The ketogenic or “keto” diet, which involves consuming very low amounts of carbohydrates and high amounts of fats, has been gaining popularity. However, a new study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology suggests that a “keto-like” diet may be associated with higher blood levels of “bad” cholesterol and a twofold heightened risk of cardiovascular events such as chest pain (angina), blocked arteries requiring stenting, heart attacks and strokes.

“Our study found that regular consumption of a self-reported diet low in carbohydrates and high in fat was associated with increased levels of LDL cholesterol— or “bad” cholesterol—and a higher risk of heart disease,” said Iulia Iatan, MD, PhD, attending physician-scientist at the Healthy Heart Program Prevention Clinic, St. Paul’s Hospital and University of British Columbia’s Centre for Heart Lung Innovation in Vancouver, Canada, and lead author of the study. “To our knowledge, our study is one of the first to examine the association between this type of dietary pattern and cardiovascular outcomes.”

Carbohydrates are the body’s first “go-to” source for fuel to provide energy for daily life. Low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) diets, like a keto diet, restrict consumption of carbohydrates (e.g., bread, pasta, rice and other grains, baked goods, potato products such as fries and chips, and high-carbohydrate fruits and vegetables). By depriving the body of carbohydrates, it is forced to start breaking down fat for energy instead. The breakdown of fat in the liver produces ketones, chemicals that the body uses as energy in the absence of carbohydrates—hence the name ketogenic, or “ketone producing.” Proponents of a ketogenic diet generally suggest limiting carbohydrates to 10% of total daily calories, protein to 20% to 30% and obtaining 60% to 80% of daily calories from fat.

The keto diet, also known as the ketogenic diet, is a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet that has gained popularity in recent years. The diet involves consuming a very low amount of carbohydrates, typically less than 50 grams per day, which puts the body into a metabolic state called ketosis. In this state, the body switches from using glucose as its primary source of energy to using ketones, which are produced by the liver from stored fat.
The high fat intake in the keto diet typically comes from sources such as meat, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, seeds, and oils. The diet also includes moderate amounts of protein, as excess protein can be converted into glucose and potentially interfere with ketosis.
The keto diet has been promoted for weight loss, as well as for other health benefits such as improved blood sugar control and increased energy levels. However, the diet can be difficult to maintain, and there are concerns about its potential long-term effects on health, including the risk of nutrient deficiencies, liver problems, and heart disease. It is important to consult a healthcare professional before starting any new diet, including the keto diet.

Some previous studies have shown that an LCHF diet can lead to elevated levels of LDL cholesterol in some people. While elevated LDL cholesterol is a known risk factor for heart disease (caused by atherosclerosis, a buildup of cholesterol in the coronary arteries), the effects of an LCHF diet on risk for heart disease and stroke have not been well studied, Iatan said.  

For this study, Iatan and her colleagues defined an LCHF diet as consisting of no more than 25% of total daily energy or calories from carbohydrates and more than 45% of total daily calories from fat. They dubbed this an LCHF diet and “keto-like” because it is somewhat higher in carbohydrates and lower in fat than a strict ketogenic diet. They defined a “standard diet” as individuals not meeting these criteria and having more balanced eating habits.

The research team analyzed data from the UK Biobank, a large-scale prospective database with health information from over half a million people living in the United Kingdom who were followed for at least 10 years. Upon enrollment in the biobank, 70,684 participants completed a one-time self-reported 24-hour diet questionnaire and, at the same time, had blood drawn to check their levels of cholesterol. The researchers identified 305 participants whose questionnaire responses indicated that their diet during the 24-hour reporting period met the study’s definition of an LCHF. These participants were matched by age and sex with 1,220 individuals who reported eating a standard diet. This resulted in 73% of the participants in each group being women and the group’s average age was 54 years. Those on an LCHF diet had an average body mass index (BMI) of 27.7; those on a standard diet, 26.7. A BMI of 25 to 30 falls within the overweight range.

Compared with participants on a standard diet, those on an LCHF diet had significantly higher levels of both LDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B (apoB), the protein component that sits on LDL and other atherogenic lipoprotein particles. Previous studies have shown that elevated apoB may be a better predictor than elevated LDL cholesterol for risk of cardiovascular disease, Iatan said. After an average of 11.8 years of follow-up—and after adjustment for other risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and smoking—people on an LCHF diet had more than two times higher risk of having several major cardiovascular events, such as blockages in the arteries that needed to be opened with stenting procedures, heart attack, stroke, and peripheral arterial disease. In all, 9.8% of participants on an LCHF diet experienced a new cardiac event, compared with 4.3% of those on a standard diet, a doubling of risk for those on an LCHF diet.

“Among the participants on an LCHF diet, we found that those with the highest levels of LDL cholesterol were at the highest risk for a cardiovascular event,” Iatan said. “Our findings suggest that people who are considering going on an LCHF diet should be aware that doing so could lead to an increase in their levels of LDL cholesterol. Before starting this dietary pattern, they should consult a healthcare provider. While on the diet, it is recommended they have their cholesterol levels monitored and should try to address other risk factors for heart disease or stroke, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, physical inactivity and smoking.”

The study’s findings also suggest that not everyone responds to an LCHF diet in the same way.

“On average, cholesterol levels tend to rise on this diet, but some people’s cholesterol concentrations can stay the same or go down, depending on several underlying factors,” Iatan said. “There are inter-individual differences in how people respond to this dietary pattern that we don’t fully understand yet. One of our next steps will be to try to identify specific characteristics or genetic markers that can predict how someone will respond to this type of diet.”   

A limitation of the study is that participants provided dietary information at only one point in time, which should be considered when interpreting the study findings, Iatan said. Moreover, self-reports of food consumption can be inaccurate, though Iatan said this questionnaire has been extensively validated.    

Because the study was observational, it can only show an association between the diet and an increased risk for major cardiac events, not a causal relationship. However, Iatan said the findings merit further research in prospectively designed studies, especially when approximately 1 in 5 Americans report being on a low-carb, keto-like or full keto diet.

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The inauguration of ast year's trilateral AUKUS partnership, that will supply Australia with nuclear submarines, is widely seen as an anti-China move. Photo: Facebook

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to visit Washington in the next two weeks to announce the long-awaited roadmap for the AUKUS submarine agreement alongside UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden.

So, what’s involved, what’s at stake and what are the challenges?

Can Albanese balance the imperatives of the alliance, technological requirements, and regional concerns? And can the plan be implemented in a timely manner?

How did we get here?

In September 2021, then-prime minister Scott Morrison held a surprise virtual three-way meeting alongside Biden and then-UK prime minister Boris Johnson to announce a trilateral technical agreement called AUKUS.

The deal is to enable Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, as well as deepen defense industry collaboration between the three nations.

It followed a stop-start approach to domestic submarine manufacturing. The 2009 Defense White Paper called for 12 new diesel-electric propulsion submarines. The global financial crisis saw funding cutbacks and delays.

Later, Tony Abbott hoped to buy Japanese-built submarines, but with pressure for local industry input and his grip on power weakening, he was overruled.

His successor, Malcolm Turnbull, set up a multi-billion dollar deal with France instead, with Australia saying it would buy a fleet of conventional submarines.

The French deal was then scrapped by Morrison in favor of the AUKUS plan.

Why nuclear-powered subs?

Technological developments made conventional diesel-electric submarines obsolete for Australia.

Australia’s submarines face long transits between ports, let alone to potential distant hot spots. Advances in artificial intelligence and persistent surveillance make detection easier to the point where a short “snort” to recharge batteries is detectable. To lose stealth is to lose the key advantage of submarines, so something had to give.

French President Emmanuel Macron (2/L) and former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (C) on HMAS Waller, a Collins-class submarine operated by the Royal Australian Navy, at Garden Island in Sydney in 2018. Photo: AFP / Brendan Esposito

Nuclear-powered subs can stay underwater for far longer than diesel-electric models.

Another part of the rationale is that the deal would add to the deterrence of China as its influence in the Pacific grows.

What do critics say?

The Morrison government’s clumsy handling of canceling the French deal significantly harmed relations.

AUKUS also generated consternation in Indonesia and some other Southeast Asian nations, who worried the deal would lead to an arms race and greater tensions in the region.

Critics see AUKUS as a retrograde step, damaging Australia’s regional standing and its nuclear non-proliferation credentials. The Albanese government has pushed back, and its imminent meeting in Washington means it will now wholly own the endeavor. The government still needs to allay regional concerns, but progress has been made.

Critics have also suggested AUKUS compromises Australian sovereignty. Albanese has rightly rejected this view, arguing deployment of military assets in the event of any conflict was

a decision for Australia as a sovereign nation, just as the United States will maintain its sovereignty and the United Kingdom will maintain its.

The irony is that for a boutique defense force like Australia’s, reliance on US technology has come to be an integral part of the plan for defending Australia’s sovereignty.

Restoring relations

The Albanese government set about restoring relations with France, and earlier this year France’s ambassador to Australia said the two countries have repaired the relationship.

As for relations with neighbors in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defense Minister Richard Marles have been actively seeking to allay concerns over nuclear non-proliferation, and of Australia’s commitment to remain engaged as respected partners of ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum.

The Albanese government has been stressing that a strengthened defense capability is a net plus for security partners in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Its initiatives have been well received so far, with Indonesia promising to sign a new pact with Australia to facilitate increased military cooperation.

More work to be done

One of the most critical concerns remains the question of how willing the US government and bureaucracy will be to facilitate Australia’s ready access to nuclear propulsion technology beyond the current electoral cycle.

For this to happen, significant extra work is required to overcome US rules that limit the export of nuclear technologies, which are required under AUKUS. Some significant voices are advocating for this on Australia’s behalf.

An Australian Army soldier sits in the audience at a ceremony marking the start of Talisman Saber 2017, a biennial joint military exercise between the United States and Australia aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard amphibious assault ship off the coast of Sydney on June 29, 2017. Photo: AFP/Jason Reed

Australia has become more important for enhanced US military contingency planning, meaning the US has a vested interest in making the Australia alliance work.

With so much at stake, and with evident bipartisan support for AUKUS, tripartite arrangements will likely survive the tempest of local political ebbs and flows.

An interim solution?

The government’s plan is to manufacture nuclear-powered subs onshore, though this wouldn’t happen until well into the future. Meanwhile, Australia’s current Collins class submarines are due for a life extension refit to see them through beyond the next decade.

So there’s been intense speculation about an interim solution.

Some have suggested Australia may operate UK-built nuclear-propulsion submarines as a stop-gap until Australia’s production kicks in. The US produces larger boats but its production line is at capacity, while the British option is smaller and easier to crew.

Crew size is a critical limitation for the Australian submarine arm, which has challenges crewing even the significantly smaller Collins class submarines.

What’s more, with Britain facing significant financial pressures, a couple of submarines from the UK production line may act as a lifeline to its naval construction industry, while also providing the Albanese government with the promise of a face-saving submarine delivery before the end of the decade.

We won’t know exactly what the plan is until the official announcement, and we may not get any interim subs at all. Such an outcome would leave Australia reliant on Collins submarines well past their use by date.

A bumpy road ahead

Challenges aplenty remain. Australian nuclear technology know-how is limited, and its naval construction industry is experiencing considerable turbulence with long gaps between contracts. The university sector has an important role to meet the nuclear workforce requirements and several, like ANU, are making steady progress.

But the imperatives for closer collaboration are accentuated by darkening clouds in international affairs.

It’s often said that weakness invites adventurism, even aggression. The AUKUS plan is an ambitious, costly and risky one. But these are challenging times. It’s an important plank for bolstering resilience and deterrence and, in turn, reducing the likelihood of adventurism.

The forthcoming Defense Strategic Review, likely to be released in April, can be expected to build on the ties that the AUKUS plan represents.

Now comes the hard part – making the plan come to fruition.

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Are you scared of clowns? You are not alone. Coulrophobia, or the fear of clowns, is a widely acknowledged phenomenon. Studies indicate this fear is present among both adults and children in many different cultures. Yet it is not well understood due to a lack of focused research.

