SPONSORED BY  | | | | October 20 2023: Using smell to improve cognition during sleep, how Carl Sagan changed our perspective on life on Earth and getting ahead of cyberbullying on campuses. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | A team of researchers boosted cognitive performance by exposing people to smells while they slept. Twenty participants—all older than 60 years and generally healthy—received six months of overnight olfactory enrichment, and all significantly improved their ability to recall lists of words compared with a control group. Neurons involved in olfaction have "direct superhighway access" to brain regions related to memory and emotion. In participants who received the treatment, the study authors observed physical changes in a brain structure that connects the memory and emotional centers.
Why this matters: A loss of smell has been linked to health complications such as depression and cognitive decline. And mounting evidence shows that olfactory training, which involves deliberately smelling strong scents on a regular basis, may help stave off that decline.
What the experts say: If the nighttime treatment proves successful in larger trials, it promises to be a less intrusive way to achieve similar effects, says Vidya Kamath, a neuropsychologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Other olfactory training regimens involve multiple hours of smell exposure each night using diffusers and tracking systems. | | | On December 8 1990, the Galileo spacecraft was due to skim past Earth, just 960 kilometers above the surface on its way to Jupiter. Astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan convinced NASA to point the spacecraft's instruments at our planet, with the aim of determining what kind of signals of life the craft might detect.
What Galileo found: The craft detected a disequilibrium in methane and oxygen levels likely brought about by living organisms, as well as a peak in the infrared spectrum of sunlight reflecting off the planet, indicating the presence of vegetation. It also picked up modified radio transmissions coming from the surface. "A strong case can be made that the signals are generated by an intelligent form of life on Earth," Sagan's team wrote in the resulting paper, published 30 years ago this week.
What the experts say: "While the answer was known, it profoundly changed our way of thinking about the answer," Lisa Kaltenegger, an astrobiologist who heads the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University, told Nature. By regarding Earth as a planet like any other — perhaps harboring life, perhaps not —researchers obtained true perspective on our place in the universe and the likelihood of life elsewhere, she says. | | | • A facility off the coast of Oregon is being constructed to test an assortment of bizarre devices that might be able to successfully harness wave power--everything from buoys to carpets. | 4 min read | | | • Harriet Jane Lawrence was one of the first female pathologists in the U.S. and worked to develop vaccines and serum therapies for the 1918 flu. | 12 min listen | | | • The sun's magnetic poles are vanishing and are about to reverse as part of a regular 11-year sunspot activity cycle. | 5 min read | | | A diagram of the sun's magnetic field lines depicted over an image of the sun captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on March 12, 2016, when the sun's activity was on the wane. Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/LMSAL | | | • Colleges and universities are investing heavily in "esports"—awarding hefty gaming scholarships, fielding competitive esports teams, and building on-campus esports arenas. But schools need to anticipate the sexual cyberviolence, harassment and technology-enabled abuse that regularly occur in electronic gaming and act to prevent abuse, writes Jane K. Stoever, a professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. | 5 min read | | | SPONSORED CONTENT BY Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | Exploring Scientific Breakthroughs with Science Sessions | | | ICYMI (Our most-read stories of the week) | | | • Popular Weight-Loss Drugs Come with Side Effects | 4 min read | | | • Scientists Discover Ghost of Ancient Mega-Plate That Disappeared 20 Million Years Ago | 3 min read | | | • Is the Novavax COVID Vaccine Better than mRNA Vaccines? What We Know So Far | 4 min read | | | Regular readers of Today in Science will notice that I talk about Carl Sagan A LOT. His particular type of vision and temperament make him a role model to lots of science writers I know. But what makes him really special to me is that, for all his support of the search for life off-Earth (he helped co-found the SETI Institute), he was just as interested and curious about life ON Earth. The two missions seemed intricately linked for him. | Thank you to everyone who sent in a wonderful story about seeing auroras! I've loved reading them all and can tell how treasured those memories are. Reach out anytime: newsletters@sciam.com. See you on Monday! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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