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Southern right whales have a life expectancy well beyond 100 years, and 10% could live to be over 130 years old, in accordance with our latest published research within the journal Science Advances. Some of those whales can live as much as 150 years. This life expectancy is nearly double the 70-80 years that is generally assumed.

North Atlantic right whales They were also believed to have a maximum lifespan of about 70 years. However, we’ve got found this to be the case threatened with extinction The average life expectancy of those species is currently only 22 years and so they rarely live past 50 years.

These two species are very closely related – they were considered one species just 25 years ago – so we will assume that they’ve similar lifespans. We attribute the stark difference in life expectancy of North Atlantic right whales to human-caused mortality, primarily because of entanglements in fishing gear and ship strikes.

We made these latest age estimates using photo identification of individual female whales over several many years. Individual whales may be identified from photos yr after yr. When they die, they aren’t any longer photographically “seen again” and disappear. From these photos, we developed what scientists call “survival curves” by estimating the likelihood that whales would disappear from the photographic record as they age. From these survival curves we could estimate the utmost potential lifespan.

Twenty-five years ago, scientists working with local whale hunters within the Arctic showed that bowhead whales could meet these demands even over 200 years. Their evidence included the invention of stone harpoon points, which had not been used because the mid-Nineteenth century, embedded within the blubber of whales recently killed by traditional whalers. Analysis of proteins from the eyes of hunted whales provided further evidence of their long lifespans. Like right whales, before this evaluation, researchers assumed that bowhead whales lived to about 80 years and that humans were the longest-living mammals.

In the years following that report, scientists tried to determine what was special about bowhead whales that allowed them to live such long lives. However, our latest evaluation of the life expectancy of two close relatives of the bowhead whale shows that other whale species can also have extremely long lifespans.

Why it matters

Understanding how long wild animals live has big implications for the way best to guard them. Animals which have a really long lifespan normally reproduce extremely slowly and there may be a few years between births. The life history of baleen whales – particularly the age at which females begin breeding and the spacing between calves – is strongly influenced by their potential lifespan. Conservation and management strategies that don’t plan accordingly have the next risk of failure. This is especially vital given the expected impacts of climate change.

What shouldn’t be yet known

There are many other large whales including blue, fin, sei, humpback, gray and sperm whales. Like bowhead and right whales, this was also the case almost worn out by whaling. Scientists currently assume that they’ll live to be around 80 or 90 years old. However, that's exactly what we believed with bowhead and right whales until data showed they may live for much longer.

How long can these other whale species live? Industrial whaling, which only led to the Sixties, eliminated ancient whales from the world's whale populations. Although many whale populations are recovering, whales born after the tip of commercial whaling do not need enough time to become older.

It is feasible, even likely, that many other species of whales even have long lifespans.

What other research is being conducted?

Other studies find this Elderly loss from populations is a phenomenon that happens in most large animal species. It reduces the reproductive potential of many species. Researchers also argue that this represents an actual lack of culture and wisdom in animals, affecting their potential for survival within the face of fixing conditions.

What's next?

We want to raised understand how whaling has affected the variety of old individuals in current whale populations and predict when the variety of old individuals will return to pre-whaling levels. Preliminary results suggest that it could take one other 100 years for whale populations to actually recuperate, even for species whose populations are the identical today as they were before whaling.

When it involves North Atlantic right whales, our research shows that at the same time as the population increases, management measures taken will not be enough to forestall these whales from dying far too young.

All the people involved on this Jimmy Butler business are proud, and rightly so.

Pat Riley has been on nine NBA championship teams – either as a player, assistant coach, head coach or top executive. And the teams he was an element of reached 19 NBA Finals. There have only been 78 finals within the league's history. That means Riles' teams were in 1 / 4 of them. Nearly three a long time after he arrived in Miami, his Heat organization stays relentless and obsessive about winning, led by a coach in Erik Spoelstra whose tough love brand earns nothing but respect and accolades from players across the league.

