Friday, 29 December 2023

Health and Wellness News: Hide the saltshaker: Adding sodium regularly to food increases risk of chronic kidney disease

Hide the saltshaker: Adding sodium regularly to food increases risk of chronic kidney disease


Excess salt can come from the intake of some fish and meat.


By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, Jerusalem Post, DECEMBER 29,2023
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-779999

 Salt shaker, used to add salt to food. But according to this study, that might not be the healthiest choice (Illustrative). (photo credit: Aftab Uzzaman/Flickr)


It’s well known that adding salt regularly to your food raises the risk of hypertension and the resultant risks of heart attacks and strokes. But now, researchers in New Orleans have found that it also significantly increases the danger of triggering chronic kidney disease. 

People can get excess salt also from preserved and other foods like pickles and luncheon and cured meats including processed turkey or chicken, bologna, salami, corned beef, pastrami, liverwurst, frankfurters, sausages, dried meat and dried fish.

Dr. Lu Qi of Tulane University in Louisiana and colleagues studied the records of 465,000 people who were asked how often then added sodium to foods – usually at the table. The self-reported frequency of adding salt to foods was found to be linked to a higher risk of lifelong kidney disease that could be minimized by keeping the salt shaker out of reach. 

“To our knowledge, this is the first study indicating that higher self-reported frequency of adding salt to foods is associated with a higher chronic kidney disease risk in the general population,” they wrote. It was published in the journal JAMA Network under the title “Self-Reported Frequency of Adding Salt to Food and Risk of Incident Chronic Kidney Disease.” 

“The self-reported frequency of adding salt to foods could reflect a person’s long-term salt taste preference, and salt intake has been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Whether self-reported adding of salt to foods is associated with increased risk of chronic kidney disease remained unknown.”

Who was part of the study's overall sample?

The team studied people aged 37 to 73 included in the UK Biobank of health data. Participants were enrolled from 2006 to 2010 and prospectively followed up for disease diagnosis. Participants were asked if they added salt to their food never or rarely, sometimes, usually, or always. 

They were checked for a number of potential confounders including age, sex, race and ethnicity, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) by the kidneys, body mass index (BMI), smoking status, alcohol drinking status, regular physical activity, high cholesterol, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, immune disease, and drugs that could interfere with kidney function. 

Those with higher self-reported frequency of adding salt to foods were more likely to have a higher BMI and a lower eGFR – a measure of how well your kidneys are working. Those who added salt to their foods were also more likely than those who did not add salt to their foods to be current smokers and have diabetes or cardiovascular disease. In addition, having a lower BMI and regular physical activity significantly lowered the risk of chronic kidney failure. 

The team concluded that “reducing the frequency of adding salt to foods at the table might be a valuable strategy to lower lifelong kidney disease risk in the general population.”




THIS PAGE WAS POSTED BY SPUTNIK ONE OF THE SPUTNIKS ORBIT BLOG

PLEASE RECOMMEND THIS PAGE AND FOLLOW US
By at No comments:

Thursday, 28 December 2023

Western Cascades landscapes in Oregon historically burned more often than previously thought

Dec. 27, 2023, by Steve Lundeberg, Oregon State U.


Fire history from 1450 to 1950 ce at 16 data collection sites across the upper Middle Fork study area. Upper panels show individual tree ring series (horizontal lines), tree establishment dates (small points), crossdated fire years (small triangles), crossdated fire years that initiated cohorts (large triangles), and establishment dates that constitute distinct tree cohorts (shaded polygons) for each site. Sites are ordered from the fewest to the most fires reconstructed. Tree ring series and establishment dates are color coded by species (ABPR/MA, Abies procera/magnifica; CADE, Calocedrus decurrens; PILA, Pinus lambertiana; PIPO, Pinus ponderosa; PSME, Pseudotsuga menziesii; THPL, Thuja plicata; TSHE, Tsuga heterophylla; and TSME, Tsuga mertensiana). Two establishment dates that preceded 1450 ce are shown on the far left of the upper panels. Bottom panel shows the number of sites recording fire in each year as red bars (minimum of zero and maximum of six sites recording fire between 1450 and 1950) and the total samples capable of recording fire in a given year as a blue line (minimum of 2 and maximum of 216 samples capable of recording fire between 1450 and 1950). 
Credit: Ecosphere (2023). DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.4735

Forests on the west slope of Oregon's Cascade Range experienced fire much more often between 1500 and 1895 than had been previously thought, according to new research by scientists at Oregon State University.

