Science & TechnologyS


Brain

New gut-brain link: How gut mucus could help treat brain disorders


Neuroscience News
Sat, 30 May 2020 00:01 UTC
brain scans
Mucus is the first line of defense against bad bacteria in our gut. But could it also be part of our defense against diseases of the brain?

Bacterial imbalance in the gut is linked with Alzheimer's disease, autism, and other brain disorders, yet the exact causes are unclear.

Now a new research review of 113 neurological, gut, and microbiology studies led by RMIT University suggests a common thread - changes in gut mucus.

Senior author Associate Professor Elisa Hill-Yardin said these changes could be contributing to bacterial imbalance and exacerbating the core symptoms of neurological diseases.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Info

Energy exchange between troposphere and ionosphere revealed in study

Li Yuan, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Phys Org
Mon, 01 Jun 2020 23:16 UTC
Atmospheric Wave
© Babalola OgunsuaAn illustration of the atmospheric wave dynamics from convective processes and ionospheric responses.
The Earth's ionosphere, extending about 80 to 1,000 km above the Earth's surface, connects outer space and the middle atmosphere. It's an important part and key layer in the whole Sun-Earth system.

However, the understanding of the equatorial ionospheric responses to thunderstorms remains a mystery due to the peculiarities in the dynamics of the ionosphere over this region.

A recently published study in Scientific Reports focuses on the Congo Basin, located in the equatorial region, where lightning and severe thunderstorms are considered to be the most active in the world.
Read More...
Info

Geysers may be signalling magma intrusion under Yellowstone

Erik Klemetti
EOS Org
Fri, 29 May 2020 19:06 UTC
Steamboat Geyser
© Jamie Farrell, USGSSteamboat Geyser erupts on 4 June 2018. Scientists examined how deformation and hydrothermal activity in the northern rim area of the Yellowstone caldera might be linked to magmatic intrusions kilometers beneath the surface.
Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park is an enigma. It is the tallest currently active geyser in the world, sometimes blasting superheated water over 90 meters (300 feet) into the air. Yet unlike the more famous Old Faithful, Steamboat Geyser runs on its own rhythm. Sometimes the geyser is quiet for decades and then suddenly bursts back to life. It is a mystery exactly why Steamboat has such behavior. After a new period of activity started in 2018, we might have more clues about what drives these steam-and-water explosions.

Yellowstone caldera is a geologic wonderland. It is the source of three of the largest explosive eruptions in the past 3 million years. The caldera itself covers over 1,500 square kilometers (580 square miles) in the northeast corner of Wyoming. As Charles Wicks from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) puts it, "Yellowstone's roots seem to extend all the way to the core-mantle boundary. In that dimension, it's a magmatic system of continental scale."

The Yellowstone caldera is packed with geothermal features like geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and geothermal pools. This hydrothermal activity is driven by the vast reservoirs of heat beneath the Yellowstone area, most of which comes from the magma found many kilometers underneath the caldera. All this heat and water mean the land surface at Yellowstone rises and falls frequently, meaning Yellowstone is best described as a "restless caldera."
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

New Zealand beaches turn BLOOD RED after millions of lobsters die en masse on the sand


RT
Mon, 01 Jun 2020 14:20 UTC
lobster
© REUTERS/Antonio Bronic
New Zealand's picturesque beaches resemble something from a horror film, after the sandy shorelines have taken on a reddish tint due to hordes of small lobsters perishing while attempting to breed.

The bizarre sight occurred in Otago, in the south of the country, where millions of squat lobsters clung to the beach during high tide but then perished once the tide retreated. The crustaceans "settle" on sand during mating season, but it appears all of the good real estate was occupied - forcing countless lobsters to take their chances on the beach.

The aftermath of their fateful error can be seen in a stunning photograph, which shows a beach with streaks of dark red in the sand.

However, their demise hardly means the end of squat lobsters in New Zealand. An expert who studies the creatures told the Guardian that the perished lobsters are only a "tiny" fraction of the overall.

Read More...
Fireball

What caused Antarctic ice sheet's rapid retreat 12,000 years ago


Cosmos
Tue, 30 Jun 2020 12:00 UTC
ice sheet
© Julian DowdeswellBathymetric data of the grounding-zone wedge complex derived from an AUV-deployed multibeam echo sounder.
Antarctic ice sheets capable of hasty retreat Researchers look back to the end of the last Ice Age.

The ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic coastline were retreating at up to 50 metres a day at the end of the last Ice Age, at least an order of magnitude faster than has been observed in even the most sensitive parts of Antarctica today, a new study has found.

This provides a clear indication of how quickly massive ice sheets can disappear into the ocean, the researchers say, and thus also a warning for the future.

"Should climate change continue to weaken the ice shelves in the coming decades, we could see similar rates of retreat, with profound implications for global sea level rise," says Julian Dowdeswell from the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, UK, which led the study.


Comment: Nothing like that is occurring today - which should alert the researchers to the fact that the melt at the end of the last Ice Age wasn't due to global warming but was instead due to something much more powerful and immediate - in fact, aside from warming induced by undersea volcanoes, ice sheets are growing and summers are becoming colder.


