For years, one of the only possible bright sides of increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) seen by scientists is enhanced photosynthesis. After all, plants use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, so it was expected that higher levels of the greenhouse gas will lead to more productive plants. However, this effect may be less than expected because elevated levels of CO2 make it difficult for plants to obtain the minerals necessary to grow and provide nutritious food. This is explained by scientists from the Institute for Plant Science of Montpellier in France in a review published on November 3 in the journal Trends in Plant Science.

“There are many reports in the literature showing that the CO2 levels expected at the end of the twenty-first century will lead to a lower concentration of nitrogen in most plants, mainly affecting the protein content in plant products,” says first author Alain Gojon. “It is very important to understand why growing plants at elevated CO2 has such a negative effect on the protein content of most staple crops and the future of food.” Gojon is the research director of France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment.

Plants use photosynthesis to incorporate CO2 into sugars that they derive their energy from. However, photosynthesis does not provide plants with the key minerals they need to grow. For most plants, these minerals, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron, are picked up from the soil through their root systems. Nitrogen is particularly important as it is a key building block for the amino acids that plants use to make proteins.

Not only does a nitrogen deficiency mean that a plant will have difficulty building its tissues, but also that it will provide less nutrition to humans. “What is clear is that the nutrient composition of the main crops used worldwide, such as rice and wheat, is negatively impacted by the elevation of CO2. This will have a strong impact on food quality and global food security,” says corresponding author Antoine Martin, researcher of the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

“Two main nutrients that are essential for human nutrition may be affected by this phenomenon,” adds Gojon. “The first one is proteins built from nitrogen. In developing countries this can be a big issue, because many diets in these countries aren’t rich in proteins and plants grown at elevated CO2 can have twenty to thirty percent less protein. The second one is iron. Iron deficiency already affects an estimated 2 billion people worldwide.”

Beyond global food systems, the lowered mineral status of plants due to increased atmospheric CO2 levels may lead to a negative feedback loop for mitigating climate change. “The terrestrial carbon sink associated with enhanced photosynthesis may be limited if most of the vegetation is deficient in nitrogen and other minerals, which may prevent any additional increase of CO2 capture from the atmosphere,” says Gojon.

“We would like to really understand the mechanisms that are responsible for the negative effects of elevated CO2 on the mineral composition of plants,” says Martin. “For example, we are currently exploring the natural genetic variation behind these negative effects, that could be used afterward to improve crops nutritional value under future CO2 atmosphere.”

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Although the total magnitude of the T-cell responses induced by mRNA and inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are comparable, the similarity ends there. This is according to a new study led by scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School. They discovered that the inactivated vaccines, which expose the immune system to the entire non-viable virus, elicit a broad immune response against different proteins on the virus. The findings, which were recently published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, add to the growing literature that will help researchers improve vaccine strategies for an ever-changing virus.

“Inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were used extensively in Asia, but are often considered inferior due to their induction of a lower antibody response compared to other types of vaccines,” said Dr. Anthony Tanoto Tan, senior co-author of the study. “This means that they might not have been as good at preventing infection, but several studies have shown that they are highly capable of thwarting the development of severe COVID-19.” Tan is a Senior Research Fellow with the Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) Program.

In the research, the team of scientists compared the T-cell immune response in blood samples from people who received inactivated SARS-CoV-2 and spike mRNA vaccines. While mRNA vaccines can only induce T cells targeting SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein, which contains numerous mutations in the Omicron variant, the inactivated vaccines stimulated a broad T-cell response not only against the virus’s spike protein, but also the membrane and nucleoprotein that has much fewer mutations in Omicron.

“This combination of membrane, nucleoprotein, and spike-specific T-cell response is quantitatively comparable to the sole spike T-cell response induced by the mRNA vaccine. It also effectively tolerates the mutations characterizing the Omicron lineage,” said Ms. Joey Lim Ming Er, first author of the study and a second-year student PhD with the Integrated Biology and Medicine PhD track at Duke-NUS.

However, unlike the mRNA vaccines, the inactivated virus vaccines did not appear to trigger cytotoxic CD8 T cells known for their ability to kill virus-infected cells. They mainly stimulated a type of T cells called CD4 T helper cells. When these T cells recognize a viral antigen, they release chemicals, called cytokines that help the activation of other types of immune cells, hence their name.

Senior author of the study Professor Antonio Bertoletti from Duke-NUS’ EID Program said: “The Omicron variant can effectively evade antibody neutralization, moving the evaluation of vaccination efficacy away from preventing infection and towards ameliorating disease. T cells are likely to play a more important role in this compared to antibodies, due to their ability to target virus-infected cells.

“Since inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccines can generate T cell responses towards other viral proteins, this more heterogenous response could be beneficial, in comparison to the current Spike targeting strategy of other vaccines. However, larger studies are needed to clarify the impact of these T cells responses in SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis to better design vaccines for controlling severe COVID-19 after infection by Omicron or future variants.”

To dig deeper into the implications of the different T-cell responses, the scientists called for further research with larger numbers of participants, to compare the ability of the multi-protein CD4 T-cell response induced by inactivated virus vaccines with that of the single spike protein coordinated CD4 and CD8 T cell response induced by mRNA vaccines to ameliorate COVID-19 disease severity.

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The way the body reads the children’s DNA might change as a result of strict parenting. These alterations may become ‘hard-wired’ into the DNA of children who perceive their parents to be harsh, raising their biological risk for depression in adolescence and later life.

Dr. Evelien Van Assche recently presented the work at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Congress in Vienna.

She elaborates on her work, “We discovered that perceived harsh parenting, with physical punishment and psychological manipulation, can introduce an additional set of instructions on how a gene is read to become hard-wired into DNA. We have some indications that these changes themselves can predispose the growing child to depression. This does not happen to the same extent if the children have had a supportive upbringing.”

The researchers from the University of Leuven in Belgium chose 21 adolescents who reported good parenting (for example, supportive parents who give their children autonomy) and compared them to 23 adolescents who reported harsh parenting (for example, manipulative behavior, physical punishment, excessive strictness). All of the adolescents were between the ages of 12 and 16, with a mean age of 14 for both groups. Both groups included 11 adolescents who were males, meaning that the two groups were equal in terms of age and gender distribution. Many of those who had been subjected to harsh parenting displayed early, subclinical signs of depression.

The researchers then analyzed the range of methylation at over 450,000 places in each subject’s DNA and discovered that it was significantly increased in those who experienced a harsh upbringing. Methylation is a natural process in which a small chemical molecule is added to the DNA, altering the way the instructions encoded in your DNA are read: for example, methylation may increase or reduce the amount of an enzyme produced by a gene. Increased methylation variation has been linked to depression.

Evelien Van Assche said “We based our approach on prior research with identical twins. Two independent groups found that the twin diagnosed with major depression also had a higher range of DNA methylation for the majority of these hundreds of thousands of data points, as compared to the healthy twin.”

Dr. Van Assche (now working at the University of Munster, Germany) continued, “The DNA remains the same, but these additional chemical groups affect how the instructions from the DNA are read. Those who reported harsher parenting showed a tendency towards depression, and we believe that this tendency has been baked into their DNA through increased variation in methylation. We are now seeing if we can close the loop by linking it to a later diagnosis of depression and perhaps use this increased methylation variation as a marker, to give advance warning of who might be at greater risk of developing depression as a result of their upbringing.”

She adds, “In this study, we investigated the role of harsh parenting, but it’s likely that any significant stress will lead to such changes in DNA methylation; so in general, stresses in childhood may lead to a general tendency to depression in later life by altering the way your DNA is read. However, these results need to be confirmed in a larger sample.”

Commenting, Professor Christiaan Vinkers, Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Centre, said: “This is extremely important work to understand the mechanisms of how adverse experiences during childhood have life-long consequences for both mental health and physical health. There is a lot to gain if we can understand who is at risk, but also why there are differing effects of strict parenting.”

