The Crazy Sign Your Sperm Count Is Low

Surprising Body Quirks that May be Early Signs of Health Problems

Men's Hand

Women are naturally drawn to men with deep voices because a macho tone reminds them of all things manly. And while talking like Barry White packs its fair share of benefits, it could also mean bad news for your sperm.

A new study from the University of Western Australia found that guys with a low-pitched voice had reduced concentrations of sperm in ejaculations. The possible connection: “Testosterone, which deepens a man’s voice, also suppresses sperm production when it’s at high levels,” says lead researcher Leigh Simmons, Ph.D., an evolutionary biology professor at Western Australia.

Meanwhile, the pitch of your voice isn’t the only health clue your body is sending you. Here are five other surprising body quirks that may be early signs of health problems.

Finger length

As Men’s Healthpreviously reported, size matters — when it comes to your fingers. A study published in the British Journal of Cancer found that men whose index fingers were longer than their ring fingers were 33 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer. As it turns out, people who have longer index fingers were exposed to less testosterone when they were a baby in their mother’s womb, researchers say. This may help protect against prostate cancer later on.

Nail color

Healthy nails are usually smooth and spotless, but “redness under your fingernails can be a sign of a collagen vascular disease like lupus,” says Neil Sadick, M.D., a clinical professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical College. “It gives you inflammation of the blood vessels, and that can present as redness or blood vessels under the nail itself.” Research has also found that white nails are linked with liver issues, and unusual curvatures can even be a sign of lung cancer.

Earlobe wrinkles

Diagonal creases on your earlobes may be a sign of potential cardiovascular problems, according to a study from the University of Chicago. Researchers found participants with a crease (and no prior coronary artery disease) were nearly eight times more likely to experience cardiac events as those without. Earlobes may give a reflective health warning because of the similarities between the blood vessels that supply the earlobes and the heart, researchers speculate. Or creases may just be a result of aging.

Sense of smell

The inability to identify certain orders may be a warning sign of Parkinson’s Disease. A study led by the Institute for Neurodegenerative Disorders and the University of Pennsylvania found that when given a small test, patients with Parkinson’s could only correctly identify half of the smells presented. An additional study in the Annals of Neurology found that this impaired sense of smell can predate Parkinson’s by about 4 years.

A Man Without Taste

Hair

Although going bald is natural, it could also be a clue to more serious conditions. “Hair loss can be a sign of thyroid disease or thyroid cancer,” Sadick says. “If you have an overactive thyroid, or a thyroid that’s not functioning well, you can get hair loss as a presenting sign of it.” Hypothyroidism may also manifest itself in unusual thinning of the eyebrows. Plus, “sometimes men can have very fine hairs along their temples early in life, and that can be a sign of impending genetic hair loss,” says Sadick.

Adapted from MSN

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Google Commemorates Nicolaus Steno's 374th Birthday in Google Logo

Google Logo

To day google commemorates Nicolas Steno or also known as Niels Stensen or Nicolaus Stenonis in Latin, was born in Copenhagen on January 11, 1638. Nicolas Steno was a scientist anatomist, and the seventeenth century considered the father of geology or science that studies the Earth's composition and internal structure and evolution over time. In addition, he found the parotid gland function. Nicolas Steno was born in 1638, and its original name was Niels Stensen.

This is Biography of Nicolaus Steno

Nicolaus Steno, originally Niels Stensen, the son of a goldsmith, was born in Copenhagen on Jan. 10, 1638. He entered the University of Copenhagen in 1656 to begin studies in medicine which he continued in Amsterdam and Leiden. After studying anatomy in Paris in 1664, he went to Florence in 1665. He became court physician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II, who subsidized Steno's scientific interests.

Nicolaus Steno

During this period Steno investigated the geology of Tuscany with its related mineralogical and paleontological problems. His De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus (1669; Introduction to a Dissertation concerning a Solid Body Enclosed by Process of Nature within a Solid) was one of the most fundamental contributions to geology because of Steno's qualities of observation, analysis, and inductive reasoning at a time when scientific research was nothing but metaphysical speculation. Contrary to many other works of the 17th century, it had an impact on contemporary scientists through three Latin editions and its translation into English by Henry Oldenburg in 1671.

The Prodromusis divided into four parts. The first contains an investigation on the origin of fossils. The second part analyzes the following fundamental problem: "given a substance having a certain shape, and formed according to the laws of nature, how to find in the substance itself evidences disclosing the place and manner of its production." The third part discusses different solids contained within a solid in relation to the laws discovered and presented in the previous part. This is the section dealing mostly with crystallography. The fourth part is largely a consideration of the geological changes which Steno was able to interpret from his observations throughout Tuscany.

A fundamental part of Prodromus concerns the aspects and the mechanism of the growth of crystals, which are also solids within solids. In that respect Steno discovered the fundamental law of crystallography known as the "law of constancy of interfacial angles," which states that regardless of the variations in shape or size of the faces of a crystal, the interfacial angles remain constant. At the end of Prodromus, Steno in a series of diagrams illustrates the geological history of Tuscany. These sections, the earliest of their type ever prepared, fully substantiate the claim that Steno is one of the founders of stratigraphy and historical geology and perhaps the first geologist in the modern sense.

