Wednesday Science News Roundup #22

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

Tracking the impact of early abuse and neglect – Maltreatment experienced before age 5 can have negative effects that continue to be seen nearly three decades later, according to a new study. Science Daily

Don’t hold your nose and close your mouth when you sneeze, doctors warn – Pinching your nose while clamping your mouth shut to contain a forceful sneeze isn’t a good idea, warn doctors. Science Daily

Pollution is endangering the future of astronomy – Even as technological advances allow astronomers to peer more deeply into the cosmos than ever before, new technologies also have the potential to create blinding pollution. Science News

Large Amounts Of Water Found On Mars, And It’s Tantalizingly Within Reach – Scientists say they’ve found significant deposits of water ice hiding extremely close to the surface of Mars, a discovery that could be hugely beneficial for future Mars exploration missions. IFLScience

Over 2,000 Newly Discovered Biological Markers Could Help Explain How Autism Develops – Scientists have discovered a swathe of biochemical regions that look to be deeply involved with the risk factors behind autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Science Alert

A new gel could help in the fight against deadly, drug-resistant superbugs – A new antibacterial ointment could help take down drug-resistant bacteria. Science News

Trio of dead stars upholds a key part of Einstein’s theory of gravity – Observations of a trio of dead stars have confirmed that a foundation of Einstein’s gravitational theory holds even for ultradense objects with strong gravitational fields. Science News

Scientists Catch A Glimpse Of A Four-Dimensional Effect In Two Dimensions – Two independent groups of scientists have been able to reproduce four-dimensional properties of a quantum mechanical effect using a two-dimensional analog. IFLScience

Dark Energy Survey Reveals That The Milky Way Has Devoured 11 Other Galaxies – As part of an effort to find out more about the elusive nature of the cosmos, the Dark Energy Survey (DES) – a joint venture between the University of Chicago and dozens of other institutions across the world – was launched back in the summer of 2013. IFLScience

A Salt-Rich Diet Has An Unusual Effect On Your Brain – It’s hardly news to hear that too much salt is bad for you, but new research has shown that a salt-rich diet can have an unexpected effect on your health beyond heart problems and high blood pressure. IFLScience

Wednesday Science News Roundup #18

Since science news roundups are done every Wednesday, it is decided the heading becomes: Wednesday Science News Roundup.

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

Unexpected side effect to cleaning up urban air discovered – As levels of atmospheric nitric oxide decline rapidly due to air quality regulations, North American cities may soon experience higher levels of airborne organic hydroperoxides, with unknown implications for air quality and human health. Science Daily

Direct amygdala stimulation can enhance human memory for a day – The findings are the first example of electrical brain stimulation in humans giving an event-specific boost to memory lasting until the next day, the scientists say. Science Daily

NASA Has Found A Planetary System With As Many Planets As Our Own – Thanks to a novel artificial intelligence technique in partnership with Google, NASA has discovered a planetary system that has as many planets as our own. It’s the most planets in one system we’ve ever found elsewhere. IFLScience

FDA Just Approved The First-Ever Gene Therapy For an Inherited Disease – In a historic move, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a pioneering gene therapy for a rare form of childhood blindness, the first such treatment cleared in the United States for an inherited disease. Science Alert

This Wild New Study Says Mars Didn’t Form Where We Thought It Did – Mars and Earth are widely thought to have formed into planets in the same region of the early Solar System, but if that’s the case, why are their compositions so different? A new study might have the answer. Science Alert

In The First Months Of Pregnancy Natural Killer Cells Actually Nurture The Fetus – Natural killer cells are part of the body’s defense system, ruthless destroyers of invading armies of bacteria or viruses. Yet in the first trimester of pregnancy they show another side, gentle and nurturing. Far from attacking the fetus as a foreign object, as the immune system can sometimes do, they ensure it gets the nutrients it needs to grow. The team that discovered this trait have taken the first steps to harnessing it to combat nutrient starvation of the fetus. IFLScience

Could cognitive interventions be useful in treating depression? – A new study has examined whether cognitive bias modification (CBM) for facial interpretation, a digital health intervention that changes our perception for emotional expressions from negative to positive, might be useful in treating depression. Science Daily

Lyme bacteria survive 28-day course of antibiotics months after infection – Lyme bacteria can survive a 28-day course of antibiotic treatment four months following infection by tick bite, according to a new study using a primate model for the disease. Despite testing negative for Lyme disease, some subjects were infected with Lyme bacteria in heart, brain and other organs. Science Daily

To sleep or not: Researchers explore complex genetic network behind sleep duration – Scientists have identified differences in a group of genes they say might help explain why some people need a lot more sleep — and others less — than most. The study, conducted using fruit fly populations bred to model natural variations in human sleep patterns, provides new clues to how genes for sleep duration are linked to a wide variety of biological processes. Science Daily

These weather events turned extreme thanks to human-driven climate change – For the first time, scientists have definitively linked human-caused climate change to extreme weather events. Science News

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