Italian archaeologists have unearthed the so-called Sacramento in Pompeii, the ancient Roman city frozen in time after the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
A 2,000-year-old sacramental vessel discovered in Pompeii, Italy. Image courtesy of Pompeii Archaeological Park.
The newly discovered sacrarium – an ancient temple used for ritual activities and storing sacred objects – covers an area of approximately 8 square meters.
The chamber was excavated in the center of Pompeii by Dr. Gabriel Suftriegel and his colleagues from the Pompeii Archaeological Park.
“Against the blue background of the wall, two female figures are depicted on either side of a central niche,” the archaeologists said in a statement.
“The figures in the side niches represent the horae, the four seasons, while the figures in the central panel represent an allegory of agriculture and shepherding, shown with the symbols of the plough and pedum (a short staff used by shepherds and hunters).”
“The blue color seen in this room is rarely seen in Pompeii frescoes and was usually used in more elaborately decorated rooms.”
In the sacristy, researchers found 15 transport amphorae and a set of bronze objects, including two jugs and two lamps.
They also unearthed large amounts of ancient building materials that can be used in the renovation work.
“A pile of empty oyster shells was found by the front door. The shells had probably been crushed into small pieces and added to the plaster or mortar,” the scientists said.
“The room was found in a building located on the southern side of a block (insula) belonging to the secondary area of the larger domus,” the researchers added.
“The structures discovered include a bathhouse, which is still being excavated, and a large reception room decorated with black frescoes overlooking a courtyard with a staircase leading to the first floor of the complex.”
“These excavations are part of a wider project aimed at strengthening the boundaries between excavated and unexcavated areas and improving the hydrogeological structure in order to more effectively and sustainably protect Pompeii’s vast archaeological site (more than 13,000 rooms in 1,070 residential units, public areas and sacred sites).”
Team paper Published in Electronic Journal Scavi di Pompei.
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Gabriel Suchtriegel others. Nostalgia Land: District 9 of Pompeii, 10 Sacred Sites on the Island. Electronic Journal Scavi di Pompeipublished online June 3, 2024
Planetary scientists first became aware of the connection between Earth and Jupiter in 2018, when they noticed striking similarities in images of Jupiter's giant cyclones and turbulent ocean currents. In 2022, they Analyzed High-resolution infrared image of a cyclone on Jupiter taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft. Analysis reveals that a type of convection similar to that seen on Earth helps sustain Jupiter's storms, which can be thousands of miles wide and last for years. The 2022 study focused directly on Jupiter's cyclones, but the authors also saw thin tendrils called filaments in the spaces between the vortices of gas. These filaments have analogues on Earth, and the authors used Juno's detailed images to study whether this similarity to Earth's oceanic and atmospheric processes is merely superficial.
This composite image, created from data collected by the JIRAM instrument on NASA's Juno spacecraft, shows a central cyclone at Jupiter's north pole and eight surrounding cyclones. JIRAM collects data in infrared, and the colors in this composite represent radiated heat. The yellow (thinnest) clouds have a brightness temperature of about -9 degrees Fahrenheit (-13 degrees Celsius), while the dark red (thickest) clouds have a brightness temperature of about -181 degrees Fahrenheit (83 degrees Celsius). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / ASI / INAF / JIRAM.
Fronts are often featured in weather forecasts (for example, cold fronts and storm fronts) and apply to both gases and liquids.
A front is a boundary between masses of gas or liquid that have different densities due to differences in properties such as temperature.
In the ocean, fronts can also form due to differences in salinity, which, along with temperature, affects the density of seawater.
The main characteristic of a front is that its leading edge is characterized by strong vertical speed and can generate wind and currents.
To understand the role of the filaments clearly visible during Jupiter's cyclones in the Juno images, Dr. Leah Siegelman of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Dr. Patrice Klein of the California Institute of Technology examined a series of infrared images from Juno.
The series of images was taken 30 seconds apart of Jupiter's north polar region.
Because the images were taken in infrared, the team was able to calculate the temperature, finding that brighter areas were warmer and darker areas were cooler.
On Jupiter, the hotter parts of the atmosphere correspond to thin clouds, while the cooler parts are covered by thicker clouds that block more of the heat emanating from Jupiter's superheated core.
The researchers then tracked the movement of the clouds and filaments over the 30-second intervals between photos to calculate horizontal wind speeds.
These two pieces of information allowed the scientists to apply methods from ocean and atmospheric science to Jupiter to calculate vertical wind speeds that correspond to the temperatures and horizontal wind speeds the researchers derived from the images.
Calculating vertical wind speeds, they found that Jupiter's filaments do in fact move like Earth's fronts.
The vertical wind speeds at the edges of Jupiter's fronts also mean that the fronts transport energy in the form of heat from the planet's hot interior to the upper atmosphere, potentially generating large cyclones.
Although convection is the primary driving force, fronts account for a quarter of the total kinetic energy powering Jupiter's cyclones and 40 percent of the vertical heat transport.
“These cyclones at Jupiter's poles have continued since they were first observed in 2016,” Dr Siegelman said.
“These filaments between the larger vortices are relatively small, but they are a key mechanism for maintaining cyclones.”
“It's intriguing that fronts and convection exist and influence Earth and Jupiter, suggesting that these processes may also exist on other turbulent fluid bodies in the universe.”
“Jupiter's enormous scale and Juno's high-resolution images allow us to more clearly visualize how small-scale phenomena like fronts connect with larger-scale phenomena like cyclones and the atmosphere. These connections are often difficult to observe on Earth because they are much smaller and more ephemeral.”
“But the long-awaited new satellite, SWOT, will make observing these ocean phenomena much easier.”
“There's a kind of cosmic beauty in knowing that these physical mechanisms on Earth exist on other planets far, far away.”
Team paper Published in the journal Natural Physics.
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L. Siegelman & P. Klein. Frontogenesis at high latitudes on Jupiter. National Physical SocietyPublished online June 6, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41567-024-02516-x
A cold, dense cloud in the Milky Way’s interstellar medium is about four to five orders of magnitude denser than its diffuse counterparts, and a team of astronomers from Boston University, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University has found evidence that two to three million years ago, our solar system encountered one of these dense clouds, which may have been so dense that it disrupted the solar wind.
Offers othersThe interstellar material through which the Sun has traveled over the past few million years indicates the presence of cold, dense clouds that could have had dramatic effects on the heliosphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Most stars generate winds that move through the surrounding interstellar medium.
This motion creates a cocoon that protects the planet from interstellar material. The Sun’s cocoon is the heliosphere.
It’s made up of a constant stream of charged particles called the solar wind, which extends far beyond Pluto, enveloping the planet in what astronomers call a “local bubble.”
It protects us from radiation and galactic rays that can alter DNA, and scientists think it’s part of the reason why life on Earth evolved.
A cold interstellar cloud compressed the heliosphere, temporarily placing Earth and other planets in the solar system outside of its influence, according to a new study.
“Our paper is the first to quantitatively show that there was an encounter between the Sun and something outside our solar system that affected Earth’s climate,” said Professor Merab Auffar of Boston University.
“Stars move, and this paper shows that not only do they move, but they undergo dramatic changes.”
To study this phenomenon, Professor Orpher and his colleagues essentially went back in time and used advanced computer models to visualize where the Sun was located two million years ago, along with the heliosphere and the rest of the solar system.
They also mapped the path of a “localized cold cloud ribbon” system, a series of large, dense and very cold clouds made mainly of hydrogen atoms.
Their simulations showed that one of the clouds near the edge of the ribbon, a “local cold cloud,” may have collided with the heliosphere.
If this had happened, Earth would have been fully exposed to interstellar matter, where gases and dust would have mixed with atomic elements left over from the exploded star, such as iron and plutonium.
Normally, the heliosphere filters out most of these radioactive particles, but without protection they could easily reach Earth.
This is consistent with geological evidence showing increased levels of the isotopes iron-60 and plutonium-244 in the oceans, the moon, Antarctic snow and ice cores from the same period, according to the paper.
This timing also coincides with temperature records indicating a cold period.
“It is rare for our cosmic neighbors outside our solar system to have an impact on life on Earth,” said Harvard University professor Avi Loeb.
“It’s exciting to discover that our passage through dense clouds millions of years ago may have exposed the Earth to much greater amounts of cosmic rays and atomic hydrogen.”
“Our findings open a new window into the evolution of life on Earth and its relationship with our cosmic neighbours.”
“External pressure from localized lynxes of cold clouds could have continuously blocked the heliosphere for hundreds to millions of years, depending on the size of the cloud.”
“But as soon as Earth left the cold cloud, the heliosphere engulfed all the planets, including Earth.”
“It’s impossible to know exactly what effect the cold clouds had on the Earth, such as whether they caused ice ages.”
“But there are other cool clouds in the interstellar medium that the Sun likely encountered in its first few billion years.”
“And we’ll probably encounter many more over the next million years or so.”
The authors are currently working to determine where the Sun was 7 million years ago, and beyond.
Pinpointing the position of the Sun and cold cloud systems millions of years ago is made possible by data collected by ESA’s Gaia mission, which has produced the largest 3D map of the galaxy ever, showing in unprecedented detail how fast stars move.
“This cloud is certainly from our past, and if we passed through something this massive, we would have been exposed to interstellar material,” Prof Auffar said.
“This is just the beginning. We hope this paper opens the door to further exploration of how the solar system was influenced by outside forces in the ancient past, and how these forces may have shaped life on Earth.”
of paper Published in today’s journal Natural Astronomy.
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M. Offer othersIt is possible that Earth was directly exposed to cold, dense interstellar material 2 to 3 million years ago. Nat AstronPublished online June 10, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02279-8
Paleontologists have redescribed Epitornoceras bardisi Using new fossils from the Chigua Formation, researchers have uncovered a mysterious species of ammonite cephalopod that lived in the Devonian Period of Argentina.
Artistic Reproduction of an Ammonite Epitornoceras bardisi During the Middle Devonian. Image courtesy of H. Santiago Druetta / CICTERRA / National University of Córdoba.
Epitornoceras bardisi It lived in the marine environment of the supercontinent Gondwana during the Late Givetian Stage of the Middle Devonian, approximately 383 million years ago.
“During the Early to Middle Devonian, southwestern Gondwana was characterized by a circumpolar marine environment with a remarkable phase of increasing specificity and the near absence of typical Palaeozoic groups (mainly conodonts, graptolites and stromatoporoids),” Dr. Ninon Allaire By the National University of Córdoba and colleagues.
“One of these families is Ammonite They are extremely rare, with only a few reported finds in deposits from the Early Eifelian to Early Frasnian (393 to 383 million years ago) in Bolivia and Argentina.
Epitornoceras bardisi It was first described as a member of the cephalopod genus in 1968. Tornoceras.
The team's new findings suggest that the species should be reclassified into a separate genus. Epitornoceras.
The genus has been recorded from North America, North Africa and Europe, but this is its first record from South America.
“Epitornoceras “It inhabits North Africa, the Rhine-Bohemian basin and the Appalachian basin,” the paleontologists said.
“Their diversification and acquisition of a wide geographic range occurred after the Taganic biotic crisis in the mid-late Givetian.”
“therefore, Epitornoceras Its occurrence in the southernmost part of West Gondwana during the Late Givean is not surprising, given the well-documented pattern of tropical migration into the circumpolar basins following the Taganic biotic crisis.”
New specimens Epitornoceras bardisi From the type area of the Chigua Formation, San Juan Province, Argentina. Image courtesy of Allaire others., doi: 10.5252/geodiversitas2024v46a7.
In this study, the authors examined 10 new specimens. Epitornoceras bardisi It was collected from the top of the Chigua Formation in San Juan Province, Argentina.
The study area is located in the Argentine Precordillera, an intraplate fold-fault zone at the southern edge of the Central Andean foreland basin.
“Epitornoceras “Records from Appalachia, Morocco and Europe indicate that the genus is distributed worldwide and diversified after the Taganic biotic crisis in the mid-late Givetian,” the researchers said.
“Its presence at the southernmost tip of western Gondwana suggests a late Givetian migration from the tropics into the cooler Malvinocossan realm.”
