Your brain ages at different paces according to social and physical environments – especially fast with greater inequality

Countries with greater inequalities — whether economic, pollution or disease-based — exhibited older brain ages, according to a study published in Nature Medicine, involving the University of Surrey.

The pace at which the brain ages can vary significantly among individuals, leading to a gap between the estimated biological age of the brain and the chronological age (the actual number of years a person has lived). This difference may be affected by several things, such as environmental factors like pollution and social factors like income or health inequalities, especially in older people and those with dementia. Until now, it was unclear how these combined factors could either accelerate or delay brain ageing across diverse geographical populations.

In the study, a team of international researchers developed ways to measure brain ageing using advanced brain clocks based on deep learning of brain networks. This study involved a diverse dataset of 5,306 participants from 15 countries, including Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) nations and non-LAC countries. By analysing data from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), the researchers quantified brain age gaps in healthy individuals and those with neurodegenerative conditions such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease, and frontotemporal lobe degeneration (FTLD).

Dr Daniel Abasolo, co-author of the study and Head of the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Surrey, said:

“Our research shows that in countries where inequality is higher, people’s brains tend to age faster, especially in areas of the brain most affected by ageing. We found that factors like socioeconomic inequality, air pollution, and the impact of diseases play a big role in this faster ageing process, particularly in poorer countries.”

Participants with a diagnosis of dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, exhibited the most critical brain age gaps. The research also highlighted sex differences in brain ageing, with women in LAC countries showing greater brain age gaps, particularly in those with Alzheimer’s disease

[…]

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Surrey. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Sebastian Moguilner, Sandra Baez, Hernan Hernandez, Joaquín Migeot, Agustina Legaz, Raul Gonzalez-Gomez, Francesca R. Farina, Pavel Prado, Jhosmary Cuadros, Enzo Tagliazucchi, Florencia Altschuler, Marcelo Adrián Maito, María E. Godoy, Josephine Cruzat, Pedro A. Valdes-Sosa, Francisco Lopera, John Fredy Ochoa-Gómez, Alfredis Gonzalez Hernandez, Jasmin Bonilla-Santos, Rodrigo A. Gonzalez-Montealegre, Renato Anghinah, Luís E. d’Almeida Manfrinati, Sol Fittipaldi, Vicente Medel, Daniela Olivares, Görsev G. Yener, Javier Escudero, Claudio Babiloni, Robert Whelan, Bahar Güntekin, Harun Yırıkoğulları, Hernando Santamaria-Garcia, Alberto Fernández Lucas, David Huepe, Gaetano Di Caterina, Marcio Soto-Añari, Agustina Birba, Agustin Sainz-Ballesteros, Carlos Coronel-Oliveros, Amanuel Yigezu, Eduar Herrera, Daniel Abasolo, Kerry Kilborn, Nicolás Rubido, Ruaridh A. Clark, Ruben Herzog, Deniz Yerlikaya, Kun Hu, Mario A. Parra, Pablo Reyes, Adolfo M. García, Diana L. Matallana, José Alberto Avila-Funes, Andrea Slachevsky, María I. Behrens, Nilton Custodio, Juan F. Cardona, Pablo Barttfeld, Ignacio L. Brusco, Martín A. Bruno, Ana L. Sosa Ortiz, Stefanie D. Pina-Escudero, Leonel T. Takada, Elisa Resende, Katherine L. Possin, Maira Okada de Oliveira, Alejandro Lopez-Valdes, Brain Lawlor, Ian H. Robertson, Kenneth S. Kosik, Claudia Duran-Aniotz, Victor Valcour, Jennifer S. Yokoyama, Bruce Miller, Agustin Ibanez. Brain clocks capture diversity and disparities in aging and dementia across geographically diverse populations. Nature Medicine, 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-024-03209-x

Source: Your brain ages at different paces according to social and physical environments

Spike mutations make it even easier for SARS-CoV-2 infect the brain

Scientists have discovered a mutation in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that plays a key role in its ability to infect the central nervous system. The findings may help scientists understand its neurological symptoms and the mystery of “long COVID,” and they could one day even lead to specific treatments to protect and clear the virus from the brain.

The new collaborative study between scientists at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois-Chicago uncovered a series of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (the outer part of the virus that helps it penetrate cells) that enhanced the virus’ ability to infect the brains of mice.

“Looking at the genomes of viruses found in the brain compared to the lung, we found that viruses with a specific deletion in spike were much better at infecting the brains of these animals,” said co-corresponding author Judd Hultquist, assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases) and microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “This was completely unexpected, but very exciting.”

[…]

In this study, researchers infected mice with SARS-CoV-2 and sequenced the genomes of viruses that replicated in the brain versus the lung. In the lung, the spike protein looked very similar to the virus used to infect the mice. In the brain, however, most viruses had a deletion or mutation in a critical region of spike that dictates how it enters a cell. When viruses with this deletion were used to directly infect the brains of mice, it was largely repaired when it traveled to the lungs.

“In order for the virus to traffic from the lung to the brain, it required changes in the spike protein that are already known to dictate how the virus gets into different types of cells,” Hultquist said. “We think this region of spike is a critical regulator of whether or not the virus gets into the brain, and it could have large implications for the treatment and management of neurological symptoms reported by COVID-19 patients.”

SARS-CoV-2 has long been associated with various neurological symptoms, such as the loss of smell and taste, “brain fog” and “long COVID.”

“It’s still not known if long COVID is caused by direct infection of cells in the brain or due to some adverse immune response that persists beyond the infection,” Hultquist said. “If it is caused by infection of cells in the central nervous system, our study suggests there may be specific treatments that could work better than others in clearing the virus from this compartment.”

[…]

Story Source:

Materials provided by Northwestern University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Jacob Class, Lacy M. Simons, Ramon Lorenzo-Redondo, Jazmin Galván Achi, Laura Cooper, Tanushree Dangi, Pablo Penaloza-MacMaster, Egon A. Ozer, Sarah E. Lutz, Lijun Rong, Judd F. Hultquist, Justin M. Richner. Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in the murine central nervous system drives viral diversification. Nature Microbiology, 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41564-024-01786-8

Source: Spike mutations help SARS-CoV-2 infect the brain | ScienceDaily

Strength training activates cellular waste disposal

The elimination of damaged cell components is essential for the maintenance of the body’s tissues and organs. An international research team led by the University of Bonn has made significant findings on mechanisms for the clearing of cellular wastes, showing that strength training activates such mechanisms. The findings could form the basis for new therapies for heart failure and nerve diseases, and even afford benefits for manned space missions.

[…]

he protein BAG3 plays a critical role in the elimination of damaged components, identifying these and ensuring that they are enclosed by cellular membranes to form an “autophagosome.” Autophagosomes are like a garbage bag in which cellular waste is collected for later shredding and recycling. The research team led by Professor Jörg Höhfeld of the University of Bonn Institute of Cell Biology has shown that strength training activates BAG3 in the muscles.

[…]

“Impairment of the BAG3 system does indeed cause swiftly progressing muscle weakness in children as well as heart failure — one of the most common causes of death in industrialized Western nations,”

[…]

: “We now know what intensity level of strength training it takes to activate the BAG3 system, so we can optimize training programs for top athletes and help physical therapy patients build muscle better.”

