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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 24, 2024 at 10:03am

The ants tackled the maze challenge in three combinations: a single ant, a small group of about seven ants and a large group of about 80. Humans handled the task in three parallel combinations: a single person, a small group of six to nine individuals and a large group of 26.

To make the comparison as meaningful as possible, groups of humans were in some cases instructed to avoid communicating through speaking or gestures, even wearing surgical masks and sunglasses to conceal their mouths and eyes. In addition, human participants were told to hold the load only by the handles that simulated the way in which it is held by ants. The handles contained meters that measured the pulling force applied by each person throughout the attempt.

The researchers repeated the experiment numerous times for each combination, then meticulously analyzed the videos and all the advanced tracking data while using computer simulations and various physics models.

Unsurprisingly, the cognitive abilities of humans gave them an edge in the individual challenge, in which they resorted to calculated, strategic planning, easily outperforming the ants.
In the group challenge, however, the picture was completely different, especially for the larger groups. Not only did groups of ants perform better than individual ants, but in some cases they did better than humans. Groups of ants acted together in a calculated and strategic manner, exhibiting collective memory that helped them persist in a particular direction of motion and avoid repeated mistakes.

Humans, on the contrary, failed to significantly improve their performance when acting in groups. When communication between group members was restricted to resemble that of ants, their performance even dropped compared to that of individuals. They tended to opt for "greedy" solutions—which seemed attractive in the short term but were not beneficial in the long term, and—according to the researchers—opted for the lowest common denominator.
An ant colony is actually a family. All the ants in the nest are sisters, and they have common interests. It's a tightly knit society in which cooperation greatly outweighs competition. That's why an ant colony is sometimes referred to as a super-organism, sort of a living body composed of multiple 'cells' that cooperate with one another.

These new findings validate this vision. Researchers shown that ants acting as a group are smarter, that for them the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In contrast, forming groups did not expand the cognitive abilities of humans. The famous 'wisdom of the crowd' that's become so popular in the age of social networks didn't come to the fore in these experiments.

Tabea Dreyer et al, Comparing cooperative geometric puzzle solving in ants versus humans, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2414274121

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 24, 2024 at 9:59am

Digest this: Ants prove superior to humans in group problem-solving maze experiment

Anyone who has dealt with ants in the kitchen knows that ants are highly social creatures; it's rare to see one alone. Humans are social creatures too, even if some of us enjoy solitude. Ants and humans are also the only creatures in nature that consistently cooperate while transporting large loads that greatly exceed their own dimensions.

Researchers have used this shared trait to conduct a fascinating evolutionary competition that asks the question: Who will be better at maneuvering a large load through a maze? The surprising results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shed new light on group decision making, as well as on the pros and cons of cooperation versus going it alone.

To enable a comparison between two such disparate species, the research team  created a real-life version of the "piano movers puzzle," a classical computational problem from the fields of motion planning and robotics that deals with possible ways of moving an unusually shaped object—say, a piano—from point A to point B in a complex environment.

Instead of a piano, the participants were given a large T-shaped object that they had to maneuver across a rectangular space divided into three chambers connected by two narrow slits.

The researchers created two sets of mazes that differed only in size, to match the dimensions of ants and humans, as well as groups of different sizes. Recruiting study participants was easier in the case of humans, who volunteered simply because they were asked to participate, and probably because they liked the idea of a competition. Ants, on the other hand, are far from competitive. They joined because they were misled into thinking that the heavy load was a juicy edible morsel that they were transporting into their nest.

The ants chosen to compete against Homo sapiens were Paratrechina longicornis. They are called this because of their long antennae, though they are sometimes referred to as "crazy ants" for their tendency to dash around. This familiar species of black ant, about 3 mm long, is common around the world.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 24, 2024 at 9:53am

Mental health disorders were less common in preterm participants (38.2% vs. 52.9%). Self-reported depression was less common in the preterm group. Educational attainment and mortality after the first year of life did not vary significantly.

The results suggest that worsened cardiovascular outcomes are not universal for all individuals born preterm, particularly for those born at moderate gestation. These findings offer nuanced insights into the long-term impacts of preterm birth in the era of antenatal corticosteroid use.

Anthony G. B. Walters et al, Health Outcomes 50 Years After Preterm Birth in Participants of a Trial of Antenatal Betamethasone, Pediatrics (2024). DOI: 10.1542/peds.2024-066929

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 24, 2024 at 9:52am

How does being born preterm affect long-term health?

Research has found that adults who were born preterm showed no statistically significant differences in diabetes, prediabetes, or dyslipidemia and had fewer cardiovascular events compared with adults born at term. A higher likelihood of developing high blood pressure by age 50 was seen among the preterm group.

