Kenya is in the middle of its worst drought in 40 years. In the parched north of the country, rivers are running dry and millions of livestock have perished due to lack of food. Around 4.4 million Kenyans don’t have enough to eat, and the situation will worsen if the coming rainy season fails like the previous five. “I’ve never seen it so bad. There’s nothing in the farms, the drought is too harsh,” says Daniel Magondo, a cotton and maize farmer in central Kenya.

The record-breaking drought is forcing Kenya to confront a controversial topic: whether the country should grow genetically modified (GM) crops. These are plants that have had genes from another organism inserted into their DNA to give them a new trait, such as disease or drought resistance. Although GM crops are completely safe to eat and are widely grown in the US, Canada, Brazil, and India, governments in many parts of the world, including Europe and East Africa, have pushed back against them.

That was the case in Kenya in 2012, when the cabinet banned them from being imported. The ban stayed in place until 2019, when the government allowed the importation of GM cotton engineered to be resistant against a pest called the cotton bollworm. And then in October 2022, the cabinet declared that it would allow farmers to grow pest-resistant GM maize—effectively ending the decade-long ban on GM crops in the country. Since 2015, fall armyworm moths have ravaged maize crops, by one estimate destroying a third of Kenya’s annual production.

In a statement released in October, the Kenyan cabinet said that GM maize would help improve the country’s food supply, relieving some of the pressure of the ongoing drought. The government ordered 11 tonnes of pest-resistant GM maize seeds that are widely grown in South Africa and have also been trialed in Kenya. But then, in February 2023, Kenya’s GMO regulator was barred from releasing the seeds after four separate legal complaints were lodged: three with Kenyan courts and one in the East African Court of Justice.

One complaint was filed by the Centre for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT), a Ugandan environmental nonprofit. Others were lodged by the Kenyan Peasants League and Paul Mwangi, a Kenyan lawyer. CEFROHT says that the Kenyan decision has violated the East African Community Treaty, which requires East African countries to protect natural resources. Other groups are worried that cultivating GM maize will shift farmers’ focus away from indigenous crops. With planting season just around the corner, the future of GM crops in Kenya is in limbo until the courts make a decision.

Timothy Machi welcomed the GM ban being reversed. “Something we’ve been longing for so long as a country has finally come to fruition,” says Machi, Kenya lead at the development NGO RePlanet Africa, which campaigns to improve Africa’s food security. So when the news broke that the move had been challenged in court, Machi helped organize protests in Nairobi and in Kampala in neighboring Uganda. Across the two cities, some 200 scientists and campaigners marched in support of GM crops. They held signs that read “GMOs for food security” and promoted the hashtag “Let Kenya eat.”

Pro-GMO campaigners hope that bringing in pest-resistant crop varieties will help bolster the nation’s meager crop yields. Kenyan farms produce much less food than those in other countries. Per hectare, Kenya produces a third as much maize as Brazil, where GM maize is widely grown. Kenyan maize yields are also much lower than those of countries where GM maize is not grown, such as China and France. In Uganda, where politicians are considering introducing a bill prohibiting GMOs, yields are also lower than other major maize-growing countries. “We are not at our potential,” says Patricia Nanteza, Ugandan lead at RePlanet Africa.

Improving crop yields helps feed more people, but it’s also good for the environment. The more food that can be grown on each square kilometer of land, the less land that needs to be converted to agriculture. As you can see in this chart from Our World in Data, South Asia produces a lot more cereal crops today than it did in 1980—and all of this growth came from increased crop yields. It’s not using any more land to grow those crops than it was 40 years ago. In sub-Saharan Africa it’s the opposite story. The area is also producing more cereals than in 1980, but almost all of this growth has come from converting more land into farmland. Low crop yields mean that feeding more people comes at the expense of natural habitats.

GM crops might be one way to increase yields. In South Africa, GM maize fields produce 11.1 percent more per hectare on average than non-GM fields—extra maize that would have taken more than 2,000 square kilometers of extra farmland to produce using conventional seeds.

But there are other ways of raising crop yields. Farms in sub-Saharan Africa use much less irrigation, machinery, and fertilizer than those in the developed world. In Uganda, around 17 percent of the maize harvest is lost during storage due to pests and mold. All of these things make land less productive—and some come with their own downsides. Getting more food out of the land is a big problem, and there is no silver bullet.

“Why not supply water, ensure that there is good infrastructure and good storage facilities, so that whatever is produced doesn’t go to waste,” says Hellen Dena, a spokesperson at Greenpeace Africa. “It’s just a matter of the government putting measures in place to ensure that they increase agricultural productivity.” Critics of GM crops argue that reversing the ban will just increase Kenya’s reliance on other countries and large multinational companies that sell GM seeds.

But for now, anything that can increase Kenya’s output of food is a good idea. Maize yields in the country have barely increased in the past 30 years, and climate change is putting its already stretched agricultural system under increased pressure. “All the maize plantations which we planted, they’ve dried even before they’ve produced anything,” says Magondo. When the government lifted the ban on GM cotton in 2019, Magondo was one of the first farmers to plant the crop. Now he says he’s using much less pesticide and harvesting more cotton than he used to. If GM maize is eventually allowed in Kenya, Magondo says he’ll be the first in line to plant the seeds in his fields.

Nanteza is confident that the legal blocks against Kenya’s GM maize will be overturned. A date for the hearings hasn’t been set yet, but whatever the outcome, she says that the debate over GM won’t be won or lost in the courts. Ultimately, it will be the people of East Africa who decide whether they want to grow, and eat, these foods.

As Kenya’s Crops Fail, a Fight Over GMOs Rages

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Rocket Report: Rocket Lab may drop helicopter recovery; ULA up for sale?

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Together, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) offer some tips for protecting yourself from hearing loss.

"World Hearing Day [March 3] is a great time to remind people that hearing is an important part of overall health and wellness, and needs your attention," said Barbara Kelley, executive director of HLAA.

"Just like blood pressure, weight, and other health markers, hearing should be checked regularly, treated if necessary, and protected from damage. Whether or not you have a hearing loss, you should wear protection in noisy environments, and limit the volume and time when using earbuds or headphones," Kelley said in an ASHA news release.

The ASHA and HLAA advise starting by protecting yourself from excessive noise.

Wear hearing protection when in noisy environments, such as entertainment venues, sports arenas or fireworks displays. For young kids, that means well-fitting earmuffs. Older kids and adults can wear earplugs.

Other times when it's good to wear hearing protection include if you're routinely exposed to loud noise in your job or if you have a noisy hobby, such as playing an instrument or woodworking.

Take listening breaks, leaving noisy areas at least once per hour to give your ears a rest.

Be mindful about how high you've turned up the volume on smartphones and tablets, especially if using earbuds or headphones. Keep the device volume to half or less.

The experts also recommend learning the signs of hearing loss, which can include ringing, buzzing or pain in the ear, or having difficulty following a conversation when more than one person is talking.

It can also include having trouble hearing in noisy places like a restaurant or on the phone. You may frequently think that people are mumbling.

In kids, hearing loss signs can include pulling or tugging at their ears, displaying delays in speech and language development, or seeming unhappy or socially isolated.

Don't wait years or decades to get help if you are experiencing hearing loss.

