Neat News - Neat things do happen

The Japanese Nihon Hidankyō organization of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki is awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for helping to maintain the nuclear taboo that nuclear weapons must never be used. Indeed since the 1945 nuclear attacks no nuclear weapon has been used in war. With much more powerful weapons, any use could destroy our civilization.

related: #Nobel #peace #nuclear_disarmament

Often it is assumed that cooperation is driven by the expectation of own benefits. New research showed now that increasing the benefits does not promote cooperation in single encounter situations. The reasons why humans cooperate and how cooperation can be fostered seem to be more complex and only partly understood.

related: #cooperation

In experiments with mice, it has been discovered that an FDA-approved cancer drug which blocks a particular protein may also block another protein that is responsible for the spread of Parkinson's disease from cell to cell in the brain. More research is needed in order to see whether this offers a treatment that potentially slow down the progression of Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.

related: #Parkinson #treatment

A new method to remove low yet still dangerous levels of lead from drinking water has been developed. It is based on the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also called brewer's yeast or baker's yeast, which can absorb up to 12mg lead per gram of biomass, assumed the initial lead concentration is sufficiently low.

related: #lead #yeast #filter

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to two scientists for their work on microRNA which is fundamental for the understanding how cells with the same RNA/DNA can differentiate into different types of tissue (like kidneys, eyes, fingers).

related: #Nobel #medicine #microRNA

A new study finds that a particular family of bacteria, comamonadacae, can break down plastic for food. This may lead to solutions to get rid of difficult to remove plastic waste.

related: #plastic #bacteria

The Right Livelihood Awards 2024 were awarded. The prizes go to Joan Carling for protecting indigenous communities on the Philippines; Issa Amro for his peaceful resistance against Israeli occupation in the West Bank city of Hebron; Anabela Lemos for standing up for environmental justice in Mozambique; and Forensic Architecture for their work uncovering and documenting the truth about environmental and human rights violations.

related: #Right_Livelihood_Award

A new study finds that breastfeeding gives babies some protection against rotaviruses which cause diarrhoea, vomiting, and fever.

related: #breastfeeding #rotavirus

In 1882, the first coal-based electricity power plant was opened in the UK. Now the UK has become the first major economy to no longer burn coal for the production of electricity, in an important step on the way to combat climate change by becoming CO₂-neutral.

related: #coal #CO2 #climate_change