The Week USA - August 24, 2019

Health & Science NEWS^21

Unprecedented climate change

The speed and scale of man-made global

warming is unlike anything our planet has

experienced in at least 2,000 years, new

research has found. The last two millen-

nia have seen dramatic peaks and troughs

in temperatures, including the Medieval

Climate Anomaly, an unusually warm

period, and the Little Ice Age (1300s to

1800s). But an analysis of 700 proxy records

of temperature change—telltale geological

signs in tree rings, ice cores, and sediment—

from around the world showed that none

of these events affected more than half the

globe at any one time. The current warming,

in contrast, has seen temperatures rise to

record levels pretty much everywhere except

Antarctica. Separate research concluded that

many of the climate fluctuations from 1300

to 1800 were caused by volcanic eruptions,

which threw vast quantities of ash into

the atmosphere that reflected sunlight and

cooled surface temperatures. Mark Maslin, a

climatologist at University College London,

tells Reuters.com that the research should

“finally stop climate change deniers claim-

ing that the recent observed coherent global

warming is part of a natural climate cycle.”

A warm bath for better sleep

Having a warm bath before bed could

improve your night’s rest, a new study

suggests. Human body temperatures

vary throughout the day in line with our

internal body clocks. About an hour and

a half before we usually nod off, our bod-

ies cool down by around 0.5 to 1 degree

Fahrenheit. Researchers at the University of

Texas at Austin suspected that exposure to

warm water could stimulate the body’s nat-

ural thermoregulatory system— enhancing

that crucial cooling process. To explore this

idea, they examined 17 previous studies

that looked at the effects of water-based

passive heating—baths, foot baths, and

showers—on sleep. That meta-analysis

showed that having a bath or shower of

between 104 and 109 degrees Fahrenheit

one to two hours before bedtime was

linked with noticeable improvements in

sleep quality and overall sleep time. Those

bathers also took an average of 10 min-

utes less to drop off. Study author Shahab

Haghayegh emphasized that there is a

Goldilocks-style sweet spot, reports CNN

.com. A cold bath or shower encourages

the body to warm up, making it harder to

sleep; having a warm bath too close to bed-

time, meanwhile, has no soporific effect.

Planet spotting with TESS

NASA’s planet-hunting satellite has had a

productive first year in space, reports The

New York Times. Since going into opera-

tion last summer,

the Transiting

Exoplanet Survey

Satellite (TESS)

has spotted 21 new

planets and 850 more

possible worlds—all

within a few dozen light-

years of our solar system.

Among the most exciting discoveries

in the search for habitable worlds are

three new planets that orbit a red dwarf

around 73 light-years away. These exoplan-

ets are among the smallest and closest ever

discovered outside our solar system: One

is a “Super Earth,” a little larger than our

own planet; the others are “sub-Neptunes”

that are about twice as big. One of the sub-

Neptunes sits in its star’s so-called habitable

zone—where temperatures are just right to

allow liquid water to exist on the world’s

surface. But further investigation revealed

that the planet has a dense atmosphere,

trapping extreme levels of heat. Still, sci-

entists think the star system might contain

other worlds better suited to life. “Chances

are good that we will find more planets

further out in the habitable zone,” says

Maximilian Guenther, an astrophysicist at

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Health scare of the week

Heartburn drugs and allergies

Taking commonly prescribed medication to

relieve heartburn and ulcers may increase

your risk of developing allergies. Scientists at

the Medical University of Vienna looked at

health data for more than 8 million people

in Austria—almost the entire population—

over four years. They found that those who

had been prescribed stomach-acid inhibi-

tors, such as proton-pump inhibitors and

H2 blockers, were twice as likely to subse-

quently receive prescriptions for anti-allergy

drugs. The risk appeared particularly high in

women and people ages 60 and over. “There

have been mouse studies, cellular studies,

and clinical observations” of the same link,

study author Erika Jensen-Jarolim tells

The Guardian (U.K.). “This is the last brick

in the whole picture.” The findings sug-

gest that disruptions to the stomach’s

balance of acids and enzymes can

trigger allergies that the person didn’t

previously suffer. It’s unclear why this

imbalance might have such an effect;

one theory is that reduced stomach acid

allows undigested food to escape into the

intestine, where it is then treated as a threat

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Doctors in the U.S. are using CRISPR,

the pioneering gene-editing technique,

in a landmark effort to treat a debilitat-

ing and often fatal genetic disorder. The

experimental treatment—a first in the

U.S.—is for sickle-cell disease, a disor-

der that affects 100,000 Americans and

causes problems with a protein called

hemoglobin. The defective hemoglobin

makes red blood cells hard and sticky,

preventing them from carrying enough

oxygen around the body. Sickle-cell

sufferers—most of whom are black—can

experience intense pain, organ damage,

and blindness; many don’t live beyond

their 40s. For the CRISPR treatment, scien-

tists extract young cells from the patient’s

bone marrow and modify them to produce

fetal hemoglobin, typically made only by

fetuses in the womb. Patients undergo

chemotherapy to kill off cells carrying the

genetic defect and then have the CRISPR-

edited cells reintroduced into their body.

Doctors at the Sarah Cannon Research

Institute in Nashville have already com-

pleted treatment on the first patient,

34-year-old Victoria Gray. They hope to

enlist 44 others, in the U.S., Canada, and

Europe. The experiment is at a very early

stage: It’ll take several months before

doctors can tell whether the new cells are

producing the hemoglobin and longer still

to determine if the patient’s health has

improved. But that’s not a problem for

Gray. “This gives me hope,” she tells NPR

.org, “[even] if it gives me nothing else.”

Fighting sickle cell with gene editing

Record highs mean more forest fires.

Gray: Groundbreaking CRISPR treatment