Welcome to the second volume of trumpman's scientific mash up. As a reminder, this is a reccuring compilation of various interesting scientific stuff I come across.
Enjoy:
The Optimal Number of Steps for a Long Life
Chances are you have heard how we must take at least 10.000 steps a day to live a long and healthy life.
That is the equivalent of about 8 km. Ok, not huge, but depending on your lifestyle it might not be achievable, especially if you have a sitting job.
But does the myth stand true?
Well, I stumbled this really cool meta analysis today showing how this piece of conventional wisdom isn't far from the truth, at least for young adults. But as you age more and more, less and less steps are required.
Tldr, 8000 steps are more than enough in most cases for optimal results. Sure, the more the better, but for whatever reason, benefits seemed to plateau after that number.
In this meta-analysis of 15 studies, seven published and eight unpublished, we found that taking more steps per day was associated with progressively lower mortality risk, with the risk plateauing for older adults (aged ≥60 years) at approximately 6000–8000 steps per day and for younger adults (aged <60 years) at approximately 8000–10 000 steps per day. We found inconsistent evidence that step intensity had an association with mortality beyond total volume of steps. sauce
Dose-response association between steps per day and all-cause mortality, by age group
So yeah, 10k of steps is a good number to go for, but 8k seem to be more than enough
Did someone say sustainable fishing?
This is a really worrisome paper, at least when it comes to shark populations. You have probably heard the term sustainable fishing, blah blah blah, regulations and bullshit like that.
So, this newly published paper on Science revealed that despite all the new regulations and shit, global shark mortality continues to go up:
Here we estimate that total fishing mortality increased from at least 76 to 80 million sharks between 2012 and 2019, ~25 million of which were threatened species.
And honestly what annoys me the most is that a good chunk of them die a slow death because some idiot somewhere wants to drink fin-tea or some other bs that will make their dick harder. At least eat the whole fucking thing instead of throwing the rest of the shark back to the sea. What a waste.
Oh well, massacring the pex predators of the seas...What could go wrong, right? Well, to be fair we massacre pretty much everything so maybe one negates the other 😅
Amazon's Ancient Agricultural Civilization Unveiled by Lidar Technology
I love it when archaeologists discover something totally new. And this is one of those stories!
Archaeologists using lidar technology have discovered a hidden pre-Hispanic civilization in the Amazon rainforest, that seems to date all the way back to 2.500 years.
The ruins were discovered Upano Valley site, nestled in the eastern Andes, and they seem to belong to an advanced agricultural civilization, the earliest and largest that we know of in the area.
The research revealed over 6,000 rectangular earthen platforms, plaza structures, and interconnected roadways spanning an area of approximately 230 square miles (600 square kilometers
The most notable landscape feature is the complex road system extending over tens of kilometers, connecting the different urban centers, thus creating a regional-scale network. Such extensive early development in the Upper Amazon is comparable to similar Maya urban systems recently highlighted in Mexico and Guatemala.
One can only imagine all the kinds of artifacts and treasures that will be unearthed when (and if) they actually start digging!
Ok friends, this is it for today. Feel free to click any of the links above to read more on the stories that I have shared!
See you soon with more sciency stuff!
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