“Despite the presence of ammonites from all over the world in the Argentine Precordillera, the coexisting trilobites are Carmoniaceae Additional endemic genera include Bellenopigue“We confirm that the Malvinoxosan (Malvinocafric) realm is still identifiable as a major biogeographic unit during the Late Givettian of southernmost West Gondwana, based on its typical diagnostic elements.”
Team paper Published in the journal Geodiversitas.
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N. Alaïa others2024. Late Givetian (Middle Devonian) ammonoids Epitornoceras Flake, 1902, from Argentina (southwest Gondwana). Geodiversitas 46(7):327-341; doi: 10.5252/geodiversitas2024v46a7
WASHINGTON — African elephants communicate through calls and respond to their own names, a behavior rarely observed in the wild, according to a new study published Monday.
These names are embedded in the elephants’ distinctive low-pitched vocalizations that carry across the savanna, suggesting that animals with intricate social structures, where family units frequently disband and reunite, are more likely to have individual names.
Ecologist Stuart Pimm from Duke University, who was not involved in the study, remarked, “If you’re managing a large family, you need to be able to call out, ‘Hey, Virginia, come over here!'”
The phenomenon of animals calling each other by name is exceptionally rare in the wild. Humans have names, allowing us to call out to others, and pets like dogs also respond to their names. Baby Dolphin Birds have their own unique names, known as signature whistles, while parrots may also utilize names.
These named species possess the ability to learn and produce distinct sounds throughout their lives, a skill elephants also share.
Biologists conducted research on wild ecology and evolution using machine learning to identify name usage in audio recordings of savanna elephant vocalizations captured in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve and Amboseli National Park.
By observing the elephants from vehicles, researchers were able to determine which elephants were calling and responding to each other, such as a mother calling for her calf or an older female reaching out to a stray elephant later rejoining the group.
The computer model, analyzing the audio data likely containing names, accurately predicted the addressed elephant 28% of the time, compared to just 8% with meaningless data.
Lead author Mickey Pardo, a biologist at Cornell University, explained, “Like humans, elephants utilize names, but we can’t rely on them entirely as they likely don’t use names in the majority of their vocalizations.”
Elephants incorporate sounds beyond the human hearing range in their calls, leaving scientists uncertain about the specific vocal components that form an elephant’s name.
To validate their findings, researchers played the recordings to individual elephants. The elephants showed heightened responses, including ear flapping and trunk lifting, to recordings containing their names. Some elephants even disregarded vocalizations meant for other elephants.
“Elephants are highly social beings, constantly communicating and interacting, and this system of naming could be a fundamental aspect of their communication abilities,” noted co-author George Wittemyer, an ecologist at Colorado State University and a science advisor for Save the Elephants.
“We’ve provided a glimpse into the elephant’s cognitive world.”
In recent decades, scientists have observed a decrease in atmospheric moisture leading to drying soils, water-starved plants, withering vegetation, and increased forest fires. This phenomenon is linked to wildfire and extreme drought events globally.Despite these observations, the cause of this air dryness remains unclear, and scientists aim to understand it better to enhance climate models for the future of Earth.
Scientists measure atmospheric dryness by comparing the air’s moisture-holding capacity to the actual moisture it holds, known as the “Insufficient steam pressure” or VPD. High VPD in certain areas can lead to soil dryness and surface heating, potentially causing severe droughts.
An international team of researchers examined VPD patterns in Europe to determine if rising levels are natural or a result of global warming. They investigated the difference between current VPD levels and those before industrialization to understand the impact of human activity on VPD changes.
To assess the historical impact of water on Europe’s climate, researchers analyzed Oxygen Isotopes found in tree rings. These isotopes reflect changes in parameters like rainfall and soil moisture influenced by VPD.
Using a Mass spectrometer, researchers analyzed oxygen isotope ratios in tree rings to track changes over time. By counting rings, they could determine the age of trees and obtain valuable data for their study.
The team gathered tree-ring data from various European sites, using Oxygen Isotope Measurements to reconstruct pre-industrial VPD records. They compared these reconstructions with historical data and Earth System Model simulations to understand the factors influencing VPD changes.
Their analysis revealed increasing VPD levels across all European regions studied, with the most significant dryness observed in southern mountainous areas. Industrial influences were found to be a significant factor in current air drying, particularly during summer.
The researchers noted that recent atmospheric drying in Europe is affecting climate and vegetation, impacting plant moisture exchange and growth. This change in atmospheric moisture levels poses risks to human health and the environment, especially in densely populated areas.
In conclusion, the drying of the atmosphere in Europe is attributed to global warming, leading to adverse effects on vegetation, tree growth, and food supplies. Further research is necessary to mitigate these risks and understand the long-term implications.
As winter mornings dawn on Mars, the summits of the planet’s largest volcanoes are covered in frost — another indication of the presence of water on the Red Planet.
We already know that Mars has large deposits of ice in the form of polar ice caps and possibly buried beneath the surface near the equator, but scientists have yet to observe surface water anywhere else on the planet.
Now, Admas Valantinus Valantinas, of Brown University in Rhode Island, and his colleagues found frost, which appears to form only in the mornings during the Martian winter, near the summits of volcanoes in the Tharsis region, including Olympus Mons, one of the solar system’s largest volcanoes. “This is really exciting, because it not only shows how dynamic the Martian water system is, but also that water could be found in varying amounts basically everywhere on Mars,” Valantinas says.
He and his team used a color camera on the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter, which studies the Martian atmosphere, to take morning photographs of the icy volcano’s summit and found widespread blue frost. They calculated the surface temperature and found that it was too hot for carbon dioxide to freeze, and that similar-looking frozen carbon dioxide was not the cause.
Ice could form from gases erupting from volcanoes, but if so, do Valantinas and his team expect to see it year-round? Instead, the fact that it only appears during the colder parts of the year makes it more likely that the frost is the result of water vapor in the atmosphere freezing.
Knowing where ice forms on the Martian surface, especially from atmospheric processes, is crucial for accurate weather forecasting, he said. Susan Conway A researcher at the University of Nantes in France, she says we know that polar ice flows into the atmosphere, but we don’t know where it goes. “This is a really cool observation, because now we actually know where it goes.”
Two young elephants greet each other in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve
George Wittemyer
Elephants may be the only animals other than humans that give each other random names, according to a machine learning analysis of recordings.
The analysis revealed that the African savanna elephant (African brown) appears to contain a name-like element that is unique to certain individuals. Moreover, those individuals know their own names and respond more strongly than others when a call addressed to them is played over a speaker.
“For years we've observed that when elephants make contact calls, one elephant in the group will raise his head, listen and respond,” says Joyce Poole. Elephant Voice“And the other elephants seemed to be ignoring him, so we wondered if the call was directed at one particular individual,” said Bryan G. Gregg, a small organization that aims to study and protect elephants.
More than 600 recordings made by Poole and others are currently being analyzed. Michael Pardo Researchers at Colorado State University applied the recordings to analyze elephant calls, including contact calls made when an elephant moves out of sight and greeting calls made when an elephant approaches another. The researchers knew which individual called out to each elephant and responded to each call.
The team's software was able to predict which individual was being spoken to in a quarter of cases, doing much better than chance.
The researchers then played some of the rumbling sounds to elephant pairs, including one that was “named,” and found that the named elephant responded more strongly, approaching the speaker faster, making quicker responses, and emitting more calls than its unnamed counterpart.
Dolphins and some bird species have been known to mimic the calls of calling animals to attract specific individuals. Elephants can learn to imitate soundsHowever, the team found no evidence that the elephants were imitating each other.
In other words, they appear to use arbitrary sounds as names, just like humans do, Poole said.
The analysis revealed whether different elephants share the same names for certain individuals, and each elephant may have its own unique name for the others.
“We have official names, but different people may call the same person by different nicknames,” Poole said. “That could be it. I guess we just don't know yet.”
“This is a very interesting study because there is evidence suggesting that not only do African elephants produce individual-specific vocalizations – which is commonly reported in many species – but, more importantly, that they respond specifically when they hear individual-specific vocalizations made by other elephants,” he says. Daniel Blumstein At the University of California, Los Angeles.
“The idea that elephants can use individually distinct vocalizations to attract specific individuals is novel and provocative, opening the door to a more nuanced understanding of the rich social lives of these animals,” he says.
“I think this result is very reasonable.” Torsten Balsby At Aarhus University in Denmark.
Balsby studies parrots that live in much larger groups, and he notes that learning names would be much harder in a large group of hundreds or thousands of birds. “Mimicking talking to other individuals is a simpler solution that doesn't require prior interaction,” he says.
A 2005 study reported that captive green parrots “vocally label” — or give names to — their peers, Balsby says. But they did so with different versions of contact calls, “so it may not be as arbitrary as elephants',” Balsby says.
Poole believes her work is just the beginning in understanding elephant communication: “Elephant communication has many complex layers that will take time to unravel, so I expect there will be many more exciting discoveries to come in the coming years,” she says.
For example, she thinks elephants might use place names: “When elephants make 'let's go' rumbles to indicate to other elephants in the herd which way they want to go, they may actually be telling them exactly where they want to go,” Poole says.
Analysis of millions of tweets shows the changing meaning of the word “bot”
Svet foto/Shutterstock
Calling someone a bot on social media once meant suspecting they were in fact software, but now the use of the word is evolving into an insult for known human users, researchers say.
Many efforts to detect social media bots use algorithms that attempt to identify behavioral patterns that are more typical of the traditional meaning of a bot: automated accounts controlled by a computer, but their accuracy remains questionable.
“Recent research has focused on detecting social bots, which is a problem in itself because of the ground truthing issues,” he said. Dennis Assenmacher The Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany, said it was unclear whether the findings were accurate.
To investigate, Assenmacher and his colleagues looked at how users perceive bots: They looked at how the word “bot” was used on Twitter between 2007 and December 2022 (the social network was renamed X in 2023 after being acquired by Elon Musk), analyzing the words that appeared next to it in more than 22 million English-language tweets.
The researchers found that before 2017, the term was often used in conjunction with allegations of automated behavior, such as “software,” “scripts,” or “machines,” the kinds of things that traditionally fit the definition of a bot. Since that year, that usage has changed.
“The accusation has now become like an insult, it’s used to dehumanize people, it’s used to denigrate people’s intelligence, it’s used to deny them their right to participate in the conversation,” Assenmacher said.
The cause of this change is unclear, but Assenmacher said it may be political in nature. The researchers looked at the accounts of prominent people, such as politicians and journalists, that each Twitter user followed, and classified users as left- or right-leaning. They found that left-leaning users were more likely to accuse other users of being bots, and that those who were accused were more likely to be right-leaning.
“One possible explanation is that the media has reported that right-wing bot networks [2016] “The US elections,” Assenmacher said, “but this is just speculation and needs to be confirmed.”
Illustration of a protection bubble around the sun (yellow dot) and the earth (blue dot)
Harvard Radcliffe Institute
Two to three million years ago, the solar system encountered galactic-scale turbulence and collided with dense interstellar clouds, potentially altering both the Earth's climate and evolution.
Only recently have researchers been able to map the Sun's orbit through the Galaxy, particularly in relation to the relatively dense hydrogen clouds that pass through the interstellar medium, the vast expanse of space between star systems.
the current, Merab Offer A research team from Boston University in Massachusetts has found evidence that one of these clouds, a “local cold cloud ribbon” in Lynx, likely intersects with the Sun's heliosphere.
The heliosphere is a protective cocoon or bubble formed by the solar wind pushing out to the edge of the solar system. Within the heliosphere, the planet is protected from the worst gamma radiation in the galaxy.
The new study proposes that as the solar system passed through the interstellar cloud, the heliosphere retreated from it and moved inward toward the Sun. The researchers think that the heliosphere may have shrunk so much that Earth was outside the protective cocoon provided by the solar wind, perhaps for around 10,000 years.
Merab and his colleagues used the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite to map the location of the dense, cold clouds and the sun's past orbit.
Ofer says the heliosphere's encounter with the cold cloud coincides with deposits of the elements plutonium-244 and radioactive iron-60 in Antarctic ice, deep-sea cores and lunar samples. These elements, which originated from distant supernovae, would have been captured in interstellar clouds and deposited while Earth was outside the heliosphere.
