Coffee reduces diabetes risk

Regular coffee drinkers have a lower chance of developing type 2 -- or adult-onset -- diabetes than people of similar characteristics who don't indulge, according to new research by the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital. The study, published in the current issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, followed nearly 42,000 healthy men and more than 84,000 healthy women from the 1980s through 1998, sending them food questionnaires every two to four years. Men who drank more than six cups of caffeinated coffee per day reduced their diabetes risk by more than 50 percent compared to those who didn't drink coffee. Women saw a drop of 30 percent. "This is good news for coffee drinkers; however, it doesn't mean everyone should run out for a latte," Frank Hu, an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, stated in a release. "We still don't know exactly why coffee is beneficial for diabetes, and more research is clearly needed."

BIOLOGY

Cells are the stars of animated movies

Researchers at the Harvard Medical School Center for Molecular and Cellular Dynamics are working to create molecular movies or realistic animations of every fundamental process in the cell—from protein synthesis to DNA repair. The animated image at left, made using data from experiments with a common virus, is part of a sequence illustrating how a viral invader gets past the immune system. The red particle is a virus binding to a cell, fooling it into thinking the virus is a nutrient to be taken in. The cell activates an elaborate molecular machine to pull in part of its membrane. In the image, the membrane is forming a bubble — or vesicle — around the virus before pinching it off from the membrane. A protein from the virus soon will cause the bubble to burst, releasing the virus core particle into the body of the cell, and freeing it to begin replicating itself.

GEOMETRY

The science of skipping stones

A cool, calm lake. Your dog frolicking along the beach. Your significant other admiring your attempt to skip a stone across the water -- and, to your deep embarrassment, it plops straight down with nary a bounce. Has this ever happened to you? Thanks to a new study, you need never suffer the humiliation of inadequate stone-skipping again. Christophe Clanet from the University of Aix-Marseille in France and his colleagues report in the Jan. 1 Nature that they have discovered the secret of maximizing the number of bounces in a skipped stone: You need to keep an angle of about 20 degrees between the spinning stone and the water's surface. To obtain that magic number, the researchers built a stone-skipping machine that fired aluminum discs into a tank of water. Using high-speed video cameras, Clanet and his team monitored the discs as they hit the water at various angles, velocities, and spins, focusing on the "crucial moment" of the bounce. Though the speed and rotation of the object are important, the physicists found that the angle of collision between the object and the water was critical to obtaining the largest number of bounces. In fact, no rebound was possible if the angle was greater than 45 degrees. So, the next time you want to impress your partner with your stone-skipping prowess, bring a protractor. BY AGNIESZKA BISKUP

ASTRONOMY

Universe changed color over time

When most people think of the color of the universe, the black of its vast, inky depths probably comes to mind. If it were possible to view the average of all the visible light in the universe, the true color actually would be kind of beige -- but it appears that the universe was a decidedly more colorful in its youth. An international team of researchers reported in the Dec. 20 Astrophysical Journal that the universe was bluer 11,500 million years ago when it was only 2,500 million years old, because of all the young stars. As they aged and turned redder, they tinted the universe. "Our new findings imply that the majority of stars in the universe were formed comparatively late, not so long before our sun was born, at a moment when the universe was around 7,000 million years old," stated team leader Gregory Rudnick from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany. BY AGNIESZKA BISKUP

FITNESS

Fatigue in 20s linked to risks

People who are out of shape in their 20s run a high risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and other heart-attack-risk factors by their 30s and 40s, according to a study published last month in The Journal of the American Medical Association. About 4,400 men and women participated in the study and were given an initial treadmill test when they were 18 to 30 years old. Fitness levels were measured by how long participants could walk on a treadmill without becoming fatigued. Many of the participants were followed for 15 years. Those who did not do well on the first treadmill test faced double the risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure or metabolic syndrome -- a condition with symptoms that include poor cholesterol levels, high blood sugar, elevated blood pressure and a fat belly.

"People can't wait until middle age to try to protect themselves," lead author Mercedes Carnethon, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, told the Associated Press. BY LAURA LEVIS