My kid & I both really enjoyed this book and learned a lot. So many things that are described as being "discovered" by Western scientists were...not. In the slightest.
#TIL: Young children (up until the age of about 7 - 11) can regenerate their fingertips.
This is from "We Are Electric" by Sally Adee, which is all about the body's bioelectric code. Apparently electrical fields and electrical charges are the software to the hardware that is our DNA.
The fingertip regeneration was discovered by researchers investigating how salamanders regenerate limbs. Of course it's not something you can easily test, but there are enough people who grew up without easy access to medical care that this is a known fact.
@Cyrus@bookstodon Which, that kids regrow fingertips? I can't verify it myself, but the book does provide a wealth of information showing how recent discoveries (and older, forgotten ones) make this a plausible thing for our bodies to do. The history of bioelectricity is fraught with con artists and fakers, but in this book I've found reason to think it's an idea whose time has come.
@SallyStrange@bookstodon True. I had the tip of my finger guillotined in a screen door when I was six. It grew back although not exactly in line with where it should have.
study suggest 45% of the world's flowering plants could go extinct.
"When we consider that nine out of ten of our medicines come from our plants, what we are potentially staring down the barrel at is losing half of all of our future medicines."
@michael@plants I hate to be that person but the image is of a Larix which is a gymnosperm. So many flowering plant species out there and they chose one that isn’t. That’s a cone.
Shocking story about mRNA pioneer/Nobel winner Katalin Karikó, whose early advisor at Temple tried to have her deported & derailed her career because she dared to look for a better-paying job.
Later, UPenn demoted her, then forced her out, because her research wasn't bringing in enough funding. #NobelPrize#science [HT Paul Novosad]
#SciFi books are rare in school even though they help kids better understand science
#ScienceFiction can lead people to be more cautious about the potential consequences of innovations. It can help people think critically about the ethics of science. Researchers have also found that sci-fi serves as a positive influence on how people view #science.
Sally Adee, author of "We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Bodies' Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds": Now I will explain the electric charge of cells and how this creates nerve impulses by comparing the inside of a cell to a club and the ion channels to bouncers.
Me, who's reading this book because I'm a fucking nerd who never goes to clubs: oh come ON
A question for the Mastodon hive mind. Do you know of any #scifi + #science crossovers #writing about future perspectives? Leaning more, or at least, based more, on the science?
I have an insane idea for a project that could make my worlds* collide... or never happen. Thoughts?
*Harry is my scifi writing (trying) alter ego, by day I'm an actual scientist.
Although we've mentioned this before, it's grim news that bears repeating. Global heating caused by human industry is melting glaciers and sea ice all around the world — but nowhere more dramatically than on and near Antarctica.
Sea ice that covers the ocean around Antarctica hit a record low surface area in the winter, a preliminary analysis of US satellite data shows, and scientists fear the impact of climate change is increasing at the southern pole.
“This is the lowest sea ice maximum in the 1979 to 2023 sea ice record by a wide margin,” said the NSIDC, a government-supported programme at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
At one point this year, sea ice had dropped to 1.03 million sq km, far smaller than the previous record low and an area of loss roughly the size of Texas and California combined.
“It’s a record-smashing sea ice low in the Antarctic,” NSIDC scientist Walt Meier said in comments published by NASA.
The excerpt above is from a news story published at Al Jazeera.
Over at Medium, an article by Ricky Lanusse goes into more depth on the subject, and concludes with this heartfelt lament...
It’s been 33 years since the first IPCC report on climate change. Three-plus decades of climate negotiations and disappointment: emissions soaring, climate denial, on-paper optimism, and ‘net zero, but not in my term’ speeches.
Now, the northern summer of 2023 is officially the hottest on record, pushing global sea temperatures to record highs and disrupting ocean ecosystems. Over 3.8 billion people — almost half the world — felt the wrath of human-induced extreme heat between June and August.
You don’t grab buckets or towels when your bathtub overflows, ignoring or denying the problem. You turn off the tap. Climate change isn’t a future problem; it’s here. And you might think it won’t affect you, but as temperatures climb, more will face such dire choices. The question is not if but when.
Antarctica’s struggle isn’t a far-off concern; it’s a glaring reminder that climate change is here and spares no place on Earth.
Stevia, a zero-calorie sugar substitute, is recognized as safe by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). In vitro and in vivo studies showed that stevia has antiglycemic action and antioxidant effects in adipose tissue and the vascular wall, reduces blood pressure levels and hepatic steatosis, stabilizes the atherosclerotic plaque, and ameliorates liver and kidney damage. The metabolism of steviol glycosides is dependent upon gut microbiota, which breaks down glycosides into steviol that can be absorbed by the host. In this review, we elucidated the effects of stevia’s consumption on the host’s gut microbiota. #Stevia#kombucha#ikombucha_ro#ikombucha https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/10/4/744/htm
I have IBS and sugar makes it act up. I use stevia extract as a substitute in products, and I AM constantly working on improving my gut biome health. This was a dense but good read.
Physicist John Tyndall is often credited w discovering the greenhouse effect, which he wrote about in 1859.
But Eunice Foote published a paper - 3yrs earlier - demonstrating how atmospheric water vapor & CO2 affected solar heating. She theorized that heat trapping gases in Earth’s atmosphere warm its climate.
@Sheril There are similar stories for Katherine Way (nuclear fission), Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin (composition of Sun), and other women who weren't credited with their discoveries. Discarding, denying, discouraging talent of half of the population greatly retards advancement and even survivability of humanity. Needlessly.
"Look Around the Habitable World:
How Few Know Their Own Good,
Or Knowing It, Pursue."