“There are signs of an increase in these elements over the past two years. [million] “The solar cloud record going back 3 million years provides compelling evidence that the Sun did in fact pass through it around 2 million years ago,” Offer says. “The exposure of Earth to a cloud of cold interstellar material and the associated increase in atmospheric hydrogen and radiation almost certainly had a major impact on Earth and its climate.”
Sarah Spitzer The University of Michigan researcher says the paper provides “compelling” evidence that the heliosphere was exposed to a much denser interstellar cloud two to three million years ago. As the solar system passed through that dense, cold cloud, Earth would have been outside the heliosphere and directly exposed to the interstellar environment, she says.
“Understanding this can teach us about the impact interstellar material has had on life on Earth in the past,” Spitzer says, “but it also helps us better understand the impact the heliosphere has on life on Earth today, what would happen if Earth were exposed to interstellar material again in the future, and when that might happen.”
Evan Economo Researchers from Japan's Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology say it's intriguing to consider how encounters in “our nearby space” could have influenced the environment experienced by life on Earth.
“The heliosphere is part of the extended environment experienced by life on the Earth's surface, influencing climate and radiation from space,” he says. “If we had been outside the heliosphere for a period of time, it could have altered the evolutionary trajectory of a wide range of life, including humans. Such connections are highly speculative at this point, but they provide us with new research directions.”
In the spring of 2003, the Human Genome Project completed the task of sequencing the human genome, marking a significant moment for science and life on Earth. The genetic revolution that followed raised questions about the meaning of the genome, particularly the fact that most of it seems to be non-coding. Less than 2% of the genome consists of genes that code for proteins, while the rest was once considered junk DNA.
However, recent research has shown that this “dark genome” plays a crucial role in regulating gene expression and has evolutionary significance. Long repeat sequences like transposons can impact genetic mutations and adaptation, leading to the development of features like opposable thumbs and the loss of tails in humans and apes. Understanding these once-neglected parts of the genome is now a focus of medical research for potential therapies for genetic diseases.
This article addresses the question of what makes up the other 98% of DNA, shedding light on the hidden functions of the dark genome. If you have further questions or want more information, you can reach out on our Facebook and Instagram pages.
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Saiga enters a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long face?” Saiga responds, “A long nose helps me filter out dust in the summer and warm the cold air in winter. Plus, female saigas love big noses.”
Despite its unusual appearance, the saiga antelope has even stranger qualities. In May 2015, during breeding season in central Kazakhstan, a mysterious tragedy struck the saiga population. Over 200,000 saigas, equivalent to 60% of the global species, died from unknown causes.
Conservation efforts had been ongoing to protect the saigas, which had been hunted for their horns in the past centuries, leading to a decline in their numbers. The sudden mass die-off in 2015 shocked experts and led to extensive testing and analysis.
After thorough investigations, it was determined that a strain of bacteria, Pasteurella multocida, had caused the fatal infection in the saigas. This outbreak was possibly triggered by unusual weather conditions, sparking concerns about future die-offs.
Despite these challenges, conservation efforts have been successful in stabilizing the saiga population, with estimates now around 1.5 million. Strict measures like anti-poaching initiatives, habitat protection, and community engagement have contributed to this recovery.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature recently reclassified the saiga from “endangered” to “near threatened,” signaling progress in their conservation. However, researchers remain cautious about the species’ future due to ongoing threats.
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Dinosaurs were once thought to be big and fearsome creatures, but our understanding of them has changed over time. As we learn more about them, we realize how incorrect our early assumptions were.
Here are seven significant ways our understanding of dinosaurs has evolved…
1. Tyrannosaurus Rex
In 1902, paleontologist Barnum Brown discovered a massive pile of bones in Hell Creek, Montana. These bones belonged to a muscular animal that walked on its hind legs and stood several meters tall. Its skull and jaws portrayed a formidable predator.
The discovery was exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History in 1905, astounding the audience. This monster was called Tyrannosaurus Rex, known as one of the largest and most powerful carnivorous animals to have ever lived on Earth.
Further studies have revealed that T. rex had a large brain, keen senses, and likely had some feathers on its body.
Cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton on display in the main gallery of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in Oxford, UK – Image credit: Alamy
Read more:
2. Iguanodon
In 1822, Gideon Mantell presented fossilized teeth found in Sussex to the Royal Society. These teeth were later recognized as belonging to a dinosaur called Iguanodon. This dinosaur roamed the earth with its spiked hands for self-defense.
Read more:
3. Dryptosaurus
Dryptosaurus as imagined in 1869 – Image courtesy of Alamy
Discovered in the late 1800s in New Jersey, Dryptosaurus was the first well-preserved carnivorous dinosaur skeleton known in North America. It was originally named “Laelaps” but later renamed Dryptosaurus, showcasing its speed, ferocity, and tenacity.
Read more:
4. Elasmosaurus
Early studies of Elasmosaurus fossils led some to imagine it was a giant sea snake-turtle hybrid – Image credit: Alamy
Elasmosaurus, named in the 1860s, had the longest neck of any animal that ever lived. Its skeleton baffled paleontologists for years until a more complete understanding was reached.
5. Stegosaurus
When Stegosaurus bones were first found in the 1870s, they were thought to belong to a strange aquatic creature due to the large vertical plates on its back. Later discoveries revealed a different picture, with some suggesting the plates were for display or thermoregulation.
Previous depictions of Stegosaurus were unclear on the plate – Image credit: Alamy
6. Ichthyosaur
Mary Anning’s discovery of Ichthyosaur fossils in 1811 led to the recognition of these creatures as extinct aquatic reptiles. This marked an important milestone in paleontological understanding.
Painting “Duria Antiquior” by Henri de la Beche – Image courtesy of Alamy
7. Pterosaur
In 1784, the first Pterosaur fossil was discovered, leading to the recognition of these creatures as flying reptiles. They were not dinosaurs but were closely related and the first bony animals to evolve powered flight.
Early visualizations of pterosaurs made them look almost rodent-like – Image credit: Alamy
Slowing down isn’t typically a priority for runners. From elite athletes to casual runners, the focus is usually on speed, personal records, competition, and pushing limits.
However, the concept of slow running has gained popularity recently. It’s not just a trend promoted by social media influencers, but also endorsed by coaches, runners, and scientists.
What are the benefits of running slowly?
The idea is that running at a slower pace can actually yield faster results in terms of exercise benefits.
“For example, running slowly can lower your resting blood pressure and strengthen your heart,” says Professor Dan Gordon. “It still challenges the body but without the need for excessive stress to achieve cardiovascular improvements,” adds Jonathan Myers, an exercise physiologist at Anglia Ruskin University.
Running slowly is typically defined as a pace where you can comfortably hold a conversation. It’s an effort level of 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a sprint. This type of exercise, known as “Zone 2 exercise” in sports science, is considered to be a sweet spot for promoting longevity and overall health.
A study in Copenhagen found that light and moderate joggers had lower mortality rates than non-runners and intense runners. Vigorous joggers did not show significantly different mortality rates from non-runners.
Running slowly is beneficial for heart health, enhances metabolic functions, and improves mental well-being. It can prevent metabolic diseases, improve insulin sensitivity, and boost mitochondrial density in cells, leading to improved energy utilization.
Improved mental and physical health
Slow runners experience faster recovery, reduced risk of overtraining-related fatigue and injuries, and generally feel better overall.
“Slow running has a positive impact on mental health and social well-being,” says Gordon. “It allows for social interactions, which can motivate individuals to stay active and enjoy the process without pressure to perform.”
What we’re starting to realize is that you don’t need intense stress on your body to see cardiovascular benefits.
Gordon believes promoting slow running in groups can encourage more people to stay active consistently, as the social support can enhance motivation and enjoyment of the activity.
More Gains, Less Pain
Contrary to the belief that speed is essential for improvement, researchers suggest that slow running can yield significant results. Elite runners, for example, often perform majority of their training at a slow pace to build a strong aerobic base and enhance cardiovascular efficiency.
This concept of an “Aerobic Base” emphasizes the importance of improving cardiovascular capacity to enhance overall running performance. By running slowly, you can increase endurance, speed, and efficiency while reducing exertion.
In summary, slowing down not only improves longevity but also enhances running abilities in the long run.
read more:
About our expert, Professor Dan Gordon
Dan Gordon is an Associate Professor at the Health and Technology Research Centre, Anglia Ruskin University, South East England. With over 20 years of experience in sports physiology, he specializes in endurance physiology assessment.
A silent colossus lurks off the Pacific coast, threatening hundreds of miles of coastline with tsunamis and devastating earthquakes.
For decades, scientists have been warning about the possibility of a major fault line breaking off from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a megathrust fault that runs offshore along the coast from northern Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino in California. The next time this fault, or parts of it, breaks, it could upend life in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California.
Of particular concern are signs of great earthquakes in the region’s geological history. Many researchers have been pursuing clues about the last “big quake,” a magnitude 8.7 earthquake that occurred in 1700. They have pieced together this history using centuries-old tsunami records, Native American oral histories, physical evidence of saltwater-flooded ghost forests, and limited maps of faults.
But no one had ever comprehensively mapped the fault structure until now. The study published Friday A paper published in the journal Science Advances describes the data collected during a 41-day research voyage, in which the ship dragged a mile-long cable along the fault, listening to the ocean floor and piecing together images.
The team completed a detailed map of the subduction zone, stretching more than 550 miles to the Oregon-California border.
Their work will give modelers a clearer picture of the impact of a megaquake in the region — a megaquake that occurs in a subduction zone, where one plate pushes under another — and give planners a more detailed, localized view of the risks to Pacific Northwest communities, which could help redefine earthquake-resistant building codes.
“It’s like wearing Coke-bottle glasses, and when you take them off, they give you the correct prescription,” said lead author Suzanne Calbott, a marine geophysicist and research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “Before, we only got very blurry, low-resolution images.”
Scientists have discovered that subduction zones are much more complex than previously thought. They are divided into four segments, and researchers believe each segment could rupture independently or simultaneously. Each segment has different rock types and different seismic properties, which means some segments may be more hazardous than others.
Earthquake and tsunami modelers are beginning to assess how the new data might affect earthquake scenarios in the Pacific Northwest.
Kelin Wang, a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada who was not involved in the study, said her team, which focuses on earthquake hazards and tsunami risk, is already using the data to make predictions.
“The accuracy and resolution is truly unprecedented, and this is an incredible dataset,” said Wang, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. “This will allow us to better assess risk and inform building codes and zoning.”
Harold Tobin, co-author of the paper and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, said the data will help fine-tune predictions, but it won’t change the untenable reality of life in the Pacific Northwest.
“It could potentially produce earthquakes and tsunamis that are comparable in magnitude to the largest earthquakes and tsunamis the Earth has ever seen,” said Tobin, who is also a professor at the University of Washington. “It looks like Cascadia could produce an earthquake of magnitude 9 or a little less or a little more.”
A quake of that magnitude could cause shaking for about five minutes and generate a tsunami up to 80 feet high, damaging more than 500,000 buildings. According to emergency planning documents:.
Neither Oregon nor Washington are adequately prepared.
To map the subduction zone, researchers at sea used active seismic imaging, a technique that sends sound waves into the ocean floor and processes the returning echoes, a method often used in oil and gas exploration.
They towed more than nine miles of cables called streamers behind the ship and used 1,200 hydrophones to capture the returning sounds.
“This will give us an idea of what the conditions are like underground,” Calbot said.
The research vessel Marcus Langes docked in Seattle after a 41-day survey along the Pacific coast that allowed researchers to map the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Courtesy of Harold Tobin
Trained marine mammal spotters would alert the crew to any signs of whales or other animals. Sounds produced by this type of technology could be disruptive and potentially harmful to marine life.
Calbot said the new research makes it even clearer that the entire Cascadia Fault won’t rupture all at once.
“The next earthquake in Cascadia could rupture just one of these segments, or it could rupture the entire boundary,” Calbot said, adding that some individual segments are thought to have the potential to produce a quake of at least magnitude 8.
Over the past century, scientists have observed only five earthquakes of magnitude 9.0 or higher, all of which were the kind of giant quakes predicted in the Cascadia subduction zone.
Scientists have compiled the latest insights into the 1700 Cascadia earthquake, based on records of an unusual orphan tsunami that was not preceded by any shaking in Japan.