"Despite being so common, hearing loss is often misunderstood," said ASHA president Robert Augustine. "People may feel like they're getting by with their hearing loss, or that having it is a natural part of aging that isn't impacting their daily lives. However, often the reality couldn't be further from the truth. Left unaddressed, hearing loss can have a profound negative effect on a person's quality of life."

Ignoring hearing loss can negatively affect academic or career success, social relationships, physical safety and thinking skills with age. This may include earlier onset dementia.

If you notice any signs of hearing loss, seek an evaluation from a certified audiologist.

"We want people to realize there are many ways to address hearing loss that are worth exploring," Augustine said. "Certified audiologists, highly educated and trained professionals in ear and hearing care, can help them with that."

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Salt deserts are unique environments on Earth – so unique, they almost appear otherworldly. The most striking feature in their appearance is how they are tiled with hexagons and other polygonal shapes covering their surface as far as the eye can see. And how these patterns appear might finally have been understood.

In the past, scientists had considered two possible explanations for the formation of this irregular honeycomb pattern. One possibility saw the pattern emerging from cracks. You start with a drying salty crust, and then a crack appears as it dries. The crack spreads, splits into multiple ones, and eventually, they form a pattern. Alternatively, the crust is constantly growing, and due to lack of space, it bends into the observed pattern.

A team of researchers was not satisfied with these possibilities, as they lack explanatory power to describe why the pattern is so geometrical and why the tiles are so large – always between 1 and 2 meters. Their idea has to do with the convection of saline water.

“This is a great example of curiosity-driven basic research. Nature presents us with an obvious and fascinating puzzle that stimulates our curiosity and thereby prompts us to solve it – even without any direct further possibility of application in mind,” first author Dr Jana Lasser from TU Graz said in a statement.

Their approach combined lab experiments recreating similar conditions, field trips to California’s Death Valley, and computer simulations. They wanted to understand how salty water moves in soil. These deserts, in fact, might have briny water just inches below the crust. As the surface gets hotter and water evaporates, the water right beneath it gets saltier and sinks down towards the less salty groundwater. Saltier water is heavier.

If there was a single convection roll, you’d get a circular shape. But many convection rolls develop next to each other and as they squeeze and push one another, they end up forming a honeycomb pattern.

“In salt deserts the first thing you see – almost the only thing you see – is an endless patchwork of hexagons and other ordered shapes. Some 50 million tourists have visited these patterns at Death Valley alone, and the fantastic landscape demands an explanation,” Dr Lucas Goehring, Associate Professor in Physics in Nottingham Trent University’s School of Science and Technology, added.

“What we’ve shown is that a simple, plausible explanation is there, but hidden beneath the ground. The surface patterns reflect the slow overturning of salty water within the soil, a phenomenon somewhat like the convection cells that form in a thin layer of simmering water.

Patterns are a common feature in nature, as we have investigated in our free digital magazine CURIOUS. Image credit: © IFLScience

The use of experimental therapies based on bacteria-killing viruses needs to be rapidly scaled up in the NHS to combat the worsening threat of antibiotic resistance, one of the UK’s leading scientists has said.

Prof Martha Clokie, who has pioneered research into bacteriophages, or phages, at the University of Leicester, said the approach was helping a growing number of patients in compassionate use cases, and could become a routine treatment in future for conditions such as chronic UTIs and diabetic foot ulcers.

Clokie will be the director of the UK’s first phage library, due to open at Leicester next month, which she says will help fast-track the use of phages in the NHS and pave the way for the large clinical trials required for phages to become licensed treatments.

“The risk from antibiotic resistance is dire and getting worse … I find it really shocking,” Clokie said. “Unless we have clinical trials, phages won’t become mainstream as a medicine, and that’s where we’re aiming.”

Phages work by infecting bacteria cells and killing them, but they are very specific in which infections they can target. They have been used successfully in a growing number of one-off cases, including a British teenager who was dying from an intractable lung infection and was treated at Great Ormond Street in 2019.

“I get fairly regular emails from doctors and patients wanting phages,” Clokie said. “Doctors have gone from being completely disinterested to ‘give me the phages now’ … There are people who need phages now because they’re dying.”

Clokie’s lab is preparing a phage cocktail for the doctor of a London-based patient with a chronic UTI, who is allergic to antibiotics and so does not have other treatment options. However, these one-off cases typically involve scientists spending months in the lab designing expensive, bespoke treatments.

“There’s always several months scrambling around trying to find the right phages,” she said. “The idea of having this systematic, well-curated collection is that … doctors will be able to access the right phages straight away.”

Students working in the lab at the University of Leicester. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

The lab already has a collection of about 2,000 phages stored in a freezer at -80C, and it hopes to increase this by about 1,000 samples each year. Phages occur ubiquitously in nature, but phage-hunting involves tracking down the ones that efficiently kill infection-causing strains.

“Wherever you have high numbers of bacteria, by definition you’ll have high numbers of phages,” Clokie said. “The most common place people look is human sewage.”

Clokie’s students have been sent out to dredge muddy estuaries and piles of horse muck in the quest for new species. A set of phages extracted from slime in a stream in Bradgate Park, Leicester, were found to be particularly good at targeting biofilms, which are often seen in chronic bladder infections and are among those under consideration for treating the London-based patient.

“It starts off incredibly low-tech,” Clokie said. But the advent of AI-based approaches means scientists are increasingly aiming to predict phage characteristics based on genetic sequencing, and how multiple phages might interact.

Clokie said that despite a growing awareness of the threat of antibiotic resistance over the past decade, the outlook had not improved and doctors were reporting an expanding list of infections showing multi-drug resistance, including E coli, pneumonia, gonorrhoea and the stomach bug shigella.

A critical problem, she said, was the weak economic incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotics, given the increasingly restricted use of the drugs. In recent years, several companies have redirected R&D efforts into more lucrative areas such as cancer drugs, despite the growing threat of resistance.

“People will be cured of cancer but die of sepsis,” Clokie said. “There’s a really interesting disconnect between how much people are prepared to pay for drugs for autoimmune diseases or cancer and what they’re prepared to pay for antibiotics.”

Clokie is among those calling for an update to regulations created with conventional drugs in mind, to make it easier to carry out trials that could pave the way for wider use of phages. “At the moment, you need a willing doctor who is prepared to put phages into a patient as an unlicensed medicine and if something goes wrong they’ll get their licence removed,” she said.

In future, cocktails could be designed to treat common infections rather than specific strains in individual patients. Clokie said the growing use of phages in agriculture – as an alternative to chlorine spray in potato production – shows that costs are not prohibitive.

“They’re not going to replace antibiotics but they can be used to protect and preserve our antibiotics,” she said. “We can use them in chronic settings and we can use them in combination with antibiotics. I see it being a really useful complementary treatment.”

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A new disease caused solely by plastics has been discovered in seabirds.

The birds identified as having the disease, named plasticosis, have scarred digestive tracts from ingesting waste, scientists at the Natural History Museum in London say.

It is the first recorded instance of specifically plastic-induced fibrosis in wild animals, researchers say.

Plastic pollution is becoming so prevalent that the scarring was widespread across different ages of birds, according to the study, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

Young birds were found to have the disease, and it is thought chicks were being fed the plastic pollution by parents accidentally bringing it back in food.

Scientists, including the Natural History Museum’s Dr Alex Bond and Dr Jennifer Lavers, studied flesh-footed shearwaters from Australia’s Lord Howe Island to look at the relationship between levels of ingested plastic and the proventriculus organ – the first part of a bird’s stomach.

