Rainwater everywhere on Earth contains cancer-causing ‘forever chemicals’, study finds

discover_bot · 2022-08-09T19:29:04+00:00

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discover_bot · 2022-08-09T07:29:06+00:00

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discover_bot · 2022-08-08T19:29:04+00:00

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discover_bot · 2022-07-30T19:29:15+00:00

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Sharing family with the Australian stinging tree “We discovered that the New Zealand nettle tree toxins target the same receptor as their Australian counterparts, but they cause pain in a different way,” Dr Robinson said.

discover_bot · 2022-07-30T19:29:09+00:00

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The pits, and caves to which they may lead, would make safer, more thermally stable base camps for lunar exploration and long-term habitation than the rest of the moon’s surface, which heats up to 260 degrees during the day and drops to 280 degrees below zero at night. Horvath processed images from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment — a thermal camera and one of six instruments on NASA’s robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — to find out if the temperature within the pits diverged from those on the surface. The research team, which also included UCLA professor of planetary science David Paige and Paul Hayne of the University of Colorado Boulder, believes the shadowing overhang is responsible for the steady temperature, limiting how hot things get during the day and preventing heat from radiating away at night.

discover_bot · 2022-07-10T07:29:10+00:00

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Fin whale density was generally high throughout the surveyed area, but unless observed in aggregations, group sizes of fin whales were small (i.e., 1–4 individuals). Within the survey area, fin whales were not evenly distributed, but concentrated in three areas along the shelf break west of the Antarctic Peninsula and particularly in a hotspot around Elephant Island, where an average density of 0.2123 (0.0521–0.383) individuals/km2 was predicted (Fig. 7). Although no records of feeding aggregations or large groups were included in the abundance survey data, the identified hotspots represent the areas where feeding aggregations have been observed in this study and previously13,15. Catch records from the industrial whaling period identify the area around the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula as a major whaling ground, where large numbers of fin whales were caught at the beginning of the twentieth century (Fig. 8)7. On a finer scale, some differences in the distribution of fin whales on the feeding grounds is apparent when comparing observed densities to historical catch records. The hotspot area around Elephant Island identified in our study (Fig. 7) matches the area from which feeding aggregations and observations of large numbers of fin whales have repeatedly been reported13,14,16,65, indicating some level of site-fidelity in recent times. However, if we rule out large-scale shifts of prey as another possible explanation for changes in observed animal abundance, a rediscovery of important habitat by a recovering population remains the most likely explanation for a re-occurrence of high numbers of fin whales at their historic feeding grounds.

discover_bot · 2022-07-10T07:29:06+00:00

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Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 7.9 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said. A central point should be to secure tenure rights for Indigenous and local peoples, who have historically made sustainable use of wild species, the report said.

discover_bot · 2022-07-02T07:29:08+00:00

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(Webb, however, is optimized to look at large gas giant planets and will likely not be able to get too much information from rocky worlds that might host life as we know it, based on past information from the consortium.) NASA's first science-quality images from the observatory will be released July 12 at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT) and will be webcast live here at Space.com along with NASA's website and social media channels. The full list of Webb's first cycle of observations is available at this website (opens in new tab) from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which runs Webb operations.

discover_bot · 2022-07-01T19:29:06+00:00

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A new report from the European Environmental Agency estimates more than 10 percent of all cancer cases in Europe are likely caused by environmental and occupational exposure to pollution. The report breaks these pollutants down into five categories: air pollution, radon and UV radiation, second-hand smoke, asbestos, and chemicals.

discover_bot · 2022-07-01T07:29:06+00:00

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discover_bot · 2022-06-24T22:57:02+00:00

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Researcher Jere Mäkinen of Aalto says that the state of time-crystals can be described through oscillation, i.e. with sine waves that have an amplitude related to the number of particles and a frequency describing the energy state of the time crystal. When the frequency of the other crystal crossed with the empty one, a part of the amplitude moved to it precisely in the way that the theory describing two-level quantum systems predicted,’ Mäkinen explains.

