HYUNDAI KONA ELECTRIC Hyundai Saga Electric CUV Revealed: Sports Kona Electric Hardware Hyundai Kona Electric: Compelling EV That U.S. May Barely Get to Know 20 photos According to Wards Auto, the U.S. plan now is to start delivering cars in California before the end of the year, followed by the other ZEV states within two short weeks. For would-be customers in other areas, there is hope as well. The automaker says it will also ship the Kona Electric to dealers in non-ZEV states if they have a “sold order.”The news comes on the heels of a trip to South Korea by Michael O’Brien, Hyundai Motor America’s vice president for product, corporate and digital planning. Apparently, he took the case for greater U.S. allocation direct to his Asian bosses and appears to have had some success. After being told, “We’re going to make sure you have enough,” the executive was confident enough to declare “So we’re going to be all-in on the Kona EV.”As has been rumored, there’s been a production bottleneck due to the availability of batteries. Now, though, the Korean company has an additional, unnamed, supplier to supplement the cells it gets from LG Chem. Hyundai is still closed mouth about actual numbers planned for the U.S. market, so it will be interesting to see how well the supply meets demand.It could all come down to how willing customers outside of the ZEV states are to buy a vehicle with possibly limited support. While the company is training dealers in the ZEV states and asking them to have three fast chargers on their premises, we don’t know what level of service can be expected in other parts of the country. Regardless, country-wide availability is much appreciated. Will accept orders from every stateEarly reviews of the Hyundai Kona Electric have been quite positive and we expect there is quite a bit of pent-up demand out there for an all-electric crossover that marries over 250 miles of range with a reasonable price tag. With the initial U.S. sales plan consisting of supplying only California dealers, with the eventual addition of stores in other ZEV states, there has been, however, some amount of disappointment in the car’s suspected unobtainium status. Turns out, that worry about availability may be premature.More about the Hyundai Kona Electric
Hyundai Kona Electric A Better Deal Than A Tesla? Source: Wards Auto Source: Electric Vehicle News Author Liberty Access TechnologiesPosted on November 15, 2018Categories Electric Vehicle News
The Next New Lotus Is Supposed To Be An Electric Hypercar
With Geely backing, the British sports car maker announces the all-electric Type 130.Long without new product, Lotus Cars is finally getting back in the game, two years after it fell under the growing Geely umbrella. At the 2019 Shanghai Auto Show Monday, Lotus teased the Type 130, which it is proclaiming as the first all-electric British hypercar.This all comes on the heels of a report in January that Lotus and Williams were working on a PHEV hypercar.More Lotus News Lotus continues its legendary bloodline with Type 130 confirmed as an all-new hypercar, now in advanced stages of developmentFirst glimpse of the new vehicle is revealed atShanghai International Auto Show 2019Lotus embarks on an exciting new era today with the announcement of its first all-new product in more than a decade – set to become the first all-electric hypercar from a British manufacturer.Type 130 continues the legendary bloodline from Lotus during its 71-year history, which has seen a number of true game-changers introduced from the Norfolk, UK based brand in both motorsport and sportscars.CEO Phil Popham said: “Type 130 will be the most dynamically accomplished Lotus in our history. It marks a turning point for our brand and is a showcase of what we are capable of and what is to come from Lotus.”The all-new car will be revealed, together with the full remarkable details and specification of this technical tour de force, in London, the birthplace of Lotus, later this year.Some notable Lotus ‘Type’ numbers include:Type 14 – World’s first composite monocoque production road car (Elite, 1957)Type 25 – World’s first fully-stressed monocoque F1 car, first Lotus to win F1 world championship (1963)Type 72 – Most successful F1 car of all time and the blueprint for F1 car design for many years (Championship winner in 1970, ‘72 and’ 73)Type 78 – World’s first ‘ground effects’ F1 car (1977)Type 88 – World’s first carbon fibre F1 car (1981)Type 92 – World’s first active suspension F1 car (1983)Type 111 – World’s first aluminium and bonded extrusion construction production car (Elise, 1995)Type 130 – World’s first full electric British hypercar (2019) Source: Electric Vehicle News Tesla Drive Unit Dyno’d On Lotus Evora Project – Video In what CEO Phil Popham called, “a turning point for our brand,” the Type 130 sounds like it’s intended to be a showcase of what Lotus engineers can do when they’re left to their own handling devices. Perhaps borrowing more than a page from the McLaren handbook, the Type 130 is set to jumpstart a new era for the long-struggling niche carmaker, whose newest product is the Evora that was shown in 2008.Shown only in a teaser, Lotus said the Type 130 will be revealed later this year in London.See the full news release here:LOTUS CONFIRMS FIRST ALL-NEW PRODUCTION CAR SINCE 2008: TYPE 130 – THE WORLD’S FIRST FULL ELECTRIC BRITISH HYPERCAR
This Lotus Evora Plug-In Hybrid Costs Nearly $200,000 Lotus, Williams Reportedly Working On Plug-In Hybrid Hypercar Author Liberty Access TechnologiesPosted on April 16, 2019Categories Electric Vehicle News
Lithiumion battery electrode plant available for purchase in Michigan
An electrode manufacturing facility with a production capacity of 4,000,000 Li-ion battery cells per year is available for purchase 20 miles outside of Detroit. The plant contains an anode and cathode processing line, including:Material mixingCoatingDryingRoll slittingPackagingSolvent recovery systemThe plant also features a stainless-steel tank farm, spare parts, air handling, and tool room equipment. The listing is being managed by Hilco Industrial and The Bradford Group.Source: Hilco Industrial Source: Electric Vehicles Magazine
Donate For A Chance To Win This Tesla Model S P100D With
And you’ll get $35,000 extra in cash to pay for taxes!Source: Electric Vehicle News
Tesla Model 3 Truckla Youll Laugh Youll Cry You Might Learn Stuff
This really is a fantastic story, and there’s some work in progress as well.Source: Electric Vehicle News
Bollinger unveils custom electric truck configurations
Source: Charge Forward Electric truck startup Bollinger has unveiled custom configurations for its upcoming electric truck and pickup truck. more…Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1zk7Eb8r-s&list=PL_Qf0A10763mA7Byw9ncZqxjke6Gjz0MtThe post Bollinger unveils custom electric truck configurations appeared first on Electrek.