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Engineered sand particles might be the next anti-obesity treatment, according to a new study from the University of South Australia, which reveals that porous silica can prevent fats and carbohydrates from being absorbed in the body.

The engineered silica particles are created from purified sand and have a high surface area, allowing them to absorb enormous quantities of digestive enzymes, fats, and sugars in the gastrointestinal tract.

The research, which was supported by the Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation, is the first to confirm how porous silica particles might hinder digestive processes and stop fat and sugar absorption.

The novel silica-based treatment, which was created in collaboration with Glantreo Limited, will be gentler on the stomach and have fewer negative side effects than Orlistat, the mainstream anti-obesity drug.

Engineered particles of purified sand could be the next anti-obesity therapy. Credit: David Stanley

 

Dr. Paul Joyce of the University of South Australia, who led the study, believes the discovery might improve the health of billions of people suffering from obesity.

“Obesity is a global issue that affects more than 1.9 billion people worldwide,” Dr. Joyce says.

“Despite this, there is a current lack of effective therapies that are free from adverse effects ­­– ­such as diarrhea, bloating, and abdominal pain – which often deters people from starting treatment. Porous silica has received increasing attention for its anti-obesity potential, with human trials showing it is a safe therapy. However, exactly how it works has eluded researchers – until now. Our research shows how porous silica promotes an anti-obesity effect by functioning locally in the gut to restrict fat and carbohydrate digestion and absorption. Importantly, the gentle mechanism is expected to deliver clinically effective outcomes for weight loss, without adverse effects.”

Obesity is a risk factor for a variety of diseases and chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer, and it is connected with a greater chance of death. In Australia, two-thirds of adults and one out of every four children are overweight or obese.

The in-vitro study examined multiple silica samples under simulated conditions that mimicked the gastrointestinal environment during the digestion of a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal. It found that porous silica particles with pore widths between 6–10 nm are ideal for triggering an inhibitory response to both fats and sugars.

“This research has identified defined parameters for porous silica to enact anti-obesity effects,” Dr. Joyce says. “The next steps are to validate these findings with animal models of obesity so that we can determine any variations for optimal anti-obesity conditions. Obesity is a completely preventable disease. This is a massive step to tackle one of the world’s most preventable health conditions.”

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As the company’s head of policy, my teams were responsible for drafting Twitter’s rules and figuring out how to apply them consistently to hundreds of millions of tweets per day. In my more than seven years at the company, we exposed government-backed troll farms meddling in elections, introduced new tools for contextualizing dangerous misinformation and, yes, banned President Trump from the service. The Cornell professor Tarleton Gillespie called teams like mine the “custodians of the internet.” The work of online sanitation is unrelenting and contentious.

Enter Mr. Musk.

In a news release announcing his agreement to acquire the company, Mr. Musk laid out a simple thesis: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” He said he planned to revitalize Twitter by eliminating spam and drastically altering its policies to remove only illegal speech.

Since the deal closed on Oct‌. 27‌‌, many of the changes made by Mr. Musk and his team have been sudden and alarming for employees and users alike, including rapid-fire layoffs and an ill-fated foray into reinventing Twitter’s verification system. A wave of employee resignations caused the hashtag “#RIPTwitter” to trend on the site on Thursday — not for the first time — alongside questions about whether a skeleton crew of remaining staff can keep the 16-year-old service afloat.

And yet when it comes to content moderation, much has stayed the same since Mr. Musk’s acquisition. Twitter’s rules continue to ban a wide range of “lawful but awful” speech. Mr. Musk has insisted publicly that the company’s practices and policies are unchanged. Are we just in the early days — or has the self-declared free speech absolutist had a change of heart?

The truth is that even Elon Musk’s brand of radical transformation has unavoidable limits.

Advertisers have played the most direct role thus far in moderating Mr. Musk’s free speech ambitions. As long as 90 percent of the company’s revenue comes from ads (as was the case when Mr. Musk bought the company), Twitter has little choice but to operate in a way that won’t imperil the revenue streams that keep the lights on. This has already proved to be challenging.

Almost immediately upon the acquisition’s close, a wave of racist and antisemitic trolling emerged on Twitter. Wary marketers, including those at General Mills, Audi and Pfizer, slowed down or paused ad spending on the platform, kicking off a crisis within the company to protect precious ad revenue.

In response, Mr. Musk empowered my team to move more aggressively to remove hate speech across the platform — censoring more content, not less. Our actions worked: Before my departure, I shared data about Twitter’s enforcement of hateful conduct showing that, by some measures, Twitter was actually safer under Mr. Musk than it had been before.

Marketers have not shied away from using the power of the purse: In the days following Mr. Musk’s acquisition, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a key ad industry trade group, published an open call to Twitter to adhere to existing commitments to “brand safety.” It’s perhaps for this reason that Mr. Musk has said he wants to move away from ads as Twitter’s primary revenue source: His ability to make decisions unilaterally about the site’s future is constrained by a marketing industry he neither controls nor has managed to win over.

But even if Mr. Musk is able to free Twitter from the influence of powerful advertisers, his path to unfettered speech is still not clear. Twitter remains bound by the laws and regulations of the countries in which it operates. Amid the spike in racial slurs on Twitter in the days after the acquisition, the European Union’s chief platform regulator took to the site to remind Mr. Musk that, in Europe, an unmoderated free-for-all won’t fly. In the United States, members of Congress and the Federal Trade Commission have raised concerns about the company’s recent actions. And outside of the United States and the European Union, the situation becomes even more complex: Mr. Musk’s principle of keying Twitter’s policies on local laws could push the company to censor speech it has been loath to restrict in the past, including political dissent.

Regulators have significant tools at their disposal to enforce their will on Twitter and on Mr. Musk. Penalties for noncompliance with Europe’s Digital Services Act could total as much as 6 percent of the company’s annual revenue. In the United States, the F.T.C. has shown an increasing willingness to exact significant fines for noncompliance with their orders (like a blockbuster $5 billion fine imposed on Facebook in 2019). In other key markets for Twitter, such as India, in-country staff work with the looming threat of personal intimidation and arrest if their employers fail to comply with local directives. Even a Musk-led Twitter will struggle to shrug off these constraints.

There is one more source of power on the web — one that most people don’t think much about, but which may be the most significant check on unrestrained speech on the mainstream internet: the app stores operated by Google and Apple.

While Twitter has been publicly tight-lipped about how many people use the company’s mobile apps (rather than visiting Twitter.com on a browser), the company’s 2021 annual report didn’t mince words: “Our release of new products … is dependent upon and can be impacted by digital storefront operators” that decide the guidelines and enforce them, it reads in part. “Such review processes can be difficult to predict and certain decisions may harm our business.”

“May harm our business” is an understatement. Failure to adhere to Apple and Google’s guidelines would be catastrophic, risking Twitter’s expulsion from their app stores and making it more difficult for billions of potential users to access Twitter’s services. This gives Apple and Google enormous power to shape the decisions Twitter makes.

Apple’s guidelines for developers are reasonable and plainly stated: They emphasize creating “a safe experience for users” and stress the importance of protecting children. The guidelines quote the Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart’s “I know it when I see it” quip, saying the company will ban apps that are “over the line.”

In practice, the enforcement of these rules is fraught.

In my time at Twitter, representatives of the app stores regularly raised concerns about content available on our platform. On one occasion, a member of an app review team contacted Twitter, saying with consternation that he had searched for “#boobs” in the Twitter app and was presented with … exactly what you’d expect. Another time, on the eve of a major feature release, a reviewer sent screenshots of several days-old tweets containing an English-language racial slur, asking Twitter representatives whether they should be permitted to appear on the service.

Reviewers hint that app approval could be delayed or perhaps even withheld entirely if issues are not resolved to their satisfaction — although the standards for resolution are often inferred. Even as they appear to be driven largely by manual checks and anecdotes, these review procedures have the power to derail company road maps and trigger all-hands-on-deck crises for weeks or months at a time.

