Health & Science

The search for another Earth

Scientists have found strong new evidence that there are Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, with liquid water and, possibly, life. Until now, all 340 “exoplanets” discovered have been massive gas giants like Jupiter, but an international team of astronomers has spotted two much smaller planets orbiting Gliese 581, a red dwarf star just 20 light-years away—in astronomical terms, right in our backyard. The innermost planet in this four-planet solar system has a mass only 1.9 times that of Earth. It is so close to its sun, however, that any liquid water probably would be boiled off the surface. But the outermost planet in the system appears to be the right distance from its sun to have liquid water. Probably too large to be a rocky planet, this planet is also too small to be a gas giant. So what is it, exactly? “Maybe this is the first of a new class of ocean planets. That is my favorite interpretation,” Michel Mayor of Geneva Observatory tells New Scientist. “Whether there is life or not, I don’t know.” The very fact that ever-more sophisticated detection techniques are already finding smaller planets indicates that the search for Earth-like worlds may soon succeed, says exoplanet specialist Sara Seager. “It’s just a matter of time now.”

Gum boosts math scores

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In the classroom, gum chewing is as frowned upon as passing notes and napping. Teachers hate the smacking, the popping, the bubble blowing, and the inevitable disposal of the gum on the undersides of desks. But researchers at Baylor College of Medicine say that kids have a legitimate educational reason to chomp their Bubble Yum in school. Their study found that kids who chewed gum had a 3 percent increase in scores on standardized tests, and significantly better final math grades than non–gum chewers. Chewing gum, study author Dr. Craig Johnson tells the Los Angeles Times, appears to improve concentration through an unknown mechanism. “There is research demonstrating an increase in blood flow in the brain during chewing,” he says.

Facebook and your GPA

College students who use Facebook have lower grades overall than students who don’t, says an Ohio State University study. Kids who use the social-networking site have an average GPA of 3.0 to 3.5, and study from one to five hours per week. Kids who choose not to join Facebook seem to have a very different attitude toward school. These dedicated students have GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0 and study 10 to 15 hours each week. Study authors say it’s not necessarily that the use of Facebook itself lowers grades. It’s more likely, says researcher Aryn Karpinski, that kids who use Facebook are more social, more distractible, and less academically driven to begin with. “I’m just saying that there’s some kind of relationship there, and there’s many third variables that need to be studied,” she tells LiveScience. About 85 percent of undergraduates now use Facebook, the study found.

Stand and deliver

When a woman goes into labor, her first instinct may be to lie down. But that’s probably not the best way to deal with the first stage of labor, says The New York Times. Instead, a new Australian analysis finds, standing and walking can be good for both mom and baby, reducing the total amount of time spent in labor by more than an hour. The new research analyzed 21 childbirth studies involving nearly 4,000 women, and concluded that when women spend at least part of their labor upright, gravity encourages the natural descent of the baby through the birth canal. “The baby’s head pushing down on the cervix improves the regularity and intensity of contractions,” says study author Annemarie Lawrence. “Women should be allowed to move around freely.”

Put on a happy face

A spider with markings that look remarkably like a smiling human face is among the dozens of Hawaiian species facing extinction, says the London Daily Telegraph. The happy face spider is now a cause célèbre on the island, with its image on T-shirts, baseball caps, postcards, and even garbage trucks. “Conservationists are using them to highlight the plight of native species,” says Dr. Geoff Oxford, a scientist who specializes in the happy face spider. The spider has a brilliantly colored marking on its abdomen that looks just like eyes and a smiling mouth. “I must admit when I turned over the first leaf and saw one it certainly brought a smile to my face,” says Oxford. The happy face marking probably evolved to help the spider confuse predators. “When a bird or other predator first sees a prey item it has not seen before, there is a moment before it decides whether to eat it or not,” he says. If the face causes the predator to pause, he says, the spider “may have the chance to escape.” Unfortunately, many non-native species have been introduced to Hawaii, crowding out the happy face and many other insects, birds, lizards, and plants.