About 250 million years ago, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction killed over 80 per cent of the planet's species. In the aftermath, scientists believe that life on earth was dominated by simple species for up to 10 million years before more complex ecosystems could evolve. Now this longstanding theory is being challenged by a team of international researchers – including scientists from McGill University and Université du Québec à Montréal.

A fossilized ocean ecosystem Until now, scientists have long theorized that scorching hot ocean conditions resulting from catastrophic climate change prevented the development of complex life after the mass extinction. This idea is based on geochemical evidence of ocean conditions at the time. Now the discovery of fossils dating back 250.8 million years near the Guizhou region of China suggests that complex ecosystems were present on Earth just one million years after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, which is much earlier than previously thought

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf1622

People from the poorest backgrounds are far more likely to develop a mental disorder later in life than those from wealthier beginnings, suggests a study published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

In addition, more than half of people with a low educational attainment at age 30 will have a diagnosis of a mental disorder 22 years later, according to the study of people in Finland.

Previous studies have found a link between socioeconomic position and incidence of mental disorders, but the importance of different measures of socioeconomic position has seldom been compared.

A team of researchers from Finland analyzed official national data on more than 1.2 million of the population born between 1966 and 1986 who were living in Finland when they turned 30.

They set out to investigate the association between socioeconomic position at the age of 30 and the subsequent risk of the most common major mental disorders - substance misuse, schizophrenia, mood, and anxiety disorders.

They used three register-based measures for socioeconomic position, namely, educational attainment, employment status, and personal total income while also taking into account shared family characteristics that have an impact.

The study's population was followed between 1996 and 2017 and just over a quarter (26.1%) of them (331,657) were diagnosed with a mental disorder during the study's follow-up period.

The researchers' analysis showed that lower socioeconomic position at age 30 was consistently associated with a higher risk of being later diagnosed with a mental disorder, even after taking into account shared family characteristics and prior history of a mental disorder.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230208/People-from-the-poorest-backgroundsmore-likely-to-develop-mental-disorder-later-in-life.aspx

Women who take extra vitamin D during their pregnancy are more likely to have a ‘natural’ delivery, according to new research.

The study, published in the Journal of Public Health, analysed results from the MAVIDOS trial which involved 965 women being randomly allocated an extra 1,000 International Units (IU) per day of vitamin D during their pregnancy or a placebo.

Analysis showed that 65.6% of women who took extra Vitamin D had a spontaneous vaginal delivery, or “natural” delivery, compared to 57.9% in the placebo group.

Fewer women from the vitamin D group had an assisted delivery (13.2%) compared with the placebo group (19.4%).

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/vitamin-d-women-university-of-southampton-university-hospital-southampton-nhs-foundation-trust-national-institute-for-health-and-care-excellence-b1058304.html

More than 75 percent of the world’s insect species are insufficiently protected when it comes to conservation areas around the globe, according to a recent new study.

From our favorites like bees and butterflies, to the lesser appreciated organisms such as wasps and mosquitoes, insects are facing threats such as climate change, and a myriad of other ills such as habitat loss and pesticide use.

Protected areas, also known as conservation areas, are clearly defined geographic spaces that are legally recognized and managed to achieve the long term conservation of nature.

The study was published last week in the journal One Earth, and argues that protected areas can support vulnerable insect populations, but only if their geographic ranges are specifically targeted.

https://grist.org/article/insects-need-better-protection-climate-change/

If you’re a parent, you’ve probably been there. You have a baby howling for attention, but you need to cook dinner or get a sibling to take a much-needed nap. Baby TV shows, touch tablets, and digital phone toys can feel like lifesavers in keeping an active infant calm and contained while juggling what life brings.

But a new study suggests that too much screen time during infancy may lead to changes in brain activity, as well as problems with executive functioning — the ability to stay focused and control impulses, behaviors, and emotions — in elementary school.