Whose values are these companies defending when they enforce their policies? While the wide array of often conflicting global laws no doubt play a part, the most direct explanation is that platform policies represent the preferences of a small group of predominantly American tech executives. Steve Jobs didn’t believe porn should be allowed in the App Store, and so it isn’t allowed. Stripped bare, there’s a dismaying lack of legitimacy to the decisions here.

It’s this very lack of legitimacy that Mr. Musk, correctly, points to when he calls for greater free speech, and for the establishment of a “content moderation council” to guide the company’s policies — an idea Google and Apple would be right to borrow for the governance of their app stores. But even as he criticizes the capriciousness of platform policies, he perpetuates this same lack of legitimacy through his impulsive changes and tweet-length pronouncements about Twitter’s rules. In appointing himself “Chief Twit,” Mr. Musk has made clear that at the end of the day, he’ll be the one calling the shots.

It was for this reason that I ultimately chose to leave the company: A Twitter whose policies are defined by unilateral edict has little need for a trust and safety function dedicated to its principled development.

So where will Twitter go from here? Some of the company’s decisions in the weeks and months to come, like the near-certainty of allowing Donald Trump’s account back on the service, will have an immediate, perceptible impact. But to truly understand the shape of Twitter going forward, I’d encourage looking not just at the choices the company makes but at how Mr. Musk makes them. Should it materialize, will the moderation council represent more than just the loudest, predominantly American voices complaining about censorship — including, critically, the approximately 80 percent of Twitter users who reside outside of the United States? Will the company continue to invest in features like Community Notes, which bring Twitter users into the work of platform governance? Will Mr. Musk’s tweets announcing policy changes become less frequent and abrupt?

Longer term, the moderating influences of advertisers, regulators and — most critically of all — app stores may be welcome for those of us hoping to avoid an escalation in the volume of dangerous speech online. Twitter will have to balance its new owner’s goals against the practical realities of life on Apple and Google’s internet — no easy task for the employees who have chosen to remain. And as I departed the company, the calls from the app review teams had already begun.

The post I Was the Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter. This Is What Could Become of It. appeared first on New York Times.

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Rocket Report: Long March 6A breaks apart after launch; SLS soars in debut

We now have a pretty good idea what the “Connecticut vampire” looked like

The demand from dieters for Ozempic, which is sold as a liquid solution administered as an under-the-skin injection, has caused shortages of the medication along with Trulicity, also an injectable diabetes medicine. The buzz has created serious issues for people who actually need the prescribed medications to control diabetes.

"We're getting calls from our patients who can't find it," said Dr. Jonathan Fialkow, a cardiologist at Baptist Health who works with diabetics with cardiovascular issues. "People need it for medical conditions, and pharmacies are out of it. The manufacturers aren't able to keep up."

Tabloids such as The Sun and magazines like Glamour have reported on rumors and social posts from influencers and celebrities who are slimming down with Ozempic, fueling interest in the diabetes drug among the general population. South Florida doctors say the interest picks up daily and report patients are calling who have no history of diabetes or pre-diabetes that are specifically asking for Ozempic for weight loss.

"Ozempic is not a weight-loss medication," said Fialkow, who also is chief of cardiology at Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute. "These medications need to be monitored by your doctor."

He said Ozempic turns off hunger, so people who take it for weight loss and stop could regain the pounds they lost, especially if they didn't make any lifestyle changes.

Ozempic was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2017 for use in people with type 2 diabetes. Wegovy, made by the same manufacturer, was approved to treat obesity. Both Ozempic and Wegovy have semaglutide as their active ingredient and work similarly, but for different approved purposes.

Wegovy is sold at higher doses than Ozempic, and at a higher cost—about $1,500 for a 30-day supply. It is less likely to be covered by insurance compared with Ozempic, which costs about $1,000 for a 30-day supply. For seniors, Medicare does not cover weight-loss drugs.

The clamor started months ago when a clinical trial reported the class of medications as having a similar weight loss effect as bariatric surgery.

In August, drug maker Novo Nordisk asked healthcare providers not to start new patients on Wegovy and halted shipments of the two lowest doses typically used as initial weight-loss treatments while it worked to catch up with demand. Pharmacists believe the unintended effect may be a heightened off-label demand for Ozempic for weight loss.

"We are watching the wholesalers as Ozempic goes in and out of stock," said Chris Osborne, owner of the Prescription Pad Pharmacy in Plantation. "Once they get it in, we place our order right away."

Osborne said he fills the prescription when patients hand it to him, but he believes diabetics who need it should take precedence. "Most of those I am seeing lately who want it are non-diabetics."

In Plantation, Dr. Mudit Jain of the Diabetes & Thyroid Care Center said there are no generic alternatives to Ozempic and Wegovy, so he tries to provide samples to patients who are desperate while they wait for pharmacies to restock. He is hopeful the supply will catch up by the end of the year.

Several brands in the same family of medicines such as Trulicity also are in demand. Osborne at Prescription Pad said people are using that diabetes medication off label for weight loss, too. "Some people want a quick fix. It's basically an injection a week."

Fialkow said after New York and Los Angeles, the South Florida area is looks-conscious, which explains all the phone calls he gets asking for Ozempic. "South Florida is a center of vanity. But no one should take this medication unless it is prescribed by a doctor who can supervise its treatment."

While research shows the weight loss with Ozempic can be dramatic, the medicine comes with some risk.

Mild side effects include gastrointestinal problems like nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and constipation. More serious side effects can include gallstones; kidney problems including kidney failure; swelling of the pancreas; increased risk of thyroid cancer; allergic reaction, and hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).

"I like to say, 'let's learn a little more at least while we wait until the supply kicks in' because right now people who need it can't get it," Fialkow said. "But you know, unfortunately many people won't wait."

2022 South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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While some pharmacy websites operate legally and can offer convenience, privacy and lower costs, others may be selling unapproved, counterfeit and unsafe medications, the FDA advises.

Many unsafe online pharmacies do exist, offering prescription medications without requiring a prescription and selling them at "deeply discounted" prices.

These pharmacies may use fake "store fronts" designed to mimic licensed pharmacies. They may imply or say that their medicines come from countries with high safety standards, according to the FDA.

Yet, what they're selling could be made anywhere without safety or effectiveness. The drugs could also be fake or expired.

Be wary if the online pharmacy does not require a doctor's prescription, the FDA cautioned. Other red flags: The pharmacy is not licensed in the United States or by your state board of pharmacy and doesn't have a licensed pharmacist on staff to answer questions.

You should also beware medicine that looks different from what you receive at your usual pharmacy, arrives in damaged packaging, is labeled in a foreign language, has no expiration date or is expired.

A price that seems too good to be true is another warning sign.

An unsafe online pharmacy may not provide clear written protections about guarding your personal and financial information, may charge you for products you never ordered or received, or may sell your information to others.

The medications from these pharmacies may have too much or too little of the active ingredient that treats your condition. They may contain a different active ingredient or a harmful substance.

These medications may fail to help you but may also have an unexpected interaction with other medicines you take, cause an allergic reaction or have a dangerous side effect. They may not have been stored properly, which could make them ineffective.

Despite all of these problems, it is still possible to find a safe online pharmacy.

The FDA suggests looking for one that always requires a doctor's prescription, provides a physical address and telephone number in the United States and has a licensed pharmacist on staff to answer your questions.

This online pharmacy should be licensed with a state board of pharmacy. You can check the pharmacy's license in the state's board of pharmacy license database by using the location tool on the FDA's BeSafeRx website. Don't use a pharmacy that isn't listed.

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IN THE WEEKS since Elon Musk was forced to complete his acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion, the social network has been in a state of dramatic upheaval. Musk laid off more than half its workforce and fired more via public tweets.

Digital infrastructure went on the fritz. And today, a reported 75 percent of staff refused to sign a pledge to work “long hours at high intensity," ostensibly triggering their resignations. It's now unclear who still works at Twitter.

