Miami-Dade Mayor Plans to Veto Removal of Fluoride from Drinking Water

Posted on April 12, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The mayor of Miami-Dade County announced on Friday that she opposes the removal of fluoride from drinking water in Florida’s largest county. This decision goes against a growing movement that aims to eliminate minerals used for preventing tooth decay.

This veto by Mayor Daniela Levine Cava, a Democrat, comes as critics advocate for the addition of fluoride to water supplies. Recently, Utah became the first state to prohibit the addition of fluoride to public water, and other states, including Florida, are contemplating similar actions.

“The science is crystal clear,” Levine Kava stated during a press conference on Friday. She emphasized, “Ending fluoridation could cause real and lasting harm, especially to children and families who cannot afford regular dental care.”

On April 1, the Miami-Dade Commission, a nonpartisan body of county commissioners, passed a measure to ban fluoride, with some commissioners absent. A total of nine votes are needed to override the mayor’s veto if all 13 commissioners are present, and it remains uncertain whether there is enough support for this. The next scheduled board meeting is on May 6th.

The majority of commissioners in Miami-Dade are Republicans, and Kevin Marino Cabrera, a Trump ally, is set to become the ambassador of Panama. Levine Cava is currently the highest elected Democrat in the state, with Republicans having claimed victory in all other county elected offices in Miami-Dade last year, including sheriffs and election supervisors.

During a press conference last Friday, Levine Caba referenced a study to support her decision, standing alongside dentists and doctors wearing white coats.

“I do what I believe is best for the health of my community. I stand with dental and medical professionals,” she affirmed.

Commissioner Roberto J. Gonzalez, the sponsor of the law, criticized Levine Hippo for “behaving like a typical politician, relying on tired partisan narratives to jeopardize public health.” In a statement on Friday, he called on his fellow committee members to override the veto.

Miami-Dade is mandated to cease adding fluoride to its water supply within 30 days. Levine Cava mentioned that she and her office are closely monitoring state-level efforts in the Florida Legislature to pass a similar ban.

Many experts caution against the removal of fluoride from drinking water, especially for oral health and cavity prevention. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deem Fluoridation as one of the “10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.”

However, concerns about fluoride have gained momentum in recent years, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic undermined trust in public health interventions. Opponents argue that they aim to safeguard bodily autonomy and raise worries about potential cognitive effects in children.

They reference a Recent Review Papers which analyzed 74 studies and suggested a link between decreased IQ scores in children with high fluoride exposure during childhood or prenatal periods. (The levels studied were double the CDC’s recommended level. One study found no association.)

Levine Cava’s veto contrasts with the stance of fluoride skeptics like the Trump administration’s Kennedy and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, along with his appointed surgeon general, Dr. Joseph A. Radapop, who advocates for fluoridated water.

Recently, DeSantis expressed, “Do we want forced medication or do we want people to have a choice? When you’re adding it to water, you’re not really giving people a choice.”

Before the mayor’s announcement, Dr. Radapop called for a halt to Covid vaccine use and urged Miami-Dade residents to petition the mayor to support the fluoride ban. “It’s difficult to comprehend how someone feels entitled to add drugs to the water people drink,” he remarked.

Fluoride was first introduced in city water supplies in 1945 and became a common practice across the country in the ensuing decades. Studies have shown a direct correlation between fluoridation and improved oral hygiene.

“There’s a growing distrust in reliable, evidence-based science,” remarked Dr. Brett Kessler, president of the American Dental Association, in a statement this week. “When government officials, like Secretary Kennedy, perpetuate misinformation and mistrust in research, it harms public health.”

The debate over fluoridated water has raged for years as experts warn against excessive long-term fluoride exposure due to potential health issues. The federally mandated level has decreased over the years, including after a recent court order.

On Monday, Environmental Protection Agency director Lee Zeldin announced the decision to “expeditiously review new scientific information on the potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water.”

“If this evaluation is conducted without bias, it will provide a modern and comprehensive scientific assessment,” stated Zeldin. He lauded Kennedy’s longstanding involvement in this issue. Most individuals who spoke during the public comments section at the April Miami-Dade Committee meeting opposed fluoridation. A few days post-meeting, Levine Hippo hosted a Roundtable Discussion, focusing on the benefits with community healthcare professionals.

Since the November election, Florida’s 20 other cities and county governments have voted to eliminate fluoride from their water supplies. Miami-Dade County, with a population of around 2.7 million, is significantly larger. There are ongoing discussions in the Florida Legislature regarding a bill that would prevent local municipalities from adding fluoride to water.

Miami-Dade politics have shifted markedly to the right in recent years, mirroring Florida’s political landscape from a battleground state to one that is increasingly leaning Republican. In November, Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win the county since 1988.

Patricia Matsuzei Contribution report

Source: www.nytimes.com

RFK Jr. criticizes FDA for banning alternative remedies and condemns drug industry’s influence

Posted on April 12, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

In a speech aired on the Food and Drug Administration’s Maryland campus Friday morning, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. introduced himself as the country’s health secretary in a mean speech that touched on everything from the raptors of Lake Erie to the CIA.

Kennedy told agency staff in an effort to boldly avoid the impulse to protect the companies they regulate amid the pain of losing 20% of the workforce under an overhaul of the health and human services sector.

Layoffs, voluntary departures and cuts in funding have already stopped the sectors controlling tobacco surveillance, drug approval processes, testing bird milk and bird flu cheeses, and food safety, which monitors and protects consumers from foodborne diseases.

In his remarks Friday, Kennedy suggested that the agency did not approve “alternative drugs” because of its subordination to wealthy businesses. Agent veterans argue that alternative products often fail to pass safety and efficacy standards.

He previously accused the FDA of suppressing raw milk, ivermectin and stem cell therapy.

He urged staff to resist the temptation to serve small groups of wealthy businesses at the expense of public health.

“We want to break away from it so that we can make our children healthy,” he said, according to a transcript of the speech shared with the New York Times. At another point, he said, “The deep nation is the real thing.” This is a light-journal reference to the vast federal bureaucracy that President Trump accused of as an obstacle to achieving his goals in his first term.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Kennedy’s remarks.

Kennedy also calls the FDA “sock dolls.” He used it in the past. Dynamics rewards “a very powerful incumbent in the industry,” he said at another time.

Drugmakers have benefited from a series of efforts by the FDA to speed up specific drug approvals and encourage businesses to develop drugs for serious illnesses that lack treatment. An FDA official said the program is intended to help patients.

The FDA has faced criticism over the past few years for several well-known drug approvals. For example, when granting approval for Alzheimer’s and Duchenne muscular dystrophy products, the top officials rejected the agency’s scientist or advisor.

Kennedy urged FDA employees to speak up if their boss greenlights products with insufficient evidence. “If your boss is making a mistake, if they approve something that shouldn’t be approved, we want to hear,” he said.

New FDA committee member Dr. Marty McCurry introduced Kennedy at a meeting Friday, supporting the goal of shaping healthier food supplies. He admitted that for some staff, cutting at the agency is “struggling with the ground.” He said the change was “to be integrated, more efficient and create more teamwork.”

Kennedy and Dr. McCurry were broadcast on video that aired on the agency White Oak campus outside Maryland.

Kennedy visited her father, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, at Washington’s Department of Justice, and recalls her child watching the Peregrine Falcons nest in the cupola of an old post office building. He also discussed his experiences at the Special Olympics, where he played the role of “Hugger” and coaching, playing the battles he played as an environmental lawyer.

Kennedy also complained about the rules governing the agency’s food department, which allow businesses to recognize that they can generally be recognized as being safe. This scale initially covered ingredients such as salt and vinegar to be acceptable in food without review. However, since then, thousands of ingredients have been added to the food supply without notice or testing by agents.

Food companies must provide a review of the materials to the FDA inspector on the premises, but such inspections can be performed once every five years. Kennedy is calling for an end to allow food companies to self-certify that the ingredients are safe.

“We literally don’t test chemicals before they’re added to food,” he said, according to the transcript. “Everything is engraved by the industry, as is generally perceived as safe.”

He went on to attribute the country’s diabetes rate to a loophole, adding that sugar also plays a role.

The speech was reminiscent of a social media message Kennedy posted in October, accusing the FDA of “a war with public health.” He said he is engaged in a “active suppression” of a series of unproven or unsafe products, including raw milk, chelate compounds, ivermectin, and “others that advance human health and cannot be patented by pharma.”

Here’s the post: “If you’re working for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, you have two messages.

The agency is still shaking from thousands of job openings and voluntary deviations in the weeks since Kennedy was appointed health secretary. FDA employees who left in recent weeks include staff looking for drugs for byproducts that could cause cancer, and others working with international food safety staff to stop contaminated products from entering the United States.

The cuts in some regions are so deep that former FDA officials have suggested that the pharmaceutical industry could endanger billions of dollars to pay agents to ensure that the drug approval process is properly staffed.

Drugmakers are worried about what Kennedy’s leadership means for their benefit. They are worried that agency cuts will slow down drug reviews, including starting clinical trials, and will add a delay to final approval.

Public letter Dozens of biotech investors and executives have signed the signing, and industry leaders say they are “deeply concerned about the current state of the agency and its future.”

“Some of us have already encountered regulatory challenges that the FDA considers to be the result of the loss of experienced staff,” the letter states.

Source: www.nytimes.com

She collaborated in Harvard’s laboratory on reversing the aging process.

Posted on April 12, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Changes in the atmosphere

Petrova’s return flight from Paris landed in Boston on the evening of February 16th. As the plane sat on the tarmac, she exchanged messages with Dr. Peshkin regarding the handling of a package at customs. However, the passengers had already disembarked the plane, so Petrova cut the conversation short.

Initially, Petrova felt her re-entry was normal. At Passport Control, officials verified her J-1 visa sponsored by Harvard and recognized her as a biomedical researcher. Her passport was stamped, and she was acknowledged by the state.

As she made her way to retrieve her package, Border Patrol officers approached her and requested to search her suitcase. Her biggest concern was that the embryo sample inside would be compromised, as RNA is easily damaged. She admitted her lack of knowledge about the rules. The officer, in a polite manner, informed her that she was allowed to proceed.

Subsequently, another officer entered the room, and the tone of the conversation shifted, according to Petrova. This officer asked detailed questions about Petrova’s work and travel history in Europe. Petrova was then informed that her visa had been revoked and was questioned about her fear of being deported to Russia.

“Yes, I’m afraid to return to Russia,” she expressed, as per a Homeland Security Department transcript provided by her attorney. “I fear that the Russian Federation will harm me for protesting against them.”

Petrova’s lawyer, Greg Romanovsky, acknowledged her violation of customs regulations but argued that it was a minor offense punishable by forfeiture and fines.

Romanovsky emphasized the need for agents to establish a valid basis for revoking her visa and contended that violation of customs regulations was not sufficient justification. Lucas Gattentag, a professor at Stanford Law School, concurred and criticized the government for creating an improper immigration status that led to Petrova’s detention.

In February, customs officials detained Petrova at Logan International Airport in Boston for not declaring a sample of frog embryos.
credit…M. Scott Brauer of the New York Times

A DHS spokesperson questioned the cancellation of Petrova’s visa and cited the discovery of Petri dishes and vials of embryonic stem cells in the package without proper authorization during a dog inspection.

The spokesperson asserted that individuals were detained legally after lying to federal officers about bringing biological materials into the country. Petrova’s cell phone messages indicated intentions to smuggle materials through customs without declaration, demonstrating a deliberate violation of the law.

Following the cancellation of Petrova’s visa by Border Patrol agents, she became an undocumented immigrant amidst the immigration policies of the Trump administration. She was held at the Richwood Detention Center, awaiting a hearing to present her asylum case before an immigration judge.

Romanovsky filed a petition for her release in federal court, urging ICE to grant her parole. He pleaded for compassion, suggesting that under different circumstances, Petrova would have been released much earlier.

Petrova spent last month in a dormitory with bunk beds, coping with the cold and receiving limited outdoor time. She shared her observations on the diverse group of women around her, highlighting the harsh conditions they all experienced.

She challenged her preconceived notions of the US compared to her experiences in Russia, expressing disbelief at the treatment she and others received. Petrova emphasized the need for basic rights for all individuals, even immigrants under detention.

Empty bench

Source: www.nytimes.com

The White House’s Plan to Dismantle NOAA’s Research Program

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Internal documents obtained by the New York Times and several people with knowledge of the situation show Trump administration officials recommend elimination of the scientific research department in the National Maritime and Atmospheric Administration.

The proposal from the Office of Management and Budget would abolish NOAA’s Marine and Atmospheric Research Institute, one of the world’s premiere geoscience research centres.

The budget allocations of more than $170 million to about $485 million in 2024 have increased nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet over the past 40 years, as science is as diverse as the early warning systems for natural disasters, science education for kindergarten students, science education in high schools, and research in the Arctic.

“At this funding level, OARs will be eliminated as line offices,” the proposal states.

The funded program, which includes tornado warnings and marine acidification research, will be relocated to the National Weather Service and the National Marine Services Office.

An overview of the 2026 budget passback that needs to be approved by Congress suggests “significant reductions in education, grants, research and climate-related programs within NOAA,” following the removal of the demolition of other institutions, such as the Institute of International Health and the US Agency for International Development, and the removal of climate change from federal government websites.

Under the proposal, the Department of Commerce’s total budget will be nearly $7.7 billion, down more than $2.5 billion from the 2025 level. The budget will focus on activities that are in line with the Trump administration’s agenda, including implementing trade laws and collecting scientific observations such as ocean and weather data to support forecasts.

“This administration’s hostility to climate science research and rejection will result in contenting the weather forecasting capabilities that the plan claims to preserve,” Zoe Lofgren, a senior Democrat with the House Science Committee, said in an emailed statement.

NOAA, which accounts for more than half of the Department of Commerce budget, will receive a small $4.4 billion cut from 2025, cutting $1.6 billion.

“It’s not surprising, but it’s very disturbing,” said Rick Spinrad, who led NOAA under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

This includes reducing the National Marine Fisheries Services budget by a third. The office will be split from NOAA and will be moved to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior. Funding for species recovery and habitat conservation is eliminated.

Funds for NOAA’s branch of National Ocean Service will be cut in half. Programs like the Coastal Marine Science Center, offices within marine services that study the effects of climate change and sea level rise on coral, pollution, and coastal communities will not be funded.

Environmental Information Centres, which archive climate data, will lose a quarter of their funds.

The proposal also changes NOAA’s satellite and space programs.

It will destroy the Department of Space and Commerce office and relocate the Space Weather Prediction Center to the Department of Homeland Security. A program called the Space Traffic Coordination System, set up to take over satellite traffic surveillance from the Department of Defense, a type of traffic police for space, will also lose funds. Passback suggests that such work will be carried out by the private sector.

The satellite programme that provides weather and modeling data will also be reduced. The long-standing relationship that will help NOAA acquire satellites through NASA will also end.

Dr. Spinlad said the budget proposed by the White House is unlikely to pass Congress. “I don’t think I’ll endure the scrutiny of Congress.”

According to the document, passbacks are part of balancing federal budgets, including “eliminating support for the federal awakening ideology.”

Project 2025 is a document that has been used as a blueprint for federal overhauls under the Trump administration, and included the goal of disbanding NOAA and reducing its research division.

“That raises doubts. Is the Trump administration intentionally breaking our weather capabilities as an excuse to implement the dangerous project 2025 proposal to privatize weather services?” Lofglen said in a statement.

