The Magnetic Secret Behind Star Formation Uncovered

BY ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, DEC. 24, 2024

https://scitechdaily.com/the-magnetic-secret-behind-star-formation-uncovered/

Magnetic fields have been observed for the first time in the heart of merging galaxies, hinting they play a critical role in star formation by stabilizing and concentrating stellar material.

 Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Researchers have discovered magnetic fields deep within the merging galaxy Arp 220, suggesting these fields might be crucial for efficient star formation, acting like a cosmic lid that prevents the “boiling over” of star-forming materials.

This breakthrough, observed using the Submillimeter Array in Hawaii, could explain why some galaxies produce stars more effectively than others.
Star Formation Secrets Unveiled

Astronomers have identified a long-sought missing ingredient in the process of star formation, akin to the role a pressure cooker plays in preparing a perfectly steamed Christmas pudding.

Just as the weight on a pressure cooker’s lid locks in pressure to create the ideal environment for cooking, magnetic fields may play a crucial role in merging galaxies, setting the stage for new stars to form.

While this idea had been theorized for years, direct evidence of such magnetic fields had remained elusive — until now.

Christmas pudding is a rich, dense dessert traditionally served in the UK during the holiday season. Made with dried fruits, spices, suet, and often a splash of alcohol like brandy, it’s steamed for hours to develop its deep flavors. Typically served with custard or brandy butter, it’s a festive centerpiece.

Groundbreaking Discovery in Galaxy Mergers

Led by Dr. David Clements from Imperial College, an international research team has detected magnetic fields within a dense disc of gas and dust, spanning several hundred light-years, at the core of the merging galaxy system Arp 220.

They say these regions could be the key to making the centers of interacting galaxies just right for cooking lots of hydrogen gas into young stars. This is because magnetic fields may be able to stop intense bursts of star formation in the cores of merging galaxies from effectively ‘boiling over’ when the heat is turned up too high.

A new paper revealing the discovery was published on December 20 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Astronomers have found evidence of magnetic fields associated with a disc of gas and dust a few hundred light-years across deep inside a system of two merging galaxies known as Arp 220 (pictured).

 Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScl/AURA), ESA, Hubble Collaboration, and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)



Magnetic Fields: The Cosmic Pressure Cooker

“This is the first time we’ve found evidence of magnetic fields in the core of a merger,” said Dr. Clements, “but this discovery is just a starting point. We now need better models, and to see what’s happening in other galaxy mergers.”

He gave a cooking analogy when explaining the role of magnetic fields in star formation.

“If you want to cook up a lot of stars (Christmas puddings) in a short period of time you need to squeeze lots of gas (or ingredients) together. This is what we see in the cores of mergers. But then, as the heat from young stars (or your cooker) builds, things can boil over, and the gas (or pudding mixture) gets dispersed,” Dr. Clements said.

“To stop this happening, you need to add something to hold it all together – a magnetic field in a galaxy, or the lid and weight of a pressure cooker.”

Image showing the intensity of Arp 220 in the Submillimeter Array continuum bands (color) with polarization vectors overlaid (left). These are rotated by 90 degrees in the image to show the orientation of the magnetic field. 

Credit: D.L. Clements et al.

Unraveling the Mysteries of Star Formation Efficiency

Astronomers have long been looking for the magic ingredient that makes some galaxies form stars more efficiently than is normal.

One of the issues about galaxy mergers is that they can form stars very quickly, in what is known as a starburst. This means they’re behaving differently to other star-forming galaxies in terms of the relationship between star formation rate and the mass of stars in the galaxy – they seem to be turning gas into stars more efficiently than non-starburst galaxies. Astronomers are baffled as to why this happens.

One possibility is that magnetic fields could act as an extra ‘binding force’ that holds the star-forming gas together for longer, resisting the tendency for the gas to expand and dissipate as it is heated by young, hot stars, or by supernovae as massive stars die.

Theoretical models have previously suggested this, but the new observations are the first to show that magnetic fields are present in the case of at least one galaxy.

The Submillimeter Array on Maunakea, Hawaii. 

Credit: SMA/J. Weintroub

Future Research and Telescope Advancements

Researchers used the Submillimeter Array (SMA) on Maunakea in Hawaii to probe deep inside the ultraluminous infrared galaxy Arp 220.

The SMA is designed to take images of light in wavelengths of about a millimeter – which lies at the boundary between infrared and radio wavelengths. This opens up a window to a wide range of astronomical phenomena including supermassive black holes and the birth of stars and planets.

Arp 220 is one of the brightest objects in the extragalactic far-infrared sky and is the result of a merger between two gas-rich spiral galaxies, which has triggered starbursting activity in the merger’s nuclear regions.

