investment in wind and solar energy projects, many Canadian jurisdictions are already focusing on this key area, but a more aggressive adoption schedule would speed up the transition. The report also found the shift to a low-emission system is achievable through “the right combination of stringent and flexible policies.”

Still, the expert panel acknowledged the transition will not come without a cost.

“Canada, like most countries, relies on fossil fuels to meet most of its energy needs,” the report says. “As a result, many of the ways Canadians use energy on a daily basis, including driving cars, heating homes and buildings, and cooking meals, are implicated in greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Departing from a course of continued dependence on a high-emission energy system will involve changes to many aspects of how energy is produced, distributed, and used.”

Nevertheless, the report asserted changes can be achieved without jeopardizing Canada’s long-term economic growth and competitiveness.

“While energy system transitions tend to unfold over many decades, they can be accelerated with strategic policy support and are already underway in many jurisdictions across Canada,” the panel said.

The panel said in addition to shifting to low-emission energy sources, capturing and storing carbon from continued fossil fuel use may also be required to cut emissions further.

“Given the variability across Canada there is no one-size-fits-all solution for widespread reductions,” panel co-chair, Paul Portney, said. “However the panel’s report provides a series of options for private sector decision-makers, and different levels of government, as they seek to better understand energy use and the options available to combat climate change.”

Today’s technology, new policies capable of combating climate change, report says

A new study led by University of Chicago neuroscientists brings them one step closer to building prosthetic limbs for humans that recreate a sense of touch through a direct interface with the brain.

The research, published Oct. 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that artificial touch is highly dependent on several features of electrical stimuli, such as the strength and frequency of signals. It describes the specific characteristics of these signals, including how much each feature needs to be adjusted to produce a different sensation.

“This is where the rubber meets the road in building touch-sensitive neuroprosthetics,” said Sliman Bensmaia, associate professor of organismal biology and anatomy and senior author of the study. “Now we understand the nuts and bolts of stimulation, and what tools are at our disposal to create artificial sensations by stimulating the brain.”

Bensmaia’s research is part of Revolutionizing Prosthetics, a multi-year Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project that seeks to create a modular, artificial upper limb that will restore natural motor control and sensation in amputees. The project has brought together an interdisciplinary team of experts from government agencies, private companies and academic institutions, including the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the University of Pittsburgh.

Bensmaia and his UChicago colleagues are working specifically on the sensory aspects of these limbs. For this study, monkeys, whose sensory systems closely resemble those of humans, had electrodes implanted into the area of the brain that processes touch information from the hand. The animals were trained to perform two perceptual tasks: one in which they detected the presence of an electrical stimulus, and a second in which they indicated which of two successive stimuli was more intense.

During these experiments, Bensmaia and his team manipulated various features of the electrical pulse train, such as its amplitude, frequency and duration, and noted how the interaction of each of these factors affected the animals’ ability to detect the signal.

Of specific interest were the “just-noticeable differences,” or the incremental changes needed to produce a sensation that felt different. For instance, at a certain frequency, the signal may be detectable first at a strength of 20 microamps of electricity. If the signal has to be increased to 50 microamps to notice a difference, the JND in that case is 30 microamps.

The sense of touch is really made up of a complex and nuanced set of sensations, from contact and pressure to texture, vibration and movement. By documenting the range, composition and specific increments of signals that create sensations that feel different from each other, Bensmaia and his colleagues have provided the “notes” scientists can play to produce the “music” of the sense of touch in the brain.

“When you grasp an object, for example, you can hold it with different grades of pressure. To recreate a realistic sense of touch, you need to know how many grades of pressure you can convey through electrical stimulation,” Bensmaia said. “Ideally, you can have the same dynamic range for artificial touch as you do for natural touch.”

The study has important scientific implications beyond neuroprosthetics as well. In natural perception, a principle known as Weber’s Law states that the just-noticeable difference between two stimuli is proportional to the size of the stimulus. For example, with a 100-watt light bulb, you might be able to detect a difference in brightness by increasing its power to 110 watts. The JND in that case is 10 watts. According to Weber’s Law, if you double the power of the light bulb to 200 watts, the JND would also be doubled to 20 watts.

However, Bensmaia’s research shows that, with electrical stimulation of the brain, Weber’s Law does not apply—the JND remains nearly constant, no matter the size of the stimulus. This means that the brain responds to electrical stimulation in a much more repeatable, consistent way than through natural stimulation.

“It shows that there is something fundamentally different about the way the brain responds to electrical stimulation than it does to natural stimulation,” Bensmaia said.

“This study gets us to the point where we can actually create real algorithms that work. It gives us the parameters as to what we can achieve with artificial touch, and brings us one step closer to having human-ready algorithms.”

The study, “Behavioral assessment of sensitivity to intracortical microstimulation of primate somatosensory cortex,” was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Contract N66001-10-C-4056. Additional authors include Sungshin Kim, Thierri Callier and Gregg Tabot from the University of Chicago, Robert Gaunt from the University of Pittsburgh, and Francesco Tenore from Johns Hopkins University.

http://www.labmanager.com/news/2015/10/creating-an-artificial-sense-of-touch-through-electrical-stimuli#.Vi_Z_2RJbyU

You have a ton of built-in apps on your iPhone that you may never think to use. You may, however, be surprised by just how handy these Apple-made apps can be – especially in a crisis. According to HerCampus, students at Georgia Tech were able to find their missing friend just by using an iPhone app. Talk about tech game on point.

