Welcome to Overnight News Digest- Saturday Science. Since 2007 the OND has been a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Topics included tonight:
- Please eat more beans
- Diet and dementia
- Earth’s atmosphere self cleans
- Declining wild bee population related to urban beekeeping
- Oregon bans plastic foam and PFAs in food containers
- Can hydrogen become a climate-change solution?
- Consequences of living a longer life
- JWST images of a star 25 light years away
- Powerful wildlife photo of mother jackal rescuing baby from eagle’s talons
- Folding airplane wings allow transition between vertical and horizontal flight
- The walking cure
- “Massive” batteries hiding beneath our feet
- Tunnel under an Egyptian temple called a geometric miracle
Vox
by Julieta Cardenas
Eat more beans, please
What kind of protein we eat has huge implications for our health — and well beyond.
Besides the health, ethical, or religious reasons why people choose to stop eating meat, the way animals are raised to be food has enormous impacts on land use, deforestation, and carbon emissions. And as the global population continues to grow, per-capita meat production to meet that demand is growing even faster.
In the last decade, alternative meat options, like Impossible and Beyond, rose as a potential solution, a product that can substitute for animal meat without the ethical and planetary penalties. But plant-based proteins have been hitting a wall: inflation, politicization of food, and supply-chain hurdles punctured the hype — at least for now.
However, there’s a simple way to provide plenty of protein that doesn’t require animals or plant-based startups: beans. Beans are high in protein, efficient to grow, and can even improve soil health. They cost less than conventional or new plant-based meats, and they’re increasingly getting attention among foodies.
Neuroscience News
by Keyonna Summers
Diet and Dementia: Study Uncovers Gut-Brain Link to Alzheimer’s
A new study sheds light on the potential role of diet in preventing dementia. The analysis explored the relationship between gut health and Alzheimer’s disease, uncovering a strong link between specific types of gut bacteria and the likelihood of developing dementia.
The findings highlight the significance of gut microbiota in brain health and provide insights into the underlying mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease.
This research opens up new avenues for personalized treatments and interventions that target gut health to potentially slow down or prevent the development of dementia.
The Brighter Side
Earth’s atmosphere can clean itself, study finds
Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery that could change the way we think about air pollution. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have found that a strong electric field between airborne water droplets and surrounding air can create a molecule called hydroxide (OH) by a previously unknown mechanism.
This molecule is crucial in helping to clear the air of pollutants, including greenhouse gases and other chemicals.
The discovery is outlined in a new paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which suggests that the traditional thinking around the formation of OH in the atmosphere is incomplete. Until now, it was thought that sunlight was the primary driver of OH formation, but this new research shows that OH can be created spontaneously by the special conditions on the surface of water droplets.
“You need OH to oxidize hydrocarbons, otherwise they would build up in the atmosphere indefinitely,” said Sergey Nizkorodov, a University of California, Irvine professor of chemistry, who was part of the research team.
Anthropocene Magazine
by Warren Cornwall
How an explosion in urban beekeeping coincided with a decline in wild pollinators
Much like growing vegetables in front yards, rooftops and abandoned lots, raising honey bees in in cities is enjoying a surge in popularity. The growing interest in local food production, concern about a decline in pollinator numbers and a more general fascination with fusing city living and nature all deserve credit.
But while city-dwelling bee wranglers might feel like they are adding to their neighborhood’s nature-friendly features, it isn’t that simple. The proliferation of hives might be taking a toll on the other pollinators living there.
“Urban beekeeping is often falsely marketed as a solution to biodiversity loss,” says Carly Ziter, a biology professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. “Just as we wouldn’t advocate keeping backyard chickens to save the birds, we shouldn’t look to beekeeping to save the bees.”
Grist
by Joseph Winters
Oregon bans plastic foam and PFAS in food containers, promotes reusable alternatives
Oregon on Monday became the 10th state in the U.S. to ban polystyrene foam food containers, dealing another blow to a plastic whose chemical components have been linked to cancer and nervous system damage.
Starting in 2025, a new law signed by Governor Tina Kotek will ban the production, sale, and distribution of polystyrene foam cups and takeout food containers — as well as coolers and packing peanuts — anywhere in Oregon. It’s part of a broader legislative effort in the Beaver State to replace single-use plastics with reusable alternatives.
The polystyrene law also bans toxic “forever chemicals” in food packaging, and a second bill signed by Kotek will make it legal for consumers to bring their own reusable takeout containers to restaurants.
The Conversation
by Hanes Van Der Watt
What is hydrogen, and can it really become a climate change solution?
Hydrogen, or H₂, is getting a lot of attention lately as governments in the U.S., Canada and Europe push to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
But what exactly is H₂, and is it really a clean power source?
I specialize in researching and developing H₂ production techniques. Here are some key facts about this versatile chemical that could play a much larger role in our lives in the future.
So, what is hydrogen?
