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Newsworthy Science
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
- Start date
Controveries at fermilab
Randy
Randy, Greg and Jeffers were all former Military personnel or contractors. A few months later, Randy was officially promoted to Foreman without any interview or posting of the position. He was known for threatening/ harassing people by whispering bloody and graphic scenes in their ears, and also claimed to carry a loaded gun at all times, either on his ankle or in his truck. Before the official promotion occurred, a majority of the team in the shop tried to prevent it. An electrician from this team brought Greg a petition signed by 12 employees (names available), over a total of 14 from the shop, asking to remove him from the position. After reading the petition, not only did Greg toss it back to the messenger, but he also broke confidentiality and informed Randy of that petition. Nothing changed when the original electrician brought forward a female electrician and former veteran, to another private meeting on 12/12/2022 with Greg so she could testify to all kinds of harassment from Randy and Dave, another employee from the shop. In this case too, Greg immediately informed Randy what was said in this confidential meeting before the two witnesses even left Building 38 where Greg’s office was located. The witnesses were soon informed by colleagues that Randy was after them! At that point, the witnesses had no other recourse than going to HR and were told to leave the premises asap. Security and the Kane County Sheriff were called and they stopped Randy before he left the site. However, despite FNAL policies stating that Security has the right (and duty) to check a vehicle when on site, THEY DID NOT DO IT and let the guy leave.
Dave
The female witness had been repeatedly harassed also by peer electrician Dave. The latter became obsessed with her and in Spring of 2022 he backed a 25,000 pound bucket truck at her and another peer in the parking lot near Lab A. She and her peer were nearly crushed by Dave and they got out of this alive only because the peer was able to promptly back their van away from the truck coming at them! The female victim’s electrical supervisor, DJ, was present and did not do anything to discipline the perpetrator.
Dave did not receive any disciplinary action, and is still employed at the lab. For all of his misdeeds, Randy was given one week of unpaid leave of absence as only disciplinary measure. He is still employed at the lab and was further promoted. And Greg, Randy’s abettor, was promoted too and retired only recently.
Occurrence Reporting and Processing System (ORCS) aka accidents
Randy
Randy, Greg and Jeffers were all former Military personnel or contractors. A few months later, Randy was officially promoted to Foreman without any interview or posting of the position. He was known for threatening/ harassing people by whispering bloody and graphic scenes in their ears, and also claimed to carry a loaded gun at all times, either on his ankle or in his truck. Before the official promotion occurred, a majority of the team in the shop tried to prevent it. An electrician from this team brought Greg a petition signed by 12 employees (names available), over a total of 14 from the shop, asking to remove him from the position. After reading the petition, not only did Greg toss it back to the messenger, but he also broke confidentiality and informed Randy of that petition. Nothing changed when the original electrician brought forward a female electrician and former veteran, to another private meeting on 12/12/2022 with Greg so she could testify to all kinds of harassment from Randy and Dave, another employee from the shop. In this case too, Greg immediately informed Randy what was said in this confidential meeting before the two witnesses even left Building 38 where Greg’s office was located. The witnesses were soon informed by colleagues that Randy was after them! At that point, the witnesses had no other recourse than going to HR and were told to leave the premises asap. Security and the Kane County Sheriff were called and they stopped Randy before he left the site. However, despite FNAL policies stating that Security has the right (and duty) to check a vehicle when on site, THEY DID NOT DO IT and let the guy leave.
Dave
The female witness had been repeatedly harassed also by peer electrician Dave. The latter became obsessed with her and in Spring of 2022 he backed a 25,000 pound bucket truck at her and another peer in the parking lot near Lab A. She and her peer were nearly crushed by Dave and they got out of this alive only because the peer was able to promptly back their van away from the truck coming at them! The female victim’s electrical supervisor, DJ, was present and did not do anything to discipline the perpetrator.
Dave did not receive any disciplinary action, and is still employed at the lab. For all of his misdeeds, Randy was given one week of unpaid leave of absence as only disciplinary measure. He is still employed at the lab and was further promoted. And Greg, Randy’s abettor, was promoted too and retired only recently.
Occurrence Reporting and Processing System (ORCS) aka accidents
EnglishEdward
Deity
I am not sure what that has to do with science, let alone Newsworthy Science.
I think it is science related and newsworthy. Fermilab is second only to the LHC.
EnglishEdward
Deity
Let me explain where I am coming from.
Alas, I am a bit of an old cynic when it comes to subject headings.
