Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame, jck and jeremybloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
A 'Safe' Chemical in Plastic Bottles Could Reduce Insulin Responsiveness, Increase Diabetes Risk
A new study "has found direct evidence linking a key chemical ingredient of plastic bottles to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes," reports the Independent:The study, published in the journal Diabetes, found that the chemical BPA used to make food and drink packages, including plastic water bottles, can reduce sensitivity to the hormone insulin which regulates the body's sugar metabolism. The findings, to be presented at the 2024 Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association, call for the US Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the safe limits for exposure to BPA in bottles and food containers. Previous studies have already shown that the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) used to make plastic and epoxy resins could disrupt hormones in humans. While research has linked BPA to diabetes, no previous study has directly assessed if administration of this chemical to humans increases this risk in adults.
The researchers administered the dosage considered safe by America's FDA to about 20 individuals — and discovered they became less responsive to insulin after 4 days. The article includes this warning from the researchers:
"These results suggest that maybe the U.S. EPA safe dose should be reconsidered and that healthcare providers could suggest these changes to patients."
Lego Bricks Made From Meteorite Dust 3D Printed by Europe's Space Agency
Lego teamed up with the European Space Agency to make Lego pieces from actual meteorite dust, writes Engadget.
"It's a proof of concept to show how astronauts could use moondust to build lunar structures."Consider the sheer amount of energy and money required to haul up building materials from Earth to the Moon. It would be a game changer to, instead, build everything from pre-existing lunar materials. There's a layer of rock and mineral deposits at the surface of the Moon, which is called lunar regolith…
However, there isn't too much lunar regolith here on Earth for folks to experiment with. ESA scientists made their own regolith by grinding up a really old meteorite. [4.5 billion years, according to Lego's site, discovered in Africa in 2000.] The dust from this meteorite was turned into a mixture that was used to 3D print the Lego pieces. Voila. Moon bricks. They click together just like regular Lego bricks, though they only come in one color (space gray obviously.)
"The result is amazing," says ESA Science Officer Aidan Cowley on the Lego site (though "the bricks may look a little rougher than usual. Importantly the clutch power still works, enabling us to play and test our designs.")
"Nobody has built a structure on the Moon," Cowley said in an ESA statement. "So it was great to have the flexibility to try out all kinds of designs and building techniques with our space bricks."And the bricks will also be "helping to inspire the next generation of space engineers," according to the ESA's announcement — since they'll be on display in select Lego stores in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia through September 20th.
An Asteroid Just Passed Within 180,000 Miles of Earth
game of Asteroids, An anonymous reader shared this report from The Hill:An asteroid the size of a football stadium threaded the needle between Earth and the moon Saturday morning — the second of two astronomical near misses in three days. Near miss, in this case, is a relative term: Saturday's asteroid, 2024 MK, came within 180,000 miles of Earth. On Thursday, meanwhile, asteroid 2011 UL21 flew within 4 million miles.
But the Saturday passage of 2024 MK — which scientists discovered only two weeks ago — coincides with a sobering reminder of threats from space. Sunday is Asteroid Day, the anniversary of the 1908 explosion of a rock from space above a Russian town — the sort of danger that, astronomers warn, is always lurking as the Earth hurtles through space... In 2013, for instance, an asteroid about 62 feet across that broke apart nearly 20 miles above Siberia released 30 times as much energy as the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima. While most of the impact energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, the detonation triggered a shock wave that blew out windows and injured more than a thousand people.
The article points out that if Saturday's asteroid had hit earth, the impact would have "the equivalent impact energy in the hundreds of megaton approaching a gigaton," Peter Brown of Canada's Western University told the Canadian Broadcasting Service. (For comparison, most hydrogen bombs are in the 50-megaton range.) Brown said "It's the sort of thing that if it hit the east coast of the U.S., you would have catastrophic effects over most of the eastern seaboard. But it's not big enough to affect the whole world."
Meanwhile, the article adds that last Thursday's asteroid — "while it was comfortably far out in space" — was the size of Mt. Everest. "At 1.5 miles in diameter, that asteroid was about a quarter the size of the asteroid that struck the earth 65 million years ago, wiping out all dinosaurs that walked, as well as the majority of life on earth." But the risk of a collision like that "is very, very low."NASA has estimated that a civilization-ending event (like the collision of an asteroid the size of Thursday's with the Earth) should only happen every few million years.And such an impact from an asteroid half a mile in diameter or bigger will be almost impossible for a very long time, according to findings published last year in The Astronomical Journal.
