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Late frost gives UK magic mushroom hunters an extra high

Psychedelic fungi may still be in bloom on New Year’s Day due to climate change An unnaturally late first frost across the UK means magic mushroom hunters could be in line for a remarkable natural high this year. Psychedelic mushrooms may still be in bloom on New Year’s Day, as the subzero temperatures that would normally have appeared by this time of year are yet to arrive. Continue reading…

Viden

Overset bensygdom, giftig olie og depression: Her er de 3 mest læste sundhedshistorier i år

På førstepladsen ligger en bensygdom, som rigtig mange danskere lider af, men få får behandling for.

Vaping is 95% safer than smoking, claims Public Health England

As scepticism rises, PHE says e-cigarettes could help more people quit smoking The government is launching a new campaign to try to convince the UK’s smokers that vaping is safe and a good way to quit, in a bid to counter the scepticism generated by some scientific studies and media headlines. Public Health England (PHE), which maintains that vaping is 95% safer than tobacco, is releasing a short

Cross Section: Hannah Fry – Science Weekly podcast

Dr Hannah Fry won the Christopher Zeeman medal in August for her contributions to the public understanding of the mathematical sciences. Ian Sample has invited her on the podcast to discuss her love of numbers. Plus, he asks, can we really use this discipline to predict human behaviour? Maths probably isn’t something you’re thinking about in the build-up to the new year. If anything, it’s the nth

The Guardian's Science Weekly

Cross Section: Hannah Fry – Science Weekly podcast

NeuWrite San Diego

The Trouble with Drug Development

Open a new tab, load up a science media site you know. What do you first see across the front page? You will almost certainly find a headline blaring “NEW FINDINGS SHOW AUTISM’S DAYS ARE NUMBERED” or “UNIVERSITY RESEARCHER CURES PARKINSON’S DISEASE”. Open the page up next week, and you will almost certainly see some […]

BBC News – Science & Environment

The best science long reads of 2018 (part two)

From the search for life in the Universe to fighting fires in Antarctica, here's a festive selection of the best science long reads from 2018.

Confronting the side effects of a common anti-cancer treatment

Results of a new study suggest that a new treatment approach is needed — and how this may be possible — to address adverse effects of aromatase inhibitors, drugs commonly prescribed to both men and women to prevent recurrence of estrogen-positive breast cancer.

Geckos use slapping to ‘walk on water’

Geckos can scurry across the surface of water at impressive speeds, research finds. Geckos have a multitude of methods for moving around. They can run across rugged terrain, swim swiftly under water, and even swing their tails to perform acrobatic maneuvers in the air. If you’re an animal in a hurry, swimming is not an ideal mode of transportation. As a rule, bodies move through water much slower

The Atlantic

The Atlantic Daily: The Best of 2018

“It’s harder than ever to hear music in a vacuum,” write Hannah Giorgis and Spencer Kornhaber. “In this info-swamped era, the sound coming out of the speakers will be processed in the context of broad stories ( uh oh, is this song about Robert Mueller? ) and personal ones ( uh oh, is this song about my ex? ).” The most indelible television shows, films, podcasts, and books of 2018 are colored wit

Producers of white colonies on kimchi surface, mistaken as molds, have been identified

Analyses of microbial community structures and whole genome sequencing were performed to the white colony-forming yeasts on kimchi surface.

Cell size and cell-cycle states play key decision-making role in HIV

Thanks to the development of antiretroviral drugs, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is considered a manageable chronic disease today. However, if left undiagnosed or untreated, HIV can develop into AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), a disease which led to the deaths of nearly 1 million people worldwide in 2017.

Breast cancer drugs could help treat resistant lung cancers

A class of drugs used to treat certain breast cancers could help to tackle lung cancers that have become resistant to targeted therapies, a new study suggests. The research found that lung tumors in mice caused by mutations in a gene called EGFR shrunk significantly when a certain protein was blocked.

Post-natal depression in dads linked to depression in their teenage daughters

Fathers as well as mothers can experience post-natal depression — and it is linked to emotional problems for their teenage daughters, new research has found.

How skin ages, loses fat and immunity

Some dermal fibroblasts can convert into fat cells that reside under the dermis, giving skin a youthful look and producing peptides that fight infections. Researchers show how this happens and what causes it to stop as people age.

A tilt of the head facilitates social engagement

Every time we look at a face, we take in a flood of information effortlessly: age, gender, race, expression, the direction of our subject's gaze, perhaps even their mood. How the brain does this is a mystery.

