Curiosity

Curiosity December E38

·         The month of December Solstice 21st Dec.

o   Makara Sankranthi in india

·         8 Billion humans on the planet

·         Crime is lower when cities are greener, evidence from South African study

·         UK weather prompts 'second spring' due to mild November weather

·         Mauna Loa - the world's largest active volcano - is erupting for the first time since 1984.

o   Mauna Loa's summit is 13,680ft (4,170m) above sea level, but its base is on the sea floor. From there to the summit is 30,085ft (9,170m), making it taller than Mount Everest.

This month’ Discoveries

1.       Alzheimer's drug lecanemab hailed as momentous breakthrough

2.       Attractive female students no longer earned higher grades when classes moved online during COVID-19

3.       Study shows when comparing students who have identical subject-specific competence, teachers are more likely to give higher grades to girls.

4.       White South-African students who were randomly allocated to share a dorm room with black students were less likely to express negative stereotypes of Blacks and more likely to form interracial friendships, while the black students improved their GPA, passed more exams and had lower dropout rates.

5.       1 in 5 deaths of US adults 20 to 49 is from excessive drinking, study shows | CNN

6.       Living alone increases the risk for depression by 42%, according to recent research (seven studies; 123,859 individuals)

7.       Just one surface crack on a Teflon-coated pan can release about 9100 plastic particles, found researchers

8.       Oldest evidence of the controlled use of fire to cook food. Hominins living at Gesher Benot Ya’akov 780,000 years ago were apparently capable of controlling fire to cook their meals, a skill once thought to be the sole province of modern humans who evolved hundreds of thousands of years later.

9.       A new breed of rice that is a hybrid of an annual Asian rice and a perennial African rice could be a more sustainable option. The hybrid rice was able to produce grain for 8 consecutive harvests over four years at a yield comparable to the standard annual Asian rice, with much lower costs & labour.

10.   Long COVID study suggests lost connections between neurons may explain cognitive symptoms

11.   Plant-based diet can cut bowel cancer risk in men by 22%, says study | Nutrition

12.   Overconfidencev in one's reasoning abilities and distrust of science are linked to COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs

13.   Evolution of Tree Roots Triggered Series of Devonian Mass Extinctions, Study Suggests.The evolution of tree roots likely flooded past oceans with excess nutrients, causing massive algae growth; these destructive algae blooms would have depleted most of the oceans’ oxygen, triggering mass extinctions

a.       Root exudates solubalizes phospherous in volcanic rocks.

14.   Cannabis oil failed to improve pain or quality of life in palliative care cancer patients, study shows | Australia news

15.   People don’t mate randomly – but the flawed assumption that they do is an essential part of many studies linking genes to diseases and traits

Fb group

Observances: General

·         1 AIDS Day

·         2 National Pollution Prevention Day

·         3 Persons with disabilities

·         5 Soil

·         7 Civil Aviation

·         9 Anti-Genocide & Anti-Corruption

·         10 Human Rights

·         11 Mountain

·         12 Neutrality (like NAM), Universal Health Coverage

·         18 Migrants

·         27 Epidemic Preparedness

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         1 Mars at perigee

·         Moon-Jupiter Conh

·         Pheonicid Meteor shower

·         6 Cassiopeid meteor shower

·         7 Puppid Velid showers

·         8 The cold moon

·         9 Monocerotid showers

·         12 Alpha Hybrid showers

·         14 geminid showers

·         16 Comae-Berenicid showers

·         20 December leonis minored

·         22 December solstice

·         26 Moon-Saturn Conj

·         29 Moon-Jupiter conj

Opportunities

·         Asean-India collaborative R&D Scheme DST, 31st dec

·         Eiffel scholarship, 10th Jan

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity Nov 2022 E37

Science news of last month

1.      BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 strains of BA5 Omicron. Immune escape and higher transmissibility. Higher R0 (Basic reproduction number)

2.      Lumpy skin virus. ds DNA poxviridae. Misinformation set aside, this isn’t a zoonotic disease. No cattle to human transmission. Safe to drink milk. Not from Pakistan, but from Bangladesh

3.      Asia’s largest Compressed biogas (CBG) plant with Germany-Verbio AG (Lehraganga), World’s largest nuclear plant in Jaitapur, Maharashtra with France

4.      Nobel Prizes, Ig Nobel prizes

IgNobel 2022

The annual spoof awards for quirky science are supposed to "make us laugh but then make us think".

The science humour magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research, hands out the Ig Nobel awards.

1.       Applied cardiology:  for seeking and finding evidence that when new romantic partners meet for the first time, and feel attracted to each other, their heart rates synchronize

2.       Literature: for analyzing what makes legal documents unnecessarily difficult to understand

3.       Biology: whether and how constipation affects the mating prospects of scorpions

4.       Medicine: when patients undergo some forms of toxic chemotherapy, they suffer fewer harmful side effects when ice cream replaces one traditional component of the procedure

5.       Engineering: for trying to discover the most efficient way for people to use their fingers when turning a knob

6.       Art History: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Ritual Enema Scenes on Ancient Maya Pottery

7.       Physics: or trying to understand how ducklings manage to swim in formation

8.       for developing an algorithm to help gossipers decide when to tell the truth and when to lie

9.       Economics: for explaining, mathematically, why success most often goes not to the most talented people, but instead to the luckiest

10.   Safety engineering: for developing a moose crash test dummy

This month’ Discoveries

1.       ‘We’ve Never Seen Anything Like This Before:’ Black Hole Spews Out Material Years After Shredding Star

a.       discovered a bunch of material spewing out of a black hole’s surroundings two years after it shredded a star, going as fast as half the speed of light! While we have seen two black holes that “turned on” in radio 100+ days after shredding a star, this is the first time we have the details, and no one expected this! likens to “burping” after a meal.

2.       Cannabis use does not increase actual creativity but does increase how creative you think you are, study finds

3.       A study of nearly 2,000 children found that those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more performed better on cognitive skills tests involving impulse control and working memory compared to children who had never played video games.

4.       1 in 5 deaths of US adults 20 to 49 is from excessive drinking, study shows | CNN

5.       Health toll of childhood abuse: Victims of childhood abuse are biologically older than their peers in midlife, study indicates

6.       Record-breaking chip can transmit entire internet's traffic per second. A new photonic chip design has achieved a world record data transmission speed of 1.84 petabits per second, almost twice the global internet traffic per second.

7.       Black students are substantially more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college if they were assigned to at least one black teacher in in grades K–3

8.       When you next hear cheerful twittering of birds, you should stop and listen: new study suggests that listening to birdsong reduces anxiety and paranoia! Nature

9.       If you’re feeling low, take a walk down memory lane. Study says nostalgia improves psychological well-being

10.   Vitamin D deficit is associated with accelerated brain aging in the general population

11.   People with insecure attachment styles tend to have strong emotional bonds with pets, study finds

a.       Humans are social creatures but other Humans can often be unpleasant. Animals on the otherhand don't judge and won't hate you for being short, having big ears, having been sexually abused, etc.

12.   Some People Really Are Mosquito Magnets, and They’re Stuck That Way

13.   New research shows that people are 70% less likely to fall when their arms move freely, suggesting that carrying objects like purses or laptops can result in significantly more falls.

Observances: General

·         5 Tsunami Awareness

·         9 International week of Science and Peace

·         10 Science Day for Peace and Development

·         13 Antibiotic Awareness

·         14 Diabetes

·         15 Day of 8 billion

·         18 Philosophy

·         19 Toilet

·         20 Children’s

·         21 Road Traffic Victims, TV

·         25 Elimination of Violence against women

·         30 Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare 

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         8 Total Lunar Eclipse

·         11 Moon/Mars Conj

·         12 Northern Taurid

·         18 Leonid

·         21 Alpha Monocerotid

·         28 Nov Orionid

·         29 Mon/Saturn Conj

Opportunities

·         SRFP 2022, 15th Nov

·         EIFFEL SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM OF EXCELLENCE, 10th Jan 23

·         Going Global Partnerships Industry Academia Collaborative Grant;British Council

·         Full list is here

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity October 2022 E36

Science news of last month

1.     Cheetah re-introduction to India (Project Cheetah), 17th Sep. 5 Female and 3 male from Namibia to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. Cheetahs are all GPS tagged, and closely under observation. 1 Month quarantine, then released to the reserve. Later in the year 12 more Cheetahs will be introduced from South Africa.

2.     Artemis-1. Again delayed due to Hurricane Ian. Launch will happen probably in November

3.     NASA and SpaceX considering re-boosting Hubble

4.     Dogs can sniff out stress on owner’s breath and change the behavior

5.     Ringed Neptune, JWST’s latest popular image

This month’ Discoveries

1.       1,000-year-old stalagmites from a remote cave in India show the monsoon isn’t so reliable – their rings reveal a history of long, deadly droughts

a.       A stalagmite is an upward-growing mound of mineral deposits that have precipitated from water dripping onto the floor of a cave. Stalactite is opposite.

2.       Boys and men experience more social isolation than girls and women, study finds

3.       An hour-long stroll in nature helps decrease activity in an area of the brain associated with stress processing

4.       Spending time by canals and rivers is linked to feeling happy and healthy

5.       Stanford researchers find wildfire smoke is unraveling decades of air quality gains, exposing millions of Americans to extreme pollution levels

6.       Bitcoin mining is just as bad for the environment as drilling for oil. Each coin mined in 2021 caused $11,314 of climate damage, adding to the total global damages that exceeded $12 billion between 2016 and 2021.

7.       Living in a corrupt environment makes you more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, regardless of your politics

8.       Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed microscopic robots, called microrobots, that can swim around in the lungs, deliver medication and be used to clear up life-threatening cases of bacterial pneumonia.

9.       Genetically modified mosquitos were use to vaccinate participants in a new malaria vaccine trial

10.   Math reveals the best way to group students for learning: "grouping individuals with similar skill levels maximizes the total learning of all individuals collectively"

11.   Meta-Analysis of 3 Million People Finds Plant-Based Diets Are Protective Against Digestive Cancers

12.   Paleontologists  have identified a new genus and species of algae more than 500m years old. The ancient fossil — 541m years old — predates the origin of land plants, & interestingly the fossil is the first and oldest green algae from this era to be preserved in three dimensions.

13.   Heavy weight training can help protect your body’s functional ability by strengthening the connection between motor neurons and the muscles. Even if you are 70 years old, study concludes

Observances: General

·   1st: Older persons

·   2nd: Statistics, Gandhi Jayanti- Non-Violence

·   3rd Habitat

·   4th Space Week

·   5th Teacher

·   7th Cotton

·   9th Migratory Bird

·   10th Mental Health

·   11th Girl Child

·   13th Disaster Risk Reduction

·   15th Rural women

·   16th Food

·   17th Eradication of Poverty

·   24 Media and Information Literacy Week, UN Day

·   31st Cities

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·   5: Moon Saturn Conjunction

·   6: Camelopardalid Meteor Shower

·   8: Moon-Jupiter Conjunction

·   9: Mercury. Also Moon-Jupiter Conj

·   10: Hunter’s Moon, Southern Taurid Meteor Shower

·   11: delta Aurigid meteor shower

·   15: Moon-Mars Conj

·   18: Epsilon Geminid Meteor Shower

·   21: Orionid Meteor shower

·   24 Leonis Minorid Meteor shower

·   25 Partial Solar Eclipse, visible in India upto 57%

Opportunities

·   Dr. DS Kothari Grant

·   Dr. S. Radhakrishnan PostDoc

·   SERB SURE

·   Max Plank Institute, NTU SIngapore

·   Full list is here

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity September 2022 E35

Personal News

1.       YAI in ISC

2.       Life skills

Science news of last month

1.     Artemis-1 launch attempt aborted due to core stage issues on 29th August. Next attempt will happen on 3rd Sep

2. ISRO SSLV D1/EOS-2 Mission Fails

3.     Serotonin-Depression myth busted

4.     India gets 15 more Ramsar Sites, including Pichavaram

5.     UVB exposure-sexual arousal

This month’ Discoveries

1.       Exercise more important than weight loss for heart health

2.       Physical activity may have a stronger role than genes in longevity: "Our study showed that, even if you aren’t likely to live long based on your genes, you can still extend your lifespan by engaging in positive lifestyle behaviors such as regular exercise and sitting less”

3.       Scientists have found even small behavioral changes, such as walking 15 minutes a day or taking the stairs instead of the elevator, may have a substantial positive effect on the brain and potentially counteract age-related loss of brain matter and the development of neurodegenerative disease

4.       Engineers at MIT have developed a new battery design using common materials – aluminum, sulfur and salt. Not only is the battery low-cost, but it’s resistant to fire and failures, and can be charged very fast, which could make it useful for powering a home or charging electric vehicles.

5.       Drones that fly packages straight to people’s doors could be an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional modes of transportation.Greenhouse-gas emissions per parcel were 84% lower for drones than for diesel trucks.Drones also consumed up to 94% less energy per parcel than did the trucks.

6.       New psychology research indicates that cleaning oneself helps alleviate the anxiety from stress-inducing events

7.       People in the United States strongly associate vegetarianism with whiteness, study finds

8.       Low trust in science, scientific knowledge, and health literacy largely occur together and are linked with poorer health-related outcomes

9.       New research suggests narcissism is one of the best psychological predictors of conspiracy beliefs. This may be due to several reasons. These include narcissists' gullibility, paranoia, and their need for dominance and feeling special.

10.   Social exclusion and the spreading of harmful rumors more common form of bullying than physical, verbal aggression, new study finds

11.   New evidence shows water separates into two different liquids at low temperatures. This new evidence, published in Nature Physics, represents a significant step forward in confirming the idea of a liquid-liquid phase transition first proposed in 1992.

12.   What older adults do while they sit affects dementia risk. Results remained the same even after the scientists accounted for levels of physical activity. Even in individuals who are highly physically active, time spent watching TV was associated with increased risk of dementia

13.   Long-term administration (67 days) of soft drink causes memory impairment and oxidative damage in adult and middle-aged rats.

14.   The latest paper in Cell links artificial sweeteners with higher blood sugar spikes via changes in the gut microbiome.

15.   Major sea-level rise caused by melting of Greenland ice cap is ‘now inevitable’

a.       Farmers grow Avocados and water melon in UK

b.       Major floods ongoing in Kerala & Karnataka. Massive flash floods in HP and Pakistan 2 weeks ago

Observances: General

·   5th: Charity

·   7th: Clean air and Blue Skies

·   8th: Literacy

·   9th: Day to protect education from Attack

·   15th: Democracy

·   16Th: Preservation of Ozone Layer

·   17th Patient safety day

·   18th Equal pay day

·   21: Day of peace

·   23: Sign languages

·   26: Total elimination of nuclear weapons

·   27: Tourism

·   28: Universal Access to Information

·   29: Awareness of food loss and waste

·   30: Maritime day, translation day

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·   1. Aurigid meteor shower

·   8: Moon-Saturn Conjunction

·   9. E Perseid meteor shower

·   10. Harvest Moon

·   11: Moon-Jupiter Conjunction

·   17 Moon-Mars

·   23: September equinox

·   27: Sextanid meteor shower, Jupiter at Opposition

Opportunities

·   DBT-Wellcome trust Early Career grant in biomedical sciences, 1.6 Cr. Sep 16

·   MSCA PostDoc in EU, 15th Sep

·   Full list is here

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity August 2022 E34

Personal News

1.       Two books published last month: Life Skills and Trees of Ramayana

a.       Textbook of Biostatistics-soon to publish

2.       Mysteries in Science, recording completed

3.       CU Punjab retains NIRF 1st position among new CUs

Science news of last month

1.      JWST Images and spectrum

a.       Near Infrared Camera of the Telescope, 1.5 million km away at the L2 Lagrange point.

b.      730% sharper than Hubble’s similar image

c.       “approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground. Deepest ever pic of universe. Early universe, 600m years after Big Bang

d.      In that patch of sky is a galaxy cluster, SMACS 0723, 4.6 billion light-years away, just before earth was formed

e.       Star formation in Carina Nebula, 7200 light years away, Stephan’s Quintent- group of five galaxies, and dying stars of Southern Ring Nebula

f.        8 diffraction spikes artifact of Webb’s mirror system

2.      Russia withdraws from ISS

3.      Monkeypox in India. Misnomer, rodents. Some protection if you have vaccine for smallpox. STD? Gay Men

4.       James Lovelock obituary, Gaia hypothesis

5.       Heatwaves and wild fires raging Europe

a.       Spain and Portugal suffering driest climate for 1,200 years, research shows.

6.       Beta Amyloid Protein in Alzheimers, image manipulation controversy 

7.       KVPY discontinues. DST to concentrate on INSPIRE scheme

8.       New Damselfy from Peechi Wildlife Sanctuary. Anamalai Reed-tail (scientific name: Protosticta anamalaica Sadasivan, Nair and Samuel, 2022). The discovery has been published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa.

9.       10th Anniversary of discovering Higgs Boson

10.   Nonylphenol, EDC and Carcinogen found 29 to 81 times the limit across India. Toxic Link Policy paper. Breast Cancer

This month’ Discoveries

1.       New study finds that people consistently underestimate how much others appreciate having an old friend unexpectedly reach out to them.

a.       Laughter with friends differs from laughter with romantic partners, study finds

2.       More dogs in a neighborhood linked to less crime, study finds. Results suggest dog walkers act as patrols, discouraging crime, at least when residents have high levels of trust in each other.

a.       It's harder to commit a crime and not get caught while the dogs are barking out of the ordinary and their owners start to look around for possible reasons.

b.       I wonder if they account for home ownership, as alot of rentals do not permit dogs.

