Effects of binge drinking linger
PROVIDENCE, R.I., Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Heavy drinking adversely affects a person's performance and perception hours after alcohol has left the body, researchers in Rhode Island said.
Researchers at Brown University recruited 95 healthy adults ages 21 to 35 who had reported having a hangover at least one time within the month before the research began.
The participants were randomly assigned bourbon or vodka and told to drink until their breath tests indicated a blood alcohol level of 0.11 percent, well over the legal driving limit for most states, Medpage Today reported Tuesday.
After eight hours of sleep and breakfast, the participants showed poorer performance in simulated driving tests than participants who had consumed only cola with several drops of alcohol the night before.
"We found that people were impaired in their ability to do tasks that require both vigilance and making rapid decisions and that people were not aware that their performance was impaired," researcher Damaris Rohsenow told Medpage Today.
Climate change threatens duck wetlands
BROOKINGS, S.D., Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Climate change could adversely impact the Prairie Pothole Region that produces more than half of North America's migratory duck population, scientists said.
The region, filled with millions of glacially formed wetlands, includes parts of western Iowa and Minnesota, the central and eastern Dakotas and parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Scientists at South Dakota State University examined 20th century records starting in 1906 for 18 Prairie Pothole Region weather stations.
The records showed a widespread trend toward warmer minimum temperatures, especially in the Canadian prairies, where some stations showed increases of more than 6 degrees Fahrenheit, wetland ecologist W. Carter Johnson said in a release Monday.
Much of the region has been turned into farmland and the best remaining duck nesting grounds are in the parts of the region where the effects of climate change are projected to be the most severe, he said.
Plastic bags recycled into batteries
ARGONNE, Ill., Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Plastic bags found in abundance at grocery stores could be recycled into carbon nanotubes, a component in lithium ion batteries, an Illinois scientist said.
Vilas Pol, of Argonne National Laboratory 25-miles southwest of Chicago, developed the process as a way to turn plastic waste into an energy resource, the Southtown Star reported Tuesday.
With cobalt acetate as a catalyst, plastic bags were heated to 1,292 degrees Fahrenheit, which caused the carbon in the plastic to grow as nanotubes on the cobalt particles, Pol said, noting the process could be used on plastic water bottles and plastic cups.
The cobalt acetate, which is relatively expensive, could be recovered when the batteries were recycled, Pol said. Performing the process without cobalt acetate yields carbon spheres that could be used in printer ink.
Yet to be determined is how to collect enough bags to make the project cost efficient, Pol said. Recycling programs find the bags difficult to collect because they often get swept up in air currents, causing a problem for curbside collectors and recycling centers.
Red owls sign of global warming
WACO, Texas, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Higher temperatures caused by global warming are prompting an increase in the number of red Eastern Screech Owls, a Texas biologist said.
Eastern Screech owls can be gray or red, the red known as "rufus" screech owls, Baylor University researcher Fred Gehlbach said.
Rufus screech owls primarily are found in hot and humid areas in the southern United States and have porous feathers that dissipate body heat. Gray screech owls primarily are found in rainy cloudy areas and have stouter feathers to protect against the cold.
In the last 20 years, rufus owls have increased from about 7 percent of the total eastern screech owl population to about 15 percent and likely will continue to increase as temperatures warm, Gehlbach said in a release Monday.
Rufus owls also have been nesting, or breeding earlier, he said. In central Texas, the birds have been observed nesting about a day earlier every three years.
