- Stress and ‘moon face’: What experts say about this TikTok trend
- Key ingredient in plant-based milk linked to colon cancer, experts warn
- Lost Chopin waltz unearthed after almost 200 years
- Students discover and publish unexpected proof for 2,000-year-old mathematical theory
- Scientists say skeletal remains found in castle well belong to figure from 800-year-old saga
- How giant rodents could rat on wildlife traffickers
KMU Weekly: News around the World
Issue 145 – Nov.04 2024
Stress and ‘moon face’: What experts say about this TikTok trend
壓力與「月亮臉」——專家來說TikTok 上的趨勢
Health
Social media users just won’t stop talking about how the stress hormone cortisol can cause cheeks and eyelids to swell out of recognition, a condition dubbed “moon face.” “Your face is like a moon, it can be very circular,” one woman claims on TikTok. “It can look swollen and inflamed.” “It’s from high cortisol, aka high stress,” a woman says in another post. “When I was going through the pandemic I was like (she puffs out her cheeks) ballon face.” True “moon face” is a byproduct of having Cushing’s syndrome, a condition in which the body has extremely high levels of cortisol, Katta said, typically from the protracted use of prescription medications such as the steroid prednisone or, more rarely, cases in which a person’s adrenal glands are overactive. While cortisol levels from elevated everyday stress may not be the reason behind so-called moon face, the hormone can take a toll on the skin in other ways. Adults older than 18 need at least seven hours of solid sleep at night to be healthy, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sleep debt, along with irregular sleep duration, has been linked not only to stressed skin but also to an increased risk of obesity, heart disease, dementia and mood disorders such as anxiety and depression.
---from CNN
社交媒體的用戶對於壓力荷爾蒙——皮質醇會導致臉頰、眼皮腫脹致無法辨識的情況津津樂道，這現象被網友稱為「月亮臉」。 一位女性在 TikTok 表示：「你的臉就像月亮，非常圓潤臃腫，看起來像是發炎。」 「這是因為高皮質醇，也就是高壓力的結果。」另一名女性在影片中說道。「我在疫情期間臉變得像氣球一樣。」 其實真正的「月亮臉」是庫欣症候群的症狀，這是一種體內皮質醇水平極高的情況。Katta表示，這通常是由於長期使用如類固醇潑尼松等處方藥所引起的，又或是罕見腎上腺功能過度活躍導致。 雖然日常壓力引起的皮質醇水平可能不是所謂「月亮臉」的原因，但此激素的確會以其他方式對皮膚造成影響。 根據美國疾病控制與預防中心(CDC)的說法，18歲以上成年人每晚至少需要七小時的良好睡眠才能保持健康。睡眠不足和不規律睡眠時間不僅會讓皮膚處於壓力，還會增加肥胖、心臟病、癡呆症以及焦慮和抑鬱等情緒障礙的風險。
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
Key ingredient in plant-based milk linked to colon cancer, experts warn
專家警告：植物性牛奶的主要成分與結腸癌有關
Health
Experts are sounding the cowbell on the potential dangers of nondairy milk. Cow milk consumption in America has drastically declined in recent years as consumers have gravitated towards plant-based milk for health reasons, have an intolerance to dairy, and have ethical concerns about animal abuse in modern dairy farming practices. However, certain ingredients in these alternatives may be more damaging than dairy. While they may be lower in fat and calories than cow’s milk, research has established that plant-based options are not always nutritionally equal to what comes from the dairy farm. About a third of plant-based milks have sugar levels similar to strawberry or chocolate milk. Still, there is a perception that plant-based means health-conscious even though many of these milk products contain additives and emulsifiers that qualify them as ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Ultra-processed foods are disruptive to the microbial system, and many experts believe overexposure to UPFs is partly to blame for the rising rates of colon cancer in young people.