In short, all hell is breaking loose at the bird site.

As the chaos mounts, one consequence inside the company could be less attention on digital security monitoring and fewer dedicated staffers working to defend Twitter from cyberattacks. And that could put the company and its users at increased risk of a massive data breach or other security incident.

The possibility of a Twitter breach is particularly worrying given a whistleblower report and congressional testimony this summer from Twitter's former chief security officer, Peiter Zatko, that alleged an already dire state of the company's internal defenses and access controls. In other words, the company already seemingly had security issues before Musk took over—and the situation may have gotten worse since.

Users also have limited ability to delete their direct messages on Twitter. The chat platform offers the option to “Delete for You,” meaning you can delete messages in your own account, but you can't delete them for the users with whom you are DM'ing. And in general, Twitter has not stated firmly what its practices are with regard to deleting user data even when they deactivate their accounts. Twitter's policy on account deactivation simply says, “If you do not log back into your account for the 30 days following the deactivation, your account will be permanently deactivated. Once permanently deactivated, all information associated with your account is no longer available in our Production Tools.” Given that no form of the word “delete” appears there, it's difficult to parse the true meaning of the policy. 

Twitter did not return multiple requests for comment from WIRED about data deletion. Relatedly, the company's entire communications department has reportedly been let go.

Security researchers and incident responders emphasize, though, that a breach of Twitter's infrastructure or a data leak wouldn't necessarily focus on impacting users but could also reveal sensitive company information. And malicious control of Twitter's infrastructure could be weaponized in a number of ways to spread disinformation, stoke conflict, or even hijack Twitter's mobile apps.

According to Rutgers and Virginia Commonwealth University-led research, teenagers who abuse alcohol may have more difficulties with drinking issues in their 20s and 30s, have worse health, and feel less satisfied with their lives.

Researchers categorized teenage alcohol abuse based on replies concerning the frequency of intoxication, frequency of alcohol use, and frequency of alcohol issues at ages 16, 17, and 18.8. Their findings were recently published in the journal Alcoholism:

Clinical and Experimental Research. They assessed life satisfaction, physical symptoms, and self-rated health at age 34 as the early midlife outcomes.

Even after adjusting for genetic and environmental characteristics that twin siblings share, the results using data from questionnaires of 2,733 pairs of twins born in Finland in the late 1970s remained consistent. The finding, according to scientists, emphasizes the significance of preventive interventions targeting teenagers who abuse alcohol and minimizing health consequences later in adulthood.

“The longitudinal twin design is especially helpful for clarifying whether there are confounding family factors that predispose someone to both misuse alcohol in adolescence and experience poorer physical health and well-being later on in early midlife,”

said Jessica Salvatore, coauthor of the study and an associate professor and director of the Genes, Environments, and Neurodevelopment in Addictions Program at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “This is because the twin design allows us to compare exposures and outcomes over time within the same family.”

Unlike previous research that demonstrated teenage alcohol usage directly influences later-life substance use and mental health outcomes, this study discovered that adolescent drinking may affect long-term physical health and life satisfaction rather than influencing it directly.

“Even though we observed these effects, they were somewhat modest, suggesting adolescent alcohol misuse is not the only driver of later poor physical health and life dissatisfaction,” said Salvatore. “Continued alcohol-related problems might play a role as well.”

While previous studies of adolescent alcohol misuse often looked at health outcomes in young adulthood, shortly after teens are surveyed, researchers in this study examined health outcomes across multiple decades into early midlife.

“This study is unique in that it seeks to understand whether poor physical health consequences continue beyond your 20s,” Salvatore said. “Our findings imply that drinking in adolescence and the consequences that follow are seen two decades later across multiple developmental stages.”

The findings indicate teenage drinking’s indirect influence on midlife physical health and life outcomes and highlight the need for prevention strategies for better long-term health. Understanding these long-term effects will further the understanding of early-targeted interventions in adolescence that may prevent or mitigate long-term negative health consequences and improve quality of life across the lifespan.

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Scientists have confirmed that a “stabilizing feedback” on 100,000-year timescales keeps global temperatures in check.

From global volcanism to planet-cooling ice ages and dramatic shifts in solar radiation, the Earth’s climate has undergone some big changes. And yet for the last 3.7 billion years, life has kept on beating.

Now, new research by MIT scientists confirms that the planet harbors a “stabilizing feedback” mechanism that acts over hundreds of thousands of years to pull the climate back from the brink, keeping global temperatures within a steady, habitable range. The study was published on November 16 in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.

Just how does Earth accomplish this? A likely mechanism is “silicate weathering” — a geological process by which the slow and steady weathering of silicate rocks involves chemical reactions that ultimately draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and into ocean sediments, trapping the gas in rocks.

It has been long suspected by researchers that silicate weathering plays a major role in regulating the Earth’s carbon cycle. The mechanism of silicate weathering could provide a geologically constant force in keeping carbon dioxide — and global temperatures — in check. But until now, there’s never been direct evidence for the continual operation of such a feedback.

The new findings are based on a study of paleoclimate data that record changes in average global temperatures over the last 66 million years. The MIT team applied a mathematical analysis to see whether the data revealed any patterns characteristic of stabilizing phenomena that reined in global temperatures on a geologic timescale.

They found that indeed there appears to be a consistent pattern in which the Earth’s temperature swings are dampened over timescales of hundreds of thousands of years. The duration of this effect is similar to the timescales over which silicate weathering is predicted to act.

A study by MIT researchers confirms that the planet harbors a “stabilizing feedback” mechanism that acts over hundreds of thousands of years to pull the climate back from the brink, keeping global temperatures within a steady, habitable range. Credit: Christine Daniloff, MIT; NASA

 

The results are the first to use actual data to confirm the existence of a stabilizing feedback, the mechanism of which is likely silicate weathering.How the Earth has remained habitable through dramatic climate events in the geologic past can be explained by this stabilizing feedback.

“On the one hand, it’s good because we know that today’s global warming will eventually be canceled out through this stabilizing feedback,” says Constantin Arnscheidt, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). “But on the other hand, it will take hundreds of thousands of years to happen, so not fast enough to solve our present-day issues.”

The study is co-authored by Arnscheidt and Daniel Rothman, professor of geophysics at MIT.

Stability in data

Scientists have previously seen hints of a climate-stabilizing effect in the Earth’s carbon cycle: Chemical analyses of ancient rocks have shown that the flux of carbon in and out of Earth’s surface environment has remained relatively balanced, even through dramatic swings in global temperature. Furthermore, models of silicate weathering predict that the process should have some stabilizing effect on the global climate. And finally, the fact of the Earth’s enduring habitability points to some inherent, geologic check on extreme temperature swings.

“You have a planet whose climate was subjected to so many dramatic external changes. Why did life survive all this time? One argument is that we need some sort of stabilizing mechanism to keep temperatures suitable for life,” Arnscheidt says. “But it’s never been demonstrated from data that such a mechanism has consistently controlled Earth’s climate.”

Arnscheidt and Rothman sought to confirm whether a stabilizing feedback has indeed been at work, by looking at data of global temperature fluctuations through geologic history. They worked with a range of global temperature records compiled by other scientists, from the chemical composition of ancient marine fossils and shells, as well as preserved Antarctic ice cores.

“This whole study is only possible because there have been great advances in improving the resolution of these deep-sea temperature records,” Arnscheidt notes. “Now we have data going back 66 million years, with data points at most thousands of years apart.”

Speeding to a stop

To the data, the team applied the mathematical theory of stochastic differential equations, which is commonly used to reveal patterns in widely fluctuating datasets.

“We realized this theory makes predictions for what you would expect Earth’s temperature history to look like if there had been feedbacks acting on certain timescales,” Arnscheidt explains.

Using this approach, the team analyzed the history of average global temperatures over the last 66 million years, considering the entire period over different timescales, such as tens of thousands of years versus hundreds of thousands, to see whether any patterns of stabilizing feedback emerged within each timescale.