They found that the more plastic a bird had ingested, the more scarring it had. The disease can lead to the gradual breakdown of tubular glands in the proventriculus. Losing these glands can cause the birds to become more vulnerable to infection and parasites and affect their ability to digest food and absorb some vitamins.

Researchers called the fibrotic disease plasticosis to make it clear that it was caused by plastic in the environment.

When birds ingest small pieces of plastic, they found, it inflames the digestive tract. Over time, the persistent inflammation causes tissues to become scarred and disfigured, affecting digestion, growth and survival.

Natural materials found in the stomachs of birds, such as pumice stones, did not cause the same problems, leading scientists to label this a specifically plastic-caused disease.

Bond, principal curator in charge of birds at the Natural History Museum, said: “While these birds can look healthy on the outside, they’re not doing well on the inside. This study is the first time that stomach tissue has been investigated in this way and shows that plastic consumption can cause serious damage to these birds’ digestive system.”

Though the scientists studied only one species of bird in one part of the world, they believe it is likely that more species are affected, and say more research is needed to find out how widespread plasticosis is.

They say the exposure of all organisms to plastic is inevitable, because plastic emissions are increasing and plastic pollution is becoming prevalent in all environments globally.

As this problem has only emerged in recent decades, it has not been widely studied. The researchers said: “Further, the ingestion of plastic has far-reaching and severe consequences, many of which we are only just beginning to fully document and understand.”

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Q: My doctor recently recommended that I take a statin to lower my cholesterol, but I’d rather not start the drug unless I absolutely have to. A friend said he takes an over-the-counter supplement for his cholesterol — does that really work?

Statins are one of the most widely prescribed medications, taken by roughly one in four adults ages 40 and older in the United States. The drugs are used to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Cardiologists are overwhelmingly in favor of statins, which are backed by four decades of research and are considered safe and effective.

Yet some patients are reluctant to take them, citing concerns about potential side effects like muscle pain or an increased risk of developing diabetes, or saying they would prefer to lower their cholesterol without taking a prescription drug. As a result, many people have turned to over-the-counter supplements, such as plant stanols and sterols (also called phytosterols), red yeast rice, niacin, fiber and fish oils containing omega-3 fatty acids.

Studies have found that while these supplements may slightly reduce cholesterol, they are not as powerful as statins. There is also little evidence that these supplements reduce people’s risk of heart attack or stroke — the ultimate goal when treating high cholesterol.

“They don’t achieve the percent lowering that you can get with taking statins and other drugs,” said Dr. Joseph Yeboah, an associate professor of cardiology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

In a study published in January in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, for instance, researchers randomly assigned nearly 200 adults who had an increased risk of cardiovascular disease to one of eight treatment groups: one that took a low-dose statin, another that took a placebo and six other groups that took fish oil, cinnamon, turmeric, garlic, phytosterols or red yeast rice supplements, all of which claimed to lower cholesterol or otherwise improve heart health.

After four weeks, the people who took the statins reduced their LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol levels by 38 percent on average. Among the supplement groups, red yeast rice showed the greatest benefit, lowering LDL levels by about 7 percent, followed by phytosterols, which improved LDL cholesterol by about 4 percent. For comparison, those who took a placebo reduced their cholesterol levels by an average of 3 percent.

Dr. Steven Nissen, the chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and a lead author of the study, said that while some of the supplements resulted in measurable changes to cholesterol, they were not enough to have a meaningful effect on cardiovascular health. “Those differences are trivial in comparison to what people need,” he said.

How do statins work, and when are they recommended?

Most of a person’s cholesterol comes from the liver, and statins work by reducing the amount of cholesterol produced there. The goal of taking statins is to lower blood cholesterol levels by 30 to 50 percent.

When too much cholesterol is present in the bloodstream, it can start to accumulate as plaque in the arteries and obstruct blood flow. Over time, this increases the risk of stroke, heart attack and other forms of cardiovascular disease.

LDL cholesterol levels over 190 are considered dangerously high and almost always warrant a statin prescription, Dr. Nissen said. But many people with lower cholesterol levels are also prescribed statins. Doctors recommend the medications based on a person’s overall risk for heart disease, which incorporates age, cholesterol levels and blood pressure, and whether the person smokes or has diabetes. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends statins when a person’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease within the next decade is 10 percent or greater.

“We’ve spent decades developing guidelines to make sure that the right people get cholesterol-lowering medications,” Dr. Nissen said.

What nonprescription alternatives are available for lowering cholesterol?

If someone has a moderate risk for cardiovascular disease but doesn’t yet qualify for statins, experts often recommend switching to a Mediterranean diet, which prioritizes fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, lean proteins and healthy fats.

“If you are worried about your heart health, a much better approach rather than taking supplements will be to work on your diet and start physical activity,” said Dr. Salim Virani, the vice provost for research at the Aga Khan University in Pakistan and a cardiologist at The Texas Heart Institute in Houston. “If you’re on a very strict diet, you can get somewhere between 10 to 20 percent LDL cholesterol reduction.”

While cardiologists largely do not recommend taking supplements for cholesterol, many people are still interested in trying them. Here’s what the research says about some of the most popular ones.

• Red yeast rice has been shown to lower LDL levels by as much as 15 to 25 percent (although Dr. Nissen’s study showed a much smaller benefit). It targets the same pathway in the liver that statins do, but not to the same extent. As a result, experts recommend taking a statin instead, particularly because the Food and Drug Administration does not evaluate supplements for safety or consistency.

• Fiber supplements aim to replicate the cardiovascular benefits of diets high in soluble fiber, which is found in oats, barley, legumes and fruit. But research suggests that soluble fiber — either from diet or supplements — can lower LDL cholesterol levels by only 5 to 10 percent.

• Phytosterols are plant-based compounds found naturally in vegetable oils, nuts and seeds, legumes, fruits and vegetables. Studies have found that phytosterols — again, either from diet or supplements — can lower LDL cholesterol by 6 to 12 percent.

• Omega-3 fatty acids can lower levels of triglycerides (another type of fat that circulates in the bloodstream), but they are less beneficial for cholesterol. More important, several meta-analyses found no evidence that omega-3 fatty acids reduced the risk of cardiovascular disease.

• Niacin (vitamin B3) has also been shown to improve triglyceride and HDL (or “good”) cholesterol levels by 15 to 30 percent, but the benefits to LDL levels are more modest — less than 10 percent. Two large studies found that when taken alongside statins, niacin did not further reduce people’s risk of cardiovascular disease.

The bottom line, Dr. Virani said, is that some supplements “do lower LDL cholesterol, but it’s not enough for me to actually recommend them as primary LDL cholesterol-lowering therapies when we have a drug like statin that has been studied for so long, and we know that it’s efficacious and it’s generally safe.” All of the experts we spoke with agreed.

“You should go where the evidence is,” Dr. Virani added, “and the evidence is with statin therapy, there’s no question about it.”

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Ever since I took it home all I can hear is Spongebob. Image credit: Sunny studio/Shutterstock

Exotic bacteria species show promise as rare-earth element recyclers

Tomorrow is the day that Meta expected would finally end its Cambridge Analytica woes. That’s when a US district court in California is scheduled to preliminarily approve a $725 million settlement agreement that Meta believed would release the company of all related claims.

