For nearly 650 years, the fortress walls in the Chinese city of Xi’an have served as a formidable barrier around the central city. At 12 meters high and up to 18 meters thick, they are impervious to almost everything — except subatomic particles called muons.

Now, thanks to their penetrating abilities, muons may be key to ensuring that the walls that once protected the treasures of the first Ming Dynasty — and are now a national architectural treasure in their own right — stand for centuries more.

A refined detection method has provided the highest-resolution muon scans yet produced of any archaeological structure, researchers report in the Jan. 7 Journal of Applied Physics. The scans revealed interior density fluctuations as small as a meter across inside one section of the Xi’an ramparts. The fluctuations could be signs of dangerous flaws or “hidden structures archaeologically interesting for discovery and investigation,” says nuclear physicist Zhiyi Liu of Lanzhou University in China.
Muons are like electrons, only heavier. They rain down all over the planet, produced when charged particles called cosmic rays hit the atmosphere. Although muons can travel deep into earth and stone, they are scattered or absorbed depending on the material they encounter. Counting the ones that pass through makes them useful for studying volcano interiors, scanning pyramids for hidden chambers and even searching for contraband stashed in containers impervious to X-rays (SN: 4/22/22).

Though muons stream down continuously, their numbers are small enough that the researchers had to deploy six detectors for a week at a time to collect enough data for 3-D scans of the rampart.

It’s now up to conservationists to determine how to address any density fluctuations that might indicate dangerous flaws, or historical surprises, inside the Xi’an walls.

Today’s red jungle fowl — the wild forebears of the domesticated chicken — are becoming more chickenlike. New research suggests that a large proportion of the wild fowl’s DNA has been inherited from chickens, and relatively recently.

Ongoing interbreeding between the two birds may threaten wild jungle fowl populations’ future, and even hobble humans’ ability to breed better chickens, researchers report January 19 in PLOS Genetics.

Red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus) are forest birds native to Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. Thousands of years ago, humans domesticated the fowl, possibly in the region’s rice fields (SN: 6/6/22).
“Chickens are arguably the most important domestic animal on Earth,” says Frank Rheindt, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore. He points to their global ubiquity and abundance. Chicken is also one of the cheapest sources of animal protein that humans have.

Domesticated chickens (G. gallus domesticus) were known to be interbreeding with jungle fowl near human settlements in Southeast Asia. Given the unknown impacts on jungle fowl and the importance of chickens to humankind, Rheindt and his team wanted to gather more details. Wild jungle fowl contain a store of genetic diversity that could serve as a crucial resource for breeding chickens resistant to diseases or other threats.

The researchers analyzed and compared the genomes — the full complement of an organism’s DNA — of 63 jungle fowl and 51 chickens from across Southeast Asia. Some of the jungle fowl samples came from museum specimens collected from 1874 through 1939, letting the team see how the genetic makeup of jungle fowl has changed over time.

Over the last century or so, wild jungle fowl’s genomes have become increasingly similar to chickens’. Between about 20 and 50 percent of the genomes of modern jungle fowl originated in chickens, the team found. In contrast, many of the roughly 100-year-old jungle fowl had a chicken-ancestry share in the range of a few percent.

The rapid change probably comes from human communities expanding into the region’s wilderness, Rheindt says. Most modern jungle fowl live in close vicinity to humans’ free-ranging chickens, with which they frequently interbreed.

Such interbreeding has become “almost the norm now” for any globally domesticated species, Rheindt says, such as dogs hybridizing with wolves and house cats crossing with wildcats. Pigs, meanwhile, are mixing with wild boars and ferrets with polecats.
Wild populations that interbreed with their domesticated counterparts could pick up physical or behavioral traits that change how the hybrids function in their ecosystem, says Claudio Quilodrán, a conservation geneticist at the University of Geneva not involved with this research.

The effect is likely to be negative, Quilodrán says, since some of the traits coming into the wild population have been honed for human uses, not for survival in the local environment.