[…]

“BAG3 is activated under mechanical force. But what happens if mechanical stimulation does not take place? In astronauts living in a weightless environment, for example, or immobilized intensive care patients on ventilation?” In such cases, the lack of mechanical stimulation rapidly leads to muscle atrophy, the cause of which Höhfeld ascribes at least in part to the non-activation of BAG3. Drugs developed to activate BAG3 might help in such situations, he believes

[…]

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Bonn. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Judith Ottensmeyer, Alessandra Esch, Henrique Baeta, Sandro Sieger, Yamini Gupta, Maximilian F. Rathmann, Andreas Jeschke, Daniel Jacko, Kirill Schaaf, Thorsten Schiffer, Bahareh Rahimi, Lukas Lövenich, Angela Sisto, Peter F.M. van der Ven, Dieter O. Fürst, Albert Haas, Wilhelm Bloch, Sebastian Gehlert, Bernd Hoffmann, Vincent Timmerman, Pitter F. Huesgen, Jörg Höhfeld. Force-induced dephosphorylation activates the cochaperone BAG3 to coordinate protein homeostasis and membrane traffic. Current Biology, 2024; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.088

Source: Strength training activates cellular waste disposal | ScienceDaily

Good sleep habits important for overweight adults, different effects for men and women

New research from Oregon Health & Science University reveals negative health consequences for people who are overweight and ignore their body’s signals to sleep at night, with specific differences between men and women.

The study published this week in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

“This study builds support for the importance of good sleep habits,” said lead author Brooke Shafer, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the Sleep, Chronobiology and Health Laboratory in the OHSU School of Nursing. “Sleep practices, like going to bed when you’re tired or setting aside your screen at night, can help to promote good overall health.”

The study recruited 30 people, split evenly between men and women. All had a body mass index above 25, which put them into an overweight or obese category.

[…]

Generally healthy participants contributed a saliva sample every 30 minutes until late in the night at a sleep lab on OHSU’s Marquam Hill campus to determine the time at which their body started naturally producing the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is generally understood to begin the process of falling asleep, and its onset varies with an individual’s internal biological clock.

Participants then went home and logged their sleep habits over the following seven days.

Researchers assessed the time difference between melatonin onset and average sleep timing for each participant, categorizing them into two groups: those who had a narrow window, with a short time duration between melatonin onset and sleep, and those with a wide window, with a longer duration between melatonin onset and sleep. A narrow window suggests someone who is staying awake too late for their internal body clock and is generally associated with poorer health outcomes.

The new study confirmed a variety of potentially harmful health measures in the group that went to sleep closer to melatonin onset.

It also found key differences between men and women. Men in this group had higher levels of belly fat and fatty triglycerides in the blood, and higher overall metabolic syndrome risk scores than the men who slept better. Women in this group had higher overall body fat percentage, glucose and resting heart rates.

[…]

Source: Good sleep habits important for overweight adults | ScienceDaily

World-first lung mRNA cancer vaccine trials launched across seven countries

Doctors have begun trialling the world’s first mRNA lung cancer vaccine in patients, as experts hailed its “groundbreaking” potential to save thousands of lives.

Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor.

Now experts are testing a new jab that instructs the body to hunt down and kill cancer cells – then prevents them ever coming back. Known as BNT116 and made by BioNTech, the vaccine is designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease.

The phase 1 clinical trial, the first human study of BNT116, has launched across 34 research sites in seven countries: the UK, US, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey.

[…]

The jab uses messenger RNA (mRNA), similar to Covid-19 vaccines, and works by presenting the immune system with tumour markers from NSCLC to prime the body to fight cancer cells expressing these markers.

The aim is to strengthen a person’s immune response to cancer while leaving healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy.

[…]

six consecutive injections five minutes apart over 30 minutes at the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Clinical Research Facility on Tuesday.

Each jab contained different RNA strands. He will get the vaccine every week for six consecutive weeks, and then every three weeks for 54 weeks.

Lee said: “We hope adding this additional treatment will stop the cancer coming back because a lot of time for lung cancer patients, even after surgery and radiation, it does come back.”

[…]

Source: World-first lung cancer vaccine trials launched across seven countries | Lung cancer | The Guardian

Microplastics are infiltrating brain tissue, studies show

[…] The paper also found the quantity of microplastics in brain samples from 2024 was about 50% higher from the total in samples that date to 2016, suggesting the concentration of microplastics found in human brains is rising at a similar rate to that found in the environment. Most of the organs came from the office of the medical investigator in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which investigates untimely or violent deaths.

[…]

Many other papers have found microplastics in the brains of other animal species, so it’s not entirely surprising the same could be true for humans

[…]

When it comes to these insidious particles, “the blood-brain barrier is not as protective as we’d like to think”

[…]

researchers say that individuals should try to reduce their exposure by avoiding the use of plastic in preparing food, especially when microwaving; drinking tap water instead of bottled water; and trying to prevent the accumulation of dust, which is contaminated with plastics. Some researchers advise eating less meat, especially processed products.

[…]

Source: Microplastics are infiltrating brain tissue, studies show: ‘There’s nowhere left untouched’ | Pollution | The Guardian

Study of 18 million people finds increased mental illnesses incidence following severe COVID-19, especially in unvaccinated people

A new study that examined health data on 18 million people reveals higher incidence of mental illnesses for up to a year following severe COVID-19 in unvaccinated people. Vaccination appeared to mitigate the adverse effects of COVID-19 on mental illnesses. The University of Bristol-led study, published in JAMA Psychiatry today [21 August], investigated associations of COVID-19 with mental illnesses according to time since diagnosis and vaccination status.

[…]

Among the 18,648,606 adults in the cohort studied during the period before vaccination was available, the average age was 49 years, 50.2 per cent were female (9,363,710) and 1,012,335 adults had a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis (recorded in testing data, by a GP, in hospital or in their death record).

The authors also studied a vaccinated cohort including 14,035,286 adults, of whom 866,469 had a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis, with an average age of 53 years and 52.1 per cent female (7,308,556), and an unvaccinated cohort including 3,242,215 adults, of whom 149,745 had a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis, with an average age of 35 years and 42.1 per cent female (1,363,401).

Using these data, the researchers compared the incidence of mental illnesses in people before and after a COVID-19 diagnosis, in each cohort. Mental illnesses included in this study comprised depression, serious mental illness, general anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, addiction, self-harm, and suicide.

The team found that the incidence of most of these conditions was higher one to four weeks after COVID-19 diagnosis, compared to the incidence before or without COVID-19. This elevation in the incidence of mental illnesses, was mainly seen after severe COVID-19 that led to hospitalisation and remained higher for up to a year following severe COVID-19 in unvaccinated people.

[…]

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Bristol. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Source: Study of 18 million people finds increased mental illnesses incidence following severe COVID-19, especially in unvaccinated people | ScienceDaily

Study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style

Legal documents are notoriously difficult to understand, even for lawyers. This raises the question: Why are these documents written in a style that makes them so impenetrable?

MIT cognitive scientists believe they have uncovered the answer to that question. Just as “magic spells” use special rhymes and archaic terms to signal their power, the convoluted language of legalese acts to convey a sense of authority, they conclude.