And mentally I booked that under sexist misbehaviour, bullying and favouritism
at the tax payers expense rather than having anything to do with science.
For instance I think that Science Fare has little to do with scientists.
In much the same way that I think that HS2 was more about Corporate Fare than transport.
Alas, I am a bit of an old cynic when it comes to subject headings.
And mentally I booked that under sexist misbehaviour, bullying and favouritism
at the tax payers expense rather than having anything to do with science.
For instance I think that Science Fare has little to do with scientists.
In much the same way that I think that HS2 was more about Corporate Fare than transport.
I kind of agree, but if we had a transport news thread corporate shenanigans relating to HS2 would be on topic.
THE PAPER CUT PARADOX: Explaining why thin paper does not cut
Paper cuts are a common injury that can cause significant pain and discomfort. Surprisingly, the physics underpinning a thin flexible sheet of paper slicing into soft tissues remains unresolved. (Other cases, such as chess-wire cutters, have been described) In particular, the unpredictable occurrence of paper cuts, often restricted to a limited thickness range, has not been explained. Here, we visualized and quantified the motion, deformation, and stresses during paper cuts, uncovering a remarkably complex relationship between cutting, geometry, and material properties [3]. A model based on the hypothesis that competition between slicing and buckling controls the probability of initiating a paper cut was developed and successfully validated.
Our experiments revealed that competition between slicing and buckling underlies the erratic nature of paper cuts. Thin paper can’t cut because it lacks the structural integrity to resist buckling. Thick paper, in contrast, distributes the load across a large area and is also unable to cut. This explains why only paper within a narrow thickness range can cut. The most hazardous paper thickens is 65 μm, corresponding, e.g., to dot matrix paper or printed scientific journals (including Nature and Science).
Finally, we developed the Papermachete, a cost-effective paper-based scalpel based on our results. It uses scrap paper blades and can easily cut into vegetables and meat. To 3D print your own, use the files accessible here.
Paper cuts are a common injury that can cause significant pain and discomfort. Surprisingly, the physics underpinning a thin flexible sheet of paper slicing into soft tissues remains unresolved. (Other cases, such as chess-wire cutters, have been described) In particular, the unpredictable occurrence of paper cuts, often restricted to a limited thickness range, has not been explained. Here, we visualized and quantified the motion, deformation, and stresses during paper cuts, uncovering a remarkably complex relationship between cutting, geometry, and material properties [3]. A model based on the hypothesis that competition between slicing and buckling controls the probability of initiating a paper cut was developed and successfully validated.
Our experiments revealed that competition between slicing and buckling underlies the erratic nature of paper cuts. Thin paper can’t cut because it lacks the structural integrity to resist buckling. Thick paper, in contrast, distributes the load across a large area and is also unable to cut. This explains why only paper within a narrow thickness range can cut. The most hazardous paper thickens is 65 μm, corresponding, e.g., to dot matrix paper or printed scientific journals (including Nature and Science).
Finally, we developed the Papermachete, a cost-effective paper-based scalpel based on our results. It uses scrap paper blades and can easily cut into vegetables and meat. To 3D print your own, use the files accessible here.
Spoiler Legend :
Spoiler Legend :
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
I sense a future Ignobel Prizewinner... 
Cough or sneeze? How the brain knows what to unleash (Paper)
Does a whiff of pollen trigger a sneeze or a cough? Scientists have discovered nerve cells that cause one response versus another: ‘sneeze neurons’ in the nasal passages relay sneeze signals to the brain, and separate neurons send cough messages, according to a study performed in mice.
The findings could lead to new and improved treatments for conditions such as allergies and chronic coughs. That’s welcome news because these conditions can be “incredibly frustrating” and the side effects of current treatments can be “incredibly problematic”, says pulmonologist Matthew Drake at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, who was not involved in the work. The study was published today in Cell.
Snot-spewing signals
Previous work categorized neurons in the mouse airway on the basis of the proteins complexes, called ion channels, that are carried on the cell surfaces.
To work out which nose neurons cause sneezing, researchers exposed mice to various compounds, each known to activate specific types of ion channel.
They struck gold when a substance called BAM 8-22 left the mice sneezing. The compound is known to activate an ion channel called MrgprC11, leading the researchers to suspect that neurons carrying MrgprC11 cause sneezing. Indeed, when the researchers deleted MrgprC11 from the suspected sneeze neurons and then gave mice the flu, they found themselves with sick, but sneezeless, mice.