However, just days before Meta could reach that seeming finish line, the state of New Mexico has moved to intervene. In a court filing yesterday, New Mexico argued that Meta might be interpreting its settlement agreement wrong and claimed that, for New Mexico citizens, the Cambridge Analytica scandal is far from resolved.

To clarify whether Meta's agreement releases New Mexico’s and others’ claims and to ensure that the California court doesn’t “inadvertently or otherwise release claims” raised in New Mexico’s still-pending parallel action against Meta, New Mexico’s attorneys have asked to be heard “briefly” at tomorrow’s hearing.

The state's confusion springs from how the settlement agreement currently defines “released claims” as applying to settlement class members, which covers all Facebook users during the class action's specified period. Because New Mexico is arguing on behalf of hundreds of thousands of New Mexico Facebook users, the state says the agreement could be read—as Meta is reading it—as dismissing the state’s claims. However, the action was brought by the state itself, which is not a Facebook user, so lawyers said the agreement, as written, might be too limited to release Meta from New Mexico’s claims.

Ars could not immediately reach Meta or the state of New Mexico for comment. [Update: A Meta spokesperson told Ars, “The attorneys representing New Mexico misstated our position, which we will explain to the Court.”]

New Mexico fights to keep Meta on the hook

In the motion to intervene, New Mexico’s lawyers wrote that Meta never notified the state when the settlement agreement was reached last December and instead ignored weeks of inquiries sent by the state to clarify whether Meta interpreted the agreement as releasing New Mexico’s claims. The state only learned of Meta’s position this week, rushing yesterday to respond before the court begins approving the settlement agreement tomorrow.

“The State of New Mexico has no interest in upending the carefully negotiated proposed settlement,” state lawyers wrote in the motion. “However, earlier today, Facebook for the first time explicitly took the position that certain claims asserted in the State’s action pending in a New Mexico court” will be released by the class action settlement agreement.

According to the state lawyers, Meta’s interpretation of the settlement agreement is too broad and would require “extraordinary circumstances” to get the result Meta wants: releasing claims in all other courts and preventing future litigation.

“There are no extraordinary circumstances that would warrant extinguishing the State’s claims pending in other courts via the release in the Settlement Agreement in this case,” state lawyers wrote. “Facebook’s position is also contrary to the law in this District, where courts have frequently rejected attempts to read settlement agreement language that broadly.”

New Mexico’s lawsuit against Meta was filed in January 2021, alleging that Meta’s business practices revealed through the Cambridge Analytica scandal violated the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act. This claim was never raised in the current class-action lawsuit. The state has asked the California court to hear its arguments tomorrow against releasing claims in this lawsuit—before Meta can release terms of the settlement agreement to millions of Facebook users, including New Mexico Facebook users.

That notice could potentially confuse New Mexico citizens about their rights in still-pending litigation pursued by the state, which is not a class member and is, therefore, a non-party in the class-action settlement.

“Because the State is a non-party, it clearly must be permitted to intervene in order to be heard as to why the terms of the Settlement Agreement should not be interpreted as one of the parties, Defendant Facebook, would read it, i.e. to extinguish certain claims or forms of relief brought by the State in another jurisdiction without its consent,” the state wrote.

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Weight loss fads like keto and paleo diets have become extremely popular over the last few decades, but a new study has news that advocates may find unpalatable. Researchers compared several popular diets for their overall nutritional quality and carbon footprint, finding that both keto and paleo diets provided the lowest nutritional quality and had the highest environmental impact.  

The study assessed the diet quality scores obtained from over 16,000 US adults through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The team at Tulane University, Louisiana, classified individuals as having one of six diet types: omnivore, vegetarian, pescatarian, vegan, keto, and paleo. These diets were given point values based on the federal Healthy Eating index and average scores were calculated for people eating each diet.

This study represents the first of its kind to examine both the carbon footprint of keto and paleo diets and to compare them with other common diets among US adults.

Keto (short for ketogenic) diets seek to push the body into ketosis – a metabolic state that occurs when your body burns fat for fuel, rather than glucose – by relying on a strict low-carbohydrate diet. Normally, our bodies use glucose from food for energy, but when it runs out of carbohydrates the liver starts to break down fat stores instead. The energy it gets from this process comes from molecules called ketones. 

Keto diets were originally developed to treat children with epilepsy, but they soon entered the mainstream media where they were transformed into a popular option for weight loss. Keto proponents boast a range of health benefits including weight loss, feeling less hungry, and increased energy levels – but researchers have also warned about potential dangers for some time. The issue is that, to date, only short-term results have been studied. It is still not clear whether the diet is effective in the long run and whether it is safe. 

Now, new research from Tulane University has poured more cold water on this form of diet. The team estimated that the keto diet generates almost 2.91 kilograms (6.4 pounds) of carbon dioxide for every 1,000 calories consumed. The paleo(short for paleolithic) diet, a modified version of the keto diet that allows for some carbs from fruits and vegetables, was found to have the next highest carbon footprint, generating 2.6 kg (5.73 lb) of carbon dioxide per 1,000 calories. 

In a statement, Diego Rose, professor and nutrition program director at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, explained that “We suspected the negative climate impacts because they’re meat-centric, but no one had really compared all these diets – as they are chosen by individuals, instead of prescribed by experts – to each other using a common framework.”

Conversely, vegan diets were found to have the least impact on the climate as they only generated 0.7 kg (1.5 lbs) of carbon dioxide per 1,000 calories – less than a quarter of a keto diet's impact. Vegetarian and pescatarian (vegetarian diets that allow for the consumption of fish) came next. 

Interestingly, pescatarian diets had the highest overall nutritional quality and were ahead of both vegetarian and vegan ones.

Omnivorous diets, consumed by about 86 percent of the surveyed population, came in the middle for both nutritional quality and carbon emissions. The study found that if a third of the omnivores switched to a vegetarian diet, assuming a shift in domestic production, the savings would be the equivalent of eliminating 340 million passenger vehicle miles. If this change could be sustained for a year, then it would help reduce US carbon emissions amount by 4.9 percent of the reduction needed to match the current targets in the Paris accords. 

If omnivores switched to emphasize more of a plant-based diet, such as a Mediterranean diet, then both the overall carbon footprint and nutritional quality scores were improved. 

“Climate change is arguably one of the most pressing problems of our time, and a lot of people are interested in moving to a plant-based diet,” Rose stated. “Based on our results, that would reduce your footprint and be generally healthy. Our research also shows there’s a way to improve your health and footprint without giving up meat entirely.”

The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 

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Looking out the window of the International Space Station the swirling aurora covers much of the Earth. The bright light is the Moon, not the Sun.Image Credit: Josh Cassada/NASA

If you live at high latitudes or spent any time on social media, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve been having some great auroras recently. Astronaut Josh Cassada took advantage of an angle available only to a few to take the incredible photo above. It’s beautiful enough on its own but prompted a flood of responses from people showing their own views.

Auroras wax and wane in response to the eleven-year-long solar cycle. The last few cycles have not been particularly intense when it comes to sunspots and solar storms (a very inconvenient fact for climate change deniers who want to blame recent global temperatures on increased solar activity).

The current cycle, number 25, isn’t expected to peak until 2025 but has already matched the last cycle’s peak. The last time the Sun was this active good cameras were far less common. Consequently, the images being taken now are as good or better than anything that has been taken before.

