Why Australia has koalas and Spain has squirrels
Futurity
by Emilie Lorditch-Michigan State
7h ago
A new study sheds light on the profound influence of deep geographic isolation on the evolution of mammals. The research reveals how long-lasting separation between continents has shaped distinct mammal communities around the globe. “Today’s ecology was not inevitable. If there were different isolating factors long ago, we might have vastly different ecosystems today,” says study lead author Peter Williams, a research associate in the integrative biology department and a postdoctoral researcher in Michigan State University’s Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (EEB) program. While environmental ..read more
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Fortified eggs don’t seem to raise cholesterol
Futurity
by Stephanie Lopez-Duke
7h ago
Researchers offer new evidence on the health effects of fortified eggs, which are eggs enriched with various vitamins or nutrients. There are often conflicting headlines about whether certain foods are good or bad for you, and the news about eggs has been especially confusing. Search the topic online and you’ll find a wealth of articles spanning back decades. In a modest-sized randomized trial, researchers found that fortified eggs did not have a negative impact on bad cholesterol (LDL cholesterol) or good cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) over the course of the four-month study. The researchers ..read more
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Couples that drink alcohol together may live longer
Futurity
by Morgan Sherburne-Michigan
7h ago
The couple that drinks together might live longer together, too, new research suggests. A theory in alcohol literature called “the drinking partnership,” where couples who have similar patterns of alcohol use tend to have better marital outcomes (such as less conflict and longer marriages), was the inspiration behind the study, says Kira Birditt, a research professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research’s Survey Research Center, Although a great deal of research has examined the implications of couples’ drinking patterns for marital outcomes, the implications for health ..read more
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Pandemic took a toll on undocumented immigrants’ mental health
Futurity
by Amy McCaig-Rice University
10h ago
Four years after the US shut down in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, new research suggests undocumented immigrants’ mental health challenges were compounded due to stresses stemming from their unauthorized status. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, examines how undocumented immigrants navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. “We were disappointed to see the toll the pandemic took on these families, but it was not entirely surprising.” During a series of in-depth interviews with undocumented individuals or those from mixed-status Latino families liv ..read more
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New way to test drugs in development is safer and faster
Futurity
by Katherine Gombay-McGill
10h ago
Researchers have discovered a safer and more efficient technique for testing new drugs in development. “Because this approach is so much more streamlined, it could help accelerate this step in the drug development process and make it less dangerous, since probing the distribution and fate of a drug in the body is required for any pharmaceutical candidate to be approved,” says Bruce A. Arndtsen, a professor in the chemistry department at McGill University and senior author of the paper describing the new process in Nature Chemistry. “This research replaces what can be a days’ long, dangerous ..read more
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‘Space snowman’ explains how distant objects become ice bombs
Futurity
by Juan Siliezar-Brown
10h ago
A new study is shaking up what scientists thought they knew about distant space objects in the far reaches of the solar system, starting with an object called the “space snowman.” Researchers from Brown University and the SETI Institute found that the double-lobed object, which is officially named Kuiper Belt Object 486958 Arrokoth and resembles a snowman, may have ancient ices stored deep within it from when the object first formed billions of years ago. But that’s just the beginning of their findings. This image was taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on Jan. 1, 2019, during a flyby of ..read more
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How will climate change affect mosquito disease transmission?
Futurity
by Lourdes Mederos-U. Florida
1d ago
New research digs into a critical but often overlooked aspect in models that examine the impact of climate change on mosquito-borne diseases: thermal adaptation. Thermal adaptation is the ability for organisms to adjust their life history traits as the temperature changes. In the case of mosquitoes, these traits can determine their risk of transmitting mosquito-borne diseases and how this risk might change in the future as they respond to climates warming. “Global drivers such as transport, trade, and climate change, are altering the distribution of mosquitoes around the planet and, with this ..read more
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Glucose swings may stymie brain function in people with diabetes
Futurity
by Judith Van Dongen-Washington State
1d ago
Large swings in blood glucose tied to type 1 diabetes may affect the brain’s ability to quickly process information, according to a new study. The research also shows that these changes may more severely affect some individuals, including older people and those with certain health conditions. As reported in npj Digital Medicine, the study found that very low and very high glucose levels were associated with slower and less accurate cognitive processing speed, with the most dramatic effect seen at low glucose levels. Optimal cognitive processing speed—the ability to respond to and process info ..read more
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Does quantum gravity exist?
Futurity
by Michael Skov Jensen-Copenhagen
1d ago
Several thousand sensors distributed over a square kilometer near the South Pole are tasked with answering one of the large outstanding questions in physics: does quantum gravity exist? The sensors monitor neutrinos—particles with no electrical charge and almost without mass—arriving at the Earth from outer space. A team from the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) at the University of Copenhagen have contributed to developing the method which exploits neutrino data to reveal if quantum gravity exists. “If as we believe, quantum gravity does indeed exist, this will contribute to unite the current two ..read more
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‘Tipping point’ in fungi evolution sculpts their shapes
Futurity
by Rachel Harrison-NYU
1d ago
Scientists have found a “tipping point” in the evolution of fungi that throttles their growth and sculpts their shapes. The findings, published in the journal Cell Reports, demonstrate how small changes in environmental factors can lead to huge changes in evolutionary outcomes. Fungi are nature’s great composters. They wait within the forest floor to feed on fallen trees and autumn leaves, releasing essential nutrients from these plants back into the Earth. Although fungi often bring to mind mushroom caps, fungi also have underground “roots” called mycelia. Mycelia are made up of thousands of ..read more
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