Fun Academic Articles and Findings

[Al Terego]

seriously need a stress vax

Here you go...

https://ohmy.disney.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/baymax-hug-bh6-trailer.gif Hiro Hadashi is 14.  GIF is adorable. - Staff

[Sain]

Recursive language and modern imagination were acquired simultaneously 70,000 years ago

Article, link to the paper at the end of it.

Kinda fun. I wonder how it must've been for the first ones to speak proper language when they talked with their parents

[Argyros]

A new way to decompose microplastics could help clear waterways of these tiny bits of trash, which may pose health risks to people and other animals. In the future, water treatment facilities that employ carbon nanomaterials may not only help prevent new microplastic pollutants from entering the environment, but also potentially remove the particles from polluted waterways. Jian Kang, a chemical engineer at Curtin University in Perth, Australia and colleagues tested their technique on 80 mL water samples contaminated with microplastic particles. Carbon nanotube treatment in water warmed to 120°C for eight hours reduced the amount of microplastic in the water by about 30 to 50%. Kang and colleagues are now working to refine their nanotubes to break down microplastics more efficiently without the help of high temperatures. ^{[Article] [Publication]}

Figure 1. Waterbourne microplastic particles being successfully decomposed by chemicals released by carbon nanotubes. © Xiaoguang Duan, 2019

[Sain]

That is very cool. There's been lots of research and media attention in Finland recently too about how to remove microplastic from wastewater. It's just sad that most of those technologies are not going to apply to saving the oceans from it, but at least inland lakes might be salvageable, which is of course awesome!

[Al Terego]

Speaking of...

Plastic Teabags Release Billions of Microparticles and Nanoparticles into Tea

The increasing presence of micro- and nano-sized plastics in the environment and food chain is of growing concern. Although mindful consumers are promoting the reduction of single-use plastics, some manufacturers are creating new plastic packaging to replace traditional paper uses, such as plastic teabags. The objective of this study was to determine whether plastic teabags could release microplastics and/or nanoplastics during a typical steeping process. We show that steeping a single plastic teabag at brewing temperature (95 °C) releases approximately 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics into a single cup of the beverage. The composition of the released particles is matched to the original teabags (nylon and polyethylene terephthalate) using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The levels of nylon and polyethylene terephthalate particles released from the teabag packaging are several orders of magnitude higher than plastic loads previously reported in other foods. An initial acute invertebrate toxicity assessment shows that exposure to only the particles released from the teabags caused dose-dependent behavioral and developmental effects.


Link

[gaggedLouise]

A few milion years ago, around the time when Lucy and other early hominids were walking around in Africa, the heart of the Milky Way saw a series of super-powerful explosions and flare-ups, and at the time the core region must have been much more luminous than today, even in the night skies of Earth. And it didn't come and go overnight, either: this "active phase" is presumed to have lasted for around 300.000 years. All of it happening in connection with the huge black hole that still resides at the central point of our galaxy.

Amazing. :)

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/06/world/milky-way-center-explosion-scn/index.html

[Argyros]

Press Release! The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 to John B. Goodenough (University of Texas), M. Stanley Whittingham (Binghamton University), and Akira Yoshino (Meijo University) for their contributions to the development of the lithium-ion battery. This lightweight, rechargeable battery is used worldwide in electronic devices such as cellphones, laptops and electric vehicles, the last of which can store significant amounts of energy from renewable sources, making a fossil fuel-free society possible in the future. An award well deserved, if not a bit overdue. ^{[Press Release] [Technology Information] [Scientific Background]}

[Argyros]

Researchers at Penn Medicine have developed an effective gene therapy to successfully and safely prevent severe muscle deterioration associated with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a rare genetic disease that affects approximately 1 in 5,000 people. The scientific results were published on October 7, 2019 in Nature Medicine and delineates how the therapy uses utrophin (µUtro) as a non-immunogenic substitute for dystrophin, which eliminates the hindrance of immune responses found in other therapeutic approaches. ^[Article]

[Sain]

Press Release! The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 to John B. Goodenough (University of Texas), M. Stanley Whittingham (Binghamton University), and Akira Yoshino (Meijo University) for their contributions to the development of the lithium-ion battery. This lightweight, rechargeable battery is used worldwide in electronic devices such as cellphones, laptops and electric vehicles, the last of which can store significant amounts of energy from renewable sources, making a fossil fuel-free society possible in the future. An award well deserved, if not a bit overdue. ^{[Press Release] [Technology Information] [Scientific Background]}

Researchers at Penn Medicine have developed an effective gene therapy to successfully and safely prevent severe muscle deterioration associated with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a rare genetic disease that affects approximately 1 in 5,000 people. The scientific results were published on October 7, 2019 in Nature Medicine and delineates how the therapy uses utrophin (µUtro) as a non-immunogenic substitute for dystrophin, which eliminates the hindrance of immune responses found in other therapeutic approaches. ^[Article]

