Latest news with #MelissaIlardo
CBC
5 days ago
- Climate
- CBC
Why music makes us groove, and more...
Mutant super-powers give Korean sea women diving abilitiesThe Haenyeo, or sea women, of the Korean island of Jeju have been celebrated historically for their remarkable diving abilities. For hour after hour they dive in frigid waters harvesting sea-life, through pregnancy and into old age. A new study has shown they are able to do this because of specific genetic adaptations that appeared in their ancestors more than a thousand years ago. These genes make them more tolerant to the cold, and decrease diastolic blood pressure. The women also spend a lifetime training, beginning to dive at age 15 and continuing on until their 80s or even 90s. Melissa Ilardo of Utah University and her team published their findings in the journal Cell Reports. This dessert is automatic and autonomous Care for a slice of robo-cake? Scientists in Europe have baked up a cake with pneumatically powered animated gummy bears, and candles lit by chocolate batteries. They think their edible robotics could develop in the future to food that could bring itself to the hungry and medicine could deliver itself to the sick. Mario Caironi of the Italian Institute of Technology and his colleagues presented their creation at Expo 2025 Osaka. Shrinking Nemo — heat is causing clownfish to downsizeScientists have found that clownfish, made famous by the Disney movie Finding Nemo, have an ability never seen before in fish in the coral reefs. When the water they live in gets warmer, they are able to shrink their bodies — becoming a few per cent of their body length shorter — to cope with the stress of the heat. Melissa Versteeg of Newcastle University says the size of the clown anemonefish is important for their survival and their ranking within their hierarchical society. The research was published in the journal Science Advances. When the music moves you — the brain science of grooveYou know that groove feeling you get when you listen to certain music that compels you to shake your bootie? Scientists in France investigated how our brains experience groovy music to better understand how we anticipate rhythms in time. They discovered that we perceive time in the motor region that controls movement. Benjamin Morillion from Aix Marseille Université said they also found a specific rhythm in the brain that helps us process information in time, that could predict if a person thought the music was groovy. The study was published in the journal Science Advances. Scientists hope a new storm lab will help us understand destructive weatherExtreme weather is far less predictable than it used to be, and now a new research centre at Western University wants to transform our understanding of Canada's unique weather systems. The Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory will collect nation-wide data on extreme weather, including hailstorms, tornadoes, and flash flooding, and look for patterns to help predict where they'll be hitting and how to prevent the most damage. Producer Amanda Buckiewicz spoke with: Greg Kopp, ImpactWX Chair in Severe Storms Engineering and CSSL founding director at Western UniversityHarold Brooks, senior research scientist at NOAA's National Severe Storms LaboratoryJohn Allen, associate professor of meteorology at Central Michigan UniversityPaul Kovacs, executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at Western Brown-Giammanco, director of Disaster and Failure Studies at NIST
India.com
20-05-2025
- Science
- India.com
These women are called lioness of sea, can remain inside water without oxygen for hours , scientists are...., they are from....
South Korean girls- Representative AI image Special women of South Korea: You must have heard stories about sea mermaids which, according to folklore are aquatic creatures with the head and upper body of a female human and they they can easily swim and live in water as long as they need to. Would you believe if we tell you that there are humans who can deep dive into frozen cold waters and stay there for a very long time without any oxygen support? As per a report carried by DW, there exists a small island off the Korean coast which is home to a genetically distinct population of humans who have special powers to protect their body in extreme cold temperatures. Here are all the details you need to know about the special women of the South Korea island. Special women of South Korea The report calls the special humans of South Korea as Haenyeo — literally 'sea women'. They are Korean cultural divers who have specific adaptations in their body allowing them to dive for longer periods than other people. Moreover, the inhabitants of the South Korean island appear to have unique genes that protect their bodies against blood pressure changes while they are diving in extremely low temperatures. 'They now wear wetsuits, but up until the 1980s they were diving in these cotton bodysuits,' Melissa Ilardo, a geneticist at the University of Utah working with these women, was quoting as saying. Special genes of South Korean women As per the report, the special genes of these women provides them an increased tolerance for cold – a trait that allows these women to endure wind-chilled waters hovering near zero degrees Celsius. 'If we can understand how their bodies manage oxygen and regulate blood pressure so effectively, we may be able to translate these insights into therapies for cardiovascular diseases.' Ilardo added.
