Good morning, Gnusies, and welcome to today’s roundup of good scientific and inspiring news from around the interwebs.
Between technical difficulties and helping a friend through Some Stuff ™, it’ll be a short roundup today, but I hope no less meaningful. So on with the show!
Many of you know I watch SciShow, and have branched off to related channels, including vlogbrothers. This particular one is amazing in and of itself. I also see it as an allegory and example for too many things to list.
I think this is pretty cool.
Ari Smith, aka, Xiaoma, is an American polyglot who travels to countries and surprises locals by speaking their language to them on camera. With his immense following, and incredible aptitude for languages, a Cree cultural leader thought him a perfect ambassador for their people’s spoken word.
“We had this language program that we’re we just launched called repeataftermecree.com where we teach 52 weeks of Cree. And I was wondering, how do I promote this, how could I get it out there?” said Patrick Mitsuing, the president of Powwow Times.
Mitsuing discovered Smith’s capacity for speech (the New Yorker can speak 50 languages to varying degrees of fluency) and invited him to take the Cree course and follow it up with a visit to the nation.
Smith’s work on YouTube has a clear entertainment bent, but his superpower for learning new languages is something he’s also used for humanitarian purposes—learning indigenous languages and traveling to where they’re spoken in order to raise awareness that some of these timeless tongues, with all their hidden knowledge and poetry, are disappearing.
~~~
“The elders at first were kind of like ‘who is this weirdo with the camera?’…” Ari recounted to CBC News. “And then when I started speaking Cree, they were kind of like, ‘oh OK, that’s pretty cool.'”
Imagine going for a walk with your family and finding you had company millions of years ago.
Vicky Ballinger and her two kids were stunned by the sight in East Sussex, England, after high tides and heavy rains had worn away the sand, exposing the rock underneath.
~~~
“I grew up in Bexhill and I’ve never seen these ones before,” says Vicky.
~~~
“The kids loved that they could see the track of a dinosaur and walk where it walked. It was very exciting.”
~~~
In 2018, more than 85 footprints from the Cretaceous period made up of at least seven different species were uncovered by the cliffs between Hastings and Fairlight—including the fine detail of skin and scales.
~~~
The Bexhill site dates back to around 140 million years ago and contains the remains of dinosaurs that used to roam in the freshwater surroundings of the period.
Like other GNR authors, I love living in the future. Also, I have family that went to Case Western, and have to give that institution a shoutout!
Oral cancers and precancerous mouth lesions are considered especially difficult to diagnose early and accurately.
The biopsies are expensive, invasive and stressful for the patient, and can lead to complications. They’re also not feasible if repeated screenings of the same lesion are required.
But a team of researchers, led by a clinician scientist at Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine, has discovered a simpler, low-cost test to detect the cancer and monitor precancerous lesions, while determining when a biopsy is warranted.
And the results can be determined within thirty minutes.
~~~
The study’s lab-based approach, which is now patented, can reduce biopsies in primary care clinics by 95% because it can tell clinicians which patients actually need a biopsy. The test can also be used in developing countries where oral cancer is rampant and pathology services are questionable or lacking, said [the study’s lead researcher Aaron Weinberg, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Case Western].
Wasabi! It’s not just for sushi anymore.
Papyrus was the premier writing material of the ancients, and an international team of researchers has discovered that wasabi, the spicy green goop you get with your sushi, can save ancient papyrus manuscripts from fungal contamination.
~~~
“The bio-deterioration of papyri is a worldwide problem,” lead author Hanadi Saada, a researcher at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Egypt, tells New Scientist.
Archivists are not helpless against such bio-deterioration, but chemical agents used have their issues, such as toxicity for humans and objects, damage and disruption of ancient pigments, and not providing a future guarantee against such contamination.
~~~
Gradually mixing water and wasabi until it reached a “dumpling-like state” they hung the papyrus in such a way as to ensure the fumes from the wasabi lump could cover the whole scroll.
After three days, the contamination had been cleared without a trace remaining. All the pigments and other physical characteristics of the papyrus remained undisturbed, and something within the wasabi vapors increased the scroll’s textile strength.
I love seeing more accessibility barriers being broken. So much more work to do. Every journey is traveled one step at a time. (And as much as I hate giving FOX any airtime whatsoever, well, this is print.)
“My entire life, my family has raised horses and goats for as long as I can remember,” [Faith] Snapp shared with FOX 26 Houston. On top of the farm critters, Snapp had a guide dog since the beginning of high school.
She says she never let her disability get in the way of her living her life, and as long as there was accommodation and people to support her, she felt there was nothing she couldn’t do.
Case in point, Snapp was recently accepted into Texas Tech University School of Veterinary Medicine after years of volunteering in local animal clinics.
She starts her classes in August with an eye on becoming a mixed-animal vet, and working with both housepets and larger animals.
“No matter who you are or what your circumstances… anything is possible,” she said. “I just hope my story can help others realize that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to.”
This one just made my inner child gleeful — I spent summers catching grasshoppers, lightning bugs and lady bugs in my back yard. And Macgyver was my favorite tv show growing up.
At the ‘Bug House,’ the Houston Zoo boasts a number of Peruvian jumping sticks, which appear like stick insects, but are actually grasshoppers.
In early 2024, a female jumping stick was going through molt, a number process by which the bugs shed their exoskeletons and grow new ones. However, when the female finished, attentive zookeepers noticed a crease had developed between her thorax and head in an area without a joint.
This “neck”-like spot (it isn’t really a neck as we would understand it) was so weak that when she attempted to climb up trees, her head flopped almost all the way back on itself.
Rushing her to the veterinary clinic, Julie, the entomologist who first noticed the crease on the jumping stick, came up with the ingenious idea to secure her head with a neck brace. Using the rod of a sterilized Q-top and some microspore tape, they braced her head and thorax which allowed the crease to heal.
She had a small visible mark where the original crease happened, but after a few days the brace was removed and she was back to climbing about like normal in her exhibit.
That’s it for me! Have a wonderful day! (Please note there are two beetle-type insects up close at ~ the 0:12 mark if that would be an issue for you.)