Researchers Debate Concept of Pyramids’ Building, Astronauts Are Caught in Area, and Olympians Swim the Seine

Olympic Athletes Swim the Murky Seine, and Astronauts Are Caught on the Area Station

By Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi & Kelso Harper

Rachel Feltman: Blissful Monday, listeners! That is Rachel Feltman, and also you’re listening to Scientific American’s Science Rapidly. Let’s kick off the week by catching up on the most recent science information.

First, let’s verify in on a few tales we’ve been following not too long ago. A couple of weeks in the past, SciAm’s personal Allison Parshall joined us to elucidate how and why Paris was attempting to make the Seine clear sufficient for Olympians to swim in. The river did certainly host particular person triathlon swimmers for his or her occasion on July 31, however since then there’s been loads of trash discuss concerning the river’s micro organism ranges. On August 4 Belgium’s Olympic committee mentioned it was pulling its staff from the combined relay triathlon as a result of certainly one of its swimmers had turn out to be unwell after competing within the Seine. Whereas Belgium’s athlete Claire Michel did certainly get fairly unwell with gastrointestinal signs, she clarified on Instagram final week that she was sick with a virus, not an E. coli an infection as many of us had speculated. However as Allison defined for us a couple of weeks in the past, the security of the Seine adjustments from everyday. Final week, swimmers needed to skip a deliberate apply day attributable to excessive bacterial counts. Once they acquired cleared to swim the next day, some swimmers used paddleboards so they might get a really feel for the course with out placing their heads beneath the water. To study extra about this huge ecological enterprise—and why Paris put such an enormous wager on an city river—take a look at our episode from July 19.

Talking of Olympics headlines: for those who haven’t checked out our July 31 interview with journalist Rose Eveleth, you positively ought to. It’s acquired a great deal of historic context and fashionable analysis that can assist you perceive the current controversies round intercourse testing and equity in ladies’s boxing.

On supporting science journalism

Should you’re having fun with this text, contemplate supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By buying a subscription you might be serving to to make sure the way forward for impactful tales concerning the discoveries and concepts shaping our world at present.

And right here’s another replace on an previous favourite: Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are nonetheless positively not caught in area, in line with NASA, however they’re additionally positively not dwelling but. To refresh your reminiscence, these two astronauts acquired to the Worldwide Area Station on June 6 and have been solely meant to remain for a few weeks. Points with the Boeing Starliner craft they rode up on have delayed their return. Final week, NASA introduced it wouldn’t be sending one other crewed mission to the ISS till at the very least September 24. The SpaceX Crew-9 mission, which was meant to take 4 astronauts as much as the ISS this coming weekend, can’t take off till the Starliner spacecraft heads dwelling. The U.S. facet of the ISS solely has two docks, and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour is already taking on the second spot. In different phrases, this can be a fairly good indication that NASA continues to be feeling iffy on whether or not or not Butch and Suni ought to trip dwelling in Starliner. NASA confused that no choices have been made at a press convention on Wednesday, which, yeah, I believe we are able to all see that. However NASA did observe that one potential back-up plan is to ship them dwelling with the members of the delayed Crew-9 mission. That mission is meant to final for six months, which might push Butch and Suni’s return into 2025.

For the primary time in nearly 40 years, the Environmental Safety Company has exercised its authority to instantly pull a pesticide from circulation. Final week the EPA issued an Emergency Order suspending the sale of merchandise that comprise dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, or DCPA, which can be marketed beneath the model title Dacthal. The weed killer has been round for the reason that Fifties, and the EPA has been investigating its affect on thyroid well being for years. The EPA mentioned in an announcement that AMVAC Chemical Company, the only producer of DCPA, has repeatedly did not ship knowledge that proves the pesticide’s security, and that the EPA’s evaluation suggests unacceptable threat. The weedkiller is particularly dangerous to fetal improvement, and it’s been banned within the European Union for greater than a decade.

In different “Is it just me, or is there no such thing as healthy consumption under capitalism?” information, a examine from the Cleveland Clinic suggests that the favored synthetic sweetener erythritol might improve the chance of cardiovascular issues, together with coronary heart assaults and strokes. Erythritol is discovered naturally in some fruits and veggies, and our our bodies really produce a little bit of it after we metabolize glucose. However that doesn’t imply the portions present in sugar-free meals and drinks are innocent. The examine, revealed final Thursday, confirmed that ranges of the compound within the blood elevated by greater than 1,000 instances over baseline ranges when topics consumed quantities akin to these present in meals merchandise. The researchers additionally noticed a rise in blood clot formation, which didn’t occur when topics ate glucose as a substitute. The identical group from Cleveland Clinic not too long ago raised comparable issues about one other sugar alcohol referred to as xylitol. The senior writer of each research famous that it may be more healthy for people to get pleasure from sugar-sweetened treats carefully than to eat numerous sugar alcohols, particularly in the event that they’re already liable to or recognized with coronary heart or metabolic illness.

To wrap us up with some enjoyable, albeit extremely controversial information that may most likely result in a kind of horrible alien historical past TV documentaries, a personal analysis institute callled Paleotechnic is arguing that historical Egyptians could have used a shocking software to assist construct the pyramids: hydraulic lifts. A brand new paper from researchers on the firm argues that the 4,700-year-old Pyramid of Djoser was constructed with the assistance of a complicated hydraulic freight elevator powered by a department of the Nile. But it surely looks as if this admittedly jazzy headline is fairly problematic: outdoors specialists identified that there have been no Egyptologists or archaeologists concerned instantly with the examine, and other people in these fields appear extraordinarily skeptical. They famous that there would most likely be some historic file of such a formidable system and that it will be type of a stretch for the Nile to truly present the waterpower wanted to fireside up such a large raise. Robust however honest, guys. Robust however honest.

That’s all for this week’s information roundup. Tune in on Wednesday for a deeper dive into the most recent science information. And also you positively don’t wish to miss Friday’s episode. I’ll be chatting with Wendy Zukerman of Science Vs to listen to all about her efforts to research certainly one of science’s greatest analysis taboos: butt stuff.

Should you’re having fun with the present, do us a favor and go away a ranking and a evaluate wherever you hearken to podcasts. You may as well ship us questions, feedback and solutions for subjects you’d like us to cowl at ScienceQuickly@sciam.com.

Science Rapidly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, together with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our present. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for extra up-to-date and in-depth science information.

For Scientific American, that is Rachel Feltman. Have an incredible week!