“To some extent, it’s like your car is speeding down the street, and when you put on the brakes, you slide for a long time before you stop,” Rothman says. “There’s a timescale over which frictional resistance, or a stabilizing feedback, kicks in, when the system returns to a steady state.”

Without stabilizing feedbacks, fluctuations of global temperature should grow with timescale. But the team’s analysis revealed a regime in which fluctuations did not grow, implying that a stabilizing mechanism reigned in the climate before fluctuations grew too extreme. The timescale for this stabilizing effect — hundreds of thousands of years — coincides with what scientists predict for silicate weathering.

Interestingly, Arnscheidt and Rothman found that on longer timescales, the data did not reveal any stabilizing feedbacks. That is, there doesn’t appear to be any recurring pull-back of global temperatures on timescales longer than a million years. Over these longer timescales, then, what has kept global temperatures in check?

“There’s an idea that chance may have played a major role in determining why, after more than 3 billion years, life still exists,” Rothman offers.

In other words, as the Earth’s temperatures fluctuate over longer stretches, these fluctuations may just happen to be small enough in the geologic sense, to be within a range that a stabilizing feedback, such as silicate weathering, could periodically keep the climate in check, and more to the point, within a habitable zone.

“There are two camps: Some say random chance is a good enough explanation, and others say there must be a stabilizing feedback,” Arnscheidt says. “We’re able to show, directly from data, that the answer is probably somewhere in between. In other words, there was some stabilization, but pure luck likely also played a role in keeping Earth continuously habitable.”

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This is the finding of new Imperial College London research that modeled likely future cliff retreat rates of two rock coasts in the UK. The forecasts are based on predictions of sea level rise for various greenhouse gas emissions and climate change scenarios.

Rock coasts, traditionally thought of as stable compared to sandy coasts and soft cliffs, are likely to retreat at a rate not seen for 3,000-5,000 years, according to the study’s results.

At the UK study sites in Yorkshire and Devon, this will cause rock coast cliffs to retreat by at least 10-22 meters (33-72 feet) inland. The rate of erosion is likely between three and seven times today’s rate and potentially up to tenfold.

The study sites. A) Map of Great Britain with sites located. Bideford sample site location. C) Scalby sample site location. D) Bideford topography and sample locations. E) Scalby topography and sample locations. F) Bideford field photo. G) Scalby field photo. Credit: Shadrick et al.

 

Senior author Dr. Dylan Rood, of Imperial’s Department of Earth Science said: “Coastal erosion is one of the greatest financial risks to society of any natural hazard. Some rock cliffs are already crumbling, and within the next century, rock coast erosion rates could increase tenfold. Even rock coasts that have been stable in the last hundred years will likely respond to sea level rise by 2030.”

Globally, coasts are home to hundreds of millions of people and hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure like homes, businesses, nuclear power stations, transport links, and agriculture.

The researchers are calling on policymakers, planners, and insurers to take action to classify rock coasts as high-risk areas in future planning for climate change response. The authors also say we need to limit climate change by achieving Net Zero as an immediate priority.

Dr. Rood added: “Rock coast erosion is irreversible: now is the time to limit future sea level rise before it’s too late. Humanity can directly control the fate of our coastlines by reducing greenhouse gas emissions — the future of our coasts is in our hands.”

The research will be published today (November 18) in the journal Nature Communications.

Relative sea level in past and future for the years 1900 –2100for Bideford (dashed line) and Scalby (solid line). Credit: Shadrick et al.

A rocky road

The new study is the first to validate models of the expected erosion of hard rock coasts from sea level rise using observational data over prehistoric timescales. Previous studies have mostly focused on theoretical models of soft, sandy coasts. The new results suggest that as sea levels continue to rise, the rate of rock coastal erosion will also accelerate.

To study the future rate of erosion, the researchers looked at past and present cliff retreat rates on the coastlines near Scalby in Yorkshire and Bideford in Devon, finding that by 2100 they will likely retreat by 13-22m and 10-14m, respectively.

They collected rock samples and analyzed them for rare isotopes called cosmogenic radionuclides (CRNs) that build up in rocks exposed to cosmic rays. Concentrations of CRNs in rock reveal how quickly, and for how long, the rock has been exposed, reflecting the rate of erosion and retreat.

Cliff retreat forecasts based on future sea level scenarios at Bideford (a) and Scalby (b). Credit: Shadrick et al.

 

They combined these data with observed coastal topography to calibrate a model that tracks the evolution of these rock coasts over time, before comparing them with rates of past sea level change dating back 8000 years. They found that the rate of coastal erosion on these two sites has closely matched the rate of sea level rise.

The researchers say this is clear evidence of a causal relationship between cliff retreat and sea level from which future forecasts can be made, and that rock coasts are more sensitive to sea level rise than previously thought. The findings, they say, could be applied to rock coasts worldwide because the rock type is common globally, and similar hard rock coasts are likely to respond in a similar way to sea level rise.

Lead author Dr. Jennifer Shadrick, who conducted the work in Imperial’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering as a member of the NERC Science & Solutions for a Changing Planet Doctoral Training Partnership, and now works in the marine and coastal risk management team at JBA Consulting, said: “Sea level rise is accelerating, and our results confirm that rock coast retreat will accelerate in line with this. It isn’t a matter of if, but when.

“The more positive news is that, now that we have a better idea of magnitudes and timescales, we can adapt accordingly. The more data we have on the effects of climate change on sea level rise and coastal erosion, the more we can prepare by championing urgent policies that protect coasts and their communities.”

Past, present and forecast future cliff positions by 2100 at Bideford (a) and Scalby (b). RCP 8 (red lines) represents current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: Shadrick et al.

Sea level rise

As the climate warms, sea levels are forecast to rise one meter by 2100 unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.

This study is the first to confirm with observational data that the rate of past coastal erosion followed the rate of sea level rise over prehistoric timescales. The researchers say this erosion was driven by waves, which will likely get larger and more forceful as future sea level rises, and more land is given over to the sea.

While this study looked at the effects of sea level rise, it did not account for the effects of stronger storms, which some studies forecast will happen more frequently due to climate change. Next, the researchers will adapt their model to also forecast the rate of cliff retreat for softer rock coasts, such as chalk.

Dr. Rood said: “Our study did not account for the effect of increased storms, which may become stronger and more frequent in the future as the climate changes, on wave-driven cliff erosion. However, increased storms would only speed up the cliff retreat even more than our forecasts. This is another angle to the climate crisis we will account for in future studies to give a more complete picture of likely rates of rock coast erosion. We are also looking to improve our models for softer rock coasts where erosion other than by waves is more important.”

Dr. Shadrick said: “The findings are a stark warning that we must better adapt to coastal retreat or face the loss of the people, homes, and infrastructure that call coastal areas home.”

Study co-author Dr. Martin Hurst at the University of Glasgow said: “The implication is that rock coasts are more sensitive to sea level rise than previously thought. We need to pay more attention to how our rock coasts continue to erode as sea levels rise.

“Heightened erosion risks at our coasts will continue throughout this century. Even if we achieve Net Zero tomorrow, a substantive amount of sea level rise is already baked in as our climate, glaciers, and oceans continue to respond to the emissions that have already taken place.”

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Thirdhand smoke (THS) refers to the residual pollutants from tobacco smoke that linger on surfaces and in dust after the tobacco has been smoked. It may remain on indoor surfaces indefinitely, subjecting both smokers and non-smokers to potentially dangerous exposure.

According to a group of scientists at the University of California, Riverside, acute skin exposure to THS raises biomarkers linked to the onset of skin diseases such as contact dermatitis and psoriasis.

“We found exposure of human skin to THS initiates mechanisms of inflammatory skin disease and elevates urinary biomarkers of oxidative harm, which could lead to other diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and atherosclerosis,” said Shane Sakamaki-Ching, a former graduate student at UC Riverside who graduated with a doctoral degree in cell, molecular, and developmental biology in March 2022. “Alarmingly, acute dermal exposure to THS mimics the harmful effects of cigarette smoking.”