Evergreen State Tribes Seek ChangeLocal WSU Student DiesRotarians Honor Dr Cadman With
SEATTLE (AP) – American Indian tribes in Washington state are asking President Barack Obama to overhaul the way the federal government consults with tribes on infrastructure projects.Leaders of four tribes are meeting with federal officials in Seattle Tuesday.The Yakama Nation, Lummi Nation, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and Spokane Tribe are supporting a plan they say will improve the consultation process, protect sacred sites and provide greater recognition of tribal rights.The Seattle meeting is one of several scheduled throughout the country and was spurred by the federal government’s decision in September to step into the Standing Rock Sioux’s fight over the Dakota Access oil pipeline.The Obama administration invited leaders from 567 federally recognized tribes to participate the series of consultations aimed at getting tribal input on such infrastructure projects.
Aurinias Phase 2 trial evaluates voclosporin ophthalmic solution for treating dry eye
Source:https://ir.auriniapharma.com/press-releases/detail/119 Jul 12 2018Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: AUPH/TSX: AUP), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the global immunology market, today announced the initiation of its Phase 2 trial evaluating voclosporin ophthalmic solution (VOS) for the treatment of dry eye syndrome (DES).VOS, which is a proprietary nanomicellar formulation, enables high concentrations of voclosporin to be incorporated into a clear aqueous, preservative-free solution for local delivery to the ocular surface. This patented formulation has the potential to result in improved efficacy, dosing frequency, and tolerability versus the current treatments for DES.Related StoriesProtein found in the eye can protect against diabetic retinopathyRole of choline and docosahexaenoic acid in maternal and infant nutritionStudy shows high incidence of herpes zoster ophthalmicus among older adultsThis Phase 2 study is evaluating the ocular tolerability of VOS 0.2% versus Restasis® (cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion 0.05%) at four weeks in subjects with mild to moderate DES. This robust head-to-head trial is recruiting 90 patients in sites across the United States, and the study is expected to complete at the end of 2018. Key secondary endpoints include Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI), System Assessment in Dry Eye (SANDE), Individual Symptom Severity Assessments and Drop Discomfort Visual Analog Scale (VAS) scores, Fluorescein Corneal Staining (FCS), and Schirmer Tear Test (STT).”Topical calcineurin inhibition is thought to be a mainstay of treatment for dry eye, and based on its unique profile, we believe that VOS has the potential to compete in the multi-billion-dollar prescription dry eye market,” said Richard M. Glickman, Aurinia’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Our goal with this program is to develop a best-in-class treatment option, and upon completion, we will look to evaluate strategic alternatives for this asset.”VOS has demonstrated safety and tolerability in a human Phase Ib study (n=35), supporting its development for the treatment of DES. It has also previously shown evidence of efficacy in canine studies, which are being conducted by Merck Animal Health.
Small device with motion sensors can predict older adults risk of falling
Jul 12 2018Every year, more than one in three individuals aged 65 and older will experience a fall.Falls are the most common cause of injury in older adults, and can create ongoing health problems. But treatment and awareness of falling usually happens after a fall has already occurred.As a part of the NIH’s Women’s Health Initiative, researchers wanted to see if they could predict an individual’s risk of falling so that preventative measures could be taken to reduce this risk.New analysis has now made this prediction a reality.The study involved 67 women, all over the age of 60, who were tested on their walking ability and asked about the number of falls they had experienced in the past year. Participants also wore a small device with motion sensors that measured their walking patterns for one week.Bruce Schatz, head of the Department of Medical Information Science in the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign and faculty member of the IGB’s Computing Genomes for Reproductive Health research theme, was asked to analyze the data from the study. He worked with colleagues from the Women’s Health Initiative, including David Buchner from the Department of Kinesiology & Community Health, while supervising Illinois graduate students Andrew Hua and Zachary Quicksall, associated with the University of Illinois College of Medicine.They found that data extracted automatically from the devices could accurately predict the participants’ risk of falling, as measured by physical examinations of unsteadiness in standing and walking. Their findings were published in Nature Digital Medicine.”Our prediction showed that we could very accurately tell the difference between people that were really stable and people that were unstable in some way,” Schatz said.Studies have shown that older individuals fall differently than younger individuals. Younger people fall if they misjudge something, such as a slippery surface. But older adults fall because their bodies are unstable, causing them to lose balance when walking or become unsteady when standing up and sitting down.This difference gave researchers the idea that they might be able to measure this instability. The device they used, called an accelerometer, was able to measure the user’s walking patterns and how unsteady they were. They combined this measurement with the individual’s fall history to determine the risk of falling in the future.Being able to predict the fall risk is significant because many older adults often don’t pay attention to the fact that they are unstable until after they fall. But if they know they’re at risk, they can do rehabilitation exercises to increase their strength and reduce their chance of falling.Related StoriesTAU’s new Translational Medical Research Center acquires MILabs’ VECTor PET/SPECT/CTResearch sheds light on sun-induced DNA damage and repairIt is okay for women with lupus to get pregnant with proper care, says new studySchatz sees the successful outcome of this research as a sign that, in the future, more wearable devices, or even smartphone apps, will be able to measure walking patterns and warn users of their fall risk.Most cellphones today already have an accelerometer, the same sensor that was used in this study. Schatz envisions a future where everyone over 60 would have a phone app that constantly records their motion, requiring no input from the user. If the user’s walking becomes unstable, the app could notify the user or their doctor, and they could begin preventative exercises.”I work a lot with primary care physicians, and they love this (idea), because they only see people after they start falling,” Schatz said. “At that point, it’s