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Early dinosaur relative walked like a croc

  One of the earliest relatives of dinosaurs had some features we associate today with crocodiles and alligators, a study suggests.

  Many palaeontologists have wondered what the earliest dinosaur relatives looked like, as the fossil record in this time period is sparse. Some assumed they walked on two legs, looking a bit like miniature dinosaurs. But the newly described creature walked on four legs like a croc, the journal Nature reports.

  The 2-3m (7-10ft) carnivorous animal, unearthed in southern Tanzania, lived some 245 million years ago during the Triassic Period. It pre-dated the earliest dinosaurs. Prof Paul Barrett, one of the authors on the new paper, said: “This is a little animal that we call Teleocrater. It’s not very big...it probably would have weighed about the same as the average family dog.”

  Teleocrater rhadinus appeared just after a large group of animals known as archosaurs split into one branch that led to dinosaurs, and another branch that led to today’s alligators and crocodiles. Its anatomy combines features present in the last common ancestor of these groups, such as a crocodilian-like ankle joint, with some features considered characteristic of dinosaurs.

  The first fossils belonging to Teleocrater were discovered in 1933 in Tanzania. They were studied at London’s Natural History Museum in the 1950s. But these specimens were missing crucial bones, such as the ankle. Therefore, scientists at the time could not tell whether they were more closely related to crocs or to dinosaurs.

  The new specimens were uncovered in the East African country in 2015, resolving some of those outstanding questions. They show that it is one of the earliest members of the archosaur family tree and that it walked like a crocodilian.

  Teleocrater, along with other dinosaur relatives, lived across a wide range of different regions, from Russia to India to Brazil. The team’s next steps are to return to southern Tanzania to look for more remains and missing pieces of the Teleocrater skeleton.

(Paul Rincon. www.bbc.com, 12.04.2017. Adaptado.)

Read the text to answer question.

Early dinosaur relative walked like a croc

  One of the earliest relatives of dinosaurs had some features we associate today with crocodiles and alligators, a study suggests.

  Many palaeontologists have wondered what the earliest dinosaur relatives looked like, as the fossil record in this time period is sparse. Some assumed they walked on two legs, looking a bit like miniature dinosaurs. But the newly described creature walked on four legs like a croc, the journal Nature reports.

  The 2-3m (7-10ft) carnivorous animal, unearthed in southern Tanzania, lived some 245 million years ago during the Triassic Period. It pre-dated the earliest dinosaurs. Prof Paul Barrett, one of the authors on the new paper, said: “This is a little animal that we call Teleocrater. It’s not very big...it probably would have weighed about the same as the average family dog.”

  Teleocrater rhadinus appeared just after a large group of animals known as archosaurs split into one branch that led to dinosaurs, and another branch that led to today’s alligators and crocodiles. Its anatomy combines features present in the last common ancestor of these groups, such as a crocodilian-like ankle joint, with some features considered characteristic of dinosaurs.

  The first fossils belonging to Teleocrater were discovered in 1933 in Tanzania. They were studied at London’s Natural History Museum in the 1950s. But these specimens were missing crucial bones, such as the ankle. Therefore, scientists at the time could not tell whether they were more closely related to crocs or to dinosaurs.

  The new specimens were uncovered in the East African country in 2015, resolving some of those outstanding questions. They show that it is one of the earliest members of the archosaur family tree and that it walked like a crocodilian.

  Teleocrater, along with other dinosaur relatives, lived across a wide range of different regions, from Russia to India to Brazil. The team’s next steps are to return to southern Tanzania to look for more remains and missing pieces of the Teleocrater skeleton.

(Paul Rincon. www.bbc.com, 12.04.2017. Adaptado.)

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Why athletes need to know how much they sweat

We all know it’s important to stay hydrated when exercising, but just how much should we be drinking?

It depends. Sweating is the primary way we lose fluid, but each of us loses it at a different rate – which means each of us has a different amount to drink.

Instead of winging it, says Dr. Daniel Vigil, it’s vital to “replace our sweat losses without over-replacing them.”

To do this, we need to first determine our sweat rate: how much and how fast we perspire during exercise. It’s easy to calculate our sweat rate, and if we follow Vigil’s guidelines, it only takes an hour as part of your regular exercise.

Here’s how:

Weigh yourself in the nude just before exercising.