Published by the conservative policy research institute, The Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, called NOAA research “many sources of NOAA climate warnings,” and said “the dominance of climate change research needs to be dissolved.”

“This will bring the United States back to the 1950s with technical and scientific skills,” said Craig McLean, NOAA’s chief scientist under both the first President Trump and Biden in the budget proposal.

Agents must appeal the proposal until noon on April 15th. And until April 24th, many plans for the overhaul suggested by Passback will need to be submitted, even before the proposal is addressed by Congress.

On Thursday, probation officials who were fired in February and later resurrected by judges received an email from the Department of Commerce, who fired them again after the decision was overturned by a superior court. The so-called Force Plan cuts could further reduce 20% of the workforce in the coming weeks.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Alabama woman undergoes surgery to remove rejected porcine kidney

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Health officials at Nyu Langone said on Friday that the surgeon had removed genetically modified pig kidneys from an Alabama woman after experiencing acute organ rejection.

Towana Rooney, 53, lived with her kidneys for 130 days. This tolerate organs from genetically modified animals for longer than anyone else. She has resumed dialysis, hospital officials said.

Rooney’s surgeon and director of the NYU Langon Transplantation Institute, Dr. Robert Montgomery, said so-called explantation is not a setback in the field of xenografting.

“This was the longest of these organs,” he said in an interview, adding that Rooney had other medical conditions that could have complicated her prognosis.

“This all takes time,” he said. “This game is won by progressive improvements, singles and doubles rather than swinging for the fence and trying to score a home run.”

Rooney’s further treatment could have saved the organ, but she and her medical team opposed it, Dr. Montgomery said.

“No. 1 is safe. I had to be sure she was fine,” he said.

Another patient, Tim Andrews of Concord, New Hampshire, has been living with the kidneys of a genetically modified pig since January 25th, according to a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He has been hospitalized twice for a biopsy.

Just as two patients fed genetically modified pig hearts, two other patients who received similar kidneys in recent years have died.

Rooney, who returned to her Alabama home after coming to New York for treatment, said in a statement that she was grateful for the opportunity to take part in the groundbreaking procedure.

“For the first time since 2016, I enjoyed my time with friends and family without planning dialysis treatments,” Rooney said in a statement provided by Nyu Langone.

“The outcome is not something nobody wanted, but I know I learned a lot from 130 days with pig kidneys. I know this can help and stimulate many others on my journey to overcome kidney disease,” she said.

Hospital officials said Rooney’s kidney function had decreased after experiencing organ rejection. The cause was being investigated, Dr. Montgomery said.

However, the response follows a decrease in immunosuppressive drugs that have been put into treatment of unrelated infections, he added.

The first indication of the trouble was a blood test done in Alabama, showing that Rooney had increased levels of creatinine, a waste product that is removed from the blood through her kidneys. Level elevation signal may be a problem with kidney function.

Rooney was admitted to the hospital, but when creatinine levels continued to rise, she flew to New York. There, the doctor biopsied the kidneys and found clear signs of rejection, Dr. Montgomery said.

Hospital officials said the kidneys were removed last Friday.

“The decision was made by Rooney and her doctors that the safest intervention would be to remove the kidneys and return to dialysis, rather than adding them,” Dr. Montgomery said in a statement.

United Therapeutics Corporation, a biotechnology company that produced the pigs that donated Rooney’s kidneys, thanked her for her courage and said the organs appear to work well to their rejection.

The company plans to start clinical trials for a Butakidney transplant this year, starting with six patients and eventually growing to 50 patients.

Pig organs are considered a potential solution to a lack of donated organs, particularly kidneys. Over 550,000 Americans suffer from kidney failure and need dialysis, of which around 100,000 are on the waiting list to receive their kidneys.

However, there is a sharp need for human organs, with fewer than 25,000 transplants being performed in 2023. Many patients die while waiting.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Review of “A Boy with Dengue” by Michel Nieva from Book Club Members: Candid Thoughts

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Michelle Nieva and his novel, Dengue Boy

I’ve read all sorts of things from classic slices of Dystopian Fiction by Octavia E. Butler at the New Scientist Book Club. The Memories of SowingAdrian Tchaikovsky’s Space Exploration Alien clay. Michel Nieva Dengue fever boy (And if you haven’t read it yet, this is not an article for you: spoilers first!) was something completely different.

There was part of this novel I loved, especially the wild originality of Nieva, who dreams of his future world. This is where Antarctic ice thawed in 2197, and sea level rise means that Patagonia, once famous for its forests, lakes and glaciers, has transformed into a scattered path on a small, burnt hot island.

It is the place where “hundred thousands of unrecorded viruses emerge each year thanks to the complete deforestation of all forests in the Amazon and China and Africa.” And when the infinite and terrible ingenuity of humanity means that people are currently trading on the Financial Virus Index. Powered by quantum computers, this is “not only determined at 99.99% effectiveness, but it is likely that these new viruses will not only unleash a new pandemic, but will collect stocks from companies that are likely to benefit from its effectiveness and offer them to the market in packages sold like pancakes.” Great idea!

I also think Nieva’s writing (translated by Rahul Bery) will occasionally leap to elevated levels. At some point, our hero is early in school (because she can fly there, unlike she’s narrated in traffic). She needs to “wait completely still for a few minutes, minutes, minutes, minutes, minutes, no idea what her excessive cor should do.” Excessive corporateity! It would be a glorious and appropriate explanation of this miserable mosquito.

It has an unbearable emotional feeling. This was with me after finishing and stayed with the vision of Niwa’s great iceberg gallery. “I couldn’t walk through the Great Iceberg Gallery and in the early stages I couldn’t feel the sudden weight of the world. The relic box of true planetary gemstones, its total age was greater than that of all humankind.”

And I can only admire Neeva’s virtuosity in thinking of myself in the mind of a murderous mosquito. I think he can do this a lot. My sympathy enjoys what half of us wanted with our “stubbornly murderous” hero, half of which was violently postponed by her actions.

Some of you have seen a lot of positive things in the novel. “If I solved that this is not science fiction, but a realism of the magic of South Americans, I enjoy it (a huge fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, and Umberto Eco. It’s a completely different genre.” Facebook Groupwhere do all these comments come from? “It’s weird, surreal and all-talented, and I think it works very well in these terms.”

For Terry James, the book began hard. We need to deal with “rough language” as we needed a lot of disbelief halts to embrace the protagonist of Nieva’s mosquito (and its incredible size). However, Terry was happy he kept going. “The more I read, the more I enjoyed it. I found literary techniques to reveal the inner struggle of the wealth, privilege and the gorgeousness of the poor, as very effective,” he wrote. “This book is creative.”

I think David Jones nailed it when he said “reading isn’t comfortable,” but he “actually enjoyed it a lot.” “It’s a very dystopian satirical, very bloody view of the future. It’s the day you read and digest how I felt about it,” he writes.

But perhaps this is because I am not a steampunk enthusiast, as the novel is mentioned on its cover. The “excessive corporation” I enjoyed with mosquitoes comes in a variety of scenes of violence and sexual depravity that I found difficult to read. I’m a Stephen King fan – I don’t mind a bit of fear and gore. But I really didn’t understand what brought richness to the story here other than making me totally terrible. I hated the sheep! I really hate it! (As some may say, that was the point, but for me it was a point that I wasn’t keen on being made.)

And when our mosquitoes were on a bloody adventure, I found it later on when we were on a bloody adventure that was far more convincing than the Borges-esque “Computer Games in Computer Games” section we had reached. It was on the wrong side of Surreal for me, or I wasn’t getting it. Terry James also had problems with the “Mighty Anarchy” component of the story and was unable to grasp its meaning. “I call this kind of ideology pseudointelligence, because it sounds very clever, but doesn’t make sense in a holistic, integrated system,” he wrote.

Overall, for me, this is not the book I’m coming back to, and I think the majority of our members were also more negative about this than positive. Judith Lazelle felt that was “unfortunate.” “Free sexual fantasy and undeveloped characters, violence is explicit and rebellious. Perhaps that was the point,” she wrote. [was] It’s effective in bringing back memories of terrible places to live.”

For Eliza Rose and Andy Feest, it was their least favorite book club ever read. Like me, Eliza wasn’t a fan of body horror, but she liked some of the corrupt companies in the storyline. “I think he’s finished it well enough because he feels like he told the story, but I didn’t need all the gore,” she wrote.

Andy described the story as “plain and weird,” and Nieva came up with an interesting concept, but he felt he could have used more backstory and details. “The end was a shame (I can’t say I’m confused),” Andy writes. “Overall, I was grateful that this was a short book because I wasn’t sure if it was a bigger novel (and I hate that I haven’t finished the book I started paying for).

Perhaps Andy doesn’t have to pay for the next book: We’re reading: Larry Nivens Ring WorldAn old classic that many of you may have on your shelf. Come and tell us what you think about us Book Club Member Facebook Pagetry this excerpt and get insight into how Larry came up with the work he wrote here to come up with the epic creation mechanisms.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Dolphins on the brink of death from banned toxic chemicals since the 1980s

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Common dolphins tied to a beach in the UK

Waves & Wellies Photography

Sea dolphins around the UK are almost dying from a combination of water temperature and toxic chemicals that the UK banned in the 1980s.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are long-lasting chemical contaminants that were once widely used in industrial manufacturing. They interfere with the breeding and immune response of animals and cause them cancer With humanity.

In a new study, researchers showed that higher levels of PCBs in the body and increased sea surface temperatures are at a higher risk of death from a common shunting dolphin infection (Delphines Delphis), the first of marine mammals.

The ocean is facing a “triple planetary crisis” – the “climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss,” but we often see the threat alone, says, Rosie Williams At the Zoological Society in London.

Williams and her colleagues analyzed postmortem data from 836 common dolphins marginalized in the UK between 1990 and 2020 and assessed the impact of these interlinked threats.

They found that a rise in PCB of 1 milligram per kilogram of fat has become fatal, with a 1.6% increase in the likelihood of infections such as gastritis, enteritis, bacterial infections, encephalitis, and pneumonia. Every 1°C increase in sea surface temperature corresponded to a 14% increase in the risk of death.

According to this study, the threshold for PCB fat concentrations to significantly affect the risk of dolphin disease was 22 mg/kg, while the average sample concentration was high at 32.15 mg/kg.

Dolphins have a long lifespan, are widely distributed around the UK and are widely distributed in the food chain, making them a good indicator species that shows how threats affect other animals.

“The location at the top of the food web means that toxins from prey accumulate in the enlargement, providing an intensive snapshot of chemical contaminants at the expense of health,” says Thea Taylor. Sussex Dolphin Project.

It was banned in the UK in 1981 and internationally in 2001, but the PCB is still washed down into the ocean. “They are probably still entering the environment through stockpiling, and often are side products or by-products of other manufacturing processes,” Williams says.

Cleaning up your PCB is extremely difficult. “They are nightmares to get rid of because they are so permanent,” she says. “There’s definitely no easy fix.”

While some researchers have explored edging as a cleanup technique, others have focused on improving the effectiveness of water treatment plants in the removal of sustainable chemicals.

These findings show what happens if not taken to ban Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), another broad group of so-called eternal chemicals.

“We cannot reverse any already-occurring pollution, but it’s important to prevent further chemical input into the environment,” Taylor says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Artists bring data to life through stunning screen prints

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Feather foil print. The barb on the right represents the population of British bird species from 40 years ago. The left shows the current population size.

Rebecca Kay

Rebecca Kay is also known as her alias ploterre With the help of hard data and clever design, turn the idle thoughts that occur while cycling into beautiful prints.

Edinburgh, UK, studied mathematics, worked as a data researcher, and developed her art as a side job. Covid-19 was then a hit, and she jumped into art full-time.

Her work inevitably begins outside in nature and arrives as an ever-inquisitive thought. How do tide ages change around the coast, where do oxai daisies grow across the UK, or how do the unique flashing patterns of lighthouses differ?

“Usually, I’d be wondering why the leaf pattern looks like it is, and most people would just keep walking and forget about it,” Kay said. “I turned it into a bit of a job.”

Ash Rise Weathering Letter Press Print. Using data from the UK Meteorological Service, each growth ring represents a year, with thin lines representing daily rainfall and gaps between lines representing daily temperatures.

Rebecca Kay

Once she gets an idea, the data hunt begins. The most recent question that came to mind was whether it was always raining somewhere in the UK. That led to her review of 130 years of records, leading to a perhaps surprising, pessimistic discovery.

Once the visual design is sketched on paper, Kay relies on computers to distort data into design, consolidating information and forms into a single piece that tells the story. This ultimately leads to a finished design that is screen printed by hand.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Latest Genomic Research Provides Deeper Insight into the Evolutionary Past of Mammoths

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Scientists extracted and analyzed 34 new mammoths (Mamutus spp. ) mitochondrial genomes containing two early Pleistocene and nine mid Pleistocene giant specimens in Siberia and North America. They identified the oldest known mammoth DNA in North America from 200,000-year-old specimens found on the Old Crow River in the Yukon Territory of Canada. The results support previous research and show that mammoths from around 1 million years ago do not resemble the later mammoths.

Reconstruction of the life of the grassland mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii). Image credit: Beth Zaiken/Center for Palaeogenetics.

Ancient DNA was recovered from specimens dated in the early Pleistocene (2.6 million to 780,000 years ago), and the stages in the Middle Pleistocene (780,000 to 126,000 years ago) could allow for the direct study of deep temporal evolutionary events that are key to understanding species formation.

Unfortunately, access to such deep-time DNA is limited, and so far only a handful of studies have been able to obtain either genome-wide data or the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) from deep specimens.

“Our analysis offers an unprecedented glimpse into how major deep-time demographic events have shaped mammoth genetic diversity over time.”

By analyzing 34 new mammothmite genomes along with more than 200 previously published mammothmite genomes, the researchers found that diversification events across the mammoth lineage appeared to be consistent with well-explained demographic changes during the early and mid-Pleistocene.

Their findings support the ancient Siberian origins of the major mammoth lineage and reveal how changes in individual dynamics contributed to the expansion and contraction of different genetic clades.

“The constant cost of sequencing technology has left mitogenomes somewhat forgotten. However, our study shows that they are more abundant than nuclear DNA and are therefore important for evolutionary biology.

The current research not only advances understanding of mammoth evolution, but also contributes to a wider field of ancient DNA research.

Scientists have developed and applied an improved molecular clock dating framework and improved methods of estimating sample age beyond radiocarbon dating limits using genetic data.

This methodological advancement provides a powerful tool for future research into extinct and endangered species.

Professor Love Darren, a researcher at Stockholm University, said:

“We are extremely excited to see genetic data from more mammoth specimens sampled over the past million years.

Team’s result Published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

____

J. Camilo Chacón-Duque et al. 2025. The evolution of the mammoth genome for a million years. Molecular Biology and Evolution 42(4): MSAF065; doi: 10.1093/molbev/msaf065

Source: www.sci.news

Fossils of Pleistocene-age Denisova Homo Species Discovered in Taiwan

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

According to an analysis of ancient proteins, the 190,000-10,000 fossil mandibles found in the Taiwanese Pengu Channel in the 2000s belonged to male Denisovan. The findings provide direct evidence that Denisovan occupied a diverse climate, from the cold Siberian mountains to the warm, humid subtropical latitudes of Taiwan.

The concept of artist Peng Denisovan walking under the bright sun during the Pleistocene of Taiwan. Image credit: Cheng-Han Sun.

“Recent discoveries and reanalysis of fossil specimens, along with the application of molecular technology and new dating methods, revealed unexpected diversity among the archaic Hymonin of mid- to late Pleistocene East Asia before the arrival of modern humans.”