The findings provide important insight, the authors say, into how landscapes might adapt to climate change and future fire regimes.

James Johnston of the OSU College of Forestry led the study, which was published in Ecosphere.

"Wildland fire is a fundamental forest ecosystem process," he said. "With temperatures rising and more and more area burning, we need to know as much as we can about the long-term variability in fire."

Johnson and collaborators at Oregon State, the University of Oregon and the U.S. Forest Service gathered tree ring data at 16 sites in the southern part of the Willamette National Forest, in the general vicinity of Oakridge.

Trees form scars after cambial cells are killed by wildfire heat, he said. These scars are partially or completely covered by new tissue as a tree grows, and tree rings tell the story of when the fire exposure occurred.

Using chain saws, the scientists collected samples from 311 dead trees—logs, short snags and stumps. Seventy-three percent of the samples were coastal Douglas-fir, and 13% were ponderosa pine. The remainder were sugar pine, noble fir, red fir, incense cedar, western red cedar, mountain hemlock and western hemlock.

"We cross-dated a total of 147,588 tree rings and identified 672 cambial injuries, 479 of which were fire scars," Johnston said. "The scars allowed us to reconstruct 130 different fire years that occurred at one or more of the 16 sites before a federal policy of fire suppression went into effect early in the 20th century."

The main takeaways:Fire was historically far more frequent in western Oregon Cascades landscapes than previously believed.
Indigenous peoples likely used fire to manage large areas for resources and probably altered landscapes and fire regimes in significant ways.
There are important present-day restoration opportunities for fire-adapted systems in western Oregon.

"Also, our study produced little evidence of the kind of large, wind-driven fires that in 2020 burned 50,000 to 75,000 hectares in the watersheds immediately to the north and south of our study area," Johnston said. "Only 39% of fire years were recorded at more than one site, only 11% were recorded at more than two sites, and only 3% at more than three sites—in a study area of 37,000 acres, that strongly suggests that most historical fires were relatively small."

Across all 16 sites, the average fire return interval—the length of time between fires—was as short as six years and as long as 165. In general the differences in those averages were strongly associated with vapor pressure deficit or VPD, basically the drying power of the atmosphere. The higher the VPD, the shorter the time between fires.

However, historical fire in stands seral to Douglas-fir—stands that, if left alone, would end up with Douglas-fir as the dominant tree species—was much less strongly linked with dry air.

"We interpret the extraordinary tempo of fire in those stands, and the climate pattern associated with fire there, to indicate Indigenous fire stewardship," Johnston said. "We saw some of the most frequent fire return intervals ever documented in the Pacific Northwest, but the enormous volume of biomass that these moist forests accumulate over time is often partly attributed to long intervals between wildfire."

The authors note that humans have occupied the southern part of what is now the Willamette National Forest for at least 10,000 years. A variety of Indigenous cultures, including the Molalla, Kalapuya, Tenino, Wasco, Klamath, Northern Paiute and Cayuse, probably used the area for trading, hunting and the collection of plants.

"Removals happened very quickly, with most Native people taken to the Grand Ronde, Warm Springs and Klamath reservations," said co-author David Lewis, a member of the Grand Ronde Tribe and an assistant professor of anthropology and Indigenous studies in OSU's College of Liberal Arts. "Removal of the tribes took their cultural stewardship practices, their use of annual cultural fires, from the land, radically altering how the forests were managed."

By 1856, most remaining members of Willamette Valley and western Oregon Cascades tribes had been forcibly removed to reservations. Extensive clearcut logging on the Willamette National Forest started in the late 1940s and continued for four decades.

"Now, Forest Service managers want fine-grained information about forest vegetation and historical disturbance dynamics to manage lands in ways that promote resilience to climate change," Johnston said.


Recommend this post and follow
The Life of Earth
By at No comments:

Extremely Rare Rainbow Clouds Lit Up Arctic Skies For 3 Days: The Photos Are Breathtaking

28 Dec. 2023, By M. GUENOT, BUSINESS INSIDER
https://www.sciencealert.com/extremely-rare-rainbow-clouds-lit-up-arctic-skies-for-3-days-the-photos-are-breathtaking
Polar stratospheric clouds over Norway. 
(Ramunė Šapailaitė/Facebook)

Arctic observers were granted a rare spectacle when rare rainbow-colored clouds streaked the skies ahead of the holiday season.