In a study that will appear in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers found that even non-lawyers use this type of language when asked to write laws.

“People seem to understand that there’s an implicit rule that this is how laws should sound, and they write them that way,” says Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and the senior author of the study.

Eric Martinez PhD ’24 is the lead author of the study. Francis Mollica, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, is also an author of the paper.

Casting a legal spell

Gibson’s research group has been studying the unique characteristics of legalese since 2020, when Martinez came to MIT after earning a law degree from Harvard Law School. In a 2022 study, Gibson, Martinez, and Mollica analyzed legal contracts totaling about 3.5 million words, comparing them with other types of writing, including movie scripts, newspaper articles, and academic papers.

That analysis revealed that legal documents frequently have long definitions inserted in the middle of sentences — a feature known as “center-embedding.” Linguists have previously found that this kind of structure can make text much more difficult to understand.

“Legalese somehow has developed this tendency to put structures inside other structures, in a way which is not typical of human languages,” Gibson says.

In a follow-up study published in 2023, the researchers found that legalese also makes documents more difficult for lawyers to understand. Lawyers tended to prefer plain English versions of documents, and they rated those versions to be just as enforceable as traditional legal documents.

“Lawyers also find legalese to be unwieldy and complicated,” Gibson says. “Lawyers don’t like it, laypeople don’t like it, so the point of this current paper was to try and figure out why they write documents this way.”

[…]

“We thought it was plausible that what happens is you start with an initial draft that’s simple, and then later you think of all these other conditions that you want to include. And the idea is that once you’ve started, it’s much easier to center-embed that into the existing provision,” says Martinez, who is now a fellow and instructor at the University of Chicago Law School.

However, the findings ended up pointing toward a different hypothesis, the so-called “magic spell hypothesis.” Just as magic spells are written with a distinctive style that sets them apart from everyday language, the convoluted style of legal language appears to signal a special kind of authority, the researchers say.

[…]

Source: Study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style

Scientists find humans age dramatically in two bursts – at 44, then 60

[…] The study, which tracked thousands of different molecules in people aged 25 to 75, detected two major waves of age-related changes at around ages 44 and again at 60. The findings could explain why spikes in certain health issues including musculoskeletal problems and cardiovascular disease occur at certain ages.

“We’re not just changing gradually over time. There are some really dramatic changes,”

[…]

The research tracked 108 volunteers, who submitted blood and stool samples and skin, oral and nasal swabs every few months for between one and nearly seven years. Researchers assessed 135,000 different molecules (RNA, proteins and metabolites) and microbes (the bacteria, viruses and fungi living in the guts and on the skin of the participants).

The abundance of most molecules and microbes did not shift in a gradual, chronological fashion. When the scientists looked for clusters of molecules with the largest shifts, they found these transformations tended to occur when people were in their mid-40s and early 60s.

[…]

The first wave of changes included molecules linked to cardiovascular disease and the ability to metabolise caffeine, alcohol and lipids. The second wave of changes included molecules involved in immune regulation, carbohydrate metabolism and kidney function. Molecules linked to skin and muscle ageing changed at both time points. Previous research suggested that a later spike in ageing may occur around the age of 78, but the latest study could not confirm this because the oldest participants were 75.

The pattern fits with previous evidence that the risk of many age-related diseases does not increase incrementally, with Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease risk showing a steep uptick after 60.

[…]

Source: Scientists find humans age dramatically in two bursts – at 44, then 60 | Medical research | The Guardian

Singing from memory shows most people can actually sing pitch perfect or very very close

Psychologists from UC Santa Cruz wanted to study “earworms,” the types of songs that get stuck in your head and play automatically on a loop. So they asked people to sing out any earworms they were experiencing and record them on their phones when prompted at random times throughout the day.

When researchers analyzed the recordings, they found that a remarkable proportion of them perfectly matched the of the original songs they were based upon.

More specifically, 44.7% of recordings had a pitch error of 0 semitones, and 68.9% were accurate within 1 semitone of the original . These findings were published in the journal Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.

“What this shows is that a surprisingly large portion of the population has a type of automatic, hidden ‘perfect pitch’ ability,”

[…]

“Interestingly, if you were to ask people how they thought they did in this task, they would probably be pretty confident that they had the melody right, but they would be much less certain that they were singing in the right key,” Evans said.

“As it turns out, many people with very strong pitch memory may not have very good judgment of their own accuracy, and that may be because they don’t have the labeling ability that comes with true perfect pitch.”

Evans explained that true perfect pitch is the ability to accurately produce or identify a given note on the first try and without a reference pitch. […] scientists are increasingly finding that accurate pitch memory is much more common.

[…]

“People who study memory often think about long-term memories as capturing the gist of something, where the brain takes shortcuts to represent information, and one way our brains could try to represent the gist of music would be to forget what the original key was,” explained Professor Davidenko.

“Music sounds very similar in different keys, so it would be a good shortcut for the brain to just ignore that information, but it turns out that it’s not ignored.

[…]

He noted that the pitch accuracy of participants in the study was not predicted by any objective measures of singing ability, and none of the participants were musicians or reported having perfect pitch. In other words, you don’t have to have special abilities to demonstrate this foundational musical skill.

[…]

Source: Singing from memory unlocks a surprisingly common musical superpower

New study confirms forever chemicals (PFAS) are also absorbed through human skin

A study of 17 commonly used synthetic ‘forever chemicals’ has shown that these toxic substances can readily be absorbed through human skin.

New research, published today in Environment International proves for the first time that a wide range of PFAS (perfluoroalkyl substances) — chemicals which do not break down in nature — can permeate the skin barrier and reach the body’s bloodstream.

PFAS are used widely in industries and consumer products from school uniforms to personal care products because of their water and stain repellent properties. While some substances have been banned by government regulation, others are still widely used and their toxic effects have not yet been fully investigated.

PFAS are already known to enter the body through other routes, for example being breathed in or ingested via food or drinking water, and they are known to cause adverse health effects such as a lowered immune response to vaccination, impaired liver function and decreased birth weight.

It has commonly been thought that PFAS are unable to breach the skin barrier, although recent studies have shown links between the use of personal care products and PFAS concentrations in human blood and breast milk. The new study is the most comprehensive assessment yet undertaken of the absorption of PFAS into human skin and confirms that most of them can enter the body via this route.

[…]

“The ability of these chemicals to be absorbed through skin has previously been dismissed because the molecules are ionised. The electrical charge that gives them the ability to repel water and stains was thought to also make them incapable of crossing the skin membrane.

“Our research shows that this theory does not always hold true and that, in fact, uptake through the skin could be a significant source of exposure to these harmful chemicals.”

[…]

Of the 17 PFAS tested, the team found 15 substances showed substantial dermal absorption — at least 5% of the exposure dose. At the exposure doses examined, absorption into the bloodstream of the most regulated PFAS (perfluoro octanoic acid (PFOA)) was 13.5% with a further 38% of the applied dose retained within the skin for potential longer-term uptake into the circulation.

The amount absorbed seemed to correlate with the length of the carbon chain within the molecule. Substances with longer carbon chains showed lower levels of absorption, while compounds with shorter chains that were introduced to replace longer carbon chain PFAS like PFOA, were more easily absorbed. Absorption of perfluoro pentanoic acid for example was four times that of PFOA at 59%.

