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Gizmorama - February 16, 2015
Good Morning, We just can't get away from our phones, can we?
New research has shown that smartphone apps are more accurate than your average fitness tracker. Yeah, but how good are they at spotting you?
Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
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GopherArchives**** Smartphone apps as accurate as fitness trackers *PHILADELPHIA (UPI) - Wearable fitness tracking devices may be more convenient than lugging a smartphone along on a jog or trip to the gym, but new research suggests they aren't more accurate than mobile apps that perform similar functions.
In a study published Tuesday in JAMA, researchers revealed that the most popular and top-selling fitness trackers were no more accurate than common smartphone apps, many of them free. Scientists compared the two approaches (tracker versus app) by loading up treadmill users with two smartphones -- one in each pocket, with one running three apps and the other running one -- as well as a number of tracking devices around their wrists and two on their waists.
The 14 study participants, all students at the University of Pennsylvania, were made to walk on a treadmill for 500 and 1,500 steps. The process was repeated once, making for 56 total trials. After each trial, the steps counted by each device and app were recorded. While no one approach is perfect, all but one of the apps and devices were relatively accurate.
"In this study, we wanted to address one of the challenges with using wearable devices: they must be accurate," explained lead study author Meredith A. Case, a medical student at Penn. "After all, if a device is going to be effective at monitoring -- and potentially changing -- behavior, individuals have to be able to trust the data."
"We found that smartphone apps are just as accurate as wearable devices for tracking physical activity," Case added.
Dr. Mitesh Patel, a teacher and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the Leonard Davis Institute, said fitness tracking devices may be useful for getting people off the couch and onto their feet. But he said that a device alone is not enough to motivate someone to stick with an exercise regimen.
"In terms of actually changing people's behavior, there needs to be more than just using the device," he told the Los Angeles Times. "We have to be able to pair these devices with effective engagement strategies that help people to build new habits and use effective feedback loops."
*-- High-res images captured by spraying live bacteria across X-ray pulse --*MENLO PARK, Calif. (UPI) - For the first time, scientists have captured X-ray portraits of living bacteria using techniques that allow high-resolution images of the inner structures and activities of biological particles.
Researchers working at the Defense Department's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory accomplished the feat by spraying the bacteria -- cyanobacteria, a common blue-green algae -- as a gas stream via a gun-like aerosol device. The stream of bacteria is shot into the path of a rapid-fire X-ray pulse which, and as the millions of bacteria particles pass, detectors pick up diffraction patterns.
These diffractions pick up and preserve details of the bacteria's inner workings, which are then used to reassemble 2-D portraits using high-tech computer models. Researchers say the same technique will eventually be able to render 3-D imagery of the living bacterial particles.
"We have developed a unique way to rapidly explore, sort and analyze samples, with the possibility of reaching higher resolutions than other study methods," researcher leader Janos Hajdu, a professor of biophysics at Uppsala University in Sweden, explained in a press release. "This could eventually be a complete game-changer."
The technique allows researchers to collect thousands of images at rapid speeds. Scientists believe the imaging strategy will eventually produce more detailed portraits -- capturing the resolution of molecules and atoms. The research is the first step, scientists say, in the path toward rendering detailed observations of biological processes and behaviors like viral infections, cell division, photosynthesis and more.
"You can study the full cycle of cellular processes, with each X-ray pulse providing a snapshot of the process you want to study," said researcher Tomas Ekeberg, a biophysicist at Uppsala.
The latest results, published this week in the journal Nature, are the culmination of an experiment that began last year.
Though the new technique could be used to explore all types of biological materials, researchers are interested in further analyzing the machinery inside the cells of cyanobacteria -- specifically the internal photosynthesis processes responsible for some 40 percent of organic carbon in the natural world. The algae's innards play a major role in the planet's oxygen, carbon and nitrogen cycles.
"A better understanding of the structure and function of these cell organelles could benefit carbon-cycle research," study author Dirk Hasse said last year.
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