Neat News 2016-60 (added 2016-02-29)
Grey Seals on Helgoland
![]() © Steenbergs
| On the german island of Helgoland, the grey seals were almost extinct until the early 1960s. Now the numbers have recovered and in the last season more than 300 new grey seals have been counted. |
News seen at: Der Spiegel - Science (in German)
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Neat News 2016-59 (added 2016-02-28)
Organic Farming in Valencia, Spain, is Good News for Bees
![]() © Elina Mark
| The coastal region of Valencia in Spain has devoted a signficant amount of money to support the growth of organic farming. This will benefit also the bee population in the region. |
News seen at: Greenpeace - Organic Farming in Valencia
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Neat News 2016-58 (added 2016-02-27)
Cooking Vegetables has Advantages and Disadvantages
![]() | Cooking vegetables increases the levels of some antioxidants but reduces the levels of others. Detailed research is described in the Scientific American. |
News seen at: Scientific American - Raw vs Cooked Vegetable
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Neat News 2016-57 (added 2016-02-26)
Fin Whale Hunt Cancelled for 2016 in Iceland
![]() Public Domain by Janice Waite
| Greenpeace announces that the planned hunt for fin whales in Iceland has been cancelled for 2016. A great success for Greenpeace and all others who opposed to the hunt. |
News seen at: Greenpeace - Oceans Blog
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Neat News 2016-56 (added 2016-02-25)
Gorillas Sing at Meals
![]() © Fiver Löcker
| Gorillas are musical, they sing and hum when they have meals. This gives clues to the origins of human language. |
News seen at: New Scientist
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Neat News 2016-55 (added 2016-02-24)
Storing Wind Energy
![]() © Hans Hillewaert
| A big problem for relying on wind power is storing the energy when there is surplus wind for times when it is calm. There is a neat idea to build big concrete balls of something like 30 metres in diameter which can be emptied from water in times of surplus energy and flooded through a turbine to produce electricity during a four hour period of still air. |
News seen at: Der Spiegel - Science (in German)
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Neat News 2016-54 (added 2016-02-23)
Gorilla Baby Born
![]() © Fiver Löcker
| A gorilla baby was delivered by Cesarean section at Bristol Zoo, England, after doctors feared for the live of mother and baby. Mother and baby are recovering and carers are cautiously optimistic. |
News seen at: BBC - UK
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Neat News 2016-53 (added 2016-02-22)
Fighting Illegal Fishing with Satellites
![]() Public Domain by Thegreenj
| Satellite technology is used in the fight against illegal fishing. It can help to survey huge areas in the worlds's marine reserves. |
News seen at: theguardian - Environment
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Neat News 2016-52 (added 2016-02-21)
New Bronze Age Finds in Cambridgeshire
![]() © Dbachmann
| At the excarbation site in Cambridgeshire archeologists have found a wheel supposed to be 3000 years old. |
News seen at: BBC - Cambridgeshire
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Neat News 2016-51 (added 2016-02-20)
Atmophere of Exo-Planet Analyzed
![]() Public Domain by NASA (Image of Uranus)
| Auguste Comte said in 1842 that "we can never know anything of their [planets'] chemical or mineralogical structure". Now scientists have analyzed the light going through the atmosphere of a distant planet to determine its composition. |
News seen at: BBC - Science
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Neat News 2016-50 (added 2016-02-19)
Dolphins near Flensburg, Germany
![]() Public Domain by NASA
| A pair of bottlenose dolphins seem to have settled near the Northern German city of Flensburg. Traditionally there are no bottlenose dolphins in the Baltic Sea. |
News seen at: Der Spiegel - Dolphins near Flensburg, Baltic Sea (in German)
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Neat News 2016-49 (added 2016-02-18)
Vultures are Commercially Valuable
![]() Public Domain by Professional Assassin
| Although it is sad that everything has a price tag, vultures in India may benefit from their value. They tidy up animal remains and if they did not then it would have to be done by industrial carcass disposal, which makes a vulture worth around 10000 US$. |
News seen at: BBC - Also in the News
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Neat News 2016-48 (added 2016-02-17)
New Approach to Leukaemia Treatment
![]() | There is a new approach to the treatment of leukaemia which has been a lifeline to some patients for whom other treatment routes were exhausted. It works by reprogramming so-called T-cells to attack the cancer cells. |
News seen at: BBC - Health
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Neat News 2016-47 (added 2016-02-16)
3D Printing Used to Print Living Body Parts
![]() © Materialgeeza
| 3D printing has been used to attempt printing living parts of a body. The major problem is that there is a diffusion limit of 0.1 to 0.2 mm for nutrients for cell survival. The experiments use microchannels to facilitate this diffusion. |
News seen at: BBC - Health
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Neat News 2016-46 (added 2016-02-15)
![]() © Per Harald Olsen
| After 400 years the beavers are back in some parts of southern England and contribute in the fight against flooding. |
News seen at: theguardian - Environment