[…]

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Birmingham. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Oddný Ragnarsdóttir, Mohamed Abou-Elwafa Abdallah, Stuart Harrad. Dermal bioavailability of perfluoroalkyl substances using in vitro 3D human skin equivalent models. Environment International, 2024; 188: 108772 DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2024.108772

Source: New study confirms forever chemicals are absorbed through human skin | ScienceDaily

The world’s first tooth-regrowing drug has been approved for human trials

[…] medicine quite literally regrows teeth and was developed by a team of Japanese researchers, as reported by New Atlas. The research has been led by Katsu Takahashi, head of dentistry and oral surgery at Kitano Hospital. The intravenous drug deactivates the uterine sensitization-associated gene-1 (USAG-1) protein that suppresses tooth growth. Blocking USAG-1 from interacting with other proteins triggers bone growth and, voila, you got yourself some brand-new chompers. Pretty cool, right?

Human trials start in September, but the drug has been highly successful when treating ferrets and mice and did its job with no serious side effects. Of course, the usual caveat applies. Humans are not mice or ferrets, though researchers seem confident that it’ll work on homo sapiens. This is due to a 97 percent similarity in how the USAG-1 protein works when comparing humans to other species.

September’s clinical trial will include adults who are missing at least one molar but there’s a secondary trial coming aimed at children aged two to seven. The kids in the second trial will all be missing at least four teeth due to congenital tooth deficiency. Finally, a third trial will focus on older adults who are missing “one to five permanent teeth due to environmental factors.”

Takahashi and his fellow researchers are so optimistic about this drug that they predict the medicine will be available for everyday consumers by 2030. So in six years we can throw our toothbrushes away and eat candy bars all day and all night without a care in the world (don’t actually do that.)

While this is the first drug that can fully regrow missing teeth, the science behind it builds on top of years of related research. Takahashi, after all, has been working on this since 2005. Recent advancements in the field include regenerative tooth fillings to repair diseased teeth and stem cell technology to regrow the dental tissue of children.

Source: The world’s first tooth-regrowing drug has been approved for human trials

Stanford: Biomarkers predict weight loss on either low carb or low fat diet (one of these will work best for you) – suggest personalized diets

Strictly following a diet – either healthy low-carb or healthy low-fat – was what mattered for short-term weight loss during the first six months. But people who maintained long-term weight loss for a year ate the same number of calories as those who regained weight or who did not lose weight during the second six months.

So what explains this difference?

According to the study, the bacteria living in your gut and the amounts of certain proteins your body makes can affect your ability to sustain weight loss. And some people, it turns out, shed more pounds on low-fat diets while others did better on low-carb diets.

Stanford Medicine researchers have identified several biomarkers that predict how successful an individual will be at losing weight and keeping it off long-term. These biomarkers include signatures from the gut microbiome, proteins made by the human body and levels of exhaled carbon dioxide. The researchers published their findings in Cell Reports Medicine Dec. 13.

[…]

The study showed that just cutting calories or exercising were not enough to sustain weight loss over a year. To try and understand why, the team turned their focus to biomarkers of metabolism.

[…]

Throughout the study, the researchers measured the ratio of inhaled oxygen to exhaled carbon dioxide, known as a respiratory quotient, which serves as a proxy for whether carbohydrates or fats are the body’s primary fuel. A lower ratio means the body burns more fat, while a higher ratio means it burns more carbohydrates. So, those who started the diet with a higher respiratory quotient lost more weight on a low-carb diet.

“There are people who can be eating very few calories but still sustain their weight because of how their bodies metabolize fuels. It is not for lack of will: It is just how their bodies work,” Perelman said.

In other words, if your body prefers carbs and you’re predominately eating fat, it will be much harder to metabolize and burn off those calories.

[…]

tracking amounts of certain gut microbe strains will be a way for people to determine which diets are best for weight loss.

We’re not there yet, so until then, according to the researchers, the focus should be on eating high-quality foods that are unprocessed and low in refined flours and sugar.

The research team identified specific nutrients that were correlated with weight loss during the first six months. Low-carb diets should be based on monounsaturated fats — such as those that come from avocados, rather than bacon — and high in vitamins K, C and E. These vitamins are in vegetables, nuts, olives, and avocados. Low-fat diets should be high in fiber, such as is found in whole grains and beans, and avoid added sugars.

“Your mindset should be on what you can include in your diet instead of what you should exclude,” Perelman said. “Figure out how to eat more fiber, whether it is from beans, whole grains, nuts or vegetables, instead of thinking you shouldn’t eat ice cream. Learn to cook and rely less on processed foods. If you pay attention to the quality of food in your diet, then you can forget about counting calories.”

Source: Biomarkers predict weight loss, suggest personalized diets – Scope

Our Brains Are in Trouble: Nearly Half the World Living with Neurological Illness

[…]According to the authors of this new paper, published this month in The Lancet Neurology, there hasn’t yet been a full accounting of all the illnesses tied to our brain and nervous system, such as neurodevelopmental disorders. For this study, scientists looked at 37 unique conditions in total, including migraines, seizures, various forms of dementia, and more.

As of 2021, the study authors found, about 3.4 billion people (43% of the world’s population) are living with at least one of these neurological conditions. Compared to other broad groups of illness, such as infectious diseases, these conditions are estimated to be the leading cause of ill health and disability. This burden isn’t felt equally, however, with about 80% of neurological deaths and illnesses experienced in low- to middle-income countries. Some of the top 10 major contributors to the loss of healthy years include stroke, neonatal encephalopathy, migraine, dementia, and diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage caused by advanced diabetes).

[…]

Between 1990 and 2021, the study found, the rate of people living with or dying from neurological conditions has decreased, after adjusting for age—meaning that the chance of developing any one of these problems has shrunk over time. But since the global population has continued to grow, the absolute number of lost healthy years has increased 18% since then. And while the neurological harm caused by some conditions like stroke, rabies, and meningitis has decreased, the harm from others has increased, with cases of diabetic neuropathy having tripled over the past 30 years.

Though there has been some success in reducing or preventing important risk factors tied to neurological illness since 1990, such as greater vaccination coverage for certain diseases like tetanus, the authors say more can and should be done. Actions like reducing air pollution or preventing high blood pressure could substantially reduce the burden of stroke, for instance, while further eliminating lead exposure would prevent many cases of intellectual disability.

[…]

Source: Our Brains Are in Trouble: Nearly Half the World Living with Neurological Illness

Four-day week made permanent for most UK firms in world’s biggest trial

Of the 61 organisations that took part in a six-month UK pilot in 2022, 54 (89%) are still operating the policy a year later, and 31 (51%) have made the change permanent.

More than half (55%) of project managers and CEOs said a four-day week – in which staff worked 100% of their output in 80% of their time – had a positive impact on their organisation, the report found.

For 82% this included positive effects on staff wellbeing, 50% found it reduced staff turnover, while 32% said it improved job recruitment. Nearly half (46%) said working and productivity improved.

[…]

The four-day working week report, by the thinktank Autonomy and researchers from the University of Cambridge, the University of Salford and Boston College in the US, found that “many of the significant benefits found during the initial trial have persisted 12 months on”, although they noted that it was a small sample size.

