xpandyourhorizons-blog
Xpand Your Horizons is a growing online community that shares videos and other material aimed to intrigue people to think outside the box and expand the interest all around. The Xpand Your Horizons Family is sometimes shortened to "XYH" or "XYHor" here on Tumblr in our many secondary and more specific blogs. Our Family has compiled more than 60 playlists on YouTube now and has viewed every video to make sure that what is delivered is factual. If something appears questionable or the comment feedback alludes to mistakes, research is done and it is determined whether or not it's worth sharing. As of late, it is so easy to come across videos containing little to no actual research or are so heavily boggled down with opinions that you can find yourself in a battle of so-called "whits" on the internet. The Xpand Your Horizons Family doesn’t yet upload or produce any original content...yet... but we would like to make it known that We’re sharing all this contentbecause it's important to take Science seriously in a healthy and safe environment. Each playlist can be found on YouTube under the Xpand Your Horizons moniker and their specific topic(s) is/are displayed in the title, and further explanation is in their descriptions. Not all are academic inclined, some deal with pop culture as well as media. Enjoy!For more content, Click Here and experience this XYHor in its entirety!
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NASA released a simulation of all 2017s Hurricanes -
For decades, whaling ships targeted right whales. Now that they’re protected, they are still victims of human activity, and it may be too late to save them. The WWF says that their population shows no sign of recovery.
The findings, recently published in the journal Geology, suggest that New England may not be so immune to abrupt geological change.
Cannabis Linked to Bipolar Symptoms in Young Adults
Cannabis use in youth is linked to bipolar symptoms in young adults, finds new research by the University of Warwick.
Researchers from Warwick Medical School found that adolescent cannabis use is an independent risk factor for future hypomania – periods of elated mood, over-active and excited behaviour, and reduced need for sleep that are often experienced as part of bipolar disorder, and have a significant impact on day-to-day life.
Led by Dr Steven Marwaha, a clinical academic Psychiatrist, the research analysed data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and found that teenage cannabis use at least 2–3 times weekly is directly associated with suffering from symptoms of hypomania in later years.
There was a dose response relationship such that any use still increased the risk but less powerfully.
The Warwick research is the first to test the prospective association between adolescent cannabis use and hypomania in early adulthood, whilst controlling for important other factors that might explain this connection (e.g psychotic symptoms).
Full open access research for “Cannabis Use and Hypomania in Young People: A Prospective Analysis ” by Steven Marwaha, Catherine Winsper, Paul Bebbington, and Daniel Smith in Schizophrenia Bulleting. Published online November 28 2017 doi:10.1093/schbul/sbx158
More good news from this nightmare in which we are living…
Trump Poised to Shrink Two National Monuments
Trump is expected to eliminate nearly 85 percent of Bear Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, cutting more than 1 million acres from its current boundaries. He’s also set to halve the nearly 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (E&E News PM, Nov. 30).
The move is being praised by Republicans who have long argued that the Antiquities Act—the 1906 law that allows presidents to set aside public land—is being used unlawfully to lock up tracts of federal land. On the other side, Democratic allies have vowed to take any monument reductions to court.
Scientists who have studied the region, especially Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, say redrawing its boundaries could be detrimental to scientific research and discoveries.
“The monument has been demonstrably a very, very important scientific laboratory to learning and understanding on many realms,” said Mike Scott, a retired U.S. Geological Survey researcher.
Scott and his colleagues have spent time in Grand Staircase-Escalante studying how different management policies and activities on rangelands—there are many different kinds across the ecologically diverse monument—affect the health of those ecosystems. Rangeland activities include anything from how grazing affects soil quality to the health of different soil types.
As climate change brings warmer, drier conditions, understanding how to keep soils and grassland ecosystems healthy in arid landscapes is crucial to avoid desertification, Scott said. Grand Staircase-Escalante has been “a really critical living laboratory,” he said.
Bats from a single cave in China have all the building blocks of a SARS epidemic
When it struck, the contagion spread fiercely. The deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in South China in 2002 infected thousands, and ultimately killed nearly 800 people.
