Since 2007 the OND has been a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Tonight’s science stories include:
- Desert’s fragile skin damaged by more heat
- Modern heat pumps do work in the cold
- Biology rejects the sex binary
- When trying too hard is counterproductive
- Dead pool in the Colorado River
- A parenting decision that matters
- Ape sign language is fake
- Myopia cause and NASA’s cure
- How to detect fake science
- MIT scientists claim to reverse hearing loss
- Citizen science
Wired
The desert’s fragile skin can’t take much more heat
by Kristy Hamilton
Eighty-five miles from the small town of Moab, Utah, located on the Colorado Plateau in the southwest of the US, soil ecologist Rebecca Finger-Higgens is hopscotching on copper-toned sandstone to avoid stepping on the desert’s black, burnt-looking crust of soil. “Don’t bust the crust,” the saying here goes. “Don’t tiptoe on the crypto.”
Cryptobiotic soil—or biocrust—forms the top layer of the desert, a “skin” squirming with living organisms. Just as microscopic organisms are vital to our health (think gut bacteria for digestion and disease prevention), the desert’s skin hosts a whole community of organisms that are vital to the ecosystem. Without the desert’s skin, much less life would exist in these lands; flowers would wilt and sparse pockets of shrubs would struggle to survive.
The plateau’s biocrust is easily identifiable under a bright yolk sun: a dark, bumpy surface that stretches between shrubs, like snakeweed and yucca, and the towering buttes and mesas that make up the Colorado Plateau’s iconic landscape. It’s here that Finger-Higgens pricks metal pin flags into square grids that crisscross 12 football-field-sized plots of land.
Grist
Heat pumps do work in the cold — Americans just don’t know it yet.
by Shannon Osaka
Heat pumps – heating and cooling systems that run entirely on electricity – have been getting a lot of attention recently. They’ve been called the “most overlooked climate solution” and “an answer to heat waves.” And the technology is finally experiencing a global boom in popularity. Last year, 117 million units were installed worldwide, up from 90 million in 2010. As temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions rise, heat pumps, which can be easily powered by renewable energy, promise to provide a pathway to carbon-free home heating. Environmental activist Bill McKibben even suggested sending heat pumps to Europe to help wean the continent off Russian natural gas.
But despite this global surge in popularity, heat pumps in the U.S. are laboring under a misconception that has plagued them for decades: That if the temperature falls to below 30 or even 40 degrees Fahrenheit, their technology simply doesn’t work. “Do heat pumps work in cold weather” is even a trending question on Google.
It’s a narrative that Andy Meyer, a senior program manager for the independent state agency Efficiency Maine, has spent the past decade debunking for residents in one of the U.S.’s coldest states.
“There were two types of people in Maine in 2012,” he said. “Those who didn’t know what heat pumps were — and those who knew they didn’t work in the cold.” But while that concern may have been true years ago, he said, today “it’s not at all true for high-performance heat pumps.”
Sapiens
Biological science rejects the sex binary, and that’s good for humanity
by Augustin Fuentes
At the recent U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sen. Marsha Blackburn triggered controversy when she asked Jackson to define the word “woman.” After Jackson declined, several Republican congresspeople chimed in with definitions for “woman” that ranged from dubious to shocking, including “the weaker sex,” “someone who has a uterus,” and “X chromosomes, no tallywhacker.”
Such notions haven’t evolved much since 1871, when naturalist Charles Darwin told the world that “man is more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than women, and has more inventive genius.” Most 19th- and 20th-century evolutionary theories (and theorists) asserted that evolution created two kinds of creatures—male and female—and individuals’ behavior and nature reflected this biological binary.
[…]
Science points to a more accurate and hopeful way to understand the biology of sex. By recognizing the true diversity of the human experience, humanity can embrace an expansive and multifaceted way of envisioning and experiencing human nature. This evidence-based outlook is not only far more interesting than the simplistic and incorrect “tallywhacker versus no tallywhacker” perspective, but also more conducive to respect and flourishing.
Big Think
The law of reversed effort - the harder you try, the harder you fall
by Jenny Thomson
You’re lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to cars go by. You have no idea how long you have been like this, but it must be a few hours, at least. Go to sleep, you tell yourself. Just close your eyes and: Go. To. Sleep. You shut your eyes tight, force your body to relax, and wait for the blissful slumber to come. But, nothing happens. More minutes pass and… nothing happens. It’s 3 a.m., and you’re still staring at the ceiling.
