The Overnight News Digest is a nightly chronicle of the day's news. Each editor makes his or her own story selection for that day's digest and publishes the compilation typically around midnight Eastern time. Readers are encouraged to remark on the news of the day and contribute additional stories in the comments.
This week’s science articles:
- Lion’s Mane mushrooms magnify memory
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming event brings cold our way
- A new risky dietary practice among young people
- Milky Way’s long-lost twin
- How do we know the timeline of our universe?
- Ancient origin of smallpox
- Why some people show no symptoms of Covid-19
- Rewire your brain to prevent suffering
- Something strange similar to a polar vortex on the sun
- Why most gun safety laws aren’t backed up by evidence
- Rheumatoid arthritis treatment replaces injections with pills
- Cinnamon helps boost learning and memory
- Retrofitting a home to net-zero in a day
Neuroscience News
by University of Queensland
Mushrooms magnify memory by boosting nerve growth
Summary: Active compounds in the edible Lion’s Mane mushroom can help promote neurogenesis and enhance memory, a new study reports. Preclinical trials report the compound had a significant impact on neural growth and improved memory formation. Researchers say the compound could have clinical applications in treating and preventing neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Axios
by Andrew Freedman
An event high above the Arctic may turn winter sharply colder in U.S., Europe
A complex and highly consequential weather phenomena is slated to take place next week, as air temperatures about 100,000 feet above the surface, skyrocket and swirling winds around the Arctic slow or even reverse direction.
Why it matters: Known as a sudden stratospheric warming event (SSW), this can disrupt the polar vortex and displace frigid air masses into Europe and the eastern U.S.
The big picture: The main computer models forecasters rely on to help predict the weather are in near lockstep agreement that a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event will occur beginning next week. This one may be especially strong, too.
[…]
Of note: In the recent past, sudden stratospheric warming events have led to major cold snaps in Europe, including the "Beast from the East" pattern that drove frigid air from Siberia westward into the United Kingdom in 2018.
- They have also led to prolific snows in the Northeast U.S., though experts tell Axios that connection is a bit more tenuous.
- Still, these events offer some hope to snow lovers in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, two regions that have seen little frozen precipitation so far this winter.
Neuroscience News
by University of Toronto
Dry Scooping: A Risky Dietary Practice Common Among Adolescents and Young Adults
A new study, published in the journal Eating Behaviors, has found that over 1 in 5 adolescent boys and young adult men have engaged in “dry scooping”, a novel dietary phenomenon described as ingesting pre-workout powders without a liquid (i.e., the entire scoop in one shot without mixing with water as intended).
“Dry scooping can have serious health effects, including issues with inhalation, cardiac abnormalities, and digestive issues,” says lead author Kyle T. Ganson, PhD, MSW, assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, “To date, however, there have been no epidemiological studies investigating the occurrence of dry scooping among young people, leaving significant information unknown.”
Analyzing data from over 2,700 Canadian adolescents and young adults from the Canadian Study of Adolescent Health Behaviors, the researchers found that 17% of participants reported dry scooping at least one time in the previous year, and an average of 50 times over that time period. The researchers also found that participants who engaged in weight training and spent greater time on social media were more likely to report dry scooping.
Live Science
by Ben Turner
James Webb telescope finds Milky Way's long-lost twin 9 billion years in the past
A sparkling cannibal galaxy discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope appears to be a "very early" mirror image of the Milky Way, and it could help astronomers understand how our galaxy took shape, a new study has revealed.
Located 9 billion light-years from Earth, the galaxy is named the "Sparkler" after the dwarf galaxies and two dozen globular clusters — swarms of millions of stars bound together by gravity — that shine around it. According to the study authors, the galaxy is voraciously gorging upon these nearby objects to grow ever larger.
The cosmic feeding frenzy was discovered in Webb's First Deep Field — the deepest and most detailed view of the universe ever captured, and the James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) first full-color picture. Released in July 2022, the image shows the Sparkler galaxy as a warped orange line surrounded by spots of light. Now, an analysis published Dec. 26 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society(opens in new tab) has revealed that the galaxy is growing by cannibalizing its neighbors — much like the young Milky Way is thought to have done.
Big Think
by Ethan Siegel
How do we know the timeline of our universe?
Today, it’s now 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang occurred. Our observable Universe extends for 46.1 billion light-years in all directions, and is made of:
- 68% dark energy,
- 27% dark matter,
- 4.9% normal (atom-based) matter,
- 0.09% neutrinos,
- and 0.01% radiation,
with no hint of other components like spatial curvature, cosmic strings, domain walls, or any other weird stuff we can imagine.
If we were to run the clock backward, however, we’d find that dark energy wasn’t always dominant. There was a time when matter dominated, and before that, when radiation did. There was a time when there were no stars, no neutral atoms, no atomic nuclei, no protons and neutrons, and even no massive particles.
But how do we know precisely when these events and epochs occurred? That’s what Marshall Randolph wants to know, asking:
“When I read about the epochs of the universe, they are tagged with a specific time. The Hadron epoch, for example, started at 10^-6 seconds. The timelines of the epochs are given almost as if I should know them. Are they easily calculated by physicists? Could you describe the methods in a way I can understand?”
I very much think so. Let’s recount the cosmic story of how we came to be and how we know precisely when those events happened.
Brighter Side of News
by Charlotte Hartley
Scientists discover origin of smallpox
Smallpox was once one of humanity’s most devastating diseases, but its origin is shrouded in mystery. For years, scientific estimates of when the smallpox virus first emerged have been at odds with historical records. Now, a new study reveals that the virus dates back 2,000 years further than scientists have previously shown, verifying historical sources and confirming for the first time that the disease has plagued human societies since ancient times.
