The message has to be told to Congressmen, the message of the importance of

investing in basic research. Jeannette Wing, Corporate Vice President at

Microsoft Research, October 20th at a symposium on Capitol Hill.
The investments by the federal government go towards the innovation
ecosystem, and these kinds of investments are good for the economy, good for
global competitiveness.
Wing, along with other industry leaders and members of Congress from both
parties gathered at the Innovation: An American Imperative symposium in
support of goals and policies delineated in a recent report from the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. That report titled Restoring the Foundation:
The Vital Role of Research in Preserving the American Dream.
We have to continue to further innovation in our economy through smart
investments in basic R&D. United States Senator from Delaware Chris Coons,
at the event. Because whether its public universities, cutting-edge businesses
that are well established or early-stage startups, if we want to see American
researchers and innovators pulling together to achieve our national potential
now and in the future, we have to commit to these crucial investments today
and by sustaining them for the long-term.
Norm Augustine, former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, led the effort
to create the Restoring the Foundation report. To hear a recent extended
interview I did with Augustine, browse the Science Talk podcast section of
the Scientific Americanweb page. Or just google Augustine and Scientific
American to find the episode titled Restore Research to Preserve the
American Dream.

At 14,505 feet, Mount Whitney towers over California's Sierra Nevada range.
It's the tallest peak in the lower 48which means it attracts thousands of
weekend warriors every yearor make that weakened warriors. You see them
staggering along the narrow, rocky trail, huffing for air, dizzy and
exhausted from the low oxygen levels at high elevation. And once they're sick?
"The best medicine is to go down. That's actually the only cure that works."
Svein Gaustad, a physiologist at the Norwegian University of Science and
Technology. He says previous studies suggest blood vessels tend to contract at
high altitudes. Possibly because they need oxygen to relaxexactly what's in
short supply on mountaintops. But there may be a dietary way to get more
oxygen to your blood vessels: in the form of beet juice. The juice contains
nitrate, which the body converts to nitric oxide, the compound that keeps
arteries limber.
Gaustad and his colleagues tested that theory during a trek in Nepal, at 12,000
feet. Eight volunteers alternately drank shots of regular beet juice, and another
day, beet juice with the nitrates stripped out. A few hours later, the
researchers measured blood flow and artery diameters with ultrasound. And
they found that the regular beet juice did indeed restore blood vessels back to
their low-elevation flexibility, whereas the nitrate-stripped juice did not. The
results are in the journal Nitric Oxide.
Gaustad says better vascular function has the potential to deliver more blood
and therefore more oxygento tired muscles. But they still don't know if that
translates to better performance at altitude. And, he says, beets won't hurt, but
they're no substitute for proper acclimatization. "If I had a bottle of beets
around I would take it for sure. But that won't bring you to Mount Everest just
by drinking beetroot."

"Babies come prepared to learn any of the world's languages." Alison

Bruderer, a cognitive scientist at the University of British Columbia. "Which
means no matter where they're growing up in the world, their brains are
prepared to pick up the language they're listening to around them."
And listen they do. But another key factor to discerning a languages particular
sounds may be for babies to move their tongues as they listen. Bruderer and
her colleagues tested that notion by sitting 24 sixth-month-olds in front of a
video screen and displaying a checkerboard pattern, while they played one of
two tracks: a single, repeated "D" sound in Hindi, <<single d sound>> or two
slightly different, alternating "D" sounds. <<alternating d sounds>>
The idea here is that babies have a short attention span, so novel things hold
their gaze. And indeed, the babies did stare at the screen longer while the
alternating "D"s played than for the single Dindicating they could detect
the novelty. Until, that is, the researchers blocked the babies' tongue
movements by having them suck on a teething device. Then the effect
disappeared, with the babies unable to differentiate [single D sound] from
[alternating D sounds].
And when the babies used a different teether that did not block tongue
movement, they once again appeared to comprehend the difference between
the Ds. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
So is it time to pull the pacifier? "At this point I don't think that these data
suggest parents should be taking away teethers or soothers. The majority of
infants are chewing on something semi-regularly most of the day. And most of
these infants do go on to develop speech normally." So not to worry. Bruderer
says the research might instead offer insight into how children with oral motor
impairments or cleft palate perceive speech...now that we know the tongue
really does matter, when first learning a tongue.

Ever try to get a baby to smile? It can seem close to impossibleand then
suddenly there it is: that elusive, seemingly joyous grin. Well it turns out those
smiles arent spontaneoustheyre strategic.
Researchers have found that when babies smile, it's for a reason. They want
whoever theyre interacting withtypically a parentto smile back. And they
time it just so, a smile here and a smile there. The researchers call it
sophisticated timing. The study is in the journal PLoS ONE. [Paul Ruvolo,
Daniel Messinger, Javier Movellan, Infants Time Their Smiles to Make Their
Moms Smile]
The researchers enlisted real mothers and infants and quantified their
interactions, which fell into four categories. One: babies wanted to maximize
the amount of time smiling at their mothers. Two: they wanted to maximize
the time the mothers smiled at them. Three: they wanted to experience
simultaneous smiling, and four: no smiling at all.
By studying when smiles happened and what the subsequent effect was, the
investigators were able to figure out that for mothers the goal 70 percent of the
time was to be smiling simultaneouslywhile for babies 80 percent of the
time they just wanted their mother smiling at them. So, mothers want the
interaction, while babies just want to be smiled at.
So your baby may not be able to feed itself, talk or even turn over yet. But
when it comes to smiles, babies seem to know exactly what they're up to.