We Are All the Same
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2024-08-16
Scientists Renaming Plants that Use Racist Terms
Libraries aren’t the only group that is recognizing the racist or derogatory roots of some of their terms.
“An international group of researchers has voted to modify the scientific names of more than 200 plant species whose names carry a derogatory word.”
“The community of plant, algae, and fungi researchers has acknowledged that some of the names are problematic, demeaning, or even racist and took a series of steps to start tackling these issues.”
2024-08-01
Cocaine Sharks
“It might sound like science fiction, but researchers have discovered real ‘cocaine sharks’ off the coast of Brazil.
“Thirteen wild Brazilian sharpnose sharks (Rhizoprionodon lalandii) caught near Rio de Janeiro tested positive for the drug, according to a study published last week in the journal Science of the Total Environment. The team is still teasing out the implications of this finding, but they say it adds to the growing body of evidence that humans’ illegal drug consumption is affecting wildlife and the environment.
“Previous research has detected cocaine in wastewater and rivers. Last year, researchers in England identified a chemical produced by the liver after cocaine use in seawater. Studies have also found the drug in other marine creatures, including shrimp, mussels and eels.
“But researchers were curious to know whether cocaine might be affecting sharpnose sharks that spend their entire lives in coastal waters near Brazil, which is a major exporter of the drug to Europe. In addition, people in Brazil and elsewhere often eat sharks, which raises questions about possible contamination up the food chain.”
2024-07-25
Part-Robot Part-Frog Xenobots
“The African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, typically lives in the streams and ponds of sub-Saharan Africa, scavenging for food that it rips apart with its feet. In January, researchers at the University of Vermont and Tufts University published a report that gave the amphibian a different lot in life. They harvested its embryonic skin and heart cells and reassembled the living matter into robotic devices — transforming Xenopus into xenobot.
“Xenobots are the first robots made completely of living materials. They’re designed on a supercomputer running software that emulates natural selection: Algorithms determine possible effective tissue configurations for a xenobot to perform a specified task, such as moving through fluids or carrying a payload. The most promising designs are sculpted with tiny forceps and cauterizing irons, then set free in petri dishes, where the specks of amphibian flesh live for about a week before decomposing. There are no electronics involved. Behaviors are programmed entirely through the structural arrangement of the pulsating heart cells held in a matrix of rigid skin cells.
“Although xenobots can’t yet do much more than crawl or swim, the researchers see great potential for them to aid in fields like medicine and environmental remediation. In the future, xenobots could be engineered to deliver drugs through the human body or to gather up microplastics in oceans, politely biodegrading when the job is done.”
2024-07-21
Cave on the Moon
“Scientists have confirmed a cave on the moon, not far from where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed 55 years ago, and suspect there are hundreds more that could house future astronauts.
“An Italian-led team reported Monday that there’s evidence for a sizable cave accessible from the deepest known pit on the moon. It’s located at the Sea of Tranquility, just 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Apollo 11’s landing site.”
“The findings suggest there could be hundreds of pits on the moon and thousands of lava tubes. Such places could serve as a natural shelter for astronauts, protecting them from cosmic rays and solar radiation as well as from micrometeorite strikes. Building habitats from scratch would be more time-consuming and challenging, even when factoring in the potential need of reinforcing the cave walls to prevent a collapse, the team said.
“Rocks and other material inside these caves — unaltered by the harsh surface conditions over the eons — also can help scientists better understand how the moon evolved, especially involving its volcanic activity.”
More details in these articles:
https://apnews.com/article/moon-caves-nasa-astronauts-2dc57751f41a6e24f377c2259e8668ba
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce784r9njz0o
2024-07-15