The extragalactic far-infrared sky is a cosmic background radiation made up of the integrated light from distant galaxies’ dust emissions. About half of all starlight emerges at far-infrared wavelengths.

The next step for the research team will be to use the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) – the most powerful telescope for observing molecular gas and dust in the cool universe – to search for magnetic fields in other ultraluminous infrared galaxies.

That is because the next brightest local ultraluminous infrared galaxy to Arp 220 is a factor of four or more fainter.

With their result, and further observations, the researchers hope the role of magnetic fields in some of the most luminous galaxies in the local universe will become much clearer.

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Scientists Destroy 99% of Cancer Cells in Lab Using Vibrating Molecules

25 Dec. 2024, By D. NIELD

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-destroy-99-of-cancer-cells-in-lab-using-vibrating-molecules

Illustration of a cancer cell.

 (Science Photo Library/Canva Pro)


Scientists have discovered a remarkable way to destroy cancer cells. A study published last year found stimulating aminocyanine molecules with near-infrared light caused them to vibrate in sync, enough to break apart the membranes of cancer cells.

Aminocyanine molecules are already used in bioimaging as synthetic dyes. Commonly used in low doses to detect cancer, they stay stable in water and are very good at attaching themselves to the outside of cells.

How the vibration mechanism works. (Ciceron Ayala-Orozco et al., Nature Chemistry, 2023)



The research team from Rice University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas, said their approach is a marked improvement over another kind of cancer-killing molecular machine previously developed, called Feringa-type motors, which could also break the structures of problematic cells.

"It is a whole new generation of molecular machines that we call molecular jackhammers," said chemist James Tour from Rice University, when the results were published in December 2023.

"They are more than one million times faster in their mechanical motion than the former Feringa-type motors, and they can be activated with near-infrared light rather than visible light."

The use of near-infrared light is important because it enables scientists to get deeper into the body. Cancer in bones and organs could potentially be treated without needing surgery to get to the cancer growth.

In tests on cultured, lab-grown cancer cells, the molecular jackhammer method scored a 99 percent hit rate at destroying the cells. The approach was also tested on mice with melanoma tumors, and half the animals became cancer-free.

The structure and chemical properties of aminocyanine molecules mean they stay in sync with the right stimulus – such as near-infrared light. When in motion, the electrons inside the molecules form what's known as plasmons, collectively vibrating entities that drive movement across the whole of the molecule.

The structure of an aminocyanine molecule (a molecular jackhammer) overlaid on top of the calculated molecular plasmon. 

(Ciceron Ayala-Orozco/Rice University)



"What needs to be highlighted is that we've discovered another explanation for how these molecules can work," said chemist Ciceron Ayala-Orozco from Rice University.

"This is the first time a molecular plasmon is utilized in this way to excite the whole molecule and to actually produce mechanical action used to achieve a particular goal – in this case, tearing apart cancer cells' membrane."

The plasmons have an arm on one side, helping to connect the molecules to the cancer cell membranes while the movements of the vibrations bash them apart. It's still early days for the research, but these initial findings are very promising.

This is also the kind of straightforward, biomechanical technique that cancer cells would find it hard to evolve some sort of blockade against. Next, the researchers are looking at other types of molecules that can be used similarly

"This study is about a different way to treat cancer using mechanical forces at the molecular scale," said Ayala-Orozco.

An earlier version of this article was published in December 2023.

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Quantum research sheds new light on how cells communicate

DEC. 23, 2024, **DIALOG**, by N. S. Babcock

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-quantum-cells-communicate.html

Credit: Image created using Gamma AI



Have you ever thought that light might hold a key to life's mysteries? One hundred years ago, Alexander Gurwitsch dared to propose that living cells emit faint ultraviolet light, invisible to the naked eye, to communicate with and stimulate one another.

It was an idea so ahead of its time that many dismissed it outright. Without a physical theory to back it up, his idea was relegated to the chronicles of history. Yet when I encountered his work, I couldn't help but ask the question: What if the UV effect is quantum mechanical? Armed with modern quantum theory, I began to uncover a new quantum dimension to life itself.

A century-old mystery revisited

In the 1920s, Gurwitsch's experiments revealed a startling phenomenon. Placing the tip of one onion root near the side of another, he noticed that more cell divisions occurred on the side of the root facing the tip. He observed that the effect disappeared when he placed a glass slide between the roots.

Curiously, when he changed the material of the slide from glass to fine quartz, the effect reappeared.

This mysterious light, which he called "mitogenetic radiation," passed freely through air and quartz but was blocked by glass, distinguishing it from visible light and some frequencies of infrared. He concluded that faint ultraviolet light emitted by one root tip stimulated cell division in the other.

