DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 20, 2023--

Just a few years ago, tech evangelists were hailing Niantic Inc., the maker of the hit game Pokémon

Scientists are challenging the way many people think about ancient hunter gatherers, after finding that women may have been better hunters than men. New findings have shown that while there are clear differences between the sexes when it comes to biology, the idea of men being naturally better suited to hunting is a myth. New research from professor Cara Ocobock points to women being metabolically better placed to hunt. Ocobock is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and director of the Human Energetics Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. She published a study on the subject alongside anthropologist Sarah Lacy at the University of Delaware. The research also points to female hunters dating back to the Holocene period which were uncovered buried with hunting tools – and they’re challenging widely held assumptions over gender roles with the study. Ocobock said in a statement: "This was what everyone was used to seeing. This was the assumption that we've all just had in our minds and that was carried through in our museums of natural history." “Here we review and present emerging physiological evidence that females may be metabolically better suited for endurance activities such as running, which could have profound implications for understanding subsistence capabilities and patterns in the past,” the pair wrote. That’s due to the fact that the presence of the hormones estrogen and adiponectin give women the upper hand when it comes to endurance – a factor which would have been “critical in early hunting because they would have had to run the animals down into exhaustion before actually going in for the kill”. The presence of those hormones is better for modulating fat and glucose. As such, estrogen makes the body use stored fats for energy before turning to carbohydrates. “Since fat contains more calories than carbs do, it’s a longer, slower burn, which means that the same sustained energy can keep you going longer and can delay fatigue,” Ocobock said. “Estrogen is really the unsung hero of life, in my mind. It is so important for cardiovascular and metabolic health, brain development and injury recovery.” “With the typically wider hip structure of the female, they are able to rotate their hips, lengthening their steps. The longer steps you can take, the ‘cheaper’ they are metabolically, and the farther you can get, faster.” “When you look at human physiology this way, you can think of women as the marathon runners versus men as the powerlifters.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Thousands of published authors are requesting payment from tech companies for the use of their copyrighted works in training artificial intelligence tools, marking the latest intellectual property critique to target AI development.

Offset encouraged Kai Cenat to try some ZaZa and the streamer, though initially reluctant, eventually obliged

'Cirque du Soleil Tycoon' gives users the chance to design their dream circus show.

Arm Ltd., a chip designer that is preparing for what would be the biggest initial public offering of

Ninja holds the distinguished title of Chief Innovation Officer at Gamesquare

Parents should be held accountable for the actions of children taking part in criminal social media crazes, the chairwoman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) has said. Donna Jones said she believes parents could be fined over the behaviour of youngsters who take part in incidents such as the mass looting seen in London’s Oxford Street last week. She said it is a sign of “societal breakdown” and parents should be disciplining their children and teaching them that such acts are “morally abhorrent” to prevent further incidents. The Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner also highlighted a craze in Southampton in which a “handful” of 15 to 17-year-olds took paracetamol to see who could stay in hospital the longest. The former magistrate told the PA news agency: “This is a real indication of societal breakdown. “This has not just suddenly appeared from nowhere. We’ve seen the warning signs of this coming for a really long time. We know these type of incidents are happening in America, and what happens in America very often gets here within a 12-month period. “Hundreds of young people rampaging through London shops, which are putting their security shutters down… You know, this is Britain in 2023. “This is incredibly worrying, and somebody needs to call it out. The draw on police resources is wholly unacceptable APCC chairwoman Donna Jones “The Home Secretary has said this has got to stop, it’s not good enough. I support her in that but I’m going one step further to say the draw on police resources is wholly unacceptable. “This is mindless vandalism, and it’s also criminal activity in terms of shoplifting and theft, looting, mass looting. “This is taking away police hours from operational policing that they should be doing to keep genuine people that need protecting safe. “We need to send a clear message – this is not acceptable and the parents need to be held accountable.” Ms Jones said parents could be forced to pay the fines for the criminal behaviour of their children under the age of 16, or under 18 if in full-time education. It's criminal, and morally it's also an abhorrent thing to do APCC chairwoman Donna Jones She added: “There have to be formal sanctions taken. We also have to call out the lack of discipline – parents need to be parenting their children and teaching them right from wrong. “Any parent or guardian of a young person who believes that they were in central London last week and could have been involved with that should be sitting down with that young person, having a really strong conversation with them about exactly what they have done, how it’s completely unacceptable. “It’s criminal, and morally it’s also an abhorrent thing to do. That’s certainly what I would be doing if it was my children. “And I’d like to think that’s what all decent good parents and guardians of young people should be doing, otherwise this is never going to stop.” Ms Jones also called on social media companies such as TikTok to investigate and crack down on posts orchestrating flashmobs which encourage criminal behaviour or explain publicly what action they are already taking. TikTok has been approached for comment. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Hackers ’emptied’ victims’ accounts and tried to blackmail GTA maker, court told AI can predict Parkinson’s subtype with up to 95% accuracy, study suggests Oxford scientists find no evidence to suggest Facebook not good for wellbeing