Comment: For insight into what really happened at the end of the last Ice Age, see: The Seven Destructive Earth Passes of Comet Venus

Read More...
Eye 2

Why the US military is building a tunneling earthworm

Kyle Mizokami
Popular Mechanics
Thu, 28 May 2020 12:00 UTC
earthworm
© Fabian von Poser/Getty Images
We should talk about the Pentagon's strange new secret weapon.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's cutting-edge research and development branch, is funding one of the oddest robotic concepts yet: a robot that mimics an earthworm to dig underground tunnels. It's all part of an effort to demonstrate robotic tunneling technologies that will provide a secure way of resupplying U.S. Army troops in battle zones.

In recent years, several armed transnational groups have turned to tunneling to support drug-running, terrorist, and paramilitary operations. Drug cartels, the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and the Islamic State have all broken out their shovels to dig underground tunnels capable of moving drugs, fighters, and equipment. While low-tech in nature, tunnels are an effective way to create secure supply lines hidden from the prying eyes of enemies.
Read More...
Syringe

Further anomalies found with the Oxford coronavirus vaccine

John Stone
Children's Health Defense
Thu, 28 May 2020 20:37 UTC
rocky mountain laboratories
On 27 April a New York Times article reported excitedly the result animal trials of the Oxford Coronavirus vaccine:
"Scientists at the National Institutes of Health's Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine. The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the virus that is causing the pandemic... But more than 28 days later all six were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test.."
Read More...
Info

New model could vastly improve forensic predictions

Natalie Parletta
Cosmos Magazine
Sat, 30 May 2020 18:36 UTC
Death Scene
© Lbusca / Getty Images
Estimating someone's time of death can be a complicated and vague affair, with important ramifications - especially if it's suspicious.

And let's face it, as wryly noted on Coroner Talk, perpetrators are highly unlikely to check the time they committed a homicide and wouldn't let on even if they did.

Scientists say they have now devised a simplified, versatile numerical model to predict body cooling and thus the time elapsed since death (the post-mortem interval), reporting their findings in the journal Science Advances.

Putting their model to the test in deceased people, they projected post-mortem intervals with an average 38-minute error, a considerable improvement on the three to seven-hour discrepancy produced by the current gold standard method.

This is a big deal, as determining someone's time of death "remains one of the most important challenges in forensic medicine to date," write Leah Wilk, from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, and co-authors.

Current methods involve invasive sampling of body tissue or fluids followed by extensive lab tests or examining pathophysiological indicators at the crime scene - of which changes in body temperature are most used.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Trees are getting shorter and younger says new study

Dharna Noor
Gizmodo Australia
Fri, 29 May 2020 23:04 UTC
Forest and River
© Getty Images
The world's collective forests have become shorter and younger overall in the past 50 years, according to a study published in the journal Science on Friday. This means that forests have less capacity to remove carbon from the atmosphere and are less hospitable to the many species that rely on them for shelter. Oh, and it's going to get worse.

The team of researchers reviewed more than 160 previous studies, analysed satellite imagery, and created models to examine how forests changed between 1900 and 2015. They found that over that 115 year period, the world has lost 14 per cent of its forests to tree harvesting alone. That includes 30 per cent of old growth forests, which are home to trees more than 140 years old and are generally tall and biodiverse.

The study doesn't account for other environmental stressors on trees, such as increased carbon dioxide fertilisation due to higher carbon emissions, and more frequent and severe climate-related disruptions such as insect infestations, wildfires, and droughts. Nate McDowell, a scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the study's lead author, told Earther that means the 30 per cent dip in old growth is "a very conservative estimate."

In North America and Europe, where more detailed data was available, the researchers found that tree mortality doubled over that time, and a higher proportion of those deaths were older trees. Their findings suggest that on average, the world is losing old trees. Due to a lack of data, the researchers weren't able to make a precise estimate as to how much shorter the forests have gotten.
Read More...
Attention

Damage control? New study reduces coronavirus deaths for patients on ventilators to 25%

Alexandra Kelly
The Hill
Wed, 06 May 2020 16:51 UTC
ventilator
New health care data suggests that about a quarter of all coronavirus patients placed on ventilators in New York's largest health care system died, first reported by CNN.

The data was gathered at Northwell Health, New York state's largest hospital system. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) examines 5,700 patients hospitalized with coronavirus infections in the New York City region, with final outcomes recorded for 2,634 patients. The average patient age was 63 years old.

New data confirms that out of 1151 patients placed on mechanical ventilation, 282, or 24.5 percent, died. A corresponding 72.2 percent remained in hospital care, while 3.3 percent were discharged alive.

Comment: Sounds like the data has likely been manipulated since ventilators are the wrong treatment for the disease. Most of these patients seems to need more oxygen, not forced air. A high mortality rate for Covid-19 patentis on ventilators has been found all over the world: a 66% mortality rate in the UK, 81% in Italy, and 86% in Wuhan.

Read More...