Good morning, Gnusies!
You get me a day early this month! I hope you all enjoy a community- and science-filled round up this morning, along with your beverage and breakfast of choice.
You guys know I love learning about our past.
Researchers in Peru have announced the discovery of more than 100 previously unknown archaeological structures at Gran Pajatén, a pre-Columbian settlement in the remote reaches of the Andes Mountains.
Located roughly 300 miles north of Lima in Río Abiseo National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Gran Pajatén complex contains remnants of the Chachapoya civilization, which thrived in the northeast Andes between the 9th and 16th centuries, until it was conquered by the Inca Empire.
Sites like Gran Pajatén—all but inaccessible to modern visitors and researchers because of its remote location, high altitude and dense foliage—helped earn the Chachapoya the nickname “Warriors of the Clouds” and resist Inca colonization for longer than other groups.
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“Although specialists suspected that the extension of Gran Pajatén was greater, our findings were unexpected—not only in terms of scale, but in how they reframe the role and significance of the site,” Juan Pablo de la Puente, executive director of WMF in Peru, tells the Art Newspaper’s Garry Shaw.
Using technology like lidar scanning and photogrammetry to “see through the forest canopy,” according to a WMF statement, archaeologists working at Gran Pajatén since 2022 revealed a sophisticated urban settlement complete with agricultural terraces, circular buildings and cliffside tombs at altitudes of up to nearly 10,000 feet above sea level.
Lots more info in the article!
Biological defenses are a Thing!
Published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, the findings revealed that applying the bacterial probiotic treatment to a coral colony helped prevent tissue loss and slow the spread of SCTLD in already infected wild corals in Florida.
They say the new treatment provides a viable alternative to the current method of applying an antibiotic, which only offers temporary protection and also runs the risk of creating resistant strains of SCTLD.
“The goal of using the probiotics is to get the corals to take up this beneficial bacterium and incorporate it into their natural microbiome, said study co-leader Dr. Valerie Paul, head scientist at the Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce, Florida. “The probiotics then will provide a more lasting protection.”
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Dr. Paul and her colleagues have spent six years investigating whether probiotics could combat the disease because, like humans, corals host communities known as microbiomes that are bustling with bacteria. Some of those tiny organisms, found in both coral tissue and the protective mucus that corals secrete, produce antioxidants and vitamins to keep their coral hosts healthy.
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The team then tested more than 200 strains of bacteria from the disease-resistant corals, and settled on the probiotic ‘Pseudoalteromonas sp. McH1-7’ from the great star coral, which produces several different antibacterial compounds, as the “ideal candidate” to combat SCTLD.
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The team found after more than two years of monitoring the colony that the probiotic successfully slowed the spread of SCTLD—and the samples revealed that the probiotic was effective without dominating the corals’ natural microbes.
* Please forgive the misleading title — the microbes in the research were not actually found in yogurt, but another species of coral.
From the “The Kids are All Right” files:
When Texan high schoolers Samuel Skotnikov, Changyoung Kim, and Eeshaan Prashanth found out that their friend Aiden’s prosthetic leg was uncomfortable and difficult to use, they decided to make him a better one.
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“It started around helping our friend. He shared with us his struggle and how his current prosthetic was not really helping him out,” Skotnikov said. “That made us dive into the research of prosthetics with the whole goal of creating something better for him.”
They designed their version of a prosthetic leg, NeuroFlex, to be powered by Aiden’s brain, not his limbs.
It works by translating the wearer’s brain signals through an EEG (electroencephalography) headband. The signals tell NeuroFlex how the wearer wants to move, and the prosthetic uses its motors to support that movement.
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“Current lower limb prostheses rely on cumbersome procedures, need risky surgery, and are prohibitively expensive. As a result, many lower-limb amputees experience unnatural gait patterns and excessive energy expenditure, leading to discomfort and long-term health complications,” the teens wrote.
Their invention costs about $1,000 to make and operate, compared to the approximate cost of $100,000 for traditional bionic prosthetics.
I can’t wait to see what they get up to next.
It’s been a long time since I’ve played musical chairs. Now I’m wishing there were local community games on the regular.
Nine hundred adult New Yorkers showed up one recent evening for a chance to take home a commemorative chair and a $500 gift card. But mostly, they showed up to have a good time and in that, they were all winners.
Contestants were broken into smaller groups of 30, where they competed in semi-final heats. Each group would have one winner, who would then go on to compete in the "Winner's Circle." During the contest, full-grown human beings hopped, skipped, and chicken-wing-flapped their arms as they circled the chairs, then frantically tried to find a place or face elimination.
In a recording of the event, all you can hear is laughter, gasps, and raucous giggles as these adult strangers run and topple over with glee.
According to The Times, the ultimate winner was 50-year-old Amy Beron, who had come from Tennessee to visit her daughter in New York. "[Beron] claimed the title in the absence of friends in the crowd, as camera flashes lit up her shocked face. She had seen on social media that the event was taking place, showed up alone and walked away a winner."
Non-toxic plastic that dissolves in salt water!
Japanese scientists were thrilled to receive significant interest from the packaging industry over their new seawater-degradable plastic.
Breaking apart into nutritious compounds for ocean-borne bacteria in just 2 to 3 hours depending on the size and thickness, the invention could be a major solution to reducing plastic waste in the environment.
To that end, researchers at a lab in Wako city near Tokyo used two ionic monomers to form a salt bond for the basis of the polymer plastic. Despite being strong and flexible like normal petroleum-based plastics, the material is highly vulnerable to salt and immersion in salty ocean water dissolves the plastic in short order.
Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and the University of Tokyo who developed the plastic don’t have any detailed plans for commercialization, but they have been contacted by members of the packaging industry with significant interest.
The plastic is non-toxic, non-flammable, and doesn’t emit CO2. It wont leach chemicals and microplastics into one’s body as is the case with normal plastic water bottles, packaging, take-away containers, and so on.
That’s it for me today, folks!
And now, the weather. (I promise my name is still not Cecil Baldwin.)
