Fiery Doom? Prof Gustaf Hugelius warns that intensifying wildfires and heatwaves are accelerating the release of methane and carbon from permafrost regions, some of which are already approaching — or have crossed — irreversible thaw thresholds, as reported by The Guardian.”
Vaccine crossover Getting vaccinated against shingles could cut the risk of developing not only dementia but heart disease, heart failure and stroke, according to a major study. We like this as it reinforces our old doctrine “research in one area fuels progress somewhere else. Anyway, the Mail explains all:
Life on earth may have started twice This one was so counter-intuitive we’ll just hand you over to Nature Briefing and say no more:they’re much cleverer than us anyway.
Researchers have gathered more evidence for the idea that the first spark that spawned us all — the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) — was a part-organic, part-rock chemical system that formed in the energetically and chemically rich environment of hydrothermal vents. New findings also suggest that the two oldest single-celled domains of life, bacteria and archaea, sprang independently from this first source.
Scientific American | 12 min read
Reference: Science Advances paper
Psycho vibes Could you spot a psychopath if one walked in to a pub near you? The Guardian explains how.
Junk no more
DNA sequences once dismissed as junk may act like barcodes that help matching chromosomes find each other. Another shaker for those of us for whom “junk DNA” was a sine qua non. Until now!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I will do such things,— What they are yet I know not; but they shall be The terrors of the earth.”
King Lear, Act II, Scene IV
#cliamte change #global warming #wildfires #Junk DNA #origin of life #evolution #psychopath #vaccines #shingles #dementia
Learning, Science and Society 