Latest news with #MississippiStateUniversity
Hamilton Spectator
02-07-2025
- Science
- Hamilton Spectator
July 2025 full moon: Here's when the ‘buck moon' will rise in Ontario skies
There are various names given to the full moon in July — the most common of which is the Buck Moon. July's full moon gets this name because this is the time of year when the antlers of male deer (bucks) are in full-growth mode, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac . The whitetail deer, the most common species of deer in North America, sees rapid antler growth during spring and summer, according to Mississippi State University . During the peak growth period, antlers — which are the fastest-growing bones humans are aware of — can grow as quickly as three-quarters of an inch per week for yearlings and one and a half inches per week for adults. This growth rate slows down in late summer as the antlers mineralize and the antlers become complete. July's full moon will reach peak illumination on Thursday, July 10, at 4:37 p.m. eastern time, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. Below are the July 2025 moon phases, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac: Check out more cool events in this year's lunar and solar lineup . Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
ABC News
02-07-2025
- Science
- ABC News
From photos to fitness data, recording our lives is changing how our brains work
Do you have more photos on your phone than you know what to do with? Apart from taking up valuable space, experts have another reason why you should think twice before whipping your phone out to capture that special moment. Taking photos might actually make it harder to recall the very thing you want to remember. Over the past two decades, researchers have been teasing out how a steep increase in "lifelogging" influences how we think, act and make sense of our past. Julia Soares, who studies the impact of digital technologies on memory at Mississippi State University, has identified several areas where our digital devices affect how our brain works. An overstuffed photo app might be just the beginning of a profound cognitive shift. Lifelogging involves digitally recording aspects of your daily life: things like photos as well as fitness, travel and health metrics. Dr Soares says such data collection may have benefit — a number of studies have found it can help support memory recall and quality of life — but it depends on how intentional someone is about analysing and reviewing their data. "I have a couple of studies where we've found that taking photos can impair memory," Dr Soares says. "So your memory specifically for objects that you photographed compared to objects that you don't photograph." This phenomenon — called the "photo-taking-impairment effect" — has been demonstrated multiple times in a particular type of experiment. Imagine two groups of people at the entrance to an art museum, about to wander through. One group is instructed to take photographs of the artworks they see, while the other group is told to take no photographs at all. Once they're done walking through the museum, the two groups are quizzed about visual details of the artworks they've looked at, like whether the Moon in Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night is full or a crescent. In multiple different versions of this experiment, scientists have observed that people who don't take photos tend to have better recall for what they've seen. They get more questions right about the visual details of the artworks compared to the photo-taking group. It's not fully clear why those who take more photographs in these experiments tend to remember less, Dr Soares says. Down the track, when photographs are used as a prompt to help people remember, they can be a "highly effective memory cue". But it may be that in the moment, the act of taking the photograph distracts somebody from fully capturing the event in their internal memory. This research has influenced how Dr Soares herself takes photographs. "I do try to make sure that when I take a photo, I'm in the mindset of thinking, 'How is this going to cue my retrieval later on?' It should be something that I want to remember alongside the photo." It's not just our visual memories that we're outsourcing by snapping them on our phones. There are also fitness and biometric tracking, voice memos, emails, travel data and chat logs. Dr Soares says if all this information isn't used deliberately, people can just end up with pointless piles of data. "If you're not paying attention to the data, then it just collects up." But used well, lifelogging can also be a powerful too help us make positive behaviour changes. "You can come to some really useful insights by collecting all of this data," she says. Kunal Kalro began recording his health data more than a decade ago after his father died from heart disease. Kunal started out tracking his daily step count and workouts using a fitness band. Before long he was also collecting heart rate variability, temperature, sleep quality and even macronutrient intake. "It helps you change your behaviour