Science!

[SystemShock]

Men value romantic relationships more and suffer greater consequences from breakups than women

Romantic relationships are more central to men’s well-being than women’s, according to a forthcoming article in Behavioral & Brain Sciences.

www.psypost.org

The sample must've been incels.

 

[Zztop]

 

[Optimus Prime]

Nightmare day at work? Date stand you up? Don’t worry, things really will seem better in the morning.

In the most comprehensive study of its kind, scientists have found that generally, the world feels brighter when you wake up.

People start the day in the best frame of mind in the morning, but end in the worst, at about midnight, the findings suggest, with the day of the week and the season also playing a part.


Mental health also tends to be more varied at weekends but steadier during the week, according to the study led by University College London.

“Generally, things do seem better in the morning,” the researchers concluded. Their findings were published in the journal BMJ Mental Health.

Mental health and wellbeing are dynamic in nature, and subject to change over short and long periods. However, few studies have looked at how they might change over the course of the day, and those that have, tended to only look at particular, or very small, groups of people.

Scientists wanted to explore whether time of day was associated with variations in mental health, happiness, life satisfaction, sense of life being worthwhile and loneliness. They also wanted to find out if these associations varied by day, season or year.…….

Scientists find that things really do seem better in the morning

UCL study into mental health and wellbeing finds that people generally feel worse at night and on Sundays

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

For all the world’s linguistic diversity, human languages still obey some universal patterns. These run even deeper than grammar and syntax; they’re rooted in statistical laws that predict how frequently we use certain words and how long those words tend to be. Think of them as built-in guardrails to keep language easy to learn and use.

And now scientists have found some of the same patterns in whale vocalizations. Two new studies published this week show that, despite the vast evolutionary distance between us, humans and whales have converged on similar solutions to the problem of communicating through sound.

“It strengthens the view that we should be thinking about human language not as a completely different phenomenon from other communication systems but instead think about what it shares with them,” says Inbal Arnon, a professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a co-author of one of the studies.

Arnon and her colleagues, whose paper was published on Thursday in Science, analyzed eight years of humpback whale song recordings from New Caledonia in the South Pacific—and found that they closely adhered to a principle called Zipf’s law of frequency.

This mathematical-power law, a hallmark of human language, is observed in word-use frequencies: the most common word in any language shows up twice as often as the second most common, three times as often as the third most common, and so on.……

Whale Songs Obey Basic Rules of Human Languages

Humpback whales learn their haunting melodies in much the same way humans learn words

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

It's the stuff of nightmares - or even the hit TV show and video game The Last of Us: a novel fungus that turns its hosts into "zombies".

Thankfully, so far, it's only been found in spiders located in several cave systems across the island of Ireland, including the Whitefathers' Caves on the Fermanagh/Cavan border.

Named after Sir David Attenborough, Gibellula attenboroughii was first discovered in County Down during the filming of BBC Winterwatch in 2021.

The fungus changes the spider's behaviour, making it leave its concealed lair or web to die in an exposed position on the roof or walls of a cave.

It does this using dopamine, the brain's happy chemical, to make the spider favour the dispersal of the fungal spores over preserving its own life.

Scientists say the behaviour of the fungus mirrors that of ants infected by fungi of the genus Ophiocordyceps, previously reported from the Atlantic rainforest of Brazil.……

'Zombie spiders' infected with fungus found in Irish caves

It's like something from the hit TV show The Last Of Us - but thankfully only affects spiders (so far).

www.bbc.com

 

[fred8615]

The Pandemic Did Not Affect The Moon After All, Scientists Say

Can a global pandemic affect temperatures on the Moon? A 2024 study linked worldwide lockdowns with a drop in heat radiation reaching the Moon from Earth – but now scientists say that wasn't actually what was going on.

www.sciencealert.com

 

[Sailorsaint]

We are actually witnessing the beginning of a process that has shaped our world over millions of years and it is still happening.....

Why Is Africa Splitting In Two?

On why the Earth is a puzzle, and other existential-crisis-inducing ideas.

www.iflscience.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Birds-of-paradise are known for their bright and colourful plumage, but it turns out they are even more dazzling than previously thought.

Researchers have found 37 of the 45 species show biofluorescence – in other words, patches of their plumage or other body parts absorb UV or blue light, and emit light at lower frequencies.

“At a minimum, it would make these biofluorescent areas brighter – a yellow feather may be more green-yellow, a white feather may be brighter and slightly more green-yellow,” said Dr Rene Martin from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was first author of the study.


Published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Martin and colleagues reported how they studied preserved specimens of each bird-of-paradise species, held in the ornithology collection at the American Museum of Natural History.