We have all been in this situation. Try as we might, it is nearly impossible to consciously will yourself to sleep. Sleep comes to those who let their mind wander and focus on anything other than sleep itself. Count sheep, control your breathing, listen to an audiobook, or whatever — so long as it turns your mind from wanting to sleep.
This is a common and familiar example of the “law of reversed effort.”
The Law of Reversed Effort was first coined by the author Aldous Huxley, who wrote:
“The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed.
“Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent unknown quantity may take hold.”
It’s the idea that the more we try to do something, the worse we become at it. Suppose, for instance, that you are learning how to ride a bike for the first time. You are told to hold the handlebars a certain way, to push off with this foot, to pedal at that speed, to sit in a specific position, to hold your balance here, and so on. There is a small book’s worth of micro-instructions when learning to ride a bike. When we ride a bike, we know all these things, but we do not try to do them. They just happen. In Huxley’s words, it’s “combining relaxation with activity.”
The Conversation
What is dead pool? A water expert explains
by Robert Glennon
Journalists reporting on the status and future of the Colorado River are increasingly using the phrase “dead pool.” It sounds ominous. And it is.
Dead pool occurs when water in a reservoir drops so low that it can’t flow downstream from the dam. The biggest concerns are Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam on the Utah-Arizona border, and Lake Mead, behind Boulder Canyon Dam on the Nevada-Arizona border. These two reservoirs, the largest in the U.S., provide water for drinking and irrigation and hydroelectricity to millions of people in Nevada, Arizona and California.
[…]
As a 22-year drought in the Colorado River basin lingers, reaching minimum power pool elevation is the first problem. Lakes Powell and Mead have turbines at the bases of their dams, well below the surface of the reservoirs. Water flows through valves in intake towers in the reservoirs and is channeled through the turbines, making them spin to generate electricity.
The Atlantic
The one parenting decision that really matters
by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
A recent study calculated that in the first year of a baby’s life, parents face 1,750 difficult decisions. These include what to name the baby, whether to breastfeed the baby, how to sleep-train the baby, what pediatrician to take the baby to, and whether to post pictures of the baby on social media. And that is only year one.
How can parents make these decisions, and the thousands to come? They can always turn to Google, but it’s easy to find conflicting answers to just about any question. The New York Times recommends that parents “try timeouts,” while PBS says “you should never use timeouts.” After reading “all” of the books on baby sleep, one frustrated mother, Ava Neyer, posted a rant on her blog:
Swaddle the baby tightly, but not too tightly. Put them on their back to sleep, but don’t let them be on their backs too long or they will be developmentally delayed. Give them a pacifier to reduce SIDS. Be careful about pacifiers because they can cause nursing problems and stop your baby from sleeping soundly. If your baby sleeps too soundly, they’ll die of SIDS.
I’m no parenting expert; I’m merely an uncle. (My decision making largely consists of asking my mom what gift I should get my nephew and her telling me “get him a truck” and me getting him a truck, and then my nephew thanking me for the next four years for once having gotten him a truck.) But I am an economist and a data scientist, and I’ve scoured the scientific literature to try to understand whether data can help people parent better. If you’re a parent who’s terrified of the consequences of choosing wrong, I’m here to tell you to worry less. Almost none of the decisions you make matter nearly as much as you think they do.
Koko the imposter - Ape sign language was a bunch of babbling nonsense
by Tom Hartsfield
There is something miraculous about animals that communicate with human beings. A cat’s purr of affection or a dog’s frantic joy when you come home from work are clear examples of communication. Yet these are the animals’ languages, not ours. A creature that communicates in our language begins to feel like another person.
Great apes seem to lack the physical development of the larynx, or the neural capability, to learn human speech. Scientists debate the matter. However, with well-evolved articulating hands and arms, gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos can master complex gestures. Researchers have harnessed this capability to teach them various forms of sign language. Occasionally non-signing forms of communication like pointing at pictograms also have been used.
Stories of ape sign language can feel shockingly human. Washoe was the first signing ape. When the chimp’s handler disclosed that her baby had died, Washoe
reportedly signed back
cry. The bonobo Kanzi learned to
point to various symbols that represented about 350 words. The Koko project released
a video of the namesake gorilla delivering a message about climate change. The animals appear to form thoughts and express them in one of our languages to meaningfully convey their ideas to us. Among these experiments, the story of one researcher and his chimpanzee stands out.