already sort of too late.”This research relates to the larger idea of preventative medicine — health care that can warn patients about health problems so they can take action and better manage the problem.Predictions like these are difficult to make, but research experiments like this one make Schatz hopeful that progress is being made. More federally funded studies monitoring larger populations are being conducted more often, so predictive models developed for existing studies, such as the Women’s Health Initiative, are important for future research. Additionally, wearable devices like those used in this study are becoming cheaper and more widely available.These developments give Schatz hope that a future with successful predictive medicine is coming.”The question is: is it known how to take the signal, how to take whatever comes out of (a device), and predict something that’s useful?” he said. “I believe strongly the answer is yes.”Schatz sees value in doing fundamental research that could solve major health problems, like falls in older adults. Most people are aware that it’s a common problem, but Schatz said there is a sense of hopelessness about this issue — if it happens to so many older adults, then what can be done?”There is a solution which is completely workable and isn’t very expensive, but requires different behavior,” Schatz said. “That message is not getting out.”He predicts that the quality of life among older adults will improve as medicine and health care become more predictive and effective.”The future is different,” Schatz said. “And it’s because of projects like this.”Source: https://www.igb.illinois.edu/article/wearable-device-can-predict-older-adults-risk-falling
Researchers use computational analysis to identify new phenotype of severe malaria
Source:https://www.isglobal.org/en/new/-/asset_publisher/JZ9fGljXnWpI/content/un-analisis-informatico-permite-identificar-un-nuevo-fenotipo-clinico-de-malaria-grave Reviewed by Alina Shrourou, B.Sc. (Editor)Aug 31 2018There are more clinical phenotypes of severe malaria than those defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), according to a study led by ISGlobal, an institution supported by “la Caixa” Foundation. The results indicate that heart failure can be a pathogenic mechanism of disease, which has implications in the clinical management of these patients.Despite the progress achieved over the last decades, malaria is estimated to have caused almost half a million deaths in 2016, mostly among children. The definition of severe malaria was established to identify those children at risk of dying, but in reality it is a complex and heterogeneous disease that not always responds to the recommended treatments.Related StoriesStudy shows how the mosquito immune system combats malaria parasitesMalaria free status for Algeria and ArgentinaSouthern Research team aims to discover new, safer antimalarial medicinesThe team led by Climent Casals-Pascual, researcher at ISGlobal and at Oxford University, applied a computational analysis based on networks in order to identify biologically relevant phenotypes apart from those currently defined by the WHO (cerebral malaria, respiratory distress, and severe malarial anemia). For this, they performed a ‘network-based clustering analysis’ with data from almost 3,000 Gambian children hospitalized with malaria. They found that the mortality was higher in those clusters with higher phenotypic heterogeneity. The analysis revealed four clusters of patients with both respiratory distress and severe anemia, in which an increase in liver size was associated with higher mortality. By analyzing plasma proteins of these patients, they showed that this is likely due to heart failure.”Our results indicate that heart failure should be reconsidered as a pathogenic mechanism in severe malaria,” explains Casals-Pascual, “and that therefore the standard clinical management may not be appropriate for these patients”. This type of “systems approach” can be a very valuable tool to identify new phenotypes and mechanisms as well as therapeutic options for complex diseases”, he adds.
New research illuminates another significant culprit of trafficrelated air pollution
Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Sep 11 2018Everyone knows that cars contribute to air pollution. And when most people consider the source, exhaust is usually what comes to mind.However, new research led by the University of Pennsylvania’s Reto Gieré, working with collaborators across the world, is helping to illuminate another significant culprit when it comes to traffic-related air pollution: Tiny bits of tires, brake pads, and road materials that become suspended in the air when vehicles pass over.”More and more I’ve noticed that we don’t know enough about what is on our roads,” says Gieré, professor and chair of Penn’s Department of Earth and Environmental Science in the School of Arts and Sciences. “If you have lots of traffic, cars, and trucks driving by, they re-suspend the dust on the roads into the atmosphere, and then it becomes breathable. To understand the potential health implications of these dust particles, it’s really important to understand what’s on the road.”While regulatory efforts have helped make cars cleaner and more efficient, those restrictions do not address the pollution that arises from tire and brake wear. Increasing urban congestion stands to aggravate these as sources of pollution and possibly adverse health effects.”About 4 million people die prematurely from air pollution each year,” says Gieré. “From unsafe water the number is 2 million. Yet we have a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal about water pollution but not one about the air.”To shed light on the contents of traffic-related dust and the conditions that make it more likely to accumulate, Gieré has teamed with German colleagues from the Federal Highway Research Institute, the German Meteorological Service, and the University of Freiburg to sample and analyze the air along roadsides. In 2017, they published the findings of a year-long sampling effort along two highly frequented motorways in Germany, one subject to more stop-and-go traffic and another in a more rural area bordered by agricultural fields.To passively collect the dust along the roadsides, they used customized cylindrical samplers with a transparent sticky foil at the bottom to trap particles that make their way in. The researchers checked the collection points and switched out the sticky “trap” weekly.Using optical microscopy to analyze the collected airborne particles, the team found that the site with busier traffic patterns had 30 percent more particles overall, with a greater fraction derived from tire wear. Weather factored significantly into the patterns they observed; dry and warm conditions were associated with a greater build-up of particles.”At higher temperatures we saw more tire abrasion, more pollution than at intermediate temperatures,” Gieré says. “This was exactly analogous to what two laboratory studies found.”With higher temperatures and more dry spells predicted under climate