Wild jungle fowl have lost their genetic diversity as they’ve interbred too. The birds’ heterozygosity — a measure of a population’s genetic diversity — is now just a tenth of what it was a century ago.

“This result is initially counterintuitive,” Rheindt says. “If you mix one population with another, you would generally expect a higher genetic diversity.”

But domesticated chickens have such low genetic diversity that certain versions of jungle fowl genes are being swept out of the population by a tsunami of genetic homogeneity. The whittling down of these animals’ genetic toolkit may leave them vulnerable to conservation threats.

“Having lots of genetic diversity within a species increases the chance that certain individuals contain the genetic background to adapt to a varied range of different environmental changes and diseases,” says Graham Etherington, a computational biologist at the Earlham Institute in Norwich, England, who was not involved with this research.

A shallower jungle fowl gene pool could also mean diminished resources for breeding better chickens. The genetics of wild relatives are sometimes used to bolster the disease or pest resistance of domesticated crop plants. Jungle fowl genomes could be similarly valuable for this reason.

“If this trend continues unabated, future human generations may only be able to access the entirety of ancestral genetic diversity of chickens in the form of museum specimens,” Rheindt says, which could hamper chicken breeding efforts using the wild fowl genes.

Some countries such as Singapore, Rheindt says, have started managing jungle fowl populations to reduce interbreeding with chickens.

The worst procrastinators probably won’t be able to read this story. It’ll remind them of what they’re trying to avoid, psychologist Piers Steel says.

Maybe they’re dragging their feet going to the gym. Maybe they haven’t gotten around to their New Year’s resolutions. Maybe they’re waiting just one more day to study for that test.

Procrastination is “putting off to later what you know you should be doing now,” even if you’ll be worse off, says Steel, of the University of Calgary in Canada. But all those tasks pushed to tomorrow seem to wedge themselves into the mind — and it may be harming people’s health.
In a study of thousands of university students, scientists linked procrastination to a panoply of poor outcomes, including depression, anxiety and even disabling arm pain. “I was surprised when I saw that one,” says Fred Johansson, a clinical psychologist at Sophiahemmet University in Stockholm. His team reported the results January 4 in JAMA Network Open.

The study is one of the largest yet to tackle procrastination’s ties to health. Its results echo findings from earlier studies that have gone largely ignored, says Fuschia Sirois, a behavioral scientist at Durham University in England, who was not involved with the new research.

For years, scientists didn’t seem to view procrastination as something serious, she says. The new study could change that. “It’s that kind of big splash that’s … going to get attention,” Sirois says. “I’m hoping that it will raise awareness of the physical health consequences of procrastination.”

Procrastinating may be bad for the mind and body
Whether procrastination harms health can seem like a chicken-and-egg situation.

It can be hard to tell if certain health problems make people more likely to procrastinate — or the other way around, Johansson says. (It may be a bit of both.) And controlled experiments on procrastination aren’t easy to do: You can’t just tell a study participant to become a procrastinator and wait and see if their health changes, he says.
Many previous studies have relied on self-reported surveys taken at a single time point. But a snapshot of someone makes it tricky to untangle cause and effect. Instead, in the new study, about 3,500 students were followed over nine months, so researchers could track whether procrastinating students later developed health issues.

On average, these students tended to fare worse over time than their prompter peers. They were slightly more stressed, anxious, depressed and sleep-deprived, among other issues, Johansson and colleagues found. “People who score higher on procrastination to begin with … are at greater risk of developing both physical and psychological problems later on,” says study coauthor Alexander Rozental, a clinical psychologist at Uppsala University in Sweden. “There is a relationship between procrastination at one time point and having these negative outcomes at the later point.”

The study was observational, so the team can’t say for sure that procrastination causes poor health. But results from other researchers also seem to point in this direction. A 2021 study tied procrastinating at bedtime to depression. And a 2015 study from Sirois’ lab linked procrastinating to poor heart health.

Stress may be to blame for procrastination’s ill effects, data from Sirois’ lab and other studies suggest. She thinks that the effects of chronic procrastinating could build up over time. And though procrastination alone may not cause disease, Sirois says, it could be “one extra factor that can tip the scales.”

