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Social isolation and loneliness threaten human physical health

Long-term loneliness and social isolation can affect people's physical health as much as smoking.

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Numerous studies have shown that social isolation and loneliness are associated with an increased risk of premature death. The scale of this risk is comparable to other known risk factors such as smoking and obesity. This year, the US Surgeon General declared social isolation and loneliness a major public health concern.

However, scientists are still trying to unravel the physical processes responsible for the link between loneliness and health. According to the Conversation website, a group of researchers have shown that social isolation and loneliness are associated with higher levels of inflammation. Inflammation, in turn, is linked to many health problems.

Researchers have argued that the desire for social connection, or in other words, the aversion to social disconnection, is part of human evolutionary heritage. Humans may not have a large, fast or strong body like other species, but they are highly social, and the chance of survival and reproductive success of our ancestors in the past depended on living in a community. Disconnecting from the social group can be a threat to our security.

In a research published in November 2023 in Brain, Behavior and Immunity magazine, researchers investigated the relationship between social isolation and loneliness based on indicators of inflammation. Social isolation and loneliness are not the same thing. The former is an objective measure of social connection, but loneliness is more of a feeling that you may experience even when you are in a group of different people. Both conditions have consequences for physical and mental health.

The researchers used data from three surveys, each of which had data related to social isolation, loneliness, and inflammation. Two studies tracked participants from childhood to adulthood. This monitoring not only allowed the researchers to examine the deficiencies of early social relationships and its effect on inflammation in older age, but they were also able to find the effects of one sample and its reflection in other samples.

Loneliness can change the level of some biological indicators of the body

The researchers investigated three indicators of inflammation. Two indicators including a protein made in the liver called C-reactive protein (CRP) and a type of protein involved in immune regulation called interleukin-6 (IL-6) have been widely used in medical research. The third indicator, a protein called soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR), is considered a useful indicator for chronic inflammation.

According to the findings, social isolation in childhood has a correlation with the above three inflammatory indicators in adulthood at the ages of 18 and 45. After controlling for factors such as smoking or body mass index, the researchers found that social isolation still had a direct relationship with increased suPAR.

The findings were repeated in long-term studies. The researchers also found that living alone was associated with increased inflammation (specifically suPAR) among patients with a clinical pattern.

Loneliness is also associated with inflammation, although the pattern is less consistent. Correlation between loneliness and increased suPAR is seen in middle age; But in early adulthood, i.e. at the age of 18, loneliness is associated with a decrease in CRP. The second finding is a bit contradictory, but it shows that lonely 18-year-olds are less likely to face pathogens.read more

Towards a more connected future

The findings underscore that social isolation in childhood can overshadow health problems decades later. We often see social isolation in older adults, but research shows that this problem exists at all ages.

Studying the intertwining of our social world with our biological world can help identify the complex web of factors that influence long-term health. The set of mentioned research shows how important it is to try to protect young people from the negative consequences of loneliness and isolation.

To solve the problem, we must first define the meaning of "social communication". In a world where it seems that all people are connected with each other through digital media. Modern technology has both good and bad potential for social health, and we need to think carefully about its role in addressing social isolation and loneliness.

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Security researchers revealed the most sophisticated cyber attack on iPhones

Spyware plagued Kaspersky employees and broke Apple's security systems.

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According to ArsTechnica , researchers have found evidence that thousands of iPhones have been attacked by spyware in four years.

The phones in question belonged to employees of the Kaspersky security company in Russia, and in addition, employees of Russian embassies and diplomatic representatives were also cyber-attacked.

Cyber ​​attackers have reached a level of access that has never been seen before. This access was achieved only by exploiting a hardware vulnerability that was not known to people outside of Apple and companies active in the field of semiconductor design.

It is not yet clear how the attackers learned about the vulnerability of this hardware, what was the purpose behind these attacks, and whether this hardware is part of the original iPhone components or similar to CoreSight, which is manufactured by Arm.

The spyware easily infected the phone through iMessage messages without the victim needing to do anything, allowing the attackers to direct and control the recording of the microphone, images, location data and other important information.

"The complexity and obscurity of this vulnerability shows that the attackers have advanced technical ability," said Kaspersky researcher Boris Larin . We are investigating all possibilities and factors such as the disclosure of previous versions of hardware and source code. Attackers may have achieved this capability through reverse engineering of hardware.

This malware and the campaign that used it is called "Operation Triangulation". The scan exploited four zero-day vulnerabilities that Apple did not know about.

The critical vulnerabilities in question were not only present in the iPhone, but also affected the iPad , iPod, MacBook , Apple TV set-top boxes and the Apple Watch . Apparently, Apple has patched these vulnerabilities on all the listed devices.Related article

Boris Larin added: "Given the closed nature of the iOS ecosystem, this was not a typical vulnerability and had a very time-consuming and challenging research process that required a high level of understanding of hardware and software architectures. "We learned from these investigations that even advanced hardware-level protections can be broken against sophisticated attackers."