Almost all (96%) of staff said their personal life had benefited, and 86% felt they performed better at work, while 38% felt their organisation had become more efficient, and 24% said it had helped with caring responsibilities.

Organisations reduced working hours by an average of 6.6 hours to reach a 31.6-hour week. Most gave their staff one full day off a week, either universal or staggered. The report found that protected days off were more effective than those on which staff were “on call” or sometimes expected to work.

The most successful companies made their four-day week “clear, confident and well-communicated”, and co-designed their policies between staff and management, thinking carefully about how to adapt work processes, the authors wrote.

[…]

 

Source: Four-day week made permanent for most UK firms in world’s biggest trial | Work-life balance | The Guardian

Music causes similar emotions and bodily sensations across cultures

people of different ethnic backgrounds dancing with music notes floating in the air

“Music that evoked different emotions, such as happiness, sadness or fear, caused different bodily sensations in our study. For example, happy and danceable music was felt in the arms and legs, while tender and sad music was felt in the chest area,” explains Academy Research Fellow Vesa Putkinen.

The emotions and bodily sensations evoked by music were similar across Western and Asian listeners. The bodily sensations were also linked with the music-induced emotions.

“Certain acoustic features of music were associated with similar emotions in both Western and Asian listeners. Music with a clear beat was found happy and danceable while dissonance in music was associated with aggressiveness. Since these sensations are similar across different cultures, music-induced emotions are likely independent of culture and learning and based on inherited biological mechanisms,” says Professor Lauri Nummenmaa.

“Music’s influence on the body is universal. People move to music in all cultures and synchronized postures, movements and vocalizations are a universal sign for affiliation

[…]

Source: Music causes similar emotions and bodily sensations across cultures | ScienceDaily

US states had 65,000 rape-related pregnancies after banning abortion

Since the US Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion, estimates suggest that there have been tens of thousands of pregnancies as a result of rape in states with near-total abortion bans. Very few, if any, of those pregnancies were ended by a legal in-state abortion, even if states had exceptions for rape

[…]

To understand how this affects survivors of rape, Samuel Dickman at reproductive health non-profit Planned Parenthood of Montana and his colleagues estimated rape-related pregnancies in these states between July 2022 and January 2024.

The researchers first looked at the most recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on rape incidents, which was collected between 2016 and 2017. From that, they could approximate the proportion of rapes that resulted in pregnancy nationwide each year.

They then used data from law enforcement to estimate the number of rape-related pregnancies in each state since abortion bans were enacted. The result suggests that almost 65,000 people became pregnant as a result of rape in the 14 states. More than 90 per cent of those individuals lived in states where there weren’t exceptions that allow for an abortion in the case of rape.

Even in states with exceptions, fewer than a dozen legal abortions are being performed each month. One reason for this is that these states no longer have abortion providers, says Dickman. Plus, “most of the states with rape exceptions require some amount of reporting to law enforcement”, he says. “That’s a decision many survivors of rape choose not to do.”

Most sexual assaults go unreported due to stigma and fear of retaliation. That is also why these findings are most likely to be an underestimate, says Dickman.

[…]

 

Source: US states had 65,000 rape-related pregnancies after banning abortion | New Scientist

Investigative Report Proves What Most People Already Suspected: The ‘War On Woke & DEI’ Mostly Pushed By A Bunch Of Censorial, Racist Shitheads

One of the dumber things we’ve seen over the last couple of years is the supposed “war on woke” and (more recently) attacks on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts (often shortened to the acronym DEI). In almost every case, these attacks misrepresent reality to generate culture war bullshit, and make a bunch of false claims about how pretty fundamental and basic efforts to make sure that organizations are cognizant of historical and systematic biases, and seek to push back against them.

Of course, one thing I’ve noticed is how many of the people who are the most vocal against such things are also (simultaneously) claiming to be free speech supporters, even as they bend over backwards to attack and silence anyone pushing ideas, content, or culture that they consider “woke.” They are not free speech supporters. They’re not simply seeking to counter views they disagree with. They’re looking to suppress speech they disagree with.

This weekend, the NY Times had an article by Nicholas Confessore, detailing how the whole “war on woke” and the “anti-DEI crusade” is almost entirely manufactured by a group of censorial, racist shitheads. (The NY Times article, unfortunately, does not admit that the NY Times itself has played a fairly major role in platforming people pushing these ideas as if they were simply honest opinions, or its willingness to suggest that the people pushing them have legitimate, intellectually honest points to make).

Centered at the Claremont Institute, a California-based think tank with close ties to the Trump movement and to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the group coalesced roughly three years ago around a sweeping ambition: to strike a killing blow against “the leftist social justice revolution” by eliminating “social justice education” from American schools.

The documents — grant proposals, budgets, draft reports and correspondence, obtained through public-records requests — show how the activists formed a loose network of think tanks, political groups and Republican operatives in at least a dozen states. They sought funding from a range of right-leaning philanthropies and family foundations, and from one of the largest individual donors to Republican campaigns in the country. They exchanged model legislation, published a slew of public reports and coordinated with other conservative advocacy groups in states like Alabama, Maine, Tennessee and Texas.

As the Times’ report notes, one of the cornerstones of this effort (including pushing to get laws passed to suppress such content) is to claim it’s about “diversity of thought” and “intellectual freedom,” even though it’s literally the opposite. The entire purpose is to shut down diversity of thought and to stifle intellectual freedom… that these shitheads don’t like.

Yet even as they or their allies publicly advocated more academic freedom, some of those involved privately expressed their hope of purging liberal ideas, professors and programming wherever they could. They debated how carefully or quickly to reveal some of their true views — the belief that “a healthy society requires patriarchy,” for example, and their broader opposition to anti-discrimination laws — in essays and articles written for public consumption.

In candid private conversations, some wrote favorably of laws criminalizing homosexuality, mocked the appearance of a female college student as overly masculine and criticized Peter Thiel, the prominent gay conservative donor, over his sex life. In email exchanges with the Claremont organizers, the writer Heather Mac Donald derided working mothers who employed people from “the low IQ 3rd world” to care for their children and lamented that some Republicans still celebrated the idea of racially diverse political appointments.

What’s hilarious is that, in the article, they note that the folks working on this debated over how to demonize the phrase “diversity and inclusion,” saying maybe they should just focus on the last made-up bogeyman from a few years ago: “social justice.”

The documents the Times’ obtained show that there was no actual known problem with DEI efforts. It’s just that these are a bunch of censorial, racist, shitheads who wanted to attack anything that looked to make people aware of racism, and to silence them. And so, turning “woke” and “DEI” into slurs would effectively promote their racist viewpoints, while made up concerns about “harms” from these programs would push lawmakers to pass censorial laws that silenced people this crew disliked.

And, of course, they also knew that there was money in creating a new bogeyman:

“Woke” politics was not just a threat to American life. It was also a fund-raising opportunity. By spring 2021, as parents grew impatient with Covid school closures, or skeptical of “anti-racist” curriculums in the wake of the Floyd protests, Claremont officials had begun circulating urgent grant requests to right-leaning foundations.

“America is under attack by a leftist revolution disguised as a plea for justice” reminiscent of “Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution,” Claremont’s president, Ryan P. Williams, wrote in a draft proposal to the Jack Miller Family Foundation.

