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Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday, 9/2/23 [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-09-02

Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame, jck and jeremybloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.

OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.

Polluted Air Shortens Human Lifespans More Than Tobacco, Study Finds

Cigarette smoking and other uses of tobacco shave an average of 2.2 years off lifespans globally. But merely breathing -- if the air is polluted -- is more damaging to human health. From a report: That is the conclusion of a report published Tuesday by the University of Chicago's Energy Policy Institute, which identified air pollution as the world's top threat to public health, responsible for reducing average life expectancy by 2.3 years worldwide. China, once the poster child for smog-filled skies, has been a surprise success story. Between 2013 and 2021, the world's second-largest economy improved overall air quality by more than 40% while the average lifespan of residents increased by more than two years, according to the report. By contrast, four countries in South Asia -- India, Bangladesh Nepal and Pakistan -- accounted for more than half of the total years of life lost globally due to pollution in the atmosphere over the same eight years. India alone was responsible for nearly 60% of the growth in air pollution across the globe during that time. If India were to meet World Health Organization guidelines for particulate pollution, the life expectancy for residents of capital city New Delhi would increase by 12 years. An increase in wildfires in places such as California and Canada has renewed attention on the dangers of polluted air. Around 350 cities globally suffer the same level of dangerous haze that enveloped New York City in June at least once a year, according to calculations from environmental think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which aggregates data from dozens of official government sources.

NASA Officials Sound Alarm Over Future of the Deep Space Network

NASA officials sounded an alarm Tuesday about the agency's Deep Space Network, a collection of antennas in California, Spain, and Australia used to maintain contact with missions scattered across the Solar System. Everything from NASA's Artemis missions to the Moon to the Voyager probes in interstellar space rely on the Deep Space Network (DSN) to receive commands and transmit data back to Earth. Suzanne Dodd, who oversees the DSN in her position at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, likes to highlight the network's importance by showing gorgeous images from missions like the James Webb Space Telescope and the Perseverance rover on Mars. "All these images, and all these great visuals for the public, and all the science for the scientists come down through the Deep Space Network," Dodd said Tuesday in a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council's Science Committee. But Dodd doesn't take a starry-eyed view of the challenges operating the Deep Space Network. She said there are currently around 40 missions that rely on the DSN's antennas to stay in communication with controllers and scientists back on Earth. Another 40-plus missions will join the roster over the next decade or so, and many of the 40 missions currently using time on the network will likely still be operating over that time. "We have more missions coming than we currently are flying," Dodd said. "We're nearly doubling the load on the DSN. A lot of those are either lunar exploration or Artemis missions, and a lot of Artemis precursor missions with commercial vendors. So the load is increasing, and it's very stressful to us." "It's oversubscribed, yet it's vital to anything the agency wants to do," she said. Vint Cerf, an Internet pioneer who is now an executive at Google, sits on the committee Dodd met with Tuesday. After hearing from Dodd and other NASA managers, Cerf said: "The deep space communications system is in deep -- well, let me use a better word, deficit. There's a four-letter word that occurs to me, too." Because astronauts are involved, the Artemis missions will come with unique requirements on the DSN. "We're not going to have bits of data. We're going to have gigabits of data," said Philip Baldwin, acting director of the network services division at JPL. "I don't want 1080p for video resolution. I want 8K video." Each of the three stations on the Deep Space Network has a 70-meter (230-foot) dish antenna, the largest antennas in the world for deep space communications. Each location also has at least three 112-foot (34-meter) antennas. The oldest of the large antennas in California entered service in 1966, then was enlarged to its 70-meter diameter in 1988. "We have reached a really critical point on the DSN's aging infrastructure," said Sandra Cauffman, deputy director of NASA's astrophysics division.

Hackers Shut Down 2 of the World's Most Advanced Telescopes

Some of the world's leading astronomical observatories have reported cyberattacks that have resulted in temporary shutdowns. Space.com reports: The National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab, reported that a cybersecurity incident that occurred on Aug. 1 has prompted the lab to temporarily halt operations at its Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii and Gemini South Telescope in Chile. Other, smaller telescopes on Cerro Tololo in Chile were also affected. "Our staff are working with cybersecurity experts to get all the impacted telescopes and our website back online as soon as possible and are encouraged by the progress made thus far," NOIRLab wrote in a statement on its website on Aug. 24. It's unclear exactly what the nature of the cyberattacks were or from where they originated. NOIRLab points out that because the investigation is still ongoing, the organization will be cautious about what information it shares about the intrusions. The cyberattacks on NOIRLab's facilities occurred just days before the United States National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) issued a bulletin (PDF) advising American space companies and research organizations about the threat of cyberattacks and espionage. Foreign spies and hackers "recognize the importance of the commercial space industry to the U.S. economy and national security, including the growing dependence of critical infrastructure on space-based assets," the bulletin stated. "They see US space-related innovation and assets as potential threats as well as valuable opportunities to acquire vital technologies and expertise."

