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Today:
How Feminism Can Guide Climate Change Action
NEWS | 22 December 2024
As gender-equality researchers at the U.N., we see growing evidence that women, girls and gender-diverse people are bearing the brunt of climate change. The feminist climate justice approach tries to address the interlinked challenges of climate change, gender inequality and social injustice. A feminist climate justice approach elevates their voices and values their contributions to understanding the climate crisis and charting a new way forward. As detailed in our report Feminist Climate Justice: A Framework for Action, moving towards this vision requires action around four pillars. The vast gap between the demands for bold climate action and sluggish government responses raises urgent questions on how to ensure accountability.

Top Stories:
Run, Lucy, Run! Human Ancestors Could Jog but Not Very Far or Fast
NEWS | 22 December 2024
The researchers then used a simulator to make their Lucy model ‘run’ and compared its performance with that of a digital model of a modern human. By contrast, the human model ran at roughly 8 metres per second. When they added human-like ankle muscles to the Lucy model, the energy cost was comparable to that of other animals of a similar size. This suggests that adaptations in the Achilles tendon and surrounding muscles enable modern humans to run for extended periods. Bates and his colleagues are now planning to investigate whether fatigue and bone strain also influenced Lucy’s running.

World:
Ancient Moon Melt Event May Explain 150-Million-Year Gap in Age Estimates
NEWS | 22 December 2024
Yet scientists are still unsure exactly when a Mars-size meteorite slammed into early Earth, causing our natural satellite to form from the debris. A new study published on December 18 in Nature offers a way to explain that 150-million-year gap. This early moon would have looked like Jupiter’s moon Io, says the new study’s lead author Francis Nimmo, a planetary scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz. This difference of 150 million years matters a lot to scientists, Nimmo says, especially for learning more about the early Earth. Did it have an atmosphere?” For instance, really early Earth likely didn’t have an ocean—or it would have pushed the moon away too fast.

Current Events:
Bird Flu Has Spread Out of Control after Mistakes by U.S. Government and Industry
NEWS | 22 December 2024
Just a few mutations could allow the bird flu to spread between people. “Even if there’s only a 5% chance of a bird flu pandemic happening, we’re talking about a pandemic that probably looks like 2020 or worse,” said Tom Peacock, a bird flu researcher at the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom, referring to COVID. In less than two months, veterinary researchers identified the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus as the culprit. As winter sets in, the bird flu becomes harder to spot because patient symptoms may be mistaken for the seasonal flu. And, she added, the CDC should change its position and offer farmworkers bird flu vaccines to protect them and ward off the chance of a hybrid bird flu that spreads quickly.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 22 December 2024
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here

News Flash:
The Next Viral Pandemic Is Coming. Here’s How We Can Stop It
NEWS | 22 December 2024
Plowright was part of a team trying to understand why flying foxes had been spreading the Hendra virus to horses and people. That discovery focused attention on bats as virus carriers, and scientists have since discovered dozens of bat-­borne pathogens. (A lethal aspect of COVID, early in the pandemic, was a “storm” of immunological overreaction that damaged organs beyond repair.) “This helps to keep the viruses in check.”The grey-headed flying fox also carries the Hendra virus, which threatens people and other animals. In 2011—the year scientists uncovered the big surge of virus shedding and horse infection—Australia was coming out of two strong El Niño years.

Latest:
Could Inducing Lucid Dreams Treat Insomnia and Nightmares?
NEWS | 22 December 2024
Imaging studies revealed more wakelike activity in the brain during lucid dreams than nonlucid dreams. To have stable lucid dreams, you need to remain calm and attentive, or you will probably wake up from excitement. Lucid dreamers who can conjure up characters rate these dreams as more positive and mystical than other dreams. Headbands and watches could help people call for help to escape nightmares—or just help them induce lucid dreams or direct the content for more satisfying dreams. Such measures could lead to algorithms that detect opportune moments to deliver sensory cues and induce lucid dreams.

