Tafamidis meglumine (trade name: Vyndaqel®) was approved in November 2011 for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis in adults, a rare disorder ("orphan disease") caused by a defective gene and is associated with progressive nerve damage. Now it has been shown to improve survival and reduce hospitalizations for transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy, a rare heart condition, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2018 and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In countries that have embraced centralized energy and migrated away from individual cooking with dung or wood, both public health and the emissions have improved. So why not pay for all developed countries to switch? The World Bank wanted to do that half a decade ago but it became political; countries like the U.S. agreed only to contribute if they used solar or wind, which are not viable even in America much less in a poor nation. It was another case of wealthy countries with plenty of energy passing their guilt along to Africa and Asia.

The Bahama Nuthatch, native to a small area of native pine forest on the island of Grand Bahama, was feared extinct after Hurricane Matthew in 2016, but researchers are pleased to announce that the little-known bird is still out there.

But there may be only two left, they worry.

The Bahama Nuthatch has a long bill, a distinctive high-pitched squeaky call, and nests only in the mature pine trees of the Caribbean island. There may have been a sharp decline in its estimated population, from a believed 1,800 reported in a survey in 2004 to just 23 being seen in a survey in 2007, but it is hard to be sure.


Credit: Matthew Gardner, University of East Anglia

In the 1800s, critics of evolution insisted there had to be fossil evidence for everything, which neglected the idea that fossilization is already difficult, finding the fossil is even more difficult, and something like an eye will not fossilize at all.

But detractors who insisted they would not accept evolution until they found a "missing link" between modern humans and ancestral primates would be moving the goalposts once again, because a fossil of an ancient hominin individual from Siberia had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. 

Next month, a Microsoft developer, a classical pianist, and a philanthropist for kids' health will compete in the Miss America pageant. And they are all the same person: Allison Farris.

Farris creates and codes apps for Microsoft as a career but next month she is poised to do something with a different kind of elegance. She will represent Washington, D.C. at the Miss America competition on Sept 9, 2018 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which will be televised on ABC.

A technique used to produce stone tools that were first found 500,000 years ago is likely to have needed a modern human-like hand, according to new research.

The technique is called 'platform preparation' - preparing a striking area on a tool to remove specific stone flakes and shape the tool into a pre-conceived design - and without the ability to perform highly forceful precision grips, our ancestors would not have been able to produce advanced types of stone tool like spear points. 

Platform preparation is essential for making many different types of advanced prehistoric stone tool, with the earliest known occurrence observed at the 500,000-year-old site of Boxgrove in West Sussex, UK.