Basically, if you’ve ever gone around using “woke” as a pejorative, it means you’re a sucker for a grift. Congrats.

And, contrary to the claims of “academic freedom” and not pushing “ideological” content in schools, that’s exactly what these shitheads want to do:

In one exchange, some of those involved discussed how to marshal political power to replace left-wing orthodoxies with more “patriotic,” traditionalist curriculums.

“In support of ridding schools of C.R.T., the Right argues that we want nonpolitical education,” Mr. Klingenstein wrote in August 2021. “No we don’t. We want our politics. All education is political.”

Dr. Yenor appeared to agree, responding with some ideas for reshaping K-12 education. “An alternative vision of education must replace the current vision of education,” he wrote back.

I mean, I get it., These shitheads are dumb as rocks, and the grifters have been falsely claiming that public schools are indoctrinating kids with “woke” views (which is not at all what’s happening) so they publicly claim they want to take ideology out, when in reality, they want to put in their own ideology, believing it is the counter to what is actually happening. Of course, the reality is mostly that education is already non-ideological, and they’re just trying to make it so.

But the only way to justify that is to falsely claim the reverse is happening.

And, at the same time, they seek to couch all of these arguments in the framing of “academic freedom,” even when they clearly want the reverse. The Times’ piece details a conversation about how to defend a racist rant by a law professor, and so the plotters detailed how to frame the discussion around academic freedom, even if they actually hate academic freedom:

Now, Dr. Yenor advised his friend Dr. Azerrad to aim his statement at a liberal audience — to defend Dr. Wax on the grounds that if she were fired, it would only embolden red-state lawmakers to fire controversial left-wing professors.

“But don’t we want this to happen?” Dr. Azerrad asked.

“Yes,” replied Dr. Yenor. “But your audience doesn’t want it to happen.”

Basically: shithead censorial grifters.

Also making a big appearance in this mess, the American Principles Project, another group of censorial racist shitheads, which we wrote about for their strong support for “anti-big tech” laws like KOSA. Apparently, they did some polling to see if they could make “woke” and “DEI” seem bad (again, note that this has nothing to do with anything real — just what the polls say they can work), and found that most people didn’t actually give a shit:

In June, the American Principles Project circulated a memo detailing the results of several focus groups held to test different culture-war messages.

For all the conservative attacks on diversity programs, the group found, “the idea of woke or DEI received generally positive scores.

Of course, rather than move on to a real issue, these culture war chuds decided to just see what they could do to make people hate those terms, even if there was no legitimate reason to do so.

And, as the article details, the latest attack on DEI was also planned out, trying to leverage the recent rise in antisemitism following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and hostage-taking in Israel. It wasn’t because any of these shitheads actually cared about antisemitism. They just saw it as a huge opportunity to drive a culture war wedge into things, and push forward their censorial regime.

So, the next time you see this happening, know that it’s just a bunch of shitheads grifting. It’s not about freedom. It’s inherently anti-freedom. They’re literally trying to do exactly what they falsely accuse their opponents of doing. And they’re raising tons of money to keep it going.

I recognize that the many gullible suckers they’ve played with this nonsense will insist there’s something legitimate in these complaints. But it’s all manufactured bullshit.

Source: Investigative Report Proves What Most People Already Suspected: The ‘War On Woke & DEI’ Mostly Pushed By A Bunch Of Censorial, Racist Shitheads | Techdirt

The US really really wants private companies out of EU AI Human Rights treaty – because you can trust them more than governments?

[…] The Council of Europe (CoE), an international human rights body with 46 member countries, is approaching the finalisation of the Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law.

Since the beginning, the United States, the homeland of the world’s leading AI companies, has been pushing to exclude the private sector from the treaty, which, if ratified, would be binding for the signature country.

The United States is not a CoE member but participates in the process with an observer status. In other words, Washington does not have voting rights, but it can influence the discussion by saying it will not sign the convention.

[…]

By contrast, the European Commission, representing the EU in the negotiations, has opposed this carve out for the private sector. Two weeks ago, Euractiv revealed an internal note stating that “the Union should not agree with the alternative proposal(s) that limit the scope of the convention.”

However, in a consequent meeting of the Working Party on Telecommunications and Information Society, the technical body of the EU Council of Ministers in charge of digital policy, several member states asked the Commission to show more flexibility regarding the convention’s scope.

In particular, for countries like Germany, France, Spain, Czechia, Estonia, Ireland, Hungary and Romania, the intent of the treaty was to reach a global agreement, hence securing more signatories should be a priority as opposed to a broad convention with more limited international support.

Being composed of 27 countries out of the 46 that are part of the Council of Europe, the position of the bloc can in itself swing the balance inside the human rights body, where the decisions are taken by consensus.

The European Commission is preparing to push back on a US-led attempt to exempt the private sector from the world’s first international treaty on Artificial Intelligence while pushing for as much alignment as possible with the EU’s AI Act.

Limiting the convention’s scope would be a significant blow to the Commission’s global ambitions, which sees the treaty as a vehicle to set the EU’s AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive law on Artificial Intelligence, as the global benchmark in this area.

Indeed, the Commission’s mandate to negotiate on behalf of the Union is based on the AI Act, and the EU executive has shown little appetite to go beyond the AI regulation even in areas where there is no direct conflict, despite the fact the two initiatives differ significantly in nature.

As part of the alignment with the AI Act, the Commission is pushing for broad exemptions for AI uses in national security, defence and law enforcement. Thus, if the treaty was limited to only public bodies, with these carve-outs, there would be very little left.

In addition, Euractiv understands that such a major watering down of the AI treaty after several years of engagement from the countries involved might also discourage future initiatives in this area.

[…]

a paragraph has been added stressing that “to preserve the international character of the convention, the EU could nevertheless be open to consider the possibility for a Party to make a reservation and release itself from the obligation to apply the convention to private actors that are not acting on behalf of or procuring AI systems for public authorities, under certain conditions and limitations”.

The Commission’s proposal seems designed to address Washington’s argument that they cannot commit to anything beyond their national legal framework.

In October, US President Joe Biden signed an executive order setting out a framework for federal agencies to purchase and use AI tools safely and responsibly, hence the reference to companies not working with the public sector.

More precisely, the Commission is proposing an ‘opt-out’ option with temporal limitations, that can be revised at any time and with some guarantees that it is not abused. This approach would be the opposite of what the US administration proposed, namely exempting the private sector by default with an ‘opt-in’ possibility for signatories.

Still, the original ‘opt-in’ option was designed to avoid the embarrassment of the US administration having to exempt private companies from a human rights treaty. Euractiv understands Israel and Japan would not sign if the ‘opt-out’ approach made it into the final text, whereas the UK and Canada would follow the US decision.

Source: EU Commission’s last-minute attempt to keep private companies in world’s first AI treaty – Euractiv

So the US basically wants to make a useful treaty useless because they are run by self serving, profit seeking companies that want to trample on human rights. Who would have thought? Hopefully the EU can show some backbone and do what is right instead of what is being financially lobbied for (here’s looking at you, France!). It’s this kind of business based decision making that has led to climate change, cancer deaths, and many many more huge problems that could have been nipped in the bud.

