Inverse Daily: Science suggests making one change in your routine before starting a diet
Plus: Sci-fi robots vs. the real ones, Chevy has a new electric truck, and seafood is good, but, like, diversify.
After precisely one sleep, we’re back. I’m glad you’re here. I’m Nick Lucchesi, editor-in-chief at Inverse, and below are a few essential new stories of science and innovation to get your day going, hand-picked by yours truly.
If you’ve been reading for the last three days, you know we’re in the heart of Ingenuity Week, which peaks tomorrow with the first controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. NASA will attempt to fly its whirlygig named Ingenuity over the surface of Mars. Look for all sorts of interesting stories you won’t find elsewhere on Thursday.
Ingenuity has already passed one tough test — sleeping outside. NASA announced this week that the helicopter passed a “major milestone” when it survived sleeping out of doors on Mars. (It was in the Perseverance rover before it unpacked its tiny legs.) The surface of the Red Planet can get as cold as negative 130 degrees Fahrenheit.
A quick book rec — The Revelations was pitched to me as “an edgy and ambitious debut novel about neuroscience, death, and the search for the theory of human consciousness,” so I was immediately skeptical, but this work by author Erik Hoel has the sort of writing that’s sticky in all the usual places and a story that could inform dozens of books. It’s a super-ambitious, intelligent endeavor from a reader who can now call himself a Hoel fan. It’s out this week on The Overlook Press, an imprint of publisher Abrams Books. If you pick it up, let me know what you think by sending an email to newsletter@inverse.com.
This is an adapted version of the Inverse Daily newsletter for April 7, 2021. Subscribe for free and earn rewards for reading every day in your inbox.
If you fast before you begin a new diet, you may see long-term improvements in your gut microbiome, immune system, and heart health.
Fasting before a diet might transform your microbiome — Claims about the health benefits of fasting tend to edge on hype, with scientists racing to produce study results that can match the clip of fandom, reports Sophie Putka. But there’s good news backed in science:
Proponents of intermittent fasting tout its ability to prompt rapid weight loss, improve heart health, and even reduce the risk of cancer. Liquid fasters talk about better digestion and hydration. Meanwhile, juice cleanses and fasts promise to fix basically everything.
But new research reveals some of the strongest evidence yet that fasting can have cascading benefits for multiple aspects of health.
More like this:
- Can intermittent fasting burn fat? Experts explain the complicated truth
- 2 simples changes to your diet that can maximize the Covid-19 vaccine
- What diet is worst for the environment? Carbon footprint study reveals
Eating different types of seafood makes you healthier because it offers your body different types of micronutrients.
The best healthy seafood diet depends on one critical factor — The majority of the seafood Americans eat comes from just three sources: shrimp, salmon, and canned tuna. New research suggests this lack of variety isn’t just taxing on aquatic ecosystems; it’s bad for human health, reports Kaitlin Sullivan:
Seafood has a well-deserved reputation as a staple protein source, especially in coastal and indigenous communities. For this reason, the co-authors of the new study expected protein content to vary most based on how diverse a person’s sources of seafood were — but that isn’t what they found at all.
Eating many different types of seafood — a biodiverse approach to seafood consumption, according to the researchers — didn’t provide a person any more or less protein. Where biodiversity did matter was when it came to other nutrients, especially micronutrients like calcium and iron, as well as essential fatty acids.
More like this:
- 70 percent of people don’t know what seafood they are eating — study
- Gut health and mental health: Microbiome study reveals a landmark finding
- 4 foods that are bad for your brain and body
This Chevy Silverado runs on gasoline. A new one, announced on Tuesday, will not!
Chevy teases electric Silverado pickup with an eye-opening promise — Chevrolet has a new entrant to the electric vehicle market and it’s a big deal — literally, reports Jordan Golson, fresh off a Tuesday press conference in Detroit.
General Motors announced on Tuesday that Chevrolet is building an electric Silverado pickup truck. The news of the hefty new EV came at an event revealing the “Factory ZERO” retooling of Chevrolet’s existing Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center.
The company didn’t give much detail on the electric Silverado aside from the fact that it exists, but at the livestream event, General Motors’ President Mark Reuss promised the truck would — in theory — manage more than 400 miles of electric range when it does go on sale.
More electrified transport headlines:
- See the electric pickup trucks that will give Tesla Cybertruck competition
- GMC Hummer EV: Price, release date, “WTF mode” for the colossal new electric SUV
- Freightliner customers have driven electric semis 700,000 miles
A few previous Mars rovers, like Curiosity, have looked like WALL-E. Perseverance does, too.
See how the Mars Perseverance rover stacks up against sci-fi robots — NASA has previously sent four rovers to Mars, but Perseverance, which landed there on February 18, is the most technologically advanced Martian robot. Stacked up against its forerunners, it almost seems like something out of science fiction, writes Passant Rabie.
NASA rover enthusiasts already know about the resemblance between these real-life Martian robots and WALL-E, the small waste-collecting robot from the eponymous 2008 movie.
Then there’s the humanoid robot Gort from the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still that could shoot lasers out of his eyes, vaporizing any physical object.
Read the full story and see the other sci-fi comparisons.
Related stories:
- You need to watch the best time travel movie on Disney+ ASAP
- Perseverance is getting ready to hunt for ancient aliens on Mars
- Netflix April 2021: 11 best sci-fi shows and movies to watch ASAP
MLB The Show 21 will be available for a far lower cost for Xbox players, even though PlayStation has been the traditional home for it. Not exactly a walk-off home run for Sony.
MLB The Show 21 restarts the Xbox-PlayStation rivalry — Industry analysts and representatives from Sony and Microsoft reveal how an unprecedented deal happened, and what it could mean for games in the months and years ahead. It’s a gaming industry scoop from contributing writer Tomas Franzese. Here’s a snippet:
MLB The Show 21 will cost a whopping $70 on Sony’s PS5, so Xbox Game Pass — a service from Sony rival Microsoft — presents a far cheaper alternative to experience the next-gen version of the baseball simulator.
It’s an unexpected move from Sony, which has long kept its first-party IP exclusive to its PlayStation consoles.
“As part of the goal for this year’s game, MLB decided to bring the franchise to more players and baseball fans,” a PlayStation representative tells Inverse. “This decision provides a unique opportunity to further establish MLB The Show as the premier brand for baseball video games.”
Related gaming stories:
- Outriders launch time, preload, file size, and Xbox Game Pass status
- You need to play the prettiest RPG of the last decade on Xbox Game Pass ASAP
- Xbox Game Pass: 22 brilliant indie games launching in the next 2 years
That wraps up this edition of Inverse Daily. I would like to thank you for reading so loyally! You can follow me on Twitter at @nicklucchesi, where I share some of my favorite stories from Inverse, Input, and Mic every day. Happy belated birthday to my brother, Michael!