3.       The argument that climate change is not man made has been incontrovertibly disproven by science, yet many Americans believe that the global crisis is either not real, not of our making, or both, in part because the news media has given deniers a platform in the name of balanced reporting

a.       Check my video on Argument to moderation, linked in the shownotes

4.       A study found that tattoos and piercings are more common among those who experienced childhood abuse and neglect

5.       Increased demand for water will be the No. 1 threat to food security in the next 20 years, followed closely by heat waves, droughts, income inequality and political instability, according to a new study which calls for increased collaboration to build a more resilient global food supply.

6.       Education system ‘neglecting the importance of plants’. People are becoming “disconnected from the botanical world” at a time when plants could help solve global environmental problems, warn a group of research scientists.

7.       Online ‘fake news’ is an existential threat to democracy - not because most people believe bogus content, but because of the corrosive effect it has on trust among citizens and their faith in democratic institutions representing them, according to a new study.

8.       A Japanese research group has fabricated a highly transparent solar cell with a 2D atomic sheet. These near-invisible solar cells achieved an average visible transparency of 79%, meaning they can, in theory, be placed everywhere - building windows, the front panel of cars, and even human skin.

9.       Fruit for depression. People who frequently eat fruit are more likely to report greater positive mental well-being and are less likely to report symptoms of depression than those who do not, according to new research from the College of Health and Life Sciences, Aston University.

10.   Fungus that turns flies into zombies attracts healthy males to mate with fungal-infected female corpses - and the longer the female is dead, the more alluring it becomes

11.   People with low BMI (<18.5) aren’t more active, they are just less hungry and “run hotter”

12.   Researchers used a movement-tracking watch to record 220 children’s sleep habits for 4 week-long across the kindergarten year, and found that who sleep at least 10h during the night on a regular basis demonstrated more success in emotional development, learning engagement, and academic performance

13.   Sentence fillers like "um" or "uh" aren't a nuisance to be ignored -- their use results in listeners having better memory for what is said next, a new study suggests.

14.   Video game players have improved decision-making abilities and enhanced brain activities

15.   Researches found that wrist-worn health devices can be combined with machine learning to detect COVID-19 infections as early as two days before symptoms appear, and this could open the door to applying the use of wearable health tech for the early detection of other infectious diseases

Observances: General

·         9th Indigenous People’s

·         12: Youth Day

·         15 Independence day

·         19: Humanitarian Day

·         22: International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief

·         29: International Day against Nuclear Tests

o   6: Hiroshima

o   9: Nagasaki

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         12: Sturgeon Moon, Moon-Saturn Conj

·         13: Perseid Meteor shower

·         15: Moon-Jupiter

·         19: Moon-Mars Conj

·         22: Asteroid 4 Vesta

·         27: Mercury at greatest elongation east

·         Artemis 1 launch on 29th August

Opportunities

·         3 upcoming quizzes; 2, 11 and 13 Aug

·         DST INSPIRE, 15th Aug

·         BIRAC Ignition, 16th Aug

·         COP 27 Journalism Fellowship 19th Aug

·         MSCA PostDoc in EU, 15th Sep

Full list is here

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity July 2022 E33

Science news of last month

1.     Seasonal Air pollution decreases 10 years of life expectancy in Northern India

2.     UNEP’s Environmental ranking places India at 180

3.     50 years since Stockholm conference and UNEP, my article in down to earth

4.     Life Skills-Manual of Critical Thinking and Soft Skills released

5.     Students in India can now enroll for PhD after 4 year Bachelers

6.     Women feel more cold than men

7.     Microplastics found in antarctica for the first time

This month’ Discoveries

1.       New study shows welfare prevents crime, quite dramatically. Investing on welfare schemes rather than punishment. Reinforcement and rehabilitation, rather then retribution/retaliation

2.       Requiring your kids to do chores on a regular basis may be associated with them having better academic performance and problem solving skills. Regular chores were associated with better executive functions – planning, self-regulation, switching between tasks and remembering instructions.

a.       But don’t label chores as punishments!

3.       When children are involved in extracurricular activities, they’re more likely to feel happier and healthier than their counterparts who are glued to a screen, study finds

4.       Water treatment plants would be ready for the removal of nanoplastics. Both in laboratory tests and in a larger test facility, the biologically active slow sand filter was the most effective at retaining nanoparticles – achieving an efficacy level in the region of 99.9%.

5.       Trained dogs sniff out COVID-19 as well as lab tests do, and the canines are even better than PCR tests at identifying infected people with no symptoms.

a.       Helsinki Airport

6.       Exposure to humorous memes about anti-vaxxers boosts intention to get a COVID-19 vaccine, study finds

7.       A drug approved to treat Type 2 diabetes is extremely effective at reducing obesity, according to a new study. | Tirzepatide, works on two naturally occurring hormones that help control blood sugar and are involved in sending fullness signals from the gut to the brain. Also semaglutide

8.       More than 40% of Earth’s land surface must be conserved to stop the biodiversity crisis

a.       Current fig including antarctica is only 14.7%

9.       New study finds that politicians typically enjoy longer lives than general populations

a.       Probably because they have more financial security and potential influence in acquiring medical care.

10.   Scientists have developed a stretchable and waterproof ‘fabric’ that turns energy generated from body movements into electrical energy. Tapping on a 3cm by 4cm piece of the new fabric generated enough electrical energy to light up 100 LEDs

11.   Scientists have found evidence that the Earth’s inner core oscillates, contradicting previously accepted model, this also explains the variation in the length of day, which has been shown to oscillate persistently for the past several decades

a.       Magnetic pole reversals/ 183 times in last 83 million years. Every 3 lakh years

b.       Not the reason for climate change

12.   New research finds that turtles in the wild age slowly and have long lifespans, and identifies several species that essentially don’t age at all.

a.       It is not related to their metabolism as theorized, but rather presence of protective measures.

b.       A Galápagos tortoise named Harriet was collected by Charles Darwin in 1835; it died in 2006, having lived for at least 176 years

13.   Brain scans are remarkably good at predicting political ideology, according to the largest study of its kind. People scanned while they performed various tasks – and even did nothing – accurately predicted whether they were politically conservative or liberal.

a.       Republicans favored the amygdala while democrats favored the left insular region.

14.   Children who attend schools with more traffic noise show slower cognitive development

15.   Researchers have developed a camera system that can see sound vibrations with such precision and detail that it can reconstruct the music of a single instrument in a band or orchestra, using it like a microphone

Observances: General

·   11th: World Population Day

·   15th: World Youth Skills Day

·   20th: World Chess Day, Moon Day

·   30th: International day of Friendship

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·   4th: Earth at Aphelion

·   14th Buck moon, supermoon

·   16: Conjunction of Moon and Saturn

·   19: Conjunction of Moon and Jupiter

·   21: Conjunction of Moon and Mars

·   30 Peak of the Southern δ-Aquariid & α-Capricornid Meteor Showers

Opportunities

·   DBT Wellcome Trust senior and intermediate fellowship, 15th July

·   2024 Fullbright Nehru Doctoral. 15th July

·   M K Bhan – Young Researcher Fellowship Programme (MKB-YRFP). 15th July

Full list is here. 

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity June 2022 E32

Science news of last month

1.      NASA’s OSAM-1 (On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing-1) begins, major boost for space sustainability

2.      Discovery of anticancer compound Eleutherobin from soft coral from Florida coast

3.      Living with a dog can improve gut health of children

4.      Bacteria with antibiotic gene discovered in Antarctica

5.      LIDAR (light detection and ranging)  reveals relics of stunning urban civilization in Amazon

This month’ Discoveries

1.       Research suggests poverty is not principally the product of people’s capabilities or attitudes. Rather, the very poor are usually mired in a poverty trap, in which an initial lack of resources prevents them from improving their circumstances

a.       This is classically known as the “Matthew Effect”

b.       This is why social safety nets and welfare are so important; they prevent people from becoming mired in poverty (when they’re effectively set up).

c.       The opposite can be seen when “rich kids” cannot seem to fail hard enough and more resources just keep showing up. Then they’re “successful” despite themselves.

2.       Scientists have found children who spent an above-average time playing video games increased their intelligence more than the average, while TV watching or social media had neither a positive nor a negative effect

3.       Young men with a poor diet saw a significant improvement in their symptoms of depression when they switched to a healthy Mediterranean diet. The diet used in the study was rich in colourful vegetables, legumes and wholegrains, oily fish, olive oil and raw, unsalted nuts.

4.       Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives. In a new study, scientists discovered that in addition to knowing their own names, cats also appear to recognize the names of other cats they're familiar with, and may also know the names of people who live in the same household.

5.       Around age 13, kids’ brains shift from focusing on their mothers’ voices to favor new voices, part of the biological signal driving teens to separate from their parents, a Stanford Medicine study has found.

6.       Microplastics Found In Lungs of People Undergoing Surgery. A new study has found tiny plastic particles no bigger than sesame seeds buried throughout human lungs, indicating that people are inhaling microplastics lingering in the air.

7.       Immigrants in the U.S. are more likely to start firms, create jobs. Compared to native-born citizens, immigrants are more frequently involved in founding companies at all scales.

8.       Meta-analysis of 15 studies on depression suggests significant mental health benefits from being physically active

9.       Honeybees join humans as the only known animals that can tell the difference between odd and even numbers

10.   The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration has obtained the very first image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Galaxy

11.   Researchers in Australia have now shown yet another advantage of adding rubber from old tires to asphalt – extra Sun protection that could help roads last up to twice as long before cracking

12.   Pug health so poor it 'can't be considered a typical dog' – study

a.       Researchers argue that the health of the dog should be prioritised over people's desire to own one

Observances: General

·         3rd World Bicycle Day

·         5th World Environment Day

·         7 Food Safety

·         8th Oceans Day

·         14 Blood donor day

·         18 Sustainable Gastronomy

·         21 Solstice

·         29 Day of the Tropics

·         30 Asteroid day

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         17 Mercury

·         16 Strawberry Moon, supermoon

·         18 Moon Saturn Conj

·         21 Solstice, Moon Jupiter Conj

·         22 Moon-Mars Conj

Opportunities (Full list here)

·         SERB NPDF, 1st June

·         EMMBO Global Investigator Network, 1st June

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity May 2022 E31

Science news of last month

Major heatwave sweeps across India

SpaceX’s crew of 4 private astronomers landed in ISS

Microplastics detected in fish samples from Cauvery River, TN

This month’ Discoveries

1.       Nearly half of all older adults now die with a diagnosis of dementia listed on their medical record, up 36% from two decades ago, new study shows

2.       Donating blood regularly can reduce toxic forever chemicals in the bloodstream, study shows

3.       Men are less religious in countries with more gender equality, shows study

a.       More progressive countries are also less religious in general

4.       Girls raised by Jewish parents are 23 percentage points more likely to graduate from college than those with a non-Jewish upbringing, even after accounting for their parents’ socioeconomic status, research finds. They tend to "articulate a self-concept marked by ambitious career goals."

5.       Low belief in evolution was linked to racism in Eastern Europe. In Israel, people with a higher belief in evolution were more likely to support peace among Palestinians, Arabs & Jews. In Muslim-majority countries, belief in evolution was associated with less prejudice toward Christians & Jews.

6.       People who endorse conspiracy theories tend to be more religious, and this may be due to ideological overlap

a.       “Scholars have noted the similarities between religion and features of conspiracy theories, but the nature of this overlap is uncertain. Some researchers have suggested that the two beliefs fulfill similar psychological needs, such as morality, belonging, and sense of control,”

7.       Turning back the clock: Human skin cells de-aged by 30 years in trial

a.       Partial epigenetic reprogramming by four TF

b.       Yamanaka found 4 transcription factors that when expressed together, can turn any cell from the body (e.g. skin cells) back in time into pluripotent stem cells that can multiply into any cell; such cells are young and 'immortal'

8.       Intermittent Fasting Not Better Than Regular Dieting, Year-Long Trial Finds | Volunteers who were told to eat only during the day lost about as much weight as people dieting without time restrictions over a 12-month span

9.       Scientists at Kyoto University managed to create "dream alloy" by merging all eight precious metals into one alloy; the eight-metal alloy showed a 10-fold increase in catalytic activity in hydrogen fuel cells. Gold, Silver, Platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, and osmium

10.   MIT engineers created a series of tests to figure out why the cream in Oreo cookies sticks to just one of the two wafers when they are twisted apart. They found that no matter the amount of stuffing or flavor, the cream always sticks to just one of the cookie wafers.

a.       Chaos theory and butterfly effect?

Observances: General

·         3rd World Press Freedom Day

·         12th Plant Health Day

·         14 World Migratory Birds Day

·         16th International Day of Light, Vesak/day of full moon

·         17th World Telecommunication and Information Society Day

·         20th World Bee Day

·         21st Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development

·         21st International Tea Day

·         22nd International Day for Biological Diversity

·         31st No Tobacco Day

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         1 Venus/Jupiter Conjunction, Partial Solar Ecclipse

·         6 η-Aquariid meteor shower

·         8 η-Lyrid meteor shower

·         12 M5

·         16 Total Lunar eclipse, Flower Moon

·         22 Moon-Saturn Conj

·         25 Moon-Mars-Jupiter Conj

·         27 Moon-Venus Conj

·         28 M4

·         29 Jupiter-Mars Conj

Opportunities

·         SERB NPDF, 1st June

·         EMMBO Global Investigator Network, 1st June

More here

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Science news of last month

1.     Sharks do sleep, new evidence confirms

2.     Indonesia relocating capital away from Jakarta: City sinking, 25 cm per year. Climate change cause Java seas to rise

a.      New Capital Nusantara, which means "archipelago."

3.     Antarctic and Arctic ice sheets 50 °C warmer! New Delhi experienced 10 °C warmer March.

4.     Changing diet could add 10 years to our lives. 

5.     Scientists find microplastics in blood

6.     Exercising outdoors even during moderate air pollution is harmful for brain

7.     Lost ship endurance of Earnst Shackleton wreck found in Antarctic (Weddel Sea) by South African icebreaker S.A. Agulhas after 107 years.

8.     Space junk-rogue piece of rocket collided with moon and created a crater on the other side

9.     We all know dogs can be trained to sniff out cancer, even COVID-19 at Helsinki Airport. Training ants to detect cancer faster than dogs. 30 min vs 1 year

a.      Chimps use ants for healing wounds

 This month’ Discoveries

1.       A new shorter wavelength ultraviolet light that is safe for people took less than five minutes to reduce the level of indoor airborne microbes by more than 98%.Join our Facebook group to stay abreast with the world of science!

2.       Researchers combed through more than a decade of health data from 102,865 French volunteers. They found that consumption of artificial sweeteners was associated with an increased risk of cancer.

a.       Acesulfame K, Aspartame, and Sucralose namely

3.       Humans can't endure temperatures and humidities as high as previously thought. The actual maximum wet-bulb temperature is lower — about 31°C wet-bulb or 87°F at 100% humidity — even for young, healthy subjects. The temperature for older populations, is likely even lower.

a.       we generate heat while just living. All biological processes occur only between a range of temperatures, above which for example proteins get irreversibly damaged. We lose heat by sweating and then evaporation of water from the sweat. If it is too humid sweat would not evaporate, and the person overheats to death.

4.       People who are more vulnerable to having their jobs replaced by automation tend to be more supportive of radical right-wing groups, according to new research

5.       An analysis of 10,000 public school districts that controlled for a host of confounding variables has found that higher teacher pay is associated with better student test scores.

a.       Higher salaries attract higher quality applicants. Higher-quality teachers who are better at their jobs will naturally have higher grades in their classes, since they are likely better at teaching.

6.       The number of people who have died because of the COVID-19 pandemic could be roughly 3 times higher than official figures suggest. The true number of lives lost to the pandemic by 31 December 2021 was close to 18 million. That far outstrips the 5.9 million deaths that were officially reported.

7.       Cancer cells show increased iron uptake and metabolism. Scientists have used this to create drugs that are activated by iron, creating a selective cancer therapy that does not cause adverse effects to health cells and tissues.

a.       Low blood iron levels may indicate some form of cancer?

8.       The amygdala grows too rapidly in babies (6-12 months) who later develop autism as toddlers.

9.       Just one drink per day can shrink your brain, study says

10.   Muscle strengthening lowers risk of death from all causes, study shows

11.   Populist rhetoric is associated with gullibility.

a.       Populism: Us-common people vs them-elites

b.       Gullibility: belief without proper examination of facts. Jumping to Conclusion Bias. Belief in conspiracy theories

12.   Affection from a dog really is medicinal, according to a new study | Just 10 minutes with a dog may help reduce pain for patients in the emergency room

13.   New findings (pooled N = 17,830) show that the early maladaptive schemas of Social Isolation (feeling that you don't belong) and Defectiveness/Shame (feeling bad and unlovable) have the largest association with depression in adulthood.

14.   Boys were more likely to be born with genital birth defects if their fathers took the commonly prescribed diabetes drug metformin in the three months before conception. Finding adds to a limited but growing understanding of how paternal factors can affect the health of children.

