Scientific news in small doses

A few milligrams of all the scientific news of the week.

Mathieu Perreault
The Press

Sleep and life expectancy

Sleeping little decreases life expectancy, but sleeping too much is even worse, according to a new study from the University of Montreal. In the magazine sleep medicine In mid-October, Montreal psychologists estimate that people who sleep too little at age 20 have a life expectancy 1.2 years shorter than those who respect the instructions to sleep seven to nine hours a day. While at the same age, those who sleep more than the recommendations lose 2.6 years of life. Data from 9,200 Canadians were used. Lack of sleep affected 18% of the guinea pigs and excess sleep, 5% of them. The phenomenon affects men slightly more than women. Sleeping too much is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, among others.

Quiz

What have French and American biologists discovered about a virus affecting Yellowstone wolves?

Black wolves are protected from the canine distemper virus through a genetic mutation. Gray wolves, the other half of Yellowstone’s wolves, die more easily from this virus. In Science in mid-October, researchers from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and several American universities show that an outbreak of canine distemper increases the proportion of black wolves that reproduce, because females choose them because of the protection that this genetic mutation will confer on their offspring. To complicate matters, gray wolves (the most affected) have more cubs on average, which compounds the impact of the virus on Yellowstone wolves.

The number

800kg

That’s the weight of a giant ostrich that lived in North America 85 million years ago. Described at the end of October in the journal PLOS One by paleontologists from Carleton University in Ottawa (with American colleagues), this “ornithomimosaur” was discovered in a site of the chemical company Dow, in Mississippi. At the time, a sea separated the east and west of the American continent.

A bioadhesive inspired by worms and mussels

Engineers at McGill University have designed a bioadhesive by mimicking structures that allows certain marine invertebrates, such as mussels and flatworms, to attach themselves to irregular structures. The bioadhesive absorbs liquids, such as blood, and attaches to surrounding tissue. The Montreal researchers, who describe their work in mid-October in NatureCommunicationsobserved in mice that their bioadhesive also promoted coagulation.

A temple rather than a synagogue

Israeli ruins that were seen as proof that Jewish religious life survived after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD are ultimately those of a Roman temple, archaeologists from Israel announced in mid-September. Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The ruins of the site of Beit Guvrin, unearthed in 1991, were considered to be those of a monumental synagogue. But detailed excavations since 2015 have shown that it was rather a temple built to show Roman omnipotence against the Jews, Israeli researchers say in a press release.