Neat News - Neat things do happen

Birds with bigger brains have a higher chance to avoid traffic accidents and are also more rarely killed by hunters than those with smaller brains. It is suggested that this is due to their greater ability to predict what is about to happen.

A severely paralysed man received implants in his brain and hand so that he is now able to use one hand through so-called "functional electrical stimulation" (FES).

In eastern Thailand a family of the very rare Indochinese tiger with at least six cubs has been detected by a camera trap. This is considered as a success of the anti-poaching efforts in Thailand.

California carried through a midterm review of the 2012 standards by which car manufacturers must increase the percentage of clean cars. The rules were confirmed and are in force through 2025.

Some bumble bee type has been put on the list of Endagered Species. In order to protect them it is important that they find habitats such as gardens or wetlands. Garden owners can help to protect bumble bees by planting wildflowers and avoiding pesticides.

Overweight people who lose weight easily regain it, since they burn fewer calories than people who never were overweight. According to experiments with mice, this may be due to the bacteria in the gut and to some flavonoids in the gut. If the findings transfer to humans then this opens two attempts to prevent the yo-yo effect: transfer bacteria and eat food with certain flavonoids such as grapefruit and kumquats.

A new test for tuberculosis based on genome sequencing has been developed. It not only makes the diagnosis of tuberculosis faster, but can also identify the DNA of the samples thus allowing for targeted drugs against the particular strain.

Scientists have managed to reverse ageing in mice by giving them a drug, a so-called peptide, that flushes out cells in the body which have stopped dividing thus boosting active cells. More research is needed before this may be used in humans.

Living in the green is healthy for the mental wellbeing and has in general multiple health benefits, for instance, it can help against depression.

New silicon solar cells have been built which can transform a higher percentage of the light into electricity. In general there is still a lot of improvement in solar cells as can be seen on the timeline. More important than efficiency is typically the economic viability.

Scientists have isolated a particular protein from the venom of Australian funnel web spiders from Fraser Island and applied it to rats thus blocking some channels in the brain that contribute to the damage that the brain suffers after a stroke. Human tests are still to be done before the findings may result in some medication to minimize the damage of the brain after a stroke.

Scientists at CERN have detected five new particles that are responsible for the strong nuclear force which keeps the nuclei of atoms together.

In a WWF supported project, people in the Kanashen region of Guyana use modern technology such as mobile phones and GPS to monitor the forests in their country in an effort to protect them. Their motto is that it is vital to hold on to these forests for the future of their country.

The Basque separatist organization ETA fought for an independent Basque country. In the conflict died over 1000 people since 1968. In 2011 ETA announced a "definitive cessation of its armed activity". Now the group has announced that they are to fully disarm by 8 April.

Plants may adapt quickly to the preferences of bees in order to get good pollination. In only 11 generations mustard plants can adapt to attract bumblebees rather than hoverflies.

One in five patients with breast cancer may benefit from a new drug which is effective in types of cancer which are caused by particular genetic predispositions.

Fossils have been found in India which indicate that certain algae existed already 1.6 billion years ago. If confirmed this would indicate that plants existed already hundreds of millions of year earlier than previously thought.

The B vitamins may have a higher protective effect than thought. There is early indication that they give a good protection against the damages caused by small particles in the air.

A doctor who had a paralysis which was overcome by the self-healing power of her brain has applied the process to gain a better understanding how the assult of the immune system on myelin works. Myelin is the protective coating of the nerve cells. In the long run this may lead to a new therapy against MS.

By imagining the memory as a space into which certain facts can be put, it is possible to more than double the number of words remembered (from 26 words out of 72 to 62 out of 72) after a 40 day training of 30-minutes daily.

There are systematic attemps to split water into hydrogen and oxygen under sun light. This would make solar powered cars much more attractive. The problem is to find a good catalyst. In the new approach supercomputers are used to predict properties of possible materials.

In order to determine the blood sugar level of diabetes patients typically it is necessary to get some blood. However, there is a new method tested with mice using sweat in order to determine it, doing away with the obligatory twitch. This way it is also possible to deliver diabetes drugs very precisely.

Evidence has been found that Neanderthals knew how to self-medicate for a dental abscess (some 40,000 years ago). One Neanderthal chewed some bark containing a substance similar to aspirin. Further information about their diet has been found as well.

The sterilized skin of the tilapia fish has been successfully used to bandage patients with severe burns. The fish skin has important properties such as amount of moisture, tension, and content of collagen proteins which make it a good choice.

IBM has put a quantum computer online that offers a simulation of 20 qubits currently. It is generally assumed that once a threshold of 50 qubits has been reached quantum computers will be more powerful than the most powerful traditional computers currently available.

New research suggests that the mantle of the Earth has a temperature of 1,410 degrees Celsius, that is, around 60 degrees Celsius hotter than thought. This has consequences on the moveability of the tectonic plates.

The transition from freshwater to saltwater in estuaries has a huge potential for the generation of renewable electricity based on the electrochemical gradient.

The Amazon rainforest is probably not an untamed wilderness, but was shaped by people living there many years back, since many domisticated trees and palms are much over-represented compared to the non-domesticated ones.

Sickle-cell disease (SCD) is a serious blood disorder. A new therapy has been applied to a teenager who now needs no longer any medication. It worked by removing the teenager's bone marrow, altering it genetically, and then putting it back into the patient.

In fossils in Canada some life form has been found that is 4.28 billion years old. The Earth itself is supposed to be 4.54 billion years old, that is, the early life form is only slightly younger than the Earth itself. This is the earliest evidence of life on our planet.

Some cells in the body are more sticky and others are more mobile. In the treatment of cancer it is useful to know of which type the cancer cells are, since mobile ones are more likely to spread the disease and in consequence require more aggressive therapy.