Deep sea mining impacts visible for 'many decades'

MARCH 26, 2025

https://phys.org/news/2025-03-deep-sea-impacts-visible-decades.html

Scientists in Britain assessed the lasting impact of one of the oldest known mining tracks in the vast Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), stretching between Hawaii and Mexico.

Scientists said they have seen the first signs of life returning to deep sea mining tracks carved into the abyssal seabed more than four decades ago, but warned on Wednesday that full recovery may be "impossible."

The new research, published in the journal Nature, comes as countries argue over the creation of the world's first mining code on deep sea extraction at a meeting of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica.

Scientists and campaigners have long insisted that future industrial-level mining will threaten marine ecosystems.

Risks range from species extinctions and damage to the ocean food web, to the potential for exacerbating climate change by churning up sediment that stores planet-heating carbon.

In the latest research, scientists in Britain assessed the lasting impact of one of the oldest known mining tracks in the vast Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), stretching between Hawaii and Mexico in international waters.

At depths of more than 4,000 meters (13,000 feet), the seabed here is scattered with metal rich rocks known as "nodules" and is home to a huge number of strange and rare animals almost entirely unknown to science.

A 1979 test in the CCZ left a wide strip of seabed cleared of nodules and framed by deep tracks eight meters (26 foot) apart made by the mining machine.

In 2023, scientists surveyed the site and found these marks in the seafloor remained clearly visible.

"The numbers of many animals were reduced within the tracks but we did see some of the first signs of biological recovery," said lead author Daniel Jones of the National Oceanography Center.

While small and more mobile creatures were seen within the mining area, larger-sized animals that are fixed to the seafloor were still "very rare," he said.

The sediment plumes kicked up by the machines were not found to have had a lasting impact, according to the research.

The authors said that while more modern equipment could be designed to limit the impact on ocean wildlife, the likely scale of any mining operations if they went ahead meant "visible physical impacts of the collection can be assumed to last for at least many decades."

They added that a full return of life in affected regions "may be impossible" with the removal of the nodules, which are themselves a habitat for marine animals.

Spies to smartphones

The research marks "the longest term assessment of a deep sea mining track," Jones told reporters earlier this month.

Jones trawled the archives to pinpoint the location of the 1979 test, which was carried out following a CIA plot to recover a Russian nuclear submarine—using deep-sea mining as a cover story.

The CIA then leased their ship for real deep-sea mining, according to Jones.

He said the 1979 test, carried out by private firms, was to see if harvesting the nodules was technically feasible and was "much smaller than a true mining event would look like."

After that, interest and funding fizzled out.

But recent years have seen renewed interest in exploiting the potato-sized nodules, which are thought to have formed over millions of years and contain metals like cobalt and nickel, which are used in technologies such as smartphones and rechargeable batteries.

There are estimated to be around 21 billion tonnes of nodules on the seabed of the CCZ.

"Our results don't provide an answer to whether deep-sea mining is societally acceptable, but they do provide the data needed to make better informed policy decisions," said co-author Adrian Glover from Britain's Natural History Museum.

He added that it could help in creating protected areas and inform monitoring efforts.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Papaya and Passion Fruit Show Unexpected Cancer-Fighting Potential

BY SÃO PAULO RESEARCH FOUNDATION, MARCH 31, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/papaya-and-passion-fruit-show-unexpected-cancer-fighting-potential/

Plant and fruit compounds show promise in fighting infections and improving gut health, with new extraction techniques enhancing their effects.

Researchers from Brazil and Germany have investigated how phytochemicals from papaya, passion fruit, and various medicinal plant extracts work at the molecular level. Their findings were presented during FAPESP Week in Germany, highlighting potential health benefits and therapeutic applications.

Fruits and plant extracts are rich in bioactive compounds that may help prevent or treat various diseases. To better understand how these compounds work, researchers from universities and institutions in Brazil and Germany have conducted separate but complementary studies.

Some of their findings were presented on March 25 during a lecture session on the future of food and nutrition research, held at the Free University of Berlin as part of FAPESP Week Germany.

Ulrich Dobrindt, a professor at the University of Munich, explained that medicinal plants contain diverse phytochemicals, naturally occurring chemical compounds, that can combat bacterial infections through different mechanisms. These compounds help strengthen the body’s immune response. As a result, there is growing interest in using plant extracts to prevent and treat urinary tract infections (UTIs), one of the most common infections globally, which are typically treated with antibiotics.

“Although their anti-inflammatory, antipyretic and analgesic effects are well known, the active compounds of these plants – such as flavonoids, alkaloids and terpenoids – and their mechanisms of action on pathogen cells have yet to be characterized. Some are antibacterial, but many don’t have this effect,” said the researcher.

The table was attended by Bernadette de Melo Franco, Hans-Ulrich Humpf, Ulrich Dobrint, João Paulo Fabi and Peter Eisner.

 Credit: Elton Alisson/Agência FAPESP



In order to further their understanding, German scientists have developed infection models to study the effects of plant extracts on the innate immune response and on the epigenetic regulation of gene expression (biochemical processes that activate and deactivate genes). In bladder cells, for example, they are studying the effect of traditional plants with urological activity, according to the German pharmacopoeia.

In collaboration with researchers at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil, it was found that some aqueous plant extracts (from species such as Solidago gigantea and Equiseti herba) significantly reduced the adhesion and survival of Escherichia coli in human bladder epithelial cells.

