Time: The next frontier of personalized medicine: your inner clock

Time: The next frontier of personalized medicine: your inner clock

By Mandy Oaklander

    For years, scientists have said that everyone needs 8 and a half hours of sleep. Those who have gotten less have been labeled as insomniacs - even if they personally feel more energized with less sleep. Now, new research has shown that there isn't really a one size fits all sleep schedule. In fact, "...short sleepers may actually have an edge over everyone else...Fu has found that besides being more efficient at sleep, they tend to be more energetic and optimistic and have a higher tolerance for pain than people who need to spend more time in bed."

    Your inner circadian clock creates a rhythm that your organs operate upon. Sleep discrepancies occur because not everyone's circadian rhythm is the same, and no one really understands how different they are yet. This also influences treatments and tests. If your body produces more of a certain protein at a certain time, then a doctor might test you at that time and get abnormal results, prescribing unnecessary medicine. On that note, medicines can also be more effective if taken at the time that your organs metabolize that medicine best. Note: Exercise is great medicine no matter the time.

    Finding out more about circadian rhythm could be the key to personalized medicine. Doctors would know your biological time, and be able to diagnose things much better.

National Geographic: If you unbuild it, they will come—the fish, that is

National Geographic: If you unbuild it, they will come—the fish, that is

By James Prosek

    Alewives are a type of fish that travel downstream from their birthplace to the ocean, then travel back up to breed, like salmon. They live on the East Coast and were missing for hundreds of years due to dams. But as the state of Maine is taking dams down for environmental and upkeep reasons, they are returning to the rivers again.

    The millions of fish that swim up river in the springtime run also serve as food for many animals, among them bears, raccoons, and skunks. They are also important to many fishermen. When the alewives were missing, many of them used frozen Atlantic herring, which wasn't as good as using fresh alewives. Plus, "...they feed us spiritually. Nature’s show of resilience at Mill Brook this year seemed especially poignant amid all the uncertainty and worry about the COVID-19 pandemic."

TedEd: Why don't perpetual motion machines ever work?

A TedEd by Netta Schramm

In 1159 A.D., an Indian mathematician created one of the earliest designs for a perpetual motion machine. It consisted of a wheel with curved compartments full of mercury. When it turned, the mercury would always be at the bottom, making that side heavier and causing the wheel to turn forever. A perpetual motion machine is a machine that can generate energy forever without external assistance. For example, a lightbulb that produced enough energy to keep itself running, or a windmill that made its own wind. This is intriguing because such a machine could be used to support human life indefinitely. Unfortunately, these machines are currently impossible because of the Laws of Thermodynamics. The 1st law states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. That means the amount of energy coming out is the same as the energy going in. That means all practical uses of perpetual motion machines are gone because they could never produce more than enough energy needed to run itself. There would be no excess. So how about machines that just run forever? Many ideas for these have been variations on the wheel with weights as counterbalance. But the weights also shift the wheel's center of mass, causing it to just swing back and forth like a pendulum before stopping. Robert Boyle proposed the different idea of using capillary action that draws water up through tubes to make a self-watering pot. But the capillary action would also prevent the water from falling out of the tube, getting it stuck there forever. For all of these, they need extra energy to keep themselves moving, breaking the 1st law. If an engineer developed a machine that didn't violate the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, the 2nd law would thwart it. The 2nd law states that energy tends to spread out through forces like friction. Any moving machine would have parts to create friction and lose little bits of energy through heat over time, eventually stopping it. But we don't have to give up hope yet. There might still be a form of matter out there that can be perpetual. 

The New Yorker: The Fall and Rise of Kamala Harris

The New Yorker: The Fall and Rise of Kamala Harris

By Dana Goodyear

    Joe Biden has fulfilled his pledge to choose a woman as his vice president, along with responding to many black women and the Black Lives Matter movement by choosing an African-Asian-American woman, the first ever on a VP ballot.

    This is just another first on Harris's list of firsts, starting from San Francisco all the way to state and Senate seats. In all of them, she was the first African American woman in her position. During the Democratic primary, she seemed confident that she could add presidency to her list as well. Unfortunately, her failure to provide a clear cut message to voters, along with her shaky record in the criminal justice reform movement, prevented her from getting voters. Her final moment of glory was in a Democratic debate when she grilled Biden over his opposition to buses in the 1970s, "That little girl was me." That left the two in an awkward position should she be considered for vice president.

    However, Biden's acceptance of that and choosing her anyway fit into his whole narrative of broadening perspectives, and it worked out in the end.