Observances: General

·   1. Autism awareness day/ Delegates day

·   4. International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action

·   5 International Day of Conscience

·   21 World creativity and innovation day

·   22 Earth Day

·   24 Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace day

·   28 Safety and Health at work day

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·   5 Saturn-Mars Conjunction

·   17 The Pink Moon

·   22 Lyrid meteor Shower

·   24 Pi Puppid

·   25 Moon-Saturn

·   26 Moon-Mars

·   27 Moon-Venus

Opportunities

·   EMBL International PhD fellowship

·   Teach for India

·   Oak Ridge National Lab

·   Trieste

·   Raman-Charpak

·   Indo-Taiwan

Full list with links here

Curiosity March 2022 E29

Science news of last month

1.       Hunga-Tonga Eruption & Tsunami (15th Jan)

2.       Nuclear Fusion milestone in JET labs, UK

3.       Pig Xenotransplantation milestone, David Bennet Sr

4.       Near-death experience through fMRI: Life flashing before eyes

5.      Drugs in rivers, antibiotic resistance, PNAS study

6.      Radiation spike at Chernobyl (1986)

7.      Orcas observed devouring the tongue of a blue whale just before it dies in first-ever documented hunt of the largest animal on the planet

This month’ Discoveries

1.       No genetic differences between "sativa" and "indica" strains of cannabis.

a.       Myth: Sativa for head, while Indica for relaxation

2.       Federally funded sex education programs linked to decline in teen birth rates, new study shows.

3.       Incorporating sexual pleasure in educational sexual health programs can improve safe sex behaviors. Continuing to avoid pleasure in sexual health and education risks misdirecting or ineffectively using resources. The researchers call for a fundamental rethink of how programs are oriented.

4.       Young humans use saliva sharing to infer close relationships

5.       The US has increased its funding for public schools. New research shows additional spending on operations—such as teacher salaries and support services—positively affected test scores, dropout rates, and postsecondary enrollment. But expenditures on new buildings and renovations had little impact.

6.       Scientists make paralyzed mice walk again by giving them spinal cord implants. 12 out of 15 mice suffering long-term paralysis started moving normally. Human trial is expected in 3 years, aiming to ‘offer all paralyzed people hope that they may walk again’

7.       Engineers have created a new material that is stronger than steel and as light as plastic, and can be easily manufactured in large quantities. New material is a two-dimensional polymer that self-assembles into sheets, unlike all other one-dimensional polymers.

8.       The brains of patients who died as a result of COVID-19 infection displayed some of the same molecular changes found in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s disease, a new small study found. The findings may explain why some long-term COVID sufferers report memory problems.

9.       Hamsters’ Testicles Shrink After Being Infected With COVID, Study Finds

10.   Scientists have found that exercise increases the levels of certain proteins known to strengthen communication between brain cells across synapses, which may be a key factor in keeping dementia at bay.

11.   Scientists have found that switching from a life of inactivity to one involving 20 minutes of running, cycling or other ‘moderate to vigorous’ exercise a day, as late as 70, reduces the risk of heart attacks, coronary heart disease and heart failure by 52 per cent in men and 8 per cent in women.

12.   Study found that adding trees to pastureland, technically known as silvopasture, can cool local temperatures by up to 2.4 C for every 10 metric tons of woody material added per hectare depending on the density of trees, while also delivering a range of other benefits for humans and wildlife.

13.   Denying existence of human evolution is associated with higher levels of prejudice, racist attitudes, and support for discriminatory behaviors, according to a series of 8 studies from across the world. (N=63,549).

a.       Not believing in evolution despite the overwhelming, widely available and validated evidence, is a sign that you fundamentally have a tendancy to ignore facts that don't suit your beliefs. Confirmation Bias.

b.       This is also root of a lot of hard-wired religious and political beliefs, deflecting and avoiding evidence contrary to their book or beliefs.

c.       Being prejudiced is simply the result of this same defense mechanism, not trying to understand the person you're prejudiced against, and being close-minded.

14.   Analyzing the calories burned by more 6,600 people, researchers suggest that our metabolisms don’t really start to decline until after age 60. The slowdown is gradual, only 0.7% a year. But a person in their 90s needs 26% fewer calories each day than someone in midlife

15.   Reusable bottles made from soft plastic release several hundred different chemical substances in tap water, research finds. Several of these substances are potentially harmful to human health. There is a need for better regulation and manufacturing standards for manufacturers.

16.   New research suggests that ancient trees possess far more than an awe-inspiring presence and a suite of ecological services to forests—they also sustain the entire population of trees’ ability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.

17.   U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds

Join our Facebook group to stay abreast with the world of science!

Observances: General

·         1 Zero discrimination Day

·         3 Wildlife

·         8 Women’s

·         10 Women Judges

·         20 Happiness

·         21 Nowruz (New Day), Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Poetry, Down Syndrome, and Forests

·         22 Water

·         23 Meteorology

·         24 Tuberculosis, Dignity of Victims of Human Rights Violations

·         25 Remembrance of Slavery, Solidarity with missing/detained staff members

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         12 Venus-Mars Conj

·         14 γ-Normid meteor shower

·         16 Venus-Mars

·         18 Worm Moon

·         20 March Equinox

·         21 Venus at greatest elongation

·         28 Moon-Mars-Venus-Saturn

Opportunities

·         Gandhi Fellowship

·         Future Leaders in Action

·         ICGEB Fellowship

·         SERB-TARE

·         EMBL and Okinawa PhD

Full list and links here

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity February 2022 E28

Science news of last month

1.       India, Somalia and Madagascar may join to become one continent in 200 million years: Study

2.       Giant icefish breeding colony discovered beneath Antarctic ice

3.       Self-spreading vaccines for wildlife

4.       Shark cannibalism inside womb

5.       NeoCoV, 2011, Bats

6.       Omicron subtype BA.2

7.       James webb reaches its final destination

This month’ Discoveries

1.       People obsessed with celebrities and people worshipping (politicians, religious leaders) have low IQ

2.       Chemical pollution has passed safe limit for humanity, say scientists

a.       “...the total mass of plastics now exceeds the total mass of all living mammals.

3.       Women vaccinated against COVID-19 transfer SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to their breastfed infants, potentially giving their babies passive immunity against the coronavirus. The antibodies were detected in infants regardless of age – from 1.5 months old to 23 months old.

a.       Ab smoothie? Vs. Formula

4.       If Americans swapped one serving of beef per day for chicken, their diets’ greenhouse gas emissions would fall by average of 48% and water-use impact by 30%. Also, replacing a serving of shrimp with cod reduced greenhouse emissions by 34%; replacing dairy milk with soymilk resulted in 8% reduction

5.       Antibiotic resistance killed more people than malaria or AIDS in 2019

a.       Potential to take us pre/antibiotic era. Surgeries?

6.       Teens who are “addicted” to TikTok experience worse depression and anxiety, and in turn, reduced working memory capacity

a.       But beware of confounding!

7.       School days should begin later in morning. School closures had a negative effect on the health and well-being of many young people, but homeschooling also had a positive flipside: Thanks to sleeping longer in the morning, teenagers reported improved health and health-related quality of life

8.       Brazil, which is the currently world’s largest coffee producer, will see its most suitable coffee-growing land decline by 79%.

a.       Same with cocoa, Theobroma cacao, avocado, and cashew

b.       Climate resilient varieties  Coffea stenophylla

9.       Scientists identified a specific gene/2'-5'-oligoadenylate synthetase 1 variant SNP rs10774671. AG that protects against severe COVID-19 infection. Individuals with European ancestry carrying a particular DNA segment -- inherited from Neanderthals -- have a 20 % lower risk of developing a critical COVID-19 infection.

10.   New artificial leaf that’s equester CO2 100 times better than the current systems

a.       145USD per ton of CO2

b.       Maneesh Singh, U Illinois

c.       Carbon dioxide from air or flue gas is absorbed by a dry organic solution to form bicarbonate ions, which migrate across a membrane and are dissolved in a liquid solution to concentrated CO2.

11.   Foreign aid payments to highly aid-dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits to offshore financial centers. Around 7.5% of aid appears to be captured by local elites.

12.   Transgender Individuals Twice as Likely to Die Early as General Population

13.   The idea of smoking as a sociable pastime may be a myth. Smokers may become more socially isolated and lonely than non-smokers as they get older. Smoking was also associated with larger reductions in social contact, increases in social disengagement, and increases in loneliness over time.

Fb group

Observances: General

·         2 Wetlands

·         2 Human Fraternity

·         10 Pulses Day

·         11 Women and Girls in Science

·         13 Radio

·         20 Social Justice

·         21 Mother Language Day

·         28 National Science Day

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         8 Mercury-Morning

·         9 Venus

·         13 Venus-Mars Conjunction

·         16 The Snow Moon

·         17 Mercury-West

·         20 Venus-Morning

·         27 Moon-Mars-Venus Conjunction

Opportunities

·         ThinkSwiss Research Scholarships

·         Ramalingaswami Re-entry fellowships

·         Young Scientists Summer Program (Austria)

·         ICGEB Workshop

·         International Science Quiz> 23, 24 and 25 Feb

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity January 2022 E27

Happy new year!

Science news of last month

1.       James Webb blasts off successfully to the space from French Guiana! James Webb was an officer instrumental in moon-landing Apollo mission, but with mixed legacy. Million km, deploys like a flower/butterfly, 3 tennis courts. 100 times more powerful than hubble, but last only a decade. By end of Jan it will reach its solar orbit L2, 15L km from earth (hubble was at 570 km). 3.8L to moon (4 times more distance). Looking for afterglow of bigbang, mostly spectroscopic measurements.

2.       OneWeb launches 36 satellites into orbit from Kazakistan. Total: 648 satellite. Web 3. Goal: internet services to "everyone, everywhere". StarLink of SpaceX has over 1,700 satellites in its constellation at Low Earth Orbit. Airtel in India, but government warns against it.

3.       Two new COVID-19 vaccines in India: Serum Institute of India’s Covovax and Biological E’s Corbevax (both are protein subunit vaccines, RBD). Also Molnupiravir, ribonucleoside as emergency use drug. Incorporates widespread errors in RNA-directed RNA polymerase

4.       Pfizer pill ‘Paxlovid’ becomes first US-authorized home COVID treatment. 3CL Protease Inhibitor, cleaves viral protease involved in viral replication.

5.       Scientists discover over 70 rogue exoplanets in milkyway.

This month’ Discoveries

1.       Scientists have created and observed a new phase of matter, popularly known as a time crystal. In research published in Nature, a team of scientists detail their creation of a time crystal using Google’s Sycamore quantum computing hardware.

2.       Black Holes Swallow Neutron Stars in a Single Bite, New Results Suggest. For the first time, scientists have without a doubt observed not one but two collisions between black holes and neutron stars. These two separate mergers occurred 10 days apart in January 2020.

3.       Arctic could see more rain than snow by 2050, new study suggests

4.       Scientists identify accelerated aging in frogs associated with warmer temperatures, which could speed up amphibian extinction due to climate change.

5.       Feeding pet dogs just once a day might keep them healthier as they age

6.       Tele-taste TV screen created by Japanese researchers

7.       Dietary fibre is better for immunity than probiotics, as per latest research

8.       Women are more likely to feel too cold at the office and more likely to report that the office temperature is impacting their performance at work.

9.       Analysis of Microplastics in Human Feces Reveals a Correlation between Fecal Microplastics and Inflammatory Bowel Disease Status

10.   Eye-tracking study suggests that people with social anxiety not only avoid looking at strangers but also their surroundings.

11.   Gut microbiome modulates weight gain after smoking sessation in mice

Fb group

Observances: General

·         4 Braille

·         24 Education

·         27 Commemmoration in Memory of the Holocaust

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         3 Quadrantid MS

·         4 Earth at Perihelion

·         6 Moon-Jupiter

·         10 Mercury

·         18 Wolf moon

·         19 Ursae Minorid

·         29 Moon-Mars

Opportunities

·         ThinkSwiss Research Scholarships

·         Ramalingaswami Re-entry fellowships

·         Young Scientists Summer Program (Austria)

·         ICGEB Workshop

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Science in 2021

Special episode of Curiosity. What moved sciences in 2021 and what to look for 2022?

2021, year of Ox

MMXXI

2021 had been UN International year of peace and trust, Sustainable Development, Fruits and Vegetables, and Elimination of Child Labor.

2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics at Tokyo (next summer in 2024 Paris, Then Los Angeles, US in 2028 and Brisbane, Australia in 2032)

Next ICC Cricket worldcup will be in 2023 here in India

Nobel

Physiology Medicine. Skin recepters for touch and temperature

Chemistry. Asymmetic organocatalysis

Physics> Climate modelling and chaos theorem

IgNobel> Cat communication

Top scientific developments

1.       Like 2020, 2021 also had been a year defined by COVID 19 pandemic.  Delta and Omicron

2.       This year has seen global roll out of all major COVID19 vaccines, gift of science to humanity! Also, WHO endorses first malaria vaccine in 2021

3.       NASAs Perseverance lands safely on Mars and Parker on Solar Corona

4.       NASA launched DART, double asteroid redirection test. Deflecting asteroid

5.       China begins its own space station, Tiangong

6.       Blue Origin (Amazon) and Space X conducts their first space tourism missions

7.       Launch of James Webb space telescope

8.       IPCCs 6th assessment report conclude CC is "widespread, rapid, and intensifying"

9.       COP26 Glasgow criticised by environmentalists as cop out.

10.   Humans were definitely reached Americas 23,000 years ago. Previously thought 13,000 years ago.

11.   Transformative artificial intelligence (AI) tool called AlphaFold, which has been developed by Google's sister company DeepMind in London, has predicted the structure of nearly the entire human proteome. PDB 123m became 350m after AlphaFold!

Top 10 papers published in 2021 across disciplines

1.       Urine test for prostate cancer developed by Korean scientists

2.       US reported largest decline in life expectancy in last 40 years. 77.4 years, fell by 1.13 years due to COVID19

3.       Fecal transplantation for cancer immunotherapy. Non/responders to responders. Gut microbiome

4.       Cancer cells hibernate like bears in winter to escape chemotherapy

5.       Energy drink like Red Bull consumption linked with depression, stress and anxiety

6.       People with extremist views less able to do complex mental tasks

7.       People with dark triad personality traits (Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) tend to defy COVID19 mandates

8.       People who believe in Astrology tend to be Narcissists and less intelligent

9.       Wealthy, successful people from privileged backgrounds often misrepresent their origins as working-class in order to tell a ‘rags to riches’ story resulting from hard work and perseverance, rather than social position and intergenerational wealth

10.   A field experiment in India led by MIT antipoverty researchers has produced a striking result: A one-time boost of capital improves the condition of the very poor even a decade later. (UBI)

Personal Turning Points

1.       Inducted in International Science Council, Paris

2.       Four new species discovered (Hypnea bullata, H. indica, Bryum bharatiensis and Acetabularia jalakanyakae)

What to look for in 2022?, year of Tiger

MMXXII

2022 is UN international year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture, and Glass

Winter Olympics in Beijing, China (February), ICC T20 WorldCup in Australia (October/November)

Indias first crewed space flight and Chandraayan 3

India will surpass China as worlds most populous nation

Junar Gateway launch. Like ISS, LG will orbit Moon.

Hopefully 2022 will see an end to COVID19 pandemic.

Curiosity December E26

The month of December Solstice.

IgNobel prizes announces

1.       Biology (Sweden): Susanne Schötz, Robert Eklund, and Joost van de Weijer, for analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling, tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing, yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat–human communication.

2.       Ecology (Spain & Iran): Leila Satari, Alba Guillén, Àngela Vidal-Verdú, and Manuel Porcar, for using genetic analysis to identify the different species of bacteria that reside in wads of discarded chewing gum stuck on pavements in various countries.

3.       Chemistry [GERMANY, UK, NEW ZEALAND, GREECE, CYPRUS, AUSTRIA] Jörg Wicker, Nicolas Krauter, Bettina Derstroff, Christof Stönner, Efstratios Bourtsoukidis, Achim Edtbauer, Jochen Wulf, Thomas Klüpfel, Stefan Kramer, and Jonathan Williams, for chemically analyzing the air inside movie theaters, to test whether the odors produced by an audience reliably indicate the levels of violence, sex, antisocial behavior, drug use, and bad language in the movie the audience is watching.

4.       Economics [FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRIA, CZECH REPUBLIC, UK]: Pavlo Blavatskyy, for discovering that the obesity of a country’s politicians may be a good indicator of that country’s corruption.

5.       Medicine [GERMANY, TURKEY, UK]:Olcay Cem Bulut, Dare Oladokun, Burkard Lippert, and Ralph Hohenberger, for demonstrating that sexual orgasms can be as effective as decongestant medicines at improving nasal breathing.

6.       Peace PEACE PRIZE [USA]: Ethan Beseris, Steven Naleway, and David Carrier, for testing the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face.

7.       Physics [THE NETHERLANDS, ITALY, TAIWAN, USA]:Alessandro Corbetta, Jasper Meeusen, Chung-min Lee, Roberto Benzi, and Federico Toschi, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do not constantly collide with other pedestrians.

8.       Kinetics [JAPAN, SWITZERLAND, ITALY]: Hisashi Murakami, Claudio Feliciani, Yuta Nishiyama, and Katsuhiro Nishinari, for conducting experiments to learn why pedestrians do sometimes collide with other pedestrians.

9.       Entomology [USA]: John Mulrennan, Jr., Roger Grothaus, Charles Hammond, and Jay Lamdin, for their research study “A New Method of Cockroach Control on Submarines”.

10.   Transportation [NAMIBIA, SOUTH AFRICA, TANZANIA, ZIMBABWE, BRAZIL, UK, USA]:

Robin Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen Parry, and Robin Gleed, for determining by experiment whether it is safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside-down.