At the time, the idea that light, not hormones or other chemicals, could drive such a fundamental process seemed implausible. Skeptics dismissed his findings, and the phenomenon faded into obscurity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2SW35yaajE&t=3s

(18 min. long)

Main ideas of the article are further expanded on in this online lecture by the author.

Faced with this problem, I realized that the ultraviolet radiation he described might be explained using quantum resonance theory. Using resonance concepts from quantum mechanics, I've connected Gurwitsch's observations to a sophisticated framework that explains how faint ultraviolet light can spark significant biological changes.

This explanation, outlined in my new paper published in the Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, not only validates his results but also reshapes our understanding of how quantum systems interact with biological environments.

In my research, Gurwitsch's mitogenetic radiation turns out to be a prime candidate for a quantum resonance effect where specific wavelengths of light trigger responses in living cells.

A photograph of Gurwitsch's onion experiment with the emitter onion held in the inductor (a bowl to hold the inducing onion bulb, left), the receiver onion (in a frame to hold the induced bulb, top), and location of mitotic induction (center). 

Credit: A. G. Gurwitsch, Das Problem der Zellteilung physiologisch betrachtet (1926)


Challenging conventional wisdom

Traditionally, quantum physics assumes that systems interact weakly with their environment—if at all. This misses out on the complexity of living organisms, which are nothing like isolated systems in a lab. They're dynamic, interconnected, and alive with collective interactions between photons, electrons and molecules.

For this reason, early researchers dismissed quantum effects in biology, believing cells were just too "warm, wet and noisy" for such delicate phenomena.

I took a different approach, turning to open quantum systems theory, an advanced framework that describes systems embedded in and interacting with their environments. Specifically, I employed Fano and Feshbach's model, a method originally developed for scattering phenomena in quantum mechanics.

This model is ideal for testing quantum resonance effects like those Gurwitsch proposed. By applying this framework, I've shown how biological environments could detect and amplify faint light signals, defying traditional assumptions that life is too chaotic for quantum phenomena to thrive.

Drawings of onion root cross-sections of non-irradiated (left) and irradiated (right) roots. The line divides the irradiated root into opposite halves to show the increased number of cell divisions in the irradiated half. 

Credit: T. Reiter and D. Gábor, Zellteilung und Strahlung (1928)

Revolutionizing our understanding of life

The implications of this discovery are extraordinary. First, it predicts that light isn't just a passive byproduct of biological systems—it's an active component. Ultraviolet ultraweak photon emissions (UPE) may provide a quantum channel for cells to communicate and coordinate activity. This adds a new layer to our understanding of cellular behavior.

Second, this work bridges biology with quantum physics in ways that seemed unimaginable last century. By applying these principles of open quantum systems theory, we can now explore processes like mitosis, photosynthesis, and enzyme catalysis through a distinctly quantum lens. This interdisciplinary approach not only advances our understanding of biology but also pushes the boundaries of quantum mechanics into a new scientific frontier.

Finally, the practical applications are immense. Cellular UPE are poised to revolutionize medical diagnostics, serving as a biomarker for cellular health, oxidative stress, or early signs of cancer. In regenerative medicine, we might harness these emissions to stimulate healing or guide tissue growth with precision light therapies.

The potential to manipulate these quantum interactions opens doors to new treatments and technologies that could reshape the life sciences, health care, and biotechnology.

Looking ahead

Rediscovering Gurwitsch's work has opened avenues for discovery that pose many new questions. How do these photon emissions integrate with other cellular processes? Could they influence immunity, aging, or even the development of complex organisms? What other hidden quantum phenomena might exist in the biological microenvironment that we can model using quantum theory?

As we dive deeper into these questions, we're not just revisiting old ideas. We're stepping into uncharted territory. Gurwitsch's intuition about the quantum nature of life was a century ahead of its time, waiting for the tools and theories of the future to unlock its potential.

Today, those tools are here, and the faint light he discovered is shining through more than ever, revealing the beginnings of a quantum blueprint for life itself.

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Migraine relief: New drug may start working right away

DEC. 23, 2024, by American Academy of Neurology

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-12-migraine-relief-drug.html

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A drug recently approved to prevent migraine may start working right away, according to a study published in the December 23, 2024, online issue of Neurology. The study looked at the drug atogepant, which is a calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist taken by mouth.

"With many current drugs to prevent migraine, it takes time to find the right dosage for the individual and it can take weeks or even months for it to be most effective," said study author Richard B. Lipton, MD, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

"Some people give up and stop taking the drugs before they reach this point. Plus, many people experience side effects with current treatments. Developing a drug that works both effectively and quickly is critical."

In the study, people taking the drug atogepant were less likely to have a migraine on the first day of taking the drug compared to those taking a placebo. They also had fewer migraines per week during each of the first four weeks of the study and fewer migraines during the study overall than those taking a placebo.