New giant planet evidence of possible planetary collisions

A Neptune-sized planet denser than steel has been discovered by an international team of astronomers, who believe its composition could be the result of a giant planetary clash. TOI-1853b's mass is almost twice that of any other similar-sized planet known and its density is incredibly high, meaning that it is made up of a larger fraction of rock than would typically be expected at that scale. In the study, published today in Nature, scientists led by Luca Naponiello of University of Rome Tor Vergata and the University of Bristol suggest that this is the result of planetary collisions. These huge impacts would have removed some of the lighter atmosphere and water leaving a multitude of rock behind. x Scientists believe a new Neptune-sized planet denser than steel is the result of a giant planetary clash. ☄️



TOI-1853b's mass is almost twice that of other similar-sized planets and made up of a larger fraction of rock. 🌑



👉https://t.co/xGej3bPD96



@BristolUniPhy pic.twitter.com/kjfu67ZX0M — University of Bristol (@BristolUni) August 30, 2023

Using evidence from last Ice Age, scientists predict effects of rising seas on coastal habitats

The rapid sea level rise and resulting retreat of coastal habitat seen at the end of the last Ice Age could repeat itself if global average temperatures rise beyond certain levels, according to an analysis by an international team of scientists from more than a dozen institutions, including Rutgers. In a study published in Nature, scientists reported how ancient coastal habitats adapted as the last glacial period ended more than 10,000 years ago and projected how they are likely to change with this century's predicted sea level rise. They conducted their analysis by examining the ocean sediments of ancient shorelines from a time when oceans rose rapidly, mainly because of melting ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere. This examination allowed them to infer how ancient coastal habitats changed and formed the basis of improved predictions about the present. "Every ton of carbon dioxide humankind emits turns up the global thermostat, which in turn increases the pace of global sea level rise," said Robert Kopp, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and an author of the study. "The faster the oceans rise, the greater the threat to tidal marshes, mangroves and coral reefs around the world. For example, in our analysis, most tidal marshes are likely to be able to keep up with sea level rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius [2.7 degrees Fahrenheit] of warming, but two-thirds are unlikely to be able to keep up with 2 degrees Celsius [3.6 degrees Fahrenheit] of warming."

Bat study reveals how the brain is wired for collective behavior

The same neurons that help bats navigate through space may also help them navigate collective social environments, finds a new study published today in the journal Nature. Many mammals -- including bats and humans -- are believed to navigate with the help of a brain structure called the hippocampus, which encodes a mental "map" of familiar surroundings. For example, as you walk around your neighborhood or commute to work, individual "place" neurons in the hippocampus fire to indicate where you are. In the new study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, used wireless neural recording and imaging devices to "listen in" on the hippocampal brain activity of groups of Egyptian fruit bats as they flew freely within a large flight room -- often moving among tightly clustered social groups -- while tracking technology recorded the bats' movements.

Discovery opens possibility of new ion channel-targeting drugs

Ion channels are attractive drug targets due to their importance in health and disease, but finding ways to target a specific ion channel selectively is a major challenge. Now, researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and RMIT University in Australia have discovered that ion channels called BK channels have unique openings in their sides, which drug molecules may be able to access. The finding, published Aug. 31 in Nature Chemical Biology, could lead to the development of selective drugs that target the BK channel to treat a wide range of diseases. Ion channels are tunnel-like structures embedded in cell membranes that control the flow of charged molecules in or out of cells, which is required for many biological processes. BK channels, for instance, conduct the flow of potassium ions and inherited mutations in these channels have been linked to problems in multiple organ systems. “The discovery of a site where small molecules can selectively access this important type of ion channel is an exciting development,” said study co-senior author Dr. Crina Nimigean, professor of physiology and biophysics in anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Expanding the impact of CAR T cell therapy: An immunotherapy strategy against all blood cancers

