Is Red Light Therapy Effective In Battling Aging?

With the help of social media, red light therapy has become a popular treatment for skin conditions, wrinkles, redness, scars and acne. However, before TikTokers and influencers, there were astronauts.

NASA originally began working with red light therapy, a non-invasive treatment that uses red or near-infrared light, on plant growth in space and later found it helped heal astronauts’ wounds.

RLT is accessible in some dermatologists’ offices, which offer in-office treatments. Devices are also sold for at-home treatment.

Regular RLT treatments may help with improving skin health and cosmetic appearance by increasing collagen in the skin, increasing circulation between blood and tissue cells, and reducing fine lines and the severity of wrinkles in the skin, a National Institutes of Health study found.

RLT has not been associated with any side effects if used short-term and with a dermatologist consultation. The treatment also does not use ultraviolet (UV) lights, which has been linked to increased cancer risk.

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Possible Way For Black Holes To Develop

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered the goods again. Launched on Christmas Day, 2021, it has since sent back a storm of dazzling images and a trove of good science.

Now Webb has done it again. As NASA reports, two astronomers working with raw Webb data the space agency periodically makes available to researchers, have found evidence of a fast-growing black hole in an unexpected place and formed in an unexpected way.

What the two astronomers—Pieter van Dokkumum of Yale University and Gabriel Brammer of the University of Copenhagen—found was a pair of spiral galaxies that collided in space. Each galaxy has a black hole at its center that was already present before the collision and which emit a red glow surrounded by a ring of light and matter, giving the overall formation the shape of the infinity symbol. Van Dokkum and Brammer nicknamed the pair the Infinity Galaxy.

What surprised them was that the formation was also home to a third, larger, supermassive black hole—one with the mass of perhaps one million suns. This black hole was not in the center of one or the other galaxy as a supermassive black hole should be, but rather in the mashup of dust and gasses between them.

"Everything is unusual about this galaxy," said Van Dokkum, in an extensive description he wrote for NASA. "Not only does it look strange, but it also has this supermassive black hole that’s pulling a lot of material in."

Just how the object formed is unknown, but Van Dokkum and Brammer have two theories, called the "light seeds" and "heavy seeds" scenarios. In the light seeds version, a star explodes and its core collapses, forming a black hole with a mass of perhaps 1,000 suns. Over time, other nearby stars collapse and form their own black holes and finally all of the bodies merge to form one supermassive black hole. But that theory has a problem.

"The merger process takes time," Van Dokkum says, "and Webb has found incredibly massive black holes at incredibly early times in the universe—possibly even too early for the process to explain them." That doesn’t mean the light seeds scenario doesn’t ever play out, but it does mean that it’s not as common as astronomers may believe.

In the heavy seeds scenario a supermassive black hole forms directly from the collapse of a large gas cloud. In the case of the Infinity Galaxy, this occurred during the collision, when the galactic gas was shocked and compressed by the violence of the cosmic crackup.

"This compression might just be enough to form a dense knot, which then compressed into a black hole," Van Dokkum says. That process is also called a direct collapse black hole. Not only did a supermassive black hole form from this collision, that black hole is still growing. Radio and X-ray emissions confirmed by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and by the ground-based Very Large Array, confirm that the black hole is still pulling in prodigious amounts of dust and gas from its surroundings.

Van Dokkum and Brammer prefer the heavy seeds scenario to explain what they found since it would be such a natural result of a galactic collision. "By looking at the Infinity Galaxy, we think we have pieced together a story of how this could have happened here," says Van Dokkum. But they concede that other, less likely occurrences could explain the supermassive black hole.

For one thing, the body between the two galaxies in the Infinity Galaxy might be a runaway black hole that was ejected from its parent galaxy and is now passing through the Infinity Galaxy, and just happened to have been spotted by the Webb telescope during this relatively brief interregnum.

Alternatively, the supermassive black hole might be at the center of a third galaxy that happens to be in the foreground of the same area of sky as the Infinity Galaxy. If that third galaxy were a dwarf galaxy, it might be faint enough that only the superheated gas and dust surrounding the black hole would be visible. But the researchers don’t expect those theories to be borne out.