While numerous possible explanations of the phobia had been put forward in academic literature, no studies had specifically investigated its origins. So we set out to discover the reasons people are frightened by clowns, and to understand the psychology behind this. We also wanted to explore how common the fear of clowns is in adults and to look at the severity of the fear in those who reported it.

To do this, we devised a psychometric questionnaire to assess the prevalence and severity of coulrophobia. The Fear of Clowns Questionnaire was completed by an international sample of 987 people aged between 18 and 77.

Image Credit: nito/Shutterstock

More than half the respondents (53.5%) said they were scared of clowns at least to some degree, with 5% saying they were “extremely afraid” of them. Interestingly, this percentage reporting an extreme fear of clowns is slightly higher than those reported for many other phobias, such as animals (3.8%), blood/injection/injuries (3.0%), heights (2.8%), still water or weather events (2.3%), closed spaces (2.2%), and flying (1.3%).

We also found that women are more afraid of clowns than men. The reason for this difference is not clear, but it echoes research findings on other phobias such as the fear of snakes and spiders. We also discovered coulrophobia decreases with age, which again matches up with research into other fears.

Not all clowns are meant to be creepy, but that doesn’t stop us from being scared of them. Image Credit: Minerva Studio/Shutterstock

Origins of this fear

Our next step was to explore the origins of people’s fear of clowns. A follow-up questionnaire was given to the 53.5% who had reported at least some degree of clown fear. This new set of questions related to eight plausible explanations for the origins of this fear, as follows:

1. An eerie or unsettling feeling due to clowns’ makeup making them look not-quite-human. A similar response is sometimes seen with dolls or mannequins.
2. Clowns’ exaggerated facial features convey a direct sense of threat.
3. Clown makeup hides emotional signals and creates uncertainty.
4. The colour of clown makeup reminds us of death, infection or blood injury, and evokes disgust or avoidance.
5. Clowns’ unpredictable behaviour makes us uncomfortable.
6. Fear of clowns has been learned from family members.
7. Negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture.
8. A frightening experience with a clown.

Intriguingly, we found the final explanation, of having had a scary personal experience with a clown, had the lowest level of agreement. This indicates that life experience alone is not a sufficient explanation for why people are afraid of them.

In contrast, negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture was a much stronger contributing factor towards coulrophobia. This is understandable since some of the most prominent clowns in books and films are designed to be scary – such as Pennywise, the creepy clown from Stephen King’s 1986 novel It. (This character most recently featured in two films in 2017 and 2019, with Bill Skarsgård in the starring role.)

However, some people are afraid of Ronald McDonald, the fast food chain mascot, and he is not meant to scare you. This suggests there might be something more fundamental about the way clowns look that unsettles people.

In fact the strongest factor we identified was hidden emotional signals, suggesting that for many people, a fear of clowns stems from not being able to see their facial expressions due to their make-up. We cannot see their “true” faces and therefore cannot understand their emotional intent. So, for example, we don’t know whether they have a frown or a furrowed brow, which would indicate anger. Not being able to detect what a clown is thinking or what they might do next makes some of us on edge when we are around them.

This research has provided some new insights into why people are afraid of clowns – yet more questions remain. For instance, if makeup which masks emotions causes fear, do people who have their faces painted as animals also create the same kind of effect? Or is there something more particular about the makeup of clowns that drives this fear? This is now the focus of our continued research.

Sophie Scorey, PhD Researcher, University of South Wales; James Greville, Lecturer in Psychology, University of South Wales; Philip Tyson, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of South Wales, and Shakiela Davies, Lecturer in Clinical Psychology and Mental Health, University of South Wales

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Late on Saturday March 4, 2023, United Nations (UN) member states finally agreed the legal framework for a treaty designed to protect the high seas. This development was nearly 20 years in the making and represents an important step towards reversing biodiversity loss and ensuring sustainable development. However, it is only the first step in a long journey. 

The UN High Seas Treaty places 30 percent of the world’s oceans into protected areas and is vital for enforcing the 30x30 pledge made at the COP15 biodiversity conference in December 2022. This pledge seeks to designate a third of Earth’s land and oceans as protected areas by 2030. Without this new treaty, the chances of achieving this goal are extremely slim, as there are no other legal mechanisms to establish marine protection areas on the high seas. 

The seas belong to all

The “high seas” refers to oceans that lie beyond national boundaries. These international waters make up about two-thirds of the world’s oceans and are open to everyone. This means that no individual country has jurisdiction over them and cannot make decisions to protect their biodiversity from exploitation, overfishing, or shipping traffic. This has, until now, left marine life in a vulnerable position.

What’s at risk?

International waters are among the largest reservoirs of marine diversity, and provide habitats and migratory routes for various species such as whales, sharks, sea turtles, and seabirds. They also contain incredible ecosystems, like deep-water corals, that are home to rare forms of marine life. Yet they are all at risk.

In December 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessed that nearly 10 percent of marine species are at risk of extinction. The biggest threats continue to be unsustainable fishing, pollution, disease, and climate change.

The IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species now includes 150,388 species, of which 42,108 are threatened with extinction. The IUCN has also found that 41 percent of those threatened species are affected by climate change. 

Anthropogenic climate change, climate change driven by human activity, is not only causing more episodes of high air temperatures but is also producing historically high ocean temperatures. These marine heatwaves have increased more than 20-fold in recent years and are likely to occur on an annual to decadal basis if global air temperatures rise by 3°C (5.4°F). This is a terrifying figure given that, prior to the industrial era, such heatwaves occurred once in a hundred to thousands of years. 

What does the High Seas Treaty offer?

“This action is a victory for multilateralism and for global efforts to counter the destructive trends facing ocean health, now and for generations to come”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement. 

The new High Seas Treaty is the first of its kind and will provide a legal framework for protecting international waters from industrial fishing and deep-sea mining. It also provides opportunities to build resilience to climate change. However, contentions and challenges remain. 

In particular, the level of protection to be afforded to these areas was consistently contested and is yet to be resolved.  

Moreover, debates over how to divide the benefits of marine genetic resources continue and will need to be firmly agreed in the final document. The high seas are still largely unresearched and are expected to hold many new discoveries that could benefit humans in years to come. Marine genetic resources – biological materials from plants and animals – are valuable resources for the development of pharmaceutical compounds, cosmetics, food supplements, and some industrial processes.

"So far, only a handful of countries have started to commercialise marine genetic resources. Here, the treaty must give guidance on how these and profits made from them can be shared more equitably and transparently," Robert Blasiak, from Stockholm University, Sweden, said in a statement. 

According to a statement made by Dr Laura Meller, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace, “We can now finally move from talk to real change at sea. Countries must formally adopt the Treaty and ratify it as quickly as possible to bring it into force, and then deliver the fully protected ocean sanctuaries our planet needs. The clock is still ticking to deliver 30×30. We have half a decade left, and we can’t be complacent.”

Now the hard work of ratifying and implementing the treaty begins. The treaty needs to be formally adopted by the UN member states and ratified by at least 60 states before it can come into force. There will inevitably be further debates and discussions on the nature of marine protection and how it will be managed and enforced. 

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The Curiosity rover is not just studying Martian rocks, sometimes it finds time to look at the sky. This has allowed it to capture images of the rare Martian clouds, expanding our knowledge about the Red Planet’s atmosphere. On February 2, it was rewarded with the image above, the clearest image ever taken of sun rays on Mars.

In 2021, Curiosity conducted cloud surveys using its navigation cameras. Although scientifically useful, the black-and-white images don’t do the best job of capturing the delicate beauty. This year, Curiosity’s operators chose to use the color mast camera (MastCam) on a survey that started in January, and is now approaching its end.

To those more used to watching clouds on Earth, the image carries a familiarity, but Curiosity’s operators can see something more. They note how high these clouds must be to be illuminated by the setting Sun. The ordinary water ice clouds on Mars don’t get above an altitude of 60 kilometers (37 miles). The Jet Propulsion Laboratory proposes those seen shining in this image are instead composed of crystals of carbon dioxide (dry ice).

The survey has captured other revealing cloud images, such as the iridescent feather-shape seen below and photographed on January 27.

The colors of this feathery cloud, photographed by Curiosity from Gale Crater, reveal the size of the ice crystals within them. Like the image at the top, it is made by stitching together a series of 28 images taken by Curiosity's MastCam. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

"Where we see iridescence, it means a cloud's particle sizes are identical to their neighbors in each part of the cloud," said Dr Mark Lemmon of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in a statement. "By looking at color transitions, we're seeing particle size changing across the cloud. That tells us about the way the cloud is evolving and how its particles are changing size over time." 

Clouds on Mars are never common, but they are seen most frequently in the equatorial regions when Mars is furthest from the Sun. Mars has a much more elongated orbit than the other planets, so there is a substantial temperature difference between its closest and further points. At higher latitudes, this is overwhelmed by the seasons, but near the equator, the variation can drive meteorological conditions. 

As a result, Curiosity puts some effort into cloud observations every Martian year – roughly every second year on Earth. In 2021, this led to the discovery that the first clouds of the season are much higher than others. The height can be estimated from the way the clouds change color. Similar noctilucent clouds on Earth glow bright against the dark sky. By measuring the Sun’s location as they darken, their height can be calculated.

The operating team suspected altitudes that high would be cold enough to support dry ice crystals, but had to wait a full Martian year to get a shot as clear as this one. 

A wide angle view of the image at the top, using all 28 MastCam images. Image Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/SSI

Sun rays like this can only be seen just before sunset or just after sunrise, when the Sun illuminates clouds high in the atmosphere, while others block enough other light that these stand out. It’s a rare circumstance on Earth, and more so on Mars.

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The Japanese government has recently announced controversial plans to release over a million tons of water from the remains of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. While the move has raised concerns and anger from local fishing communities and neighboring countries, how safe is this decision?

On 11 March, it will have been 12 years since a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the east coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island. The earthquake generated a 15-meter (50-foot) tsunami that killed over 18,000 people along Japan’s north-east coast and struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, disabling its power supply and cooling systems. This led to a meltdown in three of its reactors, which sent significant amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. The accident has since been rated level 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Events Scale and is recognized as the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Following the reactors’ meltdown, recovery efforts focused on cooling the reactors – a process that is still ongoing – and preventing contaminated water containing radioactive materials from being released. There are now about 1.3 million tons of wastewater being stored at the sight in over 1,000 tanks installed by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), the plant operator. Most of this water was used to cool the damaged reactors, while contaminated groundwater and rainwater has also collected in the basements of the reactor buildings. 

Exposure to the reactor has resulted in the water becoming contaminated with fission products from the melted fuel and surrounding debris. As the number of tanks continues to build up, storage space is reaching capacity, which will slow down the plant’s ongoing decommissioning process. 

But this stored water has not been left untreated; it is being cleaned through a filtration process called Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which removes most of the worst radioactive contaminants. This is achieved through a series of chemical reactions that remove 62 radionuclides from the water and can be repeated until contamination concentrations are well below regulation levels. However, this process is not able to remove tritium from the treated water.  

Tritium is a naturally occurring radioactive form of hydrogen that is created in the atmosphere when cosmic rays collide with air molecules. It has a half-life of 12.3 years, which means that after 12.3 years, only half of the tritium in any given amount will remain due to radioactive decay. Unfortunately, there are no existing technologies that can remove low levels of tritium that are present in the large volumes of water stored at Fukushima.  

So how bad is this news? Well, according to the Japanese government, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and a large number of independent scientists, the planned release of the water at Fukushima is reasonable and safe.  

The most significant point here is that tritium is already present in our atmosphere (in rain and tap water) and in the Pacific Ocean, and in quantities far higher than the small amount at Fukushima. 

