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Sean Nash

Airplane Noise Exposure May Increase Risk of Chronic Disease | SPH - 0 views

www.bu.edu/...crease-risk-of-chronic-disease

HSR HSR-2025 airplane noise disease environmental science questions statistical analysis mathematics computer science potential research idea behavioralscience

shared by Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • people who were exposed to higher levels of noise from aircraft were more likely to have a higher body mass index, an indicator for obesity that can lead to stroke or hypertension. The findings highlight how the environment—and environmental injustices—can shape health outcomes
  • self-reported body mass index (BMI)
  • The study is the first to explore a connection between aircraft noise exposure and obesity nationwide in the United States; past studies on this subject have focused on European populations, and results have varied
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      It would be interesting to see how these studied varied. I would bet that there are other, stronger factors overlying this effect, and it would be challenging to tease out this signal from other socioeconomic factors, but I very much like this concept.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “Prior research has shown that aircraft noise can elevate stress responses and disturb sleep, but there has been mixed evidence of any links with body mass index,” says study lead and corresponding author Matthew Bozigar, assistant professor of epidemiology at OSU and a former postdoctoral associate at SPH. “We were surprised to see a fairly robust link between aircraft noise and higher body mass index among women across the US.”
  • These new findings underscore the role of the environment on one’s risk of chronic disease.
  • Junenette Peters, associate professor of environmental health, and colleagues examined airplane noise exposure and self-reported BMI and other individual characteristics among nearly 75,000 participants living around 90 of the major US airports
  • The team examined aircraft noise levels every five years from 1995 to 2010, using a day-night estimate (DNL) that captures the average noise level over a 24-hour period and applies a 10 dB adjustment for aircraft noise occurring at night, when background noise is low.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      I'm sure there are low-powered data loggers that measure dB that we could plant in various places (varying distances from airports (or other things... even just distances from population centers in general). This would allow us to not only work with and search for correlations between data points already collected, but also to generate more specific data on our own. The human data might not necessarily have to be collected by us. The challenge might be just to find databases that have already been collected for various reasons. Much science is done in this way, where instead of generating a ton of data to analyze, the researcher used previously collected data to ask new and interesting questions of.
  • Although the team acknowledges that BMI is a suboptimal metric, the independent and strong association between more aircraft noise exposure and higher BMI that they observed is notable.
  • “We can only hypothesize about why we saw these regional variations, but one reason may relate to the era of regional development, building characteristics, and climate which may affect factors such as housing age, design, and level of insulation,” says Peters. “Regional differences in temperature and humidity may influence behaviors such as window opening, so perhaps study participants living in the West were more exposed to aircraft noise due to open windows or housing type, which allowed more noise to penetrate.”
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      The really interesting work here would be teasing interesting patterns out of really complex data sets. For example, people living near airports typically live in housing that is less expensive due to the lesser desirability of living in that area. That tends to correlate with lower socio-economic status found near airports. However, this is interesting because the major flightpaths to the KCI airport do not exactly line up in this way. For example, three of the school districts in Missouri that line up with KCI runways (Park Hill Schools - where we live, Platte County Schools, Kearney Schools, Smithville Schools, and the northern part of North Kansas City Schools) are all of a higher than average socioeconomic status than outlying areas closer to the city. This is unusual in major metropolitan areas.
  • Previous data suggest that Black, Hispanic, and low-income populations are disproportionately exposed to aircraft noise. The participants in the NHS study groups were primarily White and of mid-level socioeconomic status. 
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      Again, this is a bit different than around most airports. The area immediately surrounding KCI is rather white and mid-to-upper SES.
  • “We need to study the potential health impacts of environmental injustices in transportation noise exposures alongside other environmental drivers of poor health outcomes” Bozigar says. “There is a lot more to figure out, but this study adds evidence to a growing body of literature that noise negatively impacts health.”
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      What other environmental factors can be studied either by direct measurement, or by querying previously-collected data to ask/answer questions about environmental health?
Sean Nash