This month’ Discoveries

1.       Pregnant women in the United States die by homicide more often than they die of pregnancy-related causes — and they're frequently killed by a partner. Pregnant or recently pregnant black women have up to nearly three-fold higher risk of dying by homicide than those who are not pregnant.

2.       Taxes on sugary drinks only reduce consumption if the price tags mention the tax, a new study shows. The findings suggest that price tags should mention the tax, but not the amount, because consumers tend to overestimate how much the tax is.

3.       Mask-wearing cuts Covid incidence by 53%. Results from more than 30 studies from around the world were analysed in detail, showing a statistically significant 53% reduction in the incidence of Covid with mask wearing

a.       Omicron GR/484A. 32 mutations in Spike Protein. Half at RBD

4.       A lack of sleep affects empathy, especially for healthcare workers

5.       Mouse study shows microplastics infiltrate blood brain barrier

6.       18 percent of US population think COVID vaccinations are more dangerous than the virus itself.

7.       Both moderate and strenuous exercise alleviate symptoms of anxiety, even when the disorder is chronic.

8.       Netflix’s Sex Education is doing sex education better than most schools. Researchers also suggest that the conversation started by shows like Sex Education highlights the need for more comprehensive sexual education not only in schools but in communities and in the family home itself.

9.       New research (N=95) shows when people exercise with their romantic partner, compared to when exercising alone, they are more likely to experience positive emotions during exercise and during the day, and also experience more relationship satisfaction.

a.       Heartbeat syncs in successful romantic rendezvous

10.   Scientists found repeatedly listening to personally meaningful music induced brain plasticity and improved cognitive function for patients with mild cognitive impairment and early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

11.   Silk modified to reflect sunlight keeps skin 12.5 °C cooler than cotton

12.   New study shows that people who believe in astrology tend to be more narcissistic and less intelligent than those who do not believe; the researchers suggest the link may be “due to the self-focused perspective” at the core of both astrology and narcissism.

13.   Gay and bisexual men who move from a country with high stigma toward LGBTQ people to one more accepting of LGBTQ rights experience a significantly lower risk of suicide and depression, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. The study used data from 48 countries.

14.   A new large-scale study with accurate sodium measurements from individuals strengthens link between sodium intake and cardiovascular disease.

15.   Matching female university students with female advisors increases retention and GPA

16.   Meat consumption is associated with better mental health, meta-analysis finds.

17.   New study reveals association between wild fires in US – Climate Change link

18.   mRNA Vaccine against Lyme disease developed in guinia pigs.

19.   There appears to be an optimal bedtime - between 10pm and 11pm - linked to better heart health, say researchers who have studied 88,000 volunteers.

20.   Five hours a week of moderate-intensity physical activity could potentially prevent more than 46,000 cancer cases in the United States each year

Fb group

Observances: General

·         1 AIDS Day

·         2 National Pollution Prevention Day

·         3 Persons with disabilities

·         5 Soil

·         7 Civil Aviation

·         9 Anti-Genocide & Anti-Corruption

·         10 Human Rights

·         11 Mountain

·         12 Neutrality (like NAM), Universal Health Coverage

·         18 Migrants

·         27 Epidemic Preparedness

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         2 Pheonicid Meteor Shower

·         4 Total Solar Eclipse, New Moon

·         6 φ-Cassiopeid (Phi)

·         7 Moon-Venus, Puppid-Velid

·         8 Moon-Saturn

·         9 Moon-Jupiter. Monocerotid

·         12 Alpha-hybrid

·         14 Geminid

·         15 NGC 1981 (Orion’s sword)

·         16 Comae berenicid (near Leo)

·         19 Leonis Minorid, The Cold Moon

·         21 December Solstice (shortest day in NH, Midwinter day)

·         22 Ursid

·         28 NGC 2232 (monoceros)

·         29 NGC 2234 (monoceros)

December 18, James Webb launch, French Guiana

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) will launch the Indian RISAT 1A radar Earth observation satellite from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India.

Opportunities: Full List here

·         HK Phd Fellowship

·         British Ecological Society Grants

·         Vienna Biocenter summer school

·         IISc-Raman Post Doc

·         TWAS-UNESCO Associates

·         SERB CRG, Women Excellence Award

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

BBC PodCast by StoryWorks with ISC, Paris

Curiosity November E25

The month of Deepavali-the festival of lights. Plus Science Week.

October: COP26 Glasgow. 76 countries pledge to phase out coal, not China and India. Methane pledge. “Whitest”

All male Nobel.

Physics: JP Syukuro Manabe, DE Klaus Hasselmann (Climate Modelling) and IT Giorgio Parisi (Chaos theory)

Chemistry: DE Benjamin List and Scottish David W.C. MacMillan (Asymmetic Organocatalysis)

Physiology/Medicine: US David Julius and US Ardem Patapoutian (recepters of temperature and touch)

Literature: Tanzania-UK Abdulrazak Gurnah: Colonialism/Refugee literature. “Memory of Departure,” “Pilgrims Way” and “Dottie

Peace: Maria Ressa (Filipina) and Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov (Russian): Journalists who fought freedom of expression

Economics: All US: David Card, (Labor Economics: whether raising the minimum wage causes people to lose jobs.) Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbens (Casual relationships: how additional education affects earnings.)

This Month I Learned (TMIL)

1.       In their simplest form, firecrackers consist of gunpowder wrapped in paper, with a fuse. Gunpowder consists of 75% potassium nitrate (KNO 3), 15% charcoal (carbon) or sugar, and 10% sulfur. ... Potassium nitrate, sulfur, and carbon react to form nitrogen and carbon dioxide gases and potassium sulfide. Solar Deepavali-increased solar flares that boosted auroras on Diwali

2.      

3.       The ancient Egyptians developed the first recorded early pregnancy test, whereby a woman would urinate on a bag of wheat or barley and, if the bag started sprouting, it indicated a pregnancy. In 1963, researchers measured the test as being 70% accurate.

4.       egg ovens of ancient Egypt- brick incubators created during the fourth century BC that were capable of hatching out thousands of eggs in 2-3 weeks. Two hundred of them are still in use today, the techniques involved passed down orally for more than two thousand years.

5.       in 1957, five men stood directly underneath a 2-kiloton nuclear bomb detonated at 18,500 feet to demonstrate how safe it was. One looked up at the explosion through regular sunglasses. They all lived into their 70s or 80s

6.       Desert sand is effectively useless for construction. Saudi Arabia imports sand from Australia.

This month’ Discoveries

1.       Scientists finds water in SPT0311-58, 12.88 billion light years away

2.       COVAXIN gets WHO’s emergency use approval

3.       Antidepressant fluvoxamine (OCD prescription) slashes risk of COVID death

4.       When given cash with no strings attached, low- and middle-income parents increased their spending on their children. The findings contradict a common argument in the U.S. that poor parents cannot be trusted to receive cash to use however they want.

5.       News avoidance during the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with better mental well-being

6.       A chemotherapy drug NuCana derived from a Himalayan fungus has 40 times greater potency for killing cancer cells than its parent compound. Caterpiller fungus, Keedajadi, Cordyceps sinensis

7.       A lack of sleep decreases empathy. Shift workers

8.       Nonvegetarians develop less depression compared with vegetarians

9.       Cannabis products may help treat symptoms of depression, improve sleep, and increase quality of life, study suggests.

10.   87% of excess lung cancer risk eliminated if smokers quit before age 45.

11.   Sperm quality has been declining for 16 years among men in the US

12.   COVID-19 conspiracy theories thrive on social media platforms *except* Twitter.

13.   HPV vaccine is cutting cases of cervical cancer by 87%, first real-world study published in the Lancet finds. Since England began vaccinating female pupils in 2008, cervical cancer has successfully almost been eliminated in now-adult women

14.   "We’ve never seen anything like it" University of Sydney researchers detect strange radio waves from the heart of the Milky Way which fit no currently understood pattern of variable radio source & could suggest a new class of stellar object.

15.   Contrary to widely held gender stereotypes, women are not more emotional than men. Study finds that the justifications for excluding women from research participation in part due to the assumption that ovarian hormone fluctuations lead to variation, especially in emotion, was misguided.

16.   Chemicals in shampoo and makeup (phthalates) are linked to early death, study finds

17.   Nearly 500 Mesoamerican monuments revealed by Lidar-laser mapping—many for the first time

18.   Researchers in Germany found there was no evidence of longer life expectancy in people who drink in moderation. The findings speak against recommendations to drink alcohol for health reasons.

Fb group

Observances: General

·   5 Tsunami Awareness

·   9 International week of Science and Peace

·   10 Science Day for Peace and Development

·   13 Antibiotic Awareness

·   14 Diabetes

·   18 Philosophy

·   19 Toilet

·   20 Children’s

·   21 Road Traffic Victims, TV

·   25 Elimination of Violence against women

·   30 Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare 

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·   5 Uranus

·   8 Moon-Venus Conj

·   10 Moon-Saturn

·   11 Moon-Jupiter

·   12 Northern Taurid meteor shower

·   17 Leonid shower

·   19 Partial Lunar Ecclipse (Visible at NE), Beaver Moon

·   21 α-Monocerotid meteor shower 2021

·   28 Orionid shower, Venus

Opportunities (Full list here)

·   Asa Foundation

·   NIH

·   DST-DAAD

·   Austria-India Bilateral

·   Janaki Ammal Award

·   DBT-Tata Innovation

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity October E24

The month of Space Week, and lots of meteor showers!

This Month I Learned (TMIL)

1.       The Netherlands gives Canada 20,000 tulips every year as a thank you for protecting the Dutch royal family in ww2

2.       cigarette filters were designed with color-changing chemicals to give the illusion that they filter out toxins. In reality, the filters have little to no health benefits.

3.       By 1900, electric cars were so popular that New York City had a fleet of electric taxis, and electric cars accounted for a third of all vehicles on the road.

4.       Mexico was the only country to protest the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. To honor that support, there is a square in Vienna named "Mexikoplatz".

5.       Two high school students found that despite advertising claims that “the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges,” the drink contained almost no trace of vitamin C and one orange juice brand had over three times more. The company were taken to court and fined NZ$217,500.

6.       James Webb, Hubble’s predecessor scheduled in 18th Dec. Military officer, anti-gay! NASA reconsidering the name

This month’ Discoveries

1.       mRNA cancer therapy now in human trials after shrinking mouse tumours

2.       Breast milk of vaccinated mothers contains Covid antibodies, study shows

3.       Female police officers are less likely to search a car during a traffic stop but more likely to find contraband when they do

4.       Criminalizing prostitution increases risks to sex workers and makes it harder to stop underage prostitution and sex trafficking.

5.       Suicides among men decreased after Viagra became more affordable in Sweden. In July 2013, the patent rights to Sildenafil (generic Viagra) ended in Sweden, causing the price of Viagra to drop by 75%.

6.       Children today will live through three times more climate disasters than their grandparents, study suggests

7.       COVID Vaccines Show No Signs of Harming Fertility or Sexual Function. The novel coronavirus, in contrast, can disrupt both things in unvaccinated men and women.

8.       A single bitcoin transaction generates the same amount of electronic waste as throwing two iPhones in the bin. Study highlights vast churn in computer hardware that the cryptocurrency incentivizes

9.       Study of 486 families finds essentially no influence of adoptive parents on adoptees' IQ in adulthood, providing further evidence for the predominance of genetic influences on adult intelligence over any other systematic source of variation.

10.   Chickens bred to lay bigger and bigger eggs has led to 85% of hens suffering breastbone fractures

11.   Newly discovered fossil footprints show humans were in North America thousands of years earlier than we thought. Scientists found 60 human footprints between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. Indicating humans occupied southern parts of the continent during the peak of the final ice age

12.   Humans are known to perform well when the reward is high (you are more motivated to win a ranked game than a normal game). But paradoxically, when the stakes are really high, we perform disastrously. A new study has found that monkeys, like humans, choke under pressure.

13.   Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds: Production of meat worldwide emits 28 times as much as growing plants, and most crops are raised to feed animals bound for slaughter.

14.   New study finds that up to 40 minutes of “moderate to vigorous intensity” physical exercise every day is required to balance out 10 hours of sitting still. (n=44,370)

15.   Toilet-trained cows go to ‘MooLoo’ to lower waste emissions. Microbes convert Ammonia into nitrous oxide, which is the third most significant greenhouse gas after methane and carbon dioxide

Fb group

Observances: General

·         1st: Older persons

·         2nd: Statistics, Gandhi Jayanti- Non-Violence

·         4th Habitat, Space Week

·         5th Teacher

·         7th Cotton

·         9th Migratory Bird

·         10th Mental Health

·         11th Girl Child

·         13th Disaster Risk Reduction

·         15th Rural women

·         16th Food

·         17th Eradication of Poverty

·         24 Media and Information Literacy Week, UN Day

·         31st Cities

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Sky View App

·         4-10 World Space Week, Women in Space. Valentina Tereshkova Vostok 6 1963. Kalpana Chowla 1997, 2003 (Columbia Disaster)

·         5: Camelopardalid shower

·         8 Draconid shower

·         10 Moon-Venus

·         14 Moon-Saturn

·         15 Moon Jupiter

·         18 E Geminid

·         20 Hunter’s Moon

·         21 Orionid shower

·         24 Leonis Minorid

Opportunities

·         Swiss Govt

·         DST Inspire

·         Hoong Kong PhD fellowship

·         Conservation leadership

·         NIH

Full list here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jxGs1llz32Smcf5L6OXQqA3GxpGFizVSNCxDAJn9NsU/edit?usp=sharing

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity September E23

The month of September equinox. August had been a busy month. Completed Curiosity, the book on Critical Thinking and Soft Skills.

Tokyo Paralympics. Bhavina Patel Silver in Class 4 TT. Prosthetic limbs, Works of science!

IPCC Report.Code Red: In next few decades huge swathes of land suitable for living and farming will burn or drown, and a large fraction of currently living species will become extinct.

Temperatures will reach 1.5C above 1850-1900 levels by 2040 under all emissions scenarios

This Month I Learned (TMIL)

1.       Beavers build their dams as an instinct to stop the sounds of water leaks. If a speaker is playing just the sound of running water, a beaver will build a dam over it. This is even if it’s over concrete with no visible water, or if an actual nearby leaky water source is quieter than the speaker.

2.       Apples are not ‘true to seed’, so the seeds from any particular variety apple will not grow to be the same variety as the apple tree they came from. E.g. If you planted seeds of Granny Smith it likely will produce a wide variety of different and unknown apple tree types.

3.       In 2012 a British man named Wesley Carrington bought a metal detector and within 20 minutes found gold from the Roman Age worth £100,000.

a.       Stud sensor

b.       Electromagnetic induction. Magnetic field moves to metal object causes eddy current that induce its own magnetic field. This reverse magnetic current detected in the sensor

4.       Elephants stay cancer free as they have 20 copies of a key tumor-fighting gene TP53; humans have just one.

a.       Peso's Paradox is the observation that large animals, such as blue whales, rhinos, elephants, etc. rarely seem to suffer from cancers.

5.       In USA, parents are 12.7% less likely to be happy than childless people.

This month’ Discoveries

Psychology/Behavior

6.       Study suggests that feeling sexually desired by one’s partner is more important for men than we think

7.       Half of adults with ADHD have had a substance use disorder. Alcohol use disorder is most common among adults aged 20-39 with ADHD, followed by cannabis use disorder and other drug use disorders. More than one quarter of those with ADHD had major depression

8.       Exercise blunts cravings for alcohol among young, problematic drinkers

9.       Feeling like leisure is wasteful and unproductive may lead to less happiness and higher levels of stress and depression, new research suggests (Four studies, n = 1310)

10.   A toxic workplace triples your risk of depression, a new study finds. Companies that fail to reward or acknowledge their employees for hard work, impose unreasonable demands on workers, and do not give them autonomy are placing their staff at a much greater risk of depression.

11.   In men, higher wages predicted a higher proportion of being married, whereas in women higher wages were associated with a lower proportion of being married.

Humanities/Politics/Policies/Arts

12.  Student perception of online learning from India during COVID19 pandemic reveals digital divide. Perception was more favourable from students from urban areas. 80% of students use mobile phones to access online lectures. Students perceived asynchronous (recorded) learning better than synchronous as it offered more flexitime.

13.  The American Dream is slowly fading away as research indicates that economic growth has been distributed more broadly in Germany than in the US. While majority of German males has been able to share in the country’s rising prosperity and are better off than their fathers, US continues to lose ground

14.  The city of Liverpool has boycotted the British tabloid, the Sun, since 1989 (due to the tabloid's coverage of the Hillsborough disaster). As a consequence, the city of Liverpool has held more favorable views towards the European Union. This suggests that the Sun played a key role in Brexit.

15.  Anxiety disorder symptoms are more common among those with left-wing political views in Great Britain. People with clinical symptoms of anxiety disorders tend to express higher concerns about economic inequality and the environment, according to new research published in the Journal of Psychology.

16.  Researchers analyzing Billboard hits from 1958 to 2019 found that the most successful songs used "harmonic surprises" where the music deviates from listener expectations. Their use has increased over time as listeners grow accustomed to new tonal patterns, leading to a progression of musicality.

a. This reminds me of an article I was reading the other day on what makes people buy new products. The conclusion was that people want things that are mostly familiar with a little bit of novelty. Too much familiarity is boring, and too much novelty is threatening.

