The 5Ws and H of Science
Reading Time: 5 minutesHow good bacteria prevent hair loss? HAIR LOSS is one of the most common, non-threatening medical conditions around the world. Hair loss among young women is a growing phenomenon. Thick, shiny, lustrous hair is what every woman aims for; however, one in four women will experience some form of hair loss, including thinning. For men, […]
US observes National Biotech Month
Reading Time: 2 minutesTHE White House released its official statement on the first day of 2020 to mark the observance of the National Biotech Month in the United States (US) and to show support to biotech stakeholders and developers. Within two weeks, the US also launched a unified website for biotechnology regulation as part of the US Administration’s […]
The 5Ws and H of Science
Reading Time: 7 minutesCompiled by NARVIINYA MURUGAPPAN What is a Portuguese Man o’ War? IT MAY look like a plastic bag drifting in the ocean, but it’s in fact a carnivorous sea creature that can paralyse and kill small fishes and inflict searing pain on humans upon contact. The Portuguese man o’ war ( Physalia physalis ) is […]
Impact of bushfires on Australian insects
Reading Time: 2 minutesTHE impacts of bushfires on insects are less visible than the impacts on animals like koalas. Many of Australia’s insects are not well studied or don’t have scientific names. This means we cannot know the full extent of the bushfire impacts on insects. Escaping and repopulating Some insect species can fly away from slow moving […]
Parkinson’s disease may start before birth
Reading Time: 2 minutesPEOPLE who develop Parkinson’s disease before age 50 may have been born with disordered brain cells that went undetected for decades, according to new Cedars-Sinai research. The research points to a drug that potentially might help correct these disease processes. Parkinson’s occurs when brain neurons that make dopamine, a substance that helps coordinate muscle movement, […]
Golden Rice moves towards full cultivation
Reading Time: < 1 minuteON BEHALF of the 151 Nobel Prize winners and 13,292 cosigners supporting GMOs, we were delighted to hear of the recent announcement of the approval by the Philippine Department of Agriculture to authorize the direct use of Golden Rice as Food and Feed or for Processing (FFP). This brings the cultivation of Golden Rice in […]
American Cancer Society Report: Cancer mortality continues steady decline
Reading Time: 2 minutesTHE CANCER death rate declined by 29% from 1991 to 2017, including a 2.2% drop from 2016 to 2017, the largest single-year drop in cancer mortality ever reported. The news comes from Cancer Statistics, 2020, the latest edition of the American Cancer Society’s annual report on cancer rates and trends. The steady 26-year decline in […]
2019’s top science stories
Reading Time: 2 minutesSCIENCE in 2019. While it wasn’t quite what Blade Runner envisioned, some pretty amazing science happened this year. A picture worth more than 1000 words Think getting a decent Christmas photo with your family is the hard? Spare a thought for the team of 200 scientists who took monitored a network of eight linked telescopes […]
Living robots built using frog cells
Reading Time: 4 minutesA TEAM of scientists has repurposed living cells scraped from frog embryos and assembled them into entirely new life-forms. These millimeter-wide “xenobots” can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient) and heal themselves after being cut. “These are […]
Meteorite contains the oldest material on Earth
Reading Time: 3 minutesIN a meteorite that fell fifty years ago in Australia, scientists have now discovered stardust that formed 5 to 7 billion years ago — the oldest solid material ever found on Earth. “This is one of the most exciting studies I’ve worked on,” says Philipp Heck, a curator at the Field Museum, associate professor at […]