Science & Environment

[spaminator]

Silence and sounds are heard the same way, new study finds
Author of the articleenette Wilford
Published Jul 16, 2023 • 2 minute read

Does silence have a sound?


While that is not a rhetorical question, it is a question that seems more fitting in a philosophy lecture or Simon & Garfunkel concert, not a science lab.


But a new study titled The Perception of Silence, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests people really can hear the absence of sound.

Researchers out of Johns Hopkins University found that the human brain actively processes silence, which could explain why people pay so much attention to “an awkward pause in a conversation, a suspenseful gap between thunderclaps, or the hush at the end of a musical performance.”

“We typically think of our sense of hearing as being concerned with sounds,” lead author Rui Zhe Goh, a Johns Hopkins University graduate student in philosophy and psychology, told Science Daily.


“But silence, whatever it is, is not a sound — it’s the absence of sound,” Goh continued. “Surprisingly, what our work suggests is that nothing is also something you can hear.”

Similar to how optical illusions can trick what people see, auditory illusions can make people hear periods of time as being longer or shorter than they actually are.

The team adapted well-known auditory illusions to create versions in which the sounds of the original illusions were replaced by moments of silence, and studied how 1,000 participants responded to the series of auditory illusions.

The team swapped well-known sounds with moments of silence, re-working the auditory illusion into what they dubbed the “one-silence-is-more illusion.”


They found people generally said the continuous tone sounded longer than the two individual tones.

When the researchers flipped the illusion, asking participants to assess the duration of either a continuous silence in the middle of a tone or two disconnected silent breaks, they found that the same thing happened: the participants perceived the continuous silence as longer than the broken-up silences.

In another illusion, the researchers presented the participants with two sounds played simultaneously: an organ holding a note and an engine running — then would stop one resulting in partial quiet.




This experiment was done five times with five noise drop-offs. The organ went silent in the first four dropouts but in the fifth and final dropout, the organ played on while the engine noise died.

People reported that the last silence seemed longer than the first four, even though they all lasted the same amount of time.

“Philosophers have long debated whether silence is something we can literally perceive, but there hasn’t been a scientific study aimed directly at this question,” according to Chaz Firestone, an assistant professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences who directs the Johns Hopkins Perception & Mind Laboratory.

“Our approach was to ask whether our brains treat silences the way they treat sounds,” Firestone said. “If you can get the same illusions with silences as you get with sounds, then that may be evidence that we literally hear silence after all.”

For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to Healthing.ca – a member of the Postmedia Network.

The sound of silence? Researchers demonstrate people hear it

Silence might not be deafening but it's something that literally can be heard, concludes a team of philosophers and psychologists who used auditory illusions to reveal how moments of silence distort people's perception of time.

sciencedaily.com

http://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2301463120

NOTHING BUT NOISE: Silence and sounds are heard the same way, new study finds

Does silence have a sound?

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Silence and sounds are heard the same way, new study finds
Author of the articleenette Wilford
Published Jul 16, 2023 • 2 minute read

Does silence have a sound?


While that is not a rhetorical question, it is a question that seems more fitting in a philosophy lecture or Simon & Garfunkel concert, not a science lab.


But a new study titled The Perception of Silence, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests people really can hear the absence of sound.

Researchers out of Johns Hopkins University found that the human brain actively processes silence, which could explain why people pay so much attention to “an awkward pause in a conversation, a suspenseful gap between thunderclaps, or the hush at the end of a musical performance.”

“We typically think of our sense of hearing as being concerned with sounds,” lead author Rui Zhe Goh, a Johns Hopkins University graduate student in philosophy and psychology, told Science Daily.


“But silence, whatever it is, is not a sound — it’s the absence of sound,” Goh continued. “Surprisingly, what our work suggests is that nothing is also something you can hear.”

Similar to how optical illusions can trick what people see, auditory illusions can make people hear periods of time as being longer or shorter than they actually are.

The team adapted well-known auditory illusions to create versions in which the sounds of the original illusions were replaced by moments of silence, and studied how 1,000 participants responded to the series of auditory illusions.

The team swapped well-known sounds with moments of silence, re-working the auditory illusion into what they dubbed the “one-silence-is-more illusion.”


They found people generally said the continuous tone sounded longer than the two individual tones.

When the researchers flipped the illusion, asking participants to assess the duration of either a continuous silence in the middle of a tone or two disconnected silent breaks, they found that the same thing happened: the participants perceived the continuous silence as longer than the broken-up silences.

In another illusion, the researchers presented the participants with two sounds played simultaneously: an organ holding a note and an engine running — then would stop one resulting in partial quiet.




This experiment was done five times with five noise drop-offs. The organ went silent in the first four dropouts but in the fifth and final dropout, the organ played on while the engine noise died.

People reported that the last silence seemed longer than the first four, even though they all lasted the same amount of time.

“Philosophers have long debated whether silence is something we can literally perceive, but there hasn’t been a scientific study aimed directly at this question,” according to Chaz Firestone, an assistant professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences who directs the Johns Hopkins Perception & Mind Laboratory.

“Our approach was to ask whether our brains treat silences the way they treat sounds,” Firestone said. “If you can get the same illusions with silences as you get with sounds, then that may be evidence that we literally hear silence after all.”

For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to Healthing.ca – a member of the Postmedia Network.

The sound of silence? Researchers demonstrate people hear it

Silence might not be deafening but it's something that literally can be heard, concludes a team of philosophers and psychologists who used auditory illusions to reveal how moments of silence distort people's perception of time.

sciencedaily.com

http://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2301463120

NOTHING BUT NOISE: Silence and sounds are heard the same way, new study finds

Does silence have a sound?

torontosun.com

 

[socratus]

July 14, 2023. Nobel Laureate Physicist Calls Climate Emergency
a “Dangerous Corruption of Science”
by James Murphy

Nobel Laureate Physicist Calls Climate Emergency a "Dangerous Corruption of Science"

Dr. John F. Clauser understands that climate-emergency dogma "threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people." ...

thenewamerican.com

 

[socratus]

July 14, 2023. Nobel Laureate Physicist Calls Climate Emergency
a “Dangerous Corruption of Science”
by James Murphy

Nobel Laureate Physicist Calls Climate Emergency a "Dangerous Corruption of Science"

Dr. John F. Clauser understands that climate-emergency dogma "threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people." ...

thenewamerican.com

Global Warming

 

[spaminator]

Scientists found Earth's sunniest spot, where it's like standing on Venus
Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Kasha Patel
Published Jul 20, 2023 • 5 minute read

Located near the western coast of South America is a large plain near the Andes Mountains, the Altiplano of the Atacama Desert. Standing at more than 4,000 metres high, this generally cold and dry spot on Earth also receives more sunlight than any other place on the planet — outshining locations that are higher in elevation and closer to the equator. In fact, the plateau can see as much sun as Venus.