Preterm birth occurs before 37 weeks gestation and affects an estimated one in 10 births worldwide. Outcomes in adulthood have previously been associated with elevated risk for cardiovascular disorders, including hypertension and stroke. These earlier investigations rarely included individuals who reached midlife in the modern era of improved neonatal care.

Long-term consequences for people born preterm are therefore lacking a contemporary research evaluation to identify potential age-related health risks.

In the study, "Health Outcomes 50 Years After Preterm Birth in Participants of a Trial of Antenatal Betamethasone," published in Pediatrics, researchers performed a follow-up of individuals originally enrolled in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of antenatal betamethasone at the National Women's Hospital in Auckland.
Participants completed a health questionnaire and provided consent for administrative health data review. Clinical endpoints measured included hypertension, diabetes mellitus, prediabetes, treated dyslipidemia, and major adverse cardiovascular events. Secondary outcomes covered respiratory, mental health, educational, and additional health metrics.

More than one-third of preterm-born adults showed higher reported rates of high blood pressure (34.7% vs. 19.8%), yet the overall risk of major adverse cardiovascular events was lower in this group than in term-born peers (2.8% vs. 6.9%).

Rates of diabetes, prediabetes, and treated dyslipidemia were not significantly different. Respiratory outcomes were generally comparable, and no significant differences were observed in chronic kidney disease prevalence.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 24, 2024 at 9:46am

The explanation lies in quantum mechanics, where particles like photons behave in fuzzy, probabilistic ways rather than following strict rules.

Instead of adhering to a fixed timeline for absorption and re-emission, these interactions occur across a spectrum of possible durations—some of which defy everyday intuition.

Critically, the researchers say, this doesn't violate Einstein's theory of special relativity, which dictates that nothing can travel faster than light. These photons carried no information, sidestepping any cosmic speed limits.
The concept of "negative time" has drawn both fascination and skepticism, particularly from prominent voices in the scientific community.

German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, for one, criticized the work in a YouTube video viewed by over 250,000 people, noting, "The negative time in this experiment has nothing to do with the passage of time—it's just a way to describe how photons travel through a medium and how their phases shift."

Angulo and Steinberg, the researchers who did this work, pushed back, arguing that their research addresses crucial gaps in understanding why light doesn't always travel at a constant speed.

Steinberg acknowledged the controversy surrounding their paper's provocative headline but pointed out that no serious scientist has challenged the experimental results.

"We've made our choice about what we think is a fruitful way to describe the results," he said, adding that while practical applications remain elusive, the findings open new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena.

"I'll be honest, I don't currently have a path from what we've been looking at toward applications," he admitted. "We're going to keep thinking about it, but I don't want to get people's hopes up."

Daniela Angulo et al, Experimental evidence that a photon can spend a negative amount of time in an atom cloud, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2409.03680 , arxiv.org/abs/2409.03680

Part 2

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 24, 2024 at 9:44am

Scientists observe 'negative time' in quantum experiments

Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it—an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter.

Now, researchers through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that "negative time" isn't just a theoretical idea—it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny.

The findings, posted on the preprint server arXiv but not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, have attracted both global attention and skepticism.

The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time.

While the term "negative time" might sound like a concept lifted from science fiction, some physicists defend its use, hoping it will spark deeper discussions about the mysteries of quantum physics.

Years ago, the research team began exploring interactions between light and matter.

When light particles, or photons, pass through atoms, some are absorbed by the atoms and later re-emitted. This interaction changes the atoms, temporarily putting them in a higher-energy or "excited" state before they return to normal.

The team now set out to measure how long these atoms stayed in their excited state. "That time turned out to be negative" —meaning a duration less than zero.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 23, 2024 at 9:01am

Antarctica's tipping points threaten global climate stability

Antarctica is approaching a series of cascading tipping points that could reshape ecosystems and intensify global climate disruptions, according to a new study by an international team of scientists.

The study identifies eight potential tipping points spanning physical, biological, chemical, and governance systems. The research is published in the journal Ambio.

These include collapsing ice sheets, invasive species, ocean acidification, and pressures on the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), which oversees human activity in the region.

The findings highlight the region's critical role in global climate stability.

Antarctica's ice sheets are vital to regulating the Earth's climate and oceans. If they collapse, we'll see significant sea-level rise, impacting millions of people living in coastal areas.

The study warns that these tipping points are interconnected, creating a risk of cascading effects. Melting ice sheets, for example, not only contribute to sea-level rise but also disrupt ocean circulation, which is crucial for transporting heat, carbon, and nutrients around the globe. Such disruptions threaten marine ecosystems, global fisheries, and food security.