A particularly appropriate response to Cassada’s photo shared on Twitter came in the form of this shot of the International Space Station (ISS) passing above the aurora.

Along with a similar (although not as intense) video.

Sadly the best images of the auroras usually require going to regions far from where many people live – both to get close to the Earth’s magnetic poles and to avoid light pollution. This time, however, even some major cities are getting a treat.

The auroras revealed here are the product of a G3-class geomagnetic storm and at least one coronal mass ejection, leading to sightings as far south as Colorado and Missouri. 

More may be to come, with the solar wind flowing out of a coronal hole expected to reach Earth on Sunday or Monday.

Many teams of astronomers try to predict the number of sunspots or solar flares at a cycle’s peak. Last week already exceeded some of these, and we’re closing in on the higher estimates. It’s possible the peak of Cycle 25 has come early, but some solar scientists now think we have greatly underestimated this cycle’s strength. Bad news if you’re launching or controlling satellites, but exciting times for those who enjoy the spectacle.

Then again, even the relatively unspectacular Cycle 24 had its moments.

Another reason we’re being treated to such amazing images is that better monitoring of the Sun, and the capacity to disperse information through the Internet, means people know when to go looking. Although aurora quality can’t be predicted perfectly, sites like Spaceweather.com can offer a good indication of prospects for those who can’t just look out the window of a space station.

Of course, a few flat-Earthers had to respond to Cassada claiming the image was phony – presumably because you can see the curve of the Earth. Some referenced debunked claims about the Moon-landings being faked – on the basis that no stars are visible in them, noting that some can be seen in Cassada’s image. Respondents have patiently explained that this is because Cassada took his photograph at night – the bright object is the Moon, not the Sun – while Apollo 11 landed in daylight. You can probably guess how many people that convinced though.

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Full circle rainbows can be seen in nature, but you’ve got to be in the right place at the right time to spot one. The fact is that actually, all rainbows are circular, but we’re always viewing them from the ground. This means the lower half is blocked from view, but if you get to the right height, you’ll be treated to a full circle rainbow. 

A stunning example of a full circle rainbow was caught on camera by construction workers at the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The 87-story skyscraper stands at 462 meters (1,516 feet) tall, making it the tallest in Europe and the 16th tallest in the world. That also makes it a fine viewing point for seeing full circle rainbows.

The reason you’ve got to be high up to view full circle rainbows is because in order to see them there must be water droplets below your observable horizon. That will only happen if you’re a long way off the ground.

“A rainbow's centre is directly opposite the position of the sun in the sky, so more of a rainbow can be seen as the sun approaches the horizon,” explained the UK Met Office. “Therefore you will normally see the greatest percentage of a rainbow (50 percent) at sunrise or sunset.”

This means that aircraft are also a good place for spotting full circle rainbows. In fact, aircraft get treated to all sorts of fun tricks of the light as something called “pilot’s glory” (get your head out of the gutter) can be seen when an optical illusion makes it appear like a plane’s shadow is being lit up by a rainbow-colored halo.

A full circle rainbow viewed from high above. Image credit: Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Also known as a glory or pilot’s bow, pilot’s glory is produced by similar processes that create a rainbow, but with a twist. The phenomenon actually has very little to do with the shadow. It simply occurs in the same location as the shadow because this is the antisolar point, the point directly opposite the Sun from an observer's perspective. In other words, the Sun is directly behind the shadow and the glory from the viewer.

High up in general is a good spot for fun with the sun, and there are many excellent photographs and videos of people making the most of Brocken specters. The nifty optical illusion was first observed on the Brocken peak in Germany, earning it the local name Brockengespenst. 

It happens when a person or object creates a shadow that then gets a leg up by casting onto a cloud or mist. The combination results in an enormous shadow that looks really far away and occasionally moves, even if the person or object casting it remains still.

They can look pretty creepy if you’re out walking alone, sort of like a psychedelic spirit is tracking you through the fog. Not helped of course by the fact that if you start running, a bit like pilot’s glory, that thing is coming with you.

With plane-hunting orbs and creepy rainbow stalkers on the loose, suddenly a full circle rainbow doesn’t seem so strange, but that doesn’t make them any less beautiful. Another time you might see a full circular rainbow is when it’s a moonbow surrounding Earth’s faithful friend, but did you know there’s also something different called a moon halo? 

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2023 not only marks the 20th anniversary of the Human Genome Project’s completion but also the 70th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA itself. Although this is a significant year for the celebration of the biological sciences and all they have achieved since these milestone events, it is important to remember the contributions of scientists who have been overlooked by the hype. 

This is how the story goes

The traditional story goes like this. In the 1953, the American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick, a plucky and rambunctious scientific duo, discovered the double helix, the spiraling-ladder structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). 

This discovery essentially gave rise to modern molecular biology, a field of study that analyzes the composition, structure and interactions of cellular molecules. This quickly led to fundamental insights into the genetic code and protein synthesis, enabling the production of new scientific techniques in the 1970s and 1980s, especially recombinant DNA research, genetic engineering, rapid gene sequencing, and monoclonal antibodies. 

Without Watson and Crick’s discovery, we would not have things like modern forensics, genetic fingerprinting, the complete map of the human genome, or this annoying character from Jurassic Park. 

The story is neat and triumphant, but it is incomplete and perhaps a little dishonest. In reality, the story behind the discovery of DNA is more complicated. 

Building blocks of life

DNA was actually first identified as early as 1869 by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher while experimenting on the chemical composition of leukocytes (white blood cells). In his experiments, Miescher found a precipitate of an unknown substance that he realized was neither a protein nor a lipid. Recognizing that it was in fact a new molecule, he named it a “nuclein” as he had isolated it from the cell’s nuclei – the name has remained to this day as part of “deoxyribonucleic acid”. 

Miescher went on to show that nuclein was a characteristic component of all nuclei, and speculated that it may play an important role in the transmission of hereditary traits. Although, he did eventually reject this latter claim.    

Unfortunately, Miescher’s work soon fell into obscurity, but other scientists continued to research the molecule he had discovered. One of these was the Russian biochemist Phoebus Levene. Levene received his medical degree from St Petersburg Imperial Medical Academy in 1891, but then fled to New York City due to anti-Semitic persecution. There he devoted himself to chemical research and was the first to isolate nucleotides, the basic building blocks of nucleic acid (RNA and DNA). 

Building on Levene’s work, the Austrian biochemist Erwin Chargaff, who had also fled to the US to avoid persecution, made two discoveries that paved the way for the double helix. Firstly, he noted that DNA, whether it came from a plant or an animal, contained equal numbers of guanine and cytosine units, as well as equal amounts of adenine and thymine. This realization hinted at the base pair structure of DNA, though Chargaff wasn’t able to make that connection himself. He also discovered the rule that the amounts of adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine varied between species, suggesting that DNA may be the genetic material for all life. 

Chargaff actually met Watson and Crick in Cambridge in 1952 and told them about his research. Though he was not particularly fond of the pair, his work nevertheless influenced their subsequent discovery of the helical structure of DNA. 

But of all the marginalized scientists who contributed to the story of DNA, the most famous is Rosalind Franklin. 