For this study, researchers looked at the data from three trials on the safety and effectiveness of atogepant over 12 weeks to focus on how rapidly improvements appeared.

The ADVANCE trial, which enrolled people with episodic migraine, had 222 people taking the drug and 214 taking placebo. The ELEVATE trial, which enrolled people with episodic migraine who had previously not responded well to other oral preventive treatments, had 151 on the drug and 154 on placebo. The PROGRESS trial, which enrolled people with chronic migraine, had 256 on the drug and 246 on placebo.

People with episodic migraine experience up to 14 migraine days per month. People with chronic migraine experience at least 15 days with headache per month, with at least eight days being characteristic of migraine.

On the first day of the study, 12% of those taking the drug in the first trial, the ADVANCE trial, had a migraine, compared to 25% of those taking placebo. In the second trial, the ELEVATE trial, the numbers were 15% and 26%. For the third trial, the PROGRESS trial, the numbers were 51% and 61%.

When researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect the rate of migraine, they found that people taking the drug were 61% less likely to have a migraine in the first trial, 47% less likely in the second trial, and 37% less likely in the third trial.

For the first two trials, the people taking atogepant had an average of one fewer day with migraine per week, compared to an average of less than one-half day fewer per week for those taking the placebo. For the third trial, average migraine days per week declined by about 1.5 days for those taking the drug compared to about one day for those taking the placebo.

The people taking atogepant also showed improvement in assessments of how much migraine impaired their activities and their overall quality of life compared to people taking the placebo.

"Migraine is the second-leading cause of disability in the overall population and the leading cause of disability in young women, with people reporting negative effects on their relationships, parenting, career and finances," Lipton said. "Having a treatment that can act quickly and effectively addresses a key need."

A limitation of the study is that it involved mostly female and white participants, so the results may not apply to the overall population.

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Unusual Activity in Our Guts Could Have Helped Our Brains Grow Larger

24 Dec. 2024, ByT. KOUMOUNDOUROS

https://www.sciencealert.com/unusual-activity-in-our-guts-could-have-helped-our-brains-grow-larger

Human brains may have gotten an energy boost from gut microbes.

 (Leonello Calvetti/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images Plus)

The microbes living in our guts may have helped humans grow bigger brains. Lab experiments revealed that human gut microbiomes focus on energy production to feed our brains, rather than storage like in other animals.

"What happens in the gut may actually be the foundation that allowed our brains to develop over evolutionary time," Northwestern University anthropologist Katherine Amato told Gracie Abadee at BBC Science Focus.

Brain tissue is metabolically expensive, so our bodies would have needed to undergo a host of changes to cater for our larger thinking organs. The researchers were curious to see what role the helpful microbes living in our guts might have played in these transformations.

"We know the community of microbes living in the large intestine can produce compounds that affect aspects of human biology – for example, causing changes to metabolism that can lead to insulin resistance and weight gain," says Amato.

"Variation in the gut microbiota is an unexplored mechanism in which primate metabolism could facilitate different brain-energetic requirements."

Amato and colleagues seeded 'germ-free' mice with the microbiomes of three different primates to compare their impact. The mice received gut microbes from humans (Homo sapiens), squirrel monkeys (Saimiri boliviensis), and macaques (Macaca mulatta), and were then monitored with regular checks on weight, liver function, fat percentage, and fasting glucose.

Both humans and squirrel monkeys are classed as 'brain-prioritizing,' ending up with relatively large brains for their body sizes as adults. Macaques meanwhile have much smaller brains relative to their body size.

Mice inoculated with the human gut microbiome had the highest fasting glucose, highest triglyceride levels, lowest cholesterol levels, and also experienced the least weight gain. This suggests the human gut microbiome favors host production of brain-feeding sugar over storing energy in fats.

While these differences between the mice inoculated with the human microbiome and all the other primates were expected, the biggest differences were seen between the two big-brained species (humans and squirrel monkeys) and the small-brained macaques.

Despite only being distantly related to us, the squirrel monkeys have microbes that also shifted their host metabolism to prioritize energy use and production too, whereas those from the macaques promoted energy storage in fat tissue instead.

Model for microbial influences on the metabolism of large-brained and smaller-brained primates. 

(Amato et al, Microbial Genomics, 2024)

"These findings suggest that when humans and squirrel monkeys both separately evolved larger brains, their microbial communities changed in similar ways to help provide the necessary energy," explains Amato.

So developing and maintaining our expensive brain tissue may have required the help of our little gut symbiotes.

Previous research has shown there is a trade off between brain and body growth within and across mammals species. This is also seen during human development. Amato and team's new findings support this proposed trade off too.

