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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 2, 2023 at 9:52am

A journey to study dark matter and dark energy

ESA’s Euclid mission was launched into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, on 1 July 2023. It is now on its way to Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. By observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, the space telescope will create the most detailed 3D-map of the Universe, with time as the third dimension.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 12:06pm

Ultimate Predators

Humans capture more terrestrial vertebrate species for medicine, the exotic pet trade and other uses than we do for food, according to a new study of how humans affect species’ extinction risk. Humans target some 15,000 vertebrate species, amounting to one thir....  Why this matters: Our ecological impact, the researchers found, is 1,300 times larger than that of comparable predators (wolves, bears). When they assessed species by habitat type, they found that humans have the greatest impact on the ocean. What the experts say: The findings are clear evidence that humans are novel predators. If anything the study’s conclusions are conservative, says Kaitlyn Gaynor an ecologist at the University of British Columbia. “We of course don’t have perfect information on every single species that people are using,” she says.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 11:25am

Rising monkey and pig populations pose human disease risk

Exploding populations of wild pigs and macaque monkeys in Southeast Asia are threatening native forests and disease outbreaks in livestock and people, according to research published in Biological Reviews.

Macaques and wild pigs are taking over Southeast Asia's disturbed forests.

Humans are largely to blame for this by altering forests with logging and establishing palm oil farms which provide food and ideal breeding conditions for these animals.

We saw that wild boar and macaque numbers were 400% higher in forests near the plantations than in untouched environments.

These animals take full advantage of the farmland, raiding crops and thriving on calorie‐rich foods.

There were significant human health risks in the rising pig and macaque populations.

The wildlife origins of the COVID-19 pandemic show that mammals in human-modified ecosystems often host high pathogen loads and pose serious zoonotic disease risks. Both pigs and macaques are recognized as carriers of diseases that can be transmitted to people and they're the most common species in a region considered to be the global zoonotic disease hotspot.

Jonathan H. Moore et al, The rise of hyperabundant native generalists threatens both humans and nature, Biological Reviews (2023). DOI: 10.1111/brv.12985

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 10:03am

Light pollution is out of control, say astronomers

Concern over global light pollution is growing. Astronomers are noticing its growing effect on astronomical observations, just as predicted in prior decades. Our artificial light, much of which is not strictly necessary, is interfering with our science.

But there's more than just scientific progress at stake. Can humanity afford to block out the opportunities for wonder, awe, and contemplation that the night sky provides?

We've all seen satellite images of Earth at night, with glittering interconnected cities lit up like strings of holiday lights. These images show us how our global civilization has grown, how we've made progress, and how advanced we've become. But in reality, what we're seeing is also light pollution. And we're beginning to pay a price for that pollution.

In January 2023, the Globe at Night organization released a paper based on 10 years of data on the night sky. The data wasn't from satellites—an important point that we'll get to later—it was from citizen scientists spread around the world.

Globe at Night published a research article showing that the night sky is getting 10% brighter each year. Each year, more of the sky's dimmest stars are being drowned out by sky glow from streetlights, traffic lights, and other sources. For more and more people around the globe, the sky shows fewer and fewer stars, never mind the grand arch of the Milky Way.

Globe at Night gathered over 50,000 individual naked-eye observations of the night sky, where they asked citizen scientists to find the dimmest stars. The decrease in dim stars visible in these observations over the ten-year effort indicated a steadily brightening sky.

"Remote sensing of night lights: A review and an outlook for the fut...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 9:45am

Use of vertebrates by humans and other predators. a Number and percent of vertebrate species with documented human use, and b number for which use is considered a threat, including the subset facing extinction (Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered status on the IUCN Red list). c Prey diversity (number of species; logarithmic scale) of humans and comparable predators (i.e., those that prey on vertebrates for which range-wide data were available) across equivalent geographic ranges, with percentages indicating human prey overlap with each predator. Credit: Communications Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04940-w

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 9:44am

Humans found to prey on approximately one-third of all vertebrate species

An international team of ecologists, life scientists, conservationists and biologists has found that humans prey on approximately one-third of all vertebrate species in existence. In their study, reported in the journal Communications Biology, the group analyzed data collected by members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Prior research has shown that humans are the ultimate apex predator. Our species not only catches and eats prey, but domesticates certain animals to collect their milk, to make leather from their hides or to keep them as pets. In this new effort, the research team wondered just how many vertebrate species humans prey on—in their study, they defined predatory behavior as acts that remove animals from their natural environment, either dead or alive, and use them for a source of food or as a harvesting or trade resource.

To find their answer, they turned to the IUCN, an organization made up of both civil and governmental organizations engaged in monitoring, protecting, and conserving natural resources. Its 1,400 members have become a well-known resource for natural resource status reports.

