Researchers Debate Principle of Pyramids’ Building, Astronauts Are Caught in Area, and Olympians Swim the Seine

Olympic Athletes Swim the Murky Seine, and Astronauts Are Caught on the Area Station

By Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi & Kelso Harper

Rachel Feltman: Completely happy Monday, listeners! That is Rachel Feltman, and also you’re listening to Scientific American’s Science Shortly. Let’s kick off the week by catching up on the most recent science information.

First, let’s test in on a few tales we’ve been following just lately. Just a few weeks in the past, SciAm’s personal Allison Parshall joined us to elucidate how and why Paris was making an attempt to make the Seine clear sufficient for Olympians to swim in. The river did certainly host particular person triathlon swimmers for his or her occasion on July 31, however since then there’s been lots of trash speak concerning the river’s micro organism ranges. On August 4 Belgium’s Olympic committee stated it was pulling its workforce from the combined relay triathlon as a result of one among its swimmers had turn into unwell after competing within the Seine. Whereas Belgium’s athlete Claire Michel did certainly get fairly unwell with gastrointestinal signs, she clarified on Instagram final week that she was sick with a virus, not an E. coli an infection as many people had speculated. However as Allison defined for us a number of weeks in the past, the security of the Seine adjustments from day after day. Final week, swimmers needed to skip a deliberate follow day resulting from excessive bacterial counts. After they received cleared to swim the next day, some swimmers used paddleboards so they might get a really feel for the course with out placing their heads under the water. To be taught extra about this huge ecological enterprise—and why Paris put such an enormous guess on an city river—try our episode from July 19.

Talking of Olympics headlines: should you haven’t checked out our July 31 interview with journalist Rose Eveleth, you positively ought to. It’s received a great deal of historic context and fashionable analysis that can assist you perceive the current controversies round intercourse testing and equity in ladies’s boxing.

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And right here’s yet another replace on an outdated favourite: Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are nonetheless positively not caught in house, based on NASA, however they’re additionally positively not dwelling but. To refresh your reminiscence, these two astronauts received to the Worldwide Area Station on June 6 and have been solely meant to remain for a few weeks. Points with the Boeing Starliner craft they rode up on have delayed their return. Final week, NASA introduced it wouldn’t be sending one other crewed mission to the ISS till at the least September 24. The SpaceX Crew-9 mission, which was meant to take 4 astronauts as much as the ISS this coming weekend, can’t take off till the Starliner spacecraft heads dwelling. The U.S. facet of the ISS solely has two docks, and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour is already taking on the second spot. In different phrases, it is a fairly good indication that NASA continues to be feeling iffy on whether or not or not Butch and Suni ought to journey dwelling in Starliner. NASA confused that no choices have been made at a press convention on Wednesday, which, yeah, I believe we are able to all see that. However NASA did notice that one potential back-up plan is to ship them dwelling with the members of the delayed Crew-9 mission. That mission is meant to final for six months, which might push Butch and Suni’s return into 2025.

For the primary time in virtually 40 years, the Environmental Safety Company has exercised its authority to instantly pull a pesticide from circulation. Final week the EPA issued an Emergency Order suspending the sale of merchandise that include dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, or DCPA, which can be marketed below the model identify Dacthal. The weed killer has been round for the reason that Nineteen Fifties, and the EPA has been investigating its affect on thyroid well being for years. The EPA stated in a press release that AMVAC Chemical Company, the only real producer of DCPA, has repeatedly did not ship information that proves the pesticide’s security, and that the EPA’s evaluation suggests unacceptable threat. The weedkiller is particularly dangerous to fetal growth, and it’s been banned within the European Union for greater than a decade.

In different “Is it just me, or is there no such thing as healthy consumption under capitalism?” information, a examine from the Cleveland Clinic suggests that the favored synthetic sweetener erythritol may enhance the danger of cardiovascular issues, together with coronary heart assaults and strokes. Erythritol is discovered naturally in some fruits and veggies, and our our bodies really produce a little bit of it once we metabolize glucose. However that doesn’t imply the portions present in sugar-free meals and drinks are innocent. The examine, printed final Thursday, confirmed that ranges of the compound within the blood elevated by greater than 1,000 instances over baseline ranges when topics consumed quantities corresponding to these present in meals merchandise. The researchers additionally noticed a rise in blood clot formation, which didn’t occur when topics ate glucose as an alternative. The identical group from Cleveland Clinic just lately raised comparable issues about one other sugar alcohol known as xylitol. The senior writer of each research famous that it is perhaps more healthy for folk to get pleasure from sugar-sweetened treats moderately than to eat plenty of sugar alcohols, particularly in the event that they’re already liable to or identified with coronary heart or metabolic illness.

To wrap us up with some enjoyable, albeit extremely controversial information that may most likely result in a kind of horrible alien historical past TV documentaries, a personal analysis institute callled Paleotechnic is arguing that historical Egyptians could have used a stunning software to assist construct the pyramids: hydraulic lifts. A brand new paper from researchers on the firm argues that the 4,700-year-old Pyramid of Djoser was constructed with the assistance of a complicated hydraulic freight elevator powered by a department of the Nile. Nevertheless it looks as if this admittedly jazzy headline is fairly problematic: outdoors specialists identified that there have been no Egyptologists or archaeologists concerned instantly with the examine, and other people in these fields appear extraordinarily skeptical. They famous that there would most likely be some historic report of such a formidable gadget and that it will be sort of a stretch for the Nile to really present the waterpower wanted to fireside up such an enormous elevate. Powerful however honest, guys. Powerful however honest.

That’s all for this week’s information roundup. Tune in on Wednesday for a deeper dive into the most recent science information. And also you positively don’t wish to miss Friday’s episode. I’ll be chatting with Wendy Zukerman of Science Vs to listen to all about her efforts to research one among science’s largest analysis taboos: butt stuff.

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Science Shortly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, together with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our present. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for extra up-to-date and in-depth science information.

For Scientific American, that is Rachel Feltman. Have an awesome week!