A cold wave sweeping through the Arctic brought the rare polar stratospheric clouds within view for at least three days between December 18 and December 20, per the website spaceweather.com.

Polar stratospheric cloud above Oslo, Norway.
(Glenn Pettersen/Getty Images)

"The clouds were visible in the sky all day, but the colors really exploded just before sunset," said Norway-based photographer Ramune Sapailaite, per spaceweather.com.

Observers shared pictures with spaceweather.com from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Alaska, and even as far south as Scotland, per the news outlet Live Science.

Polar stratospheric clouds in Norway. 
(Ramunė Šapailaitė/Facebook)

The clouds, which also go by the name of nacreous clouds, appear only in extremely cold weather. They are created by tiny ice crystals that scatter sunlight creating little rainbows in the sky.

Polar stratospheric clouds over Lofoten Islands, Norway.
 (Caven Images/Getty Images)

The crystals are suspended in the sky at an extremely high altitude, about 9.3 and 15.5 miles above the surface.

That's higher than clouds usually form, but at extremely cold temperatures, water vapor can start to coalesce, creating the crystals, per Live Science.

Polar stratospheric clouds in Norway.
 (Ramunė Šapailaitė/Facebook)

They are usually only spotted a handful of times a year, most typically in January.

So seeing them for several days in a row in December is a very rare treat, per spaceweather.com.



Recommend this post and follow
The Life of Earth
By at No comments:

Health and Wellness News: How testing wastewater could help you predict viruses in the future

 

How testing wastewater could help you predict viruses in the future


How the introduction of comprehensive wastewater surveillance could become a part of our normal public health infrastructure.


By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, Jerusalem Post, DECEMBER 26, 2023 
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-779596

 Wastewater is seen inside a Central Marin Sanitation Agency facility in San Rafael, California, U.S., March 29, 2023 (photo credit: REUTERS/NATHAN FRANDINO)


During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Health Ministry in Jerusalem sent inspectors to take samples of sewage in some places to determine whether the virus had spread to certain localities, but it didn’t cover all locations and was not ongoing. 

In the not-so-distant future, however, people in various parts of the world could be able to tune in to their favorite news source for an update on their community health status, just as they check on the local weather forecast.

The community health status is similar to the color-coded Doppler weather data that provides meteorologists with information about rain, snow or hail, its motion and intensity that they use to check specific areas where dangerous weather conditions exist. Having this information has proven to be a valuable tool to protect life and property.


“The new community health report we have developed shows and analyzes for the first time the human virome – all the known human viruses – that are circulating in the community, by regularly and comprehensively scrutinizing public wastewater,” said microbiology Prof. Anthony Maresso at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. “Knowing the up-and-down patterns within the viral landscape of human wastewater, the changes in the relative proportions of the different viruses in time and by location, is increasingly proving to be a powerful tool to improve our understanding of outbreaks, transmission and the effects on overall population health,” he said,

Just like people periodically visit their physician to conduct a wellness exam that could detect important health changes such as early onset of diseases, community wastewater surveillance assesses the health of the community by analyzing changes in the human virome that could point at potential emerging diseases. Texas is the first in the US to develop and implement a complete pipeline to conduct wastewater surveillance on the human virome from sample collection, analysis and interpretation to producing periodical reports on the health of communities that are sent to public health officials.

“This is the work of the newly formed Texas Wastewater Consortium. To our knowledge, it’s the first working group to push for the introduction of comprehensive wastewater surveillance as part of our normal public health infrastructure,” Maresso said. 

In their ground-breaking study published in the journal Nature Communications under the title “Wastewater sequencing reveals community and variant dynamics of the collective human virome,”  Maresso and his colleagues showed that they can detect changes in viral trends in wastewater weeks before they are detected in the clinic. “Think of it as a very fancy smoke alarm that brings to the attention of scientists, physicians and public health authorities the progressively increasing proportions of a particular virus strain in the community, one they need to follow closely, assessing its outbreak potential,” said first author Assistant Prof. Michael Tisza. “For instance, we knew about monkeypox well before most clinical settings knew about it because we detected it in wastewater.”