“It would take a magnitude 8.7 earthquake to send a tsunami all the way to Japan,” Tobin said.
Those in Japan who recorded the event had no idea that the earthquake occurred across the ocean in what is now the United States.
Right now, the Cascadia subduction zone is eerily quiet. At other subduction zones, Calbot says, scientists often observe small, frequent earthquakes that make it easier to map the region. But that’s not the case here.
Scientists have a few hypotheses as to why. Wang said the region could be getting quieter as stress builds on the fault, and that time may be approaching.
“The interval between big earthquakes in this subduction zone is about 500 years,” Wang said. “It’s hard to know exactly when it will happen, but it’s certainly quite late compared to other subduction zones.”
Two teeth from the newly identified ancient ape Buronius manfredschmidi, viewed from multiple angles
Böhme et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0
A small, herbivorous ape may have lived in Western Europe 11.6 million years ago. Smaller and lighter than any great ape known to date, the newly discovered 10-kilogram (22-pound) primate was probably a skilled climber that ate leaves, researchers say. Madeline Boehme At the University of Tübingen, Germany.
“This is a fairly small primate,” she says, “but it's different from all the known fossils and certainly different from all the modern great apes we've known so far.”
About 15 million years ago, during the Miocene, hominoids (great apes) became rare in Africa and more abundant in Europe. Hominoids sometimes shared habitats with other primates, including apes and pliopithecoids, extinct relatives of Old World monkeys, but hominoids do not appear to have coexisted with each other in Europe.
In 2019, Boehme and his colleagues reported the discovery of 37 bones at the Hammerschmiede site in Bavaria that appear to belong to an early, bipedal ape dating back 11.6 million years ago, which they named “hominoid.” Danubius Guggenmosi.
During the excavation, Boehme was surprised to find two small ape-like teeth and a kneecap in the same sedimentary layer. Danubius fossil.
“We kept saying, 'What is this?'” she says of these tiny fossils, “and we concluded that this is clearly something new.”
The fossils are too old for DNA analysis, Boehme said, so the researchers took detailed measurements of the juvenile's 7-millimeter-long molar and 16-millimeter-wide kneecap, as well as a fragment of a premolar that they believe to belong to a young adult. They also calculated the thickness of the enamel and took microscopic CT scans of the teeth.
The gorilla-like thin enamel suggests they probably ate soft foods like leaves, Boehme said, and the shape, thickness and ligament attachment sites of the kneecap are similar to those of arboreal primates, suggesting the apes were good climbers.
Researchers look at new ape Bronius ManfredschmidyThe fossil, named after the medieval name of the nearby Hammerschmiede site, was discovered by dentist Manfred Schmidt, who has been collecting fossils at the site since the 1970s.
Lack of competition for resources Bronius and Danubius Apes can coexist, says Boehme – Danubius They are thought to have eaten tough foods such as nuts and meat, and the team can't rule out the possibility that great apes, which could have been up to three times as heavy, may have preyed on smaller species, she added.
But these three fossils alone may not be enough to reach such a “big” conclusion, the researchers say. Sergio Almesia It is on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. “Small fossil elements may date to infancy. Danubius “The teeth definitely look like baby teeth. [baby teeth]. “
He also thinks the kneecap may represent the same species as the tooth: “It has been suggested that it belongs to a juvenile individual, but its size overlaps with the lower range of adult orangutans.” [which are much larger apes]” says Almesija.
Clement Zanolly A researcher from the University of Bordeaux in France also has doubts: “I'm not sure whether the teeth, especially the molars, belong to a hominoid or to another primate superfamily, a pliopithecoid.”
Boehme and his colleagues say their comparison rules out the possibility that the tooth is a milk tooth or a pliopithecoid tooth.
In any case, the fact that the two primate species shared the same habitat and possibly even interacted with each other is a “fantastic discovery,” Zanolli said, “and it reinforces the idea that Europe at that time was a luxurious and comfortable place for primates to evolve.”
Horses revolutionized human history by increasing mobility, but the timeline between their domestication and widespread integration as a form of transportation remains debated.
Genetic evidence suggests that modern domestic horses emerged around 3000 BC in the steppes of western Eurasia, including an area inhabited by nomadic peoples known as the Yamnaya.
According to some accounts, the Yamnaya people migrated to Europe on horseback.
The earlier appearance of a different lineage of domesticated horses (probably used for milk) in association with the Botai culture of Central Asia (context: c. 3500 BC) also adds confusion.
To explore the possible timing of domestication, Dr. Ludovic Orlando of the Toulouse Centre for Anthropology and Genomics, Dr. Pablo Librado of the Barcelona Institute of Evolutionary Biology and their colleagues analysed the genomes of 475 ancient horses and 77 modern horses.
“I started working with horses about 10 years ago, and at the time there were only a few ancient genomes,” Dr. Librado said.
“With this new study, we now have hundreds of specimens. The increased resolution over Central Europe, the Carpathians and the Transylvanian Basin was particularly important, as this region was at the heart of the ongoing debate about a large-scale horse-driven migration out of the steppes around 5,000 years ago, or maybe even earlier.”
The researchers found that around 2200 BC there was a clear change in horse breeding practices (including the introduction of inbreeding), which resulted in the replacement of almost all horse bloodlines with modern livestock bloodlines.
This expansion was preceded by a domestication bottleneck (starting around 2,700 BC) that shortened generation times (related to the age at which horses breed) and made it easier to breed new domestic horses.
Previous studies have suggested that the Yamnaya migration occurred between 3,300 and 2,600 BCE.
The timing suggested by this study is therefore inconsistent with the hypothesis that the Yamnaya-related steppe peoples were accompanied by large herds of modern domesticated horses.
The authors also found evidence of domestication of the Botai horse, including shortened generation times, which means that horse domestication may have occurred in some areas before 2700 BC, but did not lead to widespread migration of horses.
“One question I've long wondered about is the scale of production: how was it possible to suddenly keep such large numbers of horses from a relatively small livestock area to meet growing global demand by the turn of the second millennium BC?” Dr Orlando said.
“Now we have the answer: breeders have controlled the reproduction of the animals so well that the time interval between two generations has been almost halved.”
“Simply put, they were able to speed up the breeding process and essentially double their production rate.”
“Our methodology for measuring temporal changes in generation time has great potential,” Dr. Librado explained.
“This adds a new method to the archaeozoological toolkit for monitoring the development of managed breeding in a range of livestock species beyond horses.”
“But it could also help shed light on generation intervals in our hunter-gatherer ancestors and how these intervals evolved alongside changing lifestyles and significant climatic changes.”
“Our evidence supports two stages of domestication of the horse,” Dr Orlando said.
“The first attempts, which occurred around 5,500 years ago, were aimed at addressing the decline of horse populations and providing food for people living on the steppes of Central Asia.”
“The domestic horse as we know it emerged from a second period of domestication about 4,200 years ago.”
“This allowed high-speed travel for the first time and truly changed human history.”
Is removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere one of the best weapons against climate change? Climeworks, a Swiss company, believes so, as they have recently unveiled the world’s largest direct carbon capture and storage plant.
The new facility, Mammoth, will be located in Hellisheiði, Iceland, and will be nine times larger than Climeworks’ original plant, Orka. Mammoth’s goal is to extract 36,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually, equivalent to removing approximately 8,600 cars from the road.
Powered by renewable energy, Mammoth captures carbon dioxide from the air and transports it to a facility where it is combined with water and injected deep underground. The carbonated water reacts with porous basalt rocks, transforming them into solid carbonate minerals that securely sequester the carbon underground for thousands of years.
The Mammoth Power Plant aims to have 12 of its 72 heat collection containers installed and fully operational by the end of 2024.
Climeworks co-founders and co-CEOs Christoph Gevaert and Jan Wurzbacher oversee the early stages of construction of the mammoth factory. Photo courtesy of Climeworks
Swiss mechanical engineers and Climeworks founders Christoph Gevaert and Jan Wurzbacher introduced the concept of a direct air capture plant in 2015. Since then, the company has expanded rapidly, with Orka and Mammoth just the beginning of their efforts to reduce atmospheric carbon levels.
Construction of the foundations for the maintenance floor at the Mammoth factory in Hellisheiði, Iceland, December 2022. Photo courtesy of Climeworks
Keeling Curve, a daily measurement from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, shows an atmospheric concentration of CO2 around 427 ppm, well above pre-industrial levels below 300 ppm.
An aerial view of the Mammoth Climeworks carbon capture plant as it nears its launch in December 2023. Photo: ClimeworksWorkers at the Mammoth factory monitor progress shortly after the start of operations in May 2024. Photo courtesy of ClimeworksA worker stands next to a nearly completed CO2 collection container tower in December 2023. Photo courtesy of Climeworks
Climeworks is developing third-generation direct air capture technology for a large-scale facility in the US, paving the way for additional carbon capture plants worldwide.
Collector containers at Climeworks’ Mammoth Factory in Hellisheiði, Iceland, May 2024. Photo: Climeworks
By expanding with facilities like Orka and Mammoth, Climeworks aims to achieve megatonne-scale carbon removal capacity by 2030 and gigatonne-scale capacity by 2050.
While the impact on atmospheric carbon levels remains uncertain, the technology is expected to play a significant role in shaping the planet’s future over the coming decades.
Rendering of Climeworks’ proposed third-generation carbon capture plant in the United States. Photo courtesy of Climeworks
The discovery was made possible by ESA’s Gaia spacecraft, which is mapping more than a billion stars across the Milky Way galaxy and beyond, tracking their motions, brightness, temperature, and composition.
This image visualizes the Milky Way and its surrounding halo of stars. New Gaia data reveals that the wrinkles seen in the Milky Way are likely the result of a dwarf galaxy colliding with the Milky Way about 2.7 billion years ago. Our galaxy’s two major satellite galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, are visible at the bottom right. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC / Donlon other./ Stephen Payne Waldenaar.
The Milky Way galaxy has grown over time as other galaxies have approached, collided, been torn apart, and been swallowed up.
Each collision still sends ripples through different groups of stars, influencing their movements and behavior in space.
One of Gaia’s goals is to study these wrinkles to unravel the history of our Milky Way galaxy. It does this by pinpointing the positions and motions of more than 100,000 stars close to Earth, a tiny fraction of the roughly 2 billion objects it observes.
“As we age, we tend to get more wrinkles, but our research shows that the opposite is true in the Milky Way – it’s like a cosmic Benjamin Button, and it gets less wrinkled over time,” said Dr. Thomas Donlon, an astronomer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Alabama.
“By looking at how these wrinkles fade over time, we can trace when the Milky Way last experienced a major collision — and it turns out this happened billions of years later than we thought.”
The Milky Way’s halo contains many stars with unusual orbits, many of which are thought to have been incorporated into the galaxy in an event that astronomers call the last great merger.
As the name suggests, this is the last time the Milky Way has experienced a significant collision with another galaxy, which is proposed to have been a giant dwarf galaxy that smothered the Milky Way with stars passing very close to the center of the Milky Way.
Astronomers estimate that the merger occurred between 8 and 11 billion years ago, when the Milky Way was still in its infancy, and is known as Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus.
But data from Gaia’s Data Release 3 suggests that another merger could have resulted in the unusually behaving star.
“For the stellar wrinkles to be as clear as we see in the Gaia data, the stars would have had to have appeared on Earth less than 3 billion years ago — at least 5 billion years later than previously thought,” said Dr. Heidi Jo Neuberg, also of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
“Every time a star passes back and forth through the center of the Milky Way, a new stellar wrinkle forms.”
“If they had merged with us 8 billion years ago, there would have been so many wrinkles next to each other that we wouldn’t be able to see them as separate features.”
This discovery suggests that these stars did not result from the ancient Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus merger, but must have arisen from a more recent event called the Virgo radial merger, which occurred less than 3 billion years ago.
“The history of the Milky Way is currently being constantly rewritten, thanks in large part to new data from Gaia,” Dr. Donlon said.
“Our image of the Milky Way’s past has changed dramatically since even 10 years ago, and I think our understanding of these mergers will continue to change rapidly.”
“This finding that most of the Milky Way galaxy joined Earth within the last few billion years is quite different from what astronomers previously thought.”