A recent study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society measured a world record of solar irradiance (the output of light energy from the sun to Earth) of 2,177 watts per square metre on the Altiplano, which is also the second highest extensive plateau on Earth. That’s much higher than the radiation at the top of our atmosphere, which receives about 1,360 watts per square metre.


“It’s actually the radiation that you will be receiving in summer if you are standing up on Venus,” said study author Raul Cordero, a climatologist at University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He said that comparison is “incredible” because Venus is about 28% closer than Earth to the Sun.

On average, the solar irradiance on the plateau is around 308 watts per square metre, still the highest worldwide. Cordero said the solar energy potential in the Altiplano is roughly, on average, twice as high than in Central Europe and the U.S. East Coast.


“If you are exposed to such a high radiation danger, you have to protect your skin,” said Cordero. “At this particular location, for people working there … they are aware that the radiation was high, but now we know how really high.”

Satellite data have previously shown this area receives the most sunlight on Earth, but the new study analyzed new measurements to help explain why this area experiences such extreme radiation. The measurements were conducted at the Chajnantor Plateau, a vast flat expanse standing at more than 5,000 metres high and means “lift off place.” It hosts major astronomical projects including the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA).

The team found the extreme radiation can be traced back to thin, high-altitude clouds in the area.


Cordero explained that clouds often block sunlight or reflect radiation back into space, but thin broken clouds at this location can intensely focus the sun on the surface in a phenomenon known as forward scattering — like holding up a magnifying glass to the sun. The study found these clouds, typically cumulus, cirrus or cirrostratus clouds, can enhance solar radiation on the surface by up to 80% compared to cloudless conditions.

These clouds are most pronounced in January and February during the summer in the southern hemisphere. The moisture that creates these clouds comes from the Amazon, during the South American monsoon.

“What was striking to me was how large the value can get under the conditions of forward scattering in Altiplano,” said Tirthankar Chakraborty, an Earth scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who was not involved in the research. “This is an interesting observational study of solar extremes possible on our planet, setting new records for shortwave radiation at the surface.”


Seiji Kato, an atmospheric scientist at NASA who was also not involved in the research, was not surprised at the study’s findings. He said when solar irradiance is transmitted through the atmosphere, it is absorbed by water vapor and scattered by clouds and aerosols. But a high elevation place that is located above the water vapor layer and has less clouds and aerosols would receive more sunshine.

Cordero said these clouds show up in other high-elevation places too, such as the Himalayan plateau, but they still don’t experience as high solar radiation values.

For one, summer in the northern hemisphere is less intense than its counterpart in the southern hemisphere. During summer in the southern hemisphere, Earth’s orbit is closer to the sun and reaches a point called perihelion in early January. As a result, solar irradiance is up to 7% higher in the southern hemisphere than the northern.


Second, the northern hemisphere also has more ozone molecules from the surface to space than the southern hemisphere. Ozone molecules higher in our atmosphere act as a natural sunscreen and protect us from the sun’s radiation.

The study, Kato pointed out, also only looks at downward solar irradiance, but there are other radiation sources to consider as well.

For instance, he said the surface also receives irradiance emitted by the atmosphere, which we can’t see and isn’t useful for solar power. But when clouds (especially low-level clouds) are present in the atmosphere, he said that radiation emitted by the atmosphere can be greater than the radiation coming directly from the sun on a cloudless day. That’s also the reason you may feel warmer standing outside on a cloudy winter night than on a clear winter night.


If you were to add both the solar irradiance and atmospheric irradiance, data from the NASA CERES satellite show that the largest irradiance at the surface occurs in an equatorial region over the Pacific Ocean, said Kato, who is also a member of the satellite team.

The sunniest spots also don’t always correspond to hottest places, either. Another recent study, authored by Chakraborty, determined the hottest places in the world for human discomfort, placing cities in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan at the top. Additionally, he and his colleagues found that most of the urban areas with extreme hot and cold temperatures were generally in medium to small cities. “Solar radiation does generally relate to temperature … but there will be exceptions though,” he said.


Cordero explained that air and surface temperatures depend on a lot more than just solar radiation. For instance, the atmosphere near the Altiplano is relatively cool because of its high elevation. The adjacent Pacific Ocean, which receives water currents near Antarctica, also helps keep the area cooler than land near warmer oceans like the Mediterranean seas. Vegetated areas may also be cooler than dry, arid surfaces because the plants cool the surface through evapotranspiration.

The Altiplano is “not affected by heat waves in the case of Bahrain, Middle East or the Mediterranean region,” said Cordero.

Scientists found Earth's sunniest spot, where it's like standing on Venus

Located near the western coast of South America is a large plain near the Andes Mountains, the Altiplano of the Atacama Desert.

torontosun.com

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Good place for some solar cells.

 

[petros]

Good place for some solar cells.

Solar ponds are more efficient.

 

[spaminator]

Extreme heat and pollution can double the risk of heart attack
Lifestyle changes may not be enough to prevent heart disease

Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Marlene Cimons
Published Jul 27, 2023 • 5 minute read

Exposure to extreme temperatures combined with suffocating air pollution can double the risk of dying from a heart attack, according to Chinese researchers who analyzed more than 200,000 cardiac deaths in China between 2015 and 2020.


Experts, who already believe that fluctuating heat waves, cold snaps and polluted air are bad for the heart, said the study, published Monday in the journal Circulation, further strengthens the relationship by connecting it to the risk of cardiac death.


“As far as I am aware, this is one of the first studies that looks at death from heart attack as the end result of this type of exposure, and it does not surprise me,” said Catharina Giudice, an emergency medicine physician and a fellow at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study.

“We’re seeing record-breaking heat after record-breaking heat year after year,” she said. “It’s getting hotter, lasting longer and happening more frequently. Heat makes cardiovascular disease worse. Pollution makes it worse. The two together are worse than each one independently.”