Butler has earned every little thing he's gotten within the NBA, coming from Tomball, Texas, and becoming certainly one of the sport's great clutch players, a postseason force unlike most to ever achieve it have. To mix sports metaphors: Jimmy Butler within the playoffs. And if the Heat, who appear to have stabilized after a rough start, make one other postseason appearance, a healthy Jimmy Butler would likely be back.

But the way in which things are shaping up, the paths between player and team seem destined to part ways. Maybe friendly, as mom and pop say once they go to splitsville in order to not upset the children. But still divorced. Whether it comes throughout the season or next summer, with the 35-year-old Butler holding a $52 million player option for the 2025-26 season, we seem like moving toward that inevitability given last season. as either side looked as if it would annoy one anotherstill fresh in my mind.

Unless… the Heat come to the table with the two-year, $113 million extension Butler wanted last yr. Which is unlikely.

At least that is the primary time the Heat have actually seriously listened to trade offers for Butler, league sources said. Nothing has come near a serious offer yet, but even a willingness to listen represents a change within the team's fortunes, as Butler nearly pushed them to the championship in 2023 before Miami was overwhelmed in five games by Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets .

But Miami is sober about its current state.

In 2023, Miami was a play-in team that got hot at just the fitting time. Last season it was… a play-in team that was swept by Boston in the primary round and Butler was sidelined with a knee injury. This season, the Heat appear to have found something, with Butler and Haywood Highsmith flanking Bam Adebayo in the back of Miami's defense. But nobody believes Miami is at the extent of Boston immediately. And Patrick James Riley's skilled life is all about fighting for championships, not number eight.

So if Butler's move brings back players who will give Miami more opportunities, the Heat will take motion. That likely means taking players back, not a deal involving various future picks. Riles doesn’t perform any conversions. (He also turns 80 in March.)

They're not there yet. But they listen.

Butler listens too. He hasn't asked to be traded from Miami, but when he stays he wants the utmost.

He took Riley's admonitions after the Boston series to heart when he called on Butler to look on a podcast where he said if he had been healthyMiami would have beaten either the Celtics or New York in a first-round series.

“If you are not on the court playing Boston or on the court playing the New York Knicks, you should keep your mouth shut when criticizing those teams.” Riley shot back.

So Butler got here into camp in even higher shape than usual, averaging nearly 32 minutes per game despite missing 4 games early within the season with ankle problems. He is shooting 55 percent from the ground in 18 games, which can be a profession high if he continued like that each one season. He still commits fouls and shoots greater than seven free throws per game. He believes he’s proving his price on the pitch and is preparing to play for giant money next season. Could be Miami; might be some place else. It's not that he's ambivalent; All other things being equal, he would favor to remain.

But… see above. And he understands that Miami has to determine what it might mean for him and that it might go either way.

With that in mind, don't discount the chance that Miami is attempting to gauge not only the trade marketplace for Butler, but additionally what it might cost to bring him back if he retires.

No one aside from Brooklyn would have the cap space so as to add Butler via that route next summer. That's not a probable destination for Butler, who desires to play for rings. So if Miami desires to make a deal, it might be the sign-and-trade route. Figuring out what Butler's market is now can even help the Heat determine whether, for instance, to supply him a free-agent deal more according to what the LA Clippers gave James Harden (two years, $70 million dollars), and never what the Philadelphia 76ers ultimately gave Paul George (4 years, $212 million).

How big is the potential trade marketplace for Butler? One could definitely form by the trade deadline as teams turn out to be increasingly eager to add a difference-maker for the ultimate stretch. This is very true within the West, where Denver and Minnesota are struggling to regain their previous form, whether as a result of injuries to key players (the Nuggets) or just some kind of malaise that has spread across the team (the Timberwolves). New Orleans, sitting at 5-21, definitely must reevaluate its roster and think twice about who to field around Zion Williamson and Dejounte Murray in the long run.

But the truth of the second frontcourt and the huge penalties it imposes on teams that transcend it make it incredibly difficult to drag off a blockbuster deal for somebody with Butler's talent, age and price.

