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In the next selection of interesting science news of the week: The mental and physical abilities of people over 75 today are much higher than those of their peers 30 years ago. This is the conclusion reached by scientists at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. It is no secret that life expectancy has increased significantly in recent decades – both in Finland, where the average life expectancy in the 1960s was only 52 years, and in the United States, where it is now more than 80 years. However, the quality of life in old age has remained a matter of speculation. Scientists have even sadly joked that years have been added to your life, but life itself has been forgotten to be added to those years. And now the study conducted in Finland has put an end to that. The thing is, 28 years ago there was a detailed study of hundreds of volunteers aged 75 to 80 to determine their physical and cognitive abilities. All the scientists had to do was repeat the experiment using the same methodology. It turns out that today’s 70-80 year olds, regardless of gender (to call them old people doesn’t even seem linguistically correct), are much stronger in mind and body than their peers who were born during the time of the tsars, who lived through wars, famine, poverty, and other hardships. Scientists say the results are a combination of better education, greater economic opportunity, high levels of physical activity and good nutrition. “Although these results are specific to Finland, they are likely to apply to all countries that have undergone similar societal changes in the past 100 years,” the study authors note. They also add that our perceptions of the elderly are significantly outdated, as the extra years were added to the average age rather than the end of life. Not crabs, of course, but tolerable with a good sauce.
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We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. The number of offers should remain: Episodes End of story Podcast advertising 32 thousand species of animals threatened with extinction are listed in the Red Book, but what are we doing to save them? We continue to consume them! Well, not all of them, of course – the most famous and cute ones, like whales or sea turtles, are the ones we try to protect and preserve. However, while studying the seafood supply, researchers from the University of Queensland discovered nearly one hundred endangered species that are legally caught and used for food. When these fish and invertebrates are sold, they are not labeled by species, so buyers sometimes don’t even know what they are eating. For those tired of feeling guilty about their inhumanity to sushi, scientists have found an alternative: you can still enjoy seafood without worrying about consuming something rare by switching to… jellyfish. The idea may seem too radical to some, but firstly, jellyfish are one of the very few living organisms whose population is growing, and secondly, it is nothing new, as they have been consumed as food in China for at least the last 1700 years. “Our love of seafood is largely influenced by culture and tradition,” explains Leslie Roberson, author of a new study published in Nature Communications. “Take shark fin soup, for example. The fins themselves are generally tasteless, but in China this dish is considered a delicacy. It’s all about the sauce and spices (and, of course, status). And what about jellyfish? It’s also a tasteless, rubbery substance, but with a good sauce, it becomes something else entirely!
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At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, iron and cast iron alone could no longer meet the needs of production, and metallurgists experimented with various alloys to achieve specific properties in metals. Among them, or even primarily, they sought a corrosion-resistant alloy – or stainless steel. As a result, at the beginning of the 20th century, a technological breakthrough was achieved and such steel alloys with a small addition of chromium appeared. However, a team of archaeologists led by Rahil Alipour of the Royal College of London (they published their work in the Journal of Archaeological Science) found evidence that stainless steel appeared in Persia a millennium earlier. It was crucible steel, or bulat (also called Damascus steel, although technically this is not quite correct, as the production processes of bulat and Damascus steel are quite different). After analyzing the findings from the excavation site at the village of Chahak in southern Iran, which ancient manuscripts indicate was once a major steel production center, archaeologists concluded that ancient steelworkers deliberately and regularly added chromium to the alloys. And the mysterious component “rusakhtaj” mentioned in the recipe for steel of the 10th century, reported by the Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni, was none other than the mineral chromite. But why was such a valuable recipe forgotten by everyone? Scientists suggest that the reason is that Persian metallurgists added phosphorus to the metal to make it easier to work. However, this made the weapons and armor made from this steel too brittle, so there was no particular demand for them. Maybe it was just bad marketing? After all, in the 19th century, when poets and writers (romantics) began to glorify Damascus steel (which is indeed very beautiful – visually), numerous legends emerged about its strength, how it cuts through chain mail like butter, although in reality this is far from the truth. By the way, this steel has little to do with Damascus: the city was never known for its blacksmiths, except for the weapons trade.
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What should you do if a storm is approaching and you are in an open area? Every schoolchild knows that you should not run out into the open or hide under tall trees. But if you are a giraffe, you know better. This is the question that Siska Shayen, a student at the University of Bloemfontein, explored in a paper published in the African Journal of Ecology. She suggested that giraffe growth may be an additional risk factor during thunderstorms, as they become living lightning rods. As evidence, she cited the recent death of two animals on a private reserve in South Africa. A bolt of lightning struck a female giraffe right in the ossicle (as the horns of these animals are called), splitting her skull in two. The second female was found 7 meters away from the first with no visible injuries, but apparently she also died from a powerful discharge that reached her through the ground. Since low-growing trees and shrubs dominate the South African savannah, and male giraffes reach heights of 5.5 meters (16 feet) (females are usually slightly shorter, averaging 4.3 meters (16 feet)), as Siska suggested, they automatically become the tallest objects in the area and attract lightning. “Considering that lightning often strikes tall objects, especially in open areas, the student concludes that giraffes are at increased risk of death from lightning.” However, fellow biologists were skeptical of this theory because no other research supports the theory that giraffes are more likely to die from lightning than other animals. However, it is no secret that lightning maims and kills thousands of animals every year, and some are indeed more at risk than others. However, this is true for animals with the greatest distance between their fore and hind limbs, as this increases the electrically conductive surface area of the body. And the most common cause of herd mortality is the spread of high voltage in damp ground. In 2016, for example, there was an unprecedented case of a herd of 323 reindeer dying while huddled together during a thunderstorm.