patterns," says the 38-year-old, who still tracks his health data today. "If you're having a few nights of poor sleep because you're watching a TV show late at night … you see your daily scores fall. He says tracking his data has helped him uncover patterns of behaviour he wasn't aware of, like the relationship between his coffee consumption and sleep. "I can notice and I will see the difference in my heart rate variability overnight when I'm sleeping if I've had caffeine after midday versus before," he says. "For me anyway, it's less about memory recall, but more about making something a little bit more consciously present. I feel way more in sync with my body." Lifelogging on our smart devices isn't the only way our seemingly instant access to digital technology is changing our ability to think and recall. Dr Soares has also looked at what we think we know, which is influenced by search engines such as Google and the ability to save and search up information on our devices. She says there is evidence to show that people can overestimate what they know after using the internet, and fail to distinguish between the knowledge in their head and the knowledge that they can access with search engines. In some experiments, researchers found search engine use during a quiz led to an increase in "cognitive self-esteem" — an increased belief in one's own ability to remember information and perform well on future quizzes. "Even if they ask them really carefully, 'What do you know? What is in your brain?', people can sometimes overestimate what they know as a result of using internet search," Dr Soares says. Despite the evidence that snapping photos can negatively affect our memories, and that having Google in our pocket is distorting our sense of our own knowledge, Dr Soares doesn't think you should throw your phone away. "These digital technologies that take off clearly have some type of utility for people," she says. "But [we need to] inform people about the ways to effectively use these technologies alongside their cognitive system." Listen to the full episode of Brain Rot about life-logging and its effects, and follow the podcast for more.
National Geographic
17-06-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
How photo overload might be warping our ability to remember
When Lavania Oluban looks at photos from her childhood, the memories feel incomplete. 'It's hazy around the edges—I'm filling in missing pieces of the puzzle with a memory that's not quite real,' she says. Oluban, 37, has only a handful of birthday photos from when she was young. But her seven-year-old-son, Arlo, has 'easily 200,' captured by different attendees on their smartphones. 'Practically every single second of his life is documented,' she says. 'Arlo's almost got a virtual reality representation of an event because there are so many pictures and videos. I think for him, it's quite vivid.' In 2023, people around the world took an estimated 5.3 billion photos, about 61,400 every second, according to photography data site Photutorial. Oluban alone has more than 140,000 pictures on her phone: selfies with Arlo, sunsets, butterflies, ice cream. They're instantly accessible, searchable, and sharable. 'People record much more data about their lives than any previous generation,' says Fabian Hutmacher, a psychologist at the University of Würzburg who studies how digital media shapes our memories. 'It's natural to ask: does that change anything about the way we remember our lives?' How digital photos are reshaping our memories Autobiographical memory—our recollection of personal life events—is central to how we understand ourselves. 'Memories are crucial for defining who we are,' says Hutmacher. 'They are a sort of reservoir that we refer to whenever we think about our lives.' Memory, however, isn't like playing back a video. Neuroscientific research shows that this type of memory depends on interactions between the hippocampus, which helps consolidate new experiences, and the prefrontal cortex, which organizes them into coherent life narratives. These systems are especially sensitive to attention and emotional engagement—factors that may be disrupted when we're more focused on photographing a moment than experiencing it. 'Our memory is not faithful,' says Julia Soares, assistant professor of psychology at Mississippi State University. 'It's tied up with who you are and your story making throughout your life. It's your autobiography.' Photos can support this reconstructive storytelling. Researchers agree that images often help jog memory by surfacing details or emotions we might otherwise forget. 'I take them partly to document, but also as a way of holding onto moments I know I'll want to revisit,' says 20-year-old Alina Nguyen. 