“We observed a drastic reduction in the adhesion and proliferation of this bacterium in bladder cells,” said Ulrich.

Fruit fibers

In Brazil, a group associated with the Food Research Center (FoRC) – one of FAPESP’s Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) – has focused on the technological prospection and evaluation of the biological effects on humans of non-digestible water-soluble polysaccharides (bioactive polysaccharides), such as pectins.

Found in papaya, passion fruit, and citrus fruits, pectins make up a large portion of the fiber in these fruits and have been linked to a reduction in chronic non-communicable diseases.

However, some of the challenges in extracting these compounds from fruits such as papaya are that they ripen very quickly, resulting in softening of the pulp and chemical modification of the structures of its pectins, which are linked to biological effects such as modulation of the gut microbiota.

“During fruit ripening, enzymes are expressed that modify the structure of the pectins, reducing their beneficial biological effects. Passion fruit and citrus pectins, on the other hand, must be chemically modified in order to present beneficial activities in the intestine,” João Paulo Fabi, professor at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of São Paulo (FCF-USP) and coordinator of the project, told Agência FAPESP.

To do this, the Brazilian researchers developed techniques to extract pectin from the albedo of oranges and passion fruit – the white part between the peel and the pulp that is normally discarded when the fruit is processed to make juice – and to modify it in the laboratory to reduce its molecular complexity in order to increase its biological activity.

The development resulted in a patent for the process of extracting pectin from fleshy fruits such as papaya and chayote. A second patent covering the modification of pectin from passion fruit by-products is in the process of being filed.

“We already have a prototype for extracting and modifying these pectins on a laboratory scale. The idea is to obtain a product, such as a flour rich in modified pectin, that could be consumed as a supplement or food ingredient,” said Fabi.

In partnership with other groups, the researchers conducted animal studies to demonstrate the correlation between modified pectins and increased biological activity.

“These preclinical studies can serve as a basis for the development of clinical trials [with modified pectins] as adjuvants to chemotherapy treatment of colon cancer or even as beneficial modulators of the intestinal microbiota,” the researcher said.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Just Discovered Quantum Signals Inside Life Itself

BY HOWARD U, MARCH 30, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-just-discovered-quantum-signals-inside-life-itself/

A stunning discovery shows that quantum computation might be embedded in the very structure of life, enabling organisms to process information at mind-boggling speeds – even in warm, wet environments. 

Credit: SciTechDaily.com



Biological systems, once thought too chaotic for quantum effects, may be quietly leveraging quantum mechanics to process information faster than anything man-made.

New research suggests this isn’t just happening in brains, but across all life, including bacteria and plants.

Schrödinger’s Legacy Inspires a Quantum Leap

Over 80 years ago, theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger delivered a series of influential public lectures at Trinity College Dublin. Drawing from both modern physics and philosophical traditions like Schopenhauer and the Upanishads, these talks were later published in 1944 under the title “What is Life?”

Now, during the 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, Philip Kurian – a theoretical physicist and founding director of the Quantum Biology Laboratory (QBL) at Howard University in Washington, D.C. – has built on Schrödinger’s foundational ideas.

Using principles of quantum mechanics and recent QBL findings showing quantum optical properties in cytoskeletal filaments, Kurian has proposed a radically updated upper limit on the total information-processing capacity of carbon-based life throughout Earth’s history. His findings, published in Science Advances, also suggest a possible link between this biological limit and the computational bounds of all matter in the observable universe.

“This work connects the dots among the great pillars of twentieth-century physics – thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics—for a major paradigm shift across the biological sciences, investigating the feasibility and implications of quantum information processing in wetware at ambient temperatures,” said Kurian. “Physicists and cosmologists should wrestle with these findings, especially as they consider the origins of life on Earth and elsewhere in the habitable universe, evolving in concert with the electromagnetic field.”

The computational capacities of aneural organisms and neurons have been drastically underestimated by considering only classical information channels such as ionic flows and action potentials, which achieve maximum computing speeds of ∼103 ops/s.

However, it has been recently confirmed by fluorescence quantum yield experiments that large networks of quantum emitters in cytoskeletal polymers support superradiant states at room temperature, with maximum speeds of ∼1012 to 1013 ops/s, more than a billion times faster and within two orders of magnitude of the Margolus-Levitin limit for ultraviolet-photoexcited states.

 These protein networks of quantum emitters are found in both aneural eukaryotic organisms as well as in stable, organized bundles in neuronal axons. In this single-author research article in Science Advances, quantitative comparisons are made between the computations that can have been performed by all superradiant life in the history of our planet, and the computations that can have been performed by the entire matter-dominated universe with which such life is causally connected. 

Estimates made for human-made classical computers and future quantum computers with effective error correction motivate a reevaluation of the role of life, computing with quantum degrees of freedom, and artificial intelligences in the cosmos.

Credit: Quantum Biology Laboratory, Philip Kurian

The Quantum Challenge of Living Systems

The effects of quantum mechanics – the laws of physics that many scientists think apply at only small scales – are sensitive to disturbances. This is why quantum computers must be held at temperatures colder than outer space, and only small objects, such as atoms and molecules, typically display quantum properties. By quantum standards, biological systems are quite hostile environments: they’re warm and chaotic, and even their fundamental components – such as cells – are considered large.

