Bed bugs were likely one of the first pests found in cities, new study finds
Bed bugs originally fed on bats. But around 245,000 years ago, one group of bedbugs started feeding on humans, likely beginning with Neanderthals.
About a year ago, Lindsay Miles from Virginia Tech began studying bedbug genetic data to see how their populations changed over time. Bedbug numbers dropped around 19,000 years ago, when the Ice Age ended and habitats changed.
Both types of bedbugs did decline, but the ones that fed on humans increased sharply some 13,000 years ago, stayed steady for a while, and then rose again 7,000 years ago. In comparison, the population of bedbugs that feed on bats are still decreasing.
The big change from fewer to more bedbugs happened around the same time the first cities appeared in western Asia and started to grow, as per the study. Before that, people moved around a lot and didn't often meet other groups, so bedbugs didn't spread much either.
But once people began living together in cities, it created a new environment for bedbugs. The study states that the bugs started mating with each other more, their numbers grew quickly, and they adapted to life in cities.
The researchers also hypothesised that bed bugs were one of the first pests to adjust to city life and were likely the first insect pests to live in urban areas. Other animals became connected to city life much later. German cockroaches, for instance, started living closely with humans around 2,100 years ago, and black rats around 5,000 years ago.
Mark Ravinet, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Oslo in Norway, who said that these findings showed that bedbugs can help scientists learn how species adapt to live with humans. He said the study was important for understanding how quickly animals can adjust to human environments and what changes they make in order to survive.
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News18
a day ago
- News18
Chromosomes Say Female But It Has Organs Of A Male — Disturbing Trend In Australia
Last Updated: Researchers tested 480 birds from five common species that had died after being admitted to wildlife hospitals. A study in south-east Queensland has revealed a surprising phenomenon in common Australian wild birds. About 5 per cent of species such as kookaburras, lorikeets and crested pigeons showed a mismatch between their genetic sex and reproductive organs which suggests the possibility that they may have gone 'sex reversal." This study, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, is believed to be the first to document widespread sex reversal across several species of wild birds. Scientists are now investigating why this happens and what it could mean for bird populations. According to a report in The Guardian, researchers tested 480 birds from five common species that had died after being admitted to wildlife hospitals where they first used DNA tests to determine their genetic sex. In birds, males have two Z chromosomes and females have one Z and one W. After that, they dissected the birds to examine their reproductive organs, 24 birds showed a mismatch between genetic sex and reproductive organs. Most were genetically female but had male reproductive organs. In one case, a male kookaburra had a stretched oviduct which suggested that it had recently laid eggs. Two genetically female crested pigeons even had both testicular and ovarian structures. Associate Professor Dominique Potvin, a co-author of the study at the University of the Sunshine Coast, said, 'I was thinking, is this right? So we rechecked, and rechecked and rechecked. And then we were thinking, 'Oh my God.'" She added that ornithologist friends were 'mind-blown" with the findings. The rate of sex reversal varied among species. Australian magpies showed the lowest level at 3 per cent while crested pigeons were the highest at 6.3 per cent. Dr Clancy Hall, lead author of the study, explained, 'This can lead to skewed sex ratios, reduced population sizes, altered mate preferences, and even population decline. The ability to unequivocally identify the sex and reproductive status of individuals is crucial across many fields of study." Could Chemicals Be To Blame? The exact causes of sex reversal in wild birds are still unknown but experts suspect chemicals in the environment may play a role. These substances, called endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) can affect hormone systems in animals. Professor Kate Buchanan from Deakin University said, 'The most likely explanation of the masculinisation is some environmental stimulation, probably anthropogenic chemicals." She noted that EDCs have been found in insects living in sewage treatment areas which are then eaten by birds. Exposure could impact reproduction even if the masculinisation is temporary. Dr Clare Holleley from CSIRO added that natural factors like temperature changes can trigger sex reversal in some reptiles, but in these birds, it is more likely caused by chemicals. 'If sex determination gets disrupted then something has to push you off track. The most likely [cause] is endocrine-disrupting chemicals," she said. What Is Sex Reversal And Its Causes Sex reversal happens when an animal develops the sexual characteristics of the opposite sex even though its DNA says otherwise. Causes Of Sex Reversal Sex reversal can occur when the normal process of sex development is disrupted by changes in genes, hormones or environmental factors. Changes in key genes like SRY or SOX9 can alter gonad development. For example, mutations in SRY can cause genetically male (XY) individuals to develop as females while SRY moving to the X chromosome can result in genetically female (XX) individuals developing male traits. Hormonal factors play an important role as well. Imbalances in steroid hormones such as estrogens or androgens, can affect sex differentiation during critical stages of development. Sex Reversal vs Sex Change Some animals, particularly fish, can change their sex later in life. This process is called sequential hermaphroditism or simply a sex change. Sex reversal, by contrast, occurs during development. It is a mismatch between genetic sex and reproductive organs from the original developmental path, not a switch later in adulthood. About the Author Buzz Staff A team of writers at bring you stories on what's creating the buzz on the Internet while exploring science, cricket, tech, gender, Bollywood, and culture. view comments First Published: August 19, 2025, 14:11 IST News viral Chromosomes Say Female But It Has Organs Of A Male — Disturbing Trend In Australia | Science Explained Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Loading comments...