The researchers believe that this valuable technology is going to be one way they can get ahead of not only all known viruses that can be shed in wastewater, but also to potentially get an upper hand on what is brewing – the next virus that we don’t yet know about.

“Had we had this in place during the time COVID-19 was emerging, we may have seen some coronavirus sequences that alerted us of the new sequence of the COVID-19 virus that began spreading in 2019 and exploded into a pandemic,” Maresso said.

Polio was the first virus to be monitored in wastewater. In the early 1940s, Yale University scientists showed that poliovirus, which had been previously shown to be present in stool samples from infected people, could be detected in wastewater.

“SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is shed in human stools and in urine at very high levels,” Maresso said. “This finding revived the idea of analyzing wastewater to monitor the levels of the virus as a reliable indicator of community outbreaks. His team had used very laborious methods to detect the polio virus that offered little sensitivity, but now we have highly sensitive technologies that analyze viral genetic materials such as PCR and genetic sequencing.” This was a breakthrough, because clinical testing such as the analysis of nasal swabs has a lag time before the results are available, sometimes a week.

“Also, as the pandemic progressed, people tired of testing, so scientists, physicians and public health officials did not have accurate information of the community viral load,” Maresso said. “On the other hand, analyzing wastewater, because everybody contributes to that, is a good, independent, unbiased way of monitoring community load of the virus.”

In the journal paper, they described how they developed and implemented a community health report for the cities of Houston and El Paso. The goal is for the program to be statewide. Before this work, only a few viruses were ever detected in wastewater. It was three different tests for three different viruses. Our method is one-test-for-all 3,153 different viruses in the panel, as well as possibly new mutations in these viruses. Basically, we search for all the virome that is possible.”

This approach enabled them to identify more than 450 distinct disease-causing viruses from 28 viral families, most of which have never been detected in such samples. Sequencing reads of established pathogens and emerging viruses correlate to clinical data sets of SARS-CoV-2, influenza virus and monkeypox outlining the public health utility of this approach. “We may be able to tell people, for example, that flu season is a few weeks early this year, so you should get your shot early,” Maresso concluded. 





THIS PAGE WAS POSTED BY SPUTNIK ONE OF THE SPUTNIKS ORBIT BLOG

PLEASE RECOMMEND THIS PAGE AND FOLLOW US
By at No comments:

Wednesday, 27 December 2023

Intermittent Fasting Seems to Result in Dynamic Changes to The Human Brain

27 Dec. 2023, By DAVID NIELD

(Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank/Getty Images)

Scientists looking to tackle our ongoing obesity crisis have made an important discovery: Intermittent fasting leads to significant changes both in the gut and the brain, which may open up new options for maintaining a healthy weight.

Researchers from China studied 25 volunteers classed as obese over a period of 62 days, during which they took part in an intermittent energy restriction (IER) program – a regime that involves careful control of calorie intake and fasting on some days.

Not only did the participants in the study lose weight – 7.6 kilograms (16.8 pounds) or 7.8 percent of their body weight on average – there was also evidence of shifts in the activity of obesity-related regions of the brain, and in the make-up of gut bacteria.

"Here we show that an IER diet changes the human brain-gut-microbiome axis," says health researcher Qiang Zeng from the Second Medical Center and National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases in China.

"The observed changes in the gut microbiome and in the activity in addiction-related brain regions during and after weight loss are highly dynamic and coupled over time."

Right now it's not clear what causes these changes, or whether the gut is influencing the brain or vice versa. However, we do know that the gut and the brain are closely linked, so treating certain regions of the brain could be a way to control food intake.

The changes in brain activity, spotted via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, were in regions known to be important in the regulation of appetite and addiction – including the inferior frontal orbital gyrus.

What's more, the gut microbiome changes, analyzed via stool samples and blood measurements, were linked to particular brain regions.

For example, the bacteria Coprococcus comes and Eubacterium hallii were negatively associated with activity in the left inferior frontal orbital gyrus, an area involved in executive function, including our willpower when it comes to food intake.

"The gut microbiome is thought to communicate with the brain in a complex, two-directional way," says medical scientist Xiaoning Wang from the State Clinic Center for Geriatrics in China.

"The microbiome produces neurotransmitters and neurotoxins which access the brain through nerves and the blood circulation. In return the brain controls eating behavior, while nutrients from our diet change the composition of the gut microbiome."