But Kurian’s group last year discovered a distinctly quantum effect in protein polymers in aqueous solution, which survives these challenging conditions at the micron scale, and may also present a way for the brain to protect itself from degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and related dementias. Their results have suggested new applications and platforms for quantum computing researchers, and they represent a new way of thinking about the relationship between life and quantum mechanics.

In his single-author Science Advances paper, Kurian considered a mere trifecta of overarching assumptions: standard quantum mechanics, the relativistic speed limit set by light, and a matter-dominated universe at critical mass-energy density. “Combined with these rather innocuous premises, the remarkable experimental confirmation of single-photon superradiance in a ubiquitous biological architecture at thermal equilibrium opens up many new lines of inquiry across quantum optics, quantum information theory, condensed matter physics, cosmology, and biophysics,” said Professor Marco Pettini of Aix-Marseille University and the CNRS Center for Theoretical Physics (France), who was not associated with the work.

Quantum Signals at the Speed of Light

The key molecule enabling these remarkable properties is tryptophan, an amino acid found in many proteins that absorbs ultraviolet light and re-emits it at a longer wavelength. Large networks of tryptophan form in microtubules, amyloid fibrils, transmembrane receptors, viral capsids, cilia, centrioles, neurons, and other cellular complexes. The QBL’s confirmation of quantum superradiance in cytoskeletal filaments has the profound consequence that all eukaryotic organisms can use these quantum signals to process information.

To break down food, cells undergoing aerobic respiration use oxygen and generate free radicals, which can emit damaging, high-energy UV light particles. Tryptophan can absorb this ultraviolet light and re-emit it at a lower energy. And, as the QBL study found, very large tryptophan networks can do this even more efficiently and robustly because of their powerful quantum effects.

The standard model for biochemical signaling involves ions moving across cells or membranes, generating spikes in an electrochemical process that takes a few milliseconds for each signal. But neuroscience and other biological researchers have only recently become aware that this isn’t the whole story. Superradiance in these cytoskeletal filaments happens in about a picosecond – a millionth of a microsecond. Their tryptophan networks could be functioning as quantum fiber optics that allow eukaryotic cells to process information billions of times faster than chemical processes alone would allow.

“The implications of Kurian’s insights are staggering,” said Professor Majed Chergui of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) and Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste (Italy), who supported the 2024 experimental study. “Quantum biology – in particular our observations of superradiant signatures from standard protein spectroscopy methods, guided by his theory—has the potential to open new vistas for understanding the evolution of living systems, in light of photophysics.”

The Power of Aneural Life

By thinking of biological information processing primarily at the level of the neuron, many scientists overlook the fact that aneural organisms – including bacteria, fungi, and plants, which form the bulk of Earth’s biomass – perform sophisticated computations. And as these organisms have been on our planet for much longer than animals, they constitute the vast majority of Earth’s carbon-based computation.

“There are signatures in the interstellar media and on interplanetary asteroids of similar quantum emitters, which may be precursors to eukaryotic life’s computational advantage,” said Dante Lauretta, professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona and director of the Arizona Astrobiology Center, who was not associated with the work. “Kurian’s predictions provide quantitative bounds, beyond the colloquial Drake equation, on how superradiant living systems enhance planetary computing capacity. The remarkable properties of this signaling and information-processing modality could be a game-changer in the study of habitable exoplanets.”

Biology Meets Quantum Tech

This latest analysis has likewise drawn the attention of researchers in quantum computing, because the survival of fragile quantum effects in a “noisy” environment is of great interest to those who want to make quantum information technology more resilient. Kurian has had conversations with several quantum computing researchers who were surprised to find such connections in the biological sciences.

“These new performance comparisons will be of interest to the large community of researchers in open quantum systems and quantum technology,” said Professor Nicolò Defenu of the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in Switzerland, a quantum researcher who was not associated with the work. “It’s really intriguing to see a vital and growing connection between quantum technology and living systems.”

In the Science Advances article, Kurian explains and revisits foundational quantum properties and thermodynamic considerations, from a long line of physicists who made clear the essential link between physics and information. With his group’s discovery of UV-excited qubits in biological fibers, almost all life on Earth has the physical capacity to compute with controllable quantum degrees of freedom, allowing storage and manipulation of quantum information with error correction cycles far outpacing the latest lattice-based surface codes. “And all this in a warm soup! The quantum computing world should take serious notice,” Kurian said.

The work also piqued the attention of quantum physicist Seth Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and a pioneer in the study of quantum computing and the computational capacity of the universe. “I applaud Dr. Kurian’s bold and imaginative efforts to apply the fundamental physics of computation to the total amount of information processing performed by living systems over the course of life on Earth. It’s good to be reminded that the computation performed by living systems is vastly more powerful than that performed by artificial ones,” Lloyd said.

Life’s Place in the Universe’s Grand Design

“In the era of artificial intelligences and quantum computers, it is important to remember that physical laws restrict all their behaviors,” Kurian said. “And yet, though these stringent physical limits also apply to life’s ability to track, observe, know, and simulate parts of the universe, we can still explore and make sense of the brilliant order within it, as the cosmic story unfolds. It’s awe-inspiring that we get to play such a role.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Chuck's picture corner to March 30, 2025

It's been a wild week going from warm and sunny to cold wet and snowy. Not much to picture this week as I chafe at the bit to work in the gardens once again.