Could the world famous Roman Baths help scientists counter the challenge of antibiotic ... - 1 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240531122536.htm

microbiology archea challenge resistance antibiotic HSR HSR-2025 science environmental questions biology potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • Proteobacteria and Firmicutes
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      If we were able to sample various springs/baths in the midwest could we even culture strains like this, and then what would it take to identify them? You could compare that perhaps to total colony counts on Petri dishes.
  • a detailed examination of the bacterial and archaeal communities found within the waters of the popular tourist attraction in the city of Bath
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      The Elms is a famous springwater bath locale here in Excelsior Springs, Missouri less than an hour away. Eureka Springs, Arkansas is another area nearby off the top of my head. This also has me asking general questions about other bathing scenarios that would not likely feature ancient microbes, like hot tubs, swimming pools, etc. I wonder about ALL of the variables that go into the conditions of these baths and how that might correlate to total numbers of bacteria as well as differing types. There isn't a TON of microbiology that we can do in the high school lab without help, but I do know that we are generally permitted to work with environmentally-found bacteria (like the little lab we did in the Addie unit).
  • Scientists collected samples of water, sediment and biofilm from locations within the Roman Baths complex including the King's Spring (where the waters reach around 45°C) and the Great Bath, where the temperatures are closer to 30°C.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      This means they collected from the water column itself, but also biofilms (which would be found along the edges of containments walls, etc... in addition to sediment found at the bottom of natural spring sources.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The samples were then analysed using cutting edge sequencing technology and traditional culturing techniques were employed to isolate bacteria with antibiotic activity.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      This obviously would require a significant bit of outside help. However, I'm still not sure we couldn't do more basic work that would be meaningful.
nataliegomes

Do Invertebrates Have Emotions? | The Scientist Magazine® - 1 views

www.the-scientist.com/ertebrates-have-emotions-70067

HSR-2025 science biology behavioralscience invertebrates HSR questions potential research idea

shared by nataliegomes on 07 May 24 - No Cached
  • He adds that he doubts that the findings are applicable to other insect species, which still might act purely on instinct.
  • Invertebrate nervous systems, physiology, and sensory experiences are dissimilar to ours, and designing experiments to measure their emotions has been challenging. 
  • If the responses weren’t purely reflexive, it would open up the possibility that the animals could feel pain. 
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • After placing acetic acid—a mild irritant—on the crabs’ antennae, they found that the crabs rubbed their antennae against the glass of their aquarium, seemingly in an attempt to take the acid off.
    • nataliegomes
      nataliegomes on 07 May 24
       
      The use of an invisible irritant rather than a notable injury shows that they can feel the pain, instead of just noticing an injury to their body.
Sean Nash

Study traces an infectious language epidemic | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240513105214.htm

LLM ChatGPT language trace cause & effect study Reddit COVID words potential research idea computer science statistical analysis mathematic behavioralscience questions HSR HSR-2025 science

shared by Sean Nash on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • Rho's work is grounded in a social science framework called Fuzzy Trace Theory that was pioneered by Valerie Reyna, a Cornell University professor of psychology and a collaborator on this Virginia Tech project. Reyna has shown that individuals learn and recall information better when it is expressed in a cause and effect relationship, and not just as rote information. This holds true even if the information is inaccurate or the implied connection is weak. Reyna calls this cause-and-effect construction a "gist."
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 May 24
       
      Fuzzy Trace Theory looks interesting for this, and perhaps many other reasons. I want to learn more about this myself, and I'm wondering if this theory could be put to work in other potential behavioral science projects. What do you think?
Sean Nash

Add to the many afterlives of coffee grounds: Toxic cleanup - 0 views

www.anthropocenemagazine.org/...f-coffee-grounds-toxic-cleanup

coffee pollution toxins environment ecology toxicity bentazone pesticide HSR HSR-2025 potential research idea environmental botany science questions biology

shared by Sean Nash on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • The experts selected onion plants to test out this idea, known for their high sensitivity to toxins in the environment. In beakers of water containing bentazone, they grew onion root tissue, called meristems, measuring its cell division and root growth as a sign of health. 
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 May 24
       