More than a billion people worldwide are now thought to be obese, which leads to an increased risk for a multitude of different health issues, from cancer to heart disease. Knowing more about how our brains and guts are dependent on each other could make a huge difference in effectively preventing and reducing obesity.

"The next question to be answered is the precise mechanism by which the gut microbiome and the brain communicate in obese people, including during weight loss," says biomedical scientist Liming Wang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"What specific gut microbiome and brain regions are critical for successful weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight?"


Recommend this post and follow
The Life of Earth
By at No comments:

Frozen Time Capsule: 800-Year-Old Ice Core Reveals Surprising Truths About Ocean Life

By U. OF WASHINGTON,  Dec. 26, 2023


A study by the University of Washington, analyzing an 800-year-old ice core, suggests that phytoplankton populations in the North Atlantic have remained stable since the industrial era. This finding challenges previous assumptions of a significant decline and highlights the impact of industrial pollutants on atmospheric chemistry. 
Credit: SciTechDaily.com

New research reveals that North Atlantic phytoplankton populations have been stable since the industrial era, contradicting previous studies of decline.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of declining phytoplankton in the North Atlantic may have been greatly exaggerated. A prominent 2019 study used ice cores in Antarctica to suggest that marine productivity in the North Atlantic had declined by 10% during the industrial era, with worrying implications that the trend might continue.

But new research led by the University of Washington shows that marine phytoplankton — on which larger organisms throughout the marine ecosystem depend — may be more stable than believed in the North Atlantic. The team’s analysis of an ice core going back 800 years shows that a more complex atmospheric process may explain the recent trends.

The study was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Satellites can detect reflections off chlorophyll in organisms that use this molecule for photosynthesis. This image shows reflections from phytoplankton in the North Atlantic that are swirling with ocean currents. While a previous ice core study concluded that phytoplankton in the North Atlantic had dropped by 10% since the mid-1800s, new research finds these populations may be stable after all. 
Credit: NASA

Understanding Phytoplankton’s Role

Tiny floating photosynthetic organisms known as phytoplankton form the base of the marine ecosystem. These microscopic creatures are also important to the planet as a whole, producing roughly half the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere.

Since phytoplankton are hard to count, scientists attempt to measure their abundance in other ways. Phytoplankton emit dimethyl sulfide, an odorous gas that gives beaches their distinctive smell. Once airborne, the dimethyl sulfide converts to methanesulfonic acid, or MSA, and sulfate. These eventually fall out onto land or snow, making ice cores one way to measure past population sizes.

Becky Alexander in the cold room of the UW’s IsoLab with ice drilled from an ice sheet that preserves atmospheric conditions from previous centuries. Her team analyzed an ice core from central Greenland to show that emissions from photosynthetic marine organisms appear stable since the mid-1800s. 
Credit: Mark Stone/University of Washington

Insights From Greenland Ice Cores

“Greenland ice cores show a decline in MSA concentrations over the industrial era, which was concluded to be a sign of declining primary productivity in the North Atlantic,” said lead author Ursula Jongebloed, a UW doctoral student in atmospheric sciences. “But our study of sulfate in a Greenland ice core shows that MSA alone can’t tell us the whole story when it comes to primary productivity.”

Since the mid-1800s, factories and tailpipes have also been spewing sulfur-containing gases into the air. Those gases have slightly different forms of sulfur atoms that make it possible to distinguish the marine and land-based sources in ice cores.

A Deeper Historical Perspective

The new study goes further back than the previous study by measuring several sulfur-containing molecules in an ice core from central Greenland with layers spanning the years 1200 to 2006. The authors show that human-generated pollutants changed the atmosphere’s chemistry. This, in turn, altered the fate of the gases emitted by phytoplankton.

“When looking at the ice cores, we found that sulfate derived from phytoplankton increased during the industrial era,” Jongebloed said. “In other words, the decline in MSA is ‘offset’ by the simultaneous increase in phytoplankton-derived sulfate, indicating that phytoplankton-derived sulfur emissions have remained stable overall.”