If the black hole were a runaway, the velocity of the gasses flowing into it would likely be different from the velocity of the gasses in the Infinity Galaxy. While they haven’t yet measured the speed of the gasses, they expect them to be similar.

The idea that the black hole lies at the center of a dwarf galaxy can be dismissed almost out of hand since dwarf galaxies typically don’t form black holes that big. All that is enough for the astronomers to claim at least a cautious victory in their discovery.

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Cutting-Edge Energy Facility Opened In China

There is a new energy storage plant featuring sodium- and lithium-ion batteries that just opened in China's Yunnan province.

The energy storage station, operated by China Southern Power Grid, is approximately 33,333 square meters in size and features over 150 battery compartments, according to CnEVPost.

The station's leader told news agency Xinhua that it has a top response speed that's six times faster than other sodium-ion batteries. It can also store up to 800,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day, which is enough to power approximately 270,000 households.

PV Magazine explained that the station can serve over 30 wind and solar plants to mitigate the impact of intermittent supply. The article highlighted that the power station can adapt to changing energy access and stabilize delivery.

Combined, these benefits make it easier for cities, companies, and everyday people to have an energy source they can rely on. And one they can trust to release less planet-warming pollution than dirty fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.

As the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services pointed out, a cleaner environment reduces the likelihood of respiratory and heart conditions.

While there are many ways to store energy, sodium-ion batteries are gaining popularity. CnEVPost emphasized that this is because sodium is more abundant, easier to extract, and costs less.

Additional information from Sodium Battery Hub detailed that this system can adapt to temperature variations and has a longer life cycle than lithium models.

Energy storage plays a crucial role in the transition to greener energy sources. As more solar and wind stations emerge, engineers believe that the rapid construction of lithium-sodium battery storage will be critical, per Sodium Battery Hub.

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What Is The Purpose Of The Roman Dodecahedron?

The Roman dodecahedrons have baffled archaeologists since 1739, when the first example of the 12-sided bronze object was discovered in the English Midlands. For nearly three centuries, experts and hobbyists have put forth dozens of theories as to why people treasured these items — but their purpose has never been confirmed or validated.

At least 120 examples of dodecahedrons have been discovered across the northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire. All date to the late second to late fourth centuries, and their general appearance is the same, according to classical archaeologist Michael Guggenberger, who has published several studies on the objects.

In a 2000 study, Guggenberger wrote that the basic shape is a regular or pentagonal dodecahedron: 12 pentagons form the faces of the hollow shape, and they meet at 20 corners. Each corner of a Roman dodecahedron is topped with a small sphere, and each pentagonal face has a hole of varying diameter. The dodecahedrons range from 1.6 to 3.9 inches (4 to 10 centimeters) tall and weigh 1 to 20 ounces (30 to 580 grams), with exceptionally thin walls. No writing has been found on any dodecahedron.

Because these dodecahedrons have been found in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland — but not in Italy — Guggenberger views them as "Gallo-Roman products" with a possible origin in the Celtic tribes of the Roman Empire. But there are no historical records or depictions of them in ancient art, so the origin and purpose of the dodecahedrons have been lost.

Archaeologists have recovered dodecahedrons from the graves of men and women, in coin hoards and even in refuse heaps, so a blanket explanation for their use has not been found. But many researchers have attempted to solve the puzzle, suggesting that dodecahedrons may have been used as weapons, decorations, candlestick holders, range finders, measurement devices, children's toys, dice, craftsman's samples or spools for knitting gloves.

Of the 50 or more theories, Guggenberger wrote, most can now be ruled out or considered highly improbable. The primary explanation he favors is symbolic, with a connection to the philosophy of ancient Greek thinkers Plato and Pythagoras.

In Platonic-Pythagorean symbolism, four solid shapes were associated with four elements — tetrahedrons with fire, octahedrons with air, icosahedrons with water, and hexahedrons with earth. And, as the fifth regular solid, "the dodecahedron served as an all-encompassing symbol representing the universe," Guggenberger wrote in a 2013 study. In the second century A.D., thinkers like Plutarch resurrected the earlier idea of the dodecahedron as a symbolic connection to the heavens and the universe, Guggenberger wrote, and that may have influenced Celtic peoples in the Roman Empire.