Technology/Physics

17.  An engineered "glue" inspired by barnacle cement can seal bleeding organs in 10-15 seconds. It was tested on pigs and worked faster than available surgical products, even when the pigs were on blood thinners.

Biodiversity/Environment/Evolution/Anthopology

18.   New species of green marine algae from Andaman Archipelago, Acetabularia jalakanyaka. The mermaid algae, first algal species discovery from the archipelago in last 36 years, featured in BBC, The Independence and numerous international media

19.   New species of ancient four-legged whale discovered in Egypt, lived 43 million years ago Phiomicetus anubis. 2011 Peru too. Webbed foot. Peregocetus pacificus,

20.   Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse

a.       This has huge implications for marine ecosystems as nutrient-rich water from the arctic won't be brought up to swallower depths thus fueling trophic webs.

b.       Not to mention destabilizing terrestrial regions.

21.   Permafrost Thaw in Siberia Creates a Ticking ‘Methane Bomb’ of Greenhouse Gases, Scientists Warn

22.   Scientists figure out why olive sea snakes approach divers so often. The snakes likely confuse people for potential mates. The analysis, published in Scientific Reports, suggest the majority of cases involve lustful male sea snakes unaware that divers aren’t extra-large females.

23.   The ancient Babylonians (current day Iraq) understood key concepts in geometry, including how to make precise right-angled triangles. They used this mathematical know-how to divide up farmland – more than 1000 years before the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, with whom these ideas are associated.

24.   Giraffes May Be as Socially Complex as Chimps and Elephants. A review of earlier research shows giraffes have the markings of social creatures, including friendships, day care and grandmothers.

25.   Filipinos (Aeta-an indigenous tribe) are descended from an ancient species of human beings who lived during the last Ice Age. The study reveals that the indigenous occupants of the Southeast Asian archipelago have the most Denisovan DNA in the world

Medicine/Health/Diagnostics/Nutrition

26.   Small blobs of human brain grown in a dish have been coaxed into forming rudimentary eyes, which respond to light by sending signals to the rest of the brain tissue.

27.   Fecal transplants from young mice reverses age-related declines in immune function, cognition, and memory in old mice, implicating the microbiome in various diseases and aging

a.       https://seed.com/

28.   People who have recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibit significant cognitive deficits versus controls according to a survey of 80,000+ participants conducted in conjunction with the scientific documentary series, BBC2 Horizon

29.   CDC Scientists examined hundreds of Kentucky residents who had been sick with COVID-19 through June of 2021 and found that unvaccinated people had a 2.34 times the odds of reinfection compared to those who were fully vaccinated.

30.   Despite the social mythology surrounding testosterone, high testosterone doesn't make men more successful, study hints. Rather than testosterone influencing a person’s socioeconomic position, it could be that having a more advantaged socioeconomic position raises your testosterone.

a.       It was known that birds with more colorful feathers had higher testosterone.

The crazy thing was that when they artificially colored the feathers of the low testosterone birds. Those birds testosterone levels dramatically increased to match the color ! Changing the color of the feathers led to a physiological change !

Observances: General

·   5th: Charity

·   7th: Clean air and Blue Skies

·   8th: Literacy

·   9th: Day to protect education from Attack

·   15th: Democracy

·   16Th: Preservation of Ozone Layer

·   17th Patient safety day

·   18th Equal pay day

·   21: Day of peace

·   23: Sign languages

·   26: Total elimination of nuclear weapons

·   27: Tourism

·   29: Awareness of food loss and waste

·   30: Maritime day, translation day

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events) Stellarium App

·   1. Aurigid meteor shower

·   2. Mercury

·   9. E Perseid meteor shower

·   10. Moon-Venus

·   14: Mercury

·   17: Moon-Saturn

·   18: Moon-Jupiter

·   21: Harvest Moon

·   23: September equinox

·   27: Sextanid meteor shower

Opportunities

·   MentX Autumn call, DL 5th Sep. Result announcements: 23rd Sep, equinox

·   CUCET

·   DST INSPIRE

Complete list of opportunities here

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Tokyo Olympics, two scientists wins Gold!

·   Anna Kiesenhofer, Maths PostDoc Ecole Polytechnique, France gold in Cycling

·   Charlotte Hym, Tokyo Olympic Gold Medalist in counterculture sports Skateboarding, holds PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from University of Paris!

·   Medals in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games are made from metals recovered from recycled cell phones collected since 2017.

This Month I Learned (TMIL)

1.       Norway hires sherpas from Nepal to build paths in the Norwegian mountains. They have completed over 300 projects, and their pay for one summer, equals 30 years of work in Nepal.

2.       Norway discovered oil in its country 40 years ago. Knowing the oil would eventually run out, they chose to invest it in a sovereign wealth fund. It is one of the most profitable funds in the world - valued at over $1.3 trillion - enough to self sustain the county for many years.

3.       While only 9.7% of Americans don't wear seatbelts, 47% of those who die in car crashes were not wearing seat belts.

4.       Masks on airplanes generate oxygen by triggering a chemical reaction. If pressure in the cabin is disturbed and masks drop, tugging the mask causes a firing pin to ignite a small explosion in an ‘O2 candle’ where Sodium Chlorate and Potassium Percholorate combine to make Oxygen gas.

5.       A defibrillator doesn't restart a stopped heart. In fact quite the opposite, it actually stops a heart in the middle of a cardiac event, allowing the heart’s natural back-up system to take over and return it to normal sinus rhythm.

This month’s Discoveries

Psychology/Behavior

1.       Scientists have found that three consecutive nights of sleep loss can have a negative impact on both mental and physical health. Sleep deprivation can lead to an increase in anger, frustration, and anxiety.

2.       Spanking can worsen a child's behavior and do real harm, study finds

3.       Teens around the world are lonelier than a decade ago. The reason may be smartphones.

4.       New study shows how preschool children struggle when what an adult tells them conflicts with what they see themselves. Results showed children rarely explored to try to resolve the conflict, but those who did resisted the misleading claims by the adult.

5.       Study suggests that conservatism is associated with a lesser ability to distinguish between true and false claims across a wide range of political issues . Socially engaging truthful claims tended to favor the left, while engaging falsehoods disproportionately favored the right.

6.       New study indicates conspiracy theory believers have less developed critical thinking abilities

7.       New study (Canada, N = 1,897) finds that two thirds of romantic couples start out as friends

Humanities/Politics/Policies/Arts

8. Escort services and strip clubs don't increase sex crimes, study says

a. The Netherlands as an example. Drugs are legal, does not have drug problem

b. Prohibition/Censorships can backfire: Reactance, unintentional psychological arousal and motivation in response to threatened freedom

9. New research suggests a significant relationship between open-plan office noise and physiological stress (increased negative mood & human sweat)

Technology/Physics

10.  Researchers develop a self-healing cement paste inspired by the process of CO2 transport in biological cells. This novel mechanism with enzyme Carbonic Anhydrase actively consumes CO2 while strengthening the existing concrete structures. The ability to heal instead of replace concrete offers significant environmental benefits.

a. CA catalyzes the reaction between Ca2+ ions and atmospheric  to create calcium carbonate crystals

11.  Ganymede has water vapor. Jupiter’s largest moon, with own magnetic field and auroras.

Biodiversity/Environment/Evolution

12.   Alarming climate change: Earth heads for its tipping point as it could reach +1.5 °C over the next 5 years, WMO finds in the latest study

13.   India discovers new species of moss from Antarctica: Bryum bharatiense. Greenifying Antarctica in response to Climate Change

14.   15,000-year-old viruses discovered in Tibetan glacier ice

15.   Just 5% of the world’s power plants account for almost three-quarters of carbon emissions from electricity generation. A crackdown on a limited number of ‘hyper-emitting’ power plants could yield outsize cuts in the carbon emissions resulting from global electricity generation.

16.   Spanish study: 50% of microplastics in ocean coming from takeaway food and drinks litter!

a.       Asymmetry. Large trucks contribute to almost 50% of carbon footprint of transportation. Richest 1% of population holds 99% of wealth

17.   Study finds that microbes in the cow’s gut can break down three types of plastic, serving as a sustainable method of recycling plastic waste.

18.   Cleaner air has boosted U.S. corn and soybean yields according to new research from Stanford University. The analysis estimates pollution reductions between 1999 and 2019 contributed to a 20% increase in corn and soybean yield gains during that period, an amount worth about $5 billion per year.

19.   Cauliflowers form fractals because they are failed flowers

b.       Fractals are never-ending mathematical patterns

Medicine/Health/Diagnostics/Nutrition

20.   A new study by researchers on over 82,000 participants has shown that difficulty hearing spoken conversations is associated with up to 91% increased risk of dementia. This is the first study to investigate its association with dementia in a large population

21.   Animal proteins are better muscle builders than vegetable proteins - Meta-analysis

c.       But Plant proteins are better for Planet!

22.   COVID-19 antibodies persist at least nine months after infection. 98.8 percent of people infected in February/March showed detectable levels of antibodies in November, and there was no difference between people who had suffered symptoms of COVID-19 and those that had been symptom-free

23.   Scientists have found almost a quarter of elite adult rugby players have brain structure abnormalities as a result of repeated head impacts. The study also found 50 per cent of the rugby players had an unexpected reduction in brain volume.

Observances: General

·   9th Indigenous people’s day

·   12th Youth Day

·   15th Indian Independence Day!

·   19th Humanitarian Day

·   22nd International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief (A/RES/73/296)

·   29th International Day against Nuclear Tests

·   31st International Day for People of African Descent

Observances: Astronomy (all binocular events)

·   1st Saturn at opposition

·   11th Moon-Venus conjunction

·   12th Perseid meteor shower

·   14th M-15

·   18th Kappa Signid meteor shower

·   20th Jupiter at opposition

·   21st Moon-Saturn conjunction

·   22nd Full Moon Sturgeon Moon+ Moon Jupiter conjunction

Opportunities

·   KVPY

·   EMBO DBT Leadership course

·   NIH

·   BIRAC

·   Indo-Australian

·   Merck

·   ICSSR Doctoral fellowships

·   Several JRF and PostDocs

Full list here

YAI Fb page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Curiosity Anniversary episode!

1st episode was on May 4th 2020, E1

This is E21

Psychology/Behavior

1.       Men die of suicide much more often than women. This is commonly blamed on men's unwillingness to seek help and talk about their problems. New paper disputes the conventional view, emphasizing instead socio-economic issues and obstacles to health care access.

2.       The presence of strong labor unions substantially reduces poverty for both unionized households and non-unionized households.

3.       Conservatives more susceptible than liberals to believing political falsehoods, a new U.S. study finds. A main driver is the glut of right-leaning misinformation in the media and information environment, results showed.

4.       Ban on flavored vaping may have led teens to cigarettes, study suggests. After the ban’s implementation, high school students’ odds of smoking conventional cigarettes doubled in San Francisco’s school district relative to trends in districts without the ban.

5.       Study: Teaching kids social responsibility—like how to settle fights and ask for help—can reduce school bullying. Students who said their teachers encouraged them to care about others and fostered a classroom environment with clear rules, also said they felt both less aggressive and less victimized.

6.       According to a thorough analysis of 437 studies on narcissism around the world, there appears to be a strong correlation between narcissism and aggression — regardless of gender, age, and country of residence. Even narcissism "within what is considered a normal range" is linked to aggression.

7.       Relationships at work matter greatly to our well-being, and perhaps no work relationship affects us more strongly than the one we have with our manager. In fact, people who leave their job frequently report that their manager is their most important reason for doing so.

a.       "You don't quit your job, you quit your manager".

8.       Spanking has effects on early childhood behavior similar to those of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as physical or emotional abuse or neglect, parental mental illness, parental substance use, and others, a study in the Journal of Pediatrics has found.

9.       New research shows "belief in supernatural evil is a robust predictor of support for policies that expand gun rights."

10.   Researchers focused on mental health benefits associated with playing video games to address symptoms of depression & anxiety. They found video games show promise as inexpensive, readily accessible, internationally available, effective and stigma-free resources for mitigation of mental health issues

Humanities/Politics/Policies/Arts

11.  Large landlords file evictions at two to three times the rates of small landlords (this disparity is not driven by the characteristics of the tenants they rent to). For small landlords, organizational informality and personal relationships with tenants make eviction a morally fraught decision.

12.  Study: One in twenty workers are in useless jobs or 'bullshit jobs' — far fewer than previously thought. However, David Graeber was right to link people’s attitudes towards their jobs to their psychological wellbeing, and this is something that employers—and society as a whole—should take seriously.

13.  Toxic workplaces increase risk of depression by 300%. The study has found that full time workers employed by organisations that fail to prioritise their employees' mental health have a threefold increased risk of being diagnosed with depression.

a. Japan proposes 4-day working week to improve work-life balance

14.  Study: A quarter of adults don't want children and they're still happy. The study used a set of three questions to identify child-free individuals separately from parents and other types of nonparents.

15.  A new study found that Americans dramatically overestimate the number of migrants affiliated with gangs and children being trafficked, and that this overestimation contributes to dehumanization of migrants, to lack of empathy for their suffering, and to individuals’ views on immigration policy.

16.  People who support a ban on pornography tend to hold more sexist views about women. Generally, consuming pornography or supporting legal pornography was either non-predictive of sexism, or predicted lower sexism

17.  Physically attractive individuals earn substantially more than otherwise similar unattractive individuals. The beauty wage gap is the largest among black women.

18.  U.S. life expectancy decreased by 1.87 years between 2018 and 2020, a drop not seen since World War II, according to new research from Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Colorado Boulder and the Urban Institute.

Technology/Physics

19.  Scientists develop ‘cheap and easy’ method to extract lithium from seawater

Biodiversity/Environment/Evolution

20.   A new study finds that because mongooses (meerkats) don't know which offspring belong to which moms, all mongoose pups are given equal access to food and care, thereby creating a more equitable mongoose society.

a.       Ironically Mongoose has highest intra-specific murder rates

21.   The amount of heat the Earth traps has doubled in just 15 years. Approximately 90 percent of the excess energy from this imbalance ends up in the ocean. And warming ocean temperatures lead to acidification, impacting fish and other marine biodiversity.

22.   Toxic ‘forever chemicals’ widespread in top makeup brands, study finds | Makeup | The Guardian

a.       PFAS (Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances), also known as the Forever Chemicals, are a large chemical family of over 9,000 highly persistent chemicals that don't occur in nature.

23.   A protein found in robins’ eyes has all the hallmarks of a magnetoreceptor & could help birds navigate using the Earth’s magnetic fields. The research revealed that the protein fulfills several predictions of one of the leading quantum-based theories for how avian magnetoreception might work.

24.   Orchids can make fake pollen to tempt bees and other pollinators. But this pseudopollen isn’t just an alluring counterfeit, scientists have now shown: It’s as nutritious as the real thing.

25.   A study that dug into the history of the Amazon Rainforest has found that indigenous people lived there for millennia with "causing no detectable species losses or disturbances".

26.   Scientists have discovered that sharks nearly went extinct 19 million years ago. It could be one of the biggest such mass extinction events since the disappearance of the dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period. The findings could be helpful in understanding declining modern-day shark populations.

27.   Pesticides Are Killing the World’s Soils - They cause significant harm to earthworms, beetles, ground-nesting bees and thousands of other vital subterranean species

28.   A new study finds dinosaurs began declining 10 million years before the infamous asteroid hit (K-T at Yucataan), challenging our popular beliefs in how dinosaurs went extinct. Climate change may have been a significant factor in their decline, the researchers say.

29.   The First ‘Google Translate’ for Elephants Debuts. Ethogram. Ethology https://www.elephantvoices.org/

Medicine/Health/Diagnostics/Nutrition

30.   Psilocybin therapy appears to be at least as effective as a leading conventional antidepressant

31.   Americans who start to exercise before or during middle age typically save around $1000 annually on health care costs after retirement

32.   Face masks are effective in blocking expired airborne particles from talking and coughing even if they don't seal around the edges, a new study shows

33.   CRISPR injected into the blood treats a genetic disease for first time

a.       ATTR amyloidosis. In its current form using a lipid nanoparticle vector, it would only be potentially helpful with diseases of the liver or spleen. Even then it is limited to diseases where the genetic component is simple and does not require complete conversion of all target cell types.

34.   Research which included more than 70,000 children in six European cohorts, found that children exposed to paracetamol before birth were 19% more likely to develop ASC (Autistic Spectrum Condition) symptoms and 21% more likely to develop ADHD symptoms than those who were not exposed.

35.   Room temperature edible vaccine MucoRice-CTB against Cholera through GM rice.

36.   New research has discovered that common artificial sweeteners can cause previously healthy gut bacteria to become diseased and invade the gut wall, potentially leading to serious health issues. Saccharin, sucralose and aspartame

37.   Deposits of Copper And Magnetic Iron Found in Alzheimer's Patients' Brains. Researchers spotted the tell-tale glint of copper and iron in their elemental forms using a form of X-ray microscopy (STXM) on samples of neural plaques taken from the frontal and temporal lobes of Alzheimer's patients.

38.   New research shows the brains of people who died from Covid-19 look terrifyingly similar to the brains of people who died from neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

39.   Brisk walking for two-and-a-half hours a week could prevent early death caused by lack of sleep – study

40.   China is now certified Malaria free, after 70 years of struggle.

Observances: General

·   11th: World Population Day

·   15th: World Youth Skills Day

·   20th: World Chess Day

·   30th: International day of Friendship

Observances: Astronomy

·   6th: Earth at Aphelion

·   7th: Comet 15P/Finlay

·   9th Morning star Mercury ai its Highest Point

·   12 Conjunction of Moon, Venus and Mars

·   20th Moon landing day!

