The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series chronicling the eschaton.
Science
Here’s a better way to convert dog years to human years, scientists say
Our Scotch collie, Buckaroo, is just shy of 14 years old. Following the long-debunked but still popular idea that one dog year equals seven human years, he’s almost a centenarian. (This “formula” may be based on average life spans of 10 and 70 years for dogs and people, respectively.) Now, researchers say they have a new formula (see calculator below) to convert dog years to human years—one with some actual science behind it.
The work is based on a relatively new concept in aging research: that chemical modifications to a person’s DNA over a lifetime create what is known as an epigenetic clock. Scientists have built a case that one such modification, the addition of methyl groups to specific DNA sequences, tracks human biological age—that is, the toll that disease, poor lifestyle, and genetics take on our bodies. As a result, some groups have converted a person’s DNA methylation status to an age estimate—or even a prediction of life expectancy (worrying ethicists, who say the data could be misused by forensic investigators and insurance companies).
Alien genes from bacteria helped plants conquer the land
A gelatinous blob on top of a wet stone has led to the discovery that bacteria likely helped plants conquer land. In 2006, on a plant collecting trip about 50 kilometers from the University of Cologne in Germany where he worked, phycologist Michael Melkonian came upon an unusual alga, known until then only from a 19th century French natural historian’s description. Now, Melkonian and his colleagues have analyzed its genome—and that of a close relative—to track down genes important for life’s emergence from water. At least two of those genes come from soil bacteria and were likely transferred into an ancestor shared by these algae and land plants.
Sequencing these two algae, Spirogloea muscicola and Mesotaenium endlicherianum, “is a milestone for the field of early plant evolution,” says Jan de Vries, an evolutionary plant biologist at the Georg August University of Göttingen in Germany. And the link to soil bacteria is an added bonus. “That horizontal gene transfer may have contributed to the colonization of land is pretty exciting,” says Pamela Soltis, a plant evolutionary biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville who was not involved in the work. Although it’s well accepted that bacteria exchange genes, examples of gene transfer to more complex organisms are still controversial. If this case holds up, it demonstrates how important the process can be for evolution, she adds.
How Enceladus got its water-spewing tiger stripes
Researchers say they have solved a long-standing mystery about Saturn’s tiny, frozen moon Enceladus: why its south pole features long, water-spewing geysers known as tiger stripes. The study could also help explain why these unique formations aren’t seen on any other satellite in the solar system.
Enceladus became a star attraction in 2005, when NASA’s Cassini mission photographed enormous jets of water ice and vapor emanating from four parallel slashes near its south pole. Since then, researchers have detected organic molecules and hydrogen in the jets—potential food for microbes—making Enceladus one of the top destinations in the search for life elsewhere in the Solar System. The stripes, named Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, and Alexandria after locations in the One Thousand and One Nights collection of Middle Eastern folktales, are 130 kilometers long and are spaced roughly 35 kilometers apart—rather large features on a moon only 500 kilometers in diameter. Nobody quite understood their origin, or why they were only seen at one pole.
Science Daily
Experts unlock key to photosynthesis, a find that could help us meet food security demands
Scientists have solved the structure of one of the key components of photosynthesis, a discovery that could lead to photosynthesis being 'redesigned' to achieve higher yields and meet urgent food security needs.
The study, led by the University of Sheffield and published today in the journal Nature, reveals the structure of cytochrome b6f -- the protein complex that significantly influences plant growth via photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis is the foundation of life on Earth providing the food, oxygen and energy that sustains the biosphere and human civilisation.
DNA data offers scientific look at 500 years of extramarital sex in Western Europe
These days it's easy to resolve questions about paternity with over-the-counter test kits. Now, researchers have put DNA evidence together with long-term genealogical data to explore similar questions of biological fatherhood on a broad scale among people living in parts of Western Europe over the last 500 years.
The findings reported in Current Biology on November 14 yielded some surprises. While the number of so-called extra-pair paternity (EPP) events overall was (not surprisingly) fairly low, their frequency varied considerably among people depending on their circumstances. Specifically, evidence of EPP events turned up much more often in people of lower socioeconomic status who lived in densely populated cities in the 19th century.