“Identifying Denisovan is an important example of such advances.”

“Denisovan was recognized as a group of humankinds that differ from Neanderthals and modern humans by analyzing fragmentary bone and teeth DNA excavated from Denisova Caves in the Altai Mountains of Siberia.”

“Their nuclear genome shows that Denisovan formed its own clade as a sister group of Neanderthals, forming a calculated genome difference between the two clades that occurred more than 400,000 years ago.”

“Genetic evidence also shows the flow of genes between Denisovans, modern people, and Neanderthals.”

“Studies of incorporated denisova DNA in modern human populations suggest the existence of multiple genomically distinct denisova populations, once distributed across Asia in the eastern part of the continent and perhaps part of the islands Southeast Asia.”

“However, outside the Denisova caves, direct molecular evidence of Denisovan has been found only from a single site on the Tibetan Plateau.”

“In Baishiya Karst Cave in Xiahe, the mandible and rib bone are identified as denisovan based on protein sequence.”

With label Penguo 1New Denisovan fossils were collected in the 2000s through drage activities related to commercial fishing from the seabed (60-120 m) about 25 km from Taiwan’s west coast.

The area is located 4,000 km southeast of Denisova’s Caves and 2,000 km southeast of Baishayakarst Caves.

It was part of the Asian mainland during the low sea level episodes of Pleistocene.

“Penghu 1 is under 450,000 years old, with the most likely age range from 10,000 to 70,000 or 130,000 to 190,000 years old, depending on the content of trace elements, biostratigraphic evidence, and past changes in sea level,” the researchers said.

“Direct uranium dating of Penghu 1 failed due to the effects of uranium from seawater.”

Using ancient proteomic analysis, Dr. Tsutaya and his colleagues extracted proteins from bone and dental enamel from the fossils, recovering 4,241 amino acid residues.

These variants are rare in modern human populations, but are more common in areas associated with the genetic temptation of Denisovan.

Furthermore, morphological analysis of Penghu 1 reveals a robust jaw structure with large molars and distinctive root structures. This is a feature consistent with the properties found in Tibetan Denisovan specimens, suggesting that these properties are lineage and possibly gender characteristics.

“It is clear that two contrasting groups of Hymonin – the small-tooth Neanderthal with tall but flexible mandibles and the low but robust mandible (as a population or as a male character) coexist during the late mid- and early Pleistocene Eurasia,” the scientists said.

“The latter form is rare or absent in neonatal fossils from Africa and Eurasia, and is therefore not a primitive retention that is likely developed or enhanced, as it was probably developed or enhanced in Deniso Banklade, after genetic separation from Neanderthals more than 400,000 years ago.”

“Recent discoveries of the island from Southeast Asia (Homo Flores Ensis and Homo Lusonensis) and South AfricaHomona Lady) highlights the diverse evolution of the genus Homoin contrast to the strain Homo sapiens. ”

“The Dentgrat morphology of Dennisovan can be interpreted as another such distinct evolution that took place in our genus.”

result It was published in the journal today Science.

____

Takumi Tsutaya et al. 2025. Mandible Denisovan from Pleistocene Taiwan. Science 388 (6743): 176-180; doi: 10.1126/science.ads3888

Source: www.sci.news

The Pitt: Exposing the Overcrowding Crisis in the Emergency Room

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The emergency department waiting room was packed as always, with patients crammed closely into hard metal chairs, as if they had been sitting for hours. Only those needing immediate care, like a heart attack, were seen right away.

One man had enough and slammed the glass window in front of the receptionist before storming out. He took a smoking break and verbally attacked the nurse, questioning her hard work as he left.

Although not a real event, this scene was portrayed in the Max series “The Pitt,” which airs its season finale on Thursday, set in a fictional Pittsburgh Hospital emergency room. The underlying theme of overwhelming overcrowding is a universal issue in this country, and not an easy one to solve.

“Ed is shaking and overwhelmed.” The American Emergency Clinic reported See Emergency Department, 2023.

“This system is at its breaking point,” stated Dr. Benjamin S. Abela, chairman of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

“The Pitt” depicts the daily struggle of emergency room doctors, nurses, medical students, custodians, and staff dealing with a variety of medical issues, from heart attacks and strokes to overdoses and severe burns. The show neatly resolves many of the complex issues in its 15 episodes, but reflects the real-life problems faced by medical systems operating beyond capacity.

The jammed waiting room and patients waiting for days in emergency rooms highlight a critical issue – overcrowding – labeled a “National Public Health Crisis” by the American University of Emergency Medicine.I’ll call boarding

Medical supplies in hallways and patients seen in hallways due to lack of available space further emphasize the strain on the system.

Instances of violence between patients with mental health issues and nurses are depicted in “The Pitt,” echoing the reality of the situation seen in emergency rooms nationwide.

Dr. Abela emphasizes that the show portrays a system on the brink of collapse, reflecting what is happening in emergency rooms across the country.

The complex nature of the issue, as explained by Dr. Ezekiel J. Emmanuel from the Health Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, points to the lack of a simple solution and the challenges posed by limited resources.

Financial constraints, patient flow issues, and capacity limitations in nursing homes contribute to the ongoing crisis in emergency departments.

Dr. Jeremy S. Faust from Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Emergency Medical Office highlights scheduling challenges for patient discharges and the role of primary care in alleviating overcrowding in emergency rooms.

In the real world and on screen in the “pits,” patients often end up in emergency rooms for issues that could be addressed by primary care physicians, emphasizing the need for better access to primary care services.

Dr. Emmanuel underlines the difficulties in finding and accessing primary care, leading many to seek immediate help in emergency rooms rather than wait for appointments.

The trend of seeking immediate solutions contributes to the ongoing problem of overcrowding in emergency rooms despite efforts to expand facilities.

Dr. Faust recalls how opening a new emergency room with more beds led to an influx of patients, demonstrating that expanding facilities alone does not solve the issue of overcrowding.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Denisovan Expands its Territory to the Pacific Coast of Asia

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

For decades, fishermen sailing off the coast of Taiwan have occasionally discovered bones from other large mammals that lived tens of thousands of years ago, such as elephants, buffaloes, and other large mammals.

However, in 2010, Taiwanese paleontologists were presented with a particularly strange discovery. This fossil looks like half the jaw of a gorilla. Scientists have been baffled by it ever since.

The mystery of the underwater jaw has now been solved. Wednesday, the researchers team made an announcement that it was part of Denisovan, a member of the mystical human lineage associated with the Neanderthals. This finding greatly expands the range of well-identified denisovan fossils previously known from Siberia and Tibet.

“Indeed, Denisovan was east all the way to the coast,” says Frido Welker, a molecular anthropologist and author of the new study.

Chun-hsiang Chang, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural Sciences of Taiwan, first learned about the jaws from a private collector in 2010. After examining it, he quickly determined that it did not belong to a gorilla, as gorillas and other apes have U-shaped jaws. Instead, the fossil jaws were angled outward from the jaw, just like ours.

However, the jaws were missing the prominent jaws seen in modern-day humans. “At the time, I thought it looked human, but not like modern-day human,” Dr. Chang said. “I thought it was very important, so I pushed the private collector to lend it to my museum.”

Over the next five years, Dr. Chang studied the jaw anatomy, working with an international group of scientists. Its shape resembles the jaws of extinct relatives of humans known to have lived in Asia for over a million years. However, Penghu 1 also had distinctive features, including large teeth.

Determining the age of Penghu 1 was also a challenge, as they were not sure exactly where Dr. Chang discovered it on the seabed. He and his colleagues analyzed the chemistry of the jaw and discovered that it resembles that of fossils of hyena species that evolved in East Asia about 400,000 years ago.

At that time, Taiwan was separated from the mainland by water. However, 190,000 years ago, sea levels fell sufficiently to create a land bridge that lasted until 130,000 years ago. The ocean then rose again until 70,000 years ago. This pattern continued until 10,000 years ago when another land bridge formed. Dr. Chang and his colleagues believe that Penghu 1 lived in one of these periods when sea levels were lower.

One possibility was that Penghu 1 belonged to a mysterious group of humans called Denisovans. Researchers discovered Denisovan in 2010 while examining fossils from the Siberian Denisova Cave. The bones of teeth and fingers contain ancient DNA with unusual mutations, revealing previously unknown human strains.

Subsequent research shows that Denisovans, Neanderthals, and modern humans share common ancestors who lived in Africa about 600,000 years ago. The Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestors migrated from Africa, and then these two lineages split about 400,000 years ago, with the Neanderthals spreading to Europe in the west.

Denisovan’s spread was difficult to chart. For years, the only known Denisovan fossils have been teeth and bone fragments found in Denisova caves. However, a valuable clue comes from living humans. Many people in East Asia and the Pacific today have small amounts of Denisovan DNA, suggesting that Denisovans must have interbred with East Asian Homo sapiens before their extinction and lived far beyond Siberia.

Dr. Chang and his colleagues noticed that the teeth in the Penghu 1 jaw resemble the teeth found in the Denisova Cave. But those clues were not enough to link them. They attempted to search for DNA in their jaws but found nothing. This was not surprising given that the Penghu 1 fossils had been sitting on the seabed for thousands of years.

After Dr. Chan’s team revealed their analysis in 2015, Penghu 1 became an even more enigmatic, human-like fossil at the museum. “Our research was stagnant,” Dr. Chan said.

Over the next few years, Dr. Welker and other researchers pioneered ways to recover ancient proteins from fossils. They discovered that even if a fossil loses all its DNA, it could still retain protein fragments.

Using such methods, Dr. Welker studied the 160,000-year-old jaws found in a high-altitude cave in Tibet. In 2019, the team reported that Tibetan fossils contained fragments of ancient collagen and other proteins.

These proteins resemble modern human proteins but also exhibit differences indicating that the jaw belonged to a Denisovan.

With that discovery, Dr. Welker searched other Asian fossil scientific literature for jaws resembling the Tibetan jaws that could be tested for proteins.

“That’s when the lower jaw of Penghu came on my radar,” he said.

Both the Tibetan and Taiwanese jaws had very large teeth. Dr. Welker and his colleagues reached out to Dr. Chang. In 2023, Dr. Chang and his team flew to Copenhagen with their jaws. Analysis of the results revealed protein fragments that were only present in Denisovans.

“Since the first publication of Penghu’s lower jaw, many of us thought it might be Denisovan, mainly based on being in the right place at the right time,” said Bens Viola, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the study. “But of course, assumptions are assumptions, and we need actual data to validate them.”

Another clue came from fragments of enamel protein in the teeth. Modern humans carry enamel genes on the X chromosome, while men carry slightly different enamel genes on the Y chromosome. Denisovan was carrying the Y-chromosome version, indicating that it belonged to a male adult.

The two Denisovan jaw anatomy may turn out to be a hallmark of male Denisovan. Women’s Denisovan may have a thinner anatomy, but scientists will need more evidence to know for sure.

The discovery of other Denisovan fossils could expand the scope of humanity. In 2022, researchers found teeth from 160,000 years ago in a cave in Laos. They resemble the teeth of the jaw in Tibetan Denisovan. Anyone who lived there would have had to survive in the tropical forests far from Siberia.

However, Laos’ teeth do not contain DNA, and the protein fragments did not clarify the type of human it belonged to. However, the cave and its neighbors still retain many teeth that have not been fully analyzed. Other traces of Denisovan may not have been found in the museum yet.

But so far, evidence reveals that Denisovans were able to thrive for thousands of miles and in a variety of environments. Janet Kelso, a paleontologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, was impressed by the differences between the Penghu 1 protein and the protein found in Tibet. As Denisovans expanded throughout different environments, they adapted and became genetically distinct populations.

“There’s still a lot to learn about Denisovan,” she said.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Medicare spends billions on costly bandages while doctors face cuts

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

According to industry experts, companies can set high prices for their products due to the intricacies of Medicare pricing rules. During the first six months of a new bandage product’s lifespan, Medicare sets a refund rate based on the company’s chosen price. The agent will then adjust the refund to reflect the actual price that your doctor will pay after any discounts.

To avoid decreases in refunds, some companies opt to introduce new products regularly.

For example, in April 2023, Medicare started reimbursing $6,497 per square inch for bandages called Zenith sold by Legacy Medical Consultants, a company based in Fort Worth, Texas. However, six months later, the refunds for Zenith dropped to $2,746.

In October 2023, Medicare began reimbursing $6,490 for a “double layer” bandage for a new product called Impax from Legacy.

Both products use the same images and similar descriptions in their marketing materials, touting them as offering optimal wound care and protection.

Analysis by Earty Read shows that spending on Zenith and Impax has surpassed $2.6 billion since 2022.

When asked about the marketing and pricing strategies for these products, Legacy Medical Consultants did not provide a response. Company spokesman Dan Childs stated, “Legacy abides by laws that govern the system.”

Doctor discounts

In the field of wound care, doctors and nurses visit patients’ homes for treatment. Some companies that specialize in skin alternatives target doctors to help mitigate the rise in bandage prices.

Dr. Caroline Fife, a Texas-based wound care physician, highlighted the industry’s excesses in her blog last year. She shared an email she received from an undisclosed skin replacement company, which claimed that doctors could generate significant revenue from their bandages.

Some companies offer doctors bulk discounts of up to 45%, as reported by interviews with doctors and contracts reviewed by The Times. However, doctors could still receive Medicare rebates for the full price of the product.

The anti-kickback law prohibits physicians from receiving financial incentives from pharmaceutical or medical supply companies. While Medicare allows for discounts, experts suggest that rebates on bandages may have violated federal law by not requiring actual bulk purchases. In some cases, doctors only needed to buy three products to qualify for a 40 or 45% discount.

Lawyer Reuben Guttman from Washington, D.C., who represents Medicare whistleblowers, commented, “That’s not a volume discount,” indicating that such practices could be a way to disguise kickbacks.

In 2024, at least nine healthcare practices claimed over $50 million in Medicare reimbursements for skin replacements, according to an analysis conducted by The Times and the National Association of Associations representing healthcare organizations incentivized to reduce Medicare spending.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Blood tests indicates RNA may pose a risk of pre-lammosis

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Pre-Lamp Disease is a potentially serious complication of pregnancy

Half Point Image/Getty Image

Pre-lamp syndrome can lead to many pregnancy complications, including death, but can be difficult to detect in the early stages of pregnancy. New blood tests can help doctors identify people at risk of developing a condition before symptoms begin.

“We can narrow it down to four really high-risk pregnancies. That’s a big step.” Maneesh Jain at Mirvie, a California-based health startup.

Pre-salping syndrome is a type of hypertensive disorder (HDP) during pregnancy, which occurs when scientists are not sure exactly – occurs during placenta development. This can lead to high blood pressure and lead to cardiovascular disease, organ damage, seizures and even death. It can also cause harm to the developing fetus.

However, catching pre-lammosis and other HDP is difficult. This is because symptoms usually do not appear for at least 20 weeks after pregnancy. Sometimes, no signs are detected until work. It is difficult to monitor placenta development. This is because taking tissue samples from organs is very invasive.

New blood tests are relatively non-invasive and use RNA markers to predict whether someone may develop HDP. Specifically, this test focuses on specific genes PAPPA2 and CD163its overexpression was previously linked to HDP. The researchers wanted to see if they could detect this overexpression of blood samples.

