Science
- www.gla.ac.uk Gravitational wave researchers cast new light on Antikythera mechanism mystery
Techniques developed to analyse the ripples in spacetime detected by one of the 21st century’s most sensitive pieces of scientific equipment have helped cast new light on the function of the oldest known analogue computer.
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Physicists Have Created The World's Most Fiendishly Difficult Maze (using Ammann-Beenker aperiodic tiling and Hamiltonian cycles, possibly mimicking quasicrystal structures)
www.sciencealert.com Physicists Have Created The World's Most Fiendishly Difficult MazeDaedalus could have learned a thing or two from a team of physicists in the UK and Switzerland.
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Bionic leg makes walking quicker and easier for amputees, trial shows | Patients reported less pain and less muscle atrophy following the pioneering surgery required for control of the bionic leg.
www.nature.com Continuous neural control of a bionic limb restores biomimetic gait after amputation - Nature MedicineEnabled by augmented muscle afferents, a bionic leg under continuous neural control restores biomimetic adaptations to various walking speeds, terrains and perturbations.
From the article: A brain-controlled bionic leg has allowed people with amputations to walk more quickly and navigate stairs and obstacles more easily in a groundbreaking trial.
The device allows the wearer to flex, point and rotate the foot of the prosthetic using their thoughts alone. This led to a more natural gait, improved stability on stairs and uneven terrain and a 41% increase in speed compared with a traditional prosthetic. The bionic leg works by reading activity in the patient’s residual leg muscles and uses these signals to control an electrically powered ankle.
“No one has been able to show this level of brain control that produces a natural gait, where the human’s nervous system is controlling the movement, not a robotic control algorithm,” said Prof Hugh Herr, a co-director of the K Lisa Yang Center for Bionics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the senior author of the study.
“Not only will they be able to walk on a flat surface, but they’ll be able to go hiking or dancing because they’ll have full control over their movement,” he added.
Herr is himself a double amputee, having lost both legs to severe frostbite after being caught in a blizzard during a rock climbing trip in 1982. Despite having his original amputations decades ago, he hopes to have revision surgery to be able to benefit from a pair of similar bionic legs in the future.
“I’m thinking of doing that for both of my legs in the coming years,” he said.
In the trial, published in Nature Medicine, seven patients were given the bionic leg and compared with seven patients with traditional amputations. Patients reported less pain and less muscle atrophy following the pioneering surgery required for control of the bionic leg, which preserves natural connections between leg muscles. The patients were also more likely to feel that their prosthetic limb was part of their body.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/01/bionic-leg-walking-quicker-easier-amputees-trial
- theconversation.com What makes a good tree? We used AI to ask birds
Trees are better at designing habitat than we are. Can we use machine learning to get some tips?
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The extremotolerant desert moss Syntrichia caninervis is a promising pioneer plant for colonizing extraterrestrial environments
From the article: While Matt Damon relied on potatoes cultivated in crew biowaste to survive in the hit film The Martian, researchers say it is a humble desert moss that might prove pivotal to establishing life on Mars.
Scientists in China say they have found Syntrichia caninervis – a moss found in regions including Antarctica and the Mojave desert – is able to withstand Mars-like conditions, including drought, high levels of radiation and extreme cold.
The team say their work is the first to look the survival of whole plants in such an environment, while it also focuses on the potential for growing plants on the planet’s surface, rather than in greenhouses.
“The unique insights obtained in our study lay the foundation for outer space colonisation using naturally selected plants adapted to extreme stress conditions,” the team write.
Prof Stuart McDaniel, an expert on moss at the University of Florida and who was not involved in the study, suggested the idea had merits.
“Cultivating terrestrial plants is an important part of any long-term space mission because plants efficiently turn carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and carbohydrates – essentially the air and food that humans need to survive. Desert moss is not edible, but it could provide other important services in space,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jun/30/scientists-find-desert-moss-that-can-survive-on-mars
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Looks and Longevity: Do Prettier People Live Longer?
Highlights
- Little is known about the association between facial attractiveness and longevity
- We analyze how attractiveness based on yearbook pictures is linked to longevity
- We find that the least attractive 1/6th had a significantly Higher Hazard of mortality
- The least attractive 1/6th of women lived almost 2 years less than others at 20.
- The least attractive 1/6th of men lived almost 1 years less than others at 20.
- theconversation.com Does playing chess make you smarter? A look at the evidence
The truth about chess playing and intelligence.
