Newswise – Despite improvements in the baseball mitts used by professional baseball players, the gloves still do not adequately protect players’ hands from injury, according to a new study. Dr. Adam Ginn says, “We found signs of early blood vessel damage that could lead to significant symptoms and could end a player’s career. The gloves’ current design does not protect the hand from trauma.”
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It’s official: This is the worst hurricane season in recorded history. According to historian Eric Gross, “Hurricane Katrina [is] the most expensive natural disaster in our nation’s history, even when damages are converted to a constant-dollar figure to account for inflation over time.”
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Experts may be significantly underestimating air pollution’s role in causing early death, according to a team of researchers who studied twenty years of auto emissions data to learn the effect on Los Angeles residents. Also, the closer children live to a freeway, the greater their chance of being diagnosed with asthma. These children have higher levels of nitrogen dioxide, or NO2, in the air around their homes. NO2 is emitted from car and truck engines.
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Dust from asteroids entering the atmosphere may influence Earth’s weather more than previously believed, according to an article in the journal Nature. Researchers have found evidence that dust from an asteroid burning up as it passed through Earth’s atmosphere formed a cloud of micron-sized particles large enough to influence local weather in Antarctica, where glaciers are rapidly melting. Particles this size are large enough to reflect sunlight, causing local cooling and playing a major role in cloud formation. The dust can even have a negative effect on the ozone layer. This may temporarily help reverse the rapid melting of the Antarctic.
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