NASA's catalog of large and dangerous objects like 2011 UL21 is now 95 percent complete, MIT Technology Review reported.
New and improved camera inspired by the human eye
A team led by University of Maryland computer scientists invented a camera mechanism that improves how robots see and react to the world around them. Inspired by how the human eye works, their innovative camera system mimics the tiny involuntary movements used by the eye to maintain clear and stable vision over time. The team's prototyping and testing of the camera -- called the Artificial Microsaccade-Enhanced Event Camera (AMI-EV) -- was detailed in a paper published in the journal Science Robotics in May 2024.
"Event cameras are a relatively new technology better at tracking moving objects than traditional cameras, but -today's event cameras struggle to capture sharp, blur-free images when there's a lot of motion involved," said the paper's lead author Botao He, a computer science Ph.D. student at UMD. "It's a big problem because robots and many other technologies -- such as self-driving cars -- rely on accurate and timely images to react correctly to a changing environment. So, we asked ourselves: How do humans and animals make sure their vision stays focused on a moving object?"
Sixty-million-year-old grape seeds reveal how the death of the dinosaurs may have paved the way for grapes to spread
If you've ever snacked on raisins or enjoyed a glass of wine, you may, in part, have the extinction of the dinosaurs to thank for it. In a discovery described in the journal Nature Plants, researchers found fossil grape seeds that range from 60 to 19 million years old in Colombia, Panama, and Peru. One of these species represents the earliest known example of plants from the grape family in the Western Hemisphere. These fossil seeds help show how the grape family spread in the years following the death of the dinosaurs.
"These are the oldest grapes ever found in this part of the world, and they're a few million years younger than the oldest ones ever found on the other side of the planet," says Fabiany Herrera, an assistant curator of paleobotany at the Field Museum in Chicago's Negaunee Integrative Research Center and the lead author of the Nature Plants paper. "This discovery is important because it shows that after the extinction of the dinosaurs, grapes really started to spread across the world."
Layers of carbonate provide insight into the world of the ancient Romans
Archaeologists face a major challenge when they intend to acquire information about buildings or facilities of which only ruins remain. This was a particular challenge for the remnants of the Roman water mills in Barbegal in Southern France, dating back to the 2nd century CE. This unique industrial complex consisted of 16 water wheels placed in parallel rows. Little could at first be deduced about the site from these now scant ruins -- except that the wheels were supplied by an aqueduct that brought water from the surrounding hills. Researchers have now unraveled the history of the mill complex using calcium carbonate deposits that are now stored in the Archaeological Museum of Arles. These deposits had formed towards the end of the roughly 100-year operational life of the Barbegal water mills on the sides and base of the wooden supply system that conveyed the water to the wheels.
Organic material from Mars reveals the likely origin of life's building blocks
Two samples from Mars together deliver the "smoking gun" in a new study showing the origin of Martian organic material. The study presents solid evidence for a prediction made over a decade ago by University of Copenhagen researchers that could be key to understanding how organic molecules, the foundation of life, were first formed here on Earth.
In a meteor crater on the red planet, a solitary robot is moving about. Right now it is probably collecting soil samples with a drill and a robotic arm, as it has quite a habit of doing. NASA's Curiosity rover has been active on Mars as the extended arm of science for nearly 12 years, and it continues to make discoveries that surprise and challenge scientists' understanding of both Mars and our own world here on Earth.
Scientists Find Desert Moss 'That Can Survive On Mars'
Scientists in China have found a species of moss that is able to withstand Mars-like conditions. The species is called Syntrichia caninervis and it's found in regions including Antarctica and the Mojave desert. The Guardian reports: "The unique insights obtained in our study lay the foundation for outer space colonization using naturally selected plants adapted to extreme stress conditions," the team write. [...] Writing in the journal The Innovation, researchers in China describe how the desert moss not only survived but rapidly recovered from almost complete dehydration. It was also able to regenerate under normal growth conditions after spending up to five years at -80C and up to 30 days at -196C, and after exposure to gamma rays, with doses of around 500Gy even promoting new growth.