“Many prevailing models and ideas about the growth of the Milky Way predict that a recent head-on collision with a dwarf galaxy of this mass would be extremely rare.”
“The Virgo radial merger likely pulled in a group of other small dwarf galaxies and star clusters, all of which joined the Milky Way at about the same time.”
“Future exploration will reveal which of these small objects previously thought to be related to the ancient Gaia sausage Enceladus are in fact related to the recent Virgo radial merger.”
of Investigation result Appears in Monthly Bulletin of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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Thomas Donlon otherThe year is 2024. The remains of the “last great merger” are dynamically young. MNRAS 531(1):1422-1439; doi:10.1093/mnras/stae1264
High temperatures occur in Joshua Tree, California on June 5, 2024
Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Mexico has been hit by a severe heat wave caused by a massive heat dome that has been sweeping across the country for weeks and is now spreading north into the southern United States, causing extreme temperatures across a wide area.
What is a Heat Dome?
Heat dome is not a clearly defined scientific term, but is used by many weather forecasters. American Meteorological Society Define it “A mass of very hot air that occurs when high pressure in the upper atmosphere prevents warm air below from rising.” High pressure causes the air to warm up as it descends, resulting in clear skies. – Clouds form in the opposite situation, when rising air cools and water droplets condense..
These high pressure conditions mean more sunlight, which leads to more warming, drier soil, less evaporation, and fewer clouds and rain. This positive feedback means that the longer the heat dome stays in one place, the hotter and hotter it gets. Heat domes cause heat waves, but heat waves can also happen without them.
What causes a high pressure system to shut down?
The jet stream is a fast-moving band of wind in the upper atmosphere that normally helps move weather systems along the Earth's surface. But sometimes large loops can form in the jet stream, which can result in weather systems getting trapped in the loop. These blocking patterns can lead to extreme cold, extreme rain, or, in the case of a heat dome, extreme heat.
Temperature records were broken in several North American cities during the 2021 Heat Dome.
Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory
What is the lifespan of a heat dome?
It may last from a few days to a few weeks. For example: Extreme Heat Dome The storm lasted for almost a month across Canada and the northwestern United States in 2021. During this time, temperatures in British Columbia reached nearly 50 °C (122 °F), the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada.
Are heat domes becoming more popular because of global warming?
Generally, heat waves Becoming more frequent Although it is caused by climate change, most studies have not focused on heat waves caused by heat domes. There is much debate about how global warming will affect the planet. Block pattern that confines the heat dome in place. Research in 2023 They concluded that northwestern North America will experience an increase in “summer heat dome-like standing waves.”
Is the heat dome getting hotter because of global warming?
Yes, that is true. The world is currently about 1.5°C warmer than it was before the industrial revolution, so if a heat dome were to form today, surface temperatures could be higher than they were before. For example, One study concluded The extreme heat dome temperatures recorded in Canada in 2021 would have been “virtually impossible without anthropogenic climate change.” There is also evidence that the intensity of heat domes is outpacing the warming trend, suggesting that climate change is amplifying the intensity of heat domes.“The intensity of high temperatures associated with thermal dome-like atmospheric circulation is increasing faster than background global warming, both historically and in future projections,” it said. Research in 2023.
Dominant male lemurs grow more flexible testicles when other males are present, improving their position for successful mating.
In many species, dominant males have larger testes than subordinate males. Increased Testosterone Research has also shown that males of group-living, multi-male species have larger testes than males of group-living, single-male species. Larger testes mean more sperm can be produced, which increases the male’s chances of producing offspring if a female mates with multiple males.
Gabriel Bueno and Rebecca Lewis Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin tested whether this pattern held true within a single population by looking at testicle size in 23-year-old adult men. Verreaux’s sifaka (Propithecus beleaucii) took place outside of the mating season over a 13-year period in Kirindimitea National Park in western Madagascar.
This lemur group is made up of several groups, some with only one male and some with several. As in all lemur societies, the females hold the most social power, but the males also have their own hierarchy. Dominant lemurs have greasy brown spots on their chests from constant scent marking, while subordinate lemurs have clean white bodies.
The researchers found that the testicles of stained males in multi-male groups were on average 103 percent larger than those of clean males from the same groups and 31 percent larger than those of stained males in single-male groups. The stained lemurs in multi-male groups may be producing more testosterone than other lemurs or they may be suppressing the amount of testosterone that clean males can produce, Bueno says.
Stained males living in multi-male groups not only have larger scrotums in absolute terms, but also larger relative to their body size, which Bueno says suggests indicates that dominant males spend more energy competing for sperm when there are other males around.
“The key is that they can make that switch,” Bueno says. Because the dominant male always has the largest testicles, when a dirty male with larger testicles enters the group, the dirty male’s gonads grow. This “highlights how extraordinarily flexible they are and how they adapt to their social environment,” Bueno says.
“It is surprising that males can flexibly adjust their testis size across a range of environments throughout their lives,” he said. Peter Kappeler The researchers, from the University of Göttingen in Germany, added that their findings raise important questions about the potential costs of maintaining large testes: Enlarging them requires energy that cannot be used elsewhere, and likely requires the animal to search for more food.
This humpback whale (with its wide-open jaws and sharp teeth)Melanocetus johnsonii) looks even more terrifying when its internal complexity is revealed. Also known as Johnson’s Deep Sea Monster, this deep sea monster is Solvin Zankl.
This image shows the fish after a lengthy cleaning and staining process to reveal its internal structure. Scientists used digestive enzymes to remove the soft tissues, exposing the bones and collagen, which they then stained. Blue indicates cartilage, and red indicates bone. Not all tissues become transparent during the chemical processing; for example, the black mass (left) is the fish’s stomach.
The technique offers a glimpse inside the anglerfish, from its gills to its two fearsomely impressive pairs of jaws. It’s just one of the incredible adaptations that have evolved in this deep-sea species, Zankl says. But don’t worry: Females, like the one shown here, can grow to about 153 millimeters in length, while males are just 28 millimeters.
This fish lives at depths of about 900 metres in tropical oceans. The specimen was collected from the Benguela upwelling system, a very fertile deep water area of the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Africa and Namibia, during a research expedition to document the wildlife in the region.
Zankl says working with scientists allows him to visit places that are normally inaccessible, because photographing the deep sea is a huge challenge. Documenting these organisms can shed light on their ecology and broader ecological processes in fragile ecosystems, he says.
Skywatchers around the world should gear up for an incredible celestial event, as the binary star system T Corona (T CrB) is expected to experience a magnificent nova explosion sometime between now and September. This explosion could occur at any moment.
This remarkable outburst will change T CrB from an unseen star to one as bright as Polaris.
Novae like the one predicted for T CrB happen in binary star systems where a white dwarf orbits closely with a companion star.
“A nova is a binary system in which two stars orbit close to each other.”Dr. Darren Baskill, an Astronomy lecturer at the University of Sussex, tells BBC Science Focus, “About half of the stars in the night sky are double star systems.”
These should not be confused with supernovae, the dramatic explosions that occur when a massive star dies and can illuminate an entire galaxy momentarily.
White dwarfs accumulate material from their companion stars through a process called accretion. When this material reaches a critical temperature, it triggers powerful hydrogen fusion reactions.
The outcome? A nuclear explosion that ejects gas from the white dwarf, significantly increasing the system’s brightness.
“This sudden onset of nuclear fusion causes the surface gas layer to become even hotter, triggering more nuclear reactions and leading to a brightening of the star – a nova explosion,” Baskill explained.
This is a “fireworks nova,” captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2015. Like T CrB, it caused a stir in the astronomy community when it suddenly appeared as one of the brightest stars in the sky for a few days in 1901. – Image credit: NASA
While most novae are unpredictable and observed only once, T CrB is a recurrent nova that erupts roughly every 80 years. If you miss it this time, you’ll have to wait until around the year 2100!
T CrB is the closest star system to Earth, about 3,000 light years away, and is bright enough to be seen with the naked eye even in areas with moderate light pollution.
The nova explosion of T CrB is so distant from Earth that it has just reached us. Since then, there have been over 35-40 similar explosions, and the light signals from each one are yet to reach us.
Previous eruptions of T CrB were recorded in 1866 and 1946, with a noticeable brightness decrease before the latter eruption. A similar decline was noted earlier this year, hinting at a potential new explosion.
“Amateur astronomers around the world have observed slight brightness changes in this star every three to four months,” Baskill noted. “In 1945, when this happened, the gas on the white dwarf’s surface exploded dramatically within a year, causing a nova. Is it possible that the same scenario could repeat soon?”
How to witness a nova explosion
Although T CrB is currently too dim to be seen without help, a nova eruption would be visible without any special equipment. Amateur telescopes can observe T CrB before the eruption.
To prepare, stargazers should study Corona Borealis using a star chart or a smartphone app.
This preparation will enhance the spectacle when a nova suddenly emerges and brightens a familiar constellation.
Dr. Mark HollandsResearchers from the University of Warwick advise: “The nova will be visible to the naked eye for a few nights, reaching a brightness similar to other stars in Corona Borealis. If you miss that window, it should be visible for several weeks with binoculars.”
Though our Sun will become a white dwarf in billions of years, it will not undergo a nova explosion due to the lack of a companion star.
Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event and seize the rare chance to witness a nova explosion bright enough to see without a telescope.
About the experts
Darren Baskill is an Outreach Officer and Lecturer at the University of Sussex. She previously taught at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, where she founded the observatory’s annual ‘Astronomy Photographer of the Year’ competition.
Mark Hollands is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Warwick, focusing on white dwarfs. His work appears in journals like Natural Astronomy, Monthly Bulletin of the Royal Astronomical Society, and he has spoken at conferences worldwide.
Considered one of West Antarctica’s most infamous glaciers, the “doomsday glacier” has earned its nickname due to the potentially significant rise in sea levels it could cause, ultimately reshaping coastlines. This glacier, known as Thwaites Glacier, is massive, the size of England and spanning 120km wide. It extends from the peak of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to the Amundsen Sea, where it reaches out onto an ice shelf.
Unfortunately, Thwaites Glacier is experiencing troubling changes, with a notable increase in ice loss over recent years as a consequence of climate change. The rate of ice loss has doubled in the past 30 years due to rising ocean temperatures, which lead to the melting of the ocean floor beneath the glacier. Warm water is being transported towards Thwaites, particularly deep below the ocean surface, contributing to this rapid ice loss. The land beneath West Antarctic glaciers is below sea level, and the sloping ocean floor means warmer waters can intrude underneath, eroding the glaciers and making them less stable.
A recent study revealed that Thwaites Glacier may be more susceptible than previously believed, with seawater surging beneath it for kilometers. The melting of glaciers, including Thwaites, could result in a significant rise in sea levels, potentially impacting coastal areas worldwide. Additionally, the collapse of Thwaites could trigger nearby glaciers to follow suit, further elevating global sea levels by more than three meters. This irreversible loss on human timescales would mark a critical “tipping point.”
Scientists are concerned about the potential collapse of Thwaites Glacier, as it could have disastrous consequences for sea levels and climate. Researchers are exploring strategies to adapt to these expected changes and protect coastal regions at risk of submersion. The costs of preparing for rising sea levels are substantial, emphasizing the importance of proactive planning and adaptation. While sea level rise is inevitable, proactive measures can help mitigate its impact and protect vulnerable populations and ecosystems.
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Despite the impending challenges, scientists and experts emphasize the importance of courage and adaptation in the face of climate change. Dr. Caitlen Norton from the British Antarctic Survey stresses the need for resilience and preparedness to address the growing threat of rising sea levels. Adapting defenses, protecting coastal areas, and planning for future changes are crucial steps in mitigating the impact of climate change on coastal regions.
Music and physics are two disciplines that transcend mere study to become intertwined aspects of human creativity. This hidden harmony between music and physics has been acknowledged by luminaries such as Albert Einstein, who expressed a longing for music had he not pursued physics.
As someone who navigates both fields, I have uncovered deeper connections between them. My journey began in the Bronx, where the worlds of hip hop and science collided in unexpected ways. Later, while studying at Imperial College London, I witnessed the fusion of artistic expression and scientific inquiry in Brian Eno’s studio.