Even with the sneeze neurons out of the picture, the sick mice continued to have cough-like reactions to influenza infection. Using methods similar to those that homed in on the sneeze neurons, the researchers tracked the cough response to a set of neurons in the trachea that express a signalling chemical called somatostatin.
Viruses “evolve very quickly”, says neuroscientist and study co-author Qin Liu at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. That could explain why there are two separate systems capable of detecting and clearing them from the airways.
Now, Liu and her colleagues want to figure out what happens after sneeze and cough neurons are triggered and signal the brain. She thinks it’s likely that their signals travel to the brain’s respiration control centre, where they alter breathing patterns to produce either a cough or a sneeze.
Other achoo neurons?
The next major challenge is to work out whether similar sets of neurons exist in humans, says neuroscientist Patrik Ernfors at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Preliminary evidence suggests that they do, Liu says, but more research is needed.
Some researchers suspect that more neurons for sneeze and cough are still waiting to be found. Most responses to sensory information are triggered by numerous categories of neuron, and sneezing and coughing are likely to be similar, says sensory neuroscientist Stephen Liberles at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
Coughing can be so persistent that it causes people to pass out, Drake says. And yet doctors don’t have good options for treating coughs. Opiates such as codeine are the most effective drugs available, but they can make people extremely drowsy and they’re addictive.
This lack of effective medications can lead doctors to give up on alleviating coughs, Drake says. “I’m hopeful that as new therapies enter the market, that’s going to really change our thinking about how to treat [cough] and our enthusiasm for treating it,” he says.
Does a whiff of pollen trigger a sneeze or a cough? Scientists have discovered nerve cells that cause one response versus another: ‘sneeze neurons’ in the nasal passages relay sneeze signals to the brain, and separate neurons send cough messages, according to a study performed in mice.
The findings could lead to new and improved treatments for conditions such as allergies and chronic coughs. That’s welcome news because these conditions can be “incredibly frustrating” and the side effects of current treatments can be “incredibly problematic”, says pulmonologist Matthew Drake at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, who was not involved in the work. The study was published today in Cell.
Snot-spewing signals
Previous work categorized neurons in the mouse airway on the basis of the proteins complexes, called ion channels, that are carried on the cell surfaces.
To work out which nose neurons cause sneezing, researchers exposed mice to various compounds, each known to activate specific types of ion channel.
They struck gold when a substance called BAM 8-22 left the mice sneezing. The compound is known to activate an ion channel called MrgprC11, leading the researchers to suspect that neurons carrying MrgprC11 cause sneezing. Indeed, when the researchers deleted MrgprC11 from the suspected sneeze neurons and then gave mice the flu, they found themselves with sick, but sneezeless, mice.
Even with the sneeze neurons out of the picture, the sick mice continued to have cough-like reactions to influenza infection. Using methods similar to those that homed in on the sneeze neurons, the researchers tracked the cough response to a set of neurons in the trachea that express a signalling chemical called somatostatin.
Viruses “evolve very quickly”, says neuroscientist and study co-author Qin Liu at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. That could explain why there are two separate systems capable of detecting and clearing them from the airways.
Now, Liu and her colleagues want to figure out what happens after sneeze and cough neurons are triggered and signal the brain. She thinks it’s likely that their signals travel to the brain’s respiration control centre, where they alter breathing patterns to produce either a cough or a sneeze.
Other achoo neurons?
The next major challenge is to work out whether similar sets of neurons exist in humans, says neuroscientist Patrik Ernfors at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Preliminary evidence suggests that they do, Liu says, but more research is needed.
Some researchers suspect that more neurons for sneeze and cough are still waiting to be found. Most responses to sensory information are triggered by numerous categories of neuron, and sneezing and coughing are likely to be similar, says sensory neuroscientist Stephen Liberles at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
Coughing can be so persistent that it causes people to pass out, Drake says. And yet doctors don’t have good options for treating coughs. Opiates such as codeine are the most effective drugs available, but they can make people extremely drowsy and they’re addictive.
This lack of effective medications can lead doctors to give up on alleviating coughs, Drake says. “I’m hopeful that as new therapies enter the market, that’s going to really change our thinking about how to treat [cough] and our enthusiasm for treating it,” he says.
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Could be weird news? Doritos make mice invisible!!
A dye that helps to give Doritos their orange hue can also turn mouse tissues transparent, researchers have found. Applying the dye to the skin of live mice allowed scientists to peer through tissues at the structures below, including blood vessels and internal organs. The method, described in Science on 6 September, could offer a less invasive way to monitor live animals used in medical research.
