science

https://www.space.com/sun-fires-off-massive-x-class-solar-flares-may-11-2024

https://apnews.com/article/solar-storm-flares-eruption-sun-fc23251025efc2d20dc128dc0b6a7c68

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/10/world/solar-flares-storms-cme-auroras-scn/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/science/solar-storm-earth.html

Every time I mention that I like Huberman's podcasts, I get bombarded with comments on how he's basically a fool, a liar, yadayada.

And when I read every link, trying to see if maybe I should ditch his podcasts... all I see is, at most, in very specific cases, that some scientists defend different theories.

Like... wow. Science in a nutshell.

That is specially funny once you actually listen to his podcasts, because he is constantly reminding people that his words are not the literal truth, that he is no cop, and that he is simply collecting some evidence and always asking for people to go research this information, consult their doctor/physician/professional...

Joe Rogan has like a 1000 clips that can give you absolute clues on how this guy is... well... not great. And my guess is that people are associating a big muscular man with another?

Has the podcast claimed that the white male is a superior species or what am I missing?

Come on, what kind of dark agenda does a guy like Huberman have when basically everything that he says can be condensed into:

• get good sleep
• do sport
• eat well
• go outside ?

Another thing I've seen is many articles pointing out his "bad romances" and other weird personal life details, as if that mattered somehow?

Non-paywall link:

https://dnyuz.com/2024/05/07/scientists-find-an-alphabet-in-whale-songs/

Similar articles:

https://www.reuters.com/science/scientists-document-remarkable-sperm-whale-phonetic-alphabet-2024-05-07/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-discover-a-phonetic-alphabet-used-by-sperm-whales-moving-one-step-closer-to-decoding-their-chatter-180984326/

Scientists are racing to trace deep ocean species before they are lost, with the help of photographers who have a taste for danger.

In 2010 four friends, carrying 32kg (71lb) worth of camera equipment, sunk beneath the waves of Sodwana Bay, off the east coast of South Africa. It was then that photographer, Laurent Ballesta stared directly into the eyes of a creature once thought to have died out with the dinosaurs – and took the first ever photograph of a living coelacanth.

"It's not just a fish we thought was extinct," says Ballesta. "It's a masterpiece in the history of evolution."

Venture back to the beginning of the age of the dinosaurs, and you'd find coelacanths in abundance, on every continent, living in the steamy marshes of the Triassic Period. Dating back 410 million years, the coelacanth belongs to the group of "lobe-finned" fish that left the ocean between about 390 and 360 million years ago. Its strong, fleshy fins were a precursor to the paired limbs of tetrapods, which include all land-living vertebrates – amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals and, yes, humans too. In fact, coelacanths are more closely related to tetrapods than to any other known fish species.

A 2020 Cochrane review that assessed the two clinical trials concluded that "whether adults see their dentist for a check‐up every six months or at personalized intervals based on their dentist's assessment of their risk of dental disease does not affect tooth decay, gum disease, or quality of life. Longer intervals (up to 24 months) between check‐ups may not negatively affect these outcomes." The Cochrane reviewers reported that they were "confident" of little to no difference between six-month and risk-based check-ups and were "moderately confident" that going up to 24-month checkups would make little to no difference either.

Likewise, Nadanovsky and his colleagues highlight that there is no evidence supporting the benefit of common scaling and polishing treatments for adults without periodontitis. And for children, cavities in baby teeth are routinely filled, despite evidence from a randomized controlled trial that rates of pain and infections are similar—about 40 percent—whether the cavities are filled or not.

A cohort study found that individuals who engaged in mentally stimulating jobs during their 30s to 60s were less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia after turning 70, highlighting the importance of cognitive stimulation during midlife for maintaining cognitive function in old age. [It is important to note that this study identifies associations rather than direct causation of dementia.]

https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000209353

A four-year project aims to discover whether plants, soil and bacteria from the past can help current crops survive changing weather conditions.

Plant biologists in Edinburgh are set to work with European scientists to determine whether microbes from hundreds of thousands of years ago can help present-day plant species adapt to climate change.

The Heriot-Watt University team has been awarded £500,000 by Horizon Europe, a European Union scientific research initiative, to work on the four-year project.

The scheme, called Tolerate, is examining ancient soil samples extracted from deep below the Arctic.

Dr Ross Alexander, a plant molecular biologist at Heriot-Watt, said: “The Tolerate team is using samples from the palaeolithic period, around 100-200,000 years ago, because the planet was warming then, much like now.