The study, funded by China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, comes against a backdrop of prolonged and sweltering record-setting heat that has been smothering the United States and other countries, combined with industrial and wildfire air pollution, all fueled by a warming planet.

The dangerous health effects of climate change are well documented, including threats from the spread of infectious diseases, food insecurity, the worsening of seasonal allergies, the risk of dementia and the deadly effects of heat waves, floods, drought and wildfire smoke. Existing evidence also suggests that climate change-induced stress is tied to heart problems. Several studies by cardiologists in New Orleans, for example, found a dramatic jump in the number of heart attacks in the years following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.


(China and the United States are the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the pollutants that drive climate change.)

Greater risk for women and older adults
The researchers examined the effects of extreme temperatures with and without high levels of fine particulate pollution on 202,678 heart attack deaths between 2015 and 2020 that occurred in Jiangsu province, a region with four distinct seasons and a wide range of temperatures and fine particulate pollution levels.

They found that days with extreme heat, extreme cold or high levels of fine particulate matter air pollution were significantly associated with the risk of death from a heart attack, especially for women and older adults, those with an average age of about 77.


The greatest increases occurred on days with both extreme heat and high levels of PM2.5 (Particulate Matter), which are particles less than 2.5 microns in width, (for comparison, the width of a human hair is 50 to 100 microns) estimating that up to 2.8 percent of the heart attack deaths were related to the combination of extreme temperatures and high levels of fine particulate pollution of more than 37.5 micrograms per cubic meter. (A microgram is a unit of mass equal to one-millionth of a gram.) They also found that heat waves interact synergistically with the fine particles, while cold spells do not.

Inhaling these microscopic particles – the result of fuel combustion from cars and factories, and wildfire smoke – deep into the lungs can irritate them and the blood vessels around the heart. Research has linked their exposure to heart disease, stroke and other health issues, including dementia. The World Health Organization’s target for average annual exposure to fine particulate pollution level is no more than 5 micrograms per cubic meter and no more than 15 micrograms per cubic meter for more than three to four days per year.


Compared with control days, the risk of a fatal heart attack was 18 percent higher during two-day heat waves with heat ranging from 82.6 to 97.9 degrees Fahrenheit, and 74 percent higher during four-day heat waves with temperatures between 94.8 and 109.4 degrees Fahrenheit. The risk was 4 percent higher during two-day cold snaps with temperatures between 33.3 to 40.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and 12 percent higher during three-day cold snaps of 27 to 37.2 degrees Fahrenheit.

The researchers measured extreme temperatures according to the daily heat index for an area, which records the combined effect of both heat and humidity, and also evaluated the length and severity of heat waves and cold snaps.

They compared heart attack deaths or “case days” with control days on the same day of the week in the same month – if a death occurred on a Wednesday, all other Wednesdays in the same month were regarded as control days. Days with an average level of fine particulate matter above 37.5 micrograms per cubic meter were considered high air pollution days.


“It’s pretty amazing that they started seeing these increases with temperatures over 90 degrees,” said Mark Link, a professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and a member of its cardiology division, who was not part of the study. “In Dallas, we would call 90 degrees a cool day, but that’s when they saw mortality start to increase – and the combination of high heat and pollution was the deadliest. It’s pretty remarkable when you think about what’s happening down here now, where the average high is 102 or 103 degrees.”

On such days, “emergency visits for cardiac issues and everything else are up,” he said.

Lifestyle changes may not be enough to prevent heart disease
Yuewei Liu, associate professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, and the study’s senior author, said it was still unknown how these exposures trigger a greater risk of dying of a heart attack. Such questions remain “a great public health challenge due to its substantial disease burden worldwide,” he said.


Health-care professionals typically urge lifestyle modifications to prevent heart disease, such as avoiding or quitting smoking; controlling hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes; losing weight; and exercising. Now, these may not be enough, experts said.

This study demonstrates “we cannot ignore the environment around us,” said Hitinder Gurm, an interventional cardiologist and chief medical officer at the University of Michigan, who was not part of the study but whose research has focused on temperature deviations and the risk of heart attacks. “Air pollution and extreme weather are emerging as important cardiac risk factors and require both individual and community level interventions.”


What to do during heat waves and high pollution days
During heat waves and high pollution days, experts recommend that people:

– Wear an N95 mask outdoors in areas of high pollution or fire.

– Stay inside when it is excessively hot.

– Drink lots of fluids.

– Follow the weather forecasts and monitor air quality levels.

– Use fans and air conditioners during hot weather.

– Install window blinds to reduce indoor temperatures.

– Use air purifiers to reduce indoor pollutants.

– Avoid busy highways when walking.

– Choose less strenuous or indoor exercises.

Gurm noted that most heart attacks still occur in people with risk factors, but said additional measures were necessary to “safeguard the most vulnerable from exposure to severe weather conditions and poor air quality.”

For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to Healthing.ca – a member of the Postmedia Network.

Extreme heat and pollution can double the risk of heart attack

Lifestyle changes may not be enough to prevent heart disease

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Syphilis emergency looms in U.S. as drugs to treat infection running low
Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Ike Swetlitz, Riley Griffin and Matthew Griffin
Published Jul 26, 2023 • 5 minute read

A shortage of penicillin to treat a skyrocketing number of syphilis cases is so dire that U.S. health officials are debating the need to declare a public health emergency, according to people familiar with the matter.


Major US medical centers are rationing the recommended treatment for the deadly sexually transmitted disease because of a supply crunch. From Michigan to Missouri to Texas, some health-care providers are prioritizing giving a key treatment — penicillin G benzathine — to pregnant patients and babies, because the drug can pass through the placenta and also treat the fetus.


Syphilis has been sickening more people over the last few years, but the latest surge in cases has been especially worrying to the federal government. The Department of Health and Human Services is mobilizing a new federal task force to tackle the problem, and staff are discussing the possibility of declaring a public health emergency which could give officials access to more funding to address the crisis, according to people familiar with the matter.


“This is a remarkable shortage,” said Joseph Cherabie, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis’s medical school, who treats syphilis patients. Because of the need to conserve the drug for pregnant patients, other people are getting less-than-ideal treatments for the infection.