I can't seem to find a way to post the oldest pictures at the top so time wise the newest photos are at the top and the oldest at the bottom

If it wasn't for this latest snow ice storm I would stop putting bird feed out now that the grackles dominate the station

it's raining at 0.5c out and the icicles are growing

I awoke to a glassy landscape this morning.

my bought tomatoes (planted Mar 13) I pricked out of their seed flats yesterday into their cell flats

Friday's new snow

another sunset before the new snow

I got lots of poles from this cedar I planted yrs ago. Having topped it a decade ago.

Spring weather

the two starter flats in the middle of this pic are the tomatoes now planted up

Sunsets are quickly moving northward

Enjoy your day

and 

Find some cheer

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Antarctic Iceberg Breaks Away to Reveal a Never-Before-Seen Ecosystem

30 March 2025, By C. CASSELLA

https://www.sciencealert.com/antarctic-iceberg-breaks-away-to-reveal-a-never-before-seen-ecosystem

An entire ecosystem has been discovered nearly 230 meters deep at an area of the seabed recently covered by ice.

 (ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute)

A colossal iceberg the size of Chicago has broken from a floating glacier in Antarctica, and like a retractable roof at a stadium, the drifting structure has opened up a hidden habitat to the elements.

Researchers working on a ship in the region in early 2025 quickly hurried to the newly exposed site, which sits near the edge of a floating glacier known as the George VI Ice Shelf.

Satellite imagery showing the iceberg calved from George VI Ice Shelf in the Bellingshausen Sea on 19 January 2025.

 (Schmidt Ocean Institute/NASA)

Driving a remotely operated vehicle named SuBastian down into the blue, where the iceberg used to sit, an international team of scientists discovered a thriving ecosystem of sponges, anemones, hydroids, and coral never before seen by humans.

A group of sponges attached to a portion of the seabed that was until recently covered by the George VI Ice Shelf. 

(ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute)

"We seized upon the moment, changed our expedition plan, and went for it so we could look at what was happening in the depths below," recalls expedition co-chief scientist Patricia Esquete of the Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) and the Department of Biology (DBio) at the University of Aveiro, Portugal.

"We didn't expect to find such a beautiful, thriving ecosystem."

Very little is currently known about what lives on the Antarctic seabed below thick chunks of floating ice. Without sunlight or raining nutrients from above, these deep ecosystems are thought to survive purely on ocean currents, which slip below thick ice shelves.

A solitary hydroid drifts in currents approximately 380 meters deep at the recently exposed. 

(ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute)

It will probably take scientists years to describe all of the new species they have potentially found in this special habitat and the surrounding Bellingshausen Sea, let alone figure out how life survives beneath the cover of ice some 150 kilometers thick.

The tentacles of a solitary hydroid drift in currents 360 meters deep at the newly exposed seabed near the George VI Ice Shelf.

 (ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute)

"Based on the size of the animals, the communities we observed have been there for decades, maybe even hundreds of years," says Esquete.

Take the large sponge in the image below, for instance. Sponges often grow only a few centimeters a year, which means this individual could potentially be decades or even centuries old. It exists 230 meters deep, and until very recently, it was closed off from the rest of the world by a big icy roof.

A large sponge, a cluster of anemones, and other life is seen nearly 230 meters deep at an area of the seabed that was until recently covered by ice. 

(ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute)



For days on end, Su Bastian explored the newly exposed seafloor community, mapping the region and taking sediment cores and numerous samples for further analysis.

Co-leader of the expedition, Aleksandr Montelli from University College London, says this is the first time, to his knowledge, that "a comprehensive and interdisciplinary study like this was completed in a sub-ice shelf environment".

Deploying ROVs below floating glaciers is tricky business. Current navigation systems must rely on acoustics rather than GPS because of the thickness of the ice. Extreme pressures and temperatures merely add to the challenge.

A stalk of deep-sea coral found 1,200 meters deep in the recently revealed seabed area.

 (ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute)

"The science team was originally in this remote region to study the seafloor and ecosystem at the interface between ice and sea," says Schmidt Ocean Institute Executive Director, Jyotika Virmani.

"Being right there when this iceberg calved from the ice shelf presented a rare scientific opportunity. Serendipitous moments are part of the excitement of research at sea – they offer the chance to be the first to witness the untouched beauty of our world."

Patricia Esquete inspects a possible new species of isopod that was sampled from the bottom of the Bellingshausen Sea off Antarctica. 

(Alex Ingle/Schmidt Ocean Institute)



In a nearby region of the Bellingshausen Sea, which lost its ice shelf years before, the same team of researchers has found congregating corals, icefish, crabs, giant sea spiders, isopods jellyfish, and octopuses.

The findings suggest that when floating ice moves away from a seabed, new life quickly moves in.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

NASA Is Watching a Huge, Growing Anomaly in Earth's Magnetic Field

30 March 2025, By P. DOCKRILL

https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-is-watching-a-huge-growing-anomaly-in-earths-magnetic-field

The South Atlantic Anomaly.

 (NASA Goddard/YouTube)

NASA has been monitoring a strange anomaly in Earth's magnetic field: a giant region of lower magnetic intensity in the skies above the planet, stretching out between South America and southwest Africa.

This vast, developing phenomenon, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, has intrigued and concerned scientists for years, and perhaps none more so than NASA researchers.

The space agency's satellites and spacecraft are particularly vulnerable to the weakened magnetic field strength within the anomaly, and the resulting exposure to charged particles from the Sun.