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A trans-oceanic flight of over 4,200 km by painted lady butterflies - Nature Communications
www.nature.com A trans-oceanic flight of over 4,200 km by painted lady butterflies - Nature CommunicationsThe extent and impact of global insect movements is hindered by tracking limitations. This study reveals a 4,200 km transatlantic journey by butterflies from West Africa to South America, lasting 5-8 days, highlighting the remarkable capacity of certain insects to disperse over vast distances.
Additional article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/25/science/butterflies-ocean-migration.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2U0.moxh.43MfSjCSno_6&smid=url-share
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Egyptian scribes suffered work-related injuries, study says | Higher incidence of damage to hips, jaws and thumbs reveals their writing efforts may have taken a toll
www.nature.com Ancient Egyptian scribes and specific skeletal occupational risk markers (Abusir, Old Kingdom) - Scientific ReportsMen with writing proficiency enjoyed a privileged position in ancient Egyptian society in the third millennium BC. Research focusing on these officials of elevated social status (“scribes”) usually concentrates on their titles, scribal statues, iconography, etc., but the individuals themselves, and ...
Additional article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jun/27/egyptian-scribes-work-related-injuries-study
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Singlehood is on the rise around the world. New evidence suggests many single people are choosing to remain single and living happy lives.
theconversation.com Would you be happy as a long-term single? The answer may depend on your attachment styleSecure, anxious, avoidant, fearful: research shows people’s feelings about being single may depend on their attachment style
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jopy.12929
From the linked article:
Are all single people insecure? When we think about people who have been single for a long time, we may assume it’s because single people have insecurities that make it difficult for them to find a partner or maintain a relationship.
But is this true? Or can long-term single people also be secure and thriving?
Our latest research published in the Journal of Personality suggests they can. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, not everybody tends to thrive in singlehood. Our study shows a crucial factor may be a person’s attachment style.
Singlehood is on the rise
Singlehood is on the rise around the world. In Canada, single status among young adults aged 25 to 29 has increased from 32% in 1981 to 61% in 2021. The number of people living solo has increased from 1.7 million people in 1981 to 4.4 million in 2021.
At the same time, evidence suggests many single people are choosing to remain single and living happy lives.
Looking at our results more closely, we found four distinct subgroups of singles:
secure singles are relatively comfortable with intimacy and closeness in relationships (22%)
anxious singles question whether they are loved by others and worry about being rejected (37%)
avoidant singles are uncomfortable getting close to others and prioritise their independence (23% of younger singles and 11% of older long-term singles)
fearful singles have heightened anxiety about abandonment, but are simultaneously uncomfortable with intimacy and closeness (16% of younger singles and 28% of older long-term singles).
These findings should be considered alongside several relevant points. First, although most singles in our samples were insecure (78%), a sizeable number were secure and thriving (22%).
Further, simply being in a romantic relationship is not a panacea. Being in an unhappy relationship is linked to poorer life outcomes than being single.
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Walking three times a week ‘nearly halves’ recurrence of low back pain
Walking three times a week to ease back pain almost halves the risk of its recurrence, according to the first study of its kind.
About 800 million people worldwide have low back pain, and seven in 10 who recover experience flare-ups within a year.
Researchers said the findings, published in the Lancet, show walking could have a “profound impact” on the leading cause of disability worldwide.
“You don’t need to be walking 5 or 10km every day to get these benefits,” said Mark Hancock, the study’s senior author and a professor of physiotherapy at Macquarie University in Australia.
“The important thing to remember is to start with short walks then gradually increase the distance and intensity as your fitness increases. Walking is a low-cost, widely accessible and simple exercise that almost anyone can engage in, regardless of geographic location, age or socioeconomic status.”
Hancock said people who walked three to five times a week, for an average of 130 minutes a week, remained pain-free for nearly twice as long compared with those who did not receive any treatment.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/19/walking-three-times-a-week-nearly-halves-recurrence-of-low-back-pain
- news.mit.edu Reducing carbon emissions from long-haul trucks
MIT researchers are exploring replacing the diesel fuel used in most freight-transport trucks with clean-burning hydrogen, which would significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
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Mothers’ care is central factor in animal, human longevity. In species where offspring survival depends on the longer-term presence of the mother, the species tends to evolve longer lives and a slower
news.cornell.edu Mothers’ care is central factor in animal, human longevity | Cornell ChronicleThe relationship between mother and child offers clues to the mystery of why humans live longer lives than expected for their size – and sheds new light on what it means to be human.