Mint
2 days ago
- Mint
The race to freeze and revive the dead: Science or folly?
From Demolition Man—where Sylvester Stallone's cryogenically frozen whole body is revived to chase a futuristic villain played by Wesley Snipes—to movies like The 6th Day, Gemini Man, and Universal Soldier, Hollywood has long toyed with the idea of cheating death through scientific advancements such as cloning and cryonics. That notion of resurrecting the dead is no longer confined to pulp fiction and sci-fi. From Berlin to Arizona, companies are freezing brains—and sometimes the entire bodies—of humans and pets, betting that future science will one day bring them back. For instance, Tomorrow Bio, Europe's only provider of whole-body cryoprotection, recently made headlines when it raised about $6 million. However, behind the sci-fi gloss lie pressing questions: How does the process really work? Who can afford it? Which companies are leading the charge worldwide? And are these firms reckoning with the philosophical, social, legal, and moral upheavals that would follow if dead people, or animals like the Woolly Mammoth from the Ice Age, were ever revived into a world far removed from the one they left? What is Tomorrow Bio aiming to achieve? Founded in 2020, Tomorrow Bio offers post-legal-death cryopreservation across Europe. The Berlin-based startup says it has already preserved 20 people and 10 pets, with more than 800 members enrolled. Its ambulances—currently in Berlin and Amsterdam, and soon in Zurich—first cool patients to –80 °C immediately after death, before transferring them to long-term storage in Switzerland. There, vacuum-insulated steel dewars (containers) filled with liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) keep bodies preserved indefinitely without electricity. Oversight rests with a non-profit Patient Care Foundation, designed to ensure continuity even if the company itself fails. The start-up calls whole-body field cryoprotection its hallmark innovation, reducing delays and tissue damage. All equipment is German-sourced or custom-built in Berlin, while Switzerland's stability makes it, according to the company, the safest place to safeguard 'patients until revival becomes possible". Are there other cryonics companies? The cryonics industry is still small but growing, with only a few hundred people preserved worldwide. The Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona, founded in 1972, is the most established player, with around 1,442 members and 248 patients in storage. The Cryonics Institute in Michigan, set up in 1976, offers lower-cost whole-body preservation and has about 2,200 members and 240 patients. In Russia, KrioRus—operating since the mid-2000s—has preserved a little over 100 people and 77 pets, and offers both whole-body and head-only options. China's Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute is newer but has already cryopreserved a dozen or so individuals. Southern Cryonics in Australia is preparing its first storage facility, while Germany's non-profit Cryonics Germany offers low-cost neuro preservation to a small but dedicated base. In the US, Oregon Cryonics (now Oregon Brain Preservation) has shifted to brain-only services. Several related efforts complement these providers. Suspended Animation, Inc. handles stabilization and transport for patients in the US, while Nectome experiments with chemical brain preservation and focuses on "advancing the science of memory." Academic initiatives like the Brain Preservation Foundation and Biostasis Technologies pursue research rather than patient services. But what exactly is cryonics? James Hiram Bedford, a former University of California psychology professor who died of renal cancer in 1967, was the first human to be cryonically preserved. He has been stored at Alcor since 1991. Founded in 1972 in California by Fred and Linda Chamberlain, Alcor has grown into the world's most recognized cryonics provider. Fred himself is cryopreserved there, while Linda continues to work at the company. Cryonics, or biostasis, seeks to pause the dying process at subfreezing temperatures so that future medical technology might restore life and health. Alcor calls it the 'ambulance to the future". Ideally, preservation begins immediately after legal death, at cardiac arrest. Patients are not considered dead but 'cryopreserved". Unlike embalming, which slows decay, or organ donation, which repurposes tissue, cryonics halts biological processes altogether. This is achieved with cryoprotectants—chemicals that prevent lethal ice crystal formation by replacing water in tissues. Cooling is then carried out through vitrification, where body fluids solidify into a glass-like state rather than crystallizing. Once cooled to –196 °C, patients are stored indefinitely in vacuum-insulated steel dewars (insulated containers) filled with liquid nitrogen. The process requires no electricity, shielding patients from power failures and reducing long-term costs. How much do these