The government’s efforts are being led by Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Levine has spent months recruiting experts to tackle the syphilis crisis, including officials at HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, which has been brought in to address ongoing drug shortages.


Levine and US health officials at the CDC are weighing the benefits of the public health emergency declaration, such as the additional flexibility and money it would give HHS, one of the people said. They’re also considering the potential drawbacks. Some are wary a pandemic-fatigued public may consider it an overreaction and ignore similar declarations in the future. Ultimately, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra has the power to make a declaration.

“The Department is closely monitoring the alarming rise in cases of syphilis and will continue working to address this public health threat,” an HHS spokesperson said.

Drug shortages, though not uncommon, have hit 9-year highs in the US. Over the past year there have been shortages of antibiotics, chemotherapies and ADHD medicines, to name a few.


The situation is partly a result of under-investment in manufacturing after years of falling generic drug prices. Companies have also been caught off guard by unexpected changes in demand, creating far-reaching consequences that imperil lives.

The penicillin shortage began in April. The FDA said it was caused by increases in cases of both syphilis and strep throat. Because a common antibiotic used to treat strep was in short supply this winter, patients were prescribed penicillin as an alternative, driving up demand for the drug.

That created an acute problem at a time when syphilis cases were rising precipitously. Rates of syphilis in 2021 were the highest since 1990, according to the most updated government data. In 2021, at least 176,000 cases of syphilis were reported, 32% more than the year before. The infection disproportionately impacts gay and bisexual men.


Pfizer Inc. is the only company that makes penicillin G benzathine for the US, selling it under the brand name Bicillin L-A.

The company has told the FDA that supply disruptions for the two most common doses of penicillin G benzathine will likely continue into the second quarter of 2024. Pfizer has added night and weekend shifts to increase production. To free up manufacturing resources, it’s also deprioritized production of a smaller dose of Bicillin L-A that’s not widely used.



Syphilis is especially dangerous for pregnant people, who can pass it on to a fetus, which often results in pregnancy loss, death of a baby shortly after birth or severe disability in children. Cases of this type of syphilis, called congenital syphilis, are also at their highest rates since the 1990s. In 2021, there were 2,855 cases reported, up 32% from the year prior. The disease is completely preventable with penicillin G benzathine.


Penicillin G benzathine is also often the most recommended treatment for people who aren’t pregnant. Yet with supplies running short, the CDC is advising that doctors turn to another antibiotic, doxycycline. That’s less convenient for patients, because doxycycline is a pill given twice a day for at least two weeks, whereas penicillin G benzathine is an injection that can sometimes clear the disease completely with one dose.

That makes doctors worry that some patients might not complete their treatment with doxycycline. Syphilis particularly affects people suffering from substance abuse, housing instability or homelessness, which makes it more difficult to sustain long-term medical care.

There’s also less evidence backing the drug than there is for penicillin, according to physicians.


“We’re learning in real time how effective doxycycline can be,” Cherabie said.

Some states or health systems are directing doctors to use doxycycline for syphilis. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has instructed state-funded clinics to use doxycycline for certain patients because of the shortage, spokesperson Chelsea Wuth said.

At Houston Methodist, a health system with seven hospitals in the Houston area, penicillin G benzathine is reserved for pregnant patients and babies with syphilis, spokesperson Gale Smith said.

Some clinics have been able to get sufficient amounts of the Pfizer drug, at least for the time being. State-operated health clinics in South Carolina have been able to purchase as much as they need, a spokesperson for the health and environment department said.


While rates of HIV have been declining, other sexually transmitted diseases have become more prevalent in recent years. Condom use has fallen as more effective medications for HIV have become available, leaving people vulnerable to illnesses like syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea.

There are also fewer resources to identify people who need treatment and get them help. STD prevention work happens largely at local and state public-health departments, which have been losing money and staff over the years. The COVID-19 pandemic diverted already scarce public health resources away from STD work.

The rise in syphilis cases is prompting concern at a state level. Last year, New Mexico renewed a statewide public health order mandating that health-care providers screen pregnant women for syphilis multiple times to catch the disease. The state had only one case of congenital syphilis reported in 2017. It had 42 in 2020.

Syphilis emergency looms in U.S. as drugs to treat infection running low

A penicillin shortage to treat skyrocketing syphilis cases has U.S. health officials debating the need to declare a public health emergency.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Scientists woke up a 46,000-year-old roundworm from Siberian permafrost
The recipe for reviving these creatures is fairly simple

Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Carolyn Y. Johnson
Published Jul 28, 2023 • Last updated 2 days ago • 3 minute read
Join the conversation
Scientists recovered 46,000-year-old soil from a burrow embedded in Siberian permafrost, left. When they thawed it out, they were able to revive P. kolymaensis, a newly described species of nematode, right. MUST CREDIT: Shatilovich et al 2023, PLOS Genetics
Scientists recovered 46,000-year-old soil from a burrow embedded in Siberian permafrost, left. When they thawed it out, they were able to revive P. kolymaensis, a newly described species of nematode, right. MUST CREDIT: Shatilovich et al 2023, PLOS Genetics PHOTO BY SHATILOVICH ET AL 2023 /Handout
Article content
A female microscopic roundworm that spent the last 46,000 years in suspended animation deep in the Siberian permafrost has been revived and has started having babies in a laboratory dish.


By sequencing the genome of this Rip Van Winkle roundworm, scientists revealed it to be a new species of nematode, which is described in a study published Thursday in the journal PLOS Genetics. Nematodes today are among the most ubiquitous organisms on Earth, inhabiting the soil, the water and the ocean floor.


“The vast majority of nematode species have not been described,” William Crow, a nematologist at the University of Florida who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email. The ancient Siberian worm could be a species that has since gone extinct, he said. “However, it very well could be a commonly occurring nematode that no one got around to describing yet.”

Beyond the “wow” factor of a time-traveling nematode, there’s a practical reason to study how these tiny, spindle-shaped creatures go dormant to survive extreme environments, said Philipp Schiffer, group leader at the Institute for Zoology at the University of Cologne and one of the authors of the study. Such work may reveal more about how, at a molecular level, animals can adapt as habitats shift because of soaring global temperatures and changing weather patterns.


“We need to know how species adapted to the extreme through evolution to maybe help species alive today and humans as well,” Schiffer wrote in an email.