Their validation studies of over 9,000 pregnant people suggest that they can: Jain says that tests can be determined with accuracy of over 99% and above with accuracy of over 99%, whether people without existing risk factors overexpress the gene and therefore are at higher risk of pre-ec syndrome or another HDP. Almost a quarter of participants without existing HDP risk factors overexpressed the gene.

People with a certain demographic (for example, those with a family history of preexisting hypertension or pre-sexual pre-lampsia) are known to be at a moderate risk of developing the condition, he says. Morten Rasmussen At Mirvie. But for many, it comes from the blue at first glance.

Once someone knows that they are at high risk of pre-lamps, they can take action to prevent this. Common interventions include taking medications like aspirin, switching to a Mediterranean diet, and monitoring your daily blood pressure.

However, the new test only looked at people between 17.5 and 22 weeks after pregnancy. “Ideally, you should start aspirin 16 weeks in advance.” Kathryn Gray At Washington University in Seattle. “So by the time most people get the results of this test, they’ve already missed that window.”

Mirvie plans to sell blood tests on the market soon. Once it’s on the market, the team hopes other scientists will use it to develop drugs that specifically target the expression of genes such as PAPPA2. Such molecular pinpoints “give a much better opportunity for treatment to be effective,” says Rasmussen.

Gray also hopes researchers will use Mirvie’s RNA bank data to further identify the genes behind the risk of prelammosis in certain people. She says narrowing down your search profile could reduce the cost of testing and make it affordable for more people.

The article was revised on April 8, 2025

This article has been revised to reflect the risks posed by pre-lammosis during pregnancy

The article was revised on April 10, 2025

We have revealed that the test has identified people at risk of developing pre-lammosis.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The Blue Whale: A Versatile and Reliable Tool for Measurement

Posted on April 11, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Feedback is the latest science and technology news of new scientists, the sidelines of the latest science and technology news. You can email Feedback@newscientist.com to send items you believe readers can be fascinated by feedback.

Whales are not Wales

Feedback is a science journalist of more years than we remember, and as a result we have come across a significant share of the odd units of measurement. The human mind wrestles with very large and very small things, so as a writer, it’s fascinating to get you to say that the huge iceberg has an area x times the size of Wales, the mountains are at the height of Burj Khalifa, or the bad books contain Z plot holes. Fourth Wing.

In this spirit, Christopher Dionne CNN Article About Blue Ghost Lunar Lander sending the final message from the moon. He points out that the writer is trying to convey the amount of data on the probe, saying that he “returned around 120 gigabytes of data, which amounted to over 24,000 songs, to Earth.”

“This made me think,” says Dionne. With so much music streaming today, the size of the song file is “generally not important.” The size of the file also depends on how you compress it and the length of the song. We can certainly agree with it Too well (10 minutes) It’ll be a slightly larger file Please love me – Therefore, songs cannot be used as standardized units of dataset size.

Luckily, Dionne came up with a solution. “Why don’t we use internationally agreed metrics: blue whales?” Blue whale genome It is a base of 2.4 billion. “So it appears that the Blue Ghost sent back data from the moon about 50 Blue Whale.”

Feedback is because we enjoy it Douglas Adams style images A rapid of whales that flow from the moon to the Earth. But we quiesce Dionne’s mathematics. The genome’s base is not equivalent to bytes in the dataset. Each byte is 8 bits, similar to the base. DNA is not binary either. For each position in the genome, there are four options (a, c, g, or t). This means that you can encode the byte using bits on the base half. So, multiplying 8 and dividing 2, I think Blue Ghost sent back around 200 blue whales.

As Dionne suggests, we recommend submitting to our readers that “other comparison units of digital measurement… might be even better to convey the scale of the information.” I look forward to “a thoughtful discourse on this most pressing issue.”

Goodbye, Alice and Bob

Few are likely to kill jokes. So the feedback is a bit nervous about this. This is because it involves both local events and encryption jokes.

We think this might require readers to review, so let’s start with encryption. When describing how a secure messaging system works, it has become traditional to call the two main agents “Alice” and “Bob.” For example, “How can Alice send secure messages to the BOB using a signal messaging app?”

The name has been in use since 1978 and is very popular. Wikipedia Page. In addition to explaining the device history, this page also depicts a very extended list of additional characters that may be involved in these thought experiments. From Chad to “the third participant, usually malicious intent,” Wendy and “whistleblower.”

Basically, if you’re a regular New Scientist Readers, you’ve probably read stories that use Alice and Bob (and their friends/enemies/acquaints/lovers) to explain complex ideas of encryption and physics. You’re familiar with this. So the parody is interesting.

We will not name any related news events. It was widely covered and discussed. But who knows: We’re writing this on March 27th, so by the time you read this you might have forgotten it. The United States may have tentatively invaded Svalbarbad, as he had forgotten which Arctic land Donald Trump wanted.

Anyway, I’ll go here. Bluesky posts to software developer John Vanenk I shared a screenshot Wikipedia page page. “Hegseth and Waltz are fictional characters commonly used as placeholders in discussions about cryptographic systems and protocols, and thought experiments created by Jeffrey Goldberg, who was created by Jeffrey Goldberg in a 2025 article. This was accompanied by a diagram described as an example of a scenario where communication between Hegseth and Waltz is intercepted by Goldberg.”

After all, if you didn’t find it interesting, feedback encourages you to send your comments to our signal account, but we don’t have one.

How awful

Readers Patrick Fenron and Peter Thressenger both wrote to emphasize the same thing. article in Guardianon how migratory birds use quantum mechanics to navigate. According to the biologist cited in the article, it appears that most “we travel at night and ourselves, so no one should follow.” Her name is Miriam Reedvogel, which of course means “songbird.”

As Fenlong said: “Wonderbar.”

Have you talked about feedback?

You can send stories to feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Include your home address. This week and past feedback can be found on our website.

Whale watching and marine ecosystems in the Azores: Portugal

Discover the hidden paradise of the Azores, a group of islands filled with rich biodiversity, lush landscapes, volcanic craters, peaceful lagoons and charming towns.

Source: www.newscientist.com

Advancements in childbirth make for slower walking and pelvic issues

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Pelvic width can affect the risk of birth complications and back pain

Cavan Images/Getty Images

SEI 247042176 — Pelvic width can affect the risk of birth complications and back pain

Cavan Images/Getty Images

According to the largest research of this kind, a person’s waist width appears to be the result of a complex trade-off between larger brain evolution and upright walking.

“If the brain is growing bigger and bigger over the same evolutionary time as the pelvis is narrowing, this of course leads to conflict.” Vagheesh Narasimhan At the University of Texas at Austin.

This idea, first proposed in the 1960s, is known as the obstetric dilemma. Recently, it has been suggested that the risk of pelvic floor conditions is also considered. The pelvic floor is the layer of muscle that keeps organs in place. If it becomes weak or tear, it can lead to incontinence and problems during childbirth.

“The obstetrics dilemma has been very heated and debated,” says Narasinghan. For example, there have been many previous studies that attempt to relate pelvic structures to walking speed and efficiency, but these studies usually involve a small number of people and produce conflicting results.

Now, Narasinghan and his colleagues are looking at 31,000 men and women using data from the UK biobank. The team measured various aspects of the pelvis based on the type of scan called dual energy x-ray absorption measurements and looked for correlations with genetic variation and aspects of people’s health, including the need for emergency Caisalians.

Results show that wider pelvis reduces the risk of birth complications, but slower walking and higher risk of pelvic floor-related conditions, leading to hip osteoarthritis. On the other hand, narrower pelvis can speed up walking, but increases the risk of birth complications, lower back pain and knee osteoarthritis.

Previously, it has been suggested that there is a link between narrow-back births and reducing the risk of prenatal births, but the team found no association between pelvic width and pregnancy length. “This is consistent with other studies showing that no human children are born. [relatively] Faser than other apes,” says Narasinghan.

The team observed a link between pelvic width at birth and baby’s head size. “Individuals who may give birth to a wider head child often have a wider pelvis,” says Narasinghan. “It happens because of natural selection, which is a continuous selection of this correlated individual.” According to a 2016 survey, this selection may have ended for the C section.

Another finding is that most people have slightly asymmetric pelvises that correlate with their dominant hand. Being left or right-handed usually determines which legs dominate. This affects walking and pelvic development, which can lead to slight asymmetry as we grow, says Narasinghan.

“This is an extraordinary contribution to fundamental aspects of human evolutionary biology.” Scott Simpson Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. “By integrating anatomical, genetic, clinical and behavioral data, the authors provided important insights into this unique human adaptation.”

“It’s good to be able to take advantage of large datasets.” Nicole Webb At the University of Zurich in Switzerland, the chimpanzee birth canal was far larger than the people’s birth canal. Webb points out that all people in the dataset are older than 40 years old and are from the UK. “If this work is done in a young, diverse group, the results can be even more impressive,” she says.

topic:

Human evolution/
pregnancy

Source: www.newscientist.com

Over time, US Congress speeches have become increasingly devoid of evidence

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Congressional speeches have shifted to not based on evidence

volodymyr tverdokhlib/alamy

The language used by US Congress members in the debate has increasingly included words like “fake,” and “suspectful” for words like “proof,” and “reason.”

This linguistic trend, away from evidence in support of intuition, was revealed in an artificial intelligence analysis of millions of Congress speech transcripts. It also says it coincides with both the larger political polarization in Congress and the decline in the number of laws enacted through Congress. Stephen Lewandowski At the University of Bristol, UK.

“We can think of the truth as something that can be achieved based on an analysis of evidence, or we can think of it as the result of intuition or “gut sensation,” says Lewandowsky. “The concepts of integrity and truth are expressed in how we use everyday language.”

Adapting the ready-made AI language model, Lewandowsky and his colleagues analyzed the words used in the transcripts of eight million council speeches given between 1879 and 2022. They then calculated scores indicating whether a particular parliamentary speech was leaning towards evidence or intuition.

They found that since the 1970s, Congress has increasingly supported languages based on intuition rather than evidence-based languages. Before that, in the golden age of 1899-1901, and in the Great Repression of 1933-1935, intuitive language also skyrocketed.

“The findings fit the other impressions of anti-intellectualism, populism and rejection of science experts over the last decades.” John Jost At New York University.

The specific strength of the research is not only tracking frequency, but also assessing the context in which the words are displayed, he says Renata Nemet At the University of Eötvös Loránd, Hungary. “These models can capture deeper and often subtle connections between words, even reflecting cultural meanings and social relationships,” she says.

Second, Lewandowsky and his colleagues will look for similar language shifts for individual lawmakers in both Congress speeches and social media posts. They also seek to compare similar trends among other parliaments throughout history, including speeches from lawmakers from Italy and Germany.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Newly discovered fossils of the iguanodon dinosaur found in Portugal

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Portuguese paleontologists have discovered several specimens of the large Ankiroprolexian Iguanodon (late Jurassic epoch) that lived 150 million years ago.

A massive reconstruction of the Iguanodon dinosaur of Ankiropolo Lexia interacting with a late Jurassic boy in the late European period. Image credit: Vitor Carvalho.

New dinosaur fossils have been found in various regions of the Lusitania Basin in western Portugal.

One of the specimens labeled shn.jjs.015 is Ankiroporo Lexia, a mysterious group of herbivores Iguanodontian dinosaur. It lived from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous period in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

“That was a surprise,” said Dr. Filippo Maria Rotetri, a Geobiotech paleontologist, at the University of Nova de Lisboa and the Museum’s Da Rourinha.

“We believed that the diversity of this dinosaur group was already well documented in the late Jurassic of Portugal, but this discovery shows that there is still much to learn and that exciting discoveries could continue to emerge in the near future.”

“Unfortunately, due to the limited amount of recovered materials, it is not yet possible to assign a formal scientific name to this species.”

“It was heavyweight,” added Dissancia, professor Fernando Escaso, a paleontologist at Exaicon University.

“When we estimated its size and weight, we found that this new dinosaur is much bulkier than other Iguanodon species. Draconyx or eousdryosaurus, it is likely that they share ecosystems.”

Paleontologists also excavated a series of small, isolated bones in the same Lucitane basin.

These fossils may represent the same species of Ankiroprolexia Iguanodon dinosaur, just like shn.jjs.015.

“The explanation of shn.jjs.015 adds new members of Ankiroporolexia to the inadequately known Jurassic Iguanodonn fauna of Iberian land, and at least at the bottom of the Titonian (149-143 million years ago), three medium-sized European countries (143 million years ago), from Europe, three medium-sized ankiropound Europe. The researchers said.

Furthermore, it supports the interpretation of Iguanodon diversification early discovered by Europe in the late Jurassic, and demonstrates the fundamental role of Iberian land in achieving a better understanding of biogeographic patterns. ”

Survey results It will be displayed in Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

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Filippo Maria Rotatori et al. 2025. Evidence of a large Ankiropolar Lexian dinosaur (Ornithischia: Iguanodontia) in the Upper Jurassic of Portugal. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 23(1): 2470789; doi: 10.1080/14772019.2025.2470789

Source: www.sci.news

Study finds that a third of maternal deaths occurred postpartum

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Over the past five years, a significant portion (almost a third) of maternal deaths in the United States were reported within six weeks after birth, according to a study published on Jama Network Open. This study was one of the first to track maternal health complications during pregnancy and the postpartum years.

Pregnancy-related mortality rates in the US increased by almost 28% between 2018 and 2022, but researchers noted a slight decline since 2021, which was at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr. Rose L. Morina, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School and one of the authors of the study, emphasized the importance of maintaining focus on maternal health due to these findings.

Women need access to high-quality care from conception through the first year after giving birth, according to Dr. Rose L. Morina. The study, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Reproductive Health Department, highlighted the risk of maternal deaths occurring within six weeks to one year postpartum.

The study also revealed significant disparities in maternal mortality rates among different racial and ethnic groups, with Native American and Alaska Native women having higher mortality rates compared to white women.

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommends that all women receive postnatal care within the first three weeks after giving birth and continue to receive ongoing care as needed.

Dr. Tamika Auguste, chair of Women and Infant Services at Medstar Washington Hospital Center, stressed the importance of timely postnatal care, especially for women with hypertension.

Mortality rates related to pregnancy have more than tripled across different states, with the southeastern states having higher mortality rates compared to states like California and Minnesota.

Cardiovascular disease was identified as the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths, particularly among women aged 25-39, highlighting the importance of monitoring and managing cardiovascular health during and after pregnancy.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Funding for national climate assessment to be reduced

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The Trump administration has slashed funding and staff for a program overseeing the primary federal report on the impacts of global warming on the country, leading to concerns among scientists about the future of assessments.

Congress mandates the National Climate Assessment every four years, examining the effects of rising temperatures on various sectors of the US economy. The most recent report was published in 2023 and is being utilized by state and city governments and private companies to prepare for climate change.

The Global Change Research Program, established by Congress in 1990 and supported by NASA, coordinates efforts among 14 federal agencies, the Smithsonian agency, and external scientists to produce these reports.

NASA recently issued stopwork orders for consulting firms ICF International, which provided crucial technical support and staff for the Global Change Research Program. The cancellation of this support has raised uncertainty about the future of the assessment.

Scientists are unsure how the assessment can proceed without ICF’s support, as they have played a significant role in previous assessments.

In response, NASA is working to rationalize contracts and improve efficiency in supporting Congress-mandated programs. The cancellation of the ICF contract was first reported by Politico.

The next national climate assessment, scheduled for 2027 or 2028, may face challenges following these developments, with many climate scientists already expressing concerns about its future.

During Trump’s first term, the administration attempted to undermine the nation’s climate assessment, releasing the 2018 report on the day after Thanksgiving to minimize its impact.