Smallpox, caused by the variola virus, is perhaps best known for being the only infectious human disease to be eradicated worldwide. But the disease was a major cause of death until relatively recently, killing at least 300 million people in the 20th century. This is roughly the equivalent of the population of the United States.
Until relatively recently, the earliest genetic evidence for smallpox was only from the 1600s. Then in 2020, a study that sampled skeletal and dental remains of Viking-age skeletons recovered multiple strains of variola and confirmed the virus’ existence at least another 1,000 years earlier.
New Zealand Herald
University of Sydney scientists make ‘crazy’ Covid-19 discovery
Australian scientists have made an incredible discovery that could change the way we view Covid.
The findings could explain one of the disease’s biggest mysteries — why some people suffer serious illness with the virus, or even death, while others never get sick or appear symptomless.
University of Sydney researchers discovered a protein in the lung that blocks Covid infection and forms a natural protective barrier in the human body.
The naturally occurring protein, LRRC15, works by attaching itself to the virus, stopping Covid particles from binding with more vulnerable cells - as well as reducing the chance of infection.
BigThink
by Alexandra Keeler
What if you could rewire your brain to conquer suffering? Buddhism says you can
The World Health Organization reports that the number of people suffering mental health conditions is increasing worldwide. Buddhism acknowledges that suffering is an inevitable part of the human condition. But what if you could rewire your brain to conquer suffering? According to Buddhism, you can.
Buddhism is a religion and philosophical system that originated in ancient India in the 5th Century BCE. It is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, also known as Buddha. It is estimated that about 500 million people follow Buddhism today.
According to the Buddha, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. These both lead to craving and attachment to things that are impermanent, and this attachment causes us to suffer when we experience loss or change, because we hold onto a false belief that these things will bring us lasting happiness. Buddhism teaches that mental suffering can be overcome through the development of understanding and the cultivation of certain mental states and practices.
Five thirty eight
by Maggie Koerth
Why Most Gun Laws Aren’t Backed Up By Evidence
In the first month of 2023, 25 people lost their lives in four mass shootings in California over just eight days. It’s a grim statistic, made all the more distressing when you consider the fact that California has one of the lowest gun death rates in the entire country. This is what a safe state looks like.
California also has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. And in the aftermath of those four mass shootings, new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — who represents a district in southern California — took the opportunity to poke at the state’s firearms restrictions, saying in a press conference that federal gun control legislation would not be an automatic response to these tragedies because such laws “apparently … did not work in this situation.”
So, did California’s gun laws succeed at making it one of the safest states … or did they fail to stop a string of mass shootings? Questions about the efficacy of gun laws have gotten easier to answer in recent years as changes to federal policy have helped to bring money and people back to the field of gun violence research. But decades of neglect mean there are still lots of blank spaces — policies that don’t yet have good quality data backing them up. A recent report from the Rand Corporation that reviewed the evidence behind a variety of gun policies found just three that were supported by evidence that met the report’s quality standards.1
Brighter Side of News
by Graciela Gutierrez
Gamechanging atthritis treatment replaces injections with pills
For chronic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, treatment often involves lifelong injections. Fear of needles, injection-associated infection and pain are responsible for patients skipping doses, which encourages the development of new delivery strategies that combine efficacy with limited side effects to treat patients adequately.
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions have explored a better way of delivering medications that does not require injections but could be as easy as swallowing a pill. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“People don’t like to have injections for the rest of their lives,” said co-corresponding author Dr. Christine Beeton, professor of integrative physiology at Baylor. “In the current work, we explored the possibility of using the probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus reuteri as a novel oral drug delivery platform to treat rheumatoid arthritis in an animal model.”
Neuroscience News
Spice of life: Cinnamon helps boost learning and memory
Cinnamon, the popular aromatic spice used in baking and cooking could do more than just wake up your taste buds. A new study reveals eating products with cinnamon can help improve memory and learning, and may also reduce some symptoms of anxiety.
Previous research reported cinnamon has a positive effect on health. Studies have revealed cinnamon has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-cancer properties. The spice can also help boost immune system function.
Now, a team of researchers from Birjand University of Medical Sciences has completed a meta-analysis of prior research papers, reporting cinnamon consumption could help reduce or prevent memory loss and improve learning.
Fast Company
by Adele Peters
This Dutch construction innovation shows it’s possible to quickly retrofit every building
Every building on the planet will have to get to net-zero emissions by the middle of the century to meet global climate goals—and since most of the buildings that will exist then have already been built, that means a massive number of home retrofits will have to happen to shrink energy use and replace old equipment like gas furnaces.
“In the U.S., that’s around 3 to 6 million buildings per year that need to be fully decarbonized,” says Martha Campbell, a principal in the Carbon-Free Buildings program at the energy nonprofit RMI. In Europe, by another calculation, roughly 15,000 houses need to transform every day for the next 30 years.
That’s not happening now. But in the Netherlands, one program is demonstrating how the process could speed up. Energiesprong (which translates to “energy jump”), a nonprofit that the Dutch government helped launch a decade ago, is coordinating a system of mass retrofits. “We thought, okay, let’s make home retrofits into a scalable solution,” says Christian Richter, who works in the organization’s market development team in Germany.
My articles today seem to lean toward health, memory and the universe with a few other topics sprinkled in. Please help me balance this out in the comments.