science

Scientists were stunned on May 30 when a rock that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals. Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals -- in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials -- the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental (pure) sulfur. It isn't clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.

While people associate sulfur with the odor from rotten eggs (the result of hydrogen sulfide gas), elemental sulfur is odorless. It forms in only a narrow range of conditions that scientists haven't associated with the history of this location. And Curiosity found a lot of it -- an entire field of bright rocks that look similar to the one the rover crushed. "Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert," said Curiosity's project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "It shouldn't be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting."

The image, as it happens, comes from dozens of brain scans produced by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who gave psilocybin, the compound in "magic mushrooms," to participants in a study before sending them into a functional M.R.I. scanner. The kaleidoscopic whirl of colors they recorded is essentially a heat map of brain changes, with the red, orange and yellow hues reflecting a significant departure from normal activity patterns. The blues and greens reflect normal brain activity that occurs in the so-called functional networks, the neural communication pathways that connect different regions of the brain.

The scans, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, offer a rare glimpse into the wild neural storm associated with mind-altering drugs. Researchers say they could provide a potential road map for understanding how psychedelic compounds like psilocybin, LSD and MDMA can lead to lasting relief from depression, anxiety and other mental health disorders. "Psilocybin, in contrast to any other drug we've tested, has this massive effect on the whole brain that was pretty unexpected," said Dr. Nico Dosenbach, a professor of neurology at Washington University and a senior author of the study. "It was quite shocking when we saw the effect size." Brian Mathur, a systems neuroscientist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, says these findings cannot show exactly what causes the therapeutic benefit of psilocybin, but "it's possible psilocybin is directly causing" the brain-network changes. That, or it is creating a psychedelic experience that in turn causes parts of the brain to behave differently.

The next step is to determine whether psilocybin's blood-flow changes in the brain or its direct effects on neurons, or both, are responsible for the brain-network disruptions. "The best part of this work is that it's going to provide a means forward for the field to develop further hypotheses that can and should be tested," Mathur says.

Looking at any interesting effects of propylene glycol in vaginal lubricants I stumbled upon this study. Then I found it isn't the only one pointing to hyperosmolal lubes causing damage to the epithelium either.

hmm, light on answers but interesting questions

A California-based startup called Savor has figured out a unique way to make a butter alternative that doesn’t involve livestock, plants, or even displacing land. Their butter is produced from synthetic fat made using carbon dioxide and hydrogen, and the best part is —- it tastes just like regular butter.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14413106

Reading and writing articles published in academic journals and presented at conferences is a central part of being a researcher. When researchers write a scholarly article, they must cite the work of peers to provide context, detail sources of inspiration and explain differences in approaches and results. A positive citation by other researchers is a key measure of visibility for a researcher’s own work.

But what happens when this citation system is manipulated? A recent Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology articleby our team of academic sleuths – which includes information scientists, a computer scientist and a mathematician – has revealed an insidious method to artificially inflate citation counts through metadata manipulations: sneaked references.

hugs/touch psychologist discusses. I know I like hugs.

For more on High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) from nuclear detonation here is the Department of Homeland Security report on the estimated affects if a hostile use of a HEMP was detonated now.

'may' is my most despised headline word. This article sounds like they may be onto something in mice trials anyway.

Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population's inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip.^8^

In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death^9^ to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip.

article

cross-post from[ [email protected]](https://lemmy.world/post/17310571) https://lemmy.world/post/17310571

The way i read it : Our theoretical framework, allowing matter creation (*) provides a possible origin for the universe (without the need of a Big Bang). Also this is quite timely in the actual context of new observations made by the James Webb space telescope that are in tention with classical models.

(*)(after an hypothetical inflatory period, [...or at any time as long as the universe expands...])

title of this post is taken from section : VII. SUMMARY
Of : Cosmological Particle Production: A Review

Preprint :
(2021 December 7 // @ arXiv…)
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.02444.pdf

The article has been published in a peer reviewed journal paywall warning.