10 Science News Roundup #6

Here are 10 science news that I find interesting and important to take note.

The list of diseases linked to air pollution is growing – To the residents of Donora, Pa., a mill town in a crook of the Monongahela River, the daily haze from nearby zinc and steel plants was the price of keeping their families fed. Science News

Diabetes medicine reduces Parkinson’s risk – Researchers at the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Bergen (UiB) have discovered that medical treatment against diabetes reduces the risk of getting Parkinson´s disease by 35 per cent. Science Daily

Does your back feel stiff? Well, it may not actually be stiff, study finds – Well, that doesn’t mean your friend’s back is actually stiff, according to a new study at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine. Science Daily

Experimental nerve-stimulation therapy partially revives man in long-term vegetative state—but experts urge caution – Fifteen years ago, a 20-year-old man in France suffered traumatic brain injury in a car collision and fell into a persistent state of unconsciousness known as a vegetative state.

“Super Malaria” Is Spreading, And We Should Be Very Worried – Fears are mounting about the spread of a new “superbug” strain of malaria. First identified in Cambodia, but since spreading to another four countries in the region, the strain of Plasmodium falciparum is resistant to drug artemisinin, often the first line of defense against malaria infection, researchers report in a letter to The Lancet Infectious Diseases.IFL Science

This Researcher Thinks There’s a Case For Having a 3-Hour Workday – Over the course of an 8-hour workday, the average employee works for about 3 hours – 2 hours and 53 minutes, to be more precise. Science Alert

This Needle-Covered Patch Dissolves Excess Body Fat Wherever You Stick It – A skin patch that effectively melts excess body fat wherever you decide to apply it sounds too good to be true, but this thing actually exists, thanks to new research. Science Alert

Gene variant linked to Alzheimer’s disease is a triple threat – A genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease is a double, make that triple, whammy. In addition to speeding up the development of brain plaques associated with Alzheimer’s, a gene variant known as APOE4 also makes tau tangles — another signature of the disease — worse, researchers report online September 20 in Nature. Science News

Botanic gardens ‘best hope’ for saving endangered plants – The world’s botanic gardens contain about a third of all known plants and help protect 40% of endangered species, a study has found.
Scientists say that with one in five of the world’s plants on the brink of extinction, botanic collections hold the key to saving rare plant life. BBC

New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains – Scientists have engineered an antibody that attacks 99% of HIV strains and can prevent infection in primates.
It is built to attack three critical parts of the virus – making it harder for HIV to resist its effects. BBC

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.