Gene therapy to fight a blood cancer succeeds in major study

An experimental gene therapy that turns a patient's own blood cells into cancer killers worked in a major study, with more than one-third of very sick lymphoma patients showing no sign of disease six months after a single treatment, its maker said Tuesday. In all, 82 percent of patients had their cancer shrink at least by half at some point in the study.

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Married People Are Healthier Than Those Who Are Single: Study

A new study suggests that married people are healthier than those who are single. The study was conducted at Carnegie Mellon University and published in Psychoneuroendocrinology. To conduct the study, researchers collected saliva samples from 572 healthy adults aged 21-55 over three non-consecutive days. Multiple samples were taken during each 24-hour period and tested for cortisol. Researchers found that married individuals had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol than those who never married or were previously married.

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Colorectal cancer doubles in Gen-Xers, millennials

At 27, Stacey Betancourt had no reason to suspect she had cancer. But she is part of a new generation at exceptionally high risk of colon cancer.

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Younger is not always better when it comes to learning a second language

Language immersion environment best for young children, the classroom setting is better for early teenagers, while self-guided language learning is better for adults.

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Physicists Uncover Geometric ‘Theory Space’

A decades-old method called the “bootstrap” is enabling new discoveries about the geometry underlying all quantum theories. By Natalie Wolchover.

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The 10 weirdest physics facts, from relativity to quantum physics

People who think science is dull are wrong. Here are 10 reasons why. By Tom Chivers (Nov. 12, 2009)

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For the First Time in History Brain-Machine Interfaces Achieve Two-Way Communication

A prosthetic limb can recover the lost motor function partially when it is controlled by brain activity directly. This is made possible by decoding neuronal activity that is recorded with electrodes and then translating these into robotic movements. Due to the absence of sensory feedback from the artificial limb, these systems do however suffer from limited precision.

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Boston Dynamics’ newest robot is six feet tall, lifts 100 pounds, and jumps up to four feet

By now, most of us are familiar with Boston Dynamics’ work. They brought us the terrifying giraffe bot and Spot, the robot dog. The company’s great at bringing us nightmare fuel. Be afraid.

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Are Viruses Alive?

Viruses are contagious, but are they alive? By Laura Geggel.

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Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds

New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. By Elizabeth Kolbert.

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In southeastern Colorado, robots carefully disarm WWII-era chemical weapons

Ars tours the training facility the military is using to teach humans how to help robots help us.

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Why astronauts are banned from getting drunk in space

From wine being sipped on the moon to whisky on a space station, space travel has had a long and complex relationship with alcohol.

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SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. We expect to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year. Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and we expect more to follow.

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Plastic and how it affects our oceans

Plastic has transformed our lives, but has created a major environmental problem in our oceans — so just how big is the problem?

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In 1959, British Scientists Carefully Perfected the Pickled Onion

It was all for the "notoriously fickle pickle-fancying public."

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A giant neuron found wrapped around entire mouse brain

Like ivy plants that send runners out searching for something to cling to, the brain’s neurons send out shoots that connect with other neurons throughout the organ. A new digital reconstruction method shows three neurons that branch extensively throughout the brain, including one that wraps around its entire outer layer. The finding may help to explain how the brain creates consciousness.

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NASA Wind Tunnel Tests X-Plane Design for Quieter Supersonic Jet

Supersonic passenger airplanes are another step closer to reality as NASA and Lockheed Martin begin the first high-speed wind tunnel tests for the Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) X-plane preliminary design at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The agency is testing a nine percent scale model of Lockheed Martin’s X-plane design in Glenn’s 8’ x 6’ Supersonic Wind Tunnel. During the next eight weeks, engineers will expose the model to wind speeds ranging from Mach 0.3 to Mach 1.6...

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Scientists Are Developing Graphene Solar Panels That Generate Energy When It Rains

Solar power is making huge strides as a reliable, renewable energy source, but there's still a lot of untapped potential in terms of the efficiency of photovoltaic cells and what happens at night and during inclement weather. Now a solution has been put forward in the form of producing energy from raindrops. The key to the new process is graphene: a 'wonder' material we've heard plenty about before. Because raindrops are not made up of pure water and contain various salts that split up into positive and negative ions, a team from the Ocean University of China in Qingdao thinks we can harness power via a simple chemical reaction. Specifically,

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Neanderthal DNA Determines Our Health and Appearance Today Way More Than We Thought

The last Neanderthals died out tens of thousands of years ago, but the effects of interbreeding are still being felt today, with a new genetic study revealing that certain traits in modern humans, such as height and schizophrenia risk, can be...