– – –

Scientists have long known that some microscopic critters are able to hit pause on life to survive harsh environments, slipping into the deepest of sleeps by slowing their metabolism to undetectable levels in a process called cryptobiosis.

As far back as 1936, a viable several-thousand-year-old crustacean was discovered buried in the permafrost east of Russia’s Lake Baikal. In 2021, researchers announced they had resurrected ancient bdelloid rotifers, microscopic multicellular animals, after 24,000 years in the Siberian permafrost.

The previous resuscitation record for a nematode was set by an Antarctic species that started wriggling around again after just a few dozen years.


Scientists recovered 46,000-year-old soil from a burrow embedded in Siberian permafrost, left. When they thawed it out, they were able to revive P. kolymaensis, a newly described species of nematode, right. (Shatilovich et al 2023, PLOS Genetics)
Scientists recovered 46,000-year-old soil from a burrow embedded in Siberian permafrost, left. When they thawed it out, they were able to revive P. kolymaensis, a newly described species of nematode, right. (Shatilovich et al 2023, PLOS Genetics)
This new species of nematode, dubbed Panagrolaimus kolymaensis, breaks that dormancy record by tens of thousands of years. The frozen soil the nematode was embedded in came from an ancient gopher hole, excavated from about 130 feet below the surface. Scientists used radiocarbon dating to determine that the soil was 46,000 years old, give or take a thousand years.

“The age over which it survived is one of the shocking things,” said Gregory Copenhaver, a co-editor of PLOS Genetics and director of the Institute for Convergent Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The past 46,000 years reach into the previous geologic epoch, called the Pleistocene, he noted, and “this single organism, the actual individual they found, has been alive over that period of time.”


– – –

The recipe for reviving these creatures is fairly simple, Schiffer said. Researchers thaw the soil, taking care to not warm it too quickly to avoid cooking the nematodes. The worms then start wriggling around, eating bacteria in a lab dish and reproducing.

Scientists have continued to raise more than 100 generations from this single nematode, which reproduces without a mate through a process called parthenogenesis.

What intrigues the researchers is not just the age of the specimen, but how it enters a state of limbo.

Through experiments, they found that, like another microscopic roundworm, C. elegans, the new nematode species survives freezing and drying out better if it is exposed to mildly desiccating conditions before the deep freeze. During this preconditioning, the nematodes begin pumping out a sugar called trehalose, which may be involved in helping protect their DNA, cells and proteins from degrading.


Study co-leader Teymuras Kurzchalia, a professor emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, said that efforts to unravel which proteins are necessary for the process are ongoing, using tools that can silence or knock out genes.

“We have still much to learn about the mechanisms of the desiccation tolerance,” Kurzchalia said.

Researchers are also curious whether there is any limit on how long an organism can survive and be resurrected, and what it means for evolution and even the notion of extinction if animals that typically live, reproduce and die over weeks can stretch out their existence by centuries or millennia.

The normal life span of the 46,000-year-old nematode species is just one to two months.

“We can say that they are alive, because they move, they eat bacteria on the culture plates, and they reproduce,” Schiffer said.

Scientists woke up a 46,000-year-old roundworm from Siberian permafrost

Nematodes today are among the most ubiquitous organisms on Earth, inhabiting the soil, the water and the ocean floor.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Two supermoons in August mean double the stargazing fun
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Published Jul 29, 2023 • 1 minute read

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The cosmos is offering up a double feature in August: a pair of supermoons culminating in a rare blue moon.


Catch the first show Tuesday evening as the full moon rises in the southeast, appearing slightly brighter and bigger than normal. That’s because it will be closer than usual, just 357,530 kilometres away, thus the supermoon label.


The moon will be even closer the night of Aug. 30 — a scant 357,344 kilometres distant. Because it’s the second full moon in the same month, it will be what’s called a blue moon.

“Warm summer nights are the ideal time to watch the full moon rise in the eastern sky within minutes of sunset. And it happens twice in August,” said retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak, dubbed Mr. Eclipse for his eclipse-chasing expertise.

The last time two full supermoons graced the sky in the same month was in 2018. It won’t happen again until 2037, according to Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project.


Masi will provide a live webcast of Tuesday evening’s supermoon, as it rises over the Coliseum in Rome.

“My plans are to capture the beauty of this … hopefully bringing the emotion of the show to our viewers,” Masi said in an email.

“The supermoon offers us a great opportunity to look up and discover the sky,” he added.

This year’s first supermoon was in July. The fourth and last will be in September. The two in August will be closer than either of those.

Provided clear skies, binoculars or backyard telescopes can enhance the experience, Espenak said, revealing such features as lunar maria — the dark plains formed by ancient volcanic lava flows _ and rays emanating from lunar craters.

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the August full moon is traditionally known as the sturgeon moon. That’s because of the abundance of that fish in the Great Lakes in August, hundreds of years ago.

Two supermoons in August mean double the stargazing fun

The cosmos is offering up a double feature in August: a pair of supermoons culminating in a rare blue moon.

torontosun.com

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

A blue moon (two full moons in a calendar month) is an annual occurrence, because there are 13 full moons per year. Duh.

A bright moon is actually very bad for "stargazing" because the high light levels tend to wash out the stars.

This journalist (or headline writer) could use some English classes.

 

[spaminator]

Heaviest animal ever may be ancient whale found in Peruvian desert
The massive fossils are 39 million years old

Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Maddie Burakoff
Published Aug 02, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 2 minute read
Perucetus colossus, an ancient whale discovered in Peru
A handout image made available by Nature Publishing Group on August 1, 2023, shows an artist's illustration of Perucetus colossus, an ancient whale discovered in Peru that scientists think could be the heaviest animal to have ever lived. PHOTO BY ALBERTO GENNARI/NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP /AFP via Getty Images
NEW YORK — There could be a new contender for heaviest animal to ever live. While today’s blue whale has long held the title, scientists have dug up fossils from an ancient giant that could tip the scales.


Researchers described the new species — named Perucetus colossus, or “the colossal whale from Peru” — in the journal Nature on Wednesday. Each vertebra weighs over 220 pounds (100 kilograms) and its ribs measure nearly 5 feet (1.4 meters) long.


“It’s just exciting to see such a giant animal that’s so different from anything we know,” said Hans Thewissen, a paleontologist at Northeast Ohio Medical University who had no role in the research.