But where did this lethal strain come from? We may now have our answer, with a study showing bats living in a single cave in China possess all the building blocks of the deadly SARS coronavirus – and potentially the means to create a new one.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences spent five years analysing SARS viruses found in multiple species of horseshoe bats nesting in a cave in China’s Yunnan Province.
In all, the team identified 11 new strains of SARS virus carried by the bats, and a genomic analysis of these – along with strains from the same cave identified in previous research – revealed something interesting.
Previous research had suggested bat viruses could have been responsible for SARS, but scientists had never uncovered evidence of a direct ancestor to the human-infecting coronavirus in bat strains.
In the new research, that held true again – none of the viruses from the cave by themselves displayed the genetic traits of the SARS coronavirus that spread to humans, infecting more than 8,000 people during the 2002-2003 emergency.
But together, it was a different story. In this one cave, there were enough genetic ingredients among the strains to build the virus that kills humans.
“Importantly, all of the building blocks of SARS-CoV genome, including the highly variable S gene, ORF8 and ORF3, could be found in the genomes of different SARSr-CoV strains from this single location,” the researchers explain in their paper.
Hypothetically speaking, the team suggests it’s possible – even probable – that if the right strains mixed with one another in the cave, you’d end up with the direct ancestor of a virus that can infect and kill people.
The findings are reported in PLOS Pathogens.
The visual spectrum of birds includes UV
“It is now known that many birds, probably most, have some degree of UV vision, which they use to find both food and partners. The berries that some feed on have a UV bloom, and European kestrels can track their vole prey from the UV reflecting off the voles’ urine trails. The plumage (or parts of it) in hummingbirds, European starlings, American goldfinches, and blue grosbeaks reflects UV light, often more markedly in males than females. In certain species, like the blue grosbeak, the degree of UV reflectance may also reflect male quality, though females don’t currently use this aspect of plumage to discriminate between potential partners…”
via: Audubon.org
Imagine an enormous, lush rainforest teeming with life…in the Arctic. Well there was a time – and not too long ago – when the world warmed more than any human has ever seen. (So far)
2,000-Year-Old Killer Whale Geoglyph Found in Peru Desert
Archaeologists rediscovered a giant geoglyph of a killer whale, etched into a desert hillside in the remote Palpa region of southern Peru, after it had been lost to science for more than 50 years.
The 230-foot-long (70 meters) figure of an orca — considered a powerful, semimythical creature in ancient Peruvian lore — may be more than 2,000 years old, according to the researchers.
They said it may be one the oldest geoglyphs in the Palpa region, and older than those in the nearby Nazca region, which is famous for its vast collection of ancient ground markings — the Nazca Lines — that include animal figures, straight lines and geometrical shapes.
Archaeologist Johny Isla, the head of Peru’s Ministry of Culture in Ica province, which includes the Palpa and Nazca valleys, explained that he saw a single photograph of the orca pattern for the first time about four years ago. He’d seen it while researching studies of geoglyphs at the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn. Read more.
Sorry for the doom and gloom today, but these have literally been the articles that I’ve come across today =[
Use them as motivation for the mid-term elections.
Tiger’s reaction to getting tooth pulled via /r/aww http://ift.tt/2nsAlFe
Circling #momotombo at sunset while hanging out the side of a gigantic heli that didn’t seem phased by the #cloudcap on the #volcano.
Apparently this is one of the most dangerous things to fly near. None of us knew that at the time (and we actually flew through the top on the last pass) but it sure was an amazing experience. (at Momotombo, Leon, Nicaragua)
Dinosaur footprints exposed on a Western Australia beach prove to be part of the most abundant track sites on Earth. Some are among the largest ever found.
Image by Steven Salisbury et al.
A new Columbia University study reveals why.
While doctors, nutritionists and researchers have known for a long time that saturated fats contribute to some of the leading causes of death in the United States, they haven’t been able to determine how or why excess saturated fats, such as those released from lard, are toxic to cells and cause a wide variety of lipid-related diseases, while unsaturated fats, such as those from fish and olive oil, can be protective.