The team then created a set-up that had similar pressures, temperatures, gases and UV radiation to Mars. It found the moss survived in this Mars-like environment, and was able to regenerate under normal growth conditions, even after seven days of exposure. The team also noted plants that were dried before such exposure faired better. "Looking to the future, we expect that this promising moss could be brought to Mars or the moon to further test the possibility of plant colonization and growth in outer space," the researchers write.
Giant clams may hold the answers to making solar energy more efficient
In a new study, Yale researcher Alison Sweeney found that giant clams in the Western Pacific may be the most efficient solar energy system on the planet.
Solar panel and biorefinery designers could learn a thing or two from iridescent giant clams living near tropical coral reefs, according to a new Yale-led study.
This is because giant clams have precise geometries -- dynamic, vertical columns of photosynthetic receptors covered by a thin, light-scattering layer -- that may just make them the most efficient solar energy systems on Earth.
Nuclear spectroscopy breakthrough could rewrite the fundamental constants of nature
Raising the energy state of an atom's nucleus using a laser, or exciting it, would enable development of the most accurate atomic clocks ever to exist. This has been hard to do because electrons, which surround the nucleus, react easily with light, increasing the amount of light needed to reach the nucleus. By causing the electrons to bond with fluorine in a transparent crystal, UCLA physicists have finally succeeded in exciting the neutrons in a thorium atom's nucleus using a moderate amount of laser light. This accomplishment means that measurements of time, gravity and other fields that are currently performed using atomic electrons can be made with orders of magnitude higher accuracy.
For nearly 50 years, physicists have dreamed of the secrets they could unlock by raising the energy state of an atom's nucleus using a laser. The achievement would allow today's atomic clocks to be replaced with a nuclear clock that would be the most accurate clock to ever exist, allowing advances like deep space navigation and communication. It would also allow scientists to measure precisely whether the fundamental constants of nature are, in fact, really constant or merely appear to be because we have not yet measured them precisely enough.
Neutrons on classically inexplicable paths
Can a particle be in two different places at the same time? In quantum physics, it can: Quantum theory allows objects to be in different states at the same time -- or more precisely: in a superposition state, combining different observable states. But is this really the case? Perhaps the particle is actually in a very specific state, at a very specific location, but we just don't know it?
The question of whether the behaviour of quantum objects could perhaps be described by a simple, more classical theory has been discussed for decades. In 1985, a way of measuring this was proposed: the so-called "Leggett-Garg inequality." Any theory that describes our world without the strange superposition states of quantum theory must obey this inequality. Quantum theory, on the other hand, violates it. Measurements with neutrons testing this "Leggett-Garg inequality" have now been carried out for the first time at TU Wien -- with a clear result: the Leggett-Garg inequality is violated, classical explanations are not possible, quantum theory wins. The results have now been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
An ant that selectively amputates the infected limbs of wounded sisters
Saving lives through surgery is no longer exclusive to humans. In a study publishing July 2 in the journal Current Biology, scientists detail how Florida carpenter ants, a common, brown species native to its namesake, selectively treat the wounded limbs of fellow nestmates -- either by wound cleaning or amputation. When experimentally testing the effectiveness of these "treatments," not only did they aid in recovery, but the research team found the ants' choice of care catered to the type of injury presented to them.
"When we're talking about amputation behavior, this is literally the only case in which a sophisticated and systematic amputation of an individual by another member of its species occurs in the animal Kingdom," says first author Erik Frank, a behavioral ecologist from the University of Würzburg.
Proteins and fats can drive insulin production for some, paving way for tailored nutrition
When it comes to managing blood sugar levels, most people think about counting carbs. But new research shows that, for some, it may be just as important to consider the proteins and fats in their diet. The study is the first large-scale comparison of how different people produce insulin in response to each of the three macronutrients: carbohydrates (glucose), proteins (amino acids) and fats (fatty acids). The findings reveal that production of the blood sugar-regulating hormone is much more dynamic and individualized than previously thought, while showing for the first time a subset of the population who are hyper-responsive to fatty foods.
