Neat News - Neat things do happen

Life needs water, but potentially only very little. The Atacama Desert is the earth's driest desert. Scientists consider it to be the place that is most similar to the conditions on Mars. Since it has enough water to sustain life in form of microorganisms, potentially Mars has enough water for microorganisms as well.

Biologically people age at an individual rate. With increasing biological age more free radicals cause damage and this shows in the urine of people in form of a substance called 8-oxoGsn. Scientists have now managed to measure this in the urine. This may lead to a prediction of age related problems.

The attitude of a student at school and their ability of reading and writing are predictors not only for educational, but also for professional success decades on.

An astronomer caught a supernova at the earliest moments. The pictures show the star before the explosion and capture the first hour and a half of the explosion in about 100 images. This is a rare success since it cannot predicted where a supernova is to occur.

A new approach, called Veil, is being developed that allows for more privacy in browsing. Essentially it prevents browsers from collecting and storing information that can be snooped out by keeping the information on the user's computer as much as possible in encrypted format only.

Chemotherapy is an important weapon against cancer. However, some drugs are effective in a particular cancer and others not. In order to predict the effectiveness, scientists have shown how to grow miniature versions of the cancer in the lab in order to test the efficacy of the drugs on these external cells. This way, the patient does not have to suffer the side effects of drugs which are not effective for their particular cancer.

For how long have there been plants on land on our planet? The oldest fossils suggest for 420 million years. Since old fossils are rare, scientists have now used techniques of comparing the DNA and conclude that plants must have been around for another 100 million years.

Red wine contains chemicals called polyphenols which can help to keep harmful bacteria at bay which are responsible for tooth decay and gum disease. Polyphenols can also be found in coffee, green tea, and blueberries, for instance.

Some ants use triage to determine which wounded ants to carry to the nest and to give treatment. Moderately wounded ants are retrieved to the nest and cared for after battle, badly wounded ants not. In experiments it was found that the treatment - consisting mainly of wound licking - can boost the survival rate from 20 percent to 90 percent.

Early treatment for autism in children is important to be most effective. For this reason it is important to detect the disorder as early as possible. A new blood and urine test could lead to this. It looks for particlar damages in some proteins.

Scientists have developed a new stem cell based therapy for stroke patients. Using so-called EVs (extracellular vesicles) it overcomes barriers that cells cannot. In animal models it is shown that the loss of brain tissue may be reduced by up to 50 percent in case of a stroke and that it supports the natural healing of the brain. Human studies are planned for 2019.

Normally photons do not react with each other, for instance, two beams of light shine without interfering with each other. Using laser light and very cold rubidium, scientists managed a group of three photons to interact and form a particle with a non-zero mass that travels 100,000 times slower than standard photons. The interacting photons may be used to build quantum computers, for instance.

A teenager acts quickly when a toddler falls on the rails in a Milano underground station. He jumps after him, saves him and then himself. Nobody was hurt.

Devices such as sensors or telecommunication systems need electricity. This can be a problem if they have to work remotely for many months. Now engineers have built a device that can generate electricity out of the daily temperature variation.

Bacteria are getting increasingly resistant against existing antibiotics and are this way a danger for many people. Now scientists have discovered that some micro-organisms, so-called malacidins, live in dirt. They are able to to survive in hostile environments. In experiments with rats they were able to eliminate MRSA - a very hard to treat infection - in skin wounds. There is hope that this will lead to a new antibiotic drug.

In a geothermally active area of Sicily, in the hot caves of Monte Kronio scientists found jars, jugs, and basins up to 8000 years old. They found tiny amounts of substances in each vessel of around 100mg. In one vessel, these were the remains of 5000 year old wine, the oldest found in Europe.

Scientists managed to filter water with sponge-like materials called metal-organic frameworks. The organic cell membranes allow to remove salt from seawater and also other metal ions efficiently. This may in the longer run lead to a cheap way to provide many millions of people with clean drinking water.

Influenza is a dangerous illness transmitted by an airborne virus. UVC light, a type of ultraviolet light that is harmless to humans can kill the virus in the air. That is, UVC lighting may reduce the number of viruses in public places such as doctors' offices, stations, or airports and this way reduce the spread of the disease.

Self-control is related to being able to delay gratification, that is, to accept no immediate reward for a larger reward in the future. This on the other hand is an important feature of intelligence. It has been found now in chimpanzees. Future research is to study whether it can be found in other primates or non-primate species as well.

There are geo-engineering approaches that allow to reduce extreme heat. Essentially the idea is to have brighter crops in crop-producing areas and brighter surfaces in cities, since these reflect the sunlight better. Models have shown that this way it should be possible to reduce extreme heat by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius. The method avoids problems of methods such as putting sulfate aerosol injections into the stratosphere.

The food we eat seems to play a role in the spread of cancer. In research with mice it has been found that breast cancer seems to need a particular amino acid, called asparagine, in order to spread. Asparagine is contained in asparagus, poultry, and seafood, for instance. This may mean that a particular diet low in asparagine may help to prevent the risk of the tumour spreading.

Jedek, a language spoken in northern Malaysia, is spoken by only 280 people and has previously not been widely known to exist. The community in which Jedek is spoken is particularly peaceful and children are encouraged not to compete.

Depression has often organic causes such as inflammation. Medication against depression tries to regulate the organic condition; however, traditional medication is effective in less than half of the cases only and often has severe side effects. Researchers have found now two substances in grapes which can reduce depression in mouse models. This may open a path to a new medication against depression with potentially only moderate side effects.

Light seems to help to keep the brain fit and alert. At least that found neuroscientists in experiments with rats. They compared rats that were in a dimly lit environment with rats in a bright environment and found that rats in the bright environment were much better at spatial tasks. After one month in a bright environment the rats from the dimly lit environment had their brain capacity fully recovered.

Eating fruit and vegetables is healthy and it is important to get young people into the habit. How can this be done? In a study it has been found that giving free fruit and vegetables to school students several times a week can increase their fruit/veg consumption even on days when there is no free distribution.

In India, the conservation effort to combine forests and land to grow crops has led to a significant increase in the number of tigers from 1411 in 2007 to 2226 at the last count. The approach which combines farm land and forests has several beneficial effects, a healthy ecosystem with restored number of tigers and usage of the land to grow crops for villagers.

The positive effects of moderate consumption of wine has been known, it may serve, for instance, to calm people down before sleep. Now it has been detected that low levels of alcohol consumption can help in reducing inflammation and clearing the brain of toxins. This way it may have a positive effect against Alzheimer's disease.

In experiments with mice, scientists injected two immune-stimulating agents - a so-called TLR ligand and an anti-OX40 - into solid tumors. All traces of the cancer, even metastases could be eliminated. The approach seems to work for a number of different cancers. The immunotherapy has still to be tested on humans.