Moreover, the treated water will not be released all at once but will be gradually released in small quantities each year in a process that could take 20-30 years to complete. By the time it is released, the water will have been diluted by seawater to such an extent that there will be less than 1,500 becquerels per liter, which is 1/40th of the government’s standard for discharging water into the environment. This is actually lower than the levels of many nuclear facilities in operation across the world. 

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Scientists have found Lake Huron wreck of 19th century ship that sank in 1894

China’s Fujian air wing is slowly taking shape, possibly making it the first carrier worldwide capable of launching 5th-generation stealth fighters from its decks.

This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that China might be preparing to deploy a new stealth fighter or perhaps a stealth drone from its Fujian aircraft carrier, incrementally building the combat capabilities of its third carrier and flagship naval vessel.

SCMP mentions a recruitment video for People’s Liberation Army–Navy (PLA-N) showing a pilot walking towards the figure of an unidentified stealth aircraft or drone, which could be the J-31/FC-31 stealth fighter or an FH-97A Loyal Wingman drone.

The report notes that the J-31/ FC-31 will complement the J-15, China’s only carrier-based fighter. It also mentions that the J-31 will be used for air supremacy missions due to its stealth characteristics, while the J-15 will be limited to ground and sea attacks.

However, the report notes that both the J-31/FC-31 and the Fujian are still not combat-ready, with the J-31/FC-31 still undergoing ground tests and the Fujian expected to perform sea trials later this year.

Given the J-31/FC-31’s design history, Aviacionline notes in a January 2023 article that the aircraft was the product of China’s espionage campaign 12 years ago, which managed to steal several terabytes of confidential information about US systems including blueprints and other relevant data about the F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters.

The report says that the J-31 builds on this captured information and takes clear design cues from the F-35, with a one-piece cockpit, infrared search and track (IRST), electro-optical targeting system (EOTS) and crew boarding ladder.

Aviacionline notes that China’s J-31/FC-31 has a 2,000-kilometer estimated range, maximum takeoff weight of 28 tons, an operational ceiling of 15 kilometers and a top speed of Mach 1.8 or 2,205 kilometers per hour.

The J-31 in a promotional display at a Chinese air show in a file photo. Image: Twitter

The J-31/ FC-31 has an internal weapons bay with a 2,268-kilogram capacity for six air-to-air missiles or air-to-ground armaments, with the option to carry additional weapons on six external hardpoints.

Moreover, Aviacionline reports that a naval version of the J-31/FC-31 is under development and has been designated the J-35. According to the report, the J-35 appears to be a larger J-31/FC-31, with greater fuel capacity, refined stealth shaping and the necessary equipment for carrier operations such as a tail arresting hook, folding wings and reinforced landing gear.

In a November 2022 article, Aviacionline notes that the FH-97A Loyal Wingman drone is an AI-powered unmanned stealth aircraft designed to complement the J-20 stealth fighter. Unlike other loyal wingman drones, the stealthy FH-97A has a 1,000-kilometer range with a six-hour maximum flight time, the article says.

Aviacionline says that the FH-97A is designed for air-to-air operations, noting that it has a front-mounted EOTS and internal weapons bay for six infrared air-to-air missiles. Apart from air-to-air roles, the report mentions that it can perform secondary missions such as surveillance, suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and electronic warfare.

The source also says that considerations are being made to develop a carrier-based FH-97A variant featuring in-flight refueling capability.

These developments underscore the increasing importance of aircraft carriers in China’s overall naval strategy, addressing the capability gap between “near seas defense” and “far seas protection.”

Jennifer Rice and Erik Robb note in a February 2021 article for the US Naval War College that China’s near seas defense strategy, which was first advocated in the 1980s by then-PLA-N Commander in Chief Liu Huaqing, is concerned with defending territorial sovereignty, maritime rights and interests and aims to win “informationized” local wars in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, South China Sea and within the First Island Chain.

However, Rice and Robb note the limitations of China’s near seas defense strategy, stating that it keeps China hemmed inside the First Island Chain, needs to be revised to address US rebalancing to Asia and is not in line with China’s expanding global economic interests.

The writers say that in 2019 China expanded its naval strategy to include far seas protection, noting that China’s growing global interests such as its Maritime Silk Road (MSR) require a navy with global force projection capabilities.

In addition, they note China’s current far seas operations are in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, and that it is developing new operational concepts to operate in those areas. They also suggest that deploying the PLA-N on far seas deployments is essential to maintaining China’s image as a great power. 

China’s Fujian aircraft carrier. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

China understands the strategic value of aircraft carriers and their firepower in implementing its naval strategies. However, China’s aircraft carrier ambitions face significant challenges ahead.

As Edward Sing Yue Chan noted in a July 2022 article for The China Story, the PLA-N lacks relevant modern combat experience, with its last engagement being the 1988 Johnston Reef skirmish against Vietnam. Chan also notes that while the PLA-N has exceeded the US Navy in ship numbers, it still lags and needs to compete in terms of operational experience, technology and capability.

Chan highlights China’s geopolitical challenges, noting that it is blocked by Japan, Taiwan the Philippines, India, and the US from power projection beyond the near seas and that its territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas make regional states view its naval modernization program as a threat.

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It’s commonly believed that gold is one of the rarest and most expensive precious metals – but while it does rank pretty high comparatively, there is one metal that has it beat hands down both for price and rarity.

The monetary worth of different metals is inconsistent, differing slightly depending on demand and access. Due to the versatility of gold, its conductivity, durability, and good looks place it firmly in the top five most expensive metals.

Gold prices stand at over $1,850 per ounce at the time of publication – impressive, but nothing compared to rhodium.

Currently the most expensive precious metal and one of the rarest, the price per ounce of rhodium stands at $10,300 at the time of publication. So, what makes it so expensive?

Rhodium doesn’t easily react to oxygen, making it a noble metal and meaning it’s a perfect catalyst, resistant to both corrosion and oxidation. Its overall hardiness and high melting point of 1,964 degrees Celsius (3,567 degrees Fahrenheit) land it among the platinum group metals alongside platinum, palladium, osmium, iridium, and ruthenium.

Its ability to withstand water and air temperatures of up to 600 degrees Celsius (1,112 degrees Fahrenheit), and remaining insoluble in most acids, makes rhodium highly versatile for use in cars, aircraft, electrical contacts, and high-temperature thermocouple and resistance wires.

As the rarest of the platinum group metals, rhodium occurs at roughly 0.000037 parts per million in the Earth’s crust, while gold is found at an abundance of around 0.0013 parts per million, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry. Produced mainly in South Africa and Russia, rhodium can come as a by-product of refining copper and nickel ores, which contain up to 0.1 percent of the precious metal. Around 16 tonnes of rhodium are produced yearly, with an estimated reserve of 3,000 tonnes.

Rhodium’s discovery came in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston, an English chemist, who extracted the element from a piece of platinum ore from South America. The find came shortly after Wollaston discovered another platinum group metal, palladium.

Generally found along with deposits of platinum, the rhodium was obtained from Wollaston’s sample by removing the platinum and palladium, leaving behind a dark red powder that was treated with hydrogen gas to reveal the precious metal Rhodium.

While the solid metal shines a bright, reflective silver-white color, rhodium gets its name from the Greek “rhodon” meaning rose. Its name refers to the red color of the metal’s salts.

Despite its rarity and beauty, statistics from 2019 show almost 90 percent of rhodium demand was from the auto-catalyst sector in the production of catalytic converters, an arguably unceremonious use for one of Earth’s rarest precious metals.

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Hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are all types of tropical storms capable of stirring up significant destruction and loss of human life. Despite their differing names, however, there’s actually very little difference between them.

What's the difference between hurricanes and typhoons?

The only difference between a hurricane, a typhoon, and a cyclone is where in the world the storm occurs:

It’s called a hurricane if it’s in the North Atlantic, central North Pacific, or eastern North Pacific oceans.

It’s called a typhoon if occurs over the Northwest Pacific Ocean to the east of Asia,

Meanwhile, it’s called a cyclone if it occurs in the Indian Ocean and parts of the South Pacific. 

There’s no clear reason why we still stick to this system other than paying homage to the regions of the world where the word emerged. 

The word hurricane stems from the Spanish word huracán, which relates to the Maya god of wind, storm, and fire called Huracan. The earliest written use of the term dates to around the mid-16th century by Spanish colonialists sailing to the Americas. 

The origin of the word typhoon isn't totally clear, but it’s thought to have ties to the word tufan, which appears in Greek, Arabic, Chinese, and Hindi, meaning something like "big cyclonic storm."

Generally speaking, we can refer to all three as tropical cyclones. 

A tropical cyclone can is defined as a rapidly rotating storm with a low-pressure center and clouds spiraling towards the eyewall surrounding the "eye,” according to the World Meteorological Organization. As a result of Earth’s rotation, the winds blow counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. 

This swirling mass of violent wind can be vast, with its diameter typically spanning 200 to 500 kilometers (124 to 310 miles), but capable of reaching up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles). It’s defined as a tropical depression when the maximum sustained wind speed is less than 63 kilometers (39 miles) per hour. Once it gathers a maximum sustained wind speed that’s faster than this, it can be defined as a tropical cyclone.

Why do we name hurricanes?

Regardless of whether you’re dealing with a hurricane, cyclone, or typhoon, they will often be given a name if they reach a certain strength, scale, and potential for destruction. These names are generally assigned to them from predetermined lists, depending on the basin in which they originate.

For hurricanes, these names tend to be human names. In 2023, for instance, they will be named Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Don, Emily, Franklin, and so on. 

The purpose of the naming system, which was first rolled out in the 1950s, is to streamline communication about the storms. After all, people are more likely to acknowledge and remember a storm with a personable name, rather than just a list of digits or a date. 

The names of the deadliest storms, such as Hurricane Katrina, are retired as a mark of respect for the devastation and loss they caused. 

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When The Big Lebowski hit theaters 25 years ago, it was a modest success, ultimately raking in an estimated $46.7 million at the global box office. That’s somewhat understandable. Though the Coen brothers had found success with movies like Fargo and Raising Arizona, their clout was more ancillary than actual. And the film’s star, Jeff Bridges, despite being famous most of his life, wasn’t what you’d call “bankable.” Over time, though, the film has become the best kind of cult classic: the kind that inspires raucous showings at repertory cinemas as well as conventions, religions, and today's holiday, Day of the Dude. 

The Big Lebowski also inspired something else: spider names. In 2006, evolutionist Ingi Agnarsson named two brand new spider species—Anelosimus biglebowski and Anelosimus dude—after the movie he says he watched with a friend every other day in grad school. “Our life just became Big Lebowski quotes,” says Agnarsson. “We even watch it now when we meet up.”

When a scientist works as a taxonomist, Agnarsson explains, they can name species after pretty much anything. “You never name things after yourself. That’s the unspoken rule,” he says, “but I’ve named species after people that I admire, like Nelson Mandela and the Obamas.” Sometimes, names are derived from the places where the species are found, and may incorporate some local language, but for Agnarsson’s crawlers, “I felt like I needed to honor this movie in some way. So that’s what I did.”

Part of a genus of spiders known for their social behavior and massive colonial cobwebs, A. biglebowski and A. dude were collected in Tanzanian rainforests by Danish researcher Nikolaj Scharff, who then made them available for Agnarsson to study as part of his graduate research. (Scharff collected and shared them in 1998, but because of the taxonomic impediment, Agnarsson didn’t get them formally named until eight years later.) 

To date, only about 50,000 spider species have been formally discovered and studied, though scientists estimate there are anywhere from 150,000 to 200,000 spider species worldwide. “Whenever I go into a tropical rainforest, about 70 percent of the spiders I see are new to science,” Agnarsson says. “It’s such an early age of discovery.” 

Agnarsson says that these days, when trying to determine whether a spider species is a new discovery, scientists will simply test their DNA. When he named A. biglebowski and A. dude, it wasn’t so simple. He had to examine the shape of each centimeter-long spider—and in particular the spider’s genitalia—and compare it to all other known Anelosimus bits. 