Some users on social networks blame the American National Security Agency (NSA), and the Russian Federal Security Service believes that the attack was carried out by the American National Security Agency, which cooperates with Apple; Although Kaspersky has said that there is no evidence that the two are involved in this case.

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Scientists have discovered a new cause of type 2 diabetes

A recent study by researchers, by identifying a new effective factor in type 2 diabetes, opens the way for inventing new treatments for this disease.

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More than half a billion people worldwide have type 2 diabetes, and yet researchers still don't know what's behind the disease's insulin dysfunction. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University in the United States have now pulled back the molecular veil to understand why insulin (the hormone that keeps blood sugar stable) often loses its full effectiveness.

Jonathan Stamler , an American scientist and the main researcher of the study, who has been praised for the discovery of S-nitrosylation, has in a way confirmed its findings with his participation in the new research. S-nitrosylation is a process that converts nitric oxide (NO) into a ubiquitous messenger molecule capable of sharing information between cells.

Nitric oxide is produced in almost all types of cells and tissues and plays an important role in the functioning of the nervous system, the immune system and the expansion of blood vessels. Furthermore, dysregulation of S-nitrosylation is increasingly associated with a number of health problems such as MS, Parkinson's disease, sickle cell anemia, and asthma.

Stammler and colleagues found that the role of nitric oxide in various types of diabetes has been overlooked

Although nitric oxide is linked to many metabolic aspects of the body, Stamler and colleagues previously suspected that its role in some types of diabetes had been overlooked. They now have evidence to support their hypothesis. The research team has discovered a new enzyme called SNO-CoA-assisted nitrosylase or SCAN for short, which plays a role in S-nitrosylation. This enzyme, like insulin receptors, helps bind nitric oxide to its target proteins.

It seems that SCAN enzyme activity is increased in insulin-resistant mice and humans. In mouse models of diabetes, Stamler and colleagues found that after inhibiting SCAN, the animals did not show the classic symptoms.read more

Overall, the findings show that type 2 diabetes may be caused by excessive binding of NO to proteins such as insulin; Therefore, any enzyme such as SCAN that functions to bind NO to its receptors is a useful target for future research.

Stammler hopes that by blocking the SCAN enzyme, scientists can find new treatments for some types of diabetes. However, type 1 diabetes is caused by a lack of insulin production and may require a different treatment method.

The study was published in the Journal of Tuberculosis .

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Want to buy a gamepad? Zomit products section is for you

Whether you are a console gamer, whether you play with computer or mobile, the game controller is one of the main accessories you need.

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Perhaps the variety of technical specifications in the game and gamepad category may seem small at first; But by looking at their technical specifications in the products section, the completeness and importance of some of them will attract your attention. In addition to the PlayStation category and the Xbox category , which are the most popular and widely used game categories in the market, you will see Razer categories , Tesco categories and other brands in the products section.

After getting complete information about the product and comparing the game category with competitors, it's time to find the cheapest seller of the product you want. The game console price is updated several times daily from reputable stores to pave the way to buy the product at the cheapest price by comparing it with the price history.

We recommend that you take a look at the opinions of users before buying a game console or a game console. Because nothing will replace the experience of people to find the right product. Also, if you come across a question or ambiguity, you can ask your question through the "I have a question" section. You will receive a notification through the system upon receiving the answer.

If you have used any of these game categories, you can guide other users by writing your experience in the product section.

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Mathematicians discovered a guaranteed way to win the lottery

Mathematicians at the University of Manchester have suggested that if you buy a certain number of lottery tickets, you are guaranteed to win.

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Some people are really lucky in the lottery and others have no real chance of winning the lottery no matter how many tickets they buy or what systems they try. However, if you have access to the UK National Lottery, there is a way to guarantee a win.

Earlier this year, two mathematicians, David Cushing and David Stewart from the University of Manchester, announced that all you have to do to guarantee a win in the lotto game is to buy 27 special tickets. This is while 45,057,474 combinations of numbers are possible.

According to the University of Manchester website , Stewart and Cushing focused on the lottery game, which picks six random numbers from 1 to 59, and found that 27 tickets is the minimum number of tickets needed to guarantee winning, although there is no guarantee of winning. They describe their solution using a mathematical system known as finite geometry, which centers around a triangle-like structure called a Fano plane. Each point of this structure is represented by pairs of numbers and connected by lines. Each line produces a set of six numbers that equals one ticket.

Of course, winning can mean free entry to the next lottery and does not necessarily bring a prize. For this reason, the researchers say that although using their system will lead to winning, it is also a great way to lose money. "They all said they lost money," Cushing says of the excited emails he's received from people who've used their system.read more

Although winning is guaranteed, the chances of making a profit are very low and these calculations should not lead you to gamble. 27 lottery tickets cost $54, and mathematician Peter Rowlett of the website Aperiodical has shown that 99 percent of the time you won't get that money back.

The researchers say their findings are computationally interesting. They use a fifty-year-old programming language called Prolog, which is one of the oldest examples of true artificial intelligence.