The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) – likened by NASA to a 'dent' in Earth's magnetic field, or a kind of 'pothole in space' – generally doesn't affect life on Earth, but the same can't be said for orbital spacecraft (including the International Space Station), which pass directly through the anomaly as they loop around the planet at low-Earth orbit altitudes.

During these encounters, the reduced magnetic field strength inside the anomaly means technological systems onboard satellites can short-circuit and malfunction if they become struck by high-energy protons emanating from the Sun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpdQcw_52iM&t=1s

These random hits may usually only produce low-level glitches, but they do carry the risk of causing significant data loss, or even permanent damage to key components – threats obliging satellite operators to routinely shut down spacecraft systems before spacecraft enter the anomaly zone.

Mitigating those hazards in space is one reason NASA is tracking the SAA; another is that the mystery of the anomaly represents a great opportunity to investigate a complex and difficult-to-understand phenomenon, and NASA's broad resources and research groups are uniquely well-appointed to study the occurrence.

"The magnetic field is actually a superposition of fields from many current sources," geophysicist Terry Sabaka from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland explained in 2020.

The primary source is considered to be a swirling ocean of molten iron inside Earth's outer core, thousands of kilometers below the ground. The movement of that mass generates electrical currents that create Earth's magnetic field, but not necessarily uniformly, it seems.

A huge reservoir of dense rock called the African Large Low Shear Velocity Province, located about 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) below the African continent, is thought to disturb the field's generation, resulting in the dramatic weakening effect – which is aided by the tilt of the planet's magnetic axis.

"The observed SAA can be also interpreted as a consequence of weakening dominance of the dipole field in the region," said NASA Goddard geophysicist and mathematician Weijia Kuang in 2020.

"More specifically, a localized field with reversed polarity grows strongly in the SAA region, thus making the field intensity very weak, weaker than that of the surrounding regions."

Satellite data suggesting the SAA is dividing.

 (Division of Geomagnetism, DTU Space)



While there's much scientists still don't fully understand about the anomaly and its implications, new insights are continually shedding light on this strange phenomenon.

For example, one study led by NASA heliophysicist Ashley Greeley in 2016 revealed the SAA slowly drifts around, which was confirmed by subsequent tracking from CubeSats in research published in 2021.

It's not just moving, however. Even more remarkably, the phenomenon seems to be in the process of splitting in two, with researchers in 2020 discovering that the SAA appeared to be dividing into two distinct cells, each representing a separate center of minimum magnetic intensity within the greater anomaly.

Just what that means for the future of the SAA remains unknown, but in any case, there's evidence to suggest that the anomaly is not a new appearance.

A study published in July 2020 suggested the phenomenon is not a freak event of recent times, but a recurrent magnetic event that may have affected Earth since as far back as 11 million years ago.

If so, that could signal that the South Atlantic Anomaly is not a trigger or precursor to the entire planet's magnetic field flipping, which is something that actually happens, if not for hundreds of thousands of years at a time.

A more recent study published in 2024 found the SAA also has an impact on auroras seen on Earth.

Obviously, huge questions remain, but with so much going on with this vast magnetic oddity, it's good to know the world's most powerful space agency is watching it as closely as they are.

"Even though the SAA is slow-moving, it is going through some change in morphology, so it's also important that we keep observing it by having continued missions," said Sabaka.

"Because that's what helps us make models and predictions."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Intermittent fasting increases sex drive in male mice: An approach for low libido in humans?

MARCH 28, 2025, by German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-intermittent-fasting-sex-male-mice.html

Credit: CC0 Public Domain



Long-term fasting in 24-hour cycles increases the sex drive of male mice by lowering the concentration of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain. This effect is linked to a diet-induced deficiency of the precursor substance tryptophan—an amino acid that must be obtained through food.

Researchers from DZNE report on this in the journal Cell Metabolism, together with a Chinese team from Qingdao University and the University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. They suggest that similar mechanisms may exist in humans and view fasting as a potential approach for treating unwanted loss of sexual desire.

Fasting is a recurring subject of research because reduced food intake and thus calorie restriction has a variety of effects on the organism beyond the commonly observed weight loss. Dr. Dan Ehninger, research group leader at DZNE and lead author of the current study, and his team have also been working on this topic for quite some time.

"We are interested in the effects of fasting on aging. Using mice as a model, we investigate the underlying biological mechanisms. Our aim is to gain insights that may also be relevant to humans," says the Bonn-based scientist.

More offspring than expected

The research results now published are based on a fortuitous discovery, as Ehninger and his colleagues had originally set out to investigate something else.

Their aim was to examine how fasting affects the offspring of male mice. However, one particular finding steered their research in a new direction: aged male mice—senior individuals by human standards—that had fasted for extended periods produced an unusually large number of offspring.

Contrary to initial hypotheses, this phenomenon was not due to fasting effects on reproductive organs or the endocrine state of the animals. Age-related changes in the testes, reduced sperm quality and lower testosterone levels, for example, argued against high fertility.

"It was a bit of detective work to uncover the real cause," says Ehninger, whose research group collaborated on the current study with experts from Qingdao University and the University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences led by Prof. Yu Zhou.

"Eventually, we realized: it is a matter of behavior. The fasting males had significantly more sexual contacts than mice that could eat freely. In other words, these animals had an unusually high frequency of mating and, as a result, an unusually high number of offspring for their age. Their mating behavior more than compensated for the age-related physiological limitations."