The bones were first discovered more than a decade ago by Mario Urbina from the University of San Marcos’ Natural History Museum in Lima. An international team spent years digging them out from the side of a steep, rocky slope in the Ica desert, a region in Peru that was once underwater and is known for its rich marine fossils. The results: 13 vertebrae from the whale’s backbone, four ribs and a hip bone.


The massive fossils, which are 39 million years old, “are unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” said study author Alberto Collareta, a paleontologist at Italy’s University of Pisa.

After the excavations, the researchers used 3D scanners to study the surface of the bones and drilled into them to peek inside. They used the huge — but incomplete — skeleton to estimate the whale’s size and weight, using modern marine mammals for comparison, said study author Eli Amson, a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany.

They calculated that the ancient giant weighed somewhere between 94 and 375 tons (85 and 340 metric tons). The biggest blue whales found have been within that range — at around 200 tons (180 metric tons).


Its body stretched to around 66 feet (20 meters) long. Blue whales can be longer — with some growing to more than 100 feet (30 meters) in length.

This means the newly discovered whale was “possibly the heaviest animal ever,” Collareta said, but “it was most likely not the longest animal ever.”

It weighs more in part because its bones are much denser and heavier than a blue whale’s, Amson explained.

Those super-dense bones suggest that the whale may have spent its time in shallow, coastal waters, the authors said. Other coastal dwellers, like manatees, have heavy bones to help them stay close to the seafloor.

Without the skull, it’s hard to know what the whale was eating to sustain such a huge body, Amson said.

It’s possible that P. colossus was scavenging for food along the seafloor, researchers said, or eating up tons of krill and other tiny sea creatures in the water.

But “I wouldn’t be surprised if this thing actually fed in a totally different way that we would never imagine,” Thewissen added.

Heaviest animal ever may be ancient whale found in Peruvian desert

Each vertebra weighs over 220 pounds (100 kilos) and its ribs measure nearly 5 feet (1.4 metres) long.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Award-winning images capture colourful scenes from microscopic world
Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Washington Post Staff, The Washington Post
Published Aug 04, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 2 minute read
Laurent Formery of the United States captured this global-award-winning image. It shows the nervous system of a juvenile sea star (Patiria miniata). MUST CREDIT: Laurent Formery/Evident
Laurent Formery of the United States captured this global-award-winning image. It shows the nervous system of a juvenile sea star (Patiria miniata). MUST CREDIT: Laurent Formery/Evident PHOTO BY LAURENT FORMERY/EVIDENT /Handout
The photo of a spindly nervous system in a tiny juvenile sea star glows in bright yellow, blue, green, purple and pink against a black background. The image of crystal of a topical medicine for wart treatment looks like a pop-art drawing of colourful leaves. A germinating pollen grain of a morning glory, meanwhile, hovers like a spiky yellow and orange planet.


The three microscopic images are among 640 photos from 38 countries submitted to the fourth Global Image of the Year Scientific Light Microscopy Award, an annual competition run by Tokyo-based Evident, a maker of microscopes, videoscopes and other digital optical technologies used in the life sciences.


The winning image for the Europe
The winning image for the Europe, Middle East and Africa category was captured by Javier Ruperez of Spain. It shows scales of the wing of the Urania rhipheus butterfly. (Javier Ruperez/Evident) PHOTO BY JAVIER RUPEREZ/EVIDENT /Handout
The competition “recognizes the best in scientific imaging worldwide” in hopes of “encouraging people around the world to look at scientific images in a new way, appreciate their beauty, and share images with others,” Evident officials said in a news release.

The sea star image, taken by Laurent Formery, was the global winner of the competition.

“I love microscopy and can spend a huge amount of time in front of our confocal microscope, but the very nice samples that I am lucky to work with really make the difference,” Formery, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, said in the release. “I work with marine invertebrates, in particular echinoderms (sea stars, sea urchins and their kind).


“They are beautiful animals, with a fascinating and aesthetically pleasing fivefold symmetry that is unlike anything else in the animal kingdom,” he said. “We know little about how these animals shape their fivefold body, which is the topic of my research. Echinoderms, and marine invertebrates in general, are often not well-known animals. I’m happy that taking images of them helps communicate how much beauty we have in our oceans, and why it is important to know more about them and protect them.”

This winning image in the Asia category
This winning image in the Asia category was taken by Jiao Li of China. It reveals edelweiss stamens, which were scanned and reconstructed in three dimensions using laser scanning confocal microscopy. (Jiao Li/Evident) PHOTO BY JIAO LI/EVIDENT /Handout
The wart crystal image, by Shyam Rathod, won in the materials science category. And the spiky germinating pollen grain, captured by Igor Siwanowicz was the winning photograph in the Americas category.

To see all the images, read about the microscopic techniques used to create them and download images as digital wallpaper, go to Olympus-LifeScience.com/IOTY.

This winning image in the materials
This winning image in the materials science category was taken by Shyam Rathod of India. It shows crystal of a topical medicine for wart treatment. (Shyam Rathod/Evident) PHOTO BY SHYAM RATHOD/EVIDENT /Handout

Award-winning images capture colourful scenes from microscopic world

The three microscopic images are among 640 photos from 38 countries submitted.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Carcinogens found at Montana nuke sites after hundreds of cancers reported
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Tara Copp
Published Aug 07, 2023 • 3 minute read

WASHINGTON — The U.S. air force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen at underground launch control centres at a Montana nuclear missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses.


A new cleanup effort has been ordered.


The discovery “is the first from an extensive sampling of active U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases to address specific cancer concerns raised by missile community members,” Air Force Global Strike Command said in a release Monday. In those samples, two launch facilities at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana showed PCB levels higher than the thresholds recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.

PCBs are oily or waxy substances that have been identified as a likely carcinogen by the EPA. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a blood cancer that uses the body’s infection-fighting lymph system to spread.

In response, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, has directed “immediate measures to begin the cleanup process for the affected facilities and mitigate exposure by our airmen and Guardians to potentially hazardous conditions.”


After a military briefing was obtained by The Associated Press in January showing that at least nine current or former missileers at Malmstrom were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare blood cancer, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine launched a study to look at cancers among the entire missile community checking for the possibility of clusters of the disease.



And there could be hundreds more cancers of all types, based on new data from a grassroots group of former missile launch officers and their surviving family members.