Express Tribune
08-05-2025
- Health
- Express Tribune
Haenyeo divers reveal DNA secrets of endurance and low blood pressure: study says
Listen to article A study published in Cell Reports has revealed that the women of Jeju Island, South Korea, known as Haenyeo, may hold key genetic insights that could lead to breakthroughs in human biology, particularly in the treatment of blood pressure disorders. The Haenyeo, who dive deep into the cold sea without oxygen tanks, have long defied human endurance limits in their centuries-old tradition of harvesting seafood. The research, led by geneticist Melissa Ilardo from the University of Utah, focused on the genetic adaptations of the Haenyeo divers compared to local non-diving women and women from mainland Korea. The study found that Haenyeo women are more than four times as likely to carry a genetic variant associated with lower blood pressure spikes, a trait that may have evolved to protect women during pregnancy. 'They dive throughout winter, sometimes in snow, and until the 1980s they did this in cotton clothes with no protection,' said Ilardo. This adaptation, the study suggests, may help them endure the cold and physiological stress of free diving at great depths. The research also revealed that Haenyeo divers exhibit more efficient oxygen conservation, with heart rates dropping significantly during cold-water tests. This response was more pronounced than in non-diving women, highlighting the Haenyeo's ability to handle extreme conditions. Ilardo's team had previously found similar adaptations in the Bajau divers of Indonesia, who evolved large spleens to support underwater endurance. While the Haenyeo divers also showed signs of enlarged spleens, the size difference was not statistically significant when other factors were accounted for. Ben Trumble, an evolutionary scientist at Arizona State University, commented on the potential medical implications of the findings. "That gene reduced blood pressure by over 10% — that's remarkable," he said, suggesting it could be a promising target for drug development. Despite the scientific breakthroughs, the Haenyeo culture, once integral to life on Jeju Island, is in decline. The average age of a Haenyeo diver is now around 70, and fewer young women are taking up the practice. There are concerns that this could be the last generation of Haenyeo divers. Nevertheless, the study's findings underscore the unique biological traits of these women, whose centuries-old practice could offer a wealth of knowledge. As Ilardo stated, 'What they do is unique and worth celebrating.'
Boston Globe
07-05-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
Genetics of Korea's extreme divers could unlock chronic disease treatments
Now, an international team of researchers has found evidence of natural selection at work: a genetic variation found in Jeju Islanders that helps to keep their blood pressure from rising as much when diving, according to a paper published in the journal Cell Reports. In theory, understanding the genetic adaptation could lead to the development of medications that help people at risk for stroke or blood pressure problems. Advertisement 'When you're diving, your blood vessels are responding in complicated ways to try to keep your vital organs safe as your oxygen is running low,' explained Melissa Ilardo, assistant professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Utah Health, who led the study. 'It becomes a trade-off between short term and long term benefits - what keeps you safe while you're diving might lead to complications further down the line. Evolution seems to have found a way to balance this out - a genetic variant that may protect divers while they're holding their breath and beyond.' Advertisement In their study, researchers discovered two kinds of adaptation at work. The first, developed over centuries, affects part of the genetic blueprint of all Jeju Islanders whether or not they dive, providing a protective blood pressure response to immersion in water. The variant is also thought to protect pregnant women who dive from developing preeclampsia, a complication of pregnancy that can be serious, even fatal. The other adaptation, present only in the Haenyeo, is gained from training and causes the heart rate to slow when the women dive. 