Minnesota has already made a blockbuster move this yr with the Karl and Anthony Towns trade and remains to be attempting to determine how Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo best fit into the Wolves' rotation. As our Sam Amick detailed on Friday, the surging Rockets, who’re heading into the NBA Cup semifinals this weekend in Las Vegas on the strength of an already formidable defense, are only a good distance from entering the Butler sweepstakes.

Golden State has been linked to Butler, but Miami has to assume that an Andrew Wiggins-based package, which might likely also must include De'Anthony Melton, now out for the season, gets them closer to games in June than Jimmy Buckets to sit down together (no pun intended). This is a dubious premise.

Dallas is popping the ball over too often for comfort immediately, however the Mavericks are still certainly one of the highest 4 teams within the West and are in the highest 10 in defensive rating. They even have several alphas capable are to take over games offensively – Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving – and a 3rd in Klay Thompson, who is not any stranger to postseason heroics. So they don't necessarily need one other scorer, though they struggled to consistently put the ball within the basket at times throughout the finals series against Boston last June. (And, as Spotrac's Kevin Smith notesAcquiring Butler would require the Mavs to navigate significant hurdles within the second frontcourt to subsequently fill out their roster, in addition to sending multiple players/contracts to the Heat simply to make a Butler deal work.)

Of course, New Orleans wants to maneuver Brandon Ingram. But you wouldn't trade for Butler for those who didn't keep him, which suggests the Pelicans would must be right about an extension. And that may make the Pels, whose four-year extension for Trey Murphy III starts next yr at $112 million, really, really expensive. They're not fascinated with being really, really expensive.

Phoenix has also been regarded as a possible destination. And after all the Suns are in win-yesterday mode. Having Butler on the sphere with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker would make Phoenix all of the more formidable, and Mike Budenholzer could definitely find ways to maximise Butler's defensive prowess on the opposite end.

But a trade between Miami and the Suns would must involve Bradley Beal waiving his no-trade clause to make a deal possible, which might allow Phoenix to make a comparatively clean trade with Miami for Butler. Since Beal first selected the Suns over the Heat in 2023, when the Wizards had the scope of a cope with Miami to send him there, it's hard to assume him wanting to go the opposite way now, even when the Eastern Navigation within the Western Conference is decidedly less treacherous than within the Western Conference. Beal selected Phoenix over Miami, partly since it was much closer to his wife's clan in California.

Sacramento is definitely underperforming at .500 in 26 games and is currently outside of the play-in round. But even in the event that they were interested, the Kings would must know they may re-sign Butler next summer. With the Kings already at the primary frontcourt hard cap, going any further to maintain Butler while De'Aaron Fox inches ever closer to unrestricted free agency looks like a non-starter.

Proverbs says that pride goes before a fall. The best solution for Jimmy Butler, Pat Riley and the Miami Heat could be for everybody to swallow their collective pride, make a deal everyone can live with and play it out on South Beach.

In 2017, Republicans who controlled Congress made an enormous try to cut federal spending on Medicaid, the government-funded health program for low-income families and individuals.

But the Republican effort failed – embodied iconically by Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, affected by terminal brain cancer, who gave his decisive thumbs down earlier that morning.

More than seven years later, it's that point again.

As Donald Trump prepares to maneuver back into the White House, supported by Republican majorities in each houses of Congress, expectations are high that Republicans will quickly revive their long-sought goal of cutting Medicaid.

Republicans need to fund big tax cuts, and that GOP platform under Trump guarantees not to the touch Social Security or Medicare. Of course, this isn't set in stone. But for now, like mine KFF colleagues have noticedMedicaid looks quite a bit like low-hanging fruit. (KFF is a nonprofit health information organization that features KFF Health News.)

Health officials in California and across the country are concerned about the opportunity of major Medicaid cuts as early as next 12 months. Such cuts would have an outsized impact on Golden State, whose 14.7 million Medi-Cal enrollees exceeds the overall population from all but three other US states. Medi-Cal provides medical insurance for over 40% of the state's children and pays for nearly 40% of births. It is a critical source of funding for safety net hospitals and community clinics.