companies charge? For members, the cost is €200,000 (full-body) or €75,000 (brain-only). One can pay in monthly instalments until you are cryopreserved. Membership guarantees standby services and provides a €30,000 discount on cryopreservation costs compared to non-member pricing. For non-members, whole-body cryopreservation costs €230,000.00 while brain-only cryopreservation is priced at €115,000.00. Those using Alcor for cryopreservation today must take a life insurance policy that pays $80,000 at death for neuropreservation (just the head), or $200,000 for whole-body preservation. Cryonics Institute offers the whole body at about $28,000, but standby and transport add another $60,000. KrioRus charges $36,000 for whole and $15,000-18,000 for brain. Prospective clients often fund services via life insurance policies. Can cryonics really bring people back? No full mammal has ever been cooled to cryogenic temperatures and successfully revived. At least, not yet. Still, hospitals routinely resuscitate 'clinically dead" patients—those without a heartbeat or breathing—using modern medical interventions. Cryonics advocates argue that 'absolute death" only occurs when the brain's critical information is lost, and that cryopreservation preserves this data for future repair. The hope is that advances in biotechnology and nanomedicine will one day make revival possible—and perhaps even allow terminally ill patients to undergo cryonics before legal death. For now, those cryopreserved remain in waiting. Do Big Tech executives support cryopreservation? Many Big Tech leaders identify with transhumanism—a movement that embraces technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), nanotech, genetic engineering, and cryonics to extend human life. For instance, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has publicly expressed his wish to be cryopreserved and invested millions in longevity research, including SENS Research Foundation and Craig Venter's Human Longevity. Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, became a paid member of Nectome in 2018. Others back ageing and disease research more broadly: Futurist Ray Kurzweil takes more than 100 pills a day to defy ageing. Google co-founder Sergey Brin, carrying a Parkinson's risk mutation, has donated over $130 million to Parkinson's causes. His co-founder, Larry Page, launched Calico Life Sciences to combat ageing, while Jeff Bezos has backed Altos Labs, focused on cellular rejuvenation. Elon Musk founded Neuralink to merge AI and the brain. Closer home, Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan funds brain-computing research. What are the ethical and legal dilemmas of cryonics? Cryonics has long stirred controversy. In 1987, the Dora Kent case saw Alcor accused of preserving a patient's head while she was still alive; police raided its facility, but no charges were filed. Two decades later, the 'Frozen Larry" case alleged mishandling of remains, including baseball legend Ted Williams's head. The claims were never proven, but the headlines dented Alcor's image. More recently, US-based Colossal Biosciences, cofounded by Harvard and MIT geneticist George Church, is working to revive extinct species like the woolly mammoth and dodo through cloning and genetic engineering. This has raised fears of introducing a Jurassic World. Critics also argue that cryonics is scientifically unproven, more promise than practice, and borders on pseudoscience. Ethicists question whether billion-dollar longevity research benefits only the wealthy, while faith groups view it as an unnatural defiance of death. Medically, freezing can cause tissue damage, and even if revival becomes possible, there is no guarantee of restored memory or identity. Legal concerns include consent, funding sustainability, and the welfare of revived individuals—or pets—who may awaken to a world unrecognizable from the one they left, raising profound identity and quality-of-life dilemmas. And what if AI is sentient when cryonic patients awaken? If current trends pan out as feared, cryopreserved individuals—or even pets—revived centuries from now, may likely enter a world dominated by artificially sentient beings. The reason: by then, AI would have surpassed human cognition, running governments, economies, and even healthcare. Cryonics may hence save the body and brain, but re-entry into a world with sentient AI could challenge the very notion of what it means to be human. For one, revived humans might find themselves socially and intellectually obsolete, struggling to integrate into societies shaped by post-human intelligence. Second, pets could be seen as sentimental relics in a world where digital or bioengineered companions are common. Last but not least, it raises philosophical questions of personhood and rights: Would revived people have the same legal and social standing as those who never died? Would AI recognize their dignity, view them as historical curiosities, or simply lab rats? There are no easy answers.
