Leading Causes of Death in US Vary Greatly by Region

The rates at which people in the U.S die from different factors vary significantly among the regions of the country, according to a new study.

For example, the rates of death from cardiovascular diseases were highest in the Southeast over the past three decades, according to the study. But death rates from self-harm and interpersonal violence were highest in the Southwest, the researchers found.

In more than 2,000 counties, the rates of deaths related to substance abuse and mental disorders have more than tripled since 1980, the researchers said. Some clusters of counties in Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio saw tenfold increases in the rates of these deaths over the study period, they said. [The Odds of Dying from Shark Attacks, Tsunamis & Dozens of Other Causes]

The reasons why higher death rates vary across geographic areas are not completely clear, but the authors suggested some ideas. For example, the higher death rates from cardiovascular diseases might have something to do with higher rates of obesity in these areas, said study co-author Christopher J. L. Murray, a professor of Global Health at the University of Washington. (Previous research has shown a link between obesity and a greater risk of cardiovascular disease.)

The higher rates of death from self-harm and interpersonal violence in the Southwest may be related to the isolation that many people face there. People in the Southwest tend to live in isolated, rural areas and have less social interaction — a factor that previous research has linked to a greater risk of violence. They also have easy access to guns, Murray told Live Science.

In the study, the researchers looked at death rates in about 3,110 U.S. counties between 1980 and 2014. During this time about 80.4 million people in the U.S. died, the researchers found.

The researchers found that cardiovascular diseases caused 39.8 percent of deaths in the U.S. between 1980 and 2014. These diseases were also the leading cause of death in the U.S in 2014, according to the study, published today (Dec. 13) in the journal JAMA. [10 Amazing Facts About Your Heart]

The researchers found that cancer, another major cause of death, caused 24 percent of all deaths during the study period. Overall, the highest death rates from cancer were found in counties along the southern half of the Mississippi River, in eastern Kentucky, western West Virginia and western Alaska. In contrast, counties in the west, stretching from Idaho and Wyoming down to western Texas, had some of the lowest rates of death from cancer in the country, the researchers found.

On average, cancer death rates in the U.S. decreased by about 20 percent between 1980 and 2014, but in some counties, especially in the south- central states, they increased, according to the study. The largest increases in cancer death rates occurred in eastern Kentucky, the researchers found. The largest decreases in cancer death rates occurred in central Colorado, southern Florida, Alaska and parts of New England and California, the researchers found.

The reasons behind these disparities in cancer death rates are not clear and are likely very complex, the researchers said. But smoking may play a role, Murray said.

Instead of extending your arm or using a selfie stick to snap shots of you and your crew, you could use a new pocket-size drone — dubbed the "AirSelfie" — to help you remotely capture aerial photos and videos.

The AirSelfie is the brainchild of Italian entrepreneur Edoardo Stroppiana, who came up with the idea in 2014. "AirSelfie is specifically designed and produced for people who used to think drone cameras are extremely complicated to use — too expensive and bulky," Stroppiana said.

The AirSelfie is equipped with a 5-megapixel camera that can shoot full high-definition (HD) 1080p video, as well as a 4GB microSD card. Using the AirSelfie, people, groups and companies can take pictures of themselves, their backgrounds and their projects from distances, heights and angles that they never could using their arms or a stick, Stroppiana said.

The drone's four rotors help it fly up to 65 feet (20 meters) in the air. The flying camera measures only about 3.72 by 2.65 by 0.42 inches (9.45 by 6.73 by 1.07 centimeters) — "smaller than a smartphone," Stroppiana said — and weighs 1.83 ounces (52 grams).

The drone uses sonar to measure its altitude and keeps itself stable with the help of a tiny extra camera to monitor its surroundings for signs of jitter. It is also equipped with gyroscopes, barometers and geomagnetic sensors that help it navigate as it flies, said AirSelfie Holdings Ltd. in London, the company that Stroppiana co-founded in 2016 to manufacture the drone.

The AirSelfie is controlled via a free iOS or Android app. The app can make the drone take off; adjust its height and direction; let it hover autonomously; and help users take an HD aerial shot or video with just a push of a button. Users can also activate a 10-second timer, giving people enough time to hide their phones so they don't appear in the picture or video. The drone can take up to eight consecutive shots, the company said.