By applying the dye to a mouse's scalp and using a technique called laser speckle contrast imaging, researchers observed blood vessels within the animal's brain.Credit: Stanford University/Gail Rupert/NSF
A dye that helps to give Doritos their orange hue can also turn mouse tissues transparent, researchers have found. Applying the dye to the skin of live mice allowed scientists to peer through tissues at the structures below, including blood vessels and internal organs. The method, described in Science on 6 September, could offer a less invasive way to monitor live animals used in medical research.
By applying the dye to a mouse's scalp and using a technique called laser speckle contrast imaging, researchers observed blood vessels within the animal's brain.Credit: Stanford University/Gail Rupert/NSF
Spoiler Rest of article :
On the subject of placebos, yesterdays Ig Nobel Prize for Medicine demonstrates that paiful placebos work better. I bet they create more endorphins which is the active mechanism.
MEDICINE PRIZE [SWITZERLAND, GERMANY, BELGIUM]
Lieven A. Schenk, Tahmine Fadai, and Christian Büchel, for demonstrating that fake medicine that causes painful side-effects can be more effective than fake medicine that does not cause painful side-effects.
REFERENCE: “How Side Effects Can Improve Treatment Efficacy: A Randomized Trial,” Lieven A. Schenk, Tahmine Fadai, and Christian Büchel, Brain, vol. 147, no. 8, August 2024, pp. 2643–2651. <doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae132>
The rest are below. These are my highlights:
BIOLOGY PRIZE Fordyce Ely and William E. Petersen, for exploding a paper bag next to a cat that’s standing on the back of a cow, to explore how and when cows spew their milk.
DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE Saul Justin Newman, for detective work to discover that many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death recordkeeping.
PROBABILITY PRIZE František Bartoš, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Henrik Godmann, and many colleagues, for showing, both in theory and by 350,757 experiments, that when you flip a coin, it tends to land on the same side as it started.
PEACE PRIZE B.F. Skinner, for experiments to see the feasibility of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide the flight paths of the missiles.
Full list:
PEACE PRIZE [USA]
B.F. Skinner, for experiments to see the feasibility of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide the flight paths of the missiles.
REFERENCE: “Pigeons in a Pelican”, B.F. Skinner, American Psychologist, vol 15, no. 1, 1960, pp. 28-37. <psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0045345>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: B.F. Skinner’s daughter, Julie Skinner Vargas
BOTANY PRIZE [GERMANY, BRAZIL, USA]
Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita, for finding evidence that some real plants imitate the shapes of neighboring artificial plastic plants.
REFERENCE: “Boquila trifoliolata Mimics Leaves of an Artificial Plastic Host Plant,” Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita, Plant Signaling and Behavior, vol. 17, no. 1, 2022. <doi.org/10.1080%2F15592324.2021.1977530>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Felipe Yamashita
ANATOMY PRIZE [FRANCE, CHILE]
Marjolaine Willems, Quentin Hennocq, Sara Tunon de Lara, Nicolas Kogane, Vincent Fleury, Romy Rayssiguier, Juan José Cortés Santander, Roberto Requena, Julien Stirnemann, and Roman Hossein Khonsari, for studying whether the hair on the heads of most people in the northern hemisphere swirls in the same direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise?) as hair on the heads of most people in the southern hemisphere.
REFERENCE: “Genetic Determinism and Hemispheric Influence in Hair Whorl Formation,” Marjolaine Willems, Quentin Hennocq, Sara Tunon de Lara, Nicolas Kogane, Vincent Fleury, Romy Rayssiguier, Juan José Cortés Santander, Roberto Requena, Julien Stirnemann, and Roman Hossein Khonsari, Journal of Stomatology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, vol. 125, no. 2, April 2024, article 101664. <doi.org/10.1016/j.jormas.2023.101664>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Marjolaine Willems and Roman Khonsari
PHYSICS PRIZE [USA]
James C. Liao, for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.
REFERENCE: “Neuromuscular Control of Trout Swimming in a Vortex Street: Implications for Energy Economy During the Kármán Gait,” James C. Liao, The Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 207, 2004, pp. 3495-3506. <doi.org/10.1242/jeb.01125>
REFERENCE: “Passive Propulsion in Vortex Wakes,” David N. Beal, Franz S. Hover, Michael S. Triantafyllou, James C. Liao, and George V. Lauder, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, vol. 549, 2006, pp. 385-402.