'When you're diving, every heartbeat is bringing more oxygen to your cells which is normally a good thing,' Ilardo said, 'but when you don't have oxygen coming in, you want to slow that down.' Although it has not been established definitively, the history of diving and the genetic adaptation might be the reason Jeju Islanders have one of the lowest age-standardized stroke death rates in South Korea: a little over 24 deaths per 100,000 people; the rate in the United States is about 37 deaths per 100,000 people. The Haenyeo are not the only diving population scientists have studied. Ilardo and others have examined the male and female Bajau divers of Indonesia who have evolved larger spleens, which may help them hold their breath longer underwater. Other scientists have investigated Tibetans, who have evolved with the ability to live at higher altitudes where there is less oxygen. Insights gained from examining small populations with unique characteristics have helped researchers develop treatments for various medical conditions. The class of medications called PCSK9 inhibitors, used to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol, were discovered when research teams studied a French family with the genetic condition familial hypercholesterolemia, which affects about one in 300 people worldwide. Advertisement Ilardo said it is not clear why the Jeju Island divers are all women, 'but at some point, we think, it switched from men and women diving, which we see in many places in the world, to all women.' In the course of her work on the Haenyeo, Ilardo made three trips to Jeju Island and collaborated with another scientist, Joo-Young Lee, from Seoul National University, who has spent years with the divers and earned their trust. 'I mean it's mind-blowing, especially given the average of age of the divers,' Ilardo said. 'I watched an 87-year-old woman jump off a boat that hadn't stopped moving.' Although generations of Haenyeo dove into the icy waters wearing only cotton bodysuits, around the 1980s, they began wearing wetsuits. The scientists compared three groups of about 30 women each: Haenyeo; non-Haenyeo Jeju Islanders; and non-Haenyeo women from the South Korean mainland. The authors acknowledged the study was limited by its relatively small sample size. Researchers measured physiological characteristics, such as blood pressure and heart rate, then sequenced the DNA of participants to look for genetic differences. In a simulated dive, ordinary Jeju Islanders' heartbeats slowed by about 20 beats per minute, researchers found, about the same amount as women on the South Korean mainland. In the same circumstances, the Haenyeo, who have been diving their whole lives, slow their heartbeats by up to twice that number. In simulated dives, participants held their breath and submerged their faces in a basin of cold water, which triggers the same response in the body as diving. The simulation allowed the researchers to carry out the study without having untrained, and possibly non-swimming, older women try to dive in the open ocean. Advertisement The genetic variant shared by Jeju Islanders, not just the Haenyeo, triggers the protective blood pressure response to immersion in water, but it's not entirely clear how it works. The variant appears to influence a receptor that plays a role in blood vessel inflammation. Ilardo and her colleagues validated their findings by searching the large-scale All of Us database, run by the National Institutes of Health, for people with the same genetic variant. They found that among people of European ancestry, the same variant was linked to the protective blood pressure response seen in the Jeju Islanders, though the effect was not as strong. The scientists think that natural selection for this genetic variation started about 1,200 years ago. The process, they say, may have unfolded like this: Two pregnant Jeju Island women were diving many years ago. One of them carried the protective genetic variant while the other did not. Over the course of her pregnancy, the woman without the protective variant developed preeclampsia because of her daily diving; the condition led to the deaths of mother and child. The woman with the protective variant survived and so did her children. Even the loss of a few children per generation adds up over time. Gradually, more and more Jeju Island children are born with the variant. Tatum Simonson, associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego Health, called the study, which she was not involved in, 'a good first step towards understanding how genetic adaptation, but also importantly, how training can have an effect on blood pressure in these sort of extreme conditions.' Advertisement Simonson cautioned that working with blood pressure measurements can be challenging. Human blood pressure is a snapshot in time that reflects what is going on in a person's life at that moment. It will be different if a person is anxious, excited, angry, or depressed. To their credit, she said, the scientists collected multiple blood pressure readings at different points. Ilardo collaborated on the research with a team of physiologists led by Nikolai Nordsborg at the University of Copenhagen.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Legendary Female Free-Divers Reveal Evolution in Action on South Korean Island
