La Niña and Flu Outbreaks; Men Overspend When Women Are Scarce

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Discovered: La Niña weather patterns could cause pandemics,
when men outnumber women they tend to spend more, and the
Heisenberg
Uncertainty Principle gets an update.

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La Niña brings pandemics New research
suggests that La Niña, weather-pattern cousin of El Niño,
makes global pandemics more likely. La Niña periodically
brings cool water to the surface of the Pacific Ocean making
for warmer, dryer winters. More importantly, the U.S.
researchers posit, it alters the migratory patterns of
flu-carrying birds, which might explain why the four most
recent outbreaks -- in 1918, 1957 and 1958, and most recently
in 2009 with the swine flu -- were preceeded by periods
of La Niña. This is less than awesome news as we're in the
middle of a La Niña episode right now. Researchers note,
though, that there are many incidents when La Niña doesn't
precede a flu outbreak, so more research should
be done to explain why certain periods result in the spread of
disease. Luckily, the fear inspired by swine flu, bird flu, and
Gwyneth Paltrow mean we've stepped up
efforts to monitor pigs, people and flu genes, so research
into its spread should only move more quickly. [BBC, Houston Chronicle]

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When women are scarce, men will spend more.
New research posits that when men think they outnumber women,
they'll often increase the amount they spend. Researchers at
the University of Minnesota fed men articles saying they
outnumbered the women in the area, then asked them questions
about how much of their next paycheck they wanted to save and
how much they wanted to borrow. The lady drought made them 42
percent less willing to save and 84 percent more willing to
borrow money. The researchers draw some reasonable theories for
why: "How do humans compete for access to mates? What you find
across cultures is that men often do it through money, through
status and through products," lead author Vladas
Griskevicius said. The Wall Street Journal finds this
pretty natural when examined through an economic lens. "When
something is in short supply, common sense suggests that it
should become more valuable." So there you have it ladies. Move
to China! [USA Today, Wall Street Journal]

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The Heisenberg uncertainty principle gets
more complicated. Just when we were wrapping our heads
around the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (just kidding),
research published in the journal Nature
Physics suggests our understanding of it is
incomplete. As you might recall, the principle is a
foundational one for quantum physics and it says that it's hard
to measure multiple properties of a particle at the same time
because the act of measuring them alters the properties. But
Vienna University of Technology researchers found
experimentally what Japanese researchers had already posited
theoretically that different sources of uncertainty can, in
fact, be distinguished. Heisenberg's principle isn't disproven,
it's just often oversimplified (uncertain, dare we say?), they
say. It's all a bit confusing, but a good reminder that even
foundational theories can be updated. [Science Daily]

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Babies can learn language by lip reading.
Previous research held that babies learned language primarily
through hearing it, but a new study says babies learn langauge
partly by watching the mouth move, and the new finding could
help us diagnose autism earlier. Researchers at Florida
Atlantic University tracked the eyeballs of infants less than
12 months old and found that their eyes moved to the speaker's
mouth more often than older babies or adults. Other research
has shown that older autistic children keep paying close
attention to a speaker's mouth even after most infants stop the
habit after about one year, potentially allowing earlier
diagnoses of the condition. [ABC News]

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La Niña and Flu Outbreaks; Men Overspend When Women Are Scarce