      One of the things I want VERY badly for our program... is a set of equipment for histology... where we can take things like onion root tips and lock samples in wax, slice them incredibly thin (microslices), and then be able to mount them onto slides for analysis.
Sean Nash

Bee body mass, pathogens and local climate influence heat tolerance - 1 views

phys.org/...body-mass-pathogens-local.html

climatechange climate bees heat pathogens size mass HSR HSR-2025 science environmental questions biology potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 07 May 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • "But few studies have examined biotic impacts, such as pathogen infection, on thermal tolerance in natural populations in combination with abiotic factors," she explained.
  • examined bee physical traits—such as sex differences in body mass—to understand how these traits interact with environmental conditions, pathogens and other factors
  • They found that variation in heat tolerance was influenced by size, sex and infection status of the bees. "Small-bodied, ectothermic—or cold-blooded—insects are considered to be highly vulnerable to changing climate because their ability to maintain proper body temperature depends on external conditions,"
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • researchers hypothesized that the bees' heat tolerance would increase with body size; that male heat tolerance would increase with ambient temperatures above ground whereas female heat tolerance would increase with sandier soils; and that parasite infection would reduce heat tolerance
  • To test these hypotheses, the researchers collected squash bees from 14 sites across Pennsylvania that varied in mean temperature, precipitation and soil texture. They measured individuals' critical thermal maximum—the temperature above which an organism cannot function—as a proxy for heat tolerance
  • Although both sexes showed a positive correlation between heat tolerance and size, male squash bees had a greater change in their critical thermal maximum per unit body mass than females, suggesting that there may be another biological trait influencing the impact of body mass on heat tolerance that differs between the sexes
  • Sean Nash on 07 May 24
     
    There is a strong feasibility element to this sort of work. Being invertebrates, there would be no problem collecting large numbers of bees from the environment for testing. Now... how that is typically done in other research studies... is something to dig into. The challenge here would be the observation/measurement of parasites (like the trypanosomes mentioned here). It might be worth digging into microdissection methods and techniques that others have reported on when working with pollinators and other small insects. It might not be impossible, even in our lab, but it would definitely be a (good) challenge and perhaps something we could find an expert to help us with.
Kylie John

Five Hormones that Control Plant Growth & Development - dummies - 2 views

www.dummies.com/...-signals-plant-hormones-241851

HSR-2025 environmental botany biology

shared by Kylie John on 13 May 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 13 May 24
     
    Just a SUPER basic overview of phytohormones. The + is that we can obtain ALL of these for use in pure form. The - is that you need to develop a unique question/experimental design.
emmarrogers

Overlooked keystone species in conservation plans of fluvial ecosystems in Southeast Eu... - 0 views

www.kmae-journal.org/...kmae210127.html

crayfish HSR HSR-2025 questions

shared by emmarrogers on 11 Sep 24 - No Cached
  • Since crayfish species are known to cover a wide spectrum of ecological functions they are considered as keystone species and ecosystem engineers. Therefore, their decline may substantially impair local biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Sean Nash

What the Heck Is Seaweed Mining? | Hakai Magazine - 6 views

hakaimagazine.com/...hat-the-heck-is-seaweed-mining

remediation minerals rareearthelements seaweed mining geology ecology environment science Hakai kelp reclamation magazine HSR-2025 HSR environmental questions chemistry biology potential research idea botany

shared by Sean Nash on 29 Apr 24 - No Cached
  • “It’s pure chemistry,” Umanzor says. “Positive with negative, and then it just collects.”
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 03 May 24
       
      For those interested in chamistry topics, this looks really interesting.
Sean Nash

Q. What's the greener building material, fungus or concrete? - 1 views

www.anthropocenemagazine.org/...ng-material-fungus-or-concrete

fungi concrete electricity ecology environment green building materials science fungus HSR-2025 HSR environmental questions engineering physics chemistry biology potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
     
    This is more of a broad idea re: the use of living things as building materials - not so much detail in this specific article
emmarrogers