A broad new strategy could hold hope for treating virtually all blood cancers with CAR T cell therapy, which is currently approved for five subtypes of blood cancer. Scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated the potential efficacy of this approach in preclinical tests. In the study, published today in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers used engineered CAR T cells to target CD45 -- a surface marker found on nearly all blood cells, including nearly all blood cancer cells. Because CD45 is found on healthy blood cells too, the research team used CRISPR base-editing to develop a method called "epitope editing" to overcome the challenges of an anti-CD45 strategy, which would otherwise result in low blood counts, with potentially life-threating side effects. The early results represent a proof-of-concept for epitope editing, which involves changing a small piece of the target CD45 molecule just enough so that the CAR T cells don't recognize it, but it can still function normally within the blood immune system. "Up to this point, we haven't had the tools to create a targeted cell therapy approach that could work across all different forms of blood and bone marrow cancers," said senior corresponding author Saar Gill, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Hematology-Oncology. "We're excited to create a new solution that could solve a major issue in immunotherapy, which is the inability to target surface markers that are found on both cancer cells and healthy cells."

Unraveling the long history of breast cancer formation

From the early stages of cell mutations starting in puberty to their manifestations as breast cancer in later years, the entire process has remained shrouded in mystery. Now, a team of researchers at Kyoto University has revealed the mechanism by which breast cancer is formed in the cells of the mammalian epithelium, whose main function is to secrete milk. According to the team's first analysis, approximately 20 mutations accumulate annually in each epithelial cell until menopause. After menopause, however, the mutation rate significantlydecreases. "Additionally, our results suggest that estrogen influences mutation accumulation in mammary epithelium, which correlates with our discovery of decreased accumulation after childbirth," says corresponding author Seishi Ogawa of KyotoU's Graduate School of Medicine. As 70% of breast cancers are understood to be estrogen-sensitive, Ogawa's team may shed light on estrogen's role in the initiation of breast cancer.

Webb reveals new structures within iconic supernova

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has begun the study of one of the most renowned supernovae, SN 1987A (Supernova 1987A). Located 168,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, SN 1987A has been a target of intense observations at wavelengths ranging from gamma rays to radio for nearly 40 years, since its discovery in February of 1987. New observations by Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) provide a crucial clue to our understanding of how a supernova develops over time to shape its remnant. This image reveals a central structure like a keyhole. This center is packed with clumpy gas and dust ejected by the supernova explosion. The dust is so dense that even near-infrared light that Webb detects can't penetrate it, shaping the dark "hole" in the keyhole. A bright, equatorial ring surrounds the inner keyhole, forming a band around the waist that connects two faint arms of hourglass-shaped outer rings. The equatorial ring, formed from material ejected tens of thousands of years before the supernova explosion, contains bright hot spots, which appeared as the supernova's shock wave hit the ring. Now spots are found even exterior to the ring, with diffuse emission surrounding it. These are the locations of supernova shocks hitting more exterior material. x Floating like a cosmic jellyfish is the iconic supernova SN 1987A.



Webb has given us the most clear & detailed look yet, revealing a new feature — small crescent-like structures thought to be part of the outer layers of gas shot out from the explosion: https://t.co/IJJAfRDXHG pic.twitter.com/6Ct8T7EiMx — NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) August 31, 2023

Tiny mineral inclusions picture the chemical exchange between Earth's mantle and atmosphere

Using synchrotron techniques, scientists have unveiled important information on The Great Oxidation Event by studying apatite inclusions in zircon crystals from old magmas with the ESRF -- Extremely Brilliant Source. The results are published in Nature Geoscience. Around 2.4 billion years ago, a pivotal moment in Earth's history took place: The Great Oxidation Event. During this period, a significant amount of oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere. This surge in oxygen production led to a dramatic shift in the composition of the atmosphere, altering the chemistry of the planet. The event marked a turning point as oxygen levels rose, enabling the development of more complex multicellular life forms and fundamentally reshaping Earth's ecosystems. Plate tectonics are an effective mechanism for the cycling and interchange of elements among Earth's surface, atmosphere, and mantle. As mountains undergo weathering and erosion through interactions with water and the atmosphere, they break down into sediments. These sediments are then partially returned to the mantle through subduction processes (one tectonic plate sinking beneath another). The formation of magmas in the mantle above subduction zones provides a unique opportunity to explore how the atmosphere could have impacted the mantle by assimilating materials from subducted sediments, offering insights into this intriguing geological relationship. x Article: The redox state of the mantle in the early Proterozoic shifted as an increasingly oxidized atmosphere modified the geochemistry of subducted sediments https://t.co/8wrpKTiC0S — Nature Geoscience (@NatureGeosci) September 1, 2023