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Decoding the ancient tale of mass suicide in the Judaean desert

Have archaeologists proven the ancient tale of mass suicide in the Judaean desert or twisted science for political end?

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Would You Want a Dog That Was Genetically Engineered to Be Healthier?

“Dogs have more genetic diseases than any other species on the planet.” David Ishee told me this early in our conversation. His claim makes sense: there’s no other animal that humans have purposefully bred with an emphasis on form over function—aesthetics over health—for so long. Centuries of inbreeding have left many dog breeds with a severely limited gene pool, and this lack of genetic diversity is to blame for disorders like brachycephaly in bulldogs, hyperuricemia in dalmations, and cardiomyopathy in boxers.

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Apollo 8 redux: Why NASA might send humans around the moon, again

NASA could send astronauts around the moon sooner than expected, if the Trump administration has its way. But some argue the change in plans could be costly.

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Pakistan airline admits taking extra passengers in aisle

Pakistan International Airlines is investigating how seven extra passengers were allowed to stand in the aisles on a flight to Saudi Arabia, a spokesman told the BBC. The passengers were allowed on the 20 January flight to Medina despite every seat being filled, the airline said. Details of the flight have only emerged now because of extensive investigations by Dawn newspaper. Staff had issued additional handwritten boarding passes, the paper reported.

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TRAPPIST-1 Comparison to Solar System and Jovian Moons

All seven planets discovered in orbit around the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 could easily fit inside the orbit of Mercury, the innermost planet of our solar system. In fact, they would have room to spare. TRAPPIST-1 also is only a fraction of the size of our sun; it isn't much larger than Jupiter. So the TRAPPIST-1 system's proportions look more like Jupiter and its moons than those of our solar system. The seven planets of TRAPPIST-1 are all Earth-sized and...

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Slippery bottle solves ketchup problem

Scientists in Boston have found a way to get every last drop of ketchup out of the bottle.

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50% chicken DNA: Why your favourite fast food chicken sandwich might not be what you ordered

Canadians who opt for chicken sandwiches while dining at fast food restaurants may find a Marketplace analysis of what they contain a little hard to swallow.

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Kernel is trying to hack the human brain — but neuroscience has a long way to go

For Bryan Johnson, the founder and CEO of neuroscience startup Kernel, the question is when, not if, we all have computer chips inside of our brains. Kernel, founded last fall with more than $100 million of Johnson’s own money, is trying to better understand the human brain, so that we may one day program it to improve. The company is focusing first on medical applications, to gain a deeper understanding of the diverse and complex ways the brain can fail. Eventually, Johnson would like to move toward augmenting the organ to make us smarter and healthier and pave the way for interfacing directly with computing devices.

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How a Pacific Island Changed From Diesel to 100% Solar Power

On a recent Wednesday evening on the island of Ta’u—one of the outer islands in American Samoa—most of the people in all three villages are at pese—or church choir—practice. The annual island-wide youth group showcases are coming up and each choir senses the pressure of having to perfect their routines. For the Faleasao village choir, there is added pressure from being the smallest village on the island. But this year, the underdog choir believe they have a special routine that will blow away the competition.

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Meet the Man Who Wants to Eradicate Hangovers by 2050

Scientist David Nutt believes a chemical called “alcosynth” is the secret to drinking without regret. As Prohibition showed, taking booze away from the public is wildly unpopular with just about everyone but Bible-thumpers and bootleggers. But what if, instead of being banned, alcohol was simply replaced with something better? Something that makes you feel talkative and sociable without also making you throw up/fall down/feel hungover/get fat/make terrible decisions/get into fist fights or any one of the other things on the shockingly long list of downsides we all know alcohol has?

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Eating more fruits and vegetables may prevent millions of premature deaths

A fruit and vegetable intake above five-a-day shows major benefit in reducing the chance of heart attack, stroke, cancer and early death. This is the finding of new research, led by scientists from Imperial College London, which analysed 95 studies on fruit and vegetable intake. The team found that although even the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day reduced disease risk, the greatest benefit came from eating 800g a day (roughly equivalent to ten portions - one portion of fruit or vegetables if defined as 80g).

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'A very mean worm': New species of 'Bobbitt' worm was 1-2 metres long with powerful teeth

Researchers have discovered a new species of an ancient worm that was more than a metre long and had powerful jaws and teeth with which to catch its prey.

