Science 🧬(@science) 인스타그램 상세 프로필 분석: 팔로워 1,825,462, 참여율 1.64%

Meet nature's most weather-sensitive primate—a critically endangered monkey so anatomically unlucky that rainstorms turn into sneeze-filled nightmares.⁠ ⁠ The Myanmar snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus strykeri), discovered just 15 years ago in the remote mountains of northern Myanmar, possesses one of evolution's most peculiar design flaws: upturned nostrils that act like tiny rain funnels. When precipitation falls directly into their exposed nasal cavities, the monkeys sneeze so loudly and frequently that local hunters can easily track them during the wet season by following the distinctive sound echoing through the forest.⁠ ⁠ Local Lisu and Law Waw communities have long known these primates by names meaning "monkey with an upturned face"—mey nwoah and myuk na tok te—and report that the animals have developed a remarkable behavioral adaptation to cope with their unfortunate anatomy. During rainstorms, the monkeys sit with their heads tucked face-down between their knees, maintaining this uncomfortable position until the weather clears to prevent water from entering their problematic nostrils.⁠ ⁠ Scientists formally described Rhinopithecus strykeri in 2011 based on specimens obtained from local hunters, making it the first snub-nosed monkey species discovered in Myanmar. However, the species entered the scientific record already critically endangered, with only 260-330 individuals surviving in a tiny range spanning the Myanmar-China border at altitudes between 8,500-10,000 feet.⁠ ⁠ Habitat destruction from Chinese logging operations and hunting pressure threaten to eliminate this unique species before researchers can fully study their remarkable rain-avoidance behavior. The monkeys spend summer months in higher altitude mixed forests, descending to lower elevations in winter—a seasonal migration that makes them particularly vulnerable to human encroachment and habitat fragmentation.

Scientists have finally solved the mystery of why cute animal content dominates the internet—and it's not just about getting likes. A study from Concordia University and ESSEC Business School reveals that sharing videos of cute animals actually strengthens human relationships in ways we never understood before.⁠ ⁠ Researchers Zeynep Arsel and Ghalia Shamayleh discovered that sending animal content creates "digital affective encounters"—moments that trigger genuine positive emotions between people. ⁠ ⁠ The study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, interviewed animal content creators and consumers to understand this phenomenon. What they found was shocking: people put serious thought into which animal posts they share, using them to recall shared memories and show deep personal knowledge of their friends.⁠ ⁠ The research reveals that animal content acts as a "social lubricant" online, creating what scientists call "digital affective networks"—entire relationship systems built around mood-boosting content. Someone might send a video of baby pandas falling over with the caption "You and me at our first yoga class," instantly connecting past experiences with present laughter.⁠ ⁠ This isn't mindless scrolling—it's sophisticated emotional communication. In a world where social media gets criticized for toxic content, cute animals have become our secret weapon for maintaining genuine human connections across digital spaces.⁠ ⁠ The findings suggest that your daily dose of cat GIFs isn't digital junk food—it's relationship maintenance disguised as entertainment.⁠ ⁠ Source: 10.1093/jcr/ucaf023

Most “baby carrots” aren’t baby carrots at all. They’re “baby-cut” carrots, full-size roots that get peeled, trimmed, and shaped into the smooth little snack sticks that show up everywhere from lunchboxes to party trays.⁠ ⁠ The shift began in the mid-1980s, when California carrot farmer Mike Yurosek looked at mountains of perfectly edible, misshapen carrots being rejected for cosmetic reasons. Instead of selling them cheaply for juice, animal feed, or disposal, he started carving them into uniform pieces, first by hand and then with repurposed industrial cutting equipment. The product that stuck was the two-inch “baby-cut” carrot, while his early “bunny ball” idea fizzled.⁠ ⁠ This wasn’t just clever branding, it rewired an industry. After baby-cut carrots took off, US carrot consumption jumped by roughly 30 percent in the following year, and by the late 1990s it had more than doubled compared with a decade earlier. Packaged fresh-cut carrots became a major value-added category, eventually dominating supermarket carrot sales.⁠ ⁠ The manufacturing logic is simple: big carrots are cut into short segments, abraded into a consistent shape with rounded ends, then chilled to slow spoilage. To reduce microbial contamination, processors may use small amounts of chlorine, comparable to practices used for other ready-to-eat produce. The familiar white “blush” can appear when the cut surface dehydrates.⁠ ⁠ The strange magic of baby carrots is that a cosmetic workaround reduced farm waste and made a vegetable feel like a grab-and-go snack, turning food processing into a quiet driver of what people actually eat.⁠

