Wednesday Science News Roundup #20

Below are 10 science news that I found interesting and are related to topics I care about.

Diabetes drug ‘significantly reverses memory loss’ in mice with Alzheimer’s – A drug developed for diabetes could be used to treat Alzheimer’s after scientists found it ‘significantly reversed memory loss’ in mice through a triple method of action. This is the first time that a triple receptor drug has been used which acts in multiple ways to protect the brain from degeneration. It combines three growth factors. Problems with growth factor signalling have been shown to be impaired in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Science Daily

State-of-the-art MRI technology bypasses need for biopsy – The most common type of tumor found in the kidney is generally quite small (less than 1.5 in). These tumors are usually found by accident when CAT scans are performed for other reasons and the serendipitous finding poses a problem for doctors. Science Daily

New brain mapping technique highlights relationship between connectivity and IQ – A new and relatively simple technique for mapping the wiring of the brain has shown a correlation between how well connected an individual’s brain regions are and their intelligence, say researchers. Science Daily

Food Comas Are Real And They’re Slowing Down Your Brain, New Study Finds – Ever felt your brain a little sluggish a little while after eating sugar or a giant meal? You are probably feeling the effects of a sugar crash, which, new research shows, really can slow down your cognitive function. Science Alert

Some People Have an Uncanny Sixth Sense For Detecting Sickness – Humans may possess an inherent ability to detect sick people from subtle visual cues. This skill could act as a behavioural defence against disease by limiting the risk of contamination, according to new research. Science Alert

If We Don’t Act Now, Climate Change Could Devastate The Chocolate Industry In Just 30 Years – It’s that time of the year when even just looking at another piece of chocolate runs the risk of making you feel slightly queasy. But our insatiable appetite for the sweet treat coupled with predicted temperature rises due to climate change could mean that we might run out of chocolate within just three decades if nothing is done to prevent it. IFLScience

Hybrid Bird Species Discovered In The Amazon For The First Time– A species of bird first described in 1957, but then not seen again until its rediscovery 45 years later, is even more mysterious than previously thought. It turns out that the golden-crowned manakin – a small, vivid green bird with a yellow noggin – is actually the result of a hybridization event between two other species of manakin birds. IFLScience

The World Didn’t Have Many Natural Disasters In 2017 (Except For The US) – It’s fair to say that the US will remember 2017 for two things: political shitstorms and literal storms. Over the past year, North America has had more than its fair share of extreme weather events, from an onslaught of hurricanes and blazing wildfires to droughts and floods. IFLScience

A sinking, melting ancient tectonic plate may fuel Yellowstone’s supervolcano – The driving force behind Yellowstone’s long and explosive volcanic history may not be as deep as once thought. A new study suggests that instead of a plume of hot mantle that extends down to Earth’s core, the real culprit is a subducting tectonic plate that began sinking beneath North America hundreds of millions of years ago. Science News

Spider’s web inspires removable implant that may control type 1 diabetes – For the more than 1 million Americans who live with type 1 diabetes, daily insulin injections are literally a matter of life and death. And while there is no cure, a team has developed a device that could revolutionize management of the disease. Science Daily

10 Science News Roundup #16

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

Harmful effects of being overweight underestimated – The harmful effects of being overweight have been underestimated, according to a new study that analyzed body mass index (BMI), health and mortality data in around 60,000 parents and their children, to establish how obesity actually influences risk of death. Science Daily

Teenage depression linked to father’s depression – Adolescents whose fathers have depressive symptoms are more likely to experience symptoms of depression themselves, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. Science Daily

Scallops’ amazing eyes use millions of tiny, square crystals to see – There’s stiff competition for the most elaborate eyeballs in the animal kingdom, but a mollusk that turns up on dinner plates might be a finalist. Science News

Study Finds No Evidence That Consuming Part Of Your Own Body Can Reduce Postpartum Depression – Whether it’s popping pills like Kim and Kourtney or consuming it raw in a smoothie like actor Gaby Hoffman, eating placenta has been the latest alternative maternity trend to hit the mainstream. But in case you were wondering whether or not it’s a good idea to follow suit, the latest research suggests it’s best to sit this one out. IFLScience

Astronauts Appear To Suffer From Potentially Dangerous “Space Fever” – The health of astronauts in space is, quite obviously, a vital form of research. There’s no point in us rushing to get humans to Mars if all our astronauts get incredibly sick or perish on the way there. Things like muscle atrophy, altered vision, and genetic alteration are all real and very complex issues that still need to be dealt with. IFLScience

This Extreme Diet Reversed Type 2 Diabetes in Up to 86% of Patients – Type 2 diabetes isn’t necessarily for life, with a new clinical trial providing some of the clearest evidence yet that the condition can be reversed, even in patients who have carried the disease for several years. Science Alert

Bats From a Single Cave in China Have All The Building Blocks of a SARS Epidemic – When it struck, the contagion spread fiercely. The deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in South China in 2002 infected thousands, and ultimately killed nearly 800 people. Science Alert

Physicists Have Demonstrated That ‘Impossible’ Tetraquarks Can Exist After All – An exotic kind of particle so mysterious that it was suspected to be impossible has finally been identified by physicists – and not just once, but twice. Science Alert

Teen Brains Find It Hard to Work Out What’s Actually Important – Even when we’re teenagers, our brains still have a lot of developing to do. New research suggests that teenage brains haven’t matured enough to be able to properly recognise and react to the importance of tasks – maybe one excuse to be late with homework. Science Alert