And over 60% The bulk of this 12 months's $161 billion budget comes through Washington.

The possibility of great federal cuts to Medicaid could have been a think about Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision to make the decision a special session of the state parliament this week.

California could attempt to offset a pointy decline in federal dollars through higher taxes or cuts to other state programs. But each options might be politically untenable. That's why many health experts imagine leaders in Sacramento would almost definitely have to contemplate reducing Medi-Cal.

That could mean cutting any variety of them optional services corresponding to dental services, optometry and physical therapy. It could also mean you could have to roll back a few of the ambitious Medi-Cal expansion you've undertaken in recent times. That could include some elements of California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal, a $12 billion program with services that address patients' social and economic needs along with their medical needs.

Some observers worry that federal cuts could have an effect on the economy about 1.5 million Immigrants living within the U.S. without authorization and enrolling in Medi-Cal incur annual costs of greater than $6 billion, almost entirely funded by the federal government. But others say a more likely path could be to chop payments to managed care plans across the board cover 94% of Medi-Cal participants reasonably than targeting specific groups of individuals.

“Medicaid is at stake, and I don’t think that’s speculation,” said Gerald Kominski, a senior fellow on the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. “It is widely viewed by potential members of the Trump administration as a program that is too broad and needs to be brought under control.”

Whether they’ll succeed this time stays to be seen. But more on that later.

People who’ve followed previous GOP efforts to shrink Medicaid say quite a few previously tried methods might be back on the table this time. They could include total caps on federal Medicaid dollars; Eliminate the Affordable Care Act's core policy under which the federal government would pay 90% of the price of expanding coverage to a bigger group of low-income adults; a piece requirement that would affect enrollment; and rule changes designed to make it harder for states to acquire federal Medicaid dollars through using taxes on medical insurance, generally known as MCOs.

The first Trump administration proposed changes to the foundations for such taxes but later dropped them. If similar changes were made this time, it could cause financial problems in California, which frequently uses MCO taxes to offset medical expenses from state coffers.

Proposition 35, recently approved by California voters, may be in danger. The initiative calls for the MCO tax to turn out to be a everlasting fixture in 2027, pending federal approval, with the goal of funding billions of dollars in latest medical spending, primarily to extend funding for doctors and other providers. A change in federal rules could undermine these intentions.

Ending the federal government's 90 percent coverage of the ACA-Medicaid expansion would create a gaping hole within the Medi-Cal budget. Medi-Cal spent greater than $34 billion in fiscal 12 months 2023 to serve the roughly 5 million people enrolled because of this of the expansion, and nearly $31 billion of that quantity was paid for by the federal government.

If the federal government's share were to revert to the regular Medi-Cal rate of fifty%, California would must fork out nearly $14 billion more to cover expansion enrollees – and that's only for one 12 months.

A more ambitious Republican push that features each spending caps and a rollback of federal support for Medicaid expansion could put California officials in real trouble.

In 2017, the state Department of Health issued one Analysis shows that a bill introduced by a bunch of Republican U.S. senators to limit Medicaid spending and end increased funding for the ACA expansion, together with another cuts, would end in California losing nearly $139 billion in federal funding from 2020 to 2027 US dollars lost.

“There are almost unlimited changes state leaders could make to Medi-Cal if forced to,” said David Kane, a senior attorney on the Western Center on Law & Poverty. “And we fear that this burden will almost certainly harm poor people and immigrants the most.”

But major cuts to Medicaid should not a given. After all, when Trump was within the White House in 2017, the Republicans also had majorities within the House of Representatives and the Senate and still didn’t achieve their goal. This time the political stars might be different, but Republicans only have a razor-thin majority within the House of Representatives.

A decade after the ACA's Medicaid expansion, some 21 million people across the country are covered, making this system more embedded within the country's healthcare landscape. According to a Study 2023 From Georgetown University, Medicaid and its associated children's medical insurance program cover a bigger share of the population in rural counties than in urban ones. And as we all know, rural America leans heavily Republican.

Faced with a vote to chop Medicaid, will Republican members of Congress defy their very own constituents?