No, procrastinators are not lazy
Some 20 percent of adults are estimated to be chronic procrastinators. Everyone might put off a task or two, but chronic procrastinators make it their lifestyle, says Joseph Ferrari, a psychologist at DePaul University in Chicago, who has been studying procrastination for decades. “They do it at home, at school, at work and in their relationships.” These are the people, he says, who “you know are going to RSVP late.”

Though procrastinators may think they perform better under pressure, Ferrari has reported the opposite. They actually worked more slowly and made more errors than non-procrastinators, his experiments have shown. And when deadlines are slippery, procrastinators tend to let their work slide, Steel’s team reported last year in Frontiers in Psychology.

For years, researchers have focused on the personalities of people who procrastinate. Findings vary, but some scientists suggest procrastinators may be impulsive, worriers and have trouble regulating their emotions. One thing procrastinators are not, Ferrari emphasizes, is lazy. They’re actually “very busy doing other things than what they’re supposed to be doing,” he says.

In fact, Rozental adds, most research today suggests procrastination is a behavioral pattern.

And if procrastination is a behavior, he says, that means it’s something you can change, regardless of whether you’re impulsive.

Why procrastinators should be kind to themselves
When people put off a tough task, they feel good — in the moment.
Procrastinating is a way to sidestep the negative emotions linked to the task, Sirois says. “We’re sort of hardwired to avoid anything painful or difficult,” she says. “When you procrastinate, you get immediate relief.” A backdrop of stressful circumstances — say, a worldwide pandemic — can strain people’s ability to cope, making procrastinating even easier. But the relief it provides is only temporary, and many seek out ways to stop dawdling.

Researchers have experimented with procrastination treatments that run the gamut from the logistical to the psychological. What works best is still under investigation. Some scientists have reported success with time-management interventions. But the evidence for that “is all over the map,” Sirois says. That’s because “poor time management is a symptom not a cause of procrastination,” she adds.

For some procrastinators, seemingly obvious tips can work. In his clinical practice, Rozental advises students to simply put down their smartphones. Silencing notifications or studying in the library rather than at home can quash distractions and keep people on task. But that won’t be enough for many people, he says.

Hard-core procrastinators may benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy. In a 2018 review of procrastination treatments, Rozental found that this type of therapy, which involves managing thoughts and emotions and trying to change behavior, seemed to be the most helpful. Still, not many studies have examined treatments, and there’s room for improvement, he says.

Sirois also favors an emotion-centered approach. Procrastinators can fall into a shame spiral where they feel uneasy about a task, put the task off, feel ashamed for putting it off and then feel even worse than when they started. People need to short-circuit that loop, she says. Self-forgiveness may help, scientists suggested in one 2020 study. So could mindfulness training.

In a small trial of university students, eight weekly mindfulness sessions reduced procrastination, Sirois and colleagues reported in the January Learning and Individual Differences. Students practiced focusing on the body, meditating during unpleasant activities and discussed the best way to take care of themselves. A little self-compassion may snap people out of their spiral, Sirois says.

“You made a mistake and procrastinated. It’s not the end of the world,” she says. “What can you do to move forward?”

Mystery mummies from Central Asia have a surprising ancestry. These people, who displayed facial characteristics suggesting a European heritage, belonged to a local population with ancient Asian roots, a new study finds. Until now, researchers had pegged the mummified Bronze Age bunch as newcomers and debated about where in West Asia they originally came from.

Desert heat naturally mummified hundreds of bodies buried in western China’s Tarim Basin from roughly 4,000 to 1,800 years ago. Preserved remains of these people have been excavated since the 1990s (SN: 2/25/95). Those interred around 4,000 years ago belonged to the Xiaohe culture, a population that mixed animal herding with plant cultivation. Their boat-shaped coffins were unlike any others in the region. And preserved cheese, wheat, millet and clothes made from western Eurasian wool found in Xiaohe graves pointed to distant contacts or origins.

