The Top Science News

Plus: This week’s One Question—“What Can Night-Shift Workers Do to Feel Better?”; and related Nautilus stories. [View in browser]( | [Become a member]( Newsletter brought to you by: September 20, 2022   Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here](. DISCOVERIES The Top Science News This Week   [Physics Body Concedes Mistakes in Study of Missile Defense]( A report downplayed how good drones would be at thwarting North Korean missiles fired at the U.S. [The New York Times→](   [One of Long COVID’s Worst Symptoms Is Also Its Most Misunderstood]( Brain fog flys under the radar of neurology researchers because hardly any of them are taught the fact that viruses can cause cognitive disorders in non-elderly people. As a result, few study their effects. [The Atlantic→](   [Japanese Professor Wins Ig Nobel Prize for Study on Knob Turning]( Gen Matsuzaki won the satirical award’s engineering prize, observing that he received the honor for “focusing on a problem”—knob turning—“that no one cares about.” He’s left knob research behind for investigations into bag handles and umbrella grips. [The Guardian→](   [“Dinosaur Mummy”: Researchers Believe They Found One of the Best Preserved Dinosaurs Ever]( Something—maybe a riverbank collapsing—killed and covered up a dinosaur 76 million years ago, preserving it perfectly to the delight of paleontologists who spotted it in a Canadian hillside. [USA Today→](   [Geological Diversity and Microbiological Potential of Lakes on Mars]( Mars’ lakes can preserve evidence of past life, and not even a third of them—just 30 percent—have been spotted, scientists estimate. [Nature→](   [Socially Situated AI Enables Learning from Human Interaction]( An AI increased its visual intelligence 112 percent over 8 months by interacting with humans on a photo-sharing social network. [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences→]( Experience the endless possibilities and deep human connections that science offers [SUBSCRIBE TODAY](   [The Future of Tech, Delivered Today]( There's a reason over 450K people read [Emerging Tech Brew](—the 3-times-a-week email delivering the latest tech news impacting our future. From drones and AI to climate tech and EVs—if it affects your world, Emerging Tech Brew has got you covered. Best part? [It’s free,]( and only takes 5 minutes to read so there’s no reason not to try it. [Subscribe for Free](   Enjoying our newsletter? [Click here]( to keep hearing from us. Your clicks tell us you value receiving our newsletter. [Click this]( in the next 30 days to confirm you’re an active Nautilus reader, and we won’t unsubscribe you. Thanks! [CLICK TO STAY SUBSCRIBED](   ONE QUESTION What Can Night-Shift Workers Do to Feel Better? INTERVIEW BY BRIAN GALLAGHER One question for [Sarah Chellappa](, a neuroscientist at the University of Cologne who studies how sleep and circadian rhythms affect human mood, cognition, and brain activity.   Our findings suggest that meal timing is important for mood. That’s why we titled our new [study](, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Daytime eating prevents mood vulnerability in night work.” It may be helpful if night workers reconsidered the amount of calories, and especially carbohydrates, consumed in the nighttime. Shift workers often experience circadian misalignment, the misalignment between their central circadian clock in the brain and daily behaviors, such as sleep/wake and fasting/eating cycles. They also have a 25 to 40 percent higher risk of depression and anxiety. Meal timing is important for physical health, and diet is important for mood. That’s why we wanted to find out whether meal timing can benefit mental health as well. We used a stringently controlled 14-day laboratory protocol. Because of that, it is challenging to make a direct translation of our daytime meal intervention to meal schedules in real-life shift workers or patient populations. More is needed to establish if meal timing interventions can prevent depressed and anxious mood states in shift workers, who account for up to 20 percent of the workforce in industrial societies and are directly responsible for many hospital services, factory work, and other essential services. We enrolled 19 participants (12 men and 7 women) in a laboratory study that included four 28-hour “days.” By the fourth “day” their behavioral cycles were inverted by 12 hours, simulating night work. That caused their circadian clocks to misalign. We put some of the participants in a control group, which had meals according to a 28-hour cycle. This resulted in them eating during the night and day, as night workers often eat. The other group had meals on a 24-hour cycle. So, eating only during the day. We found that during the simulated night shift (day 4), those in the first group, the control, had more depression-like and anxiety-like mood levels, compared to baseline (day 1). However, no such worsening of mood levels happened during the simulated night work in the group that ate only during the day. And those who had a greater degree of internal circadian misalignment, the misalignment between endogenous circadian rhythms in the body, experienced more depression- and anxiety-like mood. What potential mechanisms might underlie that association, between daytime eating and mental health? We previously showed in the same laboratory experiment that participants who ate in the night and day had more glucose intolerance during the simulated night shift. No such changes happened during the simulated night work in the group that ate just during the day. Because high glucose levels are associated with depression, the beneficial effects of daytime eating on glucose tolerance may extend to mood perception.   Related Nautilus Stories   [HEALTH]( [Why You Should Fix Your Inconsistent Sleep Schedule]( BY LEKHA BANDOPADHYAY Traveling induced jet lag isn’t the only thing that causes untimely fatigue. [Continue reading →](   [GENETICS]( [How Your Body Knows What Time It Is]( BY JOSEPH MAZUR Many organisms perform best at certain hours of the day. [Continue reading →](   [ECONOMICS]( [We’re Killing Ourselves with Work]( BY SCOTT KOENIG After years of being encouraged to choose a job I love so I’ll never work a day in my life, I figured I had found my ticket: science. [Continue reading →](   [PSYCHOLOGY]( [How a Nuclear Submarine Officer Learned to Live in Tight Quarters]( BY STEVE WEINER I’m no stranger to forced isolation. [Continue reading →](   [NEUROSCIENCE]( [Insects and the Meaning of Sleep]( BY LAURA SANDERS If you watch an exhausted baby carefully, you may be able to see gravity tug heavy eyelids down. [Continue reading →](   Today’s newsletter was written by Brian Gallagher   BECOME A SUBSCRIBER [A Surprise Delivered to Your Doorstep]( Your mystery issue of [Nautilus magazine]( provides an experience of the endless possibilities and deep human connections that science offers. Discover [deep, undiluted, narrative storytelling](that brings science into the most important conversations we are having today. [Order Now](   [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( Copyright © 2022 NautilusNext, All rights reserved. You were subscribed to the newsletter from nautil.us. Our mailing address is: NautilusNext 360 W 36th Street, 7S, New York, NY 10018 To view in your browser, [click here]( . Don't want to hear from us anymore? Click here to [unsubscribe]( .