"Of course, extra-pair paternity, especially due to adultery, is a popular topic in gossip, jokes, TV series, and literature," said Maarten Larmuseau of KU Leuven and Histories, Belgium. "But scientific knowledge on this phenomenon is still highly limited, especially regarding the past.
LiveScience
What Does It Take to Be a Moon?
From Earth's rocky, pockmarked satellite to ice-covered ocean worlds, our solar system is chock-full of moons. Some planets have dozens of them; others don't have any. Astronomers find these satellites very interesting — geologically and, potentially, astrobiologically — and are eager to send probes to visit lunar destinations, such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus.
So it might surprise you to discover that, currently, there is no scientific definition of a moon.
The scholars in charge of such an undertaking would be the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which approves and certifies the names of celestial objects, planetary scientist Francis Nimmo of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Live Science. And he was unable to find a place where the group defines the term.
Tardigrade DNA Added to Human Cells Could Help Us Survive on Mars, Scientist Says
Will we one day combine tardigrade DNA with our cells to go to Mars?
Chris Mason, a geneticist and associate professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell University in New York, has investigated the genetic effects of spaceflight and how humans might overcome these challenges to expand our species farther into the solar system. One of the (strangest) ways that we might protect future astronauts on missions to places like Mars, Mason said, might involve the DNA of tardigrades, tiny micro-animals that can survive the most extreme conditions, even the vacuum of space!
Mason led one of the 10 teams of researchers NASA chose to study twin astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly. After launching in 2015, Scott Kelly spent almost a year aboard the International Space Station while his twin brother, Mark Kelly, stayed back on Earth.
Nature
Link between antimatter and dark matter probed
Ultrasensitive experiments on trapped antiprotons provide a window onto possible differences between matter and antimatter. Now they could also shed light on the identity of dark matter — the ‘missing’ mass in the Universe.Two of the most intriguing mysteries in modern cosmology are the apparent preponderance of ordinary matter over antimatter and the nature of dark matter, which accounts for about 85% of the mass in the Universe. Dark matter has made its presence known only through its gravitational effects on astrophysical objects. Therefore, whatever type of particle it is made of must have feeble interactions with other matter. One leading candidate is the axion — a light neutral particle that was originally postulated to explain why the neutron lacks a measurable electric dipole moment. Until now, researchers have looked for evidence of couplings between axion dark matter and only ordinary particles such as photons, electrons and nuclei3. Writing in Nature, Smorra et al. report a search for a coupling between axion dark matter and antimatter (specifically, antiprotons).
Fossil ape hints at how walking on two feet evolved
[…] The commitment to terrestrial bipedalism, characterized by skeletal adaptations for walking regularly on two feet, is a defining feature that enables the assignment of fossils to the hominin lineage — which comprises all species more closely related to humans than to chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) or bonobos (Pan paniscus), our two closest living relatives. On the basis of fossil findings, some of which are more controversial than others, the answer to the ‘when’ question is thought to be between 7 million and 5 million years ago at the end of the Miocene epoch (which lasted from about 23 million to 5 million years ago).Answering the questions of why and how hominin bipedalism evolved depends a lot on what kind of locomotion was being used before terrestrial bipedalism evolved. Did it evolve from an ancestor that lived mainly in trees, or were these ancestors already walking on all fours on the ground and subsequently evolved to stand up and walk on two feet? Writing in Nature, Böhme et al. report the discovery of an ape species called Danuvius guggenmosi from the middle of the Miocene. This species moved around in a previously unknown way, which the authors suggest could provide a model for the type of locomotion from which hominin bipedalism evolved.
The Guardian
Experts crack mystery of ancient Egypt’s sacred bird mummies
An ancient Egyptian mystery has been solved, according to researchers, who say they have cracked the conundrum of where millions of mummified birds came from.
Pharaohs and members of the nobility were often mummified, but the practice was not reserved for humans – cats, crocodiles, mice and mongooses are among the mummified animals that have been found.
While some have been discovered alongside human burials, others – most notably the sacred ibis bird – were mummified as part of rituals designed to curry favour with the gods.
Mouse deer species not seen for nearly 30 years is found alive in Vietnam
A distinctly two-tone mouse deer that was feared lost to science has been captured on film foraging for food by camera traps set up in a Vietnamese forest.