---from New York Post
專家們對非乳製牛奶的危險拉響了警鐘。 近年來，美國牛奶消費量大幅度下降，消費者轉向植物奶，主要是出於健康因素、乳糖不耐症，以及對於現代乳製品產業中動物虐待問題的道德考量。 然而這些替代品中某些成分可能比乳製品更具破壞性。植物奶的脂肪和卡路里可能低於牛奶，但研究已證實，植物基選項在營養價值上並不總等同於傳統乳製品。大約三分之一的植物奶的糖含量相當於草莓牛奶或巧克力牛奶。儘管如此，植物基飲品通常被視為更健康的選擇。這類產品含有添加劑和乳化劑，使其被歸類為超加工食品（UPF）。 超加工食品會破壞微生態系統，許多專家都認為，過度攝入UPF是年輕人當中結腸癌發病率上升的部分原因。
---摘錄翻譯自New York Post
Lost Chopin waltz unearthed after almost 200 years
蕭邦失傳近200年的華爾茲舞曲出土
Culture
A new piece of music believed to be by the Polish composer Frederic Chopin has been discovered nearly 200 years after it was written. The unknown waltz was unearthed in the vault of the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. The rare manuscript - dated between 1830 and 1835 - was discovered by curator Robinson McClellan while he was cataloguing new collections. He then worked with a leading Chopin expert to authenticate the score. Classical pianist Sir Stephen Hough, who performed at this year’s Last Night of the Proms and has recorded all of Chopin’s waltzes, describing him as his “favourite composer”. "There’s quite a bit of juvenilia which Chopin kept in a drawer and never intended to publish, which was published after his death against his wishes, and this probably belongs in that drawer," he added.
---from BBC
一首被認為是由波蘭作曲家Frederic Chopin（蕭邦）所創作的音樂作品在寫作近200年後被發現。這首未知的華爾滋曲在紐約摩根圖書博物館的金庫中被挖掘出來。 這份稀有的手稿日期介於1830年和1835年間，由館藏員Robinson McClellan在為新收藏品編目時發現。他隨後與一位專門研究蕭邦的頂級學者合作驗證了這份樂譜。 古典鋼琴家Sir Stephen Hough曾在今年的《逍遙音樂會》壓軸演出，他也錄製了所有蕭邦的華爾滋曲，並形容蕭邦是他「最愛的作曲家」。 「蕭邦的抽屜裡保留了許多年輕時的創作，他本無意出版，但那些作品在他死後，在違背他的意願下被出版了，這首曲子可能就屬於那一類。」
---摘錄翻譯自BBC
Students discover and publish unexpected proof for 2,000-year-old mathematical theory
由學生發現且發表了令人震驚的兩千年數學理論的證明法
Culture
Louisiana students Ne’Kiya Jackson and Calcea Johnson wowed their teachers in 2022 when they discovered a new way to prove the 2000-year-old Pythagorean theorem in response to a bonus question in a high school math contest. Now Jackson and Johnson, who started college last year, have notched another achievement: authoring an academic paper detailing their original proof — plus nine more. Their work published Monday in the scientific journal American Mathematical Monthly. Jackson and Johnson’s study outlines five new ways of proving the theorem using trigonometry, and their method reveals five more proofs for 10 total. The pair presented only one of the proofs at the 2023 conference, meaning that nine are totally new. Preparing the academic paper while they started college was “the most daunting task of all, since we had absolutely no experience writing for an academic journal,” the pair noted in the study. Their road to publication included a standard hurdle known as peer review, or the stage during which eminent scientists in the field examine and comment on the work.