Ursula Jongebloed in UW’s IsoLab uses a machine, called a stable isotope mass spectrometer, to measure sulfur isotopes in an ice core from Greenland. Sulfur isotopes in ice cores reveal how sulfate sources — including marine phytoplankton, fossil fuel burning, and volcanic emissions — have changed over previous centuries. 
Credit: Mark Stone/University of Washington

Implications and Future Research

When that balance is included in the calculations, the phytoplankton populations seem fairly stable since the mid-1800s. The researchers caution, however, that marine ecosystems remain under threat from many directions.

“Measuring both MSA and phytoplankton-derived sulfate gives us a fuller picture of how the emissions from marine primary producers have changed — or not changed — over time,” said senior author Becky Alexander, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences.

“Ice core measurements along with other independent estimates of phytoplankton abundance (such as chlorophyll measurements) and paired with modeling studies (which help us estimate how atmospheric chemistry and climate change over time) can help us understand how marine productivity has changed in the past and how productivity might change in the future.”



Recommend this post and follow
The Life of Earth
By at No comments:

The Natural World News: Chimps and bonobos can recognize long-lost friends and family – for decades

 

Chimps and bonobos can recognize long-lost friends and family – for decades


Bonobos and chimps are able to recognize old pals for years to come, asking each other.


By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, Jerusalem Post, DECEMBER 25, 2023 
https://www.jpost.com/science/article-779452

  Extensive social memory had previously been documented only in dolphins and up to 20 years. Now, scientists believe chimps and bonobos may be able to remember even longer.
(photo credit: LAURA SIMONE LEWIS)

It’s said that elephants never forget, that they can find watering holes they visited some years ago and that they “mourn” dead relatives’ bodies for days before continuing their wandering. Dolphins also have been found to have good memories. 

But pachyderms and the maritime mammals have been outdone by great apes like bonobos – which entrance visitors at the entrance to the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo and many other places here and around the world – and chimpanzees in recognizing group mates they haven’t seem for over two decades. University of California at Berkeley researchers who have been studying these privates say they have evidence of what’s believed to be the longest-lasting nonhuman memory ever recorded. 

The findings also provide backing to the theory that long-term memory in humans, chimpanzees and bonobos probably comes from our shared common ancestor that lived between six million and nine million years ago.

The team used infrared eye-tracking cameras to record where bonobos and chimps looked intently when they were shown side-by-side images of other bonobos or chimps. One picture was of a stranger; the other was of a bonobo or chimp that the participant had lived with for a year or more. 

Bonobos and chimps that participated in the study looked significantly longer at pictures of their previous groupmates (credit: LAURA SIMONE LEWIS)
Bonobos and chimps that participated in the study looked significantly longer at pictures of their previous groupmates (credit: LAURA SIMONE LEWIS)

Participants’ eyes lingered significantly longer on images of those with whom they had previously lived, the researchers found, suggesting some degree of recognition. In one case, a bonobo named Louise had not seen her sister, Loretta or nephew Erin, for over 26 years. But when researchers showed Louise their images, her eyes homed in on the photos. 

“These animals have a rich recognition of each other,” said Laura Simone Lewis, a postdoctoral fellow in Berkeley's psychology department and lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences under the title “Bonobos and chimpanzees remember familiar conspecifics for decades.” 

They also found that the primates looked longer at individuals with whom they had had more positive, as compared with antagonistic, relationships. In other words, they seemed to recognize friends more than foes. 

“We don’t know exactly what that representation looks like, but we know that it lasts for years,” she noted, “This study is showing us not how different we are from other apes, but how similar we are to them and how similar they are to us.”

The findings expand what was known about long-term memory in animals and also raise questions central to evolutionary biology and psychology – most importantly was how did humans develop such good long-term memory.

Connecting the dots

Understanding the links between our vivid, episodic memory and the recall of other animals has long been a research puzzle. Previous studies have shown that ravens, for example, can recall social relationships in uncanny ways. Social memory beyond just a few years had previously been documented only in dolphins, which studies have found can recognize vocalizations for up to 20 years. 

“That, up until this point, has been the longest long-term social memory ever found in a nonhuman animal,” Lewis said of the dolphin research. “What we're showing here is that chimps and bonobos may be able to remember that long – or longer.”

Lewis’s project was one born from a longtime observation among primate researchers who often go months or years between seeing the animals they study. When they returned, bonobos and chimpanzees acted as if they were picking up right where they left off – so the researchers decided to see if that memory hunch was true. 

To get answers, the team began what at times was equal parts genealogy and scrapbooking.