Prue Talbot (left) and Shane Sakamaki-Ching. Credit: Talbot lab, UC Riverside

 

The study is the first to be conducted on people who have been exposed to THS dermally, and it was recently published in the journal eBioMedicine.

Ten healthy, non-smokers between the ages of 22 and 45 participated in the clinical study, which was conducted at the University of California, San Francisco. Per participant wore clothing impregnated with THS for three hours and either walked or ran on a treadmill for at least 15 minutes each hour to induce perspiration and enhance THS absorption through the skin. Participants were unaware that the clothes contained THS. The subjects’ blood and urine samples were then taken on a regular basis to check for protein changes and indications of oxidative stress brought on by the THS. Participants in the control exposure wore clean clothes.

Skin is the largest organ to contact thirdhand smoke and may thus receive the greatest exposure. Credit: Celeste Lum

 

“We found acute THS exposure caused elevation of urinary biomarkers of oxidative damage to DNA, lipids, and proteins, and these biomarkers remained high after the exposure stopped,” said Sakamaki-Ching, now a research scientist at Kite Pharma in California, where he leads a stem cell team. “Cigarette smokers show the same elevation in these biomarkers. Our findings can help physicians in diagnosing patients exposed to THS and help develop regulatory policies dealing with remediation of indoor environments contaminated with THS.”

Prue Talbot, a professor of cell biology in whose lab Sakamaki-Ching worked, explained that skin is the largest organ to contact THS and may thus receive the greatest exposure.

“There is a general lack of knowledge of human health responses to THS exposure,” said Talbot, the paper’s corresponding author. “If you buy a used car previously owned by a smoker, you are putting yourself at some health risk. If you go to a casino that allows smoking, you are exposing your skin to THS. The same applies to staying in a hotel room that was previously occupied by a smoker.”

The THS exposures that the 10 participants were subjected to were relatively brief and did not cause visible changes in the skin. Nevertheless, the molecular biomarkers in blood that are associated with early-stage activation of contact dermatitis, psoriasis, and other skin conditions were elevated.

“This underscores the idea that dermal exposure to THS could lead to molecular initiation of inflammation-induced skin diseases,” Sakamaki-Ching said.

Next, the researchers plan to evaluate residues left by electronic cigarettes that can come into contact with human skin. They also plan to evaluate larger populations exposed to longer periods of dermal THS.

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In a new study, researchers demonstrate that tetraplegic users can operate mind-controlled wheelchairs in a natural, cluttered environment. The mind-controlled wheelchair helps paralyzed people gain new mobility by translating users’ thoughts into mechanical commands.

By translating users’ thoughts into mechanical commands, a mind-controlled wheelchair can help a paralyzed person gain new mobility. Researchers demonstrate that tetraplegic users can operate mind-controlled wheelchairs in a natural, cluttered environment after training for an extended period in a study published today (November 18) in the journal iScience.

“We show that mutual learning of both the user and the brain-machine interface algorithm are both important for users to successfully operate such wheelchairs,” says José del R. Millán, the study’s corresponding author at The University of Texas at Austin. “Our research highlights a potential pathway for improved clinical translation of non-invasive brain-machine interface technology.”

Millán and his colleagues recruited three tetraplegic people for the longitudinal study. Each of the participants underwent training sessions three times per week for 2 to 5 months. The participants wore a skullcap that detected their brain activities through electroencephalography (EEG), which would be converted to mechanical commands for the wheelchairs via a brain-machine interface device. The participants were asked to control the direction of the wheelchair by thinking about moving their body parts. Specifically, they needed to think about moving both hands to turn left and both feet to turn right.

In the first training session, three participants had similar levels of accuracy—when the device’s responses aligned with users’ thoughts—of around 43% to 55%. Over the course of training, the brain-machine interface device team saw significant improvement in accuracy in participant 1, who reached an accuracy of over 95% by the end of his training. The team also observed an increase in accuracy in participant 3 to 98% halfway through his training before the team updated his device with a new algorithm.

The improvement seen in participants 1 and 3 is correlated with improvement in feature discriminancy, which is the algorithm’s ability to discriminate the brain activity pattern encoded for “go left” thoughts from that for “go right.” The team found that the better feature discrimnancy is not only a result of machine learning of the device but also learning in the brain of the participants. The EEG of participants 1 and 3 showed clear shifts in brainwave patterns as they improved accuracy in mind-controlling the device.

“We see from the EEG results that the subject has consolidated a skill of modulating different parts of their brains to generate a pattern for ‘go left’ and a different pattern for ‘go right,’” Millán says. “We believe there is a cortical reorganization that happened as a result of the participants’ learning process.”

Compared with participants 1 and 3, participant 2 had no significant changes in brain activity patterns throughout the training. His accuracy increased only slightly during the first few sessions, which remained stable for the rest of the training period. It suggests machine learning alone is insufficient for successfully maneuvering such a mind-controlled device, Millán says

By the end of the training, all participants were asked to drive their wheelchairs across a cluttered hospital room. They had to go around obstacles such as a room divider and hospital beds, which are set up to simulate the real-world environment. Both participants 1 and 3 finished the task while participant 2 failed to complete it.

“It seems that for someone to acquire good brain-machine interface control that allows them to perform relatively complex daily activity like driving the wheelchair in a natural environment, it requires some neuroplastic reorganization in our cortex,” Millán says.

The study also emphasized the role of long-term training in users. Although participant 1 performed exceptionally at the end, he struggled in the first few training sessions as well, Millán says. The longitudinal study is one of the first to evaluate the clinical translation of non-invasive brain-machine interface technology in tetraplegic people.

Next, the team wants to figure out why participant 2 didn’t experience the learning effect. They hope to conduct a more detailed analysis of all participants’ brain signals to understand their differences and possible interventions for people struggling with the learning process in the future.

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This week’s Artemis 1 launch aims to restore America’s lead in moon exploration vis-à-vis China, which by certain assessments has recently stolen a march on the US in a budding new crucial space race.  

The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, billed as the most powerful launch vehicle the US has ever built, carried the Orion space exploration craft into lunar orbit on March 16.

NASA said in a press release that Artemis 1 marks the first step in a moon-to-Mars exploration approach that aims to take astronauts to the moon in 2025 in an Artemis 3 launch and to Mars by the late 2030s or 2040.

The Orion did not carry astronauts but three sensor-equipped mannequins simulating a 3-person crew seeks to measure the physiological stress astronauts might experience in space.

The Artemis 1 mission also aims to test systems for an eventual manned moon landing and other subsystems, such as Orion’s heat shield, which must withstand re-entry temperatures of up to 2,760 Celsius at a speed of 39,429 kilometers per hour.

Another mission objective is to launch ten miniature cube satellites to map ice deposits on the moon’s south pole, where the US plans to land astronauts in 2025. NASA envisions the Artemis 1 mission to last 25 and a half days, culminating in the splashdown of the Orion in the Pacific Ocean on December 9, 2022.

A mannequin, called Commander Moonikin “Campos” in honor of NASA engineer Arturo Campos, is one of three mannequins that will take the place of humans aboard the Orion spacecraft. Image: NASA

While the US-China space race harks to the old Cold War, it is also different in many respects.

In the Journal of Strategic Security, James Moltz mentions that traditional space power was state-centric when the US and Soviet Union had large, well-financed and military-run programs to support their military needs, show the flag and gather intelligence and missile early warning.

However, this paradigm has changed with the emergence of China as a significant space player in the 2000s. In a 2021 article for Discourse, Michael Puttré notes that the US increasingly involves space entrepreneurs and the private sector and is attempting to establish new space exploration norms.

Puttré says that China is challenging this model through a state-led centralized planning approach driven by strong political will. In addition, he says China’s space program may be centered around wealth generation by building a space-based economy.

