Neat News - Neat things do happen

Ruhrbahn public transport in Mülheim in Germany is starting to use a new coating, Dyphox, on surfaces such as handles and handrails, which reduces the amount of bacteria and viruses on the surfaces by 99.99 percent, making transport safer for the passengers.

Some dogs have learned to sniff whether a person is infected with the COVID-19 Corona virus. They may be able to detect infected persons at airports or nursing homes, for instance.

An octopus has been spotted in the Java Trench in the Indian Ocean at a depth of 7000m, that is, 2000m deeper than ever before.

A big solar plant of more than three square kilometres has been approved for the north Kent coast. It will supply electricity to more than 90,000 homes.

Under metres of earth, a pristine Roman mosaic has been found in a vineyard in northern Italy.

For some people with severe food allergies changing the gut microbes may improve their situation, since some microbes seem to be capable of suppressing immune responses.

In Germany a supermarket chain has started to sell nuts, nut products, and tea in glasses with refundable deposit. It is in line with other supermarkets that try to reduce plastic and other waste.

The combination of the production of fish and vegetables looks promising, economically and ecologically. It may allow to complement the needs of two recirculating systems in which fish and vegetables are produced in two separate units.

The Lord of the Flies is a dark novel on the bad things that may happen without the restraints of civilization. Now a film is to be made of the story of the Real Lord of the Flies, in which six teenage boys were shipwrecked in the 1960ies on a remote uninhabited island. They survived 15 months until their rescue through friendship and loyalty.

In densely populated countries there is a competition between building solar farms and agriculture. Now new concepts are developed to allow them to coexist. The solar panels are mounted on five metre high racks and the ground below is farmed. Since the panels are placed not very densely, rain and light come to the ground to a sufficient degree.

Researchers found that bumblebees when deprived of pollen can trick plants into flowering up to a month earlier by cutting holes in their leaves.

The European Commission has proposed a European Green Deal in which the use of pesticides and antibiotics in farming is to be reduced by 50 percent, the use of fertilisers by 20 percent, and animals are to be protected better.

In experiments with mice, scientists have found a part of the brain in the so-called amygdala that can essentially shut down pain. In the long run the finding may result in a new treatment for pain.

Training big artificial neural nets in order to apply them for solving problems can take a lot of computation resources, which need a lot of energy with a big carbon footprint. By pruning the connectivity in an intelligent way after initial steps, the energy consumption can be cut to a tenth.

For the first time in hundreds of years a wild white stork chick hatched in the UK in West Sussex. There were five eggs in the nest of the birds and at this moment it is not clear how many have hatched. The birds were reintroduced to the UK in recent years.

Sometimes we make bad choices which we know are wrong when we make them (such as eating all of the chocolate, or binge watching the whole season of a TV series). By four self-nudging tools we may prevent these: 1. Using reminders and prompts, 2. putting the decision in the right frame (not between jogging and not jogging, but between healthy and unhealthy), 3. reducing the accessibility of the bad choices, and 4. using social pressure.

Rising temperatures let many coral reefs turn white and die, since algae they need cannot deal with the warmer water. Now researchers have developed algae that are more heat tolerant and can make the coral reefs survive in warmer water.

A major problem treating many brain and spinal cord injuries is that the brain swells. By giving the drug trifluoperazine such swellings can be much reduced, minimizing the damage.

A robot has been built that can disinfect hospitals to 99.9 percent using UV-C light. It was developed in Denmark and is currently used in China.

Partly due to the Corona lock-down, but also because it is now cheaper to produce electricity using photovoltaic than using coal, the CO₂ emissions in India fell by 15 percent in March and are estimated to have fallen by 30 percent in April.

A study has found that gardening at home has a positive emotional effect on people similar to biking, walking, or dining out.

Stopping deforestation is an important step in preventing pandemics. Recent pandemics such as Ebola, Zika, SARS, and Covid-19 are all related to wild rain forest animals whose habitat is threatened.

In the current Corona pandemic many people work from home. This development may change the way how people work. For those who have to get to work the British government urges people to reconsider their way of travel and to walk or cycle more, also to reduce air pollution.

Currently ultraviolet LEDs are under development that can decontaminate surfaces that are polluted with the COVID-19 Corona virus.

Trying to explain the different mortality rates of Covid 19 in different countries, researchers analyzed data from 10 countries. They found that patients with severe vitamin D deficiency are twice as likely to experience severe problems from Covid 19.

From observations scientists conclude that there is a black hole about 1000 light-years away from us, which is nearby on a cosmic scale.

A human monoclonal antibody has been found that blocks in cell cultures the Covid-19 virus. This may be a first step towards the development of a treatment of Covid-19 infections.

A fungus called Microsporidia MB seems to prevent mosquitoes infected by it from being infected by malaria. As a consequence these mosquitoes cannot infect people with malaria. The insight may hold an enormous potential to control malaria, which currently kills more than 400,000 people per year.

In tests with mice, a molecule called Lin28 stimulated axons to grow by more than three millimetres. This result is encouraging since a repair of spinal cord injuries may be achievable using Lin28.

In experiments with mice, it has been found that the retinal neurons send excitatory and inhibitory signals. Before, it was believed that only excitatory signals are sent.

Bees that are virus infected smell differently. This seems to be an effect of the virus so that such bees are not so easily recognized by the guards of another colony and can spread the virus. It means, however, also that an infected bee is no longer fully accepted by her own colony and other bees interact less with her and the virus spreads less in her own colony.