The relationship between mother and child may offer clues to the mystery of why humans live longer lives than expected for their size – and shed new light on what it means to be human.
“It’s one of the really mysterious things about humans, the fact that we live these super long lives as compared to so many other mammals,” said Matthew Zipple, Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow in neurobiology and behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences. “What we’re putting forward is that a part of the explanation for our long lifespan is this other foundational aspect of our lives, which is the relationship between the mother and her child.”
The paper, “Maternal Care Leads to the Evolution of Long, Slow Lives,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 14.
In their models, Zipple and co-authors found consistently that in species where offspring survival depends on the longer-term presence of the mother, the species tends to evolve longer lives and a slower life pace, which is characterized by how long an animal lives and how often it reproduces.
“As we see these links between maternal survival and offspring fitness grow stronger, we see the evolution of animals having longer lives and reproducing less often – the same pattern we see in humans,” Zipple said. “And what’s nice about this model is that it’s general to mammals overall, because we know these links exist in other species outside of primates, like hyenas, whales and elephants.”
Zipple and co-authors provide a universal mathematical model that demonstrates the relationship between the maternal survival and fitness of offspring on the one hand, and on the other, pace of life. Two additional empirical models incorporate the types of data about maternal survival and offspring fitness collected by field ecologists. Zipple said the hope is that these models can be further tested and utilized by field ecologists to predict how maternal care and survival impacts the evolution of a species’ lifespan
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2403491121
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Scientists have discovered that a type of white blood cell exists as a single large population of cells that move throughout the body looking for, and repairing, damaged tissue | Discovery of ‘new rul
www.cam.ac.uk Discovery of ‘new rules of the immune system’ could improve treatment of inflammatory diseases, say scientists.Scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered that a type of white blood cell - called a regulatory T cell - exists as a single large population of
From the article: This overturns the traditional thinking that regulatory T cells exist as multiple specialist populations that are restricted to specific parts of the body. The finding has implications for the treatment of many different diseases – because almost all diseases and injuries trigger the body’s immune system.
Current anti-inflammatory drugs treat the whole body, rather than just the part needing treatment. The researchers say their findings mean it could be possible to shut down the body’s immune response and repair damage in any specific part of the body, without affecting the rest of it. This means that higher, more targeted doses of drugs could be used to treat disease – potentially with rapid results.
“We’ve uncovered new rules of the immune system. This ‘unified healer army’ can do everything - repair injured muscle, make your fat cells respond better to insulin, regrow hair follicles. To think that we could use it in such an enormous range of diseases is fantastic: it’s got the potential to be used for almost everything,” said Professor Adrian Liston in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Pathology, senior author of the paper.
To reach this discovery, the researchers analysed the regulatory T cells present in 48 different tissues in the bodies of mice. This revealed that the cells are not specialised or static, but move through the body to where they’re needed. The results are published today in the journal Immunity: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2024.05.023
- phys.org Researchers invent 100% biodegradable 'barley plastic'
A biofriendly new material made from barley starch blended with fiber from sugarbeet waste—a strong material that turns into compost should it end up in nature—has been created at the University of Copenhagen. In the long term, the researchers hope that their invention can help put the brakes on pla...
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"How I Found A 55 Year Old Bug In The First Lunar Lander Game" by Martin C. Martin
martincmartin.com How I Found A 55 Year Old Bug In The First Lunar Lander GameJust months after Neil Armstrong’s historic moonwalk, Jim Storer, a Lexington High School student in Massachusetts, wrote the first Lunar Landing game. By 1973, it had become “by far an…
"I recently explored the optimal fuel burn schedule to land as gently as possible and with maximum remaining fuel. Surprisingly, the theoretical best strategy didn’t work. The game falsely thinks the lander doesn’t touch down on the surface when in fact it does. Digging in, I was amazed by the sophisticated physics and numerical computing in the game. Eventually I found a bug: a missing “divide by two” that had seemingly gone unnoticed for nearly 55 years."