In a 2019 article for The Diplomat, Namrata Goswami notes that China’s space goals depart from the “flags and footprints” model of the US Apollo missions through national economic rejuvenation and development goals.

In 2020, China’s Chang’e 5 spacecraft returned the youngest moon rock samples to Earth, the first since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1976, as noted by The Planetary Society.

The successful sample retrieval came after the 2019 Chang’e 4 mission, which delivered the Yutu 2 moon rover to the moon’s dark side, the first mission to the lunar region by any country.

As a follow-up to Chang’e 5, Asia Times has previously reported that China is planning to send its taikonauts to the moon by 2030 using an upgraded Long March 5 rocket, which uses Soviet-built engines China acquired from Ukraine.

The moon missions are in line with China’s three-stage moon exploration program. Asia Times has previously reported that these phases include “circling the moon,” “landing on the moon,” and the third phase, “returning from the moon.”

In addition, there may be a potential fourth phase to China’s moon exploration program, dubbed “staying on the moon,” given China and Russia’s plans to establish a joint moon base by 2027.

China and Russia’s joint moon base, the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), is envisioned as a research and experimental facility complex constructed with international partners designed for multi-discipline and multi-purpose scientific activities.

China’s Chang’e-5 moon probe. Photo: CGTN

These activities will reportedly include moon exploration and utilization, moon-based observation, fundamental research experiments with technology verification conducted under long-term unmanned operation and a subsequent human presence.

According to the China National Space Administration’s (CNSA) timeline, the ILRS will be completed in three phases – reconnaissance from 2021-2025, construction from 2025-2030 and utilization from 2030-2035.

The new superpower moon race may also have a significant economic aspect, which China may seek to emphasize over national prestige purposes.

In a 2019 interview for the National Science Review, China Lunar Exploration Project (CLEP) senior consultant Ziyuan Ouyang mentioned that the moon has significant reserves of titanium and that lunar soil is rich in Helium-3, which can be used as raw material for nuclear fusion that could theoretically sustain all of humanity’s current energy demands for millennia.

However, Ouyang noted that currently it is impossible to build resource extraction facilities on the moon and send enough moon soil back to Earth for economically viable titanium and Helium-3 extraction. Lunar conditions and a lack of usable resources such as water may also preclude the development of in-situ resource extraction and refining facilities.

But both the US and China appear to have their eye on mining the Moon’s mineral potential, a superpower race that could ultimately solve some of the Earth’s biggest challenges and problems.

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Footage of two F16s alongside the passenger jet were shared by the team’s official Twitter page with the caption, “We were escorted to the southern border of Poland by F16 planes! Thank you and greetings to the pilots!”

The escort was arranged days after two Polish citizens were killed by a missile that landed four miles over the Ukrainian border with Poland. Emergency NATO meetings were held following the incident, and it has largely been determined to most likely be an unintentional accident, with many believing that the missiles came from Ukrainian air defense.

    Do południowej granicy Polski eskortowały nas samoloty F16! ✈️ Dziękujemy i pozdrawiamy panów pilotów! 🇵🇱 pic.twitter.com/7WLuM1QrhZ

    — Łączy nas piłka (@LaczyNasPilka) November 17, 2022

The soccer team remained extra vigilant as they made their way toward the southern border. Videos and photographs of their impressive escort went viral on social media. A post of the footage by the ESPNFC account garnered more than 6 million views overnight.

The Polish national soccer team has not made it to the knockout stages of the World Cup since 1986, according to The Sun. The major sporting event has been the topic of much debate, in part, over conditions the workers had to go through to bring the event to fruition and the lack of freedoms afforded to certain types of people in the country. A popular international brewery started an anti-sponsorship campaign of the events, largely due to human rights concerns in Qatar.

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Study authors conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials involving honey. That process led researchers to observe that consuming honey lowers fasting blood glucose, total and LDL or “bad” cholesterol, triglycerides, and a marker of fatty liver disease. Additionally, honey also appears to promote increased levels of HDL or “good” cholesterol, and some markers of inflammation.

“These results are surprising, because honey is about 80 percent sugar,” says Tauseef Khan, a research associate in nutritional sciences at U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, in a university release. “But honey is also a complex composition of common and rare sugars, proteins, organic acids and other bioactive compounds that very likely have health benefits.”

Prior studies show that honey has a link to improved cardiometabolic health, especially in reference to in vitro and animal studies. This latest project is the most comprehensive review to date of relevant clinical trials, and also features detailed data pertaining to processing and floral source.

“The word among public health and nutrition experts has long been that ‘a sugar is a sugar,’” explains John Sievenpiper, an associate professor of nutritional sciences and medicine at U of T, who is also a clinician-scientist at Unity Health Toronto. “These results show that’s not the case, and they should give pause to the designation of honey as a free or added sugar in dietary guidelines.”

How much honey should you have each day?

The research team stresses that it is essential to consider the context of these findings; clinical trials in which participants followed healthy dietary patterns. Added sugars accounted for just 10 percent or less of daily caloric intake among the participants.

“We’re not saying you should start having honey if you currently avoid sugar,” Khan adds. “The takeaway is more about replacement — if you’re using table sugar, syrup or another sweetener, switching those sugars for honey might lower cardiometabolic risks.”

The team included a total of 18 controlled trials encompassing over 1,100 participants in this analysis. They assessed the quality of each trial using the GRADE system. This led to the determination that there was a low certainty of evidence among most of the earlier studies. However, analyzed honey samples consistently produced either neutral or beneficial effects, depending on processing, floral source, and quantity.

The median daily honey dose across trials was 40 grams (about two tablespoons), and median trial length was eight weeks. Raw honey specifically appeared to drive many observed benefits in the studies. Also, honey taken from monofloral sources such as Robinia (also marketed as acacia honey) — a honey from False Acacia or Black Locust Trees — and clover, which is common in North America, appeared especially beneficial.

Pasteurization could weaken honey’s benefits

Study authors explain that processed honey seems to lose many of its health effects after pasteurization. More specifically, 65 degrees Celsius for at least 10 minutes. Still, Khan believes that the effect of a hot drink on raw honey depends on numerous factors, and probably wouldn’t destroy all of honey’s beneficial properties. There are, of course, plenty of other ways to enjoy some unheated honey, such as with yogurt, as a spread, or as salad dressing.

Khan says future studies should focus on both unprocessed honey and honey derived from a single floral source. More high quality evidence can help modern science form a more comprehensive understanding of the many compounds in honey that are beneficial to health.

“We need a consistent product that can deliver consistent health benefits,” Khan concludes. “Then the market will follow.”

The study is published in the journal Nutrition Reviews.

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Diabetes develops when the body loses its ability to maintain normal blood sugar, and studies have found that the bile acid composition of patients with type 2 diabetes is different. This unique bile acid profile is controlled by the CYP8B1 gene, which makes an enzyme necessary for bile acid synthesis. But until now, the link between CYP8B1, diabetes risk and glucose control in humans has not been identified.

From the bench

A study team from Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine) found that pre-clinical models without the CYP8B1 gene have a bile acid composition that is different from those with type 2 diabetes. This change improves the ability of insulin to lower blood glucose and protects them against developing type 2 diabetes. Realizing this, the researchers embarked on a project to investigate whether the same is also true in humans.

"One approach to investigate the relationship between CYP8B1 and diabetes risk is to study the health status of individuals who lack the gene due to naturally occurring gene mutations. Such 'loss-of-function mutations' however, were not known to be present in humans. We also did not know whether the mutations would exert the same protective effects against diabetes," said Dr. Tan Hong Chang, the co-lead investigator of this project and Senior Consultant at the SGH's Department of Endocrinology.

This prompted the researchers to analyze stored DNA samples of more than 8,000 volunteers from other studies to look for individuals with loss-of-function mutations in CYP8B1. The team eventually found about 140 individuals and invited them for a follow-up comparison study.

