Neat News - Neat things do happen

In Myanmar fossils have been found which were preserved in amber for 99 Million Years. They allow a study of the feather structure of birds after such a very long time span.

The successful test of a synthetic vaccine against Zika with mice gives hope for the development of a vaccination against Zika in humans.

In the New Zealand Waitomo Caves a colony of glow worms pretends to be stars in order to attract moths as prey. [3:54 film by Eliene Augenbraun]

Silicon is the standard material to produce solar cells, it is expensive to produce from sand, heavy, and has only a limited efficiency. A carbon based material, perovskite, is superior on these three criteria. Further research is needed to explore potential disadvantages and its durability.

In experiments with social spider colonies which consist of bold and shy members, scientists have found that these colonies benefit in their resilience against ants if they have a mixture of types of spiders as compared to consisting of just bold or just shy spiders.

The blockchain protocol is used in the digital currency Bitcoin. Any transactions are distributed and made tamperproof in a cryptographic way. This is now used in an increasing way in other areas such as enforceable contracts, event tickets, stocks, bank transactions, and drug trials of pharmaceutical companies.

The Ocean Cleanup charity has started a project to take some 68 million kilogrammes of floating rubbish out of the Pacific Ocean.

Using the Kepler space telescope, an exoplanet has been discovered that is only 5-10 million years old. In comparison the earth has an estimated age of 4.5 billion years.

After the legalization of cannabis in Colorado the usage among teenagers has fallen below the national average in the USA.

In the Ecuadorian Amazon, indigenous farmers are offered a livelihood by producing sustainably sourced guayusa tea. Having secure land rights will mean that they manage and maintain the forests.

The brain is protected from toxic molecules by a Blood-Brain Barrier, which unfortunately also prevents the adminstration of anti-cancer drugs in the brain. This barrier has in a study successfully been opened by an ultrasound implant.

One of the main problems humanity faces is overpopulation, that is, that we are too many. The most populous country, China, has tackled the problem with strict government measures. In India, the second most populous country, there is a transition ongoing that suggests that the problem is solved without such measures. The birthrate per woman was 5.9 in 1951 and has gone down to 2.3 in 2011. It is expected that the steady-state rate of 2.1 will be reaching in 2020.

On 5 June was Environment Day and Greenpeace has compiled a list of beautiful pictures of the environment for the occasion.

In a study scientists compared how much was remembered after a learning session two days later if either the learners had immediately after the session a 35 minute workout, or after four hours, or not at all. The group that did the exercise after four hours memorized best.

Previously coffee was classified as possibly carcinogenic (with respect to bladder cancer). However, now the International Agency for Research on Cancer has decided that there is not sufficient evidence to support this.

In a new approach two environmental problems are solved at the same time. On the one hand carbon dioxide is taken from the atmoshpere, on the other hand surplus salt from the desalination process (to make drinking water from sea water) is taken together to produce sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and ammonium chloride.

If provoked a bee swarm may attack humans with potentially fatal result. The advice is to avoid this by not swatting at them and when hiking to get away from the nest as quickly as possible on an encounter.

In Iceland a method has been successfully tested to pump CO₂ into the ground and transform it to rock. 220 tonnes of the greenhouse gas were converted to 95% to limestone in less than two years.

Using satellite and drone images, archaeologists have discovered a huge monument buried under the sand of the city of Petra in Jordan. According to the authors of the original article the structure was "hiding in plain sight".

The drug Ubidecarenone has been created using techniques from Artificial Intelligence and proves effective in the treatment of advanced solid tumors.

In a small study the immune systems of multiple sclerosis patients were destroyed and reinstated by stem cell treatment. This offers a new promising - albeit also very invasive - treatment again the auto-immune illness.

It has been found out that one of the main types of blood cancer is actually 11 distinct forms of cancer. With this knowledge better predictions and diagnoses will be possilbe.

It was generally assumed that the mammals started to flourish after the dinosaurs became extinct some 66 million years ago. In a new study this is doubted and it is assumed that they started to develop significantly before.

A new drug, Palbociclib, which disables key mechanisms to allow a cancer to grow, has been shown to lengthen the period without cancer growth from 15 to 25 months.

A structure off the coast of the Greek island of Zakynthos was thought to be an ancient city lost to floods. However, according to new research it is now assumed that the structure has formed naturally without human intervention for the last 5 million years.

In a study built on measurements by the Hubble telescope it has been found out that the Universe expands faster than previously 9% expected.

Traditional lenses are curved which leads to limitations in their size. In a new development lenses have been built which are planar and work via computer-computed tiny paint particles on the surface of glas.

A dagger found within the burial wrappings of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun is made with iron from a meteorite. Tutankhamun died c. 1323 BC, aged 18, a time when iron was rare. The knife was found with the grave in 1925.

At a building site in London old wooden tablets were found. They are the oldest dated documents ever found in the UK, the oldest being from 8 January 57.

In 2015, the world-wide investment into renewable energy has with $286bn overtaken by far the investment into new coal and gas-fired power plants.