·   24th Full Moon

·   24: Conjunction of Moon and Saturn

·   26: Conjunction of Moon and Jupiter

·   28: Peak of the Piscis Austrinid Meteor Shower

·   30 Peak of the Southern δ-Aquariid & α-Capricornid Meteor Showers

 Opportunities: Please access here.

YAI Facebook page lists more exciting curiosity-driven research news every day, do subscribe. Link for our page, as well as all the stories featured in this episode, in the show notes.

Psychology/Behavior

1. Study: Caffeine may improve the ability to stay awake and attend to a task, but it doesn’t do much to prevent the sort of procedural errors that can cause things like medical mistakes and car accidents. The findings underscore the importance of prioritizing sleep.

a. sleep dep is terrible for performing tasks involving critical thinking

2. 'Brain fog' can linger with long-haul COVID-19. At the six-month mark, COVID long-haulers reported worse neurocognitive symptoms than at the outset of their illness. This including trouble forming words, difficulty focusing and absent-mindedness.

a. The team defined long-haul COVID-19 as having serious, prolonged symptoms three months after contracting the virus.

3. Teens, tech and mental health: Oxford study finds no link - There remains "little association" between technology use and mental-health problems, a study of more than 430,000 10 to 15-year-olds suggests.

4. Ample evidence shows that people tend to trust vaccines if they also trust science in general. Now, survey data from 126 countries suggest that people also tend to trust vaccines if they live in countries where confidence in science is high.(N=120,000)

Humanities/Politics/Policies/Arts

5. Immigrants act more as job creators than job takers: Researchers found that immigrants not only expand labor supply as workers but also expand labor demand as founders of firms, and do so at much higher rates than their native-born counterparts.

a. There must be a correlation between risk-taking behaviour & establishing businesses & moving to a new country

6. For decades, ExxonMobil has deployed Big Tobacco-like propaganda to downplay the gravity of the climate crisis, shift blame onto consumers and protect its own interests, according to a Harvard University study published Thursday.

7. Houses in flood zones in the US are currently overvalued by a total of $43.8 billion based on information in publicly available flood hazard maps, raising concerns about the stability of real estate markets as climate risks become more severe.

8. Large pharmaceutical companies test drugs in dozens of foreign countries but often don't bother to make the drugs available to those nations once the drugs are approved in the US, a significant bioethics issue. Countries with lowest access to drugs tested on their residents were African countries.

9. Teen girls and young women in Colorado graduated high school at higher rates after the state expanded access to affordable contraception — some of the strongest quantitative evidence of better reproductive choices shaping the life trajectories of women.

10.  Studying science isn’t what makes students less religious: College majors that focus on inquiry rather than applying knowledge are more likely to secularize students, according to a new study that breaks with the traditional claim that exposure to science leads people away from religion.

11.  Lyrics of popular songs have become increasingly simple over time, finds new study analyzing six decades (1958–2016) of popular music in the US. Simpler songs entering the charts were more successful, reaching higher chart positions, especially in years when more novel songs were produced.

a. Shorter attention spans?

12.  Death penalty cases which are assigned to the US Courts of Appeals are substantially more likely to result in executions when the convicts are [randomly] assigned to panels with a majority of Republican-appointed judges.

13.  New study of 14,000 teens finds that students who were relatively older than their peers in primary school wind up being more popular in high school; in the Netherlands, the effect was about 2.6%; this study is another example showing that school cut-off dates have real impacts.

a. Outliers. Birthdate can have a huge impact in your life trajectory.

Technology/Physics

14.  By playing two tiny drums, physicists have provided the most direct demonstration yet that quantum entanglement — a bizarre effect normally associated with subatomic particles — works for larger objects. This is the first direct evidence of quantum entanglement in macroscopic objects.

15.  Cornell researchers see atoms at record resolution

Biodiversity/Environment/Evolution

16.   Researchers examined the guts of freshwater fish preserved in museum collections; they found that fish have been swallowing microplastics since the 1950s and that the concentration of microplastics in their guts has increased over time.

17.   Dogs forming eye contact is important in dog–human communication. Mutual gaze plays a role in dog–human bonding, and is associated with increased oxytocin levels in dogs and human partners. A new study found that shorter headed dogs, mongrels, younger, and more playful dogs form eye contact faster.

18.   Worker ants physically carry young queens to foreign nests so the queens can mate with unrelated males. This is the first case of third-party matchmaking in a non-human animal that scientists think helps reduce inbreeding

19.   Study: COVID-19 lockdowns led to 95K fewer air pollution-related deaths globally

a.       8.8 million deaths per year in normal year. Reduction is only marginal!

20.   A “groundbreaking” new study suggests the ancestors of both humans and Neanderthals were cooking lots of starchy foods at least 600,000 years ago.And they had already adapted to eating more starchy plants long before the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago.

21.   Wild donkeys & horses engineer water holes that help other species. Often cast as invasive pests, the equids may actually benefit some ecosystems. Equid wells can act as desert oases, providing a major source of water during dry times that benefits a whole host of desert animals & keystone trees.

a.       They have what’s called a vomeronasal organ, aka Jacobsen’s organ, that is comprised of two pockets further up their nasal passage. The pockets help circulate air and bind it to moisture to smell better. 

Medicine/Health/Diagnostics/Nutrition

22.   Researchers here have discovered cells in the bone marrow of COVID-19 survivors that were still producing antibodies against the virus months after recovery, suggesting immunity may last far longer than once thought.

23.   COVID-19 virus found in penile tissue could contribute to erectile dysfunction, first study to demonstrate that COVID-19 can be present in the penis tissue long after men recover from the virus. The blood vessel dysfunction that results from the infection could then contribute to erectile dysfunction.

24.   Erectile Dysfunction Risk 6 Times Higher in Men With COVID

25.   67% of participants who received three MDMA-assisted therapy sessions no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis, results published in Nature MedicineObservances. Psychedelics will change psychotherapy. This is the future we have been experiencing 60 years ago

26.   A blind man (retinitis pigmentosa) can perceive objects after a gene from algae was added to his eye: MIT Technology Review

a.       Genetherapy using ChrimsonR gene, originally used by algae for phototaxicity

27.   In Switzerland, among 645 people hospitalized with chronic heart failure, a randomized trial found those who were given regular hospital food – as opposed to a personal nutrition plan – had an almost doubled risk of mortality within 30 days.

28.   Scientists found that the Mediterranean diet, rich in fish, vegetables, and olive oil, and low in diary and red meat promotes healthy aging of the brain. It may also ward off the build up of harmful proteins in the brain, one of the main causes of Alzheimer’s disease — the most common form of dementia.

29.   Scientists at the University of Zurich have modified a common respiratory virus, called adenovirus, to act like a Trojan horse to deliver genes for cancer therapeutics directly into tumor cells. Unlike chemotherapy or radiotherapy, this approach does no harm to normal healthy cells.

30.   Scientists create an effective personalized anti-cancer vaccine by combining oncolytic viruses, that infect and specifically destroy cancer cells without touching healthy cells, with small synthetic molecules (peptides) specific to the targeted cancer, to successfully immunize mice against cancer.

31.   A first of its kind study has showed a 77% increase in the risk of cardiac arrhythmias leading up to and during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, demonstrating that stressful political events can take a toll on heart health.

a.       Ramifications on endless Social Media debates and exposure to emotional contents contributing to stress levels?

32.   Five DNA repair gene mutations may be part of why certain people live extremely long (>105 years).

33.   Experimental gene therapy cures children born without an immune system. Autologous ex vivo gene therapy with a self-inactivating lentiviral vector restored immune function in 48/50 children with severe combined immunodeficiency due to adenosine deaminase deficiency (ADA-SCID), with no complications.

34.   Why some die, some survive when equally ill from COVID-19: Team of researchers identify protein ‘signature’ of severe COVID-19 cases, IL-6- a ubiquitous pro-inflammatory cytokine

35.   Meat Eaters ‘Wilfully Disregard Factory Farming’ As Driver Of Infectious Diseases. Scientists warn of the enormous health threats posed by intensive animal agriculture, from zoonotic disease emergence to the rise of antibiotic resistance, and say understanding of these risks is critical.

36.   A person’s stance on abortion is linked to their, often inaccurate, belief about when a fetus can feel pain, a new study has found. This may be due to women being the targets of anti-choice disinformation campaigns, which systematically overstate the pace at which embryos and fetuses develop.

37.   New technique links lithium distribution in the brain to depression - "Epidemiological studies have previously found local communities with high natural levels of lithium in their water supply tend to report lower rates of suicide, dementia and violent crime."

38.   Daily 30-min workout may not benefit everyone. It reduced mortality risk for those who sat for <7 hr/day, but didn't reduce it for those who sat for >11 hr/day. Three minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise or 12 min of light physical activity, per hour spent sitting, reduced mortality risk by 30%.

39.   Further evidence supports controversial claim that SARS-CoV-2 genes can integrate into our chromosomes and stick around long after the infection is over. The insertion could explain the rare finding that people can recover from COVID-19 but then test positive for SARS-CoV-2 again months later.

40.   Intermittent fasting provokes substantial remodeling of the gut microbiome. The intermittent fasting–provoked upregulation of butyric acid–producing Lachnospiraceae provides an obvious possible mechanistic explanation for health effects associated with intermittent fasting.

Observances: General

·   3rd World Bicycle Day

·   5th World Environment Day

·   7th World Food Safety Day

·   8th World Oceans Day

·   14th World Blood Donor Day

·   21st International Day for Celebration of Solstice

·   29th International Day of the Tropics

·   30th International Asteroid Day 

Observances: Astronomy

·   1st Conjunction of Moon and Jupiter

·   2nd M13

·   3rd M12

·   5th M10

·   6th M62

·   10th Annular Solar Eclipse

·   11th M92

·   14 Conjunction of Moon and Mars

·   16th M6

·   18th IC4665

·   20th M7

·   21st June Solstice (longest day of 2021, midsummer day)

·   23 NGC 6633

·   25th The strawberry Moon

·   29th Conjunction of Moon and Jupiter

Opportunities

Curiosity May

Psychology/Behavior

1.       For the first time researchers show that verses in religious scriptures that legitimize violence may increase support for killing enemies of the faith, based on a new study of Christians, Muslims and Jews in 7 countries using a quote from the Bible, Koran, or Torah (n=8,000).

2.       People who used Facebook as an additional source of news in any way were less likely to answer COVID-19 questions correctly than those who did not, finds a new study (n=5,948). COVID-19 knowledge correlates with trusted news source.

3.       Two thirds of New Zealanders believed there were ‘silver linings’ to the country’s COVID-19 lockdown last year, positive experiences such as pride in the country’s response, more free time to exercise and take up hobbies, flexibility working from home, and reduced time spent commuting.

4.       Boredom affects sleep quality: Boredom proneness predicted inattention, associated with bedtime procrastination and subsequent poor sleep quality. Fidgeting and mind wandering were associated with poor sleep via bedtime procrastination. This has implications to dealing with bedtime procrastination.

5.       Having a responsive, supportive partner minimizes the negative impacts of an individual’s depression or external stress on their romantic relationship. A responsive partner is one who focuses effort and energy to listen without reacting, tries to understand, and be supportive in a helpful way.

Humanities/Politics/Policies

6. Religion is a driving force behind the gender wage gap, suggests a new study. The findings provide evidence that men tend to earn significantly more than women in societies with heightened religiosity, based on analysis from 140 countries and 50 US states.

7. Rising income inequality is not an inevitable outcome of technological progress, but rather the result of policy decisions to weaken unions and dismantle social safety nets, suggests a new study of 14 high-income countries, including Australia, France, Germany, Japan, UK and the US.

8. Some companies may hire unethical bosses on purpose: “Dark” personality traits – questionable ethical standards, narcissistic tendencies – that make a boss bad also make that person much more likely to go along with manipulating earnings, and may be the reason they got the job in the first place.

Technology

9. New research has found that the vertical turbine design is far more efficient than traditional turbines in large scale wind farms, and when set in pairs the vertical turbines increase each other’s performance by up to 15%. Vertical axis wind farm turbines can ultimately lower prices of electricity.

Biodiversity/Environment/Evolution

10.   Fallout from nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and '60s is showing up in U.S. honey, according to a new study. The findings reveal that thousands of kilometers from the nearest bomb site and more than 50 years after the bombs fell, radioactive fallout is still cycling through plants and animals.

11.   Roundup (glyphosate-based herbicide) causes high levels of mortality following contact exposure in bumble bees | Bees exhibited 94% mortality with Roundup Ready‐To‐Use nd 30% mortality with Roundup ProActive. Roundup products caused comprehensive matting of bee body hair, causing death by incapacitating the gas exchange system

12.   Single-use plastics dominate debris on the North Pacific's deep ocean floor - Scientists have discovered the densest accumulation of plastic waste ever recorded on an abyssal seafloor (4,561 items per square kilometer), finding that the majority of this waste is single-use packaging.

13.   With impressive accuracy, dogs can sniff out coronavirus - A proof-of-concept study suggests that specially trained detection dogs can sniff out COVID-19-positive samples with 96% accuracy. 8 Labrador retrievers and 1 Belgian Malinois that had not done medical-detection work before were used.

14.   The mystery of the blue flower: Nature's rare color owes its existence to bee vision: Why is it that humans are so fond of blue? And why does it seem to be so rare in the world of plants and animals?

15.   Evidence linking pregnant women’s exposure to phthalates, found in plastic packaging and common consumer products, to altered cognitive outcomes and slower information processing in their infants, with males more likely to be affected.

16.   Researchers pin point single toxic chemical in tires as cause of mass salmon mortality, 6PPD-quinone

17.   By analyzing 25 years of US data, researchers found toxicity of pesticides to nontarget invertebrates, including pollinators, has increased markedly, even though volume used has gone down. This challenges the common assumption that the impacts of environmental pesticides have gone down over time.

18.  Climate change is driving some to skip having kids - A new study finds that overconsumption, overpopulation and uncertainty about the future are among the top concerns of those who say climate change is affecting their reproductive decision-making.

19.   Scientists discover bacteria that transforms waste from copper mining into pure copper, providing an inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to synthesize it and clean up pollution. It is the first reported to produce a single-atom metal, but researchers suspect many more await discovery.

20.   Big Meat and Dairy Companies Have Spent Millions Lobbying Against Climate Action, a New Study Finds

Medicine/Diagnostics

21.   Scientists find new evidence linking essential oils to seizures: Analyzing 350 seizure cases, researchers found that 15.7% of seizures may have been induced by inhalation, ingestion or topical use of essential oils. After stopping use of oils, the vast majority did not experience another seizure.

22.   Adding cocoa powder to the diet of obese mice resulted in a 21% lower rate of weight gain & less inflammation than the high-fat-fed control mice. Cocoa-fed mice had 28% less fat in their livers; 56% lower levels of oxidative stress; & 75% lower levels of DNA damage in the liver compared to controls

23.   Physical inactivity is associated with a higher risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes: a study in 48,440 adult patients

24.   When your immune system fights an infection, it cranks up the mutation rate during antibody production by a factor of 1,000,000, and then has them compete with each other. This natural selection process creates highly specific antibodies for the virus.

25.   Exercise and a healthy diet in childhood leads to adults with bigger brains and lower levels of anxiety, according to new research in mice, the first study to examine the long-lasting, combined effects of both factors when they are experienced early in life.

26.   New study suggests that masks and a good ventilation system are more important than social distancing for reducing the airborne spread of COVID-19 in classrooms.

27.   Sunlight inactivates coronavirus 8 times faster than predicted. Study found the SARS-CoV-2 virus was 3 times more sensitive to the UV in sunlight than influenza A, with 90 % of the coronavirus's particles being inactivated after just half an hour of exposure to midday sunlight in summer.

28.   Researchers come one step closer to ‘insulin in a pill’, to eliminate the need for self-injections, successfully testing it in diabetic rats, using nanomaterial layers to package insulin, so that the hormone can be taken orally without being destroyed by stomach acids.

29.   A large, longitudinal study in Canada has unequivocally refuted the idea that epidural anesthesia increases the risk of autism in children. Among more than 120,000 vaginal births, researchers found no evidence for any genuine link between this type of pain medication and autism spectrum disorder.

30.   People with early-onset dementia are often mistaken for having depression and now research has discovered the cause: a profound loss of ability to experience pleasure - related to degeneration of 'hedonic hotspots' in the brain where pleasure mechanisms are concentrated.

News

1.       Scientists have spotted the largest flare ever recorded from the sun's nearest neighbor, the star Proxima Centauri. The star went from normal to 14,000 times brighter when seen in ultraviolet wavelengths over the span of a few seconds.

2.       One of the smallest black holes — and the closest to Earth so far — discovered. Scientists call it 'the Unicorn.'

3.       Biden pursues giant boost for science spending, requests $8.7-bill budget for CDC, largest budget increase at 23% in nearly two decades. 25% increase for Ocean and Atmosphere Admin, 21% for NIH, 20% NSF, 6.3% increase for Space, 10% increase for Energy.