Edwin Park, one among the authors of this Georgetown study, believes there may be a possibility that giant cuts might be detected. “A large number of Americans are either on Medicaid, have family members who are on Medicaid, or know someone who is on Medicaid,” said Park, a research professor on the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown. “Hopefully its popularity and importance will prevail.”

Originally published: December 13, 2024 at 4:19 am PST

Diabetes occurs when the body fails to manage its blood sugar levels. One type of diabetes causes the body to not produce insulin in any respect. Called Type 1 diabetes or T1DThis autoimmune disease occurs when the body's immune system thinks its own insulin-producing cells are foreign and kills them. On average, T1D could cause this in patients lose a mean of 32 years of healthy life.

Current treatment for T1D includes lifelong insulin injections. Although it’s effective, patients taking insulin are prone to developing low blood sugar levels, which might result in symptoms akin to tremors, irritability, hunger, confusion, and dizziness. In severe cases, seizures or lack of consciousness may occur. Real-time blood glucose monitors and injection devices will help prevent low blood sugar levels by controlling insulin secretion, but they don’t work for some patients.

A treatment is given for these patients Islet transplantation will help higher control blood sugar levels by giving them each recent insulin-producing cells and cells that prevent glucose levels from falling too low. However, it is proscribed by the supply of donors and the necessity to use immunosuppressive drugs. Only about 10% of T1D patients are suitable for islet transplantation.

In my work as Diabetes researchermy colleagues and I even have discovered that producing islet cells from stem cells will help overcome transplant challenges.

History of islet transplantation

Islet transplantation for type 1 diabetes FDA approval in 2023 after greater than a century of research.

Insulin-producing cells, also called beta cells, are positioned within the so-called pancreatic regions Langerhans Islands. They are present in cell clusters that produce other hormones involved in metabolism, akin to: B. Glucagon, which increases blood sugar levels; somatostatin, which inhibits insulin and glucagon; and ghrelin, which signals hunger. anatomist Paul Langerhans discovered islets in 1869, while studying the microscopic anatomy of the pancreas, he found that these cell clusters were markedly different from other cells.

The path to islet transplantation has faced many hurdles since pathologist Gustave-Édouard Laguesse first speculated about it what role islands play in hormone production within the late nineteenth century. In 1893, researchers tried to treat a 13-year-old boy who was dying of diabetes with one Transplanting the pancreas in sheep. While they noted a slight improvement in blood sugar levels, the boy died three days after the procedure.

Interest in islet transplantation was renewed in 1972, when scientists Paul E. Lacy successfully transplanted islets in a diabetic rat. Thereafter, many research groups attempted islet transplantation in humans, with no or limited success.

In 1999, transplant surgeon James Shapiro and his team successfully transplanted islets in seven patients in Edmonton, Canada, by transplanting large numbers of islets from two to 3 donors directly and using immunosuppressive drugs. Through the Edmonton ProtocolThese patients were capable of manage their diabetes without insulin for a 12 months. Until 2012 Over 1,800 patients have undergone islet transplants based on this system, and roughly 90% survived the seven years of follow-up. The first FDA-approved islet transplant therapy based on the Edmonton Protocol.

Stem cells as a source for islets

Islet transplantation is now considered a minor surgical operation by which islets are injected right into a vein within the liver using a catheter. As easy because it could seem, it exists many challenges related to the procedure, including high cost and limited availability of donor islets. The transplant also requires lifelong use of immunosuppressants that allow the foreign islets to live and performance within the body. However, using immunosuppressants also increases the chance of other infections.

To overcome these challenges, researchers are considering using stem cells to create a limiteless source of islets.

There are two forms of stem cells For islet transplants, scientists use: embryonic stem cells, or ESCs, and induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs. Both species can mature into islands within the laboratory.

Each has benefits and downsides.

There are ethical concerns about ES because they’re derived from dead human embryos. ESC transplantation would still require immunosuppressive drugs, limiting their use. Therefore, researchers are working on either encapsulating ESC islands or making mutations to guard them from the body's immune system.