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Peru's Sacred City Of Caral Unveiled

The renowned site of Caral, one of Peru's most important archaeological areas, has a new jewel in its crown after eight years of excavations, intense research and conservation work.

It is called Peñico, and experts consider it to be a "city of social integration" because of its strategic location, which connected the populations of the Supe and Huaura valleys, but also because of the large number of homes, public buildings and ceremonial spaces it housed.

Last Saturday (12 July), the Caral Archaeological Zone will organise the first Peñico Raymi, a replica of a traditional Andean festival, to inaugurate the new archaeological site.

Although the Caral culture developed mainly between 3000 and 1800 BC (which, given its antiquity, places it in a society with a development and chronology comparable to Ancient Egypt), it's understood the city of Peñico began to develop a little later, around 1800 and 1500 BC.

The Caral are considered the oldest of the pre-Hispanic civilisations in the Americans, which went into steep decline around 1800 BC.

It is possible that the prestige achieved by Peñico society in the valley, coupled with its role as a hub in the exchange network, was linked to the extraction and circulation of hematite. This mineral, used to make a red pigment, had great symbolic importance within Andean cosmology.

Among the 18 constructions discovered during the excavations and now on display to the public, a ceremonial hall stands out: "We don't know its exact limits," explained Mauro Ordóñez, head of the Penico archaeological site. "This building continues to extend from east to west. The most interesting thing is the composition of several antechambers: one of them stands out for having on its sides the representation, in friezes, of pututus".

Pututus are objects also known as churus (the Quechua word for a mollusc, shell or snail). They are wind instruments originally made from a seashell that was large enough to emit a powerful sound. Ordóñez considers this to be evidence of close relations with other pre-Columbian groups in northern Peru.

The sacred city of Caral-Supe, located less than 200 kilometres north of Lima, the Peruvian capital, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Peñico, in particular, was built 600 metres above sea level on a geological terrace parallel to the Supe River and surrounded by hills that reach a height of 1,000 metres.

Its Caralan builders chose this strategic location for multiple purposes: to enhance the monumentality of their buildings, to protect themselves from floods or landslides and, as evidenced by findings such as the representation of musical instruments, and to promote interaction and exchange with other civilizations.

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How Big Are The Roman Defenders Near Hadrian's Wall?

An ancient Roman mystery is afoot in the rolling hills of northern Britain.

Archaeologists have unearthed a stash of unusually large shoes at the ruins of a first-century military fort along Hadrian’s Wall, a 73-mile (117-kilometer) stone barrier that famously shielded the Roman Empire’s northwestern perimeter from foreign invaders. The discovery is raising new questions about the lives and origins of the fort’s inhabitants.

The giant leather soles were found at Magna Fort in May among 34 pieces of footwear, including work boots and baby-sized shoes, that are helping to paint a picture of the 4,000 men, women and children who once lived in and around the English site just south of the Scottish border.

Eight of the shoes are over 11.8 inches (30 centimeters) in length — a US men’s size 13.5 or greater based on Nike’s size chart — making them larger than average by today’s standard and sparking suspicions that unusually tall troops may have guarded this particular fortress at the empire’s edge.

By contrast, the average ancient shoe found at a neighboring Roman fort was closer to a US men’s size 8, according to a news release about the discovery.

"When the first large shoe started to come out of the ground, we were looking for many explanations, like maybe it’s their winter shoes, or people were stuffing them, wearing extra socks," recalled Rachel Frame, a senior archaeologist leading the excavation. "But as we found more of them and different styles, it does seem to be that these (were) just people with really large feet."

As digging continues at Magna Fort, Frame said she hopes further investigation could answer who exactly wore these giant shoes. A basic sketch of the site’s past is just starting to come together.

When the Magna Fort was in use, multiple different Roman military troops and their families moved into the site every few years after it was built around AD 85, archaeologists suspect.

Inscriptions on the fort’s walls and altars recount settlements of Hamian archers from what is now Syria, Dalmatian mountain soldiers from Croatia and Serbia, and Batavians from the Netherlands, but the length of time each group stayed at the stronghold remains unknown.

Likely following orders from the Roman army, the troops would often leave the fort for distant regions and in their haste, ditch shoes, clothing and other belongings in the surrounding trenches, Frame explained.