Frequent mowing puts poisonous weed into survival mode | ScienceDaily - 1 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240603195751.htm

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea botany

shared by emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • The taproot went down further
  • More spikes popped out on the stem
  • The flowers became more toxic
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Although studies have often highlighted weed fitness and defense traits resulting from disturbances like mowing, most were limited to foliar, or leaf, defenses, Kariyat said. That changed when Vasquez and fellow master's biology students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley monitored fields of mowed, unmowed and frequently mowed silverleaf nightshade in and around Edinburg, Texas.
  • "Alejandro's question was, 'how do these flowers differ between mowed and unmowed plants?'"
  • "You are trying to mow these plants so that the plants are getting eliminated," Kariyat said. "But what you are actually doing here, you are making them much worse, much stronger."
  • The observations of mowed, unmowed and frequently mowed areas with silverleaf nightshade provide evidence that could prompt further studies by weed scientists on best management practices, Kariyat said.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 04 Jun 24
       
      Again... when you see a callout like this for more research in an area... especially one that might be feasible with some serious planning/organization... you might be on to something.
  • the study does provide more insight into the defensive capabilities of plants pitted against human disturbance
  • "Continuous mowing differentially affects floral defenses in the noxious and invasive weed Solanum elaeagnifolium in its native range."
  • Journal Reference: Alejandro Vasquez, Alexa Alaniz, Robert Dearth, Rupesh Kariyat. Continuous mowing differentially affects floral defenses in the noxious and invasive weed Solanum elaeagnifolium in its native range. Scientific Reports, 2024; 14 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-58672-w
  • Solanum ptychanthum or black nightshade, and Solanum carolinense, or Carolina horsenettle, also produce toxic berries and are native to Arkansas.
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 04 Jun 24
       
      Could we possibly research different types of weeds similar to the silver Nightshade, like one of these plants?
  • Sean Nash on 04 Jun 24
     
    There is a TON of data that can be measured & analyzed in a study like this. Easier to do in a less time-dependent way in the lab, but easier and more realistic (in vivo) to do if you have access to similar fields that are mowed and unmowed to differing extents. So many variables to examine and consider here for how plants may change physiologically based upon how we interact with them. This goes beyond that analogy I always use for fast evolution in Honors Biology: how dandelion populations become shorter based upon frequent mowing. This gets into the physiological responses. Very cool methinks.
Sean Nash

Picture this: Snapping photos of our food could be good for us - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240530132656.htm

food diet psychology photos science HSR-2025 HSR socialmedia potential research idea behavioralscience questions computer science

shared by Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • Research reveals taking pictures of food isn't just content for our social media feeds, but could be the key to improving people's diets
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 06 Jun 24
       
      I just have a gut feeling that, over time, if you knew you were going to photograph every meal, you would tend to eat less, eat more colorful things, and eat more varied things... so that it would make a better photograph. Each of those elements might just lead to healthier meals over time. Very interesting. It is sort of like imposing a metacognitive approach to food selection.
Sean Nash

A new study reveals that marine cyanobacteria communicate - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240606152330.htm

algae cyanobacteria communication marine oceans marinebiology nanotubules proteins HSR HSR-2025 science environmental botany questions biology

shared by Sean Nash on 07 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 07 Jun 24
     
    Adding this one less as feasible study inspiration, and more of... this is a huge finding about the most important organisms on the planet as a whole. The more we search, the more we find that organisms communicate. Cooperate even. Trees in a healthy forest communicate and cooperate. And now this. So cool...
Caleb Jasper

Racing drivers blink at the same points when going round a track | New Scientist - 0 views

www.newscientist.com/...oints-when-going-round-a-track

HSR-2025 science questions potential research idea behavioralscience

shared by Caleb Jasper on 13 Jun 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • Studying this further could help us better understand conditions where blinking rates change, such as Parkinson’s disease.
  • Caleb Jasper on 13 Jun 24
     
    Not a lot of information in this particular article here, however it does introduce a possible connection to Parkinson's disease. There are multiple links within the article containing a surplus of information around this subject that I will have to research further.
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