change, Gieré notes that this problem of tire abrasion may only get worse, “which is significant,” he says, “because nearly 30 percent of the microplastics released globally to the oceans are from tires.”Related StoriesAMSBIO offers new, best-in-class CAR-T cell range for research and immunotherapyCutting-edge electron microscopy reveals first structures of a lipid-flippaseAXT enhances cellular research product portfolio with solutions from StemBioSysIn a more recent study, published last month in Aerosol and Air Quality Research, Gieré and colleagues used powerful scanning electron microscopy to more precisely identify the make-up of the particles collected from the two motorways studied in the 2017 report as well as a third collection site, at an urban highway with slower-moving traffic.”The optical microscope gives us a first approximation,” Gieré says, “while the scanning electron microscope allows us to distinguish between tire abrasion, brake abrasion, carbon, or find out if there are minerals in there.”Taking a further step, the team also ran samples through an analysis that provides information about the elements that compose each specimen, called energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.This study focused on the “super coarse” particles collected, those greater than 10 micrometers in size. (For comparison, a human hair is roughly 75 micrometers in diameter.) While still tiny, these particles pose less of a health threat than those even smaller, which are more easily inhaled. Still, these larger particles can wind up in waterways and soil, affecting wildlife or possibly even agricultural crops.Ninety percent of the dust particles collected from the three sites were traffic-related and the researchers again saw differences between the sites. The slower-moving traffic on the urban road generated fewer particles from brake wear but more from tires; they noted that the tire rubber became encrusted with minerals and other materials from the roads. The highway with more stop-and-go traffic generated more brake particles.Tire and brake pad manufacturers do not disclose all the contents of their products, but it’s known that zinc, lead, antimony, silicates, cadmium, and asbestos are used by some. These are chemicals that can pose a health risk if they get into the environment or, if the tires are burned as they sometimes are by coal plants, the atmosphere.”These coarse particles aren’t going to be transported very far, so pollution is going to be restricted to the vicinity of these roads, especially during congestion,” Gieré says. “But they do also collect on the road and then wash into rivers. Our team believes that’s a major pathway of how microplastics get into waterways.”One way to reduce this avenue of pollution would be traffic-calming measures, such as coordinated traffic lights, that reduce the amount of starting and stopping that drivers must perform. Gieré and colleagues, including Ph.D. student Michael O’Shea, are also performing similar experiments on the streets of Philadelphia and comparing the pollution levels between different neighborhoods to see what is happening a little closer to home. Source:https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/analyzing-roadside-dust-identify-potential-health-concerns
Scientists achieve breakthrough in accelerated diagnosis of multiresistant hospital pathogens
Source:https://www.portal.uni-koeln.de/9006.html?&L=1&tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=5057&tx_news_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=News&tx_news_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&cHash=82d63e04ac109e7bb73dc291ea9d7cdb Reviewed by Kate Anderton, B.Sc. (Editor)Sep 20 2018A team of researchers at the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Medicine and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) has achieved a scientific breakthrough in the accelerated diagnosis of multi-resistant hospital pathogens. Using a novel immunochromatographic method, the researchers detected bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotic group carbapenemes within 20 to 45 minutes from blood cultures with 100 percent certainty. Current test procedures still take up to 72 hours. The results have been published in PLOS ONE.Patients with bloodstream infections caused by gram-negative pathogens such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) have a high mortality rate. However, the infection has so far usually been treatable with antibiotics. But due to the increased antibiotic resistance of bacteria, also against the group of carbapenems, therapy has become increasingly difficult. Infections with multi-resistant pathogens that are also resistant to such ‘reserve antibiotics’ often lead to ineffective antibiotic therapy and thus to higher mortality.In order to detect pathogens such as E. coli in the bloodstream, methods are currently being used that take 16 to 72 hours to detect antibiotic resistance. Accelerated diagnostics is therefore an essential step in treating patients with infections caused by carbapenem-resistant bacteria faster and more specifically, and in curbing the spread of the pathogens. The resistance of gram-negative bacteria is usually caused by enzymes that can destroy antibiotics, including carbapenem antibiotics. They are known as carbapenemases. The most common carbapenemases worldwide are Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC), New Delhi metallo-betalactamase (NDM) and OXA-48.Related StoriesStudy analyzes high capacity of A. baumannii to persist on various surfacesDanbury Hospital launches ‘Healing Hugs’ for its most vulnerable patientsHome-based support network helps stroke patients adjust after hospital dischargeThe present study examined blood samples mixed with carbapenemase-producing bacteria. Three of the four most common carbapenemases – OXA-48, KPC and NDM – were discovered directly from positive blood cultures using a single test procedure without the need for time-consuming further cultivation on agar plates. The new method is fast, easy to use, inexpensive (approximately 10 euros per test) and can be performed in any clinical microbiology laboratory.’With this procedure, we have come a giant step closer to our goal of being able to help patients infected with multi-resistant pathogens as quickly as possible’, said the lead author of the study ,Professor Dr. med. Axel Hamprecht from the German Center for Infection Research and the Institute for Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene at Cologne University Hospital. ‘In the case of the aggressive pathogens we are confronted with, every minute counts in order to start a targeted therapy. We now have to conduct follow-up studies in order to transfer our findings into clinical practice as quickly as possible.’The proof-of-principle study, which is funded by the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Medicine, proves the safety and efficacy of the new method. However, before the new method can replace conventional diagnostics and be introduced into clinical practice, further studies will be necessary.