Exercise for exactly one hour without eating or drinking anything.

Weigh yourself in the nude again.

Calculate your weight difference and convert it to kilograms.

Multiply that number by 1,000 to find your sweat rate in milliliters per hour.

A typical sweat rate for a healthy, average-sized person hovers around the 500 mL per hour range. That number tells you what rate you should be hydrating at. So if your sweat rate is 500 mL per hour, you should ideally be drinking that much; not much more, not much less.

Of course, our sweat rate depends on a few things, and it can change. “Your fitness, the type of exercise you’re doing, the temperature outside, and the humidity all affect sweat rate,” says Vigil. It’s important to keep tabs on these factors to hydrate appropriately.

While it is okay to just drink the amount that feels right under most circumstances, Vigil advises that you’re better off regulating your fluid intake during exercise. “Staying hydrated during physical activity helps to maintain performance. A body water deficit of greater than 2% of body weight marks the level of dehydration that can adversely affect performance.”

So if you’re about to hit the gym, grab a water bottle and make sure you’re drinking the right amount.

Disponível em: https://connect.uclahealth.org/discussion/whyathletes-need-to-know-how-much-they-sweat/. Acessado em 15 de setembro de 2016.

Read the text below and answer question according to it.

Why athletes need to know how much they sweat

We all know it’s important to stay hydrated when exercising, but just how much should we be drinking?

It depends. Sweating is the primary way we lose fluid, but each of us loses it at a different rate – which means each of us has a different amount to drink.

Instead of winging it, says Dr. Daniel Vigil, it’s vital to “replace our sweat losses without over-replacing them.”

To do this, we need to first determine our sweat rate: how much and how fast we perspire during exercise. It’s easy to calculate our sweat rate, and if we follow Vigil’s guidelines, it only takes an hour as part of your regular exercise.

Here’s how:

Weigh yourself in the nude just before exercising.

Exercise for exactly one hour without eating or drinking anything.

Weigh yourself in the nude again.

Calculate your weight difference and convert it to kilograms.

Multiply that number by 1,000 to find your sweat rate in milliliters per hour.

A typical sweat rate for a healthy, average-sized person hovers around the 500 mL per hour range. That number tells you what rate you should be hydrating at. So if your sweat rate is 500 mL per hour, you should ideally be drinking that much; not much more, not much less.

Of course, our sweat rate depends on a few things, and it can change. “Your fitness, the type of exercise you’re doing, the temperature outside, and the humidity all affect sweat rate,” says Vigil. It’s important to keep tabs on these factors to hydrate appropriately.

While it is okay to just drink the amount that feels right under most circumstances, Vigil advises that you’re better off regulating your fluid intake during exercise. “Staying hydrated during physical activity helps to maintain performance. A body water deficit of greater than 2% of body weight marks the level of dehydration that can adversely affect performance.”

So if you’re about to hit the gym, grab a water bottle and make sure you’re drinking the right amount.

Disponível em: https://connect.uclahealth.org/discussion/whyathletes-need-to-know-how-much-they-sweat/. Acessado em 15 de setembro de 2016.

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The Americas are Now Measles-Free

The Americas has become the first region in the world to be free of measles, following a 22-year vaccination drive against the disease which continues to infect tens of thousands of people globally, the Pan American Health Organization said on Tuesday.

The milestone was confirmed after no cases of the highly contagious disease originating in the Americas were recorded in at least three years, the PAHO said.

"This is truly a historic deed," said Carissa Etienne, director of the PAHO, which serves as the World Health Organization's (WHO) regional office for the Americas.

Globally, measles remains a leading cause of death among young children in the developing world. About 250,000 people were infected with measles last year, most in Africa and Asia, the PAHO said.

According to the WHO, the virus that can lead to deadly complications like diarrhea, dehydration, respiratory infection and encephalitis kills an estimated 314 people every day.

The last outbreak of measles that originated in the Americas occurred in Venezuela in 2002, PAHO said. But the region was only declared free of measles this year.

Justin Lessler, an epidemiology expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said imported cases of measles - which remains widespread in other parts of the world - could still lead to small outbreaks in the Americas. "People still need to be vaccinated to maintain elimination," he said.