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This week in science
- Bird flu: https://bit.ly/3VcvnsY & https://bit.ly/3VfS7bn
- Io photos: https://bit.ly/3KALs6K
- China's lunar lander: https://bit.ly/3Vmik8q
- Largest genome: https://bit.ly/4c7VFmS
- First rains: https://bit.ly/4aV0Llw
- Chocolate: https://www.sciencealert.com/theres-a-new-way-to-make-chocolate-thats-healthier-and-less-wasteful
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Transcription and translation of Grothendieck’s 1972 CERN talk "Will we continue scientific research?"
thehighergeometer.wordpress.com Transcription and translation of Grothendieck’s 1972 CERN talkThis talk, titled Allons-nous continuer la recherche scientifique? [Will we continue scientific research?] is rather different. It’s not a mathematics research talk, but a sociological one, b…
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/14096418
> A link from @[email protected] to a 1972 talk by Grothendieck (including a recording; I don't think I'd ever actually heard his voice before!). It's interesting how complaints that seem very modern have existed for so long. > > > I’ve been taking every opportunity to meet scientists, whether in public discussions like this one or in private, and raise these questions. In particular: “Why do we do scientific research?” [...] The extraordinary thing is to see how incapable my colleagues are of answering this question. In fact, for most of them, the question is simply so strange, so extraordinary, that they refuse even to contemplate it. In any case, they are extremely reluctant to give any kind of answer. > > > I’ve come to realize that in fact this satisfaction that scientists are supposed to derive from exercising their cherished profession, is a pleasure… which is not a pleasure for everyone! [...] Once you’ve got your job, it’s an imperative to move up the ladder. Once you’ve moved up the ladder, even assuming you’ve made it to the top, it’s an imperative to be considered in the running. You’re expected to produce. Scientific production—like any other kind of production in the ambient civilization—is considered an imperative in itself. The remarkable thing about all this is that in the end, the content of research becomes a second thought. It’s all about producing a certain number of “papers”. In extreme cases, a scientist’s productivity is measured by the number of pages they publish. Under these conditions, for a large number of scientists—certainly for the overwhelming majority, with the real exception of a few who are fortunate enough to have an exceptional gift or to be in a social position and disposition that enables them to free themselves from these feelings of constraint—for most, scientific research is a real constraint that kills the pleasure one can have in carrying it out.
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This Week in Science
Full articles:
- Apex predator: https://bit.ly/3KnI6Uu
- Brains & autism: https://bit.ly/3KpXW0R
- First galaxies: https://bit.ly/3VpeigA
- Ancient cancer treatment: https://bit.ly/454VxCo
- Protein & microbiome: https://bit.ly/3KmVqsp
- Misinformation:https://www.sciencealert.com/one-action-has-made-a-significant-impact-on-how-misinformation-spreads-online
- theconversation.com Welcome to the age of space scepticism – and a growing revolt against elites
Billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are among those most vocal about the benefits of exploring, mining and colonising space.
- www.theregister.com Entire tech stack rethink needed to solve AI energy crisis
Think biologically not digitally to go from megawatts to watts, HAI gathering told
- cepr.org How influencer cartels manipulate social media: Fraudulent behaviour hidden in plain sight
Social media influencers account for a growing share of marketing budgets worldwide. This column examines a problem within this rapidly expanding advertising market – influencer cartels, in which groups of influencers collude to increase advertising revenue by inflating each other’s engagement numbe...
- www.quantamagazine.org Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang | Quanta Magazine
By studying the geometry of model space-times, researchers offer alternative views of the universe’s first moments.
- www.bbc.com Some Parisians save 'le pipi' to help the Seine
The plan for a swimmable Seine casts a spotlight on the people doing better things with Paris' waste, fertilising wheat for baguettes and biscuits.
Some very cool stuff buried in the article:
>Gazing at the turbulent, rain-swollen river, Esculier highlights what he sees as a curious paradox: as a society, we are spending energy on treating our nitrogen-rich wastewater and destroying reactive nitrogen, while also, spending energy on making synthetic nitrogen fertiliser (whose production and use account for around 2% to 5% of greenhouse gas emissions). Treatment facilities capture around 10% of nitrogen from our sewage to be spread on crops, while 50% goes into the air, he says - and the remainder, into the river. Given a greater Paris population of 10 million people, this means "nitrogen from four million people goes into the Seine every day".
>If we used all the urine from greater Paris to fertilise wheat instead, it would be enough to produce more than 25 million baguettes a day," Esculier calculates.
>Over the past decade, Esculier has tried to put some of those findings into practice, trialling ways to collect urine and use it as fertiliser. In its simplest form, he was familiar with this from his own family history: "One of my grandmothers used to tell her children to go and pee on the rhubarb," he says, which gave the plant a boost of natural fertiliser.
>Under a research programme called Ocapi, which Esculier leads, he and his team have organised various pilot projects aimed at collecting urine in cities which is then used by farmers to fertilise their crops. In one project, 20 volunteers collect their own urine and bring it to a drop-off point, where a farmer then collects it, stores it and uses it as fertiliser.
