Neat News - Neat things do happen

In 2017 the UN decided to prohibit nuclear weapons world wide, 90 days after the treaty would be ratified by 50 nations. Yesterday, 24 October 2020, Honduras ratified the treaty as the 50th nation. Although the nuclear powers have not signed they will soon be legally obliged to take steps towards putting all their nuclear weapons beyond use.

Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, plays many roles in the brain, for instance, in mediating happiness, self-confidence, and optimism. Now it has been found that it is also important in the growth of the fetal human brain.

In order to protect tropical forests, an up-to-date map is important. Norway now funds a corresponding satellite map, which will be updated on a monthly basis and is generally accessible.

NASA has taken a dust and grit sample from a nearby asteroid called Bennu, which is very old. The sample may give clues to the generation of our Solar System more than 4.5 billion years ago. The spaceship is expected back on Earth late 2023.

In recent comments, Pope Francis states that homosexual people like everybody else have a right to a family and that there should be accordingly a civil union law to cover this legally.

Some urban areas in England and Wales (such as London borrows Camden and Croydon) are areas with the highest percentage of tree cover in the country. This has great benefits for people living there, in particular for their health and wellbeing.

In people that swim regularly in cold water a so-called cold-shock protein has been found. Now in studies with mice, it has been seen that this protein plays a role in the regeneration of synapses in the brain. This insight may be important in the development of a treatment against Alzheimer's disease. [Care has to be taken when swimming in cold water, since it may be very dangerous!]

Different drugs can be used to treat HIV patients who can live with HIV for a long time. A new study could lead to a changed recommendation replacing one drug by another reducing the side effects for newly infected HIV patients.

When parts of the heart are deprived of oxygen, cells in the heart die. For this reason it is important to restore the supply of oxygen quickly. However, when oxygen flows again after a period of lack the heart may suffer so-called reoxygenation injury. Now a cocktail of molecules and proteins has been developed that can prevent or reduce this problem.

A Swiss inventor has developed a big wind turbine with a vertical axis to generate electric energy from wind. It is much quieter than a conventional wind turbine.

When superconductivity was detected more than 100 years ago the materials had to be very cold, close to absolute zero (-273.15 Celsius). In order to make better use of it, for instance, to reduce the loss of energy in the transmission in electrical grids, much higher temperature are necessary. Now with a new material a new record has been achieved at 15 degrees Celsius, regrettably still at very high pressures only.

In a new study with rats, it has been found that a lack of the ghrelin hormone, which communicates to the nerve connecting the gut to the brain (the vagus nerve), leads to more frequent eating and weight gain. More studies are needed to see how this can be used in human medicine.

In the ICARUS project, International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space, animals are equipped with small transmitters and monitored from the International Space Station (ISS). Unusual behaviour can be recognized and potential problems noticed. For instance, there have been reports that animals seemed to flee from impending earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

A new study found that people feel better supported by their friends if these are close to each other than if the friends are disconnected.

Mars is currently on the same side of the sun as the Earth and for this reason very bright and big at the night sky.

In a study with mice, it has been seen that a daily exposure to static electric and magnetic fields for a few hours can normalize blood sugar levels.

In the USA alone, food worth 165 billion dollars are wasted each year. In a new study it was found that by improving the awareness, for instance, by using transparent food waste bins, participating families reduced their food waste by more than a quarter.

In experiments with mice it has been found that a simple sugar in human breast milk may result in myelin repair in multiple sclerosis patients. That is, damaged nerve cells can be repaired. Human experiments are required to confirm the results.

For the first time, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is shared by two women. Eight years ago, they published work on how to edit DNA by so-called genetic scissors, which allow precise changes to the DNA. The approach is used in medicine for new cancer therapies, for instance.

In the Negev desert, Israel, a 6500 year old copper workshop has been detected. It is the oldest known place where a furnace was used.

Three scientists are awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. The committee states that their discovery saved millions of lives (partly by making blood transfusions safer).

A recently developed enzyme, called cocktail, can break up plastic up to six times faster than its predecessor. This offers an improved possibility to reduce plastic pollution.

A marine biologist argues that sea creatures such as whales capture a lot of carbon in their bodies, which when they die sink to the floor of the ocean to capture the carbon for many years. Likewise whale poo could trap millions of tons of carbon if whales were properly protected and their population size recovered.

In a new study some evidence was found that going through the common cold can give us some protection against Covid-19. There is also some evidence that - once acquired - a protection against Covid-19 might last for many years.

The Right Livelihood Awards 2020 were awarded to four people fighting for political rights in Iran (Nasrin Sotoudeh fighting for human rights), Nicaragua (Lottie Cunningham Wren for the rights of the indigenous population), the USA (Bryan Stevenson for race equality and justice), and Belarus (Ales Bialiatski for democracy).