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: James C. (“Jimmy”) Liao
PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE [JAPAN, USA]
Ryo Okabe, Toyofumi F. Chen-Yoshikawa, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama, Satona Tanaka, Akihiko Yoshizawa, Wendy L. Thompson, Gokul Kannan, Eiji Kobayashi, Hiroshi Date, and Takanori Takebe, for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus.
REFERENCE: “Mammalian Enteral Ventilation Ameliorates Respiratory Failure,” Ryo Okabe, Toyofumi F. Chen-Yoshikawa, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama, Satona Tanaka, Akihiko Yoshizawa, Wendy L. Thompson, Gokul Kannan, Eiji Kobayashi, Hiroshi Date, and Takanori Takebe, Med, vol. 2, June 11, 2021, pp. 1-11. <doi.org/10.1016/j.medj.2021.04.004>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Takanori Takebe, Toyofumi Chen-Yoshikawa, Ryo Okabe, Eiji Kobayashi, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama
PROBABILITY PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, SWITZERLAND, BELGIUM, FRANCE, GERMANY, HUNGARY, CZECH REPUBLIC]
František Bartoš, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Henrik Godmann, and many colleagues, for showing, both in theory and by 350,757 experiments, that when you flip a coin, it tends to land on the same side as it started.
REFERENCE: “Fair Coins Tend to Land on the Same Side They Started: Evidence from 350,757 Flips,” František Bartoš, et al., arXiv 2310.04153, 2023. <doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.04153>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Frantisek Bartos, and Eric-Jan Wagenmakers
CHEMISTRY PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, FRANCE]
Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, and Sander Woutersen, for using chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms.
REFERENCE: “Chromatographic Separation of Active Polymer–Like Worm Mixtures by Contour Length and Activity,” Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, and Sander Woutersen, Science Advances, vol. 8, no. 23, 2022, article eabj7918. <doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj7918>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, Sander Woutersen
DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE [AUSTRALIA, UK]
Saul Justin Newman, for detective work to discover that many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death recordkeeping.
REFERENCE: “Supercentenarians and the Oldest-Old Are Concentrated into Regions with No Birth Certificates and Short Lifespans,” Saul Justin Newman, BioRxiv, 704080, 2019. <doi.org/10.1101/704080>
REFERENCE: “Supercentenarian and Remarkable Age Records Exhibit Patterns Indicative of Clerical Errors and Pension Fraud,” Saul Justin Newman, BioRxiv, 2024. <doi.org/10.1101/704080>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Saul Justin Newman
BIOLOGY PRIZE [USA]
Fordyce Ely and William E. Petersen, for exploding a paper bag next to a cat that’s standing on the back of a cow, to explore how and when cows spew their milk.
REFERENCE: “Factors Involved in the Ejection of Milk,” Fordyce Ely and W.E. Petersen, Journal of Dairy Science, vol. 3, 1941, pp. 211- 23. <doi.org/10.1093/ansci/1939.1.80>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Fordyce Ely’s daughter Jane Ely Wells and grandson Matt Wells
MEDICINE PRIZE [SWITZERLAND, GERMANY, BELGIUM]
Lieven A. Schenk, Tahmine Fadai, and Christian Büchel, for demonstrating that fake medicine that causes painful side-effects can be more effective than fake medicine that does not cause painful side-effects.
REFERENCE: “How Side Effects Can Improve Treatment Efficacy: A Randomized Trial,” Lieven A. Schenk, Tahmine Fadai, and Christian Büchel, Brain, vol. 147, no. 8, August 2024, pp. 2643–2651. <doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae132>
The rest are below. These are my highlights:
BIOLOGY PRIZE Fordyce Ely and William E. Petersen, for exploding a paper bag next to a cat that’s standing on the back of a cow, to explore how and when cows spew their milk.
DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE Saul Justin Newman, for detective work to discover that many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death recordkeeping.
PROBABILITY PRIZE František Bartoš, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Henrik Godmann, and many colleagues, for showing, both in theory and by 350,757 experiments, that when you flip a coin, it tends to land on the same side as it started.
PEACE PRIZE B.F. Skinner, for experiments to see the feasibility of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide the flight paths of the missiles.
Full list:
PEACE PRIZE [USA]
B.F. Skinner, for experiments to see the feasibility of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide the flight paths of the missiles.