Conversely, iPSCs are obtained from skin, blood or fat cells of the transplant patient. Since the transplant involves the patient's own cells, there isn’t a must take immunosuppressants. But the price of generating iPSC islands for every patient represents a significant obstacle.

Challenges with stem cell islands

While iPSCs could theoretically eliminate the necessity for immunosuppressive drugs, this method has yet to be tested within the clinic.

T1D patients with genetic mutations that cause the disease cannot currently use iPSC islets since the cells that will be used to create stem cells can also carry the identical disease-causing mutation of their islet cells. Many gene editing tools available could possibly remove these mutations and generate functional iPSC islands.

In addition to the challenge of genetic optimization, price is a significant problem in islet transplantation. The transplantation of islet cells from stem cells is dearer than insulin therapy on account of the upper costs Manufacturing costs. Efforts to scale the method and make it less expensive also include creation Biobanks for iPSC matching. This would allow iPSC islets for use for multiple patient, reducing costs by eliminating the necessity to generate freshly modified islets for every patient. Embryonic stem cell islands have the same advantage in that the identical batch of cells may be used for all patients.

There can also be a risk that tumors will form from these stem cell islands after the transplant. Until now, Laboratory studies on rodents And clinical trials on humans rarely suffer from cancer. This suggests that the likelihood of those cells forming a tumor is low.

However, many rounds of research and development are required before stem cell islands may be utilized in the clinic. It's a tricky road, but I consider just a few more tweaks will help researchers beat diabetes and save lives.

With the Taurid meteor shower is now hitting the night sky worldwideKeep an eye fixed out for what might be a heavenly treat – you would possibly see shooting stars, possibly even Fireballsthe biggest and brightest meteors.

As a full moon begins to wane after November fifteenthDue to the waning moonlight, the sky becomes darker, making it easier to search out the meteors. However, one of the best meteor visibility will occur for the remaining of the month shortly before moonrise every night.

Beyond the sunshine show, there's something else that scientists and observers have long wondered about: the chance that there are larger chunks within the Taurid meteor showers, chunks the scale of boulders, buildings, and even mountains.

And if that's true, could certainly one of these monstrous Taurid objects collide with Earth? Could they wipe out a city or worse? Is it possible that this has already happened in some unspecified time in the future in our planet's past?

As a physicist I'm the one who researches the danger that comets and asteroids pose to Earth. I recognize that this can be a topic where pseudoscience often competes with actual science. So let's try to search out the road between fact and fiction.

Pigsty, glowing tails and shooting stars

Comet Encke is the so-called mother comet the Taurid meteors. It is comparatively small, just over 3 miles (nearly 5 kilometers) in diameter, and cruises out and in of Earth's orbit every 3.3 years.

When Encke moves, he sheds dust in all places, just like the Peanuts character Pig Pen. A meteor shower occurs when dust and debris light up as they enter Earth's atmosphere at high speeds. Eventually they disappear in a glowing cloud of steam with a glowing tail, creating the illusion of a “shooting star.”

But dust isn't all that breaks up the comet. The same goes for larger chunks, concerning the size of pebbles and stones. When they collide with the air, they create the much brighter fireballs that sometimes explode.

Doomsday shower

The “coherent catastrophism“The hypothesis suggests that Comet Encke was formed when an excellent larger comet disintegrated into pieces; Encke is the biggest piece that has been preserved. The hypothesis also suggests that other mountain-sized chunks also broke off and assembled right into a large swarm of fragments. If such a swarm exists, there may be a possibility that these large chunks could at some point hit Earth because it transits the swarm.

But simply because something is perhaps physically possible doesn't mean it exists. Mainstream astronomers have rejected probably the most catastrophic predictions of this theory. Among other things, scientists have never observed large concentrations of those mountain-sized objects.

Despite the shortage of evidence, researchers remain on the fringes of science have accepted the thought. They claim that Earth experienced a worldwide catastrophic swarm 12,900 years ago; The impacts, they are saying, caused firestorms, floods and abrupt climate change across the continent, resulting in mass extinctions of enormous mammals resembling: woolly mammothsand the disappearance of early Americans often known as the Clovis people.