To bedside

From 2016 to 2018, study volunteers with the mutations were matched with individuals without mutations of the same age, gender, race, and BMI, and underwent detailed metabolic studies at the SingHealth Investigational Medicine Unit. Hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp studies were performed to measure how well they metabolized glucose and how sensitive they were to insulin.

The results in humans confirmed the team's findings in pre-clinical models—volunteers with CYP8B1 loss-of-function mutations had significantly better insulin sensitivity and were better at regulating blood glucose in the normal range. Furthermore, these volunteers were also found to have reduced amounts of fat in their liver and a better lipid profile compared to those without the mutations.

Back to bench

The researchers did not stop there. They headed back into the laboratory to identify the molecular pathway that is responsible for the difference in those with the CYP8B1 mutations.

Dr. Roshni R Singaraja, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine and Cardiovascular Research Institute, NUS Medicine, and co-lead investigator of the study said, "Since the CYP8B1 mutations in our study volunteers protects them against type 2 diabetes, developing a drug to reduce the enzyme activity of this bile acid gene should confer the same benefit for everyone else. It could also be used as a glucose lowering agent for those with the chronic disease."

The study team is now exploring different methods to target this gene and hope to develop new treatment options to treat and prevent type 2 diabetes which is on the rise globally. Despite the ongoing war against diabetes in Singapore, the prevalence of diabetes increased from 8.8% in 2017 to 9.5% in 2020. The number of Singaporeans suffering from diabetes is estimated to hit 1 million by 2050.

World Diabetes Day is commemorated annually on November 14.

The findings of the joint study were published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation in September 2022.

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Now, a new study from investigators at University Hospitals (UH) and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine describes an orally administered small-molecule drug that reduces PCSK9 levels and lowers cholesterol in animal models by 70%. Published in Cell Reports, the findings represent a previously unrecognized strategy for managing cholesterol and may also impact cancer treatments.

"Cholesterol lowering is one of the most important therapies we have to prolong life and protect people from heart disease, which is still the number one cause of morbidity and mortality in the Western world," said Jonathan S. Stamler, MD, senior author, President, Harrington Discovery Institute at UH, Robert S. and Sylvia K. Reitman Family Foundation Distinguished Professor of Cardiovascular Innovation, and Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at UH and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine.

"Statins only lower cholesterol so far. This is a drug class that we think would represent a new way to lower cholesterol, a new way to hit PCSK9."

Study findings

Central to cholesterol regulation are LDL receptors, which sit at the surface of liver cells and remove cholesterol from the blood, thereby lowering serum levels. PCSK9 in the bloodstream controls the number of LDL receptors by marking them for degradation. Therefore, agents that inhibit PCSK9 increase the number of LDL receptors that remove cholesterol.

Nitric oxide is a molecule that is known to prevent heart attacks by dilating blood vessels. In the new study, Stamler and colleagues show that nitric oxide can also target and inhibit PCSK9, thus lowering cholesterol. They identify a small molecule drug that functions to increase nitric oxide inactivation of PCSK9. Mice treated with the drug display a 70% reduction in LDL "bad" cholesterol.

Beyond cholesterol to cancer

In addition to impacting the field of cholesterol metabolism, the findings may impact patients with cancer, as emerging evidence suggests targeting PCSK9 can improve the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies.

"PCSK9 not only targets LDL receptors for degradation, it also mediates the degradation of MHC 1 on lymphocytes, which is used for recognition of cancer cells," said Stamler. "PCSK9 is effectively preventing your lymphocytes from recognizing cancer cells. So, if you inhibit PCSK9, you can boost the body's cancer surveillance. There may be an opportunity one day to apply these new drugs to that need."

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The review, published recently in Current Problems in Cardiology, by researchers from King's College London, looked at eight studies with 15,000 adolescents—children aged twelve and over. Five of these studies were conducted in Europe, whereas previous reviews have included many China-based studies where pollution levels are higher.

High blood pressure during childhood and adolescence is a risk factor for hypertension and heart disease in adulthood. When blood pressure gets too high, it becomes hypertension which causes heart attacks and strokes.

The review found twelve-year-olds and older adolescents have higher diastolic blood pressure when they experience long-term exposure, such as living in a highly polluted area, to fine particulate air pollution, known as PM2.5 and PM10. Particulate matter is often expelled by car exhausts, wood smoke or combustion in the construction and manufacturing industries. Pollution is a structural determinant of health. Children who live in deprived areas are more exposed to high pollution levels. Reducing pollution is key to overcome health inequalities.

The effect of air pollution on heart disease and strokes in adults is well documented, but studies in children shown inconsistent results. While the quality of these studies was low, this review shows a considerable association between air pollution and a rise in blood pressure among adolescents. It supports previous evidence of a disproportionate impact of pollution on BP of adolescents who are overweight or obese. The review also investigated short-term exposure to pollution and its impact, but no association was found.

Lead author Professor Seeromanie Harding from King's College London said: "We observed significant associations in adolescents aged twelve for diastolic blood pressure, the part of blood pressure which rises most often in children or adolescents, and long-term exposures to pollution.

Reducing environmental pollution is an urgent public health priority to protect our children's futures. It is critical to have high quality studies which include assessments by gender, socio-economic circumstances and weight status, to track children's exposure to pollution and prevent an adverse impact on their health."

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In a message seen by the BBC, workers were told that the offices would reopen on Monday 21 November.

It did not give a reason for the move.

The announcement comes amid reports that large numbers of staff were quitting after new owner Elon Musk called on them to sign up for "long hours at high intensity" or leave.

The message went on to say: "Please continue to comply with company policy by refraining from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere."

There are signs that large numbers of workers have resigned because they have not accepted Mr Musk's new terms.

One former Twitter employee, who wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC: "I think when the dust clears today, there's probably going to be less than 2,000 people left."

They claimed everyone in their team had been sacked.

"The manager of that team, his manager was terminated. And then that manager's manager was terminated. The person above that was one of the execs terminated on the first day. So there's nobody left in that chain of command."

Another person said they had resigned even though they had been prepared to work long hours.

"I didn't want to work for someone who threatened us over email multiple times about only 'exceptional tweeps should work here' when I was already working 60-70 hours weekly," they said.

The message sent to Twitter staff

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC.

In response to staff leaving, former Twitter vice-president Bruce Daisley told the BBC there were former Twitter engineers claiming the social media platform could "fail as soon as Monday".

"There's a large number of features that really seem to be predicated on having engineers on site," he said.

"If those engineers have gone, then it does threaten the sustainability of the product.

"So, there's a lot of people posting where else you can find them online."

Pledge allegiance

This week, Mr Musk told Twitter staff that they had to commit to working long hours and would "need to be extremely hardcore" or leave the company.

In an email to staff, the firm's new owner said workers should agree to the pledge if they wanted to stay, the Washington Post reported.

Those who did not sign up by Thursday 17 November would be given three months' severance pay, Mr Musk said.

Earlier this month the company said that it was cutting about 50% of its workforce.

Employees have been tweeting using the hashtag #LoveWhereYouWorked and a saluting emoji to show they were leaving the firm.

Despite the turmoil at the company, Mr Musk tweeted on Friday: "And... we just hit another all-time high in Twitter usage lol."

Satirist Frank Lesser replied: "'Rome has never been this brightly lit at night!' - Nero" - a reference to the Roman emperor who is reputed to have fiddled while Rome burned.

Before Mr Musk took control of Twitter the company had about 7,500 staff. The firm was also reported to have employed thousands of contract workers, the majority of whom are understood to have been laid off.

The world's richest person became Twitter's chief executive after buying the firm last month in a $44bn (£37bn) deal.

Mr Musk seemed unconcerned about reports that Twitter was on the brink of shutting down, tweeting: "The best people are staying, so I'm not super worried".

In separate posts he tweeted a skull and crossbones emoji and a meme showing a gravestone with the Twitter logo on it.

    pic.twitter.com/rbwbsLA1ZG
    — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022

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