REFERENCE: “Pigeons in a Pelican”, B.F. Skinner, American Psychologist, vol 15, no. 1, 1960, pp. 28-37. <psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0045345>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: B.F. Skinner’s daughter, Julie Skinner Vargas
BOTANY PRIZE [GERMANY, BRAZIL, USA]
Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita, for finding evidence that some real plants imitate the shapes of neighboring artificial plastic plants.
REFERENCE: “Boquila trifoliolata Mimics Leaves of an Artificial Plastic Host Plant,” Jacob White and Felipe Yamashita, Plant Signaling and Behavior, vol. 17, no. 1, 2022. <doi.org/10.1080%2F15592324.2021.1977530>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Felipe Yamashita
ANATOMY PRIZE [FRANCE, CHILE]
Marjolaine Willems, Quentin Hennocq, Sara Tunon de Lara, Nicolas Kogane, Vincent Fleury, Romy Rayssiguier, Juan José Cortés Santander, Roberto Requena, Julien Stirnemann, and Roman Hossein Khonsari, for studying whether the hair on the heads of most people in the northern hemisphere swirls in the same direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise?) as hair on the heads of most people in the southern hemisphere.
REFERENCE: “Genetic Determinism and Hemispheric Influence in Hair Whorl Formation,” Marjolaine Willems, Quentin Hennocq, Sara Tunon de Lara, Nicolas Kogane, Vincent Fleury, Romy Rayssiguier, Juan José Cortés Santander, Roberto Requena, Julien Stirnemann, and Roman Hossein Khonsari, Journal of Stomatology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, vol. 125, no. 2, April 2024, article 101664. <doi.org/10.1016/j.jormas.2023.101664>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Marjolaine Willems and Roman Khonsari
PHYSICS PRIZE [USA]
James C. Liao, for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.
REFERENCE: “Neuromuscular Control of Trout Swimming in a Vortex Street: Implications for Energy Economy During the Kármán Gait,” James C. Liao, The Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 207, 2004, pp. 3495-3506. <doi.org/10.1242/jeb.01125>
REFERENCE: “Passive Propulsion in Vortex Wakes,” David N. Beal, Franz S. Hover, Michael S. Triantafyllou, James C. Liao, and George V. Lauder, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, vol. 549, 2006, pp. 385-402.
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: James C. (“Jimmy”) Liao
PHYSIOLOGY PRIZE [JAPAN, USA]
Ryo Okabe, Toyofumi F. Chen-Yoshikawa, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama, Satona Tanaka, Akihiko Yoshizawa, Wendy L. Thompson, Gokul Kannan, Eiji Kobayashi, Hiroshi Date, and Takanori Takebe, for discovering that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus.
REFERENCE: “Mammalian Enteral Ventilation Ameliorates Respiratory Failure,” Ryo Okabe, Toyofumi F. Chen-Yoshikawa, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama, Satona Tanaka, Akihiko Yoshizawa, Wendy L. Thompson, Gokul Kannan, Eiji Kobayashi, Hiroshi Date, and Takanori Takebe, Med, vol. 2, June 11, 2021, pp. 1-11. <doi.org/10.1016/j.medj.2021.04.004>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Takanori Takebe, Toyofumi Chen-Yoshikawa, Ryo Okabe, Eiji Kobayashi, Yosuke Yoneyama, Yuhei Yokoyama
PROBABILITY PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, SWITZERLAND, BELGIUM, FRANCE, GERMANY, HUNGARY, CZECH REPUBLIC]
František Bartoš, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Henrik Godmann, and many colleagues, for showing, both in theory and by 350,757 experiments, that when you flip a coin, it tends to land on the same side as it started.
REFERENCE: “Fair Coins Tend to Land on the Same Side They Started: Evidence from 350,757 Flips,” František Bartoš, et al., arXiv 2310.04153, 2023. <doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.04153>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Frantisek Bartos, and Eric-Jan Wagenmakers
CHEMISTRY PRIZE [THE NETHERLANDS, FRANCE]
Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, and Sander Woutersen, for using chromatography to separate drunk and sober worms.
REFERENCE: “Chromatographic Separation of Active Polymer–Like Worm Mixtures by Contour Length and Activity,” Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, and Sander Woutersen, Science Advances, vol. 8, no. 23, 2022, article eabj7918. <doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj7918>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn, Sander Woutersen
DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE [AUSTRALIA, UK]
Saul Justin Newman, for detective work to discover that many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death recordkeeping.