James “Jimmy” Hubert, a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Georgia Tech, can thank his pals for their tech skills, because ultimately that’s what saved him from serious trouble. After Jimmy wasn’t seen for 48 hours following a sorority party, his friends in the fraternity got worried and posted about his disappearance on Facebook. Though the police were contacted, they would not begin their search until Monday morning, days after Jimmy was last seen over the weekend. Fortunately, two of Jimmy’s friends had an idea that ultimately saved his life.

After hearing that Jimmy was missing, his former high school classmates Emma Jeffrey and Alexandria Vandelinde decided to do their own sleuthing. After learning that Jimmy had his date’s cellphone in his pocket, Emma and Alexandria decided to use the date’s Find My Phone app to track down the last known location of the iPhone. The girls searched the area around where the iPhone was last located, which was seven miles away from the party near train tracks. The girls were about to give up when they finally spotted Jimmy, who was injured and unable to move.

Jimmy was in rough shape when his friends found him, as he needed treatment for hypothermia and other injuries, but has reportedly undergone surgery and is doing much better. The story is proof that technology can help us out in the most unexpected of ways. While I hope that most of us will only ever use the Find My Phone app to track our phone after accidentally leaving it at a friend’s house, it’s good to know that it can help us out in a more critical situation.

http://www.cambio.com/2015/10/26/friends-rescued-this-college-student-by-using-an-iphone-app/

Working with a diverse group of partners, MasterCard has launched a new program designed to enable mobile payments via practically any type of gadget — eventually. Among the “Commerce for Every Device” prototypes being rolled out during the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas this week are a payment-enabling GM car key fob, a ring from Ringy and a wristband from Nymi [pictured].
Along with other partners, including celebrity designer (and personal stylist to Rihanna) Adam Selman and Bluetooth locator TrackR, MasterCard said it plans to bring mobile payments to “a wide array of consumer products across the automotive, fashion, technology wearables and yet-to-be-imagined categories.”

The program, supported with technology from NXP and Qualcomm, “puts in place a standard for expanding secure contactless and embedded payment options globally,” MasterCard said. The first consumer devices designed for the program are expected to become available in 2016 in the U.S., with other markets to follow.

Mobile Shoppers Value Convenience, Rewards

Convenience in mobile payments is especially important to people when they travel, according to a MasterCard-sponsored study from PRIME Research released last month. The “Retail Social Listening Study” also found that consumer rewards and benefits were a key topic of discussion among people sharing information online about shopping and retail.

MasterCard’s “Commerce for Every Device” program builds on two other programs: the Digital Enablement Service, announced in 2013, and Digital Enablement Express, unveiled last month. Both are aimed at making contactless, in-app and digital payments easier and more convenient for customers.

One of the first card issuers to take part in MasterCard’s latest program is Capital One, which recently launched a wallet app for both Android and iOS users. The app enables real-time Relevant Products/Services tracking of purchases, grouping of expenses by category and camera-based receipt capture.

‘Device as ID’

MasterCard said its ambitions to enable payment by any device are part of the fast-evolving Internet of Things, which is expected to see more than 50 billion connected devices by 2020. Even clothing and clothing accessories could eventually be part of that system. For example, Selman has worked with MasterCard to design a prototype of a “payment-enabled” dress.

Such smart devices could help to create what MasterCard called a “seamless, second line of defense, offering new options to signatures, passwords and other forms of identification.” The “device-as-ID” concept “offers clear advantages to the general consumer who is concerned about the safety of their personal information, but who doesn’t want to be burdened by complicated or time-consuming steps,” according to the company.

According to a recent report from the marketing Relevant Products/Services agency PSFK Labs, businesses that want to deliver “the new shopper experience” will have to, among other things, create confidence among their customers and eliminate obstacles to enable easier, streamlined purchasing.

Brendan Miller, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., told us he hasn’t yet been able to take an in-depth look at what MasterCard is doing, but added that the mobile payment market is still in its very early days.

“We’re still in the first inning of a long baseball game here,” he said, noting that mobile payments really only launched with the debut of Apple Pay last year. “With wearables, we’re still in the pre-season.”

The idea of enabling card-free and even smartphone-free payments on the go is “fairly compelling,” said Miller, who is currently attending the Money 20/20 conference. “I think there’s opportunity here. But we’re probably at least five years out before we see any traction.”

http://www.toptechnews.com/article/index.php?story_id=123003UIZRKO

Since it was first released, Google Play Music has been an Android user’s best choice for finding and listening to music on their phones and on the web. With the accompanying Music Manager app, you can even upload your own audio to your Google account and listen via the web or the Google Play Music app. However, listening to recurring media, like podcasts, in the Google Play Music app has always been overly slow and complicated.

In the coming months though, that’s all about to change. Today, the official Android blog announced that podcast support will be coming to Google Play Music. Starting now, podcasters be able to add their own shows to the index, like with the iTunes podcast directory. In the coming months, users will be able to search and browse podcasts based on category or keyword. However, perhaps the most powerful potential feature of this service will surface new podcasts for listeners based on what they’re doing, how they’re feeling, or based on their interests, similar to the way Songza suggests music playlists.

Today, podcasters can add their shows to the directory from g.co/podcastportal, and Google is already working with big networks like Gimlet Media, 5by5, and This Week in Tech to get all their shows hooked into the service. More details are said to be on the way “in the coming months”.

Google Play Music is creating a Songza for podcasts

October 27, 2015

New UBC research has found that older women who lifted weights twice a week had fewer age-related holes or lesions in their brains, compared to those who lifted weights once a week and those whose exercise routines focused on balance and flexibility. Resistance training could be a key to slowing cognitive decline, the researchers concluded.

A similar article appeared in the Globe and Mail.

http://news.ubc.ca/2015/10/27/lifting-weights-twice-a-week-may-slow-brain-aging/