Welcome to the scientific bulletin, and we begin with the titles:
Premature births in most countries of the world are linked to poisoning with phthalate chemical compounds
The moon is shrinking in size
Discovery of a species that defies death in botany
5 to 10% of premature births in most countries of the world are caused by poisoning with phthalates used in plastics, cosmetics and paint. This is what was stated in an American study published in The Lancet Planetary Health magazine
It was prepared by lead author and physician Leonardo Trasande of New York University’s Langone Medical Center.
The latter wrote that one in ten premature births in the United States alone is linked to the pregnant woman’s exposure to phthalate chemical compounds, leading to premature birth before the thirty-seventh week of pregnancy.
Phthalates are a chemical compound that, when they enter the body, disrupt the endocrine glands and metabolism and may accelerate premature birth. In 2018, the United States recorded about 56,000 premature births due to exposure to the chemical phthalates, which are present everywhere through the plastic that has invaded the world.
More than three-quarters of exposure to phthalate pollution is caused by the use of plastic.
Plastic manufacturers have already realized the potential danger of keeping phthalates in plastic compositions and have tried to replace them with other compounds from the same chemical group. But what is most frightening is that “the alternatives cause more dangerous effects,” according to the author of the American study, Dr. Trasande. Based on the same study, researchers analyzed the medical and social costs of health problems caused by premature birth when caused by exposure to phthalates, and found that they amount to between $1.6 and $8.1 billion in the United States alone.
The moon suffers from contraction and earthquakes
The southern polar region of the Moon has witnessed a contraction and a decrease in the size of its surface, based on the content of a research published in the “Planetary Science Journal” magazine, which was written by researchers from the American NASA. This agency indicated that what is happening in the geology of the moon is similar to the geology of the Earth, as earthquakes and faults occur on the moon. As a result of the internal cooling of the moon’s interior, its size shrinks. However, lunar contraction does not pose any significant danger to the Earth and is not affected by the tides, since the contraction in the size of the Moon occurs at a very, very slow rate and the Moon’s mass remains the same.
Nicholas Schmerr, co-author of the American study from the University of Maryland, fears that it will spoil the goals of human missions scheduled to be sent to the south polar region of the Moon, where there are craters believed to contain frozen water that may be used either for human drinking needs or for the needs of extracting minerals from the surface of the Moon.
Note that NASA found some lunar earthquakes and faults near the areas it chose as landing points for the “Artemis 3” spacecraft, which will be manned and open the way for Americans to walk again on the surface of the moon for more than 50 years.
From death to life is the story of a genus plant
In a unique phenomenon of nature’s wonders, an evergreen species of fern defies death. In Panama, James Dalling, a tropical botanist, observed a distinctive type of finch known by the scientific name Cyathea rojasiana. This type of fern can transform its dead leaves into vital roots that perform a new function, which is to nourish the plant itself.
Laboratory tests conducted by Dalling, a professor of botany at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, demonstrated that when the dead, wilted leaves of this type of sawdust are buried in the soil and transformed into vital roots, they quickly begin absorbing nitrogen from the soil in order to supply nutrients to the original plant again.
The reason botanists did not pay attention to Cyathea rojasiana before is that when its dead leaves drooped to the ground and clinging to the soil, they looked to botanical explorers like decaying plants. However, with the discovery of a type of fern that defies death in Panama, it became clear that some plant tissues can change their basic functions to new ones, which is a big difference from what other fern plants that live under the shade of trees do, of which there are about 13 thousand species in nature.