REFERENCE: “Supercentenarians and the Oldest-Old Are Concentrated into Regions with No Birth Certificates and Short Lifespans,” Saul Justin Newman, BioRxiv, 704080, 2019. <doi.org/10.1101/704080>
REFERENCE: “Supercentenarian and Remarkable Age Records Exhibit Patterns Indicative of Clerical Errors and Pension Fraud,” Saul Justin Newman, BioRxiv, 2024. <doi.org/10.1101/704080>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Saul Justin Newman
BIOLOGY PRIZE [USA]
Fordyce Ely and William E. Petersen, for exploding a paper bag next to a cat that’s standing on the back of a cow, to explore how and when cows spew their milk.
REFERENCE: “Factors Involved in the Ejection of Milk,” Fordyce Ely and W.E. Petersen, Journal of Dairy Science, vol. 3, 1941, pp. 211- 23. <doi.org/10.1093/ansci/1939.1.80>
WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Fordyce Ely’s daughter Jane Ely Wells and grandson Matt Wells
Narz
keeping it real
It follows, most good things in live come after a bit of pain & it's human nature to want to earn relief rather than just get it easy
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Octopuses hunt alongside fish, but will wallop them if they fall out of line
New study explores social dynamics of group hunting along shallow reefs
Despite their reputation as loners, it turns out octopuses will happily hunt in groups with other species — as long as everyone knows who's boss.Scientists in Germany have captured hours of footage of octopuses working in tandem with different species of reef fish to track down prey like smaller crustaceans, fish and molluscs and flush them out of their hidey-holes.
These hunting groups follow "a very complex leadership dynamic" that's not so different from your average human workplace, says biologist Eduardo Sampaio.
"Say there are three or four that are pitching ideas or providing options. So these are the fish," Sampaio told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
"One person, for example, in a company would be the CEO or the chairman that decides, 'OK, I like this idea. We 'll go in this direction.' So the octopus plays this role."
Sampaio, of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour, is the lead author of a study examining the social dynamics of these octopus-fish collaborations, published this week in the journal Nature, Ecology & Evolution.
Their findings are based on more than 100 hours of footage of O. cyanea, better known as big blue octopuses or day octopuses, hunting along the the shallow reefs of Israel, Egypt, and Australia.
A win-win situation
Octopuses are known as solitary creatures, says Sampaio. And when they're dining solo, they use a tactic called "speculative hunting."That means they move along the coral, shells and rocks, going from crevice to crevice, and doing what's known as a "web over," wrapping their tentacles and the webbing that connects them around the hideout to root out and trap any prey lurking within.
But when they work alongside reef fish, like goatfish and groupers, they take a different approach.
"They stay in the same location, and then the fish themselves go look for prey. And once [the fish] corner the prey, the octopus moves directly there and, with one movement, does the web over," Sampaio said.
"It creates a very difficult situation for the prey, right? Because either the prey stays inside of the crevice and the octopus eventually will get it with its arms, or it tries to flee and then has the fish outside waiting for it."
This, he says, is a win-win for the octopus and its fishy friends.
"If the fish were hunting alone, the prey can go to crevices and they can't get it," he said. "If the octopus was hunting alone, it couldn't find the prey as quickly. And when it finds it, there's always the danger that the prey flees."
Zoologist Michael Vecchione, who wasn't involved in the research, says he's heard of this phenomenon before, but this is the first study he's seen that tries to analyze and identify the social dynamics at play.
"They did a nice job of trying to get a quantitative handle on what's going on," said Vecchione, the curator of cephalopods at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Still, Vecchione says a lot of questions remain unanswered. For example, is this a co-ordinated hunting strategy? Or are the sea creatures simply hunting the same reefs at the same time, and taking advantage of each other's presence?
"I wonder if there's an element of, basically, chaos to their interactions," he said. "As opposed to the octopus and the goatfish every morning look for the others to go out and work together."
Collaboration not without conflict
Just because hunting together is mutually beneficial for everyone involved, doesn't mean it's always amicable, according to Sampaio.First of all, there's no sharing the spoils. Whoever nabs the prey gets to gobble it up, he says, and there's no guarantee everyone will get a piece.
And if a fish falls out of line, the octopus will punch it into submission — a phenomenon Sampao first observed in 2020.
There are several scenarios that might provoke an octopus to fisticuffs, he said, including a lack of balance within the group's composition.