The pictures of the rabbit-sized animal, also known as the silver-backed chevrotain, are the first to be taken in the wild and come nearly 30 years after the last confirmed sighting.
“We had no idea what to expect, so I was surprised and overjoyed when we checked the camera traps and saw photographs of a chevrotain with silver flanks,” said An Nguyen, a scientist and expedition team leader at Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC).
xThe fanged, cat-sized deer relative—also known as the Vietnam mouse-deer—was last spotted in 1990, when researchers acquired a dead specimen from a hunter.https://t.co/AMf6LfYtU1
— NOVA | PBS (@novapbs) November 11, 2019
The Washington Post
Mangroves, hardy shore-bound plants vital to many coastlines, are under threat
Mangroves are tangly, tough and grow in inhospitable conditions. The plants thrive in places others cannot — along shorelines and in muddy, salty and hot conditions that would wipe out other plants.
Mangroves grow around the world in sheltered, tropical areas. The small trees and shrubs often feature exposed root systems. They can be found in places such as Florida, which has about 469,000 acres of mangrove forests.
The shore-bound plants are vital coastline protectors, and they’re under threat.
The Mars 2020 rover will visit the perfect spot to find signs of life, new studies show
[…] Decades of surveying Mars with orbiting probes, landers and rovers has revealed the planet once harbored a thick atmosphere and water on its surface. Researchers have even discovered traces of complex organic molecules — possible building blocks for living cells.
Now, two new studies offer a tantalizing suggestion that Mars 2020 could find even stronger evidence of Martian life — if it ever existed.
Gizmodo
Stunning Fossil Discovery Uncovers the Second-Most Primitive Flying Bird
Paleontologists in Japan have uncovered the fossilized remains of a 120-million-year-old flying dinosaur that’s seriously shaking up the bird family tree.
Many of you have likely heard of Archaeopteryx—a winged, long-tailed dinosaur that lived during the Late Jurassic period some 160 million to 140 million years ago. This creature, with its flight and tail feathers, is the earliest known flying dinosaur and a critically important species in furthering our understanding of the origin of birds and the evolution of flight.
New research published today in Communications Biology now describes the second-most primitive, or basal, flying dinosaur in the evolutionary record, an entirely new genus and species known as Fukuipteryx prima. The newly described species supplants Jeholornis, which is now the third-most primitive bird.
China May Be Concealing Organ Harvesting Through Fake Donation Data, Scientists Report
China has been using an equation to produce fake organ donation data, according to researchers who used a forensic technique that sniffs out suspicious patterns in statistical datasets.
New research published yesterday in BMC Medical Ethics is raising concerns that China is continuing to harvest organs from executed prisoners, despite the country’s assurances to the contrary. Exploiting prisoners in this way is obviously deplorable, but it’s extra heinous considering some of these detainees might be prisoners of conscience, that is, people locked up for their political or religious beliefs.
Phys.org
Arctic Ocean could be ice-free for part of the year as soon as 2044
It's hard to imagine the Arctic without sea ice.
But according to a new study by UCLA climate scientists, human-caused climate change is on track to make the Arctic Ocean functionally ice-free for part of each year starting sometime between 2044 and 2067.
As long as humans have been on Earth, the planet has had a large cap of sea ice at the Arctic Circle that expands each winter and contracts each summer. The knowledge that sea ice is on the decline is not new: Satellite observations show that since 1979, the amount of sea ice in the Arctic in September—the month when there is the least sea ice, before water starts freezing again—has declined by 13 percent per decade.
Lichens are way younger than scientists thought
You've probably seen a lichen, even if you didn't realize it. If you've ever meandered through the forest and wondered what the crusty stuff on trees or rocks was, they're lichens, a combination of algae and fungi living together almost as if they were one organism. And since they can grow on bare rocks, scientists thought that lichens were some of the first organisms to make their way onto land from the water, changing the planet's atmosphere and paving the way for modern plants. A new study in Geobiology upends this history by delving deep into the DNA of the algae and fungi that form lichens and showing the lichens likely evolved millions of years after plants.
"When we look at modern ecosystems, and we see a bare surface like a rock, oftentimes lichens are the first thing to grow there, and eventually you'll get plants growing on there too," says Matthew Nelsen, lead author of the paper and a research scientist at the Field Museum. "People have thought that maybe that's the way ancient colonization of land worked, but we're seeing that these lichens actually came later in the game than plants."