'It's like a time capsule—sometimes I remember specific feelings or details I'd completely forgotten until I see an image…I think I've learned a lot about myself just by noticing patterns or changes in the photos over time.' For Hutmacher, though, photos are more than just a cue for memories. He argues that in the digital age, photos are actually changing how we form memories in the first place. Remembering, he says, is no longer purely internal; it's an interaction between our minds and resources like photos, meaning it's built not only from what we store in our brains but also from what we offload onto devices like smartphones. While offloading can reduce cognitive burden, studies suggest it may also weaken our ability to recall details unless we actively review the material later. As a result, when we turn to digital images to reconstruct an event, those files don't just support our memory—they become part of it. This shift raises new questions. If our memories are partly constructed through what we photograph—and what we choose to revisit—then our devices aren't just reflecting our past. They're shaping which moments we remember, how vividly, and supposedly how well we interpret our personal histories. (Are you better than AI at guessing what makes a photo memorable?) When too many photos backfire Still, more pictures don't necessarily mean stronger memories. A 2013 study by cognitive psychologist Linda Henkel found that photographing objects can actually impair memory, with participants appearing to 'rely on the external device of the camera to 'remember' for them.' However, when participants engaged with the objects they photographed, they remembered them better. 'If you go to a concert and you spend 90 minutes filming, focusing on getting a good angle, then it reduces your enjoyment of the situation, as well as the memory you have of it,' says Hutmacher. 'On the other hand, if you record a snapshot because it's your favourite song, then it can improve memory later.' Even so, most people don't regularly revisit their photos. And without reviewing or organizing them, pictures can become overwhelming, making it harder to find the meaningful ones. 'It can be a rose with a thorn,' says Soares. 'Photos provide these incredible memory cues. But if you never review them, you're not capitalizing on that benefit, and you may actually be losing something from the act of taking the photo.' (Want to improve your memory? The MIND diet may help) Parenting expert Kirsty Ketley understands that trade-off. With thousands of images stored on her phone—and backed up to the cloud—she began to feel burdened by her digital archive. 'It does become very overwhelming,' she says. When she was alerted that her storage was running out, she decided to take fewer photographs, focusing on special occasions and events. 'Parents just [take photos] without thinking,' she says. 'I feel I can enjoy the time more because I'm not so worried about whether I've got the positioning right. I'm there in the moment…It does help to keep those memories alive.' Curating what we remember—and what we forget Psychologists have long recognized that forgetting is an essential part of how memory works. But in a world saturated with digital images, what we choose to capture—and what we choose to revisit or erase—may be subtly reshaping that process, says Soares. (Use this ancient technique to remember (almost) anything.) Our photo habits are no longer just about preserving memories; they're part of how we construct them in the first place. For example, when we share photos on social media, evidence shows that we remember the experiences better. Conversely, in her 2023 study, Soares found that deleting photos meant that people remembered their experiences less vividly. Some participants had intentionally deleted photos they wanted to forget, like an ex or a bad night out. 'People are trying to curate their photos to do the type of remembering that they want do,' says Soares. 'These photographed events might create hills, and there may be valleys where non-photographed stories or life events may be. It remains to be seen the extent to which that will be the case.' For Nguyen, the fear of forgetting is enough to keep every photo. 'I do worry about forgetting things that weren't photographed,' says Nguyen, who has 33,000 photos on her phone. 'I think that's why I'm so drawn to taking photos – to make sure some piece of it stays with me. Forgetting can be scary, especially when it comes to people or moments that shaped me.' This article is part of Your Memory, Rewired, a National Geographic exploration into the fuzzy, fascinating frontiers of memory science—including advice on how to make your own memory more powerful. Learn more.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Infant twins buried together in Roman Croatia may have died from lead poisoning