That researcher is Herbert Terrace, a professor of psychology at Columbia University. Nim Chimpsky — the name is a pun referring to the prominent linguist Noam Chomsky, then known for his groundbreaking research on linguistics — was his personal research study subject. […]
Terrace rode the results of Project Nim to academic stardom in the 1970s. At the end of the study, he wrote a 1979 article in the prestigious journal Science. This paper became the seminal work in the field — and likely the source of its complete undoing.
Terrace carefully reviewed video footage of human-ape interactions. Specific frames and traced images from them are demonstrated in the paper. He noticed that the researchers prompted the apes by displaying signs to them, in English grammatical order, before recording the same signs repeated back by the ape. The animal was essentially mimicking the human’s behavior. The ape was aping it.
Fast Company
A designer and a NASA scientist team up to fight a $244 billion problem that’s hiding in plain sight
by Mark Wilson
Nearsightedness doesn’t sound that scary, but more and more people around the world are suffering from its clinical name: myopia. Because of myopia, China can’t find enough pilots, while the world is losing $244 billion in productivity a year, and that’s just the beginning: By 2050, more than half the world’s population is projected to have myopia—and as many as 10% of that group will go blind from the condition.
The glasses are actually nothing more than a frame. Instead of lenses, they simply feature open air. But when they soak up just a minute of sunlight or strong lamp light, they glow for a full 25 minutes with the exact wavelength of sunlight that helps eyes develop. Creators of the glasses believe that experiencing that wavelength twice a day is enough to counteract the onset of myopia.
Big Think
6 Tips to help you detect fake science news
by Marc Zimmer
I’m a professor of chemistry, have a Ph.D. and conduct my own scientific research, yet when consuming media, even I frequently need to ask myself: “Is this science or is it fiction?”
There are plenty of reasons a science story might not be sound. Quacks and charlatans take advantage of the complexity of science, some content providers can’t tell bad science from good and some politicians peddle fake science to support their positions.
If the science sounds too good to be true or too wacky to be real, or very conveniently supports a contentious cause, then you might want to check its veracity.
Here are six tips to help you detect fake science.
Neoscope
MIT scientists say they invented a treatment that reverses hearing loss
by Victor Tangermann
A team of MIT scientists behind the biotech firm Frequency Therapeutics claims to have developed a new type of regenerative therapy that can reverse hearing loss, without the need of hearing aids or cochlear implants.
By programming special kinds of human cells called progenitor cells, the team discovered a new way to encourage the growth of hair cells inside the cochlea.
These hair cells allow us to hear, but they die off over time or when exposed to excess noise. They usually don’t grow back — but allowing the ear to regenerate them could bring back at least some degree of hearing.
In experiments, the team was able to improve trial participants’ ability to perceive speech. While that may sound oddly specific, there’s a good reason.
“Speech perception is the number one goal for improving hearing and the number one need we hear from patients,” said Frequency co-founder and CEO Chris Loose, in
a statement.
Some of these improvements stuck around for almost two years, according to the company.
The treatment works by injecting molecules into the inner ear, which then transform existing progenitor cells into other cells that can grow hair cells inside the cochlea.
Zooniverse Citizen science
Killer whale count
The Pacific Northwest marine ecosystem is home to many species, including the endangered Steller sea lion. The Steller sea lion experienced drastic declines, which led to their threatened status in 1990 under the Environmental Species Act (ESA). In 1997, the population was split into an eastern and western distinct population stock (DPS) and the western stock was relisted as endangered due to particularly steep regional declines of 94%. The eastern DPS has experienced 30 years of recovery and is no longer listed as threatened, however the western DPS is still experiencing active declines. What is leading to these declines? One hypothesis is that killer whale predation could be impacting their recovery. Killer whales are an apex predator and have the potential to impact other trophic levels, such as Steller sea lions.
The results of Killer Whale Count will increase our understanding of the potential impact of killer whales on endangered Steller sea lions in the western Aleutian Islands. We are focused on an ecotype of killer whale called the transient (Bigg’s) killer whale. Transient killer whales consume other marine mammals, such as Steller sea lions, and therefore have a direct impact to their population. How can we determine the extent of this impact? One of the first objectives is to determine killer whale visitation patterns across various endangered Steller sea lion colonies. To do this, we need your help in identifying and counting killer whales in our image database, which consists of over 1 million images. The results, in combination with other data sources, will help determine what extent killer whale predation has on the endangered Steller sea lion, which will benefit the recovery of the endangered Steller sea lion.
Help us out at: Killer Whale Count
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the science of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.