Big study casts doubt on need for many heart procedures
People with severe but stable heart disease from clogged arteries may have less chest pain if they get a procedure to improve blood flow rather than just giving medicines a chance to help, but it won't cut their risk of having a heart attack or dying over the following few years, a big federally funded study found.
The results challenge medical dogma and call into question some of the most common practices in heart care. They are the strongest evidence yet that tens of thousands of costly stent procedures and bypass operations each year are unnecessary or premature for people with stable disease.
That's a different situation than a heart attack, when a procedure is needed right away to restore blood flow. For non-emergency cases, the study shows "there's no need to rush" into invasive tests and procedures, said New York University's Dr. Judith Hochman.
There might even be harm: To doctors' surprise, study participants who had a procedure were more likely to suffer a heart problem or die over the next year than those treated with medicines alone.
Astronomy
How could we find a wormhole hiding in the Milky Way?
If there was a wormhole in the center of our galaxy, how could we tell? Two physicists propose that carefully watching the motions of a star orbiting the Milky Way's supermassive black hole might help scientists start to check. The researchers published the idea in a recent paper in the journal Physical Review D.
A wormhole is a hypothetical concept that connects two separate areas of space-time. Wormholes often appear in science fiction narratives like the 2014 film Interstellar as a convenient way to get from point A to point B in the vast universe. Physicists have many theories that describe how wormholes might behave, if they exist, but haven’t yet found any.
Science Alert
Gorgeous Collection of Fossil Feathers Reveals How Dinosaurs Kept Warm in Ancient Gondwana
Life for dinosaurs living at the South Pole wouldn't have been easy. Sure, it wasn't the icy hellscape it is today, but the long, dark winters still would have been frosty. Now, we have a better idea of how at least some of these animals stayed warm.
A team of scientists from Slovakia, Sweden, Australia, and the US has analysed fossils representing an array of feathers grown by dinosaurs and birds that once lived within the southern polar circle.
While hints of lush feathery dinosaurs have popped up in the fossil record here and there, most examples come from the Northern Hemisphere, representing an array of coverings that could have helped Mesozoic wildlife regulate their temperatures, hide, and occasionally even glide in relatively warm climates.
Antidepressants in Our Waters Really Are Affecting Fish in a Strange Way, Study Shows
Immersed in a 'drug soup' of pharmaceutical pollutants, aquatic wildlife acts in ways that puts them at risk of becoming an easily meal for predators. A new study now suggests it could also affect how they themselves hunt for food.
When researchers looked at the way eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) foraged in groups, they found antidepressants in our waste play havoc with the animals' social interactions in ways we'd never noticed in studies of individual fish.
The new research conducted by scientists from Monash University in Australia highlights a potential flaw in previous studies that determine the impact of psychoactive waste on wildlife.
SciTech Daily
Amazon’s Burning Crisis: Deforestation and Number of Fires Show 2019 Not a ‘Normal’ Year
The fires that raged across the Brazilian Amazon this summer were not ‘normal’ and large increases in deforestation could explain why, scientists show.
The perceived scale of the Amazon blazes received global attention this summer. However, international concerns raised at the time were countered by the Brazilian Government, which claimed the fire situation in August was ‘normal’ and ‘below the historical average’.
An international team of scientists writing in the journal Global Change Biology say the number of active fires in August was actually three times higher than in 2018 and the highest number since 2010.
Remarkable New Material Turns Heat Into Electricity at World Record Rate
A new type of material generates electrical current very efficiently from temperature differences. This allows sensors and small processors to supply themselves with energy wirelessly.
Thermoelectric materials can convert heat into electrical energy. This is due to the so-called Seebeck effect: If there is a temperature difference between the two ends of such a material, electrical voltage can be generated and current can start to flow. The amount of electrical energy that can be generated at a given temperature difference is measured by the so-called ZT value: The higher the ZT value of a material, the better its thermoelectric properties.
The best thermoelectrics to date were measured at ZT values of around 2.5 to 2.8. Scientists at TU Wien (Vienna) have now succeeded in developing a completely new material with a ZT value of 5 to 6. It is a thin layer of iron, vanadium, tungsten and aluminium applied to a silicon crystal.
