How did they simulate zero gravity and its adverse effects on the human body??
This has already been done years ago. You can simulate the influence of microgravity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlessness#Microgravity on the cardiovascular system and the skeleton using so called head down bed rest. The idea is if you are laying down at a down tilt of e.g. 5 degrees and are not allowed to stand up or sit up during the experiment you can simulate both the influence on the cardiovascular system and the unloading of the bones.
In the late 1980ies a 370-day-long head down tilt bed rest experiment was carried out in the Soviet Union, which is the bed rest study of the longest duration yet. This study showed that it was possible to counteract the immobilization induced bone loss by doing 1-2 hours of exercise per day combined with treatment with a pharmaceutical (a bisphosphonate, which is part of a group of agents that is currently used for treating/preventing osteoporosis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphosphonate]). A control group who did not do any countermeasures experienced a significant loss of bone mass after 120 days of bed rest, after which they also stated the same exercise regimen as the other participants and seemed to regain some of the lost bone.
Citation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16235873 (For reasons that is not clear to me this study was not published and the samples were put on storage unanalyzed until we got access to them. We analyzed the bone samples and published them with the original investigators from Russia and France.)
Also, the British thinktank who instituted this are a right-wing one, no doubt plotting to destroy the NHS alongside the Tory allies. So they publish a non-peer reviewed piece of 'research' designed to conclude what they want it to conclude. Bullshit.
The study was published in a journal called Demography http://www.populationassociation.org/publications/demography/. From the journals web page: "Demography is a peer-reviewed journal. All manuscripts considered appropriate for the journal are reviewed externally." Consequently, the research study was actually peer reviewed...
A quick search on arxiv.org for 'International Space Station' yields four papers.
For comparison, a search for 'Hubble Space Telescope' gives over 200 papers.
On the other hand a quick search on MedLine http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi for "International Space Station" gives 511 papers, whereas a search for "Hubble Space Telescope" only gives 70 papers.
The low number of papers found at arxiv.org is probably related to a selection bias from that site. In particular, medical sciences seems not to be represented. Similarly, papers related to the Hubble Space Telescope is not well represented in MedLine.
With respect to the story on Discovery: There is a factual error in it. Females do not have lover bone density than males. The volumetric density of male and female vertebrae are identical. However, females have generally smaller bones than males and the force needed to break female bones is therefore smaller than for males. On the other hand the stress (force divided by cross sectional area) needed to break female or male bones are identical.
More information can be found here.
Slashdot Mirror
This has already been done years ago. You can simulate the influence of microgravity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlessness#Microgravity on the cardiovascular system and the skeleton using so called head down bed rest. The idea is if you are laying down at a down tilt of e.g. 5 degrees and are not allowed to stand up or sit up during the experiment you can simulate both the influence on the cardiovascular system and the unloading of the bones.
In the late 1980ies a 370-day-long head down tilt bed rest experiment was carried out in the Soviet Union, which is the bed rest study of the longest duration yet. This study showed that it was possible to counteract the immobilization induced bone loss by doing 1-2 hours of exercise per day combined with treatment with a pharmaceutical (a bisphosphonate, which is part of a group of agents that is currently used for treating/preventing osteoporosis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphosphonate]). A control group who did not do any countermeasures experienced a significant loss of bone mass after 120 days of bed rest, after which they also stated the same exercise regimen as the other participants and seemed to regain some of the lost bone.
Citation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16235873
(For reasons that is not clear to me this study was not published and the samples were put on storage unanalyzed until we got access to them. We analyzed the bone samples and published them with the original investigators from Russia and France.)
The European Commission disagree with you as they use the term "ban" in their news release: http://ec.europa.eu/news/energy/090901_en.htm
The study was published in a journal called Demography http://www.populationassociation.org/publications/demography/. From the journals web page: "Demography is a peer-reviewed journal. All manuscripts considered appropriate for the journal are reviewed externally." Consequently, the research study was actually peer reviewed...
I think that you accidentally spelled "CP/M" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M) as "mac OS".
A quick search on arxiv.org for 'International Space Station' yields four papers.
For comparison, a search for 'Hubble Space Telescope' gives over 200 papers.
On the other hand a quick search on MedLine http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi for "International Space Station" gives 511 papers, whereas a search for "Hubble Space Telescope" only gives 70 papers.
The low number of papers found at arxiv.org is probably related to a selection bias from that site. In particular, medical sciences seems not to be represented. Similarly, papers related to the Hubble Space Telescope is not well represented in MedLine.
More information on vibration maschines for use in gaining muscle and bone strength can be found here.
This link shows how the vibration maschine works.
With respect to the story on Discovery: There is a factual error in it. Females do not have lover bone density than males. The volumetric density of male and female vertebrae are identical. However, females have generally smaller bones than males and the force needed to break female bones is therefore smaller than for males. On the other hand the stress (force divided by cross sectional area) needed to break female or male bones are identical. More information can be found here.