This intersection between art and science inspired me to explore further and led me to write the book “Physics Jazz.” Through this exploration, I delved into the commonalities between music and physics, from improvisation to quantum uncertainty.
My passion for sharing these discoveries prompted the creation of the course “Jazz in Modern Physics” at Brown University, bridging the gap between disciplines and offering students a new way to appreciate the symphony of the universe through mathematics and melody.
Believing in the transformative power of education, I founded the “Sound + Science” after-school program to provide underserved students with an opportunity to explore the fusion of music and physics through hands-on experimentation and collaboration.
This fusion of art and science celebrates human ingenuity and the interconnectedness of the universe. In embracing this harmonious blend, we can unlock the mysteries of the universe and delve into the depths of the human soul.
Giant viruses were first discovered in the ocean in 1981, when researchers discovered them. These viruses were specialized to infect green algae in the sea. Giant viruses were later found in soil on land and even in humans. However, this is the first time that giant viruses have been found living on the surface of ice or snow, where snow algae dominate. In Greenland, these viruses probably control the growth of snow algae by infecting them on the ice.
Giant virus species Pandoravirus Salinus Image courtesy of IGS CNRS-AMU.
“Every spring in the Arctic, the sun rises after months of darkness and life returns,” said Aarhus University researcher Laura Perini and her colleagues.
“Polar bears emerge from their winter dens, arctic terns return from their long journey south, and musk oxen trek north.”
“But animals aren’t the only life awakened by the spring sun. Algae that were dormant on the ice begin to flourish in the spring, turning large areas of the ice black.”
“As the ice darkens, it loses its ability to reflect sunlight, which accelerates its melting. More melting exacerbates global warming.”
“But we may have found a way to control the growth of snow algae, and in the long term, we may be able to reduce some of the ice melt.”
In the new study, the authors found signatures of giant viruses in snow and ice samples from the Greenland Ice Sheet.
The researchers believe that these viruses feed on snow algae and may act as a natural control mechanism against algal blooms.
“Although we still do not know much about viruses, we suspect they may be useful as a means to mitigate ice melt caused by algal blooms,” the researchers said.
“We don’t yet know how specific it will be and how efficient it will be, but we’re hopeful that further investigation will help answer some of those questions.”
“We analyzed samples of black ice, red snow, and melted pits (cryoconite),” they explained.
“We found traces of an active giant virus in both the dark ice and the red snow.”
“And this is the first time they’ve been found on ice or snow surfaces that are rich in pigmented microalgae.”
“The ecosystem surrounding the algae includes bacteria, fungi, and yeasts, as well as protozoans that eat the algae, various fungi that parasitize the algae, and giant viruses that infect the algae.”
“These last three groups need to be studied to understand the biological controls that act on algal blooms.”
“We can’t pinpoint which hosts the giant viruses will infect. Some of the viruses may infect protists, others may attack snow algae. We don’t know for sure yet,” Dr Perini said.
“We are continuing our research to learn more about giant virus interactions and their role in the ecosystem.”
of Negative Ion Laser Spectroscopy (NILS) Chinese Chang'e 6 Probe Negative ions have been detected on the surface of the moon. These ions are produced on the surface of the moon due to interactions with the solar wind.
The South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon is one of the largest and oldest impact features in the Solar System. It's easy to see in the elevation data: the low central area is dark blue and purple. The mountains on its edges, remnants of the outer ring, are red and yellow. Image credit: NASA/GSFC/University of Arizona.
The solar wind is a constant stream of radiation and particles emanating from the Sun. The Earth's magnetic field acts as a shield.
In contrast, the Moon has no magnetic field and a very thin atmosphere called the exosphere.
When the solar wind hits the Moon, it reacts with the surface, sending up secondary particles.
These particles may be positively or negatively charged, or may not be charged at all.
Positively charged particles have been measured from orbit before, but measuring negatively charged particles has been difficult.
Negative ions are short-lived and cannot reach orbit, which is why ESA scientists had to operate their instruments closer to the lunar surface.
“This is ESA's first operation on the lunar surface, a world first for science and our first lunar collaboration with China,” said Neil Melville, ESA's technical lead for the NILS experiment.
“We collected data in quantity and quality far beyond our expectations.”
“These observations on the Moon will help us to better understand the surface environment and serve as a precursor to exploring the distribution of negative ions on other atmosphere-less bodies in the Solar System, from planets to asteroids and other moons,” said NILS principal investigator Dr Martin Wieser.
Chang'e-6 is scheduled to successfully land in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on June 1, 2024.
NILS began collecting science data 280 minutes after landing. The first data collection period lasted 23 minutes, after which the instruments experienced a voltage drop. Several further data collection periods followed, during which communications were interrupted and restarted.
“The equipment was getting hot, so it was alternating between short periods of running at full power and longer periods of cooling down,” Melville said.
“The fact that we managed to stay within the thermal design limits and achieve a successful recovery in extremely hot conditions is testament to the quality of the research at the Swedish Institute of Astrophysics.”
The entomologist described a new species of ant. Parapara Tretina He is from Inguk village in the East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India.
Paraparatretina NeelaHolotype worker: (A) Head viewed from the front, (B) Body viewed from the back, (C) Body viewed from the side. Images courtesy of Sahanashree other., doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1203.114168.
Parapara Tretina A genus of small ants, generally 1-2 mm in length, belonging to the subfamily. Formicidae.
They are typically found in the Afrotropical, Australasia, Indomalaya, Oceania and Palaearctic biogeographical regions.
They live in a variety of tropical environments, from rainforests to forest clearings, and can be found in a wide range of habitats, from leaf litter on the ground to high up in the tree canopy.
Currently, the genus contains 38 valid species and four valid subspecies.
Fourteen species are known from the Indomalaya biogeographic region. Parapara Tretina Acetate It was previously the only species known from the Indian subcontinent.
Specimen of a new worker ant species Parapara Tretina The specimens were collected from a secondary forest at an altitude of 803 metres (2,635 feet) in Ing village, East Siang district, Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern India.
“One evening, while I was exploring a tree hole about three metres high on a steep cattle track in the remote village of Inku, I saw something glow in the twilight,” he said. Dr. Dharma Rajan Priyadarsanan Ashoka Foundation for Ecological and Environmental Research and colleagues.
“In the dim light, two insects were sucked into the aspirator, which, to my surprise, I later discovered were ants.”
“Arunachal Pradesh, located in the Himalayan biodiversity hotspot, Cyan Valley “There is a world of unparalleled diversity, much of which remains to be explored,” they said.
“But this richness, both culturally and ecologically, faces unprecedented threats.”
“Large infrastructure projects such as dams, highways and military installations, along with climate change, are rapidly transforming the valley.”
“The impacts extend beyond the valley itself, as these mountains not only sustain their own diverse ecosystems but also play a vital role in ensuring the well-being of millions of people living downstream.”
Named Paraparatretina NeelaThe newly discovered species is a tiny ant measuring less than 2mm in length.
The body is primarily metallic blue, except for the antennae, mandibles, and legs.
The head is subtriangular, with large eyes and triangular mouthparts (mandible) bearing five teeth.
This species has a distinctive metallic blue colour that distinguishes it from other species in the genus.
“With the exception of marine sponges, blue colouration in animals is a relatively rare phenomenon,” the researchers said.
“But there are also some blue species among vertebrates, such as fish, frogs and birds, and invertebrates, such as spiders.”
“Blue colors in insects are typically produced by the arrangement of biological photonic nanostructures rather than pigments, and have evolved independently in different groups.”
“This vibrant feature raises an intriguing question: Could it serve a purpose in communication, camouflage, or other ecological interactions? A closer look at the evolution of this conspicuous color and its relationship to elevation and biology could provide clues.” Paraparatretina Neela It points to exciting avenues for research.”
Discovery Paraparatretina Neela It has been reported paper In the journal Zookie.
_____
R. Sahanashree other2024. Amazing new species Parapara Tretina Donisthorpe (1947) (Hymenoptera, Formicidae, Formicinae), from the Eastern Himalayas of India. Zookie 1203: 159-172; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1203.114168
Very low-mass stars orbit rocky exoplanets more frequently than other types of stars. The composition of these planets is poorly understood, but it is thought to be related to the protoplanetary disk in which they form. In the new study, astronomers used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to investigate the chemical composition of the planet-forming disk around ISO-ChaI 147, a red dwarf star just one-tenth the mass of the Sun. They identified emission from 13 carbon-containing molecules, including ethane and benzene.
This is an artist's impression of a young star surrounded by a disk of gas and dust. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL.
ISO-ChaI 147 It is a red dwarf star with a mass 0.11 times that of the Sun, located about 639 light years away in the constellation Chamaeleon.
The star was observed as part of the MIRI Mid-Infrared Disk Survey (MINDS), which aims to bridge the gap between the chemical composition of the disk and the properties of exoplanets.
These observations provide insight into the environments and fundamental elements for the formation of such planets.
Astronomers discovered that the gas in ISO-ChaI 147's planet-forming region is rich in carbon.
This could be due to carbon being removed from the solid material from which rocky planets form, which could explain why Earth is relatively carbon-poor.
“WEBB has greater sensitivity and spectral resolution than conventional infrared space telescopes,” said Dr Aditya Arabavi, an astronomer at the University of Groningen.
“These observations are not possible from Earth because the radiation is blocked by the atmosphere.”
“So far we have only been able to identify acetylene emissions from this object.”
“But Webb's high sensitivity and spectral resolution allowed us to detect faint emissions from fewer molecules.”
“Thanks to Webb, we now know that these hydrocarbon molecules are not only diverse, but abundant as well.”
The spectrum of ISO-ChaI 147 shows the richest hydrocarbon chemical composition ever observed in a protoplanetary disk, consisting of 13 carbon-containing molecules. Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/Ralf Crawford, STScI.
The spectrum of ISO-ChaI 147 is Webb's mid-infrared measuring instrument (MIRI) displays the richest hydrocarbon chemical composition ever observed in a protoplanetary disk, consisting of 13 carbon-containing molecules up to benzene.
This includes the first extrasolar detection of ethane, the largest fully saturated hydrocarbon detected outside the solar system.
Fully saturated hydrocarbons are expected to form from more basic molecules, so detecting them here can give researchers clues about their chemical environment.
Astronomers also detected ethylene, propyne, and methyl radicals in a protoplanetary disk for the first time.
“These molecules have already been detected in our solar system, for example in comets such as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy),” Dr. Arababi said.
“It's amazing that we can now see these molecules dancing in the cradle of the planet.”
“This is a completely different environment to how we normally think of planet formation.”
The team note that these results have significant implications for the astrochemistry within 0.1 AU and the planets that form there.
“This is very different to the composition found in disks around solar-type stars, where oxygen-containing molecules (such as carbon dioxide and water) dominate,” said Dr Inga Kamp, also from the University of Groningen.
“This object proves that these are unique classes of objects.”
“It's incredible that we can detect and quantify the amount of a molecule that's well known on Earth, such as benzene, in an object more than 600 light years away,” said Dr Agnes Perrin, an astronomer at the French National Center for Scientific Research.
The only example of life in the universe is Earth, a rocky planet with over 70% water on its surface. As far as we know, all life on Earth relies on water to survive and thrive, so scientists refer to other planets where liquid water is known to exist as “habitable.”
But scientists also know that a puddle of water alone is not enough to sustain life. Life depends on a constant flow of electrons between molecules, which Electronic GradientTo create energy, electrons move away from areas of high electron density. Reducelow density areas, so-called Oxidize.
Scientists have found several planets and moons in our solar system that have liquid water. Researchers are particularly intrigued by Jupiter's moon Europa, because remote sensing has revealed that it has a salty liquid ocean about 100 kilometers (60 miles) deep on top of a crust of iron-rich rock, with a layer of ice about 10 kilometers (6 miles) thick on top of that.
Europa has no atmosphere to protect it from the sun's radiation, which allows chemical reactions to take place that consume electrons on its surface, creating an oxidizing environment. In contrast, its iron-rich crust creates a reducing environment beneath its oceans. This means that an electron gradient naturally forms along the path from Europa's oxidizing surface to its reduced ocean floor. Scientists want to know if life could harness this electron gradient to obtain enough energy to sustain itself and survive.