Steno, in his general concept of the universe, adopted the doctrine of the four Aristotelian elements: fire, earth, air, and water. However, his concept of matter was Cartesian, since he considered a natural body as an aggregate of imperceptible particles subject to the action of forces as generated by a magnet, fire, and sometimes light.

In paleontology, Steno clearly understood the organic origin of fossils and their importance as indicators of different environments of deposition. Assuming that strata had been deposited in the form of sediments from turbid waters under the action of gravity, Steno established some of the fundamental principles of stratigraphy: deposition of each bed upon a solid substratum, superposition of younger strata over older ones, and occurrence of all beds except the basal one between two essentially horizontal planes. In structural geology, Steno visualized three types of mountains: mountains formed by faults, mountains due to the effects of erosion by running waters, and volcanic mountains formed by eruptions of subterranean fires.

In 1672 Steno became professor of anatomy in Copenhagen. As a Catholic, he encountered so much religious intolerance from the Protestant community that he returned to Florence, where he was put in charge of the education of Cosimo III, the son of the Grand Duke. In 1675 Steno took Holy Orders, and a year later Pope Innocent XI appointed him bishop of Titopolis and apostolic vicar of northern Germany and Scandinavia. He died in Schwerin on Nov. 26, 1686.

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Detroit Auto Show 2012: Ford pushes the 2013 Fusion to 100 mpg

Ford Motor Co

Later this year, Ford Motor Co. will launch this: the 2013 Ford Fusion midsize sedan in three variations — including a plug-in hybrid that gets 100 mpg, besting every other liquid-powered vehicle for sale to the American public. It could be a winning equation, but there's a few key variables Ford hasn't revealed.

The current Fusion has turned into a mainstay of Ford's lineup, and the most popular car built by an American automaker, with sales hitting 248,067 in 2011. For its redesign, Ford will run the same play it's called on with the smaller Fiesta and Focus −- build one version of the Fusion for sale worldwide, using the Mondeo name in Europe and elsewhere, to lower costs while raising quality. Assembled in Mexico and Michigan, styled in Europe to follow the new Ford global look, two of its three engines will be built in Spain and England.

All three of those engines will be four-cylinder units, in line with the trend among downsized motors for midsize sedans. The base 2-liter four returns with 170 hp and 170 lb.-ft. of torque; the top engine is now a 2-liter EcoBoost turbocharged plant with 237 hp and 250 lb.-ft. of torque — a step down from the top 3.5-liter V6 offered now.

The middle engine is a 1.6-liter EcoBoost turbo — a tiny engine for a midsize sedan, but one capable of 179 hp and 172 lb.-ft. of torque. Ford expects that model to hit 26 mpg in the city and 37 mpg on the highway, which should top the class. Ford will also aim to entice buyers with technology, such as an automated lane-keeping system and voice-controlled entertainment.

Of those 248,067 Fusions sold last year, just over 10,000 were Fusion Hybrids, which while garnering praise for handling cost several thousand dollars more than a regular version. Ford says thanks to a new lithium-ion battery pack and a smaller 2-liter engine, the Fusion Hybrid should get 47 mpg in city driving and 44 mpg on the highway, good for substantial bragging rights over the Toyota Camry and Hyundai Sonata hybrids.

But it's the plug-in version, named the Fusion Energi by Ford's Department of Redundanci Dept., that can achieve the equivalent of 100 mpg — 8 better than the Chevy Volt, and 13 mpg more than the Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid. But Ford disclosed no other details about the plug-in — such as how far it can travel on electricity alone, how big its battery pack will be and just how much it will cost.

That number will be the key to whether the Fusion Energi might be positioned as a plug-in hybrid for the masses or just another expensive science project. Ford's all-electric Focus just going into production has a sticker of $39,995 before a $7,500 federal tax credit. If the Fusion Energi has a similar price, the vast majority of Fusions sold will drive on hydrocarbons rather than electrons.

Adapted from YAHOO

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The Global Temperature in 2011 is not the Hottest

You feel the temperature around your hot throughout the year 2011 then? According to some observers environmental scientists from the United States, in 2011 only in the ninth position as the warmest year of the 33 years since the first Earth's surface temperature recorded last in 1978.

According to John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville, United States, the average temperature in 2011 is not hot because there is the phenomenon of cooling water temperature of the Pacific, otherwise known as La Nina at the beginning and end of year it.

If averaged globally, by 2011,
the Earth's atmosphere is about 0.27 degrees
warmer than average during the last 30 years.

"If averaged globally, by 2011, the Earth's atmosphere is about 0.27 degrees warmer than average during the last 30 years," said Christy, January 10, 2011.

They developed their own system reports temperature records from almost all regions of planet Earth.

As part of an ongoing project between the University of Alabama, NASA, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Christy and her team used data collected by the advanced microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites belonging to obtain accurate temperature information from the entire region the earth. Includes remote desert, ocean, rain forests, which are regions where the climate of accurate data is not available.

Satellites also measured the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere from the surface to an altitude of 26 thousand feet (7924 meters) above sea level. Data were collected and processed on a monthly basis, and available to researchers atmosphere and environmentalists from around the world.

Adapted from VIVA

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