September 19, 2024: We're covering moon spiders, brain surgery that spares chess skills, and whether sitting is the new smoking. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | | A discovery of features called spider formations, or spiders, on the surface of the moon suggests there are networks of underground caves in the previously volcanically active Mare Tranquillitatis region. Each of the spiders seems to have formed when soil flowed into a central surface indentation (the spider's "body"), with gullies extending like spokes (the spider's "legs") from the central hub. An earlier finding of a cave below a large lunar-surface pit suggests that caves, possibly networked, also might exist below the hundreds of other known spiders at the moon, reports Theo Nicitopoulos.
How they did it: It took close scrutiny for the researchers to spot the first four low-resolution spider formations in imagery captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched in 2009. With a search image in place, the team then identified additional spiders, which likely started out as gas bubbles in super-hot magma, or liquified rock.
Why it matters: If and when astronauts walk again on the moon, they might want to watch out for subsurface caves lurking underfoot. | | | Moon "spiders" (outlined) seen with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. NASA/GSFC/LROC | | | Surgeons Spare Patient's 'Chess Brain' | A team of surgeons recently succeeded in removing a 45-year-old patient's highly invasive brain tumor, a glioblastoma, while also sparing areas found to be linked to his chess-playing skills, reports Scientific American editor Gary Stix. The patient had asked a surgeon, Andreu Gabarrós, with past success in this type of surgery to develop an approach that would not damage the patient's chess game—he was ranked one level below expert. Four months post-surgery, the patient was somewhat slower with some complex tasks during a chess test, but generally played well. He later reported that he had maintained his coveted chess-playing rating.
How they did it: The surgeons probed for important tissue to conserve by applying a mild electrical jolt to block signals in specific locations while the patient was awake. During each application, they asked the patient to evaluate possible moves in a display of a chess board. The surgeons indentified a spot in the patient's supramarginal gyrus—an area linked to language, memory and other processing rules—that was involved in his ability to determine if a piece's next move in a game-in-progress was permissible. The team is writing up a similar brain surgery success in conserving computer programming skills.
What the experts say: The new work goes further than past efforts by not simply "throwing tasks" at a patient, such as playing the violin or singing. "Breaking down tasks into functions [visual search, rule retrieval and checkmating] is essential to understand what exactly electrical stimulation does during surgery," said neurolinguistics specialist Adrià Rofes. | | | Style-Photography/Getty Images | | | • Was the drug thalidomide safe? FDA medical examiner Frances Oldham Kelsey was not convinced. | 19 min read | | | • It's OK to sit a bit. But do try to get up and move around at least every hour or so, writes Scientific American contributing editor Lydia Denworth. Research clearly links long, uninterrupted sedentary stretches with heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions. And although heavy smoking is a much greater cause of increased risk of death than sitting, low-energy behaviors such as sitting and lying around can still do harm, even among people who take walks, go to the gym or otherwise work out. Standing isn't a great solution either. As one source is quoted as saying, "Really, it's about movement." | 4 min read | | | A new book, Atlas Obscura: Wild Life, edited by Cara Giaimo and Joshua Foer, features essays by dozens of talented science writers, including several associated with Scientific American. Congratulations to staff editor Lauren J. Young, whose essays on sponge crabs and Japanese rhinoceros beetles are in the book. Former intern Joanna Thompson is published in the book, writing about "the island rule." And so are other frequent contributors such as Ben Goldfarb (on beaver dams, of course), Joshua Sokol (on axolotls and other subjects), Julian Nowogrodzki, Julia Rosen and Jack Tamisiea.
| —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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