Cells’ electric fields keep nanoparticles at bay, scientists confirm

The humble membranes that enclose our cells have a surprising superpower: They can push away nano-sized molecules that happen to approach them. A team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has figured out why, by using artificial membranes that mimic the behavior of natural ones. Their discovery could make a difference in how we design the many drug treatments that target our cells.

The team’s findings, which appear in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, confirm that the powerful electrical fields that cell membranes generate are largely responsible for repelling nanoscale particles from the surface of the cell.

This repulsion notably affects neutral, uncharged nanoparticles, in part because the smaller, charged the attracts crowd the membrane and push away the larger particles. Since many drug treatments are built around proteins and other nanoscale particles that target the membrane, the repulsion could play a role in the treatments’ effectiveness.

The findings provide the first direct evidence that the electric fields are responsible for the repulsion.

[…]

Membranes form boundaries in nearly all kinds of cells. Not only does a cell have an that contains and protects the interior, but often there are other membranes inside, forming parts of organelles such as mitochondria and the Golgi apparatus. Understanding membranes is important to medical science, not least because proteins lodged in the are frequent drug targets. Some membrane proteins are like gates that regulate what gets into and out of the cell.

The region near these membranes can be a busy place. Thousands of types of different molecules crowd each other and the cell membrane—and as anyone who has tried to push through a crowd knows, it can be tough going. Smaller molecules such as salts move with relative ease because they can fit into tighter spots, but larger molecules, such as proteins, are limited in their movements.

[…]

“How does crowding affect the cell and its behavior?” he said. “How, for example, do molecules in this soup get sorted inside the cell, making some of them available for biological functions, but not others? The effect of the membrane could make a difference.”

[…]

scientists have paid scant attention to this effect at the nanoscale because it takes extremely powerful fields to move nanoparticles. But powerful fields are just what an electrically charged membrane generates.

“The electric field right near a membrane in a salty solution like our bodies produce can be astoundingly strong,” Hoogerheide said. “Its strength falls off rapidly with distance, creating large field gradients that we figured might repel nearby particles. So we used to look into it.”

Neutrons can distinguish between different isotopes of hydrogen, and the team designed experiments that explored a membrane’s effect on nearby molecules of PEG, a polymer that forms chargeless nano-sized particles. Hydrogen is a major constituent of PEG, and by immersing the membrane and PEG into a solution of heavy water—which is made with deuterium in place of ordinary water’s —the team could measure how closely the PEG particles approached the membrane. They used a technique known as neutron reflectometry at the NCNR as well as instruments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Together with , the experiments revealed the first-ever evidence that the membranes’ powerful field gradients were the culprit behind the repulsion: The PEG molecules were more strongly repelled from charged surfaces than from neutral surfaces.

[…]

More information: Marcel Aguilella-Arzo et al, Charged Biological Membranes Repel Large Neutral Molecules by Surface Dielectrophoresis and Counterion Pressure, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.3c12348. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.3c12348

Source: Cells’ electric fields keep nanoparticles at bay, scientists confirm

Hospitals owned by private equity are harming patients, reports find

Private equity firms are increasingly buying hospitals across the US, and when they do, patients suffer, according to two separate reports. Specifically, the equity firms cut corners, slash services, lay off staff, lower quality of care, take on substantial debt, and reduce charity care, leading to lower ratings and more medical errors, the reports collectively find.

Last week, the financial watchdog organization Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) released a report delving into the state of two of the nation’s largest hospital systems, Lifepoint and ScionHealth—both owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management. Through those two systems, Apollo runs 220 hospitals in 36 states, employing around 75,000 people.

The report found that some of Apollo’s hospitals were among the worst in their respective states, based on a ranking by The Lown Institute Hospital Index. The index ranks hospitals and health systems based on health equity, value, and outcomes, PESP notes. The hospitals also have dismal readmission rates and government rankings. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ranks hospitals on a one- to five-star system, with the national average of 3.2 stars overall and about 30 percent of hospitals at two stars or below. Apollo’s overall average is 2.8 stars, with nearly 40 percent of hospitals at two stars or below.

Patterns

The other report, a study published in JAMA late last month, found that the rate of serious medical errors and health complications increases among patients in the first few years after private equity firms take over. The study examined Medicare claims from 51 private equity-run hospitals and 259 matched control hospitals.

Specifically, the study, led by researchers at Harvard University, found that patients admitted to private equity-owned hospitals had a 25 percent increase in developing hospital-acquired conditions compared with patients in the control hospitals. In private equity hospitals, patients experienced a 27 percent increase in falls, a 38 percent increase in central-line bloodstream infections (despite placing 16 percent fewer central lines than control hospitals), and surgical site infections doubled.

“These findings heighten concerns about the implications of private equity on health care delivery,” the authors concluded.

It also squares with PESP’s investigation, which collected various data and media reports that could help explain how those medical errors could happen. The report found a pattern of cost-cutting and staff layoffs after private equity acquisition. In 2020, for instance, Lifepoint cut its annual salary and benefit costs by $166 million over the previous year and cut its supply costs by $54 million. Staff that remained at Apollo’s hospitals were, in some cases, underpaid, and some hospitals cut services, including obstetric, pediatric, and psychiatric care.

Another pattern was that Apollo’s hospitals were highly indebted. According to Moody’s Investor Services, Apollo’s ScionHealth has 5.8 times more debt than income to pay that debt off. Lifepoint’s debt was 7.9 times its income. Private equity firms often take on excessive debt for leveraged buyouts, but this can lead cash to be diverted to interest payments instead of operational needs, PESP reported.

Apollo also made money off the hospitals in sale-leaseback transactions, in which it sold the land under the hospitals and then leased it back. In these cases, hospitals are left paying rent on land they used to own.

[…]

Source: Hospitals owned by private equity are harming patients, reports find | Ars Technica

Ancient cities discovered in the Amazon are the largest yet found

Aerial surveys have revealed the largest pre-colonial cities in the Amazon yet discovered, linked by an extensive network of roads.

“The settlements are much bigger than others in the Amazon,” says Stéphen Rostain at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. “They are comparable with Maya sites.”

What’s more, at between 3000 and 1500 years old, these cities are also older than other pre-Columbian ones discovered in the Amazon. Why the people who built them disappeared isn’t clear.

It is often assumed that the Amazon rainforest was largely untouched by humans before the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus reached the Americas in the 15th century. In fact, the first Europeans reported seeing many farms and towns in the region.

These reports, long dismissed, have in recent decades been backed up by discoveries of ancient earthworks and extensive dark soils created by farmers. One estimate puts the pre-Columbian population of the Amazon as high as 8 million.

[…]

In 2015, Rostain’s team did an aerial survey with lidar, a laser scanning technique that can create a detailed 3D map of the surface beneath most vegetation, revealing features not normally visible to us. The findings, which have only now been published, show that the settlements were far more extensive than anyone realised.

The survey revealed more than 6000 raised earthen platforms within an area of 300 square kilometres. These are where wooden buildings once stood – excavations have revealed post holes and fireplaces on these structures.

[…]

The survey also revealed a network of straight roads created by digging out soil and piling it on the sides. The longest extends for at least 25 kilometres, but might continue beyond the area that was surveyed.

