Neat News - Neat things do happen

In first experiments with 3D printing it has been achieved to print artificial bones which can fuse with natural bones. The material has to be hyperelastic, a compromise between being strong and flexible.

In a study in South Africa it has been found that about one in ten children deal with an HIV infection without developing AIDS. This may give insights that may lead to new treatment methods for HIV infections.

Royal Museums Greenwich have published beautiful photographs of the 2016 Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.

In a study it has been found out that diluted honey can prevent that bacteria settle on surfaces such as plastic, in particular on catheters. This way bladder infections may be prevented.

The Jupiter moon Europa may be our best chance to find life outside the Earth since it is relatively close and the existence of water and energy are together with that of nutrients the most important preconditions for life. Detected water fountains offer the chance to find out without having to dig through possibly tens of kilometres of ice.

Four species in the UK (otters, puffins, bitterns, and red kites) were saved by the EU Habitats Directive and by EU funding such as reintroduction projects.

Ants living in the desert have two systems to navigate, one based on path integration (counting steps in a direction using the sun's position) and another based on optic flow (how does the visual data received by the eyes change). This helps them to find food and bring it back to the nest fast.

The Right Livelihood Award 2016 has been given to inviduals and organizations who have shown extraordinary bravery such as to the White Helmets in Syria who help in extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances as firefighters and rescue people in war zones.

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announced that they are going to spend three billion dollars on medical research in the next decade. Even if their big ambition to eradicate all diseases by the end of the century is unachievable, big improvements on curing diseases can be expected.

In Northern Germany from end of 2017, the world's first hydrogen trains will run. The hydrogen is converted to electricity (and water) by fuel cells, it can be produced by surplus wind energy at times of low demand. The plan is to replace Diesel trains first.

Two American banks, Bank of America and Amalgamated Bank, have pledged to power all their offices and enterprises with renewable energy by 2020 and 2017, respectively.

Mangroves are salt-tolerant plants that can recover and protect the cost and people living there (e.g., they attenuated the impact of the 2004 tsunami). Letting mangroves to recover is claimed to be a very effective conservation approach and may be superior to actually planting them.

TW Hydrae is "only" 10 million years old (young compared to the estimated age of 4.5 billion years for our Earth) and is only 176 light-years away from us (close compared to the 91 billion light-years which are estimated as the diameter of our Universe). Astronomers have now observed signs that a new giant planet is in formation around TW Hydrae.

In Washington, D.C., a conference took place in which several states pledged measure to protect further areas of the oceans, such as the expansion of the National Monument off the coast of Hawaii, in the Seychelles, around St. Helena, and Micronesia.

Traditional treatment of prostate cancer may have serious side effects. A new study seems to suggest that in certain cases of early prostate cancer it can be effective not to treat the cancer but to monitor it and take action only if the cancer spreads or progresses, thus avoiding or postponing the side effects.

In a study with Hawaiian crows held in captivity it has been found that in this species there is widespread usage of tools. One consequence of this work may be that it will be better understood how humans developed this skill.

Life is dangerous for doctors in many parts of war-torn Syria. Doctors and hospitals have been targeted in the past, but still many of them continue to serve patients at great personal risk. The report is about a complicated operation performed in Aleppo in which the operating doctors were assisted via Skype by an expert far away.

A solar rickshaw car has been driven almost 10,000 km from India to the UK just by solar power. The voyage took 7 months and has been done as a proof of principle.

It is estimated that around three billion people cook on open fire. These people take in a lot of soot with their breaths when cooking. This soot costs an estimated four million people their lives per year. One person is taking action and educates people by pointing out the dangers. He shows them how to replace primitive stone stoves by more sophisticated and healthier clay stoves in East Africa.

Surgeons have used a very precise robot for the first time to restore the eye sight of a human in a procedure to remove tissue inside the eye that is only 0.01 mm thick. The robot paves the way for operations that need a very high precision which the human hand cannot provide directly.

A genetic study has reveiled that giraffes are actually four separate species and not one with different subspecies. The different species have not cross-bred for millions of years. The finding is important in conservation efforts.

Statins have got a bad reputation since they may have serious side effects. However, in a new review it has been found out that they are effective in preventing blockages in blood vessels and that the side effects are - although potentially severe - exceptional.

Conservation efforts seem to be successful as the number of humpback whales has gone up to the extend that they are currently no longer classified as endangered or vulnerable.

A new drug is in development which in tests with mice stopped malaria with a single dose. Malaria is a major problem with more than 214 million new cases in 2015 and more than 400,000 deaths caused by it. The problem is aggrevated by the fact that the parasite is becoming resistant against currently existing drugs.

In a study that evaluates nine clinical trials it has been found that taking vitamin D in addition to standard asthma medication significantly reduces the risk of severe asthma attacks. More research is needed to know whether it helps all patients or only those with a vitamin D deficiency.

In Korbach, Hesse, Germany, a nine year old boy - alone with his grandmother and his two year old brother - calls the emergency line after his grandmother finds the two year old lifeless and without breath in the swimming pool. He calls since the grandmother does not speak German very well. The paramedic at the line explains the boy what he has to do and he gets it all right. He resuscitates his brother who is breathing again by the time the rescue helicopter arrives.

Strong non-discrimination laws help to protect individual privacy in a world in which even prudent behaviour by individuals cannot prevent their surveillance by state and society. We live in a world that is increasingly connected by social networks and in which we cannot opt out of the surveillance. The European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights is according to the author an example that such a protection is possible.

China and the USA have announced that they have now ratified the Paris climate agreement of December 2015. The two countries cause jointly around 40% of the CO₂ emissions. The climate deal has the goal to keep the global temperature increase "well below two degrees Celsius".

From a new report by the WWF it can be seen that there is a transition to the generation of renewable energy sources. For instance, in 2015 90% of the newly installed generation of electricity comes from renewables.

Fossils have been found which may be the earliest sign of life on the Earth. They are supposed to be 3.7 billion years old (the age of the Earth is supposed to be around 4.5 billion years).