More men than women develop Parkinson’s disease and new work presented at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies says that it is do to sex differences in how brain cells change. Parkinson’s disease affects about 9 million people and becomes increasingly prevalent with age.
The U.S. National Aeronautics Space Administration NASA has selected two finalist concepts for a robotic mission tentatively set to launch in the mid-2020s. The two finalists pared down from 12 are Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return (CAESAR), which seeks to bring back a sample from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a comet that was successfully explored by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, to determine its origin and history. Led by Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, CAESAR would be managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Cosmic rays from supernovae can influence Earth´s cloud cover and how that influences climate could be useful for making better models.A new study shows how atmospheric ions, produced by the energetic cosmic rays raining down through the atmosphere,help the growth and formation of cloud condensation nuclei – the seeds necessary for forming clouds in the atmosphere. When the ionization in the atmosphere changes, the number of cloud condensation nuclei changes affecting the properties of clouds.More cloud condensation nuclei mean more clouds and a colder climate, and vice-versa.
Too much caffeine is bad for you. It's very risk to buy powdered caffeine for that reason. But it's addictive and people do it. Likewise, too much nicotine is bad for you and you can't shouldn't buy undiluted optically pure nicotine and start inhaling it. But young people will do risky things. Some may smoke marijuana or cigarettes, some may get addicted to alcohol or drugs. Young people who take up vaping rather than opioids today are a lot better off than a generation ago.
Though CO2 emissions have plummeted in the United States, as developing nations achieve prosperity they will want air conditioners, sanitation and food - and those all require energy. They sure are not going to let already wealthy nations tell them they must be stuck with solar panels.So climate change may still happen, at least if energy technology stops and fossil fuel use does not. If so, how will plant species will respond to climate change? A 16-year experiment may provide answers. Of course, the experiment is small, the size of two football fields inside the Garraf National park southwest of Barcelona, but it is home to many protected species. So even if it can't model an ecosystem it can model part of one.
In 2007, there was a ban that increased happiness for married women, but not men, according to the British Household Panel Survey.
Transport proteins called efflux pumps, and their role in creating drug-resistance in bacteria, could lead to improving effectiveness of drugs against life-threatening diseases and perhaps even bring defunct antibiotics back to prominence.
When pharmacy professionals — rather than doctors or nurses — take medication histories of patients in emergency departments, mistakes in drug orders can be reduced by more than 80 percent, according to a recent paper.Injuries resulting from medication use are among the most common types of inpatient injuries at U.S. hospitals, affecting hundreds of thousands of patients every year. Errors in medication histories can lead physicians to order the wrong drug, dose or frequency.
There is additional evidence a mantle plume, basically a geothermal heat source such as a volcano, is below Antarctica's Marie Byrd Land and it explains a substantial amount of the melting that creates lakes and rivers under the ice sheet. Mantle plumes are thought to be narrow streams of hot rock rising through Earth's mantle and spreading out like a mushroom cap under the crust. The buoyancy of the material, some of it molten, causes the crust to bulge upward. The theory of mantle plumes was proposed in the 1970s to explain geothermal activity that occurs far from the boundary of a tectonic plate, such as Hawaii and Yellowstone.
Life in the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) is not exactly paradise. Children are indoctrinated, women are severely oppressed, and infidels are beheaded. Ancient cultural artifacts and historical treasures are destroyed. Liberating people conquered by ISIS, therefore, is good not only for humanitarian reasons but for archaeological ones, as well.Now, it appears there is yet another reason to defeat ISIS: It might be good for the planet.A new study published by Princeton University and the World Bank shows that oil production in ISIS-controlled areas has fallen by over 70%, from 56,000 barrels per day in December 2014 to 16,000 barrels per day in 2016.
The world’s second densest metal can be used to kill cancer cells by filling them with a deadly version of oxygen, without harming healthy tissue, according to a new paper.The metal, iridium, was in the asteroid with the strongest link to the extinction of dinosaurs. When combined with organic material, the researchers showed it can be directly targeted towards cancerous cells, transferring energy to the cells to turn the oxygen (O2) inside them into singlet oxygen, which is poisonous and kills the cell - without harming any healthy tissue.
Move over, Bornean and the Sumatran orangutans. Scholars have identified a third orangutan species, the Tapanuli orangutan, that sits alongside the Pongo abelii, living on the island of Sumatra, and the Pongo pygmeaeus, endemic to Borneo, on the evolutionary tree.
The Great Pyramid, built under the command of the Pharaoh Cheops (who died around 2483 B.C.), retains a lot of mysteries. We don't know how it was built, which has led to any number of conspiracy stories about alien technology and other things.