For nearly five decades, a West African-born chimpanzee named Ai helped scientists map the edges of primate intelligence.⁠ ⁠ Kyoto University researchers announced that Ai died at age 49 on January 9, 2026, from multiple organ failure and other ailments linked to old age, surrounded by staff who had cared for her for decades.⁠ ⁠ Ai, whose name means “love” in Japanese, arrived at the university in 1977 and became the central figure of long-running experiments on perception, learning, and memory. Researchers used a computer-linked system that let her select answers in structured cognitive tests, turning curiosity into data about how chimpanzees categorize the world.⁠ ⁠ Over time, Ai learned to recognize more than 100 Chinese characters and the English alphabet, and she could identify Arabic numerals from zero to nine and distinguish 11 colors, according to primatologist Tetsuro Matsuzawa. In one task, she matched the Chinese character for “pink” to the correct color square. In another, after seeing an apple, she selected a rectangle, circle, and dot to build a “virtual apple” on a screen.⁠ ⁠ Her performance made her a subject of scholarly papers and media programs, including work published in Nature, and her life also illuminated how skills pass between generations. In 2000, Ai gave birth to a son, Ayumu, whose abilities drew attention to studies of parent–child knowledge transfer.⁠ ⁠ Kyoto University’s Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior said Ai was highly curious and actively participated in the research, revealing new facets of the chimpanzee mind. The team said this experimental framework remains a crucial foundation for considering the evolution of the human mind.⁠

Britain has put new limits on junk food advertising. The rules now block TV ads for foods high in fat, salt, or sugar before 9 p.m., and ban paid online ads for those products at all times, cutting off key hours when children are most likely to watch and scroll.⁠ ⁠ The policy is built on a simple idea backed by behavioral research: marketing does not just reflect cravings, it helps shape them. Government modeling estimates the restrictions could remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets each year and prevent around 20,000 cases of childhood obesity. The urgency is visible in national health data, with more than one in five children in England overweight or obese by the start of primary school, rising to more than a third by the time they leave.⁠ ⁠ There are signs regulation can reshape food environments. The Soft Drinks Industry Levy, introduced in 2018, pushed reformulation and was followed by a major drop in sugar sold in soft drinks. Local advertising rules have also shown effects, including Transport for London’s 2019 restriction, which research linked to reduced purchases of calories from less healthy foods, over time.⁠ ⁠ The new ban still leaves escape hatches. Brands can advertise their logos and mascots without showing specific restricted products, favoring companies with globally recognizable identities. Outdoor billboards and transit posters are not covered, and spending there has grown, shifting exposure from screens to streets.⁠ ⁠ Advertising limits can reduce pressure, but they cannot replace a food system where cheap, heavily promoted options stay easiest to reach. This is prevention by environment, not perfection by slogan.

This is because all three ingredients act on the stomach and help you to deal with the after-effects of a hangover.⁠ ⁠ Bananas are easy to digest and are also known to calm stomach upset and hydrate the body. Alcohol dehydrates the body, which is why you feel dizzy and have headaches. Bananas are also rich in electrolytes and minerals such as magnesium and potassium, which are severely depleted due to heavy drinking.⁠ ⁠ If honey is added to banana milkshakes, it helps build up the depleted blood sugar levels, providing some energy. And adding milk to it soothes and rehydrates the digestive system post-heavy drinking.⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ #banana #milkshake #honey #hangoverdrink #hangovercure #hangover #science

