(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Overnight News Digest - Saturday Science: Gray whales, School nurses, Extinct species, Banksy [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-21 Welcome to Overnight News Digest- Saturday Science. Since 2007 the OND has been a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time. Topics in this edition include: One-third of schools in the US don’t have a nurse There’s an 87% drop in the cost of solar panels Unraveling the octopus’s 2.8 billion-base genome A rare electronic state emerges from a 5-layer graphene New ‘galactic atlas’ of 400,000 galaxies Twenty-one species declared extinct How do conservatives really think? Neanderthals carried ancient extinct human genome How everything in the universe evolved Lake Erie filled with algae again, from Canada How long does it take to digest food? Massive gray whale die off on West coast What does the color of your soil mean? Unmasking Banksy Salon by Colleen Deguzman A third of schools don’t have a nurse. Here’s why that’s a problem Jodi Bobbitt, the school nurse at William Ramsay Elementary in Alexandria, Virginia, is always ready to see children with a wide range of injuries and illnesses. One day during the first week of school, the parade started before the first bell when a little girl walked in with red, irritated eyes. Then it got busy. A student fell from the monkey bars and another tripped while playing tag. Two kids hit each other’s heads with lunchboxes and needed ice packs. A young boy had a stomachache. Bobbitt also saw her regular kiddos: one who has special needs and uses a wheelchair and another who has diabetes and gets his blood sugar checked daily before lunch. […] More than a third of schools nationwide don’t have a full-time nurse on-site, according to a 2021 survey by the National Association of School Nurses. The schools that don’t have a dedicated nurse either share one with other campuses, or don’t have one at all. Meanwhile, the nation is facing high rates of chronic illnesses among K-12 students, such as diabetes and asthma, along with an unprecedented mental health crisis among youth, and school nurses are at the front lines — often, alone. The Cool Down by Laurelle Stelle RESEARCHERS MAKE ASTOUNDING REVEAL ABOUT THE COST OF SOLAR POWER AND BATTERY STORAGE — HERE’S WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE FUTURE The Berlin-based climate research institute just released its study results, which showed that thanks to a growing industry and improving technology, there’s been an 87% drop in the cost of solar panels and an 85% drop in the price of battery storage. Batteries and energy-storage sites are essential in a system that relies on clean sources like solar and wind for power since they only produce energy when there’s enough light or wind. With the falling price of the solar panels themselves and the improved performance of both, this means that the largest costs associated with solar energy have become almost 90% less costly, making it much easier for individuals, businesses, and governments to adopt the technology. “Some calculations even suggest that the world’s entire energy consumption in 2050 could be completely and cost-effectively covered by solar technology and other renewables,” Felix Creutzig, lead author of the study, said in a press release. Creutzig heads the MCC working group Land Use, Infrastructure, and Transport. Neuroscience News Source: University of Vienna Unraveling the Octopus’s 2.8 Billion-Base Genome Octopuses are fascinating animals – and serve as important model organisms in neuroscience, cognition research and developmental biology. To gain a deeper understanding of their biology and evolutionary history, validated data on the composition of their genome is needed, which has been lacking until now. Scientists from the University of Vienna together with an international research team have now been able to close this gap and, in a study, determined impressive figures: 2.8 billion base pairs – organized in 30 chromosomes. What sounds so simple is the result of complex, computer-assisted genome analyses and comparisons with the genomes of other cephalopod species. This groundbreaking research has just been published in the renowned journal G3: Genes / Genomes / Genetics. PHYS.org by Massachusetts Institute of Technology From a five-layer graphene sandwich, a rare electronic state emerges Ordinary pencil lead holds extraordinary properties when shaved down to layers as thin as an atom. A single, atom-thin sheet of graphite, known as graphene, is just a tiny fraction of the width of a human hair. Under a microscope, the material resembles a chicken-wire of carbon atoms linked in a hexagonal lattice. Despite its waif-like proportions, scientists have found over the years that graphene is exceptionally strong. And when the material is stacked and twisted in specific contortions, it can take on surprising electronic