Nations agree to ban fishing in Arctic Ocean for at least 16 years – Nine nations and the European Union have reached a deal to place the central Arctic Ocean (CAO) off-limits to commercial fishers for at least the next 16 years. The pact, announced yesterday, will give scientists time to understand the region’s marine ecology—and the potential impacts of climate change—before fishing becomes widespread. Science Mag

10 Science News Roundup #14

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

Beating heart patch is large enough to repair the human heart – Biomedical engineers at Duke University have created a fully functioning artificial human heart muscle large enough to patch over damage typically seen in patients who have suffered a heart attack. The advance takes a major step toward the end goal of repairing dead heart muscle in human patients. Science Daily

Three to four cups of coffee a day linked to longer life – Drinking coffee is “more likely to benefit health than to harm it” for a range of health outcomes, say researchers in The BMJ today. Science Daily

‘Arrow of time’ reversed in quantum experiment – Your lukewarm cup of coffee won’t suddenly heat itself up, no matter how long you put off the trek to the microwave. But the same rule doesn’t necessarily apply to quantum systems. Like chilly air warming a mug, heat can spontaneously flow from a cold quantum particle to a hotter one under certain conditions, researchers report November 10 at arXiv.org. This phenomenon seems to reverse the “arrow of time,” the idea that natural processes run forward but not in reverse (SN: 7/25/15, p. 15). Science News

Republicans Want To Force The Critically Endangered Red Wolf Into Extinction – The red wolf, Canis rufus, currently exists only as a small population in one part of North Carolina. It’s listed under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as critically endangered, which means it’s one step away from being extinct in the wild. IFLScience

The Once-Deadly Scarlet Fever Is Making a Weird Comeback Around The World – After decades of decline, scarlet fever is once again on the rise in the UK and other places around the world, and doctors are scrambling to figure out why. Science Alert

Latest DNA Analysis Shows The Yeti Are Actually Just a Bunch of Bears – The Yeti of the mountains of Asia, hairy like a white ape, yet bipedal and standing taller than a man, is numbered among the world’s most beloved cryptids. Yet, for all the eyewitness accounts, physical evidence of the beast is proving tricky to pin down. Science Alert

The key to breaking down plastic may be in caterpillars’ guts – To destroy plastic, caterpillars go with their gut bacteria. Science News

Common cold viruses reveal one of their strengths – Common cold season is back, which has people wondering why we catch the same virus, year after year. Why don’t we ever develop immunity against the common cold? Professor Pierre Talbot at INRS has known about the incredible variability of coronaviruses for some time. They’re responsible for the common cold as well as many other infections, including neurological diseases. Along with his research associate Marc Desforges, Professor Talbot worked on a study recently published in Nature Communications about the ways in which coronaviruses adapt and evolve, becoming ever more effective at infecting hosts without being defeated by the immune system. Science Daily

Research Shows That Earthworms Can Thrive Even in Mars Soil – Good news, aspiring Martian farmers! The soil composition of Mars oughtn’t hinder earthworm reproduction, if experiments here on Earth are any indication. Science Alert

Powerful new cancer drugs are saving lives, but can also ignite diabetes or other autoimmune conditions – Last week, Yale University immunologist Kevan Herold spoke about a few of his newest diabetes patients to an unlikely audience: oncologists and cancer researchers. At the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s annual meeting in Oxon Hill, Maryland, Herold and other speakers described how a novel class of promising cancer drugs is causing type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases in some of those treated. Science Mag

10 Science News Roundup #12

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

Pancreatic cancer survival linked to four genes – Alterations in four main genes are responsible for how long patients survive with pancreatic cancer, according to a new study in JAMA Oncology. Science Daily

Humans are driving climate change, federal scientists say – It is “extremely likely” that humans are driving warming on Earth since the 1950s. That statement — which indicates a 95 to 100 percent confidence in the finding — came in a report released November 3 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. This interagency effort was established in 1989 by presidential initiative to help inform national science policy. Science News

Alzheimer’s protein can travel from blood to build up in the brain – An Alzheimer’s-related protein can move from the blood to the brain and accumulate there, experiments on mice show for the first time. Science News

Sleep Deprivation Has The Same Effect as Drinking Too Much, Says Study – A lack of sleep not only causes us to drop off at our desks in the afternoon and feel cranky, it also weakens crucial communications between the neurons in the brain, according to a new study. Science Alert

Scientists Just Confirmed 18 More Possible Habitable Planets – Remember the other day, when we told you that scientists had found some potentially habitable planets hiding in Kepler data? Well, scientists have found 18 more – and they’re just as important. IFLScience

We Think We Know Where That Interstellar Object Came From – We may have spied our first ever interstellar object in the Solar System last month. Now, scientists think they might know where it came from. IFLScience

Mystery void is discovered in the Great Pyramid of Giza – High-energy particles from outer space have helped uncover an enigmatic void deep inside the Great Pyramid of Giza. Science News

The way hungry young stars suck in food keeps most X-rays in, too – A plasma cocoon lets growing stars keep their X-rays to themselves. Laboratory experiments that mimic maturing stars show that streams of plasma splash off a star’s surface, forming a varnish that keeps certain kinds of radiation inside. Science News

Artificial insulin-releasing cells may make it easier to manage diabetes – Artificial cells made from scratch in the lab could one day offer a more effective, patient-friendly diabetes treatment. Science News

Stimulating formation of new neural connections in the adult brain – A team led by University of Idaho scientists has found a way to stimulate formation of new neural connections in the adult brain in a study that could eventually help humans fend off memory loss, brain trauma and other ailments in the central nervous system. Science Daily

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