---from CNN
路易斯安那州的學生Ne'Kiya Jackson和Calcea Johnson在2022年參加一場高中數學比賽，在回應其中一道附加題時發現了全新方法，可以用來證明擁有2000年歷史的畢達哥拉斯定理，這令他們的老師們驚豔不已。 去年進入大學的Jackson和Johnson，現在又取得了一項新成就：她們聯合撰寫了一篇學術論文，詳細闡述了她們的原創證明方法，外加九個新的證明。她們的研究成果於週一在科學期刊《美國數學月刊》上發表。 Jackson和Johnson的研究概述了五種使用三角學證明該定理的新方法，而她們的方法揭示了另外五種證明，總共達到十種。在2023年的會議上，她們只展示了一種證明方法，這意味著其餘的九種證明是全新的。 她們表示，剛進入大學同時撰寫這篇學術論文是「最艱難的任務」，因為她們完全沒有撰寫過任何學術期刊的經驗。她們的發表之路還包括所謂的「同行評審」。此階段會經由該領域的知名科學家們詳細檢查並評論她們的研究。
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
Scientists say skeletal remains found in castle well belong to figure from 800-year-old saga
科學家表示，在城堡水井中發現的骸骨是800年前傳奇故事中的人物
Sciences
Researchers have connected the identity of skeletal remains found in a well at Norway’s Sverresborg castle to a passage in a centuries-old Norse text. The 800-year-old Sverris saga, which follows the story of the real-life King Sverre Sigurdsson, includes the tossing of the body of a dead man — later known as “Well-man” — down a well during a military raid in central Norway in 1197. It’s likely, according to the text, that raiders lobbed the body into the well to poison the main water source for locals, but little else is said about the man or who he was in the saga. Researchers initially uncovered the bones in the castle’s well in 1938, but they were only able to carry out a visual analysis at the time. Now, scientists have an array of analytical techniques at their disposal, including genetic sequencing and radiocarbon dating. Maja Krzewińska, a researcher at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden, found the study’s methodology to be well-executed but said she was most impressed that the remains could be linked to an event described in a historical source.
---from CNN
研究人員將挪威斯維雷堡城堡井中發現的骨骸身份，與一段古老北歐傳說中的描述聯繫了起來。 根據有800年歷史的《斯維雷薩迦》——講述真實的Sverre Sigurdsson國王的故事——1197年在挪威中部一次軍事襲擊中，有人將一名死者（後來被稱為「井中之人」）的屍體丟入井中。 依照傳說推測，襲擊者可能是為了毒害當地居民的主要水源而把屍體扔進井裡，但該書對這名男子與其身份所說甚少。研究人員最早於1938年在城堡的井中發現這些骨骸，但當時只能進行視覺分析。如今科學家擁有一系列的分析技術，包括基因測序和放射性碳定年法。 瑞典斯德哥爾摩古基因中心的Maja Krzewińska博士認為此研究使用的方法非常到位，但令她驚訝的是，該遺骸能夠與歷史傳說事件聯繫起來。
---摘錄翻譯自CNN
How giant rodents could rat on wildlife traffickers
這些巨型嚙齒動物如何告發非法野生動物販子
Sciences
While the jury is still out on whether or not the African giant pouched rat is cute, it’s harder to deny the impressive power of its nose. Tanzania-based non-profit APOPO has already demonstrated the ability of the cat-sized rodents, which it calls “HeroRATs,” to sniff out landmines, tuberculosis, and even survivors among rubble in natural disaster zones. But now the organization is turning its attention (and its rats’ noses) to the global illegal wildlife trade. Estimated to be worth up to $23 billion per year, illicit wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest illegal trade industry worldwide – following counterfeit products, drugs and humans. This is where the rats and their acute sense of smell come in. According to new research led by APOPO and published in Frontiers in Conservation Science, the rats have been successfully trained in a research facility to sniff out elephant tusks, rhino horns, pangolin scales and African blackwood – which Allan(Crawford Allan, vice president of nature crimes and policy advocacy at the WWF US), who’s not involved in the research, says are some of the most common wildlife products to be trafficked out of Africa.
---from CNN
非洲巨型袋鼠是否可愛見仁見智，但其靈敏的嗅覺確實令人讚嘆。 總部位於坦尚尼亞的非營利組織APOPO早已證明這些貓大小的囓齒動物（他們稱之為「英雄鼠」）可以嗅出地雷、結核病，甚至在自然災害區域的瓦礫堆中找到倖存者。 但現在該組織正將目光（鼠鼻）轉向全球非法野生動植物交易。 非法野生動植物交易是全球第四大非法貿易行業，估計每年可達到230億美元的經濟效應，僅次於仿冒品、毒品與人口販運。 這正好是老鼠和牠們靈敏嗅覺大顯身手的地方。根據APOPO領導的一項新研究，該研究已發表於《保育科學前沿》期刊。 世界自然基金會美國分會WWF US自然犯罪與政策倡導副總裁Crawford Allan指出（他並未參與該研究），老鼠已經在研究設施中被成功訓練，能夠嗅出象牙、犀牛角、穿山甲鱗片和非洲黑木——這些是非洲非法走私中最常見的野生動植物產品。
---摘錄翻譯自CNN