Researchers studying Europa From the data Cassini and Galileo The mission found that Europa's ocean temperatures range from 0 to -13 degrees Celsius, or 32 to 9 degrees Celsius. They found that the hottest temperatures are found closest to the ocean floor, where heat is generated by reactions between water and rock, similar to Earth's hydrothermal systems. They also found that some of the most abundant molecules near Europa's surface are all oxide molecules, such as carbonates and sulfates.
Based on these temperature constraints and the amount of energy provided by oxidizing molecules on Europa's surface, a team of researchers from the University of Akron and the University of Southern California calculated the amount of energy available for life in Europa's ocean and investigated whether three types of Earth microorganisms could live beneath Europa's ocean. The microorganisms they tested generate energy using carbonates, sulfates, or iron particles. They reasoned that because all three of these oxidizing molecules are found on Europa's icy surface, if delivered to the ocean floor, the organisms could combine with reducing molecules on the ocean floor to generate energy.
The researchers calculated that in Europa's environment, molten iron near the surface layer of ice would form solid particles when exposed to penetrating radiation from the sun, and slowly fall to the ocean floor — like snow falling from the sky on Earth, except instead of water ice particles, the ocean rains down in the form of rust-like, reddish iron particles.
The scientists calculated that iron oxide snow would provide a larger electron gradient than carbonates or sulfates, ultimately generating more energy for life. They estimated that iron snow could provide up to 2.5×1026 More than 100 microbial cells are found on Europa's ocean floor per year, which represents about 0.1% of the total number of microbial cells currently living in Earth's oceans.
However, the authors caution that only around 10% of the energy produced by organisms on Earth is used to generate cells — the remaining 90% is used to maintain metabolism, meaning that the number of cells that microbial life could actually generate from Europa's underwater iron pathways would be much lower than the authors estimate.
Nevertheless, the authors suggest that these cell count calculations could be used to design missions to search for life on Europa: When future satellites orbit Europa, researchers could estimate how much cell mass we might expect from microbes living in the iron passages on the Europa ocean floor.
Two micropipettes hold the organism and extend its “neck”
Elliot Flaum and Manu Prakash/Stanford University
Imagine if your neck could stretch long enough to reach your local store while sitting on the couch. That would be a human representation of what a single-celled predator can do. And now, a long-standing mystery has been solved: how that animal can stretch its “neck” to more than 30 times the length of its “body.”
The organism’s cell membrane is folded into a series of folds that can only unfold and fold in one direction. Elliot Flaum Stanford University and her colleagues Manu Prakash They found ways to stretch and fold the paper without it getting tangled. “Most of this came from just playing with paper,” Prakash says.
Lacrimaria Aurore It is a single-celled organism, or protist, that lives in freshwater and hunts prey with a highly extensible neck-like protrusion. Its name means “swan’s tears” after its swan-like neck and teardrop-shaped body.
The cell membrane is very flexible, but it is not elastic and does not stretch. L. Aurore Why their necks stretch so far has remained a mystery since they were first observed under a microscope in the 16th century. “Compared to a lot of other organisms, the neck stretches by an order of magnitude,” Prakash says. “That’s the mystery.”
He and Flaum L. Aurore To solve this mystery, samples taken from the swamp six or seven years ago were studied. Flaum used a variety of techniques to L. Aurore And inside that cytoskeleton is made up of structures called microtubules. “We looked at it in a variety of different ways to try to understand what was going on,” she says.
This means: L. Aurore It is folded into 15 pleats, with each pleat spiralling around the cell to form a helical structure, a folding pattern Prakash calls “curved crease origami,” or “lacrigami.”
but, L. Aurore How can such a vast region of the cell membrane unfold and fold without getting tangled? What Prakash and Flaum discovered is that because the pleats are stabilized by bands of microtubules connected to them, the entire fold cannot unfold at once. Instead, only a single point of the fold can unfold or fold at any one time.
As these points move in parallel along each of the 15 wrinkles, the cell membrane unfolds in an orderly fashion, lengthening the neck. Reversing this process shortens the neck.
“Instead of folding randomly like you would when crumpling a sheet of paper, it has guide rails that help you fold it the same way every time,” Flaum says.
The folding and unfolding of cells is driven by the beating of cilia that cover the entire surface of the cell, Prakash said. Unlike springs, cilia require energy to refold and unfold, whereas cell membranes bend easily and require very little energy.
As far as he knows, no one has discovered this origami technique before. “When I discovered this, I always assumed that someone playing with paper would have discovered this origami,” Prakash says. “It’s so easy.” He says anyone with paper and tape can make it.
“The neck’s ingenious origami-like design makes the cilia effective for high-speed, long-distance hunting,” they write. Leonardo Gordillo and Enrique Cerda At the University of Santiago in Chile Accompanying Articles“The origami-like protrusion mechanism identified by Flaum and Prakash has the potential to inspire new strategies in soft-matter engineering.”
In fact, Prakash and Flaum are currently working on developing a medical robot based on Rakurigami. “If you had a tiny microrobot in a very tight space, and it could suddenly stretch, that would be very useful for microsurgery,” he says. “But we did this research because it’s just beautiful and a mystery to solve. We didn’t expect it to be useful in any way.”
Two NASA astronauts aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft successfully docked at the International Space Station on Thursday, despite issues with the spacecraft's thrusters.
NASA confirmed that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams docked with the space station at 1:34 p.m. ET.
“It's good to be connected to the great city of the sky,” Wilmore told mission controllers on the ground.
The docking attempt, originally scheduled for 12:15 p.m. ET, was postponed due to problems with five thrusters on the Starliner.
Boeing's Starliner spacecraft docked with the International Space Station at 1:34 p.m. ET on June 6. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
The hatch between the Starliner capsule and the space station was opened about two hours after docking.
Astronaut Williams was the first to enter the space station, greeted by the ISS crew members already on board.
Wilmore and Williams expressed their gratitude to the teams that worked to get them to the ISS and said they were ready to begin work in orbit.
Their arrival brings the International Space Station to full capacity.
Wilmore and Williams are expected to spend about a week on the ISS before potentially returning to Earth on June 14.
Flight controllers will continue to monitor the capsule's reaction control thrusters for further adjustments.
The Starliner capsule is capable of autonomous docking with the space station.
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft prepares to dock with the International Space Station. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is more than 24 hours away from its first crewed test flight to the space station.
The test flight aims to demonstrate the capsule's ability to safely transport NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.
This giant pangolin was caught on camera on March 8, 2023 in Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal.
Panthera/DPN
A giant pangolin has been spotted in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park for the first time in 24 years, reviving hopes that the endangered animal still survives in the country.
“No one thought pangolins were still alive. [this park]” Muhammadu Modi Ndiaye At wildlife monitoring group Panthera.
Giant pangolin (Smutcha GiganteaThe pangolin, the only one of four African pangolin species found in Senegal, previously inhabited a wide area of forests and savannas from Senegal to western Kenya. But in recent decades, the scaly mammal's population has declined due to poaching for its meat and scales, as well as extensive deforestation. The report says: Over 8 million pangolins They were poached in West and Central Africa between 2014 and 2021, making them one of the most commonly trafficked animals in the world.
Giant pangolins are shy, solitary and nocturnal, so you probably won't see them outside their burrows. The last time a giant pangolin was captured and officially identified was in Senegal in April 1967. Thirty years later, two were found during an ecological survey. Since then, conservationists have not seen a single giant pangolin.
That was until he was photographed walking slowly across a dry riverbed at 1:37 a.m. on March 8, 2023. Snapshot was captured The image was captured by one of 217 research camera traps scattered across more than 4,000 square kilometres of Niokolo Koba National Park.
“I was so excited when I saw the baby pangolin,” Ndiaye said.
The sighting suggests that Niokolo-Koba National Park could become the last bastion for pangolin monitoring and conservation in Senegal, according to the report. Alan D.T. Muafo Researchers from the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Pangolin Specialist Group have produced a report on surveying pangolin habitat and identifying its habitat, which he says is particularly important as there are many areas where “local extinction” is suspected, where pangolins are no longer active.
“This sighting is a ray of hope for pangolins' survival in West Africa and could help raise public awareness of their plight,” Muafo said, adding that he hopes it marks a “turning point for new conservation efforts.”
What exactly can dogs offer cities? The answer is coming soon.
Reader Dorothy Sheckler informed Feedback that Brad D. Lee of the University of Kentucky will be presenting his views at the Soil & Water Conservation Association conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on July 22, 2024. What will Lee’s presentation topic be?Nutritional contributions of pet dogs in urban peri-urban environments” “.
Tensions may be palpable during the talks, as the host city announced that dogs will only be allowed on beaches this summer before 10 a.m. and after 5 p.m., and owners “must pick up and properly dispose of their feces.”
Mussel-bound Death
Through investigation and international cooperation, two preserved bodies that had long been forgotten were rediscovered.
Keith Moeliker, a biologist who studies surprising animal behavior (he discovered homosexual necrophilia in mallards, according to feedback on February 10, 2024), tells us what happened.
“The fate of Denmark’s black-headed gulls is dramatic.Chroicocephalus ridibundus“In 1952 a seagull stepped on a freshwater clam,” he writes, “and the clam closed its valve and refused to let go. The proof, of the seagull (now dead) with the clam still attached to its right foot, was found in an old photograph I found in the depths of the Internet.”
Mölliker learned that the photo was taken at the Hunting and Forestry Museum in Hörsholm, eastern Denmark. In 2017, the museum moved to and became part of another institution, the Green Museum in Auning, western Denmark. As is often the case with large and diverse museum collections, some treasures were safely stored but largely unnoticed. Mölliker got in touch with the Green Museum curator, who picked up the twin objects (officially named JSH 05542) from their resting place on a long shelf in a heavily refrigerated building.
“In April 2024, I was allowed to observe the black-headed gull in the museum’s collection storage facility and was able to take this photograph,” Moeliker continues (see below). “There I learned more: the gull had not died embracing the mussels, but had been shot together with the mussels near Solo on Zealand. [Denmark]Another special item from the same Danish collection is JHS 05924, the leg of a herring gull that was found trapped inside a half-open tin can in 1954.”
Mustache denial
Feedback consulted with native Iranian (or, in the ChatGPT era, human, if you prefer) translators to solve this puzzling mystery. Several recent studies published in Iranian research journals use strange wording in their titles. Here are three examples:
Each paper is written in a mixture of Persian and Arabic, and includes a synopsis written in English, which includes a reference to “Moustache” as well as each title.
Why the moustache? Feedback’s language consultant was astonished. “Because the translator of the paper is a complete idiot!! The word for “path” in Arabic is [of doing something]’ is sometimes called SavilePersian [Farsi], Sybil It means “mustache.” The translator might just be Google.
The world will now find out what impact these moustache-twirling papers will have on international diplomatic relations.
Mustache measurement
While pursuing the intricacies of mustache negation rules, Feedback stumbled upon a (possibly unrelated) study published in 1982:Survival curves and growth rates of mustache populationsThe paper, written by Cliff Frohlich and Ruth Buskirk, reports measurements of “three previously unstudied characteristics of mustaches: hair length distribution, hair growth rate, and rate of hair shedding or weathering,” all of which were measured on “unshaven mustaches of 30-year-old Caucasian men.”
Eleven years later, Frohlich cited Mustache’s paper, studyPublished in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earthdiscussed the subtle mathematical aspects of measuring earthquake strength. He noted that, like mustache growth, “earthquakes are just one of many phenomena for which a logarithmic plot of number versus magnitude is approximately a straight line.”
Marc Abrahams is the founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and co-founder of the journal Annals of Improbable Research. He previously worked on unusual uses of computers. His website is Impossible
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SpaceX is preparing Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, for its next test launch. Here’s everything you need to know.
What time is the launch scheduled?
The launch is expected to take place today, pending regulatory approval, and each flight must be approved by the US Federal Aviation Administration. SpaceX tweeted: The live stream begins at 12:30 p.m. UK time.
Judge Eddie Trevino of Cameron County, Texas, where SpaceX’s Starbase launch site is located, has closed nearby roads for flight testing. The closures are limited to a 14-hour period between midnight and 5pm local time.
Where is Starship going?
