How monkeys got to America

Is antiaging just hype? Are banana peels edible? And a new medical scam making rounds.

New year. New ways.

I’m reading and writing about science (outside of my work). This year I’m going to finish up my second book. My next science column for Hindustan Times will be my 75th. :-)

But my mantra for 2023 is — simplify. I’m trying to do less better. There is already too much.

Which leaves this newsletter. Is it still useful? Should it continue? Let me know.

I’d say this is my photo of the week. It is in the public domain and courtesy of the US Geological Survey. USGS scientists are observing the Mauna Loa fissure 3 eruption in Hawaii. Publicly funded science is undervalued but incredibly important. This photo was taken with my tax dollars. :)

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Is the world’s best-selling book on preventing aging a scam?

One leading scientist seems to think that billions of dollars spent by Silicon Valley chasing antiaging drugs, a popular podcast, and a best-selling book are not backed by evidence-based science.

Charles Brenner writes—

For scientific discoveries to be developed they need to be real but for books to sell, the stories just have to be good. The reach of Lifespan is a problem for the world precisely because a Harvard scientist is telling fictitious stories about aging that go nowhere other than continuing hype as legendary as anything in Herodotus.

This is a deliciously scathing review.

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Don’t throw away banana peels.

Who knew that banana peels were edible as flour? I certainly didn’t. Apparently, banana peels can be made into flour that can be incorporated into cookies. The process is tedious, but the product is delicious.

Far from the garbage they usually end up as, banana peels are packed with dietary fiber, protein, amino acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and potassium. But the real star of banana peels’ chemistry is their plentiful antioxidants… In layperson’s terms, banana peels deliver nutritional benefits while keeping baked goods fresh longer.

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Monkey business

Three years ago, in a time before the pandemic, I had traveled with my family to Costa Rica. We had a blast. Costa Rica is beautiful country and a biodiversity hub.

You can tell a lot about what a country prioritizes by what they put on their money. And Costa Rica puts its incredible wildlife on its hard currency.

Near the Pacific coast of Costa Rica there are capuchin and howler monkeys everywhere. They are impossible to miss. But probably more amazing is the fact that though monkeys span many countries in South America, they have a fantastic history.

The origin of New World monkeys and the most amazing idea in all of geology is the topic of my most recent column in Hindustan Times, which you can read here.

We like to think that the Earth and life on it are immutable. But as the recorded history of the planet in geology and biology remind us, movement and change are all around us.

Only a century ago, most geologists thought that movements of the Earth’s crust were primarily up and down in vertical motion. In 1912, Alfred Wegener noticed something striking that every kid notices on a map. The eastern shore of South America and the western shore of Africa line up perfectly like they’re two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Wegener’s big idea wasn’t that this connection was on a map. He took it to the next level by showing that the two continents had a connection that was much deeper in time. Rocks on both continents had many similar features. Similar fossils of extinct in similar layers of rock was strong evidence that they had been attached at one point. The same plants and animals had been found until the continents moved apart.

Now, we know that the Earth wasn’t always like it is today.

Around 335 million years, there was a one massive landmass on the planet – a supercontinent centered on the equator. Wegener named it ‘Pangea’. We know that Pangea started breaking up around 175 million years ago, ultimately giving rise to the continents that we have today. 

Dinosaurs were still around at the end of the Cretaceous Period around 66 million years ago when a massive asteroid hit the Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula.

At that time, the continents of North and South America had not joined, but Africa and South America had already drifted apart.

The connection of North and South America through a land-bridge has its own consequences, but that’s a story for another day.

The mass extinction event caused by the asteroid strike paved the way for the rise of mammals such as us. As continents moved apart, geological isolation caused mammals to evolve in different ways. 

So what does any of this have to do with monkeys in Costa Rica?

Quite a lot, actually. New World monkeys didn’t originate in South America.

Monkeys in North and South America are descended from prehistoric monkeys that crossed the Atlantic Ocean around 40 million years ago. 

There are multiple lines of evidence for this crossing across the Atlantic on rafts, but I’ll leave you with a picturesque account from Otherlands - one of the best popular science books of the past year.

Trees still standing, held up by the intertwining of roots that have knitted together the soil, an undergrowth filled with creatures oblivious to their imminent voyage. Around it, smaller, unattached patches swarm like tugboats around a ferry…Only a rough patch of rapids or collision with the bank at a bend in the flow will halt the procession, and if none are encountered, the island raft will eventually emerge from an estuary into the open ocean, and will be carried from shore with the momentum of the river current. The odds of anything good then happening to the inhabitants of these floating islands are minute, but they are good enough that several of these rafts, blown by lucky winds, and each carrying a small population or a pregnant female, arrived in South America.

The trip across the Atlantic would’ve taken around six weeks, and most monkeys would’ve perished without food or fresh water. With that said, there is strong scientific evidence that successful ocean voyages of monkeys happened multiple times. 

It’s kind of crazy to think that there’s an actual monkey migration that is more arduous than the mythological story of the crossing to Lanka by the army of monkeys narrated in the Ramayana.

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A new medical scam

Have you heard of medbeds?

Strange corners of the internet are awash with chatter about miracle devices that can cure nearly any ailment you can think of using the power of mystical energy.

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And that’s it. I’m also here on the interwebs.

My best wishes,

Anirban