To survive on this wild planet we call home, humans need to adapt. That's not just a feat of strength of will, but of the body. To deal with different environmental pressures, our bodies change over generations, tweaking the traits that will optimize our ability to not just live, but to thrive. We see it at high altitudes, where the human body has adapted to lower oxygen levels in the air. Now, scientists have found the genetic tracers for adaptation on South Korea's Jeju Island, written in the genetic code of the Haenyeo: women who free-dive into frigid waters, year-round, to harvest food from the seafloor. For centuries, Jeju Island relied on the work of the Haenyeo. Now, the need for their services is on the wane, and most of the women are older, with an average age around 70 – possibly the last generation to exercise the tradition. "They're absolutely extraordinary women," says geneticist Melissa Ilardo of the University of Utah. "Every day, they head out and get in the water, and that's where they work all day. I saw women over 80 diving off a boat before it even stopped moving." Ilardo has spent years studying human adaptations to extreme environments. In 2018, she and her colleagues published a paper describing the first population found to have evolved genetic adaptations to ocean free-diving – the Bajau Laut people of Southeast Asia. She and her colleagues wanted to know if similar adaptations improve the abilities of the Haenyeo as they dive to depths of around 10 meters (33 feet) to collect ingredients like abalone and seaweed from beneath the cold, heavy waters. Their study involved 91 participants: 30 Haenyeo divers; 30 Jeju locals who are not divers; and 31 people from Seoul on mainland Korea, with an average age of 65 for all participants. DNA samples were taken, and participants also had their heart rate and blood pressure tested, both at rest, and during a simulated dive in which they submerged their faces in a bowl of cold water. "If you hold your breath and put your face in a bowl full of cold water, your body responds as if you're diving," Ilardo explains. "A lot of the same processes happen in your body that would happen if you were to jump in the ocean, but it's done in a way that's safe for people with no diving experience." Interestingly, there was no genetic difference between the Haenyeo divers of Jeju Island and the other locals on the island. But the Jeju populations were more than four times more likely than Seoul residents to have a genetic variation associated with lower blood pressure. This is likely because holding one's breath, as is necessary for a free-dive, raises one's blood pressure. The researchers speculate that naturally lower blood pressure is vital for Haenyeo divers, who work even while pregnant. Heightened blood pressure during pregnancy can result in conditions such as preeclampsia, which can be quite dangerous for both mother and fetus. "This association may reflect natural selection to mitigate the complications of diastolic hypertension experienced by female divers while diving through pregnancy," Ilardo says. "Since Bajau women also dive while they're pregnant, we wonder whether pregnancy is actually driving a lot of the genetic changes in these diving populations." Interestingly, the stroke mortality rate on Jeju is lower than most of Korea, suggesting that this adaptation may have some side benefits, since stroke is associated with high blood pressure. The other genetic difference between the Jeju and mainland populations that the researchers observed has to do with the body's pain tolerance for cold. This, they believe, may help make the divers less susceptible to hypothermia, since they dive year-round, even in winter when temperatures plunge to freezing levels. "While we did not measure thermoregulatory physiology in our study, this represents an avenue for future research," the authors write. There was one very intriguing difference between the Haenyeo and the non-divers of Jeju Island. When placed in the simulated dive scenario, the heart rates of the Haenyeo slowed much more than the heart rates of either control group. This suggests that the heart rate adjustment is a learned response, rather than a genetic one – the product of decades of experience. The study results, the researchers say, could help scientists better understand the workings of the human body, how we respond to environmental pressure, and the effects those changes have on other health outcomes. "We're really excited to learn more about how these genetic changes may be affecting the health of the broader population of Jeju," Ilardo says. "If we can more deeply characterize how those changes affect physiology, it could inspire the development of therapeutics to treat different conditions, such as hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and stroke." The research has been published in Cell Reports. Here's How Long You Need to Form a Habit, And 8 Tips to Stick With It This Memory Technique Primes The Brain to Absorb More Information Ice Age Humans Were Experts at Wielding Fire, Study Finds