The AirSelfie uses Wi-Fi to send photos and videos wirelessly to smartphones. The app also allows users to post photos and videos taken with the drone immediately on social media.

After snapping photos, the drone can return to its departure point automatically with the touch of a button. Users can also guide the AirSelfie back manually, and its manufacturers said it is safe for the drone to land on a person's open hand, or even for people to grab the drone while it is still hovering in midair.

A rechargeable lithium polymer battery gives the AirSelfie a flight time of 3 minutes, according to the company. An accessory known as the Power Bank slips over the AirSelfie like a smartphone case, and can recharge the drone in 30 minutes. The Power Bank can hold 20 such charges before it needs to be recharged, the company said. Users can also recharge the AirSelfie directly with a micro-USB cable.

The company said it developed a fully functioning prototype in August. On Nov. 17, the company launched a Kickstarter campaign to make the AirSelfie available via preorder, and it met its $47,714 goal in less than three days. The campaign, which is scheduled to end Dec. 24, has raised more than $500,000 from more than 2,300 backers. In addition, the company has received $3 million from private angel investors in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and China, Stroppiana said.

The first preordered drones are scheduled for delivery in March. The drone is expected to hit the market in 2017 for a retail price of $300.

Rudolph Is Shrinking: Climate Change Is Starving Santa's Reindeer

Reindeer are shrinking, and it's not because they're on a diet for the holidays. Rather, climate change is making it difficult for them — and their gestating fetuses — to survive extreme winters, new research shows.

The findings are the culmination of a 16-year study on the reindeer living in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located between Norway and the Arctic. In 1994, the adult reindeer in Svalbard weighed an average of 120 lbs. (55 kilograms), but in 2010, they weighed less than 108 lbs. (49 kg), on average — a 10- to 12-percent drop in weight, said lead study researcher Steve Albon, an emeritus population ecologist at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland.

The drop in weight was linked to warmer winters and summers, he said. Reindeer typically mate in late October and give birth in early June, he said. During the cold, dry winter months, reindeer, including those that are pregnant, forage under the snow for lichen, a slow-growing organism that's part fungi and part algae, Albon said.

But warm winter temperatures have increasingly brought rain, not snow, Albon said. Then, when temperatures drop, the wet ground freezes like an ice rink, with the reindeer's tasty lichen stuck beneath the ice.

Unable to get to their food, hundreds, if not thousands, of reindeer die, and pregnant reindeer that survive either lose their fetuses or give birth to smaller calves, Albon said. In fact, 61,000 reindeer starved to death in Siberia following a rain-on-snow event in 2013 to 2014, according to a November 2016 study published in the journal Biology Letters.

"In the winter, over the 20 years we've been working there [Svalbard], the temperature has gone up 9 degrees Celsius [16.2 degrees Fahrenheit]," Albon told Live Science. "It's more likely that you'll get these periods where the temperatures go above freezing, and if there's any precipitation, [it later freezes]."

At first, the researchers noticed these ice-rink events happening every six years — in 1996, 2002 and 2008. But then, the icy events began happening every other year year, in 2008, 2010 and 2012, "and we realized that this was related to the warming climate," Albon said. "The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet, especially this part of the Arctic."

Shrinking reindeer

Albon and his Norwegian colleagues initially visited Svalbard's reindeer to learn more about their response to parasites. As they measured and weighed the reindeer year after year to see the effect of parasites, they noticed a troubling pattern: There was a huge variation in the number of pregnant females in 1996, 2002 and 2008, the same years the ice-rink events happened. Moreover, the researchers recorded a decline in the adults' skeletal size and weight from the 1990s to the early 2000s, the researchers said.

This happened despite the warmer summers, which led to increased vegetation for the reindeer to eat. Over a 20-year period, the summer temperatures increased by about 2.7 F (1.5 C), Albon said.

"In the summer, 1.5 Celsius doesn't sound like much, but if you increase from a mean [average] of 6 degrees Celsius [42.8 F] in July to 7.5 degrees Celsius [45.5 F], you'll find you get a doubling in vegetation productivity," Albon said. "That's a very substantial change."