The evidence for a catastrophic reason for these events, most of which didn’t occur, missing. Nevertheless, the thought found a big following and formed the premise for the favored television series by British writer Graham Hancock: “Ancient apocalypse.”

The Tunguska event

But even outlandish ideas can contain elements of truth, and there may be evidence that some objects—greater than just dust and debris, but smaller than Doomsday size—actually exist within the Taurid meteor shower and that Earth has already encountered them.

One clue comes from an event on June 30, 1908, when an enormous explosion within the sky knocked down thousands and thousands of trees in Siberia. That was the Tunguska event – a Air blast of an object that will be as much as 160 feet (about 50 meters) in diameter.

The collision several megatons of energy releasedwhich is roughly comparable to a big thermonuclear bomb. What happens is that this: the incoming object penetrates deep into the Earth's atmosphere and is slowed and heated by the dense air until it vaporizes and explodes.

Could this object have been a taurid? After all, the Taurids cross the Earth's orbit twice a yr – not only in autumn, but additionally in June.

Here's the evidence: First, the descriptions of the trajectory of the Tunguska air eruption reported by eyewitnesses match that of an object coming from the Tauride Stream.

Furthermore, the pattern of blast damage to the bottom under an air blast depends upon the trajectory of the exploding object. Supercomputer simulations show that the form of the surface explosion could be brought on by an exploding Tauride object matches the pattern of fallen trees in Tunguska.

Finally, through the Taurid meteor shower in 1975, people observed large fireballs – and previously placed seismometers on the moon by Apollo astronautsdiscovered seismic events on the lunar surface. Scientists interpreted these events as impacts probably brought on by the Taurid meteors.

In 2032 and 2036, the Taurid swarm – if it exists – is predicted to be closer to Earth than at any time since 1975. That could mean that the Moon, and maybe Earth, might be pelted again in those years.

It's time to search out out. Scientists can expand their astronomical surveys to search for Tunguska-sized objects within the places they’re more likely to be the following time they’re near us.

Most scientists remain skeptical that such a swarm exists, but it surely is the planetary defenders' job to research possible threats, even when the danger is low. After all, a Tunguska-sized object could potentially destroy a serious city and kill thousands and thousands of individuals; An accurate count of objects on a possible collision course is important.

Put aside doomsday scenarios and ancient apocalypses. The real and still open query is whether or not a Taurid swarm could carry more Tunguska-sized objects than would otherwise be expected. This would mean that we have now underestimated the danger of future air explosions.

As diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders have increased over the past twenty years, so has the variety of experimental and off-label therapies to treat this condition.

For parents who must navigate the complex and infrequently conflicting landscape of autism interventions—while juggling doctor appointments, educational professionals, and countless other family needs—evaluating these treatments could be daunting.

Autism research experts spoke to the Times about what parents and patients should search for when evaluating a possible recent treatment – for autism or another condition.

Take testimonials with caution

Firsthand accounts of the life-changing effects of a therapy could be very compelling. But such stories alone cannot provide insight into how effective a treatment shall be for others, autism experts say.

“Be wary of therapies that are sold to you with testimonials. If you go to a clinic's website and there are dozens of quotes from parents saying, 'This changed my child's life in XYZ ways,' that's not proof,” says Zoe Gross of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit group of and for autistic adults. “If something is promoted primarily through testimonials, it may be because there is no research, or the research that has been done has shown it is not effective.”

Without accompanying data, it's unimaginable to find out whether a patient's experience with a treatment is typical or an outlier. A therapy could have only a 1% success rate, Gross said, and yet produce dozens of positive results after hundreds of individuals try it.

Doctors say the stories of former patients is usually a start line for locating out whether therapy is correct for somebody. But the exploration shouldn't end there.

“There is an old saying in medicine,” said Dr. Andrew LeuchterDirector of the TMS Clinical and Research Service at UCLA. “The plural of anecdote is not data.”