Fasting in a 24-hour rhythm

Starting at two months of age, these male mice were subjected to a specific form of intermittent fasting. Their access to food followed a recurring 24-hour pattern: the animals were allowed to feed ad libitum for 24 hours, followed by 24 hours with access to water only.

During the 22-month fasting regimen, the males were housed together without any contact with females. They were later introduced to three-month-old females that had been raised without dietary restrictions.

Effect takes time

Increased mating behavior was also observed in younger mice. These males had also started intermittent fasting at the age of two months, but had followed this diet for only six months before being introduced to females. They, too, were more sexually active than age-matched peers that had been fed ad libitum. However, the effect was absent in other experimental groups—both young and old—that fasted for only a few weeks.

"For intermittent fasting to increase sex drive, it takes some time," says Zhou. "Based on our experiments, the minimum duration appears to be somewhere between six weeks and six months."

A question of serotonin

In the course of investigating the causes, attention eventually turned to neurotransmitters that influence sexual behavior. Some have a stimulating effect, while others act as inhibitors. Among the sexually active male mice, one factor stood out: serotonin—a chemical messenger generally associated with inhibitory effects—was present at unusually low levels.

"These mice were, so to speak, sexually uninhibited; the usual regulatory restraint was diminished," says Ehninger.

Serotonin is primarily produced in the gastrointestinal tract, but also in the brain, where it acts as a neurotransmitter mediating communication between neurons. However, its synthesis depends on the amino acid tryptophan, which must be obtained through the diet or released through the breakdown of the body's own protein stores, such as those found in muscle tissue.

Tryptophan is considered an essential amino acid, meaning that neither mice nor humans can synthesize it on their own. As a result, dietary intake plays a key role in regulating tryptophan levels in the body. It is, in fact, found in many common foods.

"The lack of serotonin was clearly a result of fasting," explains the DZNE researcher.

Is the fasting regimen relevant?

"All in all, the fasting mice consumed almost 15% fewer calories than the animals in the control group. This also roughly applies to their intake of tryptophan," says Zhou.

"However, it is currently unclear whether the reduction in serotonin levels is linked to our specific feeding regimen or would also occur with other types of fasting. Future studies will need to clarify this."

As the scientist notes, it is also possible that the effect could occur under a general caloric restriction, where food is continuously available but in reduced amounts.

A potential approach for therapy

"Chemical messengers also play an important role in regulating sexual behavior in humans. This applies in particular to serotonin," says Ehninger.

As he points out, this is evident, for example, in the use of SSRIs, a class of antidepressant drugs that increase serotonin levels. A potential side effect of this therapy is reduced libido. Conversely, lower serotonin levels are known to promote sexual desire.

"In view of this, I consider it very plausible that sexual desire in humans can be influenced by fasting—possibly not only in men, but also in women, since serotonin affects their libido as well." According to Ehninger, there are actually only a few scientific studies on the effects of fasting on human libido.

"In my opinion, it would make sense to investigate this in more detail. I see potential for therapeutic applications. A lack of sexual desire is not necessarily perceived as problematic—but some people suffer from it. This condition is known as 'hypoactive sexual desire disorder' and particularly affects older adults. Fasting could potentially serve as a useful addition to existing treatment options."

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After 7,000 years without light and oxygen in Baltic Sea mud, researchers bring prehistoric algae back to life

MARCH 28, 2025, by Leibniz-Institut für Ostseeforschung Warnemünde

https://phys.org/news/2025-03-years-oxygen-baltic-sea-mud.html

Fully active again even after around 7,000 years without light and oxygen in the Baltic Sea sediment: the diatom Skeletonema marinoi.

Credit: S. Bolius, IOW



A research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) was able to revive dormant stages of algae that sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea almost 7,000 years ago. Despite thousands of years of inactivity in the sediment without light and oxygen, the investigated diatom species regained full viability.

The study, published in The ISME Journal, was carried out as part of a collaborative research project PHYTOARK, which aims at a better understanding of the Baltic Sea's future by means of paleoecological investigations of the Baltic Sea's past.

Many organisms, from bacteria to mammals, can go into a kind of "sleep mode," known as dormancy, in order to survive periods of unfavorable environmental conditions.

They switch to a state of reduced metabolic activity and often form special dormancy stages with robust protective structures and internally stored energy reserves. This also applies to phytoplankton, microscopically small plants that live in the water and photosynthesize. Their dormant stages sink to the bottom of water bodies, where they are covered by sediment over time and preserved under anoxic conditions.

"Such deposits are like a time capsule containing valuable information about past ecosystems and the inhabiting biological communities, their population development and genetic changes," explains Sarah Bolius.

The IOW phytoplankton expert is the first author of the study, in which sediment cores from the Baltic Sea were analyzed specifically for viable phytoplankton dormant cells from the past.

"This approach bears the rather unusual name of 'resurrection ecology': Dormant stages that can be clearly assigned to specific periods of Baltic Sea history due to the clear stratification of the Baltic Sea sediment are to be brought back to life under favorable conditions, then they are genetically and physiologically characterized and compared with present-day phytoplankton populations," continues Bolius.

By analyzing other sediment components, so-called proxies, it will also be possible to draw conclusions about past salinity, oxygen and temperature conditions.

"By combining all this information, we aim to better understand how and why Baltic Sea phytoplankton has adapted genetically and functionally to environmental changes," the researcher explains.

Old genes, stable functions

The team led by Bolius, which included IOW experts as well as researchers from the Universities of Rostock and Constance, examined sediment cores taken from 240 meters water depth in the Eastern Gotland Deep during an expedition with the research vessel Elisabeth Mann Borgese in 2021.