Archaeogeneticist Yinqiu Cui of Jilin University in Changchun, China, and an international team analyzed DNA from 13 Tarim Basin mummies from roughly 4,100 to 3,700 years ago and five other human mummies from the nearby Dzungarian Basin from around 5,000 to 4,800 years ago.
Tarim people displayed Asian ancestry mainly traceable to hunter-gatherers who inhabited much of northern Eurasia more than 9,000 years ago. That finding suggests that the mummies belonged to a population that did not mate with outsiders for many millennia, the researchers report October 27 in Nature. No DNA links were found to western Eurasian herders from the Afanasievo culture (SN: 11/15/17), who some researchers have regarded as precursors of Xiaohe people.

A predominantly Afanasievo ancestry did appear in the Dzungarian individuals. Milk proteins found in dental tartar from seven Tarim mummies indicated that those people regularly consumed dairy products, a practice possibly learned from Afanasievo descendants in the Dzungarian Basin, the researchers say.

There will be much more on the line Saturday night than just the WBO welterweight title.

If Terence Crawford can defeat Shawn Porter to move to 38-0, he could set himself up for even bigger battles down the road. Even Crawford himself has acknowledged that he has more blockbuster bouts on his mind, including a potential clash with Errol Spence Jr.
"I've been calling for these fights," Crawford told Timothy Bradley Jr. "Me and Shawn, we talked about fighting. I've told him, 'I'm not looking to fight you.' I'm looking to fight Spence. I'm looking to fight Keith Thurman because, you know, they got something to offer. I'm looking at them trying to use Shawn as a pawn because they know Shawn, he's gonna fight anybody.

"If I do too good, they might back up even more. We're here now. I'm gonna show them why they've been ducking me."

Can Crawford continue his run of dominance and put a notable win on his resume? Or will Porter pull off the upset in Las Vegas?
Boxing fans can purchase the Crawford vs. Porter pay-per-view through ESPN+. The prelim card will air live on ESPN2 starting at 7 p.m. ET.

What time is Terence Crawford vs. Shawn Porter?
Date: Saturday, Nov. 20
Time: 9 p.m. ET | 6 p.m. PT
Main event: 11:30 p.m. ET | 8:30 p.m. PT (estimate)
The Crawford vs. Porter fight card is scheduled to start at 9 p.m. ET on Saturday, Nov. 20. Crawford and Porter are expected to make their ring walks around 11:30 p.m. ET, though that could change depending on the length of the earlier fights.

Terence Crawford vs. Shawn Porter fight card
Terence Crawford vs. Shawn Porter for Crawford's WBO welterweight title
Esquiva Falcao vs. Patrice Volny; Middleweight
Janibek Alimkhanuly vs. Hassan N'Dam; Middleweight
Raymond Muratalla vs. Steven Ortiz; Lightweight
We may earn an affiliate commission when you sign up for a streaming service through our links. Sporting News' affiliates have no influence over the editorial content included in this article.

The Denver Nuggets will be without their superstar and the league's reigning MVP Nikola Jokic when they take on the Bulls at home.

This is the first game that Jokic will miss this season due to an injury, with the only other game he didn't suit up for so far was due to a suspension, following his altercation with the Miami Heat's Markieff Morris.
Through 14 games, he's averaging career-highs of 26.4 points and 13.6 rebounds while also dishing out 6.4 assists on career-high shooting efficiencies of 59.3 percent from the field and 41.0 percent from beyond the arc.
What's next for Jokic? Here's everything we know about his injury.

What is Nikola Jokic's injury?
Hours before the game against the Bulls, the Nuggets declared Jokic out with a right wrist sprain.
It's an injury that the Serbian big man reportedly suffered midway through the team's previous game, a home loss against the Philadelphia 76ers. Although he played until the end, he was seen favouring it in the second half.

How long is Nikola Jokic out?
It's currently unknown if Jokic will miss more than one game. In addition, the Nuggets will be without other key young stars in Jamal Murray (ACL) and Michael Porter Jr. (back).

The Serbian has been one of the most reliable players in his career, having missed just 20 games through his six previous seasons.