Climate assessments involve scientists nationwide who volunteer to write reports, which then undergo reviews by federal agencies. The delay in the review process for the upcoming assessment has raised concerns among scientists.

Federal involvement in the assessment adds significant value, according to experts, as it ensures a comprehensive review by all federal agencies and the public.

The National Climate Assessment is crucial for understanding how climate change impacts everyday life in the United States, bringing the global issue closer to home.

Climate scientists emphasize the importance of the assessment in highlighting the effects of climate change on various aspects of daily life.

Source: www.nytimes.com

RFK Jr. offers strong support for measles vaccine

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

During a rare sit-in interview with CBS News, National Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommended getting a measles vaccine and stated that he was “unfamiliar” with reducing state and local public health programs.

The conversation took place after a visit to West Texas, where he attended the funeral of an eight-year-old girl who succumbed to measles. An intense outbreak in the area has resulted in over 500 illnesses and the deaths of two young children.

In a clip from the interview released on Wednesday, Kennedy emphasized the importance of the measles vaccine. He stated, “People should receive the measles vaccine, but the government shouldn’t mandate it.”

However, he also expressed concerns about the safety of the vaccine, as he has done previously.

Kennedy has been heavily criticized for his handling of the West Texas outbreak by health professionals who believe that lack of full support for vaccinations is hindering efforts to control the virus.

Additionally, he has promoted unproven treatments for measles like cod liver oil. Physicians in Texas have linked its use to signs of liver toxicity in some children admitted to local hospitals.

Throughout the outbreak, Kennedy has often combined his support for vaccines with discussions about safety concerns and an alternative “miraculous” treatment.

Recently, he took to social media to declare that measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines are the “most effective way” to prevent the spread of measles. This statement has relieved infectious disease experts but angered vaccine opponents.

That evening, he posted again, this time praising “two extraordinary healers” who claim to have successfully treated around 300 children with measles using antibiotics.

Scientists argue that there is no cure for measles and promoting alternative treatments undermines the importance of vaccination.

In a CBS interview, Kennedy was questioned about the recent suspension of over $12 billion in federal grants to state programs addressing infectious diseases, mental health, and childhood vaccinations.

(The cuts were temporarily blocked after a lawsuit was filed by a state coalition against the Trump administration.)

Kennedy claimed to be unaware of the suspension and suggested it was primarily aimed at cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs targeted by the administration.

Dr. Jonathan Lapook, a medical correspondent for CBS, inquired about specific research cuts at universities, including a $750,000 grant for diabetes research in adolescents at the University of Michigan.

Kennedy responded, “I was not aware of that, and that’s what we’re seeing. There were many research projects that caught our attention and did not deserve to be cut, and we are reinstating them.”

Source: www.nytimes.com

RFK Jr. strolls through Arizona on a journey through chronic disease

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The sun smashed through the sandstone arches of window rocks in northeastern Arizona, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of Blue Jeans finally became his element: Hiking.

It was his final day of his multi-state Make American Healthy Tour. It is designed to highlight various aspects of Kennedy’s plan to combat chronic illness, including healthy school lunches and clinics, which take a holistic approach to patient care.

Currently, the Health Secretary is on a walk with the Navajo president, representatives of the National Council and representative director of Indian Health Services, discussing the challenges of providing quality health care to tribal groups. Here, weaving in the desert brush, Mr. Kennedy seemed to be striking his journey.

Kennedy had left Washington on questions about the handling of measles outbreaks in western Texas and the firing of thousands of Department of Health and Human Services employees. On his way out west, he had to stop by Texas on Sunday to attend the funeral of an 8-year-old who had not been vaccinated.

And at the start of the tour the following day, Kennedy looked stoic as he was led by Salt Lake City Health Center, focusing on nutritious diets. He declined a bag of fresh groceries, citing upcoming flights. In “Training Kitchen,” he dropped ice cubes, dribbled mango lassi, and stood faceless as the medical students reached to activate the secretary’s food processor without a lid. (The administrator stopped her just in time.)

“That would have been a bad thing,” the student said. I glanced at the secretary’s white shirt and pressed my suit. Finally, Kennedy broke a smile.

By Tuesday, Kennedy had loosened, wearing a stegosaurus tie at a health center near Phoenix and shaking hands with a Navajo toddler. The Health Secretary thrusts his head into the food distribution centre’s refrigerator, looks up the food label and nods “very impressive.”

There was one minor fake PA at a tribal conference of 1,300 people who tried to show off their knowledge of dress for Wampanoag, who lives in Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyards in Massachusetts. (“My home tribe,” he said.) When he spoke from the glittering casino stage, he pointed out the tribe’s chairman’s traditional Shellbead earrings and necklaces, and announced, “If you want to know what Wampum originally looked like, she’s a museum piece!” (She was breathless.)

At a press conference on the school lunch assembly at the Arizona State Capitol, Kennedy was adjacent to dozens of school children. There was a loud applause, “I’m off to Bobby!” a chant from behind. By then he was shining.

On the hiking trail Wednesday morning, Kennedy got a glimpse of the persona he once exhibited on the presidential trail. From heroin addiction By throwing yourself into a new extreme.

He first scrambled towards the top of the window rock formation, a balanced silhouette of 1,000 feet of the valley floor.

When it comes to his own battle with chronic illness, Kennedy relies on natural diet, intermittent fasting, and morning routines such as 12-step meetings, gym time, and meditation. However, since arriving in Washington, he had to give up his favorite daily ritual. It’s a 3-mile hike with your dog.

On the trek, authorities discussed initiatives like the Navajo long-standing 2% tax on junk food, which was adopted as part of a law passed in 2014. They also spoke about the Navajo Agricultural Industry, a tribal program that sells corn, beans and other products under the “Navajo Pride” brand to support the community.

To close the tour in the southwest, Kennedy visited the Hózhó Academy in Gallup, New Mexico, a K-12 school that hosts family-friendly gardening and cooking events and uses the curriculum to help students plan their own health goals.

Epidemiologists say there are factors that promote the rate of promotion of chronic disease, such as genetics, altered gut microbiota, and the fact that Americans generally live longer and therefore face new conditions with age.

Kennedy says there is a tendency to deemphasize these factors, and these experts say they have instead focused on childhood vaccine schedules, psychiatric medications and other variables. But here on the tour, Kennedy maintained most of his personal health attention as an important way to deal with the crisis.

The enthusiasm of the secretary taking on a large food company seems to match more with the traditional political left than the right. As he called it, the fight against artificial food dyes called “poison” is an echo of existing California law, and his school visits are reminiscent of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! A campaign to take on obesity in children.

For some, Kennedy’s advocacy of healthy food laws comes at a paradoxical moment. This is because last week the Food and Drug Administration’s extensive layoffs included lab scientists who tested contaminant foods. The administration also eliminated major food safety commissions and cut funding for state-based food inspectors.

And Kennedy promoted chronic disease prevention, which eliminated important efforts like the 29-year-old research initiative, the Diabetes Prevention Program. On his descent from the hike, a representative from the Navajo Council of States, struggling to get his diabetes medication, intercepted the secretary, unzipped his jacket and revealed the t-shirt with handwritten phrases. (IHS stands for Federal India Health Services.)

“A subtle message,” she said.

Kennedy promised her that he would talk to his team and see what he could do. She tied her arms to Kennedy, who was worried about maintaining Kennedy’s balance, and put it all the way down.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Light-based computers are nearing their commercial debut

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Lightweight based computer chip made by Pace, LightElligence

Light Ergens

Computers that use light rather than data to represent and manipulate data can reduce data center power requirements and at the same time speed up calculations. Two studies published today describe breakthroughs in performing real problems on light-based computers, creating techniques that are on the verge of commercial applications, the researchers say.

Electronic computers have historically followed Moore’s law, as we all use today. The power of the machine doubled every two years. However, in recent years, progress has slowed down as transistor miniaturization reaches its fundamental physical limits.

Researchers are working on many potential solutions, including quantum and photonic computing. However, Quantum Computing still struggles to achieve true utility, but Photonic Computing has reached the point where chip designs like those set in two new research are performing authentic calculations. In addition, these photonic chips can be manufactured using the same factory that manufactures silicon chips for electronic computers.

Photonic computers offer greater potential benefits than electronic computers. One is that photons travel faster than electrons do in the circuit, allowing for faster calculations and less pauses between each step of the calculation. Second, photons move without resistance and are rarely absorbed by the material on which the chip is made, allowing the same job to be performed using less energy than an electric computer that requires energy-intensive cooling.

In its research, Lightelligence, a Singapore-based company, shows that a device called a Photonic Arithmetic Computing Engine (PACE), which combines photonic and microelectronic chips, can successfully execute ISING problems that apply directly to the logistics industry and many other areas.

Meanwhile, US startup LightMatter claims that its own chip can run AI model BERT to create text in Shakespeare’s style. New Scientist Could not reach Lightmatter due to comments.

Bo Peng At LightElligence, the sector is increasingly busy with start-ups and technology is rapidly maturing. “We’re more or less pre-production,” says Peng. “It’s more like a real product than just a lab demonstration.”

Just as the world of quantum computers is trying to demonstrate the benefits of quantum, quantum machines are the point where classical computers can provide useful things. He won’t draw when this will happen, but says that this technology is closer to being ready for commercial applications – perhaps it works as a photonic chip that works with the electric chip, rather than completely replacing them to handle the specific tasks that it can provide boost.

Needless to say, hardware based on the research and Lightelligence PCI Express format. This is a standard motherboard add-on format for desktop computers that allow you to add graphics cards and other devices. Company devices can already be added to any commercial desktop, but require the appropriate software to communicate.

Robert Hadfield At the University of Glasgow in the UK, two studies show that “it’s a kind of boiling area.” “This is close to the point where the industry may consider photonic processors a viable alternative,” he says. “It’s really interesting to see how mature this architecture has become. These are photonic chips manufactured in one of the world’s leading foundries, so they can be expanded for mass production.”

Stephen SweeneyThe University of Glasgow also says that they have already seen optical data transmissions roll out around the world, with optical optical computing approaching too. “With Photonics, you can do things at a lower loss than electronics can,” says Sweeney. “And if you need to be able to do a huge amount of calculations, you need to start looking at it.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The world’s first IVF baby was born with very little human intervention

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

What health professionals see when overseeing IVF procedures via live streams

Possible life sciences

A highly automated form of in vitro fertilization (IVF) leads to successful births and we hope that this approach can reduce the risk of artificial errors during such procedures.

One method of IVF is intratesticular sperm injection (ICSI). Here, sperm is injected into the egg into the lab dish. This is commonly used in cases of male infertility, as the sperm does not need to work to reach the egg. The resulting embryo is then inserted into the uterus. IVF can also be done by mixing sperm and eggs into a lab dish in the hopes of fertilization being performed, which is generally less successful, but requires fewer medical interventions.

ICSI also suffer from drawbacks as it relies on high levels of accuracy and judgment from healthcare professionals. “Like everyone else in most professions, they are sometimes tired and distracted. [the] “Fertilization and the possibility of birth.” Jack Cohen With the Life Sciences, a biotech company in New York City.

To address this, Cohen and his colleagues developed a machine that can perform the 23 important steps required for ICSI. Each is started by a person by pressing a button when watching the live stream of the process. This can also be done from another part of the world.

In one step, the machine uses an AI model to select the healthiest sperm cells for fertilization based on appearance. In other cases, the machine will fix sperm by laying its tail with a laser to make it easier to pick up. The sperm is later injected into the already collected eggs. A similar approach has been tested previously, As a result, two births are bornhowever, some steps were not performed by the machine.

To test the machine, researchers recruited couples struggling to get pregnant because the man had sperm that he couldn’t swim properly. Women also had problems with egg production, so donors’ items were used in the procedure.

The researchers randomly allocated five of the eight donor eggs to be fertilized by an automated system that generated the four embryos. The remaining three eggs were fertilized using a standard manual ICSI approach. All of these formed embryos.

We then used another AI model to select two best embryos based on the appearance of the chromosomes. Both of these were generated using automated systems, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this approach leads to healthier embryos than manual ICSI, Cohen says. This cannot be measured because there are fewer eggs involved, he says.

When the team inserts one of the embryos into the female uterus, it fails to develop, but the second successfully birth.

It’s an exciting proof of concept, I say Joyce Harper University College London. However, large-scale studies that randomly assign couples to be randomly assigned to perform either automated or manual LCSI procedures should establish whether the former approach leads to increased fertility rates, she says.

Harper said automated IVFs are unlikely to be widely used, as they are at an additional cost, at least if they were first deployed. But Cohen hopes this will improve over time. “We expect patients and clinics to decline as we optimize, standardize and refine our systems,” he says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Do the upcoming Kuiper Satellites pose competition to Musk’s Starlink on Amazon?

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The United Launch Alliance plans to send 27 Kuiper satellites into low Earth orbit as Amazon begins full-scale deployment of its satellite internet network

Amazon

Kuiper, Amazon’s satellite internet division, plans to launch 27 satellites into orbit today. We dig into the situation.

What is Kuiper?

In short, Kuiper is a network of thousands of satellites with beams of internet traffic around the world. This allows people in remote areas to access the internet without the need for local infrastructure.

This idea is exactly the same as Starlink, a SpaceX-owned company that already offers such services under Elon Musk’s leadership. Project Kuiper is a subsidiary of Amazon, founded in 2019 and owned by another billionaire, Jeff Bezos.

Amazon didn’t respond The new scientistsInterview requests, but the company has said that before The satellite travels at speeds of over 27,000 km/h Circle the earth about every 90 minutes. Customers need to connect to the internet I’m buying a small device Attach it to the roof of the building.

When will it start? How can I see it?

Kuiper calls this first mission KA-01 for Kuiper Atlas 1. Scheduled for 7pm EDT on April 9th.

The satellite is carried into orbit by the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Amazon says it will be the heaviest payload ever released in this craft.

United Launch Alliance plans to live stream flights on that websitestarts 20 minutes before startup.

Is this the first release of Kuiper?

Kuiper put two prototype satellites into orbit in October 2023, which is the first release of the final version, and the company has said it is a “significant upgrade.”

It has better solar panels, propulsion systems and communications equipment, but astronomers appreciate it being a dielectric mirror film coating designed to scatter reflected sunlight. Other companies have launched reflective satellites that have serious impact on imaging. Astronomers say it is “truly an existential issue of astronomy.”

Who’s ahead, Starlink or Kuiper?

starlink. In a pretty good way.

Kuiper has been granted permission from the US Federal Communications Commission to operate 3,236 satellites, and will only start renting internet connections to users after the 578 satellites are launched, the company says.

So, if the launch today is successful, the company still has 551 satellites to send into space before generating revenue.

The company says it has secured more than 80 launches at various companies to deploy additional satellites. Ironically, some launches are handled by SpaceX.

Meanwhile, SpaceX began launching satellites in 2019. It says there are over 6,750 satellites in the orbit.serving millions of customers. The company is also developing a military satellite network called StarShield. It reportedly has a contract with the US government..

Can Kuiper catch up?

Certainly there are many reasons to compensate. Starlink’s lead is big and has the obvious advantage of being owned by a rocket launcher.

Although it is not owned by Amazon, Bezos now has Space Company Blue Origin at your disposal. It helps to fill the gap.

In other areas, Amazon may have advantages. Already there are hundreds of millions of users who shop and stream regularly on the site and may try to add satellite internet through various transactions and seductions.

Plus, there is a market as hundreds of millions of people around the world lack reliable internet connections. Only time can tell if it’s big enough to maintain two major competing satellite operators, let alone small players like partially UK-owned OneWeb.