The new material is so effective that it could be used to provide energy for sensors or even small computer processors. Instead of connecting small electrical devices to cables, they could generate their own electricity from temperature differences. The new material has now been presented in the journal Nature.
BBC News
Climate change: Bigger hurricanes are now more damaging
The biggest and most damaging hurricanes are now three times more frequent than they were 100 years ago, say researchers.
Using a new method of calculating the destruction, the scientists say the increase in frequency is "unequivocal".
Previous attempts to isolate the impact of climate change on hurricanes have often came up with conflicting results.
But the new study says the increase in damage caused by these big cyclones is linked by global warming.
Sea ice loss linked to spread of deadly virus in marine mammals
The decline in sea ice seen in the Arctic in recent decades has been linked by scientists to the spread of a deadly virus in marine mammals. Researchers found that Phocine distemper virus (PDV) had spread from animals in the North Atlantic to populations in the North Pacific.
The scientists say the spread of pathogens could become more common as ice declines further. The 15-year study tracked seals, sea lions and otters via satellite.
The loss of sea ice in the Arctic has been one of the most visible signs of climate change on the planet over the past four decades. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the ice has been retreating by around 12% per decade between 1979 and 2018.
Ice loss causing Arctic to reflect less heat
A loss of snow and ice cover are the main reasons for a reduction in the Arctic's ability to reflect heat, not soot as had been previously thought.
The capacity of the Arctic to reflect heat is determined by something known as the albedo effect. This is a measurement of how well a surface, such as snow or ice, bounces sunlight back into space.
Scientists say soot is not the major contributor, as levels have dropped recently, while warming has continued. The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Ars Technica
Physicists capture first footage of quantum knots unraveling in superfluid
The same team who tied the first "quantum knots" in a superfluid several years ago have now discovered that the knots decay, or "untie" themselves, fairly soon after forming, before turning into a vortex. The researchers also produced the first "movie" of the decay process in action, and they described their work in a recent paper in Physical Review Letters.
A mathematician likely would define a true knot as a kind of pretzel shape, or a knotted circle. A quantum knot is a little bit different. It's composed of particle-like rings or loops that connect to each other exactly once. A quantum knot is topologically stable, akin to a soliton—that is, it's a quantum object that acts like a traveling wave that keeps rolling forward at a constant speed without losing its shape.
The genetic basis of Peruvians’ ability to live at high altitude
xSherpas are physiologically adapted to breathing, working, and living in the thin air of the Himalayas, enabling them to repeatedly schlep stuff up and down Mount Everest. The Quechua, who have lived in the Andes for about 11,000 years, are also remarkably capable of functioning in their extremely high homes. New work suggests that these adaptations are the result of natural selection for particular genetic sequences in these populations.
Both populations live above 14,000 feet (4,267m), under chronic hypoxia—lack of oxygen—that can cause headaches, appetite suppression, inability to sleep, and general malaise in those not habituated to altitude. Even way back in the 16th century, the Spaniards noted that the Inca tolerated their thin air amazingly well (and then they killed them).
xWhere plastic outnumbers fish by seven to one https://t.co/7h0teCNT0X
— BBC Science News (@BBCScienceNews) November 12, 2019
xA volcanic eruption, extended darkness, a cold summer, and a plague—the reasons why 536 may have been the worst year to live through. #ScienceMagArchiveshttps://t.co/gJpaacWfVU
— News from Science (@NewsfromScience) November 16, 2019
xAndy Greenberg’s book 'Sandworm' offers an important front-line view of the changing cyberthreats that are shaping our world. https://t.co/w0Mec8EA3M
— Nature News & Comment (@NatureNews) November 16, 2019
xListen to a high-pitched note like the sound of a whistle and you’re likely to imagine something high off the ground. Dogs, it turns out, may have the same reaction, according to a new study. https://t.co/XAcPoqHK8V
— News from Science (@NewsfromScience) November 16, 2019
Angel Yanagihara didn't plan on studying jellyfish, but after a near-fatal sting, she wanted to understand what makes them so deadly. #ScienceMagArchiveshttps://t.co/rP1fYY4Hup
— News from Science (@NewsfromScience) November 15, 2019