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Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday Jan 18, 2025 [1]

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

Date: 2025-01-18

The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, jeremybloom, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, doomandgloom, Besame, and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Rise above the swamp, 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 since 2007, 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.

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Turning India green through electric vehicles and renewable energy could save 16 million lives a year.

From Chemistry World:

Air pollution may contribute to almost a quarter of deaths in India

Particulate pollution is killing millions more people in India every year than previously thought, a new study reveals. This type of pollution could potentially be responsible for almost a quarter of deaths in the country. The research focuses on the health effects of particles smaller than 2.5µm in diameter – PM2.5. The researchers examined the link between PM2.5 particles and mortality between 2009 and 2019 in 655 out of 787 districts of India and found every person in the country was exposed to high levels of this type of pollution. The study highlights that the entire population of India is currently exposed to PM2.5 levels that exceed those recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the WHO, the annual average PM 2.5 concentration should not exceed 5µg/m3 and the 24-hour average exposure should not exceed 15µg/m3. In several Indian regions annual average PM2.5 levels reached 119µg/m3 – much higher than both Indian and WHO recommended safe limits. ***

Unexpected verification of ancient sources that depicted high-status British women.

From Phys.org:

Ancient genomes reveal an Iron Age society centered on women

An international team of geneticists, led by those from Trinity College Dublin, has joined forces with archaeologists from Bournemouth University to decipher the structure of British Iron Age society, finding evidence of female political and social empowerment. The researchers seized upon a rare opportunity to sequence DNA from many members of a single community. They retrieved over 50 ancient genomes from a set of burial grounds in Dorset, southern England, in use before and after the Roman Conquest of AD 43. The results revealed that this community was centered around bonds of female-line descent. Dr. Lara Cassidy, Assistant Professor in Trinity's Department of Genetics, led the study that has been published in Nature. ***

More surprising genetic news. DNA is like a magic key that unlocks hidden treasures. Here two communities lived side-by-side without intermarriage.

East Asia meets Europe in Lower Austria: Archaeologists perform genetic analysis of Early Middle Age individuals

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, together with an international team, carried out an archaeogenetic study of human remains from more than 700 individuals from the Early Middle Ages. Two large burial sites, Mödling and Leobersdorf, have been genetically analyzed in their entirety. The surprising result was that the individuals from Leobersdorf were mostly of East Asian origin, while those buried in Mödling mostly had European ancestry. Both communities lived next to each other for at least six generations. [...] When the researchers looked at the ancient DNA extracted from the human remains from these neighboring sites, they were very surprised. While the population of Leobersdorf was mostly of East Asian origin, those buried in Mödling had ancestry associated with European populations. "The genetic difference between these groups was very clear and consistent for most individuals at the sites," says Ke Wang, a geneticist and one of the lead authors of the study. ***

From Sci.News:

Homo erectus Thrived in Steppe-Desert Landscapes One Million Years Ago, New Study Suggests

Traditionally, only Homo sapiens was thought capable of sustained occupation in such ecosystems, with archaic hominins seen as restricted to narrower ranges. However, evidence suggests that early Homo had the ability to adapt to diverse and unstable environments as early as two million years ago. “Now extinct, Homo erectus existed more than an estimated 1.5 million years, marking them as a species survival success in the human evolution story when compared with our own estimated existence of around 300,000 years to date,” said Griffith University’s Professor Michael Petraglia. ***

They were tough and smart enough to survive without destroying their environment, which is more than I can say about Homo sapiens.

From Science Daily:

Speleothem and ice cores: Natural climate archives offer new insights into the climate history of central Europe

The synchronization of data from two natural climate archives -- a speleothem from the Herbstlabyrinth Cave in Hesse (Germany) and ice cores from Greenland -- offers new insights into the chronology of abrupt climate changes in Central Europe. According to the analysis, the devastating eruption of the Laacher See volcano in what is now Rhineland-Palatinate occurred earlier than previously assumed and hence could not have triggered the sudden-onset cold period of approximately 13,000 years ago, geoscientists have found. ***

From Chemistry World:

Nobel laureates and preeminent scientists call for ‘moonshot’ food effort

More than 150 Nobel and World Food Prize laureates are calling for funding and political support to pursue high risk, high reward scientific research that can transform global food systems to avert a ‘hunger catastrophe’ in the next 25 years. An open letter, signed by more than three dozen winners of the chemistry Nobel prize including Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for Crispr gene-editing, proposes ‘moonshot’ initiatives that build on recent advancements in biology and genetics. As examples of such projects, they suggest enhancement of photosynthesis in crops such as wheat and rice, engineering nitrogen fixation into major cereal crops, and the creation of nutrient-rich food from microorganisms and fungi, among others. [...] 'Beyond research, success will require science-based policies, regulations, and incentives that are enabling and aligned with this goal, including those pertaining to AI, computational biology and advanced genomic techniques,’ the letter reads. Its authors emphasise that incremental agricultural productivity improvements will be ‘insufficient’ to meet future food needs, unless agricultural R&D and its dissemination become a higher global priority to meet the food needs of 9.7 billion people by 2050. ***

I wish them well.

From SciTechDaily:

A Breath Away From a Cure: How Xenon Gas Could Transform Alzheimer’s Treatment

A breakthrough study highlights Xenon gas as a potential game-changer in treating Alzheimer’s disease, demonstrating its ability to mitigate brain damage and improve cognitive functions in mouse models. A forthcoming clinical trial aims to test its efficacy in humans. Most current treatments for Alzheimer’s disease focus on addressing amyloid plaques and tau tangles in the brain. However, researchers from Mass General Brigham and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a groundbreaking alternative: Xenon gas. Their study demonstrated that inhaling Xenon gas reduced neuroinflammation, minimized brain atrophy, and promoted protective neuronal states in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. These findings, published today (January 15) in Science Translational Medicine, have paved the way for a phase 1 clinical trial in healthy volunteers, set to begin in early 2025. ***

This is good but surprising news.

Well, that is it for this week's Science Saturday. See you in three weeks.

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