Jun 23, 2022 05:40 PM
These cancer cells wake up when people sleep
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01724-w
INTRO: Cancer is at its deadliest when a tumour’s cells worm their way into the bloodstream and travel to a new location in the body to set up shop — a process called metastasis. Now, a study finds that for people with breast cancer, these rogue cells — called circulating tumour cells, or CTCs — are more likely to jump into the blood at night than during the day.
The discovery reveals some basic human physiology that has so far flown under the radar and could lead to better ways of tracking cancer’s progression, says Qing-Jun Meng, a chronobiologist at the University of Manchester, UK... (MORE - details)
Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes
https://www.science.org/content/article/...t-microbes
EXCERPT: . . . Changes in diet as humans moved on from their hunter-gatherer past and then into cities, antibiotic use, more life stresses, and better hygiene are all possible contributors to the loss of human gut microbes, says Reshmi Upreti, a microbiologist at the University of Washington, Bothell. Several prominent researchers have argued that this lower diversity could contribute to increases in asthma and other inflammatory diseases.
In their past work comparing primate gut microbiomes, Moeller and colleagues simply looked at genetic markers that broadly identified what genera of bacteria or other microbes were present. Moeller has now taken a closer look at exactly what microbial species have gone missing from the human gut by trying to compile the full genomes of current gut microbes in our closest relatives. “You can tell what went extinct [in humans] by looking at what’s in other primates,” Moeller says... (MORE - missing details)
Celibacy: It has surprising evolutionary advantages - new research
https://theconversation.com/celibacy-its...rch-184967
EXCERPTS: Why would someone join an institution that removed the option of family life and required them to be celibate? Reproduction, after all, is at the very heart of the evolution that shaped us. Yet many religious institutions around the world require exactly this. The practice has led anthropologists to wonder how celibacy could have evolved in the first place.
[...] Now our new study, published in Royal Society Proceedings B and conducted in Western China, tackles this fundamental question by studying lifelong religious celibacy in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.
Until recently, it was common for some Tibetan families to send one of their young sons to the local monastery to become a lifelong, celibate monk. Historically, up to one in seven boys became monks. Families typically cited religious motives for having a monk in the family. But were economic and reproductive considerations also involved?
[...] We found that men with a brother who was a monk were wealthier, owning more yaks. But there was little or no benefit for sisters of monks. That’s likely because brothers are in competition over parental resources, land and livestock. As monks cannot own property, by sending one of their sons to the monastery, parents put an end to this fraternal conflict. Firstborn sons generally inherit the parental household, whereas monks are usually second or later born sons.
Surprisingly, we also found that men with a monk brother had more children than men with non-celibate brothers; and their wives tended to have children at an earlier age. Grandparents with a monk son also had more grandchildren, as their non-celibate sons faced less or no competition with their brothers. The practice of sending a son to the monastery, far from being costly to a parent, is therefore in line with a parent’s reproductive interests.
This hints that celibacy can evolve by natural selection. [...] Monks remaining single means there are fewer men competing for marriage to women in the village... (MORE - missing details)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01724-w
INTRO: Cancer is at its deadliest when a tumour’s cells worm their way into the bloodstream and travel to a new location in the body to set up shop — a process called metastasis. Now, a study finds that for people with breast cancer, these rogue cells — called circulating tumour cells, or CTCs — are more likely to jump into the blood at night than during the day.
The discovery reveals some basic human physiology that has so far flown under the radar and could lead to better ways of tracking cancer’s progression, says Qing-Jun Meng, a chronobiologist at the University of Manchester, UK... (MORE - details)
Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes
https://www.science.org/content/article/...t-microbes
EXCERPT: . . . Changes in diet as humans moved on from their hunter-gatherer past and then into cities, antibiotic use, more life stresses, and better hygiene are all possible contributors to the loss of human gut microbes, says Reshmi Upreti, a microbiologist at the University of Washington, Bothell. Several prominent researchers have argued that this lower diversity could contribute to increases in asthma and other inflammatory diseases.
In their past work comparing primate gut microbiomes, Moeller and colleagues simply looked at genetic markers that broadly identified what genera of bacteria or other microbes were present. Moeller has now taken a closer look at exactly what microbial species have gone missing from the human gut by trying to compile the full genomes of current gut microbes in our closest relatives. “You can tell what went extinct [in humans] by looking at what’s in other primates,” Moeller says... (MORE - missing details)
Celibacy: It has surprising evolutionary advantages - new research
https://theconversation.com/celibacy-its...rch-184967
EXCERPTS: Why would someone join an institution that removed the option of family life and required them to be celibate? Reproduction, after all, is at the very heart of the evolution that shaped us. Yet many religious institutions around the world require exactly this. The practice has led anthropologists to wonder how celibacy could have evolved in the first place.
[...] Now our new study, published in Royal Society Proceedings B and conducted in Western China, tackles this fundamental question by studying lifelong religious celibacy in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.
Until recently, it was common for some Tibetan families to send one of their young sons to the local monastery to become a lifelong, celibate monk. Historically, up to one in seven boys became monks. Families typically cited religious motives for having a monk in the family. But were economic and reproductive considerations also involved?
[...] We found that men with a brother who was a monk were wealthier, owning more yaks. But there was little or no benefit for sisters of monks. That’s likely because brothers are in competition over parental resources, land and livestock. As monks cannot own property, by sending one of their sons to the monastery, parents put an end to this fraternal conflict. Firstborn sons generally inherit the parental household, whereas monks are usually second or later born sons.
Surprisingly, we also found that men with a monk brother had more children than men with non-celibate brothers; and their wives tended to have children at an earlier age. Grandparents with a monk son also had more grandchildren, as their non-celibate sons faced less or no competition with their brothers. The practice of sending a son to the monastery, far from being costly to a parent, is therefore in line with a parent’s reproductive interests.
This hints that celibacy can evolve by natural selection. [...] Monks remaining single means there are fewer men competing for marriage to women in the village... (MORE - missing details)