When trillions of periodical cicadas emerge in a rare double event, they provide a disruptive feast for other species.

This April, trillions of periodical cicadas began their descent on the midwest and southeast of the United States, causing so much noise that local residents called the police to complain. But the cicadas don't just disrupt neighbourhoods with a deafening soundtrack, they also throw food chains into chaos.

After spending more than a decade burrowed underground sipping on tree root juices, two broods – Brood XIII and Brood XIX – are emerging at the same time in 2024: the first time they have done so simultaneously since 1803.

Such emergence of the insects en masse will disrupt ecological food systems, says Grace Soltis, a PhD student studying evolutionary biology at Florida State University.

"Cicada emergences can completely rewire a food web," says Soltis, who co-authored a paper studying the cascading impacts of bird predation on cicadas during the 2021 Brood X emergence. "For predators, these emergences are a huge boom in resources. It's basically like an all-you-can-eat buffet for the hungry predator."

…

Mass cicada emergences can cover up to 190,000 sq mi (500,000 sq km), says John Lill, professor of biology at George Washington University's department of biological sciences and another co-author on the cascade paper. As a result, this diet shift causes a ripple effect down the food chain: "It's a pretty substantial disruption across a whole landscape," he says, "generalist predators switch over to feeding on this bounty of food".

The engineering of artificial cells requires a reconfigurable cytoskeleton that can organize at distinct locations and dynamically modulate its structural and mechanical properties. This study combines peptide self-assembly with DNA programmability to realize a synthetic cytoskeleton in droplets showing that programmable peptide–DNA nanotechnology approach is a powerful platform towards the construction of functional, fully artificial cells.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-024-01509-w (open access)

More frequent heatwaves mean bees are unable to thermoregulate their hives – further endangering a species already in decline

Bumblebee nests may be overheating, killing off broods and placing one of the Earth’s critical pollinators in decline as temperatures rise, new research has found.

Around the world, many species of Bombus, or bumblebee, have suffered population declines due to global heating, the research said. Bumblebee colonies are known for their ability to thermoregulate: in hot conditions, worker bees gather to beat their wings and fan the hive, cooling it down. But as the climate crisis pushes average temperatures up and generates heatwaves, bumblebees will struggle to keep their homes habitable.

Most bumblebee broods would not survive at temperatures above 36C, the paper, published in Frontiers in Bee Science, concluded. The research team reviewed 180 years of literature, and found that for all bumblebee species studied the optimum temperature range for incubating nests was between 28C and 32C.

Peter Kevan, the lead author of the study, told the Guardian: “If \[bumblebees] can’t keep temperatures below what is probably a lethal limit of about 35C, when the brood may die, that could explain why we are losing so many bumblebees around the world, especially in North America and Europe.”

A rare dye made from snails for the robes of the Roman elite almost 2,000 years ago has been unearthed at a cricket club.

The chunk of Tyrian purple, roughly the size of a ping pong ball, was dug up at Carlisle Cricket Club as part of ongoing yearly excavations.

A Roman bathhouse was discovered at the site in 2017 and in the last three years 2,000 items including pottery, weapons, coins and semi-precious stones have been found.

Lead archaeologist Frank Giecco said the find was of "international significance" and the first time the precious pigment had been discovered in the UK.

Mr Giecco said the pigment was worth more than gold and would have been used to dye the clothes of figures in the imperial court and the "highest echelons" of society.

He said it was made from the glands of marine snail and about 12,000 were needed to obtain less than 2g of pigment.

The telephone game is used to demonstrate that humans and chimpanzees are indeed related.

This study describes the identification of an antibiotic class acting via LpxH, involved in lipopolysaccharide synthesis having potent in vivo efficacy against bloodstream infections caused by the critical Gram-negative pathogens E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Further development of this class of antibiotics could make an important contribution to the ongoing struggle against antibiotic resistance.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2317274121 (open access)

This study attempts to identify the “protective” genetic factors that can modify or reduce the effect of APOEε4 on Alzheimer’s disease risk and to identify new pathogenic mechanisms, proteins, and pathways that inform development of therapeutic targets and diagnostics.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00401-024-02721-1 (open access).

Brief anger can temporarily impair blood vessel function, potentially heightening heart disease and stroke risks, finds new study in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Scientists have identified a new hybrid brain cell, sharing attributes of neurons and astrocytes. These cells can release neurotransmitters and may influence conditions like epilepsy and memory consolidation.