Rosalind Franklin and Photo 51

Franklin was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer working at Kings College London with physicist Maurice Wilkins to find the structure of DNA. Unfortunately, Franklin and Wilkins did not get along, and their rivalry became legendary. Franklin was dismissed as a "difficult woman" and, as Watson later wrote, according to The Washington Post, "an angry 'bluestocking', unimaginative shrew and Jewish daughter of an 'erudite banking family'".   

Despite their criticism, Franklin was brilliant and had spent months photographing and developing thousands of X-ray crystallography films of DNA, and carrying out painstaking analysis to interpret the diffraction results. Then, in January 1953, Wilkins secretly showed Watson one of Franklin’s photos, the now famous Photo 51, which gave him the insight he needed to make history. 

While Watson and Crick went on to publish their groundbreaking discovery in the journal Nature in April 1953, Franklin had moved to Birkbeck College, in London, where she worked on the structures of RNA viruses. She then died of cancer in 1958, never knowing the extent to which her work had been co-opted by Watson and Crick. 

Today, the true story behind the discovery of DNA is better known and, whether it was a case of rakish opportunism on Watson’s part or inherent misogyny within the sciences more generally, Franklin's contributions will nevertheless be worthy of celebration this year. 

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At 10:02 am on August 27, 1883, an island in Indonesia collapsed as tsunamis sent 46-meter (151-foot) waves tearing into the ocean as far as South Africa. It marks the moment in history that the infamous Krakatoa volcano erupted, kicking off what’s thought to have been the loudest sound ever.

Krakatoa once sat midway between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. It was a small, uninhabited volcanic island that rose up 838 meters (2,750 feet) above sea level and was last believed to be active in 1680 before rumblings began in 1883. The eruption in August released a force comparable to a 200-megatonne bomb, reports the Natural History Museum, and it had a far-reaching impact on people and the environment.

In terms of lives lost, Krakatoa (36,000) is the second most deadly eruption in modern history, with an 1815 eruption at Tambora that claimed at least 60,000 lives. The blast involved an extreme fluctuation in air pressure, something that – within certain ranges – is perceived as sound.

A barometer reading at a gasworks 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Krakatoa on that deadly day indicated the eruption clocked a drum-busting 172 decibels of sound from this distance. According to Nautilus, the human threshold for pain is 130 decibels, and each 10-decibel increase on top of that is registered like the noise doubling. 

Given that a jackhammer reportedly clocks in at a measly 100 decibels, anyone at a distance of 160 kilometers from Krakatoa was going to have a bad time on August 27, 1883. Any closer, and things would get very dicey indeed.

The Tonga eruption was the loudest sound since Krakatoa, which happened 139 years earlier. Image credit: Japan Meteorological Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As the loudest sound ever tipped 194 decibels (the loudest sound possible in air) nearer the eruption site, that air pressure changed from a perceivable sound to a pressurized burst of air that ruptured the eardrums of sailors on a ship that was within 64 kilometers (40 miles) of the island.

“So violent are the explosions that the ear-drums of over half my crew have been shattered,” Discover reports the captain’s log of the British ship Norham Castle read. “My last thoughts are with my dear wife. I am convinced that the Day of Judgement has come.”

That same shockwave continued to fly across the planet growing quieter as it traveled farther, but it took some distance to peter out. According to Brüel & Kjær, it could still be heard like canon fire at a distance of 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) from Krakatoa. 

The wave of pressure would go on to wrap around the globe three times in each direction, with shockwaves occasionally colliding elsewhere on the planet creating extra pressure spikes. “The great air wave”, as it became known, continued traveling around the planet for some time after it dropped below the threshold for humans’ hearing, and so ended the loudest sound ever.

The loudest sound since Krakatoa is believed to have been the Tonga eruption in 2022 whose sonic boom was heard all the way in Alaska, 6,200 kilometers (3,850 miles) away. Tonga also sent waves of sound and tsunamis tearing across the planet, with one pressure wave measured moving at over 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) per hour and reaching an altitude of 450 kilometers (280 miles) – that’s higher than the orbit of the International Space Station.

Fingers crossed Krakatoa stays the record for many centuries to come.

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The Carnac stones have inspired stories and fueled myths for thousands of years. Along the south coast of Brittany in northwestern France, an unassuming field is studded with around 3,000 ancient megaliths. Their original purpose, however, remains a total mystery.

The Carnac stones were likely placed during the Neolithic era before the advent of agriculture in the area. It’s said the stones date back to 4500 BCE, but it’s thought they were moved here to the field in the Carnac region around 3300 BCE.

Either way, that’s older than Stonehenge in southern England, which is estimated to have been built in numerous stages from 3000 BCE to 2000 BCE.

Aerial shot of some of the Carnac stones. Image credit: Alla Khananashvili/Shutterstock.com

The Carnac stones are the largest collection of ancient megaliths in the world. The thousands of rocks are spread across an area of around 3 kilometers (1.8 miles). 

Most are carved from granite taken from the local area, but some appear to have been sourced from quarries in eastern Le Manio, up to 40 kilometers (24 miles) away. That’s a pretty incredible feat considering this likely took place over 6,000 years ago. 

Although many of the stones have been placed in a repetitive and orderly fashion, they are not uniform and can be split into a number of different categories based on their shape and alignment, known as Le Ménec, Kermario, and Kerlescan.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the Carnac stones have been described as a “temple” that likely had some spiritual significance. There were even attempts to prove the stones are placed to align with the stars and planets, but these hypotheses have fallen flat. Still today, there is no widely accepted theory on their purpose.

Carnac stones run for as long as the eyes can see. Image credit: Alexandre G. ROSA/Shutterstock.com

Carnac also baffled the Romans when they occupied Brittany from the 1st century BCE until the 5th century CE. Over the centuries, several myths surrounded the stones. One tale said the stones were pagan soldiers that had been turned to stone by Pope Cornelius, while another legend says they were a Roman legion that Merlin the wizard cast into stone. 

"There are plenty of interesting theories, some with examples that seem to fit in certain circumstances, but there's always more to disprove them than to prove them," Olivier Agogué, the administrator of the site, told BBC Travel in September 2022.

"The Carnac Alignments are not straight, they meander and follow a ridge that separates the coastal plain from the interior, land-based world, likely acting as a kind of symbolic border between the two. Of course, it did not prevent people from passing between them, but it marks a geographical separation between land and sea that isn't random. But, its ceremonial or religious significance is open to interpretation," he added.

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According to an estimate from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an organisation that represents the international music industry, people around the world spend on average 20.1 hours per week listening to music, up from 18.4 hours in 2021.

We have more ways to access music than at any time in history and a whole world of unfamiliar styles to explore.

The thrill of discovering new songs and new sounds can enrich people of all ages.

Except, most of the time, it doesn’t.

Our willingness to explore new or unfamiliar music declines with age. Multiple studies confirm the sentiments of US songwriter and musician Bob Seger:

"Today’s music ain’t got the same soul. I like that old time rock ‘n’ roll."

Exploring new music

Academics use the term “open-earedness” to describe our willingness to explore new music. Across our lives this willingness waxes and wanes.

Until around the age of 11, children are generally happy to engage with unfamiliar music. Early adolescence sees a reduction in open-earedness, but is accompanied by an intense increase in interest in music more generally. Open-earedness increases slightly during young adulthood, then declines as we age.