[…]

“This is the largest complex with large settlements so far found in Amazonia,” says Charles Clement at the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus, Brazil.

What’s more, it was found in a region of the Amazon that other researchers had concluded was sparsely inhabitated during pre-Columbian times, says Clement.

 

Journal reference:

Science DOI: 10.1126/science.adi6317

Source: Ancient cities discovered in the Amazon are the largest yet found | New Scientist

eBay Sent Critics a Bloody Pig Mask and more. Now It’s Paying a $3 Million Fine

eBay agreed to pay out a $3 million fine—the maximum criminal penalty—over a twisted scandal that saw top executives and other employees stalking a couple in Massachusetts who published a newsletter that criticized the company. The harassment campaign included online threats, sending employees to surveil the couple’s home, and mailing them disturbing objects—including live spiders and cockroaches, a bloody pig mask, and a book on recovering from the death of a spouse.

The Justice Department charged eBay with obstruction of justice, witness tampering, stalking through interstate travel, and stalking through online communication. eBay’s former security director James Baugh and former director of global resiliency David Harville are both serving jail time for their roles in the scheme.

[…]

The criminal activity seems to have started at the top of the company. In 2019, Ina Steiner published an article on the couple’s newsletter EcommerceBytes discussing a lawsuit eBay brought against Amazon. Half an hour later, eBay’s then-CEO Devin Wenig sent another executive a message saying: “If you are ever going to take her down…now is the time,” according to court documents. The message was forwarded to Baugh, who responded that Steiner was a “biased troll who needs to get BURNED DOWN.”

Wenig, who resigned later that year, denied any knowledge of the criminal activity and wasn’t charged with a crime. The Steiners are currently suing Wenig for his role in the campaign to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence them.”

[…]

A total of seven eBay employees and contractors have been convicted for their involvement in stalking and harassing the Steiners, according to the Department of Justice. In addition to Baugh and Harville, the list includes Stephanie Popp and Philip Cooke, who were both sentenced to jail time in 2022. Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea were each sentenced to one year of home confinement that same year. Brian Gilbert pleaded guilty and is currently awaiting sentencing.

Source: eBay Sent Critics a Bloody Pig Mask. Now It’s Paying a $3 Million Fine

23andMe tells victims it’s their fault that their data was breached. DNA data, it turns out, is extremely sensitive!

Facing more than 30 lawsuits from victims of its massive data breach, 23andMe is now deflecting the blame to the victims themselves in an attempt to absolve itself from any responsibility, according to a letter sent to a group of victims seen by TechCrunch.

“Rather than acknowledge its role in this data security disaster, 23andMe has apparently decided to leave its customers out to dry while downplaying the seriousness of these events,” Hassan Zavareei, one of the lawyers representing the victims who received the letter from 23andMe, told TechCrunch in an email.

In December, 23andMe admitted that hackers had stolen the genetic and ancestry data of 6.9 million users, nearly half of all its customers.

The data breach started with hackers accessing only around 14,000 user accounts. The hackers broke into this first set of victims by brute-forcing accounts with passwords that were known to be associated with the targeted customers, a technique known as credential stuffing.

From these 14,000 initial victims, however, the hackers were able to then access the personal data of the other 6.9 million victims because they had opted-in to 23andMe’s DNA Relatives feature. This optional feature allows customers to automatically share some of their data with people who are considered their relatives on the platform.

In other words, by hacking into only 14,000 customers’ accounts, the hackers subsequently scraped personal data of another 6.9 million customers whose accounts were not directly hacked.

But in a letter sent to a group of hundreds of 23andMe users who are now suing the company, 23andMe said that “users negligently recycled and failed to update their passwords following these past security incidents, which are unrelated to 23andMe.”

“Therefore, the incident was not a result of 23andMe’s alleged failure to maintain reasonable security measures,” the letter reads.

Zavareei said that 23andMe is “shamelessly” blaming the victims of the data breach.

[…]

“The breach impacted millions of consumers whose data was exposed through the DNA Relatives feature on 23andMe’s platform, not because they used recycled passwords. Of those millions, only a few thousand accounts were compromised due to credential stuffing. 23andMe’s attempt to shirk responsibility by blaming its customers does nothing for these millions of consumers whose data was compromised through no fault of their own whatsoever,” said Zavareei.

[…]

In an attempt to pre-empt the inevitable class action lawsuits and mass arbitration claims, 23andMe changed its terms of service to make it more difficult for victims to band together when filing a legal claim against the company. Lawyers with experience representing data breach victims told TechCrunch that the changes were “cynical,” “self-serving” and “a desperate attempt” to protect itself and deter customers from going after the company.

Clearly, the changes didn’t stop what is now a flurry of class action lawsuits.

Source: 23andMe tells victims it’s their fault that their data was breached | TechCrunch

Twitch Is Being American Strange and Bans Implied Nakedness In Response To ‘Nudity Meta’

As December 2023 was underway, some streamers cleverly thought to play around with Twitch’s restrictions around nudity, broadcasting in such a fashion that implied they were completely naked on camera. Twitch, in response, began banning folks before shifting gears to allow various forms of “artistic nudity” to proliferate on the platform. However, after immediately rescinding the decision and expressing that being naked while livestreaming is a no-no, the company is now making it clear that implied nudity is also forbidden, and that anyone who tries to circumvent the rules will face disciplinary action.

In a January 3 blog post, the company laid out the new guidelines regarding implied nudity on the platform, which is now prohibited effective immediately. Anyone who shows skin that the rules deem should be covered—think genitals, nipples “for those who present as women,” and the like—will face “an enforcement action,” though Twitch didn’t specify what that means. So, if you’re wearing sheer or partially see-through clothing, or use black bars to cover your private parts, then you’re more than likely to get hit with some sort of discipline.

“We don’t permit streamers to be fully or partially nude, including exposing genitals or buttocks. Nor do we permit streamers to imply or suggest that they are fully or partially nude, including, but not limited to, covering breasts or genitals with objects or censor bars,” the company said in the blog post. “We do not permit the visible outline of genitals, even when covered. Broadcasting nude or partially nude minors is always prohibited, regardless of context. For those who present as women, we ask that you cover your nipples and do not expose underbust. Cleavage is unrestricted as long as these coverage requirements are met and it is clear that the streamer is wearing clothing. For all streamers, you must cover the area extending from your hips to the bottom of your pelvis and buttocks.”

[…]

At the beginning of December, some streamers, including Morgpie and LivStixs, began broadcasting in what appeared to be the complete nude. In actuality, these content creators were implying nudity by positioning their cameras at the right angle so as to show plenty of unobscured cleavage but keep nipples out of sight. “Artistic nudity” is what it was called and, as the meta took over the platform, Twitch conceded, allowing such nakedness to proliferate all over livestreams.

[…]

Company CEO Dan Clancy said on December 15 that “depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium.” He also apologized for the confusion this whole situation has caused, saying that part of Twitch’s job is “to make adjustments that serve the community.” So be careful, streamers. If you show up nude on the platform, Twitch will come for you.

Source: Twitch Bans Implied Nakedness In Response To ‘Nudity Meta’

What is wrong with these people?! If you don’t want to see (almost) nudity, you can always just change channel!