I love the idea and goals, but just reading the headline, I immediately leaped to one thought. Reading the article, they eventually addressed it.

> In week two, we were somewhat surprised to find aquatic life – water fleas and mosquito larvae darting about under the surface.

If we don't go to great lengths every season limit every opportunity for mosquitoes to breed, our backyard is miserably unusable for half of the year.

The decipherment of an ancient scroll has revealed where the Greek philosopher Plato is buried, Italian researchers suggest.

Graziano Ranocchia, a philosopher at the University of Pisa, and colleagues used artificial intelligence (AI) to decipher text preserved on charred pieces of papyrus recovered in Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town located near Pompeii, according to a translated statement from Italy's National Research Council.

Like Pompeii, Herculaneum was destroyed in A.D. 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted, cloaking the region in ash and pyroclastic flows.

One of the scrolls carbonized by the eruption includes the writings of Philodemus of Gadara (lived circa 110 to 30 B.C.), an Epicurean philosopher who studied in Athens and later lived in Italy. This text, known as the "History of the Academy," details the academy that Plato founded in the fourth century B.C. and gives details about Plato's life, including his burial place.

…

"Among the most important news, we read that Plato was buried in the garden reserved for him (a private area intended for the Platonic school) of the Academy in Athens, near the so-called Museion or sacellum sacred to the Muses," researchers wrote in the statement. "Until now it was only known that he was buried generically in the Academy."

The text also detailed how Plato was "sold into slavery" sometime between 404 and 399 B.C. (It was previously thought that this occurred in 387 B.C.)

Researchers are calling for the retraction of misleading anti-abortion studies that could influence judges in critical cases

The retraction of three peer-reviewed articles prominently cited in court cases on the so-called abortion pill – mifepristone – has put a group of papers by anti-abortion researchers in the scientific limelight.

Seventeen sexual and reproductive health researchers are calling for four peer-reviewed studies by anti-abortion researchers to be retracted or amended. The papers, critics contend, are “fatally flawed” and muddy the scientific consensus for courts and lawmakers who lack the scientific training to understand their methodological flaws.

While some papers date back to 2002, the group argues that now – in the post-Roe v Wade era – the stakes have never been higher. State and federal courts now routinely field cases on near-total abortion bans, attacks on in vitro fertilization and attempts to give fetuses the rights of people.

“When we saw the meta-analysis presented again and again and again – in the briefs to the Dobbs case” that overturned Roe v Wade “and state cases” to restrict abortion, “the concerns really rose,” said Julia Littell, a retired Bryn Mawr professor and social researcher with expertise in statistical analysis.

A meta-analysis is a kind of research that uses statistical methods to combine studies on the same topic. Researchers sometimes use these analyses to examine the scientific consensus on a subject.

interesting clickbait headline

A London librarian has analyzed millions of articles in search of uncommon terms abused by artificial intelligence programs

Librarian Andrew Gray has made a “very surprising” discovery. He analyzed five million scientific studies published last year and detected a sudden rise in the use of certain words, such as meticulously (up 137%), intricate (117%), commendable (83%) and meticulous (59%). The librarian from the University College London can only find one explanation for this rise: tens of thousands of researchers are using ChatGPT — or other similar Large Language Model tools with artificial intelligence — to write their studies or at least “polish” them.

There are blatant examples. A team of Chinese scientists published a study  on lithium batteries on February 17. The work — published in a specialized magazine from the Elsevier publishing house — begins like this: “Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic: Lithium-metal batteries are promising candidates for….” The authors apparently asked ChatGPT for an introduction and accidentally copied it as is. A separate article in a different Elsevier journal, published by Israeli researchers on March 8, includes the text: In summary, the management of bilateral iatrogenic I’m very sorry, but I don’t have access to real-time information or patient-specific data, as I am an AI language model.” And, a couple of months ago, three Chinese scientists published a crazy drawing of a rat with a kind of giant penis, an image generated with artificial intelligence for a study on sperm precursor cells.

Conservation actions are effective at reducing global biodiversity loss, according to a major study.

International researchers spent 10 years looking at measures, from hatching Chinook salmon to eradication of invasive algae.

The authors said their findings offered a "ray of light" for those working to protect threatened animals and plants.

One out of every three species monitored is currently endangered because of human activities.