First, they needed to identify bonobos and chimps that had been separated from what we might view as friends or family. Sometimes, members of their group had been relocated to other zoos to prevent in-breeding. Other times, a sibling or elder may have died while they all lived together. 

With a list of pairs in hand, sprinkled across zoos in Europe and Japan, researchers needed to track down photos to show the participants. It couldn’t be just any snapshot, however; they needed a quality image taken from around the time that the pair last saw one another. This was somewhat easy for the animals that were separated recently in an era rich with high-quality photos, but it proved much trickier for others like Louise's relatives who were separated almost three decades ago.

The team ended up being able to show images to 26 bonobos and chimpanzees. After setting up a computer system with sensitive cameras and non-invasive eye-tracking tools, participating animals were allowed to enter the room voluntarily. Their compensation was a bottle filled with diluted juice; bonobos and chimps love fruit juice and eat lots of fruit in the wild.

As they sipped, the screens in front of them alternated between pairs of images. The cameras monitored where the animals’ eyes wandered. And the computer logged the time spent on each image down to a fraction of a second – data the team would comb through months later.

“It was a really simple test: Do they look longer at their previous groupmate, or are they looking longer at the stranger?” Lewis said. “And we found that, yes, they are looking significantly longer at the pictures of their previous group mates.”

Lewis said she and others were especially curious about how the participants might react when they were shown an image of a relative they hadn’t seen in years. As the project began, zookeepers monitored the animals for signs of stress – but they didn’t show any markers of agitation. Instead, when images of a once-close relative appeared on the screen, the participants would sometimes stop drinking the juice entirely, seemingly mesmerized by the image. 

The study showed that something is happening with the mind in recognizing the images. It was unclear what kind of memories they were. Could they have been rich, episodic narratives like humans have? Might there have been some fleeting curiosity about why they saw this? Can they extrapolate what those relatives might look like today? “This study is reminding us how similar we are to other species walking on the planet,” Lewis concluded, “and how important it is to protect them.” 





THIS PAGE WAS POSTED BY SPUTNIK ONE OF THE SPUTNIKS ORBIT BLOG

PLEASE RECOMMEND THIS PAGE AND FOLLOW US

By at No comments:

Tuesday, 26 December 2023

Expert Reveals a Surprising Link Between Oral Health And Your Brain

26 December 2023, By BEN ATKIN

(Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

A new study in Japan has once again raised questions about the relationship between oral health and brain health; which most experts agree are surprisingly interconnected.

It investigated whether problems in the mouth like periodontitis (gum disease) and tooth loss can increase the risk of neurodegenerative disorders like stroke, Alzheimer's, and other forms of dementia.

The results were clear: both issues are associated with a faster rate of atrophy in the hippocampus – the part of the brain that governs memory, learning, and emotion. This is a significant result, however it is not the first time such a link has been made.

In March, a US study of more than 40,000 adults enrolled in the UK Biobank research project found that poor oral health appears to be a key risk factor for stroke and dementia.

In a 2019 literature review, another set of researchers concluded that "collectively, experimental findings indicate that the connection between oral health and cognition cannot be underestimated".

This growing body of research has huge implications both for our understanding of the body, and for preventative intervention strategies in public health.

Satoshi Yamaguchi, lead author of the Japanese study, has reflected on his findings: "retaining more healthy teeth without periodontal disease may help to protect brain health… Regular dental visits are important to control the progression of periodontal disease."

In other words, it is not enough to simply maintain a full set of teeth to stay healthy. We must also keep our mouths free from periodontal disease, or else the brain could suffer the cost.

This is not a mere academic concern. The World Health Organization estimates that severe periodontal disease, characterized by bleeding/swollen gums and damage to the supporting tissue of the teeth, impacts about 19 percent of the global adult population.

For context, this means more than 1 billion people could be at risk of early cognitive decline due to the state of their mouths.

Worse, the nature of the relationship between the mouth and brain appears to be bidirectional, meaning that cognitive decline tends to lead to poorer oral health habits as well.

Indeed, neurologic disorders like Alzheimer's can make it difficult to properly care for the teeth. People with cognitive decline may forget to brush, or may struggle to cope with routine trips to the dentist. The result can be a vicious circle in which cognitive decline leads to a fall in dental standards, which only exacerbates the condition.