behavior. Now, MIT physicists have discovered another surprising property in graphene: When stacked in five layers, in a rhombohedral pattern, graphene takes on a very rare, "multiferroic" state, in which the material exhibits both unconventional magnetism and an exotic type of electronic behavior, which the team has coined ferro-valleytricity. Space.com by Robert Lea New 'galactic atlas' offers stunning details of 400,000 galaxies near the Milky Way A new cosmic atlas contains precise details of nearly 400,000 galaxies in the Milky Way’s general neighborhood. And, beyond being of immense use for astronomers seeking hard data, the atlas also features beautiful images that are free for the public to access online and get to know our corner of the universe. Called the Siena Galaxy Atlas (SGA), this digital atlas was created using data from three astronomical surveys collected between 2014 and 2017 at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) and Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO). Together, those surveys are known as the DESI Legacy Surveys. Cosmic atlases of this type help astronomers spot patterns that help categorize new discoveries, such as stars that suddenly flare and then disappear — so-called “transients." Plus, such atlases allow astronomers to identify which objects are contenders for detailed follow-up investigations. These databases must also be constantly updated to keep up with those discoveries, especially in the modern age when telescope technologies continue to rapidly improve. Axios by Rebecca Falconer U.S. declares 21 endangered species extinct The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed 21 species from its endangered list on Monday due to extinction. The big picture: They were among a list of 23 native species proposed for delisting in 2021 due to extinction, including the ivory-billed woodpecker. But unverified possible images of the bird last officially seen in 1944 means wildlife officials are continuing to monitor for more details, per a FWS statement Monday. The FWS declared one mammal (Guam's Little Mariana fruit bat), eight mussels, two fish and 10 birds extinct. Eight of the birds delisted were endemic to Hawai'i'. Salon by Ashlie D.Stevens Want to know more about how conservatives really think? Look in their grocery carts In recent years, a number of conservative-owned food and beverage products that are overtly partisan have exploded onto the market, ranging from Black Rifle Coffee Company, which the New York Times described as having the potential to become the“Starbucks of the Right,” to Ultra Right Beer, which is currently trying to “fight the communists” in Georgia by selling a collectible six-pack featuring former president Donald Trump’s mugshot on the cans. However, the clearest insights into the conservative thought process aren’t necessarily gleaned from what products they buy to purposely signal their beliefs — but rather what else they have in their grocery carts. PHYS.org by Nathi Magubane Study shows Neanderthals inherited at least 6% of their genome from a now-extinct lineage of early modern humans Modern humans migrated to Eurasia 75,000 years ago, where they encountered and interbred with Neanderthals. A new study published in the journal Current Biology shows that at this time Neanderthals were already carrying human DNA from a much older encounter with modern humans. The Penn-led research team, including collaborators from Addis Ababa University, the University of Botswana, Fudan University, Hubert Kairuki Memorial University, and the University of Yaoundé, showed that an ancient lineage of modern humans migrated to Eurasia over 250,000 years ago where they interbred with Neanderthals. Over time, these humans died out, leaving a population with predominantly Neanderthal ancestry. "We found this reflection of ancient interbreeding where genes flowed from ancient modern humans into Neanderthals," says Alexander Platt, a senior research scientist in the Perelman School of Medicine and one of the study's first authors. "This group of individuals left Africa between 250,000 and 270,000 years ago. They were sort of the cousins to all humans alive today, and they were much more like us than Neanderthals." Vice by Becky Ferreira Scientists Unveil ‘Missing Law’ of Nature That Explains How Everything In the Universe Evolved, Including Us Scientists have identified a “missing law” of nature that might explain the evolution of evolving systems in the universe, including stars, chemicals, and life, reports a new study. The so-called “law of increasing functional information" predicts that all evolving phenomena are subject to natural processes that prioritize important functions, such as stability and novelty, thereby enabling the development of systems with increasing order and complexity. This unique approach could help explain why a host of cosmic processes evolve over time, from stars that are more chemically enriched than