“The infant brain thrives on enriching interactions with the environment, and excessive infant screen time can reduce opportunities for real-world interactions that are important for brain development,” says Dr. Carol Wilkinson, a developmental behavioral pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital who was part of the study. “Especially today, when screens are with us all the time, we need to better support parents in non-screen time tips and tricks to keep infants engaged and parents sane.”

https://answers.childrenshospital.org/screen-time-infants/

Studies have shown that social isolation and loneliness are important risk factors for cardiovascular disease, but less has been known about their specific connection with heart failure. A new study published in JACC: Heart Failure shows that both social isolation and loneliness are associated with higher rates of heart failure but whether or not a person feels lonely is more important in determining risk than if they are actually alone. Social disconnection can be classified into two different, but connected, components. “Social isolation” refers to being objectively alone or having infrequent social connections, while “loneliness” is defined as a painful feeling caused when someone’s actual level of social interaction is less than they would like it to be.

For the study, researchers looked at data from the UK Biobank study, which followed population health outcomes over 12 years and assessed psychosocial factors like social isolation and loneliness through self-reported questionnaires. Researchers looked at health outcomes for a population of more than 400,000 middle-aged and older adults. Previous studies have been inconclusive, with inconsistent results and have used different measurements for assessing social isolation and loneliness, said Jihui Zhang, MD, PhD, a researcher at Guangzhou Medical University in Guangzhou, China, and senior author of the study.

The researchers found that both social isolation and loneliness increased the risk of hospitalization or death from heart failure by 15% to 20%. However, they also found that social isolation was only a risk factor when loneliness was not also present. In other words, if a person was both socially isolated and felt lonely, loneliness was more important. Loneliness also increased risk even if the person was not socially isolated. Loneliness and social isolation were more common in men and were also associated with adverse health behaviors and status, such as tobacco use and obesity.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213177923000264?via%3Dihub

Scientists have shown for the first time that briefly tuning into a person’s individual brainwave cycle before they perform a learning task dramatically boosts the speed at which cognitive skills improve.

Calibrating rates of information delivery to match the natural tempo of our brains increases our capacity to absorb and adapt to new information, according to the team behind the study.

University of Cambridge researchers say that these techniques could help us retain “neuroplasticity” much later in life and advance lifelong learning.

“Each brain has its own natural rhythm, generated by the oscillation of neurons working together,” said Prof Zoe Kourtzi, senior author of the study from Cambridge’s Department of Psychology. “We simulated these fluctuations so the brain is in tune with itself – and in the best state to flourish.”

https://academic.oup.com/cercor/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cercor/bhac426/6814397

While emissions of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), the world’s most potent greenhouse gas, have fallen sharply in the U.S. in recent decades, actual emissions are significantly higher than the official government estimates, a new study concludes.

Across the United States, 390 metric tons of SF6 were emitted into the atmosphere in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, according to a new study resulting from a joint initiative between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. The study, designed to better quantify SF6 emissions in the U.S., was published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

SF6, a man-made gas used by electric utilities to quickly interrupt the flow of electricity in high voltage circuit breakers, is also the most potent greenhouse gas ever studied by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The gas is 25,200 times more effective at warming the planet than carbon dioxide, making even small releases of SF6 cause for concern.

The volume of SF6 released in 2018 is less than half of what it was a decade prior, but still equaled the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 2.1 million automobiles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas equivalency calculator.

https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/1437/2023/acp-23-1437-2023.pdf

Young adults with depression or overall poor mental health report more heart attacks, strokes and risk factors for cardiovascular disease than their peers without mental health issues, new research shows.

The findings, published recently in the Journal of the American Heart Association, add to a large body of evidence linking cardiovascular disease risk and death with depression, but leave unanswered questions about how one may lead to the other.

"While the relationship between heart disease and depression is likely to be bidirectional, it's important to prioritize mental health among younger adults as this may be beneficial in reducing heart disease and improving overall heart health," said the study's lead author, Dr. Yaa Adoma Kwapong, a postdoctoral research fellow at Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Baltimore.

Kwapong and her colleagues wanted to better understand how mental health may affect cardiovascular disease and its risk factors earlier in life. They analyzed data for 593,616 adults who were 35 years old on average and took part in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a self-reported nationally representative survey, between 2017 and 2020.

Survey participants reported whether they had ever been told they had a depressive disorder and the number of days they experienced poor mental health during the past month. They also reported whether they had experienced a heart attack, stroke or chest pain, a condition known as angina, or have had cardiovascular disease risk factors including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, being overweight or having obesity, smoking, diabetes, physical inactivity and not eating enough fruits and vegetables. People who had two or more of these risk factors were considered to have suboptimal cardiovascular health

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.122.028332