"In humans, developmental changes in the brain's energy demands vary inversely with changes in growth rate between infancy and puberty, with the slowest pace of growth and fat deposition of the lifecycle coinciding with lifetime peak brain energy use in mid-childhood," the team write in their paper.

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Intense ribbons of rain also bring the heat, scientists say

DEC. 20, 2024, by J. Shelton, Yale U.

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-intense-ribbons-scientists.html

This map shows total precipitable water in the atmosphere on a day in October 2024. It includes the presence of atmospheric rivers, which are long, narrow filaments of water vapor stretching from the warm subtropics to the cooler midlatitudes. 

Credit: UW-Madison Space Science & Engineering Center file repository

The environmental threat posed by atmospheric rivers—long, narrow ribbons of water vapor in the sky—doesn't come only in the form of concentrated, torrential downpours and severe flooding characteristic of these natural phenomena. According to a new Yale study, they also cause extreme warm temperatures and moist heat waves.

Researchers Serena Scholz and Juan Lora say atmospheric rivers—horizontal plumes that transport water vapor from the warm subtropics to cooler areas across midlatitude and polar regions of the world—are also transporting heat. As a result, atmospheric rivers may have a greater effect on global energy movement than previously recognized.

"We're seeing temperature anomalies associated with atmospheric rivers that are 5 to 10 degrees Celsius [9 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit] higher than the climatological mean. The numbers are astounding," said Lora, assistant professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences and co-author of a new study.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

Scientists began using the term "atmospheric river" in the 1990s. Today, there are three to five of them winding their way through each hemisphere at any given time.

They can be thousands of miles long, but only a few hundred miles wide; the amount of water vapor they carry is about 7–15 times greater than the equivalent amount of water discharged each day by the Mississippi River. The heavy rains that often result can cause major damage and disruption, such as the Oroville Dam crisis in California in 2017 and severe floods in the UK in 2019–20.

"They've been defined up to this point by how much moisture they're transporting," said Scholz, a graduate student in Lora's lab and the study's lead author. "People knew there was warmth inherent in them, but they cause so much rain that moisture has been the focus."

The new study suggests that temperature in atmospheric rivers is worth noticing, too.

Scholz and Lora analyzed 40 years of global weather data from NASA's MERRA-2 reanalysis, as well as seven publicly available algorithms that track atmospheric rivers worldwide. Specifically, they looked at temperature increases related to atmospheric rivers on two timescales: hourly temperature spikes and heat waves of three or more days of moist heat.

"There was no doubt—atmospheric rivers are really impactful for both timescales," Scholz said.

The researchers noted that the phenomenon has a more dramatic effect in the winter than it does in summer. This trend actually helped inspire the project in the first place; Lora had noticed that winters in Connecticut have been particularly mild and rainy in recent years, which led him and Scholz to look at heat transport in atmospheric rivers.

"And that evolved into a global study, because the numbers were so interesting," Lora said.

Although other studies have touched upon the role that temperature plays in atmospheric rivers at higher latitudes, this is the first study to highlight mid-latitude regions, which contain several "hotspots" for atmospheric rivers. These hotspots include the east and west coasts of North America, western Europe, Australia, and southern regions of South America.

Perhaps the best-known recurring atmospheric river is the "Pineapple Express" system that brings warm moisture from the tropics, delivering rain and heavy snow to the west coasts of Canada and the U.S.

The new study shows that when atmospheric rivers occur, they change the balance of energy on the surface in several ways, the researchers say. For example, while cloudy conditions block incoming sunlight, those clouds also trap more thermal radiation near the surface, creating a transient enhanced greenhouse effect. This heating balances out the loss of sunlight—but is not the cause of temperature spikes.

Instead, the main cause of warm temperatures in atmospheric rivers is simply the transport of warm air, located near the water's surface, from one region to another.

"As we tried to understand why this is happening, we were expecting to find a transient greenhouse-type effect going on," Scholz said. "But it's just heat moving from one area to another, via the river."

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Baltic Herring Turn Predators: A Stunning Evolutionary Shift

BY UPPSALA U., Dec. 23, 2024

https://scitechdaily.com/baltic-herring-turn-predators-a-stunning-evolutionary-shift/

Fast-growing, fish-eating herring caught off the coast northeast of Uppsala. 

Credit: Ulf Bergström/SLU

A new study reveals a genetically distinct type of Baltic herring that thrives on a fish diet, unlike its Atlantic counterpart.

This adaptation has likely occurred due to the unique conditions of the Baltic Sea and the absence of larger predatory fish, presenting a special opportunity for the local ecosystem and fisheries.