To prevent this snowball effect, policymakers and health experts must intervene early to nip the problem in the bud.

By emphasizing the value of brushing, flossing, visiting the dentist, and making sound dietary choices wherever possible, they can help older people to safeguard their mouths against plaque and bacteria – and hence reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disease.

Equally, for those who are already showing signs of dementia, families and caregivers can help dementia patients build a robust oral health routine tailored specifically to them.

This might involve scheduled reminders on the phone to brush and floss, or providing specialist dental tools like electric toothbrushes – which can be easier to operate. Some dentists even offer home visits for dementia patients that struggle to attend appointments on their own.

Encouraging patients to adopt other preventative habits, such as using sugar-free chewing gum between meals, might also have an impact. Research suggests that regularly chewing SFG (alongside brushing) can help reduce the risk of cavities. It is also easy to leave packets of gum lying around in eyesight of patients, negating the need for constant reminders to start chewing.

These kinds of small, consistent lifestyle changes can make a huge difference over time, and they are considerably easier to maintain than more infrequent and intrusive dental interventions.

The fact is, given the considerable impact of poor oral health on the wider body (including the brain), we simply cannot afford to keep treating dental care as a second-order concern. Preventative measures are a crucial part of maintaining the long-term integrity of the teeth and gums, and dementia patients should be supported to do this wherever possible.

Of course, the battle against conditions like Alzheimer's cannot be reduced solely to oral health. Many factors contribute to the onset of dementia, and it would be wrong to overstate the impact of the mouth on this process.

Nevertheless, the evidence is clear that oral health interventions can help in the fight against cognitive decline, and clinicians have a key role to play in spreading this message.



Recommend this post and follow
The Life of Earth
By at No comments:

Greenhouse vegetable production emits high levels of nitrous oxide, study finds

DECEMBER 22, 2023, by Zhang Nannan, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A new study has found that greenhouse vegetable production (GVP) systems are major sources of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, a potent greenhouse gas.

The study, conducted by a team of researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, used a high-frequency continuous automatic monitoring system to measure the soil N2O emissions from a typical GVP area in Shouguang, a major vegetable-producing region in Shandong Province, for a year.

The researchers found that the annual soil N2O emission from the GVP system was about 100 kg nitrogen (N) per hectare. This was much higher than previous reports, which used low-frequency manual sampling methods that may have underestimated the emissions by 8–17%.

The study, published in the journal Atmospheric Environment, showed that the soil N2O emissions from the furrows, where irrigation water and fertilizer were applied, were significantly higher than those from the ridges, where the vegetables were planted.

Moreover, irrigation caused multiple pulses of N2O emissions throughout the growing season, increasing the emission rate by 12%–396%.

The researchers attributed the high N2O emissions to the excessive nitrogen fertilization and frequent irrigation practices in the GVP systems, which enhanced the nitrification and denitrification processes in the soil. They warned that as the GVP area continues to expand rapidly in China, the N2O emissions will also increase, posing a serious threat to the global climate.

They called for more attention and measures to reduce the N2O emissions from the GVP systems, such as optimizing the irrigation and fertilization management.


Recommend this post and follow
The Life of Earth
By at No comments:

Chuck's photo corner from Mexico, boxing day, 2024

A few pics from the coarser side of town, which there is plenty of.
More showers again today, a perfect day to plant the pepper seeds we have started.

one of three colours of bouganvillia shrubs that surround this place.

design behind the protection that protects most of the wealthier homes in town

an old lady careing for her garden, we gave her an avacado that falls daily from the tree outside our house.  They are the size of a softball, bigger than those sold at the market.

I loved the colour of these flowers.

typical here a glossy front with a well worn backside.

a street we sometime walk on the way to downtown.

abandoned in front of the school



protection for the better half

another flower along the street



this pile of rock dug while doing sewer work will become the new cobble stone pavement when they get around to it.  There are many of these on the back streets.


this type of house is well mixed in with much fancier ones

there are no fire regulations, fires can be on the street, and restaurants use wood carcoal outside their places to cook your food in many places.

the house on the right is being newly renovated, the tilework inside is wonderful , as is the swimming pool.  The cement is made by hand on the sidewalk in front.

I intend to focus on restaurants and fresh food stores next.


Recommend this post and follow
The Life of Earth
https://disqus.com/home/forum/lifeofearth/

By at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)