COVID-19 couldn’t have silenced the mobile Towers of Babel, but it did stop the stampeding humanity in its tracks. The global effect of physical distancing (it isn’t social distancing) and the stoppage of services, idustries and collective movements marked the longest and most pronounced quiet period of seismic noise in recorded history. It was not the kind of “busy solitude” that Wordsworth pined for, but it allowed earth scientist Dr Stephen Hicks and colleagues to size up how much human activities do affect the solid Earth. They checked seismic data from a global network of 268 seismic stations in 117 countries. And they found that lockdown caused human-enerated seismic vibrations in the earth to drop by an average of 50% between March and May 2020. It was more pronounced in more densely populated areas. The drop in human-caused noise is dubbed the ‘anthropause’. Dr Hicks said: “This is the first global study of the impact of the coronavirus anthropause on the solid Earth beneath our feet.”.The researchers were able to see clearly what differentiates human and natural noises.
SNEAK PEEK
Every carbon atom in the universe was created by stars. Nearly 90% of stars die as white dwarfs that gradually cool. In their final few breaths before the collapse, they spread their ashes into the surrounding space. Who saw in the ashes the very origin of carbon in our galaxy?
It only takes a moment to fall off a ladder, and it is a common type of accident, but ladder falls go far beyond that of the physical injury. Who found and reported that half of the fallers experience a deterioration in their psychological wellbeing for at least six months after the fall?
1. Neanderthals (1)
Pain is mediated through certain specialised nerve cells. These cell have a special ion channel this plays a major role in starting the electrical impulse which signals pain. People who inherited the Neanderthal variant of this ion channel feel more pain? Who noted this in a study?
1. Hugo Zeberg (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)
2. Neanderthals (2)
Climate scientists from the IBS Center for Climate Physics discover that, contrary to previously held beliefs,
Neanderthal extinction was caused neither by abrupt glacial climate shifts, nor by interbreeding with Homo sapiens.
New supercomputer model simulations, only competition between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens can explain the rapid demise of Neanderthals around 43 to 38 thousand years ago.
Neanderthals lived in Eurasia for at least 300,000 years. Then, around 43 to 38 thousand years ago they quickly disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving only weak genetic traces in present-day Homo sapiens populations. It is well established that their
The extinction of Neanderthals coincided with a period of rapidly fluctuating climatic conditions, as well as with the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe. However, determining which of these factors was the dominant cause, has remained one of the biggest challenges of evolutionary anthropology.
To quantify which processes played a major role in the collapse of Neanderthal populations one needs to use mathematical models that can realistically simulate the migration of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, their interactions, competition and interbreeding in a changing climatic environment. Such models did not exist previously.
In a new paper published in the journal Quaternary Science Review, Axel Timmermann, Director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics
3. Measuring height
When we drop an object, the brain correctly predicts when it will hit the floor by considering the height from which it fell. Artificially lengthening the time it takes to hear the object hitting the ground would update our perceived body height. Who found this will makie us feel taller?.
3. Dr Ana Tajadura-Jiménez (Charles III University of Madrid)
4. A whiff of ecology
Don’t be sure that the chocolate you bought is really from the exotic locale stated on the wrapper. Its flavour emerges from its ecology, in addition to its processing. Who devised a method to determine the place of origin of a particular chocolate, based on its chemical fingerprint?
4. Shannon Stitzel (who was piqued by a test in the class)
5. Rethink pleasure!
Self-control is truly great, but enjoying short-term pleasures without long-term goals can contribute at least as much to a happy life as self-control. “It’s time for a rethink.”. Who in a paper insisted that research about self-regulation should pay just as much attention to hedonism?
5. Psychologist Katharina Bernecker (University of Zurich) .
6. .
For young female athletes, losing weight may not improve performance
By Lucy HicksJul. 29, 2020 , 11:55 AM
Coaches often encourage young female athletes to lose weight, expecting the dropped pounds to improve their performance in athletic events. Indeed,
Several female runners came forward last year saying they were bullied about their weight by a Nike coach. Now, research suggests the strategy may do more harm than good.
The researchers are not sure why
The relationship between body-mass inded (BMI) and fitness differs between young women and their male and older female counterparts
James Guseh, a cardiovascular physician-scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
7.
Consumers are more powerful than ever, and more socially aware. Brands cannot be complacent because the younger generations are less likely be brand-loyal and can easily turn to the array of alternatives.
We saw an example recently when Goya Foods’ CEO Robert Unanue showed support for President Trump. Mis-steps like this risk putting a barrier between the brand and consumers that do not align themselves with Trump’s political decisions.
Brands can’t be complacent; younger cosumers are less likely be brand-loyal
Yamina Tsalamlal, Consumer Analyst at GlobalData,
8.
Researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama have published dramatic maps showing the locations of lightning strikes across the tropics in Global Change Biology. Based on ground and satellite data, they estimate that more than 100 million lighting strikes on land each year will radically alter forests and other ecosystems in the region between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
“Lightning influences the ability of forests to store biomass, and therefore carbon, because it tends to strike the largest trees,” said Evan Gora, a post-doctoral fellow at STRI who recently finished his doctorate at the University of Louisville. “And lightning strikes may also be very important in savanna ecosystems.”
9.
Scientists have discovered extinct strains of smallpox in the teeth of Viking skeletons — proving for the first time that the killer disease plagued humanity for at least 1400 years.
Smallpox spread from person to person via infectious droplets, killed around a third of sufferers and left another third permanently scarred or blind. Around 300 million people died from it in the 20th century alone before it was officially eradicated in 1980 through a global vaccination effort — the first human disease to be wiped out.
Now an international team of scientists have sequenced the genomes of newly discovered strains of the virus after it was extracted from the teeth of Viking skeletons from sites across northern Europe. The findings have been published in Science today (July 23, 2020).
Professor Eske Willerslev, of St John’s College, University of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen, led the study.
He said: “We discovered new strains of smallpox in the teeth of Viking skeletons and found their genetic structure is different to the modern smallpox virus eradicated in the 20th century. We already knew Vikings were moving around Europe and beyond, and we now know they had smallpox. People travelling around the world quickly spread Covid-19 and it is likely Vikings spread smallpox. Just back then, they travelled by ship rather than by plane.
“The 1400-year-old genetic information extracted from these skeletons is hugely significant because it teaches us about the evolutionary history of the variola virus that caused smallpox.”
[ANSWERS]
QUIZ No. 965
1. Plato said the earth is basically formed of cubes. Who found evidence in rocks?
– Douglas Jerolmack
– Wallace Smith Broecker
– Sir Douglas Mawson
1. Douglas Jerolmack
2. Social distancing has distorted how we view the passage of time. Who found it?
– Nancy Ammerman,
– Stanisław Andrzejewski
– Ruth S. Ogden
2. Ruth S. Ogden
3. Who noticed that political candidates using humour on social are less credible?
– Olivia M. Bullock
– Gøsta Esping-Andersen
– Peter Ludwig Berger
3. Olivia M. Bullock
4. Who connected speaking in tongues to high emotional stress in the speakers?
– Daniel X. Freedman
– Lars Christopher Gillberg
– Stuart Bergsma
4. Stuart Bergsma
5. The main character of which great novel became an icon for teenage rebellion?
– The Flounder
– The Sound and the Fury
– The Catcher in the Rye
5. The Catcher in the Rye