London is “lawless” if political soundbites and viral clips are to be believed, but the city’s homicide data tells a calmer story: lethal violence is down to levels not seen in more than a decade.⁠ ⁠ Police recorded **97 homicides in 2025**, down from **109 in 2024**, the fewest since 2014. Adjusted for population, London’s rate sits at about **1.1 per 100,000**, lower than figures often cited for **Paris (1.6), New York (2.8), and Berlin (3.2)**.⁠ ⁠ The strategy is a two-track system: narrow, intelligence-led enforcement aimed at the small number of people and networks driving serious harm, paired with prevention that treats violence like a public health threat. London’s violence reduction work includes interventions that meet young people at critical moments, including in hospitals and custody settings, to disrupt retaliation cycles before they harden into lifelong patterns.⁠ ⁠ Policing has also leaned hard into data and tools, including targeted deployments and live facial recognition in specific operations, alongside a focus on dismantling organised crime groups. The Met says most homicide investigations now end in a positive outcome, a reminder that “fewer murders” and “more solved” can move together.⁠ ⁠ Danger is still concentrated in deprived areas, and everyday crimes like shoplifting and phone theft have surged, shaping how safe people feel even when homicide falls. The lesson is uncomfortable and useful: reducing violence is possible without turning a city into a fortress, but only if prevention is funded like infrastructure and shared like public safety.

NPSR1 codes for a protein receptor in the brain known to be involved in arousal and sleep behavior. When a team of scientists in 2019 engineered the mutation into mice, they slept less without any obvious effect on health or memory.⁠ Another variation in NPSR1 has previously been linked to people requiring 20 minutes less sleep than average, based on studies of tens of thousands of people.⁠ ⁠ On average, people need 8 hours of sleep a night. In most people, sleeping less than 6 hours a night results in a marked decline in cognitive abilities within days. Over long periods, sleep deprivation can contribute to many disorders, including obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and depression.⁠ ⁠ In theory, if these gene variants provided a big advantage, evolution should have made them common – yet they appear to be rare. It might be, say, that sleeping less only became an advantage after the development of lights. But other advantageous gene variants that appeared only recently in human history, such as those allowing adults to digest milk, became widespread very rapidly.⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ #protein #sleep #gene #dna #biology #science

Archaeologists believe that cats and humans have had a relationship for thousands of years, starting when crop cultivation became the norm. As agriculture spread in the Fertile Crescent (between the modern Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf), the concentration of grains would have attracted rodents like mice and voles. Rotund little rodents nestled in a field would have been easy targets for the wild cats who lived in the area, so rather than roughing it in the desert, cats moved in with people by around 7,500 BCE... sort of.⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ The exact relationship between early, semi-domesticated cats and humans isn’t clear-cut. While there’s some evidence that people had personal connections to cats, with one potential pet burial site in Cyprus as old as 9,500 years, it’s just as likely that cats tolerated the presence of humans for the convenience of plentiful mouse populations.⁠ ⁠ So when humans began heading north to Europe, farming along the way, proto-Fluffy apparently tagged along. New research found human and cat bones dating back to 4,200 to 2,300 BCE in a cave in Poland, coinciding with a period of rapid settlement in the Late Neolithic period. To examine the relationship between humans and cats, the scientists wanted to know what the cats were eating. If it looked like most wild mice — rather than diets closer to humans and domesticated dogs — it would confirm that the cats were along for the ride, rather than attached to the humans.⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ #cats #domesticcat #cat #biology #history #science⁠