4.       Rhino Numbers on the Rise: 16% increase in Nepal’s rhino numbers

Observances

3rd World Press Freedom Day

8th World Migratory Birds Day

16th International Day of Light

17th World Telecommunication and Information Society Day

20th World Bee Day

21st International Tea Day

22nd International Day for Biological Diversity

Astronomy observances

6-7 Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower

17: Mercury at Greatest Eastern Elongation

26: Supermoon! The best supermoon of 2021, Flower Moon. Also, total lunar eclipse

Relatively quiet month

1.       New Moon week to capture the Galactic Center of the Milky Way.

17 conjunction of the Moon and Mars with occultation of Mars by the Moon.

21-22  Lyrids Meteor Shower

27 Supermoon

Opportunities

Curiosity April

Psychology/Behavior

1.       More extroverted people suffered mood declines while more introverted people actually saw mood improvements during the COVID-19 pandemic, finds a new study of students at a US university.

2.       Casual sex among young adults has declined due to decline in drinking, an increase in computer gaming, and more young adults living with their parents. (data from 2007 through 2017)

3.       Study finds that even when men and women express the same levels of physical pain, both male and female adults are more likely to think women exaggerate physical pain more than men do, displaying a significant gender bias in pain estimation that could be causing disparities in health care treatment

4.       Soothing toddler tantrums with screen time can cause behavioral problems later: When young children misbehave, parents often give them phones or tablets to calm them down. But this overreliance on electronics to help toddlers regulate emotions has potential to cause behavioral problems as they grow.

5.       Health declining in Gen X and Gen Y, national study shows. Compared to previous generations, they showed poorer physical health, higher levels of unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol use and smoking, and more depression and anxiety

6.       Narcissism is driven by insecurity, and not a grandiose sense of self, suggests a new study. Narcissists cope with these insecurities by flexing, which makes others like them less in the long run, further aggravating their insecurities, which then leads to a vicious cycle of flexing behaviors.

7.       People with higher incomes tend to feel prouder, more confident and less afraid, but not necessarily more compassionate or loving, finds a new study from 162 countries (n=1.6m). “Greater wealth may not contribute to building a more caring and tolerant society.”

8.       Men and women actually prefer not to split household and childcare tasks equally, suggests a new study, which found that men enjoyed tasks to do with outdoor labor and home maintenance more than women did. Women preferred cleaning, food prep, family scheduling, and home decorating.

9.       Decades of research reveals very little difference between male and female brains - once brain size is accounted for, any differences that remained were small and rarely consistent from one study to the next, finds three decades of data from MRI scans and postmortem brain tissue studies.

a.       Means gray matter remains same, not same thoughts, behaviors, thinking patterns, memories, personalities, etc.

10.   A first-of-its-kind study suggests patients have difficulty understanding and building trust with surgeons when they cannot see their faces due to masks. When surgeons wore clear masks, patients rated them significantly higher in how well they explained, demonstrated empathy, and built trust.

11.   New study finds that an "empathy training" intervention for parole officers led to a 13% drop in their parolees' reoffending rates 10 months later

12.   Fathers who are more involved in early infant parenting show reduced depressive symptoms

13.   We daydream as children, but hardly do it as adults, even thought it may boost wellness and pain tolerance. The ability to think for pleasure is important, and we can get better at it by focusing on thoughts that are both pleasant and meaningful, finds a new study.

14.   Fake news can direct your behavior without you realizing it. This is a huge threat to democracy.

Humanities/Politics/Policies

15.  Elite philanthropy mainly self-serving - Philanthropy among the elite class in the United States and the United Kingdom does more to create goodwill for the super-wealthy than to alleviate social ills for the poor, according to a new meta-analysis.

16.  The one-third of Americans who have bachelor's degrees have been living progressively longer for the past 30 years, while the two-thirds without degrees have been dying younger since 2010, according to new research by the Princeton economists who first identified 'deaths of despair.'

Technology

17.  Lab grown meat from tissue culture of animal cells is sustainable, using cells without killing livestock, with lower land use and water footprint. Japanese scientists succeeded in culturing chunks of meat, using electrical stimulation to cause muscle cell contraction to mimic the texture of steak.

18.  Singaporean scientists develop device to 'communicate' with plants using electrical signals. As a proof-of concept, they attached a Venus flytrap to a robotic arm and, through a smartphone, stimulated its leaf to pick up a piece of wire, demonstrating the potential of plant-based robotic systems.

19.  5G as a wireless power grid: Unknowingly, the architects of 5G have created a wireless power grid capable of powering devices at ranges far exceeding the capabilities of any existing technologies (180m). Researchers propose a solution using Rotman lens that could power IoT devices.

20.  Scientists developed “wearable microgrid” that harvests/ stores energy from human body to power small electronics, with 3 parts: sweat-powered biofuel cells, motion-powered triboelectric generators, and energy-storing supercapacitors. Parts are flexible, washable and screen printed onto clothing.

21.  World’s first non-invasive wearable device for newborn babies, worn on their foreheads, that simultaneously measures blood jaundice, oxygen levels and pulse rate. Neonatal jaundice is a leading cause of death and brain damage in infants in low/middle-income countries.

Biodiversity/Environment/Evolution

22.   Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previously thought. Scientists found that, worldwide, 8 million premature deaths were linked to pollution from fossil fuel combustion, with 350,000 in the U.S. alone. Fine particulate pollution has been linked with health problems

a.       broader effects are on mental and physical health?

23.   Forests on caffeine: coffee waste can boost forest recovery. After only two years the coffee pulp treated area had 80% canopy cover compared to 20% in the control area. The canopy in the coffee pulp area was also four times taller than that of the control area.

24.   Study finds that red seaweed dramatically reduces the amount of methane that cows emit, with emissions from cow belches decreasing by 80%. Supplementing cow diets with small amounts of the food would be an effective way to cut down the livestock industry's carbon footprint

25.   Seaweed farming is efficient as a low-cost strategy to ocean acidification and deoxygenation, and also benefits the survival of corals. Unlike natural seaweed forests, seaweed farms are scalable and not dependent on suitable substrate or light availability.

26.   If climate crisis continues unabated then northern hemisphere summers could cover nearly half of the year by 2100, making them more than twice as long as they were in the 1950s. Unlike their counterparts of 1950s, future summers will be more extreme, with heatwaves and wildfires more likely.

27.   Humans evolved to be the water-saving ape - New study suggests humans evolved to run on 30% to 50% less water than our closest primate relatives, enabling our hunter-gatherer ancestors to venture farther from water in search of food, especially in dry, savannah landscapes.

28.   A new study confirms that deforestation is heavily linked to pandemic outbreaks, and our reliance on substances like palm oil could be making viruses like COVID worse

29.   The economic benefits of conserving or restoring natural sites now “outweigh” the profit potential of converting them for intensive human use. This is according to researchers behind the largest-ever study comparing the value of protecting nature at particular locations with that of exploiting it.

Medicine/Diagnostics

30.   New drug to regenerate lost teeth: scientists from Japan have made a discovery that can make re-growing teeth possible. They found, with studies in mice, that suppressing the gene USAG-1 by using its antibody can efficiently lead to tooth growth. (Science Advances, 12 Feb 2021)

31.   High vitamin D levels may protect against COVID-19, especially for Black people - In a retrospective study of individuals tested for COVID-19, vitamin D levels above those traditionally considered sufficient were associated with a lower risk of COVID-19.

32.   Researchers have found that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of marijuana, stays in breast milk for up to six weeks, further supporting the recommendations to abstain from marijuana use during pregnancy and while a mother is breastfeeding.

33.   A two-week course of high doses of Cannabidiol (CBD) helps restore the function of two proteins key to reducing the accumulation of beta-amyloid plaque, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, and improves cognition in an experimental mouse model of early onset familial Alzheimer’s.

34.   MIT researchers delivered vaccines directly to the lungs boosting immune responses to viral infections or lung cancer. Vaccinated mice were able to eliminate metastatic melanoma, and the vaccine helped to shrink existing lung tumors. (Science Immunology, 19 Mar 2021)

35.   50 new genes for eye colour: The genetics of human eye colour is much more complex than previously thought, according to a new study published.

36.   Japanese researchers discovered that a chemical called sesaminol, abundant in sesame seed shells normally thrown out as waste, has protective effects against Parkinson's disease. Feeding mice a diet containing sesaminol for 36 days saw an increase in dopamine levels and motor performance.

37.   A new study on the “gut-brain axis” found that lower levels of loneliness and higher levels of wisdom and compassion were associated with greater diversity of the gut microbiome. The relationship between loneliness and microbial diversity was particularly strong in older adults.

38.   A single head injury could lead to dementia later in life. Compared to participants who never experienced a head injury, a single prior head injury was associated with a 1.25 times increased risk, a history of two or more prior head injuries was associated with over 2 times increased risk

39.   Scientists from Singapore have made an antibacterial gel bandage using the discarded husks of the tropical fruit, durian, successfully tested on pig skin. The gel works even at freezing temperatures, contains natural antimicrobial compounds derived from yeast, and is biodegradable.

40.   Scientists identify over 140,000 virus species in the human gut, half of which are new to science, in a new study spanning 28 countries in 6 continents, opening up new research avenues for understanding how viruses living in the gut, and bacteriophages that infect gut bacteria, affect human health.

a.       Implications on irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease?

News

1.       Pfizer and Moderna vaccines see 47 and 19 cases of anaphylaxis out of ~10 million and ~7.5 million doses, respectively. The majority of reactions occurred within ten minutes of receiving the vaccine

2.       ISRO successfully places earth observation, 18 other satellites in orbit aboard PSLV C51

3.       Citizens will be able to register and book an appointment for vaccination, anytime and anywhere, using the Co-WIN 2.0 portal or through other IT applications such as Arogya Setu from 1st March

a.       Private hospitals can charge up to 250 per jab

4.       PM Modi receives global environmental leadership award

5.       Government Withdraws Controversial Order on Online International Seminars

6.       Ghana First To Receive Vaccines From Serum Institute Through Covax Scheme

7.       N440K Coronavirus Variant Spreading More in Southern States: CCMB Study

8.       Study Suggests Habitat Loss Is Leading To Inbreeding of Indian Tigers

9.       Air Pollution Led To Around 54,000 Premature Deaths in New Delhi in 2020: Study

Astronomy observances

Relatively quiet month

1.       New Moon week to capture the Galactic Center of the Milky Way.

17 conjunction of the Moon and Mars with occultation of Mars by the Moon.

21-22  Lyrids Meteor Shower

27 Supermoon

UN Observances

1.Autism awareness day/ Delegates day

4. International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action

5 International Day of Conscience

21 World creativity and innovation day

22 Earth Day

24 Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace day

28 Safety and Health at work day

Curiosity March

Psychology/Behavior

1.       Wealthy, successful people from privileged backgrounds often misrepresent their origins as working-class in order to tell a ‘rags to riches’ story resulting from hard work and perseverance, rather than social position and intergenerational wealth.

2.       This is an interesting result when compared with resume studies that find that applicants are less likely to be contacted for an interview, if their resume has indicators of a working class upbringing.

3.       People automatically perceive wealthy individuals as highly competent and express more willingness to hire them, based on the assumption that wealthy people “earn” their wealth. This “rich and competent” belief can reduce economic mobility, making it more difficult for the working class to thrive

4.       Teens who bully, harass, or victimize peers are often using aggression strategically to climb their school’s social hierarchy, with the highest rates of bullying occurring between friends and friends-of-friends. These findings point to reasons why most anti-bullying programs don’t work. (n>3,000)

5.       Massive experiment with StubHub shows why online retailers hide extra fees until you're ready to check out: This lack of transparency is highly profitable. "Once buyers have their sights on an item, letting go of it becomes hard—as scores of studies in behavioral economics have shown." UC Berkeley

6.       Energy drink consumption linked to depression, anxiety and stress, finds a new longitudinal study that follows 897 individuals from birth to age 22. Energy drink consumption were positively associated with increased stress scores and, in young adult males, depression and anxiety.

7.       People with ‘gay-sounding’ voices face discrimination and anticipate rejection

8.       School gardens linked with kids eating more vegetables: Students who participated in gardening, nutrition and cooking classes ate a half serving more vegetables per day. “Teaching kids where their food comes from, how to grow it, how to prepare it — that’s key to changing eating behaviors.”

9.       People with extremist views less able to do complex mental tasks, research suggests

10.   People who lack consideration for others’ wellbeing are more prone to political radicalization, suggests a new study, which found a link between psychopathic traits, antisocial tendencies and support for group violence.

11.   Kids pick up stereotypes from generic statements - Using generalized language like, “Girls like art” or, “Boys play sports,” around children may have the unintended consequence of strengthening stereotypes, as kids can infer the opposite for the unmentioned group.

12.   People who believe COVID-19 conspiracy theories tend to struggle with scientific reasoning, study finds

13.   High school start times conflict with the adolescent 'morning brain': Research monitoring in-school EEG activity found that students are more neurologically alert and able to retain information in mid-day classes (e.g., 10:30am) than in early morning classes (e.g., 8:30am).

14.  Populism is a worldview that pits average citizens against “the elites” and includes anti-intellectual attitudes such as distrust of experts (including scientists). A new study found that populism is correlated with conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19, above and beyond partisanship.

15.  When teachers offer positive encouragement to disruptive students, rather than focus on the negative behavior, which is what they typically do, it not only reduces disruptive classroom behavior, but improves academic and social outcomes, suggests new randomized controlled trial (n=1,450).

Humanities/Politics/Policies

1. Big name corporations more likely to commit fraud - Fortune 500 firms with strong growth profiles are more susceptible to “cooking the books” than smaller, struggling companies. This type of elite, white-collar crime is understudied especially when compared with street crime.

a. Once you can afford enough attorneys to make the government’s job too difficult to investigate/prosecute them, then it can be more profitable for the company to break the law and then just pay the lawyers to get away with it or minimize penalties.

2. Job applications from men are discriminated against when they apply for female-dominated occupations, such as nursing, childcare and house cleaning. However, in male-dominated occupations such as mechanics, truck drivers and IT, a new study found no discrimination against women.

3. Study: Bilingual and bicultural Latina doctors were expected to perform Spanish/English translating work at all times, and when they said “no” or explained that it wasn’t their job, they were more likely to experience hostility or were accused to being difficult to work with by their co-workers.

Technology

1. Chemists developed two sustainable plastic alternatives to polyethylene, derived from plants, that can be recycled with a recovery rate of more than 96%, as low-waste, environmentally friendly replacements to conventional fossil fuel-based plastics. (Nature, 17 Feb)

2. Studies reveal that location tracking apps do more than just monitor your whereabouts; they collect a lot of sensitive information about the user's residence, habits, interests, demographics, and personality traits

Biodiversity/Environment/Evolution

1.       Big creatures — which have many more cells — should develop tumors more frequently. A new study shows that elephants possess a large toolbox of genes for evading cancer, and suggests that evolution of tumor suppression capabilities contributed to the development of big bodies

2.       A first-of-its-kind study has found that cone snail venom, conotoxin from a species of sea snail, could potentially treat severe malaria, by disrupting the protein-protein interactions of P. falciparum malaria. Emerging diseases like AIDS and COVID-19 may also benefit from conotoxins as treatment.

a.       That’s why species going extinct is such a tragedy, not only we lose biodiversity but also medical/tech opportunities.

3.       Utility companies have worried that solar panels drive up electric costs for the people who don't have panels. Research shows the opposite is actually true -- grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) owners are actually subsidizing their non-PV neighbors.

4.       Scientists found with heavy transport alone, that is trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles on the roads, use of biofuels produced by forest residue in a combination with sawdust from sawmills could reduce greenhouse gas emission by 88-94% compared to fossil fuels usage.

5.       Last year California suffered its worst series of wildfires, including five of the most destructive six fires on record, all driven by unseasonal winds. New research suggests that the driving winds originated from an unexpected source: typhoons in Korea.

6.       Scientists have found that permafrost buried beneath the Arctic Ocean holds 60 billion tons of methane and 560 billion tons of organic carbon — making it a major source of greenhouse gases not currently included in climate projections that could have a significant impact on climate change

7.       The Paris Agreement aims to keep global warming by 2100 to below 2 °C, but the probability of this is only 5% based on current trends. To have an even chance of staying below 2 °C, country-based rate of emissions reductions should increase by 80% beyond nationally determined contributions.

Medicine/Diagnostics

1.       Tricking the novel coronavirus with a fake “handshake”: Scientists have found a way to trick the novel coronavirus into binding with a protein fragment that resembles a friendly receptor, effectively inactivating SARS-CoV-2 before it can infect a cell.

2.       Fecal transplant turns cancer immunotherapy non-responders into responders - Scientists transplanted fecal samples from patients who respond well to immunotherapy to advanced melanoma patients who don’t respond, to turn them into responders, raising hope for microbiome-based therapies of cancers.

3.       Eating too much fat and sugar as a child may alter your microbiome for life, even if you later learn to eat healthier. The new study is one of the first to show a significant decrease in the total number and diversity of gut bacteria in mature mice fed an unhealthy diet as juveniles.

a.       Could this be solved with a fecal microbiota transplantation?

4.       Yale scientists repair injured spinal cord using patients’ own stem cells: For more than half of the patients, substantial improvements, such as ability to walk, or to use their hands, were observed within weeks of stem cell injection. No substantial side effects were reported.

5.       Just add mushrooms to make meals more nutritious - New research found that adding a mushroom serving to the diet increased the intake of several micronutrients, including shortfall nutrients such as vitamin D, without any increase in calories, sodium or fat.

a.       … and it’s funded by Mushroom Council

6.       Vitamin D supplementation to the older adult population in Germany has the cost-saving potential of preventing almost 30,000 cancer deaths per year

7.       People who have night owl chronotype don't fall asleep early enough to get the recommended 7+ hours of sleep. Long term sleep deprivation is linked to poorer overall health and cognitive performance. Night 'owls' may be twice as likely as morning 'larks' to underperform at work.

