Neat News - Neat things do happen

A pre-clinical study with mice found that an existing drug, Venetoclax, that is used to treat blood cancer can kill hibernating HIV cells. If this is confirmed in clinical tests, the discovery might result in a cure for HIV.

related: #HIV #treatment

A new study found that women who maintained their weight after the age of 60 are between 1.2 and 2 times as likely to reach the age of 90 than those who have a weight loss of 5 percent or more.

related: #longevity #woman #weight #stability

A new study found that 50 percent of people who suffer a sudden cardiac arrest show symptoms 24 hours before. The most important symptom for women is a shortness of breath and for men chest pain. A better prediction could lead to a better prevention of the life threatening condition.

related: #prediction #cardiac_arrest #prevention

In lithium batteries, lithium ions may build up on the surface of the battery's negative electrode. If a lot of them accumulate, this may damage the battery, lead to its failure, or even its explosion. Now a better understanding has been achieved that can be used to reduce the problem, potentially extending the lifetime of lithium batteries and speeding up their charging.

related: #lithium #battery #lifetime

In Cambridge, England, a lawn has been reconverted to a meadow with wildflowers. As a consequence the number of plants, bugs, spiders, and bats increased significantly.

related: #biodiversity

A recent study finds that national parks enhance bird diversity, big parks not only inside but also in nearby areas outside the parks.

related: #diversity #national_park

A very thin battery has been developed that one day could power smart contact lenses, which could be used to provide augmented reality to a wearer.

related: #battery #contact_lenses

A new study with 15,000 people finds that physical fitness is correlated with a lower likelihood of developing heart arrhythmia or a stroke.

related: #fitness #health

In an accident six children and two adults were trapped in a cable car in Pakistan about 274 metres above the ground in high winds after lines snapped. All persons on board could be rescued in a twelve hour rescue operation using a helicopter and zip lines.

related: #cable_car #rescued

A new study found that a healthy diet with reduced intake of red meat and more time spent on reading and sports are linked to better reasoning skills of children in their first two school years.

related: #healthy_lifestyle #reasoning_skills

In a new study archaeologists find support for the view that women played an active role as prehistoric hunters by studying prehistoric weapons. They found that women today are as good at throwing the weapons as men.

related: #equality #hunter #weapon

Using the CRISPR technique of gene-editing a virus related to HIV has been removed from non-human primates after a single injection. This gives hope that a similar approach may also work for the AIDS causing HIV virus.

related: #AIDS #HIV #CRISPR

Analyzing protein residues from metal cooking cauldrons from the Bronze Age, archaeologists found that people of the Maykop culture ate deer, sheep, goats, and cows in the period between 3700 to 2900 BCE.

related: #food #bronze_age

Near Costa Rica, an expedition found the only fourth known deep-sea octopus nursery, where octopus babies start their lives protected from predators after hatching.

related: #octopus #nursery

200 water voles that were bred in captivity have been released in the Lake District, England, in order to reestablish the species in the area, after they were nearly wiped out there.

related: #water_vole

A new biology-based small battery has been developed that is using bacteria and could provide small devices such as LED-lights with electricity for many decades when swallowed and getting wet.

related: #battery #bacteria #long_lasting

New research finds that the font size on menus in restaurants for the health information of the food (such as calories) can make a difference in nudging customers towards choosing healthier food.

related: #food #health #menu

Humans have big individual differences with respect to the optimal heart frequencies when trying to burn fat when exercising, new research finds. Individual tests for finding the optimal rate may be helpful.

related: #exercising #fat_burning #heart_rate

Sound does not travel through a vacuum, normally. Now scientists have shown that it can if the vacuum gap is between to piezoelectric solids.

related: #vacuum #sound #piezoelectric

An abandoned oil tanker floating in the Red Sea since 2015 has been successfully emptied of its cargo of more than one million barrels of oil. Thereby a major environmental disaster has been averted.

related: #oil #tanker #rescue

Krill are small animals of typically about one to two centimetres. However, they live in huge swarms and eat a lot of plankton and excrement annually bound carbon dioxide combined of estimated 23 megatons of carbon corresponding to the emission of 35 million cars. The WWF calls for better protection of krill.

related: #krill #carbon_capture

In a new study cardiovascular indicators (heart rate and blood pressure) were looked at in people that had sleep restricted to five hours per night compared to those that could sleep up to ten hours. It has been found that reduced sleep is detrimental to cardiovascular health, even if some catch-up (e.g., on weekends) is done.

related: #sleep #cardiovascular_health

Using a closed-loop transcranial electrical stimulation of the brain, first experiments showed improvements in the ability of Parkinson's disease patients to walk, offering a new therapy approach.

related: #Parkinson #electrical_stimulation

How people feel about their own sleep is important for their well-being and more important than some objective quality of sleep as measured by some technology, new research finds.

related: #sleep #well_being

A new approach combining machine learning and blockchain technology has been used to detect fake news and estimate its potential impact, thereby, for instance, allowing content providers to counter it.

related: #fake_news #machine_learning #block_chain

In artificial water reservoirs organic material transforms to methane that is very damaging to the climate. Now a prototype device has been developed that can suck in most of it and use it for the production of electricity.

related: #methane #absorption

As a measure to reduce food waste, in Geneva, Switzerland, there is a project supported by the city and charities to provide refrigerators so that shops and restaurants can donate their leftover fruit, vegetables, bread, and other perishables in the fridges and any passerby can serve themselves free of charge.

related: #food_waste #donation

Denial of service attacks flood a service with numerous queries so that genuine requests cannot processed any more. Detection often relies on thresholds which may cut out genuine requests when the genuine demand rises strongly. A new better test is based on the concept of entropy, more precisely a mismatch of the entropy between target addresses and source addresses.

related: #dos #denial_of_service_attack #detection

Using different techniques, glasses have been developed that can in real time receive Bluetooth messages and transcribe them to augmented reality projections within the glasses. This enables deaf people to communicate and at the same time to be free to look wherever they like.

related: #deaf #transcription #glasses

In a recent study it was found that exposing older adults during sleep to fragrances for two hours per night over six months results in a big memory improvement compared to a control group.

related: #memory #cognition #fragrance

In scrambler therapy, electrical stimulation via electrodes is done in body areas adjacent to that of chronic pain, thereby scrambling the pain signals. In 80 to 90 percent of the patients this can lead to a lasting pain relief, new research finds.

related: #scrambler #pain_relief