Science news of the day thread.

[Svartalf]

or just the andromeda strain

[Strontium Dog]

It's hard to believe there is any demand for this as a replacement for fish fillets. I'm guessing the market is convenience foods --read the fine print, your frozen fish sticks ain't fish. But how can it compete with the cheap fish already being used for that?

There are vegan fish sticks and fish filets in the supermarket. They taste nearly like the original and have the same price

I made the mistake of buying some a long time ago, I must have temporarily forgotten that the smell of seafood alone makes me ill.

I will stick with my veggie burgers, sausages and chickenless nuggets.

[Brian Peacock]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-25/ ... /102895696

A NASA space capsule carrying the largest soil samples ever scooped up from the surface of an asteroid has streaked through Earth's atmosphere and parachuted into the Utah desert.

In a flyby of Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule from 100,000 kilometres out.

The small capsule landed 4 hours later on a remote expanse of military land, as the mothership set off after another asteroid.

Of course, if this was the preliminary to a SF book, when scientists open the capsule, they release alien nano machines that soon spread around the world, enslaving millions by psionic controls...

The images of the three scientists gingerly approaching the capsule, avoiding direct contact with it and putting flags here-and-there, reminded me very much of The Andromeda Strain.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Almost put this in a thread of its own, given the illustrious topic.

'Cheese consumption might be linked to better cognitive health, study suggests'

A recent scientific publication by the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)’s Nutrients journal suggests there might be a correlation between regular cheese consumption and better cognitive health in the elderly population.

Over the years, the nexus between dietary habits and their impact on physical well-being has been firmly established. However, the realm of cognitive health and its relation to food intake is an area that’s still being actively explored. Dairy products, especially milk and cheese, have previously been under the microscope, with some studies hinting at their protective benefits for the brain — but the evidence has been inconsistent.

As the global prevalence of cognitive disorders, including Alzheimer’s, continues to surge, pinpointing dietary and lifestyle factors that could mitigate risk becomes paramount. This recent study was rooted in the premise of prior research which suggested a beneficial association between cheese intake and cognitive acumen.

The research team analyzed data from 1,516 participants aged 65 and above, recruited from a participant pool of a geriatric survey that the team conducted once per year, every two years. These individuals, who were all based in Tokyo, Japan, were subjected to detailed assessments concerning their dietary patterns, with a special focus on cheese consumption.

Their cognitive capabilities were then gauged using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), a widely-used 30-point test of cognitive function among the elderly; it includes tests of orientation, attention, memory, language and visual-spatial skills. For the scope of this research, an MMSE score of 23 or below was categorized as indicative of lower cognitive function.

After rigorous data analysis, factoring in variables like age, physical activity, and overall dietary habits, the results showed that participants who incorporated cheese into their diets were less likely to register scores of 23 or below on the MMSE.

Further dissecting the data revealed that consistent cheese consumers also boasted a more diverse diet — yet, this dietary diversity did not diminish the observed correlation between cheese consumption and cognitive prowess.

[JimC]

As always, Ratzians are ahead of the curve...

Now all we need is a study which shows the health benefits of bacon!

[pErvinalia]

And gin!

[JimC]

I am living proof of the health benefits of gin!

[macdoc]

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023
Editors' notes
Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water
by Jennifer Chu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-des ... eaper.html

[macdoc]

Is this the start of a 'bug-pocalypse'?
27 SEPTEMBER 2023|WILDLIFE
Insects are dying off in alarming numbers. Is this a mass extinction?

https://www.bbc.com/reel/playlist/futur ... d=p0gfyls4

[Svartalf]

if only bed bugs were the first to die off...

[macdoc]

Promising malaria vaccine clears clinical hurdle, could get WHO endorsement next week
The new shots could make malaria protection more plentiful and affordable
29 SEP 20235:50 PM ETBYGRETCHEN VOGEL

https://www.science.org/content/article ... -next-week

[pErvinalia]

That would be nice. I have to take a malaria pill daily, and then for four weeks after I return home.

[macdoc]

Sam Elsom's bold seaweed solution to tackle climate change, one cow at a time
Australian Story /
By Leisa Scott and Jennifer Feller
Posted 9h ago9 hours ago, updated 1h ago

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-02/ ... /102535734

[JimC]

Yeah, I read that too. I hope he gets through the bureaucratic hold-ups...

[L'Emmerdeur]

In most pop history of the 15th century (well, as 'pop' as history gets) you will find the claim that syphilis came to Europe via Columbus's sailors and soldiers, who had got it from sexual encounters with the women (and perhaps the men) of the New World. Though there have always been those who disputed that narrative, generally you'll not hear that it is in the least controversial. 'Europeans gave the American Indians smallpox, but Indians gave Europeans syphilis.'

I've reserved judgement, not being expert, but have never bought into the dominant narrative. There was evidence (inconclusive) that syphilis was afflicting people in Europe and elsewhere long before the voyages of Columbus. Some further evidence which appears to support that hypothesis has emerged.

'A Medieval French Skeleton Is Rewriting the History of Syphilis'

The infection sped across the borders of a politically fractured landscape, from France into Italy, on to Switzerland and Germany, and north to the British Isles, Scandinavia, and Russia. The Holy Roman Emperor declared it a punishment from God. “Nothing could be more serious than this curse, this barbarian poison,” an Italian historian wrote in 1495.

Out of the chaos, several things became clear. The infection seemed to start in the genitals. The pathogen seemed to travel along the paths of mercenary soldiers hired by warring rulers to attack their rivals, and with the informal households and sex workers that followed their campaigns. Though every nation associated the disorder with their enemies—the French called it the Neapolitan disease, the English called it the French disease, the Russians blamed the Poles, and the Turks blamed Christians—there came a growing sense that one nation might be responsible.

It seemed plausible that the great pox, later called syphilis, might have journeyed with Spanish mercenaries, who represented much of the army of Naples when France attacked that kingdom in 1495. And it might have arrived in Spain with the crews of Christopher Columbus, who returned there in 1493 from the first of his exploratory voyages.

For most of the centuries since, a significant historical narrative has blamed Columbus and his sailors for bringing syphilis to Europe. It arrived as a ravaging plague and then adapted to become a long-simmering disease that, before the discovery of penicillin, could cripple people and drive them mad. Investigating what’s called the “Columbian hypothesis” has proved challenging: The symptoms related in old accounts could describe several diseases, and the bacterium that causes it, Treponema pallidum, was not identified until 1905.

But for roughly two decades, paleopathologists examining European burial sites have suggested that medieval bones and teeth display signs of syphilis infection, disrupting the belief that the disease arrived there in the 15th century. Now, a team based in Marseille has used ancient-DNA analysis to reveal evidence of Treponema bacteria, and the body’s immunological reaction to it, in a skeleton that was buried in a chapel in Provence in the 7th or 8th century. It’s the best evidence yet that syphilis—or something related to it—was infecting Europeans centuries before Columbus sailed.

“To the best of my knowledge, this is the first, proven, strong piece of evidence that the Treponema of syphilis were circulating in the European population before Columbus,” says Michel Drancourt, a physician and professor of microbiology at Aix-Marseille University, who led the work published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. “So far, this was a hypothesis in science and the medical literature, without any strong proof.”