Speed up public health decisions on scabies by skipping full-body exams

For years, the diagnosis of scabies has relied on time-consuming and intrusive full-body examinations. Now, researchers have found that an exam of just a patient's hands, feet and lower legs may have the potential to catch more than 90 percent of all scabies cases, regardless of severity. These speedier exams may be useful in public health assessments on the prevalence of scabies.

Contact with monkeys and apes puts populations at risk

Animal diseases that infect humans are a major threat to human health, and diseases often spillover to humans from nonhuman primates. Now, researchers have carried out an extensive social sciences evaluation of how populations in Cameroon interact with nonhuman primates, pointing toward behaviors that could put people at risk of infection with new diseases.

Sleeping sickness parasite uses multiple metabolic pathways

Parasitic protozoa called trypanosomes synthesize sugars using an unexpected metabolic pathway called gluconeogenesis, according to a new study. The authors note that this metabolic flexibility may be essential for adaptation to environmental conditions and survival in mammalian host tissues.

Trial supports use of topical antibiotics in NICU babies

A team of doctors has performed a clinical trial involving multiple hospitals that tested the effectiveness of applying a topical antibiotic known as mupirocin for prevention of Staphylococcus aureus (SA) infection in babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Tree-ring analysis explains physiology behind drought intolerance

Tree rings tell the story of what's happening physiologically as fire suppression makes forests more dense and less tolerant of drought, pests and wildfires, new research shows.

Discovery of topological LC circuits transporting EM waves without backscattering

Engineers have succeeded in fabricating topological LC circuits arranged in a honeycomb pattern where electromagnetic (EM) waves can propagate without backscattering even when pathways turn sharply. These circuits may be suitable for use as high-frequency electromagnetic waveguides, which would allow miniaturization and high integration in various electronics devices, such as mobile phones.

European wheat lacks climate resilience

Researchers have found that current breeding programs and cultivar selection practices do not provide the needed resilience to climate change.

Give it the plasma treatment: Strong adhesion without adhesives

A research team has used plasma treatment to make fluoropolymers and silicone resin adhere without any adhesives. Heat-assisted helium-plasma treatment created oxygen-containing functional groups on PTFE or PFA, while open-air plasma-jetting installed silanol groups on vulcanized PDMS. Under pressure, the treated PDMS strongly adhered to the treated polymers, copper, and glass through covalent and

Illuminating nanoparticle growth with X-rays

Ultrabright X-rays at NSLS-II reveal key details of catalyst growth for more efficient hydrogen fuel cells.

Buzzed flies reveal important step to intoxication

The alcohol in beverages acts much like an anesthetic. It creates a hyper 'buzzed' feeling first, and then sedation. But how? It turns out there is an important intermediate step that wasn't previously known.

Collecting clean water from air, inspired by desert life

A pair of new studies offers a possible solution to water scarcity, inspired by nature.

Trees' 'enemies' help tropical forests maintain their biodiversity

Scientists have long struggled to explain how tropical forests can maintain their staggering diversity of trees without having a handful of species take over — or having many other species die out. The answer, researchers say, lies in the soil found near individual trees, where natural 'enemies' of tree species reside.

Sustainable 'plastics' are on the horizon

A new study describes a process to make bioplastic polymers that don't require land or fresh water — resources that are scarce in much of the world. The resulting material is biodegradable, produces zero toxic waste and recycles into organic waste.

Brain activity predicts fear of pain

Researchers applied a machine learning technique that could potentially translate patterns of activity in fear-processing brain regions into scores on questionnaires used to assess a patient's fear of pain. This neuroscientific approach may help reconcile self-reported emotions and their neural underpinnings.

How socioeconomic status shapes developing brains

The relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and brain anatomy is mostly stable from childhood to early adulthood, according to a longitudinal neuroimaging study of more than 600 healthy young people. This finding suggests interventions designed to mitigate the influence of low SES on brain and mental health may be most beneficial for children younger than age five.

New insights into pion condensation and the formation of neutron stars

Performing studies on a doubly magic isotope of tin, researchers have shown that the pion condensation should occur at around two times normal nuclear density, which can be realized in a neutron star with a mass of 1.4 times that of the Sun.

How neurons could disconnect from each other in Huntington's disease

Newly described mechanism called 'neuritosis' could play an important role in normal brain development, aging and neurodegenerative disease.

Gadgets The end-of-week dispatch from PopSci's commerce editor. Vol. 59. My job is to find cool stuff. Throughout the week I spend hours scouring the web for things that are ingenious or clever or ridiculously cheap.