“We look at these tiny little structures and especially the male genitalia,” he says. “They have four pairs of walking legs, and then they have these little flimsy legs in front called pedipalps that are their sexual organs. Dude and biglebowski have sclerites that have different shapes. Dude has a couple of loops, and biglebowski has a couple more loops. That’s the only way anybody could ever tell the difference.”

Though Agnarsson says he still hasn’t done a full study of these two spiders—a process that would involve observing them in nature for years—if they’re anything like their Anelosimus brethren, they’re pretty unique creatures.

While most spider species are solitary and relatively aggressive toward other arachnids—even potential mates—20 or so species have been found to be truly social, forming large communities. Ten of those species are genus Anelosimus. With those spiders, groups of mostly female arachnids will build huge webs in the branches of trees, with most inhabitants working together to both build webs and protect their young. There are a few males that hang around the web, too, Agnarsson says, though he adds they’re “kind of useless” and are mostly just there to mate. 

“These Anelosimus spiders are unusual in that they’re tolerant of one another,” Agnarsson says, making them at least a little Dude-like. Among spiders, you could even say they’re chill. “If you look at spiders as a whole,” Agnarsson says, “Anelosimus spiders like A. biglebowski and A. dude are much more laid back … as long as you’re not prey.”

Agnarsson is now doing research on the unique biomedical properties of spider silk, which is incredibly lightweight and tougher than Kevlar. Furthermore, the human body has no immune response to it. Agnarsson imagines infinite uses for the material, from lightweight ropes to as-yet-unknown medical applications. But he still keeps the lessons he’s learned from his spiders, and their namesake, with him.

“I look to the Dude for the way he goes through life and doesn’t get too bothered about things that are going on,” Agnarsson explains. “When the world looks a little crazy, you’ve just got to take a step back and chill.”

Yes, These Spider Species Are Named After The Big Lebowski

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When Mark Necaise got down to his last four floppy disks at a rodeo in Mississippi in February, he started to worry. 

Necaise travels to horse shows around the state, offering custom embroidery on jackets and vests: “All of the winners would get a jacket and we’d put the name of the farm or the name of the horse or whatever on it,” he says.

Five years ago, he paid $18,000 for a second-hand machine, manufactured in 2004 by the Japanese embroidery equipment specialist Tajima. The only way to transfer the designs from his computer to the machine was via floppy disk.

“We started with eight disks, but four of them stopped working, which made me very uneasy,” he says. “I tried reformatting them in order to get them to work properly, but it didn’t work. I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to continue with the embroidery.”

Back when Necaise’s Tajima machine was made, floppy disks were still in mass production—and were particularly popular in Japan, where they were used for official government procedures until last year. Even though the last major manufacturer of floppy disks stopped making them in 2010, the machines that rely on them—from embroidery machines to plastic molding, medical equipment to aircraft—live on, relying on a dwindling supply of disks that will one day run out.

“I personally think that the floppy disk should die,” says Florian Cramer, a writer and filmmaker who, in 2009, shrunk every Oscar-nominated film from that year into animated GIFs on two floppy disks, as a commentary on Hollywood’s digital piracy crackdown. “Objectively it’s a toxic medium. It’s basically plastic waste … It’s really something that should no longer exist.”

Most of the companies still using floppy disks are small businesses or companies running tight margins who either simply never got around to upgrading their equipment, or found it too expensive to do so.

Davit Niazashvili, a maintenance manager at Geosky, a cargo airline based in Tbilisi, Georgia, still uses floppy disks to apply critical updates to two 36-year-old 747-200s, which were originally delivered to British Airways in 1987: “When an update is released, we need to download it to two 3.5-inch floppy disks. There are no computers with built-in floppy drives left, so we had to source an external one,” Niazashvili says. “Then we take the disks to the aircraft to update the flight management system. The operation takes about an hour.”

The updates contain essential data such as changes to runways and navigational aids, and are released every 28 days according to a fixed global schedule, which is already set through 2029. 

“Nowadays it’s very hard to obtain floppy disks. We actually get them from Amazon,” Niazashvili says. “They are very sensitive and prone to failing, so at best we can use each one around three times, then we have to throw it away. But we have to do it. It’s not a problem. As long as floppy disks are still available, we’re happy with it.”

Fewer than 20 Boeing 747-200s remain in service worldwide, and only in cargo or military configurations. The US Air Force operates six, two of them as Air Force One. It’s unclear whether they still use floppy disks, too, but the US military employed the even-older 8-inch floppy disks in its nuclear arsenal until 2019.

Several other types of commercial aircraft also use floppy disks, including newer variants of the 747 and the 767, older Airbus A320s, and some business jets such as Gulfstreams built until the 1990s. It is possible to upgrade from floppy disks to USB sticks, SD cards, or even wireless transfer, but doing so could cost thousands of dollars—and mean making a change to something that, while archaic, is known to work.

“There are some other strange evolutionary dead ends we find ourselves tied to because everything has to bow to the gods of reliability in aviation,” says Brian Ford of ACI Jet, an aircraft maintenance company based in California. “We still use PCMCIA cards and Zip disks, which are harder and harder to find as well. We have much longer design cycles that always feel like [they’re] getting further behind consumer devices, but we are catching up.”

Following the rodeo incident, Necaise decided to finally upgrade, but not to an entirely new machine—just to a floppy-to-USB emulator. These devices cost around $275 each, replace the floppy drive with a simple USB port, and are custom-made by a handful of companies. 

“Embroidery and CNC [computer-operated industrial tools for cutting materials such as metal or wood] are usually our biggest buyers,” says Joshua Paschal of PLR Electronics, a Texas-based company that sells emulators.

PLR created a few base models that can be configured to work on nearly 600 machines. Their list includes looms, stage lighting consoles, circuit board printers, oscilloscopes, digital printers, electrocardiographs, vector signal analyzers, injection molding machines, tube and pipe benders, dicing saws, wire cutters, plasma cutters, metal presses, sounds samplers, musical instruments such as pianos and keyboards, and computer floppy drives from the likes of Sony, Panasonic, and NEC—as well as dozens of embroidery and CNC machines. 

Most of these cost thousands of dollars, and some aren’t even that old, so owners will want to keep them around for as long as possible: “A lot of this equipment was never upgraded to USB even when USB was predominant,” says Paschal. “They are still stuck with floppy drives, especially embroidery machines. That left a big opportunity in the market to upgrade these people.”

People come to PLR for upgrades not just because they can’t find disks, but because they can’t get hold of replacement drives. “Even when we started selling these devices 12 years ago, floppy drives were getting hard to find, so I can’t imagine now,” Paschal says. Sales are dropping, but Paschal says the company still sells between 2,000 and 3,000 units a year. 

The floppy disk may never truly die out. “There are people in the world who are still busy finding and fixing up and maintaining phonograph players from 1910, so it’s really hard for me to believe that the floppy disk is just going to utterly disappear,” says Lori Emerson, a professor at the University of colourado Boulder and the founder of the Media Archaeology Lab.

The lifespan of some of the industrial machines that rely on floppy disks can be 30 to 40 years, and many are only 20 years old, says Tom Persky, who runs Floppydisk.com, a site that specializes in sourcing and selling floppy disks in several formats. 

Persky sells about 1,000 disks a day—mostly 3.5-inch ones, many brand new—from a stock of hundreds of thousands in a California warehouse. He says that 20 or 25 years ago, he could buy a container of disks for as little as $0.07 each. Today he sells the most common type, the 3.5-inch, for $1 apiece.

Supply constraints normally result in an increase in prices, but as this pattern progresses the supply itself will become so constrained that the economics will force more and more people to upgrade or replace their equipment, making the market collapse in on itself.

At least one type of floppy disk, the ancient 8-inch introduced by IBM in 1971, seems on the verge of extinction. “There aren’t any left, and we sell the ones we have for $5 [each] in boxes of tens,” Persky says. As for the 3.5-inch floppy, he can’t say how many more disks are out there. 

“There’s a worldwide inventory of disks that were manufactured 10 or 20 or 30 years ago,” Persky says. “That inventory is fixed. We’re just blowing through it day by day. I really have no idea how big it is. It’s probably unbelievably huge, but dispersed. There isn’t anybody with half a million disks, but there are half a million people with a 10-pack.”

Persky isn’t planning on waiting for the singularity to occur. He’s 73, and says he’ll only work another five years. He doesn’t think there’s anyone “foolish enough” to take over the company from him. “I’m 50 miles out from the airport, in an airplane, and I’ve run out of gas,” he says. “My job is to land the plane.”

Why the Floppy Disk Just Won’t Die

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For 44 years, satellites have helped scientists track how much ice is floating on the ocean around Antarctica’s 18,000km coastline.

The continent’s fringing waters witness a massive shift each year, with sea ice peaking at about 18m sq km each September before dropping to just above 2m sq km by February.

But across those four decades of satellite observations, there has never been less ice around the continent than there was last week.

“By the end of January we could tell it was only a matter of time. It wasn’t even a close run thing,” says Dr Will Hobbs, an Antarctic sea ice expert at the University of Tasmania with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership.

Map of Antarctica showing the duration in days of sea ice around the continent between February 2022 and February 2023 compared with the long-term average between 1981/82 and 2010/11. Red shows areas where ice was absent for longer than usual, and blue shows were ice was present for longer.

Photograph: Dr Phil Reid, Bureau of Meteorology, Hobart: Data: Nasa

“We are seeing less ice everywhere. It’s a circumpolar event.”

In the southern hemisphere summer of 2022, the amount of sea ice dropped to 1.92m sq km on 25 February – an all-time low based on satellite observations that started in 1979.

But by 12 February this year, the 2022 record had already been broken. The ice kept melting, reaching a new record low of 1.79m sq km on 25 February and beating the previous record by 136,000 sq km – an area double the size of Tasmania.

In the southern hemisphere’s spring, strong winds over western Antarctica buffeted the ice. At the same time, Hobbs says large areas in the west of the continent had barely recovered from the previous year’s losses.

“Because sea ice is so reflective, it’s hard to melt from sunlight. But if you get open water behind it, that can melt the ice from underneath,” says Hobbs.

Hobbs and other scientists said the new record – the third time it’s been broken in six years – has started a scramble for answers among polar scientists.

The fate of Antarctica – especially the ice on land – is important because the continent holds enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt.

While melting sea ice does not directly raise sea levels because it is already floating on water, several scientists told the Guardian of knock-on effects that can.

Sea ice helps to buffer the effect of storms on ice attached to the coast. If it starts to disappear for longer, the increased wave action can weaken those floating ice shelves that themselves stabilise the massive ice sheets and glaciers behind them on the land.

One major area of concern is a marked loss of ice around the Amundsen and Bellinghausen seas on the continent’s west.

Even as the average amount of sea ice around the continent grew up to 2014, these two neighbouring seas saw losses.

That’s important because the region is home to the vulnerable Thwaites glacier – known as the “doomsday glacier” because it holds enough water to raise sea levels by half a metre.

“We don’t want to lose sea ice where there are these vulnerable ice shelves and, behind them, the ice sheets,” Prof Matt England, an oceanographer and climate scientist at the University of New South Wales, says.

“We are probably starting to see signs of significant warming and retreat of sea ice [in Antarctica]. To see it getting to these levels is definitely a concern because we have these potentially amplifying feedbacks.”

Data provided by scientists Dr Rob Massom, of the Australian Antarctic Division, and Dr Phil Reid, of the Bureau of Meteorology, shows two-thirds of the continent’s coastline was exposed to open water last month – well above the long-term average of about 50%.

“It’s not just the extent of the ice, but also the duration of the coverage,” Massom says. “If the sea ice is removed, you expose floating ice margins to waves that can flex them and increase the probability of those ice shelves calving. That then allows more grounded ice into the ocean.”

Antarctica might seem remote but changes around there can affect the global climate

Dr Ariaan Purich

Massom and Reid published a study last year that found that, since 1979, the Amundsen Sea region was seeing longer periods without ice and more of the coastline was being exposed to open ocean conditions.