Hindustan Times
3 days ago
- Hindustan Times
Mega-tsunami warning: These 3 US states could face direct impact in next 50 years
Scientists have warned that a potentially catastrophic mega-tsunami, triggered by a major earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), could hit parts of the US Pacific Coast. Researchers from Virginia Tech have said that the Cascadia Subduction Zone is one of North America's most hazardous fault lines. The recent warning takes us back to a May 2025 report that claimed that three US states could face direct impact of mega-tsunamis in the next 50 years. Mega-tsunami warning: These 3 US states could face direct impact in next 50 years (Unsplash - representational image) A groundbreaking study from Virginia Tech, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, previously warned that three states – Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington – are at significant risk of experiencing catastrophic mega-tsunamis in the next 50 years. These colossal waves can reach up to 1,000 feet, and could be triggered by massive earthquakes and geological events. Alaska is under increased threat as it faces dual threats from both seismic activity and climate change-induced landslides. The Aleutian Islands, part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, are prone to very powerful earthquakes. A study from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has estimated that there is a 9% chance of a magnitude 9.0 or greater earthquake in the Aleutians within the next 50 years – an event that could potentially generate a mega-tsunami with waves reaching up to 75 feet. Hawaii is also under increased risk as the Big Island's active volcanoes, such as Kīlauea, are susceptible to flank collapses. These are massive landslides in which huge sections of the volcano's flank slide into the ocean, displacing massive amounts of water and generating tsunamis that can affect coastal areas of Hawaii. Read More | Japanese man flees home with pets mid-breakfast after tsunami alert. Watch The Cascadia Subduction Zone, stretching from Northern California to Vancouver Island, is a major fault line where the Juan de Fuca Plate is gradually sinking beneath the North American Plate. If a major earthquake hits this region, it could cause coastal land to sink by up to 6.5 feet, expanding floodplains and increasing flood risks. The tsunami resulting from this could send waves up to 40 feet high, affecting communities along the Pacific Northwest coast, including northern California, northern Oregon, and southern Washington. What is a mega-tsunami? According to a mega-tsunami is an extremely destructive and rare phenomenon that may strike the world every few thousand years. 'Huge earthquake-induced rockslides next to bodies of water can generate mega-tsunamis since the massive amount of water displacement increases the wave size more than a submarine earthquake,' the website says. 'Luckily, huge landslides and the mega-tsunamis that they can generate are extremely rare. In most cases, tsunamis caused by rockslides, unlike the ocean-wide tsunamis caused by some underwater earthquakes, dissipate quickly and rarely affect coastlines distant from the source due to the small area of sea affected. However, a massive landslide can give rise to much larger local shock waves (solitons = solitary waves that can travel for long distances without changing their shape or losing energy).' Read More | From Lituya Bay to Icy Bay, some of the worst tsunamis in US history The website explained that in some cases, they can end up generating a mega-tsunami that can reach the height of hundreds of meters. 'That is the case when a massive landslide occurs in a limited body of water and the resulting wave is unable to disperse, just as it happened in Alaska where a major rock fall generated the Lituya Bay tsunami. It was the largest tsunami wave ever observed anywhere in the world and it was caused by a rock fall in Lituya Bay, Alaska on July 9, 1958,' it added.