Atlantic and Baltic Herring: Keystone Species

Atlantic and Baltic herring, known for their plankton-based diet, play a vital role in the ecosystems of the northern Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic Sea. These fish serve as a crucial connection between plankton and higher-level predators, including larger fish, seabirds, marine mammals, and even humans.

A new study published today (December 23) in Nature Communications by researchers at Uppsala University (Sweden) has revealed a surprising discovery: the evolution of genetically distinct, fish-eating herring in the Baltic Sea. This unique population has emerged in the relatively young Baltic Sea, which has existed for only about 8,000 years since the end of the last glaciation.

Earlier research by the same group identified that herring populations are divided into various ecotypes, each genetically adapted to specific environmental factors such as climate, salinity, and preferred spawning seasons. This new finding adds an unexpected twist to the ecological and evolutionary story of Baltic herring.

Discovery of a Unique Baltic Herring Population

Linnaeus, the founder of taxonomy and professor in Uppsala in the 18th century, defined the Baltic herring as a subspecies of the Atlantic herring adapted to the brackish water in the Baltic Sea. The Baltic herring is much smaller and has less fat than the Atlantic herring.

The current project was initiated when the principal investigator was informed by a local fisherman at the coast northeast of Uppsala that there is a special type of herring “that always spawns just before midsummer and which is as big as the Atlantic herring,” thus much larger than the common plankton-eating Baltic herring.

A comparison of the fast-growing fish-eating Baltic herring (Slåttersill in Swedish) and slow-growing plankton-eating spring- and autumn-spawning Baltic herring.

 Credit: Leif Andersson/Uppsala University

The Genetic Mystery of Large Herring

“When I learned that the locals are aware of a specific population of very large Baltic herring that always spawns in the same area year after year, I decided to sample and explore their genetic constitution. Now we know that this is a genetically unique population that must have evolved over hundreds, if not thousands, of years in the Baltic Sea,” says Leif Andersson, Professor at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology at Uppsala University, who led the study.

The researchers carried out a careful analysis of morphology, growth pattern, fat content, and presence of environmental pollutants. A striking finding was that the large herring exhibited damaged gill rakers. The plankton-eating Baltic herring uses the gill rakers to sieve plankton, while the observed gill damage in large herring likely reflects a switch to a fish diet, probably including the common stickleback, which has sharp spines for predation protection.

Nutritional Benefits and Reduced Pollution Risks

Another interesting finding was that the large herring had a significantly higher fat content and significantly reduced level of dioxin, a problematic chloro-organic pollutant in the Baltic Sea. Both these observations and the much faster growth rate are consistent with a switch to a fish diet. The relatively low dioxin content makes this fish-eating Baltic herring interesting for human consumption.

Leif Andersson, Professor at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology; Genetics and Genomics, Uppsala University (Sweden), Texas A&M University (USA). 

Credit: Mikael Wallerstedt



Subpopulations of Fish-Eating Herring Identified

After finding that the large fish-eating herring is genetically unique, the researchers decided to perform whole genome sequencing of the large herring together with previously collected large herring from different parts of the Baltic Sea. The stomach content of this second set of large herring showed that these individuals were feeding on small fish.

“Our genetic analysis demonstrates that there are at least two distinct subpopulations of fish-eating herring in the Baltic Sea; one occurs north of Stockholm, and the other occurs south of Stockholm,” says Jake Goodall, researcher at Uppsala University and first author on the publication.

Evolution in the Young Baltic Sea

One interesting question is why fish-eating herring have evolved in the Baltic Sea, when there is no evidence for such herring in the Atlantic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is a very young water body that has only existed for about 8,000 years, after the end of the last glaciation period. Only a limited number of marine fish have been able to colonize the brackish Baltic Sea, where salinity is in the range of 2-10‰ compared with about 35‰ in the Atlantic Ocean.

“We hypothesize that fish-eating Baltic herring have evolved due to a lack of competition from other predatory fish, for instance, mackerel and tuna, which do not occur where we find fish-eating herring. Thus, these herring take advantage of an underutilized food resource in the Baltic Sea,” says Leif Andersson.

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Scientists Quantified The Speed of Human Thought, And It's a Big Surprise

23 Dec. 2024, By M. MCRAE

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-quantified-the-speed-of-human-thought-and-its-a-big-surprise

(Rafa Elias/Getty Images)



The speed of the human brain's ability to process information has been investigated in a new study, and according to scientists, we're not as mentally quick as we might like to think.

In fact, research suggests our brains process information at a speed of just 10 bits per second. But how is this possible, in comparison to the trillions of operations computers can perform every second?

Research suggests this is the result of how we internally process thoughts in single file, making for a slow, congested queue.

This stands in stark contrast to the way the peripheral nervous system operates, amassing sensory data at gigabits a second in parallel, magnitudes higher than our paltry 10-bit cognitive computer.

