Neat News - Neat things do happen

New antimicrobial compounds have been developed that combine direct antibiotic killing of bacterial pathogens with a simultaneous rapid immune response. This offers a way of treating antibiotic-resistant infections.

In Japan a satellite made mainly of wood is currently being developed and will hopefully be ready by 2023. It has the advantage to burn up at the end of its life without releasing harmful substances or debris when it plunges back to Earth.

A new test has been developed which is on the one hand as reliable as the standard PCR test, but on the other hand gives a result (for up to eight samples) in less than 45 minutes.

In new research, it has been discovered that cancer evades the immune defence of the body by transporting bits of its DNA outside of the cell's nucleus. This understanding may offer a path to a new treatment by suppressing metastasis.

An antique hot food eatery, a so-called thermopolium, has been detected in the remains of Pompeii, which was destroyed and buried in an eruption of the Vesuvius volcano in year 79. It is expected that the discovery will lead to insights in eating habits at Roman times.

According to research the longevity of Japanese people is linked to the habit in the country to take a hot bath on a daily basis. Japan has some 27,000 natural hot springs. A hot bath has in addition to the cleaning effect the advantage to raise the body temperature, to relax the arteries and boost circulation thereby bringing oxygen to the cells in the body. People who take a daily hot bath reduce the risk of a stroke, for instance, by 30 percent.

A new method, tested in mice, has been developed that delivers genetic material into the cells of the inner ear to restore the functioning of genetically defect cells. This way several forms of mutations that may cause deafness in new born children may become treatable.

Some bacteria have a thick layer that protects them against traditional antibiotics. A new drug, JD1, has now been developed and proved successful in experiments with rodents. It reduces the survival of certain bacteria by 95 percent, while having only modest side effects.

In chaotic and difficult times such as the current Covid-19 crisis, it helps people to focus on things they get right rather than on what they get wrong, a new study suggests. Emotionally resilient people are particularly good at that.

Tiny antibodies, so-called nanobodies, have been isolated from a llama. They may be able to prevent Covid-19 infections. Since the nanobodies work also in aerosol form, they may be effective after inhalation and protect the lungs and airways by coating them.

This night there is a great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, that is, seen from Earth the two biggest planets in the solar system align. When looked at with the naked eye their light on the night sky seems to come from a single object. The planets have not appeared this close to one another at night for hundreds of years.

The Covid-19 situation has led to an increased use of single use plastic. It is estimated that currently more than 120 billion face masks are used every single month. In India, now a method has been developed to reuse disinfected face masks to make bricks out of them, which can be used to build walls.

In a study, a device such as an EEG was used to monitor brain activity. With it scientists were able to build a model that allows to predict for 66 percent of the patients a seizure 24 hours in advance. Such a forecast is important since then measures can be taken to prevent the seizure.

Low attendance at schools is a particular problem in South Africa since transport to schools often does either not exist or is unaffordable. The NGO Sweetbike supports students with second hand bicycles so that they can get to school in an affordable and environmentally friendly way.

In a study involving more than 250,000 women it has been found that taking oral contraceptive pills reduces the risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer even 15 years after discontinuation by around 50 percent.

MacKenzie Scott, the third wealthiest woman in the world, has donated more than four billion dollars in the last four months to some 380 charities including food banks.

The spacecraft Hayabusa-2 which recently returned to Earth brought a capsule with material from asteroid Ryugu. One of three chambers has been opened now and pebbles as well as tiny dust particles were found. Scientists hope to gain insights from an analysis of the material on the formation of the Solar System some 4.5 billion years ago.

Validating what people say, in particular, when they feel distressed, that is, showing support to people with negative emotions can foster a positive outlook. People feel better when they feel that they are being understood.

New research has found that a simple test can give a good indication of the health of somebody's heart. If climbing four flights of stairs takes you less than a minute then your heart is an a good condition. If it takes more than one and a half minutes is is advisable to consult a doctor.

In experiments with ferrets, it has been shown that a new drug called Molnupiravir can completely block the transmission of Covid-19 within 24 hours. If the findings can be established in humans as well then in addition to vaccinations Molnupiravir could be a game changer in the fight against Covid-19.

The EU had pledged to be climate neutral by 2050 and on the way to this goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent compared to 1990 emissions by 2030. Now the EU has strengthened this pledge and wants to cut emissions by 55 percent by 2030.

While many species of plants and animals are threatened and some have gone extinct recently, the European bison number has recovered to over 6000 in wild herds across Europe. Europe's largest land mammal went almost extinct a century ago. The recovery is a success of conservation measures.

In last summer's bushland fires many animals died and it was feared that the little pygmy possum had been wiped out from Kangaroo Island, Australia. Fortunately this is not the case, they have been rediscovered there now.

Mass vaccination against Covid-19 has started in the UK, giving priority to particularly vulnerable persons such as over 80 year old people. The first jab received a 90 year old woman in Coventry.

A new quantum computer using photons has solving a particular task been much (estimated 10¹⁴ times) faster than state-of-the-art supercomputers.

A new test for the so-called p-tau protein in cerebrospinal fluid and blood can detect an onset of Alzheimer's disease years before there any cognitive problems.

The spacecraft Hayabusa-2 explored the asteroid Ryugu and collected material that has now been returned in a capsule to the Earth. It has been detected in Australia. Scientists hope that the around 100mg of material give clues about the formation of the Solar System some 4.5 billion years ago.

The biodiversity on our planet is threatened, but there are ways that we can reverse its loss by consuming less, producing sustainably, reducing certain drivers, slowing climate change, and conserving and restoring habitats.

New research finds that in each human there are around 380 trillion viruses, 10 times the number of bacteria. Many of them simply coexist with us without doing any harm, some of them are beneficial. According to the latest counts half of all the biological matter in our bodies is not human.

Taking into account the pledges by China and other nations as well as the carbon plans of the new US president-elect, the temperature rise could be limited to an increase of 2.1 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, mainly in line with the UN global warming goals.

Knowing the sequence of the amino acids in a protein, it is not easy to know the three-dimensional structure of the protein, but lengthy experiments are normally necessary to detect it. Now an AI system that learns from known structures is able to predict the structure to an accuracy that is comparable with lab techniques, this way solving a 50 year old Grand Challenge problem in biology.