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Dec 4, 2018

Early Puberty Mystery Linked to Family Exposure to Household Chemicals

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

A merican girls are now going through puberty significantly earlier than in decades prior, a trend that’s been linked to physiological and psychological risks. The various factors thought to drive early puberty include obesity, toxic stress, and environmental elements. A landmark study published Monday looks at one particular type of environmental element — the chemicals in household items.

A long-running study on mothers and children published in Human Reproduction determined that the onset of female puberty is associated with exposure to chemicals like phthalates, parabens, and the antibacterial agent triclosan. These products in personal care products, like some brands of perfumes, cosmetics, and toothpaste. The same result was not found in populations of boys, whose timing of puberty was also examined in this study.

“We have known for the past 15 to 20 years that girls are entering puberty at an earlier age than they used to in the past,” lead author and University of California, Berkeley associate professor Kim Harley, Ph.D. tells Inverse. “We certainly know that obesity plays a role in that but now we also know that the hormone-disrupting chemicals that are in our homes and in our environment could be an additional factor that’s contributing to this.”

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Dec 4, 2018

Two experimental cancer drugs team up after unexpected discovery

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Researchers at MIT have used two experimental cancer drugs in tandem to fight melanomas. The team paired protein kinase inhibitors with ribonuclease drugs and set them loose onto tumors, and found that the combination worked better than either drug does alone. The discovery could help reduce side effects of cancer treatments and make them more effective.

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Dec 4, 2018

World-first electrical stimulation device blazes a new trail into the brain

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Open brain surgery is about as dangerous as it sounds, but for sufferers of conditions like Parkinson’s and epilepsy it can be the only way to relieve their symptoms. Unfortunately, this means drilling a hole in the skull and stimulating the brain with electrical currents, bringing on the risk of serious side effects. Fortunately, scientists have opened a new doorway to the brain, developing the Stentrode, a promising first-of-a-kind device that can deliver the currents to targeted areas through a small keyhole incision in the neck.

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Dec 4, 2018

Discovery of single material that produces white light could boost efficiency of LED bulbs

Posted by in categories: energy, physics

Physicists at The University of Toledo are part of an international team of scientists who discovered a single material that produces white light, opening the door for a new frontier in lighting, which accounts for one-fifth of global energy consumption.

“Due to its high efficiency, this new material can potentially replace the current phosphors used in LED lights — eliminating the blue-tinged hue — and save energy,” said Dr. Yanfa Yan, professor of physics at UT. “More research needs to be done before it can be applied to consumer products, but the ability to reduce the power that bulbs consume and improve the color quality of light that the bulbs emit is a positive step to making the future more environmentally friendly.”

The renewable energy research was recently published in Nature, the world’s leading multidisciplinary science journal.

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Dec 4, 2018

Scientists create ‘liquid crystal’ that gets THICKER when stretched

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, engineering

The discovery by researchers at the University of Leeds marks a major breakthrough which has eluded material scientists for more than 30 years.

The ‘auxetic’ stretching property, which is found in human tendons and cat skin, had only been recreated using conventional materials.

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Dec 4, 2018

Physicists Have Announced The Discovery Of Four Black Hole Mergers After Observation Of Gravitational Waves

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Physicists creating the Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog have discovered four new black hole mergers through the detection of gravitational waves.

Over the weekend in Maryland, physicists involved in the Virgo and LIGO project made the exciting announcement that they had discovered four completely new black hole mergers which came about after gravitational waves were detected around these black holes. This includes what is thought to be the largest black hole collision that we currently know about, which occurred a whopping 5 billion years ago. This monstrous collision created a black hole so big that it is 80 times larger than the sun.

As Ars Technica reports, the four new black hole mergers that have been discovered will be included in a very special piece of research known as the Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog, or GWTC-1, whose aim will be to report on gravitational wave events like these and document them thoroughly. Including the four new black hole mergers that were just detected, there will now be 11 gravitational wave events to catalog.

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Dec 4, 2018

The US Military Is Genetically Engineering New Life Forms To Detect Enemy Subs

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics, military

The Pentagon is also looking at living camouflage, self-healing paint, and a variety of other applications of engineered organisms, but the basic science remains a challenge.

How do you detect submarines in an expanse as large as the ocean? The U.S. military hopes that common marine microorganisms might be genetically engineered into living tripwires to signal the passage of enemy subs, underwater vessels, or even divers.

It’s one of many potential military applications for so-called engineered organisms, a field that promises living camouflage that reacts to its surroundings to better avoid detection, new drugs and medicines to help deployed forces survive in harsh conditions, and more. But the research is in its very early stages, military officials said.

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Dec 4, 2018

9 Pieces of Bionic Tech That Will Make You Superhuman

Posted by in categories: cyborgs, transhumanism

Check out these bionic technologies that equip people to do more and give a glimpse of our superhuman future.

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Dec 4, 2018

SpaceX is attempting to launch 64 small satellites into orbit

Posted by in category: satellites

WATCH LIVE: SpaceX is attempting to launch 64 small satellites into orbit. Launching so many satellites at once is not easy. Each one has to deploy without hitting the rocket or one another.

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Dec 4, 2018

US life expectancy drops again as opioid deaths and suicide rates rise

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

An American born in 2017 is expected to live to be 78.6 years old, according to data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. That’s one-tenth of a year lower than the previous year, or, put another way, it shaves 1.2 months off the life expectancy of a baby born in 2016. Life expectancy dropped from 2014 to 2015, then held steady in 2016, the CDC said.

The decline is a troubling sign for the United States, which already usually ranks lowest among other wealthy countries for life expectancy.

The top three causes of death, unchanged from previous years, were heart disease, cancer and unintentional injuries. The report attributed the drop in life expectancy to increases in mortality from unintentional injuries, which includes most fatal drug overdoses, among other factors.

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