199 articles from MONDAY 12.8.2019
British explorer is first person to complete 4,000-mile Yangtze trek
Ash Dykes, 28, had to overcome a landslide, blizzards and being followed by a pack of wolves A 28-year-old British explorer has become the first person to complete a 4,000-mile (6,437km) trek along the Yangtze River in China.Ash Dykes, from Old Colwyn in north Wales, finished the year-long expedition on Monday, overcoming blizzards, a landslide and temperatures as low as -20C (-4F). Continue...
Trump administration overhauls Endangered Species Act protections
The Trump administration on Monday finalized changes to provisions of the U.S. Endangered Species Act that it says will streamline the decades-old wildlife protection law, although conservation groups say it will threaten at-risk...
Bladder cancer survival rates drop after shortage of crucial drug
Bladder cancer survival rates have fallen due to a world-wide shortage of a crucial drug, figures suggest. New Office for National Statistics data shows the chances of living five years beyond diagnosis dropped 2.5 per cent between 2016 and 2017 to 52.6 per cent. It follows a period of limited supplies of Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, an immunotherapy that keeps the cancer at bay and prevents it from...
Cigarette butts pose big microplastic hazard in the oceans
You've seen it before: A driver idling at a stoplight flicks a cigarette butt out the window or a worker during a smoking break drops one to the sidewalk.
Researchers grow Lokiarchaea in special tank over 12-year study
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Japan has succeeded in cultivating samples of Lokiarchaea in a special tank in their lab. They have published a paper describing their work on the bioRxiv preprint server as they await publication.
My Heart Hurts and I Can’t Take It
In this article, we discuss the chemical changes your body goes through when you are in love, and what happens to your body when you go through a...
Ebola now curable after trials of drugs in DRC, say scientists
Congo results show good survival rates for patients treated quickly with antibodies Ebola can no longer be called an incurable disease, scientists have said, after two of four drugs being trialled in the major outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were found to have significantly reduced the death rate.ZMapp, used during the massive Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea,...
NASA finds deadly Lekima's remnants over China
NASA's Terra satellite passed over the Northwestern Pacific Ocean and captured a visible picture of the remnant clouds of deadly former Typhoon Lekima over eastern China.
Artificial intelligence helps banana growers protect the world's favorite fruit
Artificial intelligence-powered tools are rapidly becoming more accessible, including for people in the more remote corners of the globe. This is good news for smallholder farmers, who can use handheld technologies to run their farms more efficiently, linking them to markets, extension workers, satellite images, and climate information. The technology is also becoming a first line of defense...
A new timeline of Earth's cataclysmic past
Welcome to the early solar system. Just after the planets formed more than 4.5 billion years ago, our cosmic neighborhood was a chaotic place. Waves of comets, asteroids and even proto-planets streamed toward the inner solar system, with some crashing into Earth on their way.
How do atoms vibrate in graphene nanostructures?
In order to understand advanced materials like graphene nanostructures and optimize them for devices in nano-, opto- and quantum-technology it is crucial to understand how phonons—the vibration of atoms in solids—influence the materials' properties. Researchers from the University of Vienna, the Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, the company JEOL and La Sapienza University...
Did you solve it? Get the gossip with Bobby Seagull
The solution to today’s text message teaserEarlier today I set you the following problem, suggested by maths influencer Bobby Seagull:Four friends each have a different piece of gossip. They are all in separate locations, and can communicate only via their phones. Continue...
Beetles threaten Yorkshire's purple heather moorland
Yorkshire's moors could be losing their purple colour because of an "infestation" of heather beetles.
USDA tried to cast doubt on study about climate effects on nutrients in rice
U.S. Department of Agriculture officials made a behind-the-scenes effort last year to cast doubt on a study co-authored by two University of Washington researchers about how climate change would affect the nutrients in rice.
A planetary telescope would use Earth’s atmosphere as a giant lens
The “terrascope” could outperform the light-gathering power of any feasible ground-based telescope.
Scientists hail promise of first effective Ebola treatments in Congo trial
Scientists are a step closer to finding the first effective treatments for the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever after two potential drugs showed encouraging survival results in a clinical trial in Congo. Two experimental drugs - Regeneron's REGN-EB3 and a monoclonal antibody called mAb114 - were both developed using antibodies harvested from survivors of Ebola...
Lawsuit: Negligence caused Legionnaires' outbreak at hotel
A lawsuit filed Monday alleges "negligence in the operation and maintenance of the water systems" caused a Legionnaires' disease outbreak at a downtown Atlanta hotel that killed one person and potentially sickened dozens. State and county health officials are investigating the outbreak among people who stayed at or visited the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel between June 22 and July 15. There have been...
A Massachusetts man is the first person this year to be diagnosed with EEE, a rare mosquito-borne virus that can cause personality changes, paralysis, and death
Eastern equine encephalitis has also been found in mosquitos in Florida, Delaware, and New York. It has no...
Lung cancer: researchers identify two distinct modes of propagation
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in the US have identified two distinct pathways for the development of lung adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer. Statistics from the National Cancer Institute indicate that lung adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer, accounting for around 4 out of 10 diagnoses. One of the pathways is linked to a gene responsible for cancer, the...
New study shows impact of largescale tree death on carbon storage
Largescale 'disturbances', including fires, harvesting, windstorms and insect outbreaks, which kill large patches of forest, are responsible for more than a tenth of tree death worldwide, according to new research at the University of Birmingham.
Arctic sea-ice loss has 'minimal influence' on severe cold winter weather, research shows
The dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice through climate change has only a "minimal influence" on severe cold winter weather across Asia and North America, new research has shown.
Study gauges trees' potential to slow global warming in the future
Like the eponymous character in Shel Silverstein's classic children's tale, trees are generous with their gifts, cleaning the air we breathe and slowing the ravages of global warming by absorbing about a quarter of all human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. But this generosity likely can't last forever in the face of unabated fossil fuel consumption and deforestation. Scientists have long wondered...
Glitch in neutron star reveals its hidden secrets
Neutron stars are not only the most dense objects in the Universe, but they rotate very fast and regularly. Until they don't.
Perception biases in social networks
The result of the 2016 US presidential election was, for many, a surprise lesson in social perception bias—peoples' tendency to assume that others think as we do, and to underestimate the size and influence of a minority party.
Bacteria made to mimic cells, form communities
Rice University scientists have found a way to engineer a new kind of cell differentiation in bacteria, inspired by a naturally occurring process in stem cells.