Salmon Over Science House Spending Panel Goes Fishing at the Expense of
Click to view the privacy policy. Required fields are indicated by an asterisk (*) Sign up for our daily newsletter Get more great content like this delivered right to you! Country Country * Afghanistan Aland Islands Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People’s Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Qatar Reunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (French part) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Vietnam Virgin Islands, British Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Although most U.S. researchers probably think it exists, and both Republican and Democratic administrations play along, there is no federal science budget. Instead, there is one pot of money to be divvied up as legislators see fit. A congressional spending panel made that very clear yesterday by choosing salmon over science.The case in point is an amendment passed on a voice vote by the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee. It would move $5 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and $10 million from the Census Bureau’s research activities to strengthen a Pacific salmon recovery program run by the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service.In his 2015 budget request to Congress, President Barack Obama proposed cutting the salmon recovery program by $15 million, to $50 million. Last week, the House spending panel that controls the budgets of the Commerce Department, NSF, and several other agencies went along with that request. At the same time, it gave NSF $154 million more than the president had asked for. The subcommittee, chaired by Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), also embraced the president’s request to give the Census Bureau $176 million more in 2015 as it ramps up for the 2020 decennial census. Email Those funding decisions gave Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) the chance to make a classic political gambit: raid the budgets of distant agencies seen as ripe for the picking to beef up a program vital to her constituents.Herrera Beutler’s press secretary, Amy Pennington, explains it in more positive terms: “Salmon recovery efforts are extremely important to the economic and environmental well-being of Jaime’s district, and she strongly opposed the President’s 23% cut to the program.” In introducing her amendment, Herrera Beutler said “these funds … mean jobs—family wage jobs.”But the contrast with NSF’s status was also a factor in meeting the congresswoman’s goal of making her amendment “revenue-neutral,” according to Pennington. “As Chairman Wolf stated in the mark-up, this is the highest funding level NSF has ever received,” she notes.NSF officials aren’t surprised by the small raid on the agency’s research account, which the House panel wants to boost by 3% over 2014, to $5.98 billion. “We were up so much over the [president’s] request,” notes one NSF staffer. A blogger for the Census Project had some strong words for what she called the committee’s attack on the bureau, warning that it may not be the last time legislators use it as a “piggy bank.”The amendment was one of five adopted yesterday by the Appropriations Committee. The bill now goes to the floor for a vote by the full House. The legislation is one of 12 spending bills House leaders hope to pass by the July recess to fund the government in the 2015 fiscal year that begins on 1 October. The Senate has yet to take up any of its spending bills.*Update, 9 May, 2:30 p.m.: This article has been updated to include a reaction from a blogger for the Census Project.
Premature babys shrill cry may be sign of something deeper
Premature babies are more likely to produce piercing cries than their full-term peers are, researchers report online today in Biology Letters. Scientists have studied infant crying as a noninvasive way to assess how well a baby’s nervous system develops. Previous research of full-term babies indicates that an abnormally high pitch is associated with disturbances in an infant’s metabolism and neurological development. The team recorded spontaneous crying in preterm babies and full-term babies of the same age and compared the pitch of their sobs. They found that preterm babies whimper in a shriller voice, but not because they are smaller in size or grew at a slower rate in their mothers’ wombs. Instead, the researchers suspect the high pitch could reflect lower levels of activities in a premature baby’s vagal nerve, which extends from the brain stem to the abdomen. Vagal nerve activities are believed to decrease tension in the vocal cords, thus producing a lower pitch. Previous studies show that giving preterm babies massage therapies can stimulate their vagal activities, improve their ingestion, and help them gain weight.
Earthlike planet found orbiting our nearest stellar neighbor
Source: NASA; Graphic: A. Cuadra/Science By Daniel CleryAug. 24, 2016 , 1:00 PM Say hello to our newest, nearest neighbor. After years of scrutinizing the closest star to Earth, a red dwarf known as Proxima Centauri, astronomers have finally found evidence for a planet, slightly bigger than Earth and well within the star’s habitable zone—the range of orbits in which liquid water could exist on its surface. Researchers have already found hundreds of similarly sized planets, and many appear to be far better candidates for hosting life than the one around Proxima Centauri, known as Proxima b. But researchers are excited because the planet is just a stone’s throw away from Earth, cosmically speaking. At 4.25 light-years distant, Proxima b may be within reach of telescopes and techniques that could reveal more about its composition and atmosphere than that of any other exoplanet discovered to date. “This is the best planet we have [for study] right now, no question,” says planetary scientist Sara Seager of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who was not involved in the finding. Sign up for our daily newsletter Get more great content like this delivered right to you! Country Earth-like planet found orbiting our nearest stellar