Second life for things

28/02/2023

Forggensee, Bavaria, Germany 🇩🇪
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28/02/2023

El Chaltén, Province of Santa Cruz - Patagonia Argentina 🏔️🇦🇷
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28/02/2023

Turret arch in Arches National Park Utah.
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28/02/2023

Bow Lake, Alberta | Canada 🏔️🇨🇦
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28/02/2023

28/02/2023

Does telling one lie make you more likely to tell another? During which season are couples most likely to divorce? And what prompts the victims of long-ago sexual assaults to finally speak out? This year, researchers have explored these questions and more, delivering fascinating insights into human nature. Here are eight of the most intriguing stories on human nature from this year.

Scientists discover human sociability genes
A group of colleagues working

(Image credit: racorn/Shutterstock.com)
In a study that was published in the journal Nature in August, researchers identified some of the genes responsible for social behavior. The study involved people with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that makes people hypersociable, and that involves the deletion of a set of 25 genes on chromosome 7.

"I was fascinated on how a genetic defect — a tiny deletion in one of our chromosomes — could make us friendlier, more empathetic and more able to embrace our differences," Alysson Muotri, the study’s co-senior author and an associate professor of pediatrics and cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, said when the study was published.

The researchers found that some neurons in the brains of those with Williams syndrome had increased branching, which might explain their gregarious nature. Muotri told Live Science that researchers still don't know why this enhanced connectivity is related to sociability — and not intelligence or memory.

Forcing a smile may not make you happier after all
A young woman pushes her lips into a smile.

(Image credit: Vladimir Gjorgiev/Shutterstock.com)
Scientists may finally have disproved a landmark 1988 study that indicated that faking a smile could actually make people feel happier (or, at the least, make them rate cartoons as funnier). In the new work, which was published in October in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, a 17-lab effort that included 1,894 participants found no evidence for the so-called facial-feedback hypothesis. The facial-feedback hypothesis suggested that the body’s movements could affect mood, and not just the other way around.

However, the original researcher on the 1988 study, psychologist Fritz Strack of the University of Würzburg in Germany, argued that the replication study changed his original experiment to such an extent that it was no longer a faithful replication. "I’m not sure what we’ve learned other than the effect is not very strong," Strack told Live Science. [25 Scientific Tips for Raising Happy (& Healthy) Kids]

28/02/2023

A new drug can give human skin a "natural" tan — it activates the same process that causes skin to darken in the sun, without exposure to harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays, according to early research.

In the study, researchers applied this drug to human skin samples in a lab dish and found that it darkened the skin, because it spurred production of the pigment melanin. And the drug doesn't damage DNA as the sun's UV rays do.

Much more research is needed to determine if the drug is safe before it could be used in people, the researchers said. But they are hopeful that the drug might actually protect people against skin cancer, because the presence of melanin in the skin is linked with a lower risk of skin cancer. [7 Common Summer Health Concerns]

"It's possible [the drug] may lead to new ways of protecting against UV-induced skin damage and cancer formation," Dr. David Fisher, a co-author of the new research and the chief of dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, said in a statement.

The new study builds upon the researchers' earlier work, which investigated the molecular signals involved in the body's natural tanning response. In a 2006 study, the researchers worked with "red-haired mice," which can't produce brown-colored melanin. These mice, like human redheads, have a genetic variation that prevents cells from setting off a cascade of signals that would eventually lead to brown melanin production.

In that 2006 study, the researchers found that a compound called forskolin could activate the production of melanin in these mice, because forskolin "bypasses" the genetic disruption and activates a protein farther along in the pathway that produces melanin, the researchers said.

But that study also found that forskolin didn't trigger the production of melanin in humans, likely because human skin is much thicker than mouse skin, and the compound could not pe*****te human skin.

In the new study, the researchers used drugs called S*K inhibitors, which affect a protein further along in the melanin production pathway. The S*K inhibitor drugs darkened the skin of red-haired mice, and after the treatment was stopped, the tan gradually went away, just as a "real" tan would. When the researchers applied the drugs to human skin samples for eight days, they found that the drugs did pe*****te the skin, and led to the production of melanin and subsequent skin darkening.

Still, there is reason to be cautious about the safety of S*K inhibitors in humans. S*K inhibitors work by turning on a gene called MITF, and mutations in this gene can cause cancer in certain cases, the researchers said. The S*K inhibitor drugs used in the study wouldn't be expected to cause mutations in the MITF gene, but further studies are needed to better understand the actions of these drugs, they said.

The study is published in the June issue of the journal Cell Reports. The researchers' institutions — Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute — have filed a patent covering the findings of the study.

26/02/2023

Falasarna (sometimes written as Phalasarna) is located on the West coast of Crete.
Falasarna, Crete, Greece 🇬🇷

📸 : Edina Rozsafi
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26/02/2023

The Boathouse
Obersee, Bavarian Alps, Germany🇩🇪
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26/02/2023

Into the Dream 🤩
by Mei Xu
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26/02/2023

Montana Glacier National Park 💚
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26/02/2023

A drive you don't forget.
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26/02/2023

Alpenglow. Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile 🇨🇱
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26/02/2023

Skardu Pakistan ❄️💙
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26/02/2023

Cumberland Falls, Kentucky state, USA 🇺🇸
by Mason Laver
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