Doctors could soon use facial temperature for early diagnosis of metabolic diseases
A colder nose and warmer cheeks may be a telltale sign of rising blood pressure. Researchers discovered that temperatures in different face regions are associated with various chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. These temperature differences are not easily perceptible by one's own touch but can instead be identified using specific AI-derived spatial temperature patterns that require a thermal camera and a data-trained model. With further research, doctors could one day use this simple and non-invasive approach for early detection of diseases.
Optoelectronics gain spin control from chiral perovskites and III-V semiconductors
A research effort led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has made advances that could enable a broader range of currently unimagined optoelectronic devices.
The researchers, whose previous innovation included incorporating a perovskite layer that allowed the creation of a new type of polarized light-emitting diode (LED) that emits spin-controlled photons at room temperature without the use of magnetic fields or ferromagnetic contacts, now have gone a step further by integrating a III-V semiconductor optoelectronic structure with a chiral halide perovskite semiconductor. That is, they transformed an existing commercialized LED into one that also controls the spin of electrons. The results provide a pathway toward transforming modern optoelectronics, a field that relies on the control of light and encompasses LEDs, solar cells, and telecommunications lasers, among other devices.
The evidence is mounting: humans were responsible for the extinction of large mammals
The debate has raged for decades: Was it humans or climate change that led to the extinction of many species of large mammals, birds, and reptiles that have disappeared from Earth over the past 50,000 years?
By "large," we mean animals that weighed at least 45 kilograms -- known as megafauna. At least 161 species of mammals were driven to extinction during this period. This number is based on the remains found so far.
The largest of them were hit the hardest -- land-dwelling herbivores weighing over a ton, the megaherbivores. Fifty thousand years ago, there were 57 species of megaherbivores. Today, only 11 remain. These remaining 11 species have also seen drastic declines in their populations, but not to the point of complete extinction.
Individuals can tell if their memories are trustworthy
How much trust should we put in our memories? New research shows we have a good awareness of when we are recalling events accurately -- and when our brain is filling in gaps with general knowledge.
Memories are a blend of recalled details and 'prototypical' information, but a study at the University of Birmingham has shown that when prototypes appear more prominent, we become less confident in the recollection.
This means that we are able to distinguish between these two types of memory, and accurately assess how reliable our memories are. The results are published in Communications Psychology.
"We rely on our memories, particularly when they are of a one-off event, for example a birthday dinner," explained lead author Dr Ben Griffiths. "But events that occur regularly, such as your commute to work, are streamlined by the brain to only retain the unique elements -- some roadworks, perhaps, or a near-miss. The rest of the details are filled in from pre-existing knowledge.
Watching others' biased behavior unconsciously creates prejudice
We unconsciously form prejudice toward groups when we see biased people interact with members of a group. That is according to new research by psychologists of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), who show for the first time that observational learning is an important mechanism of prejudice formation. Their results were published today in Science Advances.
David Amodio (UvA): 'What we found in our research is that prejudice can form by merely observing other people's social interactions.
When an observer views a prejudiced person's interaction with a group member, they unconsciously form the same prejudice.
Researchers unlock 'materials genome', opening possibilities for next-generation design
A new microscopy method has allowed researchers to detect tiny changes in the atomic-level architecture of crystalline materials -- like advanced steels for ship hulls and custom silicon for electronics. The technique could advance our ability to understand the fundamental origins of materials properties and behaviour.
In a paper published today in Nature Materials, researchers from the University of Sydney's School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering introduced a new way to decode the atomic relationships within materials.
Giant salamander-like creature was a top predator in the ice age before the dinosaurs
Forty million years before the first dinosaurs evolved, a ferocious predator lurked in swampy waters. Its skull alone was over two feet long. It lay in wait, its jaws open wide, preparing to clamp down its interlocking jaws on any prey unwise enough to swim past. Meet Gaiasia jennyae, the swamp creature with a toilet seat-shaped head. Scientists described the newly-discovered fossil in a paper in the journal Nature.
"Gaiasia jennyae was considerably larger than a person, and it probably hung out near the bottom of swamps and lakes. It's got a big, flat, toilet seat-shaped head, which allows it to open its mouth and suck in prey. It has these huge fangs, the whole front of the mouth is just giant teeth," says Jason Pardo, an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the Field Museum in Chicago and the co-lead author of the Nature study. "It's a big predator, but potentially also a relatively slow ambush predator."
I’m traveling and won’t get to rec the comments.