neighbor Rumors had been circulating for weeks about the discovery, announced on 24 August in Nature. The planet was found using the radial velocity method: Telescopes scrutinize a star’s light to see if its frequency is periodically stretched and squeezed by the Doppler effect as the star is tugged, first away and then toward us, by an orbiting planet. The task was especially difficult for Proxima Centauri, which tends to flare up dramatically, obscuring the planet-induced signal. Email The exoplanet next door Astronomers have discovered an Earth-like planet around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun. Country * Afghanistan Aland Islands Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People’s Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Qatar Reunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (French part) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Vietnam Virgin Islands, British Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Click to view the privacy policy. Required fields are indicated by an asterisk (*) Since 2000, a number of groups had found tantalizing hints of a planet around Proxima Centauri, but nothing conclusive. “We designed an experiment to confirm what we suspected was there,” says team leader Guillem Anglada-Escudé of Queen Mary University of London, who used the European Southern Observatory’s High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph on a 3.6-meter telescope in Chile. Their Pale Red Dot campaign used HARPS to observe the star for 20 minutes every night for 60 nights in a row, beginning this past January. When combined with earlier observations, these new data clinched it: There was a planet at least 1.3 times the mass of Earth orbiting the star every 11.2 days. “This solidifies our view that rocky planets are everywhere, ubiquitous, around all kinds of stars,” says astrophysicist Nikku Madhusudhan of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the project. A planet so close to its star—just 5% of the Earth-sun distance—might be expected to be a red-hot cinder, but Proxima Centauri is just one-eighth the mass of the sun and burns much less brightly. The total energy hitting Proxima b is only 65% of what Earth gets from the sun, so liquid water could easily exist there so long as the planet has some sort of atmosphere to trap heat. Nevertheless, the planet isn’t particularly welcoming for life. It’s probably tidally locked, meaning that it always presents the same face to the star, resulting in permanent day and night sides with huge differences in temperature. Thanks to its closeness to Proxima Centauri, the planet also receives 100 times as much high energy radiation as Earth, in the form of ultraviolet light and x-rays. And during stellar flare-ups, Proxima b is blasted with high-energy particles, too—unless it has a protective magnetic field like Earth’s. Nevertheless, Anglada-Escudé says, there is “a reasonable range of parameters that could make it a comfortable planet.”Proxima b’s discovery has sparked a race to see if it passes across the face of its star as viewed from Earth. Detecting such “transits” would pin down the planet’s size and mass, which would allow researchers to calculate its density. Knowing that would confirm the planet’s rocky nature and give hints about what those rocks are made of. And starlight passing through the planet’s atmosphere during a transit can reveal its composition. “That would be amazing, a dream come true,” Seager says. But there is only a 1.5% chance that the orbit is aligned for scientists to witness a transit. The star’s tendency to flare isn’t making things easy, either. “The star is tricky,” says astronomer David Kipping of Columbia University. Kipping’s team studied Proxima Centauri in 2014 using Canada’s orbiting Microvariability & Oscillations of Stars Telescope. They are now reanalyzing their data based on the Pale Red Dot findings and hope to have an answer in a few weeks. “Even if we succeed, the follow up is not trivial,” Kipping says. “We’re not used to stars like this. Life will be harder.” If Proxima b doesn’t transit, there is still hope. Next decade, a new generation of extremely large telescopes or space-based observatories may be able to blot out the light of Proxima Centauri and gather the planet’s light directly, producing our first direct look at another potentially habitable world. And if sending a probe across the trillions of kilometers of space to visit a nearby star system ever becomes feasible, engineers have their first target. For more coverage on planets visit our Planets topic page.
Neanderthals barrel chests might not have been any bigger than ours
Neanderthals’ barrel chests might not have been any bigger than ours By Frankie SchembriOct. 30, 2018 , 12:00 PM Country * Afghanistan Aland Islands Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People’s Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Qatar Reunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (French part) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Vietnam Virgin Islands, British Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Sign up for our daily newsletter Get more great content like this delivered right to you! Country Compared with the modern thoraxes, Kebara 2’s rib cage was wider toward the bottom but not significantly larger in volume, the team reports today in Nature Communications. The Neanderthal’s ribs also protruded from the spine more horizontally than the downward slope of modern ribs. But because his spinal column was situated deeper in the chest cavity, it would have canceled out any extra breathing volume from the wider arc of the lower ribs.The researchers suspect the difference in thorax shape means Neanderthals may have had a slightly different breathing mechanism than modern humans. They might have had longer diaphragms and a better ability to flare out their lower ribs, allowing them to make more space for air as they inhaled. But short of finding new soft tissue evidence, or taking a trip 40,000 years back in time, it’s difficult to say whether a wider thorax helped Neanderthals breathe any easier.
