A controversial fishing method may release CO2 from the sea floor\nBottom trawling is a widely-used fishing method that involves dragging weighted nets that scrape along the seafloor. It\u2019s sometimes been criticized for damaging marine ecosystems. Now a new study in Frontiers in Marine Science suggests that it also can release significant amounts of carbon trapped in seafloor sediments into the atmosphere. Trisha Atwood, an associate professor at Utah State University and a marine researcher with National Geographic\u2019s Pristine Sea Program worked with scientists at NASA and The Global Fishing Watch for this study.\n
\nTravel tales a mammoth tusk can tell\nResearchers have been analyzing the tusk of a woolly mammoth that died in Alaska 14,000 years ago. Using modern chemical analysis, they\u2019ve been able to track the pachyderm\u2019s travels through its life, and the trail it took to its final demise, likely at the hands of human hunters. Dr. Matthew Wooller at the University of Alaska Fairbanks worked with the Healy Lake Village Council, the University of Ottawa and Hendrik Poinar\u2019s laboratory at McMaster University on this study published in Science Advances. \n
\nCommon sense is not that common, but is quite widely distributed\nSociologists at the University of Pennsylvania have helped answer the age-old question, do most of us have common sense? Researchers including Mark Whiting explored this by asking 2000 people if they agreed with thousands of terms that had been deemed as \u201ccommon sense.\u201d In a paper published in PNAs, the team found that the larger the group, the less likely there was commonly shared knowledge, and no one age, educational or political group stood out as having more common sense than others.\n
\nMale birds who practice their songs do better with females\nA new study suggests that male songbirds who attract mates with their songs need to practice their tunes or their attractiveness suffers. The researchers found a way to harmlessly discourage the birds from singing, and found that without practice females snubbed their efforts. \nIris Adam, a biologist at Southern Denmark University, was part of the team, whose research was published in Nature Communications.\n
\nBetter living through pharmacology \u2014 Can drugs duplicate a healthy lifestyle?\nThe key to good health used to be simple: eat less and exercise. But popular new weight loss drugs could soon be joined on the shelf with a new class of pharmaceuticals that duplicate the effects of a trip to the gym. We explore just how these new pharmaceuticals work and just how much they can replace a healthy lifestyle.\n
\nFirst developed to treat type 2 diabetes, now widely popular as weight loss drugs, GLP-1 agonist drugs like Ozempic may in fact have benefits beyond helping with obesity and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Daniel Drucker, a senior research scientist at Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute and the University of Toronto, early evidence suggests they may also work to treat kidney disease, addiction related disorders, metabolic liver disease, peripheral vascular disease, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.\n\nTo counter our modern sedentary lifestyles, scientists are also looking for the equivalent of an exercise pill. Ronald Evans, a professor at the Salk Institute, has been working on drugs that control genetic \u201cmaster switches\u201d that can turn on the same network of genes \u2014 and confer many of the same benefits \u2014 as a brisk walk or a jog would do.