This Regenerative Building Material is Made From Sand and Bacteria
discovermagazine.com – Combine sand, gelatin and bacteria, let them rest and watch one brick turn into eight.
Source: Chelsea M. Heveran, et al. Biomineralization and Successive Regeneration of Engineered Living Building Materials. Matter, 2020.
Earth's oldest asteroid impact 'may have ended ice age'
bbc.com – The 2.2 billion-year-old asteroid impact may explain the end of an ice age, scientists say.
Source: Timmons M. Erickson, Christopher L. Kirkland, Nicholas E. Timms, Aaron J. Cavosie, Thomas M. Davison. Precise radiometric age establishes Yarrabubba, Western Australia, as Earth’s oldest recognised meteorite impact structure. Nature Communications, 2020.
Hey, We Have 10 New Kinds of Birds Now
popularmechanics.com – This is a pretty big deal.
Source: A lost world in Wallacea: Description of a montane archipelagic avifauna. Science, 2020.
Land prep for palm oil plantations does the most environmental damage
upi.com – The creation of new oil palm plantations causes almost twice as much environmental damage as maintaining mature plantations.
Source: Hannah V. Cooper, et al. Greenhouse gas emissions resulting from conversion of peat swamp forest to oil palm plantation. Nature Communications, 2020.
Scientists image the progression of a solar flare for the first time
digitaltrends.com – Our sun occasionally flashes brighter than usual in electromagnetic eruptions called solar flares. Now, scientists have released data on the first-ever flare captured moment by moment, pinpointing the exact time and place the flare burst out of the sun's surface with energy equivalent to 1 billion degrees.
Source: Gregory D. Fleishman, et al. Decay of the coronal magnetic field can release sufficient energy to power a solar flare. Science, 2020.
Immune discovery 'may treat all cancer'
bbc.com – Research is at an early stage but scientists said it had huge potential for destroying cancers.
Source: Michael D. Crowther, et al. Genome-wide CRISPR–Cas9 screening reveals ubiquitous T cell cancer targeting via the monomorphic MHC class I-related protein MR1. Nature Immunology, 2020.
Neanderthal teeth could chomp on hard plants like nuts and seeds
zmescience.com – A new study found that early human ancestors had teeth that could penetrate the hard shells of nuts and seeds without suffering damage.
Source: Adam van Casteren, et al. Hard plant tissues do not contribute meaningfully to dental microwear: evolutionary implications. Scientific Reports, 2020.
Are Human Body Temperatures Cooling Down?
sciam.com – A new study finds that they have dropped, on average, over the past century and a half
Source: Myroslava Protsiv, Catherine Ley, Joanna Lankester, Trevor Hastie, Julie Parsonnet. Decreasing human body temperature in the United States since the industrial revolution. eLife, 2020.
Old Drug, New Tricks: Existing Medicines Show Promise in Fighting Cancer
sciam.com – Dozens of compounds approved for other purposes can kill cancer cells selectively
Source: Steven M. Corsello, et al. Discovering the anticancer potential of non-oncology drugs by systematic viability profiling. Nature Cancer, 2020.
Stanford researchers want to take screenshots of everything you do on your phone
businessinsider.com – The software takes a screenshot every five seconds, and so far the project has already collected more than 30 million screenshots.
Source: Byron Reeves, Thomas Robinson, Nilam Ram. Time for the Human Screenome Project. Nature, 2020.
