Neat News - Neat things do happen

China is building the biggest swimming solar power station in the world. It is built on a lake and will deliver 40 Megawatts, enough to provide 20,000 households with electricity.

Reexamining Neanderthal fossils found more than 100 years ago, scientists found that teeth show signs that Neanderthals knew some manipulations to treat some problems of their teeths. For instance, there are signs that they used toothpicks, but also that some molars were pushed out of their normal positions. These are signs that Neanderthals used more advanced methods of treating tooth problems than previously thought.

There is ongoing work to create artificial leaves which can perform artificial photosynthesis, that is, to create energy from CO₂, water, and sunlight. Several groups are working on this, one group succeeded in producing alcohols exceeding the energy conversion of natural leaves. The natural leaves use around 1 percent of the energy in the light, the artificial ones about 10 percent.

The FARC rebel group in Colombia has handed over its weapons to the UN, fulfilling a key condition of the peace agreement. The peace agreement ends a conflict which lasted for 52 years and in which more than a quarter of a million people were killed.

Two Magnets have been implanted behind each eye of a patient to treat a so-called nystagmus, an uncontrolled movement of the eyes which has a severe impact on the ability to see. The patient recovered and had a substantial improvement of his vision.

In tests with the anti-epileptic drug levetiracetam it has been found out that it may have a beneficial effect on patients with a mild form of Alzheimer's disease. More research is needed to understand the potential and an appropriate dosage.

An energy company in Oldenburg, Northern Germany, plans to build by 2023 the world's largest battery in salt caverns. The energy stored would suffice to deliver electricity for Berlin for one hour or for Oldenburg for a whole day. Storage is still an important problem in the usage of renewable energy.

Macular degeneration is a medical condition which makes vision blurred and in final phases may lead to blindness. It affects in particular old people. Against the dry form up to now no medical treatment was possible. However, a new drug can slow the progression in many patients.

Scientists studying a 234 year old oak tree found that its genome is surprisingly young. They are interested in finding out why and see what the potential implications are for other living things.

A wooden toe prosthetic found in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna near Luxor in Egypt is almost 3000 years old and may be the oldest prosthetic device. It was part of a female burial site and was currently re-examined and re-dated.

A new vaccination is in development which can stop the clogging of arteries by fat. Experiments in mice are promising, the safety of the method is currently investigated in a study with human volunteers.

Using magnetic resonance it is possible to transmit electricity to moving objects such as cars. While up to now only a prototype with a low transmission has been built, if the transmission is much improved the recharging method may be improved to a point that electric cars are recharged while driving on the road thereby reducing the need for high capacity batteries.

A new treatment is tested against allergies which is built on wiping the memory of so-called T-cells. The memory of T-cells is important for remembering how to deal with attackers. However, in the case of allergies they get very active at the wrong time; wiping their memory may end the allergy in a single treatment.

Using human stem cells scientists succeeded in creating liver cells. New insights into the functioning of the liver have been gained and more steps are needed before this can be used in humans to support or replace a human liver.

In March 2017, ten percent of the electricity generated in the USA came from renewable sources such as wind and sun. This is a new record. In the same month in 2016 this were only 8.6 percent.

To recharge a battery - e.g. in electric cars - takes significant amounts of time, much more than refulling with petrol. There is an idea to use fluid electrolytes which can be exchanged at a speed similar to traditional refuelling. The depleted fluid could then be recharged outside the battery and reused later.

Vegetables are good for the health, but sometimes not liked very much. If they get attractive names, however, they are also perceived more appealing to most humans. That is, by creative naming it is possible to get people eating more healthily.

Plastic can be produced in different ways and some ways result in more problematic forms than others. For instance, there is the question whether Bisphenol A (BPA) may cause health problems. Another problem is with the biodegradability of huge amounts of plastic. In a new approach, plastic is produced from sugar and CO₂, and can be decomposed by enzymes back into these components.

Problems with smelling may be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease. This offers a new way to detect early warning signs of an on-setting problem with the brain.

Diabetes type 1 is an autoimmune illness in which the immune system attacks important cells in the pancreas which produce insulin to regulate the blood sugar. Potentially there is a way to develop a vaccine which suppresses such attacks and to heal diabetes type 1.

Good news for all married people: If you are married you are more likely to get through healthwise tough times than when you are single. The exact reasons are unknown but a likely explanation is that the social network matters a lot in difficult times and that there may be a similar effect with friends, family, and other social contacts.

There was the assumption that dogs have learned the notion of fairness from humans. However, now it has been found out that wolves have an innate feel for fairness, that is, fair play is a notion that predates the contact of dogs with humans.

China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand are to reduce the plastic that is flowing into the oceans. If carried through this could dramatically reduce the marine pollution. Part of the plan is to find substitutes for plastic.

Remains of five humans found in Africa are 300,000 years old and with that 100,000 years older than the earliest fossils of humans found previously. The new finds are in Morocco (Jebel Irhoud site) and other places in Africa. This may mean also that the evolution of modern humans took much longer than previously thought.

Sleep is important for keeping the brain tidy. In experiments with mice it could be established that during sleep some of the connections between neurons in the brain are removed. Putting it differently, some weak connections not needed any longer are deleted to make room for new ones. It is assumed that this is an important and evolutionary old mechanism and holds also for humans.

In a small study a new drug, ONX-0801, gave good result for half of the woman fighting against ovarian cancer. This type of cancer is difficult to treat in advanced stages. More research is needed to confirm the findings.

In new trials with a combination treatment of hormones and Abiraterone, it turned out that the combination significantly reduces the death rate compared to just giving the hormones (184 deaths compared to 262 in a test group of 1917).

India's prime minister pledged in Paris that his country will go beyond its commitments according to the 2015 Paris climate accord.

It has been studied whether warm water is better suited than cold water to wash your hands. For this the hands were first exposed to some harmless bugs. Whether you take cold or warm water seems not to make any difference. However, whether you wash them well and whether you take soap does matter.

The human brain shows differences which are sex and age related. For instance, the density of the grey matter in the brain increases during adolescence. This new finding sheds new light on the established insight that the volume of the grey matter decreases during adolescence.