Dr Ted Scambos is a sea ice expert at the University of Colorado Boulder who also works on Antarctic sea ice at the university’s National Snow and Ice Data Center – a world centre for monitoring ice at the poles.

He said the downturn in sea ice in Antarctica “is causing the scientific community to wonder if there’s a process that’s related to global climate change”.

Antarctica is hard to study not just because of its remoteness, but in the challenges of gathering data around a continent exposed to huge variations in wind and storms from all sides.

Scambos said: “Since 2016 there has been a fairly sharp downturn [in sea ice] and especially with these back-to-back record years as well as many months being at near record lows, it’s causing the scientific community to wonder if there’s a process related to global climate change.”

He said while the most recent record could be related partly to a La Nina climate system that tends to deliver warmer winds to the continent’s peninsular, that didn’t explain the losses in other areas.

“We’re still trying to get to grips with what’s different now,” he says. “But it’s clear that reduced sea ice will have an impact. It’s going to have an impact on the continental ice because so much of the coast will be exposed.”

For many years Antarctica had seemingly been confounding some climate models as sea ice had – on average – slightly increased until a crash in 2016.

Dr Ariaan Purich, a climate scientist at Monash University, looked at why the sea ice didn’t behave as some expected.

She said it was likely caused by changing winds and, counterintuitively, meltwater from the land entering the ocean that made it easier for ice to form.

One study suggested that a warming ocean had also contributed to the sudden 2016 drop in sea ice.

“All the models project that as the climate warms, we expect to see [Antarctic sea ice] decline,” she says. “There’s widespread consensus on that. So this low sea ice is consistent with what the climate models show.”

Antarctic scientists are now scrambling to work out what’s happening. Are the drops in sea ice and the back-to-back record lows just a natural phenomenon in a continent notoriously difficult to study? Or are these records another clear sign the climate crisis is beating down on the frozen continent?

“Antarctica might seem remote but changes around there can affect the global climate and the melting ice sheets affect coastal communities around the world,” says Purich.

“Everyone should be concerned about what’s happening in Antarctica.”

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“Hello there, Protagonist!” read the email that landed in my inbox on a recent night. “Have you ever had the sense that you were different from others? That your drive to right unjust wrongs and seek improvement runs just a little bit deeper than most?”

I was intrigued. These questions were deeper than the improvement I happened to be seeking at that moment, related to the consistency of a chickpea stew I was cooking with my roommate, so I gladly opened the email, which contained the results of my assessment from 16personalities.com.

I had spent that day taking every personality test I could find on the internet — an alternately therapeutic and mind-numbing journey of the self.

This was prompted, in fact, not by personal crisis, but rather by professional curiosity about the role of personality testing in today’s tangled-up world of work. Could describing people on paper, in the form of colors and animals and good old Myers-Briggs, be relevant to discussions about returning to the office?

Personality testing is roughly a $2 billion industry, according to Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a psychology professor and author of “I, Human,” who estimated the value of the largest personality testing companies. Their appeal is both magnetic and obvious: ego. But the tests have also come to be applied in practical ways in the office, helping to shape professional relationships. Some managers find them particularly useful for remote teams, because personality tests can prompt much-needed conversations about who workers are as humans, and how they like to interact.

“Covid has opened our eyes to the fact that there are different ways in which we can work,” said David Noel, senior vice president of global human resources at Scotiabank, a Toronto-based bank that uses a personality test called Plum. “Personality testing can be a part of that.”

After taking my own personality tests, I discovered that I was an E.N.F.J. (extroverted and emotional); a Blue (motivated by intimacy, a “sainted pit bull” who doesn’t easily let go of people or projects); dominated, among the four temperaments, by sanguine (creative, sociable); and, according to my 24-page CliftonStrengths report, keen on collecting information and input from people (conveniently known as reporting).

Digging through these results felt like the type of fun that’s both earnest and indulgent. Like an iPhone burst of selfies fused with the self-help section of an airport bookstore.

For employers, the stakes of personality testing are higher. Managers often use them to make decisions about career development and sometimes even about hiring. Each year, some 100 million workers worldwide take psychometric tests, meaning tests designed to study personality and aptitude. The industry exploded in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the tests were computerized, Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic said.

Now, psychologists are exploring what changes need to be made to workplace personality tests — both to grapple with longstanding questions about their validity and to address the changing norms of hybrid work. It’s a moment when, managers say, the tests are more useful than ever but not always up-to-date.

At Scotiabank, which has 90,000 workers, executives decided in late 2020 to stop looking at résumés for applicants coming out of school. The campus hiring program is now focused partly on Plum results, and the new approach is bringing in more diverse candidates, the bank said, because hiring managers are looking beyond familiar credentials. The share of Scotiabank’s new employees who are Black rose to 6 percent from 1 percent, and over half its hires are women.

Acolytes of personality testing are cautious, though, about how results should be used for workplace decision-making. They should be one factor among many, advocates say, with the understanding that there’s a gap between the way people present themselves on a test and how they’ll act on any given Tuesday, or in a fight on Slack.

Critics are quick to point out that some of the tests, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which churns out four-letter distillations of personality, are about as reliable at predicting success in a professional endeavor as sorting candidates by astrological signs or Magic 8 Balls.

Investigations by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have uncovered bias at play in some hiring processes that overly relied on personality tests without scholarly psychological backing.

But personality testing has also gotten more rigorous in recent years. Organizational psychologists have developed assessments that are more fair and grounded in research. Some of these tests use the “Big Five” personality traits, which psychologists have found to be consistent across populations: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

“Human behavior is complex, people are complex, situations are complex,” said Ben Dattner, an organizational psychologist and executive coach, noting that studying personalities in all their complexity is still helpful for career development. “Psychometrics can help identify what are some potential areas where a person might need coaching or feedback, or where a person might have blind spots.”

And plenty of companies hail their benefits. Nearly one-third of the respondents to the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2017 survey of its members said they used personality tests to fill executive roles. At McKinsey & Company, some consultants do “due diligence” when staffing projects, which often means looking at the balance of introverts and extroverts on a team. There’s a running joke that the company is full of people who got E.N.T.J. on Myers-Briggs (the extroverted and organized type of person most likely to run for student council president). College fund-raising offices love the Color Code, which among other things tells you who can best work the phones (yellows).

Often, the tests aren’t a diagnosis but are more of an opening for people to talk about the softer parts of office life: their relationships. Identifying as a Blue, through the Color Code, might not feel all that relevant to quarterly sales quotas — but at least, among teammates, it can be a conversation starter.

“The biggest thing that hit me over the head was that I really care about people’s perceptions,” said Robyn Ross, the head of people and talent at Burgundy Asset Management, describing her experience taking the PrinciplesYou assessment, which revealed that she is an “inspirer.” “My natural inclination is to take care of people.”

To Ms. Ross, that result explained why it had been so hard for her to call Burgundy’s 150 employees back to the office. “Asking people to do things they don’t naturally want to do was quite tough for me,” she said. “It has been such a godsend to see it through this test.”

Caitlin MacGregor, who co-founded Plum, a research-backed testing company, attributes her initial zest for personality testing to an experiment she conducted for a previous employer. She winnowed a pool of 80 job applicants down to two: one who stood out on a résumé and one who stood out in a psychometric assessment. She hired both; her boss had said the cost of picking the wrong person was $300,000. The applicant who outperformed on the psychometric test rose to the company’s top ranks within a year and a half.

Ms. MacGregor argues that an element of equity can be built into testing, when it’s done right, because it can identify “diamonds in the rough” who have natural abilities instead of fancy degrees. This can be even more essential when interviewers aren’t meeting candidates in person.

“For a long time, people were comfortable making decisions around talent based on face-to-face interactions,” she said. “More and more companies have a distributed work force. It’s harder than ever to get to know your people.”

In a territory as fraught as personality — how people are and could be — it’s no surprise that disagreements have sprung up as the tests have spread. Psychologists argue over the validity and fairness of different assessments and, recently, whether the tests have kept pace with the changing workplace and work force. After all, a test developed a century ago might be tough to use for gauging whether an employee will feel fulfilled if she never meets her boss except on Zoom.

In remote workplaces, “it’s a different style of working, which means different characteristics will matter,” said Matt Spencer, who in 2019 started a personality testing company called Suited. “Initiative, self-direction, ability to manage one’s time, the way somebody collaborates.”

Personality testing was largely an outgrowth of World War I. The American military wanted to screen for soldiers who had “weak constitutions” and might be more susceptible to what was then called shell shock, so it created a test, the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet, with questions like:

“Did you ever think you had lost your manhood?” Not long after, a Carl Jung-obsessed homemaker, Katharine Cook Briggs, and her daughter, Isabel Myers, developed their own personality inventory, despite having no psychological training, which they started distributing in 1943. Each year, more than two million people now determine their Myers-Briggs type.

Those early assessments were trying to pin down answers to an existential question: Who are you? Wallflower or life of the party? Flighty or reliable? Alternative tests have since emerged, especially ones aiming to assess what sorts of personal projects people like to do instead of the traits they possess (or think they possess). Today there are more than 2,000 kinds of personality assessments — though very few have a research base behind them, according to Brian Little, a personality testing expert and the author of “Me, Myself, and Us.”

New research-backed assessments continue to flood the market. PrinciplesYou, which Dr. Little helped create, maps people according to personality dimensions (givers, fighters, enthusiasts), which its website illustrates as archipelagos separated by waters labeled with traits like “tough” and “humble.” The test is free, and the workshops offered in workplaces cost slightly more than a thousand dollars, according to Principles, which makes PrinciplesYou.

There’s also Suited, which is designed for law firms and banks to base hiring decisions on character and not just education. It can cost from high five figures to low six figures, depending on the client’s size and needs, according to the company, adding that this cost covers recruiting services beyond just testing.

“Résumés are a better predictor of past privilege than future potential,” Mr. Spencer, chief executive of Suited, explained.

Recently, Mr. Spencer watched a law firm use a Suited assessment to upend the results of a hiring process. Two of the four employees who interviewed a job candidate didn’t want to hire her for a summer program, but she sparkled on Suited, so the firm took a chance on her. That personality test offered an unorthodox perspective on the applicant — something besides G.P.A., or whether she cracked a joke to her interviewers.

Today, there’s mounting pressure on companies to gather those perspectives on their workers, as executives wrestle with costly decisions about whether to require in-person office work or even keep office space. At the very least, personality testing can give companies the vocabulary to talk about how their workers like to socialize: whether they crave water cooler banter, or dread the holiday party.

That’s what Zack Wieder, chief executive of Principles, has witnessed as he leads personality workshops for remote companies. Many of the people he is coaching have never met their teammates in person. They’re looking to a PrinciplesYou assessment as a catalyst for intimate conversations like: Does this manager who comes across as extremely buttoned-up consider himself a sociable guy? Or why does this one employee loathe the idea of going back to the office?

The product development team at Canadian Tire used PrinciplesYou testing last year to have deeper conversations about people’s career paths.

“I shared my profile with the whole team very openly,” said Anthony Wolf, a Canadian Tire vice president. “One of the first things we had to make sure people understood is that there’s no perfect profile.”

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Garlic and onions are two of my favorite foods — I have been known to eat roasted garlic cloves like candy — so it’s no surprise that I often find myself surreptitiously smelling my breath and wincing. Studies on the prevalence of bad breath are hard to come by, but research has estimated that up to half of all Americans have been concerned by the smell of their breath over the course of their lives. (The other half clearly lack self-awareness.)

The bad news is that smelly breath can have many causes, some more serious than others. The good news is that there are a handful of ways to address it, depending on the underlying cause. I spoke to two restorative dentists who have studied bad breath; an ear, nose and throat doctor; and a periodontist to get their suggestions.

Determine if your breath is that bad.

One key problem with bad breath is that you can’t always tell when you have it, even though everyone around you probably can.