Despite this cornucopia of food during the summer, the winters continued to wear on the reindeer. "They were losing more weight, they were losing their fetuses, so there was fetal mortality," Albon said. [Species Success Stories: 10 Animals Back from the Brink]

In contrast, "if the winter was cold and dry, the mothers could get to the food, and the calves would be born at size and likely to be more viable," he said. "That very early growth, even in utero, dictates the rest of life."

Summer loving

The warmer summer adds a complication, Albon said. When Svalbard is warm and sprouting with food, reindeer are more likely to mate. That means the reindeer population is growing despite the frequent, severe ice-rink winters, he said.

It's possible that limited winter resources due to increased population may partly explain the "shrinking"-reindeer phenomenon, Albon and his colleagues wrote in their study.

But regardless of the cause of the "shrinking," the smaller reindeer face different challenges than their normal-size brethren. These smaller reindeer have a disadvantage during the winter because their metabolism is higher than that of regularly sized reindeer, but there's less food available for them to eat. Yet during the warmer summers, these smaller reindeer may have an advantage because it's easier for them to dissipate heat, which is high when they're nursing, Albon said.

If too many reindeer shrink, it also spells bad news for the herd. If the adults in a reindeer population are, for the most part, more than 110 lbs. (50 kg) in April, the population tends to increase. But if the reindeer are mostly under that weight, the population tends to decline, Albon said.

For the time being, the researchers are waiting for the reindeer born in the past few years to reach age 6, when they become mature adults. Only then will the researchers have a better idea of how climate change is affecting the reindeer's population numbers, he said. However, another study, presented at the American Geophysical Union Meeting on Monday (Dec. 12), found that climate change might be responsible for shrinking reindeer populations in northern Russia.

Reindeer are hardly the only animal that is "shrinking" due to climate change. The phenomenon isn't a new one — when the planet got warmer in the past, beetles, bees, spiders and even pocket gophers also shrank, according to fossil evidence, Live Science reported in 2011.

More recently, reports have tied shrinking bison, salamanders and other animals to climate change.

The reindeer research, which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, was presented Monday at the British Ecological Society meeting in Liverpool, England.

Hat-Shaped Spider Named for Magical Object in 'Harry Potter'

A team of arachnologists who are also avid fans of the "Harry Potter" books recently paid tribute to the beloved fantasy novels and their author, J.K. Rowling, as only scientists could — by naming a spider species after one of the magical objects in the series.

The spider has an oddly-shaped brown-patterned body that rises from a wide base to a tapered, bent peak above the spider's back, disguising it as a dried-up leaf.

However, the scientists who discovered the spider noted that its body shape also bears a striking resemblance to the sentient, rhyming Sorting Hat at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. So they put on their thinking caps and dubbed the spider Eriovixia gryffindori after the "fabulous" Sorting Hat's original owner — and co-founder of Hogwarts — the fictional wizard Godric Gryffindor, they wrote in the study.

The Eriovixia genus contains 20 species of orb-weaving spider and is widely distributed across Asia and Africa. They are known for having a hairy carapace and a tapering abdomen that is sometimes tipped with a tail-like appendage.

The researchers found the female spider about 4 feet (1.2 meters) off the forest floor in a shrub in Karnataka, India. It measures 0.3 inches (7 millimeters) in length, and is grayish brown, dotted with darker brown spots. A jagged dark line extends up the side of its leaf-shaped — and hat-shaped — body, dividing a dark back region from a paler underside, further emphasizing the spider's similarity to the foliage where it hides. It is lightly furred with tiny hairs in shades of white and light yellow, the study authors wrote.

Though it resembled other types of Eriovixia spiders, the shape of E. griffindori's genitalia and parts of its exoskeleton told the scientists that it differed enough to be considered a new species.

"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling tweeted her approval of E. gryffindori's name, writing that she was "truly honored" and offering her congratulations to the authors for their discovery.

In the study, the scientists described their whimsical name choice as "an effort to draw attention to the fascinating, but oft overlooked world of invertebrates, and their secret lives," proclaiming E. gryffindori to be "an ode from the authors, for magic lost, and found."