>Esculier hands me a packet of biscuits produced as part of the Ocapi project. As the label proudly states, the Biscodor (or "Golden Biscuits") are made with flour from "wheat cultivated with a fertiliser based on human urine". I put them in my bag, curious to see what my colleagues in London would think of them.
>The idea of separating urine at source is attracting interest on a larger scale.
>Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, a planned new neighbourhood in Paris in the grounds of an old hospital, will feature urine-separating toilets as part of a recycling pilot programme by the City of Paris.
>"It's fairly rare in Paris to have a new neighbourhood, given that the city is essentially already built, so we don't have many opportunities to test these kinds of things," says Antoine Guillou, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of waste management, recycling and sanitation. He adds: "The idea is to test the separation of urine, and to see if it can be collected and used as fertiliser."
>The new neighbourhood in Paris' 14th arrondissement will comprise around 600 households, "which is quite a considerable size for an experiment but is small compared to the whole of Paris", Guillou points out.
- www.sciencedaily.com Parasitic worm likely playing role in decline of moose populations
A parasitic worm that can infest the brains of moose appears to be playing a role in the decline of the iconic animal in some regions of North America. Moose populations have been dwindling for years across the country due to many contributing factors, but new research has found the impact of Eleaop...
Moose populations have been dwindling for years across the country due to many contributing factors, but new research at Washington State University has found the impact of Eleaophora schneideri, also known as the arterial worm, has likely been underestimated.
Researchers examined recently deceased Shiras moose in Idaho between March 2020 and July 2022. While the parasitic roundworm E. schneideri was not detected in any of the animals found in north Idaho, it was present in 10 of the 20 adult moose studied in the southeastern portion of the state. Nine of the infected not only had adult worms in their major arteries but their brains were littered with microfilariae, the microscopic early life stage of the worm.
"The microfilaria are just scattered throughout their brains, and even though the damage from each is miniscule, they're basically shot-gunning the whole brain," said Kyle Taylor, a pathologist at WSU's Washington Animal Disease Diagnostics Laboratory. "We hypothesize the cumulative effects of large numbers of microfilariae in the brain may be associated with increased morbidity or chance of mortality, with mortality more likely in cases with larger numbers of worms."
- spectrum.ieee.org Stretchable Batteries Make Flexible Electronics Moreso
As tech demands stretchy and pliable form factors, batteries will adapt
- www.sciencenews.org Separating science fact from fiction in Netflix's ‘3 Body Problem’
Real science underpins much of the action in the show — along with a hefty dose of artistic liberty.
- nautil.us How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math
Sorry, education reformers, it’s still memorization and repetition we need.
- phys.org Computer game helps students get better at detecting fake news
A computer game helped upper secondary school students become better at distinguishing between reliable and misleading news. This is shown by a study conducted by researchers at Uppsala University and elsewhere.
- eukaryotewritesblog.com Carl Sagan, nuking the moon, and not nuking the moon
Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought “I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the moon.” The truth is that given a lot of power, a nuclear weapon, and a lot of extremely specific c…
- www.quantamagazine.org Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare | Quanta Magazine
A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness.
An interesting read. "A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness." https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/
- liu.se A single atom layer of gold – LiU researchers create goldene
For the first time, scientists have managed to create sheets of gold only a single atom layer thick. According to the researchers from LiU this has given the gold new properties that can make it suitable for use in various applications.
Super cool science but I absolutely hate the name
- news.ucr.edu Vaccine breakthrough means no more chasing strains
Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.
- www.eurekalert.org Millions of gamers advance biomedical research
4.5 million gamers around the world have advanced medical science by helping to reconstruct microbial evolutionary histories using a minigame included inside the critically and commercially successful video game, <em>Borderlands 3</em>. Their playing has led to a significantly refined estimate of th...
- phys.org Say hello to biodegradable microplastics: Plant-based polymers that can disappear within seven months
Microplastics are tiny, nearly indestructible fragments shed from everyday plastic products. As we learn more about microplastics, the news keeps getting worse. Already well-documented in our oceans and soil, we're now discovering them in the unlikeliest of places: our arteries, lungs and even place...
- phys.org Magnetic levitation: New material offers potential for unlocking gravity-free technology
Researchers at the Quantum Machines Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) are studying levitating materials—substances that can remain suspended in a stable position without any physical contact or mechanical support.