Damn these are both awesome news. It's really cool to see how science jut chugs on, keeps on making everything more awesome

[Sain]

Some more open AI stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu56xVlZ40M

[Sain]

Promising therapy for common form of eczema identified in early-stage trial

So a group has basically identified an anti–IL-33 antibody (etokimab), which, by inhibiting the function of  alarmin cytokine IL-33 (associated with variety of medical conditions), can treat the common eczema. Why I'm excited (besides having eczema) is that this drug would be a lot more specific than the currently prescribed drugs for difficult cases, ie. potentially have fewer side effects, and thereby be easier for doctors to prescribe. One thing that is not so exciting is that it's an antibody drug, so it will remain to be seen whether the prohibitive costs are gonna bar this one from reach of most people or not.

Original publication: Y.-L. Chen el al., "Proof-of-concept clinical trial of etokimab shows a key role for IL-33 in atopic dermatitis pathogenesis," Science Translational Medicine (2019). stm.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/ … scitranslmed.aax2945

[Argyros]

A new study published in the scientific journal eLife has revealed that ants are immune to spatial congestion when commuting. Even in dense, crowded conditions, ant colonies still managed to maintain a smooth and efficient traffic flow by adjusting their own behavior to adapt to changing circumstances. Scientists believe this is a type of biological adaptive system to benefit the entire colony. ^{[Article] [Publication]}

[gaggedLouise]

The Universe may be curved around itself, instead of being geometrically structured the same way in all directions. :) And this is not just a purely theoretical possibility -.there are weird discrepancies in the data record that might ultimately lead to something like this...


https://www.livescience.com/universe-may-be-curved.html

[Dichotomy]

I can't help but snicker whenever I read this:
Are cats liquid?

[Lilias]

The Day the Dinosaurs Died

On one hand, I really want to see that Q Machine model. On the other hand... yikes! As previews of the apocalypse go, this makes it clear why Aziraphale and Crowley want none of it.

[gaggedLouise]

Early sugar compounds may well have come from space, via meteorites, rather than just forming here in shallow parts of the primeval ocean.

Sugar compounds (riboses, etc) are one of the most basic groups of building blocks for the origin of life, and they've always been supposed to have formed locally here on Earth, so this finding of the stuff on board meteorites recently arrived from space is a real eye-opener.

[gaggedLouise]

Coldest man in the world - absolutely fascinating article about an elite swimmer who takes a tour underneath an ice shelf of Antarctica, down into an ice-cave glacial river on the underside of the ice.  And not just foir fun - nope, he's making scentific observations of the state of the ice...

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/10/sport/lewis-pugh-slava-fetisov-antarctica-swim-spt-intl/index.html

[gaggedLouise]

Mutiny in space? Not quite, but at least severely tangled work relationships between space station and NASA's Mission Control. Fascinating and hilarious article.

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-56346001

[Oniya]

Cross-section of the Walled City of Kowloon

http://www.rioleo.org/kowloon/crosssection.jpg

A team of Japanese researchers spent time until the night before it was demolished measuring and drawing the building, creating this incredible section

Information on the construction of the image here:  http://www.zachscott.org/2018/12/23/compositing-kowloon/

[TeamVelma]

Toxicological analysis of George’s marvellous medicine: literature review

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4467

There is an interactive 'medicine maker' in the link.  Who knew ToxBase could be so much fun...

[Oniya]

Toxicological analysis of George’s marvellous medicine: literature review

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4467

There is an interactive 'medicine maker' in the link.  Who knew ToxBase could be so much fun...

Laughed out loud at this bit.

Ethical approval: Not required. No consent has been sought from George Kranky, the original maker of the medicine, or his parents. The barrier to this chiefly being their fictional nature and therefore inability to give valid consent.

[gaggedLouise]

A tiger (from a zoo) receives successful eye surgery. :)

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-56888358

"It takes a lot more to anaesthetize a tiger than a domestic cat" - wow, I never figured that out before!

[Lilias]

Fallmerayer's theories definitively put to rest.

https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/2021/5/14/ancient-dna-revealed-present-day-greeks-are-genetically-identical-to-populations-of-2000-bc

[RedRose]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23347499/

[Oniya]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23347499/

What's extra fun about that is the listing of two other studies that basically contradict it: 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23527040/ (listed as 'free')
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23800165/ (not tagged as 'free')

Both of which indicate that increased parental age has the identical effect on stature.

(Speaking anecdotally, my brother is a tall boy, but my three sisters and I have identical heights and builds for the most part, to the point that we could all trade clothes.  If we had the same sense of fashion.)