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Neat News 2016-45 (added 2016-02-14)
Alzheimer Preventive Drugs in Development
![]() | A number of drugs have been developed which may help to protect the brain against Alzheimer's disease. More research is needed to understand the mechanisms involved |
News seen at: BBC - Health - Alzheimer's Preventive Drug Hope
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Neat News 2016-44 (added 2016-02-13)
No Coal Mining in the Páramos - Colombia
![]() Public Domain by Norm Banks, 1989
| The Colombian Government and Constitutional Court have banned coal mining in the Páramos, a fragile ecosystem in the Andes, after campaigning by local people and Greenpeace Colombia. |
News seen at: Greenpeace - Colombia
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Neat News 2016-43 (added 2016-02-12)
Gravitational Waves Detected
![]() Public Domain by Ferdinand Schmutzer
| Around a 100 years after Albert Einstein published the general theory of relativity, a team of scientists has detected predicted gravitational waves generated a billion years ago by the merger of two black holes. |
News seen at: BBC - Science
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Neat News 2016-42 (added 2016-02-11)
Fight against Guinea Worm
![]() Public Domain by CDC/Dr. Mae Melvin
| Former US president Jimmy Carter set up a plan 30 years back to wipe out the disease of the guinea worm, a painful disease contracted from unclean water. In recent news, the according efforts are showing a big drop in new cases, giving hope that the disease can be completely eradicated in a few years' time. |
News seen at: BBC - Health
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Neat News 2016-41 (added 2016-02-10)
Floating Solar Farm in Japan
![]() Public Domain by Anarkman
| In Japan work has started on a floating solar farm which is to be finished in 2018 and will provide electricity to 5000 homes. It is the biggest floating solar farm up to date. |
News seen at: theguardian - Environment
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Neat News 2016-40 (added 2016-02-09)
Wind Energy on a Steep Rise in China
![]() © Hans Hillewaert
| China has installed a capacity of wind energy generation of 21GW in 2014. In 2015 the newly installed capacity is up to almost 29GW, which makes almost half (46 percent) of the newly installed wind turbines world wide. By 2020 China wants to produce 15 percent of its electricity by renewables, not least in order to improve the air quality. |
News seen at: Scientific American - Wind Power in China
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Neat News 2016-39 (added 2016-02-08)
Greenpeace Presents Beautiful Pictures on Wetlands
![]() Public Domain by Moni3
| 2 February was World Wetlands Day. Its motto was "Wetlands for our future, sustainable livelihoods". Greenpeace published a series of beautiful pictures of wetlands for the occasion. |
News seen at: Greenpeace - World Wetlands Day
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Neat News 2016-38 (added 2016-02-07)
New Bronze Age Finds in Cambridgeshire
![]() © Calame
| At the excarbation site in Cambridgeshire archeologists have found a tiny wooden box with content, a pot and animal bones. |
News seen at: BBC - Cambridgeshire
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Neat News 2016-37 (added 2016-01-06)
New Rainforests Absorb Significant Amounts of Carbon
![]() Public Domain by Tim35
| In a study it has been found that reforestation with rainforests leads to significant absorption of carbon. In 2014, the UN climate conference in New York decided (in a non-binding agreement) to end deforestation by 2030. |
News seen at: BBC - Science and Environment
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Neat News 2016-36 (added 2016-01-05)
The World Largest Solar Plant in Morocco
![]() © Isofoton.es
| By 2018 the world largest solar complex in Morocco is to provide electricity to more than 1 million people. The first phase of the plant is switched on now. The electricity is generated from heated oil, which is also used to melt salt to a temperature of 500C. This heat in turn is used to generate electricity for hours after sunset. |
News seen at: theguardian - Environment
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Neat News 2016-35 (added 2016-01-04)
New Big Windfarm to be Built
![]() © Hans Hillewaert
| Off the coast of Yorkshire the up to now biggest offshore windfarm is to be built. It will generate electricity for more than a million homes in the UK. |
News seen at: theguardian - environment - energy
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Neat News 2016-34 (added 2016-01-03)
Lions Rediscovered in North-Western Ethiopia
![]() © Kevin Pluck
| The Born Free Foundation says that it had found evidence that there are lions in a remote park in north-western Ethiopia where supposedly the lions became extinct in the 20th century. |
News seen at: BBC - Science
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Neat News 2016-33 (added 2016-02-02)
Canada Great Bear Rainforest Protected
![]() | There has been an agreement to protect a huge area of the forest in British Columbia from logging. The deal can serve as a model for other areas. |
News seen at: BBC - Science
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Neat News 2016-32 (added 2016-02-01)
Babylonian Geometry more Advanced
![]() | Babylonian geometry was more advanced than thought. In a new discovery it has been found out that at Babylonian age at least one person made already calculations on the movement of Jupiter that were very advanced and rediscovered only in the 14th century. |