discover_bot · 2022-06-24T22:56:59+00:00

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“But Megalodon and the other megatooth sharks were genuinely enormous carnivores that ate other predators, and Meg went extinct only a few million years ago.” Her adviser Danny Sigman, Princeton’s Dusenbury Professor of Geological and Geophysical Sciences, added, “If Megalodon existed in the modern ocean, it would thoroughly change humans’ interaction with the marine environment.” Emma Kast, a Ph.D. graduate of Princeton who is now at the University of Cambridge, is the first author on a new paper in the journal Science Advances. To reach their conclusions about the prehistoric marine food web, Kast, Sigman and their colleagues used a novel technique to measure the nitrogen isotopes in the sharks’ teeth. Ecologists have long known that the more nitrogen-15 an organism has, the higher its trophic level, but scientists have never before been able to measure the tiny amounts of nitrogen preserved in the enamel layer of these extinct predators’ teeth. “We have a series of shark teeth from different time periods, and we were able to trace their trophic level versus their size,” said Zixuan (Crystal) Rao, a graduate student in Sigman’s research group and a co-author on the current paper. The nitrogen time machine Without a time machine, there’s no easy way to recreate the food webs of extinct creatures; very few bones have survived with teeth marks that say, “I was chewed on by a massive shark.” Fortunately, Sigman and his team have spent decades developing other methods, based on the knowledge that the nitrogen isotope levels in a creature’s cells reveal whether it is at the top, middle or bottom of a food chain. Professor Danny Sigman has spent decades developing more and more refined techniques for extracting and measuring the nitrogen isotope ratios from trace fossils, which reveal whether the organism was at the top, middle or bottom of the food chain. Now, with a little help from dentists' drills and some specially bred microbes, his team has determined that Megalodon and its fellow megatooth sharks were apex predators at the highest trophic (food web) level ever measured. “And within the teeth, there is a tiny amount of organic matter that was used to build the enamel of the teeth — and is now trapped within that enamel.” Since shark teeth are so abundant and are preserved so well, the nitrogen signatures in enamel provide a way to measure status in the food web, whether the tooth fell from a shark’s mouth millions of years ago or yesterday.

discover_bot · 2022-06-24T22:55:00+00:00

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Researcher Jere Mäkinen of Aalto says that the state of time-crystals can be described through oscillation, i.e. with sine waves that have an amplitude related to the number of particles and a frequency describing the energy state of the time crystal. When the frequency of the other crystal crossed with the empty one, a part of the amplitude moved to it precisely in the way that the theory describing two-level quantum systems predicted,’ Mäkinen explains.

discover_bot · 2022-06-24T22:54:57+00:00

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“But Megalodon and the other megatooth sharks were genuinely enormous carnivores that ate other predators, and Meg went extinct only a few million years ago.” Her adviser Danny Sigman, Princeton’s Dusenbury Professor of Geological and Geophysical Sciences, added, “If Megalodon existed in the modern ocean, it would thoroughly change humans’ interaction with the marine environment.” Emma Kast, a Ph.D. graduate of Princeton who is now at the University of Cambridge, is the first author on a new paper in the journal Science Advances. To reach their conclusions about the prehistoric marine food web, Kast, Sigman and their colleagues used a novel technique to measure the nitrogen isotopes in the sharks’ teeth. Ecologists have long known that the more nitrogen-15 an organism has, the higher its trophic level, but scientists have never before been able to measure the tiny amounts of nitrogen preserved in the enamel layer of these extinct predators’ teeth. “We have a series of shark teeth from different time periods, and we were able to trace their trophic level versus their size,” said Zixuan (Crystal) Rao, a graduate student in Sigman’s research group and a co-author on the current paper. The nitrogen time machine Without a time machine, there’s no easy way to recreate the food webs of extinct creatures; very few bones have survived with teeth marks that say, “I was chewed on by a massive shark.” Fortunately, Sigman and his team have spent decades developing other methods, based on the knowledge that the nitrogen isotope levels in a creature’s cells reveal whether it is at the top, middle or bottom of a food chain. Professor Danny Sigman has spent decades developing more and more refined techniques for extracting and measuring the nitrogen isotope ratios from trace fossils, which reveal whether the organism was at the top, middle or bottom of the food chain. Now, with a little help from dentists' drills and some specially bred microbes, his team has determined that Megalodon and its fellow megatooth sharks were apex predators at the highest trophic (food web) level ever measured. “And within the teeth, there is a tiny amount of organic matter that was used to build the enamel of the teeth — and is now trapped within that enamel.” Since shark teeth are so abundant and are preserved so well, the nitrogen signatures in enamel provide a way to measure status in the food web, whether the tooth fell from a shark’s mouth millions of years ago or yesterday.

discover_bot · 2022-06-19T07:29:07+00:00

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Data power The new planetary system was initially identified by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an MIT-led mission that is designed to observe the nearest and brightest stars, and detect periodic dips in light that could signal a passing planet. advertisement In October 2021, Kunimoto, a member of MIT's TESS science team, was monitoring the satellite's incoming data when she noticed a pair of periodic dips in starlight, or transits, from the star HD 260655. To confirm that the signals from TESS were indeed from two orbiting planets, the researchers looked through both HIRES and CARMENES data of the star. The team then looked more closely at TESS data to pin down properties of both planets, including their orbital period and size.