A major 2013 study involving more than 250,000 participants confirmed these changing behaviours. It also showed that the significance we ascribe to music after adolescence declines, and the amount of music we listen to reduces from a high point of 20% of our waking time during adolescence, to 13% in adulthood.

Shifting priorities

Researchers have different, but generally complementary, theories to account for these population-level trends. Some interpret the observed decline in music engagement in terms of psychosocial maturation.

Adolescents use music as an identity marker and engage with it to navigate social circles. Adults have developed personalities and established social groups. As such, drivers to engage with new music are lessened.

These same researchers point to age-related changes to hearing acuity – specifically a lowering tolerance for loud and high-frequency sound – as one cause for a reduced interest in new music for some people.

Adolescents use music as an identity marker. Image credit: AboutLife/Shutterstock.com

One explanation for the age-based reduction in music consumption simply posits that responsibility-laden adults may have less discretionary time to explore their musical interests than younger people.

Some scholars question whether there is a straightforward link between the decline in the rate of new music consumption and increasing music intolerance.

Others argue against using chronological age as a predictor for stagnant musical taste without first considering the different ways we process and use music across our lifespan. Teenagers tend to be very aware of what they are listening to. Adults who use music as motivation or accompaniment for activities such as exercise or menial tasks may be less conscious of the extent to which they actually do listen to new music.

There is consensus that people are highly likely to have their taste shaped by the music they first encounter in adolescence.

Adolescence shapes musical taste firstly because our brains are developed to the point where we can fully process what we’re hearing, and secondly because the heightened emotions of puberty create strong and lasting bonds of memory.

Soundtrack of our lives

Neuroscience provides some fascinating insights into how and why our musical tastes develop. We know, for example, infants display an affinity to music they heard in utero.

Also, musical taste boils down to familiarity. In his book This is Your Brain on Music, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin writes:

"when we love a piece of music, it reminds us of other music we have heard, and it activates memory traces of emotional times in our lives."

What we think of as our “taste” is simply a dopamine reaction arising from patterns our brain recognises which create the expectation of pleasure based on pleasures past. When we stop actively listening to new or unfamiliar music the link between the musical pattern and pleasure is severed.

Music activates memory traces of emotional times in our lives. Image credit: Elena Elisseeva/Shutterstock.com

It may take a decade or two to get there, but the result is, eventually, “young people’s music” will alienate and bring no pleasure.

So, are we doomed to musical obsolescence as we age? Far from it. Recent research suggests musical taste does not need to calcify but can continue to develop across our lives.

Expanding our horizons

Here are some tips if you want to train your musical taste to extend beyond the “old favourites” of youth:

1. cultivate different modes of listening including in formal (concerts), focused (solitary), casual (as an accompaniment to other activity) and social settings

2. make listening habitual

3. be curious about what you’re listening to. You can help your brain form new patterns by knowing something of the story behind the music

4. be patient and persistent. Don’t assume because you don’t immediately like an unfamiliar piece that it’s not worth listening to. The more you listen, the better your brain will be at triggering a pleasure response

5. find a friend to give you recommendations. There’s a good chance you’ll listen to music suggested to you by someone you like and admire

6. keep listening to the music you love, but be willing to revisit long-held beliefs, particularly if you describe your musical taste in the negative (such as “I hate jazz”); it’s likely these attitudes will stifle your joy

7. don’t feel you have to keep up with new music trends. We’ve 1,000 years of music to explore.

Exploring music in new settings can help expanded your tastes. Image credit: Melinda Nagy/Shutterstock.com

If, after making the effort, you still find new popular music hard to bear, take solace from songwriter Ben Folds, who says in his memoir:

"Good pop music, truly of its moment, should throw older adults off its scent. It should clear the room of boring adults and give the kids some space."

Timothy McKenry, Professor of Music, Australian Catholic University

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

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Musk’s bid to start Neuralink human trials denied by FDA in 2022, report says

Nearly four hours into Tesla’s marathon Investor Day, someone in the audience tried again to bring Elon Musk, the Tesla (and Twitter and SpaceX) CEO back to the present day. From a stage at the Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, Musk had announced an ambitious “Master Plan 3” to save the world. For $10 trillion in manufacturing investment, Musk said, the world could move wholesale to a renewable electricity grid, powering electric cars, planes, and ships.

“Earth can and will move to a sustainable energy economy, and will do so in your lifetime,” Musk proclaimed. More details will be revealed in a forthcoming white paper, he said.  But the presentation was short on specifics on the one part of the electric transition that is in Tesla’s gift: the next-generation vehicle it has been teasing for years, promising something that is more affordable, more efficient, and more efficiently built than anything in its current lineup. The vehicle, or group of vehicles, will be crucial to hitting Tesla’s goal of selling 20 million vehicles in 2030; it sold 1.3 million in 2022.

What, an investor asked the company’s executives, would that vehicle be? Musk declined to share. “We’d be jumping the gun if we answered your question,” he said, explaining that the company would hold a separate event to roll out the mystery vehicle somewhere down the line. Slides shown during the presentation just showed images of car-shaped forms under gray sheets.

Instead, 17 company executives shared some tidbits on the vehicle during a round robin of presentations focusing on everything from design to supply chains to manufacturing to environmental impacts and legal affairs. 

The next-generation vehicle won’t be just one car, but an approach to building vehicles focusing on “affordability and desirability,” said Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering. It will be built at a new factory near Monterrey, Mexico, which was announced at the event Wednesday and will be Tesla's sixth battery and electric vehicle plant. Executives said the next-gen vehicle would have a 40 percent smaller manufacturing footprint and would cut production costs by 50 percent. 

Wall Street appears to have expected a bit more detail. By Thursday morning, the company’s stock price was down 5 percent. 

“The much-anticipated theme of Master Plan 3 left me with more questions than answers,” Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said in a note to investors.

“Musk and company failed to put the cherry on top—an actual look at a lower-priced Tesla, if only just conceptually,” Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at Edmunds, an auto industry research firm, said in an emailed commentary. 

A truly affordable electric car has long been a target for the company. Tesla’s first Master Plan—published in 2006, before Musk was CEO—was simple but, at the time, radical: Build an electric sports car, and use that money to build cheaper and cheaper electric cars. The company touted its second electric sedan, the Model 3, as the battery-powered ride for the masses, but the car only sold at its target price of $35,000 for a limited time. Its base model now sells for $43,000. In the meantime, legacy automakers inspired by Tesla’s vision have stepped into the gap: The Chevrolet Bolt today starts at $26,500, and the Nissan Leaf at $28,000. 

A second Master Plan, published in 2016, promised self-driving cars and shared robotaxis, and it promoted the carmaker’s (now struggling) solar panel business. The robots on wheels haven’t shown up yet—though Wednesday’s events did include a cameo from Optimus, a still-clunky prototype of a humanoid robot also being built by Tesla.

Musk rarely meets his self-imposed deadlines, but he’s always excelled at marshaling others to his cause with grand pronouncements and sprawling visions. Now he’s looking beyond cars, and even robots. “I really want today to be not only about investors who own Tesla stock, but anyone who is an investor in Earth,” he said.

The Mystery Vehicle at the Heart of Tesla’s New Master Plan

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Why it’s time to get over your EV range anxiety

Age is just a number—and one you may be able to change. At least that’s the pitch behind Tally Health, a new startup that’s among a crop of companies selling tests that offer to tell consumers their “biological age.”