Nuggets upcoming schedule
The Nuggets enter this Bulls game with a 9-6 record, good for sixth in the West prior to Friday's games.

After this Bulls game, Denver will kick-off a road-heavy schedule as they play nine of their next 10 games away from home.

Date Opponent Time (ET)
Nov. 21 at Suns 8:00 p.m.
Nov. 23 at Trail Blazers 10:00 p.m
Nov. 26 vs. Bucks 9:00 p.m
Nov. 29 at Heat 7:30 p.m
Dec. 1 at Magic 7:00 p.m
Currently, the Nuggets rank third in defensive rating (103.8) and 20th in offensive rating (106.2).

As the NBA has grown in popularity, so has the influence of its players. In recent years, members of the basketball community have raised their voices and stepped up their efforts in advancing social justice.

One particular date served as a major turning point in the NBA's movement. On Aug. 23, 2020, Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot multiple times in the back by Rusten Sheskey, a white police officer, in Kenosha, Wisc. The shooting left Blake paralyzed from the waist down and sparked several protests against police brutality and systemic racism in the United States.
At the same time, the NBA season was playing out inside the Florida "bubble" as the news emerged about the shooting, leaving the entire NBA community with the difficult task of staying engaged as the 2019-20 season resumed amid a global pandemic while also speaking to events happening in the real world.

Then, basketball suddenly stopped.

Bucks lead response in NBA 'bubble'
On Aug. 26, 2020, the Bucks were scheduled to face the Magic in Game 5 of their first-round series. Milwaukee players never took the floor for pregame warmups, though, and Orlando players returned to their locker room once it became clear that the Bucks did not intend to play.

Hours after the game was supposed to tip off, Bucks guards Sterling Brown and George Hill delivered a team statement calling for the Wisconsin State Legislature to "take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality and criminal justice reform" in the wake of the Blake shooting. Milwaukee players also attempted to reach Josh Kaul, the attorney general of Wisconsin, according to The Athletic's Shams Charania.
The NBA then announced that the three playoff games scheduled to be played that day had been postponed.

"The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association today announced that in light of the Milwaukee Bucks' decision to not take the floor today for Game 5 against the Orlando Magic, today's three games — Bucks vs. Magic, Houston Rockets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers vs. Portland Trail Blazers — have been postponed," the league said in its statement. Game 5 of each series will be rescheduled."

Milwaukee's decision reportedly caught the rest of the NBA off-guard, including the team's front office, but Bucks ownership offered full support to the players.

"Although we did not know beforehand, we would have wholeheartedly agreed with them," Marc Lasry, Wes Edens and Jamie Dinan said in a joint statement. "The only way to bring about change is to shine a light on the racial injustices that are happening in front of us. Our players have done that and we will continue to stand alongside them and demand accountability and change."

Tense meeting after 'bubble' boycott
Once games were postponed, multiple reports emerged indicating players would hold a meeting that evening to discuss the state of the season. Coaches were in attendance as well, but they were asked to leave at one point, according to ESPN's Zach Lowe.

A few key items from that meeting:

Players talked about voting and police reform and what team owners must do in order for the season to proceed, according to Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix, who also noted members of the Bucks and Raptors were particularly outspoken during the meeting.
The Clippers and Lakers voted to boycott the season, per multiple reports, though ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski clarified those votes were part of an informal poll. Every other team voted to continue play, according to Charania.
There was reportedly frustration with how the Bucks handled the boycott, and some players wanted an explanation for why they didn't alert other teams of their decision. Celtics forward Jaylen Brown, however, supported the Bucks and said they didn't need to explain anything.
Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James were "adamant" about not finishing the playoffs, according to Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times. James reportedly left the meeting early and was followed by the rest of the Lakers and Clippers.
Michele Roberts, the executive director of the NBPA, laid out the financial ramifications of boycotting the season, including the possibility of owners terminating the collective bargaining agreement and a future lockout, per Wojnarowski.
A source told The Athletic's David Aldridge the meeting ended "ugly" and there was uncertainty about what would happen the next day.