their predecessors, to lifeforms on Earth that are more biologically intricate than their ancestors. The Narwhal by Matt McIntosh Lake Erie is full of algae again. Southwestern Ontario’s exploding greenhouse sector won’t help For a couple of decades at the end of the last century, it seemed like the blue-green algae problem in Lake Erie had been solved, or at least managed, thanks to a concerted cross-border effort. The most southerly Great Lake garnered a bad environmental reputation throughout the 1960s and 1970s, when the lake, more than four times the size of Prince Edward Island, became covered in large, widespread nuisance algae blooms. The causes were many: phosphorus pollution from phosphate-laden detergents, nutrient-rich soil runoff from farmland and inadequate municipal wastewater facilities. The problem was particularly bad in the lake’s western basin, where warm, shallow waters encouraged eutrophication, or excessive growth of algae and plants, which blocked sunlight and consumed vast quantities of dissolved oxygen. The resulting damage to aquatic plant and animal populations was so bad the scientific community declared western Lake Erie “dead,” a catastrophe name-dropped in Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax: Live Science by Anna Gora How long does it take to digest food? When you're tucking into one of your favorite foods — perhaps a steaming bowl of ramen or spectacularly cheesy slice of pizza — you're probably not thinking about the journey each morsel is about to take through your digestive system. Of course, what started out as a delectable meal will eventually end up at the bottom of a toilet bowl. But how long does it take to digest food, exactly? The answer to this question is more complicated than you might think. Different types of foods are broken down and absorbed by the body at different rates, meaning some parts of the meal may be entering the large intestine when other parts are still in the stomach. It's also common for healthy people to digest food at slightly different rates, according to Colorado State University . The Messenger by Zachary Rogers ‘Smoking Gun’ Found in Massive Gray Whale Die-Off Along West Coast Gray whales have been dying at such alarming rates off the Pacific Coast that federal officials deemed it an “Unusual Mortality Event" — but now researchers believe they know the culprit. According to a new study just published by researchers from Oregon State University, the reason so many of the ocean-dwelling giants have been dying is man-made climate change. Specifically, changes in prey biomass and ice cover in the Arctic. “Climate change is affecting a wide range of global systems, with polar ecosystems experiencing the most rapid change,” researchers said in their study’s abstract. “We found that the population dynamics of an iconic and highly mobile polar-associated species are tightly coupled to Arctic prey availability and access to feeding areas.” House Digest by Gwen Swanson Here's What The Color Of Your Garden Soil Is Trying To Tell You The earth takes on many colors, and the appearance of soil ranges across different biomes. Although there are many shades of dirt, not all of them are optimal for growing trees, shrubs, flowers, and harvestable plants. Aspiring gardeners must classify and understand the foundation of their gardens, starting with the very soil they're planting in. Dirt color varies from pale and colorless to so dark it appears black. The shade is not as inconsequential as you might think — it reveals much about the mineral content, organic matter, and moisture levels within the ground. These colors are so crucial to know that they are classified on an official system known as the "Munsell Color System." The Conversation Unmasking Banksy – the street artist is not one man but a whole brand of people The graffiti artist known as Banksy might be unmasked in an upcoming defamation case over his use of Instagram to invite shoplifters to go to a Guess store because it had used his imagery without permission. The case could be seen as an attempt to force Banksy to relinquish his anonymity, which, many say, has been important to his success over the years. There has been much speculation as to the identity of the artist and he is believed by many to be Bristol’s Robin Gunningham, who was named as a co-defendant in the defamation suit. While it has not been confirmed that Banksy is Gunningham, pointing this out is in no way a revelation. Moreover, trying to find out Banksy’s identity ultimately does not matter. There have been many investigations into the artist’s identity and it has been the topic of serious journalistic and academicinvestigation for years, but no one has been able to absolutely link Gunningham and Banksy. This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the science news of the day. Please share your articles and stories in the comments. 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