Search for – and see – the research

“It's really sexy right now to call yourself 'evidence-based,'” said Dr. David Celiberti, executive director of the nonprofit Assn. for Science in Autism Treatment. “For a consumer, that's great. When you hear 'evidence-based,' you're naturally drawn to it. But people use that term very loosely.”

In the case of magnetic resonance therapy, or MERT, its developer Wave Neuroscience offers a library of ResearchSimilar links could be found on the web sites of many licensed clinics.

Most of the autism publications cited by MERT clinics – and sometimes by Wave – are either limited in scope or only tangentially related to therapy, said half a dozen experts, including some whose work is cited.

One of them is, for instance, a brief article from 2016 from the Austin Journal of Autism and Related Disabilities entitled “The Potential of Magnetic Resonance Therapy in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

The authors and consultants said they were surprised to learn the paper was getting used to advertise the treatment. The paper comprises no data or original research and easily concludes that MERT could be further studied as an autism therapy without risk of great harm.

“This is not an evidence-based article. It is an opinion piece about the possibilities of this technology,” said Dr. John CrawfordNeurologist at Children's Hospital of Orange County and co-author of the study. “From a scientific point of view, it's not that significant.”

Who else has confirmed these results?

Many MERT clinics have a 2014 electronic poster presentation The project examines data from the medical records of 141 children who received transcranial magnetic stimulation for autism, the therapy on which MERT is predicated.

Until MarchWave posted the poster on its website, highlighting that 59.1% of the 44 participants who accomplished 12 months of treatment improved their scores on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, an assessment tool used to measure symptom severity.

A more in-depth take a look at the report shows that after five days of treatment, 38 patients were excluded from the evaluation because their symptoms either showed no improvement or worsened. One suffered a seizure during treatment.

The authors excluded dozens more patients for various reasons. Of the remaining 44 patients, 26 showed improvement during treatment. That was 59.1% of those remaining, in keeping with the poster, but only 18.4% of the whole study population.

The report also notes that lots of these 26 children were receiving other therapies at the identical time, which could have been accountable for some or all the improvements.

Posters are typically created to focus on findings at skilled conferences and “cannot be considered to have undergone rigorous peer review,” says neurosurgeon Dr. Charles Liu of USC, a co-author of the poster who just isn’t affiliated with Wave or any MERT clinic.

“The primary point of the abstract is and stays that more rigorous studies are needed [be] Completed.”

If tests show changes, how do you know that the therapy caused them?

Wave and licensees also emphasize a paper from 2022 by a technician from a licensed clinic in Australia who is also a PhD student at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia.

The study examined data from 28 patients from two MERT clinics in Australia whose brains showed a “significant improvement” in their individual alpha frequency waves after treatment.

Although previous studies have found a link between the atypical frequency of alpha waves and autism diagnoses, six scientists told the Times that there is not yet enough evidence to understand how changes in alpha waves affect autistic traits, and there is no scientific consensus on whether “improving” this pattern of brain activity has any meaningful effect on autistic behavior.

The report is a retrospective chart review that examines existing data from patients' medical records and is usually used to discover interesting findings worthy of further investigation.

By design, the study doesn’t include a control group, which allows researchers to find out whether the observed changes are related to the variable under study. The authors identified of their article that the outcomes are preliminary and require further investigation.

“Since this was not a controlled study, [the cause of the changes] “The cause could have been anything, including a placebo effect, any additional therapies the children were receiving, etc.,” said Lindsay Oberman, director of the Neurostimulation Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Medical research follows a hierarchy of evidence. At the bottom are anecdotes and observations: valid information that alone is not enough to draw comprehensive conclusions.

In addition, there are observational studies that systematically collect and analyze existing data. And at the top are randomized controlled trials, which are designed to exclude as many biases as possible from the experiment and to ensure that the object being studied is responsible for all observed changes.

“Families need to know that there is this gold standard for studies – to make sure that something works to help people with autism, there has to be what’s called a randomized controlled trial,” said Alycia Halladay, scientific director of the Foundation for Autism Research.

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit www.latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Originally published: September 13, 2024 at 1:25 p.m.