The science news of the week:
For many people, going to the gym is an adrenaline rush and a real treat, a chance to work out on machines to the point of exhaustion. However, there are also many people for whom physical exercise is a complete waste of time. If only it were possible to pump up muscles in just a few minutes… Sure, according to researchers at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia, you can even do it in seconds!
Together with colleagues from Niigata University Health and Welfare, they conducted an experiment with 39 healthy students divided into three groups. Each group performed biceps exercises for three seconds every day for four weeks, using either isometric, concentric, or eccentric movements at full effort. Thirteen other students did not perform any exercises.
Muscle strength was measured for all groups before and after the experiment, and it turned out that those who performed eccentric movements strengthened their biceps by more than 10% compared to their initial condition. The muscles of the other two groups who exercised also became stronger, but not as noticeably. Well, of course, there was no muscle gain observed in those who had idled all month.
To better understand what is being discussed, imagine that you are working with dumbbells. When you lift the dumbbell, your biceps undergoes a concentric contraction; when you lower the weight, you give the muscle an eccentric contraction (essentially, it stretches); and finally, by keeping the weight parallel to the ground, you achieve an isometric contraction.
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According to Professor Ken Nosaki of ECU, who led the research, the results of the experiment clearly show that even a tiny amount of physical exercise can produce tangible results. “Even 60 seconds of exercise over 4 weeks can increase muscle strength,” says Professor Nosaka. “Many people think that physical exercise requires a lot of time, but this is not true. Short but quality exercises can still benefit your body, so every muscle contraction counts for you”. According to the professor, the results of the research could be very useful in combating a widespread phenomenon such as sarcopenia – age-related muscle wasting that leads to a gradual loss of muscle mass and, as a result, strength.
“We haven’t studied other muscle groups yet,” he admits. “But if it turns out that the three-second rule also applies to other muscles, it will be possible to develop a 30-second exercise complex for the whole body. And besides, if you do it once a day, you will never experience any unpleasant soreness.
The large red-orange bulge on the diagram is Kumano Pluto.
A huge underground mountain of solidified magma hidden beneath the southern coast of Japan may be the magnet that attracts numerous earthquakes to that country. Scientists first suspected the existence of such a mountain, called Kumano Pluto, in 2006. Pluto, or a plutonic body, is the term used in geology to refer to deep-seated bodies of igneous rock that gradually cool and solidify as they move toward the surface. The mountain was discovered in the Nankai Subduction Zone – a zone at the boundary of lithospheric plates where one block of the Earth’s crust subducts beneath another, often accompanied by volcanic activity and earthquakes. However, the true extent of this geological phenomenon remained a matter of speculation.
It took scientists 20 years to collect a vast amount of data on the Nankai Subduction Zone, then upload the information to the LoneStar5 supercomputer at the University of Texas at Austin, which created a three-dimensional model of the Kumanon Pluton in great detail. According to this model, the Earth’s crust begins to buckle upward under the pressure of Pluto, while groundwater infiltrates the upper layer of the mantle, causing the crust to swell even more. The immense mass and density of the Kumano Seamount probably plays a major role in the tectonic activity in this region. The epicenters of the strongest earthquakes, over magnitude 8, that shook Japan in 1944 and 1946, were located at the edges of Pluto.
“We cannot predict exactly when, where, and how strong an earthquake will be, but by combining our model with incoming data, we can already begin to calculate the processes that will occur in the near future,” says geophysicist Suichi Koidaira of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). “And this important data will help the Japanese people prepare for the next major earthquake.
Scientists now plan to study other subduction zones in the hope of finding similar underground structures that can also trigger earthquakes.
The mammoth tusk is just one of the excellently preserved fossils found during the excavations.
Well, maybe not elephants, mammoths, and not their home, but they lived here during the Ice Age, along with woolly rhinos, hyenas, and other exotic animals. And their remains were recently discovered at a construction site near Plymouth in southwest England. Construction began in 2015, and the developers invited archaeologists to participate in the project from the beginning. As it turned out, they were not wrong. While excavating an ancient cave, scientists discovered a tusk, a huge root tooth, and other bones of a woolly mammoth, as well as fragments of the skull and lower jaw of a woolly rhinoceros. Then the finds poured in like a cornucopia – parts of hyenas, horses, reindeer, wolves, foxes, and even bats with mole rats were discovered. The analysis of the bones showed that these animals lived in the Middle Devonian period from 60 to 30 thousand years ago.
“The climate of Devon at this time was very cold and dry, even in summer,” explains Victoria Herridge, an expert on the fossil remains of elephants and mammoths at the new museum, The Box. “At the same time, there was a vast steppe that could easily support huge herds of cold-resistant animals such as woolly mammoths, rhinos and reindeer, which in turn were hunted by large predators such as hyenas and wolves.”
“The discovery we made is of national significance, something that happens once in a lifetime,” says excavation director Rob Born. “After all, we were able to uncover numerous pristine fossils, including complete or nearly complete skeletons of individual animals.”
Archaeologists have already completed the process of excavating animal remains from the ground and have now begun a more detailed study of them. After that, it is planned to display the most interesting exhibits to the public in “Korobochka” (the box). In return, the construction company, Sherford Consortium, promised to leave the site in its original state and not to build inside or above the cave where the animal bones were found.