The goatfish play a key role in the hunt, going ahead of the pack to scout out prey, and signalling their discoveries to the octopus, who ultimately decides whether the group should follow. The groupers, meanwhile, mostly just reap the benefit of everyone else's hard work.
So if a hunting party has too many slackers and not enough scouts, "then the octopus has to do everything."
"It doesn't like to have to do everything, so it starts punching," Sampaio said.
- Scientists discover rare, thriving octopus nursery — and maybe a new species
- Not so solitary predators? Great white shark duo appear to be travelling together
"But you will never see a fish displace or do anything to the octopus," Sampaio said.
"It's quite interesting because it shows that it's a bit of an understanding of, like, we can't do anything to the octopus because if it leaves, then none of us are getting anything — which I think is quite cool."
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/octopus-fish-collaboration-1.7333968
I guess it is the AI nobels, with the physics going to not physics basic AI and the chemistry going to gen AI.
AI scans RNA ‘dark matter’ and uncovers 70,000 new viruses
Researchers have used artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover 70,500 viruses previously unknown to science, many of them weird and nothing like known species. The RNA viruses were identified using metagenomics, in which scientists sample all the genomes present in the environment without having to culture individual viruses. The method shows the potential of AI to explore the ‘dark matter’ of the RNA virus universe.
In 2022, Babaian and his colleagues searched 5.7 million genomic samples archived in publicly available databases and identified almost 132,000 new RNA viruses. Other groups have led similar efforts.
But RNA viruses evolve quickly, so existing methods for identifying RNA viruses in genomic sequence data probably miss many. A common method is to look for a section of the genome that encodes a key protein used in RNA replication, called RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). But if the sequence that encodes this protein in a virus is vastly different from any known sequence, researchers won’t recognize it.
Shi Mang, an evolutionary biologist at Sun Yat-sen University in Shenzhen, China, and a co-author of the Cell study, and his colleagues went looking for previously unrecognized viruses in publicly available genomic samples.
They developed a model, called LucaProt, using the ‘transformer’ architecture that underpins ChatGPT, and fed it sequencing and ESMFold protein-prediction data. They then trained their model to recognize viral RdRps and used it to find sequences that encoded these enzymes — evidence that those sequences belonged to a virus — in the large tranche of genomic data. Using this method, they identified some 160,000 RNA viruses, including some that were exceptionally long and found in extreme environments such as hot springs, salt lakes and air. Just under half of them had not been described before. They found “little pockets of RNA virus biodiversity that are really far off in the boonies of evolutionary space”, says Babaian.
A hydrothermal vent
Researchers have used artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover 70,500 viruses previously unknown to science, many of them weird and nothing like known species. The RNA viruses were identified using metagenomics, in which scientists sample all the genomes present in the environment without having to culture individual viruses. The method shows the potential of AI to explore the ‘dark matter’ of the RNA virus universe.
In 2022, Babaian and his colleagues searched 5.7 million genomic samples archived in publicly available databases and identified almost 132,000 new RNA viruses. Other groups have led similar efforts.
But RNA viruses evolve quickly, so existing methods for identifying RNA viruses in genomic sequence data probably miss many. A common method is to look for a section of the genome that encodes a key protein used in RNA replication, called RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). But if the sequence that encodes this protein in a virus is vastly different from any known sequence, researchers won’t recognize it.
Shi Mang, an evolutionary biologist at Sun Yat-sen University in Shenzhen, China, and a co-author of the Cell study, and his colleagues went looking for previously unrecognized viruses in publicly available genomic samples.
They developed a model, called LucaProt, using the ‘transformer’ architecture that underpins ChatGPT, and fed it sequencing and ESMFold protein-prediction data. They then trained their model to recognize viral RdRps and used it to find sequences that encoded these enzymes — evidence that those sequences belonged to a virus — in the large tranche of genomic data. Using this method, they identified some 160,000 RNA viruses, including some that were exceptionally long and found in extreme environments such as hot springs, salt lakes and air. Just under half of them had not been described before. They found “little pockets of RNA virus biodiversity that are really far off in the boonies of evolutionary space”, says Babaian.
A hydrothermal vent
Is there evolutionary RNA vs DNA competition among life forms?
There are some viruses that have RNA genomes, and others have DNA. You could say they compete, but only sort of (does the cold compete with measles?). In most of the rest of the living world they perform different and complementary functions.
So at what point in the evolutionary "tree" does competition begin or, perhaps, is evolution a non competitive "sport" between critters and only between critters and their environments? It would seem that specialization reduces competition.