Email Though humans often consider ourselves far more evolved and refined than Neanderthals, new research has shown we have a lot common with our stocky, hairy cousins in terms of behavior and development. Now, scientists say Neanderthals’ thoraxes—the cozy cavities enclosed by the ribs, breastbone, and spine—might actually have been the same size as ours, not larger, as was previously assumed.The size and shape of the thorax—which contains the lungs, heart, and other precious organs—holds important clues about human evolution, including posture, gait, and lung capacity. But it has been tough for researchers to analyze Neanderthal torsos because ribs and spines are fragile, and therefore scarce in the fossil record.So, a team of researchers took the skeleton with the most complete thorax, called Kebara 2, and sent it through a computerized tomography (CT) scan. Next, the researchers used visualization software to create a 3D virtual model of the torso, which they then compared with CT scans of 16 modern men around the same height as the fossil. Click to view the privacy policy. Required fields are indicated by an asterisk (*)
The corn syrup in a soda a day can give mice bigger
Soda might fuel an epic video game tournament or a 5-year-old’s manic birthday party, but a startling new study has found that in tumor-prone mice, it drives something else entirely: the growth of colon cancer. Although it’s not clear that humans would react the same way as the rodents, researchers who conducted the new work say their results could help explain a recent rise in colon cancer in young adults—and might even point to ways to treat the disease.“This is probably the most direct evidence to date that sugar, separate from obesity, can drive the progression of cancer. It’s a model for what happens if you’re predisposed to colon cancer and you chug a can of Coke a day,” says Princeton University biochemist Joshua Rabinowitz, who was not involved with the study.Sweetened beverage sales took off in the 1980s, when corn subsidies in the United States resulted in cheap, high-fructose corn syrup that flooded the market and replaced table sugar. Since then, our thirst for Big Gulps has been blamed for rising rates of obesity—and, indirectly, cancer. Obesity causes inflammation, thought to help tumors grow. Colon cancer in particular—rates of which have been on the rise in people under age 50—has been tied to being overweight. But biochemist Lewis Cantley at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and his then-postdoc, Jihye Yun, wondered whether there was a more direct link between sweet drinks and cancer. Together with Weill Cornell postdoc Marcus Goncalves and collaborators, they studied mice that develop colon tumors because they lack a gene, called APC, that has been shown to predispose people to the same cancer when disabled. Each day, the researchers squirted about one-tenth of a teaspoon of water containing 25% high-fructose corn syrup into the animals’ stomachs. That was too little sugar to make the mice gain weight, but it was still the equivalent of almost a can of soda a day.The sugar imbibers didn’t develop more colon tumors than mice that were given plain water. But after about 2 months, most of the tumors in the sugar-swilling rodents had grown larger and more invasive than the tumors of the control mice, Cantley’s team reports today in Science. Tests with isotope-labeled glucose and fructose—the two components in high-fructose corn syrup—revealed that much of the fructose skipped over its regular route of absorption into the blood through the small intestine and instead went straight to the large intestine, or colon, where tumor cells sucked it up along with glucose.Once inside the tumor cells, the fructose was broken down by an enzyme called fructokinase (KHK), which lowered the cell’s energy level and triggered more glucose metabolism to restore it. This glycolysis also produced fats needed by the tumor cells to grow, the researchers found. In mice engineered to lack the KHK enzyme as well as APC, tumors grew no larger than in control APC knockout animals that didn’t get corn syrup.The team says the mouse results suggest sweet beverages—including those containing table sugar (also a fructose and glucose mixture)—could be speeding the growth of precancerous polyps in people who might otherwise take decades to develop cancer. “Even a modest amount of sugary drinks could shorten the time that cancer takes to develop,” says Yun, now an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where her lab helped complete the study.“The experiments are well done and the results are convincing,” says physiologist Luc Tappy of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. But he and others caution that it’s not yet clear how relevant the rodent experiments are to people, who may blunt the corn syrup’s effects by drinking sodas slowly or with food. “Is it moderately or mildly increasing the risk? Or is it negligible compared to other factors we’re aware of?” says physician-scientist Mark Herman of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.To answer that question, Cantley’s team hopes to study whether a low-sugar diet slows intestinal polyp growth in people genetically predisposed to develop them. They also suggest a KHK-inhibiting drug in clinical trials for fatty liver disease could potentially be added to standard drugs as part of a clinical trial to treat people with colon cancer. The corn syrup in a soda a day can give mice bigger colon tumors Mario Tama/Getty Images Email By Jocelyn KaiserMar. 21, 2019 , 2:00 PM
Click to view the privacy policy. Required fields are indicated by an asterisk (*) Country * Afghanistan Aland Islands Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People’s Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Qatar Reunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (French part) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Vietnam Virgin Islands, British Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Sign up for our daily newsletter Get more great content like this delivered right to you! Country Drinking even moderate amounts of sweetened beverages could spur the growth of colon cancer, according to a study in mice.
Podcast a big increase in monkey research and an overhaul for the
Peter Nijenhuis/Flickr A new report suggests a big increase in the use of monkeys in laboratory experiments in the United States in 2017. Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss which areas of research are experiencing this rise and the possible reasons behind it.Also this week, host Meagan Cantwell talks with staff writer Adrian Cho about a final push to affix the metric system’s measures to physical constants instead of physical objects. That means the perfectly formed 1-kilogram cylinder known as Le Grand K is no more; it also means that the meter, the ampere, and other units of measure are now derived using complex calculations and experiments. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy.Download a transcript (PDF)Listen to previous podcasts.About the Science Podcast[Image: Peter Nijenhuis/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]
Third Black Transgender Woman Found Killed In Dallas