According to the Torchlight Initiative, at least 268 troops who served at nuclear missile sites or their surviving family members have self-reported being diagnosed with cancer, blood diseases or other illnesses over the last several decades.


At least 217 of those reported cases are cancers, at least 33 of them non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

What’s notable about those reported numbers is that the missileer community is very small. Only a few hundred airmen serve as missileers at each of the country’s three silo-launched Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile bases any given year. There have been only about 21,000 missileers in total since the Minuteman operations began in the early 1960s, according to the Torchlight Initiative.

For some context, in the U.S. general population there are about 403 new cancer cases reported per 100,000 people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma affects an estimated 19 of every 100,000 people annually, according to the American Cancer Society.


Minutemen III silo fields are based at Malmstrom, F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

Missileers are male and female military officers who serve in underground launch control centres where they are responsible for monitoring and, if needed, launching fields of silo-based nuclear weapons. Two missileers spend sometimes days at a time on watch in underground bunkers, ready to turn the key and fire Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles if ordered to do so by the president.

The Minuteman III silos and underground control centres were built more than 60 years ago. Much of the electronics and infrastructure is decades old. Missileers have raised health concerns multiple times over the years about ventilation, water quality and potential toxins they cannot avoid as they spend 24 to 48 hours on duty underground.


The air force discovery of PCBs occurred as part of site visits by its bioenvironmental team from June 22 to June 29 in the air force’s ongoing larger investigation into the number of cancers reported among the missile community. During the site visits, a health assessment team collected water, soil, air and surface samples from each of the missile launch facilities.

Of the 300 surface-swipe samples at Malmstrom, 21 detected PCBs. Of those, 19 were below levels set by the EPA requiring mitigation and two were above. No PCBs were detected in any of the 30 air samples. The air force is still waiting for test results from F.E. Warren and Minot for surface and air samples and for all bases for the water and soil samples.

Carcinogens found at Montana nuke sites after hundreds of cancers reported

The air force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen at underground launch control centres at a Montana nuclear missile base.

torontosun.com

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Meh, war's dangerous. If it ain't, you're doing it wrong.

 

[spaminator]

Pig kidney transplanted into human shows way to wider use
The experimental procedure is called a xenotransplant

Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Nacha Cattan
Published Aug 16, 2023 • 2 minute read
This July 14, 2023, image released by NYU Langone Health in New York, shows a team of surgeons transplanting a pig kidney.
This July 14, 2023, image released by NYU Langone Health in New York, shows a team of surgeons transplanting a pig kidney. PHOTO BY JOE CARROTTA/NYU LANGONE HEALTH /AFP via Getty Images
Doctors transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man’s body where it continued to function normally, moving the field closer to the possibility of using animal tissue and organs to fight human disease.


The man in his 50s had acute kidney injury and a history of end-stage disease, but his organs produced urine soon after the transplant, according researchers at NYU Langone Health in New York. The transplant was done more than a month ago, and the kidney continues to function, they said Wednesday in a call with reporters.


The successful transplant is the latest breakthrough for scientists racing to find alternatives to human organs that are in constant shortage. Nearly 40 million people in the US have chronic kidney disease, and 17 people die each day in the US waiting for an organ transplant, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

The experimental procedure, called a xenotransplant, marks “another major step forward in potentially utilizing an alternative supply of organs for people facing life-threatening disease,” according to a statement from the medical center. The pig’s organ underwent genetic modification to make it more acceptable to the host body.



Researchers have looked at a variety of ways to use animal organs and tissues in humans, including reviving those obtained from deceased animals. The key sticking point has been maintaining their health in the human body, where they’re under consistent attack from an immune system that targets “non-self” cells, proteins and tissues, a process called rejection.

In the experiment with the modified pig organ, “there’s no evidence of rejection in normal renal function and clearance of toxins,” Robert Montgomery, who led the NYU team, said on the call. “The pig kidney appears to replace all the important tasks that the human kidney manages.”


If the organ continues functioning for two months, it will have surpassed the time when most comparable xenotransplants in monkeys have failed, said Montgomery, who is chairman of Langone’s surgery department and director of its Transplant Institute.

“It’s extremely complicated but at the end of the day we have to think about all the people who are dying because we don’t have enough organs,” Montgomery said. “We’re getting close to having that preponderance of evidence” to move into experiments with living humans, he said.

For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to Healthing.ca – a member of the Postmedia Network.

Pig kidney transplanted into human shows way to wider use

The transplant is the latest breakthrough for scientists racing to find alternatives to human organs that are in constant shortage

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

How 10,000 years of plagues left their mark on our DNA
Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Veronique Greenwood
Published Aug 16, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 4 minute read

Agnolo di Tura was a sometime shoemaker and tax collector with a yen for keeping a journal. He was also his family’s sole survivor when the Black Death tore through Siena, Italy, in 1348. He buried his wife and five children with his own hands, he wrote in his journal. He was somehow spared.


Many deadly diseases have swept through the human population over the past 10,000 years, claiming some, leaving others. These tragic events left their mark in our DNA. When biologists compare modern genomes to DNA extracted from ancient bones, they can see how genetic variants that enabled people to fight off pathogens have increased in frequency over millennia.


We are the descendants of the survivors, and our genomes show it. But it turns out this genetic history can be a double-edged sword.

In work published in the journal Cell Genomics, researchers found that many of the protective variants that have increased in frequency also raise the risk of autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system turns on the body. It’s an intriguing thought: Over the course of human evolution, what saves you might come back to haunt your descendants.


The ability to see these changes and understand their significance is only about a decade or so old. It stems from genome-wide association studies, which look to see whether the genomes of people with a given condition share traits. Such studies have already helped identify genetic risk factors for diseases such as macular degeneration, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.

The studies can also look for gene variants that protect against a disease – perhaps the kind of thing that Agnolo di Tura might have possessed during the Black Death.

“What we can do is to combine all this information and we can see all those variants that [have] an effect on disease,” said study co-author Gaspard Kerner, a researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.


He and other scientists are now looking at genomes across time as well, so they can start to reconstruct what happened as humans and pathogens crossed paths.

How plagues affect our genes
For their recent study, Kerner and his colleagues examined the genomes of 2,879 Europeans who lived between the Neolithic, when stone tools were first made around 10,000 years ago, and the present day. They found that many of the gene variants that have become more common in that time are linked to immunity.