8.       The world’s largest study of genetic factors in peptic ulcer disease has found that stomach ulcers are linked to depression.

9.       A single daily dose reversible non-hormonal male contraceptive agent has been successfully tested in mice and non-human primates, a natural compound purified from a Chinese herb. There are no non-hormonal male contraceptives currently on the market despite decades of development of “male pills”.

10.   People who eat a Mediterranean-style diet--particularly one rich in green leafy vegetables and low in meat--are more likely to stay mentally sharp in later life. The findings accounted for childhood IQ, smoking, physical activity and health factors.

11.   Study: Heavy drinking raises a person's risk for colon cancer significantly, while a diet high in red meat also raises it to a lesser extent. Such drinking increases colon cancer risk by nearly 60%, and eating lots of red meat boosts it by more than 10%, the data showed.

a.       Getting a regular colonoscpy is the best prevention of colon cancer.

News

1.       Pfizer and Moderna vaccines see 47 and 19 cases of anaphylaxis out of ~10 million and ~7.5 million doses, respectively. The majority of reactions occurred within ten minutes of receiving the vaccine

2.       ISRO successfully places earth observation, 18 other satellites in orbit aboard PSLV C51

3.       Citizens will be able to register and book an appointment for vaccination, anytime and anywhere, using the Co-WIN 2.0 portal or through other IT applications such as Arogya Setu from 1st March

a.       Private hospitals can charge up to 250 per jab

4.       PM Modi receives global environmental leadership award

5.       Government Withdraws Controversial Order on Online International Seminars

6.       Ghana First To Receive Vaccines From Serum Institute Through Covax Scheme

7.       N440K Coronavirus Variant Spreading More in Southern States: CCMB Study

8.       Study Suggests Habitat Loss Is Leading To Inbreeding of Indian Tigers

9.       Air Pollution Led To Around 54,000 Premature Deaths in New Delhi in 2020: Study

Curiosity February

Psychology/Behavior

1.       Childhood neglect was associated with Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism, which in turn were related to greater levels of malevolent creativity as adults, who were more likely to think about ways to take revenge on others, fabricate lies to simplify a situation, and pull pranks.

a.       African proverb: "The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."

2.       The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant worsening of already poor dietary habits, low activity levels, sedentary behaviour, and high alcohol consumption among university students

3.       The lack of respect and open-mindedness in political discussions may be due to affective polarization, the belief those with opposing views are immoral or unintelligent. Intellectual humility, the willingness to change beliefs when presented with evidence, was linked to lower affective polarization.

4.       US politicians who engage in “negative partisanship”, referring to hostile, nonsubstantive rhetoric about an opposing party or statements emphasizing defeats of partisan opponents, are not rewarded with higher evaluations from citizens. Voters don’t want representation focused around polarization.

5.       Shortening the workweek reduces smoking and obesity, improves overall health, study of French reform shows

6.       How individuals with dark personality traits react to COVID-19 - People high in narcissism and psychopathy were less likely to engage in cleaning behaviors. People with narcissism have a negative response to the pandemic as it restricts their ability to exploit others within the social system.

7.       Entitled people with low humility and low inquisitiveness are more prone to believe in conspiracy theories. These individuals tend to exhibit heightened narcissism and antagonism along with reduced intellectual humility, impulse control, and inquisitiveness.

8.       Masculine insecurity predicts endorsement of aggressive politics and support for Donald Trump, suggests three studies, supporting the notion that men who are likely to doubt their masculinity may support aggressive policies, politicians, and parties, possibly as a means of affirming their manhood.

9.       When men's masculinity feels threatened, they may attempt to restore it by withdrawing from relationships that could provide care and support. Not only could this harm the relationship and affect their romantic partner, but this tactic may not restore masculinity in the eyes of others.

10.   People in the US with more authoritarian tendencies are less likely to wear a mask when going out in public, which might be explained by the fact that they also tend to be less concerned about the impact of COVID-19.

11.   Young children aged 4 and 6 who have experienced compassionate parenting are more generous to others than their peers. Mothers who express compassionate love and empathy provide an early example of prosocial orientation toward the needs of others.

12.   New research suggests that the use of terms like “Wuhan flu” and “Chinese virus” by conservative media outlets and Republican figures had a measurable impact on unconscious bias against Asian Americans. The study found that implicit bias increased after the use of such phrases went viral.

13.   Men in the military who were randomly assigned to mixed-gender squads for eight weeks developed more egalitarian attitudes than those assigned to male squads. Contrary to some predictions, the integration of women into squads did not reduce male recruits' performance (Norwegian RCT).

14.   Conservatives are more likely to see empirical (e.g., scientific) and experiential (e.g., anecdotal) perspectives as more equal in legitimacy. Liberals think empirical evidence is better at approximating reality, conservatives are more likely to say that both research and anecdotes are legitimate.

Humanities/Politics/Policies

1. US states that rely on private prisons incarcerate more people for longer periods of time, according to a first-of-its-kind study that establishes a causal connection between private prisons and incarceration.

a. States have agreements with private prison companies that guarantee a certain percentage occupancy. If the state doesn't lock up enough people they have to pay the prison company.

2. A national mask mandate in the US early in the COVID-19 pandemic could have led to as much as 47% less deaths nationally by the end of May, which roughly translates to up to 47,000 saved lives.

3. Gig economy companies like Uber, Lyft and Doordash rely on a model that resembles anti-labor practices employed decades before by the U.S. construction industry, and could lead to similar erosion in earnings for workers, finds a new study.

4. Providing workers with a universal basic income did not reduce productivity or the amount of effort they put into their work, according to an experiment, a sign that the policy initiative could help mitigate inequalities and debunking a common criticism of the proposal.

5. Supporters of a political party change their policy views “immediately and substantially” after that party switches its position on an issue, a sign that political elites could be shaping the opinions of voters. Findings call into question whether democracies genuinely represent the views of voters.

6. Each additional dollar of minimum wage reduces infant deaths by up to 1.8 percent annually, and reduces the teen birth rate by 3%,  in large U.S. cities. These findings support the increasing demand for the federal minimum wage to be raised from $7.25 to $15 per hour.

7. Critics say green policies stifle growth. The opposite may be true. Environmental regulation can in fact increase worker productivity and overall capital accumulation, according to new research, with green taxes having the largest potential effect on productivity.

8. The social class and wealth of your ancestors (even from as far back as 600 years ago) partly determine your current income. There is a "glass floor" that protects descendants of the upper class from falling down the economic ladder.

9. Grandiose narcissists often emerge as leaders, but they are no more qualified than non-narcissists, and have negative effects on the entities they lead. Their characteristics (grandiosity, self-confidence, entitlement, and willingness to exploit others) may make them more effective political actors.

10.  Study: 62% of people report having "useful dreams", and 9% even use dreams to make important life decisions

Technology

1. Twitter Bots Are a Major Source of Climate Disinformation. Researchers determined that nearly 9.5% of the users in their sample were likely bots. But those bots accounted for 25% of the total tweets about climate change

Biodiversity/Environment

1.       A quarter of all known bee species haven't been seen since the 1990s

a.       How to help? Plant native plants

2.       Deforestation dropped by 18 percent in two years in African countries where organizations subscribed to receive warnings from a new service using satellites to detect decreases in forest cover in the tropics. The carbon emissions avoided were worth between $149 million and $696 million

3.       In India, the rich cause seven times more emissions than the poor. The study presents the first nation-wide, region- and class-specific assessment of carbon footprint using the consumption data across 623 districts and 2,03,313 households.

4.       Researchers in Japan have made the first observations of biological magnetoreception – live, unaltered cells responding to a magnetic field in real time. This discovery is a crucial step in understanding how animals from birds to butterflies navigate using Earth’s magnetic field.

5.       New research reveals that bacteria have internal clocks that align with the 24-hour cycle of life on Earth. The research answers a long-standing biological question and could have implications for the timing of drug delivery, biotechnology, and how we develop timely solutions for crop protection.

6.       Now We Know Why Platypus (Monotremes) Are So Weird - Their Genes Are Part Bird, Reptile, And Mamma

7.       New Maps Show Forests Absorb Twice as Much Carbon as They Release Each Year. The continued destruction of the world’s largest tropical forests - 11.9 million hectares of tropical tree cover was lost in 2019 alone - makes them less powerful carbon sinks.

Medicine/Diagnostics

1.       Korean scientists developed a technique for diagnosing prostate cancer from urine within only 20 minutes with almost 100% accuracy, using AI and a biosensor, without the need for an invasive biopsy. It may be further utilized in the precise diagnoses of other cancers using a urine test.

a.       The main issue with prostate cancer 20 years ago was over treatment of the less aggressive varieties. We are now monitoring many people with low-risk disease rather than doing surgery or radiation

2.       Biomarkers in fathers’ sperm linked to offspring autism - These biomarkers are epigenetic, and can be passed down to future generations. In a set of blind tests, researchers were able to use these to determine whether other men had fathered autistic children with 90% accuracy (Small, Spanish study).

3.       Biomarkers in mother’s plasma predict a type of autism in offspring with 100% accuracy. It’s the first time that machine learning has been used to identify with 100% accuracy maternal autoantibody-related autism spectrum disorder-specific patterns as potential biomarkers of ASD risk.

4.       The COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed more than 336,000 lives in the United States in 2020, has significantly affected life expectancy. Life expectancy at birth for Americans will shorten by 1.13 years to 77.48 years. That is the largest single-year decline in life expectancy in at least 40 years.

a.       India mean LE: 69.42 years

b.       World mean: 72.6 years

5.       Despite more than 12 years of data supporting HPV vaccine being safe and effective against genital warts and cancer, a new study found that Facebook posts help facilitate the belief that HPV vaccine is dangerous to health, with nearly 40% of posts about HPV vaccine amplifying a perceived risk.

6.       Cancer cells hibernate like "bears in winter" to survive chemotherapy. All cancer cells may have the capacity to enter states of dormancy as a survival mechanism to avoid destruction from chemotherapy. The mechanism these cells deploy notably resembles one used by hibernating animals.

7.       COVID-19 is not influenza: In-hospital mortality was 16,9% with COVID-19 and 5,8% with influenza. Mortality was ten-times higher in children aged 11–17 years with COVID-19 than in patients in the same age group with influenza (Lancet)

8.       A new study suggests more than half of doctors, nurses, and emergency responders involved in COVID-19 care could be at risk for one or more mental health problems, including acute traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, problematic alcohol use, and insomnia.

a.       Doctors already suffer from a significantly higher burnout rate, nurses suffer higher than normal mental health issues.

9.       Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion. Between 11% and 27% of healthy college athletes with no history of a recent concussion reported symptoms that met criteria for post-concussion syndrome (PCS), predicted by lack of sleep, pre-existing mental health problems and stress.

News

1.       Student ebooks cost 500% more than in print, price gauging post COVID-19

2.       The origins of money: Researchers found that 70% of certain bronze objects from the early Bronze Age (3000-2100 BC) are indistinguishably the same weight, implying they were created to be interchangeable. Shaped like rings, ax blades, and ribs, they are thought to be the first evidence of currency

3.       Countries led by women have not fared significantly better in the COVID-19 pandemic than those led by men- it may be just our Western media bias that makes us think they have

4.       Scientists have shown that the tilt of rotation axis of Saturn is caused by its moons, which is predicted to increase over the next billion years.

5.       Scientists discover how butterflies fly!

6.       No one knows how airplanes float in the air: Tinkering over experiments matter more in sciences

7.       Research that modelled on combination of ventilation and air purification in elevators concludes no ventilation works best for minimising COVID-19 spread inside elevators. Another reason to take stairs instead!

Slides with transcripts and show-notes of December episode of Curiosity accessible here. 

Featured Research

• Human 'microevolution' sees more people born without wisdom teeth and an extra artery

 An artery in the forearm that supplies blood to the hand has become more prevalent in new-borns since the 19th century, the study also found.

• Face masks unlikely to cause over-exposure to CO2, even in patients with lung disease

 A decent analogy would be a CO2 molecule is the size of a basketball, a virus the size of a building, and the weave of the mask creates the space of like a tennis court.

• "Slow Blinking" really does help convince cats that you want to be friends

• Men are more likely than women to perceive face masks as infringing on their freedom

• Combining sound and electrical stimulation of the tongue can significantly reduce tinnitus, commonly described as “ringing in the ears”; therapeutic effects can sustain for up to 12 months post-treatment

• Several confirmed cases of COVID-19 reinfection. 25 year old here. 42 year old here, 89 year old lady died due to reinfection  in the Netherlands

• We Now Have Proof a Supernova Exploded Perilously Close to Earth 2.5 Million Years Ago. Concentration of 53Mn, another radioisotope produced by supernovae. Plus 60Fe

• In 2009, Colorado started a program to offer long-acting reversible contraceptives (e.g. IUDs) to low-income women. The initiative reduced births by approximately 20% among 15–19 year olds who lived near the clinics that were funded to offer IUDs.

• On average, the number of excess COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents in US states reopening without masks is 10 times the number in states reopening with masks after 8 weeks. 50,000 excess deaths were prevented within 6 weeks in 13 states that implemented mask mandates prior to reopening.

• New study shows the best way to express gratitude: People who help you love to hear how their kind actions met your needs. They are less impressed when you acknowledge how costly their action was.

• SARS-CoV-2 can survive for up to 9 hours on human skin compared to nearly 2 hours for influenza A virus. Both were completely inactivated on human skin within 15 seconds by ethanol. The 9-h survival of SARS-CoV-2 on human skin may increase risk of contact transmission and supports hand hygiene.         

• People’s attachment to the wilderness is linked to the fulfilment of basic psychological needs, study finds

• Children whose outdoor play areas were transformed from gravel yards to mini-forests showed improved immune systems within a month, research has shown.

• The prevalence of dementia in countries where more than one language is spoken is 50% lower than in those regions where the population uses only one language to communicate. Active bilingualism is an important predictor of delay in the onset of symptoms of mild cognitive impairment.

• New studies suggest people with blood type O may have a lower risk (13% lower) of COVID-19 infection and reduced likelihood of severe outcomes, including organ complications, if they do get sick. Meanwhile, individuals with type A and AB may have increased risk of severe clinical outcomes.

• Four studies confirm: conservatives in the US are more likely than liberals to endorse conspiracy theories and espouse conspiratorial worldviews, plus extreme conservatives were significantly more likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking than extreme liberals

• Heightened susceptibility to misinformation linked to reduced mask wearing and social distancing     

• Young adults aged 18–24 years demonstrate the earliest increases in COVID-19 positivity, increasing 31 days before a US county is identified as a hotspot. This underscores the importance of reducing transmission from younger populations to those at highest risk for severe illness or death.

• SARS-Cov2 can live for up to 28 days on surfaces such as mobile phone screens and ATMs — much longer than previously thought — new Australian research has found.

• Greenland could lose more ice this century than it has in 12,000 years- “The paper is also an answer to those who dismiss the ongoing effects of climate change with ‘the earth has always changed’—and the answer is, ‘not at this pace’,” Scambos says.          

• Confusion (53%) was the most common neurologic manifestation in patients with COVID-19, followed by impaired consciousness (39%), agitation (31%), and headache (16%). Ischemic strokes (27%) were the most frequent neuroimaging findings..

• New study finds that right-wing authoritarians aren’t very funny people 

• 86% of people who tested positive for Covid-19 during lockdown did not have virus symptoms (cough, and/or fever, and/or loss of taste/smell). The study included data from a representative population sample of 36,061 people living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland 

• New Study Casts Doubt On The Climate Benefits Of Natural Gas Power Plants | The emissions and methane leaks from new gas plants zero out the CO2 cuts achieved from closing coal plants, a peer-reviewed analysis found.

• Older adults with severe apathy, or lack of interest in usual activities, may have a greater chance of developing dementia than people with few symptoms of apathy, according to a study. Apathy may be a very early sign of dementia and it can be evaluated with a brief questionnaire.

• China's aggressive policy of planting trees is likely playing a significant role in tempering its climate impacts.    

• New paper shows that restoring 15% of land previously converted for human use could avoid 60% of expected species extinctions and sequester 30% of the total increase in atmospheric CO2 since the Industrial Revolution

  • Converting farmlands to mini forests, letting migratory birds come in, booming local tourism!

• First-of-its-kind global survey shows the initial phase of the COVID-19 lockdown dramatically altered our personal habits. Overall, healthy eating increased because we ate out less frequently. However, we snacked more. We got less exercise. We went to bed later and slept more poorly

• Autism is considered a disorder of the brain. But a new study suggests that the peripheral nervous system, the nerves that control our sense of touch, pain and other sensations, may play a role as well.

• Safe Sex or Risky Romance - Young Adults Make the Rational Choice: A study has found that young adults—contrary to how they are sometimes portrayed in the media—tend to make highly rational decisions when it comes to selecting potential romantic partners

• Religious schooling hampers economic development and innovation. Areas of France with religious schooling during the late 19th century and early 20th century were slow to adopt technical curriculum, focusing instead on religious content in curricula, hampering economic development.

• Research shows compensating employees based on their accomplishments rather than on hours worked produces better results. When organizations with a mix of high- to low-performing employees base rewards on hours worked, all employees see compensation as unfair, and they end up putting in less effort

  • doable amount of work with the necessary resources and with clear goals that actually align with my identity