Science

The real reason men don’t do the housework

University of Cambridge academics believe men and women perceive what they see in different ways, dubbed the ‘affordance theory’

Women do most of the chores around the home because men do not see mess in the same way, University of Cambridge academics believe.

While men will look at a pile of dishes in the sink or crumbs on the counter as a mess, women view it as a job in need of doing and feel an urge to do so.

This comes from a deep-rooted social training which wires the brains of men and women differently from a young age, it is thought.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inScience

Fusion energy’s false dawn

A potentially exciting breakthrough shouldn’t detract from urgent energy needs

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will announce a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion on Tuesday. Over the last two weeks, the National Ignition Facility of the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California shot three lasers at a deuterium-tritium fusion fuel pellet, heating it until it induced a fusion reaction. This particular fusion reaction generated more power than used in the lasers shot at it.

Granholm will hail this as a “major scientific breakthrough.” And it is. But we’re still a long way away from the promise of bountiful clean energy that fusion promises.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inScience

Was Alex Jones right about hormone disruptors?

He had a unique explanation for physiological changes in men and women

The age at which a girl first starts her period can reveal a great deal about both her physical health and her social context.

In Western countries, the average age at menarche fell from 16.5 years in 1840 to 13 in the 1990s. Most medical historians believe this to have been the result of improved nutrition and reduced impact of infectious disease in childhood. The richer societies became, the earlier girls began puberty.

But, peculiarly, since the turn of the century that relationship between affluence and age at menarche has gone into reverse. Now it is girls of lower socioeconomic status who get their periods first. 

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inScience, WTF?

Japanese Scientists Find Protein That Determines COVID Severity

Here:

A team of Japanese researchers identified a protein that can foretell severe COVID-19 cases, potentially making it possible to determine the severity of a patient’s symptoms.

Scientists from Chiba University said they discovered the protein–called myosin light chain 9 (Myl9)–rose in volume in blood vessels among patients with more serious signs of the novel coronavirus. Myl9 is one of the components that make up blood platelets.

The research was carried out primarily by a team headed by Kiyoshi Hirahara, an immunology professor at the university’s graduate school.

“If a simple kit could be developed that could measure the concentration of Myl9, the severity of patients’ conditions could be predicted,” Hirahara said at an Aug. 1 news conference. “That would help determine which patients to hospitalize first.”

The findings have been published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Creating a therapeutic agent featuring an antibody against Myl9 could help doctors prevent symptoms from worsening,” Hirahara said.

Hirahara and his colleagues examined inflammation around the pulmonary blood vessels of individuals who deaths were due to COVID-19.

The researchers then found the virus damaged blood vessels, leading to the platelet-constituting Myl9 to swarm around blood clots generated in the process.

Analyzing the blood samples of 123 hospitalized patients from 11 medical centers, including Chiba University Hospital, the scientists discovered Myl9 levels were three to five times higher among those with moderate conditions than seen in mild cases.

It was 10-fold among patients who died of the virus.

Patients who showed higher Myl9 levels when they were admitted to hospital ended up being hospitalized for longer periods, according to the team.

Myl9 exists in the blood of healthy people but in only limited amounts.

According to the team, Myl9 levels among COVID-19 patients rise more markedly than in those with severe blood vessel problems, such as sepsis, and underwent cardiac and other surgical procedures that took a heavy toll on their bodies.

Share
by Osumashi••0•Posted inCovid/Coronavirus, Health, Japan, Science

Headwind 2

Headwind is an international documentary series. Part 1 was filmed on location in Andalusia, Spain during the first week of July 2021. The documentary series consists of six portraits of and a roundtable discussion with renowned and respected scientists who held their ground in the face of a lot of headwind, about the Corona crisis and the future of our society.