Breaking:
How the Vagus Nerve Could Influence Physical and Mental Health
NEWS | 22 December 2024
The vagus nerve is a vine of nerve fibers with roots in nearly every organ and shoots in the brain. Wellness influencers claim we can ice, tone or zap the vagus nerve to fix almost anything—long COVID, headaches, poor memory, extra pounds, the blues. Still, some research on the vagus nerve is intriguing enough—and promising enough—to draw serious scientific attention. The accidental discovery excited a wave of research to figure out exactly how the vagus nerve impacts mood—a wave that has yet to crest. This heterogeneity could mean different types of vagus nerve signals might be effective for different people.

Trending:
NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft Aims for Jupiter’s Most Intriguing Moon
NEWS | 22 December 2024
Loosed from our world’s gravitational harbor by SpaceX’s fire-breathing Falcon Heavy rocket, NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is now sailing toward the Jupiter system. But the Clipper mission signifies a dawning era in which this region’s subsurface seas will snap into sharper focus. Europa Clipper was no different, as its lunar destination boasts an intense radiation environment. But Drake (better known to me as Dad) didn’t live to see Europa Clipper launch. “One of the things on Europa Clipper and on Dragonfly”—NASA’s upcoming mission to Titan—“that we take very seriously is this opportunity and responsibility to bridge the generations.”An artist’s concept of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft swooping over Jupiter’s icy ocean-bearing moon Europa, a hot spot in humanity’s epochal search for alien life.

This Just In:
Special Editions Volume 33, Issue 4s
NEWS | 22 December 2024
“Heavy and healthy” can be a rare or common condition. But either way it may signal that some excess weight is just fine

Today:
To Follow the Real Early Human Diet, Eat Everything
NEWS | 22 December 2024
But they are significantly more restrictive than the paleo diet where plant foods are concerned. For the entire first half of our known history, hominins seem to have maintained this plant-based diet—they left no material trace of meat eating. Nor was it followed by a steady increase in meat eating over time, as would be expected in the feedback-loop scenario. Hunter-gatherers around the world get roughly half their calories from plant foods and half from animal foods on average. “And you have peo­ple who are going after more dependable plant foods.

Top Stories:
New Human Metabolism Research Upends Conventional Wisdom about How We Burn Calories
NEWS | 22 December 2024
The results were a revelation, the first clear road map of metabolism over the human lifespan. Our findings have overturned much of the received wisdom about the ways human energy requirements change over the course of a lifetime. Our metabolism is the energy we expend (or the calories we burn) each day. Calories in, calories out. My colleagues and I worked out this part of the human energy equation, too.

World:
Why Your Brain Needs Exercise
NEWS | 22 December 2024
In fact, this link between physical activity and brain health may trace back millions of years to the origin of hallmark traits of humankind. Flexing the BrainTo explore why exercise benefits the brain, we need to first consider which aspects of brain structure and cognition seem most responsive to it. Researchers have also documented clear links be­­tween aerobic exercise and benefits to other parts of the brain, including expansion of the prefrontal cortex, which sits just behind the forehead. Tami TolpaThink about the ways in which many of us get our aerobic ex­ercise. In the end, working out both the body and the brain during exercise may help keep the mind sharp for life.

Current Events:
People Who Are Fat and Healthy May Hold Keys to Understanding Obesity
NEWS | 22 December 2024
Researchers call this phenomenon metabolically healthy obesity (MHO). The identification of people with metabolically healthy obesity suggests obesity may not automatically lead to illness. Jen Christiansen; Source: “Metabolically Healthy Obesity: Facts and Fantasies,” by Gordon I. Smith, Bettina Mittendorfer and Samuel Klein, in Journal of Clinical Investigation, Vol. Compared with people with metabolically unhealthy obesity, they have higher levels of physical fitness and lower body fat percentages. The study of metabolically healthy obesity shows that the relationship between body fat and disease is complicated.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 22 December 2024
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here