science

Sounds promising. can't say I understand all the details.

Scientists have identified a new sign of biological aging that may be reversible through simple exercise.

Most of us see aging as an inevitable process of life, but some scientists are beginning to consider it a disease that we can treat or at least delay.

"The idea that we could reverse aging is something that was long considered science fiction, but these findings do allow us to understand a lot more about the aging process," said Riekelt Houtkooper, Professor of Translational Metabolism at Amsterdam University Medical Centre, said in a statement.

As we age, certain molecules begin to build up in our cells and contribute to their gradual decline. These molecules offer an enticing target for treating age-related diseases and aging in general. The only problem is, for the most part we don't know what they are.

In a study published in the journal Nature Aging, Houtkooper and his Amsterdam University colleagues set about finding one of these aging-related molecules and potential methods for reversing its accumulation.

Summary

A new study suggests that writing down your anger and then throwing the paper away can significantly reduce anger levels. Researchers believe the act of throwing away the paper with your written anger on it symbolically throws away the anger itself.

The study involved participants writing about a social problem and then receiving negative feedback designed to make them angry. They were then asked to write about their anger and either throw the paper away, shred it, or put it in a folder. Throwing the paper away and shredding it resulted in a significant reduction in anger compared to putting the paper in a folder.

The researchers believe this technique may work because we associate objects with our feelings and destroying the object feels like destroying the feeling itself. They acknowledge that this technique may not work for very serious anger issues.

Link to the study

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-57916-z

In prisons, where health care is already poor, the danger posed by PFAS exposure is even greater, says Phil Brown, a Northeastern professor of sociology and health sciences.

Close to 50% of U.S. prisons and detention centers are located near sites that are likely contaminated by dangerous “forever chemicals,” according to new research.

Based on a watershed analysis of all 6,118 prisons and detention centers in the country, the researchers found that 5%, about 310, have a known contamination site nearby. However, 47%, about 2,285, are close to at least one presumptive contamination site, with many located near more than one. At minimum, there are 990,000 incarcerated people in those facilities, including at least 12,800 juveniles. 

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS or “forever chemicals” for their long-lasting impact on the environment, have been linked to increased risks of cancer, thyroid problems and infertility as well as compromised immune and cardiovascular systems.

South Florida researchers trying to prevent predatory fish from devouring laboratory-grown coral are grasping at biodegradable straws in an effort to restore what some call the rainforest of the sea.

Scientists around the world have been working for years to address the decline of coral reef populations. Just last summer, reef rescue groups in South Florida and the Florida Keys were trying to save coral from rising ocean temperatures. Besides working to keep existing coral alive, researchers have also been growing new coral in labs and then placing them in the ocean. 

But protecting the underwater ecosystem that maintains upwards of 25% of all marine species is not easy. Even more challenging is making sure that coral grown in a laboratory and placed into the ocean doesn’t become expensive fish food.

A team of researchers has developed an approach that maps the soil salt content around the world with an exceptional detail of 10 meters. This advance tackles the pressing need for accurate assessments of soil salinity, a formidable challenge that jeopardizes agricultural productivity and soil vitality on a global scale.

Soil salinity, a form of land degradation, affects over 1 billion hectares globally, compromising agricultural productivity and environmental health. Previous attempts at mapping soil salinity were hindered by the coarse spatial resolution of existing datasets and limitations in capturing the continuity of soil salinity content.

Recognizing these challenges, the research team embarked on developing a model that integrates Sentinel-1/2 images, climate data, terrain information, and advanced machine learning algorithms to estimate soil salt content across five climate regions. These findings were detailed in a study published on March 28, 2024, in Journal of Remote Sensing. This research introduces a device that skillfully integrates slanted spiral channels with periodic contraction-expansion arrays.

Findings from the largest UK study of patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 infection show that long COVID leads to ongoing inflammation which can be detected in the blood.

In an analysis of more than 650 people who had been hospitalized with severe COVID-19, patients with prolonged symptoms showed evidence of immune system activation.

The exact pattern of this activation varied depending on the sort of symptoms that they predominantly had—for example, mainly fatigue or cognitive impairment.

The research, led by Imperial College London, suggests that existing drugs which modulate the body's immune system could be helpful in treating long COVID and should be investigated in future clinical trials.