In favorable nutrient and light conditions, viable algae could be awakened from dormancy from nine sediment samples and individual strains were isolated. The samples were taken from different sediment layers that represent a time span of around 7,000 years and thus the main climate phases of the Baltic Sea.

The diatom species Skeletonema marinoi was the only phytoplankton species that was revived from all samples. It is very common in the Baltic Sea and typically occurs during the spring bloom. The oldest sample with viable cells of this species was dated to an age of 6,871 ± 140 years.

"It is remarkable that the resurrected algae have not only survived 'just so,' but apparently have not lost any of their 'fitness,' i. e. their biological performance ability. They grow, divide and photosynthesize like their modern descendants," emphasizes Bolius.

This even applies to the cells from the roughly 7000-year-old sediment layer, which proved to be stable during cultivation with an average growth rate of about 0.31 cell divisions per day—a value similar to the growth rates of modern-day S. marinoi strains, says Bolius.

The measurement of photosynthetic performance also showed that even the oldest algae isolates can still actively produce oxygen—with average values of 184 micromoles of oxygen per milligram of chlorophyll per hour. "These are also values that are comparable to those of current representatives of this species," says Bolius.

The researchers also analyzed the genetic profiles of the resurrected algae using microsatellite analysis—a method in which certain short DNA segments are compared. The result: The samples from sediment layers of different ages formed distinctive genetic groups.

Firstly, this ruled out the possibility that cross contamination could have occurred during the cultivation of the strains from sediment layers of different ages. Secondly, this proves that successive populations of S. marinoi in the Baltic Sea have changed genetically over the millennia.

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Women can hear better than men: Researchers find amplitude more influenced by sex than age

MARCH 28, 2025, by U. of Bath

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-women-men-amplitude-sex-age.html

All TEOAE profiles and implementation of a median SNR values > 3 to select the range of frequencies for further analyses;

 b) Schematic representation of the TEOAE derived metrics analysed in the paper. 

Credit: Scientific Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-92763-6

Scientists have found that sex is the leading factor explaining differences in hearing sensitivity, with women having significantly more sensitive hearing than men.

Hearing problems are on the rise worldwide, and while hearing sensitivity is well known to decrease with age, little research has been done on the other biological and environmental factors that influence them, such as sex, ear side, language, ethnicity, and local environment.

The team, led by Dr. Patricia Balaresque from the Center for Biodiversity and Environmental Research (CRBE) in Toulouse (France) and including Professor Turi King from the University of Bath (UK), conducted hearing tests for 450 individuals across 13 global populations—Equador, England, Gabon, South Africa, and Uzbekistan.

These populations were selected to capture a wide range of ecological and cultural contexts, including underrepresented rural and non-European groups.

They investigated the sensitivity of the cochlea in the ear, looking at how it transmitted brain signals in response to different amplitudes and frequencies of sound by measuring so-called Transient-Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions (TEOAE).

It's already well known that people generally have better hearing in their right ear, compared with their left, and that hearing usually declines with age. However, the researchers were surprised by their results on the effects of sex and the environment.

Their findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, show that hearing amplitude is more influenced by sex than age, with women showing an average of two decibels more sensitive hearing than men across all the populations studied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfBzIxZskcU&t=1s  (15 min.)

The second most significant influence was the environment, which not only affected the response to volume but also the range of frequencies of sound perceived.

People living in forest areas had the highest hearing sensitivity and those living at high altitudes had the lowest.

They found that population, environment, and language all significantly contribute to the variation in hearing across human groups, but it wasn't clear whether this was due to the whole body being affected by the environment or due to long-term adaptations to varying soundscapes, noise levels, or exposure to pollution.

The researchers suggest that people living in forests could have higher sensitivity because they've adapted to soundscapes with lots of non-human sounds, where vigilance is essential for survival. Or it could be due to being exposed to lower levels of pollution.

People living at higher altitudes may have reduced sensitivity due to a number of reasons, including the impact of lower atmospheric pressure on measurements, potential sound reduction in high altitude environments, or physiological adaptations to lower oxygen levels.

The team also found a difference between urban and rural populations, with those living in cities having a shift towards higher frequencies, possibly due to filtering out low-frequency traffic noise.

Endogenous and exogenous factors modeling hearing sensibility. 

Credit: Scientific Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-92763-6

Professor Turi King, director of the Milner Center for Evolution at the University of Bath, collected samples from the UK participants while in her previous role at the University of Leicester, and is a co-author on the study. She said, "We know that hearing generally declines with age and that exposure to loud noise and chemicals such as tobacco smoke can damage hearing.

"We wanted to investigate in more detail what factors shape our hearing and the diversity of hearing sensitivities and see how our hearing has adapted to our local environment.

"We were surprised to find that women had two decibels more sensitive hearing across all the populations we measured, and this accounted for most of the variations between individuals. This could be due to different exposure to hormones during development in the womb, due to men and women having slight structural differences in cochlear anatomy.

"As well as having higher hearing sensitivity, women also perform better in other hearing tests and speech perception, indicating that their brains are also better at processing the information. We don't really know why this might be, but given the detrimental effect of noise on overall health such as sleep quality and increased cardiovascular disease, having more sensitive hearing in noisy environments may not always be a good thing."

