In hibernation news, ground squirrels have a way to keep their musculature running through the winter. Their gut biome breaks down urea (for nitrogen) before it gets into their kidneys.
The headline made me WTF since the tree rats out here never take the winter off. The main text concerns ground squirrels, usually colloquially misnamed like the ground "hog" and the prairie "dog".
The authors note this is works not just against muscle-atrophy during long term space travel, but also against sarcopenia among us GenX and older. Which is telling me it is good for ... being in space, even if kept busy. Add probiotics to the sleeping-bag.
"Undernourishment" is another issue. Our planet does not, in fact, own a food shortage. It does, however, own - outside major supply-lines - subsistence grazers using hills for livestock, eroding those hills.
The theory had been around since the 1980s so I do take personally, a bit, that its confirmation took as long as it has. Well at least we have it now.
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