To neurobiologists Jieyu Zheng and Markus Meister from the California Institute of Technology, this mismatch in sensory input and processing speed poses something of a mystery.

"Every moment, we are extracting just 10 bits from the trillion that our senses are taking in and using those 10 to perceive the world around us and make decisions," says Meister.

"This raises a paradox: What is the brain doing to filter all of this information?"

In their recently published paper, Zheng and Meister raise a clear defense of the suggestion that in spite of the richness of the scenery in our mind's eye, the existence of photographic memory, and the potential of unconscious processing, our brains really do operate at a mind-numbingly slow pace that rarely peaks above tens of bits a second.

According to the researchers, solving a Rubik's cube blindfolded requires processing of just under 12 bits a second. Playing the strategy computer game StarCraft at a professional level? Around 10 bits a second. Reading this article? That might stretch you to 50 bits a second, at least temporarily.

Assuming it's true, the pair lay out the state of research on the disparity between our "outer brain's" processing of external stimuli and the "inner brain's" calculations, demonstrating just how little we know about our own thinking.

"The current understanding is not commensurate with the enormous processing resources available, and we have seen no viable proposal for what would create a neural bottleneck that forces single-strand operation," the authors write.

According to the researchers, solving a Rubik's cube blindfolded requires processing of just under 12 bits a second.

 (Nur Kayat's Images/Canva)



The human brain is a beast when it comes to pure analytical power. Its 80-odd-billion neurons form trillions of connections grouped in ways that allow us to feel, imagine, and plan our way through existence with other humans by our sides.

Fruit flies, on the other hand, have maybe a hundred thousand or so neurons, which is plenty enough for them to find food, flap about, and talk fly-business with other flies. Why couldn't a single human brain behave like a swarm of flies, each unit processing a handful of bits each second collectively at super speed?

Though there are no obvious answers, Zheng and Meister propose it may simply have to do with necessity. Or rather, a lack of necessity.

"Our ancestors have chosen an ecological niche where the world is slow enough to make survival possible," the team writes.

"In fact, the 10 bits per second are needed only in worst-case situations, and most of the time our environment changes at a much more leisurely pace."

Research into comparable rates of processing in other species is remarkably limited, the pair explain, though what they could locate seems to validate a view that generally our external environment only changes at a rate that requires decision-making to occur at a few bits a second.

What might we make of a future where we demand more of our bottlenecked brains, perhaps through technological advances that link our single-file cognitive computing directly with a computer's parallel processing?

Knowing how our brains evolved could give us insights into both improving artificial intelligence and shaping it to suit our especially particular neural architecture. At the very least, it could reveal the deeper benefits of slowing down and approaching the world one simple question at a time.

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Chuck's picture corner to this first full day of Winter (Dec. 22 2024

Snow has arrived this past few weeks.
It's -9f or -23c here in the Laurentions this morning, chilly to say the least but the Sun is shining.

antherium

Mexican Hat

Idk I do like it's colour

varigated hoya

golden pathos enjoying it in the kitchen, with a little ivy thrown in.

a misty morning after the first snow of the year

sunset over the barn

inside looking out

the full moon as the Sun sets on our way to the Laurentions

Our northern mountain home.

the view across the street

The local lake on our way to the grocery store.

just before 4: on our way home from shopping

The road home, passing a very deep lake

winds of change

our celebratory meal, as a new year begins. Local rib beef steak.

Enjoy your Day

Cheers

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New York man finds mastodon jaw while gardening in his backyard

DEC. 18, 2024

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-york-mastodon-jaw-gardening-backyard.html

New York State Museum and State University of New York Orange staff unearthed a complete well-preserved mastodon jaw, as well as a piece of a toe bone and a rib fragment, that were discovered by a man who spotted two giant teeth while gardening at his upstate New York home, near Scotchtown, NY. 

Credit: New York State Museum via AP

Scholars are hailing the discovery of a fossilized mastodon jaw discovered by a man who spotted two giant teeth while gardening at his upstate New York home this year.

The mastodon jaw and some other bone fragments were found in late September in a backyard near Scotchtown, a hamlet about 70 miles (112 kilometers) northwest of New York City, officials from the New York State Museum said.

The owner of the backyard does not want to be identified, said Robert Feranec, the state museum's director of research and collections and curator of Ice Age animals.

The individual spotted what he first thought were baseballs, Feranec said Wednesday. "He picked them up and realized they were teeth," he said.

Excavation by staff from the museum and the State University of New York's Orange County campus yielded a full, well-preserved jaw of an adult mastodon as well as a piece of a toe bone and a rib fragment, museum officials said.