Some companies are also working on unfiltered solar aircraft that can loiter in high atmospheres for months at a time, potentially reducing satellites at cost.

However, one thing is clear. It certainly is a boon for consumers to bring their competitors to the market.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Eco-friendly plant-based waterproofing materials to replace single-use plastics

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Cups made from transparent paperboard

Noriyuki Isobe (Jamstec)

Waterproof, plant-based materials that break down quickly in the ocean may provide a sustainable alternative to the plastic used in cups and straws.

Transparent paperboard is a molecule that makes up the plant cell wall, like cellophane made from cellulose. Because it is a coagulant chemical used in the production of cellophane, it has previously been impossible to make it harder and limit it to applications such as food packaging.

Noriyuki Isobe At Yokohama and his colleague, Marine Geoscience and Technology Agency, they discovered that cellulose was treated with a solution of lithium bromide, and did not require coagulants.

“We’ve now developed a regenerated cellulose material from this solvent system. This solvent system not only shapes it, but also can serve as a sustainable alternative to traditional plastics,” says Isobe.

Researchers found that cups made of clear paperboard can just hold boiled water without leaking for more than three hours. Adding a coating made from plant-derived fatty acid salts made the cup completely waterproof.

This material can be made from both recycled and upcycled cellulose products such as recovered clothing. Isobe and his colleagues also tested how the material breaks in the ocean, finding that it completely deteriorated in 300 days in the deep sea and deteriorated faster at shallower depths.

Bhavna Middha While Royal Melbourne, Australia says that having a paper-based alternative to plastic is “not a bad thing,” there are some reservations on this approach to tackling the issue of waste.

“I think there should be objections to using single use unless, for example, the medical industry, the use of a single use is really necessary,” she says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Xavier Le Pichon, Renowned Geophysicist Who Pioneered Earth’s Crust Movement Modeling, Passes Away at 87

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Xavier Le Pichon, a French geophysicist who revolutionized the way in which a pioneering model of the Earth’s tectonic plates was able to understand the movement of the Earth’s crust, and died on March 22 at his sister’s home in southern France. He was 87 years old.

His death was announced in a statement from Collegie de France, France’s premier educational institution. There, Dr. Le Picon was Professor Emeritus and Chairman of Geodynamics.

Dr. Le Picheon, who internized in Japanese concentration camps as a child, continued to build a second career as a deep sea explorer, working with Mother Teresa of India for a while. However, it was in the field of geodynamics that he made his biggest contribution. Use a computer to create a model of the Earth plate.

His formulation has six such plates, as he said when he won in 2002, “for what is essential to the structural symptoms of the Earth’s surface.” Balzan PrizeAwarded in science fields not covered by Nobel.

Plate tectonics with Earth’s surface studies is a “framework” for understanding earthquakes, volcanoes, and the Earth’s long-term “climate stability.” David BelkovichYale geophysicist. He added that Dr. Le Picon was one of the architects of the framework.

Professor Bercovici emailed him “one of the giants of the plate structure revolution, especially when practicing its mathematical theory.”

His work was built on the theory of plate tectonics developed by Princeton scientist W. Jason Morgan in 1967. “Now we are entering an age of quantification for tectonics,” wrote Dr. Le Picon.

“The University of Rochester has a great opportunity to develop a new world of geophysics,” said John Taldono, professor of geophysics at the University of Rochester.

Dr. Pichon came to view the Earth as “an extraordinary creature with ocean and continental movement.”

After years of studying the ocean and its floors, including Columbia University, Dr. Lupicheon achieved a breakthrough in the mid-1960s. He called the “incredibly unpleasant” months of cruise hosted by Columbia, and observed a 37,000-mile-long ridge in the South Atlantic and Southwest Indian oceans.

The object was to detect seismic activity along the coat of arms of the ridge and test predictions made in the 1950s by Jean Pierre Rothet, another French scientist. “We went zigzag on this famous earthquake line for nine months,” Dr. Le Picon wrote in his 2003 book, Plate Tectonics: The Insider’s History of Modern Theory of the Earth.

The trip confirmed it and he continued to earn his Ph.D. Based on that study, at the University of Strasbourg in 1966.

“As such, the central ridge has achieved a victory over tectonics, becoming the most important structure in the world due to stroke,” he wrote.

But this was in the early 1960s, and he ran “in what we call “fixed mentors,” things weren’t moving.” Like he put it down On the 2009 episode of the podcast “Being With Krista Tippett.”

“The Earth was considered everything to be a static place,” he said. “Things were moving up and down, but never sideways. The continent was always there. The ocean was always there.”

Dr. Le Picon initially defended these concepts, but he realized they were wrong. He returned from the lab one day and told his wife, “My paper’s conclusions are wrong.”

Rather, I felt that he was an American geologist. Harry Hess The assumption in 1962 that the seabed had continued expansion was correct. After all, there was seismic activity along the top of the ridge. Measuring magnetic anomalies along the ridge is important in proofing Dr. Hess’s hypothesis.

Dr. Le Pichon recalled his Eureka moment in an episode of the podcast. “I worked all night on a computer, and one night I put it all together and found out that Hawaii approaches Tokyo at 8 centimeters each year.”

He recalls what he told her: “I discovered how the Earth works. I really know that now.” And I was so excited. ”

His passion for what was happening under the ocean developed quickly. After growing up in what was a French protectorate in Vietnam at the time, he was interrupted by his family during World War II when Japan invaded.

“When I was in the concentration camp, we were on the Pacific coast, and I was wondering what was under the water, and I was on the beach,” Dr. Le Picon said in 2009.

After publishing his groundbreaking paper in 1968, Columbia and Massachusetts Institute of Technology presented the first quantitative global model of plate boundaries and movement, offering him a teaching position. However, he instead led the Institute of Oceanography in Brittany, France, where he began his second career as an underwater ocean explorer, advancing into the depths of small submarines on joint Franco-American expeditions.

In 1973, he said he had taken such a ship 3,000 meters below him while exploring the ridges in the Mid-Atlantic Ocean.

“I had the impression that I was a religious man and had the return to Genesis,” he added. Other sea floor trips in Greece and Japan followed.

Dr. Lupichon, a Roman Catholic who attended Mass every day since childhood, experienced what was called a “great crisis in my life” in 1973 and worked for Mother Teresa in the city of Calcutta, India.

“I was very immersed in my research. I wasn’t looking at anyone else anymore,” he said. “In particular, I didn’t see people suffering and difficulties. It was a very strong crisis.”

His experience in Calcutta changed him by his account, and then he, his wife and his children engaged in charity and charity in the French Lach community for people with intellectual disabilities. They lived there for nearly 30 years. He and his family then find a similar community and help them live there.

Xavier Thaddée Le Pichon was born on June 18, 1937 in Quy Nhon, Vietnam, France, to Jean Louis Le Pichon and Helene Pauline (Tyl) Le Pichon, rubber plantation managers.

The family moved to France in 1945, with Xavier attending the Institute of Cherbourg Saint Paul and the Lyce Sainte Geneviève in Versailles. In 1960 he received his Bachelor of Engineering from the Institut de Physique Du Globe He received a Fulbright Fellowship in Strasbourg to study at Columbia University’s Lamont Daughertier Observatory.

His original works will be carried out over the next decade, and in 1973 he wrote with Jean Bonnin and Jean Franciteau.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Le Picheon taught at the Sorbonne and Ecole Normal Superfoil. He became a professor at the French Collège de France in 1986 and remained there until his retirement in 2008. Besides Balzan, he won many awards and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

He was survived by his wife Bridget Suzanne (Barselmee) le Pichon, a pianist. His children, Jean Baptist, Marie, Emmanuel, Raffaère, Jean Marie and Pierre Guien. 14 grandchildren; 5 great grandchildren.

In lectures and interviews, Dr. Le Picon linked his discoveries to his Catholic faith as a scientist and the prayer work it stimulated. The bridge between them was his concept of “vulnerability,” and he said, “is the essence of men and women, at the heart of humanity.”

The earth is also vulnerable. “I have a very close relationship with the Earth, so I think a little like a mother,” he said in 2009.

Sheila McNeill and Daphne Angles Contributed research.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Study shows the Sakhallo Arabian desert was verdant for 8 million years

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The Sakhallo-Arabian desert is one of the largest biogeographical barriers on Earth, hindering the dispersion between Africa and Eurasia, including human movements in the past. Recent research suggests that this barrier has been in place for at least 11 million years. However, a new Griffith University-led study shows that numerous humidity intervals have occurred in the Sakhallo-Arabian desert over the past 8 million years.

Marcouska et al. It shows wet intervals that have recurred inside Central Arabia over the past 8 million years. Image credit: Paul Breeze.

Arabia is at the heart of the largest near-continuous chain of arid lands on the planet. A harsh and often highly dry belt that stretches from the Sahara to the Tar Desert.

Sakhallo-Arabian desert barriers limit animal dispersion and divide Africa and Eurasia into areas of Afrotropic, palate, and Indomalaya biogeography, each characterized by a distinct assemblage of plants, animal species and communities.

While the persistence of this desert barrier serves as a major control over the depiction of these biogeographical regions, improvements in climate throughout the Sakhallo-Arabian region allow for dispersion among them.

As a result, the region is a “transition zone” and hosts a complex fauna mixture with characteristics of Africa, Eurasia and South Asia.

Recent research suggests that a dry beyond this desert barrier and that it has begun to be highly aridity and highly dry on the edge of northern Arabia 9 million years ago in the completely arid state of the Sahara at least 11 million years ago.

“However, fossil evidence from the late Miocene (marked by rising earth temperatures) and the Pleistocene (including multiple ice ages) suggests the existence of an episode within the interior of the water-dependent animal Sakhallo-Arabian desert.”

“It is possible that animals such as crocodiles, quids, cobopotamids, and absoscideans were supported by rivers and lakes that are almost nonexistent from today’s arid landscape.”

“These wet conditions could promote the dispersion of these mammals between Africa and Eurasia, and Arabia serves as an important crossroads in continental-scale biogeographic exchange.”

In the new study, Professor Petraglia and colleagues analyzed a set of osteoscopic electrons (mineral deposits such as bulls and stellates) from a series of caves from within Arabia.

It is one of the longest aleoclimatic records available in Arabia today, and represents one of the longest space paleoclimatic records in the world.

“Little was known about Arabian paleoclimate before this time,” said Dr. Monica Markowska of Northumbria University.

“The findings highlight that the effects of monsoons have been weakened and polar ice coverings in the Pleistocene during the Pleistocene have been strengthened, reducing precipitation during humidity intervals and changing over time.”

“Although Arabia has traditionally been overlooked in the dispersion of Africa and Yolasia, research like ours is increasingly revealing the central location of mammal and human migration,” added Dr Faisal Al-Jiblin, who led Saudi archaeologists on the Heritage Committee.

result It will be displayed in the journal Nature.

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M. Markouska et al. The recurrence of humidity in Arabia over the past 8 million years. NaturePublished online on April 9, 2025. doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08859-6

Source: www.sci.news

New Phylums of Bacteria Uncovered in Earth’s Deep Soil by Biologists

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Deep Soils – Depending on the type and area of soil, ranges from less than 30 cm (12 inches) to several hundred meters are neglected ecosystems within important zones of the Earth. Biologists have now discovered a wide and relatively abundant bacterial phyla, named CSP1-3, in deep soils, and evaluated its phylogenetic, ecology, metabolism, and evolutionary history.

A diagram showing the history of evolution from aquatic organisms and adaptive characteristics of CSP1-3 phylums in each habitat. Image credit: Michigan State University.

“The key zone extends from above the trees through the soil to a maximum of 213 m (700 feet),” said Professor James Tiedee of Michigan State University.

“This zone supports most life on the planet as it regulates critical processes such as soil formation, water circulation and nutrition cycling, which are essential for food production, water quality, and ecosystem health.”

“Despite its importance, the deep critical zone is a new frontier, as it is a relatively unexplored part of the Earth.”

Professor Tiedje and his colleagues discovered a completely different microbial phylum called CSP1-3 in this huge, unexplored world of microorganisms.

This new gate was identified in soil samples ranging from both Iowa and China up to 70 feet (21 m) deep.

“Why Iowa and China? Because these two regions have very deep and similar soils and I want to know if their occurrence is more common than just one region,” Professor Tiedje said.

Researchers extracted DNA from these deep soils and discovered that CSP1-3 ancestors lived in water millions of years ago.

They undergo at least one major habitat transition to colonize the soil environment. It is in the first topsoil and the deep soil that followed, within its evolutionary history.

Scientists also discovered that CSP1-3 microorganisms are active.

“Most people think that these organisms are like spores and dormant,” Professor Thiedeye said.

“But one of the important findings we found by examining DNA is that these microorganisms are growing actively and slowly.”

The authors were also surprised that these microorganisms were not unusual members of the community, but dominated. In some cases, they made up more than 50% of the community, but this is by no means the case in surface soils.

“I think this happened because deep soils are very different environments and this group of organisms evolved over a long period of time to adapt to this poor soil environment,” Professor Tiedje said.

a paper The explanation of the survey results was published on March 18th. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Wenlu Feng et al. 2025. Diversification, niche adaptation, and evolution of candidate phylums that thrive in deep critical zones. pnas 122 (12): E2424463122; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2424463122

Source: www.sci.news

Chinese Researchers Discover That Moon Rocks Indicate the Possibility of Water on the Moon

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The other side of the moon – the part that is always far from the earth – is strangely different from close. It is pockmarked with more craters, with a thicker crust and less Maria, where lava was once formed, or with fewer plains.

Now, scientists say the difference can be more than the depth of the skin.

Using samples from the moon obtained last year, Chinese researchers believe the inside of the moon is potentially drier than its near it. Their discovery, Published Wednesday’s Nature Journal will provide a clearer picture of how pearly orbs we admire in the night sky have formed and evolved over billions of years.

The difference in moisture in the distant side of the moon and its nearby appears to be “accidentally consistent” with variations in the surface features of the two hemispheres of the moon, said Senfu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and author of the new results. “It’s very interesting,” he said.

Until the 1990s, when scientists began to discover tips on water on its surface, the moon was believed to be “dry bones.” These tips were confirmed in 2009 when NASA denounced the rocket stage to the moon’s Antarctic.

One of the goals, including this mission, was to estimate the amount of water that lies deep within the moon. The interior of the moon is not changed much by the process of weathering the surface.

Returning to Earth with a Chang’e-6 sample in hand, researchers looked for hardened particles of lava erupted from the female entrance or within the lunar mantle. Some of these basalts were 2.8 billion years old, and contained olivine, a crystal that had ancient magma cooled in the moon and stored information about the composition of the mantle early in the history of the moon.

The amount of hydrogen trapped in olivine allowed scientists to estimate the amount of water present in the mantle at the time. 1-1.5 grams of water for every million grams of the moon rock.

Previous measurements from samples collected near the moon – the US, the Soviet Union, and most recently 200 times wet.

The harsh difference between the range of nearby lunar ranges between nearby and far side samples could suggest that the parts of the moon that we don’t see on Earth are generally much drier, Dr. Hu said.

Shuai Li, a planetary geologist at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, who studies water on the moon, described the results as “very interesting.” However, he pointed out that limited information can be extracted from a single sample.

“It’s hard to say if the far side is definitely dryer than the nearest side,” said Dr. Lee, who was not involved in the job.

