Science

Researchers from the University of Melbourne summarised data from 17 different studies from six countries on glasses with a blue light blocking function. They concluded that this is a hoax – a factor unproven by science that serves only advertising purposes.

As the researchers point out, none of their colleagues’ work directly indicates that people’s performance, vision, or other factors improve when blue light blockers are used. Some positive conclusions are untenable and can easily be criticised. On the other hand, the opposite conclusion about the uselessness of such glasses also can not be made – studies do not give such data.

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BlueRock Therapeutics has reported a new achievement in regenerative medicine – its employees have managed to implant modified neurons into the human brain to stimulate dopamine production. A year ago, this procedure was carried out for 12 patients with pronounced symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The success lies in the fact that during this time the foreign fragments were not rejected by the organisms of the subjects.

Ideally, scientists would like to be able to simply replace cells that have degenerated with lab-created analogues with new functions. This would increase the production of dopamine, which would help to stop or cure Parkinson’s disease. And indeed, the subjects were less likely to experience attacks of helplessness and incapacity than they were before participating in the experiment.

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Anthropologists and geneticists from different countries have summarised the results of a major study of the human genome. They have studied the genomes of 3154 people from 50 different ethnic groups to compile a genetic chronology of these populations. And they found out a surprising thing: it turned out that about 900,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern humans were almost completely extinct – only 1.3 per cent of their population remained.

The mysterious event is undated, its time limits varying from 600,000 to 1,000,000 years ago. At that time, there was no “intelligent” man, nor were there any preconditions for his emergence. Human ancestors struggled to survive in a changeable climate, their total number was no more than 100,000 individuals.

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The Greenland shark, traditionally inhabiting northern latitudes, has been discovered in the Caribbean Sea – this is the first such case in history. It is worth noting that the Greenland shark is the longest-lived vertebrate creature on our planet. Its life cycle lasts from 250 to 500 years, and its habitat – the dark and cold depths of the ocean. This species is very rarely caught in the field of view of cameras and to observe it is a great luck. Greenland sharks move slowly in the pitch darkness, conserving energy. They also grow and age slowly.

Scientists were capturing tiger sharks to study their population near Belize. Suddenly, one of them saw something strange – something that looked like a shark was swimming slowly beneath the surface of the water. However, the mysterious creature was different from the sea predators living in these waters, both in size and body shape. It was caught, the researchers tried to identify it and were surprised to find that they were dealing with a very old Greenland shark.

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Scientists still hold out hope that one day we will meet our brothers-in-intelligence from other civilisations. But in what language will we communicate with them, and what can we do now to overcome such a difficult language barrier?

A group of scientists from the SETI Institute at the University of California and the Alaska Whale Foundation, an American research non-profit organization, have their own solution to this problem and have proposed to “rehearse” a future dialogue with extraterrestrials in communication with whales.

Such an unusual choice scientists explain the high intelligence and complex social communication systems of these animals. Two years ago, the team recorded “calls” from a pack of whales, transmitting a “slam” message – a kind of greeting – through a speaker placed underwater to test the whales’ reactions.

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