You’ve heard of at-home tests like those from 23andMe and Ancestry, which scan your DNA to provide information about ethnic heritage and health risks. Now, a wave of startups is marketing tests that claim to parse your blood, urine, or a cheek swab to reveal your biological age. The tests measure epigenetic patterns, or changes in the body that affect how genes behave. Unlike a calendar age, which marches along at the same pace for everyone, biological age is the speed at which cells, tissues, and organs appear to decline—and that can vary, depending on a person’s health history.

Tally Health, which launched last week, is one of around a dozen companies that offer these tests. Harvard University biologist David Sinclair, the company’s cofounder, describes its version as something like a credit score for your body. You swab your cheek and drop your sample in the mail, and the company sends you back your biological age. “If you're younger, that's great. We want to keep you there and even make you stay younger as you get chronologically older,” Sinclair says. “If you come up with a number that's older than your cohort, then we’re here to help get you back to not just average, but even below average, biological age.”   

Genetics and lifestyle both contribute to aging. Choices like diet, exercise, smoking, and drinking alcohol all cause epigenetic changes in how genes behave. Exposure to stress, trauma, and pollution can also have an effect. Scientists think the accumulation of all these factors affects a person’s biological age, but Sinclair believes that genetics are far less important than factors that are largely within a person’s control. (Sinclair is 53, but he says that, according to Tally Health’s test, his biological age is more like 43.)

Sinclair is an influential and often controversial researcher in the antiaging field thanks to his promotion of resveratrol, a compound found in red grapes, which he once called “as close to a miraculous molecule as you can find.” Other researchers have been more cautious about resveratrol’s possible benefits, given its mixed results in animal tests. (Sinclair takes resveratrol supplements daily, and his Harvard lab is still pursuing research on the compound). Sinclair has founded several biotech companies, including ones focused on longevity, and his 2019 book Lifespan: Why We Age–and Why We Don’t Have To, debuted on The New York Times bestseller list. 

“What we are trying to do, at the highest level, is to change the way we age,” says Melanie Goldey, CEO of Tally Health. “It's one number that tells you how your body is really aging versus how many birthdays you've had.” (Goldey says her biological age is about six months younger than her chronological one.)

In addition to giving each customer an age reading, the New York City–based company provides an action plan of personalized lifestyle recommendations, such as getting more sleep, spending less time sitting, minimizing stress, or eating more vegetables—arguably things that most people could benefit from. Users can take a one-time test for $229 or get a membership to test every three months so they can monitor their biological age over time. “We think that's a good amount of time for people to get their action plan, be empowered by the information, choose the adjustments they want to make, and actually implement some change,” Goldey says.  

She says the company had amassed a wait list of more than 270,000 people when it launched, although she didn’t say how many people have signed up for a membership, which ranges from $129 to $199 a month.

Like other epigenetic aging tests on the market, Tally Health looks at patterns in DNA methylation—the chemical tags on DNA code that affect the activity of genes. In the 1970s, scientists made the connection between DNA methylation and aging. In 2013, Steven Horvath, a geneticist and biostatistician at UCLA, published the first epigenetic aging “clock” based on these changes. The clock is a predictive test based on data from 8,000 biological samples of 51 healthy human tissues and cell types. It measures DNA methylation patterns associated with aging and disease and uses an algorithm to guess a person’s age. 

The next wave of epigenetic clocks sought to go a step further to predict how long a person was going to live—or how many of those years would be healthy ones. One of those was PhenoAge, a clock published by Morgan Levine at Yale University in 2018. Based on a person’s blood sample, it predicted overall mortality risk and the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s, among other outcomes. A year later, a team led by Horvath and Ake Lu released GrimAge, an improved version of their earlier clock that predicts a person’s time until death based on a blood sample. 

These clocks were meant to be used by researchers to test the antiaging effects of drugs or lifestyle changes in animals or people. Indeed, studies have shown that people who test as biologically older than their chronological age are at increased risk of certain diseases and death. But companies have since sprung up to make clocks of their own or adapt existing ones into direct-to-consumer tests. 

The technology behind Tally Health’s test was developed in Sinclair’s lab at Havard and was described in a preprint paper posted last year. Using cells from a cheek swab, the company estimates biological age by measuring how a person’s DNA methylation patterns compare to samples the company took from 8,000 people ranging from 18 to 100 years old, according to Goldey. About half the samples came from men and the other half from women, while 30 percent were from non-white individuals. 

There are several others on the market: Since 2017, Zymo Research, based in Irvine, California, has offered a $299 blood or urine test called myDNAge that’s based on Horvath’s biological aging clock. The company provides a personalized report that includes information on a customer’s metabolic health, methylation activity, and potential risk for age-related diseases. And in 2019, supplement-maker Elysium Health of New York City launched a $299 biological aging test that it developed in partnership with Levine, who was recruited last year by Altos Lab, a $3 billion life-extension company in San Diego.

“We think that some people age more slowly and live long, healthy lives, while others age more rapidly and have early onset of chronic diseases,” says Daniel Belsky, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who focuses on aging. “Biological age is a way of trying to summarize those differences between people.”

What’s unknown, Belsky says, is whether current epigenetic tests are sensitive enough to pick up on lifestyle changes that people may make over a relatively short period of time. Even if they are, no one has repeatedly tested enough people to know whether their scores track with changes in their overall health and longevity. “We don't have a great deal of knowledge yet about how well these serve as monitors of an individual’s aging progress,” Belsky says.

In a recent study, Belsky and his Columbia colleagues wanted to see if a reduced-calorie diet had antiaging effects on people. Healthy adults in a two-year clinical trial were separated into two groups—one that ate a normal diet and another that ate a 25 percent-calorie-restricted diet. The researchers analyzed participants’ blood samples taken at the start of the trial, one year in, and at the end of the trial using three measures: PhenoAge, GrimAge, and a clock developed by Belsky and his collaborators called DunedinPACE, which estimates a person’s pace of aging.

The PhenoAge and GrimAge clocks found that the calorie-restricted diet had no meaningful effect on a person’s biological age. But DunedinPACE showed that it did slow the pace of aging. “In other words, some of these tools may not be optimized for detecting small changes in biological age,” Belsky says. (TruDiagnostic, a company out of Kentucky, sells DunedinPACE as a consumer test.) 

Charles Dupras, a bioethicist at the University of Montreal, who has studied direct-to-consumer epigenetic testing, says people may benefit from such tests because they serve as inspiration for healthier habits. “Just having this tool may serve as a positive source of motivation for people,” he says. But he says companies need to be careful that they’re not making exaggerated claims about the potential benefits of their tests. Plus, these tests just haven’t been around long enough to know whether they actually lead people to make healthier decisions.

Eric Verdin, president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California, is excited about the potential for biological aging tests—and his institute is one of several groups developing them. “They are great research tools,” he says. “But this is still early days for these tests. In my opinion, they’re not ready for prime time.” For one thing, he says, it’s not clear if all of the tests on the market have been validated by other scientists. Verdin also cautions that these tests haven’t been evaluated by the US Food and Drug Administration and aren’t regulated. 

Sinclair doesn’t see a downside to knowing your biological age. “By having a number, it’s like having a dashboard on your body,” he says. “We think it gives you the empowerment, the determination to make a change in your life.” 

How Old Are You, Really? New Tests Want to Tell You

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