One scenario the Chang’e-6 team proposed to explain the internal differences is that the impact of creating the Antarctic-Aitken basin is strong enough to throw water and other elements near the moon, depleting the amount of water beyond.

Another idea is that the basalt in the Chang’e-6 sample comes from a much deeper, dry part of the lunar mantle.

“For me, that’s a little more realistic,” said Mahesh Anand, a planetary scientist at the UK Open University. Estimate the moisture content inside the moon From near-side samples from China collected by the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020.

Dr. Anand also praised the researchers’ careful selection of hundreds of particles from Chang’e-6 samples, less than 16 inches in size, to estimate water abundance.

“The ability to do that is extremely laborious and requires a lot of sophisticated and careful work,” he said.

More samples from various locations collected by future moon missions will help scientists determine whether the inner interior of the width is uniformly dry, and whether it changes throughout the hemisphere.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Researchers create detailed map of neural connections in mouse brain

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The human brain is so complex that the scientific brain has a hard time understanding it. Nerve tissue, the size of a grain of sand, could be packed with hundreds of thousands of cells connected by miles of wiring. In 1979, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Francis Crick concluded that the anatomy and activity of only a cubic millimeter of brain material would forever surpass our understanding.

“It’s useless to seek the impossible,” says Dr. Crick. I wrote it.

46 years later, a team of over 100 scientists achieved that impossible by recording cell activity and mapping the structure of cubic millimeters of the mouse brain. In achieving this feat, they accumulated 1.6 petabytes of data. This is equivalent to 22 years of non-stop high-resolution video.

“This is a milestone,” said Davi Bock, a neuroscientist at the University of Vermont. the studywas published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. Dr. Bock said that it enabled advances that allowed it to cover the cubic bones of the cubic brain to map the entire brain wiring of a mouse.

“It’s completely doable and I think it’s worth doing,” he said.

Over 130 years It has passed since Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramon y Kajal first spies on individual neurons under a microscope, creating a unique branching shape. Scientists from subsequent generations have resolved many of the details about how neurons send voltage spikes into long arms called axons. Each axon makes contact with small branches or dendrites of adjacent neurons. Some neurons excite their neighbors and fire their own voltage spikes. Some quiet other neurons.

Human thinking emerges in some way from this combination of excitation and inhibition. But how this happens remains a ridiculous mystery as scientists could only study a small number of neurons at a time.

Over the past few decades, technological advances have allowed scientists to begin mapping the whole brain. 1986, British researcher Published A small worm circuit made up of 302 neurons. The researchers then charted larger brains, including 140,000 neurons in the fly’s brain.

After all, is Dr. Crick’s impossible dream possible? The US government began in 2016 100 million dollar effort Scan cubic millimeters of mouse brain. The project was called Cortical Network (or Mechanical Intelligence from Microns) and was led by scientists from the Allen Institute of Brain Science, Princeton University, and Baylor School of Medicine.

Researchers have zeroed into part of the mouse’s brain, which receives signals from the eyes and reconstructs what the animal is seeing. In the first phase of the study, the team recorded the neuronal activity in that area as they showed mouse videos of different landscapes.

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Source: www.nytimes.com

New modeling studies suggest Titan can only sustain minimal biomass concentrations

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

A team of biologists from the US, Canada, UK, and France have developed a scenario for life on Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon.

Rendering of the artist on the surface of Titan, the biggest moon of Saturn. Image credits: Benjamin de Bivort, debivort.org/cc by-sa 3.0.

“Our research focuses on what makes Titan unique when compared to other ice moons and its rich organic content,” said Dr. Antonin Affelder, a researcher at the University of Arizona.

Using bioenergy modeling, Dr. Affholder and colleagues discovered that Titan’s underground ocean, estimated at around 483 km (300 miles), could support life forms that consume organic materials.

“There’s been a lot of speculation about scenarios that could create organisms on Titan based on lunar organic chemistry, but previous estimates suffer from an overly simplified approach,” Dr. Affholder said.

“Because Titan has such abundant organic matter, there was a sense that there was no shortage of food sources that could sustain life.”

“Not all of these organic molecules constitute a food source, and the ocean is really big; there is a limited exchange between the ocean and the surface, and all of those organic matter; so I argue for a more subtle approach.”

At the heart of the study is a fundamental approach that sought to come up with a plausible scenario for Titan’s life, which envisioned one of the simplest and most prominent fermentations of all biological metabolic processes.

Fermentation familiar to earthlings, used in breadmaking, beer brewing, and less desirable – sourdough fermentation, accustomed to its use in the spoilage of forgotten leftovers, requires only organic molecules but no oxidants like oxygen.

“Fermentation probably evolved early in the history of Earth’s life, and there’s no need to open the door to unknown or speculative mechanisms that may or may not have happened on Titan,” Dr. Affholder said.

“Life on Earth may have first appeared to eat organic molecules left behind from the formation of the Earth.”

“I asked if there could be similar microorganisms on Titan. If so, could Titan’s underground seas supply the biosphere from a seemingly vast inventory of abiotic organic molecules synthesized in Titan’s atmosphere, accumulate on its surface, and be present in its core?”

The researchers have focused specifically on glycine, the simplest organic molecule of all known amino acids.

“We know that glycine was relatively abundant in all kinds of primitive matter in the solar system,” Dr. Affholder said.

“When you look at clouds of particles and gases where stars and planets form, like asteroids, comets, our solar system, we find glycine or its precursors in almost every place.”

However, computer simulations reveal that only a small portion of Titan’s organic materials may be suitable for microbial consumption.

The microorganisms consumed by Titan’s ocean glycine rely on a stable supply of amino acids from the surface through thick, ice-like shells.

Previous work by the same team showed that meteors that shock Titan’s ice could leave behind a “melt pool” of liquid water.

“Our new research shows that this supply may be sufficient to maintain very few microorganisms, which are up to a few kilograms of physical fitness.”

“A small biosphere like this is an average of less than one cell per liter in Titan’s vast oceans.”

For your future mission to Titan, the possibility of finding life might be like searching for needles in a haystack if it’s actually there.

“We conclude that Titan’s unique, rich organic inventory may actually not be available to play a role in lunar habitat at an intuitive level of thinking,” Dr. Affholder said.

paper It was published in Journal of Planetary Science.

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Antonin abholder et al. 2025. Survival rate of glycine fermentation in the underground oceans of Titan. planet. SCI. j 6, 86; doi:10.3847/psj/adbc66

Source: www.sci.news

Can universes contain dark matter halos without any galaxies?

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

A new study by computational astrophysicist Ethan Nadler from the University of California, San Diego, shows that star formation can occur at halos in the solar masses of 10 million people through molecular hydrogen cooling.

Nadler calculated the percentage of dark matter halos above the critical mass required for star formation. Image credit: Xiaodian Chen.

All galaxies are thought to form at the center of the dark matter halo. This is a region of material coupled to gravity that extends far beyond the galaxy’s visible boundary.

Stars form when gravity within the halo of dark matter draws gases, but astrophysicists still don’t know if there is a dark halo of matter without stars.

“What is the halo mass threshold for the galaxy layer?” said Dr. Nadler.

“This question underlies the key areas of research in galaxy formation and cosmology, including when and how the first galaxy was formed, how galaxies promote the regeneration of the universe, and whether halos of “dark” (without galaxies) exist.

“Robust predictions of galaxy formation thresholds are important to provide future observations of faint galaxies and low-mass halos throughout the history of the universe.”

In his new study, Dr. Nadler calculated the mass that Halo cannot form stars.

His research was conducted using analytical predictions from galaxy formation theory and cosmological simulations.

“Historically, understanding of dark matter has been related to behavior in the galaxy,” Dr. Nadler said.

“When you detect a completely dark halo, a new window opens to study the universe.”

Previously, this threshold for star formation was thought to be between 100 million and 1 billion solar masses due to cooling of atomic hydrogen gas.

The current study shows that star formation can occur in the solar mass of 10 million people at halos via molecular hydrogen cooling.

“The Rubin Observatory will be coming online later this year and Webb is already making unprecedented observations of our universe, so we’ll soon have new data to test these predictions, revealing whether there’s a completely dark halo,” Dr. Nadler said.

“This could have widespread consequences for cosmology and the nature of dark matter.”

study It will be displayed in Astrophysics Journal Letter.

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Ethan O. Nadler. 2025. Effect of molecular hydrogen cooling on galaxy formation thresholds. apjl 983, L23; doi:10.3847/2041-8213/adbc6e

Source: www.sci.news

Astronomers discover far-off galaxies using neural networks

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

It’s similar to how paleontologists use certain known fossils Indexed Fossil Until assessing rock formations and ancient environments so far, astronomers look for specific patterns of light emissions from space to mark the age of space history. For example, early galaxies give the UV rays that originate from electrons in hydrogen atoms to the type of ultraviolet rays that exert from the second lowest to the lowest energy state. Lyman Alpha or ly⍺ Emission.

For decades, astronomers have associated ly⍺ emissions with periods within billions of years of a big bang called the Big Bang. The era of reionizationwhen the average speed of star formation in galaxies was much higher than today. When they find a galaxy that emits light strongly, they classify it into ly⍺Emitter or Lae And we can be sure that it goes back to the era of reionization. Observing Laes, astronomers talk more about the history of the Milky Way and other galaxies like us.

However, researchers face confounding factors when looking for Laes. The expansion of the universe distorts light in a process called Cosmological redshift. However, more prominently Dustboth Intergalacticcovers the light. While astronomers can analyze the full light of light from the galaxy to find evidence of ly⍺ emissions, it would be much faster to develop tools to predict whether a galaxy is likely to be a LAE based on more readily available measurements.

One team of astronomers developed a model for this problem only Machine Learning A technique known as a Neural Networks. This technique replicates how neurons in the brain function, with several interconnected layers receiving and transmitting signals based on initial inputs and generating final outputs.. The trick is that the programmer knows what inputs to input and what output they expect in the end. The algorithm itself needs to know how best to set up a central connection, what to look for, and how to rank the importance of each input.

The team began with data from two surveys of light sources in space: 926 galaxies VanderOf these, only 520 are laes, starting from 507 Musethey were all laes. They trained the algorithm using 80% of this data to explicitly communicate which sources are actual LAES and which sources are not. They saved the remaining 20% of the data for testing.

Through this initial test, the team identified six parameters of neural networks to focus on evaluating galaxies for LAE potential. These parameters were the rate of star formation, total star mass, UV brightness, UV emission patterns, age, and dust. They programmed the network to output an estimate of the probability that a particular galaxy is a LAE, and thought that what was above 70% meant that the algorithm classified it as an LAE.

When we created a neural network using training data, the team tested several additional rounds. Using early test data, their networks found that they correctly identified the network in 77% of the time, as there was only a 14% chance of false positives. When they looked at what their network prioritized to make these predictions, they found that the most important factors were the galaxy’s UV emission pattern, its UV brightness, and the mass of its star.

Following this initial success, the team applied the network to another investigation. cosmos2020and a subset of that raise, SC4Kwith fewer details than the training data survey. From these datasets, the team’s neural network identified true Laes for 72% of the time.

The team’s final results came when they applied neural networks to data from NASA’s new telescope. jwst. The ultimate goal in their model is to study the distant past of the universe, and JWST aims to see better-looking sources than ever before, so the success of the test is Already checking the results of LAE from JWST It will be a good sign of future success. They found a true positive rate of 91% in JWST data, showing the validity of their approach and illuminated the path to know more about the history of the universe.

Post view: 1,100

Source: sciworthy.com

Five key points from Trump’s strategy to revive the coal industry

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The hard hat is back. So is coal that is “beautiful and beautiful.”

President Trump signed four executive orders on Tuesday to sought to bolster the country’s declining coal industry, including lifting mining restrictions and burning the dirtiest fossil fuels.

In addition to exempting air pollution restrictions and other coal regulations imposed by the Biden administration, Trump has directed the Justice Department to chase states like California, which aimed to tackle climate change by reducing the use of fossil fuels.

“I call it beautiful and clean coal. I tell people not to use the word ‘beautiful, clean’,” Trump said in the east room of the White House, surrounded by dozens of men wearing mainly stiff hats. “We are completely ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean coal.”

Here are five takeaways from Trump’s orders.

Miners as background

Trump has always loved coal miners as a masculine symbol.

At a White House ceremony on Tuesday, he repeatedly mentioned the Burley men who surrounded him, joking about whether the stage could handle their collective weight. He recalled that during the 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton she was talking about Job Letrain for miners. “She was going to put them in the tech industry where you make little phones and things,” he said gestured at the hives and laughed.

Coal itself is a strong fossil fuel, he said. “A pound of pounds, coal is the single energy of the most reliable, durable, safe and powerful energy,” Trump said.

“It’s almost impossible to destroy,” he said. “You can drop a bomb on it and it will be there for you to use the next day.”

What kind of climate change?

Coal releases more carbon dioxide when burned than any other fossil fuel, making it a major contributor to climate change. More mining and burning of coal adds to pollution that dangerously heats the planet, leading to more frequent and deadly heat waves, droughts, floods, sea level rise and faster melting of Greenland’s ice sheets, Trump said he hopes to win the US.

Scientists say that to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change, major economies like the United States must cut their emissions sharply, rather than increasing them.

Coal burning also releases other contaminants, including mercury and sulfur dioxide, which are associated with heart disease, respiratory problems and early death. Mining activities and coal ash from generated power plants pose environmental hazards.

No coal results were mentioned on Tuesday.

He ignored natural gas, the biggest threat to coal.

Regulations limiting the amount of contamination from coal-fired power plants have led to these plants operating more expensively and reduced industry profitability. But, as Trump said, “radical green” policy wasn’t the biggest reason for the decline in coal power over the past two decades. It was cheap natural gas by fracking.

In the mid-2000s, American excavators completed a method to unlock the enormous reserves of low-cost natural gas from Shalelock. The utility quickly realized that coal could be replaced with cheaper gas.

According to 2019 Survey At the RAND Journal of Economics, the energy market and low prices of natural gas account for almost all of the decline in coal plants’ profitability between 2005 and 2015, and as a result, retirements of hundreds of coal-fired power plants. “Environmental regulations had little impact on these outcomes,” the study found.

Trump says he wants to “drill, babe, drill” and lower gas prices.

Law firm’s shakedown pride

“Did you notice that many law firms are signing up for Trump?” the president asked the crowd at a coal event Tuesday.

He was referring to the multi-million-dollar pro bono legal services some major law firms offered to the Trump administration after the president threatened to target him with executive orders.

One company covered by the executive order – Paul, Weiss – has promised concessions, including $40 million in pro bono work for a Trump-friendly cause, cutting deals with the White House. Three other companies – Milbank. Skadden, Arps;Wilky Far & Gallagher – Actively agreed to his deal with the White House.

On Tuesday, Trump indicated that these free legal services would be directed. It fights climate policy and supports the coal industry.

“We’ll use some of those companies to work with you on your leases and other things,” Trump told coal leaders.

Coal stock has risen, but will the revival last?

Tuesday was a good day for the coal industry. Shares of mining company Peabody Energy rose 9%. Alliance Resource Partners led by billionaire coal tycoon Joseph W. Craft III, who led Trump’s fundraising during the presidential election, have risen nearly 5%.

But many experts are skeptical that Trump can do much to turn the coal outlook up. “Given the limitations on the use of emergency authorities and the symbolic nature of the order, we believe that Trump’s coal executive order is unlikely to have a significant impact on electricity and carbon markets,” wrote an analyst at Capstone, a research firm. They called the coal stock bumps on Tuesday a “overreaction.”