A popular and useful litmus test is to cup your hands over your nose and mouth, exhale and then inhale, said Dr. Mark Wolff, a restorative dentist at Penn Dental Medicine. Another method is to lick (yes, lick) the back of your hand a few times, wait a minute for the water to evaporate so that the odor molecules concentrate, then give the back of your hand a good sniff. If what you smell makes you want to keel over, you may want to do something about your breath, Dr. Wolff said.

That said, we are not always the best judges of our mouth odors, said Dr. Antonio Moretti, a periodontist at the University of North Carolina Adams School of Dentistry. Sometimes people think they have bad breath when they don’t, so he suggested asking a brave friend or loved one to do a breath check for you instead.

Consider what you eat.

Onions and garlic are common bad breath culprits because of their strong aromas — but other foods can lead to stinky breath, too. For instance, foods and drinks that can cause gastrointestinal reflux, such as alcohol, coffee, tomatoes, citrus fruits and onions, can incite bad breath because they cause you to burp up or even regurgitate small amounts of food, said Dr. Landon Duyka, an ear, nose and throat doctor at Northwestern Medicine.

Get rid of smelly mouth bacteria.

Bacteria in the mouth are another common cause of bad breath. These bacteria release what are called volatile sulfur compounds, which “smell like rotten eggs, smelly toes,” Dr. Wolff said. Brushing your teeth twice a day and flossing once a day can help eliminate these germs as well as the food particles that might be stuck in and around your teeth.

Bacteria can also thrive if you have dry mouth — a condition caused by dehydration, diseases such as Sjogren’s syndrome and diabetes, and as a medication side effect. Saliva helps to kill bacteria as well as to break down food particles and coax us to swallow them, so when we don’t have enough, germs can thrive, Dr. Duyka said. Staying hydrated can therefore prevent bad breath, as can rinsing with a mouthwash that treats dry mouth, he said.

Other kinds of mouthwashes can help with bad breath, too — but some work better than others. Dr. Violet Haraszthy, a restorative dentist at the University at Buffalo, recommended against rinses that contain alcohol, because they “dry the patient’s mouth out, and it’s a vicious cycle — once the alcohol dries it out, the bad breath comes back even worse,” she explained. She recommended alcohol-free rinses that contain antibacterial ingredients such as CPC (cetylpyridinium chloride).

Gum disease can be another bad breath culprit. If your gums frequently bleed, you see pockets around your gums or your teeth feel loose, you should see a dentist to determine if you have diseased gums, Dr. Moretti said. Gum disease can cause bad breath because bacteria get stuck in little pockets around the gums, “making a real stink-a-thon,” Dr. Wolff said.

Don’t forget your tongue, tonsils and the rest of your body.

Odor-causing bacteria don’t just grow around the teeth and gums — they can also grow in little crevices on your tongue. If your tongue has a white or yellowish tinge to it, it likely harbors stinky bacteria, Dr. Moretti said. You may want to brush your tongue gently with your toothbrush or a tongue scraper after you brush your teeth to remove them, he suggested. Research has shown that tongue brushing plus regular brushing improves bad breath more than just tooth-brushing alone.

Tonsils are another little-known cause of bad breath, Dr. Duyka told me. Tonsils have crevices that harbor bacteria. Sometimes, the bacteria can mix with food debris and harden and become what are called tonsil stones, which look like little white bumps. You can’t prevent tonsil stones, Dr. Duyka said, but you can eliminate them by gently poking your tonsil with a blunt object or (clean) finger; by gargling with salt water; or by rinsing them with a water flosser.

In rare cases, bad breath can be caused by other kinds of illnesses or infections — tonsillitis, sinus or lung infections, liver cirrhosis, kidney diseases, pharyngitis or even mouth or neck cancer, Dr. Moretti said. If your bad breath doesn’t improve with other remedies, consider seeing your primary care physician or an ear, nose and throat doctor to rule out other causes, Dr. Duyka suggested.

I had no idea that bad breath was such a complex phenomenon. I may not be willing to give up garlic — apologies to my husband — but I’ll try to stay hydrated and, perhaps, invest in a tongue scraper to keep my mouth bacteria under control. Although bad breath can be unpleasant for those on the receiving end, remember that it’s common and it’s not the end of the world.

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Throughout human history the Moon has been an inextricable, ghostly presence above the Earth. Its gentle gravitational tug sets the rhythm of the tides, while its pale light illuminates the nocturnal nuptials of many species. Entire civilisations have set their calendars by it as it has waxed and waned, and some animals – such as dung beetles – use sunlight reflecting off the Moon's surface to help them navigate.

More crucially, the Moon may have helped to create the conditions that make life on our planet possible, according to some theories, and may even have helped to kickstart life on Earth in the first place. Its eccentric orbit around our planet is thought to also play a role in some of the important weather systems that dominate our lives today.

But the Moon is also slipping from our grasp.

As it performs its finely balanced astro-ballet around the Earth – circling but never pirouetting, which is why we only ever see one side of the Moon – it is gradually drifting away from our planet in a process known as "lunar recession". By firing lasers off reflectors placed on the lunar surface by the astronauts of the Apollo missions, scientists have recently been able to measure with pin-point accuracy just how fast the Moon is retreating.

They have confirmed that the Moon is edging away at a rate of 1.5 inches (3.8cm) every year. And as it does so, our days are getting ever so slightly longer.

"It's all about tides," says David Waltham, a professor of geophysics at Royal Holloway, University of London, who studies the relationship between the Moon and the Earth. "The tidal drag on the Earth slows its rotation down and the Moon gains that energy as angular momentum."

The gravitational tug of the Moon on the Earth's oceans creates the tides, which in turn drag the Moon into a higher orbit

(Credit: Steven Saphore/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Essentially, as the Earth rotates, the gravity of the Moon orbiting above tugs on the oceans to create high and low tides. These tides in fact are a "bulge" of water that extends in an elliptical shape both towards and away from the gravity of the Moon. But the Earth spins on its axis much faster than the Moon orbits above, meaning friction from the ocean basins moving beneath also acts to drag the water along with it. This means the bulge moves slightly ahead of the Moon in its orbit, which attempts to pull it backwards. This slowly saps our planet's rotational energy, slowing its spin while the Moon gains energy, causing it to move into a higher orbit.

This incremental braking on our planet's spin means that the length of an average Earth day has increased by about 1.09 milliseconds per century since the late 1600s, according to the latest analysis. Other estimates put the figure a little higher, at 1.78ms per century by drawing on more ancient observations of eclipses.

While none of this sounds like much, over the course of the Earth's 4.5-billion-year history, it all adds up to a profound change.

The Moon is thought to have formed in the first 50 million years or so after the birth of the Solar System. The most widely accepted theory is that a collision between the embryonic Earth and another object about the size of Mars, known as Theia, cleaved off a chunk of material and debris that coalesced into what we now call the Moon. What is clear from geological data preserved in bands of rock on Earth is that the Moon was a lot closer to Earth in the past than it is today.

The faster-rotating Earth shortened the length of the day so that there were two sunrises and two sunsets every 24 hours

The Moon currently sits 384,400km (238,855 miles) from us on Earth. But one recent study suggests that around 3.2 billion years ago – just as the tectonic plates were starting to move around and ocean dwelling microorganisms were gobbling up nitrogen – the Moon was just 270,000km (170,000 miles) from Earth, or about 70% of its current distance.

"The faster-rotating Earth shortened the length of the day so that [within a 24-hour period] there were two sunrises and two sunsets, not just one each as today," says Tom Eulenfeld, a geophysicist who led the study at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, in Germany. "This may have reduced the temperature difference between day and night, and may have affected the biochemistry of photosynthetic organisms."

What studies like his reveal, however, is that the rate of lunar recession hasn't been constant either – it has sped up and slowed down over time. One study by Vanina López de Azarevich, a geologist at the National University of Salta in Argentina, suggests that around 550-625 million years ago, the Moon could have been retreating as much as 2.8in (7cm) a year.

"The speed with which the Moon was moving away from Earth definitely changed over time and will do so in the future," says Eulenfeld. For much of its history, however, the Moon has been moving away at a far slower rate than it is currently.

< Watch the video at the source page. >

The enigmatic far side of the Moon

In fact, we are currently living in a period when the rate of recession is unusually high – the Moon would only have had to recede at its current rate for 1.5 billion years to reach its present position. But the process has been occurring since the Moon formed 4.5 billion years ago, so it was clearly much slower at points in the past.

"The tidal drag right now is three times bigger than we might expect," says Waltham. The reason may be due to the size of the Atlantic Ocean.

The current configuration of the continents means that the basin of the North Atlantic Ocean happens to have exactly right proportions to generate a resonance effect, so the water it contains sloshes back and forth at a rate close to that of the tides. This means the tides are larger than they otherwise would be. As Waltham puts it, think of pushing a child on a swing – they get higher if each push is timed with the existing motion.

"If the North Atlantic was slightly wider or narrower, this wouldn't happen," says Waltham. "The models seem to show that if you go back a few million years, the tidal strength drops right off because the continents were in different positions."

But it is likely to continue to change in the future. Modelling predicts a new tidal resonance will appear 150 million years from now, and then will vanish around 250 million years from now as a new "supercontinent" forms.

So, could we eventually have a future where the Earth no longer has a Moon?

Even at its high current rate of retreat, the Moon is unlikely to ever leave the Earth entirely. The Sun's own calamitous demise will probably intervene long before that happens in around 5-10 billion years. Humanity is likely to have been snuffed out long before then.

In the shorter term, however, humanity may itself play a role in lengthening the days a little further by reducing the amount of water locked up in glaciers and the ice caps due to melting caused by climate change.

"The ice basically suppresses the tides," says Waltham, noting that around 600-900 million years ago, when our planet is thought to have entered a particularly frosty period known as snowball Earth, there was a dramatic slowdown in the rate of lunar retreat. The impact is, however, hard to predict, as some of this will be counteracted by rebounding landmasses as the weight of ice sheets is lifted from them, and other complications.

In theory, the next crop of astronauts to fly to the Moon with Nasa's Artemis programme may be able to say they looked back at their home planet from further away than their predecessors on the Apollo programme 60 years ago (although the point they arrive during the Moon's elliptical orbit around the Earth will probably determine this more – the distance between its closest and furthest points varies by 43,000km every 29 days).

For the rest of us, our lives are far too brief to notice the picoseconds being added to each passing day's length. If you blink, you'll miss it.

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Tuesday, March 7

• The first launch we have is a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H3 rocket launching on its first flight. It will be carrying the Daichi 3 Earth observation to orbit where it will take high-resolution, wide-swatch pictures. By capturing images of the planet’s surface, the data can be used for disaster management, land use, urban sprawl, scientific research, and coastal and vegetation environmental monitoring. The launch will occur from the Tanegashima Space Center between 1:37 a.m. and 1:44 a.m. UTC.

Wednesday, March 8

• The second launch of the week will be Relativity Space’s Terran 1 rocket which will have its first test flight which the company has named #GoodLuckHaveFun (#GLHF). This flight has been delayed continually since late 2020, hopefully, the company will get a successful launch this time. Interestingly, the Terran 1 is made with several 3D-printed parts and will be carrying a 3D-printed mass simulator during the test flight. The flight is due between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. UTC from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and can be viewed on YouTube.

Thursday, March 9

• The third and final flight will be a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX launching 40 OneWeb satellites into orbit. This is a mission that was meant to launch this week but suffered a delay. OneWeb’s satellites do the same thing as SpaceX’s Starlink satellites; beam internet back down to the planet. OneWeb was originally sending its satellites into orbit with the help of Russia but since the war in Ukraine, OneWeb has looked for alternative routes to space.

Recap

• The first launch we saw this week was a Falcon 9 carrying 21 Starlink satellites to space where they’ll beam internet back to Earth.

• The second launch was also a Falcon 9 but this time it was launching the Endeavour Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA, Roscosmos, and UAE astronauts to the International Space Station.

• Below, you can see the astronauts entering the ISS.

• The final launch was another Falcon 9 this time carrying 51 Starlink satellites to orbit.