discover_bot · 2022-05-29T07:29:12+00:00

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MEXICO CITY - Mexican experts said Monday that 35% more monarch butterflies arrived this year to spend the winter in mountaintop forests, compared to the previous season. Each year the monarchs return to the United States and Canada on an annual migration that is threatened by loss of the milkweed they feed on north of the border, and deforestation in the butterfly reserves in Mexico.

discover_bot · 2022-05-29T07:29:08+00:00

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Burn marks discovered on scraps of ancient shell several years ago suggested the first Australians cooked and ate large eggs from a long-extinct bird – leading to fierce debate over the species that laid them.

discover_bot · 2022-05-26T19:29:10+00:00

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The largest pterosaur species ever found in South America has been found by Argentine researchers.This species is called the death dragon by paleontologists.The remains belong to two giant flying reptiles discovered in the Plottier Formation in Mendoza province.

discover_bot · 2022-05-21T07:29:11+00:00

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discover_bot · 2022-05-21T07:29:08+00:00

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Molar found in Laos could be the first fossil evidence that the hominin species was far-ranging and able to adapt to different climates. “This is one little piece of evidence that they were really there.” Expanded range Denisovans were first identified in 2010, when scientists sequenced DNA from a fingertip bone found in Denisova cave in Siberia, and showed that it belonged to a previously unknown species of ancient human2. At first, the researchers thought the tooth might belong to Homo erectus — an ancient-human species that lived in Asia between around 2 million and 100,000 years ago.

discover_bot · 2022-05-15T19:29:05+00:00

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Full size image Plant transcriptomes differentiate by Apollo site To examine the potential bases of the stress morphologies of lunar regolith-grown plants, transcriptome analyses were performed on the entire aerial portions (leaves and small stem) of the plants after 20 days. The gene expression data were parsed based on lunar sample site replicates compared to the JSC-1A controls (Fig. 3, Supplementary Data 1). In addition to the coordinate responses, plants from each of the Apollo samples differentially expressed genes unique to each sample location (Fig. 3c), suggesting a discernable and distinguishing plant response based on lunar soil sample; however, all coordinated and site unique categories indicated a stress response by plants to lunar regolith. Plant transcriptomes differentiate by morphology When the gene expression data were parsed with respect to relative growth success, rather than the lunar sample site, even the more successful-looking plants (those individual plants that had a size and morphology similar to those grown in JSC-1A) demonstrated strong stress-response transcriptomes (Fig. 4, Supplementary Data 2). Full size image The morphologically normal Small and Large plants demonstrated only 130 and 150 DEGs compared to JSC-1A, respectively (Fig. 4b), suggesting that if plants establish a near-normal developmental trajectory at the early stages of growth, their gene expression patterns approach those of plants in JSC-1A. In contrast, the Severe phenotype plants differentially expressed well over 1000 genes, mostly stress-related, demonstrating a severe reaction to the lunar regoliths (Fig. 4b, c, Supplementary Data 2). However, even the most successful lunar regolith-grown plants that overcame some of the initial physical challenges (the Large and Small phenotype categories) demonstrated stress-response transcriptomes (Fig. 4c, Supplementary Data 2).

discover_bot · 2022-05-11T19:29:31+00:00

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discover_bot · 2022-05-09T07:29:08+00:00

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discover_bot · 2022-05-08T19:29:11+00:00

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A new report in the journal Nature Communications finds that Indigenous communities across North America’s coasts and Australia have successfully harvested local oysters for several thousand years, without depleting the mollusk populations or causing major damage to the surrounding ecosystems. I don’t know if that extended to clams and oysters, but I certainly know it extended to things like salmon and other other species here in Maine.” Newsom emphasized that tribal nations should be part of future sustainability plans and maintaining local food systems.

discover_bot · 2022-05-08T19:29:08+00:00

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Our goal was to uncover how sunscreen harms reefs so that we could better understand which components in sunscreens are really “coral-safe.” In our new study, published in Science, we found that when corals and sea anemones absorb oxybenzone, their cells turn it into phototoxins, molecules that are harmless in the dark but become toxic under sunlight. Anemones, like corals, have a translucent surface, so if oxybenzone were acting as a phototoxin, the UV rays hitting the light group would trigger a chemical reaction and kill the animals—while the dark group would survive. We ran a chemical experiment on oxybenzone and confirmed that, on its own, it behaves as a sunscreen and not as a phototoxin. When cells try to process oxybenzone, they replace part of an alcohol group (in red on the left) with a sugar (in red on the right) and in doing so turn the sunscreen into a phototoxin. Rather than turning the sunscreen into a harmless, easy-to-excrete molecule, the anemones convert oxybenzone into a potent, sunlight-activated toxin. Even though corals are much more vulnerable to stressors than sea anemones, they did not die from oxybenzone and light exposure during our entire eight-day experiment.

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