The average US coal plant is more than 50 years old, and it is often cheaper for utilities to generate electricity using a mix of gas, wind, solar and batteries. Analysts say these fundamentals are difficult to change.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Rising Weight: Climate Change Muffles Storms and Rainfall

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

The heavy storm system that floods the central and southeastern US with heavy rain and winds fits a wider pattern as rainfall has increased over the eastern US half has increased in recent decades.

Data from the National Maritime and Atmospheric Administration from 1991 to 2020 show that on average the eastern part of the country received more rain, on average, than in the 20th century. At the same time, precipitation decreased in the west.

The sharp East-West division is consistent with predictions from climate scientists who expect wet areas to be wet, with dry areas becoming dry as the world warms.

Without further analysis, individual storms cannot be linked to climate change, but warming the air will result in greater rainfall. This is because warm air has the ability to retain more moisture than cooler air, and has the potential to be fueled due to overall average precipitation, and more intense storms.

The world’s temperatures are increasing year by year, driven by the combustion of fossil fuels that send greenhouse gases that warm the planets into the atmosphere. According to a recent report, the 10 people have been the hottest recordkeeping for nearly 200 years. World Weather Organization.

“When there are these very heavy rain events, trends refer to the heavy trends of these intense events,” said Deanna, an associate professor of climate and atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign University.

Severe flooding could be an indirect effect of warming air and increased moisture, according to Gerald Brotzge, a Kentucky national climate scientist and director of the Kentucky Climate Center. If conditions stall a storm system, it can cause heavy rain in the same area, increasing the risk of flooding.

This is what happened when the storm recently stagnated in the region. “I think it’s a once-at-a-time event based on the amount and area covered,” Brotzge said.

Mark Jarvis, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Louisville, Kentucky, described the storm as two. It brought tornadoes, strong winds and hail to the front end, then stalled and dropped historic amounts of rainfall. Western Kentucky, who saw some of the most serious effects of the storm, “it was in the eyes of the bull,” he said.

Heavy rain and flooding are common in Ohio Valley in late winter and early spring, but the system is as common as it is “very rare” for rain. “That’s what you normally see in hurricanes and tropical systems,” he said..

Storm damage is constantly happening, but the possibility that climate change is increasing them is Observed weather trendstherefore Mr.

She said that even in the western half of the United States, which is generally dry, the coming precipitation tends to drop at more extreme levels.

She called it “very eye-opening,” adding, “it’s not particularly comfortable to think we have more of this.”

Source: www.nytimes.com

Surprising Furry Secrets Hidden within Mystical Medieval Book Covers

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Medieval scribes fill a volume called veterinarians with illustrations and descriptions of fantastic creatures. Manuscripts containing representations of these animals also relied on the beast zoo. These and other volume covers were made from calf, goat, sheep, deer and pig skins.

Most of these skins were removed before they were converted to book bindings. However, the medieval manuscript sets in northeastern France have a distinctive finish. The weathered cover is covered with hair.

Matthew Collins, a biofactorologist at the University of Copenhagen and Cambridge and author of the new study, said: However, it turns out to be difficult to pinpoint the source of hairy leather.

These furry books appear to be at home at the Hogwarts Library, but were originally written by Clairvaux Abbey, a hub of the Cistercians, the orders of the Catholic monk Ks. Founded in the Champagne Adennes region of France in 1115, the monastery was located in one of the largest monastery libraries in medieval Europe.

Approximately 1,450 volumes of the monastery’s extensive corpus survive. Approximately half of these manuscripts remain in the original, fragile bindings. Many were tied in Romanesque style in the 12th and 13th centuries, parchment was placed between wooden boards fixed with thread and cord.

At Clairvaux Abbey, these Romanesque books were often housed in secondary covers, bristled with fur. Traditionally, this creepy leather was thought to be made from wild boars and deer. However, the hair follicles of some manuscripts do not match the fur of either mammal.

Dr. Collins and his colleagues examined the hairy covers of 16 manuscripts once housed at Clairebaud Abbey. Researchers rubbed the sides of the leather meat with an eraser and carefully removed the crumb-sized sample. We then used various techniques to analyze the protein sequences and bits of the ancient DNA of leather.

Their findings published in the journal on Wednesday Royal Society Open Sciencereveals that the book is tied to seal skins, not to local land mammal skins. Some books are tied up in the skin of harbor seals, and at least one came from harp seals. Comparing them to modern DNA suggests that the origins of Scandinavian and Scottish seals, or as far as Iceland and Greenland.

These different territories were once connected by complex medieval trading networks. During the Middle Ages, Scandinavian traders harvested walrus ivory and fur from Greenland and sent them to mainland Europe. Clairebaud and his monks were far more inland from these coastal front posts, but the monastery was near a trafficked trade route.

The discoveries shed light on medieval society, according to Mary Wellesley, a fellow at the London Institute of Historical Studies, who specializes in medieval manuscripts and was not involved in new papers.

“The small details of the manuscript can tell you a lot about the world that created them,” Dr. Wellesley said. “It’s a common assumption that people didn’t move around, but these monasteries are part of this incredible network of goods, books and ideas.”

Seals were a valuable product for meat, dull, waterproof skin. This could be made into boots or gloves. Some records even claim that Sealskin was used to pay church taxes. Coastal communities in Scandinavian and Ireland used Sealskin to bind books, but this practice was far more unusual in the mainland Europe.

However, Cistercian monks apparently liked Sealskin’s books. Examples of these furry manuscripts have been found in other Abbeys, descendants of Clairevaux. These monks used this material to combine the most important documents, including historical information about the Cistercians, historical information about St. Bernard.

According to Dr. Collins, the fur color of the seal may explain the preference of the monks for using animal skins. The cover of the manuscript is now yellowish-gray or spotted brown, but was once wrapped in the white fur of a seal puppy. This shade matched the best of the monks’ dissatisfaction.

“In medieval Europe, you really don’t have anything white or white,” said Dr. Collins. “It must have been very magical.”

The seal itself appears to resemble the magical entity of the monk ks. In medieval veterinarians, seals are labelled “sea calves,” resembling dogs that have raised fish tails.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Trump supporter and NASA leader, Jared Isaacman, prioritizes Mars in confirmation hearing.

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

NASA prioritizes sending American astronauts to Mars, a goal supported by President Trump’s candidate to lead the space agency.

The candidate, Jared Isaacman, CEO of Payment Processing Company Shift4 Payments and a close associate of Elon Musk, brings a unique perspective from leading private astronaut flights into orbit. He is expected to bring new ideas to NASA and its $25 billion budget, aligning with entrepreneurial aerospace companies like SpaceX.

Isaacman aims to revitalize a mission-first culture at NASA, as stated in his opening statement before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology.

While Mars remains a long-term goal for human spaceflight, NASA’s current focus has been on the International Space Station and sending astronauts back to the moon during Trump’s presidency.

Isaacman affirms that NASA will view the moon as a stepping stone to Mars, not abandoning it but utilizing it for scientific, economic, and national security interests.

He believes that fostering an economy in orbit will accelerate NASA’s scientific advancements and discoveries.

Isaacman’s confirmation hearing sheds light on NASA’s future direction amidst uncertainties surrounding federal agencies. With Musk’s influence and contrasting views, the path forward for NASA remains uncertain.

Isaacman is expected to address questions regarding NASA’s space launch system and the future of lunar missions during his confirmation hearing.

Isaacman’s appointment signals a departure from traditional NASA leadership, bringing a fresh perspective from his background in private space missions.

Despite criticisms of NASA’s costly programs like the SLS rocket, Isaacman emphasizes the importance of efficient and cost-effective missions to advance space exploration.

His vision includes prioritizing American astronauts’ return to the moon as a crucial step towards eventual Mars exploration.

Isaacman’s unique approach to space exploration has already been demonstrated through private missions like Inspiration 4 and Polaris Dawn, showcasing innovative technologies and partnerships with SpaceX.

In a shift from traditional aerospace leadership, Isaacman’s nomination for NASA administrator represents a new era of space exploration.

His experiences with private space missions demonstrate a commitment to innovation and collaboration in advancing human space travel.

Isaacman’s appointment heralds a new chapter for NASA as it navigates evolving priorities and challenges in space exploration.

As NASA looks to the future under Isaacman’s leadership, the agency is poised to embrace innovative solutions and partnerships to propel human space endeavors forward.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Trump’s nominee states at Senate hearing that nuclear tests are not recommended.

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

Brandon Williams, who was chosen by President Trump to oversee the country’s nuclear weapons, stated on Tuesday that he does not recommend resuming explosive testing of deadly weapons.

This statement was made during his Confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, taking many by surprise. While other advisers suggested that the president resume test explosions for national security reasons, the last test in the U.S. occurred in 1992.

Appointed by Trump in January, Williams, a former naval officer from upstate New York, is set to oversee the National Nuclear Security Agency, a semi-autonomous agency within the energy sector responsible for managing the nation’s nuclear weapons complex.

Despite calls from Trump’s allies for a return to testing, one notable figure, former national security advisor Robert C. O’Brien, urged in a magazine article last summer that a new term for Trump would see the resumption of testing to maintain the U.S.’ advantages over China and Russia in nuclear capabilities.

At his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Williams faced opposition against the resumption of explosive testing, particularly from Senator Jackie Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada, who highlighted the state’s history of nuclear tests during the Cold War.

Describing Nevada as “ground zero” for such testing, Rosen emphasized the harmful impact on the population and environment and vehemently opposed a return to these practices.

Williams responded to questions about advising Trump on explosive nuclear tests, stating his reliance on scientific information and expertise from the NNSA lab’s data and modeling rather than testing.

Concerns about the potential environmental and health impacts of testing in Nevada were also raised, to which Williams acknowledged the importance of considering such factors in decision-making.

With a background in naval service, Williams has been nominated to head the National Nuclear Security Agency and represents New York’s 22nd Congressional District.

In a letter to Williams, Senator Elizabeth Warren expressed concerns about his qualifications in the nuclear field and lack of relevant experience.

During the hearing, Williams stressed the importance of retaining skilled labor at the NNSA, following previous administration changes and workforce challenges.

Praising the agency’s staff, Williams assured senators that he speaks on their behalf and values their expertise.

The Senate Committee is currently evaluating Williams’ nomination, with expectations for approval and confirmation by the full Senate.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Trump signs executive order targeting revitalization of US coal industry

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Igor Mitreski

President Trump signed a surge in executive orders on Tuesday aimed at expanding coal mining and burning in the United States to revive the struggling industry.

1 order Commanding federal agencies To abolish regulations that “discriminate” coal production, open new federal land for coal mining, and investigate whether coal combustion power plants can serve new AI data centers. Trump also said He will abandon certain air force pollution restrictions It was adopted by the Biden administration for dozens of coal plants at risk of closures.

In a move that could face legal challenges, Trump led the energy sector Develop the process To prevent unprofitable coal plants from shutting down to avoid power outages using electricity in emergencies. Trump proposed similar actions during his first term, but ultimately abandoned the idea after widespread opposition.

Dozens of miners are stuck in hard white White House hats, Trump said. He was also teaching The Department of Justice will identify and fight state and local climate policies that “let coal miners go out of business.” He added that future administrations will “assure” that they will not be able to adopt policies that are harmful to coal, but did not provide details.

“This is a very important day for me, because we are reclaiming an abandoned industry despite the fact that it is the best and certainly the best in terms of power, true power,” Trump said.

Over the past few weeks, Trump, energy secretary Chris Wright and interior secretary Doug Burgham have all been talking about the importance of coal. The two cabinet members sat in the front row at the White House ceremony. Members of Congress from Wyoming, Kentucky, West Virginia and other coal-producing states attended the White House ceremony.

“Beautiful and beautiful coal,” Trump told the gathering. “Never use the word “coal” unless you place “clean, clean” before that. ”

Coal is the most polluted of all fossil fuels when burned; Approximately 40% of the world’s industrial carbon dioxide emissions a major factor in global warming. It releases other contaminants, including mercury and sulfur dioxide, associated with heart disease, respiratory problems, and early death. Coal ash from coal mining and generated power plants can also cause environmental issues.

Over the past 20 years, coal use has declined sharply in the US, with utilities switching to cheaper, cleaner power sources, such as natural gas, wind and solar. That transition has been the biggest reason for US emissions decline since 2005.

It is unclear how much Trump will reverse that decline. In 2011, the country generated almost half of its electricity from coal. Last year, it fell to just 15%. The utility has already closed hundreds of aged coal burning units, and has announced the retirement dates for about half of the remaining plants.

In recent years, growing interest in artificial intelligence and data centers has driven a surge in electricity demand, with the utility having decided that more than 50 coal combustion units will be open past the scheduled closing date, according to Electric Power from America, the industry’s trade group. And as the Trump administration moves, more plants could remain open longer or run more frequently as they loosen coal pollution restrictions, including regulations that apply to carbon and mercury.

“You know, we need to do AI. All this new technology is online,” Trump said Tuesday. “We need more than twice the energy and electricity we currently have.”

However, some analysts said there is unlikely a major coal revival.

“The main problem is that most of our coal plants are older, more expensive to operate, and no one is thinking about building new plants,” said Seth Feaster, a data analyst focusing on coal at the research firm, Energy Economics Analysis Institute. “It’s very difficult to change that trajectory.”

During his first term, Trump tried to prevent the closure of unprofitable coal plants using emergency powers normally reserved for fleeting crises such as natural disasters. But the idea has hit hard by oil and gas companies, grid operators and consumer groups. He said it would increase electricity bills and eventually retreated from the idea.

Ali Pescoe, director of the Harvard Law School’s Electricity Law Initiative, said the idea would likely lead to lawsuits if it was tested again today. “But there’s not much history of litigation here,” he said. “Usually these emergency orders last within 90 days.”

Ultimately, Trump struggled to fulfill his first term pledge to save the coal industry. His administration abolished numerous climate regulations, appointed coal lobbyists to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, 75 coal-fired power plants were closed, and the industry lost around 13,000 jobs during its presidency.

The decline of coal continued under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who tried to completely move the country away from fossil fuels to combat climate change. Last year, his administration issued swept EPA rules that force all coal plants across the country to install expensive equipment to capture and fill carbon footprints or close by by 2039.

When he returned to the office this year, Trump ordered the EPA to repeal the rules. And Trump administration officials have repeatedly warned that closing coal plants will damage power sources. Unlike wind and solar energy, coal plants can run at any time of the day and are useful when electricity rises rapidly.

Some industry executives who run the country’s electric grid include some industry executives. I warned again The country could face the risk of power losses, especially when power companies are late in bringing new gas, wind and solar power plants online and adding battery storage and transmission lines.

“For decades, most people took electricity and coal for granted,” said Michelle Bradworth, chief executive of American power. “This complacency has led to early retirements in coal plants, weakening the electrical network and damaging federal and state policies that threaten national security.”

But coal opponents say maintaining aged plants online can exacerbate fatal air pollution and increase energy costs. Earlier this year, the PJM Interconnect, which oversees a large grid in the Mid-Atlantic, burned coal-burning power plants and the opening until 2029, leaving them open until 2029 to reduce the risk of retirement benefits. This move could ultimately cost the customers of the utility in the area Over $720 million.

“Coal plants are old, dirty, uncompetitive and unreliable,” said Kit Kennedy, power managing director for the Environmental Group’s Natural Resources Defense Council. “The Trump administration has been stuck in the past and is trying to make utility customers pay more for yesterday’s energy. Instead, they should do everything they can to build the power grid of the future.”

Source: www.nytimes.com