The Antarctic Treaty System has been a cornerstone in preserving this fragile environment. But it's increasingly under pressure from geopolitical tensions and expanding human activity. Strengthening it is critical to mitigating these cascading impacts.

Ida Kubiszewski et al, Cascading tipping points of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, Ambio (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s13280-024-02101-9

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 22, 2024 at 11:49am

If our findings here are validated in future studies of independent study populations, mechanistic studies would be needed to disentangle the role of human tonsils and their diseases, via inflammation or other associated health conditions, in the development of psychiatric disorders in general and stress-related disorders specifically," write the researchers.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2827613

Part 2

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 22, 2024 at 11:47am

Having Your Tonsils removed as a Child May Have a Drastic Impact on Your Life

Thousands of children around the world   have their tonsils surgically removed each year to improve breathing while sleeping or reduce recurrent infection.

A study by an international team of researchers now suggests this relatively common procedure could increase a patient's risk of developing an anxiety-related disorder later in life.

Scientists analyzed data on over a million people held in a Swedish health registry, finding that a tonsillectomy was linked to a 43 percent increased risk of developing conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or anxiety. 

Being an observational study, the research can't determine the cause of this outcome, however the increased risk was present even after accounting for the sex of the participants, the age at which they had their tonsils out, any family history of stress-related disorders, and the education level of the parents (an indicator of socioeconomic status).

These findings suggest a potential role of adenotonsillar diseases or associated health conditions in the development of stress-related disorders, the researchers write in their published paper.

Of the conditions identified, PTSD presented the greatest risk increase; a rise of some 55 percent was shown for those who had tonsillectomies earlier in life, compared with those who hadn't.

The researchers compared siblings in some families to control for certain genetic and environmental factors. Even among this sample there was a 34 percent greater risk of anxiety disorders for those family members who had their tonsils removed.

"We found that although the risk increase appeared to be greatest during the first years following surgery, an increased risk of stress-related disorders was still noted more than 20 years after the surgery," write the researchers.

Being a nationwide study with a large sample size, the results provide credible evidence for some kind of link between the surgery and declines in mental health. But what's behind the association?

While we can live without our tonsils, they do help to fight infection, so our bodies are more vulnerable without them. It's also possible that in some cases the reason for the tonsillectomy – like persistent inflammation – might also be the reason for the anxieties later in life.

Previous studies have linked the removal of the tonsils to increases in other health problems, including autoimmune diseases and cancer – and we now have another important consideration to weigh up.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 21, 2024 at 1:06pm

Commercial tea bags release millions of microplastics, entering human intestinal cells

Do you know why I never use these tea bags? Because my instinct told me they don't have good vibes! And I am right!

Research has characterized in detail how polymer-based commercial tea bags release millions of nanoplastics and microplastics when infused. The study shows for the first time the capacity of these particles to be absorbed by human intestinal cells, and are thus able to reach the bloodstream and spread throughout the body.

Plastic waste pollution represents a critical environmental challenge with increasing implications for the well-being and health of future generations. Food packaging is a major source of micro and nanoplastic (MNPLs) contamination and inhalation and ingestion is the main route of human exposure.

A study by the Mutagenesis Group of the UAB Department of Genetics and Microbiology has successfully obtained and characterized micro and nanoplastics derived from several types of commercially available tea bags. The paper is published in the journal Chemosphere.

The researchers observed that when these tea bags are used to prepare an infusion, huge amounts of nano-sized particles and nanofilamentous structures are released, which is an important source of exposure to MNPLs.

The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose. The study shows that, when brewing tea, polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers.

To characterize the different types of particles present in the infusion, a set of advanced analytical techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), dynamic light scattering (DLS), laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV), and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) were used.

Interactions with human cells observed for the first time.

The particles were stained and exposed for the first time to different types of human intestinal cells to assess their interaction and possible cellular internalization. The biological interaction experiments showed that mucus-producing intestinal cells had the highest uptake of micro and nanoplastics, with the particles even entering the cell nucleus that houses the genetic material.

The result suggests a key role for intestinal mucus in the uptake of these pollutant particles and underscores the need for further research into the effects that chronic exposure can have on human health.

As the use of plastic in food packaging continues to increase, it is vital to address MNPLs contamination to ensure food safety and protect public health, the researchers add.

Gooya Banaei et al, Teabag-derived micro/nanoplastics (true-to-life MNPLs) as a surrogate for real-life exposure scenarios, Chemosphere (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.143736

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