Four-legged investigators sniff out spotted lanternfly eggs to slow the spread of invasive pest
CLEVELAND — The spotted lanternfly, a leaf-hopping invasive pest first detected in the U.S. a decade ago, has steadily spread across the East Coast and into the Midwest with little getting in its way.
But now researchers are deploying a new weapon to slow it's advance — specially trained dogs with the ability to sniff out the winged insect's eggs before they hatch.
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Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
This dieting approach may be more effective than intermittent fasting, scientists say
Alternate-day fasting works better at boosting metabolism compared to both calorie restriction and intermittent fasting, a new study suggests. Nearly 2.5 billion adults, or about 43 per cent of the global adult population, are overweight, with around 890 million living with obesity, according to the World Health Organization. Doctors recommend weight loss for this segment of the population to reduce metabolic risk factors like high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol and increased blood sugar levels, all of which contribute to diabetes and heart disease. Intermittent fasting, which involves cycling between periods of eating and fasting on a regular schedule, is sometimes recommended as an alternative to traditional calorie-restricted diets for weight loss. This may include time-restricted eating, typically involving a 16-hour fasting period followed by an eight-hour eating window. Another form of fasting is alternate-day fasting, which involves a 24-hour fast every other day. But the health benefits of various forms of fasting compared to continuous caloric restriction and an unrestricted diet have remained largely unclear so far. In a new study, researchers analysed the results of 99 randomised clinical trials involving 6,582 adult men and women to compare the effects of intermittent fasting diets with continuous calorie restriction or unrestricted diets on body weight and metabolic risk factors. The study participants had an average body mass index of 31, and nearly 90 per cent had pre-existing health conditions. Researchers found that alternate-day fasting was the only dietary strategy which provided a modest benefit in reducing body weight compared to continuous calorie restriction. This form of fasting was also associated with lower levels of total and LDL, or 'bad' cholesterol compared to time-restricted eating. However, researchers noted that even alternate-day fasting did not meet the clinically significant threshold of at least 2kg of weight loss for individuals with obesity. They cautioned that 'longer-duration trials are needed to further substantiate these findings'. 'Additional high quality randomised clinical trials, with extended durations beyond 52 weeks, are needed to elucidate the long-term effects of these dietary strategies,' they said in the study, 'with greater emphasis between intermittent fasting and its impact on cardiometabolic health across diverse populations.' For now, they said, alternate-day fasting could be added to the therapeutic toolkit for managing weight and metabolic health. 'Intermittent fasting does not aim to replace other dietary strategies, but to integrate and complement them within a comprehensive, patient-centered nutritional care model,' they noted.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Earth's satellites at risk if asteroid smashes into Moon: study
If a huge asteroid smashes into the Moon in 2032, the gigantic explosion would send debris streaming towards Earth that would threaten satellites and create a spectacular meteor shower, according to researchers. Earlier this year there were briefly fears that the 60-metre-wide (200-foot-wide) asteroid called 2024 YR4, which is big enough to level a city, would strike Earth on December 22, 2032. It was given the highest chance -- 3.1 percent -- of hitting our home planet that scientists have ever measured for such a giant space rock. Subsequent observations from telescopes definitively ruled out a direct hit on Earth. However, the odds that it will crash into the Moon have risen to 4.3 percent, according to data from the James Webb space telescope in May. A new preprint study, which has not been peer-reviewed, is the first to estimate how such a collision could affect Earth. It would be the largest asteroid to hit the Moon in around 5,000 years, lead study author Paul Wiegert of Canada's University of Western Ontario told AFP. The impact would be "comparable to a large nuclear explosion in terms of the amount of energy released", he added. Up to 100 million kilograms (220 million pounds) of material would shoot out from the Moon's surface, according to a series of simulations run by the researchers. If the asteroid hit the side of the Moon facing Earth -- which is roughly a 50-percent chance -- up to 10 percent of this debris could be pulled in by Earth's gravity over the following days, they said. - 'Like a bullet' - Earth's atmosphere would protect the surface from the millimetre- to centimetre-sized lunar rocks, Weigert said. 0.04-2.54 But these meteors could be capable of destroying some satellites -- and there are expected to be a lot more of those orbiting the planet by 2032. "A centimetre-sized rock travelling at tens of thousands of metres per second is a lot like a bullet," Wiegert said. In the days after the impact, there could be more than 1,000 times the normal number of meteors threatening Earth's satellites, he added. Meanwhile, those of us on the ground would be treated to a "spectacular" meteor shower lighting up the night sky, the study said. But the current odds of a direct hit on the near side of the Moon remain at just two percent, Wiegert emphasised. The asteroid is not expected to be visible again until 2028, so the world will have to wait to find out more. If a direct hit is eventually found to be likely, humanity probably has enough time to plan a mission to spare the Moon. "I'm sure it will be considered," Wiegert said. The asteroid is half as wide and has 10 percent of the mass of Dimorphos, which NASA's DART mission smashed into in 2022, successfully changing its trajectory. If 2024 YR4 is on a collision course with the Moon, it would be "a good target" for another test of our planetary defences, Wiegert said. But if not, trying to deflect something zooming so close to Earth could be a little "dangerous", he added. The preprint study, which published on the arXiv database last week, has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters. dl/gil
Washington Post
3 hours ago
- Washington Post
Crushing it. What do you do with 4,000 hailstones that you collect while chasing storms
LEVELLAND, Texas — Dozens of researchers are chasing, driving and running into storms to collect fresh hail, getting their car bodies and their own bodies dented in the name of science. They hope these hailstones will reveal secrets about storms, damage and maybe the air itself. But what do you do with nearly 4,000 melting iceballs?