The team placed males and females of each species under blue light in a dark room and recorded the wavelengths and intensity of light emitted. In some cases they also shone UV light on the skins.

The results revealed that males of 21 species showed biofluorescence on parts of their plumage such as their head, neck, belly and tail feathers, or on fleshy lobes known as face wattles. In addition, these species plus an additional 16 species showed – or were deemed likely to show – biofluorescence in their inner mouth and throat.

Females of 36 of these species, and most likely all 37, also showed biofluorescence. Several showed this on their chest and belly, or on feathers that form an eye stripe on the side of their head.

The team said the emitted light ranged from light or teal blue wavelengths to green and green-yellow.

“It may not have the effect of making something look different, but becoming brighter and more eye-catching,” said Martin.……

Many birds-of-paradise species emit light through their plumage, study finds

Researchers found that most birds-of-paradise are biofluorescent – meaning they absorb light through their bodies

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Eating from plastic takeout containers may significantly increase the chance of congestive heart failure, a new study finds, and researchers suspect they have identified why: changes to gut biome cause inflammation that damages the circulatory system.

The novel two part, peer-reviewed study from Chinese researchers adds to mounting evidence of the risks associated with eating from plastic, and builds on previous evidence linking plastic chemicals to heart disease.

The authors used a two-part approach, first looking into the frequency with which over 3,000 people in China ate from plastic takeout containers, and whether they had heart disease. They then exposed rats to plastic chemicals in water that was boiled and poured in carryout containers to extract chemicals.

“The data revealed that high-frequency exposure to plastics is significantly associated with an increased risk of congestive heart failure,” the authors wrote.


Plastic can contain any of about 20,000 chemicals, and many of them, such as BPA, phthalates and Pfas, present health risks. The chemicals are often found in food and food packaging, and are linked to a range of problems from cancer to reproductive harm.

While researchers in the new paper didn’t check which specific chemicals were leaching from the plastic, they noted the link between common plastic compounds and heart disease, and a previous link between gut biome and heart disease.……

Eating from plastic takeout containers can increase heart failure risk – study

Study, adding to rising evidence of plastic-linked health risks, points to gut biome changes as a cause of heart failure

www.theguardian.com

 

[Tapxe]

 

[Optimus Prime]

It was when British archaeologist Dr Piers Litherland saw that the ceiling of the burial chamber was painted blue with yellow stars that he realised he had just discovered the first tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh to be found in more than a century.

Litherland had been exploring the Valley of the Kings in Egypt for more than a decade when he discovered a staircase that led to the tomb, now known to have belonged to Thutmose II, who reigned from 1493 to 1479BC.

It took months to clear flood debris from the descending corridor and during this time, he and his team assumed the tomb belonged to a royal wife.

But as soon as he saw the ceiling of the burial chamber had been decorated with scenes from the Amduat, a religious text reserved for kings, he knew he had made what has since been hailed as the most significant discovery since Tutankhamun.

He felt an “extraordinary sort of bewilderment” at that moment, he told the BBC World Service. “When I came out, my wife was waiting outside and the only thing I could do was burst into tears.”

He then set about clearing the flood debris, expecting to find the crushed remains of a burial underneath it.……

Archaeologists discover first pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt in more than a century

Uncovering tomb of Thutmose II hailed as most significant discovery since Tutankhamun in 1922

www.theguardian.com

 

[oysters]

MSN

The video keeps saying basically "the map has land masses that resemble the americas" and then shows a map that has basically every continent shown exactly how they look. So i'm trying to figure out if it's the actual map. If it is then can they stop saying "resemble" but they are so accurate I think I can see my house on it!

But if it's true then it's really time to give 'ol Columbus's title of "founding the americas" the boot. We all know the Vikings were here before him but what if the Egyptians or Phoenicians were THOUSANDs of years before?!

 

[Sailorsaint]

MSN

The video keeps saying basically "the map has land masses that resemble the americas" and then shows a map that has basically every continent shown exactly how they look. So i'm trying to figure out if it's the actual map. If it is then can they stop saying "resemble" but they are so accurate I think I can see my house on it!

But if it's true then it's really time to give 'ol Columbus's title of "founding the americas" the boot. We all know the Vikings were here before him but what if the Egyptians or Phoenicians were THOUSANDs of years before?!

We all "know" that the Earth was mapped with ET's help tens of thousands of years ago. Even Antartica was mapped before it was covered in ice.

 

[Optimus Prime]

World’s first flying car hops over vehicle in public test

Alef Aeronautics says ‘Kitty Hawk moment’ marks a new era for transportation

www.independent.co.uk