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Top students more likely to smoke pot, drink alcohol, study says

British teens with the highest test scores are less likely to smoke cigarettes yet more likely to drink alcohol and smoke pot compared with teens with lower scores, according to a study published Wednesday in the British Medical Journal Open. Although some people believe smart students simply have a tendency to experiment, James Williams and Gareth Hagger-Johnson, co-authors of the new study, say these patterns of substance use may continue into adulthood.

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India Using $1.8 billion of its Coal Tax Money to Fund Renewable Energy Projects

India is using 1.8 billion of its coal tax fund to invest in renewable energy projects. The tax was collected from fossil fuel companies on every ton of coal mined in, or imported to, India between 2010 and 2016. India wants to quadruple its electricity generating capacity from renewable sources to 175 GW by 2022. It also plans to reduce emissions up to 35 percent by 2030.

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Most scientists 'can't replicate studies by their peers'

Science is facing a "reproducibility crisis" as scientists fail to reproduce others' work, it is claimed.

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New Record: Paralyzed Man Uses Brain Implant to Type Eight Words Per Minute

“What did you enjoy the most about your trip to the Grand Canyon?” the Stanford researchers asked. In response, a cursor floated across a computer screen displaying a keyboard and confidently picked out one letter at a time. The woman controlling the cursor didn’t have a mouse under her hand, though. She’s paralyzed due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also called Lou Gehrig’s disease) and can’t move her hands. Instead, she steered the cursor using a chip implanted in her brain.

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Do Robots Deserve Rights? What if Machines Become Conscious?

Published on Feb 23, 2017 What shall we do once machines become conscious? Do we need to grant them rights?

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7 Earth-Size Worlds Found Orbiting Star

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The gut microbiome in health and in disease

Recent technological advancements and expanded efforts have led to a tremendous growth in the collective knowledge of the human microbiome. This review will highlight some of the important recent findings in this area of research.Studies have described ...

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NASA Telescope Reveals Record-Breaking Exoplanet Discovery

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

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Can food poisoning permanently damage your DNA?

Food poisoning will knock you off your feet, but a few days later you’ll hopefully be back to your old self. But new research suggests that certain types of salmonella can have longer-lasting effects. In some cases it could permanently damage your DNA, leaving you more vulnerable to future illness.

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Thousands of spills at US oil and gas fracking sites

Up to 16% of hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells spill liquids every year, according to new research from US scientists. They found that there had been 6,600 releases from these fracked wells over a ten-year period in four states. The biggest problems were reported in oil-rich North Dakota where 67% of the spills were recorded. The largest spill recorded involved 100,000 litres of fluid with most related to storing and moving liquids.

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Anti-Mosquito Candles Totally Don't Work

Today in science that turns out to be totally bunk: Citronella candles warding off mosquitoes.

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Artificial Intelligence is Going to Destroy Fake News

But in the near term, it's going to create fake news, too.

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Big pharma funding biases drug trials in favour of a sponsor's product, review finds

Drug trial studies that are sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry are more likely to favour a sponsor's product.

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Creative People Have Better Connected Brains

A new study reports highly creative people appear to have more connections between their brain hemispheres.

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NASA to Unveil New Exoplanet Discovery Tomorrow

NASA will announce a new discovery involving planets orbiting stars other than the sun at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) on Wednesday, Feb. 22.

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This Ancient Sea Creature Is So Messed Up, Scientists Can't Stop Arguing Over It

Last year, scientists declared a decades-old mystery solved - that bizarre monstrosity you see in the image above had for years defied classification, but two separate studies said they finally had solid evidence that it was in fact a vertebrate.

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Ants on Stilts Help Show Bugs Have "Pedometers"

Stilt-walking and half-amputated ants helped scientists solve the mystery of how the insects return straight home, even after extremely twisty trips.

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Melbourne plane crash: Five killed as aircraft hits shopping centre - BBC News

Four US citizens and an Australian pilot died when their light aircraft came down on a shopping centre.

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To help airport passengers deal with anxiety San Francisco airport has hired the first therapy Pig.

Last year for the San Francisco airport ended with something really uncommon – they introduced the first travel anxiety pig. Her name is LiLou and she is now a proud member of SFO Wag brigade, that has been in the airport since 2013. The wag brigade consists of 300 cats, dogs and rabbits and now their newest member LiLou the pig! They are all Certified Animal Assistant therapy animals and their main purpose is to make traveling a little bit less anxious for everybody.

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