"While the jaw is the star of the show, the additional toe and rib fragments offer valuable context and the potential for additional research," said Cory Harris, chair of SUNY Orange's behavioral sciences department. "We are also hoping to further explore the immediate area to see if there are any additional bones that were preserved."

New York State Museum and State University of New York Orange staff unearth a complete well-preserved mastodon jaw, as well as a piece of a toe bone and a rib fragment, that were discovered by a man who spotted two giant teeth while gardening at his upstate New York home, near Scotchtown, NY. 

Credit: New York State Museum via AP

Officials with the Albany-based state museum said the jaw was the first complete mastodon jaw found in New York in 11 years. They said there have been more than 150 fossils from the extinct elephant relative found statewide to date, about a third of them in Orange County in the same area as the recent find.

Feranec said the newly unearthed jaw provides "a unique opportunity to study the ecology of this magnificent species, which will enhance our understanding of the Ice Age ecosystems from this region."

The fossils will be carbon-dated and analyzed to determine the mastodon's age, diet and habitat during its lifetime and will be put on public display sometime in 2025, museum officials said.

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Giant sloths and mastodons coexisted with humans for millennia in Americas, new discoveries suggest

Dec. 20, 2024, by C. Larson

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-giant-sloths-mastodons-coexisted-humans.html

This illustration provided by researchers depicts a person carving an osteoderm from a giant sloth in Brazil about 25,000 to 27,000 years ago.

 Credit: Júlia d'Oliveira via AP

Sloths weren't always slow-moving, furry tree-dwellers. Their prehistoric ancestors were huge—up to 4 tons (3.6 metric tons)—and when startled, they brandished immense claws.

For a long time, scientists believed the first humans to arrive in the Americas soon killed off these giant ground sloths through hunting, along with many other massive animals like mastodons, saber-toothed cats and dire wolves that once roamed North and South America.

But new research from several sites is starting to suggest that people came to the Americas earlier—perhaps far earlier—than once thought. These findings hint at a remarkably different life for these early Americans, one in which they may have spent millennia sharing prehistoric savannas and wetlands with enormous beasts.

"There was this idea that humans arrived and killed everything off very quickly—what's called 'Pleistocene overkill,'" said Daniel Odess, an archaeologist at White Sands National Park in New Mexico. But new discoveries suggest that "humans were existing alongside these animals for at least 10,000 years, without making them go extinct."

Some of the most tantalizing clues come from an archaeological site in central Brazil, called Santa Elina, where bones of giant ground sloths show signs of being manipulated by humans. Sloths like these once lived from Alaska to Argentina, and some species had bony structures on their backs, called osteoderms—a bit like the plates of modern armadillos—that may have been used to make decorations.

This photo provided by researchers shows fossils at the excavation site of Arroyo del Vizcaíno in Uruguay, where researchers have found evidence suggesting human occupation 30,000 years ago. 

Credit: Martín Batallés via 



In a lab at the University of Sao Paulo, researcher Mírian Pacheco holds in her palm a round, penny-sized sloth fossil. She notes that its surface is surprisingly smooth, the edges appear to have been deliberately polished, and there's a tiny hole near one edge.

"We believe it was intentionally altered and used by ancient people as jewelry or adornment," she said. Three similar "pendant" fossils are visibly different from unworked osteoderms on a table—those are rough-surfaced and without any holes.

These artifacts from Santa Elina are roughly 27,000 years old—more than 10,000 years before scientists once thought that humans arrived in the Americas.

Originally researchers wondered if the craftsmen were working on already old fossils. But Pacheco's research strongly suggests that ancient people were carving "fresh bones" shortly after the animals died.

Paleontologist Thaís Pansani stands in front the reconstructed skeleton of a giant ground sloth at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, on July 11, 2024. 

Credit: AP Photo/Mary Conlon



Her findings, together with other recent discoveries, could help rewrite the tale of when humans first arrived in the Americas—and the effect they had on the environment they found.

"There's still a big debate," Pacheco said.

Scientists know that the first humans emerged in Africa, then moved into Europe and Asia-Pacific, before finally making their way to the last continental frontier, the Americas. But questions remain about the final chapter of the human origins story.

Pacheco was taught in high school the theory that most archaeologists held throughout the 20th century. "What I learned in school was that Clovis was first," she said.

Clovis is a site in New Mexico, where archaeologists in the 1920s and 1930s found distinctive projectile points and other artifacts dated to between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago.

This photo provided by researchers shows the Santa Elina excavation site in the Mato Grosso state of Brazil. 

Credit: Águeda Vilhena Vialou, Denis Vialou via AP



This date happens to coincide with the end of the last Ice Age, a time when an ice-free corridor likely emerged in North America—giving rise to an idea about how early humans moved into the continent after crossing the Bering land bridge from Asia.

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