Neat News - Neat things do happen

Bats often carry viruses, but also often show no symptoms of disease. Now scientists have taken a close look at the immune system of bats in order to learn lessons for combating human infections.

related: #bat #immune_system

Scientists found an energy efficient way to use waste kraft paper to produce pure carbon electrodes that can be used in rechargeable batteries. The paper is exposed to high temperatures in the absence of oxygen.

related: #kraft_paper #electrode

In the light of climate change, scientists have started to study a collection of 12000 specimens of wheat in the Natural History Museum, London, UK, that date back up to 300 years. For the most promising samples, their genomes will be sequenced. Goal is to find the varieties that are most resilient to climate change.

related: #wheat #resilience #climate_change

Hydrogen is a key gas to end our dependency on energy production generating the green house gas carbon dioxide. Now a new catalyst from inexpensive materials, copper and iron, has been found that can be used under illumination to produce hydrogen from ammonia.

related: #catalyst #hydrogen

In the 19th century it was assumed that the Roman emperor Sponsianus was just fictional and that coins found with his face were fakes. Now scientists find that the scratch marks on the coins prove that they were actually in circulation some 2000 years ago and that the emperor actually existed.

related: #coin #roman_emperor

Licensed Ebola vaccines are not working against a new variant currently present in Uganda. Soon three new Ebola vaccine candidates will be tested in the country, first on health workers.

related: #Ebola #vaccine

Tea and other foods and beverages that contain flavonoids are good for health in later life a study with more than 800 elderly women found. A particular aspect is that the largest artery in the body shows less calcification in people consuming a high level of flavonoids than that in other persons. Calcification is a predictor of risks such as heart attack, stroke, and dementia.

related: #tea #flavonoids #health

Wireless earphones can perform as well as traditional hearing aids and thereby be an affordable alternative for people with hearing problems.

related: #earphone #hearing_aids

Radiotherapy, often used as an important part of the therapy against breast cancer, can have serious side effects such as fatigue. New research finds that exercise can make the treatment more bearable.

related: #cancer #radiotherapy #exercising

A number of shark species are given protection by a vote of nearly 200 countries against over-exploitation by CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, in a recent vote on its 19th conference in Panama.

related: #shark #protection

For 30 years Friends of Trees have planted trees along streets of Portland, Oregon, USA. A study finds now that this has lead to a significantly reduced mortality (of 20 percent for non-accidental deaths) for people living in neighbourhoods with trees planted 15-30 years before.

related: #trees #mortality

In diabetes type 1 the immune system attacks cells in the pancreas. In the USA, a drug, teplizumab, has been approved that can prevent this and delay the onset of type 1 diabetes by two years after a single treatment.

related: #diabetes #immune

Studying efforts to restore prairies it has been found that although the general rule that more biodiversity is good is true, things are in general very complicated and very similar approaches can have different outcomes. For this reason it is advised to look at history to allow restoration efforts to have success.

related: #restoration #prairie #history

Scientists found that leprosy bacteria have the ability to make an armadillo's liver grow to almost double its size in order to have more tissue to infect. The cells are healthy and fully functional. If understood how the bacteria do this this might open a path to regenerate liver cells.

related: #liver #leprosy #regeneration

At an archaeological site in Israel the remains of a fish were found and now dated to be around 780,000 years old, assumed to be cooked by prehistoric humans. This is much older then previous evidence for cooking some 170,000 years ago.

related: #prehistoric #cooking

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has announced that he will donate most of this wealth of 124 billion dollars for good causes such as fighting climate change.

related: #Geff_Bezos #philanthropy

In experiments with mice, scientists managed to halt the growth of a particularly aggressive type of the childhood medulloblastoma brain cancer. The findings may lead to a future treatment.

related: #brain_cancer #medulloblastoma #enzyme #growth

A vision for the future of Amazonia is described in which a different economic system is established that allows a life in harmony with nature including renewable energy systems and regenerative entrepreneurship that focuses on nature and the people living in Amazonia. This would mean a significant hope for the planets green heart.

related: #amazon #ecology

Based on a substance found in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, a new drug has been developed that improved symptoms of severe depression in an initial study. Further research is needed, also to study potential safety issues.

related: #depression #magic_mushrooms

In experiments with young pigs it has been found that after a two week diet with a lot of tomatoes the diversity of the gut microbes has increased. There are plans to study whether the positive effect holds also for humans.

related: #tomatoes #gut_bacteria

The 2022 "Social Design Award" by "Der Spiegel" and the "Bauhaus" chain in Germany has been awarded to a project in which since April 2021 almost 1000 people worked for climate protection by planting flowers for bees at roadsides, fruit trees, and tiny forests, as well as installing wetlands.

related: #nature #climate #prize

For the first time, red blood cells that were lab grown from stem cells, have been transfused to another person. If proved safe and effective the approach opens the way to the treatment of illnesses such as sickle cell and dealing with shortages of blood donors, in particular for rare blood types.

related: #blood #lab_grown

Recursion is an important concept in learning the grammar of a language. New experiments point in the direction that crows can learn this concept as well by receiving rewards for forming well formed bracket expression such as {([])} to a depth of 3 rather than ill-formed ones such as {([)}].

related: #crows #recursion

Using rapid genome sequencing scientists managed to synthesize medication for a patient with Covid-19. This help the 59 year old man to get rid of the infection after 411 days. He had a weakened immune system as a consequence of a kidney transplant.

related: #Covid19 #customized_medication #genome

In order to detect structural problems with a bridge it can be equipped with sensors that measure the vibrations when a car drives over it. Now it has been found that the same information can be collected from measurements of mobile phones that are in the cars.

related: #bridge #vibrations

According to new research, when exercising with weights the focus should be more on lowering them rather than lifting them in order to be more effective at increasing muscle strength and size.

related: #weights #muscle_strength

In a clinical trial with healthy, non-pregnant adults it was found that one dose of a so-called monoclonal antibody drug was to 88 percent effective at preventing a malaria infection over a 24-week period.

related: #malaria #antibody

In new research it is found that in some cancers a primary tumour communicates with distant site metastases and controls their growth. Once the primary tumour is removed by surgery the metastases become more dangerous and grow in an uncontrolled way. A substance has been isolated that may inhibit metastases from growing.

related: #cancer #metastases

Fireflies can present a fascinating light show by flashing in sync. Scientists have now used a model from neuroscience to show how this may actually be achieved.

related: #fireflies #flashing