2020 NBA playoffs resume
The league's Board of Governors conducted an emergency call with NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Aug. 27, 2020, per multiple reports. NBA players also had a meeting scheduled at that time. Players eventually decided to resume the 2020 NBA playoffs.

James and other players reportedly changed positions after initially supporting a boycott of the season, saying it was in the best interest of the players' movement to resume the season. A major source of frustration in the previous meeting "stemmed from players not being on the same page," according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports.

The NBA and the NBPA then announced three new initiatives after discussing what steps needed to be taken in support of social justice and racial equality:

Creating a social justice coalition, which includes players, coaches and owners and focuses on increased access to voting, civic engagement and police and criminal justice reform
Working with local officials to turn NBA arenas into voting centers for the November general election
Airing public service ads during playoff games to increase engagement in elections and raise awareness of voter access
All parties agreed to resume playoff games on Aug. 29, 2020.

NBA reaction to Jacob Blake ruling
On Jan. 5, 2021, Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced that no charges would be brought against Sheskey in the shooting of Blake. The Wisconsin Department of Justice said that Blake had a knife in his possession.

"Jacob Blake, while actively resisting, arms himself with a knife," Graveley said (via CNN). "It's absolutely incontrovertible that Jacob Blake was armed with a knife during this encounter. … All the discussion that he's unarmed contradicts even what he himself has said multiple times."

However, an attorney for Blake's family didn't believe that Blake ever posed a threat to officers.

"I think that's completely bogus and I think that is just a rationalization to try to show what is really, essentially, an intentional act," B'Ivory LaMarr said after Graveley's announcement. "It's not against the law to have a knife. People have knives for a variety of different reasons. Jacob Blake is privy to having a knife."

Graveley added that Blake would also not face charges.

Blake's legal team shared their disappointment in the decision, as did NBA players upon hearing the news. James called the results of the investigation a "blow to the heart and to the gut." Wesley Matthews, who was part of the Bucks team that led the "bubble" boycott, described the development as "disheartening."

"It's upsetting as a human being that justice isn't justice. It's tough," Matthews said. "But it can't knock us off our path that we're trying to get to, which is equality and just simply right and wrong."

The U.S. Justice Department announced on Oct. 8, 2021, that it would not pursue charges against Sheskey.

Kyle Rittenhouse shooting
In the aftermath of the Blake shooting, one of the protests in Kenosha turned violent. On Aug. 25, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse, then a 17-year-old from Antioch, Ill., shot and killed two men and wounded another man.

Rittenhouse, who claims that he acted in self-defense, faces the following charges:

First-degree reckless homicide, use of a dangerous weapon
First-degree recklessly endangering safety, use of a dangerous weapon
First-degree intentional homicide, use of a dangerous weapon
Attempted first-degree intentional homicide, use of a dangerous weapon
First-degree recklessly endangering safety, use of a dangerous weapon
Possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18
First-degree intentional homicide carries a mandatory life sentence.

A jury for the Rittenhouse trial was selected on Nov. 1, and the trial began on Nov. 2.

LeBron James reaction to Kyle Rittenhouse trial
Rittenhouse took the stand on Nov. 10 and told jurors that he shot the men because he had to "stop the people who were attacking me." He also claimed that he was in Kenosha to protect private property and provide first aid.

At one point while he was on the stand, Rittenhouse broke down in tears, leading to a brief break. James posted on Twitter in response to a video of the moment captured by USA Today.

"Man knock it off!" James tweeted. "That boy ate some lemon heads before walking into court."
What happens next in Kyle Rittenhouse trial?
Testimony in the trial concluded on Nov. 11 after jurors heard from more than 30 witnesses. Closing arguments are expected to begin on Nov. 15, and each side will have two and half hours for their closing arguments. The judge will also give the jury instructions before final deliberations.

Regardless of where the jury lands on the charges, there will be a strong reaction to the ruling in the Rittenhouse trial, and it is expected that NBA players will once again let their voices be heard.