By January 10, 2026, Oxfam says the world’s richest 1 percent had already burned through their “fair share” of carbon pollution for the entire year. Oxfam dubbed the moment “Pollutocrat Day”, a calendar marker for how fast extreme wealth can turn the atmosphere into a bill everybody else pays.⁠ ⁠ The idea behind a “carbon budget” is simple. To keep global heating near 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, there is only so much CO₂ humanity can emit. Oxfam’s methodology uses a rough per person budget of about 2.1 tonnes of CO₂ a year. The richest 1 percent, estimated at about 75 tonnes per person per year, can spend that in a little over ten days.⁠ ⁠ The numbers get more surreal at the very top. Oxfam reports the richest 0.1 percent exhaust their annual share in about three days, and their daily emissions can exceed what the poorest half of the world emits in a year. This gap is not only about private jets and superyachts, it is also about ownership and investment in high emitting industries.⁠ ⁠ Oxfam estimates the emissions tied to the richest 1 percent’s footprint in a single year could be linked to around 1.3 million heat related deaths by 2100. The economic damage is expected to land hardest on low and lower middle income countries, with losses that could add up to $44 trillion by 2050.⁠ ⁠ Oxfam’s prescription is policy, not moral scolding. It calls for higher taxes on extreme wealth and income, tougher rules or punitive taxes on luxury emissions, and profit taxes on fossil fuel companies, shifting power away from the biggest polluters and toward a faster, fairer clean energy transition.⁠

Mr. Zhang was left with high-level paralysis after a fall in 2022. In June, surgeons at Huashan Hospital implanted a wireless invasive brain–computer interface called WRS01. It uses tiny sensor modules connected by flexible electrodes, plus a processor seated in a shallow groove in the skull. An external cap aligns over the implant to deliver power and receive data wirelessly.⁠ ⁠ Within two to three weeks of training, Zhang could steer a cursor, operate a smart wheelchair outdoors, and direct robotic dogs to fetch and deliver items. He also used thought-driven cursor control to do paid remote work, verifying product dispensing from vending machines. The team reports reducing brain-to-machine delay to under 100 milliseconds, fast enough to feel smooth, and stable enough to work across days without constant recalibration.⁠ ⁠ Researchers also tracked how control changed inside the brain. Early practice recruited many neurons at once, but over time the activity narrowed into a smaller, more efficient set, making commands feel less effortful. The team also developed methods to extract reliable patterns even as neural activity drifted outside the lab.⁠ ⁠ An upgraded WRS02 system with 256 recording channels is planned for clinical trials, with long-term goals that include decoding speech from brain signals.⁠ ⁠ Meanwhile, a separate thread of research is tying anxiety to measurable brain chemistry. A meta-analysis pooling brain spectroscopy studies found lower choline-related signals in people with anxiety disorders, across multiple independent datasets.⁠ ⁠ Choline helps build cell membranes, supports acetylcholine (a neurotransmitter linked to attention and memory), and supplies material needed for myelin, the insulation around nerve fibers. The data do not show that supplements treat anxiety, but they sharpen the idea that mental health can hinge on biology’s supply chains, not just mindset.⁠

Same-sex sexual behavior is hard-coded into nature. In primates, it shows up again and again, and a new big-picture analysis suggests it tends to flourish where life is hardest and social politics are sharpest.⁠ ⁠ Researchers assembled published records for 491 non-human primate species and found documented same-sex sexual behavior in 59 of them, spanning lemurs, monkeys, and great apes. The team then tested which conditions best predicted where the behavior appears across the primate family tree.⁠ ⁠ The strongest signals clustered around high-stakes living. The behavior was more likely in species facing harsh environments, limited food, or high predation risk, conditions where cooperation and alliances can shape survival. It also appeared more often in primates with complex social systems and strict hierarchies, where competition and tension run high.⁠ ⁠ Biology lined up with that story. Species with stronger sexual dimorphism, often linked to intense mate competition, were more likely to show same-sex behavior. Longer-lived species also showed it more, consistent with relationship maintenance paying off over decades.⁠ ⁠ Field work hints at specific benefits. In a long-running study of rhesus macaques in Puerto Rico, males that mounted other males formed alliances that could later improve access to females. Other analyses suggest some same-sex behavior is heritable in macaques, reported at more than 6%.⁠ ⁠ The authors and outside commentators caution that the record is biased because researchers have often failed to document these interactions. Even so, the study frames same-sex sexual behavior as a flexible social strategy that can reinforce bonds, manage conflict, and build alliances under pressure, without claiming a simple map onto modern human identity.⁠ ⁠ Source: 10.1038/s41559-025-02940-z⁠