The study, published in the journal Nature Immunology, is the latest research from two collaborative UK-wide consortia, PHOSP-COVID and ISARIC-4C.

Huge gravity of these dense stars, which have burned all their own fuel, rips apart smaller planetary bodies

It’s the end of the world, not quite as we know it.

Scientists from the University of Warwick and other universities have studied the impact white dwarfs – end-of-state stars that have burned all their fuel – have on planetary systems such as our own solar system.

When asteroids, moons and planets get close to white dwarfs, their huge gravity rips these small planetary bodies into smaller and smaller pieces, which continue to collide, eventually grinding them into dust.

While the researchers said Earth would probably be swallowed by our host star, the sun, before it becomes a white dwarf, the rest of our solar system, including asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, as well as moons of Jupiter, ultimately may be shredded by the sun in a white star form.

Each pregnancy is linked with an additional two to three months of biological ageing, researchers say

Pregnancy may speed up biological ageing in women, a study has found.

Scientists at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York looked at the reproductive histories and DNA samples from 1,735 people in a long-term, continuing health survey in the Philippines to investigate the influence pregnancy has on the ageing process.

They worked out participants’ biological age using six different “epigenetic clocks” – genetic tools that estimate biological age based on patterns of a process called DNA methylation.

The study involving 825 young women found that each individual pregnancy a woman reported was linked with an additional two to three months of biological ageing, and women who reported being pregnant more often during a six-year follow-up period showed a greater increase in biological ageing during that period.

The relationships between pregnancy and biological ageing persisted even when the authors accounted for socioeconomic status, smoking, genetic variation and the built environment in participants’ surroundings.

The authors failed to find a link between increased biological ageing and the number of pregnancies fathered by 910 same-aged men from the same health survey.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

A total solar eclipse is crossing North America today. It will slice a diagonal line from the southwest to the northeast, briefly plunging communities in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada along the track into darkness.

Humans experience awe in the face of solar eclipses – but how do the other members of the animal kingdom feel when the day briefly turns to night?

On very special occasions, when the conditions perfectly align, the Moon conceals the Sun and blackness sweeps across the sky.

Although total solar eclipses only last for a few fleeting moments, they can have profound effects on humans, inspiring feelings of awe and wonder. But it's harder to predict how animals will respond when they are plunged into darkness in the daytime. 

Animals rely on a 24-hour biological clock, known as their circadian rhythms, to control daily behaviours such as sleeping, foraging and hunting. The way eclipses disrupt these ingrained routines is relatively unexplored, as cosmic events are such rare phenomena – occurring in any given place roughly once every 400 years – and also, because not all animals react the same.

Or directly, news item link: https://www.mpg.de/21778967/0404-grav-mysterious-object-in-the-gap-152520-x

this is cool to watch. starts in middle. long video

"For all that science has learned about the workings of life, death remains among the most intractable of mysteries....

"New research into the dying brain suggests the line between life and death may be less distinct than previously thought...

"Death may be far more alive than we ever thought possible..."

This study reveals how life’s complexity could originate from simple RNA molecules on early Earth. Through experiments demonstrating RNA’s recycling and replication abilities under conditions such as low salinity and high pH, the research suggests life could emerge from minimal molecular sets in environments akin to volcanic islands. This means that an RNA world could arise without the prior necessity for long complex sequences.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.3c10813# (open access)

48 seconds. I predict a glut of helium. balloons for everyone

A government proposal to cull half a million owls, in order to save a related species, has raised complicated questions

It sounds like a set-up for an ecological horror film – to save one species of owl, US wildlife officials want to shoot down half a million of its cousins.

The federal government’s latest proposal to save the endangered spotted owls has raised complicated questions about the ethics of killing one species to save another, and the role of humans to intervene in the cascading ecological conundrums that they have caused.

The spotted owl – an elusive icon of the American west – has lost most of its habitat in the old growth forests of the Pacific north-west and Canada due to logging and development. The species has also faced increasing competition from the barred owl – a slightly larger, more successful cousin which was lured west over the last century as settlers and homesteaders reshaped the North American landscape.

Now, to save the spotted owls, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has finalised a proposal to cull hundreds of thousands of barred owls across California, Washington and Oregon over the next 30 years.