Sadly, another Black transgender woman has been found killed in Dallas, Texas just this year. The latest victim is 26-year-old Chynal Lindsey whose body was pulled out of a lake SaturdaySEE ALSO: Muhlaysia Booker Incident Comes As Violence Against Black Trans Women Is SoaringAccording to Dallas News, Police Chief U. Reneé Hall said Lindsey’s body had “obvious signs of homicidal violence” and “We are concerned, and we are actively and aggressively investigating the case.” D.L. Hughley Calls Transgender Actress A ‘P**sy’ For Comments About Kevin Hart The below video is graphic. Watch at your own discretion.A report from the Human Rights Campaign said that 2018 was the second consecutive year that more than two-dozen members of the transgender community were known to have been killed. At least 26 transgender people were killed in 2018, the majority of them Black transgender women. Since 2013, there have been 128 killings of transgender people, of whom 80 percent were people of color.The trend appears to continue. In 2019, the first known transgender person killed was a Black woman in Alabama. Dana Martin, 31, was found dead in a vehicle from a gunshot wound in January.Physical attacks, harassment and sexual assaults against transgender people are often underreported. Added to the problem, police often identify victims by their birth gender instead of their self-identified gender.Our condolences go out to to everyone affected by these tragedies.SEE ALSO:Meet Jogger Joe, The Man Who Took Racist Cue From BBQ Becky In Tossing Homeless Man’s ClothesMom Of Woman Reportedly Killed By Pastor Begs For Transgender People To Be Seen As HumanMorehouse Makes History With New Transgender Policy JUSTICE FORMuhlaysia Booker pic.twitter.com/Mrti86XIej— Busby’s Fine Foods & Sweet Treats 2019 (@BusbyLawanda) April 13, 2019Her attacker, Edward Thomas, 29, was reportedly offered money to beat her up, Dallas News reported. He was arrested but no longer in custody. He is not believed to be involvedBack in April, Booker said she accidentally backed into another car while driving in the Royal Crest Apartments parking lot. She claimed a gun was pointed at her and was not allowed to leave unless she paid for the damage to the car. A crowd gathered and an unknown person allegedly offered $200 to Thomas to assault Booker. It was unclear whether Thomas accepted the money. But there was no mistaking the assault, which was captured on video. ***JUST IN***This is Chynal Lindsey, the 26-year-old transgender woman who was pulled from White Rock Lake. @DallasPD investigating her death as a homicide. This is the third homicide involving a black transgender woman in less than a year. @wfaa pic.twitter.com/dQlFxrcVu8— Matt Howerton (@HowertonNews) June 3, 2019Hall is asking anyone with information about the case to contact Detective Erica King at 214-671-3684.In October, Brittany White, 29, was found fatally shot in a parked car in southeast Dallas.In April, a horrific video went viral of 23-year-old transgender woman Muhlaysia Booker being viciously attacked in Dallas, Texas. Nearly a month later, Booker was found dead. She was reportedly shot and killed. A$AP Rocky Being In A Swedish Prison Will Not Stop Her From Going To The Country That Showed Her ‘So Much Love’ Meghan McCain Whines That She Can’t Attack llhan Omar Because Trump Is Too Racist Gov. Cuomo Slams Mayor Bill De Blasio For The Eric Garner Case But He Also Failed The Family 
More By NewsOne Staff Dallas , Muhlaysia Booker , Transgender 
The turkey on your Thanksgiving table is older than you think
The turkey on your Thanksgiving table is older than you think If you celebrate Thanksgiving, you’re taking part in a culinary tradition that traces back thousands—not hundreds—of years. Turkeys served as ceremonial centerpieces for Mayan rulers as early as 350 B.C.E., according to archaeologist Erin Thornton at Washington State University in Pullman.Thornton and her mentor, Kitty Emery, curator of environmental archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, have been shining a light on the early domestication of turkeys for more than a decade. Their work was the first to reveal that Mayans raised and managed wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo)—the same species as the Butterball on your table—more than 2300 years ago, making them the first vertebrates to be domesticated on the North American continent.Thornton spoke with Science about how archaeologists look for evidence of early domestication in these birds and what they meant for the ancient civilizations that reared them. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length. Sign up for our daily newsletter Get more great content like this delivered right to you! Country ca2hill/iStockPhoto By Michael PriceNov. 21, 2018 , 11:55 AM Email Q: What got you interested in turkeys?A: In grad school I was working at a site called El Mirador in northern Guatemala. It’s famous for being one of the earliest, biggest Maya cities. I was studying animal bones found at a site called the Jaguar Paw Temple. I found turkeys, and some of them looked like Meleagris gallopavo, the wild turkey, which is found throughout the eastern U.S., the American Southwest, and down into much of Mexico. The bones did not belong to the ocellated turkey [M. ocellata], which is native to the Mayan region. My adviser assumed I must have made a mistake. But eventually through genetic evidence we proved they were indeed wild turkeys.Q: How did these wild turkeys get to Guatemala?A: It is difficult to say. They were very likely reared on-site rather than being imported. An animal’s diet is reflected in biochemical markers called isotope ratios. As an animal feeds and drinks, strontium, a type of metal found in soil, is incorporated into their body tissues, including bones. Strontium values in the El Mirador turkeys match the local strontium values at the site, which are very different from the values found in central Mexico.The turkeys could have initially been obtained via trade or gifting, as there is evidence of the movement of other materials from Central Mexico into the Maya. It is also possible that people from central Mexico brought them there directly, but this is a more difficult idea to prove.Q: How do we know the Mayans domesticated the birds?A: One of the best ways to look at early domestication is through reconstruction of ancient diets. So again, we turn to isotope ratios. We can test stable isotope ratios in archaeological bones to see when they switched from a wild diet to being fed something like corn. That really is the way we’re identifying the earliest domestic turkeys. They start eating the same things that the humans are eating.And that’s what we see in the bones from El Mirador. Isotope analysis reveals they were eating a substantial amount of corn in their diets.Q: What’s so special about turkeys?A: Turkeys are large-bodied. They’re pretty tame. They’ll feed in agricultural fields; they like the insects that are found in cornfields. People may have tolerated their presence in the fields because they’re excellent insect removers. They’re essentially pest control. And turkeys have a tolerance for human-disturbed environments. We see that even around our communities today. If we’re not hunting them like crazy, they persist in the fields and settlements.Q: Did the ancient Mayans eat a lot of turkey?A: It doesn’t seem so. The theme that really emerges in terms of animal domestication in Mesoamerica is that it’s not necessarily about food. People were eating dogs and turkeys, but primarily for elite display—things like feasting or rituals. They’re not necessarily being used to feed the masses.Q: That sounds a bit like Thanksgiving feasts today.A: It totally is. The turkey is the only vertebrate animal domesticated on the North American continent. Dogs were already domesticated when they accompanied humans into the Americas. Horses, cows, pigs, chickens—all of those were introduced from other places.So in my mind, it really is this iconic American bird with a long history of importance, and now it’s celebrated at Thanksgiving. It’s changed quite a bit in its meaning, but there’s this continuity of symbolic importance.Q: White meat or dark meat?A: Both. Probably a little more dark meat. But unfortunately we’re traveling over Thanksgiving so I won’t be having either this year. I’ll probably make up for it later. Click to view the privacy policy. 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