New Delhi: A massive seismic event on Mars, which shook the planet for six hours and had a magnitude of 4.7 has been explained by a global team of scientists led by the University of Oxford. The scientists discovered that the ‘Marsquake’, named ‘S1222a,’ was not caused by a meteorite impact as they initially suspected, but by the release of enormous tectonic stresses within the planet.
The ‘Marsquake’ — seismic events recorded on Mars — was detected by NASA’s InSight lander on 4 May, 2022. The seismic signal resembled that of a meteoroid hit, so the team searched for a new impact crater on the surface of Mars.
For this, Dr Benjamin Fernando from the University of Oxford enlisted the help of all the space agencies that have missions orbiting Mars, including the European Space Agency, the Chinese National Space Agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation, and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency.
This was an unprecedented collaboration that involved scanning a huge area of Mars, equivalent to 144 million square kilometres.
However, after months of searching, the team found no evidence of a new crater. The scientists concluded that the ‘Marsquake’ was caused by geological processes, which are likely of tectonic origin.
After extensive efforts spanning several months, the team’s collective research was published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal on 17 October.
This energy travelled through the planet and was recorded by InSight’s seismometer. The team hopes their research will provide more insight on the internal structure and evolution of Mars. Read more.
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You don’t lose if you press snooze
New research from the Department of Psychology at Stockholm University challenges the common belief that hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock can interfere with sleep and cognitive function. The study, which examined the effects of ‘snoozing’ on habitual snoozers, reveals new insights into this morning behaviour.
The study, published in the Journal of Sleep Research on 17 October, showed that people who regularly snooze tend to sleep a bit less and feel sleepier in the morning than those who don’t. However, these effects did not lead to an increase or decrease in the production of cortisol, which is a hormone released by the body to control stress. There was also no visible effect on morning fatigue, mood, or sleep quality during the night.
The research consisted of two studies. The first one, which involved 1,732 participants, showed that snoozing is a widespread practice, especially among young adults. The main reason for snoozing was that people felt too tired to get up.
The second one, which included 31 regular snoozers who spent two nights in a sleep lab, showed surprisingly positive results for snoozers.
Even though their sleep was briefly interrupted during the snooze period, they managed to get more than 20 minutes of extra sleep. Importantly, the snooze condition didn’t make participants wake up from deep sleep, and they even performed slightly better on cognitive tests right after waking up.
The study notes that the positive findings should be seen in the context of regular snoozers, who find it easy to fall asleep again after each alarm.
Snoozing may not work for everyone, but for those who routinely hit the snooze button, this research suggests that it may not be as bad for sleep and wakefulness as previously thought. Read more.
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The power of probiotics
Researchers from China have discovered two new types of probiotics that could help people with high blood pressure and those who consume too much sugar.
A study published in the journal mSystems on 19 October offers promising insights into the use of probiotics as a potential solution for hypertension — a condition affecting approximately 40 percent of adults worldwide. Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and other serious health issues, the study highlighted.
The study shows how these probiotics, called Bifidobacterium lactis (M8) and Lactobacillus rhamnosus (M9), can regulate blood pressure levels by altering the gut microbiota.
The scientists tested these probiotics on mice with hypertension and found that after 16 weeks of treatment, the mice had normal blood pressure levels and showed specific changes in their gut microbes and metabolism that might explain how the probiotics work.
The researchers also examined how these probiotics affect mice with high-fructose diets or high sugar intake. They observed that the mice that received probiotics had significantly lower blood pressure than the ones that did not.
In fact, their blood pressure was similar to that of a control group that only drank water.
This indicates that probiotics could not only help with hypertension but also prevent it by maintaining healthy blood pressure levels. Read more.
Longest journey to reach Earth
Scientists have made an amazing cosmic discovery — the most well-traveled fast radio burst (FRB) ever detected. FRBs are millisecond-duration pulses of radio emission originating from extragalactic distances.
This FRB is a brief but intense flash of radio emission that has travelled across the universe for around eight billion years, almost half of its age, before arriving at Earth’s telescopes.
This FRB is also surprisingly powerful — more than three times stronger than expected — challenging previous energy estimates of radio burst emissions.
The researchers, who published their findings in the Science journal on 19 October, named this FRB as FRB 20220610A. They also estimated that this FRB was caused by a collision of two or more galaxies, which were common events in the early universe.
The scientists detected this remarkable FRB in June 2022, using a telescope, Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, in Western Australia. They also used telescopes in Chile and Hawaii to identify the galaxy where the FRB came from.
As FRBs travel through galaxies and the space between them, they encounter hot gas, which scatters their radio waves. This scattering effect allows scientists to see and measure matter between galaxies that is normally invisible.
The latest FRB, FRB 20220610A, showed an unusually dispersed signal, indicating a rough journey over its eight-billion-year odyssey.
This discovery reveals that the farther an FRB comes from, the more scattered its signals will be when they reach Earth, giving new insights into the mysteries of intergalactic energy. Read more.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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