To find answers, Columbia researchers developed a new microscopy technique that allows for the direct tracking of fatty acids after they’ve been absorbed into living cells. The technique involves replacing hydrogen atoms on fatty acids with their isotope, deuterium, without changing their physicochemical properties and behavior like traditional strategies do. By making the switch, all molecules made from fatty acids can be observed inside living cells by an advanced imaging technique called stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy.
What the researchers found using this technique could have significant impact on both the understanding and treatment of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Published online December 1st in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the team reports that the cellular process of building the cell membrane from saturated fatty acids results in patches of hardened membrane in which molecules are “frozen.” Under healthy conditions, this membrane should be flexible and the molecules fluidic.
“The behavior of saturated fatty acids once they’ve entered cells contributes to major and often deadly diseases,” Min said. “Visualizing how fatty acids are contributing to lipid metabolic disease gives us the direct physical information we need to begin looking for effective ways to treat them. Perhaps, for example, we can find a way to block the toxic lipid accumulation. We’re excited. This finding has the potential to really impact public health, especially for lipid related diseases.”
Yihui Shen et al, Metabolic activity induces membrane phase separation in endoplasmic reticulum, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1712555114
Marine bacteria that live in the dark depths of the ocean play a newly discovered and significant role in the global carbon cycle, according to a new study published in Science.
The “dark ocean” - everything that lies below 200 meters - makes up 90 percent of the ocean. Very little is known about the microscopic life in this realm and its critical role in transforming carbon dioxide to cell material, proteins, carbohydrates and lipids. This freshly produced organic material can then be consumed by other marine organisms enhancing the productivity of the ocean.
Continue Reading.
This is the first example of speciation that scientists have been able to observe directly in the field.
They’re investing in Gene Drives.
(For a really good intro to gene drives and the opportunities and threats they pose: x) As the headline states, it can be used as an “extinction technology”. (It basically quickly forces genes to spread through a population.)
The article pretty much nails it when they point out that everyone is nervous about a branch of the military investing in this. Cause really, anyone looking into this should have the greatest amount of oversight possible. This technology can be used for a lot of good, but also a lot of bad. And most importantly, even the best intentions could have disastrous effects with this technology.
DARPA - the gov’t’s fringe science division - basically argues that a big part of the rationale is to be ready for others who might use it in a negative way. Which does seem important, to be fair. I guess the question becomes, ‘who watches the watchmen?’
Highlights:
A US military agency is investing $100m in genetic extinction technologies that could wipe out malarial mosquitoes, invasive rodents or other species…
The use of genetic extinction technologies in bioweapons is the stuff of nightmares, but known research is focused entirely on pest control and eradication…
Some UN experts, though, worry about unintended consequences. One told the Guardian: “You may be able to remove viruses or the entire mosquito population, but that may also have downstream ecological effects on species that depend on them.”
“My main worry,” he added, “is that we do something irreversible to the environment, despite our good intentions, before we fully appreciate the way that this technology will work.”…
“Darpa is not and should not be the only funder of gene-editing research but it is critical for the Department of Defense to defend its personnel and preserve military readiness,” he said.
Darpa believes that a steep fall in the costs of gene-editing toolkits has created a greater opportunity for hostile or rogue actors to experiment with the technology.
“This convergence of low cost and high availability means that applications for gene editing – both positive and negative – could arise from people or states operating outside of the traditional scientific community and international norms,” the official said. “It is incumbent on Darpa to perform this research and develop technologies that can protect against accidental and intentional misuse.”
P.s. Related story on how Britain wants to genetically alter rats to help reduce their overall numbers. (x)
Full double rainbow, Hawaii
Coral reefs, bays, and Inlets, Flores Island, Indonesia
Chamerion angustifolium (L.) Holub
[Colorado, USA]
As the threat of automation grows, governments will have to deal with growing unemployment. UBI is growing in interest, and while there’s still research to be done, I’m glad that people are at least having the conversation.
Also, since automation is coming for middle and upper class jobs too, I expect to see progress to be made a bit more quickly. Hopefully.
Doggerland, the Europe That Was (1015 x 1486)
Me in my house welcoming you with excitement