Dr. Patricia Balaresque, who led the study at CRBE, said, "Our findings challenge existing assumptions and highlight the need to consider both biological and environmental factors when studying hearing. Identifying drivers behind natural hearing variation will improve our understanding of hearing loss and individual differences in noise tolerance."

Professor King said, "We know that humans are continuing to evolve, so the next question is whether our hearing is able to change in response to different environments generally or whether there are genetic adaptations involved."

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New Research Upends Traditional Views About Memory

By U. of Chicago, March 25, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/new-research-upends-traditional-views-about-memory/

New research from the University of Chicago reveals that memory-related brain activity continues to evolve even after something is learned, challenging traditional views of synaptic plasticity. A newer rule called Behavioral Timescale Synaptic Plasticity (BTSP), rather than the classic Hebbian model, better explains the dynamic shifts in place cell activity in the hippocampus during learning and familiar experiences. 

Credit: SciTechDaily.com

New research from the University of Chicago challenges long-held beliefs about how synaptic plasticity contributes to memory and learning.

As animals encounter new experiences, the connections between their neurons, known as synapses, adjust in strength depending on the brain activity those experiences trigger. This process, called synaptic plasticity, is widely believed by neuroscientists to play a key role in how memories are stored.

Despite its importance, the precise mechanisms that determine when and how much synapses change remain unclear. The traditional view holds that when two neurons frequently activate together, their connection strengthens, while firing separately weakens the link.

However, new research from the University of Chicago challenges this simple model. Focusing on the hippocampus, a region critical for memory, the study finds that other, less understood rules of synaptic plasticity may have a greater influence, offering a more accurate explanation of how brain activity shapes memory over time.

Patterns of activity and their neuronal representations change a lot as an animal becomes more familiar with a new environment or experience. Surprisingly, those patterns keep evolving even once something is learned, albeit more slowly.

“When you go into a room, it’s new at first but it quickly becomes familiar to you every time you come back,” said Mark Sheffield, PhD, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and the Neuroscience Institute at UChicago and senior author of the new study published in Nature Neuroscience. “So, you might expect that neuronal activity representing that room would settle and become stable, but it continues to change.

“These changes in representation, during learning and after, must be driven by synaptic plasticity, but what kind of plasticity exactly? It’s hard to know, because we don’t have the technology to measure that directly in behaving animals,” he said.
Shifting place cells

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded for the discovery of “place cells”: neurons in the hippocampus that activate only when an animal is at a certain spot in a room, called the “place field.” Different neurons have their place fields at different locations in the room, covering the entire environment and forming what’s known as a cognitive map.

In the new study, Antoine Madar, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in Sheffield’s lab, studied place cell activity recorded in the brains of mice as they scampered through different environments. The mice first ran through a familiar environment, then switched to an unfamiliar one. The researchers expected to see the same patterns of activity when the mice were in a place they knew, and different patterns as they learned a new environment. Instead, they saw that the activity was slightly different every time, and reasoned that these changes reflected synaptic plasticity.

To understand what drives these constant changes in neuronal representations, Madar built a computational model of hippocampal neurons, and then applied different plasticity rules to see if they would make place cells behave in the same patterns seen in the mouse data. Instead of the traditional “neurons that fire together wire together” rule, known as Hebbian Spike Timing-Dependent Plasticity (STDP), a different, non-Hebbian rule called Behavioral Timescale Synaptic Plasticity (BTSP) best explained the shifting place field dynamics.

Some changes in place cell activity were subtle; the cell fired in a slightly different location than the previous time. Others were more drastic, jumping to a completely different location. STDP could only explain the small gradual shifts, Madar said, but BTSP could explain the whole range of shifting trajectories, including the big nonlinear shifts.

“We know a lot about the physiology that supports synaptic plasticity, but we usually don’t know how important those things are for learning,” Madar said. “Our study provides evidence that BTSP is more impactful than STDP in shaping hippocampal activity during familiarization.”

BTSP is a fairly recent discovery, so Madar said that comparing their data and models allowed them to learn a lot about this new plasticity rule. For instance, they knew that BSTP is triggered by large jumps in the amount of calcium inside cells, but they didn’t know how frequently these jumps happen. The new research shows that while these jumps are rare, they occur more frequently when an animal is learning and forming new memories. The researchers also found that once a place field forms, the probability of these BTSP-triggering events follows a simple decaying pattern, with only slight variations across brain regions or familiarity levels.

“This is enough to explain the awesome diversity in individual place field dynamics that we observed,” Madar said.

Encoding the entire experience

Although the research shows that hippocampal activity is much more dynamic during memory formation than previously thought, it’s still not clear what purpose these shifting representations could serve.

“Continually evolving neuronal representations could help the brain distinguish between similar memories that happened in the same place but at different times, a very important process to avoid pathological memory confusion, a hallmark of multiple neurological and cognitive disorders,” Madar said.

Sheffield starts to sound Proustian when considering this question.

“Every time you come back into the room that you’re sitting in, you’re somehow able to track that you’re in the same room. But it’s a different day and a different time, right? You can never completely replicate an experience, and somehow the brain tracks all that,” he said.

“So, one idea is that these dynamics in memory representations are encoding just that. They’re encoding slight changes in the experience, like maybe you have a coffee one time and later you have lunch in the same room. These subtle differences in setting, odors, time — all these slight changes in experience could be encoded into the memory through the changes in these place fields. They’re not just encoding the environment; they’re encoding the entire experience that occurs there.”

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