Headwind 2 Official Trailer

https://www.headwind.tv/headwind2malonetrailer

Share
by Sarcasticat••0•Posted inScience, vaccine controversy

Original Antigenic Sin

The original antigenic sin: When the body first encounters an infection it produces effective antibodies against its dominant antigens and thus eliminates the infection. But when it encounters the same infection, at a later evolved stage, with a new dominant antigen, with the original antigen now being recessive, the immune system will still produce the former antibodies against this old “now recessive antigen” and not develop new antibodies against the new dominant one, this results in the production of ineffective antibodies and thus a weak immunity.

Share
by Sarcasticat••0•Posted in"China eats weird animals disease", Science

Sarah Palin says she’s unvaccinated because of COVID-19 ‘immunity’

Sarah Palin has not received the COVID-19 vaccine because she’s already had the virus and recovered from it, “creating an immunity,” she said.

“I am one of those white, common-sense conservatives, I believe in science, and I have not taken the shot,” the former Alaska governor said Thursday on Greg Gutfeld’s talk show on Fox News.

Share
by Sarcasticat••0•Posted in"China eats weird animals disease", Science

Don’t place science on a pedestal

It is a human activity that is subject to human frailties

When I read Tom Chivers’ post about Young Earth creationism I groaned inwardly. Not because I objected to what he’d written — it’s very good — but because it contained the news that the likely next leader of the DUP is a creationist.

Great, I thought, that’s all we need. If this man is elected then the self-appointed science vigilantes are going to go ape. 

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inScience

String theorist Michio Kaku: ‘Reaching out to aliens is a terrible idea’

The physicist on Newton finding inspiration amid the great plague, how the multiverse can unite religions, and why a ‘theory of everything’ is within our grasp

Michio Kaku is a professor of theoretical physics at City College, New York, a proponent of string theory but also a well-known populariser of science, with multiple TV appearances and several bestselling books behind him. His latest book, The God Equation, is a clear and accessible examination of the quest to combine Einstein’s general relativity with quantum theory to create an all-encompassing “theory of everything” about the nature of the universe.

Share
by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inScience

A Dyson Sphere Could Bring Humans Back From the Dead, Researchers Say

Here’s how it will go down: A megastructure called a Dyson Sphere will provide a superintelligent artificial agent (AI) with the enormous amounts of power it needs to collect as much historical and personal data about you, so it can rebuild your exact digital copy. Once it’s finished, you’ll live your whole life (again) in a simulated reality, and when the time comes for you to die (again), you’ll be transported into a simulated afterlife, à la Black Mirror’s “San Junipero,” where you’ll get to hang out with your friends, family, and favorite celebrities forever.

Share
by Sarcasticat••0•Posted inArtificial Intelligence, Science, The Future

Hominid Footprints on Crete Could Change Evolutionary Theory For Good

He was not looking for hominid footprints from the prehistoric past. Paleontologist Gerhard Gierlinski, from Warsaw, Poland, was just trying to get away from it all in the summer of 2002 and enjoy the warm seas and soft sands on the Greek island of Crete with his girlfriend.

A researcher at the Polish Geological Institute, he was always ready to take samples of interesting things he spied on vacations, and he traveled with a hammer, a camera and a GPS for just such occasions.

What he discovered along the Mediterranean shores of the town of Trachilos would rock his world and send some researchers who were convinced that humans evolved solely in Africa, into angry denial, resulting in many of them casting aspersions on his jaw-dropping find.

Gierlinski asked colleagues from Poland, Sweden, Greece, the US and the UK, among them Dr. Per Ahlberg, for their opinions on what he saw as human-like footprints that had somehow been made into a flat rock along the shore.

The 5.6 million-year-old footprints made in Trachilos, Crete 5.6 million years ago. Photo: The Conversation.
The team of experts came to the conclusion that indeed, the impressions had been made by ancient human ancestors 5.6 million years ago, making them by far the oldest footprints ever discovered in Europe.

h/t Marvin

Share
by Sarcasticat••0•Posted inHeresy, history, Science