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but because it’s so reactive, it isn’t found on its own in nature. Instead, it is typically bound to other atoms and molecules in water, natural gas, coal and even biological matter like plants and human bodies.
Hydrogen can be isolated, however. And on its own, the H₂ molecule packs a heavy punch as a highly effective energy carrier.
Big Think
by Ross Pomeroy
A longer life often means a worse death
- A new study out of Sweden finds that people who live longer often spend more time undergoing end-of-life care, suggesting that their deaths are more drawn out than people who die younger.
- Medical care at an advanced age often extends life without significantly improving one's quality of life.
- The study draws further attention to the gap between lifespan and healthspan. In many developed societies, people are living longer but also spending a higher proportion of their lives living in poor health.
Daily Mail
by Jonathan Chadwick
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope snaps incredible images of a star 25 light-years away - and it's unlike ANYTHING seen before
- Star called Fomalhaut is 25 light years away and 15 times as bright as our sun
- Newly-discovered belts around the star could suggest the existence of planets
- What was once thought to be a planet was later deemed remains of a collision
PetaPixel
by Michael Zhang
‘A Mother’s Desperation’ Captured in Powerful Wildlife Photo
A wildlife photographer in Africa captured a photo that powerfully illustrates “a mother’s desperation” in protecting her offspring from harm.
39-year-old photographer Ateeb Hussain was on a trip to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in southwestern Kenya when he witnessed an eagle grab a jackal pup from its mother.
“High drama in the plains of Maasai Mara,” Hussain writes of the shot. “A jackal mother somehow manages to pressure a tawny eagle enough for it to drop its quarry, moments after it had managed to grab the jackal pup from right under the mother’s nose.”
New Atlas
by Loz Blain
Pterodynamics scales up its remarkable dihedral Transwing eVTOL
Fresh video shows that one of the most fascinating eVTOL aircraft designs we've seen is now flying at larger scale. The Transwing platform uses a unique dihedral folding wing system to move between hover and cruise modes, unlocking huge advantages.
Transitioning electric VTOL aircraft can take off and land more or less like multicopter drones, but then cruise efficiently in forward flight supported by wing lift. There are literally hundreds of companies racing to bring different designs to market, and they all have to deal with the same set of problems.
The Guardian
by Anne Fielding
The walking cure: why we should all be putting one foot in front the other
Annabel Streets is searching for a conifer. It is a bright, early March day and we are looping around the gardens of Fulham Palace in southwest London. She spots what she is looking for: a large spreading yew tree. We stand looking up at the clusters of leathery, spiked leaves and breathe deeply. “Every day I stand under an evergreen tree now,” she says. “I have become obsessed with terpenes.”
Terpenes are a type of organic compound produced by plants, part of a protection system against insects, disease and rot. They are the reason pine trees smell piney and citrus trees smell citrussy. They are also one of the reasons humans are drawn to trees. The presence of these tiny molecules has an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. Laboratory research has shown that the terpene a-pinene, found in conifers such as our yew tree, could have properties that prevent cancer. Studies on the citrus compound D-limonene suggest it is an effective mood-booster and antidepressant.
“Terpenes are the trees’ own immune system,” says Streets, “and when you walk underneath them you breathe that self-protection mechanism. There are studies showing that the blood pressure of people walking under evergreens was significantly lower than that of the people walking in a control group.”
Mother Jones
by Matt Simon
The “massive” batteries hiding beneath our feet
When rainwater falls, it soaks down into an aquifer, a layer of porous rock or loose materials like sand or gravel. For thousands of years, humans have been digging into these bands of liquid to bring up drinking water. But interest is growing in another clever use for these subterranean pools: aquifer thermal energy storage, or ATES.
A battery holds energy to be used later. Aquifers can be leveraged to do something similar: They can exploit the insulating properties of the Earth to conserve thermal energy and transfer it to and from buildings above ground. The temperature of water in an aquifer tends to stay fairly stable. This provides a way to heat and cool nearby structures with energy stored in water, instead of burning natural gas in furnaces or tapping into fossil-fuel-derived electricity to run air conditioners.
Science Alert
by Michelle Starr
Archaeologists Seeking Cleopatra's Tomb Uncovered a "Geometric Miracle" Tunnel
Underneath a temple in the ancient ruined city of Taposiris Magna on the Egyptian coast, archaeologists discovered a vast, spectacular tunnel in 2022, a tunnel that experts called a "geometric miracle".
During ongoing excavations and exploration of the temple, Kathleen Martinez of the University of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and colleagues uncovered the structure 13 meters (43 feet) below the ground. The 2-meter tall tunnel had been hewn through an incredible 1,305 meters (4,281 feet) of sandstone.
Its design, according to a November 2022 statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, is remarkably similar to the 1,036-meter Tunnel of Eupalinos – a 6th-century BCE aqueduct on the Greek island of Samos. Often referred to as a marvel of engineering, the conduit was unprecedented in design and construction in its day.
While the Taposiris Magna tunnel isn't without equal, its engineering is nonetheless just as impressive.
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