Neat News - Neat things do happen

2500 year old gold jewellery of the iron age has been found in Staffordshire. It is potentially the oldest Iron Age gold discovered in Britain.

Four million solar panels on the Tibetan Plateau form the largest solar farm in the world. It has a size of 27 km² and produces up to 850 megawatts of electricity. Greenpeace sugests that China installed in 2015 the equivalent of one and a half football fields of solar panels every hour. This doubled to three football pitches every hour in 2016. China may meet its renewable targets for 2020 already in 2018.

Many people in Africa depend on pumping up water with hand pumps. In order to understand the size of the reservoirs and the sustainability of pumping it is important to measure the amount of groundwater available. Some sensors added to the pumps can supply this information.

Type 1 diabetes is caused by problems with the pancreas. It has now been seen in experiments with mice that the pancreas can recover when a particular new fasting approach is taken. In this diet, calories, proteins, and carbohydrates are much reduced for five days followed by 25 days of normal eating. It is advised not to try this without medical consultation.

Ten portions of fruit and vegetables per day are significantly more beneficial than just the usually recommended "5 a day" with potentially reduced risk of getting a heart disease, a stroke, or cancer.

7 exoplanets have been found that orbit Trappist-1, a star 40 light-years away from Earth. This is close on an astronomical scale (with the universe estimated to have a diameter of at least 91 billion light-years). Some or all of the planets may have Earth-like conditions and be able to support life.

A study of a new diet regimen in which the calorie intake is reduced for 5 consecutive days per month points to an improved long term health situation. The approach avoids problems with traditional diets which prescribe a general calorie reduction.

Malaria is a global killer and one of the most dangerous infectious diseases. Unfortunately there is no vaccination against it, but as reported there is now some progress towards a vaccination against malaria. In the new approach the patient receives non-weakened malaria pathogens plus the anti-malaria drug chloroquin. This was done in varying concentrations in a group of 67 subjects. The initial results are promising

Autism can be detected months before the first symptoms show in young children using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanners. This way it is possible to detect it before problems occur and start a therapy early.

Seagrass plays an important role in the health of coastal regions, it is able to filter the water and hold back dangerous bacteria. This may become even more important if more fish are farmed in coastal waters, since without such a filter system diseases may spread easily.

Pollution is a major problem for many Chinese cities. Stefano Boeri has developed a design to transform Chinese cities into so-called "Forest Cities", in which trees and shrubs help to clean the air. In a start two skyscrapers are to be coated with different species of tree and more than 2500 shrubs. It is to be completed next year. If this takes off then the first Forest City could be ready by 2020.

Light has properties of waves and also of particles. Some 80 years ago it was predicted that the particles can actually collide. Until recently this has not been observed. Now in experiments researchers seem to have observed 13 photon-photon collisions.

Vitamin D is important for the strength of the bones, it is produced by the body through sunlight and in countries with little sunlight at certain times of the year the level of vitamin D that people have is too low. They can then take supplements. As it turns out, a good vitamin D level is not only important for the bones, but can also help against the common cold or even the flu.

There was the question whether animals in the group to which birds, dinosaurs, and crocodiles belong cannot give live births because of their biology. This question has now been answered negatively by the find of a 245 million year old fossil of a reptile that carried an embryo. The animal would have been between 3 and 4 metres long and was living in the sea.

Diabetes patients have an increased risk to develop kidney problems. In a new study it has been found out that this may be due to low levels of Klotho, a so-called anti-ageing hormone. This could lead to a better understanding who is at risk and potentially to a protective medication.

In a prototype small bots (with a size of about 10 microns = 0.01 mm) have been built which produce ions in an asymmetrical way so that in a liquid they move towards a light source (at a speed of currently about a millimetre per two minutes). If sped up this could be used to deliver medication via the blood stream in a very targeted way, led by light.

More than 200 whales were freed by the high tide after being kept alive by volunteers who prevented them from drying out. The whales were stranded at the Farewell Spit in New Zealand.

Rice contains more arsenic than other crops and may be harmful if eaten in big quantities, in particular, if eaten by small children and babies. The arsenic levels can be cut down to a fifth if the rice is soaked in water overnight before cooking it in a 5:1 water to rice ratio.

Scientists try to combine telescopes in Hawaii, Arizon, Chile, Mexico, the South Pole, and Spain to form a gigantic virtual telescope to get a better understanding of black holes.

In a study, researchers have found out which movements make a dancer attractive to the opposite sex. The hip movement and some coordinated asymmetry in the movement of the arms and legs are particularly significant.

Hearing depends on the amplification of sound waves by small hair cells in the ear and on small hair cells that transform the amplified waves into electric signals. If the hairs do not form normally this can lead to deafness. By a new gene therapy scientists were able to stimulate the growth of these hairs in mice. This could lead to a therapy of certain forms of deafness.

During brain surgery it is important to analyze tissue quickly in order to potentially avoid another operation. Using a fibre-laser-based microscope a diagnosis can be done which has an accuracy of around 90%.

Beijing is to cut the use of coal in the city down from 22 million tons in 2013 to less than 7 million tons in 2017 in order to reduce the strong air pollution in the city.

Tapes with recordings of Bob Marley that had been lost for more than 40 years have been found in the basement of a London hotel. The tapes were badly damaged by damp but are now restored.

Quantum computers are expected to solve problems which are infeasible to compute on traditional computers. While small quantum computers with a few so-called qubits (quantum bits) have been built it is difficult to build bigger computers (with more than 10 or 15 qubits) which can outperform traditional computers. A new blueprint may pave the way for overcoming this problem.

Wetlands play an important role in the fight against climate change. Mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass meadows have the greatest positive impact against climate change.

In an experiment in which volunteers slept in the middle of the winter for one week in tents and where the only allowed artificial light was that of a campfire it was found out that the body clock adjusts to the natural light. People go to sleep earlier. A good sleeping pattern is considered important for general health and having one that is against the inner clock can result in health disorders.

The European Parliament has proposed that roaming fees within the European Union will be abolished from summer 2017. EU members states have still to confirm the measure.