That’s all we have for this week, check in next time!

TWIRL 104: Relativity Space preparing for Terran 1's first test flight, JAXA to launch H3

Do masks work? It’s a question of physics, biology, and behavior

The most comprehensive review of research to date shows that mild to moderate symptoms of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress can be alleviated with physical activity. According to their investigation, exercise is 1.5 times more effective than counseling and top medications.

The study found that 12-week or shorter exercise interventions reduced mental health symptoms the most.

"Importantly, the research shows that it doesn't take much for exercise to make a positive change to your mental health," says lead author, clinical exercise physiologist Ben Singh from UniSA.

Mental health disorders are a leading cause of health problems around the world. Costly for individuals and for society as a whole, poor mental health affected 1 in 8 people in 2019, and recent studies show up to 1 in 5 people experience higher levels of psychological distress during middle age.

Previous studies have found that patients suffering from depression, anxiety, or other forms of psychological distress may benefit from physical activity just as much as they would from psychotherapy or pharmaceutical treatment.

"Physical activity is known to help improve mental health," says Singh, "Yet despite the evidence, it has not been widely adopted as a first-choice treatment."

Because individual studies have looked at such a wide variety of physical activity types, intensities, population subgroups, and comparison groups, it may be difficult for clinicians to make sense of evidence suggesting physical activity is beneficial in the treatment of mental health disorders.

So Singh and his colleagues at UniSA conducted a broader type of study called an umbrella review, to evaluate how all kinds of physical activity affect depression, anxiety, and psychological distress in adults.

An umbrella review examines a collection of reviews rather than individual studies to provide an overall picture of what existing research says about a specific subject. Put simply, it provides 'umbrella' coverage of all the evidence on a topic.

The research team extracted all the eligible studies published prior to 2022 from 12 electronic databases. Overall, they analyzed 97 reviews that included 1039 trials with more than 128,119 participants.

When comparing the effects of exercise to those of usual care across all populations, they found that exercise improved symptoms of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress 1.5 times better than talk therapy or medication.

"We also found that all types of physical activity and exercise were beneficial, including aerobic exercise such as walking, resistance training, Pilates, and yoga," says Singh.

Some types of exercise seemed to help in different ways. For example, yoga and other mind-body exercises helped reduce anxiety the most, while resistance exercise helped the most with depression.

"Higher intensity exercise had greater improvements for depression and anxiety, while longer durations had smaller effects when compared to short and mid-duration bursts," Singh explains.

The fact that longer interventions were less effective than shorter ones may seem to go against common sense. The authors suggest it is possible that this finding shows that people may find it burdensome to stick with longer exercise programs that may impact the psychological benefits.

Women who were pregnant or had recently given birth, people with depression, HIV, and kidney disease, and healthy people benefited most.

The researchers say this may be reflecting populations that are more likely to have higher symptoms of depression and anxiety and lower levels of physical activity, and as a result, have more room for improvement than non-clinical populations.

It should be noted that the majority of the evidence available described mild to moderate depression, with fewer reviews on anxiety and psychological distress. More research in diverse areas of mental health could lead to more solid conclusions.

Of course, the findings don't rule out that medication and therapy are important treatments for many mental health conditions; rather they suggest that exercise is also an important treatment, and one that deserves renewed focus.

"Physical activity is highly beneficial for improving symptoms of depression, anxiety, and distress across a wide range of adult populations, including the general population, people with diagnosed mental health disorders and people with chronic disease," the authors conclude.

The review has been published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

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For most of human history, the inner workings of the human body were a secret. Over the last few centuries, the invention of the microscope and other scientific techniques allowed scientists to learn about the structure and function of our anatomy. Just in the past decade, researchers perfected the art of imaging microstructures while highlighting different cell types with fluorescent colors. In some cases, it helps make it possible to see the glow with the naked eye.

That’s what happened when Kjeld Møllgård, an 80-year-old neuroscientist, was dissecting mice to study the structure of microscopic tunnels surrounding the brain—and spotted something unexpected.

This was part of a research study led by Maiken Nedergaard, a professor of neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, who was looking to uncover the secrets behind the brain’s glial cells and its waste disposal systems. Although glia are seldom mentioned, they make up roughly half the brain and do just about everything—from supporting neurons to recycling brain signaling molecules to immune support.

“[Møllgård] is probably one of the few people in the world who would be able to actually see something we didn’t know existed,” Nedergaard told The Daily Beast.

So, while dissecting a mouse for the study, Møllgård noticed something peculiar: a new body part. In the past, neuroscientists had established that there were three protective membranes between the brain and the skull. However, in this mouse, he spotted a fourth: a very thin membrane sitting just atop the brain. Later, they verified its existence in humans. The new membrane, called the subarachnoid lymphatic-like membrane (SLYM), is so delicate, it would be destroyed during most routine dissections—which is why it’s gone unnoticed until now.

The new membrane, called the subarachnoid lymphatic-like membrane (SLYM), works as a protective barrier and a filter for waste disposal.
University of Copenhagen

Nedergaard believes that the SLYM is an important structure that works as a protective barrier and a filter for waste disposal. All the brain’s waste is carried away by the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), a watery substance that bathes the brain and spinal cord. Here the membrane plays an essential role.

“I think it [the SLYM] has a barrier function that separates clean and dirty CSF,” Nedergaard said. It may help collect, sort, and flush waste from brain cells—including debris, toxins, misfolded proteins, and byproducts of metabolism—separating waste and toxins from nutrients that can be reused or recycled.

The SLYM is also home to plenty of immune cells that can patrol and defend the brain, responding to infection or damage. Nedergaard posits that if there is a problem with the membrane, it could lead to further brain damage and neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s.

With scientists dissecting and studying brains every single day, why has it taken so long to spot the SLYM? The reason has to do with the fact that any fluid filled-spaces within the body collapse soon after we die. “Five minutes after we die, there’s almost no CSF left,” Nedergaard said. The brain absorbs it, expands, and ruptures any delicate structures in the way.

Luckily, Møllgård was doing a careful dissection of the mouse brain as he was searching for another type of delicate structure. Nedergaard’s lab had developed a mouse model to study a series of tunnels surrounding the brain called lymphatic vessels which are lined by immune cells called lymphocytes. These vessels are involved in transporting waste and other molecules out of the brain.

In their mouse model, the lymphocytes were marked with a fluorescent green protein which would make these tunnels visible after careful dissection. When the team looked, though, they discovered a layer of fluorescing green cells forming a thin layer on the top of the brain.

“I believe there is a great deal to discover about the microanatomy of the human body,” Paul Neumann, professor of medical neuroscience at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada who was not involved in this study, told The Daily Beast. Finding these small structures may become more and more common as we continue to develop better microscopes and better techniques to study the human body.

“A function makes it, in my mind, super exciting. Something that can lead us to revise a textbook.”

— Paul Neumann, Dalhousie University

“We can now do in vivo microscopy,” Nedergaard said. This technique allows scientists to image humans and other animals while they’re alive, and visualize a group of cells—sometimes even watching them in action—by adding genes into the animals that tag a group of cells with fluorescent proteins. New discoveries like this get scientists excited about what the structures might mean for our understanding of the body.

“A function makes it, in my mind, super exciting. Something that can lead us to revise a textbook,” Nedergaard said.

Now her team is looking to understand the consequences of SLYM breakages as a result of disease or or traumatic brain injury. “I’ve no doubt that you would discover many more secrets about the body because not only are the techniques better, but we’re also asking more sophisticated questions,” she said.

In fact, we may be experiencing an anatomical renaissance where new, important structures are unintentionally discovered or rediscovered every few years.

Five years ago, surgeons were using an endoscope—a kind of snake-like camera—to look for cancer inside a patient’s bile duct. Instead of cancer, they found a series of pockets that no one had reported seeing before. After taking a closer look, they realized that these were collapsed structures—connected pockets below the skin and in the gut, lung, and urinary systems—and called it the interstitium.

“That was actually a major discovery,” Nedergaard recalled. “All the fluid is taken up by cells that swell up and that means that all fluid filled spaces disappear.” It turns out that the interstitium is important for regulating the immune system, and may be an important way that cancer cells spread through the body.

Sometimes what appears to be a new structure or organ in the body has been characterized decades or even centuries before, albeit with less sophisticated careful techniques. “One of my colleagues likes to say, ‘If you want to make a discovery, read an old book,’” Neumann said. In 1508, Leonard Da Vinci first characterized the mesentery, what appeared to be small membranes that helped the small intestine stick to the abdomen—think separate pieces of duct tape holding the gut in place.

For most of medical history anatomists believed that the mesentery was just another part of the gut because it wasn’t one continuous structure.

But after careful examination in 2016, surgeons Calvin Coffey and Peter O’Leary from the University of Limerick discovered that the mesentery was one continuous membrane, a structure separate from the intestines. Treating it as its own organ opened up new insights into chronic gut disorders. For example, researchers discovered that cutting out the mesentery alongside diseased parts of the gut increases remission rates for Crohn’s disease.

Still, sometimes these structures are properly identified but disregarded by other scientists in the field. In 2012, the glymphatic system—large tunnels surrounding the brain’s blood vessels that carry waste molecules toward the lymph nodes—gained recognition as an important part of the brain’s immune system. However, it was actually discovered decades before.

“The discovery a decade ago of the ‘glymphatic system’ provided an explanation for observations reported by Helen Cserr in the late 1970s of clearance of material from the brain into lymph nodes,” Neumann said.

Cserr was a young researcher who wasn’t taken seriously, in part because no one thought the immune system affected the brain. “She produced a beautiful set of data in the 1980s showing the glymphatic system.” Nedergaard said. But other researchers were skeptical, and couldn’t replicate her work. “This big prominent lab published a couple of papers saying that she was wrong. She actually had to leave research.”

Cserr died in 1994 due to a brain tumor. It took three decades, and paradigm shifts in neuroscience—that the brain isn’t connected to the rest of the immune system— until her findings were proven right.

Møllgård had the past expertise to spot the new membrane. But in many cases, young researchers might discover something unexpected that ends up ultimately discarded. Nedergaard encourages her trainees to take a closer look at these unexpected findings because they are a learning opportunity, even when they turn out to be an error.

“And you also in some cases, when you can’t explain the finding, you keep it in the back of your mind,” she said. “Then maybe, it’s always a mystery, and maybe 10 years later, you have another observation, and you can put it together.”

The influx of advanced molecular biology, microscopic techniques, and inquiry will help us understand the minutiae within our bodies. This means that scientists will continue to accidentally discover, rediscover, and revise what we know about anatomy. Along the way, this may lead us to a few new avenues for better treatments for diseases alongside even more questions about our bodies.

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US-China political tensions are on a new edge after two US House committees proposed more than a dozen bills that call for supporting Taiwan and sanctioning China.

Among the bills:

• The Protect Taiwan Act calls for the Federal Reserve, the secretary of the treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission to exclude representatives from the People’s Republic of China from proceedings of various international financial groups and organizations, including the G20, in the event of an invasion of Taiwan.

• The Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act of 2023 calls on the US government to publish the assets of top Chinese leaders and cut them and their family members off from financial services if Beijing acts against Taiwan.

• The Taiwan Non-Discrimination Act of 2023 calls for US government advocacy for Taiwan’s membership in the International Monetary Fund. 

The Chinese foreign ministry has so far not commented on the bills individually but complained that US lawmakers held a hearing specifically to smear China. 

Chinese columnists focused more on US Congress calls to kick China out of the G20 and expose Chinese officials’ US-based assets while Taiwanese media played up Taiwan’s potential IMF membership.

“The Protect Taiwan Act aims not at protecting Taiwan but at sanctioning mainland China,” Liu Yong, a Hubei-based military columnist, wrote in an article on March 2. “The US harbors a fanciful illusion that it has the power to kick China out of the G20 – in which the US lacks the absolute control that it does have in G7.”