Before a separate, worldwide vaccination drive against measles began in the 1980s, the disease caused 2.6 million deaths a year worldwide - 12,000 of them in the Americas, according to PAHO.

Measles is the fifth vaccine-preventable disease to be eliminated in the Americas - after smallpox in 1971, poliomyelitis in 1994, and rubella and congenital rubella syndrome in 2015, the PAHO said.

Adaptado de: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/theamericas-are-now-measles-free/ Acessado em 15 de setembro de 2016.

Text

Autism's Drug Problem

Many people on the spectrum take multiple medications, which can lead to serious side effects and may not even be effective

Connor was diagnosed with autism early — when he was just 18 months old. His condition was already obvious by then. “He was lining things up, switching lights on and off, on and off,” says his mother, Melissa. He was bright, but he didn’t speak much until age 3, and he was easily frustrated. Once he started school, he couldn’t sit still in class, called out answers without raising his hand and got visibly upset when he couldn’t master a math concept or a handwriting task quickly enough. “One time, he rolled himself up into the carpet like a burrito and wouldn’t come out until I got there,” Melissa recalls. (All families in this story are identified by first name only, to protect their privacy.)

Connor was prescribed his first psychiatric drug, methylphenidate (Ritalin), at age 6. That didn’t last long, but when he was 7, his parents tried again. A psychiatrist suggested a low dose of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine (Adderall), a stimulant commonly used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The drug seemed to improve his time at school: He was able to sit still for longer periods of time and focus on what his teachers were saying. His chicken-scratch handwriting became legible. Then, it became neat. Then perfect. And then it became something Connor began to obsess over.

“We were told that these are the gives and takes; if it’s helping him enough to get through school, you have to decide if it’s worth it,” Melissa says. It was worth it — for a while.

But when the Adderall wore off each day, Connor had a tougher time than ever. He spent afternoons crying and refusing to do much of anything. The stimulant made it difficult for him to fall asleep at night. So after a month or two, his psychiatrist added a second medication — guanfacine (Intuniv), which is commonly prescribed for ADHD, anxiety and hypertension, but can also help with insomnia. The psychiatrist hoped it might both ease Connor’s afternoons and help him sleep.

In some ways, it had the opposite effect. His afternoons did get slightly better, but Connor developed intense mood swings and was so irritable that every evening was a struggle. Rather than simply tossing and turning in bed, he refused to even get under the covers. “He wouldn’t go to bed because he was always angry about something,” Melissa says. “He was getting himself all wound up, carrying on, getting upset at night and crying.”

After seven months, his parents declared the combination unsustainable. They swapped guanfacine for over-the-counter melatonin, which helped Connor fall asleep with no noticeable side effects. But within a year, he had acquired a tolerance for Adderall. Connor’s psychiatrist increased his dosage and that, in turn, triggered tics: Connor began jerking his head and snorting. Finally, at his 9-year physical, his doctor discovered that he’d only grown a few inches since age 7. He also hadn’t gained any weight in two years; he’d dropped from the 50th percentile in weight to the 5th.

That was the end of all the experiments. His parents took him off all prescription drugs, and today, at almost 13 years old, Connor is still medication-free. His tics have mostly disappeared. Although he has trouble maintaining focus in class, his mother says that the risk-benefit ratio of trying another drug doesn’t seem worth it. “Right now we’re able to handle life without it, so we do.”

(...)

For Connor, eliminating prescription drugs was difficult, but doable. For others, multiple medications may seem indispensable. It’s not unusual for children with autism to take two, three, even four medications at once. Many adults with the condition do so, too. Data are scant in both populations, but what little information there is suggests multiple prescriptions are even more common among adults with autism than in children. Clinicians are particularly concerned about children with the condition because psychiatric medications can have long-lasting effects on their developing brains, and yet are rarely tested in children.

In general, polypharmacy — most often defined as taking more than one prescription medication at once — is commonplace in people with autism. In one study of more than 33,000 people under age 21 with the condition, at least 35 percent had taken two psychotropic medications simultaneously; 15 percent had taken three.

“Psychotropic medications are used pretty extensively in people with autism because there aren’t a lot of treatments available,” says Lisa Croen, director of the Autism Research Program at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California. “Is heavy drug use bad? That’s the question. We don’t know; it hasn’t been studied.”

Disponível em: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/autisms-drug-problem/. Texto adaptado.