Most of the changes occurred in the past 4,500 years, suggesting that since the Bronze Age, we’ve been strongly affected by pathogens.

That tallies with the general idea that living more densely, farming and raising animals might have increased our exposure to infectious diseases, says Mihai Netea, a professor of experimental medicine at Radboud University; he was involved in a study suggesting an earlier date for the beginning of this era of illness.


What’s particularly striking, the researchers found, is while variants that make infectious disease riskier have dropped over the millennia, variants linked to autoimmunity have ticked up.

Tauras Vilgalys, a geneticist who studies the evolution of immunity at the University of Chicago, and his colleagues saw this pattern when investigating survival of the Black Death. “We saw this very clear trade-off that things that were protective during the plague increased the risk of autoimmune disorders today,” he said.

This doesn’t necessarily mean a Bronze Age farmer who survived an epidemic would have developed an autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis, pointed out Vilgalys. Environmental factors are important, too, and the triggers that could turn susceptibility into full-blown disease – like chemicals that people might encounter at work, or certain kinds of infections – might not have existed back then.


But it suggests that long-ago events could have contributed to the modern rise in autoimmune disease, which now affects 1 in 10 people, by some estimates.



New ways to tackle autoimmune disease
Such work is an interesting confirmation of a rather profound idea, says Harmit Malik, an evolutionary biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute: Genes that enable survival of a clear and present danger may well have significant downsides.

This could be part of the reason that, after so many years of natural selection, we still have extremely dangerous variants floating around, like the harmful versions of the BRCA1 gene that are linked to breast cancer, he said. Each part of our cell’s machinery is a potential target for a virus, and over the eons, the best solution for the current problem may have had perilous side effects.


To get a better sense of what the variants they flagged might be doing in the immune system, Kerner and colleagues chose three and watched how they behaved in cells in the lab. They caught a tantalizing glimpse of how each variant tweaked something small but crucial.

One modulated how the body responds to an immune signal, for instance, and another impaired the function of T cells, a type of white blood cell that helps the body fight infections. These early results suggest that studying each variant on its own may reveal ways to tackle autoimmune disease or otherwise influence immunity, Kerner said.

To Malik, each variant pinpointed in this study has the potential to launch a new line of research into human immunity, both past and present.

“Each of these is a potential story of our ancestry, and what were the compromises we made to arrive to where we are today,” Malik said. “I find that really fascinating.”

For more health news and content around diseases, conditions, wellness, healthy living, drugs, treatments and more, head to Healthing.ca – a member of the Postmedia Network.

How 10,000 years of plagues left their mark on our DNA

Agnolo di Tura was a sometime shoemaker and tax collector with a yen for keeping a journal.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

INFECTION FROM CAT BITE HAS SCIENTISTS SCRATCHING THEIR HEADS
Rabies this was not.


A British man who was bitten by a stray cat contracted a bacterial infection that scientists had never seen before.

A case study published in Emerging Infectious Diseases said the 48-year-old man’s immune system couldn’t handle the infection. Eight hours after the bites, his hands were swollen enough to cause concern as the man took himself to a hospital for observation.

After getting a tetanus shot and having his wounds cleaned, the man was sent home with antibiotics. However, he was back in the emergency ward a day later after two fingers on his left hand were enlarged and both forearms were red and swollen.

Doctors removed the damaged tissue around the wounds on his arms, gave him more antibiotics and sent him home. He soon recovered.


Doctors at the medical centre examined the micro-organisms from the wound and couldn’t recognize the streptococcus-like organism. Streptococcus is a bacteria that’s related to strep throat, meningitis and pink eye.

Scientists couldn’t find any strain matches in the bacteria’s genome as it was a new germ that hadn’t been formally documented. The bacteria belongs to another genus of bacteria known as globicatella.

The new bacteria was resistant to several kinds of antibiotics. Luckily, some antibiotics were able to kill it in the cat-bitten man.

Soft Tissue Infection of Immunocompetent Man with Cat-Derived <em>Globicatella</em> Species

Soft Tissue Infection of Immunocompetent Man with Cat-Derived <em>Globicatella</em> Species

cdc.gov

ODDS AND ENDS: Car crashes that will floor you and other offbeat offerings

Junction Fire Company found the vehicle had lodged itself into the second storey of a residence with the driver out of the vehicle.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Bird feeding surges in popularity despite being discouraged: Report
Author of the article:Kevin Connor
Published Aug 20, 2023 • Last updated 9 hours ago • 1 minute read
Think twice about feeding the birds. Bird-feeding is surging in popularity despite bering discouraged, according to new research.

Think twice before feeding the birds.


The popularity of bird feeding remains widespread despite being discouraged, according to new research.


“There was a surge in interest beyond traditional bird-feeding countries in North America, Europe and Australia: 115 countries in total, including many where feeding was assumed not to occur,” wrote research co-author Darryl Jones, according to PLOS ONE.

That finding came despite evidence that feeding “can lead to problems for the birds.”

Jones said some experts oppose feeding wild birds for many reasons, including the spread of disease, noting feeders have helped spread conjunctivitis in house finches. Birds can develop poor nutrition because of an unbalanced diet.

And feeding birds can alter migration patterns.


“These impacts occur everywhere wild birds are fed and are potentially serious,” Jones wrote.

“On the other hand, engaging with wild birds in this way is now recognized as one of the most effective ways people can connect with nature.”

Bird feeding increased during the pandemic.

“People throughout the world were forced to remain close to home. Aspects of life that seemed to be carrying on regardless, such as birds arriving each day to be fed, may have been a course of comfort and reassurance,” Jones said.

“These trends mean the simple, common practice of attracting birds to your garden by feeding them is taking on much greater significance for the welfare of both birds and people.”

Some studies, however, say birds can benefit from feeders during migration and harsh winters.

Some say feeding birds helps offset the decimation of woods and meadows as humans create shopping malls, homes and other developments, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“There’s nothing wrong with bird-feeding,” writes Paul Baicich, co-author of “Feeding Wild Birds in America: Culture, Commerce and Conservation,” published in 2015. “The birds don’t need the feeders. We do.”

Bird feeding surges in popularity despite being discouraged: Report

The popularity of bird feeding remains widespread despite being discouraged, according to new research.

torontosun.com