In this effort, the researchers focused only on the 47,665 vertebrate species tracked by the organization. In looking at the data, the researchers found that humans prey on approximately 14,663 species, which is approximately a third of those known to the IUCN. They also found that nearly 40% of the species preyed upon by humans are listed as threatened. More specifically, they found that approximately 55% of these species are eaten. And they found that more than half of all the terrestrial species preyed on by humans are part of the pet trade. Also, humans hunt approximately 358 species of finned fish for sport and 452 species of birds—and 207 species of mammals and fish are used for clothing. They also found that 192 mammal species and 82 amphibian species are used for medical purposes.

The research team notes that such large numbers make humans far and away the biggest predator on the planet—summing it up, they found that humans prey on other species at a rate 300 times that of any other predator when accounting for the size of predation areas.

 Chris T. Darimont et al, Humanity's diverse predatory niche and its ecological consequences, Communications Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04940-w

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 9:24am

Static electricity attracts ticks to hosts, scientists find

Ticks carry a lot of nasty diseases, including Lyme disease, that make many people's and animal's lives miserable, and can even cause death. Therefore there is a huge social and economic benefit to trying to reduce the ability of ticks to attach onto people and the animals humans rely upon.

Ticks can be attracted across air gaps several times larger than themselves by the static electricity that their hosts naturally accumulate, researchers have discovered.

This likely greatly increases their efficiency at finding hosts to parasitize because ticks are not capable of jumping, and therefore this is the only mechanism by which they would be able to make contact with hosts that are beyond the reach of their tiny legs.

Findings of the study, titled "Static electricity passively attracts ticks onto hosts," published in Current Biology, are the first known example of static electricity being implicated in the attachment of an animal to another animal.

Static electricity attracting tick

Until now, we had no idea that an animal could benefit from static electricity in this way, and it really opens up one's imagination as to how many invisible forces like this could be helping animals and plants live their lives.

Sam J. England, Static electricity passively attracts ticks onto hosts, Current Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.06.021. www.cell.com/current-biology/f … 0960-9822(23)00772-8

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 30, 2023 at 12:17pm

Science can help to end extreme poverty

Ending poverty starts with agreeing on how to measure what it means, argues a Nature editorial in the second of a series of articles on how science can help to support the teetering United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ongoing conflicts and the effects of climate change have all played a part in reversing a decades-long decline in poverty. More than 700 million people now live under the extreme-poverty line, defined as a daily income of less than US$2.15. Economic expansion and basic social and health-care protections could help to address the problem. More fundamentally, a rethink of how to measure poverty is needed. The global figure calculated using an index that includes housing, child mortality, clean water, sanitation and electricity is nearly double that calculated on the basis of income.

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Antacids in the ocean to try to gobble CO₂

The first commercial experiments are underway to see whether ocean alkalinity enhancement — essentially using antacids to help the ocean digest CO₂ — could slow global warming. The idea is to speed up a natural geochemical weathering process that ultimately transfers carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the deep ocean. Quantifying the technology’s real-world impact remains the biggest challenge. The newly alkaline seawater needs to remain at the surface for carbon sequestration to occur. “If it gets drawn down into the ocean, then we might not get the benefit for another 1,000 years,” explains oceanographer Katja Fennel.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 30, 2023 at 12:05pm

Researchers observe rubber-like elasticity in liquid glycerol for the first time

Simple molecular liquids such as water or glycerol are of great importance for technical applications, in biology or even for understanding properties in the liquid state. Researchers  have now succeeded in observing liquid glycerol in a completely unexpected rubbery state.

In their article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers report how they created rapidly expanding bubbles on the surface of the liquid in vacuum using a pulsed laser. However, the thin, micrometers-thick liquid envelope of the bubble did not behave like a viscous liquid dissipating deformation energy as expected, but like the elastic envelope of a rubber toy balloon, which can store and release elastic energy.

It is the first time an elasticity dominating the flow behavior in a Newtonian liquid like glycerol has been observed. Its existence is difficult to reconcile with common ideas about the interactions in liquid glycerol and motivates the search for more comprehensive descriptions. Surprisingly, the elasticity persists over such long timescales of several microseconds that it could be important for very rapid engineering applications such as micrometer-confined flows under high pressure. Yet, the question remains unsettled whether this behavior is a specific property of liquid glycerol, or rather a phenomenon that occurs in many molecular liquids under similar conditions but has not been observed so far.

 Meghanad Kayanattil et al, Rubber-like elasticity in laser-driven free surface flow of a Newtonian fluid, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2301956120

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 30, 2023 at 11:58am

A Star Fit For Life

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