Scientists detect and validate the longest-period exoplanet found with TESS

Scientists from The University of New Mexico (UNM), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have detected and validated two of the longest-period exoplanets found by TESS to date. These long period large exoplanets orbit a K dwarf star and belong to a class of planets known as warm Jupiters, which have orbital periods of 10-200 days and are at least six times Earth's radius. This recent discovery offers exciting research opportunities for the future of finding long-period planets that resemble those in our own solar system. The research titled, TOI-4600 b and c: Two long-period giant planets orbiting an early K dwarf will be published in a future issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The exoplanets, TOI-4600 b and c, were detected using photometric data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and followed up with observations using the telescopes on the ground since they provide better resolution. The observing strategy adopted by NASA's TESS, which divides each hemisphere into 13 sectors that are surveyed for roughly 28 days, is producing the most comprehensive all-sky search for transiting planets. This approach has already proven its capability to detect both large and small planets around different kinds of stars. In the case of TOI-4600, the star is a K dwarf star, also known as an orange dwarf, which are stars slightly smaller and cooler than the Sun. x https://t.co/9Mxkb64zti An interesting confirmation from @NASA #TESS on an #Exoplanet with a period of 482 days. A Saturn type planet & circling its star TOI 4600- K-Dwarf Star in constellation of Draco around 800 LY away from us, this frigid world is a gas giant and happens to… — Aloke Palsikar 🔭 🇮🇳 (@alokep) September 1, 2023

Unprecedented gamma-ray burst explained by long-lived jet

Last year, Northwestern University researchers reported new observational evidence that long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can result from the merger of a neutron star with another compact object (either another neutron star or black hole) -- a finding that was previously believed to be impossible. Now, another Northwestern team offers a potential explanation for what generated the unprecedented and incredibly luminous burst of light. After developing the first numerical simulation that follows the jet evolution in a black hole-neutron star merger out to large distances, the astrophysicists discovered that the post-merger black hole can launch jets of material from the swallowed neutron star. But the key ingredients are the mass of the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) surrounding the black hole and the strength of the disk's magnetic field. In massive disks, when the magnetic field is strong, the black hole launches a short-duration jet that is much brighter than anything ever seen in observations. When the massive disk has a weaker magnetic field, however, the black hole launches a jet with the same luminosity and long duration as the mysterious GRB (dubbed GRB211211A) spotted in 2021 and reported in 2022. x 1/2

GRB211211A is problematic, occuring during instability, mutually-dependent overfits between non-astrophysical GRB170817A. During GRB211211A, an expansive solar shockwave (no CMB) emitted. An almost identical event coincided with GRB170817A/GW170817 https://t.co/RziYo1KieW pic.twitter.com/dacicnN6OP — Thaddeus Gutierrez (@Fulguritics) February 21, 2023

New research explains 'Atlantification' of the Arctic Ocean

New research by an international team of scientists explains what's behind a stalled trend in Arctic Ocean sea ice loss since 2007. The findings indicate that stronger declines in sea ice will occur when an atmospheric feature known as the Arctic dipole reverses itself in its recurring cycle. The many environmental responses to the Arctic dipole are described in a paper published online today in the journal Science. This analysis helps explain how North Atlantic water influences Arctic Ocean climate. Scientists call it Atlantification.

Groundwater depletion rates in India could triple in coming decades as climate warms, study shows

A new University of Michigan-led study finds that farmers in India have adapted to warming temperatures by intensifying the withdrawal of groundwater used for irrigation. If the trend continues, the rate of groundwater loss could triple by 2080, further threatening India's food and water security. Reduced water availability in India due to groundwater depletion and climate change could threaten the livelihoods of more than one-third of the country's 1.4 billion residents and has global implications. India recently overtook China to become the world's most populous nation and is the second-largest global producer of common cereal grains including rice and wheat. "We find that farmers are already increasing irrigation use in response to warming temperatures, an adaptation strategy that has not been accounted for in previous projections of groundwater depletion in India," said study senior author Meha Jain, assistant professor at U-M's School for Environment and Sustainability. "This is of concern, given that India is the world's largest consumer of groundwater and is a critical resource for the regional and global food supply."