Big Think

Women — not men — are more willing to punish 'sexually-accessible' women, researchers find

It's commonly thought that the suppression of female sexuality is perpetuated by either men or women. In a new study, researchers used economics games to observe how both genders treat sexually-available women. The results suggests that both sexes punish female promiscuity, though for different reasons and different levels of intensity. None Researchers from the University of Warwick recently sou

NPR

The Unregulated Terrain Of Gene-Editing Technology

A Chinese scientist's claim that he'd created the first gene-edited babies rocked the world this year, raising questions about the ethics of powerful new gene-editing techniques.

NPR

Fresh Starts: Tales Of Renewal For A New Year

The turn of the year is a time when we set the old aside and welcomed the new into our lives. When one chapter ends, another begins. (Image credit: Courtesy of Maya Shankar)

NPR

100+

2018 Was A Milestone Year For Climate Science (If Not Politics)

2018 saw a string of more precise — and dire — assessments that a warming climate is affecting the weather. That didn't keep President Trump and others from questioning those scientific conclusions. (Image credit: Gerald Herbert/AP)

Sugar-sweetened beverage pattern linked to higher kidney disease risk

In a study of African-American men and women with normal kidney function, a pattern of higher collective consumption of soda, sweetened fruit drinks, and water was associated with a higher risk of developing kidney disease.

The Atlantic

The Adrenaline Rush of Herding Reindeer in the North Pole

As winter approaches in Finnish Lapland, daylight rapidly retreats. The Sami—the estimated 80,000 people who are indigenous to the region and live in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia—prepare for winter by bringing their reindeer down from the mountains. More than 7,000 reindeer herders, known as boazovazzi , or “reindeer walkers,” work together to herd 500,000 reindeer from their grazing pastu

Reliable tropical weather pattern to change in a warming climate

As human activities cause the Earth's temperature to increase, reliable, well-studied weather patterns like the Madden-Julian Oscillation will change too, say researchers at Colorado State University.

10h

Spacewatch: new generation of GPS satellite lifts off

GPS III satellites to provide more precise locations and be more resilient against jamming The first of a new generation of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites was launched on Sunday . A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral air force station in Florida at 1351 GMT (05.51am PST) and the satellite was deployed into its intended orbit almost two hours later. Continue reading.

10h

Breaking down AGEs: Insight into how lifestyle drives ER-positive breast cancer

Consumption of processed foods high in sugar and fat increase levels of advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Medical University of South Carolina researchers report that AGE levels are higher in patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive than ER-negative breast cancer. Addition of AGEs caused breast cancer cells, whose growth had previously been controlled by tamoxifen, to begin to grow agai

10h

Big Think

There was no relationship between obesity and poverty — until high-fructose corn syrup

Before 1990, there was no noticeable correlation between obesity and poverty. Within a quarter-century, impoverished regions showed a massive uptick in obesity and type 1 diabetes. Researchers chart the relationship between "food deserts" along with obesity levels. None In 1841, Orlando Jones patented alkali starch extraction , a process that separated corn starch from kernels in what is known as

10h

Corn’s ‘recycling’ system isn’t just for stressful times

A plant relies on cellular machinery to recycle materials during times of stress, but that same machinery has a remarkable influence on the plant’s metabolism even under healthy growing conditions, according to new research. Autophagy is a process that helps to break down damaged or unwanted pieces of a cell so that the building blocks can be used again. In humans, autophagy is connected to a num

10h

Big Think

Why not all uncivilized people are barbarians

We often imagine that civilization was formed when people agreed to from societies together and then attracted others out of the wildreness to join them. Some historians and anthropologists argue that a huge part of Asia is filled with people who did the opposite. If true, the idea could flip our understanding of how states and civilizations form on its head. If you can remember back to high scho

10h

Unravelling mystery of how, when DNA replicates

A team has unlocked a decades old mystery about how a critical cellular process called DNA replication is regulated.

11h

Reducing drinking could help with smoking cessation, research finds

New research has found that heavy drinkers who are trying to stop smoking may find that reducing their alcohol use can also help them quit their daily smoking habit. Heavy drinkers' nicotine metabolite ratio — a biomarker that indicates how quickly a person's body metabolizes nicotine — reduced as they cut back on their drinking.

11h

Space MU69 is far from your run-of-the-mill solar system object. Get ready to meet 2014 MU69 (unofficially known as Ultima Thule), an object a billion miles beyond Pluto and 4.1 billion from Earth itself.

11h

Frenchman trying to cross Atlantic in barrel capsule

A 71-year-old Frenchman has departed on a journey across the Atlantic in a specially constructed barrel capsule, designed to use ocean currents alone to propel him across the sea.

12h

Instagram blames 'bug' for design change that prompted backlashInstagram Horizontal

Instagram said Thursday it accidentally rolled out a design change to a large number of users and quickly ended the test after complaints from users of the Facebook-owned social network.