Liu says that, since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict broke out last year, the US has tried to remove Russia from the G20 but failed to do so. He says US allies will not agree with the idea of removing the world’s second-largest economy from the G20, Liu wrote.

He says that to avoid seeing its US-based assets frozen by US authorities, China must increase the pace of de-dollarization now. Once dollar dominance collapses, he predicts, US hegemony will also end.

Photo: World Financial Review

A Liaoning-based writer surnamed Ouyang writes that most of the new US bills are aimed at maintaining dollar dominance. He says the renminbi is increasingly welcomed by foreign countries, including Iraq, which has recently announced that it will settle trade in the Chinese currency.

Taiwanese Central Bank governor Yang Chin-long says it would be good for Taiwan to join the IMF but it will require a big diplomatic push from Taipei as the island must first become a member of the United Nations. 

Originally, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to visit Beijing in early February but the trip was canceled after a Chinese “spy balloon” appeared over US airspace. US President Joe Biden ordered the shoot-down of the balloon on February 4. The US also unveiled new curbs against more Chinese companies. 

On February 28 evening, the newly-formed Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the US and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its first hearing, which emphasized recent national security issues.

“The threat against Taiwan grows every day,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in a hearing-opening speech. “Yet, arms sales to Taiwan – those that the ranking member and I signed off on nearly four years ago – have yet to be delivered.”

“We must strengthen Taiwan’s defenses through weapons and training,” he said. “We will not tolerate any attempts to delay notifications to Congress of arms sales to Taiwan.”

McCaul expressed concern that the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) continues to allow critical US technology to be sold to China, including through licenses reportedly worth US$60 billion to telecom giant Huawei Technologies and $40 billion to chip maker SMIC.

The US State Department has approved the sale of $619 million in new weapons, including missiles for F-16 fighter jets, to Taiwan, the Pentagon told Congress on March 1.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on March 2 that China strongly opposes US arms sales o Taiwan and will take decisive measures to uphold its sovereignty and protect its interests.

“Relevant US institutions and individuals should abandon their ideological bias and zero-sum Cold War mentality, develop an objective and rational perception of China and US-China relations [and] stop framing China as a threat based on disinformation,” Mao commented on the House hearing on March 1. 

She said US politicians should stop disparaging the CCP and trying to score political points at the expense of US-China relations. 

On February 28, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs spent three hours discussing 11 bills that call for supporting Taiwan and curbing China and approved eight of them.

The next day, the committee passed the remaining three bills – the Upholding Sovereignty of Airspace Act, the Deterring America’s Technological Adversaries Act and the Countering the PRC Malign Influence Fund Authorization Act.

If passed in both the full House and the Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden, the Deterring America’s Technological Adversaries Act will give the president the power to ban the use of China’s TikTok app on mobile phones in the US.

The TikTok app is now being removed from government work devices in the US and Canada. TikTok logo image: Handout

A different committee – the US House Financial Services Committee – said on Tuesday it approved eight bipartisan bills that are aimed at combating the “generational threat posed by the CCP’s economic aggression.”

The China Financial Threat Mitigation Act of 2023, meanwhile, will require the Treasury Secretary to report on global economic risks emanating from the Chinese financial sector.

The Chinese Currency Accountability Act of 2023 will require the Treasury Secretary to oppose an increase in the weight of China’s renminbi in the basket of currencies determining the value of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights.

It is aimed at preventing the CCP from co-opting critical international institutions, said the committee.

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When going out for a night at the bar, most people are acutely aware of what they are drinking if they are the designated driver, ensuring they don’t go over that important drink-driving threshold. But a little-known fact is how alcoholic random foods can be, with some containing almost as much alcohol content as a weak beer. Let’s go through some of the strongest and most bizarre alcoholic (but seemingly non-alcoholic) treats out there. 

Bread 

On the face of it, it makes sense that bread is alcoholic. It uses almost exactly the same ingredients as beer (except hops), which then go through a fermentation process prior to baking. If you get a whiff of a loaf of bread as it rises, you may smell the familiar scent of alcohol, and it actually contributes to that amazing fresh bread smell. Where it differs from beer, though, is that it then enters the oven, where most of the alcohol evaporates away with the rest of the water in the dough. 

Despite this, alcohol remains within the bread and most bread is alcoholic in some way, with many loaves reaching an alcohol percentage as high as 1.9 percent alcohol by volume (ABV). Bread with longer fermentation times will have a higher alcohol content, which the baking may struggle to entirely erase. This was outlined in a 1926 report called The Alcohol Content of Bread, analyzing twelve loaves of bread and finding their alcohol content to be in the range of 0.04-1.9 percent ABV – which, by EU standards, would make it an alcoholic product.  

Orange juice and fruit 

With its high sugar content, orange juice is actually relatively alcoholic, as well as a number of fruit juices that are not labeled as such. It is widely known that orange juice can contain up to 0.5 percent ABV, making it just below the EU threshold to be labeled an alcoholic drink, but it doesn’t stop there. 

In a 2016 study into fruit juice alcohol content, the authors discovered that many drinks often given to children could be containing a substantial amount of alcohol, particularly orange, apple and grape juice. The highest recorded amount was 0.77 grams/liter ethanol, while sweet rolls and other bakery goods also recorded up to 1.2 grams/100 grams. The study raised concerns over giving these items to children in large quantities, as the volume of alcohol within could have an impact on the children's health.  

It isn’t just the juice, though, that is alcoholic – fruit itself could give you a buzz if eaten in enough quantities. Ripe and overripe bananas actually have up to 0.5 percent ABV, which varies depending on how ripe the banana is; those that are ready to be eaten typically have around 0.2 percent ABV, but bananas with spots on them begin to get more alcoholic, at around 0.5 percent ABV. 

Soy sauce 

Soy sauce, a delightful salty condiment made from soybeans, is our list-topping alcoholic item, weighing in at a massive 1.5-2.0 percent ABV. As Kikkoman themselves explain, the sauce is made from a natural brewing process that is akin to wine or beer, which comes with all the fun perks. The starch within the wheat breaks down as it ferments, turning into ethanol and giving soy sauce part of its characteristic flavor. As a result, some soy sauces are almost as strong as a weak beer, despite not being labeled as such, and it could have an impact in large enough quantities. 

So, if you’re on a night out and everyone is expecting you to be the taxi home, be sure not to wash down your orange juice with bread or soy sauce – you may find yourself on the wrong side of a breathalyzer. 

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The scientific scope of BPU11 covered the full landscape of physics via 139 lectures (12 plenary and 23 invited) and 150 poster presentations. A novel addition was five roundtables dedicated to high-energy physics (HEP), widening participation, careers in physics, quantum and new technologies, and models of studying physics in European universities with a focus on Balkan countries. The hybrid event attracted about 476 participants (325 on site) from 31 countries, 159 of whom were students, and demonstrated the high level of research conducted in the Balkan states.

Roadmaps to the future

The first roundtable “HEP – roadmaps to the future” showed the strong collaboration between CERN and the Balkan states. Four out of 23 CERN Member States come from the region (Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Romania); two out of three Associate Member States in the pre-stage to membership are Cyprus and Slovenia; and two out of seven Associate Member States are Croatia and Turkey. A further four countries have cooperation agreements with CERN, and more than 400 CERN users come from the Balkans.

Kicking off the HEP roundtable discussions, CERN director for research and computing Joachim Mnich presented the recently launched accelerator and detector R&D roadmaps in Europe. Paris Sphicas (CERN and the University of Athens) reported on the future of particle-physics research, during which he underlined the current challenges and opportunities. These included: dark matter (for example the search for WIMPs in the thermal parameter region, the need to check simplified models such as axial-vector and di-lepton resonances, and indirect searches); supersymmetry (the search for “holes” in the low-mass region that will exist even after the LHC); neutrinos (whether neutrinos are Majorana or Dirac particles, their mass measurement and exploration of a possible “sterile” sector); as well as a comprehensive review of the Higgs sector.

CERN’s Emmanuel Tsesmelis, who was awarded the Balkan Physical Union charter and honorary membership in recognition of his contributions to cooperation between the Balkan states and CERN, reflected on the proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC). Describing the status of the FCC feasibility study, due to be completed by the end of 2025, he stressed that the success of the project relies on strong global participation. His presentation initiated a substantial discussion about the role of the Balkan countries, which will be continued in May 2023 at the 11th LHCP conference in Belgrade.

The roundtable devoted to quantum technologies (QTs), chaired by Enrique Sanchez of the European Physical Society (EPS), was another highlight with strong relevance to HEP. Various perspectives on the different QT sectors – computing and simulation, communication, metrology and sensing – were discussed, touching upon the impact they could have on society at large. Europe plays a leading role in quantum research, concluded the panel. However, despite increased interest in QTs, including at CERN, issues such as how to obtain appropriate funding to enhance European technological leadership, remain. Discussions highlighted the opportunities for new generations of physicists from the Balkans to help build this “second quantum revolution”.

In addition to the roundtables, four high-level scientific satellite events took place, attracting a further 150 on-site participants: the COST Workshop on Theoretical Aspects of Quantum Gravity; the SEENET–MTP Assessment Meeting and Workshop; the COST School on Quantum Gravity Phenomenology in the Multi-Messenger Approach; and the CERN–SEENET–MTP–ICTP PhD School on Gravitation, Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. The latter is part of a unique regional programme in HEP initiated by SEENET–MTP (Southeastern European Network in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics) and CERN in 2015, and joined by the ICTP in 2018, which has contributed to the training of more than 200 students in 12 SEENET countries.

The BPU11 Congress, the largest event of its type in the region since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, contributed to closer cooperation between the Balkan countries and CERN, ICTP, SISSA, the Central European Initiative and others. It was possible thanks to the support of the EPS, ICTP and CEI-Trieste, CERN, EPJ, as well as the Serbian ministry of science and institutions active in physics and mathematics in Serbia. In addition to the BPU11 PoS Proceedings, several articles based on invited lectures will be published in a focus issue of EPJ Plus “On Physics in the Balkans: Perspectives and Challenges”, as well as in a special issue of IJMPA.

Goran Djordjević University of Niš, BPU president 2018–2022.

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Aerial view of the Runit Dome. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

The dome can be seen on the left tip of Runit Island. Image credit: Google Earth.

While the dome was only meant to be a temporary solution, it has remained for decades – and it’s starting to show signs of old age. An investigation in 2019 found that the dome is covered in cracks that are worsening due to rising temperatures in the Pacific. 

Rising sea levels are also lapping at the shores of Runit Island, eroding the concrete and causing it to bleed radioactive material into the surrounding soil and waters. The situation became so severe that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in 2019 that he was extremely worried about radiation leeching into the Pacific.

“As long as the plutonium stays put under the dome, it won’t be a large new source of radiation to the Pacific Ocean,” Ken Buesseler, a world-renowned expert in marine radioactivity at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said in 2020. 

“But a lot depends on future sea-level rise and how things like storms and seasonal high tides affect the flow of water in and out of the dome. It’s a small source right now, but we need to monitor it more regularly to understand what’s happening, and get the data directly to the affected communities in the region," explained Buesseler.

If the problem deepens, it’s likely to flare up a number of old political grievances. Although remote, other parts of the Marshall Islands are home to thousands of people, and it’s clear the dropping of atomic bombs has had a horrific impact on their lives. Cancer rates, for instance, significantly increased in some parts of the islands, perhaps as a result of the radiation. 

Due to the high levels of radiation in the area, many people were forced to pack up their stuff and move. The US military withdrew from the region in 1986 and said it would pay for any people in the Marshall Islands that need to resettle due to their nuclear test program. 

However, many argue that these retributions weren’t enough and the US has failed to take full responsibility for the scale of the carnage caused here.

Writing in Scientific American in 2022, two scientists at Columbia University who study radiation in the area argued that the US Congress needs to fund independent research on radioactive contamination in Marshall and draw up a plan on how to resolve the situation. 

Part of this, no doubt, will have to address the problem of the Runit Dome before it’s too late. 

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