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Nearly 2,000 years ago, fraternal twin infants — one boy and one girl — were buried facing each other in a cemetery in what is now Croatia, a new study finds. It's unclear why the twins died, but lead poisoning may have played a role, the researchers wrote in a study published in the April issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. "It is one of the very few double burials known in Croatia and is the only double burial of very young individuals in this cemetery," study first author Anna Osterholtz, a bioarchaeologist at Mississippi State University, told Live Science in an email. The burial ground, known as Dragulin cemetery, was initially excavated in 2016, when construction for a parking lot revealed a handful of ancient stone urns, the researchers wrote in the study. The cemetery is in the modern city of Trogir (Tragurium in Roman times), a UNESCO World Heritage site. This area became a part of the Roman province of Illyricum after Julius Caesar's civil war in 47 B.C. An investigation into the "short life and death of these siblings" revealed that they were buried sometime between the end of the first and the late second century A.D., the researchers wrote in the study. Related: 31,000-year-old burial holds world's oldest known identical twins An ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis showed that the infants were fraternal twins who were either stillborn or died within two months of their birth. "The burial posture of both twins suggests that they were important to their family and buried with significant care," Osterholtz said. "This is the first case of fraternal twins from the Roman period in Croatia that has been confirmed via aDNA analysis." Both individuals showed signs of chronic metabolic disease, or diseases caused by nutritional deficiency (like scurvy or rickets) or the body's inability to utilize nutrients. Given the twins' young age at death, their nutrition would have come entirely from their mother, either through the placenta in the womb or breast milk after birth. So, it's possible that their metabolic diseases reflected their mother's poor health — meaning she was either malnourished or suffered from a metabolic disease herself. Another idea is that the twins died from lead poisoning. Lead was pervasive in the Roman world; it was used in pipes and cookware. A lead compound was even used as a sweetener in wine and as a preservative for fruits. The twins' skeletal conditions are consistent with the effects of lead exposure, such as increased bone porosity and periosteal reactions, or new bone formation that happens when bones weakened from lead poisoning are fractured, the researchers wrote in the study. Chronic lead exposure can disrupt metabolic processes like hemoglobin synthesis, sperm production and neural function, and it can also hinder nutrient absorption, which could manifest in both the mother and the developing infants. "Lead exposure through breast milk is a known cause of elevated infant blood lead levels," Amy Pyle-Eilola, an assistant professor of pathology at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. "Additionally, there is a known correlation between elevated blood lead and metabolic bone disease in children." RELATED STORIES —Medieval 'vampire' burial in Croatia contains decapitated and twisted remains —Ancient Egyptian teenager died while giving birth to twins, mummy reveals —Remains of twin fetuses and wealthy mom found in Bronze Age urn Although the authors did not test the twins' remains for lead, they highlighted several cases of metabolic disorders in Roman-era children with high levels of lead in their teeth whose remains were found near Tragurium. "So, if the mother had a significant lead exposure, which is a realistic possibility based on studies examining the same general time and location, it is absolutely possible that the lead was passed to the twins during pregnancy and/or via breastmilk, and the resulting elevation in lead could cause the observed bone disease," Pyle-Eilola added. However, it's hard to know why the twins' health was so poor; there are many other nutritional, genetic and developmental issues that could account for the metabolic bone disease described in this study, Pyle-Eilola said.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mississippi State unveils 78th annual Lyceum Series events
STARKVILLE, Miss. (WJTV) – Mississippi State University (MSU) will host the 78th annual Lyceum Series. Season ticket renewals opened on June 9. New season and mini-series ticket sales for the season's six-part series go on sale July 1, while individual tickets are available starting August 20. MSU Riley Center's 2025-26 season features six concerts The season opens September 26 with Rudyard Kipling's 'The Jungle Book.' This Theatre MSU play adaption takes place at 7:00 p.m. in McComas Theatre. Additional Lyceum events all are scheduled for 7:00 p.m. in Lee Hall's Bettersworth Auditorium: Disco Strangers: An Eagles Tribute, October 17 Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram, December 3 Ailey II, February 11 Sonic Escape, February 26 Canadian Brass, March 18 General public season tickets are $150 per person and $135 for MSU employees and senior citizens; mini-series tickets are $75 per person and $65 for employees and senior citizens; and individual tickets are $30 per person, $25 for MSU employees and senior citizens, and $10 for children. Individual tickets are free for MSU students and available for pickup at the Center for Student Activities, located on the third floor of Colvard Student Union, at any point in the year or reserved online at least one week prior to each show. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