Immune cells shape their own path

When fighting disease, our immune cells need to reach their target quickly. Researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) now discovered that immune cells actively generate their own guidance system to navigate through complex environments. This challenges earlier notions about these movements. The researchers' findings, published in the journal Science Immunology, enhance our knowledge of the immune system and offer potential new approaches to improve human immune response. Immunologic threats like germs or toxins can arise everywhere inside the human body. Luckily, the immune system -- our very own protective shield -- has its intricate ways of coping with these threats. For example, a crucial aspect of our immune response involves the coordinated collective movement of immune cells during infection and inflammation. But how do our immune cells know which way to go? A group of scientists from the Sixt group and the Hannezo group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) addressed this question. In their study, published today in Science Immunology, the researchers shed light on the immune cells' ability to collectively migrate through complex environments.

Toxic molds, fossil fuels, antibiotics linked to chemical intolerance

What initiates chemical intolerance (CI)? In a newly released survey of thousands of U.S. adults, respondents most frequently cited exposures to biological sources, such as mold and algae "blooms," and/or fossil fuels, their combustion products and synthetic chemical derivatives such as pesticides, plastics and persistent organic pollutants. It's an issue in the news, as toxic mold spawned by the moisture left behind by flood waters from Hurricane Idalia could lead to severe health problems for people who suffer from chemical intolerance. This mold also could initiate the condition in some individuals. "Everyone should avoid prolonged exposure to mold whenever possible," said physician-researcher Claudia Miller, MD, MS, from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, also called UT Health San Antonio. "Research has increasingly shown that toxic mold is much more dangerous than was previously recognized."

Precarious employment conditions can increase risk of early death

People without a secure job contract can reduce their risk of premature death by 20 per cent if they gain permanent employment, a study from Karolinska Institutet published in The Journal of Epidemiology and Community reports. According to the researchers, the results indicate that job security on the Swedish labour market needs to improve. Precarious employment is a term that is used to describe jobs with short contracts (e.g. temping), low wages and a lack of influence and rights, all of which lead to a working life without predictability and security. In the present study, the researchers have examined how this affects the risk of death.

Newly discovered fungus helps destroy a harmful food toxin

Patulin is a harmful mycotoxin produced by fungi typically found in damaged fruits, including apples, pears, and grapes. In a recent breakthrough, researchers from Japan identified a new filamentous fungal strain that can degrade patulin by transforming it into less toxic substances. Their findings provide important insights into the degradation mechanisms for patulin found in nature, and can lead to new ways of controlling patulin toxicity in our food supplies. Patulin (C 7 H 6 O 4 ), a mycotoxin produced by several types of fungi, is toxic to a variety of life forms, including humans, mammals, plants, and microorganisms. In particular, environments lacking proper hygienic measures during food production are susceptible to patulin contamination as many of these fungi species tend to grow on damaged or decaying fruits, specifically apples, and even contaminate apple products, such as apple sauce, apple juice, jams, and ciders.

Algae provide clues about 600 million years of plant evolution

The Earth's surface is covered by plants. They make up the majority of biomass on land and exhibit a wide range of diversity, from mosses to trees. This astounding biodiversity came into existence due to a fateful evolutionary event that happened just once: plant terrestrialization. This describes the point where one group of algae, whose modern descendants can still be studied in the lab, evolved into plants and invaded land around the world. An international group of researchers, spearheaded by a team from the University of Göttingen, generated large scale gene expression data to investigate the molecular networks that operate in one of the closest algal relatives of land plants, a humble single-celled alga called Mesotaenium endlicherianum. Their results were published in Nature Plants. x Algae provide clues about 600 million years of plant evolution: researchers at our Uni & @Leibniz_LIB used gene expression, evolutionary analyses and more to discover genetic mechanisms common to plants & algae: https://t.co/BEatKHGD7I, https://t.co/LEBchnAFQ2 @NaturePlants pic.twitter.com/FAlJVzpcTV — Uni Göttingen (@uniGoettingen) September 1, 2023

Three-eyed distant relative of insects and crustaceans reveals amazing detail of early animal evolution

A team from the University of Leicester, Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology and the Institute of Palaeontology at Yunnan University, Chengjiang Fossil Museum, and the Natural History Museum in London, have redescribed a unique fossil animal from rocks nearly 520 million years old that fills in a gap in our understanding of the evolution of animals known as arthropods. The animal, which has the scientific name Kylinxia, was imaged using a CT scanner which revealed its soft anatomy buried in the rock. The size of a large shrimp, its surprising features include three eyes on the head and a pair of fearsome limbs presumably used to catch prey.

Population collapse almost wiped out human ancestors, say scientists

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