12h

More policing alone can’t stop gun-related deaths

People in the US who die from gun injuries when they are young are much more often black, while their white counterparts are dying older, research finds. In 2016, the last year for which the CDC provides numbers, 35,353 people died from gun injuries. That’s 12 out of every 100,000 people living in the US that year. “But mortality rates don’t show you how much of your life is lost,” says Bindu Kal

12h

Researchers discover kidney disease gene affects more populations than previously thought

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered that kidney disease risk variants of the gene APOL1, previously known to affect African and African American populations, are also found at appreciable frequencies in Caribbean and Latin American populations. Knowing that the APOL1 risk is present in these populations could help physicians tailor treatment more closely to t

12h

Speed up public health decisions on scabies by skipping full-body exams, study says

For years, the diagnosis of scabies has relied on time-consuming and intrusive full-body examinations. Now, researchers reporting in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases have found that an exam of just a patient's hands, feet and lower legs may have the potential to catch more than 90 percent of all scabies cases, regardless of severity. These speedier exams may be useful in public health assessments

12h

Contact with monkeys and apes puts populations at risk

Animal diseases that infect humans are a major threat to human health, and diseases often spillover to humans from nonhuman primates. Now, researchers reporting in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases have carried out an extensive social sciences evaluation of how populations in Cameroon interact with nonhuman primates, pointing toward behaviors that could put people at risk of infection with new dise

12h

Sleeping sickness parasite uses multiple metabolic pathways

Parasitic protozoa called trypanosomes synthesize sugars using an unexpected metabolic pathway called gluconeogenesis, according to a study published Dec. 27 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by David Horn of the University of Dundee in the UK, and colleagues. The authors note that this metabolic flexibility may be essential for adaptation to environmental conditions and survival in mammal

12h

The Atlantic

100+

2018 Seen Through the Lens of Yasuyoshi Chiba

Yasuyoshi Chiba, a staff photographer with AFP, spent nearly the entire year of 2018 in Kenya, documenting an incredibly wide range of subjects, landscapes, and issues. Chiba has been on staff with AFP since 2011, winning multiple awards for his photojournalism, which is based mostly in Brazil and Kenya. This year, he captured the faces and stories of some of the 50 million people who live in Ken

12h

When you give to others, you get good feelings that last

While the happiness we feel after an activity diminishes each time we experience it, a phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation, giving to others may be the exception to this rule. New research finds that participants’ happiness did not decline, or declined much slower, if they repeatedly bestowed gifts on others versus repeatedly receiving those same gifts themselves. “If you want to sustain happi

13h

Wired

Rotating Detonation Engines Could Propel Hypersonic Flight

It runs on an endless shockwave, but, sadly, it’s still in the prototype stage.

13h

Sleeping sickness parasite uses multiple metabolic pathways

Parasitic protozoa called trypanosomes synthesize sugars using an unexpected metabolic pathway called gluconeogenesis, according to a study published December 27 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by David Horn of the University of Dundee in the UK, and colleagues. The authors note that this metabolic flexibility may be essential for adaptation to environmental conditions and survival in ma

13h

Reducing drinking could help with smoking cessation, research finds

13h

Scientific American Content

100+

Pluto Is Far in the Rearview. Next Stop: Ultima Thule

NASA’s New Horizons is poised to arrive at the most distant object ever seen up close—and there could be more to come — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

13h

Space It's actually more of a holiday yardstick. This season is full of stories about stars guiding travelers to far-off destinations, but new imagery from NASA shows off a stellar guide of a different sort.

13h

A tilt of the head facilitates social engagement, researchers say

13h

Rerouting nerves during amputation reduces phantom limb pain before it starts

Doctors have found that a surgery to reroute amputated nerves, called targeted muscle reinnervation, or TMR, can reduce or prevent phantom or residual limb pain from ever occurring in amputee patients who receive the procedure at the time of amputation.

13h

US fossil fuel exports spur growth, climate worries

In South Korea's largest shipyard, thousands of workers in yellow hard hats move ceaselessly between towering cranes lifting hulks of steel. They look like a hive of bees scurrying over a massive circuit board as they weld together the latest additions to the rapidly growing fleet of tankers carrying super-chilled liquefied natural gas across the world's oceans.

14h

After scandal-filled year, what's next for Facebook?

Facebook is closing out 2018 the same way it began the year: in defense mode.

14h

Chasing Amazon: The store of the future is already here as retailers up their tech game

Robots roaming the aisles. Windows that allow you to tap and shop while the store is closed.

14h