GALESBURG, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 14, 2023--

We've all been there: You're under the covers, scrolling through Tinder way past your bedtime.

Researchers funded by the US Air Force are developing a new type of device that can invite comparisons to a weapon used by a Batman villain. Scientists, including Patrick Hopkins from the University of Virginia in the US, are working on a new device to be used for on-demand surface cooling for electronics inside spacecraft and high-altitude jets. The device may seem similar to the freeze gun used by Batman villain Mr Freeze to “ice” his enemies. “A lot of electronics on board heat up, but they have no way to cool down,” said Dr Hopkins, whose lab has been granted $750,000 over three years to develop the technology. On Earth, electronics in military craft can rely on nature to cool themselves, but in space, this may be a challenge, scientists said. Citing an example, researchers said the Navy uses ocean water in its liquid cooling systems while flying jets can rely on air that is dense enough to help keep components chilled. “With the Air Force and Space Force, you’re in space, which is a vacuum, or you’re in the upper atmosphere, where there’s very little air that can cool,” Dr Hopkins said. “So what happens is your electronics keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter. And you can’t bring a payload of coolant onboard because that’s going to increase the weight, and you lose efficiency,” he explained. In such extra-terrestrial environments, a jet of plasma, the fourth and most common state of matter in the universe, can be used in the interior of a craft. “This plasma jet is like a laser beam; it’s like a lightning bolt. It can be extremely localized,” Dr Hopkins explained. One of the strange qualities of plasma is that while it can reach temperatures as hot as the surface of the Sun, it chills before heating when it strikes a surface. In the new research, published recently in the journal ACS Nano, scientists fired a purple jet of plasma generated from helium through a hollow needle encased in ceramic, targeting a gold-plated surface. When researchers turned on the plasma, they could measure temperature immediately at the point where the plasma hit, and could see that the surface cooled first and then heated up. “We were just puzzled at some level about why this was happening, because it kept happening over and over,” Dr Hopkins said. “And there was no information for us to pull from because no prior literature has been able to measure the temperature change with the precision that we have. No one’s been able to do it so quickly,” he said. The strange surface-cooling phenomenon, according to scientists, was the result of blasting an ultra-thin, hard-to-see surface layer, composed of carbon and water molecules. Researchers compare this to a similar process that happens when cool water evaporates off of our skin after a swim. “Evaporation of water molecules on the body requires energy; it takes energy from body, and that’s why you feel cold. In this case, the plasma rips off the absorbed species, energy is released, and that’s what cools,” the researchers explained. Using the method, scientists could reduce the temperature of the setup by several degrees for a few microseconds. While this may not be dramatic, they said it is enough to make a difference in some electronic devices. Now, thanks to the Air Force grant, researchers are looking at how variations on their original design might improve the apparatus. “Since the plasma is composed of a variety of different particles, changing the type of gas used will allow us to see how each one of these particles impact material properties,” researchers said. Read More Scientists discover 3,000-year-old arrowhead made of ‘alien’ iron Carcinogens found at nuclear missile sites as reports of hundreds of cancers surface India’s moon rover confirms sulphur and detects several other elements near the lunar south pole China’s ‘government-approved’ AI chatbot says Taiwan invasion likely Russian cyber-attacks ‘relentless’ as threat of WW3 grows, expert warns How new bike technology could help cyclists tell drivers not to crash into them