Additionally, new occupants requiring more space would have built larger structures on top of the existing fort, packing rubble and clay between the walls and trapping any belongings left by the previous tenants, Frame said.

"As archaeologists, we like trash," said Dr. Elizabeth Greene, an associate professor of classics at the University of Western Ontario. "You get those habitational layers where things were just left behind, maybe forgotten about, and that tells us more about the space."

Greene has studied thousands of shoes collected from the nearby Vindolanda Roman Fort, which has been excavated since the 1970s and is among the most well-studied of the Roman forts along Hadrian’s Wall.

The recently discovered Magna shoes share some similarities with those in the Vindolanda Fort collection, said Greene, who was not involved in the Magna excavation process, but has viewed the artifacts.

For one, the soles of the shoes from both sites are made from thick layers of cowhide leather held together with iron hobnails, she explained. While only a couple of the shoes discovered at Magna have some of the upper portions still intact, the Vindolanda Fort shoe styles include closed military boots and open work boots, as well as sneaker-like shoes reaching just below the ankle and sandals with leather fasteners.

It’s likely that the leather soles of the Magna shoes survived thousands of years in the ground thanks to ancient tanning techniques that used crushed up vegetative matter to create a water and heat resistant coating, Greene said. Testing is still underway to confirm this hypothesis.

The length of the extra-large Magna shoes suggests the original owners may have been exceptionally tall, Greene said. At Vindolanda, only 16 out of the 3,704 shoes collected measured over 11.8 inches (30 centimeters).

Ancient Roman military manuals often described the ideal recruit as being only 5 feet, 8 inches or 5 feet, 9 inches in height, according to Rob Collins, a professor of frontier archaeology at Newcastle University in England. But the soldiers stationed around Hadrian’s Wall came from all around the far-reaching empire, bringing a wide diversity of physical traits to their settlements, he said.

Still, why Magna specifically might have needed troops of towering stature remains unclear.

To piece together the shoe owners’ identities, researchers will examine the Magna shoes for any signs of wear, Frame said. Any foot impressions left in the shoes could be used to model the feet of the original wearers.

Linking the shoes to real human remains, however, could prove difficult. For one, the Romans near Hadrian’s Wall generally cremated their dead, using a headstone to mark the graves, Collins said. Any bones that remain around the settlements are likely from enemy, illegal or accidental burials.

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What Generates Your Brain Consciousness?

Many believed that the human brain is similar to a computer. But in reality, that’s selling the brain pretty short.

While comparing neurons and transistors is a convenient metaphor (and not completely out of left field), the brain is ultra-efficient, its energy is renewable, and it’s capable of computational feats that even the most advanced computer can’t pull off. In many ways, the inner workings of the human brain make up an unknown computational frontier.

Although your brain is superior to your laptop—or even the world’s most advanced supercomputer—these machines run on classical physics. But there’s another kind of a computer out there: a quantum one.

The idea that the human brain contains quantum properties isn't new. In fact, the British physicist Roger Penrose and the American anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff first suggested the controversial concept back in the 90s, with their "orchestrated objective reduction" model of a consciousness. Since then, many pieces of evidence have at least hinted that, while the brain may not be a full-fledged quantum computer, some quantum properties may in fact help generate consciousness.

Now, a new study from Shanghai University submits yet another piece of evidence to the neurological court—that one particular process of the human brain exhibits behavior akin to quantum entanglement, a phenomenon when two particles (usually photons) become inextricably linked even across vast distances. This phenomenon confounded even the most brilliant of minds, including Albert Einstein, who called quantum entanglement "spooky action at a distance."

The study, published this month in the journal Physics Review E, suggests that a fatty material called myelin that surrounding the nerve cell’s axon—the fiber that transmits electrical impulses to other nerves or body tissues—provides an environment in which the entanglement of photons is possible. This could potentially explain the rise of cognition, and especially synchronization, which is essential for information processing and rapid response.

"Consciousness within the brain hinges on the synchronized activities of millions of neurons, but the mechanism responsible for orchestrating such synchronization remains elusive," the paper reads. "The results indicate that the cylindrical cavity formed by a myelin sheath can facilitate spontaneous photon emission from the vibrational modes and generate a significant number of entangled photon pairs."

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