January 9, 2024: Baby stars create shockwaves in space, vitamin D's overblown benefits and the science of trash talking. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | For a time, vitamin D was touted as a potential miracle vitamin, thought to prevent everything from heart disease to cancer to diabetes. But several recent randomized controlled trials showed no significant benefit of vitamin D for any major condition. To be sure, vitamin D plays a vital role in health, but most people get all they need in several minutes of daily sunlight. Why this matters: Overtesting by doctors of vitamin D serum levels remains widespread. Experts disagree about how to interpret the test and many doctors still unnecessarily recommend vitamin D supplements. The supplements represent more than a $1 billion market, despite the lack of evidence that they are necessary for the majority of people (not to mention the fact that vitamins are not independently tested for purity or dosing).
What the experts say: "There's a religiosity around vitamin D," says Clifford Rosen, an endocrinologist at the Maine Medicine Center's Research Institute. "The evidence is out there. People don't want to pay attention to it." | | | The James Webb Space Telescope recently snapped an infrared photo of HH 211, a baby star shooting matter into space. In the photo below, the red gas represents the excited hydrogen molecules rotating and vibrating, surrounded by green indicating carbon monoxide and blue for the young star's reflected light. The protostar itself sits at the center of the image and looks like a dusty disk.
How this works: As they form, protostars spew fast-moving matter outwards. That matter collides with surrounding dust and gas, producing shockwaves of sorts. Whereas older stars like our sun blast atoms, ions and molecules into space, HH 211 ejects mostly molecular matter. Astrophysicists think the matter ejected by the wiggling jets slows the inner disk's spin, which allows the star to grow.
What the experts say: "This is so impressive to me," says astrophysicist Chin-Fei Lee of Taiwan's Academia Sinica who had first observed this baby star from a ground-based telescope, "because we see the whole structure and the beautiful jet." | | | Credit: ESA/Webb/NASA, CSA/Tom Ray (Dublin) | | | • There's a science to talkin' trash. Some people are more resistant to it than others, and a new book explores why. | 5 min read | | | • A snapshot of the 2023 U.S. energy sector, in eight numbers (For example, 148 terawatt-hours: the amount of electricity generated by utility scale solar). | 5 min read | | | • Here's everything you need to know about the new COVID variant JN.1 (other than we all hate it). | 6 min read | | | • African American English varies predictably from standardized and local majority English at the level of sound, syllable, word and sentence. But many teachers are unaware of those language rules and will incorrectly misdiagnose Black children with speech disorders, writes Yolanda F. Holt, an associate professor of communication sciences and disorders at East Carolina University. "When a Black child who speaks African American English is diagnosed with a speech disorder where none exists, it both stigmatizes the child and wastes valuable special education resources," she says.| 6 min read | | | Nearly half of all Americans take a daily vitamin. And though the pills aren't dangerous per se (other than the cost), many studies have shown that supplements will not prevent chronic diseases (and some may even harm your health if taken at high doses). The majority of us are best off getting our essential vitamins and minerals from our diets. It seems Popeye had it right. | Let me know how you're liking this newsletter by reaching out at: newsletters@sciam. See you tomorrow! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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