The fourth test flight will focus on returning Starship from orbit and conducting a mock landing of both the Starship and the Super Heavy first stage booster. Both vehicles will make a “soft splashdown” in the ocean, using their engines to slow their descent and line up for a gentle touch down on the water. The first stage booster will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico, while Starship aims to splash down in the Indian Ocean.
What has happened in Starship launches so far?
All three Starship launches have ended in explosions, as part of SpaceX’s strategy to learn from failures. The second launch reached space but was destroyed before completing an orbit. The third test flight reached space and achieved important milestones, despite failing to make a soft landing.
What would happen if this launch were to fail?
The chances of Starship completing its mission perfectly are slim, so failure is expected. However, this failure will provide valuable data and experience to improve future launches. SpaceX has shown the ability to iterate quickly and make progress with each launch.
A genetic study of hundreds of ancient horses suggests that ancient breeders dramatically shortened the horse’s natural development period, starting around 4,200 years ago. This intense breeding allowed the lineage to rapidly expand across Eurasia within a few centuries, according to researchers led by Ludovic Orlando at the Centre for Human Biology and Genomics in Toulouse, France.
“In other words, they controlled horse breeding,” he says, “so this tells us something about the breeding processes behind the success of horse breeding around the world.”
Horses were first domesticated 5,500 years ago by the Botai people in what is now Kazakhstan. The Botai, however, did not spread their horse culture to other regions and eventually went extinct. Horses released back into the wild.
More than 1,000 years later, a different lineage of horse was domesticated in the Pontic-Caspian steppes of southern Russia. This lineage eventually spread worldwide, giving rise to all the domesticated horses we see today, according to Orlando.
To trace the history of horse domestication, Orlando and his team analyzed the genomes of 475 ancient horses dating back 50,000 years in Eurasia. They compared these genomes with those of 71 modern domestic horses representing 40 breeds from around the world, along with six species of the endangered mullein genus (a separate subspecies).
The research found that, except for the Botai, horses were not domesticated before the third millennium BCE, indicating that horses did not play a significant role in early human migration or cultural expansion, as previously suggested, Orlando explained.
DNA analysis showed that horses in the Pontic-Caspian steppe underwent significant inbreeding around 4,200 years ago, likely in an effort to develop specific traits for high-quality riding or chariot horses, according to Orlando.
Through a combination of genome sequencing and carbon dating, scientists estimated that the average time between two successive horse generations, called the generation time interval, was significantly shortened during the same period of inbreeding in the Pontic-Caspian steppes, halving the interval seen in the wild.
“During the domestication bottleneck around 2200 BCE, breeders were able to control horse reproduction so well that generations became faster and faster,” Orlando said.
Orlando suggests that breeders may have achieved this shortening of generation times not by breeding horses at a younger age, but by increasing survival rates. Unlike wild horses, horses in human care are less susceptible to deaths among mares and newborn foals, as they are protected from predators and disturbances that could jeopardize their survival, according to researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna led by Kristin Orlich.
SpaceX’s Starship, the largest rocket ever, successfully completed its fourth test flight, with the first and second stages completing their missions as planned and each landing in different oceans.
Following liftoff from the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 7:50 a.m. local time, one of the 33 Raptor engines on Super Heavy’s first stage failed to ignite. Despite this, the rocket continued into space and the two stages separated cleanly.
Super Heavy splashed down on schedule about seven minutes after liftoff, close to the launch site in the Gulf of Mexico. After plummeting to Earth from an altitude of more than 100 kilometers, the booster’s engines ignited normally and it slowed from more than 4,000 kilometers per hour to hover just a few meters above the sea surface, but then the live feed cut out and it plunged into the ocean.
Meanwhile, Starship reached an orbit at an altitude of more than 200 kilometers and traveled at a speed of more than 27,000 kilometers per hour. During its descent to Earth, about 60 kilometers above the surface, SpaceX’s livestream footage showed visible damage to one of its four control fins and what appeared to be a cracked camera lens. As it reached the Indian Ocean, it appeared to hover before plummeting into the water.
This fourth test flight focused on returning Starship from orbit after it had reached space for the first time in the previous test. SpaceX opted to perform a “soft splashdown” at sea, as landing on land is currently considered too risky. Instead, the craft would use its engines to slow its descent, align itself as if it were landing on a base, and then gently splash down on the water.
Eventually, the hope is that spacecraft will be able to be refurbished and reused by returning to land from space, as SpaceX already does with its Falcon 9 rocket.
Today’s launch marks the company’s fourth Starship launch and includes software and hardware upgrades, as well as changes to launch procedures based on lessons learned from previous tests. In the first test in April of last year, the first and second stages exploded before separating, and in another test in November, the second upper stage reached space but stopped transmitting data and self-destructed, and the first stage exploded shortly after separation.
SpaceX’s third Starship test flight on March 14 was at least partially successful, reaching space, conducting a fuel transfer test, and flying farther and faster than ever before, but the spacecraft lost control during the flight and failed to make a planned soft landing.
SpaceX is preparing for the next test launch of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built. Here’s everything you need to know.
What time is the launch scheduled?
The launch is expected to take place today, pending regulatory approval, and each flight must be approved by the US Federal Aviation Administration. SpaceX tweeted: The live stream begins at 12:30 p.m. UK time.
Judge Eddie Trevino of Cameron County, Texas, where SpaceX’s Starbase launch site is located, Nearby roads are closed In official documents, Treviño clarified that the closures were for “flight testing” and were limited to a 14-hour period between midnight and 5pm local time.
Where is Starship going?
The fourth test flight will focus on returning Starship from orbit and conducting a mock landing of both the Starship and the Super Heavy first stage booster. Both vehicles will make a “soft splashdown” in the ocean, using their engines to slow their descent and line up for a gentle touch down on the water. The first stage booster is scheduled to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico, not far from the launch site, about seven minutes after liftoff, while Starship aims to splash down in the Indian Ocean about an hour later.
What has happened in Starship launches so far?
All three Starship launches have ended in explosions, which was expected as part of SpaceX’s “fail fast, learn fast” strategy.
During the first launch on April 20 last year, three of the first stage’s three engines (out of a total of 33) failed to ignite. Several more subsequently failed during the flight. The rocket then spun out of control and its self-destruct safety mechanism was activated. The entire flight lasted about three minutes, reaching a maximum altitude of 39 kilometers.
Starship’s second launch was on November 18. This time, all 33 engines were working, and the rocket flew far enough for the first and second stages to separate. But as the first stage rotated to begin its deceleration and landing procedure, it exploded. The second stage continued on smoothly to an altitude of about 90 miles, passing the Kármán line, which marks the beginning of space. But it was destroyed by a safety device after it stopped transmitting data before completing an orbit or returning to Earth.
SpaceX’s third Starship test flight, on March 14, was at least partially successful, as it reached space, performed a fuel transfer test, and flew farther and faster than ever before. However, it lost attitude control during the flight and failed to make the planned soft landing. Nevertheless, it achieved several important milestones, including Starship’s first atmospheric reentry from space, the first opening and closing of Starship’s payload door in space, and a successful demonstration of fuel transfer, which is key for future NASA Artemis missions to the Moon.
What would happen if this launch were to fail?
The chances of Starship completing its mission perfectly are slim, so it’s likely to fail in some way. But failure will provide data and experience that can be used to improve the design and process for the fifth launch. SpaceX has shown it can iterate quickly and make great strides with each launch.
Xylitol is often marketed as a “natural” way to sweeten drinks and foods.
Pixelshot/Alamy
Xylitol, a sweetener commonly found in sugar-free drinks, chewing gum and toothpaste, has been shown to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Often marketed as “low carb,” “natural,” or “keto-friendly,” xylitol is a sugar alcohol found in fruits and vegetables, but at levels roughly 1,000 times lower than what’s added to commercial products. It can also be prepared artificially. Chemical reactions from plant materials.
last year, Stanley Hazen Hazen and his colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio found that the sweetener erythritol was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Suspecting that xylitol might also affect heart health, Hazen surveyed 3,306 adults in the United States and Europe.
The researchers took a single blood sample from participants to measure their xylitol levels after an overnight fast, and found that over a three-year follow-up, those with the highest blood xylitol levels were one-third more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, such as a heart attack or stroke.
To better understand this trend, the researchers looked at the effects of xylitol in the lab on human blood cells called platelets, and on platelet activity in mice. Platelets crowd together at the site of an injury to prevent bleeding, but they can also clot within blood vessels. This can affect blood supply to the heart and brain, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease.
The researchers found that human platelets cultured in xylitol showed signs of being more likely to clot than those cultured in saline, and blood clots formed significantly more quickly in the veins of mice injected with xylitol.
Finally, the team tracked platelet activity in 10 subjects after they drank the same amount of water sweetened with xylitol. Within 30 minutes, plasma xylitol levels increased 1000-fold, and all indicators of platelet clotting readiness improved, especially in subjects with the highest levels of xylitol in their blood.
“This study highlights the urgent need to investigate sugar alcohols and artificial sweeteners,” Hazen said. “While there’s no need to throw away your toothpaste just because it contains xylitol, people should be aware that consuming products high in xylitol may increase their risk of developing blood clot-related conditions.”
Combined with previous research on erythritol, the findings “emphasize the need for systematic research into the effects of artificial sweeteners on cardiovascular disease risk,” the researchers say. Silvia Radenkovic At the University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands.
A new study led by scientists at the University of New South Wales confirms that eating fruit can help ward off depression – but eating vegetables does not.
High fruit intake is associated with a reduced risk of developing depression.
Depression is a major public health concern: the global impact of depressive disorders is estimated to be over 50 million years of life lived with disability, making depression the largest contributor to non-fatal disease burden.
More than 80% of this burden is borne by low- and middle-income countries.
Compared with depression in younger adults, depression in older adults has a greater impact on physical and cognitive abilities and is associated with reduced quality of life and increased all-cause mortality.
A growing body of evidence suggests that diet, particularly increasing fruit and vegetable intake, may be important in reducing the risk of depression.
“The aim of this new study was to examine the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption and depression in adults aged 45 and over,” said researcher Dr Annabel Mattison, from the University of New South Wales.
The study involved 7,801 non-depressed, community-dwelling adults from multiple sites across six continents, including the United States, Sweden, Brazil, Nigeria, Malaysia and Australia.
The results showed a beneficial association between higher fruit intake and a lower risk of depression over a nine-year period.
“This intriguing finding of a protective relationship between fruit consumption and risk of depression points to the need for greater emphasis on diet in healthcare,” said Dr Mattison.
The results suggested a benefit to vegetable consumption, but the benefit was not statistically significant.
“The reason we found a beneficial association with fruit consumption but not with vegetable consumption may be because fruits are typically consumed raw, whereas vegetables are typically consumed cooked, which may affect their nutritional value,” Dr Mattison said.
“Fruit and vegetable intake was self-reported via a comprehensive food frequency questionnaire, a short food questionnaire, or a dietary history.”
“Depressive symptoms were assessed using validated scales, and depression was defined by applying validated cut-offs.”
“We used Cox regression to examine the association between baseline fruit and vegetable intake and incident depression over 3- to 9-year follow-up periods.”
It has been suggested that the high antioxidant, dietary fiber, and vitamin content of fruits and vegetables may have beneficial effects on depression through a variety of mechanisms, including their role in inflammation, oxidative stress, and gut microbiota.
Because fruits and vegetables contain different nutrients, it is also possible that different types of fruits and vegetables may have different effects on depression risk.
The evidence that citrus fruits and green leafy vegetables reduce the risk of depression is particularly strong.
“Future studies that take into account consumption of different types of fruit and vegetables using standardized measures and focus on a larger number of older people, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, are definitely needed,” Professor Henry Brodaty, from the University of New South Wales, said.
“The expanding research currently being conducted into genes associated with dietary intake provides a promising avenue for influencing fruit and vegetable intake.”
“To better understand the association, the types of fruits and vegetables consumed also need to be taken into account, and studies need to be designed to be more comparable across cohorts.”
of study Published in Journal of Affective Disorders.
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Annabelle P. Mathison others2024. Associations between fruit and vegetable intake and incident depression in middle-aged and older adults in 10 diverse international longitudinal cohorts. Journal of Affective Disorders 359: 373-381; doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2024.05.096
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